THE HART: EVIDENCE THAT GOES TO 11
Hello, I’m Aleks Squeezd, and this is “The Hart.” Today we
have a brand new documentary for you, “Evidence That Goes to 11.” Here is where
I should insert a trigger warning. This documentary is about childhood sexual
abuse, so if you have gone through something similar and want to be
retraumatized, then have we got a show for ya, baby!
Originally, when “The Hart” conceived of doing a project on
this subject, we were going to reach out to our audience. Much more childhood
sexual abuse occurs than anyone wants to believe, and its believed only a small
number of victims ever come forward. We thought we’d find one of those victims,
someone who didn’t have a voice, and give them one. Then I lost a hair fight to
my documentarian friend Kentucky Williams and decided to tell her story instead.
Kentucky Williams: Growing up in the Woodchip-Williams
household was awesome. There were Che Guivera posters on every inch of bare
wall, I was allowed to call my parents by their first names and we only ever
went to protest marches with play areas.
My parents were on welfare because they both maintained
that, as enlightened liberals, work was beneath them. They always told me, “If
you see something, say something.”
Well, at the age of six, I definitely saw something because
that something happened to me and the room had good lighting.
I first thought about coming forward as an adult one night
at a dance party. My LGBT activist group and I had just returned from burning a
church and we were throwin it down in celebration. Then, a song came on that
I’d last heard in my gymnastics classes as a kid. I considered telling Rebecca,
one of my then six current sexual partners, but decided against it.
Gymnastics classes were taught by a Colonel Nassir Isis. He
went by Colonel because he said he liked Elvis, and also because of some things
he’d done in his homeland he wouldn’t talk about.
Col. Isis said I was doing so well in gymnastics classes he
wanted to give me private lessons. My Dad agreed to this because Col. Isis
offered to let Dad use the gym free of charge while I had my lessons.
The gym was separate from the gymnastics area, and one day
Col. Isis touched me. I told my Dad as soon as we got on the road back home
that day, but he just said, “It doesn’t matter if he did. Col. Isis is an
Arab-American. That means he is oppressed by the white majority and deserves
sympathy and respect. Also, we are on welfare and I need to work on my abs.”
In Grade 2 we had the standard talk about good touches and
bad touches. A classmate said someone had touched them in a bad way. All the
rest of the class said they had been, too. The teacher believed them and
various men in our town got sent to jail on the strength of what my schoolmates
had said in class alone, but I just stayed silent.
When I was a teenager, I considered telling my mom about
what Col. Isis had done, but Mom always said it was more important to her to
have a career rather than be a mother so the thought passed.
Finally, recently, while paving over a Civil War battlefield
in the dead of night with my fellow activist and one of my ten current sexual
partners Adam, I tell him and he encourages me to come forward. I later learn
he meant skootch forward on the seat so I could help him steer.
After learning Col. Isis is still operating his gymnastics
facility, where he’s molested goodness knows how many girls by this time, I
decide against going to the police.
Firstly, police officers are blue collar people who don’t
make very much money and did not have the good fortune to become professional
students like myself.
The second reason is that a lot of police officers are men
and, thus, probably don’t even know what the word vagina means.
Instead, I decide to turn my experiences into several
performance art pieces, tour the country and make a boatload of money. There’s
the one where I perform gymnastics in a leotard and nothing else, the one were
I dance completely naked, the one were I get guys to touch me while yelling and
crying, “Go ahead, this is all I’m good for anyway”, and the one where I get
rolled up in a carpet and kicked down a flight of stairs for some reason. The
more money I make, the more healed I feel.
One day when I’m bored, I learn from the internet that bad
things that happen to you in childhood can have long-term effects, even into
adulthood . I think about this for a few minutes, just trying to absorb this
new information. Then I order a pizza.
The next thing I consider doing is staging a silent sit-in
at Col. Isis’ gym with my female friends. We’ll trespass his gym like he
trespassed my body. Sure, he might just take this as an opportunity to rub all
our asses for hours on end, but I feel it’s worth it. I ask my dad what he thinks
of this plan.
Bill Williams: I think it’s bloody stupid. Now get me
another beer.
Kentucky: Having abandoned that idea, my next plan is to
interview Col. Isis. By the way, Col. Isis also works with children with
developmental disabilities. Oh yeah, baby, waita up that cry factor.
I decide to pose as a journalist doing an interview with
Col. Isis.
(Phone rings. Kentucky picks it up)
Kentucky: Hello.
Col. Isis: Is this Miss Williams.
Kentucky: Look, you stupid paki, I already told you I’m not
interested in whatever scam you and your telemarketing company are trying to
pull on me today. Got that, sandnigger.
Col. Isis: This is Col. Isis from Isis Gym.
Kentucky: Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, about the interview.
Col. Isis: Yes, the interview. Here is what my schedule
looks like for the next few days.
