Going Too Far (13 page)

During that year, I began putting together the anthology
Sisterhood is Powerful
, an experience which, combined with the birth of a child and the initial “engaging of the struggle”
with my husband, created a triple-play of events which would conspire to drag me, kicking and screaming all the way, closer to radical feminism.

I: WITCH HEXES WALL STREET

O
N THE TRUE
Underground's Holiest Day of the Year, All Hallows' Eve (known to mortals and Woolworth's as Halloween), at the stroke of High Noon, a Coven of WITCH (Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) emerged from the Underground Gates of the IRT at Wall Street to pit their ancient magic against the evil powers of the Financial District—the center of the Imperialist Phallic Society, the enemy of all witches, gypsies, guerrillas, and grooves.

WITCH, the child of the Women's Liberation Movement, first surfaced aboveground (aptly enough) at the recent HUAC witch-hunt hearings, and is motivated by the awareness that witches have always fought oppression (of women, and men as well) down through the ages. A fourteenth-century Church tract refers to witches as “politically dangerous,” and it becomes more and more obvious all the time
why
they burned at the stake people who were joyous, creative, scientifically minded (the study of early medicine via herbs and potions) or actively rebellious (witches were the first to disseminate birth-control information, the first abortionists, the first Heads and Friendly Dealers).

So to liberate the daytime ghetto community of the Financial District, the Coven, costumed, masked, and made up as Shamans, Faerie Queens, Matriarchal Old Sorceresses, and Guerrilla Witches, danced first to the Federal Reserve Treasury Bank, led by a High Priestess bearing the papier-maché head of a pig on a golden platter, garnished with greenery plucked from the poison money trees indigenous to the area. Bearing verges, wands, and bezants, the WITCHes surrounded the statue of George Washington on the steps of the building, striking terror into the hearts of Humphrey and Nixon campaigners nearby, who castigated the women for desecrating (with WITCH stickers) the icon of the Father of our Country (not understanding that this was a necessary ritual against a symbol of patriarchal, slave-holding power). The WITCHes also cast a spell rendering the hoarded gold bricks therein valueless—except for casting through windows.

Proceeding to the New York Stock Exchange, the women sang (to the ancient melody of “Tisket-a-Tasket”): “Wall Street, Wall Street, Crookedest Street of All Street / Foreign Exchange / Student Exchange / Wife Exchange / Stock Exchange / Trick or Treat/Up Against the Wall Street!” When the guards resisted their entrance, the
WITCHes demanded a check with their superiors, claiming they had an appointment with the Chief Executor of Wall Street himself—the Boss, Satan. The guards tried to phone for help—but the line went mysteriously dead. (Dig it: these are
guerrilla
witches.) The frightened serfs, anxious to gain the WITCHes' good will, forced the guards to cease their persecution of the women long enough to beg stock quotations from the Coven, and then over two hundred local vassals watched in fascinated delight as the WITCHes formed a Sacred Circle (joined by two “normal” women from the crowd who were eager to round out the Holy Thirteen—undercover witches, no doubt). With closed eyes and lowered heads, the women incanted the Berber Yell (sacred to Algerian witches) and proclaimed the coming demise of various stocks. (A few hours later, the market closed 1.5 points down, and the following day it dropped 5 points.) One businessman, when asked if the bombing “halt” and peace move were responsible for the market drop, naturally denied the connection vehemently, shrugging that it must have been the witches. He had obviously read the article in
Business Week
describing a case in President-elect Nixon's law office involving the suit of General Cigars against labor organizers in Puerto Rico, charging the latter with using witchcraft in a labor dispute.

The WITCHes then wended their way toward One Chase Manhattan Plaza, the glass erection abhorrent to their sister witches in South Africa, Bolivia, and elsewhere, who know damned well they Have A Fiend [
sic
] At Chase Manhattan. They encircled the building mumbling an elaborate curse containing references to Jericho, and allusions to a future insurrection involving buglers.

