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Chapter
15
Chapter 16 - Black Friday
During the four days she spent in Salinas over Thanksgiving break,
Ruthie got very little rest. She spent a good portion of Thanksgiving
Day looking after Rosa and trying to make sure she didn�t get a hold of
any more Tequila. Ruthie plied her with water and Coke, trying to get
her to sober up before she went to sleep. She became very angry at her
cousin, not only for being drunk at a family gathering, but also for her
decision to join the military. Still, Ruthie realized that dealing with
Rosa gave her something to do for the rest of the day, something to keep
her occupied and away from her family�s other problems.
At sundown Ruthie figured that her cousin was sober enough that she
could be safely put to bed. Rosa stumbled into the bathroom one last
time, and then passed out on her bed. Ruthie was both worried and
disgusted, never having seen her cousin so drunk before. She lay down on
top of the room�s other bed, but had a hard time getting to sleep
because of the noise from outside. Besides being bothered by the noise,
it was hard for her to get comfortable because she was not used to
sleeping in her clothes.
Ruthie knew that she needed to get as much rest as she could early on,
because at 2:30 am her mother woke up both younger women and told them
to get into one of the cars. They groaned in protest as Do�a Lisette
shook them awake. Rosa still was hung-over and Ruthie dreaded the day
that lay ahead.
A few minutes later, two carloads of Ruthie�s family and an extra
pick-up truck joined a long line of cars moving towards the Watsonville
Mega-Center. Yes, indeed�Ruthie had been drafted by her mother to
participate in the most disgusting holiday spectacle of all, shopping on
Black Friday.
Ruthie had gone through Black Friday shopping enough times to know what
to expect. There would be a two-hour wait in line in a dark parking lot
before the doors opened at 5:00 am, then the mad dash to the electronics
section to try to get sales items �while supplies lasted�, then the
endless pushing and grabbing in the clothing department, a stop at the
Christmas decorations, and finally a stop to buy cartloads of food. The
whole day would consist of standing in line and jostling other people.
For someone like Ruthie, who tended to be claustrophobic in restricted
crowded spaces, Black Friday shopping was pure torment.
The family took their places in a very long line that wrapped around the
Mega-Mart. She looked at her cousin�s pale sick face, then listened to
several people ahead of her group argue whether or not it was �fair� for
a person to leave the line and expect to get back in. She listened to
unhappy children whining or crying, and to several arguments in both
English and Spanish.
Rosa was in a horrible mood from her hangover, Ruthie was in a horrible
mood because she did not want to be anywhere near a Mega-Mart at 3:00 in
the morning on Black Friday, and the older women were in bad moods
because they felt their daughters were being ungrateful and
uncooperative. Ruthie looked around. Already there were thousands of
other uncomfortable and irritated shoppers lined up in the parking lot.
The mood of the crowd was not pleasant at all.
The minutes dragged by and the line behind Ruthie�s family grew ever
larger and ever more restless. Shoppers jostled at the building�s
entrance and began pushing to better position themselves to get in
quickly. Ruthie started having a bad feeling about what was going to
happen the moment the Mega-Mart employees finally opened the doors. She
wanted to beg her relatives to give up on the shopping trip, but the
only person she felt she could talk to was her cousin. Rosa replied:
�When we get in there, the only place I�m going is the bathroom.�
�Rosa, I don�t like this. Too many people�and they don�t have any
security out here.�
Rosa waved off her cousin�s concerns.
�We go through this shit every year. It�s always the same. Nothing�s
gonna happen.�
A half an hour later the doors opened and the crowd surged forward.
There was a crush as the group pushed towards the entrance. Bodies
pressed ever more tightly against Ruthie and Rosa. It became hard to
breathe and Ruthie lost sight of her mother. She could tell that Rosa
was frightened by the sudden pressure on her body from the crowd. Ruthie
was apprehensive as well, but she was not surprised. Her pessimistic
outlook had prepared her to expect that something could go very wrong
once those doors opened.
