31 - The
Iowa Voices Project
Love and hell in Iowa
by Katie Thompson
In the last 11 weeks,
dozens of women across Iowa have told me their stories of love and
hell. Bullets, knives, money, power, sex, and kidnapping. Chaos and
pain. Hope. Love. And even...joy?
I couldn’t make this
stuff up.
And I’ve tried. As
'Kate Iola' I’ve written two novels, both thrillers, each featuring
a tangled plot, a manipulative villain, a smart woman, and a few
bullets and knives. But they were just fiction.
Then along came the
‘Iowa Voices Project,’ an idea hatched by the Iowa Coalition Against
Domestic Violence. The plan was to interview women across Iowa, one
for each day in October (National Domestic Violence Awareness
Month), to publish their stories in newspapers across the state, and
eventually to publish them in a book. I was to be the official
interviewer and writer.
I thought the
interviews would be like pulling teeth. After all, this is the
Midwest, and I wanted to ask the women about, you know,
um....sex...and love and control and other very personal things.
Nonetheless, I hit the road and started my rounds. I went from Sioux
City to Iowa City, from condo to farmhouse, interviewing
grandmothers, students, nurses, skydivers, clerks, artists, computer
programmers, mothers. Women.
So: Did they talk?
Yes. All I had to do
was turn on the microphone. The stories poured out. Could I use
their real names? Shoot their photos? “No problem,” they said.
Police reports, affidavits, crime scene photos, 911 recordings,
videotapes, medical records? “I’ll run fetch them from the closet,”
they said. Glasses of pop sat untouched, ice cubes melting, for two,
three, four hours as they told me their story, jumping back and
forth in time over sagas that lasted five, 10, 40 years. Some of the
women told me things they had never said out loud. Some had never
seen a counselor; talking to me was the first time they had reached
out. A few of the women, despite the police reports and fear, have
never told their family what was really happening behind the scenes;
their stories, in print this month for the first time, will do just
that.
And nearly all of the
women, unsolicited, blurted out this unfinished statement: “If my
story helps just one woman....” Translation: Make my hell useful and
it won’t hurt so bad.
Some of the women
started their interview slowly, watching me, quietly checking me out
to see if I understood--really understood--how they could stay with
a partner who did these things to them. Then they would drop a bomb:
“My stepson was abusing me, too.” “I started using prescription
drugs.” “He raped me the night of our wedding.” Many women told me
they had nightmares after I first called, just thinking about
telling their story to me.
I had nightmares
after they were done.
No matter. It’s my
duty. I have much to repay to the excellent support services that
saved my life here in rural Northwest Iowa. For the record, I’ve
seen a bit of that love and hell myself, with a bank robber and a
bit of strangling thrown in.
I am Kathleen
Thompson, story 13.
