Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice (17 page)

“And, they should,” I agreed, watching the tide roll in and out again.

“But they won't, 'cause men are raised to care about themselves and women are raised to care about everyone else.”

“You're right. This is a sexist society.”

Traci glanced up at the sky. “Hey, it's a full moon,” she pointed. “You wanna go home and make love?”

“Sure. I'm surprised you're in the mood after all that ranting and raving you just did.”

“Hey, when women hold back their anger, they also hold back their sexuality. When women release their anger, they free up their sexual energy.”

“I didn't know there was a connection.”

“Yeah, I heard about it at a barbecue last summer, from a feminist therapist. It's all about energy.”

“Well”—I winked—“let's go home and fire up those sheets, then.” It struck me how comfortable I'd grown being with a woman sexually. What could be more natural?

9

I got a letter from Today. She got hired with Model Cities. Sharlinda had a second interview with Head Start in Milwaukee. According to Today's letter, they were each dating somebody fine. “How are things with Mr. Goodbar? Are you coming back home?” Today was on a waiting list for a co-op apartment in Chatham Village. Chatham was a black, middle-class neighborhood on the Southside with manicured yards and well-maintained brick houses and apartment buildings. My old friend Linda lived in “the village” now. I'd been impressed by the wide lawns with flowers and ornate benches. The residents appeared to be friendly “about-something” black folks. Maybe that's where I belonged. No, the grass is always greener on the other side, I reminded myself. Remember, you're having an adventure. There's no way anybody back home is experiencing anything like this.

But it was getting old not having a job. I wasn't a soap-opera fan, but lately I'd been tempted. It was hard watching everybody, including the cat, beat it outta here on a regular basis. Jawea was always going to some meeting or class or therapy session. She just happened to be home today. It was a wonder she wasn't getting Rolfed or hypnotized or doing Primal Scream therapy.

Sometimes, when I got bored at home, I walked to the Full Moon Coffeehouse in the Castro to drink tea and read. It was run by a women's collective, and they even had a bookstore on the premises. At night I'd gone there with Traci to hear music or just to hang out.

I was getting frustrated with job hunting. Traci said I was too picky. But I just didn't want to settle for something deadend. After four years of college, why should I? Traci said it wasn't so important what I was doing, just so long as I was doing it in San Francisco. I loved this beautiful, naturally air-conditioned city, and I loved Traci. But I would have also loved to have a great job. Was that asking too much?

The telephone interrupted my thoughts. I answered it.

“Jawea, telephone, it's Raven.”

“Thanks,” Jawea mumbled, turning away from her weeding. I decided to help her by pulling some weeds. It wouldn't hurt to be on good terms with her, I thought. I knew how much people hated weeding.

I was working up a sweat in the afternoon sun. I'd forgotten how boring and unpleasant weeding could be. But it felt good to be accomplishing something. I could see my progress.

“You're a space invader!” Jawea shouted over me.

I looked up and shaded my eyes. Jawea looked tense and angry.

“What are you talking about?” I asked surprised.

“You've invaded my space!”

“Invaded your space? What do you mean? I'm helping you.” I pointed to the pile on the ground. “Look how many weeds I've pulled.”

“I don't need your help!” Jawea shouted, kicking the pile, scattering the weeds into the dirt. “Pulling weeds is part of my therapy.”

“Pulling weeds is part of your therapy?”

“Yes, and you're interfering with my therapeutic process!”

I stood up. “Look, I'm sorry, Jawea. I was just trying to be nice.”

“Stevie, don't try to be nice, OK? Just be yourself.”

“But, I
am
a nice person.”

“I hate nice! Ugh, that word makes my skin crawl.”

I folded my arms, “Jawea, would you rather I just leave you alone, not say anything to you?”

Jawea looked me directly in the eye. “Stevie, I would
rather
you be the custodian of my solitude. That's what I would
rather
.” Her voice sounded more dreamy than angry.

“The custodian of your what?”

“The custodian of my solitude.”

