Sex Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 6) (10 page)

“Well then, we shall have to get together and un-resign you.”

“Who?”

“I and a few
Sisters
on the hill. We’re all a part of the Black Caucus.”

“The Black Caucus is going to be defending me?”

“The female part of the Black Caucus. We call ourselves the Black Women’s Caucus.”

“I didn’t know there even was a Black Women’s Caucus.”

Laurencia smiled.

“Everywhere there are black women, baby, there are
Black Women’s Caucuses
. There have to be, because black men are dogs.”

“I thought men were pigs.”

“Cultural difference. White women think men are pigs; Black women think they’re dogs.”

“Maybe we should all come together and try to figure that out. It will be our first job when we take over power.”

“I’m all for that.”

“But there’s still the question: what do I do now?”

“Stay here. I put a couple of books in the overnight bag. Nobody knows you’re here. I’ll sneak back over in a few hours and bring you dinner. Other than that, let’s just see what develops.”

She got up, walked to the doorway, opened it, looked back, and said, firmly:

“After I’ve gone, turn on the TV. You’ll be surprised at what you see.”

She waited a moment.

She retrieved the remote from its place on top of the television.

Then she returned to the bed, got under the covers, and turned the set on.

A TV anchorwoman was speaking:

“Hello, America; I’m Christine Richardson and this is
CNN in the Afternoon
! And what an afternoon it is proving to be! For it was only a few hours ago that a trim, soft spoken Mississippi woman, a career schoolteacher, resigned from her position in the U.S. House of Representatives, a position she had only just attained in a courageous battle against all odds. But that was not all. She offered the resignation because she refused to yield to pressure from her party, and, CNN has just learned, pressure from her own president. Just five minutes later, she returned to her own office, called her staff together in a circle around her, and delivered the following speech:”

The quality of the video deteriorated slightly.

Not much though. Nina gave the photographer/recorders that much.

These iPhones.

There she was, little Nina Bannister, dressed in her
high school principal
beige suit.

She recognized her own words.

“Do you know why this entire mess has come about? Men. Only about a fourth of…”

Etc. Etc. Etc.

The whole speech.

Including, of course:

“And
they
are governing
us
? Why? Why are we allowing this? WE OUTNUMBER THEM! What is the matter with us?”

And on, until the end.

Nina barely recognized it, so outraged had she been while giving it.

And now, the whole country was hearing it.
 

Again, back to Christine Richardson.

“The effect of this speech, which began spreading on social media networks no more than fifteen seconds after it was given, has been shocking. The speech is everywhere. It’s being talked about everywhere. And people are coming together. In city after city across this nation,
The Nina Speech
, as it has already been dubbed, is being played over loudspeakers fixed on vans making their way through the streets. Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit…CNN’s cameras are now live at a women’s rally in downtown Milwaukee. We take you there now…”

Switch of scenes.

Huge group of women milling about, some shouting, some merely shaking their fists at the camera.

Another reporter:

“Ma’am?”

Angry middle-aged woman:

“Yes?”

“Can you tell me why you and these other protesters have come down here today?”

“Damned right, I can tell you! We’re here because we’re sick of things, the way they’re going. This woman finally had the guts to say it like it is! We
do
outnumber the men! Why the hell are we letting them make all the decisions? They’re pigs anyway!”

Black woman’s face in front of the camera now.

“Dogs, honey!”

We are,
thought Nina,
going to have to get this worked out among us.

CHAPTER SIX:
 
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

Next morning, the following front page article appeared in
The New York Times
:

FEMINIST DEMONSTRATIONS ROCK NATION

Special to
The New York Times

By

Elizabeth Cohen

Beginning late yesterday afternoon and lasting well into the early morning hours today, sporadic demonstrations have been taking place in various cities around the United States. These events have differed dramatically in their size and format, but they have all centered around one common theme: the government is broken, and the people to fix it are women.

