CLOSURE

(Holly Near singing "Two Good Arms" at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1987)

In 1977, Charlie King wrote a song about Sacco and Vanzetti called "Two Good Arms". The chorus uses lines from letters they wrote trying to prove their innocence, and the title comes from a phrase in one of those letters. Holly Near eventually recorded this song on one of her albums, but before that she sang it at concerts. As a teenager, I had read "Justice Denied in Massachusetts", the very famous poem about Sacco and Vanzetti by Edna St. Vincent Millay, who used her influence as a poet and Nobel Prize winner to try to keep these innocent men from being executed. I was devastated by this wrong which had been done before I was born.

Later, when as an adult I heard Holly's rendition of "Two Good Arms", I felt the same emotions of grief and outrage come up in me. I was singing along one day when my daughter, still very young, came into the room. I had tears on my cheeks and my voice was pulsating with feeling. She asked me what the song was about. I hesitated, but I told her. She begged me to say Sacco and Vanzetti had not been killed, that no one would have coldbloodedly sent them to their death. I saw, in that moment, the reality of capital punishment land in her consciousness, the immorality of killing to punish murder. I wanted to take it back, to give her a chance at living in a world where we had other methods of dealing with extremely damaged people.


(Photograph of a protest against the Briggs Initiative organized by the Metropolitan Community Church, located in their "In Our Own Words" History Project -- date, location, and photographer unknown, but likely 1978 and Bay Area)

When I moved to San Francisco in March of 1978, I immediately plunged into radical political organizing. There was a lot to choose from, but most of the lesbians I knew or wanted to know were focused on two main issues at that time: Defeat of the Briggs Initiative (Proposition 6), and defeat of expanding the death penalty (Prop 7).

The Briggs Initiative would have removed gays and lesbians from school teaching. The way it was written, it was also a club that could have been used against straight teachers, and that angle was successfully exploited by the grassroots work of Lesbian Schoolworkers (the group which got my attention) and BACABI (Bay Area Coalition Against The Briggs Initiative). The mainstream gay organizations (predominantly white, male, non-working-class) put everything they had into defeating the Briggs Initiative. But when it came to the death penalty effort, I found myself surrounded by working folks, people of color, and/or political dykes.

The preceding June, two-thirds of California's electorate had passed Prop 13, which began the decline in California's school funding that continues today. For the past few years, measures against lesbian and gay rights had been passing in state after state. These were the first lapping wavelets of conservative rise to power, portending a tsunami (Ronnie Raygun) on its way. It's important to remember they were trying out several planks: Hate queers. End public funding of essential community services. Build more prisons and kill more prisoners. This is an interrelated ideology, and taking on only one of their toxic tentacles made no sense to me.

On the evening of 7 November, 1978, I and my friends were part of a huge crowd on Castro Street listening to the election results come in. When it was clear Prop 6 had gone down, a massive party began. But I didn't join the celebration. Prop 7 had vastly expanded the death penalty in this newly adopted state of mine, golden California, the land of freedom and promise. I went home, crawled into bed, and wept.

Prop 6 was defeated by 58% of the electorate. An almost identical percentage voted for the death penalty expansion. I had a lot to think about.

(Matthew Shepard)

On the morning of Sunday, October 18, 1998, I attended Meeting For Worship at the Friends' Meeting House in Austin, as I did most Sundays. Worship was silent for the first half hour that morning, with no one rising to speak. I was sitting on the south side of the room so I could see the trees out the high windows on the north wall. But I was also in a perfect position to see the face of a young man I'll call Sullivan (to protect his confidentiality) when he rose from his chair opposite me to speak during the second half of worship.

His standing created an immediate air of anticipation in the room. Sullivan was openly gay, partnered with Antonio, another man in meeting; they were both admired for their hard work. I had never seen Sullivan speak in Meeting; indeed, I'd seldom heard him speak anywhere. He clasped his hands that morning, but I could see they were shaking. He stared at the floor for a minute, gathering himself.

Six days earlier, Matthew Shepard had been murdered.

I'll do my best to repeat exactly what I heard Sullivan eventually say, in a strained, halting voice:

"It's been a hard week...When I heard the news, I wished Antonio were home. I had trouble waiting for him to come home, so we could talk. Finally, I did what I often do when I need help. I opened the Midrash and began reading.

"I turned to a section about when the Israelites fled Egypt in search of freedom. When they fled across the Sea of Reeds, in a way opened by Yahweh, the Midrash tells of how the angels in heaven were gathered around G*d, watching the events unfold. They were filled with fear as Pharaoh's army came after the Israelites, chasing them into the gap, closing on them. But when the Israelites reached dry ground and the waters behind them closed over the chasing soldiers, all the angels broke into gleeful celebration. As they cheered and danced, one of them noticed that G*d was sitting slumped, tremendous sorrow on his face. The angel asked 'Why are you not happy that Your people reached safety?'

"G*d replied, 'How can I be happy, when My people are drowning?'"

Sullivan stood a few seconds more, as shock reverberated around the room, then sat down, twisting his hands together. More than one of us burst into tears.

(Curved Corridor, Island No. 3, Ellis Island 1998, gelatin silver print by Stephen Wilkes)

Last June, a divided Supreme Court ruled out use of the death penalty in this country for anything except first-degree murder, even child rape. The New York Times article reporting the decision stated it was "the third in the last six years to place a categorical limitation on capital punishment. In 2002, the court barred the execution of mentally retarded defendants. In 2005, it ruled that the Constitution bars the death penalty for crimes committed before the age of 18." The article went on to insist "there was no suggestion from the majority that the court was moving toward the abolition of capital punishment." Not from this Supreme Court, no, I wouldn't expect a movement toward joining most of the rest of the world in re-examining the meaning of justice and punishment.

We are, for the time being, still held sway by John Walsh notions of retribution, of seeking some amorphous definition of "closure" when violence intrudes into our personal lives and takes away something irreplaceable. When I hear family members claiming they want the death of someone who murdered one of their own because it will bring them "peace", I always suspect they are mistaking closure for denial. If a murderer is dead, it's easier to shut away the emotions and thoughts attached to the murder. The problem is, capital punishment not only doesn't work as a deterrent, not for most of the people who commit murder -- it actually, over time, creates a culture where we are desensitized to the value of human life.

I know what it is to live with this kind of loss. I myself have felt homicidal in response to seeing irreparable damage and death of those I love, administered by the hands of people who need to be stopped. But I hold myself to a different standard, and I'd like to live in a society where our highest goals are perhaps beyond our everyday reach, yet we do not abandon them as goals.

(Hammer and Nails glass sculpture by Hans Godo Frabel)

Several years ago, I was close friends with a couple of dykes who were building their own house on 70 acres near Hamilton Pool, west of Austin. They lived hand to mouth and were in dire need of other carpentry-skilled hands to help them, so they created a series of weekend workshops to teach women the basic trade, in exchange for a small fee and the chance to camp out on their land. I signed up for one weekend, driving back and forth each day because it was hotter'n'hell and I liked to sleep without fireants around.

Also, to be honest, it was a vegetarian weekend, with one woman attending whom the rest of us called The Vegan Cop behind her back because she was so militant about trying to govern the eating habits of others. Friday afternoon, on the way out there, I'd passed by a favorite barbecue joint and stopped to buy two chopped meat sandwiches with a big RC and a side of slaw -- eating my dinner in advance so I could fore go the uncertain potluck later. After I'd eaten, I got worried about my breath smelling like carne, and had brushed my teeth beside my car, drawing the stares of cowboys in pickups.

