WEBVTT - Laura van den Berg: 3D 0:00:15.130 --> 0:00:23.050 Pushkin. Joe Biden has made up his mind about this decision, 0:00:23.090 --> 0:00:25.570 and there's actually an email that has gone out to 0:00:25.730 --> 0:00:29.010 supporters that said that Joe Biden has selected Kamala Harris 0:00:29.290 --> 0:00:32.330 as his running mate. There's actually an entire Biden low. 0:00:33.290 --> 0:00:35.970 I'm Ashley Ford and this is the Chronicles of naw 0:00:36.370 --> 0:00:39.850 where we ask writers to dream up short stories inspired 0:00:39.890 --> 0:00:42.130 by the news. If elected, she would be the first 0:00:42.210 --> 0:00:45.170 woman vice president, the first lack vice president. She would 0:00:45.170 --> 0:00:49.090 be the highest ranking Asian American in US history. Now 0:00:49.130 --> 0:00:52.170 that Joe Biden has officially picked a woman as his 0:00:52.290 --> 0:00:55.810 running mate, can we talk about his weird, uncomfortable history 0:00:55.850 --> 0:00:59.010 with women. He was talking to me while he was 0:00:59.490 --> 0:01:02.930 rubbing my nose with his mister Biden himself said, it 0:01:03.050 --> 0:01:07.050 was never his intention to make anyone uncomfortable. And our 0:01:07.130 --> 0:01:10.370 social wars began to change or shoot it and the 0:01:10.450 --> 0:01:14.450 bomb is a protected personal space have been reset. I 0:01:14.610 --> 0:01:18.170 get it. I get it. Oh, yes, we're going to 0:01:18.210 --> 0:01:22.890 go there. With the election looming. It is an uncomfortable subject, 0:01:23.370 --> 0:01:26.890 but it's there. Joe Biden has been a handsy guy 0:01:27.050 --> 0:01:30.770 throughout his career and it's had a chilling effect on 0:01:30.850 --> 0:01:33.890 some of the women he touched. What just happened? Did 0:01:33.930 --> 0:01:38.690 that just happen? Did I think what just happened is 0:01:38.730 --> 0:01:42.650 actually what happened? Laura Van Denberg's new book is a 0:01:42.730 --> 0:01:47.050 collection of surreal stories about women making their way through 0:01:47.170 --> 0:01:51.530 dark worlds. It's called I Hold a Wolf by the Ears. 0:01:52.050 --> 0:01:56.370 She says, Biden's transgressions are emblematic of our time. Me 0:01:56.490 --> 0:02:00.450 too has changed things a lot, but really has it. 0:02:00.970 --> 0:02:04.010 I have been there, you know. I have absolutely had 0:02:04.010 --> 0:02:06.130 those sorts of encounters with men and then sort of 0:02:06.250 --> 0:02:09.930 been through that process of second guest saying and sort 0:02:09.930 --> 0:02:13.730 of talking myself out of my own understandings and my 0:02:13.770 --> 0:02:17.130 own perception. So I was interested in writing into that 0:02:17.370 --> 0:02:23.650 psychological territory. In a world gone haywire, sometimes art is 0:02:23.690 --> 0:02:26.130 the only thing that can make sense of it all. 0:02:30.210 --> 0:02:34.010 For a long time, only one person on earth, her 0:02:34.050 --> 0:02:38.450 closest friend, knew about the incident. They used to work 0:02:38.490 --> 0:02:41.570 on the hill, and what the Vice president had done 0:02:41.770 --> 0:02:45.730 was insidious and hard to name if you weren't familiar 0:02:45.770 --> 0:02:48.050 with the way some men in politics like to handle 0:02:48.130 --> 0:02:52.050 women as though they were overgrown babies. No harm in 0:02:52.090 --> 0:02:59.090 a little tickle, a pinch on the thigh, the incident 0:02:59.090 --> 0:03:01.970 had occurred as a fundraiser, and when she whispered the 0:03:02.010 --> 0:03:05.890 details at some desolate after party bar her friend had 0:03:05.890 --> 0:03:08.650 asked if she planned to tell anyone, and she said, 0:03:09.330 --> 0:03:13.690 of course. Now he's the vice president. I'm a nobody, nothing. 