Always (21 page)

Sandra lifted her head. Her face was waxy with intensity, the tiny muscles in her brown irises pulled so tight that in this bad light the plump fibers had an amber sheen. I’d seen a woman look like that once whose boyfriend had their son in a cupboard with a gun against his head. She was ashamed. She couldn’t tell me; she wanted me to know.

“In an earlier class I gave you Department of Justice statistics on the chances of avoiding rape if you fight back.”

“Seventy-two percent if he’s unarmed, fifty-eight percent if armed with a knife, fifty-one if armed with a gun,” said Tonya.

“Many of you expressed surprise at that.” Nods. “That’s because the information we get, every day, from TV and newspapers and online, is all about the rapes that are completed, the lives lost, the pain suffered—preferably with blood and body parts and panicky eyewitness accounts. Why? Because that’s what gets an audience, and the bigger the audience, the more the media can charge for their commercials. More than eighty percent of us spend our lives afraid because that helps soap makers and computer manufacturers sell product.”

“Same old same old,” Nina said. “The military-industrial complex.”

“The capitalist system,” Christie said. I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d turned purple and exploded. “Someone was talking about this at school last semester. The patriarchy.”

“The patriarchy,” Nina said. “Haven’t heard that word since I did women’s studies in college.”

“They had college back then?” Pauletta said.

Nina ignored her; she was getting excited. “I remember now. Some big feminist, one of those dead ones, said men teach us to be afraid to control us.”

Andrea Dworkin: “We are taught systematically to be afraid. We are taught to be afraid so that we will not be able to act, so that we will be passive, so that we will be women . . . ,” in
Our Blood,
though I had no doubt she’s said it in some form or other in all her books. The male conspiracy against women. When it came to the media I had always thought corporate greed was a much simpler explanation.

“It’s been estimated that the media publicize thirteen completed rapes for every attempted but uncompleted rape. If you round up the chance of getting away from an unarmed attacker from seventy-two to seventy-five percent, that means you have a three in four chance of getting away.”

“Or kicking his fucking head in,” Suze said.

“And then if you take the thirteen-to-one completed-versus-uncompleted -rape media figure, it means that the papers and the news underreport fight-back stories by five thousand two hundred percent.”

“Math makes my head hurt,” said Katherine.

“Imagine you’re listening to WSB while you drink your mocha and drive to work. Imagine it’s a slow news day, so you hear about a grand-mother who fought off a rapist with her umbrella. Think about the other fifty-one women who got away.”

Tonya got it. Her eyes shone, and it was a different shine than Sandra’s. “Much of what we call fear is actually worry about imaginary situations, ” I said. “It’s learned. It can be unlearned. When you read about someone being raped, remember the three others who got away. On those rare occasions where you do hear about a woman getting away, remember the fifty-one others who did, too. Better yet, don’t read or listen to that kind of news.”

“Not listen to the news?” Jennifer looked shocked.

“The news exists to make people anxious, so that they keep watching, so that the provider—the website, the network, the publisher—can sell advertising space. But anxiety and worry are not the same as fear. There’s very little useful about them. Worry, or stress, or anxiety are responses to long-term or persistently imagined danger, not real danger, not immediate danger. Horror and dread, again, aren’t usually about the immediate, but about the future: the suspense of waiting for what you think will come. Note that: think. When you lie awake at night and start imagining mad axe murderers or hooded rapists, we’re not smelling them, not hearing them, not feeling the vibration of their footsteps.”

I picked up the cards and turned them over.

“Let me tell you something about what’s written on these cards. The ones with no in the bottom right list fears like ‘being raped,’ ‘being followed, ’ ‘dark places,’ and so on. Do you see any similarities between them?” I waited.

“Horror-movie stuff,” Tonya said. “Kind of generic.”

“Yes,” I said. “The ones who wrote yes were more specific.”

“Like what?” Suze, one of the Nos.

“Waking in my hotel room to find the bellboy exposing himself, my old boyfriend getting drunk and paying me a visit, being beaten with a garden rake.” I looked around the circle of faces. Therese and Kim’s faces were closed, Nina looked particularly detached. “Some of you seem unhappy.”

“You just said we’re afraid of make-believe things,” Pauletta said.

