Toothpick House

by Lee Lynch

  Later, Victoria could not remember what they had talked about and she wondered if her father was drinking that much every night now. She climbed into bed weary with boredom and took up a book of fables by La Fontaine which she had been translating. She returned to a favorite and reread what she had underlined: “‘They chain you up?’ the wolf said. ‘Can’t you run/ Just where you like?’ ‘Not always, what’s it matter?’ ‘It matters this: with all your feasts I’ve done./ You have ’em. You grow fatter./ At such a price I value life as nil.’/ Thus said, the wolf ran off, is running still.” Ah, to run off, Victoria thought, remembering her childhood when a favorite game was just that. Her mother would take her to Central Park and she would slip away from where she read on a bench and go to her favorite group of rocks. She vividly remembered running up and down the rocks and hiding behind them to play games with other children. Her mother despaired of curing her from playing with the “park youngsters” and Victoria bathed in the memories for days after each escapade. Eventually, her mother would not be able to resist a warm, sunny day in the park and would lead her there again for what she came to think of as her real, true adventures.

  Victoria drew the covers over her chin and stretched her legs under the soft worn sheets. She turned off the lights and brought her pillow down to her arms where she hugged it. Someday, she hoped, she would be hugging more than a pillow. A real person would be there and they would go everywhere together. But not some straight-laced snob like her parents wanted her to marry. A free spirit. Someone unlike anyone she had ever known. And a good friend as well as a lover. Her depression settled over her again. Here I am dreaming like a little girl, she thought. By this time in my life I should know what I want. Rosemary wants to teach. Claudia wants to be a psychiatrist. All the seniors seem to know their futures. I want—something. A something and a someone. A wolf in a fable, a real life. She dropped deeper toward sleep, and woke from a half-dream along a path in Central Park with Heidi. I’d forgotten that, she thought. No wonder I loved to play in the park. I wonder how many times I went there with Heidi. Her hair shone like sunlight. Victoria hugged her pillow closer as she fell asleep with a bright light in her eyes.

  * * * * *

  By the end of the day Annie Heaphy was sinking, with the daylight, into darkness. Her depression grew with fatigue and the rush hour seemed too hectic to keep up with. She took her cab back to the garage and went to the bar where she accepted a beer as she would a savior. No one was there yet, but she knew Peg and Turkey would be watching out their window across the street for her car. The owner Marcy, sixty, bleached-blonde, bulging in a tight skirt, leaned her elbows backwards on the bar.

  “How are you today, sweetheart?” Marcy asked in her hoarse, loud voice.

  “Pretty good, Marcy.”

  Marcy began her daily complaints. “I blew close to a grand souping this place up. And you think you ungrateful kids bring me more money? No! Tabs,” she said, fanning a stack of them at Annie.

  “Not mine,” Annie defended herself.

  “No, you’re a good kid. But some of these, I don’t know.”

  Annie winked at Rudy behind the bar. “How’s Ellie today after that barrelful she put away last night?”

  “Still love-sick,” Rudy whined in his camp voice. “Barfed all night long, then first thing this morning, before going to the restaurant, mind you, she’s playing all these hot songs on the stereo. I can’t stand it.”

  “After that brush-off she’s still got her sights set on Dusty?”

  Rudy nodded, then leaned across the bar to Annie. “It took me and George both to get her up the stairs.”

  “Thank goodness she lives with you two, not me.”

  “Don’t do me any favors.” Rudy flicked his bar rag at her.

  “Who’s Dusty?” Marcy asked from behind the bar where she poured herself a soda.

  “A big hunk of diesel-dyke, honey,” Rudy answered.

  “Don’t know what she sees in her,” Annie said. “Except she’s got a good job and plenty of money.”

  “Don’t put your nose up, Mabel, she owns her own place.”

  “How’d you find that out, Rude?”

  “One afternoon, none of you girls was here, she practically told me her life story. She’s not so bad.”

  “Hey, here come two tabs,” Marcy pointed out the window.

  Rudy rolled his eyes at Annie.

  “Ain’t you spiffed,” Annie called as she hurried to the figures coming through the door. She hugged them both at once, whispering, “Scrooge is on the warpath.”

  “Shit,” Turkey exclaimed, stomping a heavy black boot on the linoleum. “I was hoping to put more on my tab.”

  “You were going to treat?” Peg and Annie teased her at the same time.

  “Not me!” laughed Marieanne Concetta D’Alessio, smoothing the tight, wavy hair that rose to a thick crest like a turkey’s at the top of her head, then grew almost flat down to her neck. She was broader at the hips than at the shoulders and wore white jeans, red suspenders and a large, short-sleeved men’s white shirt. Peg, taller and narrow, in shape from teaching physical education, stood gracefully at Turkey’s side in flannels and blazer, her hair thick and sculpted around her head.

  Peg led them to a booth, sheltering them from Marcy, and brought them beer.

