Sex Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 6) (12 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT:
 
HERE COME THE LISSIES!

Nina went back to her apartment, lay down, and took a nap.

She was still a bit groggy when her cell phone buzzed.

Only two people that she knew of had her number. One was Jackson Bennett; the other Laurencia Dalrymple.

She had nothing against talking with either of them.

So she flipped open the phone.

“Nina?”

“Laurencia!”

“Nina, we all watched the interview together. You were superb!”

“I should have been more tactful, shouldn’t I?”

“Are you joking? We were all sitting around the room waiting for just such an answer. And when you said ‘July 4,’ why we all got out our calendars and circled the date. Some of the Sisters even got on the phones to their husbands and said, ‘Honey, you got a new night to go bowling!”

Nina mused for a time about the national benefits that would follow a sudden increase in bowling revenue, but was interrupted when Laurencia asked:

“Now are you going to the rally tonight?”

“I’m not sure. Will there really be ten thousand people there?”

“At least, baby. It’s the coming out of the Lissies! And I’m going to be the featured speaker!”

“Who in God’s name are the Lissies?”

Pause.

“You really don’t know?”

“I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t know.”

“That may be true. But come to the rally, baby. Disguise yourself so you won’t be mobbed—but come to the rally!”

It could be said that the Mall—the heart of almost every visitor’s trip to Washington—has influenced life in the U.S. more than any other expanse of lawn. On the Mall one can:

Ride an old fashioned carousel in front of the Smithsonian Castle

Watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July

See the original Spirit of St. Louis

Look at Dorothy’s ruby slippers or Abraham Lincoln’s top hat at the American History Museum

Twirl around the ice skating rink in the National Gallery of Art’s sculpture garden

Or…

Exercise your first amendment rights by joining a rally or protest.

And this was, in fact, what Nina Bannister had decided to do.

It was insane, and she knew it.

But she could not stay away. Ten thousand people were to be gathering around the Washington Monument because of a movement that she herself had started little more than one day earlier. Her newest and quite possibly best friend Laurencia Dalrymple was to be addressing the crowd. This was to be the unveiling of the Lissies, an organization which, apparently, was attempting to stage a revolution in American politics.

And what in God’s name
were
the Lissies?

So she decided to risk it.

At five thirty, she put on an old pair of ragged blue jeans, a sweatshirt (too heavy for this hot sultry weather but it gave her an illusion of being hidden), a thick pair of sunglasses and a floppy fishing hat that she had bought in a Dollar Store on her way back to the hotel.

She was so common and featureless as to be next to invisible.

And, so disguised, she strode out toward the Mall.

It was a twenty minute walk under a spectacularly clear sky, which was glowing golden in the sunset.

The crowd increased around her as she walked, and she could not help feeling excitement when she told herself again and again that this was actually true, was really happening, and had been started by her.

Then she began to be aware of the shirts.

Black, short-sleeved shirts with raised fists in white on either side of the silhouette of a woman.

The woman had a classic nose. Long curly hair flowed behind her neck.

Beneath these symbols was written the word:

LISSIE!

And then she realized.

“Oh, my God.”

Lissie was short for Lysistrata.

The Lissies had formed their own movement. And their color was not pink.

It was black.

And its symbol included a pair of upraised fists.

Clearly the Lissies were not to be dabbled with.

The crowd became more dense as she approached the monument, which was bathed in white light.

It was a strange crowd. It reminded her somewhat of the group of environmentalists who had taken over the beach in Bay St. Lucy following Liz Cohen’s story revealing the alleged malfeasance on board Aquatica. But it was different, too. There was the obligatory marijuana, of course; but there were long patches of earth and air where nothing was being smoked at all. There were young women in bandannas wearing hooped earrings and tie-dyed shirts; but there were middle-aged women who looked like they belonged in the local Parent Teacher Association of Bay St. Lucy.

There was music everywhere, of course.

But it was music of every sort. Rock music, folk music, Bluegrass music…

…and most of it coming from female ensembles.

Also everywhere were signs.

Professionally painted signs, slapped together signs, small signs, big signs…

…and a few signs with her own picture on them, above the words:

“NINA FOR PRESIDENT!”

