Violation (24 page)

“Meat” began with nothing more than a memory of my mother's freezer, filled with packages of meat wrapped in butcher's paper, like white rocks scattered among food. There was no more to it than that at first. Only this image, and no idea what it meant or where it would go—and then I wrote around it, opened it up, found more details, a story. “Note how the verb tense changes in several paragraphs, helping to quicken the action,” the text explains. “Why does the first sentence in paragraph 7 begin in the past tense—‘Buying meat was like this every time'—and then immediately shift to the present tense—‘I
am
with my mother …'?” Italics and grammar theirs.

I can answer that one, in fact. The style follows and leads at once: A child opens the freezer to see the packages of meat, so the voice is ruminative, meditative, with the conditional
would
and
could
scattered through, and occasional repetitions, as in, “I grew wings like angel wings”—the kind of repetition editors and writing professors tend to cross out with red pens, common in my voice. Certain scenes seem to recur again and again, almost like ritual. There are unanswered questions posed, ambiguous scenes, mistakes. I want to convey the point of view of a strange and isolated child, a hidden and sensual child, who doesn't try to explain herself to others—observing without understanding.

Most of a writer's decisions are unconscious. A stroke of paint here, a switch to a minor key there, the use of
flaccid
instead of
soft.
At this level, expression simply appears; it is expression expressing itself, images, ideas, states of mind, and feelings being acted out, evoked, displayed. An idea appears, connects to another, a layer appears and then another—suddenly there is a leap—Ah-ha! This connects to this, this idea hides under this idea, and if I move this detail to the end, then suddenly the whole tone becomes suspenseful. Later, in revisions, with careful polishing, the impulsive choice is reconsidered, sometimes rejected, sometimes improved, tightened, expanded anew. So we go on, version
to version, tweaking, shifting, hemming, primping. I don't know how one knows the right word or the right tense, how exactly I know when a sentence needs two fewer or one more syllable. I can go on about rhythm and prosody, about mood or tone, but sometimes one just has to take the gifts the world gives us.

What none of these books does is celebrate—shout with the fun of Ian Frazier's marvelous “Canal Street” or cry at Brooks's “The Mother.” They tell the student to make an outline instead of to share a passage with a friend. Critical reading doesn't laugh, doesn't snort in disdain or slam itself shut in frustration. When I recall those midnight coffee-shop huddles, I remember the intensity of feeling we shared. I remember how much the books mattered. These textbooks don't ponder the way a reader ponders; they ponder the way a textbook ponders, which is ponderous indeed. And I'm afraid that, less than halfway through any of them, the benighted sophomore will be thinking of changing her major to biology.

Anything not to read George Orwell's heartbreaking essay “Shooting an Elephant” and then have to answer the question, “If he had believed in the goals and values of British imperialism, would his actions have had more integrity?” Anything not to read Denise Levertov's poetic shout of exhausted rage, “The Mutes,” and then have to answer the question, “Would you call this poet hostile to men?”

Recently, in one collection, I came across an essay called “The Miracle Chicken” by my friend Bernard Cooper. The editor asks, “What is Cooper's purpose here? Why do you think Cooper tells us about his father's affairs? How do you think Cooper feels about his father?” For once I can answer these questions with some confidence, partly because I know there are no simple answers to these questions. His father has long been one of his favorite subjects and their relationship a fertile field of sometimes mutant flowers. He is a careful and patient writer, and there is much more to any story he writes than what he tells. Like all serious writers, he controls the appearance of his stories—seemingly
spontaneous and unguarded here, a bit artless there—but every word “a created pose.” That's not—or shouldn't be—a surprise. That's writing. Study questions about the work of friends remind me to be careful reading the work of strangers—careful to remember that much is hidden, that I can't know what is accident and what design. Artlessness is one of the most difficult effects of all.

The plain truth is, I don't really want to know. Reading between the lines means reading a lot of blank space, and there aren't any words in those blank spaces. I've occasionally been complimented as a brave writer—but I know what I didn't say, what I was too craven to include. Only I know how carefully I've held the light so that the shadows fall just so. Perhaps others can say, “Here are shadows; here is light.” But they will never know what the shadows hide. Sometimes I recognize my own lies only later, when the work is done.

