Featured Essays
The Vile Harridan Probes Her Heart
By Scarlet A
In high school, I was a loner. In conservative Davis County Utah, I stood out like an Alpha Bitch in a prairie-dog town. Not completely by choice, but certainly because I had chosen to be an inactive Mormon and to speak my mind about socially liberal politics and refused to remain silent about certain horrors that had befallen my autistic brother in a state-run institution. But, if there is one extra-curricular activity that a smart, independent, articulate teen girl, it’s the speech and debate team. We were encouraged to take “unique” and contrary stands on political issues for the sake of the argument and to truly learn and appreciate the art and science of heuristics.
Once I had proved my chops as a mere sophomore, by winning the school oratory contest—the first sophomore to do it at the ultra-competitive Bountiful High School—I was immediately placed on the competitive team and spent Saturdays, weekends and even time after school sharpening my tongue, critical thinking skills and the art of verbal evisceration.
Having socially liberal parents, and a father who had ceased to believe in Mormonism early in my life, both of whom were professional educators, we had a healthy respect for the separation of church and state. We were sensitive of this because as Mormons who once lived on a military base, we faced being ostracized and viewed with great suspicion. In that environment, the separation of church and state was a mantle of protection and ensured respect. Thus, keeping religion private was a value we held dear. I was shocked and a little horrified when before my first debate meet, our coach gathered us into the classroom at a public high school to pray. I gasped, audibly and asked how this was separation of church and state and said I was uncomfortable. The glares and anger was undeniable.
Praying before a debate tournament apparently was as sacred a covenant as baptism, Temple Covenants, Hindu Brahma bulls, facing Mecca and holy war. I was told I could stand apart from the prayer circle and be silent during the prayer. So I stood with the two openly non-Mormons on a competitive team of approximately 25 and remained silent—standing apart socially, physically, metaphysically, politically, and ideologically from the rest.
As the debate season progressed, I was once asked to lead a prayer and declined as I did not believe that prayer was appropriate inside a public school with the approval of the teachers and coaches.
While my debate teacher respected the decision and did work to make the non-genuflectors feel a greater sense of camaraderie on the team, I got a lot of flak from other competitors who confronted me plenty about the rumors swirling about why I wouldn’t pray.
Sasha C once asked if it was true that I was an atheist. At the time, I wasn’t.
Another girl asked if it was true that I had made a pact with Satan to be a successful debater. The response to which was: “Are you on drugs? I can’t be a good debater without selling my soul? Yeah, I made a pact with Satan.” I would later find out that blatant sarcasm isn’t a language the rumor mill speaks.
But the one who stands out was Matt Eyring, the son of Henry B. Eyring. He spoke in absolutes. He was condescending and told me what he thought of my acts of Civil Disobedience. He was a senior, popular, his dad was famous, his grandfather was famous and he knew the subtleties of how to wield peer pressure, particularly against a wayward and “wild girl.” He was also, like his father, very tall and seemed very aware that stature can intimidate in close proximity given his predilection to close the gap of personal space with 5 ft. 2 inch me when we disagreed.
He particularly hated it when I was able to quote Henry David Thoreau and Gandhi from memory about the benefits of standing by one’s principles in the face of adversity.
Remember, it was the debate team, we were nothing if not a font of quotes to support any point of view proffered, with an arsenal of equally reactive supporting arguments to slay opponents.
My favorite remains and the one which seemed to engender the most ire was from John Stuart Mill, who my father made me read, the first time I was socially ostracized for not attending church:
“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
I reminded him that his religious pioneer ancestors were booted out and discriminated against for being different and in the minority. I asked if he was going to take on the role of the oppressor and run me out of Dodge. He relented. It seemed ironic that he would try to socially isolate a loner given that his own grandfather was denied a Nobel Prize for trying to unite science with secular. Why was I a pariah for wanting some Constitutionally protected civil liberties? We came to a silent agreement that day that I’d avoid him and he’d avoid me. It worked out quite well until the end of the school year.
My parents were out of town during the Speech and Debate Team end-of-year banquet. So, I went with a friend—another non-Mormon. It was fun. I had forged some friendships and some kids’ parents genuinely respected me despite my inactivity in church. Before the banquet, we were mingling and talking and drinking punch, when I felt a strong hand grip my right shoulder and pull me close in one of those Mormon-authority-side-to-side hugs. It was uncomfortable as men never seem to understand that a vice-grip hurts. It was Henry B. Eyring. He started walking me over to a less-crowded area saying he needed to talk to me. In fact, I believe he said “prompted” to talk to me.
I was shocked that the First Counselor of the Presiding Bishopric was strong-arming me at a debate dinner in the school cafeteria. He hunched his shoulders and bowed his head at an awkward angle for his stature to facilitate staring me straight in the eyes. He told me how talented I was and that he had heard how gifted I was at public speaking and in argumentation.
He then turned to face me, his clutch on my shoulder still there and still uncomfortable, was now harnessing my back so I had to face him.
“You need to use your gift for speech for the greater glory of Heavenly Father and not ‘The Adversary.’”
I had been given fatherly talks by Church leaders before, but I had never been accused of consorting with Satan. I was absolutely enraged that a man who was supposed to have superhero abilities in the gift of discernment was believing idle gossip from bored high school students. At that moment, I didn’t care who he was, he didn’t get to tell me I was evil. I wasn’t. I was an awkward kid who didn’t fit into a conservative Mormon mold.
Who the hell did he think he was? I knew at that moment that prophets were just men and that “priesthood” was just a word.
“And just what is it about my speeches that makes you think I am glorifying Satan? Do you even know what my competitive oratory was about?”
He seemed shocked that I responded with something less than abject, compliant subservience. “Do you know who I am?”
Who didn’t? It had been only a year since the General Conference where he had been called to The Presiding Bishopric. All Bountiful was abuzz about one of its own being on the tenure-track to prophethood.
I was ready at the moment of the paternal quarter-Nelson to cop to being sarcastic, iconoclastic, feminist, outspoken and maybe even snide, but evil? EVIL? Did this man know the volunteer hours I spent in my childhood and adolescence volunteering for autistic people and other disabled people? Did this man know that just one year earlier in junior high I had ended a friendship with someone who made fun of a kid with epilepsy who had a grand-mal seizure?
Evil?
“Yes I do.” I retorted. “Do you know who I am? Apparently not if you think I am friends with Satan. ” I reiterated, “Just how is it you figure, I am doing anything for the greater good of Satan?”
“Young Lady, probe your heart!”
He released my shoulder, which remained sore for a day, and he walked away.
“Yeah, I’ll take that into consideration,” I said in a raised voice—unamused, singled-out, bewildered and pissed off.
My heart didn’t need probing. Neither did my back or upper shoulder.
I don’t know of any other Protestant religious leader who would approach, single out and physically separate a girl from an activity at a public school to discuss a religious matter, except perhaps, the villainous preacher in Footloose. I still stand all amazed at the liberties he took with my civil rights, my personal space and the attack on my character.
But in a religion where women’s stature is akin to livestock (any questions about women and livestock—go re-acquaint yourself with Johnny Lingo, Mahana and a 10-cow wife), an endowed man believes it is not just his right, but his duty to cross every conceivable social boundary to brand a 15-year old girl with a Scarlet Letter and put her on the track to glory without even bothering to nod at her parents.
I learned to embrace my Scarlet Letter that day. To this day, I embroider it, I emblazon it– resplendent, with clearly defined outlines and borders. If being a brazen, outspoken harridan kept the Holy-Melchizedek-Vulcan neck pinch at bay, then a brazen, outspoken harridan I would be. I have since learned, harridan is as harridan does and priesthood is as priesthood does!
Dolls
By Alice Warrington
I am a dead girl.
My mother killed me.
Some families have stories about their members, stories you tell around the fire, stories parents tell about their children at drunken parties while everyone laughs. The stories follow you, labels with an adhesive that won’t come off. Sometimes in life if we are lucky we get to peel off the adhesive, sometimes we are not.
