We
only speak to Brad en masse, now. I mean since he knocked all
of us up. Jenny, Suzy, Clara, Pam, Natalie, Karen, Kristin, and
myself. All eight of us. The entire cheerleading squad.
Brad. A good-looking quarterback with a football scholarship to
Notre Dame where he plans to study theology.
Brad. With the planetary symbols tattooed up his spine. Brad.
Who could kick ass at the pool-table, blindfolded, like some version
of Tommy with a cooler bar game. Brad. Who loved his mother and
would call on her birthday.
Brad. How could we not fall for him?
His requests for abortions were denied. Eight times. This was
before we spoke as a unit. Because we'd done that last year, when
we fell for Tony in the same manner. Tony. The Senior linebacker
with a National Merit Scholarship to UNC Chapel Hill where he
planned to study veterinary medicine. Tony. Etc—
I
needn't list the numerous attractive qualities of America's high
school football players.
We'd had abortions, eight in total. We'd had abortions and we'd
cried, and our mother's had held us. And we wrote bad poetry about
it for English, and we made bad, abstract, blood red and purple
paintings about it for art. We spoke about it emotionally and
effectively in debate, and one of us even performed a modern dance
number about it for gym. I'm not sure if it was pity, or if it
was talent, or a mixture of both, but we all did very well with
our grades that semester.
So when Brad asked us to have an abortion, we thought long and
hard and figured that passing with an A- instead of a C wasn't
worth the emotional and physical pain of another one of those
icky, sticky trips to the clinic.
You only needed a C average to stay on the cheerleading squad,
and we all had a suspicion that Ms. Scelba, our cheerleading coach,
had some sort of deal with the academic staff. I mean, we had
all gotten this far in high school without learning much, well,
anything, really. The cheerleading squad was about as dumb as
a rock against a wall.
Mrs. Scelba is a lesbian, so we didn't feel that it was appropriate
to seek her advice in the matter. And our teen health teacher,
Mr. Coffer, is a man, and we figured that his stance on condoms
was typical of the opinions expressed on the same subject of our
male colleagues. So you can see why soliciting his input as to
the situation would be most problematic.
So
when Brad asked us to have an abortion, we said, "No way,
Brad" and "Fuck off, Brad," and "I'm going
to have to get my dress for the prom altered. The prom is about
six months from now. Do you still want to be my date, Brad?"
and "Maybe we should get married, Brad." and "I
hope it's twins, Brad," and "You're a lousy fucking
quarterback, Brad,"and "I'll name it 'Bradley Junior'
regardless of whether it's a boy or a girl, Brad," and "No,
Brad," respectively.
It occurred to us suddenly to be mad, but we weren't sure how.
It came as a revelation in the locker room showers on afternoon.
"Suzy, you look angry."
"I'm pregnant, Jenny."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"Who, Suzy?"
"Brad, Jenny."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
"No way, me too."
I won't repeat the entire conversation here. Eventually we got
tired of repeating ourselves seven times for every statement made,
and figured that our voices would be louder and more effective
if we spoke, from then on, as a unit. The basic and most crucial
conclusion of the conversation was that we had no idea how to
go about being angry. Much like love, I guess, in that you can't
have a predefined plan as to how you are supposed to behave. We
didn't read feminist literature, then, and even if we had, we
wouldn't have understood it.
We decided to stick with our home medium. Familiarity and skill
with the process. We decided we'd do what we did best. We would
cheer our anger. We decided to cheer to match the violence of
the sport. No, no, that wasn't enough. We decided to cheer to
match the violence of our last abortion. We decided to cheer to
match the violence we anticipated in childbirth.
Halftime, the next home game. Brad wonders why we seem so much
less affectionate.
"Gimme an F!" "F!" "Gimme a U!"
"U!" "Gimme a C!" "C!" And the whole
way through our first attempt at anger. What we now refer to as
"the 'Fuck Off, Brad' cheer." Ms. Scelba looked on with
a puzzled look on her face.
We were worried at how our connection to Ms. Scelba seemed to
deteriorate over the next three months, but as our bellies grew
so did our relationship. Ms. Scelba, it seems, really knows how
to be angry. She supported us with a dry cynicism that our mothers'
didn't provide, and even helped us write a few cheers. Though
hers were less pertinent to the situation, we cheered them anyway,
a sign of our growing love for her.
The children were born healthy. An even split; four boys, four
girls. We got Brad on eight statutory rape charges, and with our
settlement from that we bought a large house, close to a mansion,
just outside of Fairfax, Virginia. The location was chosen on
the quality of its elementary school system. We live quite comfortably
on the child-support payments that come, for now, anyway, from
Brad's parents, who are covering his responsibility, or lack thereof,
while he finishes college. Ms. Scelba moved into a house up the
road, and fills
in as a babysitter on Wednesdays, while we're at yoga class.
~ * ~
