Читать книгу A philosopher, a psychologist, and an extraterrestrial walk into a chocolate bar … - Jass Richards - Страница 6

“This is a bad idea,” Jane said from the passenger’s seat. It was Jane’s car—Spike just had her motorcycle—but Spike liked driving and Jane did not.

“Going to Paris?”

“Going to Paris on our lunch hour.”

“And by car.”

“That too.”

A while later, once they finally seemed to be out of Toronto, which really, in their minds, included North York and Scarborough, Jane got out her laptop.

“Going to work on your novel?” Spike asked.

“Yes. No. Maybe.” She looked over at Spike and grinned. “Apparently it’s turned into Schrödinger’s Cat.”

A few kilometres went by.

“Hey,” Jane said, staring at her laptop, “did you know that Plan B is now available at drugstores without a prescription?”

“The morning after pill? When did that happen?”

“And why didn’t we know about it?”

“I think I can tell you the answer to that one. Check out the major papers at the time it became available. Without a prescription.”

Jane found one of the national papers, clicked on its archive, then on a specific date. She looked carefully through the entire news section, found nothing, then flipped past the section—an entire section—on sports, ditto cars, ditto stock market prices, before she finally found it. It had been given a few inches of column space at the bottom of page five.

“In the Lifestyle section!” Jane was amazed. “Lifestyle!”

“I think,” Spike ventured, “a man probably made that call. And didn’t consider rape.”

“Or, worse, did.”

That required a moment of silence. And more chocolate. From the bagful they’d gotten at the 7-Eleven.

“If I ran a newspaper,” Spike said then, “I’d have all the politics, sports, cars, and stock reports on just one page. At the back. The Men’s Page.”

“The Men’s Lifestyle Page.”

“And wars,” Spike added a few moments later. “They’d have to fit on the Men’s Lifestyle Page too.”

“I don’t think there’d be room for them,” Jane said. “They’d have to get cut.”

“But then no one would know about all those heroes fighting to save us from—”

“—whatever they’re told they’re fighting to save us from.”

Jane stared out the window.

“They should advertise it,” she said after a while. “Plan B.”

“They probably tried. Magazines and television stations probably refused to run the ad. Like that Adbusters thing, remember? We prepared all those cool ads, and no one would run them because they were too contro­versial.”

“Like endorsing alcohol and big cars isn’t?” Jane asked rhetorically.

“We cannot accept any ad that criticizes or might offend other advertisers.” Spike had the response memorized. “Especially the big ones,” she added, probably unnecessarily, “because if they pull their ads, the magazine or whatever loses all that revenue.”

“But what ‘other advertiser’ would be offended by Plan B?” Jane understood the policy, but was having trouble with its application to this case.

“Take your pick,” Spike said. “Any conservative, right wing, fund­a­mentalist— Can’t you hear it? Plan B is murder!”

“But it’s not! It just stops ovulation. And if perchance ovulation has already occurred, Plan B just stops fertilization. Which is like a guy ejaculating, I don’t know, not in a vagina. Is that wrong?”

“Plan B: just like jerking off.” Spike grinned.

“And if fertilization has already occurred,” Jane continued, “it just prevents implantation. Thus making abortion unnecessary!”

“You know that,” Spike sighed, “and I know that—”

“And if the papers actually gave it decent coverage ...”

They drove on in silence for a bit.

“You know what would make a good ad?” Spike started singing. “It’s my body, and I’ll choose if I want to, choose if I want to …”

“… choose if I want to,” Jane joined her. “You would choose too if it happened to you!”

Then, since the chorus was all that mattered, they sang it again.

“That is so good!” Jane was furiously typing away. “And I’ll bet—”

“What are you doing?”

“Sending it to them!”

“They won’t accept it.”

“Sure they will! It’s a great idea! Don’t you think Lesley Gore would give permission? It’ll catch on, women everywhere will start singing it … It’s my body …” She started singing it again as she typed.

“No, I mean they won’t even consider it. Their marketing department won’t consider unsolicited ideas.”

Jane looked up, then over. “Well, how do we get it solicited?”

“Haven’t figured that one out yet.”

Jane stared at her laptop.

“And Lesley Gore probably didn’t even write the song,” Spike added. “Some guy probably did. Because if it happened to me, at my party, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck.”

“Are you sure?” Jane asked a bit later. Then clarified. “About them not even considering it?” Something had suddenly become very clear. “Remember my Boston Legal script? Are you saying—do you think—”

“They didn’t reject it,” Spike said gently.

“They didn’t even read it.” Jane sighed.

“That was the one about some kid playing cops and robbers or something, and he jumps out at a man passing by, right? And the guy shoots him, thinking the kid’s toy gun was real?”

Jane nodded.

“It’s their loss they didn’t read it. It was good. And you had Alan Shore’s lines—they were so Alan Shore.”

Jane nodded again.

“Maybe we could send the idea to some Riotgrrls who do covers.”

“Preaching to the converted. Fun, but …”

“Speaking of Lesley Gore,” Spike said a short while later, “remember that video by the Clichettes? ‘You Don’t Own Me?’ They start all cutesy and sexy, and by the end, when they’re singing the ‘Don’t tell me what to do’ and ‘Don’t tell me what to say’ lines, all four of them are on their knees, just banging away, pounding their fists into the floor in frustration, and the audience just cheers like crazy?”

“Oh yeah!” Jane smiled, thinking about it. “Must’ve hit a nerve.”

“Ya think?” Spike grinned too.

A while later, Jane mused aloud, “I wonder how many inches Viagra got.”

“Surely, you don’t.”

“Column inches,” Jane mentally poked Spike. “In the newspapers. When it was released.”

“Ah. But as I recall, we found out about Viagra not so much because of the news but because of the ads.”

“Hm.” Jane thought about that. “So do you really think the men who dominate the advertising industry made a conscious decision—”

Spike glanced over with her eyebrows raised.

“—not to give Plan B the same attention? Why? I mean, if you were a man, wouldn’t you want to have …” she trailed off, seeing where her reasoning was going to take her: to men against abortion. Men weren’t responsible, didn’t take responsibility, didn’t have to take responsibility, for the kids they created. So they didn’t look past the principles, to the consequences. Or didn’t include the consequences in their principles. Having a kid was a testament to their virility. Replace “Do you want to have kids?” with “Do you want to look after kids?” and see how many say “Sure, okay.”

“If they’d thought about it at all,” Spike said, understanding that Jane had come to a dead end, “they wouldn’t’ve named it Viagra.”

“I think it’s supposed to sound like Niagara.”

“But it’s Niagara Falls.” Spike held up her hand, then let her fingers fall over. “Better to have chosen Geyser. ’Course that sounds too much like Geezer.”

“Better to have avoided that line of imagery altogether and gone with something like Hamburger Helper.”

Half an hour later, they slowed to pass through a town. Which was to say, they slowed to pass by a Walmart, a Sobeys, a McDonald’s, and a Tim Horton’s.

“That squeak is getting louder,” Jane observed. She’d noticed it a couple of days prior, and had mentioned it to Spike, but then they’d both forgotten about it.

“It just needs a bit of WD-40.”

“There.” Jane pointed, as a Home Hardware came into view.

Spike pulled into the parking lot.

A few minutes later, they entered the store, passed the checkout, then wandered around the aisles a bit. Unable to find WD-40, Jane went to the Customer Service counter at the back, while Spike continued to look. No doubt intending to yell FOUND IT! as soon as she found it.

There were three men standing at the counter, leaning onto it and over it, talking with each other and with Gus, the name-tagged Customer Service staffperson.

“And he says, ‘Gimme a Phillips’,” one of the men was saying. “And I says, ‘You don’t want a Phillips. What you want is a Robertson.’ And he says, ‘Gimme a Phillips.’ ”

“Excuse me,” Jane said. She didn’t want to wait while they validated their masculinity. More to the point, she didn’t want to watch.

They ignored her.

“He didn’t know the difference? Between a Phillips and a Robertson? What kinda—”

“All I knows is he keeps asking for a Phillips.” Yeah, yeah, so the guy kept asking for a Phillips.

“Don’t know why,” the man spoke slowly, taking up as much conversational space as possible. “ ‘Gimme a Phillips,’ he says.”

“Excuse me,” Jane repeated, a little more loudly, then shifted from one foot to the other. Many animals don’t notice something until it moves.

A fourth man approached the Customer Service counter. “Hey, Gus, did those ratchet tie-downs come in yet?”

“Yeah, I got ’em right here.” Gus started to reach under the counter.

“HELLO,” Jane said more loudly still. “I believe I was here first.” She turned to the newly arrived man, and then to Gus.

Spike paused as she passed by, WD-40 in hand, took in the situation, then kept walking.

Gus looked at Jane, but didn’t bother to say Yes?, let alone I’m sorry, what can I do for you? What he did say was, “We thought you were with him.”

Jane looked at the fourth man. Who had arrived after her. “Why would you think that?” She was genuinely puzzled.

“Well, you’re not with me,” one of the three men said, “and you’re not with him”—he nodded to the second man—“and you’re sure not with him!” —he nodded to the third man. They all laughed, as if he’d told a good joke. Jane didn’t get it. Was there something funny about a woman not being with a man? Or was the joke about none of the men being with a woman?

Spike appeared again, a can of pink spray paint in her other hand. She calmly added FOR MEN ONLY to the CUSTOMER SERVICE sign.

The men gasped and went running—for a tin of turpentine, a gallon of black paint, a 600-pound-capacity-high-pressure-power-sandblaster-that-delivers-a-deep-penetrating-abrasive-at-125-pounds-per-square-inch—something—because the colour pink—well, Spike may as well have sprayed menstrual blood.

The two of them headed back to the front of the store to the checkout. Leaving the can of pink paint on the counter where, they knew, it would sit … until one of the men found a pair of heavy-duty titanium gloves.

“Well, look at that,” the cashier said, as she rang up their purchase. “WD-40 is free today.” She grinned at them. “Seeing as you had to deal with the assholes at the back.”

Spike and Jane grinned back.

“Oh, and we’re giving these away—today!”

She picked out a utility knife from the plastic bin on the checkout counter and handed it to Spike. They were clearly marked with a price.

“Why, thank you!” She put it into her pocket.

“Anything else I can get for you today?”

“Might you also be giving away battery chargers? Today?” Jane asked.

“ ’Fraid not.” She smiled. “But nice try!”

As soon as they were back on the highway, they heard the squeak again.

“Oh yeah,” Spike said.

“We need gas anyway,” Jane said, nodding toward the gas station a few blocks ahead.

While Spike popped the hood, squirted some WD-40 onto the thing that was making the noise, and filled the tank, Jane went into the conveni­ence store and paid for the gas, two Fudgsicles, and a paper bag full of chocolate bars.

They moved the car away from the pump, enjoyed their ice cream, then carried on their way, Spike again at the wheel.

A few minutes later, Spike noticed Jane staring at a chocolate bar.

Finally, she had to ask.

Jane replied, “Why would you need re-sealable packaging on a chocolate bar?”

“So are we really going to Paris?” Jane asked, once she’d proved that re-­sealable packaging on a chocolate bar was indeed unnecessary. “I mean, lunch ends at—well, lunch ends.”

“And if you still had a job, that would be relevant.”

Jane gave her a blank look.

“It’s three o’clock,” Spike explained.

“Oh. Good point.” And then Jane smiled.

“You remember that credit union I temped at for a while?” she said a moment later.

“The one that happened to be a woman-only place of employment?”

“Yeah. If I could find a full-time job like that. It was so … easy. So comfortable. Everyone was friendly, respectful, efficient. That’s all. That’s everything. There was none of that ‘This is serious’ shit, conveyed by that perpetual male frown of importance. And the hierarchy wasn’t shouted at you, it wasn’t in your face all the time. And there was no pressure to perform, to perform better, always better.”

She stared out the window for a while.

“Men have a deadening effect,” she summarized. “On everything. Whenever they’re present, it’s not fun anymore. Or even enjoyable. Let alone easy.”

Spike didn’t have to express her agreement.

“We’ll need our passports,” Jane said a moment later, lazily, still not really—

“Check.” Spike nodded to her well-worn and ever-present knapsack, tossed into the back seat. It contained everything she’d ever need. “You?”

“No,” she said sadly, “I don’t normally—wait!” She leaned forward, then reached under the seat. “I don’t think I unpacked from that trip to the conference … Yes!” She pulled out a ziplock bag containing a slim wallet. “Passport and”—she waved a shiny, new credit card in the air—“as yet unused! Introductory offer of a $10,000 credit limit!”

“Seriously?”

Jane nodded. “They knew I was unemployed.”

“All set then.” Spike grinned at her. “Do you need to buy anything?”

“No. I was so depressed when I figured out what had happened, why my interviews were so—not, my travel bag is still in the trunk. Though all I really need is in here!” She nudged her laptop.

“Okay then!”