I couldn't decide if Jawea was super-deep or super-crazy.

“I think I need an ice cream cone,” I sighed as I walked away.

I minored in psychology, but that probably wasn't enough to tackle Jawea's neurotic ass. Actually, Jawea and I usually got along, even though she was … different. She let me borrow
Sisterhood Is Powerful
and her magazines. And we'd gotten high a few times together on her dope. When I smoked weed, I usually got talkative and laughed a lot. But when Jawea was high she got real quiet and spaced out. Those were the only times I'd seen her watch TV. But she insisted on watching it with no sound. Just Joan Baez singing on the stereo in the background. People do that shit when they're high.

So, anyway, just when I thought Jawea and I were cool, she came outta a bag on me. Last week, she went off just because she saw me drinking a Coca-Cola. She said by supporting a mega corporation, I was contributing to my own and other folk's oppression. Traci wouldn't back me up, either. She said I should be drinking a natural juice or mineral water. Traci said that as a member of the Loving Foods Collective, she could never condone my behavior.

Most of the time harmony prevailed in our household. We ate together when we were all there. And it worked out well. Whoever felt like cooking did. Jawea was good at fixing stuff with beans in it. Traci made big pots of vegetable stews with tofu and brown rice. I'd learned to make vegetarian dishes like sesame eggplant Parmesan and spinach quiche, since we hardly ever had any meat. I couldn't complain because most of the time, I ain't buying, I'm crying.

If I knew a job was around the corner, I could enjoy walking down Twenty-Fourth Street more, I thought. There were so many interesting shops in this neighborhood. My family had never even tasted quiche, and there was a store called Quiche and Carry that made them fresh. It looked like something out of France. And the coffee shop next door sold croissants. There was no such thing as a plain cup of coffee over there either. It was all about cappuccinos, lattes, and mochas. The health-food store down the block was as big as a supermarket. And a folksy shop nearby sold batiks, stained glass, macramé, candles, and pottery made by local artists. There was even a bookstore that sold crystals, incense, and self-improvement tapes. And the Noe Valley Ministry around the corner offered belly-dancing classes, concerts, and political meetings, in addition to Sunday services.

Noe Valley was definitely a “live-and-let-live” type of neighborhood. It wasn't unusual to see two women holding hands on the street. The mostly gay male Castro was only a stone's throw away. I felt more or less accepted by the bohemian crowd that favored backpacks, Birkenstock sandals, Tai Chi slippers, drawstring pants, heavy Mexican sweaters, and down jackets. Us folks who lived on the J Church streetcar line were indeed living in one of the most desirably hip parts of the city. Yet I missed the lack of color in the laid-back faces. I was a bit homesick for my family and even that black, South Side of Chicago drawl.

But how could I complain, when I was about to join the line outside Bud's Ice Cream? Soon, I'd be wrapping my tongue around a double scoop.

“Can I help the next person?” the tall, thin clerk asked. I paused for a moment to ponder how he could work in an ice cream parlor and be so skinny. Before I could say “vanilla caramel fudge on an old-fashioned cone” a man in a denim jacket elbowed his way ahead of me.

“I'll have two hot fudge sundaes.”

“I believe I was next,” I snapped. After Jawea, I wasn't in the mood for any shit.

The clerk stood holding his metal scoop in midair.

“One for me and one for her,” the man grinned.

It was Gretchen's sister's boyfriend, who'd brought the cocaine to the party a month ago. “Roger, I didn't even recognize you.”

“I saw you through the window. I just happened to be passing by.”

After thanking Roger, I plunged my tongue into a big spoonful of soft, cold ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream, and walnuts.

We settled on a nearby bench. Roger's black hair shone in the warm sunshine. He took off his jacket. I noticed that his T-shirt read “Women Hold Up Half the Sky.”

“It doesn't get any better than this,” Roger smiled.

“Uhmmm hmm, this is pure ectasy,” I agreed, glancing into his oval face, with its broad features.

“They use real whipped cream.”

“I've never felt so rich and been so poor.”

