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WELL DONE! Flash Fiction - Feed the Beast by B.A. Brittingham
Feed the Beast by B.A. Brittingham
Around the age of ten, I developed a passion for fountain pens in a society that had been steadily moving towards the low-priced practicality of ballpoints. In trying to fill one of these somewhat antiquated writing instruments (pilfered from my grandmother’s desk) I managed to spill a quantity of Schaefer blue-black permanent ink on the beige living room sofa. Since it would not take much for her to notice this blunder, I hastily went to her and confessed. An endlessly patient soul, she immediately forgave me but said that I would have to tell my grandfather who was not quite so tolerant — especially after a long day caring for the bizarre breakdowns of an aging NYC hotel.
But she gave me this advice, “Don’t say anything when he first comes in. Let him sit down to dinner and when he’s halfway through and relaxed, come in and then nicely tell him what happened. You must first feed the beast; then give him the bad news.”
She was right. While such an infraction would have typically brought an outburst from my frequently fiery tempered granddad, he said merely, “That’s all right.” After a half century of marriage, she had developed methods of dealing with him — and his irascibility.
Fast forward to the present: once upon a time in the years preceding the Feminist Movement, in those days when most of western civilization was, overtly or otherwise, a patriarchy, women did actually manage to assert themselves, or at least get their way some of the time. Whatever minimal power we might have had was of an ‘underground’ variety, i.e., it protected itself by never being too obvious. More realistically, it pretended not to exist, for its presence was predicated upon clever manipulation.
Manipulation: this is not a word I much like for it harbors in its shadowy background less commendable females such as Lady Macbeth, Lucrezia Borgia along with nameless shrews, countless courtesans, and several serial killers These were women who used their brains and their bodies (singly or jointly) to accomplish things that most certainly would have been beyond them had they operated openly. And while the above-named ladies have ominous reputations, there are millions more who have used the same techniques in other less sinister, often affirmative, capacities.
Yet the unique ability to connive or convince, to influence the balance of power, to move mountains either with words or sexual athletics, is becoming a lost art. You might say, Hooray! for logic and candidness and the forthrightness of a society where these kinds of exploitive techniques are out of style. We have, most certainly, entered the Brave New World of BUF (Being Up-Front.) The Madeleine Albrights, the Condoleezza Rices, and the Ruth Bader Ginsburgs have been free to pursue their various exceptional talents without the necessity of lies and bed-chamber antics.
Still, for all their modern diplomatic accomplishments, there was a kind of talent attached to what were once labeled ‘feminine wiles.’ If nothing else, it was a form of tactfulness and ingeniousness that is being lost as the next generation of strong women steps up for its turn at bat. Most of the male powerbrokers of the past were not so naïve as to be totally unaware of what was being perpetrated by the Mata Haris of their times, women who, for whatever reason, found a means of influencing men in one direction or another. It was part of the game, often a very spicy and dangerous game, but that made it even more intriguing.
Is this a suggestion that women turn and march back to those centuries of male dominance originally put in place by misogynist religious and political leaders? Hardly. It is more an appeal that we learn something from such seemingly outmoded tactics before they slide into cultural oblivion; that we recognize that there is a kind of wisdom in the crevices of ‘manipulation,’ a measuring of opponents, and the necessity of understanding how the human mind and heart work. The woman at the rear of the Throne or behind the village’s Headman, who did not thoroughly comprehend the psychological attitudes of those involved in some crisis, risked not only her spouse’s failure, but oftentimes death — her own and her children’s.
‘Upfront’ is a direct approach, one that hurries us through the modern world, but which also leaves little time for observation or reflection. In some situations, that can be a mistake because, as we all know, speed kills.
At times, my grandmother may have been a bit heavy-handed in finagling her way around her oft-testy spouse, but mostly it worked. Maybe we all must learn to observe, to take our time, to “feed the beast,” thereby discovering the most appropriate moment to spring things on those around us.
We just may find the outcomes far more gratifying.
