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mariacallous · 1 year

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After scorning his leadership for the last 15 years of his life, Sacramento virtually deified Jesse M. Unruh upon his death Aug. 4 [1987], with politicians of both parties tumbling over each other to praise the fallen state treasurer. Republican Gov. George Deukmejian named State Office Building No. 1 after Unruh, but Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown went a step further, placing within the 80-member chamber a shrine to Unruh, an 81st desk that, draped in black and forever vacant, mournfully awaits the return of Big Daddy.

Naturally, a strain of opportunism underscored Sacramento’s official sorrow, as speculation over the treasurer’s successor overtook reminiscences of the once-mighty Unruh. Still, for many who knew him when he ruled as Assembly speaker in the 1960s, Unruh’s death in relative obscurity capped two decades of lost opportunity. Unruh never became governor, and California was ruled instead by a succession of slicker but arguably shallower politicians.

And so, James R. Mills’ “A Disorderly House: The Brown-Unruh Years in Sacramento” reads not so much as a history but rather as a tragedy. Mills, a San Diego Democrat who would later become president pro tem of the state Senate, spent his first six years at the Capitol as an Unruh protege in the Assembly. The book is his lively memoir of the years 1961-66, when California’s Democrats, despite their control of both the Legislature and the governor’s mansion, foundered on the rivalry between Unruh and Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown for party rulership.

Told through the wide eyes of an idealistic, young assemblyman, “A Disorderly House” is a politician’s coming-of-age story. It begins with Mills taking the oath of office in January, 1961. He stands enraptured by the classical elegance of the Assembly chamber, only to find his political and aesthetic tempers joined in disgust to see the house ruled by Unruh, who seemed little but a corrupt, corpulent servant of special interests.

Mills had come to Sacramento intent on aiding the owlish, bespectacled Brown in his battles with Unruh, a 290-pound behemoth already known as Big Daddy for his appetites for the wine, women and song provided by lobbyists’ money. But soon after his arrival, Mills switches sides. Brown had excluded Mills from his confidence for what seemed arbitrary, political reasons. Big Daddy, however, appeared to recognize Mills’ intellect and integrity, and gradually welcomed him to his inner circle.

Soon thereafter, Mills comes to see that despite their public reputations, it is Unruh rather than Brown who is responsible for the progressive legislation of the day. From then on, he commits himself to Unruh as the Speaker advances his liberal goals and expands the power of the Legislature.

As a memoir, “A Disorderly House” makes no claim to objectivity. Sketches of characters are telling but often superficial, and Mills frequently oversimplifies issues into what seem to him obvious matters of right (Unruh) and wrong (everybody else).

But in exchange for scholarly detachment, Mills offers the passion of a participant. He casts the battle between Unruh and Brown in heady, even mythic terms. The Speaker emerges as a figure of legend, alternately described as a Lincoln, a Caesar and even a King David. Brown appears as a petty, perfidious nincompoop who mistakenly sees his greatest enemy in the Speaker. Brown’s machinations succeed in foiling Unruh, but it is a Pyrrhic victory that cripples the party and delivers California into the unworthiest hands of all--those of Ronald Reagan.

Although it rings with disappointment at the end, “A Disorderly House” is far from an angry book. Throughout there is a sense of reflective self-mockery; nostalgic rather than embittered, Mills recalls those days with a sense of joy. He doesn’t argue Unruh’s liberal agenda, for he takes as a given that all would support such goals as civil rights, consumer protection and aid for the aged.

Looking back, Mills sees the days of Unruh’s ascendance as an adventure of Arthurian proportions. In this Sacramento Camelot, Unruh was “the most heroic of all,” and Mills was one of that “trusty band of companions who loved to join him in doing battle with the forces of darkness and in coming to the aid of the friendless and afflicted, just as they loved to join him in eating and drinking at tables round.”

But like all heroes of classical drama, Unruh had his flaw; for one hubristic act, Unruh would pay for the rest of his career. It came on July 30, 1963, when the Speaker, enraged at Assembly Republicans for their refusal to vote on the state budget until they saw the text of a school finance measure, locked the minority members in the chamber for 23 hours.

The action tarred Unruh as a tyrant; forever, wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, Unruh would stand “revealed for what he is--a crude political adventurer out to gain totalitarian control . . ..”

To Mills, Unruh locked up the Republicans for the same reason he did anything: because it was right. And because of his courage and candor, Unruh suffered. His enemies--the Brown Administration and the Republicans--exploited Unruh’s unflattering image, portraying him as an amoral despot when in reality he was the most righteous of them all.

For Mills, the tragedy is that Unruh never became governor. Brown rather than Unruh was the Democratic nominee in 1966, and his misfiring campaign sent Ronald Reagan to the Capitol, condemning California to “a dark age of lowered expectations.” Unruh’s fortunes faded as the 1960s wore on. After losing races for governor and Los Angeles mayor, he was able only to capture the ministerial office of state treasurer, where he remained from 1974 until his death last summer.

In an epilogue added after Unruh’s death at age 64, Mills writes that Unruh ennobled every office he held, whether as a legislator or as treasurer. “In whatever role he appeared, there was a Shakespearean dimension to him,” he concludes. In “A Disorderly House,” Big Daddy is remembered as one that led not wisely, but too well.

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lboogie1906 · 23 days

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Judge Alice Athenia Lytle (March 2, 1939 - December 21, 2018) medical technician, lawyer, state executive, and judge was born in Newark, New Jersey. Her father Lacey Lytle worked as a janitor in a building where she lived. He and her mother Margaret moved the family to Harlem. She earned a BA in Physiology and Public Health from Hunter College. She worked in the department of pediatric cardiology at the UCSF Medical Center.

She decided to become a civil rights attorney. She graduated from the Hastings College of the Law, served as president of the Black Law Students Association, and worked with the Alameda County Public Defender’s office and the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP.

After teaching criminal law at the New College of Law, she served as Chief Deputy of Legal Affairs in the office of California Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, Jr. He appointed her head of the Fair Employment and Housing Division of the Department of Industrial Relations. She rose to a prestigious cabinet post as Secretary of the State and Consumers Services Agency, the first African American to hold this position.

She was appointed to the Sacramento Municipal Court, the first female African American on that bench. She and Judge Rudolph R. Loncke established La Casita, a waiting room for children whose parents or family members were before the court in Sacramento. She headed the Municipal Court (1988-89).

She was the presiding Judge of the Sacramento Superior Court’s Juvenile Court. She established the Healthy Teen Mothers Project, served as a mentor to pregnant teens for a program called the Birthing Project, and created the SacraMentor Program to help juveniles in trouble with the law. She was appointed to the Sacramento County Superior Court, the first female African American Superior Court judge in California. She retired in 2002. She was appointed to the Attorney General’s Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board.

She received the Sacramento Women Lawyers’ Frances Newell Carr Award, the California Women Lawyers’ Rose Bird Memorial Award, and an award from the Sacramento chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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fifihunterbakariafrocentric · 3 months

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Edmund G. Brown Jr. - National Governors Association

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chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted · 4 months

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Big Libs in bed with big oil GASP!

Big Libs in bed with big oil GASP! It’s a good thing they solved the climate issue in Dubi or this might look SUPER hypocritical. The author suggests these families got intertwined prior to their “peaks of wealth and power”, they bonded over “old bones”, Science and wine AND the Getty’s only had a few billion at the time.

This is a very recent article did anyone else hear this on main stream media? It’s fascinating how privileged all of these Dems are.

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The Gettys, too, are on that list. Founded by oil baron J. Paul Getty who moved under the radar until his "outing" as the richest American by Fortune magazine in 1957, the subsequent four generations of his family have been in the spotlight navigating fields from environmentalism to fashion to business, music, digital archives, arts, LGBTQ rights and politics. With five wives, the patriarch of the dynasty, J. Paul Getty, fathered four sons who lived to adulthood, and the family tree has flowered to some 19 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren and 15 great-great-grandchildren.

In the wake of the sale of the company in 1985 to Texaco for $10.1 billion—at that time the biggest corporate acquisition in history—$3 billion was partitioned into four separate trusts. Currently, the family's combined net worth could be in the neighborhood of $20 billion, which will finally be divided among all the heirs upon the death of J. Paul Getty's last living son—Gordon, currently 88.

As the family has navigated personal and professional successes and failures, it has also become inextricably enmeshed into the California political fabric, with longtime close family friendships developing between the Gettys and current Governor Gavin Newsom, Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as well as their families. William A. Newsom II, Gavin's grandfather, was a surrogate father to Getty sons John Paul Jr. and Gordon. William "Bill" Newsom III, Gavin's father, was even the bearer of the ransom money when John Paul III was kidnapped. Newsoms, Harrises, Pelosis and Gettys are godparents to one another's children and make appearances at important family events.

Left to their own devices, Paul Jr. and Gordon spent a good deal of time at the nearby home of their St. Ignatius prep school classmate, William "Bill" Newsom III, and his five siblings. This lively Irish-Catholic household was presided over by William A. Newsom II, a real estate developer and campaign manager for Edmund G. Brown, governor of California from 1959 to 1967 (whose son Jerry subsequently reclaimed the office in 1974 for the first of his four terms).

