“I had to use the bathroom. I did knock on the back door before I came in but no one heard me. Never mind, it’s your private business.”
Tuesday. What did we do on Tuesday? Maybe nothing. Maybe he didn’t see anything.
“Snails,” Rick said.
Tuesday was the morning she cornered me on the floor. I resisted in a defensive huddle position, my wide butt high in the air.
“I need snails.” He was trying to switch topics. “For the garden. The African kind—they aerate.”
If we hadn’t heard him, it could have only been because Clee was yelling verbal harassments.
“I’m in no danger, Rick. It’s the opposite of what you’re thinking,” I said.
“Yes, I see that now. She’s your . . . it’s your private business.”
“No, it’s not private, no, no—”
He began to trip away, stabbing the grass with his special shoes.
“It’s a game!” I pleaded, following. “I do it for my health! I see a counselor.” He was scanning the yard, pretending not to hear me.
“Four or five will be plenty,” he called back.
“I’ll get seven. Or a dozen. A baker’s dozen—how’s that?” He was shuffling along the side of the house to the sidewalk. “One hundred snails!” I called out. But he was gone.
SUDDENLY I WAS CLUMSY. WHEN Clee covered my mouth and grabbed my neck in the hallway, I couldn’t fight back because I didn’t want to touch her. Before every raw impulse there was a pause—I saw us through the homeless gardener’s eyes and felt obscene. Being outside society, he didn’t know about adult games; he was like me before I met Ruth-Anne, thinking everything that happened in life was real. The next morning I left the house early, but avoiding her caused other problems. A migraine-level headache blossomed; my throat pulsed threateningly. By noon I was frantically trying to concoct a more clinical way to fight, something organized and respectable, less feverish. Boxing gloves? No, but that gave me another idea.
I staggered down the block to the warehouse; Kristof helped me dig through our old stock.
“Do you want VHS?”
“When did we stop doing scenarios? Was that 2000?”
“Scenarios?”
“Like a woman sitting on a park bench and all that. Before self-defense as fitness.”
“Those are all pre-2002. Are you putting something together for the twentieth anniversary?”
“Yes?”
“Here’s a bunch from ’96, ’97—is that good?”
COMBAT WITH NO BAT (1996) started with an attack simulation called “A Day at the Park.” A woman in espadrilles sits down on a park bench, rubs suntan lotion on her arms, takes a pair of sunglasses out of her purse, and unfolds a newspaper.
I pushed aside Clee’s purple sleeping bag and perched on the couch, my purse beside me. I pulled out my suntan lotion. Clee watched from the kitchen.
“What are you doing?”
I slowly finished rubbing in the lotion and pulled out my sunglasses.
“You attack right after I take the newspaper out,” I whispered. I opened the newspaper and yawned the way the woman had yawned on the tape, a little theatrically. Her name was Dana something, she used to teach on weekends. She didn’t have the abs or the charisma of her successor, Shamira Tye; I doubt we even paid her. Clee hesitated, then sat down beside me. She put her arm around my shoulder sooner than the attacker on the DVD had, but like him she breast-grabbed, so like Dana I elbow-jabbed, yelling, “No!”
She tried to pull me to the floor, which wasn’t in this simulation but it was in the next one, so I skipped ahead.
“No! No! No!” I screamed, pretending to knee her in the groin. I jumped to my feet and ran away. Because there wasn’t far to run I ran in place for a few seconds, facing the wall. And then jogged a little longer to avoid turning around. The whole performance was quite ridiculous. I pulled off the sunglasses and peeked back at her. She handed me the newspaper.
“Again.”
We did that one two more times and then I tried to walk us through “Lesson 2: Domestic Traps,” which takes place in a kitchen. I felt silly throwing fake punches but Clee didn’t seem to care that we weren’t really fighting; she sneered and harassed me with a new thuggy swagger. On the DVD Dana’s attacker wore a backward baseball cap and said things like Hey, baby doll, or C’mere, sweetcakes. In “Lesson 3: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Front Door,” he purred, Yum, yum, yum from the shadows. Of course Clee didn’t say any of these things but I could sort of guide her toward his basic blocking with Dana’s flinches and looks of horror, and on a cellular level Clee knew exactly what to do—she’d seen hundreds of demonstrations like this before the age of five.
