{"id":197615,"date":"2016-10-13T21:26:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T03:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=197615"},"modified":"2016-10-13T21:27:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T03:27:19","slug":"by-a-thousand-trumps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/10\/by-a-thousand-trumps\/","title":{"rendered":"By a thousand Trumps"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong>\u00a0I’ve been wrestling \u2013\u00a0as a writer, a woman, a human being \u2013\u00a0with how to respond to the recordings released last Friday, the non-apology apology, the political response. Here it is.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Memory. Thirty-two years old. Most nights he sits on the window ledge outside my favorite bookstore. He never says hi to me. Never introduces himself. Each and every time I pass by, he stops what he\u2019s doing and stares. He looks me up and down. The first several times I look away. Embarrassed. Then I remember my voice. I shout a greeting. He doesn\u2019t speak. A few months in, I settle on stone cold silence. I will not look away. I will not speak. I will stare at him until he breaks.<\/p>\n

I hate passing that bookstore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thirty-four years old. I am drinking a beer, taking a break from dancing. The bookstore man grabs my wrist and says, \u201clet\u2019s dance.\u201d I say no. He pulls my arm toward the dance floor. I pull away, break free. \u201cLeave me alone,\u201d I say. He steps closer to me. My date, back from the bathroom, steps up to the man. He leaves. At the end of the night, the man apologizes to my date.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Memory. Nineteen years old. I stay on the bus two stops past mine, hoping the guy who\u2019s been staring at me since Kendall Square will get off first. I stay on two stops past because Harvard Square has more light, more people, restaurants and stores I can run into if I need help. It\u2019s dark, late fall. I have to study. I always have to study.<\/p>\n

\"Michelle

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Michelle Otero<\/p><\/div>\n

I step off the bus and walk as fast as I can, past the pierced kids with pink hair and leather, past the bookstore and the burger place. I turn off Mass Ave onto the side street that leads to my dorm. The guy from the bus is half a block behind me. Maybe he\u2019s a student. Maybe he\u2019s going back to his dorm. But I know that he\u2019s not, just like I know that I\u2019m not a fast runner, that I should have put the mace my mom gave me in my purse, that I don\u2019t really ever want to use the mace, just like I wouldn\u2019t want to shoot someone.<\/p>\n

I walk faster. He follows me. Three blocks from my dorm, I turn and face him. \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d I shout.<\/p>\n

He takes a step back, hands in his jean pockets, head down. \u201cUm. What\u2019s your name?\u201d<\/p>\n

I shake my head.<\/p>\n

He tells me I\u2019m pretty.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to go,\u201d I tell him. \u201cYou can\u2019t do things like that. You can\u2019t follow someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My seventh-grade art teacher talks about landscape, draws a tall letter “m” on the chalkboard and says, \u201cYou don\u2019t want your mountains to look like Dolly Parton hills.\u201d<\/p>\n

In eighth grade, he\u2019s my basketball coach. At the end of practice, he insists we dress like ladies the next day for our away game. I am thinking of my one nice skirt and blouse, how the material is thin, and I say I\u2019ll be cold. He says, \u201cWear your wooly bra.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think the girls he touched must have told someone. They weren\u2019t believed. He\u2019s probably out of prison by now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thirty-four years old. I\u2019m a guest author at a university, reading from my book. When I finish, a man raises his hand to ask a question. \u201cWas what the Spaniards did to the indigenous women during the Conquest sexual assault like you say, or was it simply diversification of the gene pool?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Twenty-three years old. My friend and I ride a bus from Quetzaltenango to Antigua, Guatemala. We sit near two men from the U.S. They invite us to lunch. Over licuados and tamales wrapped in banana leaves, we chat about the volcanoes on the horizon. They warn us that hikers should use a trusted guide. Otherwise you could get robbed or raped. One says, \u201cWell, you gotta pay extra for the rapes.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ten years old. A boy I liked in kindergarten tells the kids at his school that we spent the night together on an old mattress behind the gym.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fifteen years old. Three boys I kind of know write me a letter saying what they want to do to my body, how they would f\u2014 me, how they\u2019d want me to respond. They also send one to my best friend and another girl. I find one of them after school, hold the letter up to his face. \u201cGosh, we were just joking,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As the father of three daughters<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

As a husband and father<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

As the grandfather of two precious girls<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remind me, how is this about you?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am somebody.<\/p>\n

I am somebody.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thirty-one years old. I\u2019m jogging near a school. Morning drop off. Kids walking with backpacks, busses pulling into the parking lot. I\u2019m waiting for the light to change so I can cross the street. A guy pulls his blue sports car to the curb in front of me, lets the car idle. We make eye contact. He grabs his crotch and strokes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Seventh grade. Eighth grade. Boys grab girls\u2019 butts and snap their bras as we push through the patio doors back into the building after lunch. I am supposed to want this; it means I am pretty, I am \u201cgood.\u201d That\u2019s their word for it, for having a nice butt and not being fat. I am anxious, anticipating a hand. It happens. Again and again. I turn around only once. Three boys I\u2019ve never met stand behind me, giggling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

