Where could Rachel be? I’d been calling her for twenty-four hours. If I couldn’t reach her by noon, I’d screw my workday and drive to the Saloon to find her. It had been three days since we’d been together. I had to apologize and make things right between us.
“Córdova!” Penny’s voice was shrill.
Looking up I saw her sprinting toward my office. Penny never ran. She was the picture of editorial decorum. She swung my door open, her lips stretched tight across her face as she fought for self-control. “Our police mole just called. Joe Tomassi has been shot!”
“Shot?” I stood up, bracing myself against my desk. “Like with a gun?”
“Yes!”
“Where?” I let the shock in. Joe and I had made an appointment for another interview next Monday.
“In front of the Nazi Party Headquarters in El Monte. Quick! Get in your car and go get the story!”
The crowd was thick with Nazis and cops. Tall uniformed shoulders eclipsed my view as I threaded my way toward the front steps of the two-story Nazi headquarters. A rigidly lettered tan sign was planted on the front lawn: American Socialist White People’s Party HQ it read in black, no swastikas. The wood-shingled structure was neat, but worn, the peeling white paint the perfect camouflage in this working-class Chicano suburb. The window shades facing the street were drawn, the front grass well kept, weed-less, and otherwise anonymous.
The first part of Joe I saw was his blood. It glistened under the bright sun as it seeped slowly down the sidewalk toward the gutter. Edging closer through the crowd, I knew even before I saw his face that the khaki clad legs lying close to the front steps belonged to Joe.
Medics and police clustered tightly around his chest and face.
“He’s been shot in the head,” someone close to me gasped. I couldn’t see. I didn’t want to. My forward push halted, I prayed that the crowd would not part and force me to look at the rest of Joe. The cops hadn’t even cordoned off the area yet.
“Is he alive?” I blurted to a creased-faced white man in an LAPD uniform. My voice came out high and thin.
“Don’t see how,” the cop muttered, glancing at my press badge. “There’s his brain all over the sidewalk.” The officer pointed ahead of him as he reached out, pushing apart the shoulders of two men standing in front of me. “Look for yourself.”
The gray matter wasn’t gray at all. The back of Joe’s skull, the bone of it, was lying in a pile of mangled, salmon-colored muscle, the texture and color of shelled shrimp. Locks of black curly hair diverted the crimson-colored blood as it ran in rivulets toward the gutter.
I staggered backwards to a patch of grass, and doubled over and vomited. All around me I heard voices hissing: Tomassi, Tomassi, did you know him?
Tomassi, Tomassi, yes, I knew him. The boy, the man, the political militant as committed as me, yet on the other side. I knew his passion, his beliefs, and his heated rage. His willingness to die for the world he believed in. Yes, perhaps I knew him too well. Sitting in front of me stabbing chocolate cake, his smile teasing, his shoulders heaving with delight each time he saw that he’d shocked me. The memory of Joe’s last words to me rang clearly, so casual yet frighteningly alive: “I don’t think I’ll live to see my thirtieth birthday.”
God damn it. Yes, I knew him.
I picked my clipboard up off the grass and looked back at Joe, squinting so I wouldn’t see too much. My Nazi lay on his stomach, his face turned toward me as if to say, “Fuck, I can’t make our next interview.” I couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad. The unforgiving cement was his final resting place.
Averting my eyes, studying his chest, I wondered if he had regrets in the instant he knew death was coming, that he’d put his political life first, ahead of his family, or his girlfriend. I looked around; there were no women here. Did Joe even have a girlfriend?
Did he know how to love? Perspiration poured out of me, I
couldn’t vomit the acid out of my mouth. My brain stretched for control. You’re a reporter, it demanded. Get the story! My emotions taunted, He’s dead. There is no story. Just walk away. Leave him in peace.
But Penny had sent me to think and write, not feel. I looked around for someone in charge. Buttoning up my shirt, I approached an officer with stripes on his sleeve.
Clipboard thrust forward, pen in hand, tape recorder switched on, I asked him, “Sergeant, do we know who shot him, or why?”