Each workshop involved a special project, and our weekend task was to build a large deck on a rocky ridge overlying the Pedernales River valley. Late afternoon on Sunday, we were to the point of nailing down the plywood decking, having completed the frame, steps, and railings. Laney, the main carpenter, had instructed us to drive the nails fast and hard, with the intention of making the nail head bite down into the wood on the final blow, leaving nothing to stick up above the level surface. There were about a dozen of us spread out over the large deck, whaling away with great volume and vigor, an exhilarating end to a hard-working weekend. I had started a nail and kept my spread hand on the wood next to it, a couple of inches away for safety. But I allowed myself to become distracted by the conversation of a couple nearby, whose incessant bickering made it fairly certain they were in the throes of breaking up. My brain, without my direct guidance, decided what I really wanted to do with my right-handed hammer swing was connect to my left hand instead of that measly nail. The blow came down on my left index finger with all the force my biceps could muster. The end of my finger burst like a ripe tomato.

It didn't hurt for a few seconds. The shock was in the appearance. I held up my finger stupidly and said to the nearest woman, "What happened?"

She was a clipped-of-speech butch who worked as a prison guard. She said "Put something cold on it" and went back to hammering. When I didn't move -- her sentence didn't really make sense to me, I was in such shock -- she got up irritably and went to the nearby cooler. But all the ice had melted, and the only thing left was a Pepsi in a can. She brought that back to me and said "This is still cold, hold it again your finger."

As if sleepwalking, I did what she said. It didn't help, and contact with the ruptured flesh finally registered as pain. I cried out "Oh my god, oh my fucking god." This got the attention of others, and Laney rushed over, her back and breasts covered in sweat, her workpants stiff with sawdust.

"Come on" she said. "Let's walk you back to the house." She helped me stand and led me gently through the mesquite, a direct path instead of by the dirt road, so we'd get there faster. Once we were out of sight of the work crew, she stopped and lifted my chin, looking kindly into my eyes.

"That must hurt like the end of the world" she said. "You don't have to pretend to be all tough with me, and those other butch wanna-bees can't see you now, you can let go."

I did. I promptly dropped to the ground and began wailing as if I was three years old. She was startled, but squatted beside me and rubbed my neck as I cried my heart out. When I was done, I felt better and worse -- I wasn't in shock any more, but the throbbing in my finger was all-consuming.

At the house, I washed the wound myself and bit onto a towel while Laney poured peroxide over it. I should have gone to an ER and gotten stitches -- the scar is still very visible and utterly numb -- but I didn't want to do it by myself and no one else was available. She wrapped a thick bandage around it and recommended I hold my hand in the air, to keep the swelling down. When the others arrived for dinner, I sat a little apart, afraid someone would jostle me, while I picked at my tofu pasta salad. Before it got inky dark, I left, determined to drive home. I don't remember the trip. In particular, I don't remember negotiating the two bob-wire-and-post cattle fences I had to get out and open, drive through, and loop shut again before reaching the main road.

The next day I tried to work but could not type, of course. My supervisor, a buddy, sent me home but first he explained to me about the concept of closure: How if you don't tell the brain what to while you are in motion, and if it does not have muscle memory to direct it, the brain will search for closure on its own. What it knew best was where my other hand was, so it closed the circuit for me. He said this is why when you stub a toe, you'll often keep stubbing that same toe: Your mind is now hyper aware of an injured part and if you don't pay attention while you're walking, closure will involve making contact with that wounded part of the body again.

It was a great lesson. Ever since, when I've begun doing something new with my body, I've reminded myself "closure" which means "pay attention, or else some other part of you will be making the decisions".

(Homecoming by Herlinda Spahr)

When one becomes a pacifist, an opponent to the taking of human life under any circumstances, it's not a final destination you reach and set up a comfortable home. It requires constant thought and work to stop wearing your sword.

The airwaves are now filled with stories related to the US Airways story: 150 passengers, 3 flight attendants, and 2 pilots walking away from a controlled crash landing in the Hudson River. It's pre-empting everything right now, including (and seemingly especially) Bush's departure. More than one blogger has pointed out it's a return of the wheel, with implicit redemption offered, i.e., fratboy fuckup allows terrorists to fly planes into New York's most vigorous symbols and never catches the perpetrator behind it, instead using all his power and influence to dismantle the economy, military, and culture whose best qualities were what the terrorists objected to in the first place. (Like he forced hugs on all those Katrina victims.) But now, with hope standing in the wings, we return to what us most proud about being American: Competence, genuine compassion (not the mealymouthed judgement-poisoned kind of conservatism), and community response.

