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SUSAN PAPER WAS BORN NORMAL. Her first eight years of life were also normal. But then, the next year, just before she hit the double digits, a birthmark-like pigmentation appeared on her back, just behind her left shoulder blade. Susan herself could not see it, but her mother noticed it one morning as she was brushing her daughter’s hair. Technically speaking, it was not a birthmark at all, since it had not been there since birth, but it looked like a birthmark, and so everyone began calling it that.
It was small--less than an inch across--and it looked exactly like the Nike swoosh.
Susan did not like it.
Three years later, at puberty, another birthmark-like pigmentation appeared on her chest, right there at her new, beginning cleavage. Because she had been paying very close attention to the changes taking place in her body, Susan noticed this mark immediately. But she also noticed this: It was in the exact same shape as the McDonald’s Golden Arches. Susan did not like this new addition to her body any more than she liked the previous one--the image itself or its location. She was young, and she had been liking the way her body had been growing and developing and becoming more and more beautiful. And, like most of her friends, she was at that age where she was enjoying meeting and making new friends and also occasionally flirting and wanting to be attractive. And eventually to be desired. But now, because of these unusual markings appearing on her flesh, she became more withdrawn and embarrassed and even a little bit ashamed of her own body, so that she wore clothing that, as a teenage girl, she would not ordinarily have worn, clothing that covered up the youthful parts of her body. She would not even let her girlfriends see her whenever they got together for sleep-overs. Or even in gym class.
Susan asked her mother once if birthmarks could be removed, but her mother answered evasively, assuring her that the blemishes she had would eventually go away. They had appeared suddenly, she said, and they would probably disappear just as suddenly. They were not actually birthmarks at all, she reminded her, and would most likely go away if left alone and given time. She should probably just try to ignore them, her mother had said.
Susan was unhappy with her mother’s reply, but she accepted it nonetheless because she was still young and because she still trusted her parents entirely and their wisdom altogether.
At the age of eighteen, the summer after she had graduated from high school, Susan discovered--and then watched in alarm--as another birthmark-like image slowly came into existence. It was located halfway down between her navel and her pubic hair and bore a striking resemblance to the McIntosh Apple.
Susan stopped wearing low-hugging pants.
She became more discouraged.
She began to withdraw even more.
And the birthmarks did not go away.
"None of my friends have to deal with this type of stuff," she complained one day, looking at herself in the mirror above her dresser. She picked up the small hand mirror and used it to look closely at her back and her shoulder, where the first mark had appeared years before. She also checked out her buttocks, behind her legs and under her arms. She wondered where the next intrusion might show up.
Still, Susan was eighteen years old--an adult now, and growing less naive--and so one day she decided to take things into her own hands. She called a dermatologist and made an appointment to see what the doctors there would say–-to see if they could do anything about the unwanted markings on her body. The doctors stated they had never seen such a thing. But at the same time they also suggested a couple possible procedures, but only if she, Susan, were really, genuinely serious about dealing with her problems. They said that there was no guarantee, but they also said that they had read in recent medical journals that there had been "some successful" results. Susan Paper said that she would be willing to try just about anything.
And so she made another appointment, two weeks hence.
Then, three days before her first treatment was to begin, she received in the mail a letter from the McDonald’s Corporation, cautioning her about taking any actions that might subject herself to a potential lawsuit. In the privacy of her room Susan read the letter over and over again. She did not understand; what were they talking about? The following day, she got two more letters, one from Nike and the other from McIntosh, indicating that they too were following her activities very closely. The destruction of legally protected property--in this case, a company’s logo--could not be allowed to go unchallenged.
The letters sent Susan into a tizzy. "But this is my body," she said to herself and, later, to a friend, Kathy Friend, one of the few friends she still had left. "This can’t be happening!"
Kathy encouraged her to consult with an attorney.
Which she did.
And who was encouraging.
Although not entirely.
And certainly not to Susan’s satisfaction.
After their first consultation, the attorney said that he would write to the three companies and inform each of them that the property in question was the girl’s own personal, private possession–-her own body--and that the claim of the three corporations constituted an unwarranted--and perhaps even illegal--intrusion into her life and the pursuit of happiness and freedom that his client desired. He mailed the letter the next day.
Susan postponed her doctor’s appointment.
Within a week, Susan’s attorney received a reply in the form of a single correspondence, from all three companies, who had by now formed a tri-corporate alliance. The letter conceded that the property in question may indeed be the girl’s own, but that the logo itself still remained--and always would remain--the property of the involved corporations, regardless of the location. They further cautioned that if the attorney’s client took any action whatsoever to remove or in any way deface or destroy said property, legal action would be set in motion immediately. They would have no other recourse, the letter said, but to sue.
Susan’s attorney called her into his office and read the letter solemnly, in a tone that revealed the very serious nature of the situation. After a difficult and anguished discussion, he advised Susan that it would be to her benefit to take no immediate action to try to remove the marks from her skin--unless she were willing to spend the next several years in litigation. The cost, not only in money, but also in the time and energy fighting this legal battle, she could not even begin to imagine.
Susan realized, for the time being at least, the wisdom of her attorney’s advice, which she took. Reluctantly. But at the same time, she also went out immediately and got a new job, one that paid much more than her present one at the restaurant. And she swore that she would work and save and scrimp and save until she had saved enough money. And when she had saved enough money, she said to herself, she would find the best damn attorney she could and take her case to court and get her body back. That’s what she’d do, she said. And, by god, she’d win.