Tom Avitabile - The Hammer of God

Ann climbed the steps of the Bedford Street subway stop. As she exited into the Williamsburg, Brooklyn night, past the chained bicycles, the pizza shops, and Polish restaurants, it took all of her will not to turn around to get back on the L train and back to Mark’s place. But she steeled herself and quickened her pace, as if the mere act of aggressively walking would change her resolve when she faced Gary. He would try to deny it, of course, but enough of her friends saw him with that tramp. She had to confront him or she could never look herself in the mirror again.

She met Gary at a Truth for 9/11 rally. Gary was fearless as he stood yelling at the top of his lungs “Bush knew! Cheney too! 9/11 was an inside job.” She remembered how he faced down a group of steelworkers who objected to his exercising his right to free speech by trying to muzzle him just because he was the lone, courageous voice crying out during the moments of silence and the ringing of the bells at the 9/11 ceremonies at Ground Zero.

Ann had seen the Internet videos and she was enamored with the likes of Sean Penn and Rosie O’Donnell who had the guts to say that fire couldn’t melt steel and reveal the truth that a missile hit the Pentagon, not a plane. Overall, she came to learn from Gary that the attack on the towers was planned to be a “New Pearl Harbor” by the neocons, who were mostly Jews, like Irving Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Armitage and who had been planning for war against Islam well before their propped up puppet, George Bush, stole an election and took power. She was disgusted over how they used the peaceful followers of the religion of Islam and activist Muslims as scapegoats, all the while denying them fundamental freedoms such as Habeas Corpus. With all these wrongs to right, things between Gary and Ann were great. Protesting by day and making out by night. But as soon as the protests became passe, Gary started to become less attentive, less involved…with her.

As she turned the corner of Bedford Avenue, walking closer to her confrontation with Gary, Ann steeled herself with the knowledge that Professor Keller… ‘Mark’ was right. She was a human being, no less than any other, and entitled to her rights and dignity. In the last weeks, Mark had helped her realize that she possessed an inner strength and beauty that was undeniable to anyone who got to know her. “Our relationship no longer feeds my emotional, spiritual, and essential self.” Those were the words she chose. A closing argument designed to utterly defeat any objection or sense of guilt Gary might try to lay on her. Well, she didn’t as much choose the words as Mark suggested them. But true to his teachings, she took ownership of their power and now they were her mantra. Like profess…Mark said, “These are the only words you’ll ever need to say to anyone, Treasure Ann.” Although she discouraged others from using it, Ann liked when Mark called her by her whole name. He found it on her NYU enrollment form, and he asked if, when they were alone, he could call her by it. Of course he would never use it in public or when he called on her in his lecture hall, which she attended three times a week. He was older, charming, and so smart. He shone even brighter in her eyes when he spoke inspiringly of the nobility of the struggle of the Muslims against the forces of Judeo-Christian capitalism and its imperialist colonization. How Muslims were an entire culture left behind by history. In fact, things really got started between she and Mark when he invited her to listen to a radical Imam in a basement on Atlantic Avenue. She had to watch through a basement window because the men also prayed on mats prior to the speech and women weren’t allowed. But on the way home, she knew he was all she had ever hoped for.

On the other hand, Gary, when he learned Ann’s entire first name, simply decided to call her Pleasure. That worked for a time, especially in the beginning of their relationship. They would sneak around looking for places to kiss and grope. Occasionally, they’d find a closet or empty room and they would go at it, usually ending with her on her knees and him with his hands behind her head. At first, he would always wrap his arms around her and hold her for a moment afterwards, always kissing her on her cheek instead of on her lips afterwards; nothing like the deeper way he would kiss her before she had “Pleasured” him. She wondered if he had an aversion to his own….

She banished the thought from her mind when she saw the steps to the six-story tenement walk up on North 6th where she and Gary had shared an apartment since they were freshmen. Well, it was Gary’s place originally and she kind of moved in. As her feet scraped the gritty, steep steps, her thoughts returned to how, after a while, Gary didn’t even bother to hug her afterwards. He’d just neaten up and say something about being “late.” Then a quick peck on the cheek and he was gone.

As she turned the key in the front door of the vestibule, she made note to take her peace sign off the ring before she threw the keys back at him. Once inside, she stopped at the bottom of the stairs and took a deep breath.

The fact that Treasure Ann Hunnicut was a victim, was old news. Now she was one of the walking wounded as well. Shunning her Mormon roots at 17, and armed with a 1584 SAT score and a scholarship, she fled to New York City and NYU. Her open heart and naivete became a beacon to the predators that inhabit this city of anonymity. Falling in with the young crowd around 8th street and the surrounding coffee shops, she learned of the social ills and political realities that she had been shielded from in her pristine Utah environment. She shortened her name to Ann to better fit in without having to be “the Mormon girl.” She soon started to become overwhelmed by the tremendous amount of information on the arrogances and prejudices the United States of America was inflicting on the rest of the world. It was then that she met Gary, an NYU student, who, even though his grades were nowhere near Ann’s, immediately set himself up as her mentor. Within a week, he had the 5’8 blonde with a healthy body and soft, endearing eyes, under his spell. She became his following of one. He mostly kept her in check by his never letting her feel as though she totally satisfied him. That kept her trying anything and everything to gain his approval.

Subservience was her pattern with men, whether they were in her family, her community, the men she met socially, or when she was working as a waitress one summer. She was emotionally damaged and her esteem was inexorably tied to the nearest male figure. Gary perfected his advantage by getting her to be his sexual convenience. Besides, blowjobs were what passed as “making out” these days. It was almost expected that the oral gratuity was part of the new courting ritual. On Astor Place, it was referred to as “pulling a Lewinsky” and eventually shortened to, “Getting a Lewy.” Of course, among the 20-somethings, only the Poly-Sci students had a clue what that ancient reference alluded to. The ultimate level of casual oral sex reached its pinnacle with the buy-in from young women, on something relegated as harmless, called “Rainbowing.” A young girl would “register” a unique shade of lipstick and transfer that shade indelibly onto a male’s member as a way to prove to his friends that he got a specific girl to do him, and also as a way a girl could mark her territory to warn off other “sluts.”

In all, it was the greatest scam ever perpetrated on young women. This new ethic was in many cases supported by their very mothers, who were operating under the same male oppression in their lives. This new rule about the oldest male urge benefitted from, and was taking cover under, the new cultural mores that if “ there is no penetration then there is no sex .” What a great time to be a young horny man; what a terrible time to be a young “disposable” girl.