99 New: Chippy

There are a lot of very courageous women who are fighting on my behalf while I am enjoying myself at the ballpark watching our beloved Milwaukee Brewers beat the Colorado Rockies in the first game of the National League Divisional Series.

I feel like a slacker watching women in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building, their fists in the air, getting arrested, yelling, chanting, many telling their stories of sexual assault, some for the first time, to Senators who are afraid to listen to them, who don’t trust their own reactions, and are wary of feeling bad for not doing the right thing either now or sometime in the past. Because who knows what some of these Senators remember from their own lives. If they listen too hard, they could hear some bad echoes.

Over the years, I’ve developed an acute fear of being arrested. So I will go to demonstrations but I want them to be safe. I want the organizers to have gotten all the necessary permits and I’m loathe to trespass or break any rules. My friend who has lived a long life as a rule breaker, mocks me for always ‘sitting in the assigned seat’ so sometimes I try to be like her but I fail.

I tell myself it’s because I’m deaf without my cochlear implant receiver and my hearing aid. So basically, if those things got knocked off or taken by law enforcement, I’d be dumb to instructions, couldn’t advocate for myself (I actually can’t even hear myself speak unless I shout), and would end up enraging officers frustrated by my non-compliance and then who knows what would happen? Oh gee, such excuses we weave when we are just plain scared of doing something that is risky and edgy.

In a few weeks, the group I work with, the League of Progressive Seniors, is holding a “Halloween Party” demonstration on a busy corner in downtown Milwaukee. We’re going to dress up as our Republican Governor’s Scary Friends – you know, the Koch Brothers, bad streets, student debt, lousy healthcare. I’m dressing up as a nurse in the state’s juvenile prison, a place where kids’ physical and mental health complaints have often been ignored by medical personnel, sometimes with horrendous consequences.

I’m ready to dress up as a nurse. I’m even ready to get someone to trail after me while I march, someone (a much younger-looking person) begging for health care, like “please, please help me,” whom I would cruelly ignore. I already have a stethoscope and a big plastic needle, no scrubs yet but that’s next. So I’m ready to be a pretend nurse and to march in downtown Milwaukee in my get-up.

I just want to make sure we stay on the sidewalk, single file so as to allow access to passers-by, not blocking the street in any way, and, for heaven’s sake, not setting foot on private property, and not doing anything that could result in being arrested. I’m such a demonstration sissy. I’ve got to fix that. Figure out how to be a tougher cookie.

_________________

Photo by Eiliv Aceron on Unsplash