My mother proudly tells the story about the time I went to my pediatrician, Doctor Porter, for a vaccine. I was probably six years old. I don’t know if I knew that I was at Dr. Porter’s office for a shot at the time. I remember his office, the way it smelled. I remember my white mary jane’s pitter-pattering their way over the cold linoleum floors. The waiting room was small, the patient rooms were small, everything seemed small. I recall that my mother was with me, but not because I remember her holding me, reading to me, reassuring me, or even smiling at me. It had to be my mother because I don’t believe my father ever took me to the doctor for the annual check-up.
I don’t really remember much about what happened in the office. I remember a kind man coming in, asking questions, examining me. I don’t remember him actually giving me my injection, or if it hurt or not. I assume it hurt because I have been present for every one of my sons’ shots and every one of them has caused some sort of painful reaction. But to hear my mother tell the tale, which she does often, she says of the moment I received my shot, “you know honey, you didn’t even make a sound. And then you even thanked him when it was over.”
That story whispered to me. I grimace when I hear that story now because I can see her sitting there on the examining table, on the plastic sheet, the little dead girl. When I looked deeper into the memory, I saw the man coming closer, getting ready to deliver pain to the little girl. The girl did not, could not, cry or scream, throw a temper tantrum or yell, “no!” or “stop!” The little dead girl took that injection without moving or uttering a word. And when the pain was over, she thanked the man for it. You see, it was more important to be seen as polite, and good, and grateful, the little girl with the dress and the new shoes. Her mother could not see, over her pride in her polite little girl, that she had killed her daughter, removed her voice and her spirit, taken away her ability to be rightfully angry when she was hurt, and replaced it with a doll that when you pulled the string in its back said sweetly: “thank you, Dr. Porter.”
The mother was so happy to see that she had raised a polite and pleasing little girl because this meant that she was a good mother. She was not able to see and did not want to see, that her daughter had died, and in her place was a girl doll with a pull string in her back.
She could not see her daughter’s soul was gone, so enthralled was she in this delightful, pleasing, beautiful toy girl. And the little girl learned it was good to smile, and good to say thank you to men who hurt you, and good to be still when your insides tell you to run.
I was forty-two years old when I understood what the whispers were trying to say. They were saying “You’re not good, you’re dead.”
And now in my memory, I see the little girl on the plastic sheet. My adult self walks into the office where the mother sits, expectantly, and the doctor gets ready to deliver the injection. I walk in silently and I pick that little girl up and hold her, much like I hold my own children. I am fiercely protective of her. I hold her tight. She can feel my heartbeat, and it is strong and steady. She puts her little head on my shoulder and I place my hand on her hair, holding her to me. No one dares say a word as they see on my face that I am a mother, I am a woman, who can and will burn this all to the ground. They made a mistake, I did not die. The forcing down of me was like a boulder being pushed down into a geyser, and the force of the blockage of the life that was supposed to be exploded outwards. And here she is. Now, I am the explosion.
I take the little girl and we walk out of that office. Every now and again the little girl tries to be dead. She tries to be pleasing, quiet, acquiescing. But the difference is, I am here now too. When she tries to lead us, by being small, I pat her hair and show her how to be the geyser, how to be powerful. I show her how to say no to the people who want her to be dead. She looks to me now to be her voice.
I hold on tight, as we walk out of that office.
Ask the Right Question, Maybe Save a Life
By Daniel Forbes
Could he possibly be interested in me, you know, that way – this much younger, stylish stranger gazing at me, standing there rooted, not saying much? Got a bit awkward, him not making to take his leave as I tried to think of something to say to figure out what was going on. Not that I wouldn’t be flattered, of course. But it had been quite a while since a guy had shown interest in straight, old-mope me.
Flummoxed, I tried to keep it light with dumb questions that elicited only brief replies that ground matters to a halt, him standing there kinda canine – stolid, a dog used to the drill while you’re working the can opener on his food.
But every stilted exchange further prompted the thought that this guy was unraveling somehow. Hard to tell, really, a mask covering most of his face. But not that hard. Meeting his gaze, a quiet pleading said things weren’t right.
A bike rider, I’d crossed the Willamette River to tool around Northwest Portland, Oregon’s Alphabet District early on the Sunday evening before Election Day. Escaping my family for a bit, having spent the day – no, the last eight months – in their company, twin teenage boys sometimes scorpions in a bottle. I’d paused at some little shut-down joint’s sidewalk picnic table to sit and stew, listening to a football game I didn’t remotely care about.
And soon enough ‘Raymond’ – let’s call him Raymond, as good a name as any to bestow – came around the corner and stopped till I looked up so he could ask for a cigarette. Slick clothes, well put together, early 30s maybe (alos tough to tell, his mask capacious), he could afford smokes if he wanted. So maybe just an impulse on his part.
Apologizing, I said I had no smokes.
And there he stood. So, sure, a bit of conversation, why not, everybody, myself included, a little lonely and squirrelly. But the conversation didn’t flow. Able to resist the cliché no longer, I finally asked if he was also freaked about the coming election. (Might as well ask if he’d read any good books lately.)
And Raymond told me he hadn’t been paying much attention to politics – lucky soul, he.
So I told him he was lucky. That politics were stressing a lot of folks out, me damn well included.
And he said, That was too bad, but things hadn’t really been going too well for him either.
Sorry to hear that, I offered. It’s been difficult for everyone, I know.
At that inanity, he just stood there, looking at me. Stood with that dog’s plaintive expression when the phone rings and you put the can down. Not sure where this was going – I had no cigarettes; he didn’t look like he needed the dollar I’d offer the indigent – I woke up to the fact that maybe this was something beyond a momentary encounter on the street.
I pondered it, debated breaching this boundary between strangers who’d been talking all of three minutes. We dribbled out a few more words to no great effect till I asked him what he meant: not going too well.
You got a place to live, right?
He said that he did, then added something about having bad thoughts.
We went back and forth, sneaking up on it, avoiding it, until – a place to live and his general appearance indicating that a job, or money anyway, wasn’t the immediate crisis – I decided to leap in with both feet:
You mean you might be thinking about harming yourself?
He raised his pleading eyes and nodded and said yes, he was worried about that.
You mean like tonight? Like you might be thinking about killing yourself?
He said yes.
No ifs, ands or buts.
Well, then you need to get help.
We’ll get you help, tonight.
There’s a good hospital right near here. Come on, we can walk.
Repeating all that, I stood up, put my mask on and wheeled my bike over to him and got his agreement to head to the hospital. I tried to make sure he was serious about seeking help there and then.
Cause I didn’t want to get halfway there only to have him turn on his heel and off, saying, Oh, it’s not really all that bad. Not that I was worried about wasting my precious time, me just wandering around on my bike in the dark on a Sunday night. But worried what would I do if he called a halt after matters had become even more fraught for him. More fraught since he’d giving voice to the awful possibility.
For his overarching seriousness proclaimed this shit be real.
Wanting to be locomoting the same as him, I bent to lock my bike and helmet to a stop sign, wondering oddly if he might stab me in the back. Crazy to think that, sure. But a man talking about violently ending his life that very night (even pills are violent, ultimately), however dumb and unfair, that might run through your brain. I even wondered about asking if he had any weapons on him. But acting like a cop risked spooking him before I could deliver him to the hospital.
Heading off, I did manage to look at the street sign so I’d find my bike again. Cause back before someone came round that corner in trouble, just copping a squat to take the edge off, I hadn’t bothered about anything but there’s a place to sit out of the way.
OK, NW 18th and Quimby. We had a hike. The hospital ER, whichever hospital it was, (some kind of Legacy something, right?) was over on 23rd if I remembered correctly from previous bike rides, plus a good five or more blocks south.
Half-a-mile, give or take, for Raymond to decide, Nope, he’s not going to actually go sit in some crowded, Covid ER.
Right, things weren’t so bad; he’d made it so far, thirty-plus years, he could make it another night. Wasn’t denial the way these things often went – till tragedy struck at 3:00 a.m.?
