My Review of Perry’s Victory & International Peace Memorial

Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial Credit: National Parks Service

May 23rd, 2020. After two months of seclusion, we needed an escape hatch. My husband, ever the pragmatist, packed two coolers, our backpacking gear, and a kayak. Off we went.

It’s about three miles from the tip of Catawba Island to the nearest shore of South Bass. On paper, not much. In a kayak, loaded with enough supplies to survive a minor apocalypse, those three miles become existential. By mile one, you can’t see where you came from or where you’re going. You’re just a bobbing speck, with water sloshing in over your feet and the sudden, unshakeable conviction that you are lost at sea.

We made landfall, set up camp, and avoided our neighbors like the plague. The next day we decided to visit The Monument. Everyone we’d mentioned our trip to had asked about it. “Are you going to see The Monument?” “You have to see The Monument!” Or maybe it was a memorial. The distinction seemed trivial.

With nothing else on the agenda, we packed coffee and set out on foot, two miles to see what all the fuss was about. The Monument, it turned out, was a tall, cylindrical structure with a little knobby thing on top, so unremarkable I couldn’t even remember who it was for. Probably some Great Lakes luminary, now consigned to the label of a lager.

The Monument stood alone in a vast field, ringed by water, with the sound of waves providing a soundtrack of perpetual urgency. After two coffees, the sound of the lake became less atmospheric and more anatomical: my bladder was making its own urgent case.

Two miles from camp, having gone to great lengths to avoid human contact, ducking into a public restroom seemed like a betrayal of principle. We found a patch of shade and watched other Monument pilgrims come and go, admiring this phallic shaped structure, wondering what all the fuss was about themselves.

My husband, nose in a book, seemed content to stay there all afternoon while my bladder swelled with resentment. I watched as men, emboldened by anatomy, relieved themselves directly onto The Monument’s base. The more I observed this parade of urinary freedom, the more resentment I had. If I had a penis, I’d be unstoppable. I’d water every tree, baptize every monument. But in my current configuration, squatting in public felt like a spectacle. A violation of decorum. A potential misdemeanor. People would complain. As a woman, I am programmed to hate to be a bother.

It’s familiar, really. Women earn eighty-two cents on the dollar, occupy a fraction of leadership positions, endure harassment and underrepresentation, and, in some places, are forced to bear children even if it kills us. But what really stings, in this moment, is that we don’t get to piss on The Monument. Men really get everything.

Finally I decided to take control of the situation. What I lack in penis I make up for in innovation and skill. As kids, my sister and I had a tree climbing club, which was mostly me climbing trees while she bossed me around. I realized that she was training me for this very day. There were quite a few solitary trees in this open field with lush leaves. So I climbed up, found a concealed spot, and waited for the opportune time. Someday they may make a monument to me, for this very moment, but it will not be penile shaped like this one before me. From the outside, my husband told me it looked like it was raining from only this one tree. But on the inside, safely tucked away from society, I felt more powerful than any man before me.

Subscribe to Cleveland Scene newsletters.