Cheetos in suits: How I survived drumpf’s rape from the podium in c minor.
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. As I’m writing this I gotta tell you that I haven’t written a damned thing since the orange man in the suit grabbed my metaphorical pussy.
To put this in perspective, over the past two years I’ve written 3 full length novels and 4 kids books. I’m was/am working on a memoir about the kaleidoscope LSD jumble of what an abused brain looks like in survival mode. Yet lately, until this moment,I have been an unproductive slug. A banana on the road. A cold snot rag. I’ve forgotten how to metaphor.
What I have done is notch several more Netflix Original series under my belt. Shameless is my current drug of choice. I got so addicted and bingy (definition: binge-like full of binge-stuffing oneself with turkey) that I feel like the Gallaghers are my new family and this is my house. This is a defense mechanism. This is my toddler brain going off to Never-never land. I have also slept and slept and slept with the assistance of bourbon and large gulps of carbs. Hawaiian Luau kettle chips.
I’m making up for time for all the years I’ve lain awake. Monsters under the bed and all that. Which is the worst shittiest cliche I can come up with. But I’m two weeks off of my game. And I haven’t slept, you know, for three years since the nightmares began. But now in these sepia days I’ve slept so much that I feel sluggishly drugged. How many naps can one take in the day?
What I’ve also done is blow any expendable income I have on expensive blocks of British cheese from the Market and also on pricey deliveries of bougie gluten free pizza. I’ve rarely left my bed, my bedroom or my house for the barest of necessities. Run the dog. Buy toilet paper. Work my few bar shifts at the fancy sushi joint downtown. Paychecks, the chocolate lab and my kids keep me breathing. A fish in shallow water. One gill face down. Taking it in.
This is a setback I wasn’t expecting. I’d prepared myself to write this memoir of survival for me and for you. And I was knocking it out of the park. Ten thousand maniacal words in no time. I was graphing and charting the places where memory broke me down to oatmeal. Stir. Microwave. Add sugar. Sip my coffee. And it was helping. It was cathartic. This writing process is flooding all of the hands and penises back up from the basement like a sump pump straw. And I wasn’t choking on my story anymore. I was strong. I was. I had prepared for this memoir as if going into battle. Don’t laugh, but I pretend I’m Joan of Arc.
For the first time in my life I had the clarity to get my shit together. I hired an assistant to edit and organize my manuscripts. I ran and meditated and did push ups. And watched self help videos. I opened a savings account. I drank kombucha and lemon water. I did yoga and Pilates for abs. I planned travel to Florida and Ireland and Astoria. I cut back on the whiskey. Quit smoking. Made lists. Checked things off. It took me 49 years to get here. Sword in hand. Fearless. Fabulous. Peaceful.
BoomMOTHERFUCKERboom!
And then I got blindsided by the male candidate who is running for president when the media flushed his thrusting purple tongue and his putrid lips onto the airwaves. And by the time this is published he may or may not be president. And we may or may not have lost our collective minds. I listened as he talked and laughed about grabbing women by the pussy because he could. Because he was rich and famous. I listened as he bragged about doing whatever he wanted because the toilets where he shits the detritus of his life are plated in gold. And I felt myself starting to shrivel down. The way my Gran did. Getting shorter and smaller with each smash of his chicklet teeth. With each wave of his paw.
I felt the wind whooshing out of my sails. I felt my cheek hit the pavement. I laid myself down.
Because it’s more, it’s so much more, than just another blundering gasbag. It’s that he gave carte blanche to all the other nothings who need to feel bigger and badder than the smaller and weaker. And I felt really fucking sick. Viscerally unable to come out of my cave. This sagging jokester just gave permission to that segment of his followers who are sick fucks to run rampant. To abuse women of all races of all beliefs and of all shapes and sizes. Because. They can. Because they have a bigger bank account or a bigger backhand.
(And yes,I know they’re not all misogynistic abusers, but I can’t make the disconnect at this moment.) This creepy chip bag of a man full of crumbs and sagging hemorrhoids has made me remember in a tangible this is happening again moment how much it hurts. The way grotesque abusers smell when they breathe through their mouths. It was no longer just words in my memoir but on the big screen. At the bar where I work. On facebook. Everywhere. This gaping balloon of a creature floating over the city of my mind.
And I foolishly and with childish innocence took to social media to come out of my years of silence for the first time. Ever. And I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t ready. I thought it would help people see me as their friend, peer, family and see the wreckage and not permit this monster — this pile of shit — to govern their mothers and daughters and sons.
But they didn’t want to know, not really. People I’ve known for years proceeded to bash and post memes denouncing the women. Their story is mine and mine is theirs. My story, my pussy. Our pussies. That never happened (he said) liars (she said) locker room funnies. And I regressed. As the days went by, the barrage of hatred towards women who dared, who fucking dared, to come forward pounded at my skull like nails from a gun or pellets from a water pistol. Gas lighting me. Waterboarding me. Headaches behind the right eyeball. They came back. Lying in the fetal position. Being so helplessly angry and full of smallness at the loss of my mind…my country. I knew America was fucked up but this was next level. This was rape from the podium. This was being manhandled by strangers. By Cheetos in suits. This was dick suck and horrible fingers underneath the flag.
Oh say can you see. By the dawn’s early light.
And I couldn’t eat enough vitamin c to keep going. I couldn’t. This was too raw. It was too soon. My memories with this national neighborly backdrop. But here I am. Writing away this ignorant asshat of a human. Fuck you. Maybe you pushed my head down for 14 days or so. Maybe you thought I wasn’t strong enough to swim in the sewage and stand strong in the cliche you’ve made of girls and boys and women who’ve been fucked of their free will. But no. But fuck you. I’m here. We’re here. And we’re not going anywhere. And we jumped when you said boo. But we’ve pulled up the sheet. We see you there. Sad bag of skeletons. I’m pouring my coffee. I’m heading to Everest. I’ve picked up my sword.
