by Robin Talley
I was sitting on that floor, feeling like my head was trapped in a vise, when it occurred to me. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen from blowing up all those balloons, but the thought popped into my head and now I can’t shake it:
Why am I the one who has to be so terrified all the time?
Why do I sit around worrying about whether someone will figure out my secret, while everybody else gets to have a fucking party because Anita fucking Bryant convinced a bunch of people thousands of miles away that she’s right and I’m going to Hell?
You probably figured this out years ago, but to me, sitting there on that basement floor, it was a brand-new, mind-blowing idea:
This is fucking BULLSHIT.
Look. I’m not saying I want to skywrite the words “I’m queer!!!!!” outside the house when my parents wake up tomorrow or anything. They’d just haul me straight to Uncle Russell, and if he couldn’t fix me, it’d be electroshock therapy time.
And it’s not as if running away is an option. There’s nowhere to go. Sure, I’ve had fantasies about getting an apartment in L.A., but I’d need money for that, and I don’t know how I’d ever get a job. All I can do is recite Bible verses, and they don’t pay you to do that unless you’re Uncle Russell.
But tonight, sitting there on that basement floor, I wasn’t thinking about running away. I was thinking about Patti Smith.
Do you know her music, Harvey? I’ve never heard her playing on the radio here, but maybe it’s different in San Francisco.
I had no idea who Patti even was before last Easter. I was at a slumber party with the girls from the youth group, and we snuck downstairs to watch Saturday Night Live. We aren’t supposed to watch that show, since our parents say it’s sinful. We didn’t see what was so sinful about it, but it was funny. Then, halfway through the episode, Patti Smith came on with her band, and when I saw her, my heart stopped.
Patti Smith looks... I don’t know how to describe it. She almost looks like a man—she was wearing a shirt and tie, even—and she sounds like a man, too. Her voice is low and gravelly, and the first words she sang were...well, I can’t write them down, but they were the bravest words I’ve ever heard anyone say.
All I wanted was to be Patti Smith. She’s obviously never been scared of anyone. There’s this anger in her voice, this soul, that’s like nothing I’ve ever heard.
I never knew I could be angry. I’ve always been too busy being scared. I’ve been keeping this inside so long it feels like I’m about to burst open and leave nothing but a puddle on the carpet where I used to be.
But that’s bullshit, too.
My aunt and uncle and Anita Bryant and all the rest of them—they want people like me to be scared.
Well, I’m through giving them what they want. Tomorrow, I’m going to the record store and buying every Patti Smith album they have.
I’m getting out of this place, Harvey. Even if I only manage to do it in my head.
Peace, Tammy
Wednesday, June 8, 1977
Dear Diary,
I should’ve known today would be terrible.
I’m writing this in study hall. I barely managed three hours of sleep last night, but it’s the last day of school, so classes are a joke. Mom always says teachers run out of energy the first week of May.
I still have to keep up with my friends, though, and I didn’t realize how tricky that would be without sleep.
“Guess where I went last night?” I asked Rhonda on our way out of English as we wound through a hall full of kilted, giggly girls.
“You’ll never believe where I went,” she said, instead of guessing. We cut through a contingent of freshmen and looped across the small chapel to the bathroom, the one hardly anyone goes to. It’s the best place to talk without the whole school hearing your every word. “After we closed, Craig took me to this dive bar down on Naples. I thought I’d get chlamydia just from walking in the door, but it turned out he knew all the guys there, and they were great. They bought me drinks all night and I got so wasted.”
By the time she was finished telling me all that, I was in a stall, halfway through peeing. I always have to charge to the bathroom after English or I’ll burst.
“That sounds fun,” I called through the stall door. Rhonda and I used to hang out all the time, but now that she’s going out with her boss, I only see her at school.
“It was, but I still feel kind of drunk. That’s okay, though. No one will notice on the last day of school.”
I stepped out of the stall and went over to wash my hands. The bathroom door swung open. Rhonda and I both went silent, but it was only Diane and Jennifer. They’d been in English with us, too.
“Did you say you’re still drunk from last night?” Diane asked Rhonda as she pulled a cigarette and a matchbook out of her purse.
“Yeah. Craig and I stayed out until really late.”
“You and Craig.” Diane laughed. “Do your parents still not know?”
“Hell no. They’d only ground me for the rest of my life.”
“They need to relax.” Diane struck the match over the sink. “He’s not that much older than you.”
“I know! My dad’s seven years older than my mom. Craig’s only five years older than me, but you know they’d never listen if I pointed that out. They’re total hypocrites.”
“Our parents think it’s still the fifties or something,” Jennifer called from over the door of the stall I’d just come out of. “We’re all supposed to stay virgins ’til our wedding nights.”
Diane and Rhonda laughed. I laughed, too, a second too late, but I don’t think anyone noticed. I’m a virgin, and as far as I know so are all my friends, but things are changing faster than they used to.
“What our parents don’t know won’t hurt them.” Rhonda fluffed her hair. She’d asked the hairdresser for bouncy Farrah Fawcett-Majors curls, but she’d wound up looking more like Janet from Three’s Company. “They can think I’m a virgin when Craig’s walking me down the aisle if they want.”
