marco etheridge

Sophie, Anarchy, and Me

Sophie appeared in my life a few heartbeats after a rubber bullet slammed into my shoulder and knocked me to the pavement. Tear gas canisters ricocheted down the asphalt. Then our first touch. Her gloved hands dug into my armpits as she hoisted me to my feet.

I say her, but I didn’t know if my rescuer was man, woman, or angel. Couldn’t see Sophie’s mismatched eyes or her crazy hair. I saw the curved face shield of a gas mask and my distorted reflection looking back at me. And behind my reflected grimace marched a miniature cordon of riot police, closer with each step.

If pushed to recall those first moments with Sophie, my memory offers a series of jittery dioramas. An advancing wall of plexiglass shields. Black boots and leg armor enough for a giant horror movie centipede. The smoke trail of a gas canister skipping past us. Riot batons menacing the air.

Then my frozen memories jutter back into motion.

Sophie tugged me into a staggering run. We dashed into an alley. A momentary refuge out of the line of fire and the march of the angry centipede.

Me doubled up against a dumpster, my stomach heaving from the teargas. I vomited until my guts were empty. My unknown Samaritan held me by the belt so I wouldn’t fall into the putrid puddle that splashed over the cobbles.

Later, when someone asked us how we met, we’d just laugh. At a demonstration. No more. Too much to explain.

Nothing about my first glimpse of her. How Sophie peeled the gas mask off her chin and over her head. Sweat ran down her olive skin, cropped hair mashed flat to her skull. Or how she watched me wipe the last traces of vomit from my lips. 

I didn’t sweep her into my arms. She didn’t swoon. I swooned, but from pain and nausea, one good arm hooked over the edge of the dumpster. The other dangled, numb and useless from the shoulder down. Sophie grabbed me by the chin, but not for a first kiss. She held my head steady while she checked my pupils.

Her first words to me: “C’mon. We gotta get you out of here.”

She slipped my good arm over her shoulder, got a grip on my wrist, and wrapped her other arm around my waist.

My first words to her, almost cheek-to-cheek: “I’m Les.”

Sophie let out a short laugh. Loud. Right in my ear. Later, I learned that Sophie did everything loud.

“Pleased to meet ya, Les. I’m Sophie. Can you walk?”

“Yeah, I think so. Where are we going?”

“Away from here, that’s for damn sure. There’s an aide station in one of the parking garages. Five, maybe six blocks.”

We slipped out the far end of the alley and turned south. There was no traffic on the wide downtown avenue. A few protesters ran past, keeping close to the storefronts. Someone had thrown a newspaper box into the street. Pages of yesterday’s news wafted down the pavement. Broken glass crunched under our feet.

I didn’t pay much attention to where we were going or to the embattled city around us. My focus was on this small, strong woman half walking, half dragging me down the sidewalk. I felt Sophie’s hand clutching my belt. Her lean body bumped against mine. The scent of her hair filled my brain, and the smell of her sweat as well. She could be lugging me to the gallows for all I cared. I’d have been happy to stagger along wherever she led.

You could say that’s when I fell for her. Maybe it was love at first rescue. Maybe it was me going into shock. I don’t know which is true. What I do know is that Sophie got me to that aid station.

After that, memory gets fuzzy. A huge black guy grabbed me, laid me down on a foam mat. Someone lifted my feet, draped a blanket over me. Dreadlocks bounced above my face. A big smile.

“You be alright, Mon.”

Sophie hunkered down next to me, a bottle of water in her hand. She drank off half of it, then held the bottle to my lips. Water ran down my cheeks like tears. She smiled at me. I remember that. Still remember that smile.

“These guys will take care of you. I gotta go, Les. People to see, things to do. Plus, I don’t want to spend the night in jail. You good?”

I might have been crying for real at that point. Hard to say. All I could do was nod. Didn’t even manage to thank her. Her hand on my shoulder, just for a second. I must have passed out. When I came to, she was gone. 

Two weeks healing from that rubber bullet. Non-lethal, my stinking ass. Catch one of those bastards in the skull and you’re dead. But I got lucky. Luck happens sometimes, even to me.

If you listen long enough, guaranteed some fool will tell you everything happens for a reason. I hear someone spewing that bullshit, I want to kick them right in the face. Life is random and chaotic, full of missed turns, bad choices, and stray bits of good luck. You tell me there’s a preordained reason for every event in your life. Whatever. I say you’re a helpless wood chip being carried along on life’s currents. 