Their great affection for him endured. When Paul Jr. died at his mansion in England in 2003, a framed photograph of Newsom II was near his bed. This intimate family friendship between the Gettys and the Newsoms spanned generations, including Gordon's four sons—Peter, Andrew, John and Billy—and Bill's son— Gavin, California's 40th governor.

Since moving with her husband to the Pelosis' hometown of San Francisco in 1969, Baltimore-born Nancy had her hands full taking care of their four children; their fifth child was born in 1970. Though she'd grown up in a political household, the idea of herself taking office was still nearly two decades off.

As they grew up, Billy Getty and Gavin developed an appreciation of good wine from their fathers, both passionate oenophiles and best friends. In the years after these families met and became intertwined, as they rose to the peaks of wealth and power, there have been inevitable accusations of cronyism. But they bonded over old bones. They were all fascinated by the science—

At Billy's 1999 wedding to Vanessa Jarman, held on a ranch in Napa Valley, Judge Newsom officiated, and Gavin served as best man. Among the 165 guests was a new assistant district attorney in town, a 34-year-old up-and-comer named Kamala Harris, Vanessa's new friend. Two years later, Harris threw the shower before the birth of the couple's first son. When their daughter was born, Kamala was asked to be the godmother.

Over the years, Newsom political opponents have tried to weaponize his connections to the Gettys, portraying him as a child of privilege.

In the election cycle of 2020, some airtime was devoted to pondering Kimberly Guilfoyle's path from Gavin to fiancé Donald Trump Jr. "Life's interesting," Newsom said

Amid the pandemic, the Gettys were shaken by back-to-back tragedies. Ann, the matriarch, died of a heart attack, and son John, 52, was found dead in a San Antonio hotel room. According to the medical examiner's report, he died of "cardiomyopathy and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD], complicated by fentanyl toxicity."

#USA #TheChubbyCaucasianChristianClosetedConservative #Harris #Newsom #ClimateChange

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bobmccullochny · 6 months

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History

November 7, 1659 - The Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed, ending the Franco-Spanish war of 1648-59.

November 7, 1811 - General William H. Harrison led 1,000 Americans in battle, defeating the Shawnee Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe Creek near Lafayette, Indiana.

November 7, 1837 - A pro-slavery mob attacked and killed American abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy at his printing works in Alton, Illinois.

November 7, 1885 - Canada's first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific, was completed in British Columbia.

November 7, 1917 - Russian Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky in Petrograd. The Council of People's Commissars was then established as the new government of Russia, with Nikolai Lenin as chairman, Leon Trotsky as foreign commissar and Josef Stalin as commissar of nationalities. This event was celebrated each year in the former USSR with parades, massive military displays and public appearances by top Soviet leaders.

November 7, 1944 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented fourth term, defeating Thomas E. Dewey. Roosevelt died less than a year later on April 12, 1945.

November 7, 1962 - Richard Nixon told news reporters in Los Angeles "…just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." Nixon's statement came the day after he lost the election for California governor to incumbent Edmund G. Brown. In 1968, Nixon re-entered politics and won the presidency, defeating Hubert H. Humphrey. Re-elected in 1972, he resigned in 1974 during impeachment proceedings resulting from the Watergate scandal.

November 7, 1967 - Carl Stokes became the first African American mayor in the U.S., elected mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.

November 7, 1989 - The East German government resigned after pro-democracy protests.

November 7, 1989 - L. Douglas Wilder became the first African American governor in U.S. history, elected governor of Virginia.

November 7, 1990 - Mary Robinson became Ireland's first female president.

Birthday - Polish chemist Marie Curie (1867-1934) was born in Warsaw, Poland. In 1903, she and her husband received the Nobel Prize for physics for their discovery of the element Radium.

Birthday - Christian evangelist Billy Graham was born near Charlotte, North Carolina, November 7, 1918. After his conversion at a revival meeting at age 16, he embarked on a career of preaching and has become known worldwide.

#today's smile

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gallegoskenny · 6 months

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Figures related to water conservation

Edmund G. “Pat” Brown (1905-1996)

He was California’s governor from 1959-1967, exemplified the best in public service and left a wide-ranging legacy that featured first and foremost the State Water Project (SWP) and California Aqueduct but also included the Fair Housing Act, the Fair Employment Act, the Master Plan for Higher Education and highway expansion.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

She authored Silent Spring, a book published in 1962 about the impacts of pesticides on the ecosystem and credited with beginning the modern environmental movement.

Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, renamed the Fish and Wildlife Service, from 1935-1952 as a biologist and then editor-in-chief of publications.

Gordon Cologne

Gordon Cologne served for 10 years in the California Legislature during the 1960s and early 1970s while the California State Water Project was being built.

His interest in water issues began from his early life in the Coachella Valley desert. An attorney, he worked in both the public sector in Washington, D.C, and then in private practice in California. He also served his local community as a member of the city of Indio City Council, including as mayor, before his decision to run for election to fill an open seat in the Assembly.

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muzzioian · 6 months

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Relevant figures of water conservation

Ralph M. Brody (1912-1981)

He served as Gov. Pat Brown’s special counsel on water issues and chief deputy director of the Department of Water Resources.

He was instrumental in ensuring passage of the State Water Project in 1960. He chaired the California Water Commission from 1960 -1966. From 1960 until his retirement in 1977, he was manager and chief counsel for Westlands Water District.

Edmund G. “Pat” Brown (1905-1996)

He was a California’s governor from 1959-1967, Brown exemplified the best in public service and left a wide-ranging legacy that featured first and foremost the State Water Project (SWP) and California Aqueduct but also included the Fair Housing Act, the Fair Employment Act, the Master Plan for Higher Education and highway expansion.

Francis C. Carr (1875-1944)

Carr and his descendants played a prominent role in the development of the federal Central Valley Project, including Shasta Dam, and the creation of the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area.

In the Northern California community of Redding, he was a justice of peace, a renowned water rights attorney in the law firm of Carr and Kennedy and helped form the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District. He was often in the nation’s Capitol in Washington, D.C., advocating for funds from Congress to get this visionary project built for the benefit of all of California. In his honor, the Judge Francis Carr Powerplant was named after him.

#water conservation #water

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guerrerobianca · 7 months

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Important figures of water conservation

Jean Auer (1937-2005)

She was the first woman to serve on the California State Water Resources Control Board and a pioneer for women aspiring to be leaders in the water world.

She is described as a “woman of great spirit who made large contributions to improve the waters of California.” She was appointed as the State Water Board’s public member by then-Governor Ronald Reagan.

Harvey O. Banks (1910-1996)

He became the first director of the state Department of Water Resources, appointed by Governor Goodwin J. Knight on July 5, 1956 — the date the department was officially established. He continued as director under Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown. During Banks’ tenure as director from 1956-1961, he was key in the planning and the initial construction of the California State Water Project (SWP).

Carl Boronkay (1929-2017)

He was general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) between 1984 and 1993. Boronkay is credited with developing a long-term vision for the district’s sustainable water supplies as well as large projects such as Diamond Valley Lake, the large reservoir near the Riverside County town of Hemet, and the Inland Feeder that connects the State Water Project to the Colorado River Aqueduct and Diamond Valley Lake.

#water #people #water conservation #research

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welidot · 10 months

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Jerry Brown

This Biography is about one of the best Politician of the world Jerry Brown including his Height, weight, Age & Other Detail… Express info Real Name Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown Jr. Nickname Moonbeam Profession Politician Age (as in 2023) 85 Years old Physical Stats & More Info Party Democratic Political Journey • In 1970, Jerry Brown was elected California Secretary of State. • Jerry Brown drafted and helped to pass California Political Reform Act of 1974. • Jerry Brown was elected Governor of California on November 5, 1974. • In March 1976, he ran for the Democratic Nomination for President. • In 1976 US Presidential Election, he finished third behind Congressman Morris Udall and Jimmy Carter. • In 1978, Jerry Brown was reelected as Governor of California. • He challenged Jimmy Carter for renomination in 1980 • In 1982, he decided not to run for a third time. • In 1982, he ran for the United States Senate but lost to Pete Wilson. • In 1988, he became Chairman of the California Democratic Party. • He resigned abruptly in 1991 and announced to run for the senate seat. • In 1992, he announced to run for the US presidential election against George H. W. Bush. • He served as Mayor of Oakland from 1999 to 2007. • He served as Attorney General of California from 2007 to 2011. • In 2011, he was elected as 39th Governor of California. Biggest Rival Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton Height in centimeters- 178 cm in meters- 1.78 m in Feet Inches- 5’ 10” Weight in Kilograms- 78 kg in Pounds- 172 lbs Eye Color Hazel Brown Hair Color White Personal Life of Jerry Brown Date of Birth April 7, 1938 Birth Place San Francisco, California Nationality American Hometown Oakland Hills, Oakland, California School St. Ignatius College Preparatory, San Francisco, California College Santa Clara University, California University of California, Berkeley Yale Law School, New Haven, Connecticut, United States Educational Qualifications Bachelor of Arts, Juris Doctor Debut 1970 Family Father- Pat Brown (former Governor of California) Mother- Bernice Layne Brown Brothers- N/A Sisters- Kathleen Brown (politician), Barbara Layne Brown, Cynthia Arden Brown Religion Roman Catholicism Address State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA, 95814 Sacramento, California 95814 Hobbies Swimming, Biking, Playing Golf, Palying Baseball, Doing Charity Favorite Things Of Jerry Brown Favourite Food Organic Fruits, Flax Plus Multibran Favorite Film Enemy of the State Favorite Book The People's History of the United States, By Howard Zinn, Memoirs of a Geisha, By Arthur Golden, Labyrinths, By Jorge Luis Borges, The Maltese Falcon, By Dashiell Hammett, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, By Milan Kundera Girls , Affairs and More Of Jerry Brown Marital Status Married Affairs Linda Ronstadt (singer) Wife Anne Gust (married 2005) Earning Money of Jerry Brown Net Worth 2.4 million USD This Biography written by www.welidot.com Read the full article

