Stone Butch

Blues

Stone Butch

Blues

a novel by

Leslie Feinberg

20th anniversary

author edition

Available at

www.lesliefeinberg.net

© 1993 and 2014 by Leslie Feinberg Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Feinberg, Leslie. 1949-2014

10th Anniversary Edition Afterword, Excerpts © 2003 by Leslie Stone Butch Blues/20th Anniversary Edition/Leslie Feinberg/

Feinberg.

First Self-Published Edition

Preface to Chinese Edition © 2003 by Leslie Feinberg.

Includes: 10th Anniversary 2003 Edition Afterword, Excerpts; Note to Serbo-Croatian Edition © 2012 by Leslie Feinberg.

Preface to 2003 Chinese Edition; Note to 2012 Serbo-Croatian Edition

20th Anniversary Edition Notes from Author, Author Acknowledgements, Author Rights and Requests, Author 1. Trans*—Fiction.

Translation Agreement, and Author Biography © 2014 by Leslie 2. Transgender people—Fiction.

Feinberg.

3. Butch and femme (Lesbian cultures)—Fiction.

4. Lesbians—Fiction.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) Freedman, Leslie Kahn, Adam Schiff, Kelly Wooten.

other than those described in the Author Rights and Requests Statement.

Cover Design by Kuan Luo

Dedication, Back and Front Cover Photographs by Leslie Feinberg Published by Firebrand Books: 1993.

Published by Alyson Books: 2003.

Available at www.lesliefeinberg.net:

20th Anniversary Author Edition: 2014.

NO COST

Read online

ISBN: Previously published with ISBN 1-56341-030-3, ISBN-PDF download

10: 156341029X and ISBN-13: 978-1563410291 by Firebrand Mobile device download

Books, and ISBN 1-55583-853-7 and ISBN 978-155583-853-9

AT COST

by Alyson Books.

Print-on-demand

12 pt. & 16 pt. large-print type

non-commercial publication.

From 10th Anniversary Edition

Stone Butch

Blues

“Leslie Feinberg has written a poignant, multilayered

“In a world of polarities, where all we’re taught is story involving class, race, religion, politics, and black and white, Stone Butch Blues added to what we gender that touches the hearts and souls of anyone know is really a rainbow. How we choose to live in that has lived outside the purported norms imposed our bodies and our hearts is much more than a Dick-by mainstream society.”

—Michael M. Hernandez, transgender writer/activist

—Jewelle Gomez, author of Don’t Explain

“Stone Butch Blue s is a powerful novel written by a

“In this revolutionary novel, Feinberg explodes the founder of the contemporary transgender movement.

myth of the binary gender system and the feminist It is also an important historical text documenting notion that butchness is apolitical. The scenes of early the profound shift in how we all came to think about queer society are brought to vivacious life—I laughed, gender at the end of the last century.”

I cried, and felt right at home.”

—Susan Stryker, executive director of GLBT Historical

—Chrystos, author of Fire Power and Fugitive Colors Society

“Stone Butch Blues is a unique take on the universal

“Reading this book changed my life. The narrator of theme of self-love and identity … written with a Stone Butch Blues both walks achingly alone and tells compelling passion that has its very own sound.”

the sweet story of connecting to a society in which

—Emanuel Xavier, author of Americano and Christ Like the vast criminality of homophobia, the tenderness and the wildness of love, and the tiny, massive

“Stone Butch Blues has probably touched your life even vitalities of friendship, work, and political community.

if you haven’t read it yet. It’s a movement classic, Everyone needs to know Stone Butch Blues and pass it one of those books that spilled right out of its around. It’s history out loud.”

binding and into the world, changing the landscape

—Eileen Myles, author of Cool for You

irrevocably.”

—Alison Bechdel, creator of Dykes to Watch Out For

“Stone Butch Blues

should be required reading in high school and college

“The most galvanizing book I’ve encountered about classes across the county. This novel takes its place the alchemical transformations among pride, shame, not only within a long tradition of queer narratives of alienation and opposition, but, in form and

content, it also hearkens back to radical proletarian

—Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, author of Touching Feeling: U.S. literature from the 1930s. By weaving the story Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity

through the narratives of the 1960s and 1970s social movements, Feinberg insistently reminds us that our

“Stone Butch Blues is the queer great American novel—

individual struggles are always part of a larger fabric it will be read, loved, studied, and denounced for a of resistance. Stone Butch Blues will be read for years to long, long time.”

come!”

—Holly Hughes, performance artist and author of Clit

—Judith Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity Notes: A Sapphic Sampler

Dedicated to

CeCe McDonald

CeCe McDonald’s tenacious courage and organizing inspired an CeCe McDonald wrote from a prison cell on

international united front: against violence targeting oppressed November 16, 2012:

youths and women--particularly the war on (trans)women of color,

“Trans Day of Remembrance: A Proposal”

against the school-to-prison pipeline and racist mass incarceration, white supremacy and transmisogyny; and for the rights of oppressed

“We need for our mission to promote racial, social, and sexes, self/gender expressions and sexualities, and the right of the economic justice for trans youth, with freedom to self-oppressed to self-defense.

These excerpts and more information:

“[T]o have rights and a voice. To be able to walk in this

supportcece.wordpress.com

world, not afraid and actual y feel like a human being and not a shadow in a corner.

grocery store with some friends, al of them young, African

“I would have rather been punished for asserting myself American, and LGBTIQ or al ied. As they passed a local than become another victim of hatred.

bar, the Schooner Tavern, a group of older, white people who were standing outside the bar’s side door began hurling

“We need to not only celebrate for Trans Day of

racist and transphobic slurs at them, without provocation.

Remembrance, but also become self-aware and ready to

… When CeCe approached the group and told them that put an end to our community being the focus of violence.

her crew would not tolerate hate speech, one of the women Of course it is more than important to recognize and pay homage to our fallen, but we also need to put our feet during which one of the attackers, Dean Schmitz, was fatally down and start being real leaders and making this stand.”

stabbed. The only person arrested that night was CeCe. …”

CeCe McDonald won her release on

January 13, 2014.

Photo made together by CeCe McDonald & Leslie Feinberg during a jail visit in South Minneapolis McDonald’s trial.

Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5

Generic

No commercial use except for social/media reports

Visit www.lesliefeinberg.net for

‘This is what solidarity looks like!’

Slide show documenting breadth of demand to

‘Free CeCe!’

i have been locked by the lawless.

Handcuffed by the haters.

Gagged by the greedy.

And, if i know anything at all,

it’s that a wall is just a wall

and nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.

from “i believe in living.”

By Assata Shakur

assatashakur.org

‘Stop Wall Street’s war on women!’

Wall Street

New York City

March 31, 2012

I delivered many messages of solidarity

to CeCe McDonald during a brief visit

with her in jail on the evening of her

Reina Gossett (center, holding sign), in-

cluded the last lines of Assata Shakur’s

poem. I conveyed Reina’s message,

omitting the poem. After the visit, I

explained to Reina that I had feared

the jailers who listen in might errone-

ously jump to the conclusion that the

message was code for escape. With

this epigraph, I complete the task with

which I was entrusted by Reina Gossett

(thespiritwas.tumblr.com).

Photo credit: Gabriel Foster

—Leslie Feinberg, August 2013

‘May Day 2012’

Union Square

New York City

May 1, 2012

Table of Contents

001

Stone Butch Blues

Chapters 1-26

333

Author Notes on the 20th Anniversary Edition 336

Author Afterword to the 10th Anniversary Edition, Excerpts 339

Author Preface to the Chinese Edition

343

Author Note to the Serbo-Croatian Edition

348

Publication History

349

Author: Thanks to the Team!

352

Author Rights & Requests

358

Translation Agreement

360

About Leslie Feinberg

363

‘Free CeCe!’

Previously translated into:

Chinese, Turkish, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Italian, German, Dutch, and Hebrew (author royalties donated to Palestinian ASWAT)

Dear Reader:

I want to let you know that Stone Butch Blues is an anti-oppression/s novel.

As a result, it contains scenes of rape and other violence.

None of this violence is gratuitous or salacious.

Leslie

Stone Butch

Blues

a novel by

Leslie Feinberg

01

DEAR THERESA,

themselves so much they have to look and act like men. I felt I’m lying on my bed tonight missing you, my eyes all telling her, all cool and calm, about how women like me existed lightning storm raging outside. Tonight I walked down streets since the dawn of time, before there was oppression, and how those looking for you in every woman’s face, as I have each night of this societies respected them, and she got her very interested expression lonely exile. I’m afraid I’ll never see your laughing, teasing eyes on—and besides it was time to leave.

again.

So we walked by a corner where these cops were laying into I had coffee in Greenwich Village earlier with a woman.

a homeless man and I stopped and mouthed off to the cops and they started coming at me with their clubs raised and she tugged since we’re both “into politics.” Well, we sat in a cof ee shop and my belt to pul me back. I just looked at her, and suddenly I she talked about Democratic politics and seminars and photography felt things wel up in me I thought I had buried. I stood there and problems with her co-op and how she’s so opposed to rent remembering you like I didn’t see cops about to hit me, like I was control. Small wonder—Daddy is a real estate developer.

falling back into another world, a place I wanted to go again.

