Rubyfruit Jungle (14 page)

She squirmed in her seat and avoided my gaze. I had broken the code and put her on the spot. “We’re here to discuss you, not me. I had plenty of opportunities. I decided a career was more important to me than being a homemaker. Many ambitious women were forced into that choice in my day.”

“You know what I think? I think you’re as much a lesbian as I am. You’re a goddamn fucking closet fairy, that’s what you are. I know you’ve been living with Miss Stiles of the English Department for the last fifteen years. You’re running this whole number on me to make yourself look good. Hell, at least I’m honest about what I am.”

Yes, her face was red, inflamed. She slammed her fist so hard on the desk that the glass covering with all the papers pushed under it broke and she cut her meaty hand. “Young lady, you are
going directly to the psychiatrist. You are obviously a hostile, destructive personality and need supervision. What a way to talk to me when I’m trying to help you. You’re farther gone than I thought.”

The noise attracted her secretaries and Dean Marne dialed the university hospital. I was escorted to the looney ward by two campus policemen. The nurse took my fingerprints. I suppose they run them under a microscope to see if there are any diseased bacteria on them. Then I was led to a bare room with a cot in it and stripped of all my clothing. I was put in a nifty gown that would have made even Marilyn Monroe look whipped. The door was shut and they turned the key. The flourescent lights hurt my eyes and their humming was driving me as nuts as the treatment I had received. Hours later Dr. Demiral, a Turkish psychiatrist, ame in to talk to me. He asked me if I was disturbed. I told him that I sure was disturbed now and I wanted out of this place. He told me to calm myself, and within a few days I’d be out. Until that time I was being observed for my own good. It was a matter of procedure, nothing personal. Those next days I beat out Bette Davis for acting awards. I was calm and cheerful. I pretended I was delighted to see Dr. Demiral’s greasy, bearded face. We talked about my childhood, about Dean Marne, and about my simmering hatreds that I had repressed. It was very simple. Whatever they say, you look serious, attentive, and say “yes” or, “I hadn’t thought of that.” I invented horrendous stories to ground my fury in the past. It’s also very important to make up dreams. They love dreams. I used to lie awake nights thinking up dreams. It was exhausting.
Within the week, I was released to return to the relative tranquility of Broward Hall.

I stopped at my mailbox, which had two letters in it. One was written in Faye’s handwriting and one had a silver, blue, and gold edging around it which meant it was from my beloved sisters at Tri-Delta. I opened that one first. It was official and had the crescent seal on the paper. I was dropped from the sorority and they were sure I’d understand. Everyone hoped I’d get better. I ran up the stairs, opened the door, and found all Faye’s things gone. I sat down on the lonesome bed and read Faye’s letter.

Between a white pair of underpants and a red pair was the twenty dollars. Underneath the whole pile was the Jack Daniels. I drank Faye her toast, then walked down the hall with all the doors closing like clockwork and poured the rest of the bottle down the drain.

The next day in my mailbox was a letter from the scholarship committee informing me that my scholarships could not be renewed for “moral reasons” although my academic record was “superb.”

Nesting in the back of my closet with the palmetto bugs was my Girls’ State suitcase. I pulled it out and filled it, sat on it to close it. I left my books in my room except for my English book, left my term papers and football programs and my last scrap of innocence. I closed the door forever on idealism and the essential goodness of human nature, and I walked to the Greyhound bus station by the same path that I had taken on my arrival.

Mother was sitting in her green stuffed rocking chair when I walked through the door. “You can turn around and walk right out. I know everything that went on up there, the dean of women called me up. You just turn your ass around and get out.”

“Mom, you only know what they told you.”

“I know you let your ass run away with your head, that’s what I know. A queer, I raised a queer, that’s what I know. You’re lower than them dirty fruit pickers in the groves, you know that?”

“Mom, you don’t understand anything. Why don’t you let me tell my side of it?”

“I don’t want to hear nothing you can say. You always were a bad one. You never obeyed nobody’s rules—mine, the school’s, and now you go defying God’s rules. Go on and get outa here. I don’t want you. Why the hell you even bother to come back here?”

“Because you’re the only family I got. Where else am I gonna go?”

“That’s your problem, smart-pants. You’ll have no friends and you got no family. Let’s see how far you get, you little snot-nose. You thought you’d go to college and be better than me. You thought you’d go mix with the rich. And you still think you’re dandy, don’t you? Even being a stinking queer don’t shake you none. I can see conceit writ all over your face. Well, I hope live to see the day you put your tail between your legs. I’ll laugh right in your face.”

“Then you’d better live to see me dead.” I picked up my suitcase by the door and walked out into the cool night air. I had $14.61 in my jeans, that’s what was left over from Faye’s money and the remains of mine after the bus ticket. That wouldn’t get me half to New York City. And that’s where I was going. There are so many queers in New York that one more wouldn’t rock the boat.