The next few minutes were some of the scariest of Ruthie�s life. As the
crush of bodies tightened, she found breathing increasingly difficult.
She also realized that she and Rosa would be in very serious danger if
either of them tripped. The crowd swayed back and forth and her feet
constantly were bumping up against the feet of her neighbors. Once Rosa
did trip, but Ruthie held on to her arm and with all of her strength
managed to help keep her on her feet.
Finally Ruthie and her family made it through the door, but the crush of
bodies only seemed to get worse. Shoppers continued to push through the
door, but the crowd no longer was moving forward. To her right she heard
someone shouting:
�Get off! Get off!�
A group of people next to her fell suddenly. Just as she lost her
balance and was about to fall, Gerardo grabbed Ruthie�s arm and pulled
her to the left. More people fell and started to scream. Gerardo grabbed
Ruthie again and pushed her towards the window. A second later Rosa
stumbled against her. Gerardo shouted:
�Keep moving! Away from the door!�
Ruthie grabbed Rosa�s hand and pushed through a cluster of people that
slowly were moving forward again, towards the pharmacy. The crowd
emerged into an open area of the store and thinned out. Once they got
past the danger, many people ignored the disaster and started running
towards the coveted sales items. Ruthie and Rosa stepped back towards
the window, waiting for the other members of their group to come out.
Ruthie saw the top of Gerardo�s head in the mob. Gerardo emerged with
his own mother a second later, along with another family friend. He
pushed several panicky people aside and extracted the final member of
his group, Do�a Lisette. Ruthie�s mother was gasping for air and had a
thoroughly horrified expression on her face. Her purse was gone and a
shoe was missing, but otherwise she was OK. Ruthie hugged her.
Ruthie�s relatives moved past the checkout area, along with dozens of
other dazed shoppers. There was no time to think about running towards
the �while supplies last� deals, because it was obvious that things were
terribly wrong near the main entrance. Security guards were frantically
trying to disperse the crowd and get to a group of people who had
fallen. The scene became increasingly chaotic as more and more shoppers
were pushed through the doors and fell on top of the ones lying on the
floor. There was screaming, yelling and cursing. Alarms in the store
went off, but the noise only added to the panic among the crowd. Ruthie
looked through the window, noticing shoppers still outside pushed
against the glass. Those people were only a few feet away from her, but
there was not a thing she could do to help them. Anyhow, the only thing
on her mind was staying close behind Gerardo and not letting go of her
mother�s hand.
The family continued moving away from the front entrance in the midst of
dozens of other frantic people. Gerardo shouted at the others to go to
the gardening department at the back end of the Mega-Center. The crowd
surrounding Ruthie had dispersed, but the screaming coming from the
front of the store seemed louder than ever. As they exited into the
fenced area containing gardening supplies, Ruthie�s family could hear
sirens in the parking lot. Firemen and paramedics came in through the
back of the store and rushed past them. They heard loudspeakers
announcing that the Mega-Center was closing. That announcement was
accompanied by shouts of anger from many of the shoppers who had already
made it into the store and had picked up sales items. Ruthie heard
several things inside breaking. She correctly assumed the crashes were
from disappointed shoppers smashing things they had picked up but would
not be allowed to buy.
They exited through the gardening center, after being checked by a
Mega-Mart security guard to make sure they were not carrying any
merchandise. Ruthie�s family walked around the back of the building,
passing the loading docks to return to their cars. Everyone was badly
shaken up. It was clear that Rosa no longer needed to use the restroom,
because her jeans were soaked. Ruthie�s mother still was missing a shoe.
Her aunt had twisted an ankle and needed to be helped as she walked.
They were a forlorn group as they slowly made their way in the pre-dawn
fog towards the front of the store, their shopping trip a total
disaster.
