I Came Out for This? (8 page)

But what if, in spite of all that, Terri falls in love with
her? What if they move in together and decide to have a commitment ceremony? And they invite me to it? Of course I wouldn't go. Oh shut up, Joanna. Just shut up. God, I'm so upset. I can't eat. I can't read or talk to anyone. I can't even watch TV. All I can do is lie here on this stupid bed and then shlep to work and then fall back on the bed. The only reason I'm not suicidal is that I'm too weak and indolent to kill myself. I couldn't just get up off my ass and
do
it. Not that I really want to. But if I had any guts I probably would. In high school, I was the only one in science class who couldn't prick her own finger with those little pins the teacher handed out so we could determine our blood type. Someone had to do it for me. I act like I'm such tough stuff, but really I'm a feeble-hearted little wimp.

I'm so lonely. I have always had plenty of friends, but I've been so obsessed with Terri that I haven't even made any real friends here, except for these unstable men in my house. It's not the same as having close friends and family members around, caring about everything that happens to you, like I do in Cleveland. Not that I would ever move back to that dump. But that's what's so scary. I have nowhere to go. What will I do? Move back to New York in the middle of having a nervous breakdown? That's a joke.

Oh, god. That's what I'm having. A nervous breakdown. I'd better get up off of this bed and
do
something. I'll go out and have a few drinks. I need to get some perspective. It's not the end of the world. Well it is, but the world can be saved. All that has to happen is for Terri to break up with Sandra Finch. She's not going to
keep seeing Sandra Finch when the world is at stake. She will consider it her
responsibility
to break up with Sandra Finch. She has an unerring sense of responsibility.

I'm going insane. I have to get out of this room.

March 2000

I am drunk and seized by clarity! What I realize all of a sudden is that there is really nothing to be upset about! Stop with the exclamation points already! Whoops! I dropped my notepad and picked it back up.

Shit. I really am fucking smashed. But the thing that I realized, and I'm sure it's not just because I'm drunk, is this:
I am actually a very fortunate person!
When I compare myself to the rest of the world, I don't have it so bad at all. Here I was, completely devastated because the girl I want is
attracted
to someone, and then I thought of how much worse off so many other people are. Like all the thousands of people who have been married for
decades
and have houses and kids and their whole lives invested in these relationships and then all of a sudden their husbands and wives declare they don't love them anymore and walk off with the . . . the . . . the
secretary
. Or the guy they met at the wine and cheese store. Talk about
devastating
. And
then
the cheaters have the nerve to want the
kids
, or at least visitation rights, and can you imagine how awful it would be to have to gussy up your kids and shuttle them off to the person who took your husband or wife
away, leaving you in abject agony, despair, and humiliation for months, years, and possibly
forever
? And knowing your ex is going to try to get the kids to call that person
Mom
or
Daddy
, and even though you want your kids to
hate
this person and to hate your ex even more you have to put on a phony little act on visiting days, smiling and zipping their jackets and saying, “Now tell Daddy not to forget to send back your juicy-juice this time!” or “Have a wonderful time camping with shithead and Medusa, darlings!” and maybe you even have to
drive
them to shithead's new house (which is probably bigger and nicer than yours) and you have to drop them off right in front or even take them to the door and have shithead open the door with a big happy smile, and you would like nothing better than to drive a knife through that black, cheating heart but you can't because your children are standing right there.

And imagine going through all that squabbling over the house and money and possessions with the divorce lawyer, and knowing your friends, or at least some of them, still
like
shithead and even get together with the shiny new couple to play cards and drink and laugh (at you), and you know that when they all talk about the breakup some of them are saying that you weren't exciting or smart or evolved enough to keep shithead's interest, when the reality was that you were working your
tuchas
off so that shithead could take more and more classes and obtain advanced degrees, which he or she used to obtain a more prestigious job which helped to attract whore or scumbag.

So now I don't feel so lonely, realizing that
everybody
is living in hell. Or, at least, millions of other people. And most of them are worse off than I am. It's like we're living in a giant Auschwitz with these agonized, tortured, humiliated people stumbling around like the walking dead, wondering how they're going to get through the next day.

Maybe it's not nice to compare regular life with Auschwitz. I take it back. But still, it would be better to be a dog than a human, when you really think about it.