How would I change college literature classes? I still think Mr. Huffman had the right idea. Read, read, read, and then try to explain how it feels. Read a book because someone you like tells you it's a good book. Listen to other readers when they react. Read some more. I believe that one reason I learned to write is that no one ever really tried to teach me, or rather, one reason I became a writer is that no one ever tried to tell me what a writer was supposed to be like. I had nothing to rebel against and nothing to measure myself beside except the stories in my mind. Writing classes? Oh, they're impossible. And yes, I do teach writing sometimes, and it too is a devil's business.

I still don't read with a critical eye. A recent textbook says, “For your writing to improve, you must learn to read like a writer.” I believe it would be better for me to write like a reader. Most of what I know about writing I know from reading—but reading whole, as a reader reads, lost and unfettered, wandering in another's world without a jaded eye. Wandering free of all jaded things is part of the joy of reading; how dare anyone take it away? We can surrender to a master of rhetorical sophistication without any need to wonder how or why. Maybe literature lives only in the
reader—born in the changing life, taking its breath in the reader's changing life, a different story for each person who reads it. If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears, does it make a sound? Who cares? Until I open the book, there are no words inside.

Creative Nonfiction
, 2004

I am a reader frantic at times with how much more there is to read. I disappear into the work. I form intimate relationships with authors, assume I understand them, that they would understand—and like—me, and that I know their intentions. I am probably wrong about all of that. As a writer, I don't think about this much. Anthologies give us a window into everything wrong with how we teach writing—and reading—and how one is actually read. It's not pretty.

     
Balls

WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND YELLED
, “
LET
'
S PLAY BALL!
”
play
meant more than
ball
. We played all kinds of games, many centered on running. When we were very young, we played Crocodile in the wading pool—one child crawling through the shallows with teeth bared, the others flailing in rapturous terror. Later we invented Monster, a frenzied combination of chase and tag. Summer meant vicious games of Red Rover in the sunny field, filling the quiet afternoon with laconic calls and bone-jarring thuds.

In the days when there was no such thing as exercise, the game I loved best was football. It was a brutal, gleeful game, best played in winter mud as sharp-edged as sheet metal. The mob mind prevailed—sometimes we just called the game
tackle-pile-on
. The bottom was the best place to be, as it was often better to be chased than to chase, better to splash away, shrieking, better to be caught, to be out, to be free.

Balls were just an excuse for the dirt and the running: football, kickball, tetherball, softball, dodgeball—the ball itself didn't matter much. The hot, winded pounding of our hearts is what mattered.

Later on, the ball mattered, too.

My brother played football and lettered in gymnastics. In high school, I tried the gymnastics team and track, the only girls' sports, but they were the wrong things for my stocky, bosomy body with its odd centers of gravity. So I learned to climb, lifted weights, hiked, and rode my bike. I liked it all, but these were solitary things. I wanted games—I wanted balls. One summer I trained as
a New Games coach. New Games are simple kinds of play designed to eliminate even the idea of competition. No score, no points, no losing, no goal. Our t-shirts read, “Play Hard, Play Fair, Nobody Hurt,” but they might as well have said, “Nobody Wins.” I missed victory. And many of the games deteriorated into a gentle mayhem, tackle-pile-on without bruises or mud. Without tackling. The games got boring fast, and the only ball was a giant inflatable Earth.

In the seventies I joined a community softball league, put together by a bunch of hippies longing for baseball but determined to be counterculture about it. It was softball sprinkled with a little dope dust, but it was also my first time playing with a real ball, a ball with a life of its own. We played hard and often—dozens of us on eighteen teams, with a season running from April through October. The rules prohibited strikeouts and required each team to field at least four women at all times. We had no umpires—or more precisely, we were our own umpires. Most of the players worked in small nonprofits and collectives; long committee meetings were the rule of the day for all of us. Deciding who was safe and who was out by consensus-based discussion had a certain diabolical logic.

My team, the Wild Turkeys, was routinely at the bottom of the league. Coach Ken let anyone play, so we were heavy with beginners, many of them women. I watch the serious girl jocks in the gym today with a pang of sharp envy; mine was the last generation of American women who grew up largely not playing organized sports. Most of the men, counterculture identities notwithstanding, had played plenty of sports over the years. It was not just my first time on a team—it was my first time playing real sports with—and against—men.

