Into the televised face of Humphrey, the vice...
Into the televised face of Humphrey, the vice president, she cried, "You prick, sh-sh-shut your lying m-m-mouth, you c-c-coward, you f-f-f-f-filthy fucking collaborator!" When her father, as a member of the ad hoc group calling itself New Jersey Businessmen Against the War, went down to Washington with the steering committee to visit their senator, Merry refused his invitation to come along"But," said the Swede, who had never belonged to a political group before and would not have joined this one and volunteered for the steering committee and paid a thousand dollars toward their protest ad in the Newark News had he not hoped his conspicuous involvement might deflect a little of her anger away from him, "this is your chance to say what's on your mind to Senator CaseYou can confront him directlyIsn't that what you want?"
"Merry," said her petite mother to the large glowering girl, "you might be able to influence Senator Case--"
"C-c-c-c-c-c-c-case!" erupted Merry and, to the astonishment of her parents, proceeded to spit on the tiled kitchen floor
She was on the phone now all the time, the child who formerly had to run buy miu miu through her telephone "strategy" just to be sure that when she picked up the phone she could get out the word "Hello" in under thirty secondsShe had conquered the anguishing stutter all right, but not as her parents and her therapist had hopedNo, Merry concluded that what was deforming her life wasn't the stuttering but the futile effort to overturn itThe ridiculous significance she had given to that stutter to meet the Rimrock expectations of the very parents and teachers and friends who had caused her to so overestimate something as secondary as the way she talkedNot what she said but how she said it was all that bothered themAnd all she really had to do to be free of it was to not give a shit about how it made them so miserable when she had to pronounce the letter bYes, she cut herself away from caring about the abyss that opened up under everybody's feet when she started stuttering; her stuttering was no longer going to be the center of her existence--and she'd make damn sure that it wasn't going to be the center of theirsVehemently she renounced the appearance and the allegiances of the good little girl who had tried so hard tiffany replica to be adorable and lovable like all the other good little Rimrock girls--renounced her meaningless manners, her petty social concerns, her family's "bourgeois" valuesShe had wasted enough time on the cause of herself"I'm not going to spend my whole life wrestling day and night with a fucking stutter when kids are b-b-b-being b-b-b-b-b-bu-bu-bu roasted alive by Lyndon B-b-b-baines b-b-b-bu-bu-burn-'em-up Johnson!"
All her energy came right to the surface now, unimpeded, the force of resistance that had previously been employed otherwise; and by no longer bothering with the ancient obstruction, she experienced not only her full freedom for the first time in her life but the exhilarating power of total self-certaintyA brand-new Merry had begun, one who'd found, in opposing the "v-v-v-vile" war, a difficulty to fight that was worthy, at last, of her truly stupendous strengthNorth Vietnam she called the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, a country she spoke of with such patriotic feeling that, according to Dawn, one would have thought she'd been born not at the Newark Beth Israel but at the Beth Israel in Hanoi'"The Democratic chanel quilted replica Republic of Vietnam'--if I hear that from her one more time, Seymour, I swear, I'll go out of my mind!" He tried to convince her that perhaps it wasn't as bad as it sounded"Merry has a credo, Dawn, Merry has a political positionThere may not be much subtlety in it, she may not yet be its best spokesman, but there is some thought behind it, there's certainly a lot of emotion behind it, there's a lot of compassion behind it
But there was now no conversation she had with her daughter that did not drive Dawn, if not out of her mind, out of the house and into the barnThe Swede would overhear Merry fighting with her every time the two of them were alone together for two minutes"Some people," Dawn says, "would be perfectly happy to have parents who are contented middle-class people
"I'm sorry I'm not brainwashed enough to be one of them," Merry replies"You're a sixteen-year-old girl," Dawn says, "and I can tell you what to do and I will tell you what to do
"Just because I'm sixteen doesn't make me a g-g-girl! I do what I w-w-want!"
"You're not antiwar," Dawn says, "you're anti everything
"And what are you, Mom? You're pro deville watch c-c-c-cow!"
Night after night now Dawn went to bed in tears"What is she? What is this?" she asked the Swede"If someone simply defies your authority, what can you do?
Seymour, I'm totally puzzledHow did this happen?"
"It happens," he told her"She's a kid with a strong will
"Where did this come from? It's inexplicableAm I a bad mother? Is that it?"
"You are a good motherYou are a wonderful mother
"I don't know why she's turned against me like thisI don't have any sense of what I did to her or even what she perceives I did to herI don't know what's happenedWho is she? Where did she come from? I cannot control herI cannot recognize herI thought she was smartShe's not smart at allShe's become stupid, Seymour; she gets more and more stupid each time we talk
"No, it's just a very crude kind of aggressionIt's not very well worked outBut she is still smartThis is what teenagers are likeThere are these very turbulent sorts of changesIt has nothing to do with you or me
They just amorphously object to everything
"It's all from the stuttering, isn't it?"
"We're doing everything we can for her stutter
"She's angry because she gucci men wallet stut