"Transvaginal 2017"
From the Associate Editor's Desk
As published by DowntownLALife.com Magazine International
It was the remotest of BP stations somewhere west of Richmond. It was dark, it was windy, and it was cold as hell. I remember the good old days when night lighting at gas pumps was blindingly bright fluorescents- not anymore. The Save America Energy Plan of several years ago sort of darkened our filling stations a bit. And although there was never a declared curfew, there are certainly subtle methods of ‘enticing’ people to stay in doors after dark: Nightly electricity cuts being just one of many. Still, the FIB (Foxnation Information Bureau) attributes the semi-blackouts to the Iran Wars, and of course the dramatic increase in hurricanes- and yet one day for a fully restored America… many a fool still holds out hope.
Since losing my job after nine years as an insurance salesman… and shut-up: I know. How do you lose your job as an insurance salesman? Speaking of which… and ironically- no health insurance, no phone, a long-ago foreclosed home, a tired old Hyundai that has seen better days, a couple of world-beaten suitcases, and a soon-to-be, maxed-out credit card: Here I am. The road trip to nowhere. One might have said that this was a pleasant trek across our hallowed homeland: Hmm, days gone by. What put me in this cold, dark place had absolutely nothing to do with happy frontier trails.
I am a desolate angel. No, I am a desperate angel. No, I am not an angel; yet just another loser so ordained by the very country that we were all mandated to blindly worship. And now I am a runner, a runner to nowhere.
Still, I should be thankful for my health. At fifty-one, the prospect of dying alone in my car without my sons’ knowledge… well, it often keeps me awake at night. Okay, okay. Enough with the self-pity; much better that they don’t know a damn thing about my pathetic situation.
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These, our United States: Land of the virtual, the self-absorbed, the isolated. They sold us dreams, they sold us lies, they sold us lunacy, they sold us national suicide- and by God many of us bought into it, lock, stock, and barrel. This is the age of Facebook Jesus- a sacrosanct time to squeak and tweak your squalid existence all the while laid out on your couch with all the newest, coolest ‘apps’ … and perhaps… perhaps permitting your God to worship you- just as long as it doesn’t interfere with your precious time and your terminal uniqueness. How else might any of us successfully engage in full-scale illusion and idolatry without being continuously connected to the oh-so-virtual world… all on display on our itty, bitty, little vanity machines? And all from the comfort of our debt-driven lounges of pillows and corn derivatives?
But then there is the hundred plus millions that continue to be pushed out into this realest of worlds, this American hell; so exiled from our cockpits of complacency and comfort. I guess I qualify as one of those now.
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It’s freezing out here. Looking out past my Sonata: The dinosaur-esque display of rusting cars and pallet lean-tos off to the southern end of the gas station parking lot- All now abandoned. Not that it’s that rare a site: These countless junk heaps are now a prominent feature of the American desperate-scape, popping up everywhere after the Restore America Initiatives of 2014. And where might the panhandlers, the veterans, the beggars, and the hopeless find refuge in these dropping temperatures? Only an elusive, unknown God might know.
So here I am, pumping away, contemplating my Milky Way dinner. My windshield is covered in these… these bugs that started appearing along the east coast several years ago. It was gossip in the shelters and camps that their arrival was just another part of global warming- but with climate change being banned from education and media… who’s to say?
$16.40. That should be enough gas to get me the sixty miles to Richmond, and still leave some change for my candy bar. Walking across the lot from the pumps, a gust of wind catches my lucky, Manchester United cap and blows it to the side of the building. A tired old man chasing a ball cap; must have looked kind of stupid to anybody dumb enough to be out here. Straightening up, my cap now in hand…
There she was- standing motionless, not two feet from me.
To say that I was a bit startled is understatement. Who in the hell would be sneaking about out here in the shadows on this gusty, bitter-cold night?
She was asking for change; just another panhandler- and yet a very bizarre time and place. I tried to get a solid look at this girl in the dull security light on the side of the building: Cute freckles; stringy, shoulder-length, auburn hair; an oversized, blue flannel, plaid shirt under a stained gray hoodie; worn, lace-less, Converse tennis shoes; and strangely, a knee-length, dark, paisley skirt. Hmm. Strange girl.
As I started to nonchalantly dust off my Man United cap, she held out her hand and humbly mumbled, “Any change Mister?” - It was then that I saw the little plump hidden beneath her faded flannel: She was pregnant.
Her name was Mary, and on this dark night, in this foreign, lonely place, my entire survival was based on one last credit card… Oh well, so much for spare change. Still, and perhaps in one of those rare acts of kindness that our post-modern, cyber world no longer acknowledges, I reached out to this young girl- maybe because of her being with child… maybe because I was sick and tired of being a self-absorbed dick.
“Mary, would you like a Milky Way? It’s just, I was going to have a ‘snack’ in my car, out of this damn wind. You know, I could buy you one too.” Gee. Under any other circumstance, inviting this girl to my car might sound a bit unsavory, if not twisted; but these were not normal times. And with the shadowy, gaunt look of her face, especially under her eyes… she looked malnourished, or maybe something worse.
Within sixty seconds of us sitting in my littered Hyundai, wind knocking against the driver’s side: Boom. Her candy bar was gone in a couple of lightning fast gobbles.
