Pages from a Cold Island (18 page)

To say that Gloria and I had a
“
distinctly uneasy part
ing
”
from the Sonesta Beach Hotel requires exposition. Ms. Steinem and I had been talking the better part of four hours into the tape recorder, and as time was running out and Gloria had to take her nappy-poo and primp herself for the night
’
s festivities, I was quickly throwing the used questions onto the floor so as to be hurriedly prepared to ask the next one. When she could go on no longer, we rose and she kindly began helping me pick up my notes and get my gear together. We had as I say been talking and laughing a long time. The abrupt silence seemed embarrassingly charged, and to fill it I decided to relate something I
’
d been under
going the past days.

Toni had been rendered absolutely paranoid by the flurry of her sire
’
s affidavits (although I suspect he never intended to take her son from her) and in fear she took the boy and departed in the night for God only knows where. Around my pad Toni had been immediately re placed by an even odde
r companion I will here call Ga
brielle. An astonishingly beautiful twenty-two-year-old, Gabrielle was a recent magna cum laude Stanford graduate and a lesbian who was being kept in one of the pads on the Court by a broad-shouldered bull dyke my age. As is the case with almost every homosexual I
’
ve known, Gabrielle was miserable and when the dyke was out working days had taken to hanging about my place keeping me company, typing the questions I was preparing for Gloria, hustling us cheeseburgers and coffee, and listening to my FM radio and playing my Brubeck coll
ection on the stereo (though Ga
brielle grew to love Brubeck I can
’
t describe how antiquated I felt when I learned that until then she
’
d never heard of him). Gabrielle came from a wealthy ranching family out in New Mexico or Idaho or Arizona or some such place, and her father
’
s brother,
“
good old Uncle Willie,
”
had introduced her to a prepubescent sex. having induced her to an oral stimulation of his penis and to the packing of that penis with cow manure (one for Krafft-Ebing!). For motives neither Gabrielle nor I understood—fear, I
’
d guess—good old Uncle Willie had stopped molesting her when her menstrual cycle began, and though she
’
d never had anything to do with a man since that tim
e she found her present predica
ment every bit as oppressive and degrading as the one with good old Uncle Willie. What should she do?

Without batting an eye I suggested she immediately move her gear into my closet and take one of the twin beds in my bedroom. I said as I was feeding her most of the day anyway I saw it as no extra hardship, and that at twenty-two she might do well to get her lovely ass in a bikini, lay on the beach for six months getting a tan, and determine what direction she wanted her life to take.

“
Christ,
”
I said.
“
Look at all the rinky-dinks your age all over the Court. Many o
f them are as bright and as edu
cated as you. They
’
re just puffing a little of the evil weed, sucking up some apple wine, and waiting for some sign from this ludicrous world we
’
ve made for them to live in. You could make friends with them. It wouldn
’
t hurt you a bit to do the same thing for a year, two, three if you
’
re enjoying yourself. Shit, in that scurvy group you
’
d be Queen of the Court.
”

Gabrielle laughed.
“
I know. Every time I go next-door for breakfast some of those apes are drooling in my scram bled eggs.
”
She now eyed me warily and said,
“
If I did move in, what about sex?
”

To this I laughed, rather scornfully I
’
m afraid.
“
Cut the shit, Gabrielle. My bed is a foot and a half from yours; if you decide you want to try, all you have to do is hop over. But don
’
t let your hot
little pussy get nervous worry
ing about my needs. Anytime I pick up a piece of ass I
’
ll let you know in advance, and you
’
ll have to take the couch out here. Anytime you want
to grab Chick or one of his mus
cular lifeguards across the street, you let me know and I
’
ll bunk down in here. But look, if you
’
re genuinely serious I
’
ll be damned if I
’
ll relinquish my bed to a broad, so don
’
t ever bother to ask.
”

Gabrielle grew very solemn.
“
I want it understood that I could never have sex with you.
”

Well, sir! I knew I had twenty years on Gabrielle, that I was getting gray, chubby and sloppy—but then, never is an awfully long time and I laughed and said,
“
C
’
mon, Gabrielle,
it is you we
’
re worrying about
!
My frightful hog can take care of itself!
”

“
But that
’
s what I mean,
”
Gabrielle emphasized.
“
I didn
’
t at all mean it the way it sounded. Seeing some of those girls or whatever they are you hang around with, I
’
d be afraid to do anything with you—afraid you
’
d give me some awful disease that
’
d make my eyebrows fall out.
”

This was on the evening before I was scheduled to meet Ms. Steinem. Gabrielle and I offered each other eager hands by way of agreement. I promised that the day follow ing my return from the interview I
’
d help her move her gear, and that if necessary I
’
d knock the dyke on her ass in the emotional scene that would almost certainly ensue. We shook hands again, Gabrielle left, and I went downstairs to woo Zita the Zebra Woman.