What had she started?

Policemen were around her now, channeling the stream of people who were moving like a jubilant river—for all of these people seemed happy, as though they were being drawn toward a gigantic Christmas tree where a completely unexpected present awaited them.

The crowd was not, she found herself realizing, all female. Just as there were women of all ages and dresses and hairstyles and heights and weights and ethnicities and religions and pet ownerships (Dogs predominated, but other animals appeared here or there and one woman had a python draped around her neck)—just as there were all of these varieties of femaledom, so was there an equal diversity of men.

One of whom, a slender professorial type with a silver beard, carried a sign saying:

WE GIVE UP. TAKE OVER!

More signs proliferated now, as though the very banners and images were preparing in advance for a prolonged sex strike by taking matters into their own hands and reproducing.

GAYS AND LESBIANS FOR LISSIE!

ON JULY 4—NO NO NO NO!

TRANSGENDER AMERICA FOR NINA!

MEN MAKE WARS! WOMEN MAKE BABIES!

MEN: THE EARTH’S TESTOSTERONLY ENEMY!

HISPANIC WOMEN SAY ‘BRING IN THE CHILDREN’!

MEN: LEARN TO COOK!

There were people everywhere, all of them speaking in excited tones, all of them pointing at the signs, the signs, the signs—and the fireworks arrays that now were blossoming across the darkening sky above the Potomac.

“Look at that group!”

“Look at him!”

“Look at her!”

“What do those tattoos say?”

“What kind of an animal is that, a monitor lizard?”

“I’ve never seen a protest mounted this fast!”

“But it’s not really a protest, is it?”

No
, Nina found herself thinking.
No, it’s a baby shower.

Welcome to earth, all the new born Lissies.

Finally, she had drifted half a mile or more in the surge of humanity that surrounded her, and she found herself in sight of the stage. There were musicians on it, of course, as there must have been on any stage gawked at by so many clapping and shouting and stomping people.

The wail of electrified guitars sifted through the balmy, cherry-blossomed, late spring air.

She was aware for the first time of the moon––full, pale, but growing darker yellow by the moment––and grinning down on the festivities, seemingly unconcerned that the Man in the Moon might soon be replaced by the Woman in the Moon, who could do the satellite’s job more efficiently.

Policemen and women mounted astride huge reddish-brown horses strode patiently beside them as they flowed along, the officers halting occasionally beside smaller groups who were shouting at each other and waving fists in the air.

For this, too, disagreement, was a part of what went on in the Mall.

First Amendmenters having at each other.

“Women belong at home!”

“
You
belong at home!”

A group of young, tattooed women:

“WE’RE GLAD WE’RE GAY!”

A group of young, tattooed men:

“WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE GAY TOO!”

Two middle-aged women in bonnets and aprons, holding bibles aloft:

“Wives, obey your husbands! Wives, obey your husbands!”

Which elicited the reply, from somewhere in the crowd:

“Husbands, honor your wives. And
vote
for them!”

A husky, bearded man, who was making a trumpet by cupping his hands over his mouth:

“The man is the head of the house!”

Replied to by a husky, non-bearded woman who did not need to make a trumpet because nothing was over her mouth:

“Then get the hell back in the house!”

Officers staring hard at both of them, horses standing placidly between shouters.

They moved on.

The rock band was leaving the stage, and Nina could see a line of colorfully dressed people stepping up onto it.

The Washington Monument was precisely behind the stage; its tip almost touched the bottom of the circle that was the moon.

More signs, some of them actually offering information:

I THINK CONGRESS IS DOING A GOOD JOB: 31%

I THINK CONGRESS IS DOING A POOR JOB: 60%

I DON’T CARE: 9%

AP POLL, YESTERDAY.

But most of them simply confrontational, such as the one being waved by a group of men wearing cowboy hats and plaid shirts:

GOD IS A MAN!

Which was, of course, responded to by a group of young women, who had just made their own sign, and printed it in black marker:

SO
THAT’S
WHY THINGS ARE SO SCREWED UP!

And on and on.

Until, finally, the group of people on the stage took their seats.