Poles Apart (20 page)

It was a good idea. In fact it was so good, I should have thought of it sooner. When I got up the next morning, I researched and then signed up for Google Adsense to introduce online advertising to the blog.
Eve of Equality
had such massive traffic that I thought I might as well earn some dough on the side to offset the hosting charges. As I investigated the model more closely, I discovered that I could earn an obscene amount of money if my humble blog continued to attract as many eyeballs and drive as many mouse clicks as it had in the past few days. I’d passed up some serious coin by waiting until now to sign on. Candace probably had no idea what she’d created.

But before I locked in, I made sure that the ads that were about to start discreetly appearing on the site would generally reflect the sensibilities and views of the majority of my readers, whom I would describe as mainstream feminists. No, I’m not certain what that means. But I made sure there’d be no penile enhancement
ads appearing on EofE. I also decided I would donate half the ad revenue to the National Organization for Women (
NOW
). Not only was it was the right thing to do, but it was also a hedge against any backlash from readers who might not be happy that
Eve of Equality
was to be “sullied” by online advertising. Finally, I wrote a blog post outlining the decision to accept appropriate ads on the site and announcing the
NOW
donation. I accepted the Google Adsense contract and hit Publish on the blog post before I could change my mind.

I spent the next several minutes hyperventilating, holding my stomach with crossed arms, and gently rocking. When my vital signs appeared to have returned, as the paramedics say, to normal sinus rhythm, I got back to work.

I researched and composed a couple of dozen thoughtful, witty tweets, all with links to interesting and timely content from around the feminist web and shamelessly included a few nods back to
Eve of Equality
. Then I programmed the tweets to publish over the course of the next few days, suggesting that the blog had a team of community managers hard at work spreading the EofE gospel. The @EveofEquality Twitter stream now boasted more than 403,000 followers. So I had a following to satisfy – a large, steadily growing, and hungry following.

It took me another hour to wade through the mass of comments stuck in the blog’s moderation queue from yesterday’s post on inclusive language – the good, the bad, and the ugly. There were plenty of each, but the good won the day. As well, there were still
more comments stacked up on every other post. This suggested that visitors were not just reading one post, commenting, and bolting for greener online pastures. Rather, they were staying and grazing on the other mini-essays on offer. Even the very first post I wrote was still pulling big numbers. But my Mason Bennington screed still led the popularity pack.

By then, it was noon, and I was wiped from the hours spent tending my online garden. I ignored the emails piling up in the EofE Gmail account. They could wait.

A Twitter Direct Message bonged in my cellphone. I picked it up to check it and nearly dropped it. The private
DM
was from Candace Sharpe’s own Twitter account. She was reaching out to me personally. What the hell was happening? The earth seemed to have shifted just a bit on its axis.

I could see the scene playing out before a live studio audience. That is, if Candace would even agree to talk to me after discovering who and what was pulling the levers behind the blog’s curtain. What a disaster. What a cataclysm. The impact of the blog would instantly erode to nothing, as the smoke of the controversy obscured everything. Three small steps forward, fifteen giant leaps backward. I ignored her
DM
. I ignored Candace Sharpe. Rude, but safe.

I passed the afternoon at the hospital. I had planned to walk Dad until he or I dropped, but that didn’t happen. When I arrived just after lunch, I once again found Dad and Beverley arm in arm, going around the Red path with jilted Kenny looking on from the sidelines. Even from a distance you could see they were deep in conversation. Beverley’s right hand was gripping Dad’s left arm while her left hand carried on an animated aerial routine, no doubt synchronized to the point she was making. Dad’s right hand worked the cane as he eased his left leg forward with a far less pronounced body-roll than I’d yet seen. As usual, he was working hard, but I could also see he was listening intently, deep in thought, nodding and grunting occasionally. I couldn’t tell from where I stood whether he was nodding in agreement or opposition. It was a very strange scene. Brought together by errant blood clots, there was the irredeemable, unapologetic man’s man with a rouge-tinged neck, walking, arm in arm, with one of the founders of the modern women’s movement. Very strange.

“So what were you two discussing in such an animated fashion while promenading?” I asked when I joined them on the bench. They were both breathing heavily from their exertions. I thought Beverley’s eyes were wider than usual.

“Well, although I promised I’d never attempt it, given your father’s blind but rock-solid support for all things patriarchal, he
does represent a formidable challenge,” she began. “And somehow, I guess he just got my competitive juices flowing. So I’m now in full Pygmalion mode.”

My father turned to me and offered a sheepish smile while Beverley barrelled on.

“My mission is to turn this apparently unreconstructed mass of male ego into someone who, if he looks very far in the distance just might envision a time when women have more to offer this world than cleaning, cooking, sewing, child care, and the free and frequent use of the anatomical parts that always precede the need for the aforementioned child care.”

Dad looked at me again and smiled, but this time there was some tension beneath the bonhomie.

“Wow, Beverley. That is one great line. Don’t anyone say anything. I want to write it down before I forget it,” I said patting my pockets for some kind of a writing utensil. “I’m serious. Can I borrow your pen and pad for a moment?”