0:03:17.290 --> 0:03:20.730 So she could not believe it when the former assemblywoman 0:03:20.730 --> 0:03:24.370 from Nevada came forward many years later and described news 0:03:24.450 --> 0:03:28.690 cameras how the vice president had touched heart, smell my hair. 0:03:28.970 --> 0:03:31.810 He had recently announced that he was running for president again, 0:03:32.250 --> 0:03:36.850 and the assemblywoman believed that people needed to know. In 0:03:36.890 --> 0:03:39.930 the middle of the press conference, her closest friend called 0:03:39.970 --> 0:03:44.610 and said, you're still a nobody, a nothing. That woman 0:03:44.610 --> 0:03:51.010 you see on TV right now. They will ruin her life. Later, 0:03:51.250 --> 0:03:54.210 as she packed for a three day conference in San Francisco, 0:03:54.730 --> 0:03:58.530 she reminded herself that the vice president hadn't raped, hadn't 0:03:58.530 --> 0:04:00.610 pressed her to a bed and waved his dick in 0:04:00.690 --> 0:04:04.810 her face. She told herself that he wasn't a dangerous person, 0:04:05.450 --> 0:04:08.450 just oblivious to realities in which he did not sit 0:04:08.490 --> 0:04:11.650 at the center. She tried not to think about how 0:04:11.650 --> 0:04:14.810 such obliviousness was one of the most dangerous ways for 0:04:14.890 --> 0:04:19.530 a person to be. She fell asleep to the news 0:04:19.810 --> 0:04:24.130 where the assemblywoman was still talking, asking to be taken seriously, 0:04:24.610 --> 0:04:32.930 to be believed in San Francisco. She had no idea 0:04:32.970 --> 0:04:36.450 that her fate would be altered by airline miles, for 0:04:36.570 --> 0:04:38.770 had she ended up on a different flight, or even 0:04:38.770 --> 0:04:41.730 in a different row, she would have likely heeded her 0:04:41.770 --> 0:04:47.490 friend's advice, run her business, gone on with her life. 0:04:48.090 --> 0:04:51.090 But then at SFO, a gate agent called her up, 0:04:51.370 --> 0:04:54.610 said she'd landed a complimentary upgrade, and printed a new 0:04:54.650 --> 0:05:02.730 boarding pass for seat three D. She heard her seat 0:05:02.770 --> 0:05:07.050 mate before she saw him, his voice like thunder sounding 0:05:07.050 --> 0:05:09.970 in the wings of a stage. When he appeared in 0:05:10.010 --> 0:05:15.050 the aisle, he was flushed and booming into a cell phone. White, 0:05:15.170 --> 0:05:19.290 broad shouldered, thick waves of sandy hair. He wore a 0:05:19.370 --> 0:05:23.690 yellow polo and khaki pants and brown leather loafers without socks. 0:05:24.490 --> 0:05:27.810 He flopped down next to her, knocking her complimentary bottled 0:05:27.810 --> 0:05:32.290 water to the floor, and kept on booming. She opened 0:05:32.290 --> 0:05:42.530 a travel magazine and shrank down into her seat. In 0:05:42.610 --> 0:05:47.610 the air, her seat MAT's attention turned to the flight attendants. Apparently, 0:05:47.610 --> 0:05:50.410 he took at least forty six first class flights a year, 0:05:50.450 --> 0:05:53.210 and in his opinion, everything about this one was wrong. 0:05:53.970 --> 0:05:57.130 The hot towel was too cold, a replacement towel too hot. 0:05:57.690 --> 0:06:02.330 The drink cart lacked some obscure brand of whiskey. Both 0:06:02.330 --> 0:06:05.450 flight attendants in first class happened to be women. When 0:06:05.450 --> 0:06:08.130 one of them, a tall brunette and a red neckscarf 0:06:08.290 --> 0:06:11.890 apologized about the whiskey for the hundredth time, the man 0:06:11.930 --> 0:06:14.730 asked for her full name. He said he planned to 0:06:14.810 --> 0:06:18.010 file a report. He demanded to know if she liked 0:06:18.050 --> 0:06:20.290 her job, if she thought she'd deserved to keep it, 0:06:21.210 --> 0:06:27.210 And then he laughed, a seat shaking, thigh slapping laugh, 0:06:27.890 --> 0:06:30.810 like the whole thing had been in an extended, practical joke. 0:06:31.770 --> 0:06:35.210 Only then was the flight attendant permitted to walk away. 0:06:37.490 --> 0:06:41.970 It was the laugh that made her stomach clench. Right 0:06:42.010 --> 0:06:45.170 when things were getting bad enough that another passenger might 0:06:45.210 --> 0:06:48.210 feel compelled to intervene, or the flight attendant might feel 0:06:48.250 --> 0:06:52.850 justified in using words like