Other than Mary’s whispered ‘thank you,’ we sat in silence, trying to stay warm with my decades-old electric blanket, drinking what remained of a liter of Coke that I had in the back seat. There was a time when I carried a little Colt 380 five-shot for protection, but I sold it somewhere back in Tennessee. Besides, everybody thinks everybody else has guns nowadays; I guess our nationalized, sicko version of détente can sometimes kept you safe… sorta.
The gas station now closed, the only light we had was… well, we really didn’t have any light.
After what might have been five minutes or an hour (who knows?), I inquired about her pregnancy. You know, just one of those simple, caring, make-conversation sort of things… like, “How many months?” Something along those lines.
Have you ever asked somebody a simple question, expecting a simple answer, maybe a sentence or two afterward just to clarify or accentuate the response? Lately, on those rare ‘social’ occasions, it seems that every time I ask somebody a simple fricking question, they unleash a massive, rushing torrent of stuff- like it’s been held back for decades, like they’ve been waiting and waiting for a crack in the dam, or some fool like me to pop into the scene. Maybe I just look like a good listener… like the proverbial crack in the dam.
Well Mary had an answer, a long one. A story really.
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Mary was seven months along. Mary was sixteen years old. She was trying to hitchhike to a cousin’s in Richmond, when she happened upon the BP station… and me.
After much pause and tears, she slowly began to tell her story:
Mary’s mother had died from an Oxycontin overdose three years prior. At thirteen, she was left with a sexually abusive stepfather and a younger brother. She lived and breathed for school; but those dreams flamed quickly in the embers of violent sexual encounters in the late hours of far too many nights. Initially, she wanted to report her stepfather, but school had eliminated the counseling department due to budget cuts. Besides, she felt such shame and knew she had nowhere else to go… Deep down, Mary knew she was trapped.
The rapes took an even more violent turn when her stepfather’s job was lost to a plant in China. It was during this time that he forced Mary to smoke Meth with him, only to be followed by hours of the most viscous sadism... There is hell… and then there is hell. Mary learned of the real one.
Then the signs began to appear: Nausea, dizziness, a change in her breasts. Mary was pregnant.
Pretending to go to school and accompanied by little brother Mack, Mary secretly visited a clinic in a neighboring town. After confirmation of the pregnancy, the nurse informed Mary that she was required to forward her case to the Department of Life Protection, a recently formed state agency. Mary would be required by law to report there within the next thirty days for a mandatory transvaginal ultrasound and registration for parenting classes. These ‘clinics’ were now housed in what had once been Social Security offices; but since the privatization/collapse of Social Security… well, you know how it goes.
As for the right to get an abortion? Since all the Restore America crap began, the exact criteria used by Life Protection to determine a woman’s right to an abortion had become just one big catch-22, gray area.
Terrified, Mary returned home and continued to endure the attacks of her stepfather, him never knowing (or for that matter, caring) about her pregnancy. It was during these weeks that Mary quit school altogether. It was also during this time that Mary started desperately looking for any, ANY way out. And at this point, and understandably, it was non-negotiable: Escape, or suicide.
As the day approached for Mary’s return to the clinic, Congress hastily passed legislation mandating that all states were to immediately interpret and act: Abortion would now be considered a crime of first or minimally, second-degree murder. All Life Protection offices were to be closed, to ultimately be deemed just another eliminable ‘slacker entitlement program.’
In her sixth month, the most violent of all rapes occurred. Beaten, bruised, and scabbed, Mary left the next day wandering east- equipped only with the slimmest of hopes: Reaching a cousin in Richmond that she had never even met…
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I have always been doggedly determined to believe in a God. And I have often wondered if there was one single act of love that God would put in front of me… you know, that would sort of ‘fix’ everything- well, at least in my case. Nah, forget it. I’m talking crazy.
But by God, and if there really was a God watching- I was gonna get this little gal to Richmond, or die trying.
The next day, we cleaned up in the BP service station bathrooms, and moved due east. After countless requests for directions (no GPS) and ambling lost as hell all through the city proper, we finally found her cousin’s apartment.
Mary had a new home.
After several nights of rest on cousin Brenda’s broken futon, and after countless good-bye hugs- Rejuvenated, I continued towards D.C. without any fricking idea why I was going there. The Federal Zone had long been cordoned off from the public; maybe I could sit lotus in full view of the many surveillance cameras and set myself on fire like that Buddhist Monk in Viet Nam.
My picture might even make it to Facebook or YouTube… for a day or two- you know, just a micro-byte of spectacle for the collective’s amusement.
Nah.
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This is the story of Mary, so told to me on the coldest of nights in February, in a desolate BP station, on the torn front seats of my dying Hyundai.
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In June, I was staying in a Catholic ‘help’ house in Fairfax and finally had regular access to a phone. Curious about whether Mary had conceived a boy or girl, I tried phoning the cousin’s apartment. No answer.
Several days later, I finally got through to Mary’s cousin.
…
… Cute and freckled little Mary. Damaged and yet so tough little Mary.
On Easter Sunday, April 16th, 2017, Mary Alice McGregor died during induced-labor at a clinic in Baltimore. Her baby boy, named Jesse, died three days after birth.
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michael a martin, november 2012