College. I ride the subway back to campus from tutoring in the city. A man crosses the train car and stands right in front of me, facing me, holding onto the metal bar. The fabric on his thermals or running tights or leggings is flesh colored, threadbare. I can see the outline of his penis, which seems to hang down to his knee. He stares at me and rubs his crotch against the bar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I read from my book or give a talk about the years I spent in Oaxaca, someone almost always asks about the machismo in Mexico. \u201cWas it hard to deal with that?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Twenty-five years old. My roommate, a friend, and I walk her lab mix on a trail through the bosque. The afternoon silence is shattered by a woman\u2019s screams. The dog breaks away, runs toward the screams and stops. Hair stands on the back of her neck. Teeth bared. I yell out, \u201cHello? Hello?\u201d My roommate calls, \u201cAre you okay? Is anyone there?\u201d Silence. My roommate grabs the dog\u2019s leash. We run to the car. The friend says we\u2019re overreacting, asks, \u201cAre you sure you heard a scream?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are you sure that\u2019s what he did \/ what he meant \/ what you heard \/ what you saw?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Every time the maintenance man at my old building worked on my apartment, he asked if I was married, if I had a boyfriend. He took hours to fix two broken tiles between my bathroom and kitchen, stopped his work to say, \u201cUsted es guapa, pero muy guapa.\u201d I lived alone. He had a key.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thirty-four years old. A writer\u2019s conference. I run into a man I once dated. He\u2019s in a group of other men, all suited and older and accomplished. He and I exchange a quick hug. I\u2019m in a hurry, on my way to a panel. A man from the circle, someone my father\u2019s age, someone I\u2019ve never seen, holds his arms open to me and asks, \u201cWhy does he get a hug?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thirty-three years old. The z\u00f3calo in Veracruz.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you tell me where the Palacio Municipal is?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m not from here.\u201d As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to pull them back.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I could show you around. Can I buy you a drink?\u201d<\/p>\n

The next night I see him pull the same trick on another woman.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Forty-four years old. Walking an unfamiliar city with a colleague from home. He asks if I\u2019ve been here before.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou walk like you know exactly where you\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even when I\u2019m lost I walk like that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The building manager at my last apartment gives me a tour of the property. Each unit is assigned a storage area in the basement. He says, \u201cSome people put their bikes down here, or extra furniture. You might wanna lock up your boyfriend. Sometimes we like cages.\u201d Months later when the shower leaks onto the floor, I call him to fix it. \u201cI don\u2019t know what you might be doing to cause that,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve never showered with you.\u201d I stop calling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Five years old. I visit a friend. We play in her room. Her uncle is in town. He sits on her bed, asks if she thinks I\u2019d like to play that game he taught her. She shrugs her shoulders. He tells me to hold his thumb and close my eyes. When I open them, his thing is in my hand. He laughs. When I tell my brother he says I should never play there again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I hate the question posed to men who practice peace: If your wife or daughter were being raped, would you use violence to protect her?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My best friend from high school runs into a kid we knew from band. When he asks about me, she says I am in Belize doing a Catholic volunteer program. He mistakes this for missionary work, thinks I\u2019m on my way to becoming a nun. He tells my friend, \u201cWhat Michelle really needs is a good f\u2014.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I worried I wouldn\u2019t have enough to write this post.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lonely man on the train.<\/p>\n

Lonely man on the plane.<\/p>\n

Lonely man at the coffee shop.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reading, studying, staring out the window, writing, thinking, daydreaming, planning, plotting, reflecting, resting.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to talk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to smile.<\/p>\n

Unless I do.<\/p>\n

And then I will.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back from the grocery store at our neighbor\u2019s Saturday morning brunch, I tell my friends about the man in the parking lot who followed me to my car. \u201cHe was creepy.\u201d<\/p>\n

My neighbor dries his hands on his apron and says, \u201cYou think everything\u2019s creepy.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What did you expect to happen?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thirty-something. Raggaeton on the jukebox. I sway my hips while the bartender pours my beer. Behind me, a table of men claps to the beat, chants \u201cHey, Hey, Hey,\u201d in rhythm with my hips. I stop swaying. They stop chanting. I start. They start. I stop. They stop. I turn around. They applaud. I grab my beer and find a table in the other room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am afraid sometimes, and I don\u2019t want to be.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I walk my roommate\u2019s pit bull mix on a North Valley acequia trail. I sense someone behind me. A man in jeans lunges toward me and gropes my thigh.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been almost twenty years. Massage. EMDR. Therapy. Meditation. And still, when I feel threatened, that part of my leg throbs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Twenty-nine years old. Old Town, Albuquerque. I come face to face with a burglar in the house I\u2019m renting. I scream him out the door. He trips and falls, and I don\u2019t stop screaming until he is gone.<\/p>\n

My boyfriend says, \u201cI don\u2019t like you living here. You need to move somewhere safer.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where is that place?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stranger in a downtown bar caresses my face.<\/p>\n

I fall asleep on the bus from Belize City to Punta Gorda. The driver wakes me by massaging my hip.<\/p>\n

A woman in a caf\u00e9 is trying to read. Some guy won\u2019t leave her alone.<\/p>\n

The girl I am raising. Seventh grade. A boy sticks his hand down her shirt.<\/p>\n

I tell her, \u201cI will always believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I thought I wouldn\u2019t have enough to write about.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shall I go on?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lot to take in.<\/p>\n

You must be tired.<\/p>\n

Yeah, me too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michelle Otero is a writer, actor, and facilitator, who utilizes creative expression and storytelling as the basis for organizational development and positive social change. Originally from Deming, she lives in Albuquerque\u2019s South Valley where she works with fellow artists and local farmers to implement the Community Table project, which combines art, local agriculture, and economic development as a platform for neighborhood revitalization. Read her blog here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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