verbal abuse, He'd wielded his 0:06:53.010 --> 0:06:56.850 laugh like a shield. Don't be so sensitive, take a 0:06:56.930 --> 0:07:06.010 joke already. Everything is normal here. That was the worst 0:07:06.010 --> 0:07:08.450 thing about these incidents, she thought, as she watched the 0:07:08.450 --> 0:07:12.210 flight attendant and flee the way They destroyed your confidence 0:07:12.250 --> 0:07:18.530 in your own perceptions. She glanced around at the other 0:07:18.570 --> 0:07:21.370 passengers and realized she and the flight attendants were the 0:07:21.410 --> 0:07:25.090 only women in first class. She wondered if these other 0:07:25.130 --> 0:07:28.130 men had noticed what she had just now, what it 0:07:28.130 --> 0:07:30.490 would take for one of them to call out their 0:07:30.490 --> 0:07:38.370 own kind. She finished her magazine, she drank a glass 0:07:38.410 --> 0:07:42.930 of wine. Her seat mate watched ESPN and drank copious 0:07:42.930 --> 0:07:48.770 amounts of a less obscure whiskey. She found herself thinking 0:07:48.810 --> 0:07:51.930 about the warm grip of the Vice President's hand on 0:07:52.010 --> 0:07:55.970 her neck, the way he pulled her in sudden and close, 0:07:56.410 --> 0:08:00.650 his nose brushing her face. She had been terrified that 0:08:00.690 --> 0:08:07.610 he was going to kiss her Somewhere over Nebraska. Her 0:08:07.610 --> 0:08:11.570 seat mate resurrected the whisky situation. Why don't you have 0:08:11.690 --> 0:08:14.970 what I want? He roared at the second flight attendant, 0:08:15.290 --> 0:08:17.970 an older blonde and a black cart again, who stood 0:08:18.050 --> 0:08:22.770 rigid by the drink cart. She stretched up in her seat. 0:08:23.970 --> 0:08:27.810 The other passengers were all reading newspapers or sleeping or 0:08:27.850 --> 0:08:32.810 otherwise useless. She thought of the assemblywoman speaking on TV. 0:08:34.490 --> 0:08:38.170 She tapped the man's shoulder, and he paused in his tirade, 0:08:38.730 --> 0:08:41.170 giving the flight attendant enough cover to hurry the cart 0:08:41.210 --> 0:08:48.850 down the aisle. You should be ashamed of yourself. She 0:08:48.970 --> 0:08:52.370 felt light headed, her chest was tight, but she pushed on, 0:08:53.290 --> 0:08:58.530 you've been acting like a bully this whole flight. He 0:08:58.690 --> 0:09:01.850 lurched back into his seat and stared at her, panting 0:09:01.890 --> 0:09:05.530 a little. She felt the heat rad heat from his body. 0:09:06.570 --> 0:09:10.810 His cheeks were swollen red, his eyes slid around like 0:09:10.930 --> 0:09:15.370 wet marbles. She imagined he'd probably already sized her up 0:09:15.410 --> 0:09:18.890 during boarding and determined her to be a nothing. Hey 0:09:18.890 --> 0:09:47.090 do you think you are? He slurred. She told him 0:09:47.130 --> 0:09:50.970 that was three D by Laura Van Denburg, the narrator 0:09:51.210 --> 0:09:55.650 with Cindy Cats. How are you doing today, Laura, I'm good, Ashley. 0:09:55.690 --> 0:09:58.970 How are you doing? I'm pretty good. I've got to 0:09:59.050 --> 0:10:03.090 know you leave us hanging there at the end. What 0:10:03.210 --> 0:10:06.850 do you think she told him there at the end. Yeah, Well, 0:10:06.850 --> 0:10:10.690 this story was inspired a bit by interaction that I 0:10:10.770 --> 0:10:14.570 had with a man on a flight who is like 0:10:14.690 --> 0:10:18.130 maybe the most appalling human being that I've ever encountered 0:10:18.170 --> 0:10:22.050 in public or up there. So in my imagination she 0:10:22.210 --> 0:10:25.770 said something maybe that was kind of close to what 0:10:26.050 --> 0:10:29.890 I said in life, which is, you are being verbally abusive. 