She didn’t move.

“Beverley, I mean it. It was a brilliant one-line summation of the stone-age man’s mind, and I can use that. I mean I know someone who can use it, somewhere.”

She reached into her bag and handed me her pad and pen. I wrote down what I could remember, with Beverley looking over my shoulder.

“You forgot ‘sewing’ right there, and add ‘and frequent’ right there,” she said, pointing.

“Right. That strengthens it.”

I ripped the page from the pad, folded it up, and slipped it in my pocket before returning the pen and paper to Beverley.

“Thanks,” I said. “So, um, where were we?”

“Beverley was in the middle of taking all the fun out of courting,” Dad replied. “I think I’m closer to making it to first base with Kenny than with her.”

“Billy, we’re not courting,” she snapped. “You and I are simply engaged in intellectual discourse about an age-old question. And no matter what everyone else says, I
do
think you’re capable of rational thought and rudimentary reasoning.”

“I like the way you say ‘intellectual discourse,’ ” Dad teased. “It reminds me of another word.”

She rolled her eyes. Then she turned to me.

“You see what I’m up against?”

“Well, I sure know what I want to be
up against
,” Dad cut in.

“So now you’re resorting to ribald double entendres?” she asked. “Unbelievable.”

“I have no idea what those words mean, ma’am, but what I do know is you can’t fight biology,” Dad said.

“Christ. That’s the best you can do? Trot out biology?” She sighed. “Billy boy, we have a long way to go. But we’ll get there. You could not have turned out this boy without harbouring somewhere deep inside a closeted feminist just waiting to burst forth.”

“Ma’am, I can assure you, I have always only had eyes, and
other parts of my body, for women. There’s no closet anywhere inside me. On the hetero gauge, I’m an eleven,” Dad protested.

Beverley looked up and exhaled in a way that startled the sparrows in the trees above us. I reached over and held her hand.

“Are you starting to get a sense of the magnitude of this challenge?”

Dad smiled and promptly stood up.

“Well, ladies, my work here is done,” he said. “I need a drink, and Kenny needs to back up his stupid idea that the first Camaro was better than the first Mustang. Yeah, good luck with that.”

He shuffled off down the path toward Kenny’s wheelchair.

“That man is incorrigible,” Beverley said when Dad had moved out of earshot.

“Yes. Yes, he is,” I replied. “So what’s your strategy?”

“Well, I was hoping to let the power of logic and reason prevail, but he’s been somewhat impervious to that approach thus far.”

“I tried to tell you. He’s locked in a very different time. He’s
Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It to Beaver
, and
Father Knows Best
, all rolled into one. And that show plays in his head 24-7.”

“I might have to bring out the big gun sooner than expected,” she said.

“What’s the big gun?”

“It’s hard to fire it with fathers who only have sons, or in this case, son. But I might have to try to get him to imagine what it would be like to have a daughter. He’d really have to dig deep to think of himself as the father of a daughter. Then I’d hit him hard with what she would surely encounter – the obstacles placed in her way – over the course of her life.”

“Hmmm. That sounds serious.”

We sat in silence for a time.

“If I can get him to imagine what it would be like to love a daughter, I might be able to nudge him along the path toward a very modest state of enlightenment.”

“I concluded years ago that he’s a lost cause. And his performance today does little to change my view. But never has he confronted a motivated and energized Beverley Tanner. I wouldn’t bet against you.”

“Thank you, Everett,” she replied, squeezing my hand. “Now, if my enunciation suffers in the coming weeks, blame the bit between my teeth.”

From my window, I could see them gathering in twos and threes across the street. There weren’t many of them initially, but in time, the crowd was quite impressive. I watched from my second-floor window. It became clear soon enough what was happening. Many of them brought signs to hold aloft shorthand for their thoughts and voices.

Some protestors even pushed strollers bearing cute occupants in various states of consciousness, with juice boxes and Cheerios stowed beneath their seats. The community had come together. The neighbourhood was speaking out.

Wisely, they stayed on the far side of the street, creating a kind of demilitarized zone between them and Brawn, patrolling his beat on this side. As dusk faded into evening, placards started pumping, and voices started chanting. A fuzzy-buzzy megaphone made it feel authentic, with a real sixties protest rally vibe. It was fascinating to watch. I wanted to rush across the street and embrace each one of them. But I wasn’t sure it was wise to reveal publicly that the person who shared a building with Mason Bennington was out to bring him down. So I stayed where I was and cheered them on privately.

The chants were simple and to the point:

“One, two, three, four, let’s show Mason B the door!”

“Five, six, seven, eight, close the doors and leave the state!”

What they lacked in creativity, they made up for in clarity.

The group started marching up the sidewalk until they were beyond the front door of
XY
, before turning and marching right
back again. As darkness fell, I heard the music start up through the floor below me. Fancy cars started to arrive for the night’s festivities. The protest group employed another interesting tactic whenever a Jaguar or a Benz pulled up to the front door and disgorged more wealthy and fashionably attired men. Immediately, the chanting would stop. The placards were flipped to reveal different slogans on the other side: