“ I 

am here today not because I 
want to be. I am terrified. I 
am here because I believe it is 

my civic duty to tell you what happened to 
me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in 
high school.” - Dr. Christine Blasey Ford

On a Thursday afternoon late in 

September, these words were spoken 
but not heard. They fell on the deaf ears 
of blind men sitting just feet away, the 
Kings of the Hill. Reverberations of these 
words were felt through television sets 
in living rooms, and through car radios, 
and through newspaper headlines and 
through conversations between couples 
behind you in coffee shops. While these 
words were not heard, they were felt. 
Half of the committee room felt them, 
half of America felt them and I felt them. 
For two full days of “hearings,” a week of 
an investigation and finally a vote, things 
carried on pretty much like this.

Time is truly, as they say, of the essence 

when it comes to these kinds of things, 
like when healing time sometimes 
exceeds that of the statute of limitations. 
And while time may seem to be working 
in your favor, it might actually be working 
against you. How much time did it take 
us to get here? Depending on who you 
ask, you’ll get different answers. Many 
point back to a letter, which Ford sent 
recounting her alleged sexual assault 
by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Others 
point back to his nomination itself as the 
impetus. Others still look over 30 years 
back, to the summer of 1982. Some look 
a little closer, to about this time in 1991 
when another woman, attorney Anita 
Hill, fought the same fight only to lose. 
Have the rules changed since then?

Personally, I’d say it took about two 

years.

“Have you heard anything about this 

whole Kavanaugh thing?” he asked. 

I hadn’t. But, two weeks into school I 

was still actively trying to fit in with my 
boyfriend’s new “law school” friends.

“She’s not like other undergrads.” I’d 

imagine them thinking after I wooed 
them with my eloquence discussing 
current events. Of course, such a facade 
could not be maintained for long.

I nodded, adding, “It’s a real shit show,” 

every bit as eloquent as one might expect. 
Thinking I’d entered this Buffalo Wild 
Wings to pretend to watch the Lions 
game, I fell, ill-prepared, into a political 
arena I’d been hoping to avoid.

So it began: “Do you think she made it 

up?” No.

“When do you think she might step 

forward?” Why should she?

“Why’d Feinstein keep it under wraps 

so long?” Who?

“Could it really be any different from 

Anita Hill?” There’s been so much 
progress since then, hasn’t there?

“Can I get out? I have to pee.”
The last one was from me. My thighs 

stuck to the seat as I slid out from the booth. 
My now red and slightly sticky thighs 
carried me to the bathroom. Pants up, I 
sat down on the toilet, arms outstretched, 
hands pressed into either side of the stall. 
My breathing slowed, and only then did 
I realize that I’d been breathing quickly. 
I had heard of Kavanaugh. I knew he’d 
been nominated to the Supreme Court. 
And, living in Washington, D.C. over 
the summer had indirectly taught me 
a lot about his opinions on everything 
from presidential indictment to the 
maintenance of precedent. But I hadn’t 
yet heard the 50 yes votes and 48 no 
votes. I hadn’t yet seen him sneer and spit 
through his testimony. I hadn’t yet read 
the Washington Post article outing Ford 
as the accuser, or the Wall Street Journal 
op-ed where he too claimed the status of 
“victim,” and I certainly hadn’t yet heard 
of a letter being passed hand-to-hand that 
would change the course of Kavanaugh’s 
nomination.

At this point in time, I had only heard 

thoughts on an attempted rape from 
the mouths of first-year law students in 
between slurps of Canadian beer and 
bites of mozzarella sticks. They liked 
beer.Sliding back into the booth, they 
were once again talking about the game. 

The Lions actually won. In retrospect it 
feels like a sick sort of foreshadowing.

For that entire week, I was besieged by 

the Kavanaugh hearings. Being a fairly 
politically-active person, and associating 
with similarly politically-active friends, 
it was the only topic of discussion. Like 
a dance we’d begin slowly, circling each 
other from across the room to start with 
small talk. The music begins, with a soft 
introduction: “How’d your meeting go 
this afternoon?”

“Did you end up getting that summer 

job?” then, like a sharp note to switch the 
tone we clasp hands:

“So, what do you think about all this 

Kavanaugh stuff, huh?” A tango. For the 
most part, I let them lead. Some push the 
tempo, “Timing was way too fishy, she’s 
gotta be lying.”

Kicking up my heels, in, out, step back 

and one, two, three…

Others slow things down. “Really, I just 

never watch the news anymore,” an open 
embrace.

But eventually, we get there, their hot 

take I didn’t ask for, or a tempered position 
that I could’ve gone without. Since tango 
is 
highly 
improvisational, 
personal 

and impulsive, it is not strange that it 
has managed to quickly evolve from its 
traditional form into dozens of styles that 
are today practiced all around the world. 

So too, is it not strange that the simple 
topic of the Kavanaugh hearings has 
evoked dozens of different conversations, 
following me, one leg wrapped around, 
gancho-style in a closed embrace. Friday 
ended and I was granted the temporary 
reprieve of an empty dance card.

During that break, I, and the country 

waited. And it is in this in-between, this 
schism of time, that I put pen to paper. 
Like Ford had told the Washington 
Post before going public, “Why suffer 
through the annihilation if it’s not going 
to matter?”

For me, the Kavanaugh hearings had 

crumbled a wall. The reverberations of 
Ford’s testimony were felt in a part of my 
brain that had gone untouched for nearly 
two years — dormant and undisturbed. 
I had built a wall in the back of my mind 
and forgotten what I’d placed behind it. 
Then in sleepy September a voice came 
knocking, cracking and crumbling the 
wall I’d maintained for so so long.

During her five minutes, Sen. Amy 

Klobuchar, 
D-Minn., 
asked 
Judge 

Kavanaugh whether or not he had ever 
blacked out from drinking.

Quite famously now, he retorted “Have 

you?”

I had.
While I heard a lot of questions over 

the two days of hearings, many listed 
above, the one that rose above the rest, 
that resounded the loudest and hung 
in my mind was; “What would have 
happened if I had reported?” and “If 
not then, will I have to later?” Fickle 
time reared its ugly head once more. I 
didn’t speak up when it happened to me. 
I didn’t know how. I wasn’t ready, and I 
didn’t want to. I needed time to process 
what had happened. To sober up and 
straighten my clothes. I needed healing 
time, both physically and mentally. Later, 
I needed therapy, 55 minutes at a time 
but sometimes we went a little over. I just 
needed time. But, as written, and pinned 
on the black dresses among the protestors 
in the Senate building, “Time’s up.”

Looking 
back, 
the 
evidence 
is 

undeniable. Not that Kavanagh was guilty 
of anything or even guilty of attempted 
anything, but instead that truth is placed 
at a lesser premium than politics and 
privilege. When it comes to reporting 
rape and attempted rape, the burden falls 
wholly on the shoulders of an already 
broken woman. We don’t give time credit 
for how ruthless and unforgiving it can be. 
Time will not wait for you to be ready. I will 
never be ready to report. I don’t know if 
anyone is ever actually ready. Sometimes, 
something just forces you to — a desire for 
justice, the hope to prevent a perpetuation 
of pain, or in Ford’s case, the recognition 
of something bigger than the self. For me, 
this piece was not written, it was born: the 
bastard child of two unwanted affairs.

Wednesday, October 31, 2018// The Statement 
 
3B

Aftershocks

BY B.A. BACIGAL, CONTRIBUTOR

ILLUSTRATION BY VALERIE CHRISTOU