0:10:29.970 --> 0:10:33.890 Your behavior is completely inappropriate, and I see what you're 0:10:33.890 --> 0:10:37.050 doing and you have to stop. So what did he 0:10:37.090 --> 0:10:40.930 say back to you? So he said something very close 0:10:41.010 --> 0:10:44.170 to with a man on the plane set in the story, 0:10:44.250 --> 0:10:46.570 which is, who do you think you are talking to 0:10:46.610 --> 0:10:49.090 me like that? And then I repeated what I had 0:10:49.130 --> 0:10:52.410 said the first time, and then he was really angry 0:10:52.490 --> 0:10:54.490 for a minute and then just kind of passed out 0:10:54.530 --> 0:10:59.690 and seemed to go to sleep, which everyone was happy about. Yes, 0:11:00.090 --> 0:11:01.850 I like that. I like that you wore him down. 0:11:02.930 --> 0:11:09.090 This story really gets into the situations where women feel uncomfortable. 0:11:09.690 --> 0:11:15.290 They are insidious situations, and the men in these situations 0:11:15.330 --> 0:11:23.130 are often oblivious. What do you think women lose because 0:11:23.170 --> 0:11:30.130 of what men won't allow themselves to see or hear? Yeah, 0:11:30.250 --> 0:11:32.330 it's like how much how much time do we have? 0:11:33.170 --> 0:11:36.410 I understand this is, you know, really painful line of 0:11:36.490 --> 0:11:39.970 conversation that's come up in the me too dialogues. This 0:11:40.050 --> 0:11:44.970 idea that because something happened to a woman early in 0:11:45.010 --> 0:11:48.290 her career, she didn't pursue a particular path or she 0:11:48.370 --> 0:11:52.250 didn't reach in a particular direction. And I think like, 0:11:52.330 --> 0:11:56.890 in some ways, you know, the greatest cruelty of the 0:11:57.010 --> 0:12:01.370 kind of violation that I write about in this particular 0:12:01.450 --> 0:12:05.450 story is again just the way that they can undermine 0:12:05.610 --> 0:12:10.970 our own perceptions and our own grasp on reality, and 0:12:11.010 --> 0:12:13.610 the way that you know, maybe our body is telling 0:12:13.730 --> 0:12:17.170 us this is what happened and it was wrong, but 0:12:17.570 --> 0:12:21.650 our brain, for all kinds of reasons, because we don't 0:12:21.690 --> 0:12:26.970 want to lose opportunity, because we're scared of consequence and repercussion, 0:12:27.290 --> 0:12:30.130 is trying to talk our body into a different story. 0:12:30.210 --> 0:12:34.450 And so I think that estrangement from the bodied reality 0:12:34.850 --> 0:12:39.010 and the intellectual reality, that feeling that maybe we've lost 0:12:39.090 --> 0:12:41.970 trust in ourselves, I mean trust in oneself ability to 0:12:42.010 --> 0:12:44.090 sort of see a situation to say, yes, this is 0:12:44.130 --> 0:12:46.490 what happened. I believe what my body is telling me. 0:12:46.850 --> 0:12:51.210 I think that that's a really profound loss that so 0:12:51.250 --> 0:12:56.970 many women experience. I mean, I would count myself among them, 0:12:57.010 --> 0:13:01.050 and I know quite a few women who would stand 0:13:01.130 --> 0:13:08.370 right alongside me same. This story was inspired by this 0:13:08.650 --> 0:13:12.170 narrative in the media of Joe Biden and his history 0:13:12.730 --> 0:13:16.370 of being handsy with women. How do you think the 0:13:16.490 --> 0:13:20.490 vice president handled those allegations where you paying attention to 0:13:20.530 --> 0:13:24.250 that story as it continued, Yeah, I mean, I think 0:13:24.290 --> 0:13:27.650 his handling of it has been poor in my opinion. 0:13:28.170 --> 0:13:29.970 I also want to pause and say I intend to 0:13:30.050 --> 0:13:32.250 vote for him, despite the many things I could say 0:13:32.250 --> 0:13:33.850 in response to this question. But yeah, I think his 0:13:33.970 --> 0:13:35.970 handling of it has been poor. I'm not sure that 0:13:36.050 --> 0:13:39.010 he really understands or has really absorbed the pain that 0:13:39.050 --> 0:13:41.890 he's caused. When there is sort of more of a 0:13:42.050 --> 0:13:45.690 gesture in the direction of accountability, chalking it up to 0:13:45.810 --> 0:13:49.850 how norms have changed and times have changed, and he 0:13:49.930 --> 0:13:52.530 understands he needs to change with those times. It's sort 0:13:52.570 --> 0:13:55.930 of really taking himself out of the equation, like at 0:13:55.930 --> 0:13:57.930 a different