We all laughed again, but I can’t picture Rhonda marrying Craig. Or really, I can’t picture Craig marrying Rhonda. Whenever I see them together at the pizza place where they work, he’s always trying to look down her shirt. If there’s any truth to the lectures Sister Catherine gives us, that’s not how men act around girls they want to marry.
Besides, are we really supposed to be thinking about marriage already? We’re sophomores in high school. I can’t imagine getting married ever.
“So what did you do last night?” Rhonda asked me. “Were you out with Kevin?”
“No. I...” I shut my mouth. I’d been about to tell her all about going to Castro Street and the march and seeing Harvey Milk...and then I remembered Peter.
I couldn’t tell anyone where I’d been, even Rhonda.
“I just watched the news with my mom,” I said instead. “Did you hear about this vote in Florida? It sounds as if it’s a really big deal.”
Rhonda had already turned to the mirror and started touching up her lipstick. “What about Florida?”
“You mean about homosexuality?” Jennifer called over the sound of the toilet flushing.
I blushed, which was ridiculous, since I was the one who’d brought this up. But I blush very, very easily. Rhonda knows that—everyone does—so hopefully she didn’t read much into it.
“What about homosexuality?” Diane asked.
Rhonda laughed. “Leave it to Sharon and Mrs. Hawkins to watch a report about homosexuality in Florida the night before the last day of school. Hey, you got another one of those?”
Diane rolled her eyes, but she held out her pack of cigarettes to Rhonda.
“You know how Anita Bryant’s on the news all the time lately?” Jennifer came out of the stall, and I slid over to make room for her at the sink. “She got them to pass a new law in Mia
mi because homosexuals were trying to get teaching jobs.”
“Anita Bryant? Really?” Rhonda laughed and tried to sing Anita Bryant’s jingle from the orange juice commercials, the one about the Florida sunshine tree.
“Now let’s talk about homosexual-i-ty!” Diane sang back to the same tune, making us all laugh.
“Oh, man, do you remember when she came back and sang on Miss America when we were kids?” Jennifer shook her head. “It’s not fair she only came in third.”
“We weren’t even born when that happened,” I said. Rhonda and Diane were still singing jingles, but I kept talking anyway. “Look, Miami had a law that said it was illegal to discriminate against gay people, but Anita Bryant got them to vote to overturn it. So now it’ll be legal to discriminate again.”
Rhonda and Diane stopped singing, and now all three of them were looking at me. Rhonda put her lipstick back in her purse and tilted her head. “What do you mean, ‘discriminate’?”
“You know.” I tried to remember what Peter had said. “It’ll be legal now if someone wants to kick a gay person out of his apartment, or fire him from his job.”
“That wasn’t legal before?” Jennifer turned back to the mirror. “Is it legal here?”
“I...” I didn’t know.
“I don’t think it’s right for people to be that way.” Diane blew smoke out at the ceiling and started fishing around in her purse. “They know what the Bible says. Besides, it’s disgusting.”
“Can you imagine?” Rhonda started laughing again. “If you met one of those guys? He’d probably have on more makeup than you did!”
Jennifer and Diane laughed, too.
“My dad says gay guys all have pet poodles, and they wear high heels everywhere,” Diane said. “And when they drink they stick their pinky finger out to the side.”
“Hey, um...” I started to interrupt them, but I didn’t know what to say. How could I tell them to stop making fun of gay guys when I couldn’t say my own brother was gay?
And how did I never notice until today that my friends were just as boring and conventional as our stuck-in-the-fifties parents?
That was when the bell rang, and the door opened again.
“Do I smell smoke?” The voice was my mom’s. She’s the only teacher at our school who does that—calls out a warning before she comes in. It gives you enough time to put away whatever you were doing so she doesn’t have to officially catch you.
(My mom is everyone’s favorite teacher.)
Diane and Rhonda dropped their cigarettes and stamped them out with their saddle shoes. It meant they couldn’t move their feet once my mom came through the door, but she pretended not to notice.
“Hello, girls.” Mom looked at each of us, her eyes widening a little when she saw me before her face slipped back into her usual unaffected-teacher expression. If she was exhausted after worrying about Peter all night, she didn’t give any sign of it. “The bell rang. Why aren’t you in class?”
“We’re sorry, Mrs. Hawkins.” Rhonda bobbed into a tiny curtsy, which looked especially ridiculous since she couldn’t move her feet.
“Well, get a move on.” Mom glanced at me, but looked away just as fast. “You don’t want Sister Catherine to catch you out here.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hawkins,” the others chorused as Mom stepped outside.
We moved fast after that, Diane and Rhonda flushing their cigarette butts before we headed to study hall. It took me almost the whole period to write this down, but there are ten minutes left in the period so I guess I might as well get this pen pal letter out of the way now. More later.
Yours, Sharon
Wednesday, June 8, 1977
Dear Tammy,
I guess I’m your new pen pal. Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m sorry we’re about to be juniors in high school and we’re stuck doing a project more appropriate for eight-year-olds.
Here’s my first answer from the question list:
Describe yourself in three adjectives.
Today? I’d say tired, overwhelmed, and ready for school to be over.
But if I’m supposed to be making a big statement, I guess I’d go with confused, lonely, and out of place. (Is out of place an adjective? Maybe it is if I put in hyphens? Out-of-place, then.)
I guess that’s it for now. Sorry I couldn’t come up with a better answer. I’ll try to be more interesting next time.
Yours truly, Sharon Hawkins
Thursday, June 16, 1977
Dear Sharon,
Your letter made me laugh. I totally agree, this is a ridiculous project, but I guess we’re stuck with it.
Here are my three adjectives: Tall (or, well, tall-ish). Blond. And overwhelmed, the same as you. I’m glad this school year’s over, too.
Sorry if that doesn’t give you much to write about in your report. I’ll try to do better in my next letter.
Yours truly, Tammy Larson
P.S. This isn’t in the list of questions, but I was wondering—have you ever listened to Patti Smith? I just got her album Horses and I’m obsessed. No one I know listens to that kind of music, but I thought things might be different in San Francisco.
Wednesday, June 22, 1977
Dear Tammy,
No, I don’t think I’ve heard of Patti Smith. What kind of music does she play?
Here’s my answer to the next question:
Who are the members of your family?
It’s just me, my mom, and my brother. My mom’s a teacher at my school, and my brother, Peter, is one year older than me. I have a father, too, but he left when I was a baby and I haven’t seen him much since.
What’s your family like?
Yours truly, Sharon Hawkins
Wednesday, June 29, 1977
Dear Sharon,
I’m really sorry about your dad.
My family will take longer to explain, since there are a lot of us.
First, there’s my parents. They met in Ohio. My dad had gone out to buy some toothpaste and my mom was working at the drugstore. When he went up to the register to pay, he thought my mom was pretty and asked for her number. My dad was a big shot then, a college football player, and Mom says it was as if a famous movie star had asked her on a date. She was still in high school, taking care of her little sister since their parents had died a few years before, and she and my dad got married right after she graduated. He got a job with a development company in Ocean Valley, so they all moved out here, including my mom’s sister—my Aunt Mandy—since she was just a kid herself then.
Not long after that, my oldest sister, Laura, was born. She’s twenty-one now, and she’s married with a baby. Now she’s pregnant again. My next-oldest sister, Barbara, is nineteen and just got married in the spring, and guess what—she just told us she’s pregnant, too.
No one ever asks me when I’m getting pregnant, which I guess is a good thing. Once I made a joke about that at a barbecue and got grounded for a week. (Er...please don’t mention that in your report for the teachers.)
My little sister, Elizabeth, is fourteen, and my bratty brother, Ricky, is a year younger. Look up “spoiled rotten” in a dictionary, and odds are, it’ll have a picture of Ricky right next to it.
In case you couldn’t tell, my parents really wanted a boy.
Anyway, sorry for the long letter. I’ll try to keep my next answer more concise.
Yours truly, Tammy Larson
P.S. Was it awkward for me to say I’m sorry about your dad, since we don’t really know each other? If it was, then I’m sorry, again. Sorry for saying sorry, I mean.
Saturday, July 2, 1977
Dear Diary,
I’m not sure how to talk about what happened tonight. It wasn’t at all what I expected. I went back and reread what I wrote last time, about the night Peter and I went to that march, and... I j
ust don’t know what to think now.
Maybe it will make sense after I write it all out. That’s why I’ve got this diary, anyway. Ever since I was a kid, there have always been things that only make sense once I write them down and read them over later.
We went to Castro Street again tonight, but it wasn’t anything like before.
“Tell me again why you wanted to come here?” Peter kept giving me curious looks as he parked the car. It’s an old junker with a mismatched paint job, and it’s got more dents in the bumper than I have fingers on either hand, but it’s all Peter can afford, and it’s our only way to get around the city if we don’t want to wait ages for the bus.
“I want to... I don’t know.” I shrugged and glanced in the rearview mirror. I should’ve worn lipstick. When we’d come up for the march I didn’t have any makeup on, but now it was Saturday night and I didn’t want to look like some little schoolgirl. “Get involved. Do something about gay rights.”
“Do what, exactly?”
“That’s what we’re here to figure out.” I swung open the door, trying to act bolder than I felt.
“Since when are you into gay rights, anyway?” Peter climbed out after me.
“I... I don’t know.” I blushed. The night of the march, I thought I’d finally found somewhere I belonged. I’d been wanting to come back for weeks, but I didn’t have the nerve to tell him that. “It’s no big deal.”
“Relax.” He tugged on the sleeve of my T-shirt. “I’m glad you had this idea. I’ve been wanting to come back.”
“Oh. Okay, then good. So, um...do you think that march we went to actually changed anything?”
“Nope,” Peter said. We climbed past pizzerias and coffee shops and stoned hippies on our way to Castro. “The Miami law’s still overturned. Anita and the fundamentalists are still claiming it as a victory.”
“The other night the news said other gay rights laws will probably get overturned now, too.” I sighed. “The way you expected.”