  In the back door Eleanor posed, calling, “Hi, y’all!” until she was sure she had been seen. They laughed as she sashayed toward them, her short white waitress apron tied like a scarf around her long, thick brown hair, and her discount house white sneakers pointing their way across the floor. She threw herself at Annie Heaphy and kissed her on the lips. “My darlings, I’ve missed you so much.”

  “You didn’t even know we were alive last night, miss,” Peg scolded her.

  “It’s good for me, girl. A little drunk never hurt anyone.”

  “You should know,” Turkey guffawed.

  “So should you,” countered Eleanor.

  “So should we all,” sighed Annie.

  “Want a beer?” asked Turkey.

  “Me?” Eleanor pointed to herself. “Why, I’ll never drink again.”

  Annie looked at her speculatively. “Then how about a Southern Comfort on the rocks?”

  “My hero!” Eleanor exclaimed, hugging Annie again.

  “Ever notice she can’t keep her hands off you, Heaphy?” Peg asked.

  “Only when they’re not on you.”

  “Cut it out, you butchy things, and tell me what I did last night. Did I carry on?”

  Peg laid a hand on her arm. “Do you remember why you carried on?” she asked gently.

  “Sure. That nasty old Dusty didn’t want nothing to do with me last night. I thought it was the end of the world. But remember what they say,” she raised her glass, “when at first you don’t succeed . . . .”

  “Now you just have to convince Dusty,” Annie said.

  “That’ll just take time. I know she’s the woman for me and what’s more, I’m the woman for her. I haven’t met anyone I like so much since I left Tennessee.”

  Turkey winked. “Seems to me I’ve heard that before.”

  “But this time I’m sure. She’s real handsome, don’t you all think?” The others looked around the table at one another. “Well?” Eleanor insisted.

  “If you like that type,” Annie replied diplomatically.

  “She’s down to earth,” Turkey helped, then looked at Peg.

  Peg started. “I like her d.a.”

  “Ah, you guys just don’t appreciate a good woman when you see one. Look how you never appreciated me. No wonder I’m turning to someone else’s arms.”

  “Alright, southern belle, we get the message,” Annie chuckled.

  “Going to do something about it?” Eleanor asked teasingly.

  “No.”

  “Oh, you. You’ll see, all of you. When I ever saw that full moon up there in the daytime sky I said, this is it, El, you ravishing femme. Tonight’s the night. My mama alway
s said you can get what you want at the full moon. We lived in the city, but she grew up in the country and knew the country ways. That’s why she liked it when Pa was off in the truck at the full moon. She liked to get what she wanted, but she didn’t want him to get what he wanted. And you know what he wanted.”

  “You saying it runs in the family, El?” Turkey asked coyly.

  “What?” Peg laughed. “Getting what they want?”

  Turkey shook her head. “Not liking men.”

  Eleanor responded with pride in her voice. “Sure does. My Mama’s been warning me about bad men since I was a baby. Only trouble is, she never did mention where I could find me a good man. And I just never bothered looking for one.”

  “Mine was the same way,” Peg said. “She was always telling me scare stories about men stealing little girls or about boys trying to ‘get away with’ things. It’s like some mothers get the message across stronger to stay away from men than to love them. They can’t seem to help warning us even though at the same time they’re trying to teach us to devote our lives to men.”

  “And we’re the lucky ones who listened,” Annie concluded.

  “Except,” Turkey said sadly, “they can’t face how good we listened to them.”

  Eleanor looked proud again. “Mine did, she took it real well,” Eleanor said. “I just walked in the door with Butch . . . ,” she broke off at the sounds of protesting laughter. “What’s the matter with ‘Butch?’ That’s what we called her, honest to God. She was my second steady girlfriend. This was when I got out of reform school and Mama was around for a while. Butch was twenty-five; I was still a lot younger. She was the tallest, skinniest, butchiest looking girl, wore a string tie and all when she could. I brought her home one day and said, ‘Ma, Butch is staying over with me tonight.’”

  “Mama looked Butch up and down like she did the boys my big sister used to bring home and said, ‘Just don’t you be taken her downtown drinken and getten in trouble with the law.’

  “‘No, Ma’am,’ Butch smirked, I can see her now, ‘I aim to stay right here with El. Guess we’ll find enough to do without goin’ looken for trouble.’ Butch was from the country like Mama and they took to each other good from the start. Butch and me would go in my room for hours and come out to get food Mama left hot on the stove for us. Sometimes Butch would come over when I was in school and sit and talk with Mama all afternoon. I swear if Pa wasn’t in and out of there I might have lost Butch to Mama.

  “But meantime, I’ve found my own true love, the first girl I’d even think about taking home to Mama since I came up here to find a better job. Least I found Dusty even if I couldn’t find the job.” She looked at the clock over the bar. “I’ve got to go home and change! Where will you all be?”

  “On the fateful night that Ellie made a fool of herself again,” Peg pronounced, “the meeting was held: downtown at the Pub?”

  “Do you think she’ll be out two nights in a row, El?” Turkey asked.

  “It’s two-for-one night at the Pub,” Annie remembered.

