Triptych Interviews
Wendy
Sunday, November 7 (After Chapter 12 of Odalisque)
WENDY: [to security desk] This is Mr. aroslav. He’s visiting me for an hour or so. He’s writing an article.
[A bored hand is waved.]
WENDY: I’ve wanted to tell people about this for a long time. Thank you for visiting, Mr. aroslav.
aroslav: It’s a pleasure, Wendy. But I have to say that I’m still pretty shocked.
[sigh]
WENDY: I know. Kate’s the only one who knew before this morning. Now I guess everyone will know. Are you going to make me leave?
aroslav: Even when they surprise me, I try to let people set their own course. Why don’t you start by telling me how old you are and when your birthday is.
WENDY: I’m twenty-one years old. My birthday is Cinco de Mayo, the fifth of May. I’m a senior at the University of Washington studying social sciences. I live in a tent.
aroslav: You say that with a degree of pride. What does living in a tent mean to you, Wendy?
WENDY: It means that I’m independent and responsible for myself.
aroslav: Aren’t there other ways to show that? You have friends who would welcome you.
WENDY: I took advantage of my friends until I could move in here. First, I was with Kate during August and then when her roommate arrived for the start of school I was pretty lost. I went back to my ex-boyfriend after I’d spent four days sleeping in my car. Then I went to live with Tony and Lissa and Melody for a month. When Tent City moved here to the campus on September 30, I moved in, too.
aroslav: Tell me about life in Tent City.
WENDY: There are a hundred of us living in tents of various sizes here. There are a couple of dormitory tents, but I chose to use a tent I took when I left home two years ago. It’s private—or as private as anything here is.
aroslav: So this is a two- or three-person dome tent, about seven feet on each side.
WENDY: It gives me just enough room to put my suitcase and backpack in and my sleeping pad. Oh. And my school books. I don’t have a computer, but I have a thumbdrive I keep all my stuff on and use the computers in the library. I can’t quite stand up in it, but I manage to get dressed okay.
aroslav: All your clothes are in your suitcase?
WENDY: You say ‘all’ like I have a lot of clothes. I pretty much have my work clothes for the restaurant, two pairs of jeans, and four T-shirts. I have socks and underwear to get me through the week and two pairs of shoes. I’ve got a couple of sweatshirts and a warm jacket.
aroslav: That’s it? It doesn’t sound like you have much selection in clothes.
WENDY: It makes it easier. I don’t have to make a lot of choices.
aroslav: What’s the hardest part about living here?
WENDY: Not having a bathroom. I love long hot showers and shampoo and conditioner. We have outdoor toilets here. We have two days a week when we can go into the school athletic pavilion and use the showers and facilities. Since I’m over at UW almost every day, I have access to student athletic facilities there and manage to get a shower almost every day. I carry my toothbrush with me all the time and take any opportunity with fresh water to brush my teeth. I don’t always have toothpaste, but I can usually get salt—like at the restaurant.
aroslav: That sounds tough.
WENDY: I’m not done. Not having a bathroom is physically the most difficult part about living in a tent. I have an advantage over most everyone who lives here because I have access to clean toilets and showers that most of them don’t have. But even if I had a bathroom, I’d have trouble making decisions. That wouldn’t change even if I wasn’t living here. I get overwhelmed with trying to choose what to wear, for example. In a way, that is the best thing about living here. I’m independent, but I don’t have much choice. I mean, look at this ‘room.’ I wear one pair of jeans and three T-shirts during the week. And my underwear, most of the time. At the end of the week, I change to my other pair of jeans and remaining T-shirt and do laundry. That’s all I have. There aren’t any choices to make. I don’t come home and try to decide what to watch on TV. I study what’s been assigned that day and I sleep—or I go to work. At work, I do what people tell me to. I get the food they order on their table in a pleasant environment. I don’t make decisions.
aroslav: Isn’t it hard to live with no opportunity to choose something different?
WENDY: No. It’s much harder to live having to decide everything all the time. I can’t handle it.
aroslav: Tell me what brought you here, Wendy. Why don’t you go home?
WENDY: I don’t have a home to go to.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. But you’ll never really understand. My mother died when I was five. She was all that stood between my father and me. She killed herself. She killed herself and left me. He made life so unbearable that she killed herself, but she left me with him. What kind of a mother is that? Eventually, he found someone else to dominate. But that didn’t stop him from making me a slave. She was happy for that. My stepmother considered herself safe if it was me he was abusing.
aroslav: Abuse?
WENDY: I was thirteen when he started fondling me. As soon as I had anything that could be called breasts. But he’d been hitting me for five years by then. Never where anyone could see the marks. I cooked and cleaned, but for some perverse reason he kept me in school. When I came home from school, I did the tasks he assigned me and then went to bed. I waited until he came into my room at night before I went to sleep.
aroslav: Did he abuse you sexually?
WENDY: He never came in me. In his mind, that meant he wasn’t abusing me. He sent Eloise, my stepmother, with me when I was sixteen to start birth control. But he still didn’t come in me. Not in my vagina. He came in my mouth and sometimes in my ass.
aroslav: Why didn’t you leave?
WENDY: I did. He came after me. Twice. I got into UW when I was 18 and never let him know. He came to the dormitory to get me and take me back, but campus security chased him away. The last thing he said to me was that I wasn’t worthy to be his slave and to never come back.
aroslav: But you were free!
WENDY: That’s a loaded word. I was lost. The university was such a big place and there was no one there to help me. I sat in my room for a week before my roommate discovered I wasn’t going to classes. She started telling me what to do and it grounded me. I went to class, did my homework, and then I did her homework and cleaned our room. If she didn’t get an A in her class, she told me how stupid I was. But I didn’t mind. I could live with her chastising me because she told me what to wear and what to eat and what time to go to bed. I had a clean room to live in and food.
aroslav: That sounds so much like a user to me.
