AT THE BATTERED WOMEN'S SHELTER

At the Battered Women's Shelter

     Marshall Sachs called and said he was donating money to the Battered Women's Shelter in Santa Cruz for improvements they needed, and asked if I'd donate my labor to make and install kitchen cupboards if he bought the materials. 

     Like anyone who goes to the shelter, I had to promise not to reveal its location, so none of the husbands or boy friends who had been beating these women - and, in some cases, their kids as well - could find them and finish what they'd started.

  The shelter was just another house in a quiet neighborhood. I worked there for two or three weeks, spreading my sawhorses, tools, and materials out on the concrete driveway beside the house. I'd finish cutting a few pieces, then go in a side door, wind around furniture and kids playing with their toys on the floor, and on into the kitchen to nail up the new pieces. It was onsite cabinet work, sort of. 

     The place was crowded, and my being there made it more so. There was no way around that, but the women tried to leave me as much space as they could, and while they couldn't keep their kids from being fascinated with what I was doing - that always happens - they managed to convince them to heed my admonitions not to touch the power tools or the pneumatic nail gun. 

     As I worked among the women in that crowded space, I overheard bits of their stories, and of their conversations with one another about who should go back to her man, who should not. It was all there: it was really my fault, I shouldn't have pissed him off like that when he'd been drinking/ no, that's his fault, not yours/ I'm going to give him one more chance once he simmers down, he promised not to do it again/ no, you can't go back, that's what he says every time....

     One day I was working in the driveway, being watched with wide eyes by two little Mexican girls, sisters about four and five years old. They'd taken a shine to me because I was doing something interesting and because they'd found out I could speak Spanish with them. 

    Working on a cabinet in the driveway, I was hammering: either driving nails or assembling something like a mortise and tenon joint. I was trying to pay attention to what I was doing and still talk with the girls.

     At a particularly sharp blow of my hammer, the younger girl flinched and sucked in a startled breath that stopped our conversation. She turned to her sister and asked in Spanish, "Is he going to hit us?" 

     The older girl looked at me for a long moment with eyes like some foolproof radar of the soul, then answered: "No, he's only working."