time, this would have been fine, but now 0:13:57.930 --> 0:13:59.970 we're in this new world and it's not fine anymore, 0:14:00.010 --> 0:14:02.330 and it's like, no, you don't get it. It was 0:14:02.410 --> 0:14:05.770 never fine. But the differences is that you have women 0:14:06.210 --> 0:14:09.850 coming forward and saying this was not fine then, and 0:14:09.970 --> 0:14:12.010 is not fine now and will not be fine in 0:14:12.050 --> 0:14:18.850 the future the end. Can you think of your ideal 0:14:18.970 --> 0:14:22.890 way you would have wanted him to respond. I think 0:14:22.930 --> 0:14:27.370 a step in the right direction would have been accountability 0:14:27.410 --> 0:14:31.090 in the sense that he was wrong to have done 0:14:31.090 --> 0:14:33.850 these things and that he was wrong to have violated 0:14:34.370 --> 0:14:38.130 these women in these ways without sort of pinning it 0:14:38.210 --> 0:14:42.450 on changing social norms, but to say something like it 0:14:42.490 --> 0:14:44.770 was wrong, then it was wrong. Now this is why 0:14:44.770 --> 0:14:47.610 it was wrong, even if it wasn't particularly sexual. This 0:14:47.690 --> 0:14:50.370 was an abuse of power. I was in a position 0:14:50.410 --> 0:14:53.970 of power, and I abuse that power. As a starting point, 0:14:54.090 --> 0:14:57.730 I would say, a greater degree of self honesty on 0:14:57.810 --> 0:15:00.170 Biden's part, I think would have been a step in 0:15:00.170 --> 0:15:03.450 the right direction. Early on in the story, the narrator 0:15:03.530 --> 0:15:07.050 doesn't want to call out the vice president, like he's 0:15:07.050 --> 0:15:10.890 the vice president and she's a nobody. According to her friend, 0:15:11.330 --> 0:15:14.210 she's on the wrong end of a power dynamic. But 0:15:14.330 --> 0:15:16.730 at the end of the story she finds her voice 0:15:16.770 --> 0:15:22.130 to speak out what changed her. So, in my understanding, 0:15:22.450 --> 0:15:27.010 I think that the confrontation on the plane and why 0:15:27.090 --> 0:15:30.770 that felt to me like an apt container for this story. 0:15:30.850 --> 0:15:33.330 But because it comes from a headline, we sort of 0:15:33.530 --> 0:15:36.090 have a sense of what happens next that right, she 0:15:36.170 --> 0:15:40.290 does come forward with her allegations, I think coming into 0:15:40.370 --> 0:15:45.210 contact with a man who's like toxic masculinity on steroids, 0:15:45.330 --> 0:15:49.810 you know. And it's so explicit and it's so not ambiguous, 0:15:49.810 --> 0:15:53.730 and it's so clear that someone has got to intervene 0:15:54.210 --> 0:15:57.890 and say something to this person and take a stand 0:15:58.010 --> 0:16:03.930 for decency that it clarifies her thinking ultimately about whether 0:16:04.010 --> 0:16:07.450 to come forward or not to confront the vice president 0:16:07.570 --> 0:16:11.570 in this way. Laura Vandenberg, thank you so much for 0:16:11.650 --> 0:16:14.450 your story and thank you so much for coming on 0:16:14.490 --> 0:16:17.970 the Chronicles of Now podcast. Thank you so much, Ashley. 0:16:18.010 --> 0:16:22.530 I loved your questions. You can read my full interview 0:16:22.610 --> 0:16:26.850 with Laura Vandenberg on our website Chronicles dot fm, where 0:16:26.890 --> 0:16:29.610 you can also read the story you just heard and 0:16:29.810 --> 0:16:34.450 other short fiction torn from today's headlines. Our sound designer 0:16:34.490 --> 0:16:38.410 and composer is Bart Warshaw, our producer is Curtis Fox, 0:16:38.610 --> 0:16:42.490 and our associate producer is Emily Rosten. Tyler Cabot is 0:16:42.530 --> 0:16:46.210 the executive producer and founder of Chronicles of Now for 0:16:46.290 --> 0:16:51.690 Pushkin Industries. Our executive producer is Leetlmlat. Special thanks to 0:16:51.810 --> 0:16:57.650 Jacob Weisberg, Carly Migliori, Heather Fame, and Eric Sandler for 0:16:57.730 --> 0:17:01.050 the Chronicles of Now podcast. I'm Ashley Ford. Thank you 0:17:01.090 --> 0:17:12.250 so much for listening.