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realtime1960s · 2 years

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June 9, 1962 - Here is a T.V. commercial sponsored by the Nixon-for-Governor Statewide Committee. The former Vice President will oppose California Gov. Edmund G. Brown in the general election on Nov. 6.

#election #california #politics

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pilgrim1975 · 2 years

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Merle Haggard, James 'Rabbit' Kendrick, Caryle Chessman, Eddie Bunker and Johhny Cash.

Merle Haggard, James ‘Rabbit’ Kendrick, Caryle Chessman, Eddie Bunker and Johhny Cash.

As today is the sixtieth anniversary of the execution of James ‘Rabbit’ Kendrick, here’s a free chapter from my latest book ‘Murders, Mysteries and Misdemeanors in Southern California.’ The story of county music legend Merle Haggard, jailhouse lawyer and author Caryl Chessman, and professional criminal James “Rabbit” Kendrick is an unlikely tale of five convicts, two executions, and a surprising…

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mariacallous · 1 year

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A guard sleeps at night in the old mansion, which has been condemned as a dwelling by the state fire marshal. It cost about $85,000 a year to keep guards at the new official residence. Meanwhile the current governor of California, Edmund G. Brown, Jr., sleeps on a mattress on the floor in the famous apartment for which he pays $275 a month out of his own $49,100 annual salary. This has considerable and potent symbolic value, as do the two empty houses themselves, most particularly the house the Reagans built on the river. It is a great point around the Capitol these days to have never seen the house on the river. The governor himself has “never seen” it. The governor‘s press secretary, Elisabeth Coleman, has “never seen” it. The governor’s chief of staff, Grey Davis, admits to having seen it, but only once, when “Mary McGrory wanted to see it.” This unseen house on the river is, Jerry Brown has said, “not my style.”

As a matter of fact this is precisely the point about the house on the river - the house is not Jerry Brown’s style, not Mary McGrory’s style, not our style - and it is a point which present a certain problem, since the house so clearly is the style not only of Jerry Brown’s predecessor but of millions of Jerry Brown’s constituents. Words are chosen carefully. Reasonable objections are framed. One hears about how the house is too far from the Capitol, too far from the Legislature. One hears about the folly of running such a lavish establishment for an unmarried governor and one hears about the governors temperamental austerity. One hears every possible reason for not living in the house except the one that counts: it is the kind of house that has a wet bar in the living room. It is the kind of house that has a refreshment center. It is the kind of house in which one does not live, but there is no way to say this without getting into touchy and evanescent and finally inadmissible questions of taste, and ultimately of class. I have seldom seen a house so evocative of the unspeakable.

The conclusion to “Many Mansions” in The White Album by Joan Didion

#I think about this section a lot and how different things are today and how we’ve sort of gone the opposite direction?#with how we talk about and approach things and how more polarized we’ve become

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welshdragonrawr · 3 years

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Well, Here I Lie Like a Lover Who Isn’t In Love

I don't know what this is. I started writing it after Ratched came out as a random little 'what if' headcanon/drabble. This is what came of it about 9 months longer and later than I ever planned. 3k words of Gwen thinking about stuff during an angsty canon-divergence from the Dance

Read on Ao3 here; Well, Here I Lie or https://archiveofourown.org/works/30784745 or full text under the cut

Gwendolyn Briggs only closes her eyes for a second. Just one second. It couldn’t have been more than that. But she would forever remember that second as the longest, darkest hour of her life.

She flinches when the gun goes off. Everyone does. Someone even shrieks when the sharp bang ricochets in the room – though Gwendolyn doesn’t know to whom the startled screech belongs. In truth, she can’t help thinking, she didn’t really know anyone at the party save the bare minimum and most only by name. She only came because she had been invited by…

She turns on her heel so fast she could swear she’s close to giving herself what the doctors call whiplash. The bright blue of her skirts swirl around her calves; a cerulean cylindrical wave stuck in place. Because she is stuck in place. Just as Mildred Ratched seems to be. Like a marionette with all her strings pulled taut by her brother, keeping her limbs locked and looking so still. Everyone else in the room flailing and fussing and freaking out except for her. Gwendolyn cannot recall when, or if, she had ever seen the redhead so still. She had already learned the nurse was almost always moving, in thought or deed, big gestures or small. Even now, she sees Mildred’s lips move but Gwendolyn can’t hear what it is those ruby red lips are trying to say. Not when her focus is drawn to the maroon colour blooming through that teal green silk.

And just like a marionette - her brother has snipped the strings - Mildred drops.

Is it possible for time to simultaneously move so fast and so slow? Gwendolyn can’t comprehend it. One moment Mildred was standing a few feet away and nearly offering her a small smile – the next she’s lying in the middle of that dancefloor Gwen had so keenly looked forward to asking her to dance on. There will be no more dancing now.

She doesn’t even feel it when her knees hit the hard floor. All she can see is Mildred. Mildred lying with her hair cushioning her rare hatless head like a gothic halo, and a bright flower blossoming at Mildred’s side as just as rich and red. The colour seeps through that soft silk bodice in a way that Gwen thinks can’t possibly be real. Until that night, until that moment, Gwen had always loved how Mildred’s eyes could widen with surprise, and how it could make her look so much smaller than the imposing nurse that the woman was. It was always incredible how she could make such darkness look so childlike, when her eyes became big and round, like ink in one of Gwen’s morning papers how they’d glisten still fresh off the press. Mildred’s eyes are glistening now. But there is no joy to be found.

Eyes black as night, lips red as blood, her complexion snow white, oh look what prince charming has done... and in the current company Gwen can’t even give her true love’s kiss. No kiss could remedy this. But damn them all for preventing her from trying.

Someone calls Mildred’s name, but it doesn’t sound like herself – too hoarse and fragile and not the assertive governor’s assistant she’s supposed to be.

“Somebody help! For god’s sake-!” it’s a desperate screeching for someone, at everyone, to anyone who might listen on earth or up in heaven. Where’s the firmness in her tone now? Where’s the steel in her spine now? The only metal left inside is the lead in her limbs rendering her listless while the bullet in Mildred’s chest takes her breath away.

Mildred, for her part, looks eerily calm for someone bleeding to death on the dancefloor. For one bizarre bright moment Gwendolyn can’t help but wonder if the woman has ever been shot before. There’s something she can’t explain in how quickly Mildred’s expression melts from shock to a strange serenity; Gwendolyn cannot possibly understand it. At best, she can only hope that if there is life after this night, perhaps she’ll find the courage to ask her. She’s never even seen the woman without being top to toe in neat-pressed clothes outside of dreams Gwen dare not divulge to anyone. Dreams that may be dashed now, may never come true.

Mildred’s hand is moving then, thin fingers twitch while Gwendolyn’s itch to take them and squeeze tight. Regardless of witness, she gives in to the urge, and tries to ignore how sticky her palm becomes. It distantly occurs to her that this is the first time that she can remember Mildred ever reaching for her and not the other way around.

She watches those ruby red lips part, a name or a word on such soft breath Gwen nearly misses it but she can’t distinguish what Mildred might be trying to say beyond the deafening sound in her ears her own desperation. She gives the nurse’s hand another squeeze – and realises only then that Mildred moves her palm to the wound at her side – how some subconscious part of her implores for pressure not just for comfort but to keep her there. Gwen knows this. That this is the closest she has ever come to being able to wrap her hands around the other woman’s petite waist – and the closest she has ever come to losing her.

“You’ll be alright…It’ll be alright…Stay with me…” the murmurs and mumbles slip out of her own mouth unbidden and almost incomprehensible. She can’t believe they’re in a hospital full of nurses and there’s no-one there able to do anything. No-one willing. Or so it will seem to Gwen when she looks back on this moment. When she will question why they had all let the minutes linger and drag on long enough.

Someone’s hands press over hers, over theirs, large and firm and all thick fumbling fingers. And then someone is talking in her ear – low voice, soft yet shaky, and in her peripheral the sight of mottled skin; Huck. He’s telling her to breathe – no, telling Mildred? He’s holding Gwen’s hand to Mildred’s side; "Keep the pressure Mrs Briggs-" the dim thought rises like smoke from the fire that she wants to say ‘its miss now-‘ but she hadn’t even had a chance to tell Mildred. Telling anyone else first seems wrong in a way she can’t describe, and she can’t divulge.