“You still job hunting?”

I nodded. “I've started to look outside my field. But I did get offered a job at KSOL a couple of days ago.”

“The radio station?”

“Yeah, but I turned it down.”

“Why?”

“It's in San Mateo. It would be an impossible commute without a car. It took me all day to get out there and back on the Greyhound.”

“Maybe you should've bought a car.”

“I can't afford to. And Traci won't teach me to drive hers 'cause she just put in a new clutch.”

“That's too bad.”

“The job really wasn't worth it. It was just a three-fifty-an-hour job in traffic.”

“I thought you said it was in a radio station.”

“It was, traffic is scheduling airtime. It's detailed and tedious.”

“At least you'd have your foot in the door. Jobs in the media are hard to come by.”

“Yeah, but traffic is just a clerical job in a glamorous field. And they usually don't lead to anything.”

“The immigrant in me says, ‘You better take what you can get, until you can do better.'”

“You're an immigrant?”

“I was born in China. My family came here when I was ten. My parents took any work they could find. Now they own a house in Pacifica and two stores in Chinatown.”

“Traci says she'd rather see me on welfare for a while rather than doing something that's not going to be right for me.”

“Well, the artist in me can understand that philosophy. But the immigrant in me says, ‘Next time they offer you a job, you better take it.'”

“Next time, I probably will. I hope there will be a next time. It's been over a month. I'm getting desperate.”

We finished our ice cream and said good-bye.

When I got back to the pad, I decided to call Grandma. I still needed some down-home understanding after dealing with Jawea. The ice cream hadn't been enough.

“Grandma sometimes I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around Jawea. You never know what's going to set her off.”

“They're like that,” Grandma said.

I cradled the phone under my chin and continued petting the cat. “Grandma, I hate to stereotype people.”

“Baby, I know the white man and I know the black man and I know the white woman and I know the black woman.”

“You sound like there are only four people in the world. What about the Asians, the Latinos, and the Native Americans?”

“I haven't studied them. But I know Mr. Charlie and Sam and Miss Ann and Mathilda.”

“Grandma, I don't see how you can know white folks so well, when you're never around them.”

“I don't need to be around them. I got my education early. I worked for them. I was right in the house with them. I've studied their ways.”

The cat put her head up right to the phone. Even she knew that there was a story coming on. She looked toward the window and back, as if deciding whether she wanted to hear it.

“The first white woman I worked for, I was nothing but about fourteen. I remember once there was a storm and part of the road was washed out. The water was too deep to make it out on foot. Anyway, I was stuck at their house. So Miss Ethel says to me, ‘Sadie Mae, why don't you sleep up in the attic with A.C. tonight.'”

“Who was A.C.?”

“He was an older man that did work for them. But it didn't matter who he was. He was a man and I was a fourteen-year-old girl. There was no way in the world I would've closed my eyes in the same room with some man.”

“So, what did you say?”

“I said, ‘Miss Ethel I can't sleep up there in the attic with some man who isn't even any kin to me.

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘I don't see what the problem is; you're both colored.'”

“That's pathetic, Grandma.”

“It's worse than pathetic. Now, she would've never expected her daughter to sleep in the room with some old peckawood.”

“Of course not. Her daughter was a person, you were just another nigga.”

“You got it, baby. And they will never see you as anything other than that. 'Cause the bottom line is, you don't deserve the same dignity they do, as far as they're concerned.”

“I know what you're saying. But it's hard, because I know that there are different kinds of white people. They can't all think alike.”

“Yeah, there are different kinds of beans too, but they all wind up giving you gas.”

“That's cold, Grandma.”

“The truth ain't hate. Jean, I don't know why you even fool with 'em. Getting back to Miss Ann; everybody knows how fragile the white woman is. You gotta all the time handle her with kid gloves. But
you're
not supposed to have any feelings. Just so long as she can stay on her pedestal. Anyway, you don't need to run up your bill talking about Miss Ann. She gets enough attention. So, how's the job hunt?”