I Came Out for This?

by Lisa Gitlin

  This morning the phone woke me and it was Kimba. She said, “They’re saying the election is now too close to call.” I screamed with joy, not only at the news itself, but because a national crisis could take my mind off my stupid nervous breakdown that I’ve been having for the past two months. Kimba stayed calm, as she always does. She kept making little jokes about Florida, which is the contested state. She said there are some problems with the dimples or the crimples or something in the Florida ballets and they have to recount them. Kimba’s twin sister lives in Florida and Kimba has been down there many times and she said they don’t know how to do things indoors. She was serious. I haven’t laughed that hard in two months.

  Actually, everyone in town is laughing. We may not know who the fucking president is for days or even weeks. It will take them that long to figure out who won Florida. I’ll bet Bill loves this because he can still be the Big Kahuna in there as long as it lasts. They’ll have to drag him out of there, won’t they? He’s having so much fun being President.

  I love Bill. I don’t care that he can’t keep his weenie tucked in. I think he’s adorable. Imagine Dubya addressing the Human Rights Campaign, the national gay advocacy organization, the way Bill did! If he did, he would stumble all over his words and act all uncomfortable and be terrified that one of the men might get within a foot of him and turn him into a queer.

  Was that stupid or what—for all those TV networks to announce his victory when he hadn’t even won? They make me sick too. They’re always trying to call attention to themselves. They think an election is like a spectacular Broadway play with them as the narrators and principal characters—kind of like Tom in The Glass Menagerie—and they are compelled to say “Good night, Laura, put out your candles,” at the end of the night. “Good night, Al, put out your candles.” They were afraid they would have to stay up all night and still not have the big news to report, so they just made it up! They wanted to be the big heroes, instead of big nobodies that went home with a goose egg. So they said that Dubya won before he even did. And they really screwed everything up, because now Al is the one that has to prove himself because everyone has in mind that Dubya won, but they just have to make sure.

  It probably will be that idiot Dubya. God help us all.

  It’s Friday after Thanksgiving and I am home for the holiday, in dear little Cleveland. The most extraordinary thing occurred on Wednesday night after Tommy picked me up at the airport. We drove through downtown on the I-71 overpass and the ignited skyline appeared up to our left and I was enchanted. Tommy said, “Oh shut up, Werm. It’s the same pit stop that it always was.” But I saw it differently now that I’m not stuck there, like he is. The city looked beautiful. It’s a great city on a Great Lake, and I’ve always thought it does itself a disservice by comparing itself with the behemoths flanking it, New York and Chicago, instead of measuring itself against smaller cities like Toledo or Indianapolis and looking like a winner. There was my exquisite Terminal Tower, and the corporate skyscrapers surrounding it like proud parents (even though they’re newer—the child is father to the man), and the radiant embrace of Jacobs Field, and beneath us hissed the wild underbelly that characterizes so many great cities—the industrial flats with its railroad tracks and smokestacks and trash heaps and flotsam and the notorious Cuyahoga River (which once caught on fire and burned the mayor’s hair) running through it like healthy bubbling piss. What a glorious town!

  I’ll be here for a few more days and then I’m going to my storage locker to meet my movers that I hired to transport the rest of my stuff to my new suite at the rooming house. Yesterday at Thanksgiving dinner (which was wonderful—my meshuggena family does holidays well), everyone tried to talk me out of it. “Come back to Cleeblands!” my mother beseeched. (She likes to call it “Cleeblands” in honor of the malapropping ballplayer Minnie Minoso.) Dad said in his halting, post-mini-stroke way: “Uh, Joanna, why don’t you come back here, do some writing, and get more established, and then make a decision where you ultimately want to live?” (It took him about five minutes to say this, but nobody interrupted him.) Robbie said, “You’re just going back there to chase after that woman!” and Micky chimed in with, “Yeah, Jo. You’re really making a big mistake.” Queen said in her motherly way, “You’re going to get hurt again, Peeps.”

  The only one who made any sense was my older sister, who has not been corrupted by the family system because she didn’t enter it until she was forty after I discovered she existed and contacted her, saying it was ridiculous for Dad to have kept her a secret and she should be one of us. Kathleen pounded on the table in her dramatic way (she was once a working actress) and announced, “Listen, you’re all full of crap. Joanna made an excellent decision getting the hell out of here and it will do her no good to return and get sucked back into that depressing rut she was in. Furthermore, this city is gray. It has one of the lowest average days of sunlight of all major American cities. Joanna is susceptible to depression and needs to be in a more hospitable climate. I do agree that this woman is poison for her, but she just has to discover that on her own.” Then Queen said, “Kathleen is right. Peeps should go back to DC.” Mom and Dad just stared at my sisters in disappointment, and my brothers clumped off to watch the game.

  But in spite of Kathleen’s vote of confidence, I’m feeling depressed about the whole thing. I just let them yammer on about Terri instead of reminding them that it’s all over and that she’s with someone else. Why are they even still talking about her? They probably think I haven’t given up on her. But I have. Then why am I going back there, when my reason for going there is down the tubes and I’m completely out of place among all those people running to meetings in their little suits, and that awful Dubya is going to be my neighbor?

