by Lee Lynch
A snowstorm had been raging, creating a white world that should have been all pristine stillness, but instead had been filled with the muffled scurrying of panicked people trying to get where they were going before they couldn’t move at all. A train hooted, gliding into the Morton River Station on frosted tracks. A few minutes later, a small mob of people in business clothing rushed the parking lot.
“This is way cool!” Maddy had exclaimed as she let go a well-packed snowball that thumped the shoulder of Annie’s parka. They had run into each other near the diner.
“Cool? I’ve give you cool!” she’d replied, grabbing snow from a drift and packing it hurriedly. She’d hurled it at Maddy.
“No fair! You’ve been playing New York softball,” Maddy accused.
“I’ll teach you this spring!” She’d aimed a merciless volley at Maddy who toppled into a snow bank at the side of the road. “You’re in deep doo-doo now, dude!”
“I think you like the falling best of all,” accused Annie, menacing her with another handful of the still-cascading snow. She leapt and washed Maddy’s reddened heavy-browed face with it. Maddy was laughing too hard to do more than wave a feeble protesting hand.
“You win,” Maddy panted.
She dropped the snow, pulled Maddy up and brushed her off. Before she’d even let her go Maddy was bending, like the kid she was, to scoop up more snow.
“Busted!” shouted Maddy.
“Uncle!” cried Annie, worn out.
“That’s auntie to you!” jibed Maddy, but the last snowball came in an acquiescent, half-hearted toss. “Okay, I win. You buy the hot chocolate.”
“I think I’d better, from the looks of you.” She rubbed her burning hands in her wet gloves and threw an arm over Maddy’s shoulders. “Your feet are going to freeze up and break off. Why don’t you wear boots?”
“I have better things to spend my money on, paisan,” Maddy replied, her voice still half-child’s, her face incredibly young looking.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like saving for college.”
Annie’s cheeks burned from walking into the wind-whipped snow. “That’s where I was headed at seventeen,” she told Maddy.
“What happened?”
“I dropped out.”
“Because?”
“If I wanted to be myself at work, I had to take what I could get. By the time I paid rent and my bar tab, there was no money for tuition.”
Maddy had walked by her side, silent, intently listening. Annie remembered digging a soft flannel scarf out of her jacket and wrapping it around her neck and jaw, but her breath had turned the melted snow to tiny ice pellets that chafed her lips. “Anyway, Mad, you can really go places,” she predicted. “You don’t have to drown yourself in liquor to feel good.”
“But I’m a trouble-maker,” Maddy had replied with no small degree of pride. She seated her baseball cap more firmly on her curls. “Ask anybody. Miss Valerie says I’m so disappointed that nobody’s tried to tar and feather me I’ll be disruptive ’til they do.”
“Way to go, Mad.”
“Dig it. Before I ran away, you know, when you met me, I was new to being gay and nervous about letting on to anyone. When I came back and refused to live in the closet I thought I’d get beat up once a week. So I came out at school and guess what happened?”
“What?”
“Nada. Zip. Hey, cool, a couple of the kids said. And girls? They’re practically lining up to go out with me. I mean, this is red neck Morton River. What’s the story? I checked it out with Paris. She said that people know me; they know I’m no threat. Maybe I want to be a threat.”
The noise level of the diner brought Annie back from that snowy day. She looked at Maddy. Under the buzzing stark fluorescent lights of the diner, the kid didn’t look like much of a threat. Giulia, Maddy’s sister, stood over Maddy with a tray of dirty dishes that
threatened to topple. “You’re supposed to be helping Mama tonight,” the waitress said.
“I will, I will, ditz-brain,” Maddy said.
She confided in Annie, “Living with hets is the pits. Especially when they’re nothing but closet cases like my sister.” She mimed sticking a finger down her throat.
“Then why did you come back from New York?” asked Annie.
“Think about it, paisan. With a crop of raving newcomers joining Act Up New York every week? I can see all the activists rushing to Morton River to defend your job. This is where I belong.”
“You’re something else, Maddy,” Annie said, grabbing the kid in a butchy half-hug.
Jo Barker rushed up to them. Tallish, in her late thirties, her light-brown hair stylishly shaped, Jo wore a navy business suit with shoulder pads and a cinched waist. She was delicately made up, fresh looking and stuck out like an orchid in a field of weeds.
“I’m sorry about this,” Annie whispered to Jo. “Exactly what you always wanted, a high visibility, unemployed sweetie.”
Jo gave her a smile that looked like it was left over from her last loan turndown. “Can we get started?” Jo asked with her take-charge air.
Annie felt too conspicuously queer in her jeans and rugby shirt to sit beside Jo. Always with Jo, Annie felt awkward, frustrated and puzzled by Jo’s old-fashioned cold feet when it came to sex. But she couldn’t complain. She didn’t feel altogether ready either.
Elly asked, “When are you going to let me come up and draw your new little pot belly pig, Jo? That’s something Verne might want to paint.”
Jo’s delight showed as she answered, “Just let me know. Rexie’ll want me to put on her ribbon.”
Paris spoke as she and Peg squeezed behind Jo to reach chairs. “Sorry we’re late. Peg had to find a substitute referee for the basketball game in Upton and I had to cover my English-as-a-second language night class.”
Paris and Peg had only been together about two years, but they fit in a way that gave them an air of permanence. Paris was an active environmentalist, adept at obtaining permits and giving press conferences. She was also a femme from Texas, with a seductive air that explained much of her success in public relations.
Peg had about three inches on Annie, and held her spare body very erect. “It’s been a long time since we tried to change the world together, Heaphy,” said Peg. Always the most reserved of the old gang, Peg had become an adult of few words and many generous gestures. She stayed close to her wealthy family, but insisted on keeping her teaching job and was quietly active—and influential—in what passed for gay politics in Morton River Valley.
“Ready to rabble-rouse?” Elly teased.
“I retired from rabble-rousing years ago,” Peg lied.
Gussie quieted everyone with a tap of her water glass. “I won’t embarrass Socrates by claiming that I called on all of you to help only her. What happened today affects every gay person in the Valley. I want you to hear it from the horse’s mouth...” Someone gave a neigh that brought friendly laughter. “...and then I want to come up with a plan. I won’t stand still for this kind of treatment any more and I imagine none of you will either.” Gussie gestured to her. “Start talking, Mr. Ed.”
But Annie couldn’t. “Gus, it’s like saying it makes it true. You tell it. I mean, there’s as much shame in the accusation as there would be if I’d done something.”
“Annie,” America said, “it’s better to spit it out than to swallow this poison.”
Jo gave a quick encouraging smile.
“Okay,” she said and went through it again, remembering details she’d forgotten in the first hasty report to Gussie. When she was done, she could hear the group exhale almost in one breath. She realized that her shame had transformed back into anger. A napkin lay shredded before her.
At the end of the table a compact woman with a halo of springy-looking dark hair and quick eyes said, “That is such bullshit. I’m Cece Green—that’s Cece like in cease and desist,” compact, street-tough Cece told those who didn’t know her. Beside her was ta
ll, ungainly, shy Hope Valerie, a route checker for the bus company. Both were on the diner softball team. “We were right next to you when it happened, Heaphy. You looked more like Lorelei hit you upside the head with a bat than kissed you. It wasn’t your fault.”
Annie shivered in her clothes, still damp from the downpour.
“Of course it wasn’t,” America agreed sharply. “It’s an attack on my kids when they harass you for being gay. And two of mine are gay.”
“Listen,” Annie told them, “I didn’t come to Morton River to cause you trouble. This sucks, but maybe, before it goes any further, I just ought to go back to the city.”
“No way,” Maddy said, offering her hand for a high five. “You’re a Valley girl now.”
They all thought that was hilarious. Willie Nelson began All the Girls I’ve Known on the jukebox.
“As another Valley girl,” Jake said, pulling at his blond beard, “I know these are the same inhumane jerks who won’t fund AIDS research. They can’t see beyond their own issues.” Dusty and Elly’s pharmacist friend, Jake was still weak from a first bout with pneumocystis, but unwilling to relinquish his role as the resident one-liner.
Peg suggested, “Maybe you don’t want to work for a place that depends on funding from homophobes.”
Annie protested, “It was a great job, except for the money. Everyone really cared. I felt proud to be helping.”
“But you can’t just take that sort of treatment. Let’s picket, let the world know they discriminate,” said a college-age woman in a hugely oversized violet and yolk-yellow sweatshirt. “I’m Jennifer,” she explained. “Peg’s cousin.” Annie had heard of this flashy college baby dyke. Peg bragged that Jennifer had been the only out high school cheerleader in the history of the universe.
“Picket?” exclaimed Cece. “I can’t afford to be throwing away my job.”
Venita Valerie slapped the table. She’d come out of retirement to teach math at the Adult Learning Center.
“I’ll join your picket line,” Venita vowed in her whispery voice. “I was the first black teacher here in the valley and believe me; I made the white folks nervous. The principal was threatened, a few parents switched their kids to parochial school, but I kept getting up in front of that classroom and I’ve taught almost every Valley native their arithmetic. They got used to me.”
“This whole deal is dumb.” Elly had covered her napkin with drawings of tiny cups and saucers. “Does anyone know a good lawyer?” she asked.
“I have one,” said Jimmy Kinh, flashing a bright set of dentures too hardy-looking for his delicate face. Jimmy O’ and Jimmy Kinh ran the after hours place. “But I think he works for aliens only.”
Annie said, “I feel like an alien.”
Jimmy Kinh went on. “Before I meet Jimmy O’—”
“Met,” Paris corrected.
“English teacher!” Jimmy chided with a shy laugh. “I used to have trouble finding work. This valley is very afraid of people who are not like them.”
“But picketing?” Peg said, palms up and outstretched. “I know I come from conservative stock, but I’ve paid my dues on picket lines and this doesn’t seem like the time or place. One of our friends is an ACLU attorney in Upton,” Peg offered. “I’ll call her tonight.”
Jennifer, eyes bright with devotion to her cousin Peg, said, “With us in the family, Peg, the Jacobs aren’t conservative stock any more. At least let’s go to the media. Annie needs her job back now, not after a courtroom battle.”
Maddy jumped from her seat and cried, “If they don’t run the story, then we picket!”
“Whoa,” said Paris. “First things first. We go to Judy Wald and tell her we’re going to The Sentinel. If that doesn’t stir things up, we get more rowdy.”
The older people shushed her.
“I am so tired of fighting the whole damned world,” Jake said. He looked close to tears. “We have to fight for our jobs, fight for our lives. Get over it, breeders. People like us are here to stay.”
Paris took his hand. “I’m certainly used to doing battle with this town on environmental issues. If we want to go that route, I know my way around City Hall.”
Annie scowled. “I don’t want to draw the workers into this. Parading around out there with TV cameras on them would disrupt the whole Farm operation.”
“So,” plainspoken, crewcut Jimmy 0’ asked, “does this bitch who runs the Farm have a supervisor?”
“She’s not a bitch, Jimmy,” Dusty, who had finally left the kitchen, said with calm authority. “We’ve worked together on the Special Olympics for years. She knows which end is up with gay people.”
Elly nodded in agreement. “She’s a real nice woman. Maybe it’s P.M.S.”
“Oh, come off it, Elly,” said Maddy. “Was the fire at the Iranian family’s house set because the guy with a match had a headache?”
As if there to settle the issue once and for all, Jo Barker shook her head and pronounced, “There’s something going on that we don’t know about. Paris called when I was in the middle of ten things and I’m sorry, I didn’t make the connection between this meeting and the Farm. I’m chair of the non-profits division for the United Way drive this year. Tonight’s the big meeting with agency heads, including New Way.”
Everyone at the table turned to look at Jo. In the rest of the diner, cups hit china saucers, spoons scraped soup bowls, a little kid slurped through his straw. Several booths down, Giulia called out an order. Annie had never noticed Jo’s worry lines before, the shadows in her eyes. Would she lose her over this before they even got started?
“As a matter of fact,” Jo added, glancing at a thin gold watch, “I should be on my way to the meeting this second.” She looked at Annie. “Talk about a rock and a hard place—they’re all town bigwigs I can’t be out to and expect to keep my career. Except for Judy.” Jo’s frown got deeper. “She knows. We’ve been friends since grade school.”
“Enjoying small town life, Annie?” asked Jake. “It took about a millisecond to get the word out that this fairy pharmacist down at Valley Drug might exhale the breath of death on some customer’s laxative.”
Jo nodded. “I don’t know how to deal with this at all, Annie, but I’ll bring it up to Judy after the meeting.” She rose and pulled a trench coat on, smiling her irresistible smile. “I wish I could stay long enough to buy you a birthday drink.”
“I’ll deal with this, Jo. I don’t like putting you on the spot.”
“Gay people are always on the spot,” Jo said quietly, casting a nervous look at the people in the booths. She left quickly.
Cece Green leaned toward Annie, her black jacket hanging open over a Tina Turner T-shirt. In her hoarse voice she said, “Listen, just in case your pretty lady can’t fix it, I work over at Medipak. I happen to know one of the girls is leaving. She told the boss today. It’s only picking and packing, you know, shampoos and band-aids, like that, but the pay’s okay and we have a good time. Why don’t you come in with me in the morning and see if they’ll put you on?”
“That’s an offer I won’t refuse!” Annie exclaimed. “Thanks.”
Gussie cleared her throat. Her eyes looked tired. “But you love the Farm job.”
Cece answered for her. “Not enough to mess with this town. Like Miss Valerie says, they’re dangerous when they don’t like you.”
“You can call me Venita now, Cece. Third grade was a long time ago.”
“But you were still the only black teacher in my school, Miss Valerie. And I worked twice as hard because it was you.”
“You see!” Maddy cried. “That’s why it’s so important. What if there’s a gay worker at the Farm and Annie’s their only—”
“Keep it down, Mad,” Dusty warned with her kind firm smile. “You’re right, though. We stood up to them once and won.”
Maddy lowered her voice. “Of course I’m right,” she said. “If you back down now, it’s like—”
“—Why should anyone else eve
r fight?” finished Jennifer, frowning at Annie.
Annie was sweating. “I’m not backing off. I need a job to fight this. Begging isn’t exactly a position of strength.”
“That’s my paisan!” Maddy exclaimed. “This is why I came back home.”
“The law is with you,” Paris said. “You can’t be dismissed or lose your home for being gay in this state. Period.”
“But she hasn’t fired me,” Annie reminded them. “She left me hanging on this administrative leave.”
America spat her words. “What a crock.”
“That’s downright sneaky,” Gussie said. “The one time I was terminated for being gay, the owner of the business called me a lezzy pervert and a blight on mankind. I said, ‘If you’re a prime specimen of mankind, then a blight’s just what the doctor ordered. I walked out. He’d just caught me with his tres gay daughter.’”
When the laughter subsided, Jake brought them back to business. “I hate to tell you, honey, but I have a bad feeling about all this. We don’t live in a vacuum. The military had hissy fits about Clinton trying to lift the ban and the fundies are bellowing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Queer controversies won’t blow right over in this ill wind. You may get to be a living breathing lesbian martyr.”
Wasn’t anyone listening to her? “Come on, Jake. Joan of Arc I’m not.”
Cece broke in with a smile, “If you’re talking the saint part, babe, we know, we know.”
Despite the humor behind them, Jake’s words had rung all too true. Her stomach churned. “Crap!” Annie said, yanking off her cap and slamming a fist into it. “Why me? I’ve spent my whole life tiptoeing through het minefields without setting one off, and now I’m the gay lib poster girl. Dirty pool.”
“You’re not alone,” Paris said quietly.
“Maybe today, maybe even a year from now, but what’ll my job be worth if families pull workers out or the funding dries up? And even you guys have to draw the line somewhere.”
“You’ll have a place to live as long as I’m around,” Gussie promised.
“And food to eat,” Dusty added.
Annie set her hat on Gussie’s head with affection. “Do you really think I could live like that? It’s not the seventies anymore. I’ve got some yuppie blood in me and reliving the revolution could get old pretty fast.”