A philosopher, a psychologist, and an extraterrestrial walk into a chocolate bar …. Jass Richards

provocation defence.”

      Spike nodded.

      “But the provocation defence stinks,” Jane said. “Apart from using ‘an ordinary person’ as the standard for determining whether the act in question was sufficient to deprive one of self-control—as opposed to ‘a reason­able person’—because in my experience the ordinary person is a walking miasma of unacknowledged emotions and unexamined opinions, most of which are decidedly unreasonable—apart from that, it puts the blame back on the woman: ‘It’s her fault; she provoked him.’ Which is ridiculous!

      “Even if we assume that so-called slutty attire is a promise of sex, ‘You promised!’ isn’t a sufficient justification for assault, let alone murder!” She leaned back. Nailed it!

“As Lucy Reed Harris* points out”—she got her sledgehammer out—“a flagrant display of cash in public may well precipitate a robbery, but in that case, the law doesn’t hold the victim responsible!”

      * Lucy Reed Harris, ‘Towards a Consent Standard in the Law of Rape’, (1976) University of Chicago Law Review 43(3), article 7.

      “I didn’t say it was a justified defence,” Spike protested. “I just said SlutWalks seem ignorant of the fact that provocation is available as a defence. You’d think, if they were aware of that, they wouldn’t encourage provocation.”

      “Oh. Okay.”

      There was more staring out the window.

      “So the SlutWalk message shouldn’t be that we can dress however we want,” Spike ventured, “but that we aren’t sexually available to everyone. No matter what men might think. For whatever reason they might think that.” The more she added, the more she doubted. So she shut up at that point.

      “But isn’t the message supposed to have something to do with appearance?” Jane asked. “Didn’t some police officer say that if women didn’t walk around looking like sluts, they wouldn’t be raped? Isn’t that what started SlutWalks?”

      They considered that.

      “So … he mistakenly equated an invitation to sex with an invitation to violence?” Jane asked, eyes wide.

      They stared at each other then. It all made perfect sense. If men equated the two.

      “And speaking of going shirtless,” Spike said as they got ready to leave, “remember that woman, post-bilateral-mastectomy, who was barred from swimming in a public pool unless she wore a bathing suit top?”

      “Yes …” Jane had yet to figure that one out.

      “That proves it’s not about covering up. Or whatever. It’s about maintaining sex-differentiation. Because the patriarchy, men’s power over women, depends on it. So focusing on appearance, as SlutWalk does, is a red herring”—Spike had reached a new conclusion—“a huge distraction from the real issue.”

      “Which is?” Jane wasn’t sure at this point.

      “Apart from the systemic subordination of women by men? That men rape women.”

      “So instead, we should have a Kill the Rapists walk.”

      “Or just a Kill the Men walk.”

      “So,” Spike asked once they were out and standing on the sidewalk, “best ever pain au chocolat?”

      “Well, no. We went over that this morning, remember?”

      Spike groaned.

      “Probably best ever.”

      5

      For a while on the following day, they passed not much of anything, and Spike thought about heading to the secondary, more scenic and more full-of-interesting-places-to-stop-at, highways. There must be something worth seeing or doing on the way from Montreal to Paris.

      “Let’s go to Boston,” Jane said. After just five minutes of googling.

      “Before or after Paris?”

      “Monday. There’s this place, Chantal’s. It’s a restaurant, but every Monday they have an allyoucaneat chocolate buffet. Twenty bucks a person.”

      “Really?”

      “Isn’t that cool? An allyoucaneat chocolate buffet!”

      “Boston it is. Find us an interesting route though,” she added.

      “On it …”

      Almost as soon as they’d turned onto a secondary road, a cigarette butt flew out of the driver’s window of the car ahead of them. A minute later, the plastic lid of a cup. Jane had her phone ready when the empty Timbits carton came flying out.

      “You got the licence plate in focus?”

      “Yup.”

      “Gonna send the picture to the OPP?”

      “Yup. No—what’s the OPP in Quebec?” She googled.

      A balled up napkin came out next.

      “That’ll cost him, what, five hundred dollars?”

      “A thousand.”

      And then an empty cup.

      “It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?” Jane said. “They throw their shit out of their cars, their boats, their space ships with such—ease. Do they think it just vanishes into thin air? It’s like they have no concept of context. No concept of attachment. Their perception of their independence is so …”

      A not-yet-empty KFC carton hit the road. Spike swerved unsuccessfully to miss it.

      “And yet they’re able enough to see their vehicles as extensions of themselves,” Jane reconsidered. “Maybe it’s because they’re so visually oriented,” she suggested a moment later. “If the garbage they tossed overboard, for example, floated on the surface of the lake … Though it’s amazing what they don’t see even when it’s right in front of them.”

      A plastic bag whirled out narrowly missing their windshield.

      “Or, no, maybe it’s an expression of contempt. For the other. Have you notice that men don’t set down their garbage. They always toss it.”

      Spike nodded. “ ‘Look at me, I don’t give a fuck.’ ”

      “So, what, caring about others is for sissies?”

      “So is cleaning up after yourself. That’s what Mom does. Mom’s a woman. So to pick up after oneself is womanly. Emasculating.”

      “That sounds right … We do know that most littering is done by men.”

      When the small tv came flying out of his window, Spike leaned on the horn, sped up beside him, and forced him off the road.

      “What’s your problem?” the man shouted as he got out of his car, slamming his door shut.

      “You are my problem!” Spike shouted back, as she too got out. Jane continued recording as she went around behind him, casually reached in, and extricated his car keys.

      “The world is not your private dump!” Spike said. “Whatever made you think it was?”

      “What?”

      “You’re tossing your garbage out your window like you expect someone else to come along behind you and clean up after you. What are you, two?”