I Came Out for This? Read online

  Cherry Hill is dust in the wind.

  She asked me to lunch, and we met at the café behind Kramer Books. We had talked to each other a couple of times on the phone, but we hadn’t seen each other since that one climactic meeting a couple weeks ago. She greeted me excitedly, and we sat outside in the tropical heat chatting about this and that, but she could tell something was amiss. When we were done eating, I told her I saw Terri and that she’s back in my life. She asked if we had sex and I hesitated, then said yes, we did, and she asked if I still love Terri and I said yes, I did. She started to cry and I yelled at her because I was so upset seeing her cry. I said she was making me feel awful and I didn’t know what to do about it, and that I waited my whole life to fall in love and it meant everything to me and I no longer want to have sex with people I’m not in love with. I started to add, “even though you’re one of the sexiest babes I’ve ever known,” but before I could say that she got up and ran out through the exit and down the street.

  I feel terrible. I keep seeing her hurrying down the street in her little pumps, her yellow dress clinging to her doughy body, the tears pouring from her eyes. I had made her happy, and then I deflated her. We only had one date, but we jumped right into bed, and that can do you in. Maybe we shouldn’t have done it, but my God it was fun. I will always remember that afternoon. I hope that she’ll remember it fondly, too, after she gets over my being a jerk with her. But she probably won’t. All she’ll remember is my wounding her to the core. Except I’m sure she’ll have the good sense to get over it in a few days, unlike moi, who never gets over being hurt and just keeps flying back like a beanbag against a wall.

  I wonder if Cherry will tell Judge Holmes that I treated her shoddily. I hope not, because that would piss Louise off royally, especially after she herself put me in touch with Cherry, and if I ever appear before her again she might send me to some prison hellhole to be eaten alive by the she-wolves. Kimba said she might even hire someone to go in there and do the job. I asked her how she would get them in there and she looked at me kind of cross-eyed like, How can you be so stupid. And I said, Oh yeah, she’s a judge. She can do anything. And Kimba said “Yeah-eah!” the way she says it, in a sarcastic sing-song. Kimba is so funny.

  She’s also very sweet. She told me that Cherry is responsible for her own actions, she’s not a child and I shouldn’t feel bad because she’ll get over it. She said Cherry has broken hearts and now it was her turn to have her heart broken and it’s just how things go. She’s right, but I can’t get that image out of my mind, of Cherry trotting down the street in her yellow frock, the tassels on her purse flapping frantically like teeny little arms.

  July 2000

  Kimba, Bette, and I arranged to meet Terri, Terri’s friend Linda, and a friend of Linda’s for drinks yesterday at the Playbill on 14th Street. And Linda’s friend turned out to be, lo and behold, Dee Williams! I swear I’ve never seen such an enclosed community in my life since I came out and joined the lesbos. Dee greeted me with a warm hug and kiss, and I felt completely forgiven for my behavior during that goofy date of ours. The whole bunch of us sat in a comfortable alcove on couches and drank the night away. Everyone got really drunk except, I think, Kimba.

  Terri and I sat catty-corner to each other on separate love seats, and even though my wench had her leg draped over me she spent most of the night talking to Dee. It’s typical of her to focus her attention on some new person that she doesn’t know. She’s always good with new people, but then, after she gets to know them, she gets sick of them. Anyway, we had a good time. Among us we probably drank about 20 cosmopolitans. I discovered that I like mine with Cointreau rather than Triple Sec. It’s much smoother that way. I turned Kimba onto that version and she loved it, especially because she hates Triple Sec. Terri, in her typical ornery fashion, tried one cosmo with Cointreau and then the next one she ordered with Triple Sec. I got really upset, I hate to admit it. I was seriously bummed out for about 10 minutes that she didn’t love my version of the Cosmopolitan.

  Dee is funny and pretty and sassy and has that endearing immaturity that many gay people have because they began their adolescence late—when they came out rather than when they physically mature. I joked with her about our date and told her I buried those cigarettes under a bench, and she laughed and laughed. We talked about her job and she said she was pleased that her field of child advocacy was growing. She said she loved my article in the City Rag and was impressed with the “vibrancy” of my writing, which made her my friend for life.

