This is the Takedown

“I apologize profusely for everything’s that’s happened,” the moderator said into the microphone as he stepped around some broken glass. “This was not something we expected nor desired. I hope you will not let this reflect poorly on our conference. Mr. Schlupus, the conservative panel member, and Mr. Dolderman, the liberal panelist, are in the custody of the police so no one is in any further danger. I suppose the best option for us now is to release all of you to an early lunch,” as he checked the time on his phone.

I raised my hand.

“Madam,” the moderator called on me in an exhausted tone.

“I’ve noticed there haven’t been any female speakers at this conference. Maybe we should fill this time with a female panel on politics.”

The moderator’s eyes dulled. “We certainly have nothing planned in that vein. What do you propose?”

“I don’t know. Aren’t there any females knowledgeable about politics here?”

The moderator was silent a bit too long. “I’m not hearing any volunteers.”

“I’ll do it,” I said, before I could stop myself.

“Are you one of the ‘knowledgeable females’ you mentioned earlier, madam?”

“Probably not. But I think we should have a female panel.” A man in the row in front of me turned around and sighed.

“Very well. Does anyone else want to join this so-called ‘female panel?” the moderator looked around at the audience. A few people had wandered to other parts of the conference center but most still sat on their chairs, in shock from the earlier mayhem.

A woman near the front raised her hand tentatively. “Ah yes, right here. We have a two-person panel magicked out of thin air. Would you both please come to the stage?” He motioned to me and the other woman.

We made our way to the aisles and then forward to the stage. The other woman was tiny. Her brown hair was pulled into a tight bun. Her clothing was high quality but seemed a bit threadbare to me. I, not having planned to be on-stage in this way, had a flowing orange dress with a matching orange ribbon in my long red hair. The top of the dress was probably a bit more plunging than what would be expected of a “panelist,” but I did have great boobs so I didn’t mind too much.

“Madam, you can sit here,” the moderator said the other woman, wiping a few remaining specks of blood and hair from the seat. She looked a little frightened but also strangely focused.

“My name is Naomi,” the other woman said quietly to the moderator.

“And you may seat yourself here, madam,” the moderator put me into a chair about five feet from the other woman. He gave my dress a haughty once-over.

“Now, how shall we proceed?” the moderator seemed to ask both of us.

“I guess start with our names?” I pointed out.

“Yes, of course. Naomi, could you tell us your name and your background?”

“Yes sir. My name is Naomi Wolfram. I am a nurse at St. Theodora hospital here in Columbus.”

“And I’m Tiffany Knight. You can call me Tiff. I’m an exotic dancer at Seymour’s Strumpets in Mount Miffsberg,” I said brightly.

“Oh my lord,” the moderator seemed to say without thinking. The audience laughed.

“Yeah I know,” I said.

“Well, I have some conversation topics on the paper here in my hand. Shall we use these?” the moderator started shuffling the notecards.

“That sounds good,” said Naomi. She watched him with interest.

“First of all, would either of you like to comment on what we all observed earlier?” the moderator turned to me first.

“Where I’m from, that was what we call a shitshow,” I started. The audience roared with appreciative laughter. “It really was. I feel like both of those men, and a lot of the people we see on TV just think that politics and governing are a game. They’re not. All of us rely on our government to help us, and they are all just playing around. TV personalities like these two, senators, governors, presidents - all of them are just playing around instead of doing their jobs.”

The audience applauded. Naomi gave me a smile. The moderator yawned.

“I have to agree,” Naomi started. “I wish people could be more serious about politics and governing. It’s important, y’know? I came here expressly to see Leif Dolderman. I listen to his podcast and I like when he is on MSNBC. I was really surprised to see him get into a fistfight with that Schlupus person. They’re both violent idiots, it turns out.”

“I actually attended to listen to Ben Schlupus.” I explained. “He brings a lot of ignored issues to light on his podcast. Same thing for me. I lost respect for him today. He’s just a clown.”

“Is it fair to say you, Naomi, are a liberal?” the moderator asked.

“I think so, yes,” Naomi said, folding her hands in her lap.

“And you, Tiffany? You are hard to pin down.”

“Why, you’ve never met a conservation stripper before?” I asked, smiling. People in the audience cackled. “Yes, I’d say I am a conservative, sir.”

“Oh my,” the moderator looked down at his cards. “I’m not sure what to make of that.”

“You don’t fit in his nice little boxes, I guess, Tiff,” Naomi said to me. I laughed. The moderator scowled.

“Well, to my great joy, we’ve managed to have a liberal and a conservative on stage here tonight,” the moderator announced. “This first question caused the mayhem we observed earlier so I may skip it.”

“Ask it anyway,” I urged.

“Alright, but no fighting, ladies, promise?” the moderator asked. We both raised a hand in acceptance and smiled.

“The question Mr. Schlupus and Mr. Dolderman were unable to answer with civility has to do with the media. What role do you see the media playing in the upcoming election?”