Catalyst for these demonstrations appears to be Congresswoman Nina Bannister (D-Mississippi) who resigned her post in the government yesterday at 3:15 PM immediately after answering
no
to a question by this reporter inquiring as to whether she actually believed an apology she had read minutes earlier. The
no
, in and of itself, may have been little noticed around the nation; but what certainly
was
noticed was an
ad hoc
speech that ex-Congresswoman Bannister delivered only minutes later to a tight circle of her own staff, and which was recorded as she gave it. She laced the news about her resignation with a stinging rebuke to her male counterparts, who, she cried out passionately, lacked the ability to compromise and work together for the common good of all people—an ability that women across the entire political spectrum seemed to possess.

Ex-Congresswoman Bannister then went on to point out that only one-fourth of US House and Senate members are women, an extraordinary statistic given the fact that a majority of all voters across the country are female. “WE OUTNUMBER THEM!” she could be seen and heard crying out. “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH US?”

This speech began––shortly after its conclusion––appearing on computers screens and smart phones around the country. It spread like wildfire through all channels of social media, and by late afternoon had begun appearing on radio broadcasts and late afternoon television news channels. Its effect was shocking. It seemed to galvanize voters, especially women voters, who appeared to sympathize with the small, primly-dressed, ex-school teacher from a small coastal village in southern Mississippi.

“We love Nina!” signs appeared in the streets, along with pictures of the ex-congresswoman. Other signs and posters, hastily drawn in some instances, showed various depictions of the Greek heroine Lysistrata, title character of a play by the ancient comic writer Aristophanes, in which the women of Athens and Sparta agree to go on a sex strike until the ruinous Peloponnesian War is brought to a close by the men who have been waging it.

More than a thousand protesters took to the streets in Los Angeles, many of them women, many of them carrying banners saying, ostensibly to men, “IF YOU DON’T COME ACROSS, WE DON’T COME ACROSS!”

There are no final reports on precisely how many demonstrations have taken place so far, or how many are planned for later on today. Observers have commented, however, that nothing similar has taken place on such a wide scale around the nation, since Carrie Nation led suffragettes in a battle to give women the vote.

That battle was ended decades ago.

Women did, in fact, win the right to vote.

Now a similar battle is being waged to see if they can win the right to govern the nation.

ELIZABETH COHEN

NEW YORK TIMES
 

Three hours after the appearance of the article, at approximately nine AM, a group of six women, five of them African American, one of them Caucasian, made their way into a conference room adjoining the offices of Jeb Maxwell, House Minority Whip.

The Caucasian woman was ex-Congresswoman Nina Bannister.

The five African American women were members of the Black Women’s Caucus, an organization that did not officially exist, but had been called into being on an informal basis several years previously, due to the fact that, as was stated by one of its members (name not known),
men are dogs
.

The African American women were dressed more colorfully than ex-Congresswoman Bannister, who wore only a beige suit and no hat.

The hats surrounding her, on the other hand, were broad-brimmed, feathered, and set at striking angles.

As were the scarves, neckties, purses, and other accessories.

It took some moments for all of these Senators and Representatives (for the caucus spanned both legislative bodies) to be seated, coffeed, and introduced (something that was done only for the record, since the House Whip knew all of them).

These formalities being attended to, Jeb Maxwell, seated at the end of the oaken table, began the meeting:

“I’m so happy that you asked to come and have this chat.”

(This was a lie, of course, since the House Whip was terrified of the meeting, and had been since he had been
invited
to have it at nine PM the previous evening, as the result of a telephone call placed to his home by Laurencia Dalrymple, who everybody on Capitol Hill feared much more than the president, whom nobody very much feared.)

(Nor had anybody come into the conference room to
chat
, but that was a word that had come into common parlance among people of great power and mutual disrespect, and served to betoken, much like the word
folks
, that we were all just good common country people sitting out on our porches and swapping tales, much as had been done in simpler better times.)