I agree, we're responding as a culture to the symbolism. One literary/arts blog (Dykes To Watch Out For) has a fascinating thread about how many of us are weeping over this story without clear comprehension. But I think the relief and catharsis we're experiencing has its roots much farther in time. I'm remembering the jeering campaign slogan Reagan used for re-election: Are you better off than than you were four years ago?

It was shocking to hear this coming out of the TV screen. It was a dogwhistle for the middle class (and those who aspired to it), who wanted to claim moral superiority over dirty working people whose obvious failings (not being white, not being married, not being Christian) were what was keeping them/us from individual financial prosperity. It was permission to begin the polarizing hatred that is the ultimate conservative weapon against dismantling pluralism, tolerance, and shared prosperity -- which the fundies hate every bit as much as Osama Bin Laden does, and for the same reason (terror of modernity).

[In a related vein, I recommend you read Sara Robinson's essay at Campaign for America's Future on how Their use of the phrase "moral clarity" does not mean what we mean when we say it, found here.]

After catharsis, we have an opportunity to think freshly about the nature of the world and our place in it, as those passengers on US Airways Flight 1549 are undoubtedly doing this weekend. What will justice and closure mean for us, as we click shut the door on Bush? I for one make a distinction between punishment (tempting as that is) and accountability. I'm willing to give up on holding accountable all those of you who voted for Bush, once or twice. You're already being punished for your mistake, and though it is likely whatever you're suffering is not as severe as those in other parts of the world because of his having been granted the power to shit on the planet, still, I'm hoping for more learning to come out of this nearly incomprehensible mess. For me and for you.

I'm not willing to relinquish accountability for those who sought public office, however, and claimed our trust. When I separate out the feelings that push me toward wanting vengeance -- when I assert my intellect and deny my lizard brain the right to make decisions (beware your fingers) -- then I'm clear: Only those who still dream of a place in the system as it was would be deluded by the "hope" that perhaps we can leave the culprits free to go on doing more of what they've already done. I believe in rehabilitation, but it must be demonstrated, not declared as an intention. Or, as we say in 12-step circles, action not words. And, since we're dealing with the spree of a dry drunk, that is especially apt.

Real hope resides in a vision which steps outside of the system as it has existed and seeks complete disclosure of all that has remained concealed, with a belief that we'll know how to respond when we have that information. Restore transparency, fully empower investigation, and trust our process (our once and future process) to set us back on the path of being a force for good in this world. I do believe everything else will follow, if we begin there. The wheel will turn again without a jarring lurch, because for me, closure is remembering all which has happened without letting pain determine my future place on the spinning rim.

[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

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9/11

(From Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki -- submerged train tracks)

We all have a narrative about that day. Mine is fragmented because I've been picking at it, trying to undo some of the seams.


So much was already wrong in my life. After a year without work, I'd finally landed a job, in a hospital transcription office that was turning out to be the worst working environment of my life. All of my coworkers were brain-dead right-wingers who listened to hate radio -- AT WORK -- during the day. I would never have been hired if they'd realized I was a Lesbian. They adored W. and all that he stood for.

My little brother Bill had been dead not quite three months. I was still blaming myself.

Several relationships in my life were failing, mostly because of my increasing disability and people's difficulty in dealing with the changes it wrought. The woman I was most in love with, however -- let's call her Bea -- was vacating every commitment she'd made to me one by one, without notification, and finding ways to convince me it was my fault each time. Interestingly, she was raised the descendant of wealth in white, privileged Connecticut, the product of private schools and elite colleges, who was now pretending to be a cowboy based on ideas and characters she'd looted from the life of my little brother and other conversations with me. I still didn't believe this could be the class assault it really was.

I'd not given up hope on her. I thought she would choose to stop lying to her friends about her actual class status and stand up to her family, choosing community over money.

