The Swashbuckler

by Lee Lynch

  “I’m thinking,” she went on, “of telling my family I’m gay. At least my brother. So let them kick me out if they can’t take it. I got my ticket back to New York. I don’t need a family. I think it’s nice to have one, but only if they’re really your family.

  “It’s real pretty down here with a lot of sunshine and bright colors. Not so much like New York. It’s summer here. And hot. Like our summer. I’m real tired now, but will tell you more tomorrow.”

  The next night after the household had settled, she sat in the kitchen again. “It’s funny how kids grow up different,” she continued. “Here you are playing drums because you have a mother who thinks it’s cool, while my two nieces take piano lessons they hate. When I ask the older one if she ever thought to take up drums she says no, that’s for boys. I told her about you, kid, and she says you must be a tomboy. I wanted to smack her one for thinking that is a bad thing to be.

  “There’s a lot of what my mother calls foreigners around Tarpon Springs, but I laugh when she says that because she talks French and calls other people foreigners! They’re Greeks. We had lunch at this Greek place. Let’s you and me find a Greek restaurant in New York next time you visit me. OK Kid?

  “So we walked around the docks, not big ones like in the City, but more like Fire Island. I guess I’ll see you there next. I’ll tell you a secret, I’m nervous about going there because I haven’t seen your mother in so long.

  “There are so many boats it feels like I’m on the Staten Island Ferry, being downtown here. Maybe I’ll go fishing with the kids the last day. Only the boys fish but maybe if the little girls see me doing it they’ll do it too. Boy would I like to go out in a boat myself. Someday we’ll all be rich and have one of those fancy yachts I see around here right?”

  Frenchy’s brother came into the kitchen as she was finishing the letter. He didn’t look like the father of five kids, only like her brother: small and dark-haired, heavily muscled and with a dark beard. Serge had worked overtime because a machine at the plant had broken down. Greasy and tired, he sat down across from Frenchy and began wearily to shovel into his mouth the supper his wife had left in the oven, alternately swigging from a beer bottle.

  This was the moment, Frenchy thought, to tell him. She thought about Serge’s beautiful new home, with its swimming pool and carport, his big important job, his very normal, well-brought-up kids, his nice, but kind of washed-out wife. Only a couple of years older than Frenchy, his wife dragged around half-dead all the time. Why would any woman want to be straight?

  Serge finished his meal, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He smiled at her, “So, Gen, you having a good time? You glad you came? You’re making Maman very happy. Five grandchildren aren’t enough for her, she wants you too.”

  “Yeah,” said Frenchy slowly. “It’s nice to be down here. Must get boring, though.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not New York.”

  “You’re right there. But with a houseful of kids, a wife, a mother, overtime and keeping up the pool and yard — who needs New York?”

  “I guess you don’t.”

  “So where do you want to have the wedding? Here or up north? It would be cheaper down here.” He grinned. “Just kidding, Gen. Don’t look at me like you want to kill me. You’re pushing thirty. Ain’t you never going to do it?”

  “No,” said Frenchy firmly. She opened her mouth to tell him why.

  “Well, I guess I done enough work for two, eh?” He laughed, lifting his beer. “You want to be a spinster, be one. Maman worries, is all.”

  Frenchy could see a queer sister was the farthest thing from Serge’s mind. What good would it do to tell him? Besides, wasn’t this terribly personal? Would he ever tell her anything about his life beyond what she could see? She got up in disgust. “Thanks, Serge. I won’t need a place to go. I can take care of myself.”

  “Can you?” He smiled, obviously not believing her. “Good.”

  If only she were in her butch clothes, she thought. Maybe he’d believe her then. She stalked off as if she were wearing them, but by the time she’d settled in the living room she’d calmed down. He meant well. He just didn’t understand that there were women who didn’t need men. If she told him she was gay he’d feel really bad. So far as he knew he really was important, essential in the world. After all, he owned his wife, his kids, didn’t he? He was certain he was indispensible — that was why he took on so much responsibility, to prove it. She got under the covers of the sofabed and stared into the darkness, hearing the steady whirr of the air conditioner. It makes him feel important, like a man. She shrugged. He could have it, he could have it all. After two more days she could go home.