“Those of you who have never been assaulted are worrying about the wrong things. You’ve paid for my advice, so listen to me now. Fear is a good thing, worrying about fear is not. All right. On your feet.”

“What?”

“Up.” I stood. “Stand in a big circle. Good. Fear releases adrenaline. Adrenaline will make your heart pound, and make you pant. It’s the panting that leads to hyperventilation, which leads to passing out. Some people pass out because they’re so frightened, they forget to breathe at all. So if you’re not breathing, start. A good way to do that is to exhale sharply, even if you feel you’ve got no air, and that’ll trigger an inhalation. It’s enough to get you going. But then you have to not hyperventilate. I’m going to show you how.”

Their chests rose and fell with rapid, shallow breath.

“Stand in a stable, comfortable position. Push your tongue up into the roof of your mouth and clamp your back teeth together. This will control your jaw and neck muscles, in case you’re shaking, and also, if you get hit on the jaw, it’s less likely to break. Keep your back straight.” Their notion of straight was pitiful. “Try to feel your spine in one long line, like a plumb line. Don’t stick your chin in the air because that will put a strain on your vocal cords, which we’ll need nice and relaxed for later.” Though there was a good physiological argument, too, for lifting the chin: it reduced the emotional response and promoted blood flow to the frontal cortex. But one thing at a time. “Keep your shoulders down. Not only does that look more confident and relaxed but it reduces muscle tension and therefore speeds any emergency response. Breathe through your nose, breathe deep from the diaphragm. Feel your belly swell. Put your hand on your stomach. There.” I walked around, adjusting posture. “Make that hand move out. Your chest should hardly move at all. In through the nose, deep and slow, your belly swells. Out, a long gush through the mouth. In, deep and slow, and out. In. Out.”

Their faces grew pink.

“Now that you’re breathing nicely and there’s no more danger of passing out, it’s safe to address some of the other fear symptoms. If your arms and legs are trembling, but you don’t yet know if you should run or fight, try clenching and relaxing them. If your mouth is really dry, open your mouth slightly—if it’s safe to do so—and run the underside of your tongue over your bottom front teeth. That should make your mouth water. Do this for a few seconds, and swallow a couple of times, and gradually the dryness will go away and your larynx will relax. So now we’re ready to use our voices.”

Ten pairs of shoulders rose. Well, they were going to have to get over that.

“Voice is an important body weapon. In its way, it’s as useful as a kick or punch. Voice can embarrass or frighten a potential attacker. It can summon help, give warning, and say no, loudly and clearly. It can give you confidence, and deafen your attacker, actually damage an eardrum. Voice can immobilize an attacker or potential attacker for a split second.” Therese made a slight
huh
of skepticism. I started walking around the inside of the circle. “Voice increases the power of any physical move you might make because it helps you focus your attention and your strike. Voice depends very much on the way we breathe. Make the voice come from deep down, as though it’s from your thighs and stomach, not your throat and head. You want a deep, explosive sound.” I stopped in front of Therese. “Like this:

“Huut!”

The sound slammed into her face and blew her backwards. Her arms pinwheeled. I resumed walking while she shook her head and pulled herself together.

“Spread out just a little. We’re going to do some squats.” I demonstrated. “Slow and easy. Breathe out through your mouth as you go down, in through your nose as you come up. Down, out.” The less self-conscious made a kind of
ooourff
as they went down. “Up, in. Down, out. Up, in. Now a little faster. Down!” More
oourff
s. “Up. Down! Good. Let me hear some noise now. A deep sound, a boom. Feel it blast out of you, like a train from a tunnel.
Ooosh!
All together.
Ooosh.
” The entire circle dropped, like a falling hoop. Half made a noise. “Up, and in. And
oosh.
” More of the hoop sounded. “And up and in and
oosh.
” Gaps in the hoop only from Jennifer and Katherine and Sandra. “And up and in and
oosh
!” Katherine sounded. Not much, but something. The circle was almost closed. “Up and in and
oosh!
Up, in, oosh!” An uncertain
ooh?
from Jennifer. Almost. “Up and in and
oosh
!” Jennifer’s ooh firmed and strengthened. Katherine was as loud as the rest. “Up and in and
oosh!
Louder. Ooosh! Louder. Ooosh!” I walked around, breathing, booming, listening. And there, at last, a thin, hesitant sound, wavering like a ghost. “Louder.
Ooosh!
”

The hoop dropped, the sound flared up, unbroken, like a ring of fire. My face stretched in a fierce grin: you breathe, you make a noise, the next thing you know you’re talking back, and then, next time he thinks about hitting you, you leave.