Kentucky: I set up a time to meet with Col. Isis. I bring
along my friend Sam. Sam is gender neutral, and will fit nicely into this
story, I decide. Plus, Sam works the Friday night sshift on the counter at
Gugliamo’s pizza, so you know they’re superawesome in a crisis.
After leaving Sam in the car, I go into Col. Isis’ gym. We
walk to his office and he shuts the door. We chat about mundane things, and as
the conversation goes on I inch closer and closer toward him. He starts touching
me, then we end up having sex on his office floor.
Col. Isis: Thank you, come again.
(Kentucky exits Col. Isis’ office, exits the building, walks
to her car, and opens the door.)
Kentucky: (To Sam) Boy, that was awkward.
Kentucky: After months of failing to sell the tape of the
interview to cable sex channels, I decide I can’t deal with this anymore. I
spend the next several months in a village in Maine that has the highest NPR
listenership of any community of its size in the state. I fail at working a
series of minimum wage jobs and steal other girls’ boyfriends.
Then, one day, I decide to try to take this to the police
after all.
Surprisingly, I find out there are female police officers
these days, and that, just because they make less money than actual people,
they are actually kind of smart.
A female police officer and I try to get Col. Isis to admit
to what he did over the phone, but he won’t. Then, the officer manages to
convince the county prosecutor to take my case. Other victims are found, and
slowly but surely, this case is headed to trial. The local TV station even
sends one of its interns down to the gym after Col. Isis is arrested, and they
show commercials no less.
One of Kentucky’s Current Sexual Partners: I don’ like
courtrooms because all judges are white and the only people who ever get
prosecuted be niggers who never done nothing.
Kentucky: As the trial date approaches, I feel nervous and
excited. I also start to change my mind. At first, I wanted Col. Isis to be prosecuted
to the fullest extent of the law. Now, I’m starting to think differently.
Finally, it’s the day of the trial.
Shift to a courtroom. Judge Sourmush is presiding.
Judge Sourmush: Colonel Nassir Isis, I find you guilty of
pedophilia and sentence you to---
(Kentucky runs onto the stand)
Kentucky: Your Honour, a minute of the court’s time, please.
Judge Sourmush: Well, seeing as you are one of Col. Isis’
victims, I’ll grant it. Proceed.
Kentucky: Thank you, Your Honour. Ladies and gentlemen, over
the past few months, I’ve thought a lot about what happened to me all those
years ago, my role in this trial taking place here today, all the victims of
sexual abuse who never come forward, maybe even victims of the very man about
to be sentenced today. Ladies and gentlemen, though I did not like it when Col.
Isis touched me at his gym when I was a little girl, I’ve come to a few
conclusions. First, statistically speaking, Col. Isis was likely
inappropriately touched as a little boy himself. Thus, he is a victim and thus
disenfranchised. Second, if this is what Col. Isis is into, his alternative
lifestyle if you will, then who are we who do not share in that lifestyle to
say what he did was wrong. In fact, being a sexual minority makes Col. Isis a
marginalized person. Thus, Your Honour, I urge you to let Colonel Nassir Isis
go.
Judge Sourmush: Well, as you were starting to speak, I
vehemently disagreed with what you were saying. But, over the course of your
speech, I’ve gotten well into my third bottle of whisky for the day. Thus I
find the defendant not guilty. You’re free to go, Colonel. Court is ajurned.
Aleks: Now for the best part of the program, the part when
you get to hear from me again and I ask the subject of the documentary you’ve
just viewed the kind of brilliant questions that only my mind could come up
with. Welcome to the studio, Kentucky.
Kentucky: Nice to be here.
Aleks: Of course it is. Now, do you feel you’re ability to
speak up about what happened to you for so long is largely a result of the fact
you are female and thus not encouraged to speak up for or defend yourself in
any way?
Kentucky: Yes I do, Aleks. We’re told that from the time
we’re little girls.
Aleks: Then what about the fact many male victims of sexual
abuse also don’t feel like they can speak up?
Kentucky: Facts like that aren’t relevant to my agenda so I
don’t bother to pay attention to them.
Aleks: Now, those out there in radio land, first let me say
I have permission to tell this story. One day while driving home from working
with “The Hart” on this documentary, Kentucky decided to go get a massage.
During the course of that massage, she was sexually assaulted. However, unlike
many women, as soon as she left the massage parlour, she called the cops.
You’re becoming such a strong, empowered woman, Kentucky.
Kentucky: Well, thanks, Aleks. I must say, though, I’d look
like a right dicky- doo-dah if I got assaulted while making a documentary about
having been violated previously and didn’t do anything about it for 25 years
the second time.
Funding for this program has been made possible by the Ry
Bread Fund for Non-white Non-male Journalists.
Closing credits.
Based on podcast “The Heart” and its mini-season “Silent
Evidence.”