  “Hi, Lyd,” she wrote the next night. “I decided not to tell my brother last night. I can’t see telling him anything I don’t have to. There’s something about telling it to a man, even my brother — he might never forgive me because it would hurt his pride, me not wanting a man. Maybe I shouldn’t even say that. Maybe you’ll want a man someday yourself. I would still like you.

  “We went to Spring Bayou today which is part of Tarpon Springs and a beautiful part. I can’t get used to all the palm trees. How can America be so different in so many places? We are real lucky to be Americans where it’s easier than some places to be queer and it’s so beautiful.

  “What I like best is walking downtown in Tarpon Springs past all the markets. It reminds me of New York. Yes I am homesick already. Families run the stores and everybody works in the store from mother to father to kids. Wouldn’t I like a business like that. Funny, about America, you learn the only way is up and then you get there and it’s too high, you don’t want it. Let me be one of the little people. It helps too having good friends like you kid. Tomorrow’s the last day and then I can come home. It’s kind of nice, living in a family like this. Don’t get me wrong, I can handle living alone okay. I don’t even get lonesome, but I can see what’s good about having people around you who care. And like I say, it’s important they know who you really are. What you want out of life. How you understand things because of the way you are.

  I’m going to sign off now and get some shuteye.

  Love ya kid,

  Frenchy Tonneau

  By the next evening Frenchy felt drained. They had driven up the coast for a picnic. It had been a long, confusing day full of kids, a tiring irritable grandmother, and the empty chatter of Frenchy’s sister-in-law. All Frenchy wanted to do was go to bed and stay there until she had to go to the airport. Then her mother cornered her in the kitchen.

  “Genvieve, you are taking care of yourself, no?”

  “Yes, Maman,” she said, her defenses down. She had not been as careful as she once was with her mother, now that her tolerance for hiding herself had disappeared. Alone with her mother for the first time, she felt as if once more she were wearing too-tight patent leather shoes and a starched crinoline.

  “Why, then, are you so thin?” Her mother pinched her arm.

  “Ouch!”

  “There should be enough there so that doesn’t hurt! No, Genvieve?”

  “Yes, Maman.”

  “What do you eat?”

  Frenchy rolled her eyes at this impossible question. “Whatever I want.”

  “Three meals a day?”

  “Oui.” Damn. She would not talk French to her.

  “And the girls? You still play cards with them?”

  “Yes, Maman.”

  “Any boyfriends?”

  “No.”

  “You are smart, mon petit chou. They are no good. Give you babies, then run away, die.”

  Frenchy sat down at the kitchen table. She did not meet her mother’s eyes, but listened more intently.

  “Except Serge. A good man. Stays with her. He will live to enjoy grandchildren ... to take care of you.”

  So this was where she was leading. The poor woman, so tired out from her day, yet forcing herself to stay up and assign care of the daughter she could no
longer care for.

  “I don’t need nobody taking care of me,” Frenchy mumbled.

  “You say that now. When you are old, what then?”

  “I’m putting money away.”

  “Money! Always money. What good is money when you are alone? An old lady alone in New York City? Not for my child.”

  “I won’t be alone.”

  “Who then? Who will care for you?”

  How difficult it was, sometimes, to keep this from her. How happy her mother would be if she knew there would be someone, that she may even have found her. That she might even have a daughter of her own soon. Her mother would like the laughing, outgoing Lydia. “Maman, it’s okay. I will not be alone,” she reassured her.

  “So I thought when I was young. He died.”

  Frenchy did not point out that even if she married, there was still no guarantee that anyone would take care of her, no guarantee her own man wouldn’t die, too.

  Maman said with a bit of contempt, “I don’t know why you live in Greenwich Village.”