After an hour we were exhausted but unbruised. She squeeze-squeezed my hand and gave me a long, strange look before we went our separate ways. I shut the bedroom door and rolled my head. The migraine was gone; my throat was soft. I didn’t feel euphoric, but I knew this could work. If only Rick had seen “Domestic Traps” instead of whatever it was we were doing before. This wasn’t anything, just a re-creation of a simulation of the kind of thing that might happen to a woman if she didn’t keep her wits about her.
While Clee was at work I learned the rest of Combat with No Bat. “Lesson 4: Fighting from Inside Cars” utilized a couch and set of car keys. “Gang Defense” was too complicated—I skipped it. “Woman Asking Directions” was a quickie; my only line was “Do you know where the nearest drugstore is?” For the wrap-up Dana asked me to call my own answering machine, perform ten maximum-loud nos, and listen back to it: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
“Yikes!” she said. “Who’s that terrifying woman screaming on your message machine?! That’s you.” I rehearsed not only the kicks and grabs but all the dialogue and staging. Dana really threw herself into the skits; shock, fear, anger—she demonstrated not just what to do but how to feel. My favorite moments were right before the assault—lounging on the park bench, walking casually to the front door. My hair felt long and heavy on my back; I swung my hips a little, knowing I was being watched, hunted even. It was interesting to be this kind of person, so unself-conscious and exposed, so feminine. Dana could have had a career making videos like this for all occasions—waking up, answering the phone, leaving the house; a woman could follow along and learn what to do when she’s not being attacked, how to feel the rest of the time.
The last three lessons were slightly disturbing; it was obvious why Open Palm never made a dime from this series. Dana asks the viewer to gather up some household items—a soccer ball, a pillowcase, bungee cord—and fabricate a makeshift head. “When you’re kicking a real head, it won’t bounce as much, but there will be some give and you want to be ready for that. Skulls are softer than you think.” By “Lesson 10: Mercy and Advanced Mercy,” I wondered if any of us had ever watched this video all the way through; Dana seemed to be doing her own thing. With her high heel pressed against the soccer ball she listed the reasons why a person might be allowed to live. “They have little children. They have pets that are unlikely to be adopted—for example, a smelly old dog with no teeth. Are you killing a dog by killing her owner? Maybe ask if they have pets and then ask to see a picture or for a description of the pet’s health level. Lastly: religious reasons. These are personal and fall outside of the scope of this video, but in some people’s religions killing isn’t allowed, even in self-defense. If you’re not sure, you might want to check with a local parish, synagogue, or mosque.”
The next morning I took a deep breath and approached Clee on the couch. I had a question for her.
“Do you, um, know where the nearest drugstore is?”
She blinked, a confused half second. Then her left nostril curled and her eyes hardened.
“Yes, I do,” she said, slowly rising to stand. Which wasn’t the right line, but close enough.
I REHEARSED NEW SCENARIOS EVERY afternoon while she was at work and introduced them each morning before she left. For a few days it was exciting to reveal each one as if I’d just dreamed it up with my own very creative mind. But soon it was frustrating when Clee did and said things that were completely inconsistent with Dana’s attacker. It would have been a lot easier if she just watched the DVD and learned her part. On her day off I put Combat with No Bat on the coffee table while she was sleeping. I did it without thinking too hard, got in my car and headed to work. At a red light I drew in all my breath and froze. What had I done? The moment she put the disc in she would know I had practiced moves in front of the TV and memorized lines, as if I really cared about this. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment—now she would see me, see who I really was. A woman whose femininity was just copied from another woman.
“Feel my forehead,” I said to Jim. “Is it a million degrees?”
“It’s not hot but it’s clammy. And you look pale.”