  Bette warned me that Terri was flirting with Dee, but I don’t think she was. I think she was just doing her typical thing of getting to know her. She always chats up new people, and has an affinity with black women, as I do. Also Terri is naturally charming in small groups, even though she’s shy. Shy people can be extremely charming because they try harder. Not that anyone would ever know Terri was shy. She comes across like a brick falling on your head. She’s more comfortable speaking in front of people, where she can be the center of attention, than in small social groups where you’re supposed to just fit yourself in.

  Maybe I’ll call Dee to get together. The funny thing is, I feel kind of hesitant to do that, because it will seem as though I’m making a play for her. But it’s as natural for me to pursue friendships as it is for most people to pursue romantic relationships. And it’s especially nice to be friends with attractive women that you might even go out with if you didn’t love someone else.

  Speaking of that, I invited Terri to come over Friday night, since she’s never seen my place. We’re going to watch some of the Twilight Zone marathon on my little TV. I’m hoping they’ll show the one about the evil kid Anthony who reads people’s minds and if he doesn’t like what they’re thinking he zaps them into the cornfield. Terri and I both get a kick out of that one because it takes place in a town in Ohio, which somehow snapped off from the rest of the planet and whirled into the Twilight Zone. Of course, we may be too distracted by other things (wink wink!) to concentrate on the antics of demonic TV children. (Take out “wink wink.” That’s just awful. I know, but I’m going to leave it in anyway. At least I didn’t say, “hubba hubba.” I had a male friend in New York who used to say “hubba hubba” and I got rid of him. Well, I got rid of him after he subjected me to an awful Ingmar Bergman movie, but “hubba hubba” had already set the stage for his demise.)

  I’m very nervous to have Terri see this dumpy house and all my weird friends. What if she disapproves of my living among “street people”? But they’re not really street people because they’re living somewhere, even if it is a dumpy rooming house. At the very least, they’re high-functioning street people. I shouldn’t look down on them anyway because I’m turning into a derelict myself. I hardly work or eat anymore. All I do is lie on this bed and think about having sex with Terri. I keep trying to remember that position when we were half on the couch and half on the floor, because I burst like a bottle rocket while we were doing it and I would like to do it again. As I said, I’ve become totally useless. Kimba says my theme song is that one that goes “I don’t wanna work! I just wanna bang on my drum all day!” She’s right. She’s very, very right.

  Terri’s visit to my place was a disaster. I never should have invited her over here. It was bad enough that she saw half the population of this place eating at a mission. Now her impression of my living situation has become reinforced by this idiotic scene that occurred right under her nose.

  It started the moment I let her in the front door. As the two of us passed one of the rooms, we heard yelling, and I realized it was the room belonging to Fred, the big silent guy with the marbled face that I’d never heard a peep from the whole time I’d been living here. Then the door flew open and there was Fred literally flinging this smarmy-looking white guy out the door, and the white guy crashed right into Terri, who went reeling, and then he ran to the exit, and Fred yelled after him, “Motherfucker, you’d better run, ’cause I got something that can bl
ow a hole in you bigger than your Elmer Fudd head!” Terri recovered herself and I hustled her upstairs, and there was busybody Jerome eavesdropping over the banister, and he said, “They’re at it again, I see.” Again?, I thought. I barely knew the man existed before then. Then Jerome smiled suggestively at Terri and drawled, “Well, hello, Terri,” in this buttery voice, and Terri said hello in a not very friendly voice, and then that dopey transvestite, Calliope, came shuffling upstairs. She is a sight to behold, with her plunging red satin dress and satin shoes and dangling earrings (Terri probably thought she looked hot), and Calliope looked at Terri and said, “What are you lookin’ at?” I introduced Terri to her, and Terri said “Calliope?” because she didn’t like being dissed. Calliope glared at Terri, put her hand on her hip, whirled around, and strutted into Jerome’s room, where they would spend the next several hours watching Jerry Springer and other highbrow fare.

