Pink Asparagus

(Abigail and Mary, both wearing burgundy dresses and satin bows in their hair, sit at a tiny table on the patio of an upscale Cafe. They’re drinking white wine, awaiting their sandwiches and salads. Mary hates the wine…)

Mary: This wine is dreadful! (Pauses to look at Abigail.) It’s tasteless and dense, it reminds me of Edmund Burke.

(Abigail seems distracted. Her husband was so condescending, it could be distracting.)

Mary: You’re being quiet. What’d he do?

Abigail: Oh come on! He did nothing!

(As the two have a stare-down, a teenage boy comes up to them asking for change; the women decline since they only have American Express Cards.)

Abigail: I wrote John a letter… I was a little pushy… I just told him that when he’s making the new Code of Laws, he might want to account for the women…. (pauses to think) and he just exploded about it! He can just get so condescending sometimes!

Mary: (Smirks, then sighs quickly) They all can. Do you have the letter?

(Abigail pulls the letter out of her pearl-studded Chanel and hands it to Mary. As Mary unfolds it, they both watch the teenage boy give up going from table to table. He walks into the cafe with his head hung low.)

Mary: (Reading) “If perticular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion”… True… “and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice or Representation… That [men] are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as to wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.” (62). Also true.

Abigail: I guess I could’ve been harsher…

Mary: Honey, you should’ve been; haven’t you read my letter to Burke, I wouldn’t let up about how much “sentimental jargon” (379) and “rhetorical flourishes and infantine sensibility” (384) he uses. The man is a terrible writer. I bet my letter made him CRY.

Abigail: He wrote back that he couldn’t help but laugh at what I said. I gave him a solid warning and get this, he called me saucy.

Mary: Saucy?

Abigail: Saucy.

Mary: (Rolling her eyes) Men are so… manipulative (still scanning the letter). Once threatened, they’ll do anything to maintain their power. Especially John here (focuses on a section), he talks about how men only appear to have power. I wish that was true. Ok, John… you all only appear to hurt people and appear to incite global violence. And yet all these people are dying …

Abigail: He’s just so ignorant.

Mary: Arrogant, the word you’re looking for is arrogant.

Abigail: I just feel like he’d never listen to me; I just want women to be accounted for and he thinks I want all his power.

Mary: (Deep in thought…channeling Valerie Solanas years too early…) We would need all the power, not just his–

Abigail: (Ignoring Mary) And then he just brings up this Petticoat Despotism thing as if there could ever actually be Petticoat Despotism in this political climate…

Mary: I think I would like Petticoat Despotism; I can see it now, Petticoat Despotism: a system where men are “not only [expected] to respect modesty in women but to acquire it themselves, as the only way to merit their esteem”! (385) We come home, and they tell US when dinner is. (Looks through the glass at the waitress inside the restaurant for a drink; the waitress nods and starts walking over. Behind her, Mary sees the teenage boy.)

Abigail: John’s letters feel like they talk over mine. He somehow is simultaneously condescending AND ignorant about what I’ve said. He says that men “dare not exert [their] power in its full Latitude” (63), but he says it after laughing at me for asking for equality. They do dare!

(Mary watches the boy as he reaches behind the pastry glass, and steals two small tarts. He starts to speed away; the Amazon cafe CEO notices and starts to chase him.)

Mary: (To herself) “Our penal laws punish with death the thief who steals a few pounds” (377). The man with property punishes the one without.

(As Mary says this, the CEO shoots a solid gold arrow through the teenager’s neck.)

Mary: (Shakes her head but is unphased; looks at Abigail) Men like John tend to deny their privilege, saying that men and women just lead different lives, that one’s not necessarily better than the other; and this sounds like a compliment, but it’s just men’s way of telling us to “settle down”. (She gestures the waitress over again for another drink. The boy lies face down in the dirt, his tarts broken.)

Abigail: Sensible men don’t act this way, they abhor misogynistic customs (62). My Code of Laws is not “extraordinary”. John’s ego is what’s extraordinary.

Mary: Abigail, as you said, all men would be tyrants if they could, and the wealthiest ones can do this best. (She gestures at the Amazon cafe CEO whose solid gold watch shakes with his fist as he yells at the dead boy. A teenage girl emerges from the neighbouring shop. She starts crying and hugging the boy. The CEO attempts to shoot her and realizes he’s out of arrows. He sprints back to the shop to get another.)

Mary: How frequently women who already have so little even their helpmates are torn away from them (337)…

Abigail: Maybe we should foment a rebellion… We’ll reject forcible conscription, slavery, private property for the wealthy, strong male authority figures, the whole nine yards… We could start after drinks…

Mary: Maybe you should just leave your tyrannical husband… He’ll probably starve without you, after all, who else will tell him when dinner is?

(Mary walks over to the teenage girl and helps her up. Abigail follows.)

Abigail: Let’s get you out of here before that tyrannical man returns!

Teenage Girl: Alright; I heard you guys talking, and we should foment a rebellion… especially against wealthy violent men.

(The three women walk off. Who knows if there’ll be a rebellion! But there’ll definitely be more Cafe gossip.)

Works Cited

MacDonald, D.L. and Anne McWhir. “Mary Wollstonecraft.” The Broadview Anthology of Literature of the Revolutionary Period. 1770-1832, Broadview, Toronto, ON, 2010, pp. 374-454.

MacDonald, D.L. and Anne McWhir. “John Adams. Abigail Adams” The Broadview Anthology of Literature of the Revolutionary Period. 1770-1832, Broadview, Toronto, ON, 2010, pp. 61-63.