I was looking at her while she was talking, thinking to And suddenly my heart hurt so bad and I realized how myself that I’m a stranger in this woman’s eyes. She’s looking at long it’s been since my heart felt—anything.

I need to go home to you tonight, Theresa. I can’t. So I’m this society for what it’s done to “women like me” who hate writing you this letter.

I remember years ago, the day I started working at the cannery in Buffalo and you had already been there a few months, After you moved that way, you had more than my heart. You and how your eyes caught mine and played with me before you made me ache and you liked that. So did I.

The older butches warned me: if you wanted to keep your some forms but I was so busy wondering what color your hair was marriage, don’t go to the bars. But I’ve always been a one-woman under that white paper net and how it would look and feel in my butch. Besides, this was our community, the only one we belonged to, so we went every weekend.

gently when the foreman came back and said, “You comin’ or not?”

had one kind or the other, some weekends both. There were the All of us he-shes were mad as hell when we heard you breasts. I still unloaded on the docks for another couple of days, to trap everyone in the bar, like the night Heddy lost her eye when but I was kind of mopey. It just wasn’t the same after your light she got hit upside the head with a bar stool.

went out.

I was real proud that in all those years I never hit another I couldn’t believe it the night I went to the club on the West butch woman. See, I loved them too, and I understood their pain Side. There you were, leaning up against the bar, your jeans too and their shame because I was so much like them. I loved the tight for words and your hair, your hair all loose and free.

lines etched in their faces and hands and the curves of their work-And I remember that look in your eyes again. You didn’t weary shoulders. Sometimes I looked in the mirror and wondered just know me, you liked what you saw. And this time, ooh what I would look like when I was their age. Now I know!

woman, we were on our own turf. I could move the way you In their own way, they loved me too. They protected me wanted me to, and I was glad I’d gotten al dressed up.

because they knew I wasn’t a “Saturday-night butch.” The Our own turf . . . “Would you dance with me?”

weekend butches were scared of me because I was a stone he-she.

You didn’t say yes or no, just teased me with your eyes, If only they had known how powerless I really felt inside! But the straightened my tie, smoothed my col ar, and took me by the older butches, they knew the whole road that lay ahead of me and hand. You had my heart before you moved against me like you they wished I didn’t have to go down it because it hurt so much.

did. Tammy was singing “Stand By Your Man,” and we were When I came into the bar in drag, kind of hunched over, they told me, “Be proud of what you are,” and then they adjusted 2 Leslie Feinberg

my tie sort of like you did. I was like them; they knew I didn’t We learned fast that the cops always pul ed the police van right up to the bar door and left snarling dogs inside so we each other on the back in the bars and watched each other’s backs couldn’t get out. We were trapped, alright.

at the factory.

Remember the night you stayed home with me when I was But then there were the times our real enemies came in the so sick? That was the night—you remember. The cops picked front door: drunken gangs of sailors, Klan-type thugs, sociopaths out the most stone butch of them all to destroy with humiliation, and cops. You always knew when they walked in because someone a woman everyone said “wore a raincoat in the shower.” We thought to pull the plug on the jukebox. No matter how many heard they stripped her, slow, in front of everyone in the bar, and times it happened, we al stil went “Aw …” when the music laughed at her trying to cover up her nakedness. Later she went stopped and then realized it was time to get down to business.

mad, they said. Later she hung herself.

What would I have done if I had been there that night?

did. Fought hard—femme and butch, women and men together.

I’m remembering the busts in the bars in Canada. Packed If the music stopped and it was the cops at the door, in the police vans, all the Saturday-night butches giggled and tried someone plugged the music back in and we switched dance partners. Us in our suits and ties paired off with our drag queen in the tank with the femme women—said it would be like “dyin’

sisters in their dresses and pumps. Hard to remember that it was and goin’ to heaven.” The law said we had to be wearing three illegal then for two women or two men to sway to music together.

pieces of women’s clothing.

When the music ended, the butches bowed, our femme partners We never switched clothing. Neither did our drag queen curtsied, and we returned to our seats, our lovers, and our drinks sisters. We knew, and so did you, what was coming. We needed to await our fates.

our sleeves rolled up, our hair slicked back, in order to live That’s when I remember your hand on my belt, up under through it. Our hands were cuffed tight behind our backs. Yours my suit jacket. That’s where your hand stayed the whole time the were cuffed in front. You loosened my tie, unbuttoned my col ar, cops were there. “Take it easy, honey. Stay with me baby, cool and touched my face. I saw the pain and fear for me in your face, off,” you’d be cooing in my ear like a special lover’s song sung and I whispered it would be alright. We knew it wouldn’t be.

to warriors who need to pick and choose their battles in order to I never told you what they did to us down there—queens survive.

in one tank, stone butches in the next—but you knew. One at a Stone Butch Blues 3

time they would drag our brothers out of the cells, slapping and Later, in bed, you held me gently, caressing me everywhere, punching them, locking the bars behind them fast in case we lost the tenderest touches reserved for the places I was hurt, knowing control and tried to stop them, as if we could. They’d handcuff a brother’s wrists to his ankles or chain his face against the bars. They made us watch. Sometimes we’d catch the eyes of the But slowly you coaxed my pride back out again by showing me terrorized victim, or the soon-to-be, caught in the vise of torture, how much you wanted me. You knew it would take you weeks and we’d say gently, “I’m with you, honey, look at me, it’s OK, again to melt the stone.

we’l take you home.”

Lately I’ve read these stories by women who are so angry We never cried in front of the cops. We knew we were next.

The next time the cel door opens it wil be me they drag out give way to trust, to being touched. And I’m wondering: did it and chain spread-eagle to the bars.

hurt you the times I couldn’t let you touch me? I hope it didn’t.

Did I survive? I guess I did. But only because I knew I You never showed it if it did. I think you knew it wasn’t you might get home to you.

I was keeping myself safe from. You treated my stone self as a They let us out last, one at a time, on Monday morning.

wound that needed loving healing. Thank you. No one’s ever done No charges. Too late to call in sick to work, no money, hitch-that since. If you were here tonight … wel , it’s hypothetical, isn’t hiking, crossing the border on foot, rumpled clothes, bloody, it?

needing a shower, hurt, scared.

I never said these things to you.

I knew you’d be home if I could get there.

Tonight I remember the time I got busted alone, on strange You ran a bath for me with sweet-smel ing bubbles. You turf. You’re probably wincing already, but I have to say this laid out a fresh pair of white BVDs and a T-shirt for me and to you. It was the night we drove ninety miles to a bar to meet friends who never showed up. When the police raided the club we I remember, it was always the same. I would put on were “alone,” and the cop with gold bars on his uniform came the briefs, and then I’d just get the T-shirt over my head and right over to me and told me to stand up. No wonder, I was the only he-she in the place that night.

get something or put something away. In a glance you would He put his hands all over me, pulled up the band of my memorize the wounds on my body like a road map—the gashes, Jockeys and told his men to cuff me—I didn’t have three pieces bruises, cigarette burns.

4 Leslie Feinberg

Damn anyone who thinks that means you were relegated in because I knew the chance would be lost in a moment. But I also life to worrying about my ring-around-the-collar.

knew that everyone would be beaten that night if I fought back, I knew exactly what you meant. It was such an oddly sweet so I just stood there. I saw they had pinned your arms behind way of saying, or not saying, what you were feeling. Sort of the your back and cuffed your hands. One cop had his arm across way I shut down emotional y when I feel scared and hurt and your throat. I remember the look in your eyes. It hurts me even helpless and say funny little things that seem so out of context.

now.

You drove us home with my head in your lap al the way, They cuffed my hands so tight behind my back I almost stroking my face. You ran the bath. Set out my fresh underwear.

cried out. Then the cop unzipped his pants real slow, with a Put me to bed. Caressed me carefully. Held me gently.

smirk on his face, and ordered me down on my knees. First I Later that night I woke up and found myself alone in bed.

thought to myself, I can’t! Then I said out loud to myself and You were drinking at the kitchen table, head in your hands. You to you and to him, “I won’t!” I never told you this before, but something changed inside of me at that moment. I learned the difference between what I can’t do and what I refuse to do.

I paid the price for that lesson. Do I have to tell you every my chest and cried even harder, sobbing, “It’s my fault, I couldn’t detail? Of course not.

stop them.”

When I got out of the tank the next morning you were I’ve always wanted to tell you this. In that one moment I there. You bailed me out. No charges, they just kept your money.

knew you really did understand how I felt in life. Choking on You had waited al night long in that police station. Only I knew anger, feeling so powerless, unable to protect myself or those I how hard it was for you to withstand their leers, their taunts, their threats. I knew you cringed with every sound you strained to hear up. I didn’t have the words to tell you this then. I just said, “It’ll from back in the cells. You prayed you wouldn’t hear me scream.

be OK, it’l be alright.” And then we smiled ironical y at what I didn’t.

I’d said, and I took you back to our bed and made the best love I remember when we got outside to the parking lot you to you I could, considering the shape I was in. You knew not to stopped and put your hands lightly on my shoulders and avoided my eyes. You gently rubbed the bloody places on my shirt and hair and cried and cried.

said, “I’l never get these stains out.”

Stone Butch Blues 5

When did we get separated in life, sweet warrior woman?

Or are you married in another blue-collar town, lying with We thought we’d won the war of liberation when we embraced an unemployed auto worker who is much more like me than they the word gay. Then suddenly there were professors and doctors are, listening for the even breathing of your sleeping children? Do and lawyers coming out of the woodwork telling us that meetings you bind his emotional wounds the way you tried to heal mine?

should be run with Robert’s Rules of Order . (Who died and Do you ever think of me in the cool night?

left Robert god?)

I’ve been writing this letter to you for hours. My ribs hurt They drove us out, made us feel ashamed of how we bad from a recent beating. You know.

looked. They said we were male chauvinist pigs, the enemy. It was I never could have survived this long if I’d never known women’s hearts they broke. We were not hard to send away, we your love. Yet stil I ache with missing you and need you so.

went quietly.

Only you could melt this stone. Are you ever coming back?

The plants closed. Something we never could have imagined.

The storm has passed now. There is a pink glow of light That’s when I began passing as a man. Strange to be exiled on the horizon outside my window. I am remembering the nights I from your own sex to borders that will never be home.

fucked you deep and slow until the sky was just this color.

You were banished too, to another land with your own sex, I can’t think about you anymore, the pain is swallowing and yet forcibly apart from the women you loved as much as you me up. I have to put your memory away, like a precious sepia tried to love yourself.

photograph. There are stil so many things I want to tel you, to For more than twenty years I have lived on this lonely share with you.

shore, wondering what became of you. Did you wash off your Since I can’t mail you this letter, I’ll send it to a place Saturday night makeup in shame? Did you burn in anger when where they keep women’s memories safe. Maybe someday, passing women said, “If I wanted a man I’d be with a real one?”

through this big city, you will stop and read it. Maybe you won’t.

Are you turning tricks today? Are you waiting tables or Good night, my love.

learning Word Perfect 5.1?

Are you in a lesbian bar looking out of the corner of your eye for the butchest woman in the room? Do the women there talk about Democratic politics and seminars and co-ops? Are you with women who only bleed monthly on their cycles?

6 Leslie Feinberg

02

I DIDN’T WANT TO BE different. I longed to be

discovered she was pregnant with me, she told my dad everything grownups wanted, so they would love me.

she didn’t want to be tied down with a kid. My father I followed all their rules, tried my best to please. But insisted she’d be happy once she had the baby. Nature there was something about me that made them knit would see to that.

their eyebrows and frown. No one ever offered a

My mother had me to prove him wrong.

name for what was wrong with me. That’s what made My parents were enraged that life had cheated

me afraid it was really bad. I only came to recognize them. They were furious that marriage blocked their its melody through this constant refrain: “Is that a last opportunity to escape. Then I came along and I boy or a girl?”

was different. Now they were furious with me. I could I was one more bad card life had dealt my

hear it in the way they retold the story of my birth.

parents. They were already bitterly disappointed Rain and wind had lashed the desert while my

people. My father had grown up determined he

mother was in labor. That’s why she gave birth to me wasn’t going to be stuck in a factory like his old man; at home. The storm was too violent to be forded. My my mother had no intention of being trapped in a father was at work, and we had no phone. My mother marriage.

said she wept so loudly in fear when she realized I was When they met, they dreamed they were going

on the way that the Dineh grandmother from across on an exciting adventure together. When they

the hall knocked on the door to see what was wrong, awoke, my father was working in a factory and my and then realizing my birth was imminent, brought mother had become a housewife. When my mother

three more women to help.

The Dineh women sang as I was born. That’s what my mother told me. They washed me, fanned

across the hall when I was four. They came to pick smoke across my tiny body, and offered me to my

me up before dinner one night. A number of the

mother.

women had cooked a big meal and brought all the

“Put the baby over there,” she told them,

children together for the feast. They asked my parents pointing to a bassinet near the sink. Put the baby if I could stay. My father grew alarmed when he over there. The words chilled the Indian women. My heard one of the women say something to me in a mother could see that. The story was retold many language he didn’t understand, and I answered her times as I was growing up, as though the frost that with words he’d never heard before. He said later he bearded those words could be melted by repeating them in a humorous, ironic way.

be kidnapped by Indians.

Days after I was born the grandmother knocked

I’ve only heard bits and pieces about that

on our door again, this time because my cries alarmed evening, so I don’t know everything that went on.

her. She found me in the bassinet, unwashed. My

I wish I did. But this part I’ve heard over and over mother admitted she was afraid to touch me, except again: one of the women told my parents I was going to pin on a diaper or stick a bottle in my mouth. The next day the grandmother sent over her daughter, changed in the retelling. Sometimes my mother would who agreed to keep me during the day while her

pretend to be a fortune-teller, close her eyes, cover children were at school, if that was alright. It was and it wasn’t. My mother was relieved, I’m sure, although at the same time it was an indictment of her. But she would bellow like the Wizard of Oz, “This child will let me go.

walk a hard road!”

And so I grew in two worlds, immersed in the

In any case, my parents yanked me out of there.

music of two languages. One world was Wheaties and Before they left, though, the grandmother gave my Milton Berle. The other was fry bread and sage. One mother a ring and said it would help to protect me in was cold, but it was mine; the other was warm, but it wasn’t.

8 Leslie Feinberg

all that turquoise and silver must be worth something,

“What desert? What state?” She pushed her

so they took it.

glasses higher up on her nose.

That night there was another terrible desert

I froze with fear. I didn’t know. “The desert,” I storm, my parents told me, terrifying in its power.

shrugged.

The thunder crashed and the lightning illuminated Miss Sanders grew visibly impatient. “What

everything.

made your family decide to come to Buffalo?”

How should I know? Did she think parents told

six-year-old kids why they made huge decisions that would impact on their lives? “We drove,” I said. Miss Sanders shook her head. I hadn’t made a very good

“Present,” I answered.

The teacher narrowed her eyes at me. “What

Sirens screamed. It was the Wednesday morning

air raid drill. We crouched down under our desks and I shook my head. “No, ma’am.”

covered our heads with our arms. We were warned

to treat The Bomb like strangers: don’t make eye I dropped my head. Kids around me covered their

contact. If you can’t see The Bomb, it can’t see you.

There was no bomb—this was only practice for

Miss Sanders glared at them until they fell silent.

the real thing. But I was saved by the siren.

tell the class where you’re from.”

I was sorry we’d moved from the warmth of the

I squirmed in my seat. “The desert.”

desert to this cold, cold city. Nothing could have prepared me for getting out of bed on a winter

“I’m from the desert.” I could see the kids

morning in an unheated apartment in Buffalo. Even mugging and rolling their eyes at each other.

warming our clothes in the oven before we put them Stone Butch Blues 9

on didn’t help much. After all, we still had to take our But Old Man Martin and I shared something in

common. The radio was my best friend, too. “The

the wind carved up my nose and sliced into my brain.

Tears froze in my eyes.

made me laugh, even when I didn’t know what was so My sister Rachel was still a toddler. I just

funny. “The Shadow” and “The Whistler” chilled me.

remember a round snowsuit swaddled with scarves

Perhaps outside these projects working families

and mittens and hat. No kid, just clothes.

already had televisions, but not us. The streets of the Even when I was bundled up in the dead of

project weren’t even paved—just gravel and giant winter, with only a couple of inches of my face Lincoln Logs to mark the parking. Very few new

peeking out from my snowsuit hood and scarf, adults things came down our road. Ponies pulled the carts would stop me and ask, “Are you a boy or a girl?” I’d of the ice man and the knife sharpener. On Saturday drop my eyes in shame, never questioning their right they brought the ponies without the carts and sold to ask.

rides for a penny. A penny also bought a chunk from During the summer there wasn’t much to do in

the ice man—chipped off with his ice pick. The ice the projects, but there was plenty of time to do it.

was dense and slick and sparkled like a cold diamond The projects, former Army barracks, now

that might never melt.

housed the military-contracted aircraft workers and their families. All our fathers went to work in the projects, it was in the living room of the McKensies’.

same plant; all our mothers stayed home.

All the children in the neighborhood begged our

Old Man Martin was retired. He sat in a lawn

parents to let us go watch “Captain Midnight” on chair on his porch listening to the McCarthy hearings the McKensies’ new television. But most of us were on his radio. It was turned up so loud you could hear not allowed in their home. Although it was 1955, the it all the way down the block. “Gotta watch out,” he’d neighborhood still had some invisible war zones from tell me as I passed his house, “communists could be anywhere. Anywhere.” I’d nod solemnly and run off to play.

word itself was enough to make me shy away from 10 Leslie Feinberg

their house. You could still see traces of that word on the road. Once I passed through it I was in my own the front of their coal bin, even though it had been world.

painted over in a slightly different shade of green.

On the way to the pond I stopped to visit the

Years later, fathers still argued about the strike puppies and dogs in the outside kennels connected over kitchen tables and backyard barbecue grills. I to the back of the ASPCA building. The dogs barked overheard descriptions of such bloody strike battles, and stood on their hind legs as I approached the I thought WWII had been fought at the plant. At

fence. “Shhh!” I warned them. I knew no one was

night when we’d drive my father to his shift, I used supposed to be back here.

to crouch down on the backseat of the car and peek A spaniel pushed his nose through the chain-link fence. I rubbed his head. I looked around for the combat.

terrier I loved. He had only come to the fence once to There were also gangs in the projects, and the

kids whose parents had scabbed during the strike I coaxed, he’d lay with his head on his paws, looking made up a small but feared pack. “Hey, pansy! Are at me with mournful eyes. I wished I could take him you a boy or a girl?” There was no way to avoid them home. I hoped he went to a kid who loved him.

in the small planet of the projects. Their sing-song

“Are you a boy or a girl?” I asked the mongrel.

taunts stayed with me long after I’d passed by.

