The Off Season

by Amy Hoffman

  “Ha!” said Tony. “You win. Teeny!”

  I took out my pencil and began to sketch on the canvas. “How do you know Miss Ruby, anyhow?” I asked her. “I’ve always wondered.”

  “How does anybody know anybody around here?” said Tony.

  “Oh, come on, Teeny,” I said. Tony grinned. “You guys don’t just know each other, you know, to say hi on the street.”

  “Long story,” said Tony, turning her gaze toward the ceiling, where the past apparently resided, and shaking her head. “I don’t know if I want to go into it.”

  “Sit still!” I said. “There’s time.”

  Miss Ruby, Tony said, was different now from when they had first met. “The smokes, the family history—heart, her mom and dad both died young—it all kind of caught up with her at once. But twenty years ago, Rube was your true hellion. She had that black Iberian hair and the temperament to go with it, and she tore right through the lesbian community. She used to tend bar at the Pied Piper.”

  Tony became thoughtful, almost dreamy. “She had a suede vest she used to wear, with those short fringes, and she was imposing—never beautiful, not Ruby, but she had a kind of magnetism. The summer kids would come into the bar on Memorial Day, and she’d take her pick—a new one each season. You’d see them curled up together on the beach, parading up and down Commercial Street on Ruby’s nights off. And when she was on, the girlfriend would sit at the bar mooning over her, and Ruby would be sending over all kinds of wacky drinks, full of cherries and pineapple spears and oranges and umbrellas, mostly juice really, with just enough booze so the girlfriend would be happy and loving come closing.”

  Tony shook her head. “Oh, man, those college kids didn’t know what hit them, when Ruby took them up. They’d never experienced that kind of womanly attention, you know? There’d be a big scene at the end of August, when Ruby broke it to them that she wasn’t going to write or call—crying and wailing and pitching the glassware. The old barflies used to look forward to it all year. But I’ll tell you something. After it was all over they were goddamn grateful. Some of ’em still drop by. Ruby knew how to treat a girl.

  “That all changed when I showed up. With me she’d met her match. There were some who claimed it was perverted, two butches together. You know, they’d go like this when they saw us.” She made two fists and bumped them together. Wrinkling her nose, she squeaked, “‘But who leads when you dance?’ We paid them no mind. No mind at all.

  “I’d just been dumped out of the service,” she continued.

  “You were in the army?” I said, surprised.

  “You would’ve thought that after spending all that time training me to be a medic they would’ve hung onto me a little longer. That’s why I’m so good on all this health stuff, Nora. It’s my specialty.”

  “So what went wrong?” I asked.

  She looked at me in disbelief. “Are you naïve or what?” she said. She paused, sighed. “Like I was, I guess. There wasn’t any ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ then. Just ‘don’t don’t, don’t don’t.’ You couldn’t tell me a thing, anyway. I was in looove. Like nobody else ever felt that way. My friends tried to warn me, but of course I didn’t listen.”

  “Of course,” I agreed.

  Tony laughed. “Yeah, well. It was my girlfriend who ratted me out, can you believe it? Got herself into a snit one day, went to our CO. Said I wouldn’t leave her alone, was trying to turn her gay.” She paused. “I’ll tell you something. That little so-and-so had turned a long time before I came on the scene.

  “So I wasn’t in the best frame of mind when I washed up here—even though I was excited about it all, couldn’t wait to jump in. You know—P-town! Gay town! No officers, no rules. And Ruby and I were great for a while there, but then it all went south.” Tony looked at me. “My fault.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” I said.

  “No, but I could see you thinking,” said Tony. “I agree. I admit to everything. My fault. I was drinking a lot, to excess, to be honest, brawling and carousing. I didn’t remember the half of it; Ruby would tell me stories in the morning, and sometimes I would actually laugh at her, they were so unbelievable. Shoving people around. Taking over the dance floor and bellowing some song along with the DJ. Curling up in the corner and crying over my lost love, when I had Ruby, right there with her arms around me.