“The media drives me nuts,” I said. “There are really only two channels - conservative and liberal. When I watch conservative media, I only hear the echoes of whatever talking points they have. When people watch liberal media, they only get their talking points. Nobody gives us the full picture,” I lamented.

Naomi seemed to be listening closely.

“For instance, the New York Times published an article on how immigrants are helping the economy in rural Maine last week. But you could NEVER hear about that on Fox News. They aren’t allowed to tell that story. But then that same newspaper will characterize rural folks as a bunch of enraged idiots, while Fox News will pay attention to some of the issues that we care about.”

There was a smattering of applause.

“I have to agree. I may agree with a lot of things that the New York Times talks about, but I also wonder what they’re not talking about. This happened a lot during COVID.”

“Oh god, COVID, yes,” I said. “There was so much misinformation and disinformation and it was coming from every quarter of the media.”

“And how do you differentiate misinformation from disinformation?” the moderator asked me. He was testing me, I could tell.

“Misinformation is accidental; it’s not planned. Disinformation is deliberate,” I smiled at the old dolt once more. He fidgeted. The audience giggled. I could see Naomi was hiding a smile.

“Our next topic,” the moderator announced, seemingly eager to shift gears, “Is diversity, equity and inclusion.” I sighed. Naomi gave me a quick look. “I’ll start with you, Tiffany. How would you change our current laws and cultural norms?”

“I have a problem with DEI, honestly. I think we’ve moved past so much of the racism in our history and now it is slanted too heavily to minorities. I’d like to see it rebalanced.”

Naomi sat forward in her chair. “But racism is not gone, Tiffany. You must realize that.”

“Yeah, I didn’t mean to say racism is gone. It’s still there a lot. There are people in Mount Miffsberg that use the N word and can’t stand black people just because they’re black people. Sure. But the question was about the law and the culture. I think things are too far towards some goal of ‘diversity’ and not equal to everyone. We should have equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.”

“That is a favorite line of conservatives,” Naomi began. “But when every step is more difficult for a person of color, just having an opportunity isn’t enough. Think if your acquaintances who use the N word were responsible for hiring a person. Black people need not apply, right?”

“Yeah, true. For those idiots. But most of the time, they’re too stupid to be in positions of power.”

“But a lot of them still are. Do you think CEOs and VPs in big companies aren’t racist?”

“I suppose they are too. I haven’t met too many of them.”

“And how about misogyny?” Naomi asked me.

“Well, yeah, I’ve got some personal experience with that,” I admitted.

“Show us yer tits!” a man shouted from the audience.

I released the neckband on my orange dress and pulled it down. “Just a flash or for the rest of this session?” I asked the guy, giving him a thousand-watt smile.

There was a heartbeat pause and then people started laughing in fits. It was a few people and then seemed to be everyone. The guy seemed to be stunned, eyes wide. Finally, he sat back down.

“Nice, huh?” I said, looking at him directly.

“Madam, if you please. We must have a modicum of decorum.”

“I’m not sure what that means but I’m assuming you want me to put my tits away,” I said to him as I pulled the dress up again.

“That was pretty effective in shutting that guy up,” Naomi smiled.

“Works every time,” I whispered.

“As we were saying, misogyny,” the moderator tried to get us back on track.

People laughed. The boobs-focused guy seemed to be sulking.

“Yes, misogyny,” I said to more laughter. “Yes, it’s a problem. Do we need more laws to get rid of it? I don’t think so. We have laws on the books that you can’t beat a woman, you can’t touch a woman without her consent, you can’t refuse her a job. What else do we need?”

“Do you know any woman who was passed over for a promotion that was given to a lesser-qualified man?”

“Doesn’t happen in my industry, Naomi,” I said, grinning. “But yes, I do know people at insurance offices and such where that happened. For sure.”

“Should we do something about it?” Naomi asked me directly.

“Do what? More laws? I don’t think that will help. A lot of the racism and misogyny is subtle, hard to pin down, very hard to litigate.”

“That’s true, Tiffany,” Naomi agreed. “Sometimes I feel like we need a law for something, but I’m also confused and disgusted by having so many complicated and contradictory laws on the books. It’s hard to say what would help in a lot of these cases.”

“We mentioned COVID earlier. Naomi, since you are a practicing nurse, what was your experience during the waves of the pandemic?”

“Oh my goodness. It was horrible. Of course, we didn’t have the respirators we needed, the masks, the protective clothing. And the politicians didn’t have a plan. Nobody had a plan. It was unbelievable,” Naomi said.

“We had a lot of COVID deniers in my town, I’ll tell ya,” I volunteered. “I’ll bet you saw a lot of them, Naomi.”

“We did. So many. People on their deathbeds trying to come up with excuses why this wasn’t COVID. It was sad, really.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said.

“Thanks.”

“And the lockdowns?” the moderator looked back at me, reluctantly.