“Shotgun at close range,” the sergeant exhaled, his navy-blue collar beaded with sweat. “They must have wanted him very dead.”
“Then you have a suspect?”
“Turned himself in right after he shit in his own pants,” the officer snorted. “An eighteen year-old. But we think he was acting on orders from the leader. One of their own. Ain’t that always the truth?”
“One of their own?” I prodded further, wondering who inside the Nazi Headquarters would want to take him down.
The sergeant jerked his thumb toward the front porch. “The shooter was standing guard right there, said Tomassi wanted to come back and take back his father’s house. Says Tomassi’s father left this building to him. But the father signed it over to the Nazis right before he died. But who cares about what these Nazis do. What difference does it make?” The cop dismissed me with annoyance in his gesture.
What difference does it make? The words repeated themselves in my mind as I stared vacantly at the sergeant’s chest.
Would it make no difference when it came time for me to die? Would it make no difference when the Feds found and murdered the rest of the SLA and Weather Underground, like they’d done with the Panthers? Would the dead one day include others I’d interviewed, or friends whose secret lives I knew little about? The pigs that represented the law in our so-called democracy had killed student activists at Kent State as easily as the Nazis who had ambushed Joe. Members of the organization he’d built and led had gunned down Tomassi. Maybe if the Feds didn’t kill us first, we on the Left would also simply knock each other off, like cannibals eating our own because we were starved for power and freedom. Here we were right now, lesbians pitted against gay men, gay strikers versus a gay Center.
Tears sprang from my eyes as I snapped off my tape recorder, and walked down the sidewalk toward Lionheart. Joe had left me a present. I no longer had to face the FBI’s search warrant. As I entered the safety of my cave, bile rose up from my stomach. I fought the urge to vomit again. These months of fighting with Morris, my search to find something enduring with a lover, the endless decade of struggles for gay rights—twenty years from now, would my life have made any difference at all?
Threading the freeways back to L.A., I found myself driving toward the safety of the Women’s Saloon. I couldn’t shake the image of Joe’s almost twitching brain muscle, the sight of his blood. I needed to feel Rachel’s arms around me, stroking my face and telling me that somehow in this savage world, everything would be okay because we had each other.
But that could only happen if Rachel forgave me. Replaying the scene of her unclothed body on the front seat of my car, her breasts exposed to the world, I winced with humiliation. I might as well have thrown her a hundred dollar bill.
Reaching the Saloon’s parking lot it dawned on me—I was bringing nothing. No flowers. No letter of apology. I dug around in the glove compartment for a shred of paper and leaned over the steering wheel, pen in hand. “Dear Easy,” I began, and stopped. Definitely the wrong choice of word. I tore the paper up and reached for another. Tell her you’re sorry, I heard Robin’s voice. I began again:
My Darling, I came to the Saloon today to find you and to say I’m sorry. About leaving you in the car, about BeJo, about everything else, too. Not being there for you…so many times. I want to make us work. I want to make time for us. I have talked to BeJo. I have good news for us! Please, forgive me.
Reaching back into the glove compartment, I found a roll of scotch tape, sealed the note and entered the Saloon.
It was popping. Th
e strong lights and din of women’s voices steadied me. I’d be cool, I decided, and casually talk to others and maybe Rachel would come up to me. I saw the GCSC strikers’ table peopled with Pody, June and April, and others. I meandered toward them taking the long way around, moving slowly past the bar and silverware table. No sign of Rachel.
“Hey Córdova, what’s happening?” Pody stood up, greeting me with her usual social aplomb.
I smiled, as we hugged. Despite her dating BeJo, there was still warmth between us. After weeks of initial wariness, she and I had resettled into a friendly, though more distant, kind of friendship. After I’d told BeJo that I wanted to spend weekends with Rachel, she’d accepted Pody’s invitation to go the San Diego Women’s Music Festival this weekend. Now it was me facing a weekend without either BeJo or Rachel.
“Hi dykes!” I called to the strikers, my voice feigning an amiability I didn’t feel. Be nice to June, I told myself. I would need her vote, and the votes of her cadre, to get agreement to negotiate with Morris.
Pody glided into another chair, leaving one empty for me. “We just got a letter of support from The Westside Women’s Center,” said April.
Sitting among them, I marveled at how we’d all come through an ugly summer together and remained, at least politically, cohorts.
“What does the letter say?” June demanded.
April said. “It’s addressed to the Gay Community Services Center.”
“Do you think they’ll ever put the word lesbian in the name of the Center?” Pody taunted.
“In about ten years if we keep pushing them,” I joked, sarcastically.
As April read to the group, I craned my neck, looking around. I’d come to find my lover, not get sidetracked by politics. Furtively glancing deep inside the kitchen, I saw her. She sat at a small table next to the silver refrigerators, with Colleen, the owner. Damn! Her earth-toned plaid work shirt set off her pale skin. My stomach heaved. I could almost smell her perfume. Watching her twirl a pencil, I was surprised at how calm and concentrated she seemed to be. Was work also Rachel’s way of pretending she and I didn’t matter?
Suddenly, a dishwasher dropped a large steel pan on the cement floor. The clang made Rachel turn towards the door. Her eyes focused on me. For an instant I saw them come to life. Joy. That’s what I saw! But then, before she looked away, I saw grief. Long, deep grief. Quickly, she stood up and dodged behind the refrigerators.
I slumped in my chair, stunned by her avoidance.
April was finishing reading, “…We wish to once again appeal to GCSC to negotiate with the strikers around their demands.”
“Cool letter!” Pody said.
“Yeah.” I tried to wrench my mind away from Rachel. “I’d like to see Morris Kight have to process like a lesbian feminist. Wouldn’t it be right on if The Radical Therapy Collective mediated the negotiation?”
“What negotiation?” June countered. “We haven’t voted to sit down with them. We’re winning this strike. Now is not the time to negotiate.”
I spoke with firmness. “I think maybe it is.”
June scowled at April and then at me.
I felt torn between going after Rachel and seizing the moment to convince my comrades. I backed down. “Let’s talk about it at the next meeting,” Now was not the time to let June distrust me. I’d just seen Rachel’s best friend Susan walk into the restaurant. “Excuse me,” I said to my gang, standing to leave.
I leaned over to Pody and whispered, “Have a nice weekend with BeJo in San Diego!”
Quickly I strode to the bar and ordered ordered another Coke and a beer. Then I approached Susan’s table.
“I was just in the neighborhood,” I said lamely, standing in front of her. I held out the beer like a peace offering.
Sitting alone, Susan raised her eyes, tossing her lustrous head of chocolate brown hair with that flick of the neck femmes do to send their locks into a fan of motion.
She pulled out the chair next to her. “That’s the nice thing about this place. It’s just on the way to everywhere,” she replied with an arching of her brows, letting me know she knew the sad state of affairs between Rachel and me.
I sat; grateful I wasn’t going to have to climb a jungle gym to get to my topic. “Your best friend is very upset with me,” I ventured, my apology note burning in my pocket. “So,” I inhaled. “Do you think she still loves me?”
Susan smiled wanly and shook her head. “Maybe you butches change your feelings every two weeks, but we femmes don’t.”
We sat in silence.
“Did Rachel tell you about the…the thing…in the car?”
“Whatever the thing was, she’s quite brokenhearted. I’ve never seen her so devastated.”
Devastated was a strong word. I blinked to cover my emotions. “What can I do to make that go away, Susan?”
“You can’t make it go away, Jeanne. Whatever happened seems to have been the last straw to make her evaluate all the other problems you two have.”
I had no words. Only shock.
“What if you and Rachel took some distance from each other?” Susan continued. “She got into this relationship with you pretty deeply, pretty quickly. Maybe you two should see others, put some perspective between you.”
“Rachel wants to see other people!” My voice rose.
“Just until things cool down between you two.”
I leaned forward angrily. “Rachel wants me to see more of her, not less, Susan. She asked me to break things off with BeJo and now I’ve done that.”