“Ruff, ruff!”

The world judged me harshly and so I moved, or

I didn’t see the ASPCA man until it was too late.

was pushed, toward solitude.

“Hey, kid. What are you doing there?”

The highway sliced between our projects and a

Caught. “Nothing,” I said. “I wasn’t doing

anything bad. I was just talking to the dogs.”

in the middle of a lane for a long time in order to get the fence, son. Some of ’em bite.”

hit. But I wasn’t supposed to cross that road. I did I felt the tips of my ears grow hot. I nodded. “I though, and no one seemed to notice.

was looking for that little one with the black ears. Did I parted the long brown grass that bordered

a nice family take him?”

Stone Butch Blues 11

The man frowned for a moment. “Yes,” he said

“Brian says you’re a girl, but I think you’re a sissy quietly. “He’s real happy now.”

boy,” one of them said.

I hurried out to the pond to catch pollywogs in

I didn’t speak.

a jar. I leaned on my elbow and looked up close at the

“Well, what are you?” he mocked me.

little frogs that climbed up on the sun-baked rocks.

“Caw, caw!” A huge black crow circled above me

in the air and landed on a rock nearby. We looked at pollywogs from my hand and it smashed on the

each other in silence.

gravel. I kicked and bit them but they held me and

“Crow, are you a boy or a girl?”

tied my hands behind my back with a piece of

“Caw, caw!”

clothesline.

I laughed and rolled over on my back. The sky

“Let’s see how you tinkle,” one of the boys

was crayon blue. I pretended I was lying on the white said as he knocked me down and two of the others cotton clouds. The earth was damp against my back.

struggled to pull off my pants and my underpants.

The sun was hot, the breeze was cool. I felt happy.

The shame of being half-naked before them—the

with me.

important half—took all the steam out of me.

They pushed and carried me to old Mrs.

was dark in the bin. The coal was sharp and cut like knives. It hurt too much to lie still, but the more I gang. They had found an unlocked truck parked on moved the worse I made the wounds. I was afraid I’d an incline. One of the older boys disengaged the never get out.

emergency brake and made two of the younger boys from my side of the projects run under the truck as it the kitchen. I don’t know what she thought when

rolled.

she heard all the thumping and kicking in her coal bin. But when she opened the little trap door on the 12 Leslie Feinberg

bloodied; I could tell by the way my father glowered she looked scared enough to fall down dead. There at me as he listened.

I stood, covered with coal soot and blood, tied up and half-naked in her kitchen. She mumbled curses under her breath as she untied me and sent me home wrapped in a towel. I had to walk a block and knock

“I was so ashamed,” my mother told my father. He on my parents’ door before I found refuge.

glared at me in the rearview mirror. All I could see They were really angry when they saw me. I

were his thick black eyebrows. My mother had been never understood why. My father spanked me over

informed that I could no longer attend temple unless and over again until my mother restrained his arm I wore a dress, something I fought tooth and nail. At with a whisper and her hand.

A week later I caught up with one of the boys

without my guns. It was hard enough being the only from the Scabbie gang. He made the mistake of

wandering alone too near our house. I made a muscle at the temple. We had to drive a long time to go to the and told him to feel it. Then I punched him in the nearest synagogue. My father prayed downstairs.

My mother and sister and I had to watch from

in days.

the balcony, like at the movies.

My mother called me into our house for

dinner. “Who was that boy you were playing with?” I world. There were some on the radio, but none in my shrugged.

“You were showing him your muscle?”

what the older kids told me, and they enforced it.

I froze, wondering how much she had seen.

We were nearing home. My mother shook her

She smiled. “Sometimes it’s better to let boys

head. “Why can’t she be like Rachel?”

Rachel looked at me sheepishly. I shrugged.

just plain crazy if she really believed that.

Rachel’s dream was a felt skirt with an appliqué The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” my father called

poodle and rhinestone-studded plastic shoes.

out. It was the parent of the kid whose nose I

Stone Butch Blues 13

My father pulled our car to a stop in front of painfully on my upper arm. Tears dripped down my our house. “You go straight to your room, young

cheeks. “I want a Davy Crockett hat.”

lady. And stay there.” I was bad. I was going to be My father tightened his grip. “I said no.”

punished. My head ached with fear. I wished I could

“But why?” I cried. “Everybody has one except

me. Why not?”

It was almost sundown. I heard my parents

His answer was inexplicable. “Because you’re a

call Rachel to join them in their bedroom to light girl.”

the Shabbas candles. I knew the shades were drawn.

A month before, we’d heard laughter and shouting outside the living room windows while my mother

was lighting the candles. We raced to the windows

“I’m sick of people asking me if she’s a boy or a and peered out into the dusk. Two teenagers pulled girl,” I overheard my mother complain to my father.

down their pants and mooned us. “Kikes!” they

“Everywhere I take her, people ask me.”

shouted. My father didn’t chase them away; he closed I was ten years old. I was no longer a little kid the drapes. After that, we started praying in their and I didn’t have a sliver of cuteness to hide behind.

bedroom with the shades pulled down.

The world’s patience with me was fraying, and that Everyone in my family knew about shame and

panicked me.

fear.

When I was really small I thought I’d do

anything to change whatever was wrong with me.

disappeared from the dirty clothes hamper. My father Now I didn’t want to change, I just wanted people to stop being mad at me all the time.

“No!” I shouted, “I don’t want to. I don’t want

One day my parents took my sister and me

to wear it. I’ll feel stupid!”

shopping downtown. As we drove down Allen Street My father yanked me by the arm. “Young lady,

“Mom, is that a he-she?” I asked out loud.

going to wear it.”

My parents exchanged amused glances and burst

I tried to shake off his hand, but it was clamped out laughing. My father stared at me in the rearview 14 Leslie Feinberg

mirror. “Where did you hear that word?”

starched stiff as a board. Each one was wrapped I shrugged, not sure I’d ever really heard the

around with tissue paper and banded like a gift. The word before it had escaped from my mouth.

moment I tore off the paper band, I knew I was in

“What’s a he-she?” my sister demanded to know.

trouble. I had no hiding places for garbage that my I was interested in the answer too.

“It’s a weirdo,” my father laughed. “Like a

father probably knew the precise number of shirts beatnik.”

he owned. Even though all of them were white, he Rachel and I nodded without understanding.

probably could tell exactly which one was missing.

Suddenly a wave of foreboding swept over me.

But it was too late. Too late. I stripped down to I felt nauseous and dizzy. But whatever it was that my cotton panties and T-shirt and slid on his shirt.

triggered the fear, it was too scary to think about. The feeling ebbed as quickly as it had swelled.

hardly get the collar buttoned. I pulled down a tie from the rack. For years I had watched my father I gently pushed open the door to my parents’

it in a clumsy knot. I climbed up on a footstool to lift bedroom and looked around. I knew they were both the suit from the hanger. Its weight surprised me. It at work, but entering their bedroom was forbidden.

fell in a heap. I put on the suit coat and looked in the mirror. A sound came from my throat, sort of a gasp.

I went directly to my father’s closet door. His

I liked the little girl looking back at me.

blue suit was there. That meant he must be wearing Something was still missing; the ring. I opened

the grey one today. A blue suit and a grey suit—that’s my mother’s jewelry box. The ring was huge. The

all any man needed, my father always said. His ties hung neatly on a rack.

It took even more nerve to open my father’s

dresser drawer. His white shirts were folded and snugly on two.

Stone Butch Blues 15

I stared in the big mirror over my mother’s dresser, trying to see far in the future when the would become.

bedroom in my father’s clothes. I prayed I was off I didn’t look like any of the girls or women I’d the hook. But one day shortly afterward, my mother seen in the Sears catalog. The catalog arrived as the and father unexpectedly took me for a ride. They said they were bringing me to the hospital for a blood test.

through it, page by page. All the girls and women looked pretty much the same, so did all the boys was supposed to be done. Two huge men in white

uniforms took me off the elevator. My parents stayed had never seen any adult woman who looked like

on. Then the men turned and locked the gate, barring I thought I would when I grew up. There were no

the elevator. I reached for my parents, but they wouldn’t even look at me as the elevator door closed.

this mirror, none on the streets. I knew. I was always Terror sat on my chest like an elephant. I could searching.

hardly breathe.

For a moment in that mirror I saw the woman I

A nurse explained the rules of my stay: I must

was growing up to be staring back at me. She looked get up in the morning and stay out on the ward all scared and sad. I wondered if I was brave enough to day. I must wear a dress, sit with my knees crossed, be grow up and be her.

polite, and smile when I was spoken to. I nodded as I never heard the bedroom door open. By the

though I understood. I was still in shock.

time I saw my parents it was already too late. Each I was the only kid on the ward. They put me in

of them thought they were supposed to pick up

a room with two women. One was a very old white

my sister at the orthodontist. So they all got home woman who they kept tied to the bed. She keened and unexpectedly early.

called out the names of people who weren’t there.