It took hours to get out of the parking lot. The exits had to be blocked
off to give priority to emergency services. Ruthie and her relatives
noticed ambulance after ambulance leaving. Later Ruthie�s family would
find out how lucky they were, given what had happened only a few feet
from where they had come in through the entrance. The tragedy started
when a Mega-Mart employee was pushed to the floor by the first wave of
shoppers entering the store. For several seconds the people coming in
managed to step over him, but then a woman was pushed over the employee
and fell. Several more people fell on top of her. Eventually more than
100 shoppers and employees lay piled on the floor, eight of whom died
and 60 others who were seriously injured. Another man had a heart attack
when he was pushed against the front window and his pace-maker quit
working. Among the people pressed against the window there were several
other serious injuries. Gerardo told his relatives that he was standing
right next to several shoppers who fell and that it was only by pure
luck he did not go down with them. There was another piece of good
fortune. Gerardo�s wife planned to accompany the group on the shopping
trip, but at the last moment felt sick and changed her mind. No one
wanted to imagine what would have happened if a woman who was eight
months pregnant had been with them during the stampede.
It was well past sunrise, but finally the three cars of Ruthie�s group
turned onto the highway going south, to return to Salinas empty-handed.
Do�a Lisette chatted incessantly about the need to be grateful to Jesus
for having spared them. Ruthie sat quietly in the back seat, viewing the
experience from a totally different perspective. As she sat listening to
her mother rattle on about Jesus and smelling her cousin�s piss, Ruthie
resolved that she would never set foot in a Mega-Mart again. She always
had hated the store anyway, but she �went along� to avoid an argument.
Well, now she had a perfect justification for not �going along� anymore.
As much as she�d like to avoid it, she would have to tell Mike what had
happened. Undoubtedly he would hear about it on the news and wonder if
she had been at the store. She�d have to fess up and admit that yes, not
only had she been at the store, she had been right in the middle of the
stampede. His reaction would be predictable: he would say that Mega-Mart
brought out the worst in people because it was the world�s worst
manifestation of rampant capitalism. He was right, of course, because
the company�s sales tactics, designed to bring hoards of panicky
shoppers to the store to be the lucky �winner� of a wide screen TV that
was being sold at a loss, fed on greed. As Mike would always say, greed
will turn any person into a demented savage. He now had nine deaths and
60 injuries to back up that statement.
Greed will turn any person into a demented savage.
----------
Mike and his family never went anywhere near a store on Black Friday.
Instead they went for a drive towards the Napa Valley and had a picnic
with the remains of the previous day�s turkey. It was a chance to forget
the present and pretend that the more pleasant years family�s past had
continued uninterrupted. Mike�s sister was, as usual, a bit uneasy, but
even she was able to set aside her worries and just relax. The family
did not bother to let anything serious enter into their
conversation�they kept to light subjects such as the various points of
interests in the valley. It was dark by the time they got back.
Upon returning to his room, Mike had a message on his cell phone. It was
a call from Ruthie, telling him that she was OK and her family was safe.
They had a bad scare at the Mega-Center, but they got out unhurt and
were safely back in Salinas.
A bad scare at the Mega-Center? Mike immediately turned on the TV. Sure
enough, the headline news was the morning�s tragedy at the Watsonville
Mega-Mart. There was footage of columns of ambulances leaving the
parking lot and interviews with witnesses. There also were interviews
with company officials, whose responses ranged from blaming the shoppers
for being careless to praising the �great American consumer� for being
so determined to shop, no matter how adverse the conditions might be.
�This incident, while unfortunate, shows that American capitalism is
the best system there is and how people are looking for value in their
purchases�The American consumer is the most determined consumer in the
world�Nothing will stop the American consumer, not even an unfortunate
tragedy like what happened today...�
Mike stared dumbfounded at the news report, horrified that the woman he
loved had been right in the middle of all that. He called her, but she
seemed somewhat irritated:
�It�s like I told you, Mike. I�m fine. Everyone here is fine. I
mean�we�re a bit shaken up�but we�re all fine. I�ll tell you about it
when I see you on campus. I don�t wanna talk about it over the phone.