  We lay on my bed and watched about four Twilight Zones. I don’t know how Terri managed to lie on a single bed without touching me, but she did. She lay against the pillow with her arms at her sides, not really hanging off the bed but leaving a good couple inches of space between us that I could not penetrate and didn’t even dare. I opened a bottle of wine and we drank practically the whole thing and I may have been sipping on dishwater, with all the effect it had on me. They did show our favorite Twilight Zone about Anthony the evil mind-reading boy who zaps people into the cornfield, but I felt the most unnerving identification with the zapped people and it made me feel very creepy. The other reruns were good too—they showed “Talky Tina” about the doll who ends up killing the child’s mean father, the one about the woman who is chased through a department store by mannequins and who turns out to be an escaped mannequin herself, and that classic about the ugly, deformed woman who submits to plastic surgery, and when they take off the bandages everyone is horrified because it didn’t work, and then you see her for the first time and she looks like Marilyn Monroe and all the doctors and nurses look like pigs.

  After we got tired of the Twilight Zones, I channel-surfed, but there was nothing on. We just lay there awkwardly, and finally Terri said, “Do you want to talk about the other night?” and I said, “Not really,” afraid of what she would say. She said, “Well, thanks for having me over,” and sat up and put on her shoes on. Then she got up, stood over me, tweaked me on the nose, and said, “It was the drug.” I wanted to kill her. I walked her downstairs and she tipped an imaginary hat to me and walked out the door. I stood there, hating her and hating myself and hating that asinine Fred who made Terri think I’m living in some kind of low-rent hovel. I’m sure that’s part of the reason she made that stinging comment about our sexual encounter being all about “the drug.” I don’t even want to think about the other part.

  You know what? The hell with her. I’m going to walk up to this new place on 18th Street and drink. I discovered something there called a “sidecar.” It’s a classic old drink made with brandy, triple sec, and sour mix, and it sends you to the moon. I need to be on the moon right now. Terri always makes me feel as though my life is one big embarrassment. I’ve lost all my old brio. Why can’t she ever cut me a break? It wasn’t my fault that stupid Fred had a hissy fit in front of her. If I’m not absolutely perfect, she decides I’m no good at all. I’m not talking to her anymore. She can fry in hell.

  Well, I recovered from my attack of sanity about Terri and went right back to talking to her, but there’s no rest for the wicked. We were gabbing yesterday about this and that and she just mentioned in passing that she called Dee. She got her car tuned up, the cat knocked down her mom’s picture, Tiny isn’t speaking to her, she called Dee Williams. I’m assuming she just wants to be friendly, because Terri is a big networker, and I know she liked Dee. But it bugged me because I wanted to call Dee. And Terri beat me to the punch. So not only am I jealous of Dee, but I’m jealous of Terri. It’s awful. It’s just awful.

  I asked Kimba what she thought about Terri calling Dee and Kimba said, “Maybe she wants to date her.” I wish Kimba hadn’t said that. Even though I don’t think it’s true (Terri just said they talked about the conflict between lesbians and transgendered women), now I’m very uneasy because Kimba is always right. Like, if she said, “I think President Clinton is gay,” it would turn out that he really is gay. I told Jerome what Kimba said and he agreed with her. He said, “She’s going after her. Stop dreaming and find yourself a woman you can trust.” He said I should start dating Kimba. But I don’t love Kimba, I love Terri. What am I supposed to do? Go to one of those neuro-linguistic programmers who snaps people out of things? I don’t even want to snap out of loving the bitch.

  Anyway, is Terri screwing Dee Williams? No. All she did was call her. So everyone should just shut up about it. That’s what I said to Kimba, who replied in her soft little teasing voice, “Who should shut up about it?”

  That shut me up. At least for a few minutes. Then I started talking about it again.

  August 2000

  Terri said she and Dee have been “seeing each other” for a couple of weeks. Okay, fine. I’m perfectly okay with this. At least Dee is a worthy opponent. Most of the women Terri’s dated since I’ve met her are total duds and I always think, Why on earth would she prefer her to me? She must consider me something that crawled out from under a rock. But Dee Williams is smart and attractive and classy and even someone I would date, so at least I’m not insulted that she’s dating Dee even though I wish she were dating me instead.

