Satan was breathing hard after the mile and a half
run through pasture and logging trails to the far North end of the farm. Rebecca Blanton never felt so free and
exhilarated as when she was in control of this powerful animal, forcing him to
the limits of his endurance and feeling his heaving muscles beneath her. Rebecca thought Satan was especially
energized on this romp, somehow drawing energy from the thrill he was giving
Rebecca as he effortlessly carried her 105-pound child/woman’s body out toward
the far end of the farm. The two moved
as one and her shoulder length coal black hair streaming out behind her seemed
an extension of his equally dark and wind whipped mane.
Her father would be furious with her for mounting
this half-broken black stallion rather than the calm mare that was designated
as hers. Well to hell with Father, she
thought as she slowed Satan to an easy canter.
This wasn’t the first time she had defied him and it wouldn’t be the
last. It was 1977 and she was
fifteen. Things had changed for women
since the 50’s when her mother got married, and she had no intention of
emulating her mother’s subordinate role.
She was smarter than any of the boys she knew and most of the men. Besides, what her father was really mad
about was the way men were starting to pay attention to her, and the way she
couldn’t resist flirting with them when she knew Daddy was watching. She enjoyed irritating Daddy almost as much
as she enjoyed the power she was beginning to feel over men. Riding Satan with reckless abandon was just
one more way to assert her independence and further break her father’s
dominance.
Rebecca no longer cared if her father got angry, and
she had no fear of any punishment he might inflict on her. Enduring more of his yelling and maybe
getting grounded were the worst she would have to face. Such meager attempts at discipline had
always been his idea of his only responsibility in parenting, at least as far
as having any relationship with her.
She used to fear that the yelling meant it was her fault that he didn’t
love her. Then when she was eleven she
had overheard him complaining to Mother about not having a son to succeed him
in the family business one day. She
could still vividly recall his comments longing for a son like Mason, his
partner’s boy. Mason was a star athlete
at Central High School in High Point and was already working part time in the
company. Daddy had gone on and on about
Mason’s accomplishments and potential.
For two years after that Rebecca had done everything
she could to get her father’s attention.
She immersed herself in tennis and swimming at High Point Country Club
and was good enough to win some events, but he showed little interest and
attended only sporadically in response to Mother’s nagging. When she won the regional finals in the
backstroke in the summer of 1975, he had hardly taken the time to glance at her
trophy. She had even tried to talk to
him about becoming a business manager one day, not that she knew what that
really meant. His comment was always an
impatient “Bidnis ain’t no place fer a lady”.
Then he would return to reading his paper or some technical
journal. Eventually she’d concluded
that there was nothing she could do to get him to care about her. She’d realized out that she could never be
what he wanted because she wasn’t a boy.
She could never be a man or a son like Mason.
It’s hard on anyone to be put down and rejected just
for being who they are. For Rebecca, a
girl seeking validation and love from her father, it was devastating. Many tearful nights were followed by days of
sullen anger, which gave way to a growing resolve to prove to everyone, and
especially her father, that she could do and be anything she wanted.
Rebecca began to study the women she came into
contact with, mostly at the country club or at school or at church. What she saw and heard was almost uniformly
disappointing. Most of the working
women were nurses or teachers who were locked into a career with little
opportunity for advancement. The conversations among the ladies consisted
mostly of complaints about their husbands and bragging about their
children. Still, there were a few women
at the club that were different. She
saw them sometimes at lunch, sitting at tables with men wearing suits and
ties. These ladies dressed different
too, in blazers and skirts rather than dresses, and from fragments of
conversations that she overheard, she could tell that husbands and children
weren’t being discussed. And they were
talking to the men as equals.