  “What can I say?” said Tony. “You are looking at a genuine fool. One morning I wake up and Ruby’s face is hanging over me like a big swollen moon. Two black eyes. ‘Get out of here and never come back, you pig,’ she says. I denied it up and down, but there she was, right in front of me. The evidence. I had a few bruises myself, but I couldn’t believe how godawful she looked.

  “I went way downhill after that. In the program they say you have to hit bottom, but I had to hit more than once, hard, bounce up and down a few times. Especially after the diagnosis. Ruby took me back for a while, because I was so sick and pathetic, and she’s a good egg.”

  “She took me in too,” I agreed.

  “Look at the damn cats!” she exclaimed. “She can’t stand to see them darting around the streets, all mangy! That’s why we call her Miss!”

  “Miss Ruby,” I said, although Tony’s explanation didn’t make much sense.

  “Right! Out of respect!” said Tony. “Even with her, though, I managed to wear out my welcome.” She stopped.

  I waited, but she didn’t say anything more. Finally I asked, “So then what?”

  “Then nothing,” said Tony. “The end. They all lived unhappily ever after.” She stood up and stretched, and came around to my side of the easel. “Let’s see what you got.”

  “It’s just a sketch. It’s not finished.”

  “Do the scars in red,” she advised me.

  Signatures

  Then suddenly everything was fine, and all the frustrations of life fizzled away like raindrops in the sun, because my Baby came back to me.

  Well, to be honest, I went back to her. Sulking in my studio and working myself into a jealous frenzy just couldn’t compare with spending a day with Baby, who lit up everything we did and made it an adventure, from having sex to picking up a few rolls of cash register tape at the hardware store for her shop.

  I hadn’t had to do anything dramatic. I went for a walk past Baby’s store one afternoon after completing an early shift, and there she was, dusting the jewelry cases, humming along to the golden oldies radio station, occasionally bursting out with the backup, oo just a little bit / mmm just a little bit / sock-it-to-me sock-it-to-me sock-it-to-me . . . When I walked in, even before giving me an enthusiastic hug, she tak-tok-ed quickly to the door and turned the “open” sign to “closed.”

  A while later as we lay in her bed, Baby nuzzling my ear, her hand on my breast, she murmured, “I never left you, Nora.” Her hand moved down to stroke my belly.

  “But I felt like you did.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “No,” I agreed. “Oh. Yes. There,” I said.

  I can’t say it didn’t hurt to think of her going, sometimes right after she and I had been together, to meet Broony, of all people. And I could no longer fool myself: There had been me; there was Broony; there would be others. Hadn’t that been clear from the first moment she had picked me up? Her frank flirtatiousness was what had attracted me—and it was what would get me in the end.

  “I have something for you,” she said. “Something special.” She rolled away from me and reached over to her bedside table.

  “Something from the store?” I guessed. “My ears aren’t pierced, you know. Maybe you could do them for me.”

  “No way,” said Baby. “You think I haven’t noticed your innocent little earlobes? It’s nothing like that.” She handed me a packet, and I tore it open. Inside were five pages of petitions, twenty signatures to a page. Town meeting.

  “You’re incredible!” I said. “How did you get these?”

  Baby wiggled her nose, like the witch used to
do on the old TV show, to perform her magic. The xylophone would play a little trill, and I swear I heard it then. “I have my ways,” she said.

  I didn’t ask any more questions—although I should have—and just gave her a big hug and a smooch. My mind started racing. I would have to write a proper anti-mosquito-spraying resolution and round up some of the petition signers Baby had somehow materialized to speak up at the meeting. And I needed to talk to Janelle, not through Roger and not on the deli line. She was going to have to sit down calmly and listen to me, so we could strategize. “Is there anything to eat?” I asked Baby. “Or should we just go down to Spiritus?”

  “Mmm,” said Baby, pulling me toward her. “Just cuddle with me for a minute, like a good little lesbian.” Naturally, though, one thing led to another, and we never did go out to Spiritus or anywhere else. She grabbed and clung and clutched me to her, panting hard in my ear like she was swimming the harbor, my hand up so deep inside her it was like I held her beating heart. “Oh, you sweet,” Baby murmured synaesthetically. “Oh Nora, oh delicious.”

  I bet she doesn’t talk to Broony like that, I thought.

  Where Baby Comes From

  The next morning I told Baby she owed me a favor, although that actually wasn’t clear: She had gotten mixed up with Broony, but I had sulked and made myself scarce; she had welcomed me with open arms and loved me and given me petitions, and I? Well, I had made our breakfast coffee. “Sit for me?” I asked. “I’m getting a clearer idea of how my piece is going to work, and I want to draw you again.” Really I had a perfectly fine sketch to work from, but I no longer wanted Baby to be wearing her swimming getup in my mural.

  “Sure,” said Baby. “Last time was fun—I love watching artists at work.”

  I noted the plural, then tried to put it out of my mind by bustling efficiently around the kitchen. “Okay, okay, great,” I said, grabbing Baby’s mug.

  “Hey, I wasn’t done with that,” said Baby. “What’s the rush all of a sudden?”

  “Sorry. I’ll go over to the studio and set up,” I yelled over the water I was running in the sink. I washed and dried the mug, poured in the last dregs of coffee, and handed it back to her.

  Baby took her coffee with lots of sugar and cream. “Cold,” she said. “What’s the point of a lovely slow breakfast if you’re going to run off?” She reached over and took my hand. “Come back and sit down, sweet girl.”

  I kissed her cheek and extricated myself. “Meet me over there in an hour or so?” I said. I wanted to walk and clear my mind of plural artists and swimming competitions before sitting down at my easel.

  I had barely gotten my pencils out when Baby showed up. “Let’s do this,” she said, settling into the chair and crossing her legs so her red cowboy boots were the first thing that struck you when you looked at her—or at least, that’s how I drew her that day, with her long legs and boots as the focal point.

  “I want to know about your name,” I said, although I knew Baby liked to keep a certain air of mystery about her biography.

  “I told you,” said Baby. “I’ll show you my birth certificate, if you want.”

  “No, but don’t most parents have a name picked out?” I persisted. In fact, I didn’t have a clue about most parents, as I and most of my friends had been just that much too old for the lesbian baby boom. Or too broke or too preoccupied with love or art or politics. It wasn’t an option we had ever thought we would have.

  “My name’s fine,” said Baby. “Just think of me as risen from the sea on a scallop shell. You know, without their influence.”

  “That bad?”

  “Kind of.” Baby nodded. “Pentecostals.” They hadn’t been at first. Baby’s parents were the rebels of their families, zooming around the West Tennessee back roads in a rattletrap Ford, drinking cheap vodka. “They were always hoping to come across a still, where they could buy illegal moonshine,” said Baby. “But there really wasn’t much of that going on by then; it was more of a myth.” They dropped out of high school, which no one particularly minded; the last straw came when Baby’s mother forgot to take out her earrings and wash off her makeup before tottering home from a date one night. “My grandparents didn’t hold with jewelry,” said Baby. “You know. A woman’s hair is her crowning glory, and she needs no other adornment.” She ran her fingers through her own thick hair, resettled it on her shoulders, smiled at me.

  I blew her a kiss. “Keep your face turned toward me,” I said. “Like that.”

  “It was pretty predictable what happened after that,” said Baby. “They shacked up together and kept on with the wild times until my ma got pregnant. But then after I was born, they repented. They wanted back into the fold. My ma in particular, she was so young, she wasn’t going to be able to raise me without some help and advice. My grandpa baptized the whole family together. He was a minister, believed in total immersion.

  “My pop, especially, got way drawn into the mystery and thrill of it. He was hot to start handling serpents.”

  “To what?”

  “It’s totally primitive; I can’t even begin to explain it. In church they’ll be singing and the minister will be sermonizing, and then some of the women start speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor, and the deacons bring in the snakes—they’re in a big box, and they dump them out on the altar, and the men take them up. It’s quite a thing to see.”

  Baby looked at me deadpan. “God protects them, Nora.”

  “He does?” I said. There had to be a scientific explanation, I thought. Does a pet snake recognize its keeper? Or more likely it was outright fraud: the snakes drained of venom or replaced with harmless ones before being produced in the sanctuary—something like that. I stepped back and squinted at my drawing on the easel, stepped forward again and began filling in the crosshatching on Baby’s jeans, to convey the shape of her thighs.

  “Of course not,” said Baby. “They get bit all the time.”

  “People are nuts,” I said.

  “Well, they’re crazy up here too, just not like that, mostly—one reason I love it,” Baby agreed. “There was a big minister in the church who got snakebit and died. But they all decided it wasn’t because he was a sinner or anything. God called him, you know? It was his time. My ma used to say she was rejoicing for him.

  “We’d have to talk Pop down. Anybody could see from his life he’d never been particularly blessed, so we figured the snakes would just lead to another disaster. They raise them, you know, in these big aquariums in the living room. I’ve been in those houses; there’s a weird smell, and every once in a while the snakes start twitching their tails and sticking out their tongues.”

  “Ick,” I said.

  “Oh, no, I was fascinated by them when I was a kid,” said Baby. “The grown-ups were always shooing me away. It’s funny, though—we were all deathly afraid of encountering rattlers and things in the woods. My ma had a fit if I wandered out of the backyard. Which I did all the time, or down the road.

  “They could see where I was headed, I guess. On my fifteenth birthday they decided to drive out my demons.”

  Of course Baby would have demons. I sketched a little one with horns sticking out of its dyke crewcut, leering over Baby’s shoulder.

  “My parents invited a bunch of their church friends over to the house, and they all put their hands on my head and prayed over me. But my demons were very stubborn.”

  “I’d expect nothing less,” I said, drawing a fat one clinging to Baby’s ankle, with big breasts and hoop earrings and the wings of a gull. “But how could they tell?”

  “Oh, who knows? They could see it in my eyes or something. My parents weren’t bad people, Nora. They really believed they were doing good and raising me right, but from the beginning it was clear that I wasn’t like them. It was like they’d hatched themselves a duck instead of a swan.”

  “A swan instead of a duck, you mean.”

  “Is that how that story goes?”

  “Absolutely, sweet
heart,” I said. “The ducks can’t see the beauty of the swan.”

  “My grandpa actually believed I was a changeling child—that the devil had switched me before he baptized us. He brought that story to my ma, the superstitious old goat! After, you know, my demons didn’t leave. But she stuck up for me—she’d given birth to me, after all; she knew where I came from.

  “All I knew was I could never live like them. I didn’t have the faith. And husband, kids, garden, church? Hanging laundry and pulling weeds, day after day? Putting up the harvest in the fall? People up here think a garden’s fun, but down there, it’s survival. You ever listen to their hymns?”

  “We don’t sing a lot of hymns in Brooklyn,” I said.

  “Every single one of them is about how they’re going to rest when they get to heaven. They had a hard life up there in the hills.” Baby sighed. “You can guess what happened next.”

  “How could I possibly?” I said. What came after serpents and changelings?

  “I ran off with my senior-year English teacher. A lovely woman. Or girl, I should say. She wasn’t much older than I was, really, and we adored each other. She’d come down to help the poor and hungry.”

  “Your English teacher.”

  “I stopped thinking of her as that pretty quickly,” said Baby. “It was so romantic, being desperate, on the run—although we weren’t ever in any danger. Well, except from my grandparents, maybe. They thought Sally was the literal devil.”

  “Not your parents?” I asked.

  “Not really. It was weird,” said Baby. “My ma cried a lot, and so did I, but in the end she blessed me. ‘You’re a woman, Baby-Marie, and you’ll make your own way in this world,’ she said, and I’ve held that in my heart ever since.

  “Sally and I banged around the country for a while—she had driven this old Chevy wagon down to us in Appalachia, so we had her wheels. And then one night in a bar in Cincinnati or some such godforsaken place, this ancient dyke in a leather cowboy hat with a turkey feather stuck in the band—I’ll never forget her, Nora. Her face was as wrinkly as a prune, and she started telling Sally and me tales of this place, the sea and the light and the lesbians holding hands in the street. She was trying to sweet-talk us into coming home with her, but it was like she’d switched on a single light bulb over both our heads, and our minds were elsewhere. So she got insulted and went off to get the bouncer, and he threw us out for being underage and for tormenting the regulars.