Susan’s eyes grew large. “Does Rachel know this? Have you told her?”
“I was going to tonight. But she’s in the kitchen avoiding me. I want to be with her. I mean capital ‘W’ with, like monogamously. I’d even cut back on some of my organizing if she wanted more time.”
I stopped abruptly. Were these words coming from my subconscious? I hadn’t meant to say them.
“Whoa!” Susan seemed shocked too.
I took out my apology note and presented it to Susan. “Maybe you could go and give this to her for me.”
Susan smiled gently but she took my note, stood up, and walked determinedly through the kitchen’s half-door.
Relief spread through my clenched thigh muscles as I went to the bar counter and a beer for myself. My hand shook with anxiety. Turning around to face the kitchen, I was shocked to see Susan coming toward me. Bad sign. That was too fast.
I swallowed hard. “What did she say?”
“Nothing,” said Susan. “I caught her getting into a car out back. I gave her your note. She gave it back to me and drove off.”
“Where is she going?” I demanded.
Susan looked down at the floor, as though she were afraid to reply. “She was with…a friend. They’re driving down to the music festival in San Diego.”
I was out the front door before Susan finished her sentence. I knew exactly what I had to do to show Rachel how much I cared. An hour later, I’d packed a small duffel bag and was swinging onto the San Diego Freeway heading south.
Chapter 26
A Lavender Woodstock
[San Diego]
August 15, 1975
I merged into the fast lane, nearly side-swiping a car. With that scare, I realized I’d never had the chance to ask my dead Nazi the main question for our next interview. What had made him decide to go to war against the world? Very likely, he had no idea, just as I had no idea why I felt so compelled to be at war, with a different enemy, but perhaps with a similar rage. Were we both born to war? My father’s violence had taught me war as a survival style. His battery of me as a child taught me that discrimination is inculcated in the abused as a rape of one’s self-identity. The rape instills anger or shame and the victim then comes to understand survival as war against the world.
Learning this, I’d also had to embrace the concept of paradox, the ability to hate and love the same person, as well as one’s self. I came to understand, as I wondered if Joe did, t
hat these instilled primal fault lines either define or destroy the abused. All wars are paradox, but by now I was comfortable with war as a lifestyle. Sure it was exhausting and dangerous, but also godlike in its creative destruction. To me, war wasn’t necessarily a negative state of affairs. It was also a creative chance and ability to redefine Self, myself.
Yet being at constant war left little time for sorting out the rage and the longing, the hate and the love that were tied up in knots inside me. I wished I could understand the war within in my personal life—the war between Rachel and me that prevented us from being there for each other. All I knew was that I had to keep her. This was a war I had to win.
I parked Lionheart under a clump of palm trees in a low, dry, mountain meadow surrounded by lemon green hills and forests, part of a dusty horse ranch donated for the weekend festival by a wealthy lesbian. The African sounds of Ajita, Bebe K Roche’s master drummer, drifted over on the balmy breeze, welcoming me to the San Diego Women’s Music Festival. {1}
The tension of L.A.’s chaos and Joe’s death were still in my body muscles as I tried to shift into the mellow tones, and make my way toward the dance of the drums where I’d find the main stage area. Women on the shaven meadow were strolling half-naked, arm in arm, lolling on their sleeping bags reading or kissing, cooking over their campfires, tapping melodies out on pots and fallen logs. It was the heyday of lesbian separatism and I knew I’d see no men this weekend. The publicity had been strident, saying it was verboten to bring testosterone onto the land. Lesbians with boy children past puberty were asked to leave them at home. No amplifiers or speakers allowed. Anything electric was considered male. The organizers had declared this festival would be made in the image and likeness of an all-female world. Women would do everything from nailing the stage together to installing the porta-Johns (called porta-Janes.) Radical stuff, I thought. I was more of a coalition-builder than a separatist. Yet I noticed and enjoyed the deeper essence of a women-only gathering. There was no subcutaneous edge of fear that was always present when men and women were forced together.
When We Were Outlaws Page 32