I�m fine. Really��
Mike hung up, a bit bewildered. Obviously Ruthie was traumatized and not
�fine�. However he knew that it would be better to wait and talk to her
in person�as she had requested.
----------
That night, Mike finally got around to reading Ruthie�s favorite book,
�Pedro Paramo�. It was one of the most depressing narratives he had ever
read, but from the beginning he could see why the story had been so
influential in Latin American literature. And to think, that no gringo,
apart from the ones who made it three years into a Spanish major, had
ever heard of the novel or its author Juan Rulfo.
More importantly for Mike, by reading �Pedro Paramo�, felt that Juan
Rulfo was giving him a good glimpse into Ruthie�s unhappy soul. The hot,
desolate, abandoned setting of the story matched her perceptions of how
the future of the world would play out. As for an insight of how she
viewed herself, Mike read the following:
�I don�t know, Juan Preciado. After so many years of never lifting up
my head, I forgot about the sky. And even if I had looked up, what good
would it have done? The sky is so high and my eyes so clouded that I was
happy just to know where the ground was. Besides, I lost all interest
when Padre Renter�a told me I would never know glory. Or even see it
from a distance � It was because of my sins, but he shouldn�t have told
me that. Life is hard enough as it is. The only thing that keeps you
going is the hope that when you die you�ll be lifted off this mortal
coil; but when they close one door and the only one left open is the
door to Hell, you are better off not being born � for me, Juan Preciado,
heaven is right here.�
�And your soul? Where do you think it�s gone?�
�It�s probably wandering like so many others, looking for living
people to pray for it. It probably hates me for the way I treated it,
but I don�t worry about that any more. And now I don�t have to listen to
its whining about remorse. Because of it, the little I ate turned bitter
in my mouth, it haunted my nights with black thoughts of the damned.
When I sat down to die, my soul prayed for me to get up and drag on with
my life, as if it still expected some miracle to cleanse me of my sins.
I didn�t even try. �This is the end of the road�, I told it. �I don�t
have the strength to go on.� And I opened my mouth for it to escape. And
it went. I knew when I felt the little thread of blood that bound it to
my heart drip into my hands.�
Mike read through �Pedro Paramo� in a single sitting. It was 3:00 in the
morning when he finished. The book�s bleak message of hopelessness
deeply moved him, because in that story he saw Ruthie�s soul. He got up
and put on a pair of shorts and a jacket. He wouldn�t be able to sleep
and he couldn�t stay in the quiet house. He�d have to go out.
Mike walked around the decaying neighborhood, more aware than ever that
he was part of a United States that was passing into memory. The middle
class, suburbia, the work ethic, small businesses, and the independent
spirit that had been central to the United States was fading out, the
spirit of its people crushed under the indifferent phenomenon of
corporate globalization. Mike was part of that past. Even though he was
only 20, he knew that he had been born to live in world that no longer
existed. The planet of the future, the world being consolidated under
Mega-Town Associates, was not a world that he could, or would, want to
live in. Ruthie�s right about that�there�s no hope. She knows�
Mike walked along the deserted sidewalks in the chilly pre-dawn
darkness. He passed several �for sale� signs, including ones that had
the added description �bank owned�. �Bank owned�� foreclosure
properties�the fruits of a credit-based economy.
The majority of the houses that were still occupied had SUV�s sitting in
driveways. SUV�s�the past decade�s most prominent symbol of an era of
debt, wastefulness, and conspicuous consumption that had finished off
the hope that the US could look forward to any future other than a
painful decline.
Mike�s thoughts returned to the desolate words of �Pedro Paramo�. Just
like the fictional Comala of Juan Rulfo�s novel, the suburb of Mike�s
childhood was becoming ever more abandoned�ever more lost and hopeless.
