Iowa
Nancy, a single woman, as they call the spinsters in our easy day. Trimming a lilac hedge for Nancy. Some kitchen woodwork next, if this goes well.
Something burnt out about Nancy. A divorce, maybe. A weak spot for strong male egos, perhaps. A couple of those and gone is most of the best a woman comes with. And Nashville overflows with that brand.
She returned to her hometown two years back, having spent in Nashville her young woman’s prime. She was trying there for a vocal break. Didn’t come. She stayed on as a backup bird. She doesn’t talk about it, just drops a word or two. But that’s what I figure happened to Nancy. In Nashville, Tennessee.
Back home she found a job at Planned Parenthood. She doesn’t seem to count for much there, an errand girl. Not easy finding work in a small college town.
The kitchen woodwork done, she brings up PP, would I fix for that outfit. A cautious proposal. Well, it’s PP, terminating pregnancies. Scraping human life.
In the same wise it starts with the PP director, Bridget, the next morning. A short, roundish type, some curves okay.
“We work under risk of a bomb attack, this I want you to know. And I will fully understand if you…”
Integrity like a rock.
“Have we been bombed yet?”
“No, but we have had threats…” the corners of Bridget’s mouth turn up a hair as if tickled by pride. Not that she seems aware of it. I’ll give her a pass on that. For now.
“Where’s-that-desk-with-the-drawers-stuck-you-mentioned-on-the-phone," I drawl.
Bridget’s eyes lit up with a gleam of fellowship.
The first impression of the place is a conspicuous lack of living color. The only two sources emitting in the rainbow spectrum seem to be a tall transparent jar on the reception counter filled with hundreds of individual pastel-hued condoms, and sets of similarly eye-pleasing plastic arrows attached to the door frames for inter communication Like who’s in and what’s being done. Oddly, women who work here – and only they do – seem to prefer shades of brown, dark blue, gray, ash. Nor is their wardrobe sharply contoured, rather they’re soft, saggy pieces.
Driving back to my place after work I realize I’m thinking of that bar in Greenwich Village into which I almost stormed on seeing through a window a jackpot of women. Two dozen, just babes! I was still fresh in New York on an errand, and out of the blue – wham! You can’t pass on such a fortuity without karma hitting you back.
Luckily, when I got inside but before wasting three bucks on a drink, it began dawning on me that those women were… well, not so appealing. Upon closer inspection, from their pairing up, the body language, and, in a number of cases, clunky, rough-hewn forms, as if a man had sneaked the cuckoo way into their mothers’ wombs and tossed out the more eye-pleasing plumpness, roundness, softness, replacing them with his own gnarliness, burliness, blockiness… In a word, they were lesbians. I found myself in a barroom full of homosexual women. And the interior and the patrons’ attire, as well as both barwomen’s, were not unlike those I’d seen today at work in respect of colors. Shades of ash, gray, brown.
Later that month, Bridget, the director, and her husband Steve, a town councilman, had me over for dinner at their place. They lived on a defunct farm. Over the meal, a question popped up about the next leg of my pilgrim’s progress, as I labeled my case for them over an ice breaking drink.
“Might be the Mormon country,” I answered candidly. “Salt Lake City, Utah throughout, perhaps.”
“Why?” Bridget.
I sensed tension.
“Well, they’re incredible folks. There are millions of them and yet they practice an actual, genuine fellowship. And their conduct. You may deny them that mark, but in various respects they’re of the highest Christian sort. Seems…”
…I might not waste my time over there – was the rest of my intended remark. But I scratched it, noticing an angrish glimmer in Bridget’s eyes. An innocent mention of the American religion and the woman was about to pop off. And then she did.
“Do you know how they control women?! And the young ones?! All in the hands of a few decrepit old men!”
For a moment I thought we wouldn’t finish the grub.
Some time later in another town, I watched an archived interview with the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger (1879-1966).
I bussed this Mike Wallace's table in the Plaza Hotel in New York one evening. His fish was barely warm, but he hesitated to tell the waiter. His lady companion nudged him, tell him, tell him, and he told the waiter and the waiter brought properly cooked fish. Shouldn't be happening in the Oak Room of all places, but America was sliding already then.
