The Knitting Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad (11 page)

“I still don't see what this has to do with the boxes, sir.”

The chief sighs heavily. “It would be too much to expect that people in this room kept their old Captain Marvel secret decoder rings, which means we'll have to work with what we've got.”

“And what we've got …”

“… Is about forty cases of Cracker Jacks bought with department money. We need to break this message. I want some decoder rings, and I want them now. Dig in, boys.”

Flint asks, “Do we have to eat all the Cracker Jacks?”

The chief responds, “Of course. Cracker Jacks, son, are one of the basic food groups.”

Another cop says, “Uh, chief, I've bought these for my children. They don't actually contain prizes anymore, but instead little riddles. It's cheaper that way.”

The chief, having already opened a box of Cracker Jacks, says, mouth full of caramel-covered popcorn and peanuts, “Well, shit. When will we ever get the break we need to solve these crimes?”

Jasmine and Suzie are at Jasmine's great-grandmother's nursing home. It is the weekly Roller Derby Day, so they've brought bandages.

Great-grandmother Ahn didn't get off too bad this time: a couple of bruises on her arm and a bump on her forehead, “where that nasty piece of business Robin Banks hit me with a folding chair when I was about to lap her.”

Jasmine gasps, “You need to get a new roommate, Grandma. That's too much.”

Grandma Ahn says, “She's a nasty piece of business, all right. But all the other inmates are worse.”

Jasmine and Suzie attend to her wounds, watch video highlights of that afternoon's game, compliment Grandma Ahn on her ability to fend off blockers with her walker, and jeer at Ms. Bank's perfidy. The three of them note with glee that Ms. Banks was sent off to do penalty time for the incident with the chair.

After that Grandma Ahn gives them a play-by-play of yesterday's bingo games, including detailed descriptions of the increasingly disgusted looks on Ms. Banks's face each time Grandma Ahn shouted Bingo just as Ms. Banks was taking in her breath to do the same. Grandma Ahn lowers her voice: “I think that's why she hit me with a chair.” She covers her mouth and giggles.

Suddenly she stops giggling and asks without preamble, “Did you bring me any doughnut holes?”

Suzie says, “Of course,” and begins rummaging in her backpack.

Grandma Ahn hisses, “Hurry. Get them to me before
she
gets back. If she sees them she'll want some, and if I don't give her any she'll take them as soon as I leave the room.”

Suzie finds them and hands them over.

Grandma Ahn pops a couple in her mouth, then carries the bag to her bed, where she lifts a corner of the mattress, slides the treasure beneath, and lets the mattress fall back down. She returns to her chair and asks, again without preamble, “You have a boyfriend?”

Jasmine opens her mouth to speak.

Before she can answer, Grandma Ahn asks, gently, “Girlfriend?”

Jasmine inhales so she can say something.

But before she gets the words out, her great-grandmother says, “Makes no matter to me what you prefer, so long as the other person's not a nasty piece of business. That's what I told your grandmother and that's what I told your mother, and that's what I'll tell you, too, right now. Better to be alone than that.”

Jasmine says, with meaning, “I've found someone very special.”

“You have?” Suzie says.

“I told you about him.”

“Who?”

“The One.”

“Which one?”

Grandma Ahn asks, “What are you girls talking about?”

“The one I met at the Xanadu.”

Suzie asks, “Months ago? The one with the text message?”

Grandma Ahn asks, “What's a Zandoo? And what's a sex
message?”

“Text, Grandma. Text,” Jasmine says.

Grandma Ahn continues, “Not that I have anything against sex, but when I was young we could send messages other ways, too.”

Jasmine says, flustered, “We're not having sex, Grandma.”

Her great-grandmother looks at her a moment, then asks, sincerely, “Why not? Life's a one-way trip and you're not young for very long.” She pauses a moment, then says, “And sex is good. What I wouldn't give ‘bout now for some quality naked time with a—”

Jasmine reddens. “Grandma! Can we talk about something else, please?”