Mildred’s eyelids flicker and start to fall as though the weight of the world she carries on those slim shoulders is too heavy to keep holding up. But Gwen wants her to keep holding it up. Gwen wants her to keep holding on. Gwen wants to pull away from the warm wet sensation spilling and seeping through her cotton gloves and run away, she wants Mildred to get up and run away from this terrible place with her. She wants…

“It should have been me… It should have… I was standing-“ the words stutter and start as though she’s trying to defend herself but she’s not sure what for or who to. She thinks she sees Huck shake his head a little, but she can’t tell if he agrees or if it’s pity or if it’s something else entirely. He has something white in his hands – a cloth maybe or a towel half-folded – and he’s slipping his hands underneath Gwen’s this time. If there’s any protest worth making sitting on the tip of her tongue, she swallows it the moment she hears Mildred’s soft gasp of pain.

“Stay with me, Mildred,” Huck’s voice beckons, and Gwen can’t help the dark thought within her that says he has no right to call her that. That says her name, her beautiful name sounds wrong in his timbre. That selfishly thinks stay with me. Until another says who gives a jolly damn who or what Mildred decides to stay for as long as her heart keeps beating. So Gwen’s can too.

Huck’s hands are suddenly replaced by a softer feminine touch and for one deluded moment Gwendolyn thinks maybe, just maybe, she has awoken from a terrible dream. If she could just turn to the left, Mildred would be there, a soft smile and shining gaze, able to tell her everything would be okay.

But the eyes that stare back at Gwendolyn when she looks are blue, not brown, and the hands tugging the blanket around her shoulders are a little too fussy and firm. Betsy. The voice that asks if she is alright to stand is higher than Mildred’s ever was and there is no subtle lisp she has come to love to listen out for. Betsy Bucket is the only one she has left to lean on when it feels like the axis her world spun around has been ripped away from her and she’s too dizzy to trust her own two feet right now.

“She’s going to be just fine…”

Gwen hears the words finally in her ears, something registering beyond the high-pitched ringing as Betsy pulls her away with more care than she thought her capable of. But it’s wrong. Betsy’s wrong. How can any of this be just fine? It’s not fine now. There’s so much blood and it sticks the smooth cotton of Gwen’s gloves to her palms like a damp second skin. She wants to peel and scratch and claw it all away but – but it’s Mildred. She’s holding what she has left of Mildred in her hands. And if they don’t help her, if they can’t help her, will this be all that remains of the radiance that was Mildred Ratched?

Her hands are shaking so hard, even Betsy’s trained fingers tremble as she tries to hold them together in Gwendolyn’s lap. The nurse is calling her name, telling her to breathe, and again there’s that terribly intolerable lie ‘she’ll be fine’. But Betsy can’t tell her the one thing she really wants to know; when she had been staring straight into the shadows of death, why did Mildred look so calm?

***

She’s finally aware, when someone helps to lift her from the chair to give her statement, that Edmund is long gone. The carnage left in his wake rapidly cooling, as quickly as that red stain soaks and seeps into the carpet. Gwendolyn can already see it now; how Betsy or one of the other nurses will be there in the next hour, maybe two, on their knees with a bucket of bleach, washing the blood of the love of her life clean away from those carpet fibres like just another incident.

Gwen doesn’t remember what she says to the police. How they got anything enough to note down on their little pads, she’ll never know. She should have propped her governor’s hat on. She should have pulled herself together and pulled her shoulders back and pulled at any goddamned thing to keep her composure intact. But what had there been left to pull when the one thing she wanted to hold onto had already been pulled away from her? Mercifully Betsy says they left her to her morbid thoughts fast; with a murmur that should have been reassuring but wasn’t, and a landline number on a flimsy card should she happen to recall anything else. As if her remembering the look of shock so briefly on Mildred’s face yet burned behind her eyelids like an imprint would do the force any favours for finding Edmund.

Huck is not the first to suggest Gwendolyn should go home. His jacket - tucked around her shoulders at some point – is big and bulky, too wide in the waist and the material is an ill-ironed cotton blend with a collar that itches at the back of her neck. Or perhaps it’s the faint amalgam of cologne and manly sweat that prickles her skin. It’s too masculine to be anything like Mildred. Mildred and her expensive tastes, her silk nightrobes and chiffon scarves and coats of cashmere in colours so richly dyed she always looks like she stepped fresh from the pictures in glorious technicolour, grander than any silver screen dame. Where Huck lightly suggests, Betsy firmly insists; a chance to wash her hands, to change her clothes and a night’s rest would all do her some good she says. But Gwen still struggles to find her feet, even with the solid arm support at her waist. Mildred always hated people touching her waist, she can’t help thinking, it had been one of the first things Gwen had noticed about her, strange as it was.