The Coven next manifested itself in the lobby of Manufacturers' Hanover Dis-Trust, informing the guards there that they had an appointment with the Devil on the Thirteenth Floor. Elevating themselves accordingly, they haunted the investment house of Bache & Co., leaving the dreaded letters WITCH stenciled ineradicably on the carpet, and echoes of a curse to drive the Dow Jones Index down. In the bank itself, the WITCHes Trick-or-Treated the tellers' windows; unTreated, they vanished, having magically cast WITCH and Women's Liberation stickers against various marble surfaces and nameplates. (The same hex stickers also appeared in subways across Virginia Slim and Diet Jello ads—WITCHes are not co-optable.)

At dusk, the WITCHes came into their own element, and also their own turf. They alighted on the Lower East Side, beginning with a siege at McSorley's (a men-only bar), and moved on to exorcise two girlie burlesque houses (mortifying one uptown-type customer who was trying to sneak in inconspicuously—he even asked for his money back, was refused by the cashier, and fled in misery). They descended on a
beauty parlor singing: “What's the Factor, the Factor in Max/Dirty old man with the Hollywood tan / Fact you, Factor, Hex on Max.” Upon their invasion of a discotheque on St. Marx Place, four bouncers rushed the women, hitting and pounding until two women were thrown downstairs. Noting that male physical violence employed against women is always at the heart of a repressive society, the WITCHes retaliated on two fronts—some, who are trained in judo and karate, landed a few lumps on their attackers, and then they assembled on the street in front of the building and blew the minds of the bouncers (who were black) with a rap about the temptation to sell out to the Man. This went down well with the indigenous crowd of black guys hanging around the street, who joined in the WITCHes' calls to “desert to our side.” The bouncers, utterly freaked by this, fled back through the bosses' portals.

At Max's Kansas City (an “in” restaurant with The Would-Be-Beautiful People), the Coven distributed garlic cloves and cards reading: We Are Witch We Are Women We Are Liberation We Are We, chanted “Nine Million Women, Burned as Witches” (historical fact), and questioned women customers about selling themselves like pieces of meat for the price of a dinner. One woman said, “My god, it's true, it's true,” and began to cry. Her escort was amused.

The wind-up of the Sabbath peaked when the Coven trooped over to the Theater of Ideas where the usual group of chic liberals were klatching, this night about the subject of Media. Witches being the original Mediums, and therefore the original Message, the women simply walked in and took over the meeting, passing a small cauldron for contributions to the Women's Liberation Legal Defense Fund (under the helpful prodding by a guerrilla WITCH of a broom and a—toy?—machine gun); and creating a genuine discussion on theater, media, ideas, women, the revolution, and other topics relevant to Halloween.

A fund-raising celebration the next night included spells, fortune-telling, apple-bobbing, solemnization of a Pact toward the Unholy Undoing of the Fillmore theaters and their cock-rock assault on women-exotic herbal smoking rituals, and a stunning light show. The WITCHes then went temporarily underground again until their next (secret) action, leaving behind a trail of zapped stocks and bonds, broom straws, and torn Humphrey/Nixon/Wallace/ and Nudie posters. Further evidence included WITCH stickers on burlesque houses, in men's rooms, and on the front doors of known male supremacists. Little old Ukrainian men are still crossing themselves furiously on Second Avenue. In the Holiest Names of Hecate, Isis, Astarte, Hester Prinn, and Bonnie Parker,
we shall return!

November
1968

II: WITCH AT THE COUNTER-INAUGURAL

B
Y NOW
, many people know what WITCH
is
. This statement will attempt to say a few things about what WITCH is
not
. There appears to be a necessity for this in light of recent unfortunate occurrences during the counter-Inauguration demonstration in Washington, D.C.
²

A group of people from New York Radical Women had decided to go to Washington some time in advance; WITCH as a coven had decided not to go, since many of our people had flu, and since we are generally bored by marching and would prefer to demolish things—by magic, of course. At the last minute, quite unplanned and unbeknownst to each other, it happened that about six individual WITCHes, on a whim and a broom, turned up in Washington.

