Chase Banter [02] Marching to a Different Accordion

by Bennett, Saxon

  It appeared Jasmine had now got it. She also moved the cookie plate away from Bud, who was putting forth a hand to partake of yet another. “You want us to expose ourselves intentionally to people who ask embarrassing questions?”

  “Yes,” Delia said, as if Jasmine already agreed with the scheme.

  “I’m not doing a practice run. The real one is going to be horrid enough,” Chase replied.

  “I don’t think it’s such a bad idea. I mean, think about it, the real performance has the potential to turn out, shall we say, less than ideal, but if you could practice and overcome or at least confer with each other as well as pick your group’s brains you could learn a lot,” Alma said. She got up and went into the kitchen, leaving the others to mull it over. She returned with another bottle of water and handed it to Bud.

  “Thank you,” Bud said quietly.

  Somewhere it registered in Chase’s brain that Bud had done something odd, but she was too busy bailing water out of her frightened EGO canoe to acknowledge it.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Jasmine said firmly.

  “Ha!” Delia said. “You’re outnumbered.”

  “It’s my group,” Chase said. She scowled.

  “Chase…” Alma said.

  “All right, all right. But I’m going to have to ask and it’s not guaranteed they’d go along with it. Besides, won’t it be antithetical to the group’s mission?”

  “No, it won’t. It’s like a reverse Pavlovian thing,” Delia said.

  Bo and Jasmine looked quizzical. Chase rolled her eyes. “Don’t even bother. I will ask them.” She glanced over at Bud, who had that hopped-up-on-sugar look. Alma saw it too.

  “Perhaps we should go for that walk now. Any other takers?” Alma said.

  The others made their excuses and left.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” Chase told Alma as Bud clamped her hand in hers and pulled her to the door.

  Alma grabbed a faded canvas hat and her sunglasses. “It’ll be good. Trust me.”

  Chapter Ten—Preparation

  Semper paratus. Always prepared.—Lord Clifford

  The writers group arrived first. Lily Hirack enthusiastically welcomed them to the auditorium of the Musical Arts Building. She took Alma by the arm as if, upon first meeting, their kindred spirits had already embraced each other. Bo glanced around and Chase wondered if he was formulating some boy-porn story centered in a gymnasium. It still seemed odd sitting on fold-up chairs in the center of an auditorium.

  Delia was ecstatic. “Look, she’s got it all set up,” she said, pointing to the long table with a pitcher of water and five glasses, one in front of each of the chairs.

  Chase studied it dubiously. She still had misgivings about the whole panel thing. Lily, after quizzing Alma as far as was polite for a first meeting, brought the group together.

  “So, Chase has been a great addition to our little group, not to mention her neurosis is of particular interest to me as a behavioral scientist. I’m planning on writing a paper with the working title of ‘Writers with Bad Manners,’” Lily said, smiling broadly. “If it’s all right with you.”

  Chase tried to keep the alarm out off her face. “Sure.”

  “Ah! See, you are improving. I know you’re mortified and you lied…pretty well too,” Lily said. “And don’t worry, I was only kidding.”

  Chase let out a long breath.

  “But that you should not have done. Just move the conversation along. Laugh at my little joke and pretend that it wouldn’t bother you in the least. See, if someone thinks you are not, how do you say, fazed, then they are no longer interested in tormenting you,” Lily said. “Now, please be seated. I hear the others arriving. Isabel will be serving refreshments. She has a waitress phobia so we’re doing a role play in hopes that by playing both sides of the menu game she will overcome it. She’s actually getting quite good at it. My only fear is that she will consider it as a second career.”

  “She’s a librarian,” Chase added.

  “I hear myself being spoken of,” Isabel said as she walked into the gymnasium. She was followed by Darlene, who was looking rather pleased with herself.

  “Ah! What is up?” Lily said.

  “I got the job. Peckerhead was caught falsifying docs and Mrs. Philson brought me back in and this time I answered all the questions correctly.”

  “How cool is that,” Lily said, taking her hand and pumping it enthusiastically.