It was a Tuesday that year too, my day off. The phone woke me up early, and it was one of my estranged friends, someone who had once been my best friend. She had recently moved back to Texas from New York. She yelled in my ear "They're bombing New York, turn on your TV!" and hung up.

I staggered into my living room and picked up the remote. No matter what station I turned it to, the same image was playing over and over -- a plane smacking at an angle into a high-rise, with ballooning orange clouds blowing out the sides of the building. Nobody seemed to be making any sense of it. Then a reporter's voice said a plane had also crashed in Washington, DC, apparently deliberately.

Bea's family lived in a suburb of DC. We hadn't been talking for a few weeks, but I didn't think before I dialed her number. She answered immediately and said "What the fuck is happening? Are we under attack?"

"I don't know. Have you talked to your parents?"

"Yeah, they're fine. Just -- get over here, will you?"

"On my way."

She had the most broken-down, dirty couch I'd ever seen, but we used to lie on it together, and as soon as I got to her house, I plopped myself down on it in front of the TV. She curled into me, and her dog joined us. An amazingly calm dog whom I loved passionately. As we watched, a second plane hit the building nearby. We screamed together, and began weeping.

She began telling me about the World Trade Center towers, what they meant to New York. She talked about how high they are, and the helipad on the roof where people on the upper stories could await rescue. We noted how some of the newscasters were already blaming "Arabs", despite the history of Timothy McVeigh.

The news finally reported that Bush was being flown to safety somewhere, and that Cheney was in a bunker. "With his finger on the fucking button, no doubt" she said. We were more afraid of our own government than what was being aimed at us. But then, we'd seen what Bush had done to Texas as Governor.

We were watching when the first tower fell, and the second. We saw people running and screaming. We had trouble believing it. I was incredibly grateful to be with her, who shared my political and spiritual beliefs so closely I knew we were in one accord. We kept crying and trembling together.

Every now and then the news would say Bush was being flown to yet another location. "He's on the run, the fucking loser" she said. "Don't it make you miss Clinton?"

I answered "He wouldn't be in hiding, he'd be down there on the streets of Manhattan, hugging people and saying 'Ah feel yore pain'." We laughed, shocking ourselves.

We ordered a late lunch from the Lynn Street Cafe, ravioli with pine nuts and a salad with their tamari mustard dressing. She went to pick it up, and her dog opted to stay with me. When Bea got back, she said she'd been listening to the radio in the car, NPR, and Billy Collins was going to speak later. We looked at each other and said "Poets, that's who we need to hear from." We kept the TV on but turned down the sound and listened to the radio instead for the rest of the day.

Except when the television showed the members of Congress lined up on steps in front of some building. We turned the sound back up to hear what was going on. They looked terrified and confused. Spontaneously, they began singing the national anthem, their arms across their chests. That was when I got scared all the way down to my bones. It was bad enough that Bush was MIA and Cheney's response could only be evil -- but clearly the rest of our government had not a clue about what to do. Except the addictive, unthinking emotion of so-called patriotism. In that moment, I had a premonition about how bad the next few years were going to be.

At the end of the day, when we parted, we knew we'd connected cleanly and with open hearts for the last time. At least, I knew. We kept trying, and things got worse. Much worse. As did the country.

What good is it to understand things at the outset if you have no power to keep doom from rolling in? I spoke out, I wrote, I argued with the fascists at my job. As clear-headed as I was about Bush and his orcs, I was in denial about Bea and our dynamic. Took me another couple of years to get clear there, helped out by a blunt friend (who had once been close to her as well) who said "How long are you going to pour yourself down that rathole?"

I'm still asking that question about America's choices. Not all of them -- some of the clouds of debris have cleared, and those of us who saw the writing on the wall way back when have been (mostly) fair in not saying "I told you so, you worthless morons, fix this mess yourself, you voted for the antichrist".

I could make points here, draw parallels, create a shining and logical narrative. But instead I'm choosing to leave it as it is, a mess in my past that I've learned from without having what they call closure. Closure is for short stories and poems, not necessarily life.

