People in Trouble Page 5

  What does it mean to sing ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ and release balloons? It made her feel something very human; a kind of nostalgia with public sadness and the sharing of emotions. But then what?

  To a certain extent she had gotten used to hearing about people dying. She hadn’t gotten used to seeing it, but now when someone said, ‘I couldn’t call you back because a friend of mine died,’ it was said calmly.

  This dying had been going on for a long time already. So long, in fact, that there were people alive who didn’t remember life before AIDS. And for Molly it had made all her relations with men more deliberate and detailed. First, the men changed. They were more vulnerable and open and needed to talk. So she changed. Passing acquaintances became friends. And when her friends actually did get sick there was a lot of shopping to do, picking up laundry and looking into each other’s eyes. She had never held so many crying men before in her life.

  Molly had recently spent three months cooking dinner for a man who was so disoriented he couldn’t decide how to cut the spinach. His name was on one of her balloons. There were drugs that he wanted to try but the Food and Drug Administration wouldn’t approve them.

  ‘I’m dying,’ he said before the dementia set in. ‘Let me take the goddamn drug.’

  The best he could find was a placebo program where half the men got sugar pills and the other half got experimental drugs. No one knew who got what.

  ‘Why do they need a comparison study?’ he said to everyone. ‘They already know what happens if you don’t treat it.’

  He didn’t say that to the doctors though, because he was afraid that if he made trouble they would give him sugar instead of medicine.

  He got old very fast. He said the telephone was on fire. His skin broke open. His mother came in from Saint Louis and kissed his face when it was covered with sores. He went to the hospital and then he went home. Then he went to the hospital. Then he went home. Then he went to the hospital. Then he died in the hospital.

  Molly knew this man, Ronnie Lavallee 1954–1987, because his sister Cecilia was a dyke who used to work with Molly at an all-women’s trucking company that delivered gay male pornography. Since she had a gay brother, the two women used to stop by his place after work sometimes to drink beer and bring him free stroke books. One day when Cecilia was at karate camp, Molly and Ronnie were sitting in his living room watching Paul Morrissey’s Trash on his VCR. They were eating Chinese food and drinking Chinese beer. On the TV Joe Dallesandro was a junkie who couldn’t get a hard-on but didn’t really care and was still beautiful. His girlfriend was Holly Woodlawn, the drag queen, and her sister and ex-lover was played by a pregnant, naked Viva.

  ‘I love this movie,’ Ronnie said. ‘It is the greatest acting in any movie except for Valerie Perrine in Lenny.’

  Then he said, ‘Molly, would you look at this?’ and he lifted up his shirt like a little boy asking his mommy to look at his tummy.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘That looks like a mole to me,’ she said. ‘How long have you had it?’

  ‘Four weeks.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, remembering when her other friend Joseph DeCarlo 1960–1982 had his face covered with splotches. ‘I’ve seen lesions and they’re usually raspberry, I think. I’ve never seen a brown one before and this is brown.’

  Molly sat back relieved. But Ronnie had an expression on his face that she had never seen on any face before.

  ‘What about this one?’ he said, pulling up his pants leg. It was red.

  Molly really wanted to say that it didn’t look like a lesion, that it didn’t look like Kaposi’s sarcoma, that it didn’t look like AIDS, but it did.

  ‘I don’t want to die,’ he said.

  Later on in the hospital he said, ‘I don’t intend to die.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Not everyone dies. Michael Callen is still alive.’

  But she saw doubt so she knew.

  After the dementia set in he said the telephone was on fire. He got so emaciated that Molly couldn’t recognize him. He got so disoriented he couldn’t recognize his sister or his old boyfriend or his nurse. That’s when Molly stopped visiting the hospital.

  When everyone felt that the vigil was over they started looking at each other and drifting into small groups for talk and comfort before walking home through the hot city in early-night light. Molly felt enormous anger. These were her friends. These were her dead friends. She saw their faces. Were their lives worth less than the lives of heterosexuals? Where was Kate? She should be there at a time like this.

  As she turned up the street away from the water, Molly saw two men handing out leaflets. That was not the first thing she noticed about them. The first thing she saw was that they were wearing black T-shirts. On their chests were large pink triangles with the word Justice scrawled, graffiti style. She wished she had a girlfriend she could go to and hold and tell the story of the day, but she didn’t, so Molly sat down instead on the hood of a parked car and watched the two men distribute their papers.

  The shirts were angry but the men were smiling. The older one was black. He wore his hair in a large natural like Angela Davis used to do, which made him look distinctly old-fashioned. No one wore their hair that way anymore. It was either clean-cut or Grace Jones or dreadlocks. But this guy reminded Molly immediately of those posters of Huey P. Newton sitting on a throne holding machine guns. Only this man wasn’t wearing a black beret and leather jacket. Instead he had on effeminate floral-print three-quarter pants like girls buy on Fourteenth Street. He had a gold loop and a ruby stud in one ear and a feather in the other. He was swish. He was an older black gay man who called other men ‘darling’ and ‘girlfriend.’ On the center of each flower printed on his pants was the word love.

  ‘Here, handsome, take this please. You know I only want what’s best for you.’

  The second man was much younger and taller and white. He had a long ponytail and good teeth. Then Molly got off the car and took a leaflet.

  DO YOU THINK IT’S RIGHT?

  That people are dying and the government does nothing? If you do not think that this is right then do something about it.

  The flyer went on to invite people to a weekly meeting. Molly folded it four times and pushed it into her pocket. She missed Kate very much. She wished Kate were there. Molly walked home feeling open and vulnerable and then very angry with an energy that had nowhere to go.

  12

  KATE

  She hadn’t heard from Molly in three weeks but the memory tapes were replaying in the waiting room. Kate turned on the radio in her studio hoping for something diversionary to sing along with. After flipping the dials back and forth without success she returned to her table and tore the drawing in half. Then she held both pieces next to each other as though they followed in sequence instead of being two components of the same movement. It was a simple pencil sketch of a woman’s face. She had seen the woman come out of the movie theater that afternoon, when Kate stood across the street watching Molly tear tickets. This woman had huge lips. She decorated them with a metallic pink like the Formica in Los Angeles kitchens. She had eyes the shape of olives and straight black hair. By taking her depiction of those lips and placing them next to, instead of underneath, the eyes, Kate was forced to confront the mouth first, to make a relationship with it before discovering those oil-cured black things. The order changed the effect because, after seeing the obscenity in that mouth, one experienced a monstrously seductive face. Then the greasy eyes came as a quiet surprise. The viewer learned from this sequence that the mouth was actually all that the face had to offer. If it was viewed at once in its entirety, there would have been no expectation. No movement.

  As she stood across the street from Molly, sketching, Kate had wondered Does she see me?

  When Kate had stopped designing for theater years before and started designing for herself, it was because she had gotten tired of decorating. She only wanted to confront directly. She needed more control.
Her final stage production had been Genet’s The Blacks in the early seventies. After the run she and Peter had gone away to the sea for one quietly spent week. There, Kate wore his sweater and sat in the evenings on a porch overlooking the water. She would read, draw, sip brandy.

  ‘I can’t stand actors,’ she’d said, suddenly, surprised it had come out so definitively.

  ‘That’s because we’re different,’ Peter had answered, absorbed in his work.

  ‘Who? You and me?’

  ‘No, Katie. You and me on one hand and actors on the other. You and I go quietly into rooms, close the doors and, once all alone, begin to work. When we finish there is something that exists apart from us, whether a solid object or an event. But we walk away from it while others are having the experience. While they’re watching we can be off making something new or drinking ourselves to death, as we like. Actors need the approval in their faces.’

  ‘Well, I’m tired of them,’ she had said, looking at Peter as he worked on plans. His sunburnt brow was furrowed in concentration. His skin was too fair for the sun. No matter how much he protected himself, it always burned. She had always watched him work to a secret internal rhythm, much the same way people now danced silently down the street wearing Walkmans. You knew they were hearing something you didn’t hear. But it was hard to know exactly what.

  ‘I’m leaving the theater,’ she told him then as the sea began to slide into the sunset.

  Peter looked up and laughed easily like he was entertained. Kate saw him thinking, She’s so cute. Kate recognized that look. She’d used it with her own mother whenever she felt generous. It said, You don’t understand but I’ll let it pass.

  Now, years later in her studio Kate looked at herself in the mirror. She was aging but it was all in her face. She shifted the glass so she could see herself standing against the wall. She wore a man’s sleeveless white undershirt and stood demurely holding her brushes.

  Kate had never painted Molly. She spent a lot of time looking at her when they were together, but she didn’t want to own a painting that couldn’t be shared with Peter and couldn’t put him through the ordeal of watching her work on it, watching her live with it. He would know how recently she and Molly had been together by how quickly the work progressed. But the first time she had seen Molly’s vulva in the light she’d realized it was a color whose name she did not know. It was the meat of a greengage plum, dusted. She had gone home to her studio that day and mixed it. Then she painted one side of her studio that color and ended up thinking of it as starlight. Normally she painted with her head turned away from the wall, but whenever she wanted to be in starlight Kate only had to look up.

  The buzzer rang on her intercom. It rang once. If that were Molly downstairs coming to make up, she would have rung twice. That was their code in case Peter was in the room. Kate didn’t answer. She looked at her bookshelf. On the top left-hand corner were all her books by Wilhelm Reich. She’d long ago outgrown his theories but still loved the titles. They all clearly evoked distinctive shapes. There were so many to choose from: The Invasion of Compulsory Sex Morality sounded like a midnight movie. The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety could be a new album by Talking Heads. There was always The Function of the Orgasm but that should be saved for someone’s autobiography. Ether, God and Devil was clearly an opera. The Mass Psychology of Fascism should be read by everybody. But then Kate settled upon the right choice, the right shape: People in Trouble.

  There was a knock at the front door.

  She looked through the peephole and saw a short black man.

  ‘Who is it?’ she said.

  ‘Census,’ he said, smiling.

  She opened the door but stood in front of it so they could have a conversation without him coming into her studio. She’d heard stories of strangers pushing in through the front door and always took precautions.

  ‘Hello, I’m conducting a survey on tenant perceptions.’

  ‘What organization are you with?’

  ‘I’m with the Tenant Survey Organization.’

  He took out a laminated identity card. Underneath his picture it said ‘Tenant Survey Organizer.’

  ‘Okay,’ Kate said, not wanting to be excessively paranoid.

  ‘How many apartments are there in this building?’

  ‘Twenty-two.’

  ‘How many families?’

  ‘How do you define family?’

  ‘How many single people?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘How many blacks?’

  ‘Three. Why are you asking?’

  ‘How many homosexuals?’

  He looked at her as though that question were perfectly standard.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, mostly because she didn’t know how to count herself. ‘I’ve got to go now.’

  ‘Please, two more questions and it will be complete. I only get paid for a complete questionnaire.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘How many single men?’

  ‘More than five but I really don’t know.’

  ‘How many narcotics abusers?’

  ‘I don’t know. Boy, the census has really changed since I was a kid.’

  ‘So has New York City,’ he said smiling. ‘But you wouldn’t know. You’re from out of town.’

  ‘Okay, I’ve got to go,’ she said.

  She closed the door again. Just then the intercom buzzed. Only this time it buzzed twice.

  13

  MOLLY

  Their reunion unfolded thusly. Each one made her stand and stated her case. Then they back-and-forthed it for a while. Then they embraced.

  ‘I only have two primary emotions,’ Molly said. ‘Anger and sexual desire. Then I have two secondary emotions: fondness and poignancy.’

  ‘Which ones apply to me?’

  ‘Kate, toward you I feel anger and sexual desire, fondness and poignancy.’

  They let themselves feel each other and transform in each other’s bodies before fighting a little bit and then they relaxed. This was the transition from life into love.

  They took off their clothes and rolled naked against each other on their feet and leaned on a wall the color of starlight. After various places on each other’s bodies and a variety of temperatures Kate stopped because she felt it was time. Her habit of rhythm told her so.

  ‘I want more,’ Molly said. ‘I get turned on by making love with you. Think of something really sexy for us to do right now.’

  ‘All right,’ Kate said, leading her to the wardrobe. ‘Pick out something for me to wear.’

  ‘You’ve got your own costume shop,’ Molly said looking at the rack of play clothes. There were fifties prom dresses, huge elephant-bell paisley pants like Cher used to wear. There was lime-green crinoline, scarlet silk, black taffeta.

  ‘I am a hard-core junkie when it comes to tactile beauty,’ Kate said. ‘Do you want me to choose, Molly? What about this?’

  She pulled out a purple skin-tight 1960s pantsuit that would go perfectly with white vinyl go-go boots.

  ‘Is this an original?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Kate answered. ‘I have a past I can’t outrun. Before I met Peter I used to go to Max’s Kansas City you know. So, do you want me to wear this?’

  ‘No.’

  Then Kate unhooked a white leather miniskirt with a huge black vinyl belt.

  ‘Mod?’

  ‘No,’ Molly said. ‘Too Life magazine.’

  There were enough accessories to open up a branch of the Salvation Army. This was clearly the result of a lifetime of regular, systematic inspection of thrift stores, finding great things and then taking good care of them.

  ‘How about this?’

  It was a handmade black dress of solid lace, designed to blow like grillwork over a bare body. It would obviously look incredible over Kate’s breasts.

  ‘Yes.’

  There was music. There were pulled shades and candles, a simulated night for these la
te-afternoon lovers. Molly sat back in a cushioned chair and watched Kate, thinking she was so exciting to look at under any circumstances because no matter what she was doing she was always so many colors. Then she watched her dance.

  At first Kate seemed nervous, self-conscious, not free within her body, but encouraged by Molly’s absolute joy, she relaxed and gave her lover this pleasure more freely.

  Molly leaned back against the bed, hearing the sounds of day coming from the street, but sitting in the artificial evening.

  When a person dances for her lover, Molly thought, she may want to dance sexy and close or just want to move. Both are great. Neither requires permission.

  That’s when the phone rang.

  The two women watched each other’s eyes, very still as the machine picked it up and the message played. Then the voice came on. Kate went to the machine.

  ‘Hello, Peter?’

  She turned her back, not so much for privacy as for concentration. There was nowhere to go in the tiny studio, so Molly sat very quietly in the chair with her eyes closed. Kate was going to take her time and not alert Peter to any other consideration. It was to be a normal conversation. They talked details. All details. The contents of that day’s Times, including which airlines had proposed merger. The plight of the American farmer. Something having to do with percentage points. Both Kate and Peter clearly believed in quoting statistics. Molly moved to the bed, it was so clean and soft.

  I really should get organized enough to have clean and soft matching sheets, she thought. She looked through the books on Kate’s shelf. Any distraction.

  Thank God, Molly thought as Kate and Peter finally got to the op-ed page. I’d so much rather be the lover sitting here in silence than the husband being lied to on the phone.

  When she hung up, Kate took off her dress and placed it carefully on a hanger. Then she came to lie next to Molly and held her breasts in her hands.

  ‘What’s this?’ Kate said, finding an extra texture between Molly’s legs.