Previously published on patriciaannmcnair.com
You can do anything…Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
–Donald Trump
I overheard a friend recently say that every woman is afraid every day.
I am not afraid.
Despite living in a city that a presidential candidate would have us believe is as dangerous as Baghdad. Despite having my ass grabbed in a crowded museum in this same city when I was on a field trip when I was twelve. Despite my looking behind me into the crowd of faces (all kids, all around my age, boys and girls, some I knew, some I did not) and meeting no eyes, seeing no sympathy. Despite my turning back (maybe I imagined it) to the exhibit, a slice of a human embryo pressed between panes of glass, and again having my ass grabbed. Despite hearing the snickers behind me.
I am not afraid.
Despite having a man come into the Iowa gas station in a safe city where I worked a register during my twenties, come in a few times a week during the evening rush and go into the bathroom, come out with his zipper down and his dick visible, right in my line of sight because that is where he held out his hand to me with his money for the gas he had pumped, for the six pack he had grabbed from the cooler, right there at open-zippered dick level, and the line behind him was long and shuffling, eager to get home to dinner, to the nightly news, to Jeopardy, and it took me a few times of the same damn thing to understand that this was not an accident. This was not an accident.
And to accuse, no matter who it is, a man or a woman, without evidence is damaging and unfair.
– Malania Trump
Still, I am not afraid.
Despite having had a man lure me into Grant Park in this most dangerous city when I was thirteen. Lure me with the promise of five bucks just to listen to him tell a little joke. Despite the joke not being a joke at all, but a stream of filthy, dirty things that he spit out of his mouth while he pulled his dick out and started jacking off, and, like I’ve said I was thirteen, right? Remember? And what could I do? And what could I do? I said I would go with him. I wanted five dollars. And he finished and I followed him out of the park to a bank where he said he was going to get five dollars; he was going to give me ten I was so nice. And I stood outside the bank thinking I had done something worth at least ten bucks, and feeling a little sick with that, a little sad, and the motherfucker never came out. I don’t know where he went, where he disappeared to, but I didn’t see him again. Not that day. But another and another, and I do still, see him everywhere, on the street, on the train, in Grant Park, even though I don’t really see him at all.
How about a little hug for the Bushy?
– Billy Bush
I am not afraid.
Despite having my boobs grabbed while I had my hands up over my head holding a tray of corned beef sandwiches that I was selling in a packed bar on Division Street in this dangerous city on Saint Patrick’s Day when I was twenty-two.
Despite having one of my brother’s friends show up at our house when I was nine and home alone, sick from school. My brother’s friend who I had always had a crush on. A teenager. Show up at the house when I was home sick from school—how did he know? And make me a hot rum toddy (because it would make my throat less sore) and climb under the covers with me, which I liked. And cuddle me. Which I liked. And put his fingers inside me. Which I did not like.
Wow! Just think—in a couple of years, I’ll be dating you.
–Donald Trump
I am not afraid.
Despite having been slipped a valium in my drink at a club by a man I was seeing when I was twenty-three and living in a small, safe city in Iowa, a man who was staying with me and who I was having sex with already, and had intended to have sex with again that night when we got back to my house after the club, so why did he think he needed to drug me? (I never did ask him. Why didn’t I ask him?)
Despite (also in Iowa, in a safe, small city) once having sex with a man on our first (and only) date who I didn’t want to have sex with (sometimes I did on the first date, not with him, but with others I liked better, with others I wanted to have sex with, my choice) but who would not leave me alone and would not go home until I did, and I did, because it was easier to say yes than to say no (you know what I mean, you know it) and my brother was asleep in the next room, our housemate was asleep in another room close by, and I was embarrassed to be half-naked on the couch of my own living room, exposed, (I would not invite him into my bedroom, into my bed, he would not get that from me,) and I just wanted this guy gone. Here, you can have this. Just this. Now go.
Despite having had to resist a guy I knew in college in safe Iowa who, when we sat next to one another in the grass in the dark, a little drunk, a Friday night, finals over, when we kissed, he thought that meant we would fuck, and it did not mean—to my mind—that we would fuck, and I said no. No. No. But the only way I could get him to stop trying to push me down, trying to open my blouse, pull down my jeans, was to promise him we would do this later, not that night, but another, I promise. We never did, and I don’t know why, but it never came up again (pun unintended, but hey, laugh, if you like, we all need to laugh sometimes) even though our paths crossed often, it was a very small school.
These allegations are decades old. If somebody actually did that…any reasonable woman would have come forward and said something at the time.
– A.J. Delgado
I am not afraid.
Despite having once been trapped by—not a co-worker, but a very rich friend of my boss when I worked on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange—in an empty hallway where he held me and started kissing me and had a look in his eyes I hadn’t seen from him before, he was a nice guy, a funny guy. An angry look. A hateful one. I thought at the time that it may have been because he had lost a lot of money in trades that day, and had recently broken up with his long-time girlfriend (she didn’t want to marry him), and his dog had died just a few days before. And why the fuck am I making excuses for him anyway?
We accepted it for years…We were taught it was our fault. –Jessica Leeds
I am not afraid.
Despite this. All this. And now I am in my sixth decade (“Believe me, she would not be my first choice.” –Donald Trump) and perhaps I have less to fear, perhaps I have more. But I am not afraid. I will not be afraid. I will say yes when I mean yes, and no when I mean no, and I will listen for the voices of others. Did you say no? I hear you. And I will join you.
NO!
No woman deserves to be treated this way—none of us deserves this kind of abuse.
–Michelle Obama
I am not afraid
I am, however, angry. And I am strong. And I am a voter. And I will vote.
Patricia Ann McNair’s The Temple of Air received the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award, Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award, and the Society of Midland Authors (US) Finalist Award. McNair’s prose has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications including American Fiction: Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, Superstition Review, Prime Number, River Teeth, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Barrelhouse, and others. Her short story, “My Mother’s Daughter,” won the Solstice Lit Mag Fiction Award. McNair also writes book reviews for the Washington Independent Review of Books. She’s received numerous Illinois Arts Council Awards and Pushcart Prize nominations and teaches in the Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago.