I Came Out for This?
Page 13
I told Dr. Bobb the Zoloft had become ineffectual. He said to cut the dose in half and gradually wean myself off. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s better to kick the wall than let the wall kick you.”
Whatever the hell that means. I drove home scared out of my mind, realizing that my therapist was a maniac. But then something strange happened. I realized I no longer felt dead. Primal energy oozed through me and a metallic taste of blood eked into my mouth. I thought, “I’ll be damned.” I howled, “Awooo!” over the steering wheel. And then I howled again. And again. All the way home. And when I walked into the house, I was laughing.
I’m crazier now than when I first came running to DC out of my mind over what’s-her-name. I’m offending other lesbians and acting inappropriate with Kimba, and I’m sure the world hasn’t seen the worst of it.
Yesterday the potluck group met for a holiday fete at an Adams-Morgan bar, and a few of us were sitting in a conversation nook around a pool table, watching Kimba and another woman play. A beefy, gray-haired woman mentioned that her friend was in Howard University Hospital because of an irregular heartbeat, and I said I had just been there because I had been rejected by this woman and was so upset that I crashed into a fireplug. The beefy woman said, “Well, it’s standard procedure to keep you in the hospital after a suicide attempt.”
“It wasn’t a suicide attempt,” I said irritably. “It was carelessness. I was just upset and shouldn’t have been driving, and I swerved to avoid a pedestrian and ran into the pole.”
Another woman, with a hollow, sunken face, said, “Well, still, they needed to keep an eye on you for a while.”
“They needed to keep an eye on me because I had a concussion!” I said. “And broken ribs. That’s why I was in the hospital. Because I had physical injuries.”
The two women gave each other knowing looks. I was starting to foam at the mouth but still trying to exercise control. “Why are you guys looking at each other like that?” I said. And the gray-haired one said, “We’re not guys.”
“I am from up north, from the Midwest, and I say ‘guys,’” I said. “Where I’m from, ‘guys’ does not mean ‘men.’ It’s like saying, ‘You all.’”
Bette jumped in. “She’s right,” she said. “You shouldn’t take offense at that. It’s very hard for northerners to say ‘Y’all’ or ‘you all’ for the second person plural. It doesn’t come naturally to them.
I said, “Really! What’s wrong with ‘you guys’? Jesus!” I slammed my drink down on the table and went to the bathroom and kicked the wall, just like Dr. Bobb said I should do. Then I stalked back out and plopped back down on the couch. The hollow-faced woman jerked her eyes back and forth at me like I was a rabid dog and the gray-haired woman said, “Why are you so angry?”
“Why am I angry?” I shouted. “I have a right to be angry! I have recently discovered that my whole damn life has been a sham. I wasted forty years of my life trying to be what other people wanted me to be, and now I have nothing. I have no money, no career, no family, no life. The fucking bitch that I loved with my whole heart and soul hasn’t the faintest interest in me and I MOVED HERE because of her. I’m going to murder her with an ax! And I happen to know that you two women have equally appalling stories. All gay people do, especially gay people of our generation, because we grew up in a time when who we were, our very essence, was considered equivalent to puke and dirt and scum!” Then I lost my head of steam and got sheepish. I really don’t like fighting with people. “Maybe I shouldn’t have cut down on my Zoloft,” I said to Bette.
Kimba, who was playing pool, said over her shoulder, “No, maybe you shouldn’t have.”
Bette said, “Oh, please. That’s the problem with this whole community. We don’t allow ourselves to feel our feelings. I’m sick of it. I grew up in a crazy WASP household with an alcoholic, abusive father and we weren’t supposed to talk about it, ever. I spent my whole life learning to express myself honestly and to stop worrying about what everybody thinks. I think you’re all being very unfair to Joanna.”
“Don’t you guys—excuse me, you all—ever get pissed off about all the crap you took over being gay?” I asked Gray Hair.
“No,” she barked. “My life is my own responsibility and I don’t blame other people for my problems.”
“Oh, really,” I said. “I’ll bet you have irritable bowel syndrome.”
“Wrong,” she said.
“Well, what do you have?” I said. “You must have something.”
Kimba turned again after sinking a shot. “Put a lid on it!” she said.
“She needs to get it out,” said Bette.
“She needs to stop whining and carrying on,” said Kimba. “This is a holiday party. No one wants to hear it.”
“I’ll bet she’s not as healthy as she claims,” I said, ignoring Kimba. “And she—” I said, pointing at the hollow-faced one “—she probably has—what’s that thing everyone has now?” I turned to Bette.
“Fibromyalgia,” Bette said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Fibromyalgia,” I said. “From stuffing everything in.”
“You don’t get fibromyalgia from that,” fumed the hollow-faced woman.
“But you have it, right?”
“Yes, I do have it, and it happens to be caused by environmental toxins.”
“Oh, God,” I said. I started looking at Kimba’s ass as she leaned over the table. “Look at Kimba’s ass,” I said. “It’s cute as hell. Doesn’t she have a cute ass, Bette?”
“She does,” Bette agreed. “It’s adorable.”
“You have a cute ass too, honey,” I said. “Must be jelly, ’cause jam don’t shake like that.”
“My mother used to say that!” Bette said.
“So did mine,” I said. “That’s where I got it.”
My two tormenters left, and some other women came in, and before I had a chance to offend them Bette told me to go shoot pool with Kimba, who had taken over the table. Kimba said, “Are you going to behave?”
“I don’t like behaving,” I said.
Of course, she wiped the table with me. I never shot pool until I became a lesbian and she’s been doing it since she was twelve. But since I was drunk I shot a little better than usual. While we were playing, I heard Bette get into a discussion about how ridiculous the whole lesbian community had become. “We used to be angry,” she said. “We were separatist. We were conscious of what had been done to us. Now we just eat and listen to Melissa Etheridge and shoot pool and talk about our cats and our mortgages and our stupid jobs. And we’re all getting sick, stuffing back our feelings, forgetting what was done to us.”
“Oh, brother,” Kimba said.
“Look at Kimba’s ass,” I said again.
I don’t remember much of what happened after. Kimba drove me back home on her way home to Brookland and I do remember planting a lip lock on her before leaving the car. Today, when I woke up, I remembered the lip lock. I was kind of embarrassed because Kimba and I are just friends, but so what? I don’t care what I do anymore. I’m a wild animal. It’s better than being a robot, which is what I was back in the old days.
They think I’m made of money in this damn house.
Yesterday, when I called my bank to check my balance, I discovered I was overdrawn and my checks were bouncing off the wall. When I asked the representative to go over my charges he found one for $216 from Enterprise Car Rental, which I never authorized.
I screamed about the thieves at Enterprise Car Rental and then I hung up in a huff. It made no sense. Last week Jerome came in here followed by Johnny and Guillermo and one of their thug friends, and he asked me if I could rent a car for them for one day, using my credit card. He said they would pay me in cash. I said no, no, no, and finally I caved in, knowing he would just nag me until I fell over dead. I drove the four of them to the rental place on K Street and paid for a one-day rental and they sneaked off in the car (since I was supposed to be the driver) and I went home.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” Guillermo said. “Jerome said he’d take care of it.”
“What do you mean, Jerome said he’d take care of it? Take care of what?”
“We kept the car for two extra days,” Guillermo said.
I couldn’t believe this. “What’s the matter with all of you?” I yelled. “How could you do that? Do you think I’m rich? You guys owe me two hundred and ninety-eight dollars, which includes exorbitant charges for three bounced checks! Who’s going to give me that money? If I don’t get it, Gerald’s going to kick me out of here because I won’t be able to pay the rent! Has that occurred to any of you lunatics?”
“See?” Guillermo said to his friend. “I told you we shouldn’t keep the car.” He turned to me. “Joanna, I swear. I told Jerome, ‘We can’t fuck up Joanna.’ And he swore to us that he would take care of it. Didn’t he, Petey?”
“Yeah, he did,” said Petey. “He swore.”
“Why did you believe him? You know how he is. And anyway, what were you all doing driving around in a rental car for three days? Delivering laundry? I don’t get this.”
“We were cruising,” Guillermo said. “Jerome picked up this guy that was dreamy, Joanna.” He smiled beatifically.
“I don’t know why you had to go cruising at my expense. Did Nicky know Jerome was tooling around snatching men out of alleys?”
“Oh, it didn’t mean nothing,” Guillermo said. “We were just having fun. Nicky is Jerome’s heart. You know that.”
“Well, I suppose I have to talk to Mr. Big,” I said, and went down the hall to Jerome’s room. He wasn’t in there, but the window was ajar and I looked out and saw footsteps in the melting snow on the fire escape. Jerome must have been listening to our conversation and escaped out the window. I returned to my room and called Nicky and told him what happened. “That bastard was cheating on me?” Nicky said. I rolled my eyes, more concerned at the moment about my $298, although I did feel a little bad for Nicky. I listened to him carry on about Jerome’s “despicable behavior” and then I had to go to work.
When I got home, I found an envelope under my door with a check for $298, signed, of course, by Nicky. I went into Jerome’s room and found him unperturbed by the whole fiasco. “Why did you make Nicky pay for your … indiscretions?” I said. “That’s not right!”
Stretched out on his bed, Jerome looked at me through half-lidded eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Sweet Meat,” he drawled. “He’ll get his money back. Trust me. Do you think I would do anything to hurt my one true love?”
Tonight is New Year’s Eve.
A couple days ago I got a coupon in the mail for a New Year’s Eve party at Colonel Brooks Tavern, an Irish-style tavern in Kimba’s neighborhood known for its conviviality and excellent food. I thought it would be the perfect thing for me and Kimba to do, especially since it’s two blocks from her house and we wouldn’t have to drink and drive.
I called Kimba and got her machine, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard from her in two days. Just as I was hanging up the phone, Jerome appeared in my doorway. He stood there with his arms folded and a proprietary look on his face and said, “Do you know where your girlfriend and my boyfriend are?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I said.
“Yes, you do. And your girlfriend, Kimba, and my boyfriend, Nicholas, happen to be on a romantic weekend in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, getting massages and lying naked in the hot springs.”
I felt vaguely annoyed that I didn’t know anything about this. “What are you talking about?” I said. “Where did you hear this?”
“I just got a call from Nicky,” Jerome said. “Trust me. They are both naked, as we speak.”
This should have been funny, but for some reason I was irritated. Kimba was always flying around in her own orbit, not telling people what she was doing. And Nicky was my friend, not hers. “I can’t believe Kimba didn’t tell me about this,” I said. “What is this? Since when did Kimba and Nicky become bosom buddies?”
“Don’t ask me,” Jerome said. “Sounds like they’re real bosom buddies now. If you catch my drift.”
I had to laugh at this. “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard,” I said. “Maybe they’re naked, but they’re not fucking. Nicky is a fairy. Kimba is a dyke. Hello.”
“That don’t matter,” Jerome said. This scared me. When it comes to sexual matters, Jerome is unassailable.
“You think they’re fucking in Berkeley Springs?” I said.
“That’s what Nicky implied,” said Jerome. “He said he’d only been with a woman once and Kimba is more woman than anyone he’d ever known and her naked body reminded him of a wild leopard.”
“He’s just trying to make you jealous!” I said. “You think you can keep fucking one man after another without Nicky getting upset about it?”
“That’s just business,” Jerome said coolly. I snorted and he said speaking of business he had to tend to some and he left.
Yesterday Kimba called me and asked me if I wanted to go to a poetry reading at Politics and Prose, the leftie independent bookstore on Connecticut Avenue.
“Where were you this weekend?” I said.
“Berkeley Springs,” Kimba said.
“With Nicky?” I asked.
“Yes,” Kimba said in a smug little voice, as though to say, “So what?”
“God, Kimba,” I said. “You and Nicky just run off to Berkeley Springs? I didn’t even know you guys had become such good buddies. It’s peculiar that I wouldn’t even know about this!”