“The lockdowns were mostly stupid, I thought,” I said. “We’re all going to catch it eventually so why do the lockdowns? It really hurt the school kids, we know that now. Some of the studies are saying that kids lost a year or two of actual learning.”

“But we needed the lockdowns because we couldn’t handle everyone at once in the hospitals, Tiffany,” Naomi raised her voice. “We were trying to ‘bend the curve’ down a bit by locking down the cities. So the hospitals could handle the load.”

“Yeah, I did hear about that curve. That makes sense, actually,” I said.

“If the two of you keep agreeing, we are not going to have a show here,” the moderator droned.

“How about we don’t do a show?” I said. “How about we just talk sensibly. Do you think this is a game too, sir?”

There was loud applause. The moderator examined his notes with great interest.

“Well, good. How about we take questions from the audience?” I asked. The moderator looked annoyed. Several hands shot up.

I pointed to an older man in a flannel shirt. “Tiffany, do you follow the great Q?” People laughed.

“I do not believe in Qanon, no. It turns out that I am not worried that Naomi is actually a lizard and will shed her skin in the next 17 minutes. But this guy," I pointed at the moderator, "I'm not so sure.” The audience laughed and the man sat down again.

I pointed to young man in shorts and sandals. He asked “My question is for Naomi. Do you consider Tiffany to be a typical conservative?”

“No, I consider Ben Schlupus to be a typical conservative. I think Tiffany is very reasonable,” Naomi answered.

“Well thanks, Naomi!” I said with a smile. “But I think most conservatives are pretty reasonable and not like Ben was today. Most conservatives and most liberals, I think, are just trying to have a good job that they like and that pays well and raise a family or whatever. I think I’m a normal conservative, actually.”

“Normal conservative stripper,” the moderator asked me.

“Yep. That’s my stage name, actually,” I joked. The audience seemed to be laughing more at our moderator than anything. He was the ultimate fusty, straight man and Naomi and I were juicing him every chance we could. “My real stage name is Inferno. The red hair. And tall. The Towering Inferno, right? Come see me at Seymour’s Strumpets in Mount Miffsberg every Thursday through Saturday!”

The moderator was beside himself. “Please refrain from personal advertisements if you can.”

“And if you’re ever hurt, c’mon down to Saint Theodora Hospital and we will fix you right up!” Naomi said smiling. She was getting into the spirit, even if Mr. Moderator wasn’t. He looked like he had eaten a lemon.

“Next question?” I asked, focusing on the audience.

“I think that’s all the time we have,” the moderator started gathering his notes.

I ignored him. “There’s still five minutes. Any more questions?”

A lot of hands were up immediately. I picked a young boy in a cowboy hat near the front. He was perhaps ten or twelve.

“Tiffany, will you please run for president? I will lead your explode-a-tory committee,” the boy said shyly.

The laughter almost brought the roof down. I had to wipe my eyes before answering. “Well, that’s a heck of a compliment, young man. I will have to think about it and get back to you, okay? Maybe when you’re eighteen? And how about you don't visit Seymour’s until then, either, okay?”

The boy nodded and sat down. Titters from the audience continued. A large man had started walking towards the stage.

“I think that was the last question,” I said hoping to catch him before he wasted his walk. Naomi nodded and smiled at me.

The man continued walking towards us. He had a denim jacket and jeans with a red baseball cap. Once he got to the stage he jumped up and started towards Naomi. I got out of my chair and went to get behind him. I could see he had something shiny in his hand so my mind went into protection mode. The moderator was inching backwards towards the stage exit door.

The man was on-stage but had not reached Naomi. I asked him “What do you need, sir?” He reeled around at me. “I’m not here for you.” Then he turned around to face Naomi again. Naomi’s face had gone white and she was standing but couldn’t seem to run.

I pulled his hand behind his back which caused him to spin around again.

“This woman! This woman is a libtard! You know it! Let me take care of her!” His face looked like twisted rope. I noticed he was standing close enough to the edge of the stage so

I...

just...

pushed him. He landed on his elbow on the floor in front of the first row of chairs, maybe a four-foot drop. A woman sitting there gasped loudly. Two men on either side of her leapt out of their chairs and pushed the man to the ground, holding him down.

I walked to Naomi. She was shaking and had tears in her eyes. “It’s okay, doll. You’re okay.” I hugged her. I must have been twice her size so I had to be careful not to break her. She was sobbing into my dress.

Once the police had joined our session (again) and removed the guy, I took Naomi outside for some fresh air. We sat on a bench outside the conference center and I lit a cigarette.

“That was so scary,” Naomi sobbed. I patted her shoulder. “You saved my life!”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. I hugged her tight.

“Wanna go for coffee?” I asked her.

“How about a martini?” she grinned.

The next day, the chiron on MSNBC read “Crazed Conservative Tries to Kill Defenseless Woman at Conference.” Fox News went with “Socialist Nurse Saved by Conservative Hero.”

In my diary, I wrote "I think I made a new friend today."