I'm going out to drink more. This is great. I'm coming up with all these insights. Next I'm going to figure out how to kill Sandra.

I can't believe this. I'm in
jail
.

I know it was my fault, but I had such a whopping hangover this afternoon and this cop just picked the wrong time to mess with me. I wasn't bothering anyone— I was just sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against the DC government building on 14
^th
Street, eating a turkey Subway sandwich, and all of a sudden this bulldyke-looking cop strutted up to me and barked at me, “M
A'AM, YOU CAN'T DO THAT; LET'S MOVE IT
!” Her choice of address upset me first of all. I felt so humiliated, to be called ma'am while being reprimanded for sitting on the sidewalk; it made me feel like a crazy old street woman instead of like a defiant young rebel, which I would have felt like if she had called me “miss” or “young lady” or something of that nature— not that I'm young enough anymore to be called those things. I was nauseated from all the rum and cokes I drank yesterday and was in a horrible state, and I was crying over Terri and trying to eat this sandwich with tears running down my face, and this cop just couldn't just see I was upset and leave me alone, because God forbid some tour bus
should cruise by with the guide boasting about the spanking “New U Street” and the tourists should catch wind of some deranged woman sprawled on the sidewalk. So she said “Ma'am, you can't do that, let's move it!” and I told her . . . well, I told her to get the fuck out of my face.

Obviously, I over-reacted. But when you're in emotional anguish and someone struts up to you and barks at you like a dog, you don't necessarily react rationally. Even if it's a cop. Of course, Dottie (that was her name) didn't take too kindly to my telling her to get the fuck out of my face, and she pulled me up by my arm and my sandwich fell on the sidewalk in a glop, and I screamed and yanked my arm away while she tried to pull me up and then a blond white cop trotted up out of nowhere and said, “Dottie, you need some help?”, and Dottie said, “Got a Section 8 here, Dave,” referring to the Army's designation for nutcase discharges, which I found quite insulting. Then Dave and Dottie pulled me up and cuffed me behind my back, and they stuffed me into a patrol car and took me to the 3
^rd
District police station, and here I am in this cell. What makes this whole thing especially pathetic is that I had no one to call for my One Phone Call, so I can't even get out.

I've been in here for five hours and it's a real drag. One, it's humiliating; two, I need a shower and a change of underwear; and three, I'm wondering how much this little adventure is going to cost me.

Actually I'm not humiliated to be in jail; I'm humiliated to think about Dottie yanking me off the sidewalk and my sandwich splattering all over and I'm humiliated because I smell. If I could just punch Dottie in the
face, have a shower, and be assured that I wasn't going to have to pay some whopping fine, I would be perfectly contented to sit here. I've never minded being in jail all that much, probably because I associate it with my good times being locked in the bin when I was fourteen. When you're emotionally distraught, it can be a relief to get locked up and treated like a child, even if the “parents” are mean and won't let you out of your room. And this time it's going to be far less of a hassle than the last time I got popped, about ten years ago, for a DWI, which in our society is considered worse than murder. Even though this time I resisted a police officer, they're probably not going to toss some white woman going through an emotional crisis into the DC jail with all those street women.

Where's my captain friend? The captain is my buddy. He came by my cell a couple hours ago and asked if I needed anything, and I said I would really like some paper and a pen because I'm a writer and would like to write something, and he gave me some paper and a little nub pencil without any point, God forbid I should stab myself.

But now I'm done writing and I need some food. I'm going to demand another turkey sandwich from Subway. They owe it to me because the bulldyke made me drop the one I bought this afternoon. And I would like a lemonade to go with it, but they'll probably bring milk. They always do. It's their way of being mean to you for being a bad girl. N
O
L
EMONADE
F
OR
Y
OU
T
ODAY
, M
ISSY
! D
RINK
Y
OUR
M
ILK
!

God, I can't believe this is happening. I'm really too
old to be thrown in jail for misbehavior. I know I'm getting off on it a little, which is even more disturbing. Maybe I'll tell them I need a shrink to determine why I get a sexual charge from being in jail. No, forget that. What I need is just to chill out a little. Jail is probably the perfect place for me right now. If only I could have a shower and a change of clothes. They could give me one of those jumpsuits. Before I put it on maybe they could get Dottie to . . . oh, never mind. That's too sick. That is just too sick.

I'm back home, whoop-di-doo! Now I'm a certified DC jailbird. The only problem is, I can't really brag about it because if I tell people how I landed in jail it would sound so lame:

I was sitting on the sidewalk, eating a sandwich.

You were what? Well, why the fuck didn't ya get up, peabrain?

But maybe I can redeem myself by reporting that I did have a fistfight in jail. Every red-blooded American girl should have at least one fistfight on her dossier. At least, that's what I tell myself to keep from feeling ridiculous.

I didn't mind being in jail, but it became progressively more aggravating. For dinner, they brought me the most horrible meal possible— a baloney sandwich on stale bread and milk. They didn't even give me any mustard. I looked at the little box that the crewcutted white cop had slid through the bars and yelled I
CH
!,” and then I said, “I can't eat this. Take it back and get me a quarter pounder with cheese!” Now of course I knew he wasn't going to actually do that, I was just making a little joke,
but he didn't pick up on my humor. He turned to another cop who was standing there and laughed at me snidely, saying, “She wants us to get her a quarter pounder with cheese,” and the other cop said something low so I couldn't hear him even though they were standing right there, and they both snorted like I was some kind of honky prima donna who was demanding special treatment. I felt so bad when the cops didn't just humor me, like “Oh sure and how about a nice soft pillow for your bed?”— that instead they sneered at me, they took me the whole wrong way. I couldn't eat the sandwich, so I went to sleep hungry on that awful bed-slab they have in jails, with my body all funky and smelly since they didn't have a shower in the holding cell area.

The next morning at 7 a.m. they hauled me out of the cell and took me downtown (I'm surprised they processed me that fast— I think they really wanted to get rid of me) to the local courthouse on Indiana Avenue, and they tossed me in a holding cell with about eight other women. They were all hookers and drug addicts except two young women who had been busted putting up signs for the protest against World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, who are charging underdeveloped countries exorbitant interest on debts. When they put me in the cell, the other prisoners paid no attention to me because they were having a discussion. The two activists were trying to explain to the street chicks the importance of their protests, and the street chicks were looking at them as though they were kangaroos. A skinny, young hooker said, “Well I wouldn't know about that,” and looked away into space, trying to make
them disappear, and then a busty hooker in a yellow tank top said, “Why should I care what happens in Kenya? Them niggers down there don't care what happens to
me
.” And
then
the thing happened that started it off. A slightly older woman, a skinny redhead with big tits and yellow lipstick, clomped up to the second woman and hit her on the shoulder. She said, “Peaches, don't talk to them! Don't talk to them slimy-ass bitches! What's wrong with you?” Then she walked away, saying, “Ugly cunt motherfuckers.” The two young women just froze. I was really pissed off because I respect them— they are so stout-hearted and sincere and
right
about everything— the whole country's going to the dogs morally, with six corporations running everything, and nobody gives a fuck about anyone else, and money has finally, officially become God. These kids know that corporations are just too big, they have too much power and the people in them act like they're stupid, “the computer won't let me do this, the computer won't let me do that, the system is down, so go fuck yourself”— and if they treat middle-class Americans like that, imagine how they bully and browbeat the people from underdeveloped countries. So here are these kids who are arrested for rebelling against the amorality that has overtaken us and some nasty bitch calls them “ugly cunt motherfuckers.” I said “What's the matter with you, woman— why are you calling these people ugly cunt motherfuckers? They're trying to do some good in the world and there's no reason for you to diss them like that. That's just
wrong
.” The redhead flung her head around to look at me, really seeing me for the
first time, and she leaned over toward me, stabbed her finger at me, and said, “I was not addressing you, white scum.” I glared at her and she said, “D
O YOU HEAR ME
? I
SAID
I
WAS NOT ADDRESSING YOU, WHITE SCUM
,” and she came up to me and pushed me, hard. And I
slugged
her! Right in the side of her face. She grabbed a clump of my hair and wouldn't let go, and we fell to the floor, and I started pounding at her face, trying to get her to let go of my hair, and everyone was yelling and screaming. In about thirty seconds, three cops came in and pulled us apart, and damned if that redhead ended up with my hair in her fist as a trophy. They shuttled me out of there and took me right into the courtroom and one of them talked to the bailiff, who interrupted the judge and said something to her. The judge then disposed of the young fellow standing before her, and then called me over, before I even had to sit down.