  I suppose I’m going back because it’s where I live now. What am I supposed to do, stay here? That’s out of the question. Getting out of here was the best thing I ever did, in spite of all the consequences. I’ve discovered one of the great ironies, that the way to go back “home” is to get the hell out in the first place. Then you can come back and be enraptured by the skyline and all of a sudden the city becomes part of the stuff you’re made of, it enriches you and makes you more complex.

  I wonder what DC is doing to the “stuff I’m made of.” Maybe it’s putting all kinds of crap in it. But if it is, so be it. One thing I can say is that I have no regrets about moving there. No regrets at all.

  December 2000

  I’ve been in my new place for two weeks, and on Saturday I had a housewarming party. Bette suggested it. The place didn’t feel at all like home when I moved in, the way the little room down the hall did when I first came here. So Bette said that I should invite some people for a “grand opening.” I said what the hell, and invited a bunch of people, and they all came, including Karrie, Kimba’s twin sister, who was visiting from Florida. Kimba, Karrie, and Bette helped me set everything up. We arranged appetizers from the Safeway on my round coffee table and whipped up a kickin’ rum punch, and Kimba got the idea to put a ribbon across the door, to be cut by the first guest, who turned out to be Pia from the potluck group. My friends oohed and aahed at my little apartment, which is rather nice with its French-style bay windows, lemon-yellow walls, new carpet, bookcases, and adornments like my cityscape futon cover, papasan chair, and my brother’s paintings covering the walls. We laughed and gossiped and played CDs and danced. Besides Kimba’s twin and the potluck group (aka “The Ditches”), my guests included Beanie and Samantha, two of Kimba’s friends that I hit it off with at the election party, Johnny and Guillermo, Calliope (who just came for the free food and probably didn’t even know whose room she was in), and Jerome and Nicky, who strolled in together. Nicky looked as though he’d just been blasted to the moon in a star-spangled rocket ship, and Jerome looked triumphant. Of course, I’ll have to be around to pick up the pieces when Jerome starts depleting Nicky’s bank account and cheating on him with men he scoops out of the gutter, but what the
hell. That’s what friends are for.

  I always thought Bette was wilder than Kimba, but it may be the other way around. The two of them did a little ass-bump dance, and it was so burlesque, Kimba’s tight little ass shimmying down to meet short Bette’s voluptuous ass, and then Bette got tired and sat down and Kimba started yelling at other people to come up and dance with her, and Nicky danced with her for a while, but then everyone was all danced out, so Kimba just kept dancing by herself. She dances like a cowgirl, because she’s a country-western dancer. After everyone left and Kimba was helping me clean up (Bette had to go to a benefit), she told me the funniest story about the “dance police” at the lesbian country-western dances she attends, these severe women who two-step according to timeworn rules and accused Kimba of “zigzagging.” I said, “So did you stop this zigzagging after they chastised you?” And Kimba said, “Of course not.”

  Kimba has the cutest smile. It’s different from Terri’s. Terri has a big grin that stays on her face when she’s in a good mood. Kimba smiles almost in spite of herself. When she realizes she’s smiling, she stops. I think it’s so cute. I don’t know what I would do without her. I’m still kind of discombobulated. I kept missing Terri at the party. It didn’t feel right that she wasn’t there. After everyone left I cried, thinking about the e-mail Terri sent after I called her and said “Fuck you,” in which she said she was sorry I was in so much pain and she heard I was in the hospital and hoped I was better, and she wished me “all the happiness you deserve.” As nice as the party was, I felt as though it was missing its center. But when I finally settled down in my futon-bed, the last thing I pictured was Kimba and Bette doing that jaunty dance, and when I fell asleep I dreamed about being on a train, clackity-clacking down the road, and wheat fields were all around me, and the Little Rascals were running through the car with that adorable pitbull named Petey. It was a nice dream, far nicer than that awful recurring dream I was having not long ago that I was in hell. It was hell, too. Literally. And I’ve got news for you, puppies. Hell is not hot. It’s chilly and damp and looks like a basement. There’s even a washing machine down there. Imagine washing your clothes with Adolf Hitler. Wouldn’t that be creepy? So you’d better mind your P’s and Q’s.

  Yesterday, the one-year anniversary of my move to DC, I went with Kimba to buy Christmas decorations for her house. We decided to get them in my neighborhood, so I met her at the U Street Metro. I showed up first and waited for about a minute, then she appeared at the bottom of the broken escalator. She stomped up the steps in her blue parka and a Cleveland Browns knit hat, smiling at me the whole way. It wasn’t her typical shy, fleeting smile. It was a hell-raising smile, showing her teeth. It was a smile that said, “I’m gettin’ ready to kick some butt. How ’bout you, woman?” I was utterly charmed.

  The two of us charged through the neighborhood, buying all kinds of stuff. I usually hate shopping, but Kimba is so excited about it that it’s infectious. She had me darting around in these old ugly discount stores, yelling, “Look at this!” and “Look at that!” I bought some crazy socks for myself, and then I saw a horrible giant Santa Claus and told Kimba I was going to buy it for her yard, and she hit me on the head with a plastic Jesus. The Latina lady behind the counter saw and was not amused.

  After we shopped, Kimba treated me to lunch at Polly’s on U Street to thank me for going with her. When we were waiting for our food, I looked at her and grinned, and she said, “What are you lookin’ at?” and I said, “I’m lookin’ at you.” The girl is adorable. But I’m “not going there,” to use the latest pop expression. I’ve been in too much trouble already.

  I went to see Dr. Bobb today in a snow storm. Dr. Bobb is my Jamaican savior even though he’s probably clinically insane.

  I drove to Dr. Bobb’s office in a Zoloft haze. Usually I love driving in a snowfall, but today the flying flakes just thickened the haze. Now that the Zoloft has done its job and I’m no longer hysterical, it’s making me feel dead. Driving to Dr. Bobb’s, nothing mattered—my friends, my job, my writing. I thought about Kimba and how much fun I have with her and that drew a blank too. Naturally the Howard University Hospital parking lot hadn’t been plowed, and I cursed this city that’s as incompetent with snow as it is with everything else. One thing about goofy Cleveland, when it snows, they’re on it.

  Dr. Bobb looked dapper in his winter-white suit and navy shirt and yellow and navy and red tie. He gave me a sunny Jamaican smile, and a little bit of the haze lifted, and I sat down and started screaming about my life. I told him I felt dead, dead, dead. I said that I had been dead my whole life and didn’t even know it. I said straight people killed me and put me in deep-freeze, and that they were ignoramuses, thick-skulled morons who think gay people choose to be gay, and that I never would have put up with that idiot Terri’s crap if I had any idea how to get over someone, but I never learned because I was deprived of a romantic life because of straight society’s sick homophobic tyranny. I continued to rant and Dr. Bobb listened with a little smile on his face.

  “I realize now I was normal when they put me in a loony bin!” I shrieked. “There was nothing wrong with me. What else do you do when you’re fourteen years old with raging hormones and the objects of your affection are verboten, except act nutty? Diane Anderson at camp was verboten! My cousin Deborah in New York was verboten! When I went to visit Deborah and my aunt and uncle in Queens during my summer vacation, my aunt Goldie tried to get me together with this loser next door named Barry Moscowitz that had no friends. His mother used to pick him up from school and take him out to lunch because he had nobody to eat with in the cafeteria. So I should go to the movies with this pathetic Barry Moscowitz instead of going out shopping with my gorgeous cousin, who was five years older and sophisticated and who I adored. I mean, Fuck that. And I did it! That’s the kicker! I went to the movies with him and he had terrible B.O., and instead of saying I wanted to leave I sat there and breathed in his stench through the whole damn movie. I was protecting him! What was wrong with me? And then I didn’t even say anything to anyone about his B.O. because I was too nice! Everything all my life was about everyone else but me. Nothing was ever about me!”

  And Dr. Bobb said, “That’s the god’s truth, mon. Nothing is ever about you. In this life, the wolves eat the sheep. And when you’re young and tender, the wolves can eat you alive.”

  “But my aunt wasn’t a wolf,” I said, feeling guilty for complaining about my dead aunt. “She was just trying to show me a good time. She thought it would be nice for me to go out with a boy, even if it was Barry Moscowitz.”

  “Your aunt was also a sheep, doing the wolves’ bidding,” said Dr. Bobb. “All those idiots who set the standards for how to live, the sick standards, they are the wolves. We do their bidding while they sit around us and howl.”

  “Well, they can all go to hell,” I said. “They are so clueless. How dare they think that the way they are is the only way to be? How dare they rip out my essence and turn me into a sheep? You’re right, Dr. Bobb! I was just like one of those wooden sheep in a carnival game, jumping over a fence.”

  “I as well!” Dr. Bobb said, rearing up in his seat, flame shooting from his eyes. “I was forced to do everything I didn’t want to do in Jamaica. I wanted to read, they made me play ball. I wanted to play chess, they made me sell vegetables. The children in my village beat me up every day of my life and my daddy said I deserved it because I was such a sissy. And I wasn’t even gay! You know what they told me when I fell for the most beautiful girl in the city? My father and my uncles laughed and said it was like an orangutan trying to catch a butterfly. Well, I caught her all right. And then I was the one who could laugh. I laughed them right out of the deed to our property.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “You took their land away?”

  “That’s right,” Dr. Bobb said with a mysterious smile.

  “How did you do that?”

  “I did it with the use of subterfuge and
a very clever attorney. If you look hard enough, you can usually find a loophole to slip into.”

  “But wasn’t it wrong to take their land?” I said.

  “No, it wasn’t!” he said, slightly popping out of his seat. “You see, Joanna, this is what I try to teach you!” He pointed a finger at me like a charismatic preacher at a tent revival. “This is what I am trying to impress on you! In this life, you have to become a little bit of a wolf.”