He was reminded of a passage from Ruthie�s book:
�From that day the fields lay untended. Abandoned. It was a sad thing
to see what happened to the land, how plagues took over as soon as it
lay idle. For miles around, people fell on hard times. Men packed up in
search of a better living. I remember when the only sound in Comala was
good-byes��
Mike�s thoughts turned to his girlfriend. He reflected that exactly 24
hours before; she had been at the Mega-Center waiting in line with her
relatives. Hopefully at the moment he was thinking about her, Ruthie was
safely in bed�not standing out in some godforsaken parking lot. He badly
wanted to see her�because he loved her more than ever. Through spending
a night reading her favorite book, he felt that he really understood
her. Her soul was much darker than he had imagined, but in that darkness
was the real truth behind life. She understood that life had no meaning,
and there was no hope. The only meaning he would find in his own life
would come from the time he shared with her.
----------
Over the next two days Do�a Lisette gave her testimony in church,
thanking Jesus for the miracle at the Mega-Center and the blessing that
spared her and her daughter from the clutches of Satan. The fellow
church-goers loudly concurred with �Amen!� and �Praise Jesus!� Of
course, Ruthie had to stand next to her mother as she spoke as a living
testament of Jesus� generosity. She held her tongue and played
along�forcing a smile and trying to be patient. Her mother needed to
have her moment�even if it was her cousin Gerardo, and not Jesus, who
deserved the credit for saving them from being trampled.
Ruthie�s relatives did not try to do any more Christmas shopping that
weekend, much to her relief. The Mega-Center re-opened on Saturday with
the same long lines and hoards of shoppers pouring into the store in the
pre-dawn hours. The store hired more security and had better crowd
control, so the panic from the day before was not repeated. However,
Do�a Lisette had no desire to �test the Lord�s patience� by repeating
her trip to the store; while both Ruthie and Rosa flatly stated that any
new foray to a Mega-Mart would have to be made without them.
----------
Over Friday and Saturday night Ruthie slept in her old bedroom. She had
been away from home for only three months, but she felt uneasy sleeping
in that room, as though she didn�t belong there. Already she was
changing�leaving behind the person she had been in Salinas: she had
changed and the room had not.
Still, the bedroom had many memories for Ruthie. For six years it had
been both her refuge and her prison, where she spent most of her time
hiding out from the gang-life of her neighborhood. It was the place
where had made all those discoveries through her reading, where she had
progressed through her knowledge of the outside world, and ultimately
where she had acquired the facts she needed to abandon her faith. There
were other memories, brought back to her by a full-length mirror on the
door. She had spent endless hours standing in the nude, looking at
herself and sinfully exploring her own body.
She looked through her meager possessions, wondering what she additional
items she might want to take with her to Davenport�and perhaps show to
Mike. There were a couple of books she decided to put in her backpack,
and a few pieces of clothing that she had forgotten to pack in August.
Not much else�just a picture album of some photos from Nebraska�might as
well take it and show Mike what she looked like when she was in grade
school�and her grandmother�and her father�
She slammed the album shut when she saw her father�s face. She tossed it
back into the drawer. She did not want to be reminded�at least not now.
Then she reconsidered. She took the album out and put it in her
backpack. At some point she�d have to face her memories�maybe the best
way to do that would be to share them with Mike�or perhaps with Dr.
Hartman.
There was another item from her past that Ruthie came across�an
old-fashioned wooden bath-brush that her mother had brought up from
Mexico. The implement was heavy and made from solid wood, with a smooth
wide back. It was totally different from the flimsy plastic bath-brushes
normally sold in the US. Ruthie held the brush and ran her palm over the
uncompromising surface. She touched the bristles with her fingertips,
noting that they were almost new. The bath-brush had spent most of the
past four years in a drawer hidden behind her clothing, and had never been
used for its intended purpose. Ruthie grabbed the brush by the handle
and tapped the flat side against the palm of her hand. She closed her
eyes for a moment�remembering how, for about half a year, it was a very
important part of her �me time�.
