HIDE IN PLACE
As I try to compose myself so I can compose the day’s blog post, a man walks past just outside my window. He’s not wearing a mask. A woman wearing a mask and carrying a tablet computer is behind him. They have no identification on their clothes and offer no cards of identification. They say they are from the “Tax Revenue” office, and are measuring houses for tax purposes. They don’t offer their names. They’ve just been told to go out and measure all the houses in Valier.
They claim they knocked but I didn’t hear it. I had just gotten up and dressed. Normally I write for a couple of hours about 2 AM or 3 AM, then sleep in. They are apologetic and agree that the falling-down derelict building at the back of the property is hardly worth describing. I hold them for at least a half-hour, describing gas leaks, LIEAP scams, lack of regulation in Montana, etc. I tell them they’ll be in my blog.
This time I didn’t write a blog post in the night because I was watching Alexandra O-C tell about barely escaping the mob that invaded the Capitol and how she managed to get to the office of fellow legislator Katie Porter who is prepared for anything. Sort of. I suspect that there are men who are watching AOC and chortling over her terror and her past attack that left her vulnerable to fear. Their fav porn is about women being hurt, killed. They get hard watching.
I’ve faced men in a rage, attempting to dominate me because I interfered with their plans or was simply in the way. I’ve intervened with big dominating males to protect smaller, younger males. It’s not just women who are targets.
When I went to grade school at Vernon in Portland, the worry was fire because the building before the one I was in had been wooden and burned. This new one was brick. The teachers took fire-drills very seriously. I was in high school when the atomic bomb drills — duck and cover — included sirens. In college the local sports team won and to celebrate they ran the sirens — I thought it was an impending bomb strike but didn’t know where to hide. AOC was of the generation that had drilled because of school shooters. Lock the doors, turn out the lights, freeze on the floor. When I visited my mother in Portland at NE 15th and Alberta, we had to do the same because of gangs shooting.
The US Capitol — it is now clear — has been improvised, naive, overcrowded and unplanned. The Capitol Policeman who came late to her office did not identify himself, did not know where to send her, and did not accompany her and her brave aide until they were safe. In fact, her male aide thought he might have to fight hand-to-hand the policeman, since some were traitors and the man was extremely angry, not at all friendly. There had never been a drill about what to do in case of a riot, especially one intent on “shooting Nancy in the head.”
Not only do we elect nutcases to represent us, we try to excuse them because they are “nice” when we share a ride. They’re just little girlies trying to make up to the big boys, like those flaky guys who can’t keep their jackets on or grow fancy face foliage.
Like I say, I’ve faced these “types” over and over. There must be something in the culture that’s creating them. Maybe it’s removing everything that smacks of humanities from the schools, calling them frills. You know — music, art, dramatics, psych, history, civics — all that sissy stuff. What really counts is science, math and sports — unless the classes interfere with bussing kids hundreds of miles in winter across Montana so the local newspapers will have something to print about.
Maybe it’s the collapse of families. Maybe that no one is drafted so guys never learn discipline. Maybe it’s the celebration of rebels and criminals in our media. Or drugs. Social media! Run by men richer and more powerful than the President. The President, in fact, is dependent on them.
It turns out that all the good Westerns — the ones from when I was young — are on YouTube, so the other night I watched a movie featuring Clint Walker, AKA “Cheyenne.” The plot was simple. He was a bounty-hunter because a smart aleck morally-deficient but-handsome boy had stolen his wife who died. He’d been tracking down this kind of seducer and either turning them in or killing them. But now he’d gotten stuck with Margot Kidder and instead of her defiance and inconvenience, he protected her. That’s what men used to be taught — protect women.
At least AOC’s aide thought like Cheyenne, but he can’t be named because then he would be a target.
I’ll be close to the computer all day, watching to see what the Mafia’s lawyers say, even though they can’t afford Spell Check. I’m not sure they could operate computers at all. Their clients sometimes disappear. It’s a suggestion.
Last night, trying to calm down after the personal testimony, I stood in my big kitchen window, confident that no man was going to walk past it a few feet away. This was naive of me. There’s no snow so I can’t tell if they have. Sometimes I smell cigarettes.
But there was a bright half-moon out there. All ten cats lined up on the window shelf beside me, eyes dilated wide. They are used to watching and used to death — cats are tribal in spite of being considered loners and occasionally one of them dies. Some men kill them. So there we are, watching the underbrush tumult of the yard and the serene moon above it all. There is no drill for times changing, the earth turning.