A year later, the poem below was published in Affirming Flame: Progressive Texas Poets in the Aftermath of September 11th, an anthology published by Evelyn Street Press. I read it aloud at the book launch party. Bea was standing in the back of the room, listening and understanding that it was actually about her. She left without talking to me.

SIX MONTHS

You know you want me
in your datebook, on the road with you,
last-thing-at-night phone calls,
pencil marks up interior walls
to chart each new stanza,
hands resting on each other to light candles

You want the power to coax me
into a crippled girl's waltz
in front of the whole town
You want to polish your teeth
on my lovely lovely shoulders

You want me there when we open
your mother's closet
to choose what we will bury her in
When the cities start to crumble
and the towers fall around us
you want me bumped down beside you
on that doggy couch
to watch over and over
the moment when it all changed

You want my fingers still sticky from you
separating the fibers of your
grandfather's rage
to peer in at him as he was Before:
the terrified oysterman's boy
You want me to forgive him
as your father has not
granting him a redemption
my brothers are dying with
out

For centuries we've lived with your desire
lapping at our ankles
warping the jambs so doors have to be wedged
open or shut

You want me
in your kitchen, washing
your stained sheets,
bringing food to public tables,
loving your children
You want me angry enough
to willingly stay away from your neighborhood
A separation you can traverse
to show your parents
how fucked up they are
Living rooms you can visit
for funerals, weddings,
the week after Christmas.
But to live among us, like us,
would be patronizingly
downwardly mobile,
would it not?
Not an honest expression,
tainting the movie scene quality
of truths you need from us
your faithful nanny
your allwise maid
your supernatural caddy
I mean, our lives are so hard
What would it serve
for you to give up your margin?
You can do a greater good with it
And the folks, they prepared you
to do that greater good
Some solo, original effort
that will create clippings with
your name printed bold
you can mail back home

You demand of god the right to
pick your own way across
this field of boulders, with time
to stop for an egg sandwich
when the sun is direct
You are pretty sure
god is smiling on your choices
because the slots keep
lining up cherry rewards

You do not notice
you buy your extra
with midnight feeds at the
necks of us who never
get a rest
You refuse to identify
that taste in your mouth
when you wake up each morning

No matter what the Hollywood mercantile tells us,
sleeping with strangers is easy and means
nothing at all
Every sexual partner available to you
is either victim
or perpetrator
If you think your choices are better than this,
you've purchased that illusion
Living with strangers, that's
what calls forth the god in us

Every step you take
is on stolen ground
Every dollar you earn
means someone somewhere is cheated
Every bite you take
comes from something that had a soul
and wanted to live

Jesus said "There is no middle class
in my father's country
Give it all away"
Mohammed said "There are no weapons
to win this battle
Give them all away"
Buddha said "There is no you
Give yourself away"

You're already sprinkled with go-dust
All that remains is to throw open the shutters
And step out into starlight
Mr. Barrie (in the way
of all the pedophiles
who've defined our view of youth)
had it one octave wrong
It's only about the Wendy-house
Time to give up our boy fixation

You know you want me

You are waiting, finally, for your own burning bush
god's voice molten in your desperado ears
a convenient conflagration
on your personal horizon
But Moses was alone in a desert
Chances are, you won't be
You may be instant messaging right through
a dozen hot spots a day
Go get a good night's sleep, then
wake the hell up
Do everything with the relish of terror
Stop mainlining judgment, sophistication,
urbanization, sex --
the four archangels of American distraction --
Notice who else is awake in the house
Walk with them, at the pace of the slowest
and just shut up for a minute, will you?

I'm not gonna sit in the stairwell waiting
for a designated hero
I've decided to let strangers
take me onto their backs
The worst
that can happen is I will die
with my arms around a
beating heart

You know you want me

The water is wide
I look to you
for the boat that will
carry two

Here's my plan:
Grieve your dead
down to the last drop
then wash your face
and go
outside
Repeat daily
until you run out of time

Here's my plan:
Forgive yourself
Forgive yourself
Forgive yourself


©Maggie Jochild, 12 March 2002, 10:20 p.m.

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