  Sandra and Marsha Martin came in. Marsha glanced nervously at the panel. “See, lesbians,” said Sandra. “So if you have any questions about sex or recruitment practices, now is the time.”

  Marsha turned beet red and glared at her.

  “Now, this, this is my prodigal child—the worst one. My paper about her I would call ‘Misfits and Misgivings.’ She is like the puppy you can never train—always piddles in the corner,” Lily said, shaking her head.

  “I’m Sandra and this is my ex-sister-in-law Marsha. She is bi-curious,” Sandra said, coming over to shake their hands.

  Marsha followed suit, not meeting Delia’s gaze or Jasmine’s.

  “Delia gave me lessons and I have to say that it really helped me,” Jasmine said. “But I know how difficult it is making such a leap.”

  “I’m not gay,” Marsha said.

  “She’s in denial. I’m making her watch reruns of Ellen so she can see what it looks like to others,” Sandra said.

  “I wouldn’t worry about Delia’s conversion talents. Her philandering days are over,” Alma said, gently taking Marsha’s hand and shaking it.

  Bo piped up. “Do I get to be the philosopher or the coming-of-age storyteller?”

  Chase leaned over, incredulous. “Oh, I don’t know. Let’s do a pros and cons list. Alma—amazingly smart, worldly, classically educated and you…”

  Lily cleared her throat and stared pointedly at Chase who, like an errant child, immediately changed her course. “And you are great at telling stories about seduction and first times.”

  Alma raised her eyebrows in true appreciation. “I think the group has done wonders for you.”

  Bo, not appearing to understand the nuances of what had just transpired, said, “I think it’ll work better that way. I honestly don’t know much about lesbian philosophy.”

  “I didn’t realize there was such a thing,” Marsha said, stealing a glance in Delia’s direction.

  “Mary Daly is the best-known philosopher and she raises some very interesting points,” Isabel said.

  Chase wondered how many books Isabel had read. Her knowledge base appeared to rival Chase’s. Isabel was definitely giving off kindred spirit vibes.

  “You’ve read it, of course,” Isabel said, looking at Chase, who nodded.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, what hasn’t she read? You should see her damn house. There isn’t a room without a book in it,” Delia said, disgustedly, as if Chase’s predilection for the written word was some sort of sexual perversion.

  “What’s your average?” Isabel inquired as she served up coffee and tea with the efficiency of a wide-hipped, tight-jeaned, full-mouthed, friendly-gal-kind-of-truck-stop waitress who would retire wealthy.

  Lily now raised her eyebrow in interest.

  Chase was embarrassed lest Isabel think her a slacker or the others think her a freak. She cleared her throat and took a sip of water.

  “In this case a simple answer carries no social stigma. Either you read a lot or you don’t and I’d wager on the former,” Lily said.

  “Not to mention,” Sandra said, “that both you and Isabel are probably fast readers. My mom can read a three-hundred pager in about eight hours. I mean they aren’t political treatises or anything but still.”

  “Roughly one hundred and six a year.”

  “That’s about the average rate for a person who devotes about four to six hours a day reading. Do you use the Mortimer Adler method on some of the books?” Isabel asked.

  “Mostly on the resear
ch ones. Never on novels, but I don’t waste time if it’s a bad one.”

  Delia rolled her eyes. “Thank God for small wonders or you’d have read yourself blind.”

  “I thought you could only do that by masturbating—at least according to the bishop,” Bo said smugly.

  Marsha blushed at that. “See, you do need a lesbian,” Sandra chided.

  Lily cleared her throat and pointed at the chairs that faced the panel, indicating they should sit. “Just because we are making allowances for inappropriate behavior so as to steel our panelists for the general population does not mean that it’s carte blanche. Lesbians are not sexual tutors and people’s sexual proclivities are off limits.”

  “What about panel questions? Sexual proclivities are certain to be asked about,” Isabel said, her lips curved slightly, revealing a mischievousness Chase found herself rather interested in seeing.

  “Only in that context...if it’s all right with our panelists,” Lily said, studying the group for signs of dissension.

  “Mi vulva es su vulva,” Delia said, slipping just for a moment into her previously lascivious persona and eyeing Marsha.