The river doesn’t care. Life’s a haphazard flow. It is not omniscient. You can abrogate your free will if you choose to, but you can’t blame the consequences on anybody else. Man up, for fucksake. Or woman up.

Meeting Sophie like I did, getting rescued, that was a stroke of good luck. I do not believe it was fate. But as you’ve probably guessed, our paths crossed again. I made it happen, but it took some doing.

Luck is quicker if you work at it. I kept my eyes open in the right places: The Croc, Re-Bar, Red and Black Books. All the joints you might expect to find an anarchist Grrl. I chased rumors of her, a few maybes wispy as old teargas.

Then one rainy night I walked into the Off Ramp. Sophie sat at the bar. Alone. She didn’t seem surprised to see me.

“Hey, Les. Look at you up and walking around. How’s the wing?”

I performed a quick demo roll with my shoulder and smiled.

“All good now, thanks to you. Listen, I feel bad I didn’t thank you at the time. I was sort of out of it, but still.”

She waved me off, then slapped at the empty stool beside her.

“Grab a stool, comrade.”

I ordered beers. We talked. I didn’t bother ordering a second round. Who knew when I would find her again?

“So, Sophie, you want to grab something to eat, or maybe catch a movie?”

Sophie gave me that sidelong smile I would come to know so well.

“You mean like a date?”

Never hesitate. You are not a chip floating on a river.

“Exactly like a date.”

That smile again.

“Can’t tonight. I got a thing.”

A thing. As in with someone else. As in Les was dead in the water. Disappointment written all over my face, and Sophie read it right off. Would always read me like a book.

“No, not that kind of thing. I’m going to a lecture up on The Hill. It’s about the fucked-up corporate shit going down in Africa. World Bank and all that crap. Listen, why don’t you come with me? We can grab a bite after.”

That was our first date, not counting her rescuing me from the riot police. Neo-Colonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa. Romance is where you find it.

That lecture wasn’t our last date. Sophie took her time. She had to be sure of me. Told me that straight up. Wrapping her mind around the idea of me took a week or two. Bringing her body aboard took a bit more. But once she made the decision, there was no turning back. Sophie broke over me the way surf smashes sand.

A mattress on the floor, me and Sophie, and the world getting knocked off its axis. More than a few degrees. I learned a lot more about Sophie, and everything I learned, I loved. There’d be more lessons to come, and some of them hard.

Sophie loved whomever she pleased, danced when the spirit moved her, and despised any rule she had not forged with her own hands. She dove into joy when she had the chance. Grief she entered as one enters a cathedral, stood tear-streaked and overawed, yet always remembered to shut fast the doors when she departed.

Her body looked to be built of bone and baling wire drawn taut. A small woman, but fiercer than any Shakespearean dream. And her eyes, the left larger than the right. Striking, asymmetric eyes whose gaze unnerved men and women alike. Blue-gray, and beautiful, as quick to flash in anger as twinkle with delight.

That was our how-did-you-two-meet story. Me facing a line of angry riot cops. Bang! Rubber bullet. Holy shit that hurts. Pavement. Also hurts. Sophie. Rescue. It sounds better than saying we met in a bar or got set up on a blind date.

In a low-budget Indie film, this would be the moment to cue the montage. A wacky anarchist couple, madly in love, travel the bumpy relationship road. Two parts happy bumbling, one part sad-but-sweet lessons learned, stir it all together and throw in a wedding at the end. Bridesmaids in black, of course. Roll credits.

But life ain’t Hollywood. And even if it was, I was watching a different movie than Sophie. It took some time before I figured that out. Maybe Sophie figured it out right away. She’s quicker than I am.

We were learning to be a couple, and yeah, there were some bumps along the way. But a few months later we were living together. Just the two of us and ten other folks sharing a squat. We had a room of our own overlooking an abandoned industrial park, the ship canal, and a clanking drawbridge. A room with a view.

Six months passed, and they were the happiest of my short life. But then things began to change. A smarter guy might have noticed dark clouds on the horizon. Hard to notice one dark cloud with rainstorms rolling off the Pacific every other day. A feeble excuse, I know, but it’s all I’ve got.

I could blame the near-constant rain or curse my bad luck. Maybe roll out that tired line about everything happening for a reason. More bullshit, plain and simple. The truth is I acted like an idiot. I’m a jealous person, and jealousy got the best of me. Or the worst.

Don’t misunderstand the jealousy thing. There was no other guy or stray girl. Sophie isn’t like that. She’s the most ethical person I’ve ever met. Not someone who cheats. And I was way too gone on Sophie to notice anyone else.