My parents’ expressions froze. I was so

The other white woman was younger. “I’m Paula,”

frightened my face felt numb.

she said, extending her hand. “Nice to meetcha.”

Storm clouds were gathering on my horizon.

16 Leslie Feinberg

Her wrists were bandaged. She explained to me that cursed her, strapped her down, and wheeled her out her parents had forbade her to ever see her boyfriend of the room.

again because he was Black. She slit her wrists in grief, One nurse approached my bed. I could still

and so they put her in this place.

smell the faint scent of urine on the sheets even after We played ping-pong together for the rest of

they’d dried. Would she take me away if she smelled the day. Paula taught me the words to “Are You

Lonesome Tonight?” She laughed and applauded as

frightened me to hear her say my name. “I don’t have I dropped my voice low like Elvis. “Make trivets and a signature on this one,” she told the orderlies. They moccasins,” Paula advised me. “Make lots of ’em.

all left the room.

The more the better. They like that.” I didn’t know what a trivet was.

and over again.

That night I had trouble sleeping. I heard men

After lunch I snuck back into my room to get

whispering and laughing as they came into my room.

my yo-yo. Paula was sitting on her bed, staring at her I wrapped the sheets tightly around my body and

slippers. She looked at me and cocked her head. She lay very still in silence. I heard the sound of a zipper extended her hand to me. “I’m Paula,” she said. “Nice to meetcha.”

laughter, and then the sounds of footsteps getting A nurse came into the room. “You,” she said,

further and further away. My sheets were soaked. I pointing at me. I followed her back to the nurse’s was afraid I might be blamed and punished. Who

station. She held out two paper cups. Beautiful

had done this to me, and why? I’d ask Paula in the morning.

with water. I stared at both cups.

Nurses and orderlies came into our room when

“Take them,” the nurse ordered. “Don’t give me

the light was still grey behind the barred windows.

a hard time.” I already sensed that giving the staff a

“Rise and shine,” they shouted.

hard time might mean never getting out of there, so I The old woman began calling out names.

Paula fought the orderlies, bit their hands. They began to tilt as I walked. They made me feel like I was moving through glue.

Stone Butch Blues 17

Every day I turned out more trivets and didn’t trust them. I didn’t trust anyone. My mind was moccasins. I began to care about a woman who talked focused on escape. I wanted to get out of this place to ghosts I couldn’t see.

and run away from home.

And I discovered Norton’s anthology of poetry

I told the doctor I was afraid of the grownup

in the patients’ library—it changed my life. I read male patients on the ward. I said I was sure my

the poems over and over again before I began to

parents were disappointed in me, but I wanted to grasp their meanings. It wasn’t just that the words make them happy and proud of me. I told him I

were musical notes my eyes could sing. It was the didn’t know what I was doing wrong, but if I could discovery that women and men, long dead, had left just go home, I’d do whatever he thought I should.

me messages about their feelings, emotions I could I didn’t mean it, but I said it. He nodded, but he seemed more interested in keeping his pipe lit than in were as lonely as I was. In an odd way, that knowledge me.

comforted me.

Two days later, my parents appeared on the ward

Three weeks after I’d been brought to this ward, and took me home. We didn’t speak about what had happened. I concentrated on running away, waiting sat behind a big desk smoking his pipe. He told me for the right moment. I had to agree to see the shrink he was my doctor. He said I seemed to be making

once a week. I hoped I wouldn’t have to see him for long, but the appointments continued for several going through an awkward stage.

years.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked me.

I had learned a lot in three weeks. I realized

that the world could do more than just judge me, it wielded tremendous power over me. I didn’t care I remember the exact day the shrink dropped the

anymore if my parents didn’t love me. I had accepted bombshell: he and my parents had agreed charm

that fact in the three weeks I’d survived alone in this school would help me a lot. The date is etched in my hospital. But now I didn’t care. I hated them. And I 18 Leslie Feinberg

in a daze. The humiliation of charm school seemed private thing between me and my body. But breasts!

more than I could bear. I might have killed myself if I Boys hung out of car windows and yelled vulgar

things at me. Mr. Singer at the pharmacy stared at Everyone else seemed to be walking around

my breasts as he rang up my candy purchases. I quit equally as stunned. When I got home my parents

the volleyball and track teams because I hated how had the television turned up loud and an announcer my breasts hurt when I jumped or ran. I liked how reported that the president had been shot in Dallas.

my body was before puberty. Somehow I thought it would never change, not like this!

whole world was out of control. I closed my bedroom Whatever the world thought was wrong with me,

door and fell asleep in order to escape.

I didn’t think I could survive the spotlight of

like vomit in my throat. The only time it receded was charm school illuminating my shameful differences.

when I went back to The Land Where They Don’t

But somehow I got through it. My face burned with Mind. That’s how I remembered the desert.

humiliation and anger each time I had to pivot on A Dineh woman came to me one night in a

the runway in front of the whole class, over and over dream. She used to come to me almost every night, again.

but not since I had been in the psychiatric ward several years earlier. She held me on her lap and told that I wasn’t pretty, wasn’t feminine, and would never be graceful. The motto of the school was Every girl She told me to remember the ring.

who enters leaves a lady. I was the exception.

When I woke up it was still dark outside. I

curled up on the foot of my bed and listened to the rainstorm outside my window. Lightning bolts lit up the night sky. I waited until my parents got dressed before I snuck into their bedroom and took the ring.

noticed my breasts were growing. Menstruation didn’t During the day at school I hid in a bathroom stall and bother me. Unless I bled all over myself it was a looked at it, wondering about its power.

Stone Butch Blues 19

so I could sneak out and watch the adult movies. A the Captain Midnight Decoder Ring—you had to

new hunger gnawed at me. It frightened me, but I That night at dinner my mother laughed at me.

One day my high school English teacher, Mrs.

“You were talking Martian in your sleep again last Noble, gave us a homework assignment: bring in eight night when we went to bed.”

lines of our favorite poem and read them in front I slammed my fork down. “It’s not Martian.”

of the class. Some of the kids moaned and groaned

“Young lady,” my father shouted, “you can go to

that they didn’t have a favorite poem and it sounded your room.”

“bor-ing.” But I panicked. If I read a poem I loved, it would leave me vulnerable and exposed. And yet, to read eight lines I didn’t care about felt like self-betrayal.

As I walked through the high school corridor a group When it was my turn to read the next day, I

of girls squealed as I passed, “Is it animal, mineral, or brought my math book with me up to the front of

the room. At the beginning of the semester I’d made I had a new secret, something so terrible I knew a cover for the textbook out of a brown grocery bag I could never tell anyone. I discovered it about myself during the Saturday matinee at the Colvin Theater.

I cleared my throat and looked at Mrs. Noble.

One afternoon I stayed in the bathroom at the theater for a long time. I wasn’t ready to go home yet. When lines:

I came out, the adult movie was showing. I snuck in and watched. I melted as Sophia Loren moved her

From childhood’s hour I have not been

body against her leading man. Her hand cupped the As others were—I have not seen

back of his neck as they kissed, her long red nails As others saw—I could not bring

trailed against his skin. I shivered with pleasure.

My passions from a common spring.

Every Saturday after that I hid in the bathroom

From the same source I have not taken

20 Leslie Feinberg

My sorrow; I could not awaken saw them bloodied at lunch counters in Greensboro, My heart to joy at the same tone;

facing down steely-faced troops in Little Rock. I saw And all I lov’d, I lov’d alone.

and police dogs in Birmingham. I wondered if I could ever be that brave.

without feeling, so none of the kids would understand I saw a picture from Washington, D.C., of more

what his poem meant to me, but their eyes were

people than I ever could have imagined coming

already glazed with boredom. I dropped my gaze and together in one place. Martin Luther King told them walked back to my seat. Mrs. Noble squeezed my arm about his dream. I wished I could be part of it.

as I passed, and when I looked up I saw she had tears I studied my parents’ faces as they calmly read

in her eyes. The way she looked at me made me want the same magazines. They never said a word about to cry, too. It was as though she could really see me, it. The world was turning upside down and they

and there was no criticism of me in her eyes.

quietly leafed through the pages as though they were skimming a Sears catalog.

“I wish I could go down South on a Freedom

Ride,” I said out loud one night at dinner. I watched The whole world was in motion, but you’d never have my parents exchange a complex series of looks across known it from my life. The only way I heard about the table. They continued to eat in silence.

the Civil Rights movement was from the copies of My father put down his fork. “That has nothing

LIFE magazine that came to our house. Every week My mother looked back and forth from his

issue.

face to mine. I could tell she wanted to avoid the The image burned into my mind was one of

impending explosion at any cost. She smiled. “You two water fountains labeled Colored and White. Other photos let me see brave people—dark-skinned and

We all turned to look at her. “You know that

light—try to change that. I read their picket signs. I song by Peter, Paul, and Mary? The answer, my friend, Stone Butch Blues 21

is blowing in the wind? ” I nodded, eager to hear her were in high school. A kid could forget sometimes question.

that adults were ever teenagers unless they reminded

“I don’t understand what good blowing in

you.

the wind would do.” Both my parents collapsed in guffaws.