She first saw the brush when she was in the ninth grade. She was
cleaning the apartment and saw it under the bathroom sink, pushed behind
some bottles of detergent. She knew that her mother must have left it
there and forgotten that she had it. For several months Ruthie gave the
brush no further thought, but one day she overheard a classmate talking
about her sister being spanked over the weekend. Ruthie sat quietly and
listened with fascination as the other girl described how her mother
forced the girl to pull down her shorts and hit her on the bare bottom
with a �big long brush�. Ruthie�s heart beat faster as she listened to
the classmate�s casual remarks. She so badly wanted to ask the other
girl for details, but she had to stay quiet because she was merely
overhearing the conversation, not participating in it.
The next morning, after her mother had left for work, she got up and
retrieved the bath-brush. For a long time she stood with it in front of
the mirror, touching it to her bottom and masturbating. The thought of
being punished on the bare bottom with a brush like the one she was
holding was a total turn-on for her. She fantasized about being punished
along with her classmate�s sister, being told to bend over with her bare
bottom on prominent display and her knees trembling, waiting for the
agonizing swats.
Ruthie�s punishment fantasies never included any thoughts about her own
mother. Do�a Lisette was very strict with Ruthie and frequently grabbed
her hair or slapped her, but always struck her across the face. To
punish Ruthie by pulling down her panties and forcing her to expose
herself was something she never would have considered doing, given her
views on modesty. Anyhow, at that time Ruthie hated her mother, so the
girl�s fantasies always involved other authority figures�never Do�a
Lisette.
For several days Ruthie contented herself with masturbating in front of
the mirror and taking pictures of herself posing with the brush.
Finally, she decided to start punishing herself. She knew that she was a
sinful girl who needed a proper punishment. She was full of religious
guilt over her constant sexual adventures in the apartment, so if she
could figure out how to spank herself�
She tried to give her bottom a couple of swats with the brush. Her aim
was bad and she hit herself on the hip instead of the bottom. She tried
several positions before she figured out that the best way for her to
reach her bottom was to hold onto the arm of a living room chair and
bend over slightly, but not all the way. She learned the best grip, one
that would allow the brush to hit both sides of her bottom with equal
force.
After several mornings of trial and error, Ruthie finally was ready to
give herself a proper spanking. She struck hard 10 times, alternating
bottom-cheeks and wincing at the hot sting. The pain was scary, but she
was totally aroused. She rubbed herself but did not allow herself to
climax. She struck her bottom another 10 times�took a deep breath, and
then hit herself 10 more times�as hard as she could.
She gasped at the pain and her eyes filled with tears. She looked at
herself in the mirror. Already her bottom had changed color and was a
deep pink, almost red. She set the timer on the camera and posed for
several pictures, with her reddening bottom on full display in the
shots.
Ruthie was totally aroused by what she had just done to herself. The red
color on her skin and the warm burning sensation coming from her
backside excited her in a way she had never experienced before. She
spent the next several minutes enjoying the best orgasm of her life.
Finally she calmed down, totally scared of what had just happened. God
had seen all of that. Surely she would suffer for her sick behavior.
Frightened, she put the brush away, got dressed, and prayed for
forgiveness. Badly shaken, she went to school.
A month passed before Ruthie worked up the nerve to spank herself again,
but the excitement and guilt from that first self-inflicted punishment
never left her thoughts. She hid the electronic card from camera so she
would not have to delete the pictures she had taken. During her �me
time� she looked at the images and replayed the memory of the swats in
her mind. She felt guilty, but not guilty enough to delete the pictures.
The second time she spanked herself, Ruthie was determined to take 50
swats. The second spanking was different, because the pain was so
intense that she found it very hard to finish. When she completed the
fourth set, tears were running down her cheeks, her arm was cramped, and
her knees were shaking. She did not really want to continue, but she
realized that she would berate herself if she did not give herself the
full punishment. She took a deep breath, positioned herself, and hit as
hard as she could. She hoped that, maybe if punished herself hard
enough, she�d get over this sick desire.
POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP!
