What you are about to read is an excerpt from WOMN, a collaborative effort of the women of Minnesota who kept showing up during Operation Metro Surge, holding the grief, the rage, the tenderness, and the fierce love that women know so well.
If you see yourself in these pages,
Pass it to the woman next to you.
The full book is scheduled to come out in December.
“What happened at the hospital today?”
It was the first thing out of his mouth every time, before the seatbelt was even clicked. His brother was already buckled in and leaning forward between the seats, waiting.
“I got a really gross one for you today,” Emma said, looking at them through the rear view mirror.
“I’m not sure you’re gonna be able to handle this one,” she teased.
“Try me!”
“Seatbelt first.”
Emma doesn’t have kids, and doesn’t really have much experience with nine-year-old boys, except when she was a third-grader herself. But, it became very apparent to her, very quickly, that they liked gross stories. Emma’s a social worker in the ER at a local hospital and sees plenty of gross things every day.
It was how they bonded over those several weeks she picked them up from school during the surge. It was also the easiest way she knew to keep them from asking her about ICE. She didn’t know what they knew, and as the stranger-neighbor-turning-friend who drove them home from school a couple times a week, she didn’t think it was her place to have those kinds of conversations with them.
“What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen?” Emma asked Tom, the quieter of the two who was already buckled with his bookbag at his feet.
The twin boys were named Bob and Tom. Emma must’ve made a funny look when their mom, Teresa introduced them to her. Teresa explained that she wanted her boys to feel like they fit in, and figured it’d be easier for them to have names the other kids could pronounce. She’d hoped it would stop them from getting bullied.
“I saw Mackenzie Thomas pick her nose and eat the booger once on the swings,” Bob answered before his brother could say anything.
“Ewwww!” Tom responded.
“C’mon, haven’t you ever had snot drip from your nose into your mouth? It’s not that bad.” Emma suggested.
“Yeah, and it tastes gross, like slimy over-cooked mushrooms but salty and, well, worse. Why would anyone want to eat that on purpose?” Tom asked.
“I’d do it on a double-dog-dare,” Bob announced.
“Of course you would,” Emma said. “How about you, Tom? What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen?”
“I’ll tell you after you tell us about what you don’t think we can handle.”
“I don’t know,” Emma said, dragging out her words, “I gotta gauge your gross tolerance levels before I tell you this one. Maybe we should stop at CVS and get something to serve as a barf bag first.”
“Stop teasing us and just tell us!” Bob screamed, kicking the seat in front of him.
“Okay, okay,” she said, pulling away from the curb. “So I walk into this guy’s room to check on him, right? But before I can even open the door I know something is wrong because of the smell.”
“What did it smell like?”
“You know what it smelled like.”
“SAY IT.”
“It smelled like poop. Because this guy had taken his poop — “
“NO!” the boys yell in unison
“— and smeared it all over his room. Like, all over. The walls. The bed rail. The call button.”
“Were his hands covered in poop?”
“Every-thing was covered in poop, even under his fingernails!”
Their reaction was exactly what she expected — pure, unfiltered nine-year-old boy joy that comes from a mix of disgust and delight. Their squeals erupted into a series of farting sounds they made first with their lips and then with their armpits.
Why do I love this so much? Emma thought to herself just as she turned her head to check her passenger-side blind spot.
Her happy thought was instantly crushed as she caught a glimpse of the Valentine’s Day cards peeking out of a CVS pharmacy bag sitting on the passenger seat. Two days earlier, driving on Lake Street after purchasing those cards, she’d witnessed an ICE abduction at a city bus stop. The sight of the Valentine’s Day cards triggered the vision to play on repeat in her mind.
The piercing sound of whistles and screams as several ICE agents carried away a boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen by his limbs, his head dangling limply off his neck.
Was he even still alive?
It’s okay that I didn’t stop. There were plenty of witnesses and whistles. There’s nothing more I could’ve done. I’m not a soldier, I’m a mutual aid driver. She reassures herself.
She had gone home that night and looked up the incident on Reddit, and found several videos. The kid abducted was just a teenager. He did survive, but social media reports speculated that he must’ve had a concussion, at the very least.
