03.10.01

it occurs to me sometimes that there is something wrong with me.

it occurs to me at times that although i have a great deal of anger towards Institutions, such as the Hetero-Patriarchy, or the Racist Establishment, that i seem to have an awfully hard time getting angry at individuals. this bothers me. i like to imagine myself as a Wrathful Goddess, striking down injustice with lightning bolts, filling the hearts of the oppressors with terror. and while my pen has proved itself quite capable of shooting lightning bolts...my mouth--well, my mouth isn't quite up to speed.

there was a man. there once a man who was standing in line at a hess gas station. he was standing in line behind a girl, once upon a time, and once upon a time, the girl was me. once upon a time, the man was standing Far Too Close for Comfort. right there, in broad daylight. call it an overly bulky down jacket, or bad depth perception, but once upon a time, in line at the Hess gas station, a man was standing Too Close to me. i bought a pack of gum and a roll of life savers. i gave the cashier one dollar and seven cents: 3 quarters, 2 dimes, 2 nickels, and 2 pennies. i counted the change correctly. i turned around. once upon a time, in line at the hess gas station, i turned around after paying for a pack of gum and a roll of lifesavers, and a man who had been standing too close to me reached out and touched my hair.

My Hair. the hair on My Head, which up until that moment had been lying there innocently, minding its own business. once upon a time the man reached out and touched my hair, and he said in a gravelly Malboro Man voice, "Your hair is real pretty. I love Indian hair. And you girls are always so quiet and nice, with those big eyes. I just love seeing you girls around."

you might not believe this. hess gas stations have security cameras. i imagine that this is on tape. i imagine that this is being made into a silent movie called What Sometimes Happens to Colored Girls and nobody is watching. but you could read his lips and see that this really happened if you did.

his hand was still on my hair. i could smell his breath, metallic and glinting of cigarette smoke, and see the dirt gathered in his pores. he appeared to be sweating. once upon a time, after a man who had been standing Too Close to me touched my hair at a Hess gas station, i stepped backwards. i wanted to vomit on his shoes. i noticed that his fly was unzipped. i thought maybe i was choking. i suddenly wondered if i could write a letter to the lifesavers company and demand my money back. the lifesavers were not saving my life. they weren't even helping. my mouth smiled. mouths do these things. they produce smiles readily, without requiring any emotions to accompany them. i think i said "excuse me, sir, but i have to go." i think i said this, but i'm not sure, because like the hess security cameras, my mind was a silent movie and in the movie everything was dripping with molasses and vomit. i know that my mouth opened and some words, like bubbles, floated out.

and then i left. i threw my gum and lifesavers in the brown plastic trash can. once upon a time the man, who i had called "sir" although there was nothing about him that deserved my respect, got into a red rusted dodge truck and drove away, muffler rattling loudly. i think he was smiling. i think he liked my big eyes.

i sometimes think that there is something wrong with me.

it's all on the hess gas station security camera, a silent movie for anybody to see, and if you listen closely you can hear the words a Wrathful Goddess would have screamed in her clear, powerful, lightning-bolt rage.

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xoxo,

moonbird

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