  Chase smacked her arm. “Married.”

  “I’m not married,” Marsha said, a little too quickly.

  “No, but she is,” Chase said.

  “If you’re serious about experimenting, we do have a group of available sex counselors that help with the transition process, including in-home services,” Jasmine said as brightly as if she were explaining the virtues of Amway products.

  “What!” Chase shouted.

  “Lacey set it up. She thought it would be beneficial,” Jasmine said, obviously not getting that Chase was outraged.

  “And you guys say you don’t recruit,” Bo said. He took a sip of his coffee and raised his eyebrows.

  “So this is what she’s doing at the Community Center—running a fucking whorehouse,” Chase said.

  “Of course not. She is simply helping bisexual or unsexually-manifested women discover their potential desires. No one is doing anything they don’t want to do,” Jasmine said soothingly.

  “Boy, where was that group when I wasn’t married?” Delia said.

  “Enough,” Lily said.

  “Inappropriate behaviors,” Chase muttered, glaring at Jasmine. She was going to wring Lacey’s neck when she got hold of her.

  “Now, let’s get down to business. The first question,” Lily said. She pointed at Sandra, who pulled a notepad from her bag.

  She smiled politely at Bo and then cocked her head at Marsha as if in challenge. “This question is for you, Bo.”

  Bo leaned forward and put his hands together as if to relay his readiness for questioning.

  “Do you really feel that coming-of-age or coming-out stories have any place in the current world view of homosexuality—I mean isn’t this kind of stuff just giving the newbies something to masturbate to?” Sandra sipped her coffee and then glanced at Lily. “Is that inappropriate enough for you?”

  Lily pursed her lips. “Very and for the sake of learning I shall tell you why. First, it’s disrespectful because it lacks compassion and it smacks of disinterested bigotry and second…”

  Isabel burst in, “And it’s a perfect example of Aristotle’s Fallacy of the Consequent.”

  Lily rolled her eyes. “You, be quiet. Erudition thrown out like that is just as inappropriate. Like anyone knows what that means. That is nothing but intellectual strutting.”

  Delia leaned over toward Chase. “You know what that means, right?”

  “Well, yeah.” Chase glanced over to see if Lily was listening, but she was still chastising Isabel, who was doing an admirable job of defending herself. “Aristotle wrote that superior people, or rather ‘good men,’ make the right choices and that’s what makes them better than the others.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Delia said.

  “Not exactly. See, the category for being a good man making the right choices consisted of male Greek aristocrats and everyone else, especially women, were inherently inferior so treating them that way was perfectly understandable and commended.”

  “Oh, well, that’s totally fucked,” Delia said, wrinkling her brow. “So Bo would always be better than me regardless of what I did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmph. Fuck Aristotle.”

  Bo stopped watching the tennis match of wits and leaned toward Chase. “What should I do?”

  “Wait it out, I guess,” Chase said, looking at Alma, who sat sagely in her chair taking notes. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, my goodness, there is some worthwhile stuff here—food for thought, shall we say,” Alma said, not looking up from her notebook.

  Jasmine and Chase stared at each other and started paying strict attention, but Delia had grown bored with it. “Come on. Are we going to answer questions or just sit here and listen to you two blather on and on about your intellectual intercourse?”

  “Discourse,” Chase amended, but no one was listening.

  Lily stopped arguing with Isabel and stabbed a slender brown finger at Delia. “I shall expect you at next week’s meeting. You have the manners of a pygmy.”

  “I didn’t think pygmies had manners,” Isabel said.

  “My point exactly,” Lily said.

  “And why should I?” Delia countered, winking at Marsha.

  “Because you could go much further in your vocation if you had some skills, and if you don’t you’ll end up alone, dying in a rented room, your bedclothes full of urine and your cat waiting to eat your face off as soon as hunger overwhelms her,” Lily said.

  Everyone blanched.

  “You see why I’m the leader. I started these kinds of groups because I am the master of inappropriateness. I could shock you people right out of your underpants,” Lily said, her hands raised to the sky as if she were Moses parting the sea of respectable conversation.

  “Holy shit. What time does the meeting start?” Delia said.

  “Wednesday at five thirty,” Marsha said timidly.

  “All right then, let’s get on with another inappropriate question,” Lily said.

  Isabel raised her hand and smiled wickedly. “I have one.”

  Lily nodded.

  “It’s for Delia or Chase as I think it applies to both of you. It concerns love scenes. There seems to be an overuse of ‘pink folds,’ ‘slick,’ ‘suck,’ ‘thrusting hips’…and so forth. Is it absolutely necessary? I think most readers can imagine what goes where and when.”

  “They make us do it,” Chase blurted. This was one of her greatest panel fears—the love scene explored and judged.

  “Who?” Isabel inquired, raising an eyebrow.

  “The editors,” Chase said as if she were in the thrall of alien masters who had attached electrodes to the tips of her fingers and would zap her if she did wrong.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, lady!” said Delia. “Do you know what lesbian readers would do if they were cheated out of the love scene—they live for those moments. If we just quietly shut the bedroom door on the sex scene, there’d be a fucking lynch mob of angry lesbians.”

  Lily tilted her head and studied Delia and then she looked at Chase. “She’s worse than you are and I think you’re pretty bad.”

  “Thanks for the compliment. You should meet her partner, who is also my sister-un-in-law. Now she’s a piece of work.”

  “Well, moving right along,” Lily said. She dabbed her forehead with a white linen hanky. “It’s Marsha’s turn.”

  Marsha colored a little and then spoke. “This one is for Alma.”

  Alma looked up from her notebook. “A philosophical question—how nice.”

  Marsha looked uncertainly at Lily.

  “How could yours be any worse than we’ve already had?” Lily said, shaking her head.

  “Go ahead, Marsha,” Alma coached.

  “Well, it just seems that lesbian culture has waned—what used to be their invisibility was erad
icated by a sort of feminist outing of crones, separatists and ardent women fighting for their right to be recognized and that now all that movement has seemed to get for women was more work—they are still bearing children and cleaning the house and, in addition, expected to pull in half the family income. The separatists have seemingly disappeared, crones are in rest homes playing bingo and lesbians are buried under the dross of ‘hot,’ their whole sense of being tied up in acting out sex scenes for both straight and gay audiences. I mean, is all the culture tied up with the Dinah Shore weekend?”

  They all looked at her astonished, none more than Sandra perhaps. “What the hell! Where’d you get all the info?”

  “I researched it,” Marsha said proudly.

  Alma looked thoughtful. “Yes.”

  They all turned to look at her. “What do you mean?” Delia said.

  “Yes, Marsha is quite correct—from what I know. I will turn to the rest of the panel for their opinion,” Alma said.

  Even Bo seemed to ponder the question, Chase observed, or he was doing a pretty good job of looking like it.

  The Sacred Muse of the Divine Vulva appeared and whispered in Chase’s ear. “See, you going off to Commercial Land is like leaving the island of Lesbos in exile. We can’t keep losing our talent.” She looked pleadingly at Chase.

  “I think that Lesbian Culture has lost its way,” Chase said. “We no longer have a cohesive center and have now become a trophy at suburban dinner parties of the caliber of ‘Oh, we know a lesbian couple and they’re perfectly nice—and their decorating skills—to die for.’ Oh, don’t forget they are a hard-working bunch of overachievers.” Vulva beamed.

  “Because we FEEL the need to make up for the one thing we can’t change about ourselves—that we are gay,” Jasmine screamed. “This whole fucking attitude drives me up the wall.”

  “Better watch that or you’ll end up in SUP class,” Delia said. “But I feel your pain, sister,” she said, sticking out her fist so she could bump knuckles with Jasmine.

  Lily clapped. “Now this kind of stuff will delight your audience. Yes, you are a downtrodden people, yes, you are the Bollywood imitations, yes, you are the indigenous peoples brought into the throng so that you will lose yourselves in a swirl of Othellian possession without love—always the outsider awaiting entrance, knowing this is your due—and yet never allowed in the front hall but only at the kitchen door.”