Emma took a couple of deep breaths to remind herself that the squeals and giggles coming from the backseat of her car were joyful.
Several minutes later, Tom spoke again, but this time with a more mature voice, “That guy sounds like he has something wrong with his brain that needs fixing.”
Emma looked at him in the rearview mirror. Tom had that older-than-his-age look in his eye. Their mom worked in mental health, so the boys had a framework most nine-year-olds didn’t. Sometimes they surprised her like that — toggling between armpit farts and genuine insight without any awareness of the whiplash.
“Yeah,” Emma said. “I think you’re right about that.”
She pulled up to their building and put the car in park. Bob grabbed his backpack off the floor and was out the door before she’d even turned around. Tom took his time, carefully zipping his bag shut before sliding across the seat.
“Same time Thursday?” he asked.
“Same time Thursday.”
He climbed out, and then turned back, holding the door open. “You still owe me your grossest one, though. That poop guy was only like a seven.”
“Only a seven?”
“Maybe a seven and a half.”
He shut the door and jogged after his brother, backpack bouncing against his shoulders.
Emma grabbed the CVS bag off the passenger seat, locked the car, and followed them inside. She had spent eleven dollars on those Valentine’s cards. It wasn’t much, but it was something she could contribute.
When Teresa opened the apartment door, the boys rushed in and straight to the kitchen where they found the snack jar replenished.
“I suspect you had something to do with that?” Teresa asked.
“They came?”
“$300 worth of groceries were delivered a couple hours after you picked up the boys this morning.”
“I didn’t do it, I just messaged the chat,” Emma deflected.
“How were they?”
“They were great,” Emma said.
“Really? They seem to be in a gross-phase, and I find it rather repulsive.”
“Oh, I am well aware. I work in an ER. I’m immune to gross. Besides, it’s really nice to have that time with them in the car. They’re just really cute.”
“If you say so.”
“I didn’t get the groceries, but I did get these.” Emma said while handing Teresa the CVS bag.
“You know they’re going to remember you, right? When they’re older. They’re going to remember the lady who drove them to school and told them gross stories.”
Emma didn’t know what to say to that, so she just smiled.
“Thank you,” Teresa said slowly, while grabbing Emma’s hand, “I mean it.”
“MOM, TOM WON’T GIVE ME THE GOLDFISH.”
Teresa closed her eyes and exhaled. “Cute?” she said. “If you say so.”
A few minutes later, Emma clicked the seatbelt into place and paused before turning on the ignition of her car. She stared out the window at the pile of dirty snow pushed up next to the dumpster. The whole ugly, beautiful mess was doing something to her insides that she couldn’t explain. Six months ago, a twenty-minute drive was just a commute. But now, between the armpit farts and the abduction, the eleven-dollar Valentine’s cards and the three-hundred-dollar grocery delivery, Emma felt herself evolving.
This is so much better than being a soldier, she thought to herself.
This is an excerpt from WOMN- a book about the women of Minnesota and what Operation Metro Surge made of us.
It’s a mutual aid effort — written by us, for us, moving hand to hand the way love does when it’s real. New excerpts will be released as I write them, every Tuesday, here on Fierce Love. When the manuscript is complete, I plan to release it the grassroots way. Self-published, and supported by grief at grounding community gathering events and independent bookstores.
If this chapter found you, it found you for a reason.
If you want to support this effort, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers will receive full chapters (not just excerpts) with my author’s commentary about my process and experience at least once a month.
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That’s how this works.
That’s how we work.
I love you fiercely,
TeriLeigh 💜
Oh, boy. This brings it all back. I was a mutual aid driver, too, but with 4 and 5-year-olds who tested my very limited Spanish skills. Too old to be a soldier. More like a stand in abuelita who always remembered to bring snacks. ❤️
Oh, Teri. This pieces touched my heart. I suppose as the mom of two (now grown) boys, the gross fascination was achingly familiar yet so strikingly different, which pisses me off. Thank you for giving a shit. Thank you for sharing these stories and showing a beautiful slice of humanity still exists. Sending all the things ✨🫶🏻🧘🏻♀️