Congratulating ourselves on our synchronicity, we proceeded together to the center of women's activities, of all places the Institute for Policy Studies. We figured that was a pretty bizarre place to meet, but never ones to carp, we walked on in.

We entered squack into the middle of some very bad-vibe internecine power struggles between the New York and Washington women: who would give which speech and when; what “image” to present; to burn voter-registration cards in solidarity with the draft-card burners, or not to burn; to tear up voter-registration cards or not to tear; to chew up and swallow voter-registration cards or not to chew. WITCH was freaked by all this, so on the synchronized signal (the right foot of each of us falling asleep), we rose and mysteriously split for the basement of the Instrument for Palsy Sturdies [
sic
], to try and regain a feeling of sisterhood from each other, if not from those in the above-world.

Lacking a complete coven, we put ourselves together as best we could—spontaneity being one of our strong points. We unearthed a local broom, quickly made our own posters and headbands, found some chest-banners printed with the yawn-provoking slogan “Feminism Lives” and reversed them, crayoning WITCH, which sounded a lot less pompous, on the other side. We also threw together some songs and chants to make the marching endurable, and lugged along a seven-foot-tall mock tube of Vote toothpaste one of us had made, as a possible prop for an unplanned, play-it-by-ear theater action at the end of the march. Happily humming “You'll wonder where the power went/when
you cast your vote for President,” we made for the rally to join our other sisters who were to speak there.

On our arrival at the tent, we found we were excommunicate, anathema, and also not welcome—by those same sisters. They had obviously been united by our presence, and had resolved to chew us up instead of those divisive voter-registration cards. We were gratified that our existence seemed to unify and give meaning to theirs, but we didn't understand why. We wished only to join them near the stage, to help form an honor guard around the women speakers, and to cheer and shake our tambourines at the appropriate places.

But they barred us from getting near them (employing a line of male Mobe
³
marshals, who looked like bouncers, to help). They screeched various epithets over the pony-tailed heads of their smug male accomplices, such as: WITCHes should be burned, You're going to try and disrupt our speeches, We know you've been planning this for months, You're thieves (a reference, we presume after much analysis, to our use of the leftover banners they had been selling each other at a quarter each), You're undignified freaks (a patent untruth—we are dignified freaks), and other vilifications.

They would not listen to our protestations (or those of a Boston women's group who had joined with us—and who were promptly accused of being dupes in our conspiracy), and they ignored the one woman on the platform who tried to allay their paranoia and vouch for our good intentions.

We stayed and cheered anyway, since WITCHes are good sports even when listening to dull, overlong speeches. And we marched near those sisters, but far enough away to be protected from their bell-book-and-candle glares. Then we split and grooved together over food and good talk, regrouping at the tent that night to hear rock bands dedicate “Season of the Witch” to us at the counter-Inaugural Ball.

The point of all this is simply that, although a small and we feel unrepresentative group were horrified by everything we did or didn't do, many other people loved us. We rapped with women on the march, with high-school kids and children and plain folks (even with some
brothers
—so there). They liked our style, our humor, our tone of militance, fun, revolution. If this same style disturbs some people, we are sorry, but as we do not try to liven up their comatose tactics neither should they try to de-, re-, or op-press ours. There is room in the Women's Movement for all of us, and the more styles, tactics, and approaches the better. We can't be monolithic in our thinking or paranoid in our relations, especially with each other.

This is not the first time that a small group has attempted to inflict their will on us, or to insist that they alone represent all women. Our positions vary widely, which is fine, since the goal—freedom for women—is the same for all of us. Why not hit on every front then, with every available style and strategy? This, we would hope, is the way our other New York and Washington sisters would also feel, and we felt it necessary to get our side of the story to them through this paper—since at present none of them are speaking to any of us.

We heard that they think we wanted to hex them. Given the general conception of what we mean by a hex, we can understand their terror. But WITCHes do not hex their sisters. We are irrepressible, mythic, action-oriented, guerrilla-theater,
and
plain
guerrilla
—and we
are
dangerous. But only to those who have reason to fear us.

January
1969