I Came Out for This? (21 page)

Dee asked me if I wanted to go with her to La Rouche, a French bistro in Georgetown. She said she knew my birthday is coming up (how did she know?) and dinner was on her. Of course I said yes. I've always liked Dee, ever since I first laid eyes on her at her potluck. I think she's very cool.

Dee and I had a fantastic time last night at La Rouche. And today I'm in such a foul mood I don't know what to do. All I write in this diary is how I'm depressed or nervous or crazy and sometimes I'm inappropriately euphoric. I should just get over myself. There are children starving in Africa. But I can't help it if I'm depressed after having a perfect evening with a beautiful woman. I mean, too bad.

Dee and I shared a bottle of wine and had French bistro food and talked about everything. She wore a simple brown dress, which directed my attention to her lovely face and sparkling eyes and newly braided hair, which was flecked with gold. I told her I was ashamed of my behavior on our first date, the way I blithered on about Terri. We laughed about my burying our pack of cigarettes under that bench, and Dee said, “We have to dig them up! Do you remember where they are?”

We talked about her growing up a middle-class African-American in DC. Dee said sometimes the black ladies, her mother and aunts and church-going neighbors, got on her nerves. She said they would look at a gay person, male or female, and shake their heads and go, “Mm-mm-mm.”
I asked if they called lesbians “bull-daggers,” and Dee laughed her head off. She said, “There's a story about that word. I never even heard it until I grew up and read some books. When I came out to my mom, she was pretty good about it, but once I got mad at her because she said she didn't want my girlfriend over at Christmas. She said, ‘Honey bunch, we really want it to be just the family.' And I said, ‘Oh, you're ashamed that Granny and Aunt Doris will see that your daughter is a bull-dagger!' Joanna, I'd never seen my mother so shocked. Her eyes bulged and she drew herself up and said, ‘No daughter of mine will ever use that word. Ever!
Do you understand me
?' I was afraid she was going to slap me, which she'd only done twice in my life. I said, ‘All right, all right!' And she went into the kitchen and refused to speak to me the whole afternoon.”

“What was she so upset about?” I asked.

“She was upset that I had used a word used by low-class people. Like people in the ghetto. My mom hates people from the ghetto. She donates clothes to them and goes over to Southeast and reads to preschool children, but she hates that they drag us down. She denies it, but it's obvious. Like the girlfriend I wanted to bring over for Christmas? She was a smart-ass street girl. And she loved my mom and would bring her the nicest gifts when we went there for dinner, and my mom was as chilly to her as a gray day in November.”

“Well, that's probably why she didn't want to have her for Christmas,” I said.

“That and because she hadn't come to terms with my being a bull-dagger,” Dee said, and we cracked up. I
told Dee that my mom couldn't stand anyone who didn't speak proper English. “Both of my parents had Yiddish-speaking immigrant parents and they learned English in school,” I said. “
Proper
English. If any one of us dated someone who said, ‘She refused to go to the movies with him and I,' my mom wouldn't even want that person in the house. If someone said, ‘She don't wanna go to the movies with him and I,' that would be the end. She would act as though the person was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. And now her own kids use sloppy language and it drives her nuts. Like my brother Robbie will say, ‘Ah, he don't know what he's doing,” and my mom will said “He
doesn't
know what he's doing! My children should always speak properly!' If I say, ‘That's really fucked up,' my mom will say, ‘A writer should be able to choose her words more carefully.'”

“I would never say ‘That's really fucked up' to my mom,” Dee said.

“That's because your mom is black,” I said. “You don't fuck around with black moms because they don't put up with any back-talk you hear me?”

“Oh, my mom is a potato head,” Dee said irreverently because she was smashed on wine, and we laughed until I almost peed.

Dee insisted on paying for my dinner. She had the foresight to tell me not to drive, since we were going to drink, and we shared a cab home. We got to her apartment on 17
^th
Street and then I kissed her good-night, a gentle, closed-mouthed kiss, and she smiled and got out of the cab and I went home. It was a perfect date.

And today, as I said before, I'm depressed as hell.
There's something terribly wrong with me. The only thing I'm clear about concerning my date with Dee is that it won't be a good idea to tell Kimba. I don't think she would be very supportive.

Yesterday the most extraordinary thing happened. I had decided to get a tattoo, which I had wanted ever since Kimba inked a fake “Live Free or Die” tattoo on my arm. I was walking to Tattoo Joe's on Connecticut and saw Cherry Hill gazing into an upscale boutique with a black woman with short, salt-and-pepper hair. Remembering my last sad meeting with Cherry, I was going to just keep walking, but she saw me and said, “Joanna!” in a voice more appropriate if I had been two blocks away. I stopped, and she smiled at me, and I noticed that she looked beautiful in a purple wool coat and some kicky multicolored boots. The next thing I noticed was that her companion was Judge Louise Holmes.

Judge Holmes said, “Isn't that Joanna Kane?” Cherry replied, “Yes, Louise. Staying out of trouble, I hope.”

The judge laughed. “Well, I haven't seen her in my courtroom lately, so that's a good sign.”

I was blown away. I knew Cherry was friends with the judge, but to see them together gave me a peculiar thrill. I had had very intense experiences with both of them, and there they were, together. “Well, hello there, ladies,” I said.
“Judge Holmes, it's a pleasure to see you again, under less trying circumstances. And you'll be pleased to know I've been managing to stay out of court. But not out of trouble.” I laughed.

Judge Holmes laughed too. “Joanna, I wouldn't expect you to stay out of any trouble,” she said. “I just hope you're not doing anything too crazy, like lying on the ground eating sandwiches and cursing out police officers.” I was practically coming in my pants that the judge remembered me and my badness so clearly. I was more turned on by that than by remembering my kinky tryst with Cherry Hill. Judge Holmes turned to Cherry and said, “Sweetie, why don't you and Joanna walk me to the Metro? I've got to be in court by four.” I thought it was cute that the judge would call her friend “sweetie.”

“Come on, Joanna!” Cherry ordered, as though I was their four-year-old daughter, and we walked to the Metro. Then, to my astonishment, Cherry and Judge Louse Holmes kissed each other goodbye. On the mouth. Looking into each other's eyes. I almost fell over onto the street. Then the judge stepped onto the long escalator. We watched her descend, and she turned around and gave us a coy little wave.

Cherry and I were standing there and I could barely collect myself. I stuttered that I had been on my way to get a tattoo and she said, “Fantastic! I'll go with you!” This was fine with me because I needed some explanation for what I'd just witnessed. Also I realized I could use some company during the ordeal of getting my first tattoo.

The only artist at Tattoo Joe's was busy with a client, and no one else was waiting, so Cherry and I walked
around the waiting area, looking at the samples covering the walls. Finally I picked out an eagle, since I am a freedom-loving girl and also because I don't want these creepy Republicans to lay claim to our national symbols. (The eagle is softened by pastels, so it looks kind of psychedelic, and I love it.) After I made my selection, we sat down and Cherry said, “So tell me everything that's been going on with you, Joanna.” I said, “No, Cherry. You tell me what's been going on with
you
.”

Cherry laughed, and her laugh was still loud, but Judge Holmes must have had a civilizing effect on her because it no longer sounded like a trumpet.

“My friendship with Louise has evolved,” Cherry said.

“Was she gay this whole time?” I asked, bouncing in my seat like a kid. “Was she gay when I saw her in court?”

“She was, but she wasn't out,” Cherry said.

“But she's out now?”

“Yes, Joanna, she's out now!” Cherry was being patient with me. I wondered if the judge knew about our wild sex that day, but I didn't ask.

“Are you girls in love?” I said.

Cherry's face lit up like a meteor shower. “Oh, honey, we are so in love,” she said. Then she whispered, but her whisper was like someone else's normal voice. “It's very physical!” she said. “We had to drag ourselves out of bed today so Louise could get to court. She's working only part-time, so we just lie in bed all day and fuck!” She laughed. I was so preoccupied by this image that I couldn't concentrate on my tattoo. I tried to re-focus. “All right, now that you know about my love life, I want to know about yours,” Cherry said.

I told her that Terri had broken my heart and Dee and Terri had broken up and I had this perfect revenge date with Dee and I was totally depressed. “I think I may be mentally ill,” I said.

“No, you're not,” Cherry said. “You're just confused. What about that gal you were talking to at my potluck? The cute dykey one with the nice butt? I noticed something going on there, much to my chagrin.”

I smiled. “You're talking about Kimba,” I said. “I think she's pissed at me or something.”

“Why is she pissed at you or something?”

“Well, we went out on New Year's Eve and we spent the night and made out in bed and stuff, but we're just
friends
, Cherry, except, you know, I am attracted to her, but . . .”

“You're
attracted
to her, but you're just
friends
?” Cherry yelled. “How attracted to her
are
you, Joanna?”

“Well, it's not like Terri,” I said.

“Honey, Terri was your first love! That's a whole different thing! It's like the first time you go to the toilet yourself!” I looked uneasily toward the inking room, but the guy didn't came out and tell her she was ruining his concentration, and she continued roaring at me. “The first time you go to the bathroom instead of in your diaper, it's a watershed moment, if you'll excuse my choice of words. But after that first time,” she continued over my laughter, “you just do it!”

“How can you compare taking a piss to falling in love?” I said.

“They're both natural physical functions!” Cherry said. “Stop glamorizing falling in love, Joanna! It's just
something nature dreamed up to perpetuate the species, and gay people were just created to keep the population under control.” Before I had a chance to consider this intriguing theory, Cherry said, “So why did you say Kimba was angry? Or didn't you say?”

“I don't know if she is. But she's been acting funny ever since I told her that Terri called and said she and Dee were breaking up. She hasn't called me or wanted to get together very much. But I don't really think it has anything to do with that. Kimba and I are
just friends
! I don't even know why we're talking about this, to tell you the truth.”

“Oh, Joanna, stop being such a child,” Cherry said. “Of course Kimba was upset when you told her Terri called. And why do you think you're depressed after going out with Dee? Because, lady, you don't love Dee. I don't even think you love Terri anymore. You love Kimba! Girlfriend, you've got to stop making such a big deal out of love! Love comes and it goes. I fell in and out of love with you in about two seconds!” Before I had a chance to feel insulted, the door to the inner sanctum opened. “I think he's ready for you,” Cherry said.

Cherry cheered me on while a huge, tattoo-slathered man named “Ranger” inked my eagle on my upper arm. It does hurt to get a tattoo, but it's better than a bellyache, which is what Kimba accused me of having after my “Live Free or Die” tattoo wore off. “Quit moaning and groaning and get a tattoo already,” she said. But she wouldn't go with me because she's seen loud, brawling, ink-slathered men in blue collar bars her whole life and tattoos do not impress her.

I walked Cherry to the Metro. Before she got on the escalator, she said, “Remember, Joanna. Love is as natural as peeing. Don't hold it back, or you'll wet your pants.”

A woman in her sixties getting onto the escalator said, “We wouldn't want that to happen, would we?” I didn't know if she was annoyed or amused by Cherry's pee talk, but it was pretty funny.

Cherry and I kissed goodbye and I said she was the perfect person to be present for the creation of my first tattoo. “Good luck with Louise,” I said, as Cherry stepped onto the escalator. “I hope it lasts a hundred years and a day!”

Cherry looked back over her shoulder, and her face glowed in the chilly air. “Honey, if it lasts another five minutes it will have been worth it!” she called. And she kept on riding, her back erect in her purple wool coat.

The potluck group met at Dee's house again, and it was horrible.

Everyone was there, and Dee looked lovely as usual, and she had her punch fountain plugged in and the Vodka punch flowed. My tattoo was covered, but I pulled up my sleeve and showed it off and the girls oohed and aahed. Bette was there with a new girlfriend, a handsome butch with a strong build, a short haircut, and a toothy smile, and my friend was in full form to impress her sweetie, waxing eloquent about everything from the mating habits of eels to the history of underarm deodorant. Dee paid special attention to me, putting her hand on my shoulder and refreshing my drinks, and she pepped up the party with a story about her problems with the bitchy supervisor of one of her group homes.