The pitchers were required to help the hitter hit, a rule intended to compensate for the wildly varying levels of skill, and also to make the game more interesting—more fun. I loved the no-strikeout rule, because when I started playing softball, I wanted to get a hit more than anything. I was an average beginner, earnest and a bit erratic, but competitive enough to become a serviceable player after a few seasons. All I wanted was a hit and any kind of
hit would do—that marvelous sting of bat on ball, the solid glee of watching it fly away, feeling it fly away, as though I were flying, too.

For a few seasons, I pitched for the Wild Turkeys. At least once a game I got cracked in the shin or had to throw myself to the ground to duck from a drive. Some of the men—ponytailed, beer-drinking hippies like the rest, but much more serious about sports—played community ball because it was the only game in town. They missed strikeouts, big time. They missed the umpires. And they groused, not very quietly, about the female quota. These serious men stalked to the plate with the heaviest bat slung on their shoulder, settled into a stance, gave me the evil eye, watched my slow, soft lob come in, swung with all their might—and popped up. They were easy outs, bopping nice soft ones into the shortstop's lap, easy smacks into the glove of the grinning woman confined to center field. The strongest men, the hardest hitters, popped out inning after inning because they only wanted home runs. The women, still learning to play and happy to get any hit, made their bases on dribbling grounders to the infield. They brought each other home, laughing with the strange new calls we'd learned, the
good hustle
and
hey batter
and
slide
! “Lucky swing,” the men would mutter.

One day, I figured something out: I was a better player than they were.

AFTER FOUR YEARS
, a back injury, and a move to a new city, I didn't play ball in any form for years. I juggled children, jobs, and writing, and had no hands left to juggle balls. Eventually I was lifting weights again, hiking, riding my bike. I learned to dive. But Lord, I missed softball. I knew I really wasn't good enough for the city leagues, and I thought my back was probably past the twisting and sliding of a good game … Still, I wanted that team thing, that gospel call-and-response. I wanted to be playing ball.

I started going to the Wednesday night co-ed volleyball game at the YMCA. Right away, I was back to the well-oiled muscles, damp skin, the sped-up mind of play, this time with volleyball's own soft mantras: “Side-out, side-out!” “Back! Over!” It
was a bigger ball, a smaller field, but the same fluid motion until I would lose myself in the metaphysical presence of the ball, the place where the ball might be. Falling asleep after hours of play, I watched myself watch the ball, kneeling, screaming, spreading my arms wide in an iconic plea for help. After playing for a while, I came to know in the moment of placing my body to meet the ball if I would hit it well or poorly, if I would get the sharp tang of a spike or watch it float haplessly over the net. I was back again to the long reaches, the slides—the treacherous ball, the beloved ball.

The YMCA had a lot of regulars: a guy who lifted a ton of weight for an hour before coming up to the court, a short man who carefully combed his few hairs over his pate before stepping out. There were a few women, some very good players; there were a few good men, and a vast abundance, a cornucopia, a veritable feast of pop-fly boys.

I was learning the game; I made dramatic, egregious errors sometimes. Like most of the women, I took the blame when I screwed up and was quick to apologize. It is partly that old conditioned response, the Pavlovian drool of shame women develop around sports. But I also knew when I'd made a mistake and felt the need to admit it. In contrast, in surprise, I watched the men flail about after an error, watched them swear, stomp, pound the posts, kick the ball—the offending ball—as though they'd been cheated. The joyful tumble of
tackle-pile-on
seemed far away from this tawdry, mean court. They didn't love the ball the way I did—they seemed in fact to hate it. They
wanted
the ball, but more the way one wants revenge than cake. They had ball envy—the slicing hunger for the soft, round phallus in your hands. Your hands, and no one else's.

It didn't take me long to figure out that I was a better player than most of them. I wasn't a powerful player, not at all flashy, just what I've come to realize is called a utility player. I made my passes, and if my spikes were rather more like gentle taps than slams, at least they were over the net.

This wasn't the big leagues, but it was a long way from New Games. A man flies up for a hard spike and slams the ball straight
into the net, so that it springs right back into his face with a sharp whack. A guy in the back court rushes forward, trying to steal the set from the woman there. She is too quick for him, and spikes the ball. But the other team is quick, too, and returns the spike, right into our back court, right where the hotshot is supposed to be, and isn't. He's still in the frontcourt, out of his zone, yelling at the woman: “You handed it to them, dammit. You handed it to them!”