“We’re on our way to Paris,” Jane sang, “We’re on our way to Paris …”

“What say we check in to a motel or something?” It was a couple of hours later, and starting to get dark. Spike didn’t enjoy driving at night. And Jane hated it. More to the point, neither of them wanted to deal with Montreal’s rush-hour traffic. Despite it being considerably better than Toronto’s rush-hour traffic.

“Good by me.”

The room was pretty basic. Jane put her laptop and travel bag onto one of the beds, then headed for the bathroom, happy to see towels and a little wicker basket of soap, shampoo, and toothpaste. She’d belatedly suspected, rightly, that her own supply was somewhat depleted.

Spike tossed her knapsack onto the other bed, flipped through the many take-out menus on the nightstand between the two beds, then made a call.

“Yeah, I’d like a large, double cheese, pineapple, and sun-dried tomatoes.”

She waited.

“And one of your dessert specials.”

She waited.

“Chocolate milk. Two.”

She waited.

“Mozey’s Motel. Fifteen.”

She waited.

“Okay, thanks.”

Sometimes it was nice when conversations followed a well-defined script. She pulled her tablet out of her knapsack and quickly uploaded the Manus video and the Just-the-girl-I’m-looking-for audio-only recording she’d made, then she opened the nightstand drawer, looking for the remote, and—just stared.

When Jane came out of the bathroom, considerably refreshed, she saw her standing there, still staring into the drawer. Curious, she walked over to see what she was looking at. A book and a magazine. The Holy Bible and Fuck the Bitches.

“It’s perfect,” Jane said.

“It is, isn’t it,” Spike agreed.

“In a purely juxtapositional way, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But the relationship isn’t oppositional,” Jane continued her analysis, “or even complementary … It’s like the one is a distillation, a—”

“A Reader’s Digest version of the other.”

Jane considered that. “I think ‘reader’ is pushing it.”

She picked up the Bible then, settled onto her bed, and merrily began deconstructing it. She ripped out the entire book of Genesis: Abraham pimped his wife, twice, and Lot offered his daughters to rapists. First Corinthians was next: Woman was created for Man. Then Ephesians, wherein women were told to submit to their husbands. Then Colossians. Then Romans, Titus, First Peter, and Acts. “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man”—the book of Timothy got tossed into the garbage. Then Deuteronomy: women who have sex before marriage should be stoned to death. And Leviticus: men are worth fifty shekels; women, thirty.

Had she taken a Bible Study class? In a manner of speaking. She’d read The Woman’s Bible by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Shortly after, she and Spike had been amazed, and horrified, to see fifty copies of the book on the remainders table in a bookshop. Not a bestseller, apparently. Because who the hell was Stanton? Not Beyoncé, that’s for sure. They’d thought the book was out of print. They’d also thought any remaining copies would go for $100 each. Not $1. The box was still in the trunk of her car. Now full to the brim with other books they’d since added. In case of emergency.

“Do you want to leave?” Spike asked Jane a few moments later. Fuck the Bitches was still in the drawer.

“Yes. Would a black person be comfortable staying at a motel in which the nightstand contained a copy of Let’s Lynch ’Em!?”

“Such a magazine would be illegal.”

They both sighed. For Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon and …

“Regardless,” Spike added, “black people wouldn’t even be allowed in whitey’s motels.”

Jane looked at Spike, oddly. Smiling. As if she’d just seen a posting for a job she could apply for. A job she might even get. “Imagine a chain of women-only motels, owned and fully operated by women, accepting only women as guests … ”

“Such a motel chain would be illegal.”

“Yeah,” Jane acknowledged. Sighed again. Then added, “I’m too tired to find an alternative.”

“Should any other motel actually be alternative.”

“Yeah.” Sighed yet again.

“Pizza’ll be here in half an hour. Does the shower have actual hot water?”

“It does.” There was that, at least.

Spike took her knapsack off the bed, and headed for the bathroom.

Jane tossed what was left of the Bible into the trash can, then opened her laptop.

There was a knock at the door. It would be the pizza guy. They froze for just a moment, then forced themselves to relax. Living in an occupied country required a constant—pretense. How else could one ever answer the door, knowing it was a man on the other side? A man who, quite possibly, found Fuck the Bitches a good read. How else could one eat, and enjoy, a pizza?

Especially a chocolate fudge brownie pizza.

Next morning, they packed up their stuff and left. But not before Jane put a copy of The Woman’s Bible into the nightstand drawer.

Spike left a copy of Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto.