People in Trouble

by Sarah Schulman

  ‘Boy, I’m glad I don’t still live here. The city looks awful.’

  ‘I still like it.’

  ‘You’re too loyal,’ Pearl said.

  ‘Well, it’s never boring. We had to go on rent strike because of Frankie in apartment twenty. The fucked-up guy with the weird leg.’

  ‘The one who got shell-shocked in World War Two and lived with his mother?’

  ‘Yeah, Pearl, that’s him. So he asked a neighbor to help him fill out his disability form and she found out that he lives on three hundred dollars a month, paying one hundred and fifty for rent. He can’t afford electricity and eats all his meals at the Ukrainian Senior Center where dinner is a dollar. Then he tells her that after his mother died the landlord told him to move because his name’s not on the lease. So, we went on rent strike and when we won he bought the building two six-packs of Budweiser. That’s eight dinners at the Senior Center. Then this other thing happened with my bicycle. Did I tell you already? Why are you laughing?’

  ‘No, you didn’t tell me already,’ Pearl said, smiling. ‘This is exactly what I want to hear. Tell me about the bicycle.’

  ‘Well, Pearl, every day I lock my bike under the stairs. Then one day the tires were slashed. I excused it because the bike had been purchased hot for twenty dollars so naturally I had to expect a degree of bad karma.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘But I was sure that the initial slashing would neutralize it. So, I replaced them and they were slashed again.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘So I posted a sign in the lobby of the building saying, ‘This Is Our Home. It Should Not Be a Place Where Bicycles Get Slashed.’ And my tires got slashed again.’

  ‘I have to say I’m not surprised.’ Pearl’s nose was red from the December cold.

  ‘But I wouldn’t give in,’ Molly continued, ‘to the idea that someone could continually slash my tires forever, so over and over again I replaced them.’

  ‘Molly, you never change,’ Pearl said. ‘You never ever change. You never give up. I know no one as desiring as you. So, you spent your paycheck on someone else’s destruction fetish because you won’t carry the bike up a few flights of stairs to the safety of your apartment.’

  ‘Look, I know it’s a symbol of something inside me that has wrong and neurotic instincts, but I could not accept that my home was a place where a person could not park their bicycle.’

  ‘And what did Kate say about all of this?’

  ‘I didn’t tell her,’ Molly said, trying not to look too sheepish, but finally giving in to some kind of embarrassment. ‘It’s too symbolic.’

  ‘You’re still being hurt by this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Molly, listen to me. I’m your best friend and I’ve been watching you going down over this married woman for too long.’ They were having one of those intense conversations that New Yorkers carry on in public places and still have privacy because everyone around them has heard it all before.

  ‘Molly, you are a dyke. You do hear me? You have always been a dyke. You have never been that straight couple in the movie theater. Realistically, how are you ever going to pull it off with a straight woman?’

  ‘But I love her.’

  ‘So, you can love someone else who’s not going to make you feel like a freak. Get a lover who likes being gay and you’ll be a lot happier.’

  ‘What is this, West Side Story? I feel like you’re telling me not to date one of the Sharks. She loves me.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s true.’

  They started walking again but had to wait at a traffic light while an animal rights demonstration passed by. There seemed to be a thousand people in vinyl shoes yelling in thick New York accents ‘Fur is murdah! Fur is murdah!’

  ‘So,’ Pearl said, much more softly, ‘what about the tire cutter?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Molly woke up, getting back in step. ‘Yeah, so everyone in the building began to talk about the slasher. Tony, the black guy on the fifth floor, the old one, asked if I’d caught him yet. The yuppie in number ten who is paying fifteen hundred a month asked if I’d called the police. Ralph, the junkie in apartment eight, asked if I had any suspects. Maritza, the super, asked why in the hell I didn’t move my bike. And Kyle, the asshole in apartment one, asked me who I thought had done it. So, I decided that the people who had wondered if I had any suspects were suspects.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘This is New York City, why would anyone care that much unless they were guilty?’

  ‘I follow your logic.’

  ‘So, Pearl, I told Ralph and Kyle that I had narrowed it down to the two of them and only they, therefore, knew which one really did it. Then the slashing stopped.’

  ‘What a step forward for strategic idealism.’ Pearl laughed. ‘It is the triumph of good over evil,’ Molly said. ‘Isn’t it? I guess that can happen every once in a while.’

  ‘Oh, Molly,’ Pearl said, ‘I’m so glad you’re alive.’

  19

  KATE

  Kate took off all her clothes and stood in front of the mirror. She moved her head until she got the best angle: chin down, eyes wide, slightly angelic. Then she pulled the loose skin away from her eyes and opened the window. Her neck was getting veiny but it was either that or the beginnings of an extra thickness around the waist. She stood back from the glass and viewed her entire self. That body had become her pleasure dome, every act of it. She was doing something powerful. She was completing her sexuality. Her love for men was still intact but then there was this other set of relations.

  Kate wandered around the studio touching her own objects. She tightened the glue, moved her charcoals over by the window. Kate gathered her sponges and dumped them into the sink. She washed her hands then, still naked, and picked up the magazine Molly had given her. She caught herself in the mirror again and then opened the magazine. Molly had handed it to her one late night after a guided tour of all the lesbian bars below Fourteenth Street.

  ‘This is the Cubbyhole,’ Molly had said, starting with a loud, overpriced butcher-block place on Hudson Street. ‘It should be called the Glove Compartment. It mostly attracts graphic artists and luppies. That’s lesbian yuppies in case you didn’t know.’

  There was a video box there, where for fifty cents patrons could watch the video of their choice. She recognized some names, others weren’t that familiar. They watched Madonna singing ‘Material Girl.’ Molly had called it a classic.

  ‘Oh, Molly.’

  ‘What’s the matter? You know what’s weird about this place? It has too many fish tanks.’

  ‘Look,’ Kate said, pointing to the front door. ‘That woman, I know her. That’s Susan Hoffman. Her husband is a sculptor. Susan! Hey Susan!’

  ‘Kate, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Just stopped in for a drink.’

  She could feel Molly standing next to her but Kate just didn’t want to introduce them. She felt pressured.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Isn’t this strange,’ Kate said. ‘All these women dressed up like this. I mean, it’s nice.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Susan said. ‘Nice.’

  Then Kate noticed that Susan was dressed up too.

  ‘How’s Dan?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Pete’s fine too.’

  ‘That’s good. Oh, there’s my friend. See you later.’

  ‘Will I see you and Dan at Jack’s party on Saturday night?’

  ‘Yeah, we’ll be there.’

  ‘So will me and Pete.’

  ‘See you then.’

  ‘See you.’

  Kate felt disoriented as she watched Susan negotiate her way across the bar.

  ‘Isn’t that great?’ she said to Molly.

  ‘Isn’t what great?’

  ‘That a straight woman like Susan can feel comfortable coming to a place like this.’

  ‘Why didn’t you introduce me? By the way, she’s not straight.’

 
‘Of course she is. I know her husband.’

  ‘She knows yours. Kate, look at the way she moves through the crowd. See how she touches the women as she moves past them and smiles sweetly. Watch. I’ll bet you anything that’s her girlfriend.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘That femmy girl with the great earrings. See, wait, yep, watch that smooch. She came here to meet her lover.’

  Kate stared at the door for a minute and then drank down her four-dollar beer.

  ‘But I know her husband.’

  ‘You think you’re the only closeted married woman in New York City?’

  ‘I am not closeted.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘How weird about Susan,’ Kate said. ‘It makes me feel like I don’t really know her. Like I don’t have any idea of who she is.’ Molly didn’t say a word.

  ‘This is Kelly’s,’ Molly told her, bringing them to a remodeled overpriced bar across Seventh Avenue. ‘It used to be exclusively for jocks. But since the renovation it got taken over by collegiate dyklings. Everyone here is femme.’

  ‘How can you tell who’s femme?’

  ‘That’s the question of the year. After a while you just know. Usually it’s the one who puts her arms around the other woman’s shoulders when they’re dancing.’

  ‘Which one of us is femme?’

  ‘Neither. That’s a joke. It’s too early to tell because you still act straight. You have to be out a little longer before these subtle nuances take shape.’

  ‘Why are you always telling me what I’m going to become and what I’m going to think? How do you know?’

  ‘You can bitch at me now, but later you’ll see.’

  This time Kate kept silent.

  ‘This is the Duchess,’ Molly said, dragging Kate in past the craggy-faced Israeli bouncer charging cover at the door.

  ‘See how the windows are painted black?’ Molly narrated. ‘It’s nostalgia for the mud.’

  They had to pay a five-dollar cover, even though it was a Wednesday night and there were only three people in the whole place besides the bouncer.

  ‘This dive is world-renowned for being overpriced and for having flooded bathrooms. There is usually some girl on black beauties breaking up with her girlfriend over the pay phone. It happens so often I used to think it was the same girl and they put her on salary for atmosphere.’

  ‘So what’s next?’ Kate asked, sincerely wondering.

  They ended up at Tracks, a three-story gay entertainment emporium in the middle of nothing over by the river. At the front door was a sign clearly posted: This Is a Gay Bar for Gay People.

  ‘It’s gay-owned,’ Molly said. ‘Unlike some of those previous establishments. This is a chain. They have one in Washington, D.C. I think they have one somewhere else too, like Texas. It’s kind of like a homosexual Howard Johnson’s. But it has one thing in common with all those squeezeboxes and Mafia-owned dumps.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s overpriced.’

  But it was inside that Kate found another difference.

  ‘There are so many black women here,’ she said after ten minutes of fascinated silence. ‘And they’re so incredibly dressed up. I would never think half these women were gay if I saw them walking down the street.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, they’re just so elegant.’

  ‘Femme, you mean. You think the butches look gay and the femme ones don’t.’

  ‘I still don’t see which is which.’

  ‘It’s like when people first looked at Impressionist paintings and they couldn’t see the water lilies. You’ll get used to it. Here’s a shortcut. Which ones are you most attracted to?’

  ‘That one,’ Kate said. ‘That woman is really beautiful. Look at her. Look at her mouth. And her, with the leather earrings. Oh, look at that tall one with the long legs and red plaid kilt. She’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Those are all hutches.’

  ‘Even the one in the skirt?’

  ‘Yep, now you know how to tell.’

  They danced for a while but mostly stood around.

  ‘That woman over there,’ Kate said. ‘That woman is so beautiful I can’t believe it.’

  ‘So, ask her to dance.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Of course you can, Katie. This is a lesbian bar. That’s why we’re all here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes!’

  But at that minute a young strawberry blonde in a leather miniskirt and silky cream top came over and asked Molly to dance instead.

  Kate watched them for a while, the way they picked up each other’s rhythm and figured out how to move together. They figured it out rather quickly.

  What do you know? she thought. Molly dances hot with everyone. It’s not just me. That’s the way she dances.

  And for the first time ever, Kate felt jealous.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, cutting in abruptly, ‘but I have to dance with my girlfriend.’ And took her to the floor, noticing immediately that Molly’s arms went around her neck.

  Then Molly announced one last stop.

  ‘Where could we possibly be going now?’

  ‘Shopping.’

  ‘At one thirty in the morning?’

  ‘You know this city never sleeps. Anyway, it’s a vintage gay porn store. You know that necessities stay open later than frivolous indulgences.’

  Kate felt one second of resistance before walking through the front door.

  ‘It’s fine in here,’ she said, without thinking.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I guess I might have been expecting sleazy old men jerking off into telephone booths.’

  Then she realized that she was surrounded by cocks. Mostly big ones. Mostly on beautiful young men. She started flipping through some of the magazines.

  ‘This is how I know I’m not a lesbian,’ Kate said. ‘Because I’m turned on by cock. I like cock.’

  ‘All right, Kate,’ Molly said.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re not.’

  ‘You can’t be alive in the modern age and not associate sex with big dicks,’ Molly said.

  ‘Well, I like it.’

  ‘Good for you. Does Peter have to hear you say, “I like pussy”? Bet not.’

  ‘Well, I like cock.’ Kate said it again. She liked saying it. It made her sound dirty and polymorphously perverse.

  ‘Have you ever said to Peter, “I like pussy”?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said. ‘It has never occurred to me to say that. It wouldn’t be appropriate.’

  Then she felt uncomfortable.

  ‘Where’s the women’s stuff?’ she asked.

  ‘Ask the guy behind the counter.’

  The first thing that she noticed about the guy behind the counter was that he had Kaposi’s lesions on his face. She knew that’s what they were from pictures she had seen and some sideways glances at deteriorating men on the street, but never on the face of someone she had to interact with in an equal way. How great, she thought. How great of this place to let him keep working like that. Then she remembered that this was a gay place, so that particular brand of compassion could probably be expected. She wondered how many other people in the store had AIDS.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, looking past the man’s lesions to see his real face. ‘Where is the lesbian section?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, smiling as if nothing was wrong, nothing at all. ‘Unfortunately most so-called lesbian porn is made by men for men but if you look over the really old material from the fifties and sixties there is some that’s fun.’

  He came out from behind the counter and led her over to a solitary bin behind the videos.

  ‘Here, for example, is a 1962 picture book disguised as a socially conscious exposé. See, here is a classic black-and-white of two women eating each other.’

  He put it into her hand and walked away.

  The caption said, ‘Lesbians are often better cunnilinguists than m
en.’

  That’s true, she thought suddenly and was surprised.

  When it was time to close up, Kate saw Molly making a huge effort to be in a good mood, since they only had an hour to get home and make love before Kate had to leave. On the way out Molly handed her a magazine she had bought and wrapped up in a paper bag, making her promise not to open it until she got home. That had been a week ago. She’d opened it a dozen times since then. It was a collection of transsexuals in various poses.

  ‘I found this when you were looking at the muff-divers and thought of you immediately,’ Molly had said.

  It was packed with photos of euphorically happy men in sexy, slimy, girly getups with hard pricks and big boobs. They looked so turned on. They turned her on with their dicks and tits, how excited they were.

  Kate watched herself masturbate in front of the mirror. Her face showed great pleasure. She could rock down on her hips and swing into a low moan. She could dance around her studio being led by her own hand. When she masturbated against the white wall, her skin was so white that a voyeur would see no separation until the eyes. When she danced along the purple wall, the wall the color of greengage plums, she was a body tumbling over an ocean like the flying musicians of Chagall paintings. She masturbated. She could feel her orgone rushing inside her like a waterfall, like crowds of teenage girls held back from the Beatles, who, suddenly in a tearful frenzy, break free of the police and lose control. She was open in every way. There were no obstacles. She was streaming. Love streams.

  20

  MOLLY

  Pearl and Molly walked toward the church in Chelsea where so many men who had died of AIDS had their funerals. It was one of the first places to open their business to people with AIDS and their lovers. So it had become a safe environment for these most private of events.

  The women were not talking about Jeffrey and they were not talking about AIDS. They had said everything they needed to say. All the rest would have been repetition because, after a point, there really was no way to resolve any of this. They had made love and cried and woken up together and lain about and eaten breakfast and talked about Jeffrey and gotten dressed.