The turkey had been eaten. Dishes were being swept from the table to the dishwasher by my parents, the only two people that fit in the five foot-by-seven-foot kitchen. When help was offered to my parents, it was declined--my father is o.c.d. about dish deliberations. The rest of us, minus one sister who was standing in the kitchen likely berating my parents about some need or another, were in the living room. My last grandma. My only aunt. My oldest sister, exhausted from the retail season in full swing. I was sitting on the floor next to Cat, whose flight had been delayed and a connection missed, herself arriving just in time for a 4:30 dinner after being re-routed through Boston and catching a bus. I could feel Cat's sleepiness beside me, her body sinking into the ottoman. I actually felt settled.
Then the discussion turns to the Penn State scandal. My sister's fiance, a "few drinks in" as Meredith whispers over the turkey, their second dinner of the day, begins debating me loudly about how this is not, in fact, about football culture but about individual choice. The scandal at Penn State is about just one person who should probably go to jail. It's a bigger problem, I say. A cultural problem. My aunt, politely and democratically from the couch, "Can't it be about both?"
"You know," I said, "I think it's a bigger problem in big ten football schools when the officially-sponsored game day gear calls Michigan a "whore" and then says "Fuck Michigan". I think there's a bigger problem of gendered violence. I think that's why we have people defending this coach and this kind of assault."
"Football isn't like that," fiance contests.
"It's not a problem inherent in the sport," I contest, though frankly, I'm not sure I even believe that but I'm willing to believe it to make my bigger point. "It's a problem about the kind of violence that is sanctioned in the Big Ten Culture."
"No no no," fiance is yelling now. "This is about who saw what. And I think everyone did what they were supposed to do. And you know that in the case of some girls, when they are dressing--" This is the point where I lose it. I stand up. I approach him in his seat. My arms are flailing. Cat thinks that this is indicative of my watching too much Real Housewives.
"No you didn't!" He tries to interrupt me. "You can not go on saying that women deserve it. Because that's just what you were about to say." He tries to interrupt me again. I raise my left hand, think for a split second before feeling the roughness of his cheek hit my palm.
The room erupts. My mom runs from the kitchen, grabs my hands and holds them behind my back (she has de-escalation training in her role as a middle school special ed director) and ushers me into my father's study. I'm pacing in a 2-foot-by-2-foot space, surrounded by bibles and devotionals. "Just calm down." My mother is waving a dish towel in hand. "Just calm down."
My throat is heavy. I'm heaving tears. I'm gagging. "He's drunk--"
"He's not drunk."
"He's drunk and he just said women deserve to be raped. That is not okay. That is pretty much the most offensive thing you can say."
"I'm sure he didn't say that."
Meanwhile, fiance informs my sister they are leaving. He tells Cat that we aren't staying with them. We're on our own for a place to stay. And suddenly our first family thanksgiving as taken a rather unexpected turn.
I call the next day. My sister won't answer her phone. Possibly she never will. Fiance does and I apologize. I say I shouldn't have slapped him. He says he knew he had a few drinks "and maybe I wasn't as p.c. as I needed to be but I wish you would have let me finish". I don't feel like getting into it. I feel defeated. There's no way he could have followed up his defense with a non-woman-hating recuperation. But, of course, I don't say that. The crime of the evening was my violence, not his. "Let's not get into it," I say. "I was tired. It's a complex issue." It's not that complex. Don't hate women. "I shouldn't have hit you."
"It's forgotten," fiance says.
But I know it isn't. And the nausea stays with me until saturday night when, in a fit of laughter at my bestie Prema's house, sharing our third glass of wine and homemade flatbreads, Prema offers to bring me to her family's thanksgiving next year, slapping skills in hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment