Two New Things
Thirsty Work — Chapter 12: intro to lesbians
Two young women from California travel to New Orleans in search of redemption after the death of their mother. Carolee thinks she will show her little sister the world, but what they find in the barrooms of the French Quarter at Mardi Gras is more than she knows how to handle, or could have imagined back home. This is the twelfth chapter of the novel Thirsty Work.
It was growing dark by the time Cathy and I returned from Schwegmann’s with an armload of insecticide. We put Roach Motels in every cupboard, every corner, every closet in the flat. We sprayed Raid directly on the small, armored insects, raising clouds of acrid smelling poison in every room. Doug rose from his bed to inform us that he approved of our choice of products. Raid had a poetic history, he said. Lew Welch, a beat poet, had coined its slogan. “Listen to this. Listen to this. Hear the poetry,” Doug instructed. “Raid. Kills. Bugs. Dead.”
Cathy and I sprayed so much poison that the flat became uninhabitable. Doug roused the two women on his bed and we gathered on the sidewalk in front. “Well, I guess there’s nothing for us to do now but go to the Quarter,” Carl smiled. “What a bummer.”
“So, who are your friends Doug?” I asked more coquettishly than I had intended.
“Oh, let me introduce you. This is Sharon,” he put his arm around the black-haired beauty with the heart-shaped face. She was taller than I was, and broader, dressed in baggy overalls and a white undershirt. Her moccasin-clad feet looked wide and rooted to the sidewalk. “Hello,” she smiled shyly and put out her hand.
“And this is Tessa,” Doug continued, now embracing the smaller woman. She had thin blond hair and a pert nose that seemed to sneer without effort. Her wrists were too small to support her big hands. She wore tight jeans and a large man’s tee-shirt that fell far off her neck and made her look waiflike. She wore no bra. She didn’t need one. She had no apparent breasts. Her erect nipples made two tiny buttons in front. She must have weighed 90 pounds. “How do you do?” she said in a nasal voice that might have been peeved.
“And this is Carolee and Cathy, the girls I’ve been waiting for,” Doug held his hand out towards us, as if introducing a nightclub act. I nodded politely to each of the women, felt foolishly disappointed when they failed to applaud.
“You know Carl and Howard?”
“Yes, of course. They let us in.”
“Well, now that everyone knows everyone, let’s hit the Quarter!” Doug struck off down the sidewalk, annoyingly confident that everyone would follow him. We did.
As we moved down the street, people drifted into comfortable positions. Doug kept the lead, with Sharon and Tessa on either side, followed closely by Cathy and Carl. Howard and I took up the rear. “So, how did you meet Doug?” I asked.
“I was sitting on a bench in Jackson Square drinking a beer, and Doug sat down next to me. We wound up spending the whole afternoon talking and drinking on the bench. When I told him I was looking for a place to stay, he offered me a spot on the floor here.”
“That sounds easy.”
“It was.”
“What about Carl? Did you two come to Mardi Gras together?”
“No. Doug met Carl the same place he met me, a day later. With Mardi Gras coming, this town is full of people looking for a place to stay. I wouldn’t be surprised if he brings home another stray today.”
“Is that what the two girls are? Strays?”
“I’m not sure about them. He might have known them before. When they got to town, I think they came straight to the flat, just like you and Cathy did. Those three are something else,” he shook his head and whistled softly.
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve got a kind of screwy love triangle going. It’s the funniest thing I ever saw. Tessa is a lesbian, you know, and she says she’s in love with Sharon. Sharon is — well, I’m not exactly sure what Sharon is — but even though she came here with Tessa, and I think they live together in Baltimore, she seems to be in love with Doug. And Doug is in love with Tessa!”
“You’re kidding. That’s amazing! Talk about star-crossed lovers… Everybody’s in love with the wrong person.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Howard gave a wry smile. “It makes for some interesting drama, let me tell you. I’m not sure what they do about sex. I think everyone shares,” he looked at me then. “But most of the time, I think they’re just too drunk to bother.”
I looked at the trio in the lead with renewed interest. I noted the way Tessa walked aggressively, with her shoulders back and hips forward, and the smaller, more demure steps taken by her larger friend. In my 20 years on the planet, I’d never met a lesbian — at least not that I was aware of. That made two new things I’d seen on this trip: cockroaches and lesbians.
Maybe, as Cathy had suggested, I could consider our trip a sort of fact-finding mission, with me in the role of scientist. Or was I was a spy behind enemy lines? Either way, I wanted to blend in to the surroundings, not reveal my ignorance.
Now that I’d heard her story, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Tessa. I looked at her with awe. How could she reveal herself as a misfit to everyone? Didn’t she care what other people thought? Apparently not. My yen for Doug, and my hurt feelings at his lack of attention, evaporated like mist. Of course he would prefer Tessa! She was much more exotic and sophisticated, poignant and brave, while I was just a home-bred, cow-fed, suburban girl from Stockton — and the girlfriend of his good buddy to boot. Well, maybe that was for the best. I wouldn’t be committing a mortal sin on this vacation after all. Johnnie wouldn’t have Doug to hold against me when I got back home. And if I had a dalliance with another man in the meantime, a complete stranger, no one would be the wiser.
I gave Howard a sideways look. The man walking beside me was not well muscled, not ruggedly handsome, like Doug. He had smooth, soft skin, and brown, horn-rimmed glasses. His forehead jutted out a bit too far and his eyebrows met together over his nose. But he walked fluidly, with the gait of a dancer. The light in his eyes seemed to indicate passion. His voice was warm and inviting. He had a trace of a Boston accent, which made him seem exotic.
I watched as he slowed his pace so he could light a cigarette, letting the others go on ahead. He pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes out of his shirt pocket, tapped out a cigarette on the side of his hand, returned the pack and reached into his back pocket for matches. With one hand he bent a match out of the book and struck it. Then he cupped the lit match in both palms and held it to his cigarette. His movements had a fluid grace, an easy sensuality that made me want to draw closer.
“Can I have one of those?” I asked, tilting my head down slightly so I could look up at him through my lashes.
“Certainly,” he said and repeated the ritual. After he lit the match and cupped it in his two palms, I put my hand on his wrist and guided it toward my cigarette. The feel of his skin sent a thrill up my arm.
As I held his hand captive, I felt his eyes cover me, and I tried to imagine what he saw. I had my new cowboy boots on, and tight gold corduroy pants, and a soft, cream-colored blouse with many tiny buttons down the front that hugged my breasts. “At least I have breasts,” I thought meanly of Tessa, releasing his hand. But that thought quickly passed. In the cool, evening light I felt full and forgiving, generous. I was lush and voluptuous like the New Orleans gardens I began to notice around me, set back from the street behind low stucco walls topped with iron railings, crowded with big, broad green leaves and gaudy flowers giving off a strong, almost overwhelming, scent.
As we walked, I heard the “thunk thunk” of my cowboy boots on the pavement and stood a bit taller. I knew the setting sun was glinting gold and red off my long hair. I saw Howard looking at me, and I tossed my hair back as I’d seen beautiful women do in countless movies.
Now the two of us were a full block behind the others. “Let’s run,” I said impetuously. But my bulky boots made me awkward, almost clownish beside Howard’s easy lope, breaking the glamorous spell I’d imagined. It was a good thing we had only a short distance to cover. We caught up with them just as they reached Bourbon Street.
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