Eddie, my foreman, “Who’s the butch?” Eddie just laughed, and they walked off talking. The two women who worked on either side of me glanced over to see if I was hurt. I was more confused than anything.

That night, on dinner break, my friend Gloria

That changed everything. I had to convince the shrink ate her meal next to me. Out of the blue she told it would be good for me before my parents would

me about her brother—how he’s a pansy and wears

give me permission. I convinced him.

women’s dresses but she loves him anyway and how I worked setting type by hand in a print shop.

she hates to see the way people treat him ’cause after I had told Barbara, one of my only friends in

all it’s not his fault he’s that way. She told me she even homeroom class, that if I didn’t get a job I’d just die, went with him once to a bar where he hung out with and her older sister got this one for me by lying and his friends and all these mannish women were coming swearing I was sixteen.

on to her. She shuddered when she said that.

Nobody at work cared if I wore jeans and

I wondered why she was telling me this. “What

T-shirts. They paid me a stack of cash at the end of place was that?” I asked her.

each week, and my co-workers were nice to me. It

“What?” She looked sorry she had opened up

wasn’t that they didn’t notice I was different, they just the subject.

didn’t seem to care as much as the high school kids

“Where’s the place where those people are?”

did. After school I hurriedly changed out of my skirt Gloria sighed.

and raced to work. My co-workers asked me how my

“Please,” I asked her. My voice was trembling.

day was and they told me about how it was when they She looked around before she spoke. “It’s in

22 Leslie Feinberg

Niagara Falls,” she dropped her voice. “Why do you want to know?”

I shrugged. “What’s the name of it?” I tried to sound real casual.

Gloria sighed deeply. “Tifka’s.” That’s all she said.

Stone Butch Blues 23

03

IT WAS ALMOST A YEAR before I got up the

down. A round of smirks rolled around the bar. I nerve to call telephone information for the address sipped the beer and tried to act cool. An older drag of Tifka’s. Finally I stood on the street in front of the queen studied me carefully. I picked up my beer and bar, scared to death. I wondered what made me think What I saw there released tears I’d held back

I wore my blue-and-red striped shirt, a navy blue for years: strong, burly women, wearing ties and suit jacket to hide my breasts, black pressed chinos, and coats. Their hair was slicked back in perfect DAs.

black Keds high-tops, because I had no dress shoes.

They were the handsomest women I’d ever seen.

When I stepped inside, it was just a bar. Through Some of them were wrapped in slow motion dances the haze of smoke I saw faces glance over and look with women in tight dresses and high heels who

me up and down. There was no turning back, and I with need.

my people. I just didn’t know how to penetrate this This was everything I could have hoped for in

society.

life.

I bellied up to the bar and ordered a Genny.

“You ever been in a bar like this before?” the

“How old are you?” the bartender asked.

drag queen asked me.

“Old enough,” I countered and put my money

“Lots of times,” I answered quickly. She smiled.

Then I wanted to ask her something so badly I else. I felt exiled to the front of the bar, more lonely forgot to keep up my lie. “Can I really buy a woman a than before I came in, because now I knew what I drink or ask her to dance?”

wasn’t a part of.

“Sure, honey,” she said, “but only the femmes.”

She laughed and told me her name was Mona.

my hand and dragged me through the backroom

I focused on a woman sitting at a table alone.

God, she was beautiful. I wanted to dance with her.

seat down and told me to climb up on it. She closed The Four Tops were singing, Baby, I need your loving. I the stall door partway and said to stay there and be wasn’t sure I knew how to slow dance, but I made a quiet. The cops were here. So there I crouched. For beeline for her before I lost my nerve.

a long time. It wasn’t until I frightened a femme

“Would you dance with me?” I asked.

half to death when she opened the stall door that Mona and the bouncer picked me up and

I discovered the police had left long ago with their practically carried me into the front bar and set me payoff from the owner. No one remembered that the on a stool. Mona put her hand on my shoulder and kid was hidden in the bathroom.

looked me dead in the eyes. “Kid, there’s a few things As I emerged from the john, everyone in the

I should tell you. It’s my fault. I told you it was OK to backroom had a good laugh at my expense. I retreated to the front bar again and nursed a beer.

know is—don’t ask Butch Al’s woman!”

Later I felt a hand on my arm. Here was that

I was making a mental note of this when Butch

beautiful woman I had asked to dance. This was

Al’s shadow fell across me. The bouncer stood

Butch Al’s femme.

between us and the drag queens shooed her into the

“C’mon honey, come sit with us,” she offered.

“No, I’m OK out here,” I said as bravely as I

could. But she put her arm around me gently and

power, a memory I was afraid to hang onto and afraid guided me off the bar stool.

to let go of.

“C’mon, join us. It’s OK. Al won’t hurt you,” she I sat trembling at the bar long after the

reassured me. “Her bark is worse than her bite.”

momentary excitement had died down for everyone

Stone Butch Blues 25

I doubted that. Especially when Butch Al stood up as challenge. It seeks out power through incremental I approached their table.

encouragement. At the point of maximum strength, She was a big woman. I don’t know how tall she

once equity is established, then you have really met.

really was. I was only a kid. But she towered over me I had really met Butch Al. I was so excited. And in height and stature.

scared. I needn’t have been: no one was ever kinder to I immediately loved the strength in her face.

me. She was gruff with me alright. But she peppered The way her jaw set. The anger in her eyes. The

way she carried her body. Her body both emerged

and giving my face something more than a pat and from her sports coat and was hidden. Curves and

less than a slap. It felt good. I liked the affection creases. Broad back, wide neck. Large breasts bound in her voice when she called me kid, which she did tight. Folds of white shirt and tie and jacket. Hips frequently. She took me under her wing and taught concealed.

me all the things she thought were most important for She looked me up and down. I widened my

a baby butch like me to know before embarking on stance. She took that in. Her mouth refused to smile, such a dangerous and painful journey. In her own way, but it seemed her eyes did. She extended a beefy she was very patient about it.

hand. I took it. The solidness of her handshake In those days the bars in the Tenderloin district caught me by surprise. She strengthened her grip, I were gay by percentage. Tifka’s was about 25 percent responded in kind. I was relieved I wasn’t wearing gay. That meant we had a quarter of the tables and a ring. Her clasp tightened, so did mine. Finally she smiled.

pushing against our space. She taught me how we

held our territory.

how gratefully I embraced her words.

I learned to fear the cops as a mortal enemy

I guess you could explain away that handshake

and to hate the pimps who controlled the lives of so by calling it bravado. But it meant more than that many of the women we loved. And I learned to laugh.

to me then, and it still does. It’s not just a way of That summer, Friday and Saturday nights were full of measuring strength. A handshake like that is a

laughter and mostly gentle teasing.

26 Leslie Feinberg

The drag queens would sit on my lap and we’d never spelled out. But I got the feeling it was awful.

I knew she was worried about my surviving it. I

much later that the guy who took them for us was an wondered if I was ready. Al’s message was: You’re not!

undercover cop. I could look at the old bulldaggers That was not encouraging. But I knew it was the

and see my own future. And I learned what I wanted from another woman by watching Butch Al and her

that gave her lessons a sharp edge. She never meant to cut me. She nurtured my butch strength the best way They let me hang with the two of them all

she knew how. And, she reminded me frequently, no summer long. I had told my parents I was working one had ever done that when she was a baby butch, double shifts on Friday and Saturday nights, “to save and she had survived. That was strangely reassuring. I up for college,” and was staying overnight with a had Butch Al for a mentor.

friend from school who lived near my job. They chose to believe my alibi. All week long I counted the hours gave me haircuts in their kitchen. They took me to get till Friday night when I could punch out of work early and head for Niagara Falls.

Al combed the racks, pulling out sports coats, one After the bar closed we’d walk down the street,

arms. She’d throw her head up to the heavens and and nodded in approval. Al gave a low whistle of say, “Thank you, God, for these two good-looking appreciation. I had died and gone to butch heaven!

butches.” Al and I would lean forward and wink at Then came the tie. Al picked it out for me. A

each other and we’d all laugh for the sheer joy of narrow black silk tie. “You can’t go wrong with a being who we were, and being it together.

black tie,” she informed me solemnly. And, of course, They let me sleep over weekends on their soft

she was right.

It was fun alright. But the issue of sex was

Al taught me. It was always the same lesson: toughen pressing on me from within and without, and Al

up. Al never said exactly what was coming. It was knew it. One night at the kitchen table Al pulled out Stone Butch Blues 27

a cardboard box and handed it over to me to open.

me. “Did you understand what Al was telling you, Inside was a rubber dildo. I was shocked.

honey?”

“You know what that is?” she asked me.

“Sure,” I said, and vowed to never say that again.

“Sure,” I said.

“Is there anything you don’t understand?”

“You know what to do with it?”

“Well,” I started slowly, “it sounds like it takes a

“Sure,” I lied.

little practice, but I get the general idea. I mean that noon and midnight stuff sounds, well, like you got to Give the kid a break, will you?”

practice it to get it right.”

“A butch has gotta know these things,” Al

insisted.

till tears streamed down her cheeks. “Honey,” she’d start, but she was laughing too hard to continue.

kitchen in exasperation.

“Honey. You can’t learn to fuck from reading Popular This was to be our butch “father to son” talk. Al Mechanics. That isn’t what makes a butch a good talked, I listened. “Do you understand?” she pressed.

lover.”

“Sure,” I said, “sure.”

This was exactly what I needed to know! “Well,

what does make a butch a good lover?” I asked, trying to sound like the answer didn’t mean all that much to kitchen.

me.

“One more thing, kid,” Al added, “don’t be like

Her face softened. “That’s kinda hard to explain.

those bulldaggers who put this on and strut their I guess being a good lover means respecting a femme.

stuff. Use a little decorum, you know what I mean?”

It means listening to her body. And even if the sex

“Sure,” I said. I didn’t.

gets a little rough, or whatever, that it’s what she Al left the room to take a shower before bed.

wants too, and inside you’re still coming from a gentle place. Does that make sense?”

blush drained from my face and my temples stopped It did not. It was less information than I wanted.

pounding. She sat down on a kitchen chair next to It turned out, however, to be the information I

28 Leslie Feinberg

needed. It just took thinking about it for the rest of knew at once that I would lose my butch virginity my life.

with Monique.

On Friday night the butches punched my

Had I been holding it all this time? She placed it shoulders, clapped me on the back, adjusted my tie, carefully on my thigh. My body temperature rose. She and sent me over to her table. As Monique and I left began to touch it gently, like it was something really together I noticed none of the other femmes were beautiful.

“You know, you could make a woman feel real

She just tapped her long painted nails on that whiskey good with this thing. Maybe better than she ever felt glass and stared at it like it was the only thing in the in her life.” She stopped stroking the dildo. “Or you room. Did she sense the impending tragedy before I could really hurt her, and remind her of all the ways did?

she’s ever been hurt in her life. You got to think about The next evening I came to the bar late, hoping

that every time you strap this on. Then you’ll be a that Monique and her crowd would not be there

good lover.”

waiting. They were. I slunk over to our table and I waited, hoping there was more. There was not.

sat down. No one knew exactly what had or had

not happened the night before. But everyone knew to bed. I tried to memorize every word that had been something was very wrong.

said to me before I fell asleep.

I sat drowning in my own shame, remembering

our date. I was scared by the time I had gotten to Monique’s house. It occurred to me that I didn’t really know what sex was. When and how did it begin?

What was I supposed to do? And Monique frightened the bar was watching. Monique scared me to death.

the hell out of me. All of a sudden I’d changed my mind. I didn’t want to go through with it. I chattered weapon. Did Monique really want me? The butches

nervously. Monique smirked. As I moved from couch said it was true, so it must be. Somehow everyone to chair, she followed. “Whatsa matter?” she mocked Stone Butch Blues 29

me. “Don’t you like me, honey? Whatsa matter, huh?”

The butches nearest Monique stood, ready

to cross the room. Al and the other butches in our exasperation. “Get the hell out of here!” She sounded crowd lined up in front of the table to defend me.

disgusted with me. I mumbled relieved excuses and ran from her house.

But back at the bar, I couldn’t escape the

Mona came up behind me and put her hands on my

consequences. I sat at a table across from Monique shoulders. The femmes were closing ranks with me, and rubbed my forehead with my hands, as though I too. I sat with my face in my hands, shaking my head, could wipe away the memory. I wondered how long

wanting it all to stop. But it wouldn’t.

this evening could possibly last. A long time. A very long time.

of us could leave the bar until they did, otherwise Monique whispered something to a butch

we’d get jumped. It was going to be a long night.

sitting near her. The butch crossed the room and Al was furious with me. “You gonna let that

approached our table. “Hey,” she called to me. I didn’t bulldagger talk to you that way?” She thumped the look up. “Hey, femme, you wanna dance with a real table for emphasis.

butch?”

I twisted in my seat. Al whispered something to

me enough that I raised my face to look at her. She this butch I couldn’t hear.

“Oh, I’m sorry Al, I didn’t know she was your

please?”

femme.”

Al stopped yelling at me, but she turned her

Al stood up and hit the butch before any of

back to me to watch the couples dancing. Her body us knew what had happened. Then Al looked at me

language said she was still pretty disgusted with me.

expectantly. “Well?” she said. She was holding up the butch who was doubled over. Al wanted me to hit

glass like the evening before. It took me a long time the woman, to defend my honor. I couldn’t think of to learn femme Morse code.

anyone in the room I would want to hit, except maybe After a while the bar crowd started thinning out.

myself. I had no honor to defend.

30 Leslie Feinberg

Maybe I did. “She might really like it if a butch like concern.

you went over and just asked her to dance, you know?

“What’s the matter?” I asked, roused from my

Not hit on her.”

self-pity.

I thought maybe I could do that. Anything to

take the sting out of my own shame.

worked the streets since she had been a teenager. Al understand?”

I nodded and walked slowly across the room to

them both on the money she earned at her union job Yvette. She held her head in her hands. I cleared my in the auto plant.

throat. She looked at me wearily and sipped from her Yvette didn’t have a butch who worked in the

drink. “What do you want?” she asked me.

factories. Yvette didn’t have anyone but the other

“Ah, I thought, would you dance with me?”

working girls.

She shook her head. “Maybe later, baby. OK?”

“She looks like she had a hard night,” I offered.

Maybe it was the way I just stood there. There

was no going back across the room in front of

get real hurt out there.”

Monique’s group or mine without having danced.

I marveled at the intimacy suggested in this

information. Then she seemed to change the subject.

asked me.

and stood up to dance with me.

“To be left alone,” I said, thinking of my own

I waited for her in the middle of the dance

need.

She smiled. “Yeah, she wants to be left alone.

I stood still, with her hand in mine until she relaxed She doesn’t want one more person in this goddamn and moved toward me. After we’d danced for a few world to ask anything from her tonight. But she sure moments, Yvette told me, “It’s OK to breathe, you could use some comfort, you know what I mean?”

know.” We laughed real hard, together.

Stone Butch Blues 31

Then I felt her body move closer and we kind of The other butches had to recognize me as sexual

melted together. I discovered all the sweet surprises a now, a competitor. Even Al looked at me differently.

femme can give a butch: her hand on the back of my As painful as this whole ritual had been, it was nothing less than a rite of passage. I didn’t feel cocky.

The feel of her belly and thighs against mine. Her lips It taught me that humility was exactly the correct almost touching my ear.

emotion when seeking to unleash the power of a

The music stopped and she started to pull away.

woman’s passion.

I held her hand gently. “Please?” I asked.

Strong to my enemies, tender to those I loved

“Honey,” she laughed, “you just said the magic

and respected. That’s what I wanted to be. Soon I word.”

would have to put these qualities to the test. But for We danced a few slow songs in a row. Our

the moment, I was happy.

bodies swung effortlessly in the circle of dance. The slightest shift in the pressure of my hand on her back changed the motion of her body. I never ground my thigh into her pelvis. I knew she had been wounded The next Friday night at the bar was boisterous. We there. Even as a young butch that was the place I all laughed and danced. Out of the corner of my protected myself. I felt her pain, she knew mine. I felt her desire, she aroused mine.

it because she explained to me that Yvette’s pimp Finally the music stopped and I let her go. I

wouldn’t let her have a steady butch. My stomach kissed her on the cheek and thanked her. I crossed the tightened in rage. I still kept an eye out for her. After all, a pimp can’t know everything that’s going on, right?

a sweet smile. The other femmes—male and

female—looked at me differently. As the world beat myself to the women’s bathroom and assumed

my post on the toilet. A long time passed. I heard protect and nurture our tenderness. My capacity for thumping and several shouts. Then it was quiet.

tenderness was what they’d seen.

I peeked outside the bathroom. All the stone

32 Leslie Feinberg

butches and drag queens were lined up facing the the cell as they were bringing me in. I called her name.

wall, hands cuffed behind their backs. Several of the She didn’t seem to hear me.

femmes who the cops knew were prostitutes were

The cops locked me up. At least now my wrists

getting roughed up and separated from the rest. I were free from the handcuffs. I smoked a cigarette.

knew by now it would take at least a blow job to get What was going to happen? Through a grated

them out of jail tonight.

window I saw some Saturday-night butches getting A cop spotted me and grabbed me by the collar.

booked. They had taken Butch Al in the opposite

He handcuffed me and threw me across the room.

direction.

I looked for Al but they had already started taking The drag queens were in the large cell next

people to the police vans outside.

to ours. Mona and I smiled at each other. At that moment three cops ordered her out of the cell. Her other,” she said. “Be careful, honey,” she added. I body pulled back slightly. She had tears in her eyes.

nodded. My wrists were painfully pinned behind my Then she walked forward with them, rather than be back. I was scared. I would try to be very careful. I dragged out.

hoped Al and I could take care of each other.

I waited. What was happening?