Later she would wonder how Betsy got the keys to her car when she doesn’t recall handing them over, and she would hand Huck’s jacket back to the kindly young man once she paid top-dollar for it to be dry-cleaned for him at her own behest. But for now, she simply goes through the motions the others bid her to, her body moving while her mind remains fixed in the moment she could not have predicted such a wonderful night would end in.

***

They let her in, the morning after. It takes more cajoling and coercing than she wishes for, though she can almost understand why. It is probably only because Mildred has no-one else – and Betsy’s subtle string pulling among the night staff of her own she has no doubt – that they allowed her into the small room at all to keep the young nurse company. The small room they have set her up in, one that looks too good to be unused patient quarters but not done up enough to belong to a doctor, is a quaint yet impersonal space. A bed with basic sheets fetched from the storeroom, curtains drawn to keep the harsh light outside from breaching the blank walls. It’s all so cold, and empty, devoid of personality, of life. So unprepared for this sudden occurrence, there aren’t even any typical paper-thin flowers wilting in a vase on the windowsill.

There is nothing here that says this room belongs to a slumbering Mildred Ratched – because yes she is only sleeping, resting, recuperating, Gwen has to remind herself every half hour. Mildred’s belonging had been taken away in a small bag to be examined, and they had been returned some time in the night. But the bag remains on the other chair in the room, untouched. Gwen can’t bring herself to even open it, let alone look inside or take anything out. That’s for Mildred to do, once she wakes, once she’s ready. And hard to understand as the younger woman can be sometimes, Gwen is sure she would be appalled by the thought of someone else going through her things before herself. And Gwen’s reluctance to open the bag has nothing at all to do with the glimpse of rusty stain she had seen for just a second through the lip in the bag when the night nurse had brought it in, of course. She doesn’t have the same reluctance when it comes to looking to the pale form lying so still in the bed. Once her gaze falls to her, she can barely bring herself to look away.

Mildred always looked pale; Gwen might have even dared say anaemic more than once. So often like something from an old portrait - how porcelain the fragile shade of the redhead’s skin often was. Given her diet of bologna, peaches, and endless days of exhaustive work with the ill, invalid and insane, it was hardly surprising.

But this was surprising. It was terrifying even, to see someone’s skin so grey. To see someone who was always moving, lying so still. As far as Gwen knew, Mildred Ratched never stopped for anyone; a cog in constant rotation of her own schemes. Every time Gwen thought she figured out how the pieces fit together or how the parts worked, Mildred would turn anew and prove her wrong all over again. Now all of that had been brought to a standstill because of one Edmund Tolleson. Only the steady rise and fall of the redhead’s chest beneath the blankets, and the quiet beep of the machine keeping it going in such a measured manner, assures her of any movement, of any life.

At first, Gwen had wondered whether she should even be allowed in the redhead’s room, let alone by her bedside. She isn’t family, she isn’t a loved one. She’s not even sure if Mildred ever truly considered her a friend until now; one of the few the nurse would allow herself to have.

One look through the door into that sterile silent room however had been all it took to convince Gwen to step inside, set herself down in the flimsy plastic chair by the bed and wait.

She waits all afternoon.

She waits all night.

She waits long into the early hours of morning until even the next night nurse bids her a fond farewell, along with a blanket and another cup of lukewarm tea that must make a half-dozen Gwen has swallowed down along with all the words she cannot say.

She’s not sure when she reached for Mildred’s hand during the long vigil. But once she does, she doesn’t let go. She knows the moment Mildred wakes, the nurse will probably pull away from the contact, or perhaps Gwen will make sure she’s pulled herself back before then so Mildred wouldn’t feel so imposed on so soon. But for now, just for now, while the whole world is quiet save for Mildred’s breathing and Gwen’s own heartbeat thumping, she held on to Mildred’s hand, and hoped somewhere in her subconscious, Mildred might find something to hold on to.

#ratched series #ratched netflix #Mildred Ratched #Gwendolyn Briggs #Mildolyn #Rigged #ratched fanfic #I'm still not 100% happy with this #But I just can't keep fiddling with it #Also tumblr erased my italics emphasis in certain bits but I can't be bothered to chase and sort them #hopefully it all still comes across #or maybe I'll edit this post at some point in the future

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