The Swashbuckler

by Lee Lynch

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Edie said, sitting as if to listen better.

  She’s not really pretty, I thought. She had the kind of dark blonde hair you see on magazine covers, but her face was too full of real life to make it magazine pretty. Her nose wasn’t big, but it was strong. It said, I’m a nose, not some cute little thing stuck on here. Her eyes weren’t that big, but they were so deep you didn’t notice their size. Her mouth was full, with plenty of surface for kissing. I smiled. This was a lot of woman for little Frenchy.

  “I don’t know if I can explain what I mean,” I said. “I’m like Frenchy too, which is how I know what I mean. But so much else has gone on in my life I can’t just be gay. Frenchy doesn’t let anything happen to her she can’t control.”

  “Do you mean she’s like a very religious person, but instead of converting other people to Orthodoxy or Jesus or Buddha, it’s gayness?”

  “Kind of. Only I don’t know how much converting she does,” I said, laughing. “She’s either with straight people she’s not out to, or gay people who already saw the light.”

  “She converted me.”

  “She bring you out?”

  Edie blushed and nodded as she poured the water.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I more or less went looking, so it wasn’t a difficult conversion.” She smiled. “But her performance kept any doubt from creeping back.”

  We laughed and it felt good to laugh together. It felt good to be laughing, period. I hadn’t felt so comfortable in a long, long time. And I wanted to hug Edie. Not make it with her, just hug her for giving me this. But she was fussing with the tea kettle so I just watched her in her cozy warm kitchen. “See, Frenchy’s whole life is built around being gay,” I went on. “All week she suffers through life with her mother so she can have a day or two of freedom at the end. So the gay part of her life, of herself, gets really big to her. Everything else in her life means whatever it does because she’s gay. It’s the end, not the way to get to the end. I know I’m not saying this too good.”

  “No, go on, I’m beginning to see what you mean. Like the person who wakes up with prayers, goes to shul, thinks of his friends as a quorum, follows the dietary laws, and on and on. She’s self-conscious. Constantly aware of her ‘religion.’ But with the Jew, these are rituals in a life filled with marriage and work and kids. For Frenchy, the ritual is her life.”

  “So she’s not all on the surface, Edie. She just talks about what means a lot to her.”

  “And if there were lesbian books and movies like straight people have, Frenchy would have a lot more to talk about.” Edie stopped smiling. “Being a lesbian is almost as bad as being a Jew in Nazi Germany. You couldn’t talk openly about it. You couldn’t write about it. If you suffered, everybody ignored you. Or they put you in jail for it.”

  I shuddered. “I never thought about it like that. It’s like being a Puerto Rican in the States, too,” I said, thinking of my dead father and then of Frenchy. “You have to hide who you are to make a decent living.”

  “To survive.”

  “Frenchy will survive all right.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I never met anybody so strong-willed. Except me. And she’s got me beat.” My mood began to sag. I remembered the sickening feeling of being humiliated. Yet there were the warm feelings I had talking about Frenchy.

  “I worry about her, Mercedes. What’s going to happen when she comes up against a situation where she has to give a little? Be flexible?”

  “Wish I knew,” I said. I felt tired again.

  “Maybe we ought to finish this talk another day and get some sleep,” Edie suggested.

  I yawned. “What about Esther?”

  “It’s too late. I don’t think she’ll come now. We both have to get to work in the morning.”

  “Listen, get me up when you leave and I’ll clear out.”

  “No,” Edie said firmly. “I want you to stay longer. You need the rest. Your friend brought you enough clothes for a few days. I think this will do you good. Besides, I want you to meet Esther.”

  I started to say no, but she interrupted. “And I like your company. I’m lonely here by myself.” Edie smiled at me. “To answer your earlier question, Esther doesn’t live here because we’re not ready for that.”

  “Okay.” I smiled back, not wanting anything more than to stay under her wing, in her houseful of friendly ghosts.

  * * * * *

  The next few days I felt safe for the first time in years. I didn’t have to leave the house to be with gay people and nobody in the house or within miles of me was out to hurt me.

  Esther was just as nice as Edie said. I’d never hung out with a black girl who’d gone to college — a teacher — and it made me sad I didn’t get to go because my father died. I knew I could be smart like Esther and Edie. I could be earning good money to bring Lydia up in a safe place in Queens. But I might not’ve had Lydia. Maybe it was better to have my daughter than a college education.

  The times I tried to thank Edie, to tell her and Esther how good all this made me feel, they would say I could have it too, I could go back to school and be a teacher or something. That made me feel small again. How could I do that? Soon now I had to get it together again to get a job and support Lydia the best I could. After eight hours on a sewing machine, or packing fish in a cold room, you think I could stay awake in a classroom?

  So as the days went on I got depressed again. The house began to seem lonely when Edie was at work. I started feeling left out of their love. Not that I should be included in, but I didn’t have a girl of my own.

  And I kept thinking about Frenchy. And what me and Edie said about her. Maybe she felt trapped in the life she was living and was restless to get out of it. She knew I was butch. It wasn’t like her to break the rules she followed for so long. Yet she wanted me all the same. She knew I wasn’t the type to turn femme, but maybe that was the only way she thought she could have me. And wasn’t it? Maybe not, I thought. She did show me I was willing to be something besides butch all the time, but I’ve got to have a little respect too and be treated like myself, not like a femme, you know? There’s nothing wrong with being treated like a femme unless you’re not one. I mean, it’d be like dressing my personality up in drag, to all of a sudden get my cigarettes lighted and for me to do all the cooking. But that’s not exactly what I mean either.

  Take lighting cigarettes. I think it’s really sexy to light a girl’s cigarette. You touch her hand, she touches yours; you look in her eyes, she looks in yours. She breathes out the smoke in a certain sexy way from the side of her mouth because she’s close to your face. You light your own cigarette to give yourself some time to breathe, to cool down and get back in control. By looking away, leaving the girl looking at you lighting your cigarette in this real butch flick of the match operation, she’s now a little unsure of herself. She’s digging you, but you’re looking away from her, so she doesn’t know if what she saw in your eyes was real or not, if it’ll be there when you turn back, if she should turn away fast so you don’t see her come-on look. You’re wondering the same kinds of things, and thinking maybe you should say see ya and walk away. Or else you risk it and your eyes meet again and the lovelight’s still shining and you’re in love, at least for the night.

  So all these little moves the girl made and you made, all the ones I left out here, they’re all important. And who makes which move is important to me, right or wrong. I just happen to like the butch moves. You both get your cigarettes lighted, you both get to send signals, you both get to decide if you’re going to risk it or not and you can both win if the risk pans out. But I don’t even know how to do it like a femme. It must be a whole different feeling, giving a come-on look, getting your cigarettes lit. Probably feels just as good, just as turned-on, just as in control. But I like that little edge of being in charge, that make-believe feeling that it’s up to me in a certain way, the bigger risk of know
ing the first move is up to me.

  So nobody’s going to make me be femme.

  But, I don’t need for the other girl to be femme, either. I don’t need to go through that particular operation. If two girls who are butch want to make it together, I don’t see why they couldn’t have a whole different way of doing it. Hell, maybe if butch and femme are going out of style, cigarettes will go out of style too and we’ll all be a little healthier. I have no stake in keeping things the way they are.

  Frenchy now, it’s a lot more important to her. Who we do things with is, I think, as important to her as the way we do things. I think I put her on notice that if she wants me it can’t be the way she’s used to. I’ll change for her, but she’s got to change too. And I don’t know if she can. So I’m knocking around this big empty house wishing and hoping.

  And listen, except for these times of depression I was getting better. I felt better than I had in a long time. While I was staying at Edie’s, my shrink at the outpatient clinic in Elmhurst put me on a lighter medication. The only thing was, I wanted a girl. But I only wanted damn Frenchy. I thought of asking the shrink what I should do, but you know how they are: he would’ve told me I was changing into more of a real woman by wanting a butch. Next step I’d be wanting a man. He didn’t know shit about being gay.

  I kept putting off leaving Edie’s, figuring how I could live like this with Lydia. How a New Yorican poor unskilled dropout unwed mother bulldyke could live a little better and bring her child up better. What if there was two of us to bring her up, I kept thinking...

  When I was little, the espiritista had looked at my hand and said, “Love comes to everyone, to some later than others. Life is hard for everyone — for some earlier, for some later. You’ve got to climb to the top of the mountain before you can see.” It was beginning to make sense.

  One day when I felt strong enough to go out and face the world, I bought myself some green cloth in a store on Roosevelt Avenue. Then I went to the vacant lot at the end of Edie’s street and picked some wildflowers from the weeds. I didn’t know what kind I needed, or what kind they were, but I figured some kind was better than no kind. I sewed the material into a little bag, filled it with weeds, and hung it all around my neck. The espiritista had taught me colors: green was for healing and I needed that bad. If the weeds didn’t carry the right powers, the green might. And I hoped maybe somewhere in the years since I learned from the old woman, that knowledge had stayed safe in some corner of my head and I was picking the right weeds and colors and roads now. Even though I took a step backwards when Frenchy messed with my head, I was helping myself now. I wondered how strong I could get in another week. Longer than that I wouldn’t stay with Edie. She was generous, but I wouldn’t take advantage of her.

  * * * * *

  Two Fridays after I came to Edie’s house, I had my clothes and pills piled in a grocery bag on the kitchen table. I sat fingering my herb bag, waiting for her to come home so I could thank her and say goodbye. And borrow a dollar to get home. She was later than usual, and if I had to I’d leave her a note, but I couldn’t go through this again. Saying goodbye to this house was the hardest thing I’d done in a long time. Not only because I was sad, but because I’d made the decision myself and wanted to stick to it. I wasn’t letting things happen to me anymore, I was planning them. Finally, I heard Edie’s laugh. I’d have to give my speech to Esther too.

  I watched them come in through the doorway together, laughing and bumping into each other with bags of groceries in their arms, two happy women; one so light-skinned her blue eyes were striking even across the kitchen, the other so dark I couldn’t see her eyes behind her round, dark-rimmed glasses. I don’t know if their love was catching or what, but I felt all warm about them. Now that I was with them and remembering how nice they were, what I was going to say hurt me even more.

  Edie and Esther put their bags down on the table. Edie took both my hands in hers and made me sit down. “What’s this?” she said, looking at my bag of clothes.

  I said sadly, “I think it’s time for me to go home.”

  “Home?” Esther growled. “Home, baby, is where you are at. What are you saying?” She likes to act up a lot and make faces. She hit her head and pretended it hurt. Then she walked around the kitchen like a drunk, finally falling in a heap at Edie’s feet.

  Edie put her fingers in Esther’s hair. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Esther had an idea today which I have to admit has been half-forming in my mind since you came here.”

  “Go ’head, take all the credit, you sneaky white girl,” Esther said.

  “But it took wonder woman here to put it together for me,” Edie added, pretending to tug Esther up to her feet by her hair.

  I didn’t know what was happening, but Esther was so funny I had to laugh.

  Edie said, “I want to offer you my home. To share it with you as long as we can both be comfortable here.”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  Edie went on. “I don’t want you to feel insulted. I’m not trying to solve your life for you. I know you can do that for yourself. But as I told you when you first came, I get lonely in this big old place, just me and the ghosts.” Edie smiled. “The point is, Esther doesn’t want to live with me. Not yet anyway. And I can live with that, even though I can’t live without her. But I still have the loneliness problem. I’ve really enjoyed you living here. I’m anxious to try it permanently. There’s enough room so that if Esther changes her mind she could move in too. We’d just have to put Lydia in your room or fix up the little sewing room for her.”

  “Lydia?” I asked.

  “Well, yes. If I’m going to have a family, I want a big family. Just you and me can’t fill up all this space.”

  “Hold it, I don’t even know if I want to do this. But even if I do I’m not sure I’ll be ready for Lydia. See, I was counting on staying with my mother who’s still taking care of her. Trying to get on my feet, getting a part-time job. Maybe going back to school.”

  “You can sure do that as well here as in Harlem, girl,” Esther said. “Better, as a matter of fact. You got connections here.” She winked at me. When I looked like she was talking a foreign language at me, she went on. “I called the Board of Education today. They have all kinds of programs. Some of them you can earn money while you go to school or work half a day and earn the other half. My cousin Almeta worked her way through college cleaning houses. Don’t look at me bad, girl. You make damn good money doing that, better than packing or even typing, not that you know how to do that either, you poor uneducated queer. And you know what she’s doing now? With an Associate’s in business administration? Administering a business, sending people out to clean houses. She just bought a house in Brooklyn.”

  “Listen, Mercedes,” Edie said. “Don’t think we’re pushing this down your throat or that it’s all planned out for you. But you don’t have many resources. We do.”

  I needed time to think. Were they right? Should I go away and think at my mother’s place? This was the chance of a lifetime. Even if she was only feeling guilty about being white and having more money than me, Edie was at least trying to do something good with that. And I didn’t feel pushed or tied down. I wanted to say yes right then. For me. Lydia I’d have to think about later. If I wanted to move her again. If she could go to better schools out here. If she should live with queers. If I needed to be on my own without her for a while to be a better mother. If I should take her from the Puerto Rican ways I wanted her to know. The way I was brought up, you had to get past being Rican, you had to be American. But that’s what I am. I didn’t want her fighting herself all her life like I’ve been doing. Besides all those worries, I still had all the problems of the past few weeks. But in a safe place, I was thinking, by taking one step at a time, maybe I could solve them.

  When I looked up, they were watching me. I looked at them, thinking about how many different kinds of love there are. My young love for Maria. T
he love I had for my family, my crazy huge family who would welcome me — to a point — wherever they were. How I loved little Lydia with her skinny growing body, her mind that soaked up everything, her love for me, such as I am. The way I felt about the uptown gay girls and boys, the way we hung out together and tried to help each other, and how little we had to give because it seemed like we were always at the end of our rope. The way I felt about Frenchy, like there was a knot tied between us that got stronger the harder we pulled away from each other. And my love for these two women who wanted to make a home for me, make my life easier, who thought I could give them something, too.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, sure. Let’s try it.” I was too embarrassed to thank Edie straight out. “It might help me,” I admitted.

  The two of them beamed and rushed at me, pulling me up into a bear hug.

  “Halleluiah!” Esther said. “I thought I was going to have to marry Edie here. You have solved my problem!”

  “You’ll marry me yet!” Edie teased back.

  “You’ve got a built-in best man right here,” I told them.

  “But you know what would make our lives complete?” Esther growled at me, looking around wisely. I hoped she wouldn’t say anything about me marrying Frenchy.

  “What?” Edie asked.

  “I know this household is already pretty representative — a white girl, black girl, Spanish girl,” Esther started. “Don’t you think you could fall for an Asian dyke, Mercedes, so’s we could open the Lesbian League of Nations here?”

  Laughing at Esther’s non-stop jokes, we began a celebration. But now and then, when we were laughing loudest, as the frozen chow mein was almost burning or the grape juice was pouring into wine glasses, I thought of Frenchy and my heart closed up just like a fist, to think of her sitting in her mother’s apartment dreaming about her next night in the Village. How she’d look. How she’d act. Who she’d make out with. I couldn’t get rid of this picture I had of her and her mother locked up together in the House of D.