Ooosh.

Ooosh.

Ooosh.

“Louder! Blow your attacker into the back of next week. Use that fear, use that anger. Louder. And up, and in, and one last time.
Ooosh!
”

The sound was tremendous; I felt it through the soles of my feet. If there had been a window, it would have rattled.

“Yes!” Suze said, pumping her arm.

Everyone was grinning. Tonya turned away briefly, but not before I saw the sparkle on her cheeks. Sandra looked as though she had seen God.

“Whoo!”
Kim said. “We kicked
ass!
”

The basement door opened.

It was like watching a pride of lionesses lift their dripping muzzles from the belly of the dying zebra and zero in on the giggling hyena.

The face of the long-haired woman in the doorway went white. Classic fear response. The scent of mass-produced incense, and the whine-and-tinkle of Crystal Gaze’s sound system—three women with nasal problems singing Om-mani-padme-hum—drifted into the basement. The woman swayed, clutched for the doorknob, missed, nearly fell.

“Breathe,” Nina advised.

Everyone laughed. The woman in the doorway looked as though she might cry. I recognized her from behind the cash register upstairs. “How can I help you?”

“I, uh.”

“Breathe, honey,” Nina said again.

We all waited politely. “You, uh, that is, the customers were wondering . . .” She didn’t seem to know how to proceed.

“Were we too loud, honey?”

“Yes. Loud. You were loud.”

“They heard you upstairs,” I told everyone. “Through the concrete and the floors and over the sound system.”

“Excellent!” Christie said.

I CALLED DORNAN BEFORE BREAKFAST. HE WOULDN’T PICK UP. I LEFT A LONG
message. When I called again, half an hour later, he answered.

“It didn’t look like work,” he said.

“No.”

“In fact, it looked to me as though I showed up just in time.”

An image popped into my head of Dornan in baggy blue shorts and sagging tights, cape askew, kicking down the door to my suite to the accompaniment of melodramatic music.

“I did, didn’t I? Show up in time?”

Depends how you look at it. “Yes.” Though I hadn’t got the information I’d wanted.

“Aud, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you sure you’re all right?”

“How do you mean, exactly?”

“Last night just . . . well, it’s not like you. The whole idea strikes me as baroque and too complicated, all that potential for things to go wrong. And the timing. It’s almost as though you set yourself up for it. At best, it seems uncharacteristically silly.”

Irresponsible. Then a victim. Now silly. “Every week a new high.”

“Yes, well, that’s probably some sort of joke, but those drugs were truly wicked. Most of those other people are still in hospital. One of the carpenters just had to go back on a ventilator, for God’s sake.”

He was very well informed.

“Look, why don’t we just go back to Atlanta? You don’t really care about your warehouse anyway, and you’ve seen your mum. I’ve seen enough of the Seattle chains. I have some ideas to be working on, and, besides, the business is probably dissolving with no one looking after it. Let’s just leave. Don’t get distracted. What happened with the drugs is irrelevant, like, like an earthquake. It affected you, yes, but it wasn’t aimed at you. It wasn’t personal.”

“Oh, but it was.”

“More than a dozen people—”

“Dornan, think about it. This whole thing has been aimed at getting me to sell the warehouse cheaply. Who I was didn’t matter, it was the fact that I owned the warehouse. They began by reducing my cash flow sharply, by calling OSHA and EPA to harass my leaseholder, which they hoped would make whoever owned the warehouse view it as a liability. It was a liability. But then Rusen came along. He started trying to deal with the problem, he tried to talk to EPA and OSHA, so then whoever was engineering all this had to start messing with the production itself.” The day-as-night exposures, the lighting setup, the props. “And when Rusen, with his unexpected corporate efficiencies, starts trying to find ways to finesse that, and keeps making his payments to me, they start to scramble and dump drugs in the coffee. Which I drink. Ironic if you stop to think about it. Two months ago all they would have to have done is make me an offer. As you’ve said, I didn’t really care. The only reason I came out here in the first place was to
be
distracted.”