A Book of American Martyrs(165)

I told him if I’d had access to abortion, to a sane, sensible, safe abortion on demand (which was his ideal as a medical reformer) he would not have been born. And don’t you think it’s a good idea, that Gus Voorhees managed to be born?

Gus brooded. Gus had no ready answer to this.

Did you not ever suspect that your mother didn’t “want” you—dear Gus? Wasn’t it obvious? And if she’d been able to “abort” you . . .

Jesus, Lena! You are certainly blunt.

I have not been blunt at all. I have been circuitous. I have told you a lengthy story in the hope that you might see a perspective not naturally your own.

By now Gus had managed to smile. A kind of a smile—abashed, somewhat dazed.

I hoped that he would not hate me now. I thought it was a risk I must take in the interests of honesty.

Finally he conceded, OK. I see the irony. The paradox. But still—women must make their own decisions.

I could see how your father was building his argument now. Arranging his words. For he’d been dealt a blow, and it had been a physical blow—now, he must elude the consequences of the physical blow by employing familiar words.

What is unfamiliar, rendered less profound by familiar words.

Saying, You should have had the freedom to make your own decision no matter the outcome at a later time. That is the fact.

Is it? There would have been no later time to contemplate you—you’d never have been born. Just—nothing. An emptiness.

You might have had other children, Lena. To take the place of the one you’d aborted.

But none of these children would have been you. And you are precious to me, you have acquired responsibility and stature in the world and have done inestimable good for many others.

Yet stubbornly Gus insisted, Women must make their own decisions. Their bodies are theirs, not ours. It is obscene for a man—any man—to tell a woman what to do with her body. To prescribe childbirth if she isn’t ready. Or will never be ready.

So—you think it would have been better if I’d aborted you?

(It was harsh to say such words. But how otherwise to make my point.)

Lena, there is no “better”—“worse.” It’s ridiculous to be speaking in these terms. If I hadn’t been born, you would not have known of me—I would not have existed. But others might have existed in my place, superior to me. We will never know.

If Gus Voorhees had never been born no one would miss him, right?

Well, I would miss you. If I’d known, I would miss you like hell, Madelena. No mother quite like you.

You can be sarcastic, Gus, but the fact is: you are wrong to think that because you have been born you are in a position to prevent others from being born.

“Wrong” in what way—logically?

Morally.

Abortion is morally neutral. What matters is that a woman must have the freedom to control her own body which means the freedom to make mistakes. At least, these are her own mistakes. And even if for some abortion might be a mistake it is not an irrevocable mistake, for most women can become pregnant again.

I agree with you, Gus. I don’t disagree. I believe that women must have their freedom as you do. Abortion is inevitable—there will always be abortion. It must be freely available, I believe this. And yet—there was just one Gus Voorhees.

Jesus, Lena! You’re being perverse. And you’re being too literal. We are concerned for all women, not just for you—or me.

It is not possible to be too literal, Gus. There was only just one Gus Voorhees.





“HAMMER OF JESUS”:


MARCH 2008–FEBRUARY 2009


First he’d seen her he hadn’t thought much of her. Hadn’t even taken in the fact (if it was a fact) she was female.

She’d just appeared one day in the Dayton gym. Late afternoon near 6:00 P.M.

Gray sweatpants, gray sweatshirt, hoodie. Hair cropped short like a guy’s. Not tall and body solid as a young heifer’s. Narrowed stony-gray eyes that looked damp. And a runny nose she’d kept swiping with the flat of her hand.

She was shy like somebody you’d discover to be mute—deaf-mute. Kind of clumsy on her feet. Self-conscious like she was worried people were watching her. (They were not. Not yet.) Asking if she could arrange for “lessons.” How much each “lesson” would cost.

He’d said that depended.

“Well—I want to be a boxer.”

Seeing him regard her frank and near-to-sneering quickly she added, “I mean—I want to learn to box.”

Seeing he still hadn’t replied, adding—“Then, I want to be a boxer.”

“‘Want to be a boxer.’ What kind?”

“The kind that fights fights like on TV.”

“A pro?”

“Yeh. ‘Pro.’”

He wasn’t smiling. He was a long way from laughing.

Thinking it was rare they’d be white, like this one. If female, they’d be black or Hispanic. Or what some of them called themselves—Latina.

There were “Latinas” at the gym. Came in after work, to workout. Fleshy bodies, not muscled. Sexy-fleshy-female bodies displaying themselves at the machines, pummeling the heavy bag with sixteen-ounce boxing gloves until within a scant minute or two they were breathing through their mouths, panting. Red mouths, mascara, makeup beginning to run with sweat. A man’s nostrils picked up their special smell—perfumy sweat. Their fingernails were glossy, perfect. Nothing mattered more than the perfection of their fingernails. In the gym the guys could not not look and it was a relief, when they departed. No interest in actual boxing, even amateur, but sometimes they paid for “lessons”—not many. In the ring, sparring with an instructor, getting slapped in the face, in the midriff, on the upper arms not hard but yes, slapped—that wasn’t what these girls wanted.