And yet our blissful duo became a threesome, with The Cause starring as the third wheel. The Good Fight to save the world. Here’s a piece of free advice. You might outshine another lover, but never weigh your self-worth against a concept. You’ll always come out wanting, even if you’re the one holding the scales.

Sophie, the dyed-in-the-wool true believer, a tireless warrior for justice. She kept up the fight and shrugged off defeat after defeat. Me, I wavered now and again. Sophie never held it against me, but she noticed. 

I started viewing our relationship as if through a mirror. Remember Plato’s allegory of the cave? That was me, looking at shadows and mistaking them for the real thing. I saw the shadow of myself, and that guy didn’t measure up. None of this was Sophie’s doing. She never asked me to be anyone but myself. I did it all on my own. I confused shadow with reality, planting the seeds of my discontent, and then jealousy.

Summer arrived, finally, and chased the rains away. Sophie and I went to demonstrations. We marched, carried signs, and chanted slogans. In between, we worked our crappy jobs, pooled our money, cooked communal meals, and mangled the mattress on the floor.

For me, summer offers more than a chance to save the world. Summer means baseball. I love the game, even if we have the crappiest team in the league. It took some doing, but I convinced Sophie to go to a game with me. One fine June day, we climbed hand-in-hand to the nosebleed section.

Sophie’s eyes took in the scene as we waited for the game to start. The stadium, the crowd, the vendors hawking peanuts. I remember the way she laughed and shook her head.

“Shit, Les, look at all this money.”

“What money?”

As if I didn’t know. She waved her hand at the stadium stretched out below.

“Bread and circuses. Same trick the Romans pulled. Keep the polis entertained. Distract the workers to keep them out of mischief.”

“It’s just baseball. What’s wrong with a bit of entertainment?”

“This is more than entertainment. It’s spectacle writ large. People love sports. I get that. But think of all the money it takes to stage this extravaganza, money that could go to schools or public daycare.”

She laughed again. I knew she was teasing, but a part of me felt a sharp sting. Then the teams ran out onto the field. The crowd rose for the anthem. Sophie rolled her eyes, but she stood like everyone else. Play ball.

I tried to push away the hurt and failed. Meanwhile, Sophie enjoyed herself. Asked a million questions, tried to understand how the game works. That’s my Sophie, a curious little monkey. She might not be on board with the whole bread and circus thing, but once a part of it, she wanted to know everything.

The game ended. Our team won for a change. We stretched the kinks out of our bodies and descended the concrete ramps. Three of us engulfed in the happy crowd, Sophie, me, and my sour mood. I’d wanted a few hours alone with Sophie, but The Cause managed to butt in where it wasn’t wanted or needed. Three’s a crowd.

Resentment is acid and jealousy a green monster. As I walked out of the stadium, I felt both emotions worming their way deep into my guts. But that’s another lie. The truth is I fed my hurt, nurtured it. A shitty thing to do, and one I’m not proud of. Add it to the list.

That afternoon became a turning point. Rather than face my own emotions, I began to blame Sophie and her constant dedication to the Good Fight. Her fault, not mine. If she would just ease up now and then, we’d be happier. Forget the fact that we were already happy. The seeds of discontent grow from within.

Looking back, I can only wince.

My beautiful Sophie, the committed social warrior. A smarter guy would have been clear on that from our first painful meeting. Only a fool hopes to change a person’s fundamental nature. And I was that fool.

Sophie was committed to saving the world, but she was also committed to me. As my jealousy grew, I lost track of that truth. Or maybe I ignored it. I didn’t want to share Sophie with anyone or any cause, no matter how noble. Jealousy and nobility cannot share the same bed.

A week passed. Sophie and I were washing dishes after another cooperative meal. I scrubbed while Sophie dried. We were good that way. Sophie leaned in to tell me about some volunteer work on Saturday, a tree-planting gig at one of the community centers. A chance to bring shade and oxygen to the masses.

“It’ll be fun, Les. Tons of people, kids, everybody digging holes and getting dirty. And there’s going to be a potluck after.”

There’s always a goddamn potluck after. The familiar banquet of seitan and quinoa. And the same three hungry carnivores, counting me, hunting for real food amongst the vegan offerings.

“Sounds great, but I was sorta hoping for some me and you time. It’s been a while.”

“It will be you and me, side by side planting trees. Fresh air, exercise, and a nice long buddy shower afterward. We’ll get all clean so we can get dirty again.”

Right, so who could turn that down? Me, that’s who. This wasn’t the first time I’d begged off. But it was the first time I went out and got stinking drunk while Sophie planted trees for The Cause.

