Daphne Gottlieb is a dear friend of mine from back in the day, and a fine, fine poet/performer person. She wrote this, the relevance of which I think needs no amplification:
Liability
One late beautiful afternoon, as everything in my apartment glistens, gilded with early fall sunlight, the moon-eyed mewling of my cat tells me we’re out of cat food. I am also out of people food. The gorgeousness of the day has inspired me, made me giddy, and so I decide to go to the store dressed as a girl.
I pull a long blonde wig out of a drawer and slide it over my head, shake my long, gold tresses at myself in the mirror, smile my pink frosted lips at me, flutter my eyelashes, thick as bat wings. I shimmy into a tube top and miniskirt and slap my favorite fuck-me pumps on my feet. It’s not just a grocery store trip – it’s a celebration.
As I walk the few blocks to the store, swinging my purse, everyone seems to be in a good mood. The girls at the bus stop in front of the fast food restaurant are slapping each other’s hands, stopping to suck on sodas, yelling Miss Suzie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell? Women smile at me as I pass by, and men tip their hats, say Good afternoon. I decide I want a steak and a beer. I run the list over in my head. Steak. Beer. Cat Food. I make it into a song, sing steak beer cat food while I walk.
The grocery store is large and clean. I admire the towers of glossy fruit, the towers of neon cereal boxes that rise into the air. I sing my list to myself as I toss stuff in my basket. Steak. Beer. Cat food.
As I leave the store, it’s twilight. The buildings have grown taller from their day in the sun and the shadows crawl along the streets, quickly growing longer. The sun is going down fast, too fast, and there’s a breeze, cool and strong as water, blowing, that threatens to pull the wig right off my head. I get whipped in the face by acrylic strands.
Cars pass by, slowing, honking, yelling something that I can’t quite make out and don’t want to. I walk faster, try and push the wig out of my face so I can see where I’m going, one hand on top of it, one clutching my groceries against my tube top. As I pass the bust stop, something suddenly hits me in the middle of the back. I turn around. It’s the girls who were playing hand jive, but they’ve all grown to be seven feet tall. “Sorry, it dropped,” they jeer, pointing to the empty soda cup filled with ice from the fast food place. I turn around and walk faster. Another cup hits me square in the back of the head, knocks me off balance. The wig slides over my face and I blindly teeter and stagger along.
I have a new song now: it’s sung very fast and it goes only one block from home, only one block from home and I’m singing it into the puffy clouds my breath makes. Only one block, only one block when I hear a man yell YOU FUCKING FREAK YOU FUCKING PUNK and there’s a smash against my eye suddenly I’m on the ground, ribcage smashing against the hard can of catfood, beer bottle shattering under me as I skid on my face. Instinct pulls my body into a tight question mark as I look up. There’s a cocked fist in my face that belongs to a redfaced man, all teeth and rage. I whimper and suddenly his fist unclenches and he takes a step back, freezes. There’s blood running down my cheek. He and I stare at each other.
Slowly, so as not to startle him, I pull the steak from the shredded bag, rip open the plastic and place it against my eye. The man is stuttering, aghast, slowly taking the tiniest steps toward me, stuttering I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. I thought you were a guy.
—
From Final Girl by Daphne Gottlieb. 2003 by Daphne Gottlieb. Reproduced by permissions of Soft Skull Press, Inc.)