  She felt a flash of the old fear. Did her mother suspect? She watched her, but the aging woman across from her was slowly shaking her head in the dim light from the stove, staring sadly at the table.

  Her resentment grew. She wouldn’t ever again live away from her real life to please anyone.

  Frenchy asked herself, what can I do? She’ll worry if I tell her I’m gay, she’ll worry if I hide it from her. Her fists were so tight her nails began to cut into her palms.

  “It’s the children, Genvieve. It’s making children who fill your world.” Her mother looked up at her. Her glasses glittered with reflected light. “No one is as important as your own blood. Once there are people in this world of your own blood, you have ties no one can cut.”

  It was Frencny’s turn to stare at the table. Oh, yeah? she thought. How much would common blood mean, Maman, if you knew I was queer? How much would you love me then, Maman? Maybe she could love her queer-child, still, or love the shadow of that child she could salvage from the truth. But could it ever be the same as a mother’s love for a child who embraced her own ways? There would be hurt — Frenchy had not chosen her way to live. There would be fear — Frenchy would be punished for being herself by the god her mother believed in. Wouldn’t there be a thousand subtle rejections of the queer-child’s ways? Assuming people were straight was a habit to straights. Maman was a straight like any other. Even should she open those arms wide to Frenchy, wouldn’t there be a shudder deep inside at the touch of the queer-child?

  She needed to be welcomed for who she was. Yes, she needed someone, she needed people. What had she been learning all these years but who her own were, how to touch them, how to let them touch her and how to let them bind themselves to her?

  No, Frenchy decided, she didn’t need this old woman and her blood-brood, this worried, needy old woman who claimed her for her own, who had only what she had created: an illusion of her daughter. She would not dispel that illusion by giving her her real self.

  But oh, she longed to cry in her mother’s arms. Frenchy’s fists loosened as she strove to control her breathing, to keep from crying. She longed to hear Maman say, “Ah, I knew all along and it is fine, my daughter. Difference — I welcome it. I cherish you for it. I am proud of you.”

  Gently, Frenchy walked the sighing woman to her bed, and left the room so that her mother could change into her nightclothes without her daughter watching.

  She felt weighed down by rage and frustration. Her mother was confused, hurt by Frenchy’s silence. And even knowing how much she had spared her, Frenchy would always bear this guilt. And how tempted she was to blurt it all out. Wouldn’t the unburdening be worth the pain? The whole world believed it was wrong to be what Frenchy was. Couldn’t she at least tell her mother the world was wrong? But how hard this had been for her, herself, how long it had taken her to learn it.

  “Genvieve!” her mother’s loud whisper came, just as it had in the Bronx for so many Saturday nights. Frenchy had hurried, then, to change quickly into the person her mother expected. Genvieve had never existed. Even the illusion of her was gone, burnt up in a few short months of freedom. She lived nowhere but in Maman’s mind. And heart.

  Let her dream of a daughter to kiss goodnight, Frenchy thought, striding into the living room. Frenchy Tonneau is alive and well and sleeping on the couch. She lit a cigarette, something she’d never done in the same house with her mother before. Staring through the picture window at the dark night sky that curved over Florida, and over New York City too, she thought of the women she would be returning to in New York the next day and how bound she was to them.

  * * * * *

  The reds and yellows of her embroidered jacket the only brightness under the dull, rain-laden sky, Frenchy lounged against the railing by the ticket booth at the Bronx Zoo, one foot behind her on the bottom rail. It was all she could do to keep from pacing. Instead, she lit cigarette after cigarette, experimenting with different poses and ways of holding the cigarettes. If Marian didn’t get there soon, she feared they would have to talk in a doorway to escape the rain — and things would to be too close for comfort.

  She had decided, on her return flight from Florida, to tell Marian she was gay. Maybe because she’d never told this to anyone straight before. Maybe because she hadn’t told her mother. Was she somehow seeking her own mother’s acceptance by telling another straight mother? Maybe she was just plain sick of hiding it.

  Finally her friend came in from the street. Frenchy remained where she was, giving Marian the full effect of who she was. Nothing would be hidden today.

  “Hi, Genie,” Marian called.

  Frenchy lifted one hand in greeting, still carefully casual.

  “What’s all the excitement about? Sorry I’m late.” Eagerly smiling, Marian stood before Frenchy, her face innocent, and open. She was still youthful, but her figure was starting to go. Unlike Mercedes with whom she found herself comparing almost every girl she saw these days, motherhood had stretched and thickened Marian.

  “Needed to talk to you, Mar,” Frenchy answered, pushing off the railing and leading Marian to the walkway. “Want to look at some animals?”

  “We really are going to the zoo!”

  Frenchy smiled at this despite her tension. “You like the zoo?”

  “I like the idea of going with you.” Her smile warmed Frenchy who suddenly felt Marian’s reaction would be positive. “Instead of the kids, that is,” Marian finished quickly.

  Turning away from her as they began walking, Frenchy tested her own reaction to the idea that Marian was giving her signals that she wanted to come out. Once she would not have doubted that she was in love with Marian and would gladly have complied. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Marian was pretty, and only a couple of inches taller than Frenchy, but her looks did not make Frenchy long for her. It would be pleasant to make love to her, but Frenchy doubted she would let Marian be her lover. They had good times together but, though Frenchy had learned passion was not the heart of a relationship, she sought a spark, something more than a comfortable feeling.

  Marian was studying her face as they walked. Frenchy looked at her and smiled nervously.

  “What is it, Genvieve?” Marian asked encouragingly, slipping a hand under Frenchy’s arm.

  Poised on the edge of saying it, Frenchy allowed herself another moment of indecision, trying to predict Marian’s reaction and trying, too, to prepare herself for it.

  “Marian, I’m gay,” she said, exhaling, filled with relief. For the first time in her life she’d said it, let it out, refused to hide, had escaped her own silence — but she felt as if she had jumped off a cliff and now hung suspended.

  Marian stopped, her smile still in place. Frenchy grew even more hopeful. Marian’s hand slipped from her arm and Frenchy now began to feel as though she were falling.

  A hand raised to touch her mouth — as if to stifle a scream — her eyes not surprised but filling with horror,
Marian stepped away from her. Stepped away, turned, and began to walk hurriedly down the path.

  Her first impulse was to stamp out her cigarette, whirl around and leave in disgust. But she couldn’t. Marian had been her friend until a moment ago.

  She began to follow Marian, feeling little now but determination. Marian had to understand. It was so simple, Did she think Frenchy was trying to seduce her? Marian had disappeared from sight, but as Frenchy rounded a bend she saw her far ahead, running. Why was she heading further into the park if she wanted to get away? Frenchy had a quick, intuitive thought that Marian was running, not from her, but from herself.

  She cut across the grass. Marian, in her panic, didn’t see her until Frenchy had almost reached her. Then Frenchy caught up with her, got in front of her, blocking her.

  “Get out of my way. You — you —” Marian’s face was ugly with hatred. “Hypocrite!”

  “Hypocrite?” Frenchy was astonished at the word.

  “Pretending to be my friend!”

  “I wasn’t pretending, Marian, honest. I wanted to be your friend. That’s all. I didn’t want to do anything to you.”

  Marian was crying now, her shoulders heaving. Frenchy longed to comfort her, but didn’t dare touch her.

  “You’re a fraud.”

  “Why am I a fraud when I just told you exactly who I am so we could be better friends?”

  “I don’t want to be any kind of friend with a queer.”

  Frenchy was disgusted, but determination won out. “Why not? You were friends with me before you knew.”

  “I know. I even let my children near you.”

  “Listen, Marian,” Frenchy said, planting her small body, hands on her hips. “I never touched you, never came on to you. I don’t molest kids. I don’t give a good goddamn what you do and with who — tell me what difference it makes who I do it with?”