Sophie arrived home streaked with the soil of the people. She wasn’t unhappy to find me missing. The night got a lot less happy when Jerry the bartender phoned her to come haul my obnoxious ass home.

Here’s another bit of free advice. Don’t start a screaming fight with a sober Sophie. The small bit I remember did not go well. The parts I don’t remember were worse.

That next morning found me hungover and angry. Sophie brought me coffee and sat on the edge of the bed. She asked me one question.

“Les, why are you doing this?”

Answering her meant facing my own shit, and I damn sure didn’t want to do that. I lay there with a brutal hangover and two voices screaming in my aching head. The voice of reason gave it a go.

Dude, stop! Pull her into your arms. Make some room in your stingy heart.

But genius me ignored the better part of myself. I listened to the other voice, the hurt and jealous child.

Like I said before, resentment eats away the shine of love quicker than battery acid. I got over the hangover but held onto the hurt. Days passed and I acted like a spoiled brat. Couldn’t we do something normal for a change? Why did our lives revolve around protests and seminars?

Sophie tried to dig down to the root of the problem, but I wasn’t having any. I’d painted myself into a corner. Me or The Cause, a binary choice. I created rules, the very thing my Sophie despised. And I wasn’t smart enough to know when to back down.

The day came when Sophie pinned me down with her beautiful eyes full of anger and hurt. She needed time away from me. There was a project down in Mexico.

“You cannot ask me to turn my back on everything I believe. You want normal shit. What does that even mean? Move to the Eastside, become a corporate slave? Buy a big-screen TV for your baseball. I could join a book club, learn to be a suburban woman, learn to be silent. I love you Les, but that’s not going to happen.”

Her parting words lingered long after she was gone.

Time is not everywhere equal. Einstein, right? The first six months with Sophie flew past in a blur. Then time splintered. Life without Sophie became an interminable crawl.

I mooned about like a sick dog, growling the litany of loss. I’ll never find anyone like her. She was the best. I’m a fool. The bartenders shook their heads, commiserating for tips. That’s a tough one. You gotta get over her. Plenty of fish in the sea.

Suffering begets suffering. I wallowed in it and begged for more. One night, two big ironworkers obliged me. Sick of my mouth, the pair administered a marginally enthusiastic beating. Jerry the bartender delivered the coup de grâce and eighty-sixed me. I deserved it.

Getting my ass kicked served as a sort of wake-up call, that, and the sight of my bruised face in the mirror. Time to get real with myself.

My heartbreak didn’t vanish. I lived six months of penance, one day of suffering for every happy day spent with Sophie. Then a chance remark from one of my last remaining tolerant friends.

“Hey, Les, Sophie’s back in town. She said to say hi.”

Boom. Wake-up call number two. I couldn’t let her see me like this. One rescue was romantic. A second would just be pathetic. I managed to stay out of the bars and clean myself up. Still miserable, but not advertising the fact. I wasn’t quite out of the gutter, but I managed to sit upright on the curb.

*  *  *

Sophie called me today. I didn’t recognize the number. When I heard her voice, I damn near dropped the phone. My heart pounded like a kettledrum.

Her words filled the silence while I struggled to find my own. Then she mentioned baseball, of all things. Said it was a big deal south of the border.

Baseball, something I could talk about without crumbling.

Yeah, our team had a shot at the American League West and a hot Japanese rookie who played like no one else. No, I hadn’t been to a game in a while.

Then Sophie opened a door I had thought closed forever.

“So, what do you think, Les? You want to take me to my second-ever baseball game?”

The turning points in life can be subtle. Or life can smack you like a rubber bullet. But if you find yourself standing on an empty stage, just you and the spotlight, remember this: You will not get another chance.

“Sophie, I’d love to take you to a ballgame. But the Museum of History and Industry is doing an exhibit on the Wobblies and the labor movement in the Northwest.”

Silence on the phone. I imagined Sophie cracking that crooked smile of hers. I wanted to hold her so bad I could almost feel her in my arms.

Then her words filled my brain.

“Great, it’s a date. Or two dates.”

Boi gets Grrl back? Maybe. I felt like a condemned man who receives a reprieve as the hangman tightens the noose.

I knew one thing, and I held it tight. I had a date with an anarchist angel. We would go to a baseball game. Later, we’d go to a museum. The two of us, Sophie and me. What could be more normal than that?

Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work has been featured in more than one hundred reviews and journals across Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. “The Wrong Name” is Marco’s latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor for a new ‘Zine called Hotch Potch. Author website: https://www.marcoetheridgefiction.com/.