Under Seige

At last, Brenda has her publicity. At last she is on national TV. The cameras are parked outside her door. She can’t leave the house without speaking to them. The phone keeps ringing. She’s turned off her cell.

It was all over the morning papers. They had a picture of Sheba and Phoenix that someone had taken at the Wagmans. Sheba’s arm is outstretched. She had been holding Zeke’s hand, but that was cropped out of the picture.

Sheba had been as scantily dressed at that party as she was in the picture now, but Brenda hadn’t seen it that way. Now she was horrified that she’d let her go like that. Phoenix looked like a madman, his red freak flag flying.

Mitchell had prepared statements for them all. Sheba was supposed to be contrite and apologize to the camp and her Aunt Manya (they had dug up everything.) Brenda was supposed to defend her daughter and say she’d just exercised bad judgment. Jason was supposed to show tolerance of the young man, who had fine parents, and whom he liked; the kids had merely made a silly mistake; and oh, yes, everyone was supposed to say there was nothing sexual between them.

Now Brenda knows what Sarah Palin felt like. A mother bear whose cub is being attacked. Sheba had just turned thirteen; Manya herself had made her a cake. She was just barely a teenager. How dare they imply she has had adult sex? Though she’s being kept away from it now, her daughter is going to hear all of this. She might get the idea that they’re talking about the real her, and subconsciously try to live up, or down, to their image.

Jason has not gone to work. Nobody’s left the house since last night when Brenda came home with Sheba. She kept Jason away from the camp and is trying to keep him away from his daughter for as long as possible. He’s blaming everybody. The camp, the Wagmans, but mostly Sheba.

Sheba does not want to apologize. She says they sent her to prison, and if she has to talk, that’s what she’ll say. She’ll tell about the snake pit. And a lot of other things. She doesn’t say what.

Brenda does not want to defend her daughter. She can not excuse bad judgment. Bad judgment is the deepest reflection of a self. The bad judgment Sheba exercised was in doing such a thing while her mother was running for congress.

Jason wants to kill Phoenix, not excuse him. He knows damn well there’s something sexual between them, and if it hasn’t been consummated yet, they’ve obviously tried twice.

Zeke is peeking out an upstairs window at the cameras planted on the lawn and their tenders below them. Life is exciting. He’s sorry he’s the only one having fun, but that doesn’t spoil it as long as he stays away from the rest of them.

They remain in the house all day while Wagman issues statement after statement from his own headquarters. Nothing changes, it’s always the same; both sets of parents are conferring with their children. They are all saddened by this turn of events, but determined to come to grips with it. They have strong family bonds; they will recover; these are good kids who misbehaved. Nina writes a lot of the stuff he sends out.

It’s getting on to evening news time. The journalists are nervous. Mary Steele, the local reporter, has been there since early morning. She’s cranky. So are the cameramen. They’re not getting their sound bites. This is going to be a wasted day.

Then somebody saves it.

An apparition appears. Sauntering down the street comes that darling of the press, Mercy Alexander. In a long green dress, with a cone of cardinal-red feathers, she stops on the sidewalk in front of the house.

“Leave the lady alone,” she says, her voice deep, her posture stately. “This has nothing to do with the running of our country. You all have children; you know how they behave. They behave like children. You should be ashamed of yourselves for getting in the sandbox with them and throwing dirt.” She bows her head slightly so the red cone points out at the cameras. They have their sound bite.

When Adele hears this, she is furious. The woman has taken control. She’s used Brenda’s misfortune to once more call attention to herself. Mercy is making Brenda look small and weak. They have to do something, but she doesn’t know what.

Nat knows what. Natty Nat says Brenda has to rise above it. Rise above it all. Refuse to talk about any children, not just her own. Refuse to talk about anything until we have straightened out our position with the rest of the world, because if we don’t, there’s not going to be a world left for anybody’s children. Nat is blunt. Nobody listens to him.

Chauncey is the only one who looks at it from the kids’ point of view. Kids are always being held back, treated like children, when they’re actually potent adults, especially when it comes to sex. In the halls, between classes, all these women – yes, women, physically, you take a look someday – walking around with their tits hanging out, or covered with that stretchy material. Strutting their stuff. Like little whores, trying to get the boys hot.

The boys, at the age when most of their hard-ons will happen, having them right there in the hall, in class, in the cafeteria, everyplace, because that’s what they were put on earth for. To get their rocks off and perpetuate the race.

He wishes they’d leave these two alone. It’s obvious they weren’t doing anything, only acting like adults and meeting at the mall. Exercising their freedom. Freedom they apparently don’t have. He feels sorry for them. He remembers when.

Speaking of the kids, Phoenix has been assigned to his room while Mom and Dad put out their message, which is, “There is no romance between Phoenix and Sheba. They've known each other since they were kids and are old friends.” Phoenix's lying is not an aberration in the family, just an exaggerated extension.

He is on the phone. With the professor. He’s telling her about his trip to jail. She’s telling him about the ride home with her parents. They can’t decide which was worse. Lots of laughs between these two.

Rowena and Rosalind have dropped out of the picture because it’s a better story for the press without them. Three girls and a guy is not a romance.

Brenda is in trouble, because kids are what her campaign is all about. She answers questions about health care, illegals, and anything else that comes up, but she’s the education candidate. Now she’s the education expert with a runaway child, which is what they’re calling Sheba.

She hates the media. Hounding her like this. They’re dogs. The minute a scrap of meat falls into the cage, they tear it apart.

But she was horrified to see Mercy Alexander walk across her stage. And humiliated when, after Mercy’s condescending little speech, which she watched on TV, the crews folded up their gear and disappeared.

Her face was burning. She wanted to rush out and call them back – give them a piece of her mind about picking on an innocent child, ruining an entire family’s life. But she made herself sit still and think. And think. And think.

And damned if she didn’t come up with an idea. What had Adele said? She needed something snappy. Education is important, but it is not snappy. What is? What is?

Sex. Sex is snappy. But how can she get from education to sex? Sex education! There’s a topic. Condoms. Homosexuality. No, she can’t have that – Mercy Alexander has that. She’d better not even mention it. It will only bring up a picture of her opponent. Abortion.

That’s it. Abortion. Clyde Waters had talked to her about the morning-after pill, at the party. And he’d come to that “Our Bodies” rally. She can team up with Waters on the abortion issue. Mercy Alexander won’t be able to touch her there. The Republicans won’t let her. Every time the word is mentioned, they lose another vote.

No real people are against abortion. Only religious nuts who think that women came from Adam’s rib. People living in pre-history should not be allowed to make the rules for others. And they want to. No doubt about that. They want to say that once the seed is planted, a woman has no choice. Send women back to the dark ages, where they crouched over toilets with knitting needles, or went to dirty doctors’ offices, where they got infected and died.

They want to say a woman’s place is in the home, and if babies keep her there, that’s her lot in life. And men? Men have nothing to do with it. No man should suffer because a woman doesn’t want his child. The child is his. What a load that is. What does he do but get a charge out of the beginning? The country seems to be filled with men who don’t want to take care of their children. But let one woman say she doesn’t want the responsibility, and they come crawling out of the woodwork to shake their fingers and put her back in her place.

Clyde had said something at the party about a woman who’d refused to sell the morning-after pill. What right does anyone have to withhold information from physicians about the latest advances in women’s reproductive health? Abortion is nothing more than a cure for an unwanted pregnancy. There ought to be a law.

That’s it! A law prohibiting people in the health professions from refusing to participate in the abortion option.

Something should be done about that woman and all her prudish kind.