I walked down northeast 14th Street to Route 1 and there I parked my suitcase on the ground and stuck out my thumb. Nobody seemed to notice me. I was beginning to think I’d have to walk to New York when a station wagon with Georgia plates pulled up.

A man, woman, and child sat inside looking me over. The woman motioned for me to hop in. She started right up. “My husband thought you must be some stranded college student. Came on down here for a break and your money run out, did it?”

“Yes ma’am, that’s exactly what happened and you know I couldn’t tell my parents I was down here. They’d have fits.”

The man chuckled. “Kids. Where do you go to school?”

“Oh, I go to Barnard up in New York City.”

“Oh, you do have a long way to go,” the woman said.

“Yes ma’am. And I bet you all aren’t going up that far are you?”

“No, but we’re going as far north as Statesboro, Georgia.” She laughed.

“You got spunk hitching,” her husband admired. “I’ve never seen a girl hitch before.”

“Maybe you’ve never seen a girl broke before.”

They both roared and agreed that the days of flaming youth were back in style. They were nice people, homey, suburban, and boring, but nice all the same. They warned me not to get in a car with more than one man in it and to try to hold out for a car with a woman passenger. When they left me off at the Gulf station in Statesboro the man gave me a ten-dollar bill and wished me luck. They waved goodbye as they drove off into the sunset of the nuclear family.

I took up under an aging tree drenched in Spanish moss. After three or more hours a car finally pulled over. The driver was near my age, clean-cut, and alone. Well, if he tries anything, I have a fighting chance.

“Hi, how far are you going?”

“All the way to New York City.”

“Come on in, you hit the jackpot. I’m going to Boston.”

I slung myself into the low Corvette and prayed he wasn’t recently released from a mental institution. Maybe he should be praying: I was the one just out of protective custody.

“My name is Ralph. What’s yours?”

“Molly Bolt.”

“Hi, Molly.”

“Hi, Ralph.”

“How come you’re hitching? That’s dangerous, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know that, but I didn’t exactly have a fat choice.” I launched into my rap about running out of money. Ralph was short, muscular, and had blond, curly hair. He went to M.I.T. and majored in nuclear physics. He was a friendly young man, interested in me, but too polite to lunge. I had latched onto a lucky ride. All I had to do was talk, keep him entertained, and take a turn at the wheel. He was in a hurry to get back so we skipped a potentially gruesome motel scene. The glove compartment was crammed with dex so there was no danger of flaking out. We talked nonstop all the way up the Eastern seaboard. Finally I understood the quantum theory and Ralph understood the rise of Joseph Stalin. At last, when we came through the Holland Tunnel, I understood that there never was a city like New York. I was coming into a foreign land without one friend and very little money.

“Molly, let me drive you to your door. I don’t mind at all.”

“Thanks, but I’d like to walk around a little. Sounds corny but I really want to do it. Why don’t you leave me in Washington Square?” I had read somewhere in some trashy book that the Square was the hub of the Village and the Village was the hub of homosexuality. Ralph dropped me right in front of the arch. He gave me his address, a kiss,
and a cheery good-bye and drove off in a puff of carbon gas. I had to fight back an urge to call him back and tell him I didn’t know one damn thing about this monstrous city and why not switch schools to New York and be my friend.

The temperature was in the thirties and all I had was a thin jacket with a crew neck sweater on underneath plus $24.61 in my pocket. The Square was not teeming with flashy gay people as I had hoped. I started up Fifth Avenue and tried not to cry. Faces were coming at me in all directions and I didn’t know one of them. People were pushing and hurrying and no one smiled, not even a little grin. This wasn’t a city, it was some branch of hell, the Hanging Gardens of Neon burning into my skull. Hell or not, there was no place for me to go so this would be my place.

I got as far as 14th Street. The mad shoppers rushing for Mays and Kleins nearly trampled me. I turned around to go back to the Square, at least it was quieter there. It was getting late and an acid drizzle was coming down. Already I could feel the pollution caking in my nostrils and my eyes burning from the fumes. Hunger hit like a semi since the dex wore off, but I was afraid to spend any money on food. I knew I couldn’t spend any on a room either. It looked as though I was going to curl up in the fountain in the park and freeze to death. My hands had begun to crack and bleed from carrying my suitcase in the cold. My toes were ice cubes. I didn’t have any socks. Who wears socks in Florida? The Square was deserted save for a few couples strolling through and a drunk
down by the chess tables. Now what the flying hell am I going to do?

I turned toward New York University and studied the buildings, dimly perceiving they were some type of institution. Maybe I can sneak in there and sleep. I went to the main entrance but it was locked. Then I trotted around to a side entrance on University Place. That door was locked too. Well, I could run around the block all night to keep warm. As I turned, I noticed a wrecked Hudson car. Faded red and black, crumpled up in front with all the tires robbed from its wheels, it slumped in front of the Chock Full O’ Nuts. It looked beautiful to me and it was home.