As to me and a maybe Covid-drenched ER, well, I had a job to do.
Both of us aware of the Virus, he walked a good ten feet behind, me glancing back way too often to make sure he hadn’t just drifted off. What we’d embarked on left no room for small talk. (Hey, how ‘bout them Mets!) But our connection so tenuous, afraid he’d change his mind, I asked if there was anything he wanted to talk about. But no.
It sure wasn’t my place to ape some sort of lay psychological intervention. Beyond his stated fear that he was at risk, nothing else was any of my business. My sole role was getting him to the hospital.
Bolting was probably beyond someone so slack-jawed. But what if he just stopped, leaned against a tree and said he’d go no further? Beyond a few exhortations – Come on! This is a good hospital, and it seems like you need some help – what could I do beyond shrug and retreat to my bicycle? Had to keep the momentum going, one step after another. Never mind that I eschew mobile phones. Call 911, and he’s long gone before help arrives.
But he basically just placed himself in my hands, shuffling along and falling further behind. At one point I stopped and asked, We’re doing this, right?
He said yes, but he was having trouble keeping up. I looked and saw he had some sort of glorified slippers or house-shoes or something on. But I didn’t look too closely – didn’t want to annoy by intruding on his privacy. Having pried his stark admission from him – a shameful one by some standards – I was going to allow him every shred of privacy we together could muster. I cut my stride and then cut it again as he shuffled along.
We had to veer into the street to avoid breathing the same air as a couple walking a dog, and then a group of folks out for the evening. I worried that anything but marching in a straight line might break the spell, but on he stoically trudged. I played tour guide: See that bright sign a block up? We turn left there and then the ER is just two blocks on from there. (I wasn’t exactly sure of that, but … one foot after another.)
Since it offered a clue as to who he might have in his life to lean on, I asked how long he’d lived in Portland.
Only a couple of months, he said.
I didn’t ask what had brought him. Then I realized it had gone in one ear and out the other back on that corner when I was still fumbling around trying to figure it out. Cause I hadn’t a clue to his real name. And, things so thin between us, when presenting at the hospital, I at least needed to know his name.
(Yeah, well you see, I’m a bike rider and I’d stopped for a rest. And then ‘Raymond’ here came around the corner, and we fell to talking, etc.)
I asked his OK to speak first, and he seemed glad to give it. We got to the Legacy Good Samaritan ER, finally, and turns out the hospital wasn’t interested in me at all. The ER was basically empty this Sunday evening, and I was talking to an intake clerk pretty much immediately.
I told her my name, the bit about riding my bike and him coming round the corner. Told her I’d had a little training (very little), and that ‘Raymond’ sitting in the chair there had stated his fear that he might harm himself tonight. She asked if I was family or friend, and my saying no proved the route to my dismissal. Raymond came up with his ID in hand.
Not wanting to lurk where Covid might, I went outside to look in a window at Raymond talking to the intake staffer. And I started to wonder should I give him my phone number as I had with the poor guy some dude and I pulled off the railing of Portland’s Burnside Bridge.
Before I could wonder too much about giving him my number, a nurse in blue scrubs appeared to usher him inside. I bolted back in, thanked her for her help and said it seemed like Raymond was in a real crisis. She acknowledged that and thanked me for bringing him in, which was nice.
I turned to Raymond and extended my arm for an elbow bump, but he was focused on the difficulties before him.
I said, OK, I’m gonna say goodnight now. Good luck, bro.
I’ve never called anyone bro in my life, but I was a little jiggy.
Raymond had had his ID out all ready for the clerk; he knew how to get the help he needed. As somehow, magically – those pleading eyes and all – he’d known with me. Glad of it, brother.
If you think someone’s in trouble, be it spouse or stranger on the street, and you think that awkward questions might be in order, then go ahead and ask it. Sincere concern rarely offends and, the research indicates, doesn’t tend to lead folks down paths they’d otherwise never consider. As one of the experts quoted in the HuffPost article linked above advised, “Trust your instinct, whatever it is.”