“You don’t have to know everything,” Kimba said. I rolled my eyes. Then she placated me with an explanation. “We had made plans to go to the big flea market in Harper’s Ferry and then we decided to make a weekend of it,” she said.
I still couldn’t understand why no one told me. I like to be in on everything. I was suddenly afraid to ask Kimba if she wanted to go to Colonel Brooks Tavern for New Year’s Eve.
“Listen, I got this coupon for a New Year’s Eve party at Colonel Brooks Tavern,” I said. “I thought you and I could go.”
“Okay,” Kimba said.
“Do you want to invite Nicky?” I asked. I thought maybe she couldn’t get along without her new best friend.
“Fine,” Kimba said inscrutably. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to invite Nicky or not. She drives me nuts sometime. I grew up around Jews who spew out their thoughts as they’re occurring, and Kimba doesn’t speak her thoughts until after she’s processed and organized them, and not even then sometimes. I get nervous when I can’t tell what someone’s thinking.
But Kimba didn’t hesitate to express herself when I asked if we should invite Jerome. “No!” she yelled. And I realized that Nicky and Kimba had probably plotted their weekend excursion to fuck with Jerome’s head.
“Jerome said you two were having a romantic naked weekend together,” I said.
“I told Nicky to call him on his cell phone while we were naked in the hot springs,” Kimba said in her innocent little voice that I knew was accompanied by an evil smile.
“So you two were naked in the hot springs.”
“Yes, but obviously we weren’t fucking.” I felt very foolish for letting Jerome put disorienting thoughts in my head.
Nicky told me he would love to celebrate New Year’s Eve with me and Kimba. I felt a little bad about excluding Jerome, but Nicky said, “If you invite that son-of-a-bitch, I’ll kill you,” and then he came over and (as he told me later) stormed into Jerome’s room, threw Jerome’s bracelet back in his face, and said he was sick and tired of being one of “literally hundreds of men” and being “extorted
every time I turn around.” He concluded by declaring that he never wanted to see Jerome again as long as he lived. So I guess that took care of that.
I’d better stop writing and figure out what to wear tonight. I know. I’ll wear my brown velvet jeans and my silk multicolored shirt that I’ve had since the eighties. The shirt is so retro it’s cool. Not that Kimba will notice. She thinks compliments are gushy. Of course, the flip side of it is, when she gives you one you know she means it.
January 2001
I have no idea what to make of our New Year’s Eve get-together. All I know is that it was a hell of a lot better than last year’s, when I sat in my room alone with a champagne bottle that I couldn’t open, pining for Mrs. Satan.
Unlike last year’s balmy night, Friday it was snowing like crazy, and I felt kind of lonely traveling to Kimba’s on the Metro through the winter night. But my loneliness vanished as soon as I walked in the house and laid eyes on my friend, all decked out in black velvet pants and a green silk shirt and a black vest. Her freshly colored hair was bright and rakish, and she wore dangling silver earrings, which tickled me.
Kimba said she just got off the phone with Nicky and he was changing trains and would meet us at the tavern. “I don’t know what kind of mood he’ll be in,” she said. “He just had another fight with Jerome.” She said Jerome was reneging on his promise to move in with him.
“What?” I shrieked. “Nicky said he just broke up with him!” Kimba gave me a sidelong look that said everything, and I laughed dolefully. “God,” I said. “He’ll rob Nicky blind and give him AIDS and who knows what else. The man has lost his mind.”
“Tell him,” Kimba said, grabbing her bomber jacket.
We walked easily though the snowstorm, two Northeast Ohio girls feeling superior to all the Southerners who were intimidated by snow. We got to the tavern, a big, clean, old place with polished wood floors and tables, and it was full but not crowded. They put us in a booth where we had a direct view of the huge, tastefully decorated Christmas tree. (I’m one of those Jews who appreciates Christmas trees, unlike some of my compatriots who hate them because as children they felt left out of winter holidays, which makes no sense to me because we had Chanukah, and anyway it’s creepy to begrudge gentiles their seasonal joy.)