  “Then that’s where we’ll all be whether Dusty is or not,” Turkey predicted.

  Peg kissed Eleanor’s hand. “She’d better be saving her money if she’s going to support this girl’s tastes.”

  “You’re so right,” Eleanor beamed, getting up to leave. “See you all down there.”

  “Speaking of later, we’d better get something in our stomachs besides booze,” Peg suggested. “Who’s for pizza? I’m buying.”

  “Me, teacher!” Turkey shouted, waving her arm.

  “How about you, Heaphy, want to come up for pizza?”

  Annie thought of her empty house. “Sure, Peglet, thanks. It’s easier than going home and coming back.”

  They waved to Rudy. “You just get our little girl home safe tonight,” he warned.

  “If we don’t she’ll be safe in Dusty’s clutches!”

  “Heaven help us!” Rudy shouted out to them as the door slammed on their small and safe bar world. Peg went to get pizza while Turkey and Annie hurried to the apartment to set the table. A group of young boys moved toward them.

  “Annie, let’s cross the street now.”

  Annie looked at the group. “They’re too young to bother us.”

  Turkey looked up at Annie, frowning. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Looking at the group again, Annie noticed it had gone quiet. They were staring at Annie and Turkey. The two exchanged glances. “But then, I could be wrong.” Annie conceded, guiding Turkey by the elbow to the street. As they crossed catcalls followed them. They looked at one another when they heard the word “lezzies.” “But they’re too young to think like that, Turkey.”

  Turkey slammed a fist against her other hand. “They’re never too young, Annie. It’s crowd behavior. Makes them feel even stronger to reinforce the identity of the crowd by oppressing those they see as weaker than themselves.”

  “Can the sociology, let’s get inside,” Annie said, moving them off the stoop of the building and through the front door. They ran to the third floor of the old house and Annie sat on the top step. “Doesn’t it make you feel kind of cowardly to run like this?”

  “No. It’s their weakness which creates these situations, not ours.” Turkey unlocked her door and turned to squat next to Annie, putting her short arms around her. “Annie, baby, you got to stop letting this get to you. Our lives are going to be hard enough without wasting energy on those little shits.”

  “Me? You’re still red in the face.”

  “That’s just from holding my breath waiting for you to calm down. See?” Turkey puffed out her cheeks and got redder.

  Annie considered tickling her, but heard Peg at the front door. They hurried to find clean plates. “Don’t you guys ever do dishes?” Annie asked.

  Turkey answered with her usual joke, “Sure, once a month . . .”

  “. . . whether they need it or not,” Peg finished, setting the pizza on the table.

  “Smells good,” Turkey breathed as she opened the box with a flourish. “Um, my favorite: everything. But what are you guys going to eat?” she laughed.

  “Shut up and dish it out, lady,” Annie ordered.

  Settling down with a slice, Peg asked, “You guys pass those little creeps?”

  “Yeah, why?” Turkey asked through a mouthful of pizza.

  “Heard them saying, ‘There goes another one.’ I looked around and there wasn’t anyone but me so I figured it out.”

  “I hate it,” Annie said bitterly.

  “I felt like going back and punching them out. Or dragging them home and telling their mothers what rude little pigs they are.”

  “Who do you think taught them?” Turkey asked.

  “Wish I had a gun,” Annie scowled, no longer eating.

  “I’m telling you, Annie, they’re not worth all this energy.”

  “I know. It’s just that I get so angry. This one old man wouldn’t stay in the cab with me when he realized I was a woman. Do you believe that?”

  “Wow. Where’s he been?” Peg asked, putting another slice of pizza on Annie’s plate.

  Annie began to eat absently. “I don’t know, but he didn’t get any further. He got out of the cab and started yelling that I should at least dress like a girl. And that I’d better tell the company to send someone who knows what he is.” Annie set her pizza down and put her head in her hands.

  “Heaphy, Heaphy, you going to cry?” Peg asked, full of sympathy, rising and moving to her. When Annie didn’t answer she knelt beside her and put her arms around her. “Come on, Heaphy, we can’t let them beat us down. I mean, we’re the bull-dykes! We’re the strong ones. We’re going to win because we play smart against their dirty pool.”

  Turkey reached over and grabbed Annie’s cap. Annie reached blindly for it. “Nope,” Turkey said. “You got to prove your stuff. Earn your cap. Besides, your pizza’s getting cold.”

  Annie smiled up through her tears. “You guys,” she said a
ffectionately, shaking her head. “I think I feel this bad about it because I’m just not happy—period. This sure ain’t the gay life I imagined. I’ve got to find a better way to be me. Give me the hat, Turkey, or I’ll get my gym teacher to clobber you.”

  Peg stood and started toward Turkey who fell to her knees, pretending to tremble.

  “No, no,” Turkey pleaded. “Anything but that. Not a gay gym teacher. Oh, my worst nightmare: being attacked by a girls’ gym teacher.” She stopped and struggled to her feet. “On the other hand, maybe it was my best nightmare.”

  “Why do we take their shit?” Peg asked.