87 Oh please don't hesitate part two

I was crying pretty bad as I ran. It hurt me inside that someone meant me harm, but especially more that the other humans around did nothing. I could barely see as I was walking, but I was stopped by a friendly soul. It was the chicken lady. She grabbed me and held me. Asked me what happened and kept a hold of me. I don't remember what she said but it was a comfort to me and I will always thank her for that. When a big smile goes sad... hard to shake.

She walked me up to the hostel in the dorm and the nice Asian gal, that I'll never forget but sorry I forget her name, tried to help me. Did I want to go to the clinic? No. She talked to me as a woman. There really was no talk about going to the police. As much as people slam women's liberation nowadays, please, it had to happen. Some things were so shitty. You better be a proven virgin in those days to report rape or attempted rape, or it was your fault. Maybe cops were sympathetic, but by the time lawyers were done with you... you shamed your family and whoever still were victims of the old mores. I wasn't into the cops anyway. 

But remember, 1972, many girls didn't even have a gym class until Title IX. This is just an example of the changes happening. I didn't have gym in grade school, but of course I didn't need it either. I get nostalgic for a lot of what we lost, but not every change was bad.

Anne Bonny

I asked them if they heard any cop cars anywhere, just because I still couldn't believe no one helped. Nope. Nothin. I went into the bathroom and just sat on the cold floor with Zac. I mean, if something like that happened later on in life would I be crying that much? That broken? I'm thinking there would probably be some anger built up along the way, but who knows. Somewhere along the line complacent shock would have set in, I'm sure.

The people in the dorms knew us pretty well and someone went out to find LBJ. They knew who he got his work through. Ok. Here's the part that hurt. When he finally ran in, I know now he just didn't know what to do. We were born in the fifties and it was a hard change for a lot of guys. He said "What did you do?" "What did I do?" It was like I invited this guy to attack me. Oh. The most horrible feeling. The shit hit the fan. Poor Zac was witness. It was such a frenzy of emotion I don't remember much of what happened except that I threw the bag of Friskies I carried around, all over him. People don't let it out in fights like they used to. Sometimes that's good, but sometimes maybe that isn't so good. We went back to our corners and recovered. Relieved that a lot of the shit that we didn't even know we were holding in, came out. We did. We recovered from that.

I slept ok that night but I was through with the panhandling. The first day I stayed at the dorm. I breathed a little easier. I wasn't afraid, just cautious. And I really needed to take a break. For a few days after that, LBJ walked me up to the waterbed couple's house and the radical lady and I spent a few days talking. She gave me some reassuring hugs. LBJ finished up working on a job and we talked about leaving Berkeley.

86 Oh please don't hesitate part one

So I did a lot of walking around one part of Berkeley. It was mostly up Telegraph Avenue. From the place that I did my pan-handling for the Free Clinic, I passed the Hare Krishna Church, People's Park and up to the University grounds. The church was a pretty big deal in the bay area. I don't know about the one that's there now. I don't really care about that history. What sect this or that. Locations or whatever. All I know is that they had colorful parades and were often chanting on the street.

I was gleeful taking in the sights on my walks, always absorbing the colors and the voices. Happy. La di dah.

 

Ginger in the Morning (1974)

I was a bit surprised in an unhappy way one afternoon though. It was the Mike Tyson guy with more muscles from People's Park. I was really surprised. He grabbed me from behind. Grabbed my arms and said "Remember I told you we were going to get you." I was very close to the Krishna Temple. He pushed me ahead and made me keep walking. I was a strong girl but this guy was super big and powerful. I couldn't escape his grasp. I wriggled and tried my hardest to free myself and I was yelling "Help!" I was doing every maneuver possible but he was forcing me into a direction I'm sure led to some hidden spot near People's Park. I really feared for my life. He was forceful and angry. 

 

I kept squirming and fighting and yelling. People were looking but did nothing. He finally picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. He was holding me in place with both arms while he was walking. I knew I was in serious trouble if I didn't get away. It was broad daylight and I couldn't believe that nobody was doing anything to help me. I was crying and screaming help at the top of my lungs. Some guy passed by and I looked right at him and begged for help, while I was squirming and fighting. He said "Hey man, put her down." The attacker looked at him and got closer in a jerky mad fashion and said "What are you going to do about it?" He said it in a really deep crazy way & the guy said "nothing." He backed away and kept walking. I had to get away somehow. This guy was even madder and crazier now.

 

I was screaming for help in front of the Krishna place... loud. I thought for sure someone would come out to help me but no one did. I thought they were about the good. All the while poor Zac was on the ground and I could see him in the distance just standing there helpless.

 

 

Nobody was helping. They just left me to my fate. I don't know, maybe someone called the cops but I don't think so. I was on his shoulder but I did my best to wriggle around and loosen his grip. He was getting madder because he was trying to walk at the same time and I was slowing him down. I knew I only had one chance. If I failed I was in real trouble. I couldn't fight him in overall strength or certainly couldn't use arm strength against him. I finally squirmed low enough to use my leg power. One chance. I better get it right. I felt the position of where my knee was. I pulled back with my leg and then I kneed him in the crotch like you wouldn't believe. My legs were super strong and this was my only way out. I felt it. I did real damage I'm sure, I could feel things separating. It was pretty gross but I had to do it. I bet he was never the same again, probably had to go the hospital. I'm not a vengeful person but I had to do it, I'm sure, to save my life.

 

He dropped to the ground, I ran as fast as I could away but yelled "Where's my cat?" Somebody pointed "Here." I ran around in the street. The big strong attacker was on the ground crying and yelling "You bitch." Crying bad.

 

I grabbed Zac and ran up the hill to the dorms.

 

 

85 Not just knee deep

I just wanted to mention that I saw the chicken lady on a regular basis. She and her man were always headed out somewhere. Her main topic of discussion was always where to get free stuff. I wasn't piling myself up with anything, but if they knew good deals on food I listened. The both of them were always carrying a cardboard box.

LBJ did one gig over in Oakland but came back to Berkeley cause there was just as much to do in Berkeley without the hassle of travel. Everything over there was temporary. So why not? He and another fella got some work at an old house in one of the Berkeley neighborhoods. He worked there a couple of days and said "Why don't you c'mon up? I told the lady there about you and she's real excited to meet you." Huh? Ok.

Alright. I guess they were painting, but they wanted me to help remove the wallpaper and get it ready for painting.

Looked pretty much like this neighborhood but 1972.

This was their first house and they were trying to get it ready for a baby. I can't just call her "the wife" because she would have have wanted to be recognized by her name, but I can't remember it. Let's call her Alice. All the young girls love Alice. The dude wasn't as memorable, so let's call him Paul. They were the "young radicals" of Berkeley. I'm going to have to go into a bit of a description of some of the differences between then and now in a minute.

Chick in the foreground reminds me of Alice.

 

Dude with curly hair and glasses reminds me of Paul.

Nice old house with strange hallways and offset levels. It was basically original with layers of paint and a number of rooms with layers of wallpaper too. The paint had lead in it and the wallpaper had arsenic in it. Now I don't remember exactly but people just started realizing the lead thing. I don't remember the paint deal, what they used. It wasn't banned till 1978 but if they were making lead free in 1972, I'm sure they carried it in Berkeley.

It wasn't work for the weak. I had a big steam machine that I held up on the wall and then took a scraper to the layers. I didn't give a crap about the arsenic. We kept all the windows wide open so as much of the fumes or whatever went outside. I guess they were sleeping in the basement while all this other stuff was going on so that the baby didn't get any of it. We worked for a few hours and then stopped for a while in the middle of the day, but they paid us. Alice left for most of the day, even though she didn't work. But she came home midday to make lunch for all of us. Paul was gone all day. 

What really happened was that Alice spent a couple of hours during the middle of the day at home talking with me. None of the workers minded. We all got paid and the guys went off with joints. Now don't get all pissed off. Everyone is mad at feminists now but I'm going to have to spend a few sentences on that. Alice and I "spoke" mostly about these things. For a while most of my reading back in those days was non-fiction stuff. For a good while. Stuff about Viet Nam, government corruption and feminist issues. Germaine Greer said the most to me. I'm not going to make excuses. I didn't want to live like my mother, and she had more of a free life than a lot of the housewives across America. Oh, don't be rolling your eyes. If you are, you didn't live through it. It has changed so rapidly, the reality is only a faint memory.

Germaine Greer

I don't have the answers and the human race always goes too far with things. We can never be reasonable. All I know is that when I was growing up I wanted to be a pirate and a papergirl. I didn't want to be a boy pirate, I wanted to be a girl pirate. These women existed. I didn't want to be a paperboy, I wanted to be me, delivering papers. I loved riding my bike and I loved going on adventures. I didn't care about the money. "Mom. I want to deliver the paper." "You can't." "Why?" "You're a girl." "But why?" "It's a man's world." Boy did that make me sad. What was I supposed to do when I grew up? I didn't want to sit at home ironing and cooking. I wanted some kind of adventure. Maybe a beatnik? 

I watched a lot of movies with my Mom. Asked a lot of questions and she seemed to have regrets about things she felt she missed out on. Every so often sex came up. Not in so many words, but kind of. Do you realize that when all those TV shows with two beds and Lucy wanting to work at the club were on, sex was a woman's duty... not something to be enjoyed. The wife was the Madonna. Little girl in Catholic school crying that she didn't want to live like that. So Alice and I had a lot of those talks. And a lot of women did in those days. And they loved men. I love men. They just wanted to have as much fun. Is that wrong? As to how the world is now, I couldn't tell ya. There's just so much division and it doesn't have to be like that.

Ok. That's all I'm saying about that for now.

Now to the fun part. One afternoon after Alice left after lunch, LBJ grabbed me and said "Hey, let's go to the basement." It didn't take much to convince me.  The basement had already been painted and cleaned up. One big room and there was a real big waterbed on one end. Doing it in the bushes was ok with me, but let's try this waterbed!

Things were moving along but maybe we put too much action into it. Bounce here, bounce there. Whatever we did I'd always end up bounced into the little gap between the mattress and the railing. It wasn't working. I guess we were going to town not having to muffle noises either, you know... not being in the bushes and all. So we ended up on the floor for the finish.

Pretty sure it was green.

The floor had carpeting, I always call it a rug, but not shag. It had substance to it. Well, to get graphic I ended up with my back on it. And it was anything but gentle. We were traveling in unison all over the room. Ha ha. There were windows of course, but who cared? All of a sudden LBJ said that Paul was watching us through the window. I turned and looked. I said "Should we stop?" "No. He doesn't care. He's watching." So after a few more minutes went by he left. 

That rug was really rough. Somehow the way we were I got the most severe rug burns imaginable. My back had some pretty heavy red marks with blood peaking through. Whew. I got dressed but the halter top I wore didn't really cover what happened. Just went back to working. Didn't see Paul or Alice the rest of the day.

The next day the marks had scabs. Big scabs. And sore. Halter top again. Alice saw them and I'm pretty sure she knew what went on cause she was smiling when she looked at my back and said "Oh... you got some pretty bad rug burns there." She put some kind of stuff on the scabs for me and checked them everyday. Took quite a while to heal. Thank you, Alice. We had a great time.