One night when several men in a row on both teams served hard out of court, and the serve shifted in side-outs back and forth, back and forth with no volleys, I yelled, “It's the boys' night out!” No one got the joke except the woman setting for the other team, who smiled and rolled her eyes to heaven.

My husband used to play basketball with a bunch of other white-collar guys. One night he hobbled home, barely walking, and told me he'd hurt his ankle early in the game. None of the other players, including the two physicians, checked on him until the game was over. He sat on the bench in pain until it ended and someone was willing to drive him home. “Of course,” he explained, “if they hadn't been
playing,
it would have been different.”

I began to wonder if men were just more appropriately involved than I, just more real sportsmen. Did I misunderstand? Was the vague metaphor of sport as war not metaphor at all? Sometimes I would forget the score and have to ask for it when it was my turn to serve. If a man grew overwrought, I'd say, “It's only a
game
,” and they would stare at me as though I'd surrendered to the enemy just as victory was sure.

It was years before I thought to feel sorry for these guys. The men with whom I'd played softball would rather stomp off the field in disgust than pull the ball down a little and find the gaping holes in our ragged field. They didn't seem to know how good an ordinary base hit felt. The mad spikers didn't seem to know how fine was a lofting set, how right a high assisting pass. They never whooped with relief or joy, shouting with delight for bringing someone else on home.

One man at the Y was the champion ball-stealer—my ball,
any woman's ball. He was a bad player, aggressive but without finesse, and he would loudly point out where each woman should stand and tell us to rotate when the serve changed, as though we had never played before.

During one game we played side by side, and with each play he would shift toward me a few feet, too close, harshly whispering instructions under his breath and distracting me.

When I served, that girlish underhand the men disdain, it was low and sleek over the net and we had a point.

He rolled his eyes.

He set to me in the frontcourt because he had no choice. I tapped it over into the opposition's backcourt, someone bobbled it, and we had the point.

“Well, great!” I said, for something to say.

“It would have been
out
if they hadn't
gone
for it.”

What could I say? I didn't hiss or sigh. I didn't tell him to back off, I didn't smile and agree. I just looked at him. My daughter stood on the sidelines, cheering us on, cheering everyone on equally with no concern for the score.

What could I say? Finally, toward the end of play, he raced up from the backcourt behind a woman in spike position, reached over her shoulder to steal her hit, and slammed her to the ground. She slid across the wooden floor on her elbows and landed in a heap. I was the only person on the team to move, to ask if she was all right. The offender wouldn't even look at her. But worse, far worse—she wouldn't look at him. She didn't say anything at all. She just brushed herself off and took her place again.

Joanna Russ famously said years ago that men aren't pigs—they're fools. And they are surely fools for balls. The fleshy ball is a bullet, a spear, a knife of the patriarchy, and the team a tribe grimly fighting for the cave. They hunt; we gather. I sometimes wondered what happened when there were no women there. Did they circle the gymnasium, pissing in every corner?

I played a little softball this summer for the first time in years—six of us at a picnic playing pick-up. I was the only woman,
playing with five nice guys I've known for a long time, and I walked onto the field with a shiver of delight. I was pretty bad at it. I hadn't thrown a softball for a long time. But we were all pretty bad and no one was in a hurry about anything. I swung and flubbed and swung again and finally got a hit, and lumbering through the dust to first base, I remembered that it is best to be tackled. Best to be under the familiar weight of all the rest of the players than make it to home base all alone.

I STOPPED PLAYING
at the YMCA. I joined a women's game at an old community center on Monday evenings. The gym is tiny; the volleyball net stretches from wall to wall and there is barely room behind the line to serve. On hot nights there is no breeze, no air; we prop the door open and the ball shoots out now and then, disappearing into weeds. But the slapping, thwacking sounds of the game, shoes squeaking, ball thudding, is the same, it's universal, like a repeated dream, and the music is all iconic female chant: “Mine!” “Back!” “Good set!” “Good hustle!” “Nice try.” We slap hands, slap shoulders. Often we cry: “Help!” We say
help
to mean the ball is too far away,
help
to say we can't reach it,
help
to say we can't do it alone. We say
help
, the way women do in need, and in love.

In that tiny gym, we are always banging into each other—everyone lunging for the ball, racing for it, longing for the ball, just so we can pass it along again as soon as it touches our hands.

Everyone except Julie, small and tidy and quick. She plays like a man. She's always trying to steal the ball from the rest of us. She wants those big
cojones
all to herself.