She looked at herself in the mirror, admiring the deep red color left by
the 50 swats. Her bottom was swollen, numb, and much darker from the
second spanking. She couldn�t resist taking more pictures. The familiar
sexual desire hit her, stronger than ever. She stood in front of the
camera and played with herself, masturbating as the flash went off. She
set a new goal for herself: to photograph herself having an orgasm.
Over the next six months Ruthie�s thoughts and sexual desires went through the
same cycle. About once each month she would spank herself with the
brush, take some pictures, and enjoy a series of intense orgasms. Then
she would feel guilty for being such a pervert and worry about God
punishing her. Eventually, when nothing happened and there was no Divine
punishment, the desire for another spanking would build up.
Each spanking was more severe than the previous one. She learned to hit
harder and space out the swats to prolong the punishment. She was strict
with herself: if a swat landed badly or was not painful enough, it did
not count and she would repeat it. As her endurance improved she
committed herself to more swats. She was especially proud of herself on
her 16th birthday, when she managed to give herself 100 hard smacks. She
loved it when she could get welts to form on her bottom. When she went
to school after each spanking, she enjoyed the secret sensation of
sitting in class, feeling the bruises on her backside.
----------
Ruthie�s exploration into self-inflicted punishment ended as quickly as
it began. One morning about a month after she turned 16, Ruthie
managed to give herself the most severe spanking ever, 150 hard swats.
She knew that her bottom would be badly bruised from the punishment for
several days, but that was what she wanted. However, the bruises were
meant for her eyes only, she had no intention of letting anyone else see
them.
Unfortunately for Ruthie, on the same day that she spanked herself, the
school�s female gym teacher conducted a body-mass test and weigh-in for
all of the 10th graders. The girls had to line up in the hallway, go
one-by-one into the medical office, and strip to their underwear for the
weigh-in and body mass index measurement. Ruthie�s heart pounded as she
stood in line, but she could not figure out how to get out of doing the
test and stripping to her underwear in front of a school official. She
was too much of a �good girl� to simply get out of line and run off the
school property.
When she entered the medical office, she reluctantly followed the order
to take off her shirt and skirt. She tried to keep her back against the
wall, but the more she resisted moving to the center of the room, the
more suspicious the teacher became. Finally she snapped:
�Ruthie, this physical is a school requirement. You will move to the
center of the room. Now. If you don�t, you will flunk Phys Ed and you
can just repeat the 10th grade.�
Ruthie did as she was told. She gasped and went white when the older
woman saw her bottom and whispered:
�Oh my God��
Ruthie�s underwear consisted of normal white panties that covered most
of her bottom, but the dark bruises and welts were clearly visible
around the garment�s edges. She knew that. Her secret had been
discovered, by her gym teacher, no less.
The teacher let her get dressed without doing the weigh-in or body-fat
test, but told her that during lunch time she needed to return to her
office for a �private conference�. Two hours later a tearful and
terrified Ruthie returned and took a seat in front of the school
official.
�I need to take a report from you and find out who it was that hit you.
You understand that we are required to report cases of physical abuse to
California social services.�
Raw terror swept through Ruthie. She was panicky and fidgeting wildly.
What on earth was she going to say? She couldn�t tell the truth, because
that would sound too bizarre. She thought about inventing a boyfriend
and blaming him, but it wouldn�t take much to figure out that story was
not true. So she made up a lie, saying that it was her mother who had
punished her because she had caught her with a CD that she had
shoplifted. At first it seemed that Ruthie had just made the situation
much worse, because the teacher replied that her mother would have to be
ordered to get some counseling. In a panicky voice Ruthie begged the gym
teacher not to say anything. She added another lie to her story,
claiming that her mother was undocumented, and if she were deported,
Ruthie would have no where to live.