Early the following morning I was hurriedly shaving —pimply Bill was already
leaning on the horn of the elec
tric-blue Buick Electra in
the courtyard below—in prepara
tion for meeting Steinem when Gabrielle came in, made me a quick cup of instant coffee, and said,
“
I
’
ve changed my mind. I
’
m going to stay with Sappho.
”

“
I
’
m sorry. What happened?
”

Gabrielle then pointed out to me (in the
Newsweek
cover story I
’
d given her to read!) that no less than the girl I was going to interview accepted lesbianism, that our society was reaching the civilized state where there wasn
’
t going to be any stigma attached to it, and Gabrielle felt she ought to acknowledge being what she was and learn to live with it.

“
That
’
s nothing but that New York City liberal horseshit! Every noble soul accepts cancer as a part of life until he himself contracts it.
”
In very measured tones I pointed out to Gabrielle that Steinem
’
s acceptance did not constitute endorsement, that as far as I knew Steinem herself was quite wonderfully and healthily heterosexual.
“
Look, Gabrielle, Steinem
’
s got it all together and that makes it easy for her to be tolerant. People who are happily straight just don
’
t worry about other people
’
s sex life. I mean, I don
’
t care if a guy wants to fuck the exhaust pipe on his Volkswagen, it
’
s nothing to me. And I don
’
t give a shit either if you want to continue in your life, but I don
’
t think you do or you wouldn
’
t have been laying it on me since the day we met. And incidentally you know, don
’
t you, that all men don
’
t force little girls to suck their cocks? I
’
d feel a hell of a lot better if you stuck to our agreement.
”

Gabrielle adamantly
refused. We shook hands. Gabri
elle asked if she could continue to hang around my pad and by my pal. I said
sure
. What the fuck else could I say? Apparently not all that pleased with her own decision, Gabrielle then wept quietly. Then she accompanied me down to the car.

When Steinem and I were getting my gear together in the hotel and I was trying to tell her something of this—and as I told her I attempted to put it on a kidding level by accusing her of very possibly beating me out of a luscious piece of ass—I also pointed out she
’
d reached an eminence and influence where she ought to consider very carefully what she
“
accepts.
”

“
But she
’
s a lesbian!
”

It was a good deal more unnerving than Steinem
’
s apparently being unable to
“
see
”
what I was saying. In her tone there was an overwhelmingly nasty irritation with me that quite honestly made me somewhat afraid, an accusation and a rebuke that I was not man enough to accept aberrations for what they were—I who had spent three years of my life in and out of state mental institutions and knew I
’
d come to see and tolerate more aberrations than Steinem
’
ll live to see!—and that under no circumstance did I own the sympathy or t
he necessary zeal either to com
prehend or to be a part of her Holy Cause.

By far the brightest, the most literate, the most art
icu
late, the most tolerant (and the only one with a sense of humor) of these women is Ms. Germaine Greer. Reading the
“
Newsmakers
”
section of
Newsweek
, I laughed up
roariously at her admission of having fallen quite hopelessly in love with a
“
very elegant
”
man
“
of some note
”
and her further admission that if at thirty-three she could make
“
a crass fool
”
of herself
“
over a tailor
’
s dummy
”
The Move
ment needed all the help it could get. As I read this all I could do was entertain suspicions of what Greer would have said had I told her the same thing I tried to tell Gloria and I found myself imagining,
“
But, my dear chap, you should have removed this Gabrielle
’
s bloomers, given her a superlative fuck, and had done with it.
”
And instead, and against any expectations whatever that it would turn out that way, I left the Sonesta Beach not only distraught at Steinem
’
s pipe-backed stridency but sorry, sad, afraid, hurt.

Prior to seeing Stei
nem on television so loftily ex
coriating the Democrats
’
platform and credentials commit tees, I
’
d seen her one other time on the tube. As it happened it was on a morning when Gabrielle and I were making love. For as it turned out Gabrielle did move in with me and we had a lovely, loving idyll for a time until, as I knew she would, she took up with those alienated youth on the hot bright streets beneath me, took up with people more appropriate to her age, her needs, and the destiny I so wanted for her. There came an urgent knocking on the door. I called and asked who it was, and was told by Big Daddy that on Channel 5 at that very moment I could see
“
that Women
’
s Lib gal you interviewed a few weeks back.
”
I dismounted, rose, flicked on the TV, and sure enough there was Steinem with Dinah Shore, she of the chiffon undies and whose boyfri
end was Burt Reynolds, Cosmopol
itan
’
s centerfold. Gloria proselytized Women
’
s Liberation, plugged Ms., tap-danced a little soft-shoe with Dinah, then stood about in a somewhat awkward sweat as Dinah whipped up a layered and sumptuous-looking ice-cream cake. Gloria was, I thought laughingly, right where she ought to be. In exasperation Gabrielle said,
“
Are you going to watch Steinem or are we going to finish what we started?
”
I laughed again, flicked off the tube, and we finished what we started.