“And I also want to say, Congresswoman Bannister…”

“Actually, Congressman Maxwell…”

Senator Dalrymple used the word
Congressman
much as a general might have used the word
private
.…

“…Actually, the correct term should probably be ex-Congresswoman. You do realize that our friend Nina offered her resignation yesterday from the United States House of Representatives.”

“Yes, yes, of course I realize that. But I’m hoping that it’s something we can get straightened out.”

“Straightened out? Why? Is it crooked?”

Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha!

Everyone sipped coffee.

The
chat
went on.

Among the
folks
.

“No, no, it’s just that things got out of hand so quickly at the press conference. I had no idea, no idea at all, that you, Nina, objected to the statement you had just read to the press.”

Laurencia Dalrymple:

“Really?”

“No!”

“Even though you had written it for her?”

“We simply thought it might be easier for her if we did that.”

“And even though it contradicted what she had previously said concerning the children at the border?”

Deep breath by the Whip.

“I had merely tried to point out to Congress…ex-Congress…”

(This was proving to be quite a problem for the Whip.)

“…that the statement, so constituted as she gave it, did not comply with the party’s position on this particular issue.”

“Ah. And in pointing that out, you had occasion to call her
stupid
.”

Silence in the room.

Nina Bannister stared at Jeb Maxwell.

She was joined in doing this by five other faces, none of them smiling.

The Minority Whip, who was definitely in the minority now, and who was definitely being whipped, could only stare down at the table in front of him.

He must have felt
, thought Nina,
much as she had felt the day previous, when she had been made to feel like a child being punished.

“I…I regret that so deeply…”

“We all do, Mr. Congressman. You see, we––my
Sisters
and I––make it a point to treat each other with respect. We ask that our colleagues do the same.”

“Of course, of course! It’s just that we were all so taken aback by the comments…”

“And what, may we ask, about the comments so took you aback?”

“Well, only that…”

“Only that three hundred million Americans should feel ashamed of themselves watching children die in the desert while we do nothing to help them?”

“No, no, of course, we are, as you know, trying everything we can to help them.”

“Are we?”

“Yes, we definitely are! It’s just that, given the Republicans’ unwillingness to aid in passing the president’s…”

“So the Republicans are stupid too, I assume.”

“Again, I am so sorry for the tone I must have seemed to adopt.”

“Seemed?”

“Yes, surely…”

Laurencia Dalrymple merely smiled at Nina and said:

“What was it, my sister, that Prince Hamlet said?”

Nina knew this, of course, and had taught it thousands of times, and so could smile and say in response:

“Seems, Madame! Nay, it is; I know not seems.”

A pause for a time.

Nods around the table.

A voice saying quietly:

“I know
that’s
right!”

Another pause.

Then Laurencia Dalrymple:

“Congressman Maxwell, my fellow legislators and I who have come to you today—and by the way, we
do
appreciate your agreeing to see us––”

“Of course, of course!”

“—but we also need you to realize one extremely important point. And that point is simply this: namely that yesterday morning, when Nina looked out across that group of reporters and said ‘
No’
—at that point, she became one of us.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t. Because you’ve not had to say ‘
No
’ as much as we have. But when we as
black women
hear the word
no
we take that very seriously.”

To this, the Whip, barred from understanding, had nothing left to do but nod.

And after a time, Laurencia Dalrymple, satisfied that little Jeb Maxwell would get into no more fights on the playground or throw stones at the windows of the sixth grade classroom, eased up on him a little and even thought about giving him a candy bar which she had hidden in her desk drawer.

She spoke, though, to Nina.

“Nina, you realize the effect that your talk with your staff yesterday is having around the country?”

To this, Nina could only shake her head and say, quietly:

“I don’t think I really do.”

“You read
The New York Times
this morning?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, honey, that story only gives you a hint of what’s happening.”

Jeb Maxwell leaned forward on the desk as Laurencia continued: