Chapter Twenty – Three
Mawwiage: Thy Scientific Name, Thy Scorched – Earth Plague is Misogyny
“Women have very little idea of how much … men hate them.”
--- The Female Eunuch, 1970, and Germaine Greer’s opening sentence, p 245,
of the first chapter, “Loathing and Disgust,” in its Part IV entitled “Hate”
Costumes, I’m supposed to be thinking hard about costumes. And carving the perfect pumpkin into the
perfect jack – o’ – lantern. Thinking so hard, in fact, that I as the witchy mother of three very Samhain –
spirited youngsters had better’ve had solidly in mind by the date that Mr. Jinx and I had filed our initial
response what were to be Mirzah, Jesse and Zane’s trick – or – treat outfits for 1988! Here Halloween was
less than a week away, and I hadn’t a clue. Nor a stitch sewn. And not a pumpkin seed drying anywhere.
Most days I couldn’t think. At least not on anything purposefully focused at all. Quakers and others often,
in meditation, actually strive for this state of blissful non – consciousness, a nirvana to be intentionally and
intently navigated. My cranium only held in it Mr. Jinx’s directives after such a fat, obtuse and slobbery
man ‘with papers’ had banged on my door on that October’s 04th.
“Get together,” Mr. Jinx emphasized this although he had a completely blank – like facial expression most
difficult to read, “and down on paper now all of your assets and all of your debits, bills, people and places
you owe and who owes you. Got educational debt outstanding yet? Yeah, that too. Taxes from previous
years not yet paid? There’s the matter of the house you live in there on Othello. Only purchased a bit over
a year ago, you say? Hhmmm. Well. That’ll have to be sold. So. Start looking for a realtor right away
and get it listed. You’ll want to have it kept clean for showing then at the drop of a phone call. When the
realtor rings you up, you see, you’ll want, ya’ know, to be able to just grab the kids and be gone so the
people can come over and look at it right then. You’ll want to be sure and get this house sold just as soon
as possible. Before we head to settlement would be best, of course, so you need to be on this right away.
It’s in a great location though, what with it being right beside Brookside Forest like it is? Shouldn’t be
much of a problem getting a fine buyer for it. Folks like your husband, ya’ know, professionals. Or …
or, aahh, professors’ll want it, no doubt. I’m certain your husband’s attorney is telling him the same thing.
What’ve’ya’ got in mind in the way of where you and the children’ll move to? Will you stay here? If here
in Ames, then where here? Ya’ know, what type of housing?”
It was obvious. Soooo blatant. Mr. Jinx – right off and outright – did not even believe at all that I,
let alone that the kids and I together, even deserved to stay living on Othello Drive and in that dwelling
there. Herry’s house really, his bachelor pad. Physicians’ and professors’ ‘hood it is, ya’ know …
a neighborhood reserved for the community’s pillars! Not suitable for some plain mama and her
broodo’Boys. Not suitable for some plain mama no longer married to one of the town’s eminences.
That was for sure! Even to Mr. Jinx, my attorney … my employee, this was obvious. Right off!
He went on, “Here’s the form you need to fill out. It’s the document on property and ownership of goods
and materials, of assets, credits, debits and bills that we’ll be submitting to the court in ‘your case’ so it
carries with it the weight of, well, like a sworn statement, a deposition like. Just so you know.”
“I don’t swear to things, Mr. Jinx,” I said quietly.
“What?!”
“I don’t swear on documents or take oaths either.” In that first office visit to my attorney, I had been trying
so hard to hang on to some semblance of me, some bearing of who I, this actual and real person being told all
of these things, really, really was. Surrounded there instead, I was, by all of the law books and the colossal
and finely constrained binders, the leather and lemon smells, the so shiny office trinkets – each without one
spot of dust on them, that is, the clear crystal and gold – plated clock with no cord perfectly ticking out its
exact time and the matching letter opener and the gilded frames of family portraits also matching, of course,
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the very, very well – suited and shapely women in low, very, very tailored taupe pumps, not a run in a
stocking to be seen on any one of them at any time, their coming in and out and handing Mr. Jinx blank
documents as if right on cue or from his having buzzed for them at the precise moments of where he was in
his explanations to me of the way of things to come. Which, of course, he had not done. They just seemed to
know, these females, kind of robotic – like, where Mr. Jinx chronologically was in the telling to me of this
tale that was to become ‘my case’ and, so, at the appropriate times, these fembots filed in with all of the stuff
they already knew at this particular time would be germane to it.
“Why not? We have to tell the truth here. That’s what I’m saying to you, Ms. True. Aahhh, Legion.
May I call you Legion?” I nodded noting, of course, that I was already assenting to this familiarity –
when, at the very first times of my being addressed by my new employee, the lawyer, I had not even
been accorded the respect of the title of doctor, that is, of his first – or ever yet hence – referring to me
as the Doctor True that I am. And was, then.
“This document means you swear it’s the truth to the best of your knowledge, Legion. All your accounts,
what you own, all of your possessions, how much you think it’s all worth on today’s market, who your
creditors are and how much you still owe them all. That’s what this form is. O, yes. Very important: You
have to also tell on them when you came to own the stuff, not just how much it’s worth. It helps the court
figure out what you had before you got married, what Dr. Edinsmaier himself had before that and what the
two of you together acquired during the actual time of marriage to each other before this separation. This is
highly important. It’ll help the court decide what should go with who then afterwards? See?”
“With whom, Mr. Jinx. The correct English grammar, Mr. Jinx, is, ‘… help the court decide what should
go with whom.’ ” Only I sure as hell didn’t correct him. I am thinking, though, how much I’d’ve liked to
be a big and hot enough shot to correct him. For sure.
Shit. I was not “seeing” a damned thing either. I was so angry and so hurt that I couldn’t even leave the
kitchen table most mornings. “See?” Mr. Jinx had queried, not really expecting no for an answer. Not
actually expecting any answer from me at all. After Mr. Jinx’s and my first conversation –– as one – sided
as it had been. The very thought, just the thought alone, of my going into the Othello den and there looking
around in its drawers and cases and envelopes and shoeboxes for god knows what in the way of papers and
documents that was Herry’s fucked – up ‘filing system’ for not only our family but throughout all of our
12 – plus legally wed years together gave me a nauseous feeling that was not ever to be assuaged. When it
is necessary to go rummaging and digging through the mounds of court documents or ‘important’ papers of
our finances or purchases or ownership together, the nausea and the desire to resist this very activity swells
up immediately right there in my solar plexus, in the gut of my belly’s inner being, each and every single
time –– all of these years later. My separated and divorced girlfriends, since, have told me that they feel
that very same feeling inside their very same anatomy. Performing this probe makes us all nearly instantly
want to puke. We do it though, of course. Anyhow.
No costumes from out my hand and heart this year. Of my making there would be no Halloween this year.
This year my breaking heart and bony hands were busying themselves with those dozen or so years’ worth
of our lives together on the papers from that den. Eventually I waded through, then brought them all in
bunches out to the kitchen table, the Boys in school.
O, wait! Flip / Reverse: Of Dr. Herod Edinsmaier’s making – of his ‘working’ – there had never been a
Truemaier Boys’ Halloween! And this year, that Edinsmaier ‘tradition’ among so, so many of the Slacker’s
genre of ‘traditions’ was, again of course, certain to be continued.
I scribbled and put down on scraps figure after figure and divided and subtracted. Noooo need anymore
was there for adding or for multiplying. Not in our lives no longer together. Not in our lives now coming
fully apart! And sat. Mostly I sat.
And thought. Well, whatever it is that can be called ‘thinking’… This was so hard, I have to tell you.
It was so hard, in fact, that I hadn’t even considered that there could be something worse than this
‘thinking’ procedure heading toward me. This was so bad in and of itself, how could there be anything
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more horrible coming into my future than this? Mehitable and AmTaham, my alleged parental protectors,
should’ve long, long ago made it crystal clear to me, instead, that exactly the opposite of this solitude –
of this Solitude of Self, Elizabeth Cady (Stanton) had so eloquently termed it – is. Is worse! Is, in reality
… waaaaay, way worse! Calista Flockhart’s character correctly declared on the televised New Year’s Day
2001 episode of Ally McBeal, “Maybe I will share my life with someone; maybe I won’t. But the Truth is:
When I think back on my loneliest moments, there was usually someone sitting right there next to me.”
In addition, however, to the business – like coldness and the icy stoniness of the calculating that was the
mere mathematics of a 12 – year, modern American marriage, there was another form upon which I was to
work before my next appointment with Mr. Jinx. This one was a kicker although for a seasoned essay test
– taker such as myself throughout all of veterinary medical classes and who had then routinely written a
single essay answer that often came to a zillion pages in length, this assignment should’ve been a breeze:
I was instructed by Attorney Jinx to write about my life.
O, but I needed, Mr. Jinx emphatically dictated to me, to be very clear on this particular essay: It should
be about my life as a wife and as a mother. “Only throw in a little bit about the vet deal and the working
outside the home thing. Enough of that only to show that you, ya’ know, … that you are certainly quite
capable of being out in the workforce and making a livelihood.”
Truth be told: what Mr. Jinx wanted most to show ‘the court’ in ‘my case’ was how much of a fine and all
– attentive mother I was and o’course would, therefore, continue to be. ‘Specially since it’d be utterly
evident to ‘the court’, wouldn’t it, ‘the case’ being a divorce case and all, that I must be –– in the category
known as wife –– waaaaay … less than? Mr. Jinx wanted me, in the essay, to be certain that I showed ‘the
court’ that I was at the least a “good – enough mother,” the term that that crone and long – time feminist,
Dr. Phyllis Chesler, calls us … us “mothers on trial.” Even though for the pillared professional as was
Herry, I –– also a professional … same as Herry I am thinking but in reality not at all so the same
–– I was obviously in no way a “good – enough wife.”
At least a good – enough mother despite the very real fact, though, that this year there were to be no
costumes. Not from the workings of the Truemaier Boys’ mama. And, of course, costumes and things
pumpkin – related were not at all to be even expected from out the hand of, or just in part occupying let
alone monopolizing, the mind of their Daddee Dearest, Dr. Herry Edinsmaier, either.
So. I estimated and wrote and calculated and formulated. I cooked and washed and chauffeured, then read
the Boys stories, tried to make plausible – enough excuses for this particular year’s absence of Samhain
accoutrements and, finally, myself fell into bed and fitfully slept only to rise up once again and cook,
chauffeur, estimate, write, calculate and formulate a little more. And retain a realtor.
*
*
*
*
All of that but now, however, with a catch. Literally. Like that catch deep down in one’s throat.
Mr. Jinx’s office would, as I’d initially been told, serve instantly from now on as my voice to my husband.
My own voice, as it turns out and, further, was pointedly made so clear to me, hadn’t been working very
well, my words and ideas not being heard nor heeded. So, therefore, it would not be a good idea at all for
me to phone up Dr. Edinsmaier on this, the matter of the selling of the house. Or about any other matter
actually. Instead, my people’d get in touch with his people – and, voila, options would be bantered about
and decisions made. As they were. They were, indeed.
Mr. Jazzy Jinx and I met once more. Now this second time it most certainly was on Jinx’s agenda first and
foremost, before taking into his hands at all the products of mine, to talk about money. His fee, his money,
how much and when and what it’d take from me and now that I’d done all of this figuring, certainly I knew,
didn’t I, just where I stood on this portion of the whole matter, the part about actually paying my newest
employee, my attorney – to secure for me a legal divorce. Paying for a binding – for – all – time action set
down upon paper – this divorce – that I didn’t ever want happening to me or to my kids in the first place.
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Before venturing terribly far into our dollars – and – cents conversation, I mentioned something to Mr. Jinx
this subsequent visit that I, in hindsight, absolutely should not have brought forth at all. I thought in Iowa –
and it is so – that there was time set aside by law for counseling. Counseling … of the therapy to a
breaking – down marital union, that type of ‘counseling’. Instead of … the lawyering kind.
Like a ‘time – out’ sort of period. A cooling – off time just in case ‘the case’ initiated was felt, a little later
on down the pike, to be a huge mistake after all – one that with this interim, thinking – it – all – over time,
could be corrected. Before ‘the case’ proceeded any further. That after one party starts such an actionable
legal petition for marriage dissolution, there is the option, if the responding party so desires, for marriage
counseling. Something like three sessions. Whatever the hell that means. So that the legal action begun
… could be undone … just in the nick of time. And the marriage – and its bonds – kept intact. And …
‘saved’. I told him, “I am thinking, Mr. Jinx, if ever there was a time needed for such a deal, well, now’d
be it, not?”
“Hhmmm,” his forehead leaned into his left hand with that elbow propped carelessly across some of his
leather, “technically, you’re correct,” he replied in a skeptic’s I – wonder – what – she’s – up – to – now
mode. “So. Ya’ wanna have the three sessions of marriage counseling, do ya’?” Slovenly stated …
in a slattern’s pattern of speech.
“Well, yeah. I think that that’d be in order since I’m not wanting any of this whole thing. Don’t you think
so, too?” I queried my own legal counsel, not at all knowing at the time that Mr. Jinx himself’d be divorced
in a half decade or so hence and, in becoming thus, would then so cavalierly be busting up a mother and a
father of two teenage children. How could I then have known that my ‘counselor’ cared not one whit nor
two hoots for preserving the two – parent family either? Any such family. Let alone, his own one.
“It isn’t for me to say, Legion. You do have the right. That much is true.”
“Well, it works sometimes, doesn’t it?”
“JYeah. Riiiight,” without enthusiasm or eye contact. The entire extent of his purposefully dull – witted,
slacker reply received.
“O. Aahhh. Okay then. How is this arranged? You set that up, too, do you?”
“Well, I do. For the first visit, that is. I just need names of people you want, names suggested by the
county. But. After that one time, why, then the other two are at the discretion of the counselor and the
two parties.”
“Ya’ mean as to whether or not they even happen at all?”
“Yup, that’s what I mean.”
“Okay then. I’ll give you times that are best for me; how’d that be?”
“Fine. Whatever.” Even less enthusiasm than previously – if that were at all possible to describe.
“And where do I learn the names of these marriage counselors or their agencies?”
“We maintain a list.” Mr. Jinx was becoming, now, more and more impatient it appeared to me.
Apparently we hadn’t spoken sufficiently enough to his satisfaction about his money issue, and he was so
wanting to get the discussion back onto the track of that.
“Is there anyone in particular on it,” I asked hopefully – and, as it so turned out, … stupidly, “that you’d
recommend?”
“On the list you mean? I do not do that. I do not recommend on marriage therapists. No.”
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“O,” is all I said out loud; I even nodded slowly. To myself I am thinking, “Whoa! One is sure the hell out
here in right field all by yourself alone on this matter of, of … trying to mend a marriage headed south, isn’t
one?” What a piece of profound prophecy 1988’s Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Right Field” certainly was in
more metaphors than just my marriage, I am thinking! Right there in those leatherbacks of Mr. Jinx’s so
foxy office decor. “Breaking a mawwiage up’s no problem. Ya’ve got all the counseling ‘help’ in the
world with which to do that. ‘Cept for maybe not all of the money that it takes to get divorced, though.
But keeping two people together? Ha! Not likely. Not at all likely,” … was the real and true sense oozing
out all over from that second encounter with my legal counselor, Lawyer Jazzy Jinx.
“Playing right field can be lonely and dull. Playing right field, it’s easy you know; you can be awkward,
you can be slow … I don’t know the inning; I’ve forgotten the score. That I'd make a fantastic catch on the
run. And not lose the ball in the sun.”
No. Not so for us though. We were not only going to drop the ball; we were flat out losing it, too. And it
was so, so dark. There wasn’t even to be any sun, to be any sunshine … for the Truemaier Boys or their
mama, Dr. Legion True.
*
*
*
*
How it was that we, Herry and I, actually came to have appointed for us both a realtor and a marriage
counselor I cannot even now recall. Once Mr. Jinx got down to the business of talking about his bucks
which, rest assured, he most certainly did remember to get done, all that I can remember from the next
month and more was a blaze, a flurry of phone calls and visits and appointments here and there and all over
and almost none of them at … “times best for me.” They didn’t need to be, Dr. Edinsmaier and these other
scheduling folks felt, since, of course, I didn’t ‘work’ so therefore I could meet with the therapist, the
realtor, the Good and Wonderful Doctor and now ex – to – be, the lawyer … just whenever, couldn’t I?
Madonna had sold homes for years. Years and years. She was your mama’s madonna. Not the singer –
actress type who had three years earlier back in Kansas with her busty bosom and her bottled blondeness,
snared away from Herry’s so willing and open hand a thousand of his – and my – ‘earnest money’ – down
bucks in just four hours’ time flat. I actually did not mind meeting with Madonna; and I certainly did not
mind unloading that house, that particular building at all. That bachelor pad was Herry’s anyhow; it had
never, never been mine nor a family home for three growing boys. I do not recall even one time Slacker –
Daddee Edinsmaier trudging the 70 – plus steps from the kitchen down to the machines along the south
wall of its basement to do even one load of laundry the whole time we lived there. Madonna was most
accommodating, very helpful, very sympathetic; and while I full – well understood that she wasn’t in this
deal for charitable purposes, I truly never got the feeling from her that I was being sold a raw bill of goods
about anything.
Of course, since it was his house, Dr. Edinsmaier or Mr. Shindy Scheisser, Herry’s scalding attorney, really
had not cared to wait for my opinion on matters pertaining to its sale anyhow. When Madonna had need of
answers to any real estate matters, they just went ahead to her with whatever the hell they pleased, no
consulting ‘the girl’s’ Attorney Jinx first. I hardly cared though. Realty and I, in my lifetime, had rarely
mixed before, not until that early morning when Herry, already here in Ames, telephoned me still back in
Kansas and wanted to know how much money I might have stashed some place that he didn’t know about.
This he needed to know he brazenly stated to me over the wire because he wanted to put a sizeable
payment down on the Othello property – albeit that Jesse, Zane, Mirzah and I, spouse though I be but in
Herry’s brain just another ‘child’, a recalcitrant cunty one – albeit that all of us … hadn’t even seen it yet.
Now – with the selling of it, this procedural deal was merely a flip – flop reversion of the process Herry’d
gone through when buying it up in the first place, I guess. There was one offer that I remember Herry
utterly turning down, Madonna telling me that Dr. Edinsmaier said it was far too low, $8,000 less than his
posted price at the time.
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Curious it is to me now that I cannot even remember what Dr. Edinsmaier, Lawyer Scheisser and Realtor
Madonna settled on as an initial asking price for that Othello property. I remember that Husband Herry and
I were to have paid for a home, any home in Ames, between $65,000 and $85,000 with $90,000 being the
absolute top, highest price we could go, that that had been the ceiling upon which we had agreed.
Apparently the pact that he’d made with me regarding that house – buying sum went the very same way of
any of his other marital agreements and vows and promises made to me when Herry had – right off then –
first come alone to Ames back around early July 1988 – particularly when he, then, had met up in
alcoholics anonymous with that low – life agent, Jim Cornball, and had so easily dropped $112,500 for
these Othello Drive digs upside Brookside’s forest like the high – dollar physician Herod thought he
deserved to be and was, therefore, entitled to pitch!
But what we were asking to get back out of that bachelor pad? I simply can’t recall. Madonna did tell me
that it was standard practice in divorce sales to have a cleaning service come in when it was finally sold and
after we, “the divorced family,” were all moved out of it –– before the formal closure on the property. This
cost, to include all carpets steamed and windows gleamed, would be around $500 for one to two days’
service of two women ( … of course … ) to bring the place up to total readiness.
I knew that much! After all, it was I who had always cleaned and cleaned and scrubbed and secured back
for us all out of every prior landlord our family had had just about that exact amount every single time our
five – member posse moved from place to place around the countryside. Twelve times – in Zane’s first
decade of life. I knew what a thorough cleansing was worth; I had earned back every single, mother –
fucking cent out of every solitary security deposit that we had ever coughed up. Alone I had. And, of
course, without – those dozen times – one word of thanks to me from Taker Edinsmaier. Not ever.
Not even one “Thank you, Legion!”
Now, however, I was very willing to not do it myself. To not do any of it myself. It was so relieving to
hear Madonna say that hiring out for this was routine in such transactions. I had an out; I would not be
stuck with this prostituting, slave – laboring, charwoman duty one last mother – fucking time. And for
what was his house, no less. Dr. Edinsmaier had had us all moved, I was figuring, a total of a dozen times,
that’s 12 times, during Zane’s first decade of life. Throughout most of these moves and years then, of
course, there were also two more boys needing to be moved and cleaned up after as well. But just thinking
on Zane alone, 12 times in those first ten years of his entire life! Why, that averaged more than twice a
year for him! Then, too, his brothers! And for me. Me, this moving family’s own personal slave who
worked for free – except that I counted as fee for my services all of our various landlords’ return back to
Herry. To Herry, of course. To Head of the Household Herry, of course. Counted as fee for my slavery
services our landlords’ return back – every single time we moved – of the entire security deposit amounts.
Our most immediate past move from Kansas to Iowa had been the hardest and the saddest one for me. Not
only was there the restructuring that had permeated my professional department at the university there and
eliminated my veterinary diagnostic bacteriologist position, one that I wholly adored; but Aprovechar Herry
had come on to Ames alone in July 1987, and had not only purchased this behemoth of a bachelor pad for
himself by himself without consulting me and the Boys, but he had also left me there in Manhattan with
absolutely all of the Boys’ summer activities including Jesse’s and Zane’s junior zoo – keeping and the
complete packing and cleaning – up operations. Again.
All that Herry had done was board a Greyhound to Manhattan in early August, rent a Ryder there and assist
the four of us to load it up. To load it up – from entirely – out of only the garage, that is. I had myself, again
alone or with Zane’s aid with the television, moved and stacked all of the boxes and almost all of the furniture
including the sofa and the easy chairs, all of the bookcases, the portable dishwasher, the coat hutch and that
TV out into the double garage so that with only a couple of planks and about three hours’ effort is all – why,
Herry was all packed up solid and ready to drive. Except for the Boys’ and my 1939 piano whose special
moving dolly I had already leased and had readied to strap onto the console and the clothes washer and dryer,
also with a rented hand trolley waiting, Dr. Edinsmaier arrived in and was trucking out of town totally loaded
and trussed … the very same day.
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Husband Herod Edinsmaier never said to me, “Thank you, Legion.” Not one word of thanks. Without so
much as scrubbing one square foot of flooring, let alone, cleansing a bathroom’s toilet bowl anywhere we’d
ever lived! the Good and Wonderful Doctor Edinsmaier just swung himself up into that Ryder saddle and,
in mighty fine, flinging flourish as always his fashion, rode east and north on out of Manhattan.
Now, the next house, the Othello Drive property, we had lived in two summers. Both had been sad and
hopeless ones, the first so shortened by the move and, then, only to be ended, effectively, just after our
arriving in Ames by the horrible, mutilating death of Zane’s lovely laprine, Sylvan. And the second
summer? Well, it was likewise curtailed by the maiming of our family and the Boys themselves because of
the dying of our family’s … mawwiage.
*
*
*
*
The holidays were upon us; and as the way that Halloween had gone, so too, went Thanksgiving and
Christmas. I ferried the Boys to Kate Mitchell and worked at packing and cleaning out, writing
documentation and keeping submissive company with Mr. Jinx and Madonna. Winter and its Solstice –
that is, AmTaham’s 69th and my 41st birthdays – came on, even out West to Yellowstone, and finally its
fires and parched mountainsides were squelched and quenched. That beautiful land that summer of 1988,
like mine and the Truemaier Boys’ too, had simply gone down blazing in smoke and flames.
Scorched Earth we were. All of us.
There was the life – affirming tree, balled with roots and entirely whole, well, that year … to ignore. There
was no baby blue spruce to plant on New Year’s Day, a week after it had, live and intact and ready to grow,
(usually) gone up on Christmas Eve and no decorations around January 01 st too, now needing to be taken
down either. Mirzah, Zane and Jesse were shuttled back and forth on weekends, every weekend, to Herry’s
apartments. Those 48 hours away from them then I worked on my sitting – and – blankly – staring – out –
ahead – of – me skills, hands still and folded on my lap, such technique, talents and cleverness I was to
fully develop in the next five years. To an art form. A breathing – yet – dead DEhuman art form.
Catatonia and cataplexy this was in me, indeed, and it seemed that that fall and winter I mostly practiced
these dance steps right after my having participated in two particular events: meeting with Herry or
meeting with Larry. Our attorneys, Jinx and Scheisser, of course, didn’t like us coming together directly
with each other, alone, so we did not.
Not too often, that is; but once in a great while we did. On the street corner of 09 th and Ridgeway, a short
and neutral way away from the real estate on Othello, about the equivalent of three blocks’ distance or so.
Cold and blustery in late fall, standing out there on the sidewalk swept with dead leaves and hunched over
avoiding eye contact, I maneuvered myself to Herry’s left shoulder so that I would better be able hear his
words without my having to ask him to repeat himself a half a dozen times over the winds howling.
How he hated that! When I couldn’t hear. And had to or did ask him to repeat himself. So repulsed, so
revulsed by this is Dr. Herod Edinsmaier that he simply will not repeat himself, not even just a second time.
Narcissist Herod cared not a whit whether or not I eventually ever did hear him. He said so. “It doesn’t
matter. Forget it.” These comments were final I could always, always tell. There was no chance of having
him reconsider and, therefore, repeat his words. No chance. Because he would turn away, walk away,
slam doors, hang up, drive away. Pure passive aggression. As evident as it was that he loathed me and
anything the very essence of me, Dr. Edinsmaier clearly loathed as much … any accommodation to me.
It wasn’t deafness the ‘real’ doctor hated; it was my deafness that he hated. And what that would mean
he’d have to do in the way of work on his part – in order to help me hear. Work … like the labor of …
remembering. Like remembering to project his voice, to be facing toward my eyeballs and not away from
my view, to stand on my right side, to not be covering up his mouth in any way. All of this was work.
Work that would go into benefiting Legion. So. The Good and Wonderful Doctor Edinsmaier simply
chose not to do it at all.
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But I would, … later on, within the few instances whereof I was ‘allowed’ to participate somewhat in his
decision – making, when I was ‘allowed’ in to taking actions, in to making transactions and deals and to
conducting any portion of future endeavors …, why, then I would – by the Spectacular Spouse I was so
privileged to be bound up to – Herod Edinsmaier – I would then be expected to have heard him earlier on
as to exactly what his thoughts and subsequent behaviors on all of these matters were precisely … to be.
But. I hadn’t heard him. And. Herry chose. Passive Aggressor Herry purposefully chose to refuse to
repeat himself so that … I could hear him. So that I could know these things.
Recalling our entire relationship I would have to say that this manner of Herry’s was the routine and
standard measure of his response to my auditory anatomy, defective and ‘less than’ as it was to him.
“In sickness and in health” –– from the mawwiage wows, er, marriage vows. Hell, he must’ve purposefully
and concertedly not taken that part in. Because from the git – go Herry despised my manner of single –
sided hearing which is, evidently to him, so, so different from that of how others with whom he interacts
apparently most often comprehend … his noise.
But, most curious it is to me how I must’ve missed this during those lust – filled months before our
declaration of avowal to each other, the time some folks’d call a courtship. That time of pensive thought
and immersed reflection where this sort of thing about each other a lover is supposed to … aaaah, catch,
isn’t one? I was a scientist, for chris’sake: how the fuck had I ignored this – this evidence of Herry’s own
science of insulting the woman in his life purported to be “his love?!” We are stupid, we women. Not
brilliant scientists at all. Stupid.
We met one another, Herry and I, on the neighborhood’s detached and frosty corner sidewalk to discuss the
immediate and daily caretaking of the Boys and the legally allowed counseling to save the so – called
marriage for which I had asked Mr. Jinx to go ahead and mark us down. Apparently, to make things appear
all authorized and official, the state’s district court judges out in the various hinterland counties need to
take in on some registry the fact that a couple, where one of the two has filed papers for divorce, is or is not
taking ‘advantage’ of this state – legislated provision for marriage counseling therapy. In Iowa, the law
regarding this supposedly rehabilitating treatment for a sick union amounts to three sessions with a
marriage counselor. I have never seen, then nor since, nor was ever told of the existence of any sanctioned
guidelines or approved prerequisites held by the court systems or the state legislatures that go into
constituting the definition of what is meant by the two words, ‘marriage counselor’ – for the purposes,
at any rate, of its use in their judicial actions by said divorce courts.
At the time, I had no knowledge whatsoever of certain groups’ suspicion of and oftentimes outright
righteous contempt for marriage overall. One such group is feminists. I had no awareness then of
feminists’ positions, often termed radical or extremist. Or called a lot worse than that by those whom
feminists seem to threaten. Specifically, I did not know feminists’ thinking – women’s or men’s – on any
society’s legal system of marriage, let alone, on any of the binding contracts held out by most, it seems, as
‘necessary’ if a couple is to be in accordance with the precepts and canons of one or more of the World’s
current, allegedly ‘great religions’.
I certainly wish I had known.
Most certainly, I wish I had known before I was being divorced. As a matter of massive fact actually,
I wish I’d known long before I, pregnant or not, had ever married anyone. Married anyone under the laws
of a republic’s government or under the laws of any rulers’ rigid, patriarchate – riddled religions.
All of these ‘great religions’, of course, were written down – down through their histories – by only males.
None of them had their books, the concepts, the principles or canons put down on to paper as thoughts
initially directed from women’s brains. That is, absolutely none of the entire ‘holy’ bible, the dharma, the
koran or the torah – such loudly touted and revered ‘sacred scriptures’ – all! –– none is known to have been
written down by even one female. All of the works of any of these religions that comprise the schema for
the construction, the composition and, most certainly for the control and correction of folks, these written
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works, catechisms and commandments to be used in their mosques, schools, synagogues, churches, shrines,
holy sanctuaries, basilicas, cathedrals, madrasahs and temples around the Whole World are made so and
mandated – – by the Entire Earth’s very, very clear gender minority, by only the 47 percent of the Planet’s
populace who are male. Even, realistically, a far fewer percentage number than that one when you
consider that the littlest male humans, our World’s weest boys, who are on the whole, cared for and raised
up by women and girls, aren’t themselves – yet – counted among these religions’ and legal systems’
constructors either.
So. The 53 percent who are, and have been for quite some time now, the Entire Earth’s very, very clear
gender majority, we females, are completely left out of the loop – in making up and writing down these
religious rules by which to apparently live. And about this marriage thing? For sure!
Sounds to me these religious rules do – as well as to other feminists – mighty suspect. As well as, shall
I say, convenient?! How quite literally and utterly mother – fuckingly convenient. How colonizing and
rendering again childlike is this consecratory, crushing dominion over that 53 – plus percent who is the
entire Globe’s majority population and, distinctly and for certain, over its DEhumans who are the adult
ones.
Furthermore, judges choose, particularly in regard to divorce cases involving pillared fathers anywhere,
to play right into this androcentrism from their lofty legal – system benches worldwide as well – when,
in some countries at least – such as the United State of America! they’re supposed to be representing
‘the law’. Separated, they are supposed to be, from the religious angle of contracts, separated away from
the religious angling and wrangling of marriage contracts. Civil laws and their adjudicating officers are
supposed to be separate. Aren’t they?
I certainly wish I had known. I wish I had known about there being groups of people out here in the real
World who know and find marriage to be so dishonoring and so disrespectful and destructive – so
DEhumanizing – to so many people. I hold Mehitable and, to almost an equal degree, AmTaham
accountable for not specifically educating me and all of my sisters when we were very young about the
great non – requirement for religious or for governmentally sanctioned unionizing. They both, as our
parents and thus as our protectors, should have been responsible for instilling in us three daughters,
Legion, Endys and Ardys, the obligation to ourselves – the absolute exigency – to grow up independent –
as The Way to life’s true and complete happiness. Independence … My Way, Sinatra (quite da’man)
without a doubt, so correctly crooned.
It is as if, instead, both Mehitable and AmTaham merely wanted their daughters bound down, way, way
down, through and by matrimonial bondage. Same – old, ages – old story for young girls and for old
women all the World over for the last 12,000 years. All of these millennia what a waste. An utter waste
of us, the World’s majority wealth and resource. We, the 53 percent.
Hooking up? Yes.
Romping? Yes! Definitely!
Even rearing up babies together? Yes, of course. Absolutely!
But … but … but … just NOT in the manner of mawwiage.
Where men’s religions and men’s laws rule and reign down dominion over. All the fuck over The Other
of the World’s adults who are now caused to be made, who are now – through the willful and purposeful,
patriarchal tethering of marriage – rendered childlike and enslaved.
This enslavement of us is made so incredibly easy, this thralldom of Us The 53 Percent, because we
DEhumans, we Not Males are not really … human. We are not. We are not human precisely to the degree
and to the quality that Males are human. We Females, that is John Stoltenberg’s Not Males, are The Less
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Than. We are The Other. Ask any broadcast or print journalist reciting to us all or writing the World’s
evening news. Ask any judge. Or any marriage therapist. Well, ask at the least Mr. Larry Brouhaha.
*
*
*
*
Mr. Brouhaha, Mr. Larry Brouhaha greeted us each with a handshake, first to Dr. Herod Edinsmaier, of
course, and then lastly to me. To me the ushering – in was made with a slight curling smile; it was a smirk
all right and curved around the commissure of his thin lips. “And this, Mr. So – Called Therapist, along
with your deadened dishrag of a handgrip, is not my imagination,” I am left thinking. About 55 at the time,
Mr. Brouhaha motioned, with a flip – off of his forehead to his right, for us to be seated. His office was
borrowed actually. It was in a modest, concrete block building rented by Storm County’s version of mental
health services; and he, Mr. Brouhaha, performed this type of ‘service’ – counseling on the county’s
payroll, that is – I had no idea why except that, in hindsight, he couldn’t have made a living at marriage
therapy had he been in a private practice.
Of average and truly nondescript, white – bread appearance, his demeanor and countenance would have
been equivalently as characterless except for the unmistakable haughtiness apparent in the air around him.
The man exuded arrogance and entitlement. Right down to his head – tossing when signaling to us the
direction of our seats.
He and Narcissist Herry hit it right off. Herry, who when notified hadn’t wanted a whit to do with therapy
for this marriage contract of ours and was present there only because of a canon – backed court order to
come, cracked a beginning snide smile, too. Himself swiftly seated with clasped hands thrown behind his
head while simultaneously swiveling and leaning back, Mr. Brouhaha, minus so much as a “Tell me a little
bit about yourselves,” began the session instead without missing the beat by stating, “So, Dr. Edinsmaier,
tell me. In this marriage of yours to her, have you felt, well, ya’ know, married?” During the complete
query, Larry Brouhaha, over his tortoiseshell half rims with his nose aimed at the floor, gawked at the
thing in the room that was me, not directing this glare of his at all at Herry.
“Huh?” the Good and Brilliant Doctor answered.
Pivoting then both his view and his rotating chair toward Herry finally, Mr. Brouhaha I guess clarified,
“Ya’ know, have you had at all that ‘I’m married’ feeling?”
“Aaahh … aaahh, yeeeaaah, yeah. Sure.” the Good and Brilliant Doctor answered. Stammered.
“I see. Good. That’s good. Well, maybe it’s good. Okay then. I have assignments for my clients so yours
for our next session is to write down a list of what have been good things in your marriage and what have
been, well, not so good things. As you see them, ya’ know, not so good as you see ‘em. Have this list
ready by our next session. Ten days’ time suit? Thanks for coming. I’ll see you then. Just make the
appointment with my girl out front.”
“Only I’m to make this list?” Herod Edinsmaier whined.
“O. No. No. She’s to make a list, too, of course.” Mr. Brouhaha repeated the rimming of his reading
frames at me but addressed his words to Herry. This seemed to please Herry. Slacker Edinsmaier didn’t
have to be the only drone here apparently. I was also a worker bee, certainly no queen of anything. Least
of all, queen over that landscape of curdling coddled milk, rotting clotted cream and sullied honey that was
our eroding, spoiling marriage.
Then that was that. The end of the entire first marriage counseling session.
“Wha’?!!! What just happened here?! Nothing. I mean literally nothing happened here, did it? Did I miss
some utterly stupendous marital counseling tips or something? We are out the door and this is it?! Fine.
Fine. I’ll make that goddamn, mother – fucking list. I have just a frickin’ passel of things to put down on
it, too!”
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“And what the fuck’s up with this ‘my girl’ fuck? ‘Make the appointment with my girl out front.’ ” How
cuntingly so pussylike Brouhaha’s androcentrism dripped that Herry picked right up on it and knowingly
nodded his head vigorously while responding to Mr. Brouhaha, “Yessir, I’ll be sure ‘n’ do just that.”
We parted, silent, Husband and I, as usual. I went home. Only, later that afternoon, to telephone up
“Brouhaha’s girl” to find out the date and time of that next appointment in ten days’ time hence – which
Herod Edinsmaier had not only promised to do but’d also conveniently forgotten, I am thinking, to tell me
of its details.
No such appointment, “Brouhaha’s girl” told me, had yet been made. Ah – huh. The usual. I had that,
then, to do myself, too. Of course. Of course, I did.
Fresh pad and pencil I got straight to work, but by the end of the second page, chock – full, I determined
to switch over to that handy – dandy format I had so infamously happened across at Herry’s bland, walk –
in flat, Herry – Daddee’s every – weekend hovel of a shelter for my Truemaier Boys: the Rolodex 2” x 3”
affixed – card filing system with such fine indexing, categorizing, alphabetizing and dividing features.
Complete this particular Rolodex was with its own smoky – black, opaque, plastic dust cover to boot.
Always an organizer, always organized, I approached this specific written assignment no differently than
any other in veterinary medical school or my PhD program. Card upon card upon card, entirely filled up
in phrases beginning with verbs often separated by semi – colons, was entered into its appropriate division
and category, those divisions and categories themselves suitably indexed and alphabetized.
List:
People, Institutions, Principles
Why angry:
Self – esteem, Money matters, Ambitions, Personal relationships
Tell re list:
Resentments, Flaws in ourselves (incl sloth, lust, greed, gluttony, envy, anger,
pride = ya’ know, Pope Not – So – Himself – At – All Innocent’s and Actors Brad Pitt, Morgan
Freeman and Kevin Spacey’s and a whole passel of other males’ – mandated, wicked Seven, of
course), Our fault in having resentment
Tell where I am in marital problems: How I feel and believe, How I perceive I make others feel
Intermittently throughout the next entire week and more I labored at this: someone else’s command to me
again and, of course, a man’s assigning command to me again, and came away from the simple brown
kitchen table on Othello Drive to this next mawwiage therapy session … naturally and expectedly then –
as always with any other of my many, many learning endeavors anywhere else – … very, very well –
prepared.
While now back in my possession, this December 1988 construct that was my end – of – the – year,
(apparent – end – of – my – marriage) Rolodex file then … wasn’t always. Upon its seizure under and
within a legality known as “discovery,” my – but never Bestial and Incestuously Frotteurist Herry’s from
that one – room apartment wherein he’d written in his Rolodex of his loves … that is, of his love for
fucking “cows, dogs, pigs and chickens” and of his groping love of “fondling his three baby sisters Kay,
Celeste and Murielle” – my Rolodex came to be in its entirety Shindy Scheisser’s, ah, er, truly therefore
Dr. Herod Edinsmaier’s possession then and, as well of course, ‘the court’s’. This Accounting of Me …
This Accounting of Doctor Legion True, of who I believe I am, actually came to lie for years – for years
and years – in mountains of ceremonially stored cardboard courthouse boxes to gather in them there
nothing but its dust and molds as Petitioner’s Exhibit #9 and marked 11 May 1989 – a date just shy of two
weeks away from Wednesday, 24 May 1989, the one whereupon I became officially uncoupled from
Herry, the date on the document that was the very androcentric government’s and all patriarchal religions’
not – mawwied – to – each – other – any – damn – more, very definite divorce decree. I was, of course in
this action, not ‘the case’s’ Petitioner.
I began to read my carded assignment – – at “Counselor” Brouhaha’s request to do so. One, then the next
and the next and the next:
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“Resent Herry asking me why I want to stay married to him; resent his defining that when I say
‘I love you’ to him that that is sick, the love that I have for him. ‘By all right and reason I know
I should separate myself permanently from him, but you see’, the One Day At A Time Al – Anon
book states on February 19th’s inspirational message page, ‘I love him.’ ”
“Resent Herry’s saying the divorce is his Step 9 to me, thereby his using and twisting the Program
so he will never, ever have to humble himself to say to me that he was sorry or wrong about
specific matters, issues, ideas, situations, people, whatever.”
“Resent Herry’s saying the divorce is God’s Will; uses it to again twist the Program around so it
appears not to be self – rationalization and self – justification of his will really. My perception of
how to twist the Program; have done it before myself.”
“Resent Herry for his NEVER wanting to be in the kitchen at the same time with me; resent his
not wanting to cook together, do the dishes with me, etc, plan for company.”
“Resent Herry for his not going on walks with me EVER.”
“Resent Herry for his never just coming up to me in private and touching, hugging or kissing me,
like in the kitchen, the shower, the car.”
“Resent Herry’s never coming to make love to me freshly clean shaven or groomed; resent him for
the feeling of my not being able to ask him for this for fear he’d reject me and go sleep on the
couch or elsewhere for that matter.”
“Resent Herry for his thinking that or suggesting that I became pregnant knowingly to try to trap
him into some sort of relationship; resent him further for his NEVER taking at any time the
precautions, through the use of condoms or simply asking me if I had the diaphragm in and if
I didn’t, then his waiting about penetration until one of us was protected. Herry always left birth
control to me; then blamed me for all three pregnancies – especially when I was so happy with
them all.”
“Resent Herry for his telling me in Sept ’80 to get a job so we could ‘be solvent’. With 3 wee
ones, childcare was over half of what I made that year ($16000); resent him for not considering
borrowing from family members and instead of making me go back when I felt so very guilty
about leaving the Boys only to clear $2.75 / hr. Then when I went back to work, resented him for
not getting home from the Med Center earlier than 8 pm to save money (child care) and do some
… ANY … of the baby chores (baths, folding diapers, cleaning up clutter, making formula & baby
food) leaving it to Rosemarie and others for which we had to pay. Or else, to me.”
“Resent Herry because he has NEVER said the words to me, ‘I love you, Legion.’ He has nev__ ”
I was abruptly interrupted. Interrupted with not so much as the holding up to me of an open – palmed, still
hand in the ‘stop’ signal. Nor an “Excuse me, Dr. True … ” Not even so much as a “Please, Legion.”
Just interrupted in mid word, “Myyyy Gaaaawd!!! Do you hear this, Dr. Edinsmaier?! Do you hear this?!
Do you hear all of this?!!!” As always before with Brouhaha’s stares, Compadre Herry was the human
addressed – – but the thing in the room again locked within so – called Marriage Therapist Brouhaha’s
vista of eyeball penetration was me.
Dr. Edinsmaier muttered, “O O, jyeah. JYeah I do, Larry!” As he retorted, Herry’s mouth morphed inside
that huge, huge head of his and with the snidest of curls took up a sideways stance – a practiced and long –
longtime skilled sculpting by the Truemaier Boys’ sperm donor, the Entitled Pomposity who was still my
spouse – on the lower portions of his mustachioed face that were his jaws.
Brouhaha continued his tirade about me in tyrannical tones but not to me, of course, “Is it any wonder?!
How could you have possibly lasted this long, Herry. How?! It’s amazing to me that you can stand to just
even be in the same room with this … this … this, cr__, cr__, aaahh, person. Let alone, Herry, it’s almost
Christmas, for chrissake!”
What precisely was Mr. Brouhaha about to call me? What? Creature? Critter? Criminal? Crazy. Crazy
is what. Crazy and all of the other labels as well, he was. Yeah, Mr. Brouhaha, Professional Therapy Man,
so wanted to but momentarily realized that legally he could not – right there in the Storm County Mental
Health Services’ office – call me, the DEhuman and the Not Male that I was to him, any of those particular
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names. Right in front of me yet not to me. To my estranged husband, instead! Thinking in his so – called
professional brain along the same characteristic female – loathing thread as had been Herry’s rapist –
thinking mindset when Professional Medical Student Edinsmaier so desired to drop his drawers and
“fuck ‘em right there,” that is, engage in sexual intercourse and make love to the obstetrics courses’
DEhuman help –– the women who were the how – to – perform – vaginal – examinations’ med – school
laboratory models.
O, wait a sec, I mean “screw those pussies” and “get me some strange,” instead, don’t I?! In order to get
properly correct the parlance always of the Good and Brilliant Doctor for anyone’s coital activity.
Criminal or not. Rape or not. ‘True love’ or not.
When I glanced on Herry’s sheet of notebook paper ripped somewhere from a spiral spine, two words
appeared scrawled near its top, but he had had no list of anything prepared assignment – wise. I was not
even privy to either of those two words; Mr. Brouhaha never asked the Good and Brilliant Dr. Edinsmaier
one time to give either of us, least of all to give me, a recitation of anything, completed or not, that had also
been Herry’s assigned homework.
That was that. Again. The end of this second session of marriage therapy.
No explanation to me for this outrage of Mr. Brouhaha’s and, of course, absolutely no apology.
No explanation is needed now. Now? Now … I know why the drivel that was this man’s diatribe
about me, the misogyny just beneath his surface. And while, then, an apology was moooore than in order –
but was not ever going to happen. No matter that besides Herry’s and everyone else’s end – of – December
‘holiday time’, my birthday was also coming up! This, plus no apology, was no gift!
There wasn’t even that legislatively allowed third session scheduled, and I certainly saw that, with
embittered Mr. Brouhaha as “therapist,” there truly was no bother, indeed, of any other either. I paid my
half portion of his fee for ‘services rendered’ –– of course, with my having to pay even ten cents of it
actually being more abuse heaped on top of the haranguing and violence that had already been this man’s
“counseling.” I never consulted with another marriage counselor then. And none since.
From these close encounters of Brouhaha’s first and second kinds began the birthing of my take on the
legislatures and executive branches of both the state and the federal union as pertains specifically to the so
– male dealings with all manner of legal and religious things, of everything … as a matter of fact, related to
marrying. The staunchest fundamentals of patriarchy we now see being lain down – again in this, the latest
of millennia – in both their blatant and sometimes subtle legislative plans to keep female folks rigidly
coupled. “If not to the original men from the women’s first or second unions, then just binding and
coupling them up to any one will do. A marriage to anyone is enough to keep from our having to spend on
her or her children, God forbid,” these multiple bills quietly propose – many of which are now up for
discussion in states’ house and senate subcommittees. Discussed by men who wholly hold that mawwiage
of woman to just any man is far better than to no man at all – not to mention … far, far better than to no
man … ever … at all!
Too, these are the exact thoughts and the plans about making and keeping her mawwied off that that other
addict, the one besides Dry Drunk Edinsmaier, has: that is, those of the Born – Again Boy – King George.
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