The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad (6 page)

Marilyn is nearly in tears. She says, “What if everybody finds out? How will I hold my head up in school? My mother, the murderer. I get good grades. I show school spirit. I'm in the marching band. And now Mom has wrecked it all by becoming a serial killer! How could she do this to me?”

“Wellll …”

“She's so selfish. She's ruining my life!”

Having bought time with several Ls and some ellipses, Lawrence has an answer.

“Selfish? Marilyn, do you really think she's doing this for herself?” He pauses, then says, “She's doing this for you.”

“For me? But I don't want her to do it!”

He asks, “Have you ever walked alone down a dark street and heard footfalls behind you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Were you afraid?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Have you ever been alone in a subway car late at night and had a strange man sit too close, and look at you in a way you don't like?”

Marilyn says, lower lip pouting, “Your point is?”

“Did that scare you?”

“Yes, but—”

Lawrence continues, “Did a boy ever say he'd drive you home from school, and you refused because you weren't sure he wouldn't take you someplace else?”

Marilyn's face closes off. She says, “I don't want to talk about it.”

Lawrence concludes, “That is why your mother is doing this. She's doing it for you, so you don't have to be afraid.”

Marilyn sputters, “Oh, Daddy, I hate it when you do that!”

“Do what, darling?”

“When you talk sense to me like that! It makes me so mad.” She glares at him.

Lawrence thinks a moment, then says, “Well, if you want to talk to someone who won't talk sense to you, maybe you should go talk to—”

“Yes! I knew I should have gone to Brigitte in the first place. I'll go see her tomorrow. Parents never understand anything.”

It is a bright early afternoon. Marilyn strides up Brigitte's walk and knocks on her door. She hears strains of Bollywood music coming from inside. No answer. She knocks louder. No answer. She pounds on the door, hard. She shouts, “Brigitte! Brigitte! Open up!”

The door opens. Loud music pours into the street. Brigitte peers out. She's wearing a sparkly belly dancer's outfit.

“Marilyn, what a pleasant surprise! You can join me in the
dance! Come on girl, let's recalibrate our chakras with a little booty-shaking magic!” Brigitte starts belly dancing and takes Marilyn's hands, pulling her inside.

Marilyn is reluctant and annoyed. She pulls her hands away. She shouts over the music, “I didn't come to dance. I came to talk to you.”

Brigitte responds, “Vigorous dancing makes any problem more manageable. I've read studies.”

“Not. In. The. Mood.”

“Oh, good. Grumpiness helps a lot.”

Marilyn says, “See? This is exactly the problem. You don't take things seriously enough. You're frivolous.”

Brigitte smiles ingenuously. “Thank you.”

Marilyn insists, “It's not a compliment!” She looks past Brigitte and notices that the television is on, and the music comes not from a CD, but a DVD. She notices that the people singing are wearing green uniforms and carrying guns. She says, in that tone of voice with which anyone who knows a teenager is so familiar, “What the hell?”

“What? This is a movie about the indigenous Naxalite rebellion in India. What's wrong with that?”

“But … they're singing.”

“And revolutionaries aren't supposed to sing and dance and make love? A revolution without songs is like a catfish without whiskers. It's like a great grandmother without liver spots. It's like an egg without a yolk. It's like cheese without …”

“I get it! Stop!”

“Just because George Washington's dentures didn't fit, we think revolutionaries are supposed to be sourpussed old farts. But revolution can be fun, and I've got the DVDs and CDs to prove it!”

Marilyn tries to interject, “Brigitte!”

Brigitte turns off the TV, then dashes to her CD holder. She says, “Would you like to hear
Show Tunes of the Wobblies?
No? How about
Love Ballads of the Spanish Anarchists?
Still no? Maybe
The Tibetan Armed Resistance Movement Sings Show Tunes from Hello Dalai?
How about,
Just Say No to Opium and to the Running Dogs of Capitalism and Empire,
by The Boxer Rebellion Boys?
Mend Your Heart and Mend the Land (and Kick Out the Fucking Oil Companies),
by The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta Full Men's and Women's Choir? No?”

Brigitte suddenly stops. The room is silent. Finally she says, “Call me psychic. I sense that something is bothering you. I'll get some tea.”

Marilyn: “No tea.”

“Coffee?”

“No coffee.”

“Cola? Juice? Cocktail? Water? Herbal infusion? Milk?”

“I'm not thirsty!” Marilyn cries. “I have an issue here! I'm trying to talk to you!”

Brigitte sits, folds her hands on her lap, and says, “I'm listening.”

“Finally!” Marilyn says. “I'm worried about what you're doing with the knitting circle. You're putting my mom in danger.”

Brigitte shakes her head, says, “I'm not doing any such thing. We're eliminating danger.”

Marilyn throws up her hands in an exasperated flounce: “You're killing people! My mother would never do that on her own.”

Brigitte is matter-of-fact: “It's an activity best done as a group.”

Marilyn stares, says, “You're a bad influence.” Brigitte says, calmly, “That's untrue. If anything, it's the other way around.”

“What? How so?”

“Well,” Brigitte answers. “I'm a go-getter. I get things done. I get bad things gone. Your mother is, shall we say, not as proactive. I won't say stuffy. I won't say stodgy. I won't say blah. She is my best friend, after all. But if anyone's a bad influence, a drag on the fun and rambunctiousness of our little group, it's certainly not me.”

Marilyn puts her hands on her hips. She says, “Listen. I understand that rapists are bad people and we don't want them walking among us, menacing everyone—”

Brigitte interjects, “Women.”

“What?”

“Menacing women. Some men, but primarily women.”

“Menacing women they come in contact with. But violence is wrong.”

Brigitte answers calmly, “The violence they perpetrate—”

Marilyn waves her off. “I know what you're going to say. Allowing them to be violent and not stopping them is the moral equivalent of being violent yourself.”

Brigitte claps her hands once, not patronizingly at all, stands up, and says, “Precisely. You get it! Are we done?”

“No!” Marilyn takes a deep breath, then continues, “I'm not saying you should just let rapists run around loose. I'm saying that vigilantism is bad for society. You can't just take the law into your own hands.”

Brigitte raises her eyebrows. “In whose hands would it be more effective? Cops and the court system? I couldn't possibly do a worse job wielding the law than they do.”

“But where does it end? Can just anyone decide what is a crime and what isn't? Or who should be punished and who shouldn't? You're asking for social chaos.”

“Marilyn, social chaos is when 25 percent of all women are raped and another 19 percent have to fend off rapes, and nothing is done about it. I don't think it's so hard to figure out that stopping rapists is going to solve that problem.”

Marilyn cries, “But the knitting circle women can't wantonly kill people!”

For the first time Brigitte's voice becomes the tiniest bit sharp, as she says, “Wanton? Who said anything about wanton?” She strides toward a huge book, open on a small desk.

Marilyn whines, “Not the dictionary!”

Brigitte looks at her. “Young lady! How will you ever advance in life without an estimable vocabulary?” Brigitte searches the dictionary, finds what she's looking for, and reads, “wanton: lacking in moral restraint.” Brigitte smiles, then says, more or less to herself, “What
do
they teach young people in school these days?”

Marilyn frowns.

Brigitte continues, “I think we're showing great restraint. We're only going after rapists so far.”

Marilyn's eyes go wide. She gasps, “So far?”

Brigitte says, “Of course. What about pornographers? What about Hollywood filmmakers who show a man forcing himself on a woman, and at the beginning of the scene she's pushing him away, but by the end she's wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close? And what about those awful advertisers who use our bodies to sell everything from beer to gum to automobiles? What about—”

Marilyn interrupts: “You and your knitting circle can't just kill people!”

“I think we can. We're doing a fine job, too.”

“But there's already a group that's supposed to stop criminals. They're called the police.”

Brigitte snorts derisively.

Marilyn continues, “Yes, the police. I'm not ashamed to say it. Why can't you let them do their jobs, instead of taking it upon yourselves to commit horrible violence?”

Brigitte once again becomes slightly sharp. “Marilyn. Do not insult our violence. It is not horrible. It's very artistic, innovative, and skilled. You think it's easy to create such masterful and righteous violence? You think the police could do that?”

“The police don't have to kill people! They could do this without violence. They could just put people in jail.”

“You don't think putting people in jail is violent?”

“Of course it isn't.”

“Are you saying that if the police ask nicely, rapists will peacefully stroll into jail cells and volunteer to stay there?”

“Well, no. Of course they have to be forced into the cells. And the cells have to be locked.”

Brigitte asks, “In your experience, can anyone be forced to do anything without violence or the threat of violence?”

“If you make them feel bad about themselves …”

“If committing rape doesn't make a man feel bad about himself, I think he's a little beyond guilt-tripping, don't you?”

Marilyn thinks a moment. “Well, my mom is really good at making people feel guilty.”

“True.”

“But I guess even she would have a hard time with some of those guys.”

Brigitte nods. “And if she can't do it, no one can.”

They smile at each other.

The police war room looks precisely like what you would expect a police war room to look like. It has wanted posters, certificates of certification, Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee, half-filled boxes of pizza, a terrarium containing a garter snake, a softball trophy, a bowling trophy, an extensive library of police procedure manuals, including
Forensics for the Overqualified,
a copy of
Les Miserables
(described as a stirring tale of the brave and tragic Lestrade who refuses to give up on the world's second most famous literary cold case; the most famous literary cold case is covered by the books:
Who Really Killed Jesus?
and, for a more academic and judicial perspective, in the
You Be the Judge
series of legal comic books,
The Execution of Jesus, Volume 1: Death Penalty Gone Wrong, or Fry the Bastard
and
The Execution of Jesus, Volume 2: Would the Supreme Court Have Overturned the Decision?)
a copy of
The Trial,
and three televisions: one tuned to ESPN, one tuned to Judge Judy, and the third showing endlessly repeating loops of Jack Bauer's greatest hits.

The chief stands at the front of the room. Cops sit in chairs, facing him. He says, “These serial killings are an embarrassment to the city and to our department. We must catch these perps as soon as possible.”

One of the cops, a relentlessly ambitious, relentlessly handsome man—with a jaw of marble, steely blue eyes, coal-black hair, a hint of silver in his carefully trimmed mustache, bronzed skin, six-pack (aluminum can) abs, a rock-hard grip, a tin ear, and an ironclad alibi for anything anyone might accuse
him of—is named Flint. He says, “We know these women are behind it. All we have to do is prove it.”

Another cop, named Rico (a burly man, a man's man, a man so manly that each matted hair on the backs of his hands oozes tiny drops of gleaming testosterone), asks, “How do we do that?”

Flint smirks. “It's a bunch of women. How hard can it be?”

The chief makes his decision known: “We'll send in an infiltrator. It'll take about five minutes to crack this case.” He looks at Flint and says, “Stone, you're volunteering.”

Flint shows his pearly white teeth. “I can outsmart them, no problem. I'll take them down.”

The chief hands Flint some knitting needles and yarn. “Learn how to do this.”

Flint pauses, then asks, “You want me … to learn how to knit?”

The chief nods decisively. “Make them believe you're one of them.”

“But … knitting?”

“You've had other tough assignments.”

“C'mon, Chief. I've got a family and a reputation. Send me back undercover with the Slaughterio Crime Family drug operation. Anything but this.”

“You volunteered. You're going.”

Today is Swiss cheese day at the factory, and the women keep thinking of ham sandwiches.

After a spirited but inconclusive debate on the merits of yellow mustard versus Dijon, Brigitte asks, “Do you have the list of rapists we need to neutralize this week?”

Suzie holds up a piece of paper. She says, “I was thinking
Jasmine and I could handle A through F. Mary and Christine could take G through L.”

Flint walks into the room and sits down. He starts knitting, slowly. His tongue protrudes in concentration. The women silently watch him. He continues knitting for a painfully long time. No one says a word.