WENDY: But I didn’t know any other way to live. It was okay until I got to the end of my freshman year. Then I started to panic. I didn’t know what I was going to do over the summer. She told me to get a job and the only thing I could think of was waiting on tables. I didn’t have a place to live, so she got a friend of hers to let me stay with him in exchange for cooking and cleaning his apartment.
She was good to me. She made sure I was okay when she left for the summer.
aroslav: How long were you at that apartment?
WENDY: Two years. She told Rafe all about me and that all he had to do was tell me what to do. I don’t think he took her seriously, but he’d go through the motions of setting up a schedule for me to cook and clean and told me what I needed to wear each day. Working was okay because I could buy the groceries in addition to cooking and cleaning. He told me I needed to buy a car and I saved tips until I got that old Corolla. He didn’t take my money...at first. He just told me what to do with it.
aroslav: Wait. Rafe is your ex-boyfriend, right?
WENDY: He never thought of himself as my boyfriend. He was my master. I had to tell people he was my boyfriend so they wouldn’t ask questions. It took a while for Rafe to get a handle on his power. Once he realized how much I depended on him, he started taking advantage of the situation. He never really cared for me as a person, but he liked having power over someone. He even had other girlfriends, but he kept ordering me around. Within a year, I was in the same situation I was in with my father. Rafe ordered me to have sex with him and if I didn’t please him he hit me. Then he realized it was as much fun to hit me as to fuck me.
I must sound like a sick person to you. I didn’t know any other way to live. I even thought for a while that I was happy. He told me what to do and I served him. He didn’t beat me too hard. He didn’t lock me in my room. He didn’t order me to do things with his friends—except his girlfriends. He told me what a good girl I was when I gave him dinner or had breakfast ready when he got up. And I could take being hit occasionally just to hear that.
aroslav: How did you ever manage to break free from him?
WENDY: I met a boy. He was kind and teased me like I was a normal person. And he had girlfriends. They were nice. They invited me to a party and everyone got naked and posed for a painting, but no one, like, made a pass at anyone. Everyone had fun and aside from being told how to stand for the pose the artists wanted, no one told me to do anything. I’d never been to a party before. I’d never really had friends before.
aroslav: You’re talking about Tony.
WENDY: Tony and Lissa and Melody. And they introduced me to Kate. Kate was a lifesaver. I love Tony and Lissa and Melody, but Kate saved me. When I saw how things could be, I packed everything I owned, which wasn’t much, into my car and left Rafe. I didn’t tell him I was going. I just waited until he was out and moved all my stuff into my car and drove away. And then I was lost again. Kate inspired me, but I still didn’t know what to do.
aroslav: Is that when you moved in with her?
WENDY: Yes. She told me I could live with her for the summer. She even managed to get me a keycard for her dormitory.
aroslav: Did Kate tell you what to do?
WENDY: Sometimes. When I got stuck. But we talked. We talked and talked and talked. I lived with her for two months and no one ever knew. I felt whole and happy and I had a friend. I had several friends. The rest of them just accepted me as a person, not as a servant. I still can’t get used to it. When Kate’s roommate for fall semester moved in, I had to leave and I didn’t have any place to go. So I decided that I could handle Rafe now. I knew what was what and how I was supposed to act.
aroslav: You went back to him? That didn’t work out, did it?
WENDY: As soon as I walked in the door, I knew it was a mistake. He tied me up for two days. He used a belt to beat me and then fucked me. He found the money I had hidden in my car and took it.
aroslav: How much was that?
WENDY: Nearly $3000. It was going to be what I used pay tuition with this fall. He took it. He left me untied one night and I stole my keys back and drove away. Tony invited me over the next day.
aroslav: You offered yourself to Tony.
WENDY: I was desperate. I couldn’t imagine that he’d just let me live there without wanting anything in return. I just knew that I’d have to be his slave and Lissa’s and Melody’s, too. And they didn’t let me. Tony was like Kate.
[tears]
Nobody ever just helped me before and didn’t expect anything in return.
aroslav: Why didn’t you just stay there?
WENDY: I’m so unworthy. It’s not the thought of taking charity from them. I know some people who live here in Tent City feel that they aren’t taking charity if they live in a tent. That’s not why I came here. I came because I want to prove that I can be the kind of person that deserves their friendship and kindness. They need to see that I can survive on my own. I guess I need to see that, too.
aroslav: Wendy, I’ve never written about character like you. I don’t even know where to start. You surprised the hell out of me.
WENDY: Do you want me to change? I will.
aroslav: No! I want you to be who you are, but I so want you to be happy. What do you want in life?
WENDY: I’m going to be a social worker. I’m going to help people get out of bad situations. I’m going to help the people who are in Tent City. I’m going to do all of that, but I don’t know how to choose among the choices on a menu. Carma gives me a plate of food each night when I go to work. She always has an instruction or description with it. “This is what you tell people about the artichoke hearts.” She never asks me what I want to eat. It’s wonderful. My life is like that. If someone would just help me with the little things, I would do anything for them.
aroslav: Tony? Kate?
WENDY: I love them both. They are kind and caring. I’ve never loved anyone before. I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to do about it. But I know that if I want their love I have to be strong. They expect so much from each other. So do Melody and Lissa—don’t get me wrong. I don’t feel as strongly about them, but there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them.
A kind word and a gentle touch now and then is all I ask.
aroslav: Wendy, I’m so worried about you. I want all the best for my friends in this book.
WENDY: I don’t love you like I love Tony or Kate. But I trust you. I’ll do whatever you say.
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