choudhuryjpe

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 omega pocket watches 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