�Please�please�you can�t get her in trouble! It was my fault! Really! I
stole the CD! Please don�t get the INS on her!�
The gym teacher realized the girl was in a no-win situation. It was true
that any possibility, no matter how slight, of her mother being picked
up by the INS and deported would ruin her life. She was one of the
school�s best students, one of the few who did what she was told and
would definitely graduate if her life was not disrupted. Suddenly the
teacher decided to back down on her plan to file the report. She
contented herself with telling Ruthie that if she needed to talk about
her troubles at home, �her door was always open�.
The crisis passed, but the panic Ruthie felt that day stayed with her.
She was weighted down with guilt for what she had done to her mother;
blaming her for something that was not her fault at all, and on top of
that lying about her immigration status. In spite of the gym teacher�s
assurance that she would stay quiet unless there was another incident of
abuse, Ruthie was terrified that Do�a Lisette would somehow find out
what had happened and what she had said about her.
Ruthie resolved never to spank herself again. It was not hard to keep
that promise, because the memory of the terror and humiliation she had
felt in the teacher�s office would totally ruin the experience in the
future. Besides, Ruthie knew that the gym instructor would be watching
her and would tell other teachers to keep an eye on her as well. She
pushed the brush to the back of her dresser, buried it under some
clothes, and forgot about it for three years.
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As Ruthie examined the brush, she thought about putting it back in her
dresser, or perhaps finally returning it to its proper place under the
bathroom sink. However, in the end, she decided to sneak it into her
backpack and take it with her. Like the photo album, the brush was part
of her experience growing up and was associated with some of her most
intense memories.
----------
On Sunday afternoon Mike called Ruthie and asked if she wanted him to
give her a ride back to Davenport. She eagerly accepted. Gerardo had
offered to take her back in the evening, but Ruthie was more than ready
to get out of Salinas, after having spent two days at church trying to
humor her mother and her friends. When Do�a Lisette overheard Ruthie
talking to her boyfriend, she told her daughter that she wanted Mike to
come into the apartment. Ruthie cringed, but dutifully relayed the
request.
Do�a Lisette was still excited about benefiting from God�s mercy and
still convinced that Jesus had spoken directly to her by saving her and
her daughter from the stampede. She was eager to share the miracle with
anyone willing to listen, which made Mike an obvious target. Ruthie
fidgeted nervously as Do�a Lisette recounted, in graphic detail, the
stampede and the family�s narrow escape. Ruthie noticed her mother
exaggerating some of her facts. For example, Ruthie knew that the real
danger had lasted only a few minutes, but to listen to her mother would
make one think that they had been crushed and trampled for hours. Ruthie
knew that her mother was not lying; that she believed what she was
saying. However, as soon as they were out of earshot of Do�a Lisette,
she�d have to set Mike straight on what really happened at the
Mega-Center.
As they drove northward, Ruthie filled in some details and corrected her
mother�s exaggerations. She also repeated the promise that she and Rosa
had made to each other, that neither would ever set foot in a Mega-Mart
again. For a few minutes she sat quietly, watching the vegetable fields
pass by. Mike could tell that, in spite of her calm retelling of what
actually happened to her on Black Friday, she still was traumatized. He
said nothing, thinking it would be better to let her talk again when she
wanted to. Finally she did have something to add to their conversation:
�Mike�I uh�kinda have a favor to ask from you.�
�OK.�
�You know your Mega-Town t-shirts? With the pig insult?�
Mike looked at her and nodded.
�Can you get me a couple? I�m gonna guess I�d take a size medium.�
�Sure�you bet! �and you�ll wear �em?�
Ruthie nodded. Like her boyfriend, her hatred of Mega-Town Associates
now was personal. After what she had just lived through and observed,
she too would wear the infamous slogan:
MTA - The Pig is your Mistress! Serve her well!
Chapter
17
Author's note: There is a very interesting video of a
young woman spanking herself with a hairbrush posted in Aunty Agony's
blog. The URL is:
http://auntyagony.net/2007/02/reader-spanks-herself.html
I found the video fascinating and watching it gave me the idea for
this chapter. I figured that what the young woman is doing to
herself in the video something that would go very well with Ruthie's
over-all personality.
Edward -EC-
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