Grandma Ahn says, “Where's my doughnut holes? Did Ms. Banks take them already?”

“They're under your mattress, Grandma, and Ms. Banks isn't back from rugby practice yet,” Jasmine says.

“So, what's your boyfriend look like?” Grandma Ahn asks.

Jasmine answers, “Well, at first he looked like Brad Pitt. Then later he looked like George Clooney. More recently he usually looks like a dragon. And sometimes he looks like the cutest little wombat. Then I just want to squeeze him.”

Suzie says, “Jaz, are you all right?”

Grandma Ahn turns to Suzie and asks, “Does this make any more sense to you than it does to me?” Suzie responds, “Not at all.”

Grandma Ahn says to Suzie, “Thank God. For a moment there I thought I was getting old and losing my mind.” She thinks a second, then says, also to Suzie, now conspiratorially, “Sometimes I wonder about her father's side of the family. Oh, the stories I could tell about the Maias …”

Both Jasmine's and Suzie's eyes open wide as they try to think of something to say. They love Grandma Ahn, but once the family stories start….

Instead, Grandma Ahn takes the subject back to The One. She turns to Jasmine and says, “I've heard of two-faced before, but this guy has four. It sounds to me like he's a nas—”

Jasmine says, “Look at the time! Gotta go, Grandma Ahn!”

After Suzie drops off Jasmine at her apartment, she calls Brigitte and asks if she can come over. Brigitte says yes, and soon the two are talking while listening to the soothing sounds of the multi-artist album
In Praise of the Trung Sisters.

Suzie tells Brigitte of the conversation at the nursing home, leaving out references to roller derby, bingo, doughnut holes, Robin Banks, and Grandma Ahn's desire for quality naked time. She asks Brigitte what she thinks.

“He sounds like a nasty piece of business,” Brigitte says.

“I'm really worried,” Suzie says,

“Do you think he's abusing her?”

“It's not that,” Suzie says. “I don't think he even exists.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think,” Suzie continues, “that Jasmine has an imaginary boyfriend.”

Brigitte thinks a moment, then says, “I've had a few of those. And frankly some of them have been preferable to—”

Suzie cuts her off: “But you knew they were imaginary, right? You didn't tell your friends you'd met someone special, did you?”

“Houston,” Brigitte says, “I think we have a problem.”

Although the news media, the FBI, and the police all have a difficult time deciphering the meaning of the knitting circle's
message—”We will stop killing rapists when men stop raping”—many other people seem to understand it very well.

Knitting circles begin springing up all around the country.

Picture women walking together down a side street (or rather,
the
side street) in Horn Hill, Alabama, trailing long knitted scarves behind them. Picture other women (and a few men) doing the same in Central Park. Picture women on beaches in Hawaii wearing knitted bikinis and matching scarves. Picture women deer hunting near Beaver Creek, Montana, wearing bright orange vests and caps knitted from the finest angora. Picture college students carrying knitted backpacks, and businesswomen carrying knitted briefcases. Picture knitted helmet covers and footie boot covers worn by biker gangs. Picture pirates flying knitted flags with a skull and crossed needles instead of bones. Picture knitted flowerpot covers, knitted toilet seat covers (and I guarantee the seat gets raised and lowered properly in these households). Picture a group of women sneaking into the Lincoln Memorial to lay a knitted scarf around The Great Emancipator's neck.

Picture people giving their loved ones gifts of sweaters. Picture a high school boyfriend and girlfriend sharing a sweater made for two. Picture knitted sweaters keeping dogs warm, keeping cats warm, keeping horses and cows and pigs and chickens warm. Picture a field of sheep wearing brightly colored sweaters.

Or picture this. A man ambles down a dusty deserted country road. He is carrying a fishing pole and whistling the
Mayberry Theme.
Suddenly four women brandishing knitting needles step out from behind trees. The man stops. You can see the terror in his eyes. He stutters, “W-w-who sent you? Was it Becky?”

Silence from the women.

He asks, “Amy?”

More silence from the women.

“Patricia?”

Still more silence.

He sighs heavily. “I'm not really helping my own cause, am I?”

Or picture an office building late at night, where a different group of knitting-needle-wielding women approaches a frightened man. He backs away and they walk relentlessly toward him. You know what he has done to these women. You know that the moment of accountability is near. They stalk him through a maze of cubicles until they corner him in a conference room. You cannot bear to watch. You look away. You hear his scream, and the scream suddenly silenced.

Through the open doorway you see a ball of lavender yarn roll across the floor.

Or picture this: A man breaks into a woman's home while she is sitting in her living room, reading a book. Her knitted handbag is at her side. He enters the room and she jumps, startled, then regains her composure. He looms. He smiles menacingly as he reaches for her. She stands and sneers at him, “You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!” She pulls out the biggest knitting needle you've ever seen, and the last one this man will ever see.

Or picture this. A woman runs down a dark alley, looking behind her. A man runs in hot pursuit. The alley ends at a fence topped with razor wire. The woman turns and faces the man. She sticks her hand into her purse. The man stops, out of reach, and watches her. The woman says, “I know what you're thinking. Does she have knitting needles, or does she not? Well, to tell
you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as you have no idea, you've got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?”

The man says nothing.

The woman continues, a smirk developing on her face, “Come on, make my day.”

Or picture this: A woman walks through a deserted parking garage that looks like almost every deserted parking garage that almost every woman has ever walked through alone late at night. The tap tap tap of the woman's heels echo off concrete walls. She looks around nervously.

A man erupts from behind a pillar, confronts her. “Don't worry,” he sneers. “I'm not going to rape you. I'm just going to kill you.” He pulls out a knife and waves it in the air. He's quite good, as impressive in his own way as Riversong was with his scarves. He begins by holding the knife high, like a banderillo holding his banderilla in preparation for tormenting the bull. Then he windmills his arm a couple of times, like Pete Townshend or a fast-pitch softball pitcher, or like Pete Townshend playing softball. He tosses the knife from hand to hand, then does the same behind his back. He throws the knife in the air, the blade whirling, and catches it in his teeth.

The woman notices old scars on his face.

He grips the knife in his hand, and begins to move towards her.

Before he can get too close, the woman whips a knitting needle out of her bag. The man stops, curious. She repeats his routine, matches him move for move, except for the one where he flipped the knife in the air and caught it with his teeth. She does, however, make a mental note to try this out at home (wearing protective glasses and face gear for safety, of course).

The man says, “Very impressive. But I'm still going to kill you.” He pulls a sword from behind the pillar. He points it at her and performs an Arabesque
onlair,
followed by a stunning series of lightning fast pirouettes, finishing with a magnificent
tour jeté,
or more formally, a
grand jeté dessus en tournant.

He advances upon the woman again, sword ready to thrust. She holds up her hand. He stops again, curious. She pulls a gun from her jacket pocket, aims, and shoots him in the forehead. He falls like a sack of potatoes. She notes, “Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

Or picture this: A company of women stand in the full parking lot of “Little Willie's House of Wanking: Get a Beer When You Buy a Spanking!” One of the women shouts, “Present Arms!” The women stand to attention, needles at the ready. Another woman commands, “Forward, march!” The women start toward the building in a trim line. Yet another woman calls out, “Double time!” The line surges forward.

Then you hear it. First one woman, and then another, and then another, begins to keen a battle cry, until the night fills, then explodes with the screams and yells of their mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers; fills, then explodes with the rage and frustration and sorrow of thousands of years of taking it and taking it and taking it, and the joy of finally fighting back. The sound is purely human, purely animal. The sound is the sound of no turning back.

When the women are done, the building is gone.

So are its customers.

The enormous popularity of knitting circles and the consequent disappearance of so many rapists cannot but affect society as a whole.

Picture this: football players trot gamely onto a field, despite the fact that there are only three players per team. Happy cheerleaders on the sidelines wear sporty new sweaters.