  Actually what bothers me most is that I had wanted to call Dee and hang out with her and now I can’t because it will look as though I’m butting in. I was the one Dee was interested in originally. When we went out for drinks, we had a wonderful discussion about her child advocacy, and all Terri did was make little comments about the straps on her shoes and the way she ate olives. But now that I think about it, who’s going to get the girl’s attention, the one who expounds to her about intellectual matters or the one who leans over and murmurs, “You like to tease your olives before you swallow them, don’t you?” I didn’t hear her say that, but Kimba did. She tried to warn me.

  Maybe I should have listened to Kimba. But even if I did, what could I have done? Terri will always do what she wants to do. In fact, she will always most likely do the exact opposite of what I want her to do.

  But I can’t let it get to me. I just can’t. Terri is probably just trying to make me jealous. Not that she doesn’t like Dee. But how much can she like her? She doesn’t even know her. She’s just attracted to her at the moment. She’s always attracted to the new and fresh. It’s my fault for not acting soon enough. If I had called Dee, Terri would have stayed away. I’m so slow to act on things, and then I end up out in the cold while two people that I want to be with hook up with each other. Anyway, I want Terri to do as she pleases. I love her and I want her to be happy. Not that I want her to be happy with someone other than myself, but it’s futile to go against the flow of things. This is all in the flow of things. So let it be, Joanna. Just let it be.

  Maybe I should get some new shoes. That’s what I need. I’m going to the mall right now. I’ll go to PG Mall, because I can take the Metro and not have to change trains. I don’t trust my driving right now. I feel kind of bummed out about this Dee thing. I said I wasn’t, but I am. I’ll feel better after I get some shoes. That’s exactly what I need. These shoes are not sexy. They’re clunky. Why didn’t I notice it before? I hate these shoes. I can’t believe I even bought them.

  Next week is Terri’s birthday, and I have planned a nice evening for us, at her place. We’re going to order pizza and I’ll bring a bottle of wonderful vintage wine that I bought when the two of us went to the Ohio Wine Festival years ago, which I’ve been saving for a special occasion. I bought her the most fetching glass figure of a woman holding a little torch. She can add it to her prized glass collection in her mother’s china cabinet. We’ll eat the pizza, drink the wine, and get cozy.

  I�
��m assuming her thing with Dee isn’t exactly going like gangbusters, or she would not have been so amenable to this plan when I proposed it. If she and Dee were still an item, wouldn’t Terri want to spent her birthday with her? Kimba said that maybe Dee has a class that night, but I don’t think that’s the case. What I think is that Terri just wants to spend her birthday with me, and not with Dee. I’m going to use the occasion of her birthday to put my cards on the table. I’m going to tell her that I love her and that we could be very good together and that we should put all the craziness behind us and have a fresh start. I haven’t actually done that yet. I’ve just been whirling and whirling around her like a dervish. Or like a sputnik, as Tommy would say. I need to be an adult with her for once in my life. I am an adult, after all. Well, I used to be an adult. I don’t know what the hell I am now. Try coming out when you’re in your forties. It turns you into some kind of hybrid—part woman, part unrecognizable creature like one of those funny monsters that kids watch on TV that nobody can even identify because they’ve never seen anything like it.

  September 2000

  Terri’s birthday celebration wasn’t what I had hoped. In fact, it was dreadful beyond belief. I don’t want to stop writing. I’m writing, writing, writing. I’m afraid of what will happen if I stop.

  I wanted so badly to have a sweet, intimate evening with Terri on her birthday. I wanted it to be cathartic. Well, maybe it was cathartic, but it was cathartic the other way. When I was on my way to pick up the gourmet pizza, Terri called on my cell phone and said that she had “expanded” her birthday plans and invited Kimba, Linda, and Dee. (She didn’t invite Bette, I think because she senses Bette’s fierce protectiveness of me.) Terri sounded extremely nervous over the phone, I suppose thinking I would say, “Well then, fuck you, I’m not coming.” I was making my way through traffic, so I couldn’t process the reality of what she was saying, which was that she didn’t want to have an intimate evening with me because Dee was in her life. So instead of telling her what to do with these new birthday plans, I exclaimed, “That’s great! We’ll have fun!” I may as well have said, “Thank you, sir! May I have another?”