By the time they had nabbed me, the butch van

About an hour later the cops brought Mona

was full. I rode in the police wagon with Mona and back. My heart broke when I saw her. Two cops were the other drag queens. I was glad. Mona kissed my dragging her; she could barely stand. Her hair was cheek and told me not to be afraid. She said I’d be wet and stuck to her face. Her makeup was smeared.

alright. If that was true though, I wondered why all There was blood running down the back of her

the drag queens looked as scared as I felt.

seamless stockings. They threw her into the cell next At the precinct I saw Yvette and Monique,

to mine. She stayed where she fell. I could hardly breathe. I spoke to her in a whisper. “Honey, you a smile for courage, I gave her a wink. A cop shoved want a cigarette? Want to smoke? C’mere, over here me from behind into the belly of the precinct. I was by me.”

headed for the bull’s tank. They were taking Al out of She looked dazed, unwilling to move. Finally

she slid over to the bars beside me. I lit a cigarette Stone Butch Blues 33

and handed it to her. As she smoked, I slid my arm The cops dragged Al in just after Mona left. She through the bars and touched her hair gently, then was in pretty bad shape. Her shirt was partly open rested my hand on her shoulder. I spoke to her

and her pants zipper was down. Her binder was gone, quietly. She didn’t seem to hear me for a long time.

leaving her large breasts free. Her hair was wet. There Finally, she leaned her forehead against the bars and I was blood running from her mouth and nose. She

put both my arms around her.

looked dazed, like Mona.

“It changes you,” she said. “What they do to you The cops pushed her into the cell. Then they

in here, the shit you take every day on the streets—it approached me. I backed up until I was up against changes you, you know?” I listened. She smiled. “I the bars. They stopped and smiled. One cop rubbed can’t remember if I was ever as sweet as you are when his crotch. The other put his hands under my armpits I was your age.” Her smile faded. “I don’t want to see you change. I don’t want to see you after you’ve slammed me against the bars. He pressed his thumbs hardened up.”

deep into my breasts and jammed his knee between I sort of understood. But I was really worried

my legs.

about Al and I didn’t know what was going to happen

“You should be this tall soon, tall enough your

to me. This sounded like a philosophical discussion.

feet would reach the ground. That’s when we’ll take I didn’t know if I was going to live to an age where care of you like we did your pussy friend Allison,” he experience would change me. I just wanted to live taunted me. Then they left.

through tonight. I wanted to know where Al was.

Allison.

The cops told Mona she’d been bailed out. “I

I grabbed my pack of cigarettes and Zippo

must look a mess,” she said.

lighter and slid over to where Al was slumped on

“You look beautiful,” I told her, and I meant it. I looked at her face for a last moment, wondering if the pack. She didn’t look up. I put my hand on her arm.

men she gave herself to loved her as much as I did.

She sloughed it off. Her head was down. I could just

“You really are a sweet butch,” Mona said before see the expanse of her wide back, the curves of her she left. That felt good.

shoulders. I touched them without thinking twice. She let me.

34 Leslie Feinberg

I smoked with one hand and touched her back

“Sure,” I answered without thinking.

with the other. She began to tremble. I put my arms around her. Her body softened against me. She

ate her eggs like she couldn’t taste them. She didn’t was hurt. The parent had become the child for this moment. I felt strong. There was comfort to be found back again. I ate and then did the dishes. Al went into in my arms.

the bathroom.

“Hey, look at this,” one cop yelled to another.

“Allison found herself a baby butch. They look like How did she know? Had this happened many

two faggots.” The cops laughed.

My arms took more of her into my circle to

focus on me. “Are you OK?” she asked.

protect her, as though I could ward off their jeers and

“Yeah, I’m alright,” I lied.

keep her safe in my embrace. I had always marveled at She came closer to me. “Did they hurt you,

her strength. Now I felt the muscles in her back and baby?”

shoulders and arms. I experienced the power of this

“No,” I lied. I was mortaring a brick wall inside stone butch, even as she slumped wearily in my arms.

myself. The wall didn’t protect me, and yet I watched as though it wasn’t my hands placing each brick. I our bail. The last words I heard from the cops were, turned away from her to signal that I had something

“You’ll be back. Remember what we did to your

buddy.”

She came up behind me and turned me around

What did they do? The questions came back

by the shoulder. She pulled my face against her

cheek. “Who is, honey?” she whispered. “Nobody’s the same. I had no answers. Al offered none. In the strong enough. You just get through it the best you can. Butches like you and Al don’t have a choice.

It’s gonna happen to you. You just gotta try to live the front seat needing comfort, too. I didn’t know the through it.”

gay man who drove us. “Are you OK?” he asked me.

I was already burning with another question.

“Al wants me to be tough. You and Mona and the

Stone Butch Blues 35

other femmes are always telling me to stay sweet, stay

“Are you really OK, honey?” she asked.

tender. How can I be both?

I smiled. “Yeah.”

“Do you need anything?”

Yeah. I needed a femme who loved me like she

strong enough to survive the shit you take. We

loved Al. I needed Al to tell me exactly what they love how strong you are. But butches get the shit were going to do to me next time and how to live kicked out of their hearts too. And I guess we just sometimes wish there was a way to protect your

as soon as the thought crossed my mind, she put

hearts and keep you all tender for us, you know?”

my hand on her breast. She turned her head in the I didn’t. I really didn’t. “Is Al tender?”

direction of the bedroom as though she was listening for Al. “Are you sure you’re OK?” she asked one last threatened to reveal something that could pierce time.

“Yeah, I’m OK,” I said.

the answer. “She’s been hurt real bad. It’s hard for Al Her face softened. She touched my cheek and

to say everything she feels. But, yeah, I don’t think I pulled my hand away from her breast. “You’re a real could be with her if she wasn’t tender with me.”

butch,” she said, shaking her head. I felt proud when We both heard Al unlock the bathroom door.

she said that.

In the morning I woke up early and left quietly.

understood. She left the kitchen. I was alone. I had a lot to think about.

that. Their phone was disconnected. I heard some stories about what happened to Al. I didn’t choose to brought me bedding. She sat down beside me and

believe any of them.

stroked my face. It felt good. She looked at me for a The summer passed. It was time for my junior

long time with a pained expression. I didn’t know why year of high school to begin. As summer turned to fall I stopped going to Niagara Falls on the weekends.

was coming and I couldn’t.

36 Leslie Feinberg

the old crowd. Yvette wasn’t there. I heard she died alone in an alleyway, her throat slashed from ear to ear. Mona overdosed, purposely. No one had seen Al.

I walked against a bitter wind from bar to bar

along the Tenderloin strip. I heard her laughter before alley, sharing an ironic laugh with other working girls.

She saw me.

the glaze of heroin across her eyes. She was thin, very thin. She faced me. She opened the collar of my overcoat in order to straighten my tie. She turned my collar up against the cold. I stood with my hands buried deep in my pockets. I felt like I did the night I danced with Yvette.

We were asking each other a lot of questions

with our eyes and answering them. It all happened real fast. I saw the tears just start spilling from her eyes and then she turned to go.

By the time I found my voice to speak,

Stone Butch Blues 37

04

THE NOTE SAILED ACROSS my desk and glided

windows. “Where’ve you been lately?” Barbara

demanded to know.

bent over and picked it up. Luckily, she didn’t seem to

“Working like crazy. I’ve got to get out of my

notice.

parents’ house or I’m gonna die. They act like they DANGER!! My parents want to know why your hate my guts.” I took a deep drag on my cigarette. “I parents call our house looking for you. I can’t cover for think they wish I was never born.”

you anymore. PLEASE FORGIVE ME!! Love until Barbara looked frightened. “Don’t say that,” she eternity—your enduring friend, Barbara.

told me, then glanced around as if someone might I looked up and caught Barbara’s eyes. She

hear. She took a drag of smoke into her mouth and wrung her hands and made a face that begged

let it trickle out as she inhaled it up her nose. “Isn’t forgiveness. I smiled and nodded. I mimed smoking that wild? It’s called a French Curl. Kevin showed a cigarette. Barbara nodded and smiled. She made me me.”

feel warm inside. Barbara—the girl I’d sat next to in

“Oh, shit!” someone hissed.

homeroom for two years. Barbara—the girl who told

“Alright girls, line up!” It was Mrs. Antoinette, me if I were a guy she’d be in love with me.

the scourge of girls who longed for nicotine. She We met in the girls’ bathroom. Two of the

ordered us to line up so she could smell our breath.

juniors who were smoking had already opened the

Since she hadn’t actually seen me, I took a chance and

slipped out the door. The halls were deserted. Within minutes a maddening bell would ring and the halls a lonely social abyss. The few friends I had in the would be jammed with kids using their notebooks in school were from families who worked to make ends front of them like shields in battle.

meet.

I guess the summer had changed me. Otherwise

I would never have snapped the iron bands of habit looked over their shoulders to see if the boys noticed.

and left the building during school hours. I wanted to Football practice ended. Some of the white boys run around the track as fast as I could, to sweat out the sticky sensation of imprisonment. But the boys toward me with his head. I got up to leave. “Where and a group of girls were trying out for cheerleading.

me. Several boys followed him.

So I climbed up into the bleachers and walked to the I started to hurry across the bleachers.

far end.

A red-tailed hawk glided above the trees, an

They followed me as I rushed to get away. He

unusual sight in the city. There was no place to go; indicated for one of the boys to climb the bleachers there was nothing to do. Whatever was going to

in front of me. He and the other boys came directly happen in my life I wanted it to hurry up. I wished I at me. I leaped over the bleachers and ran onto the could play quarterback on the football team. I could imagine the weight of the equipment and the uniform mushroomed so quickly. I couldn’t make it stop.

tight across my chest. I put my hand against my large breasts.

was pushing his hand up under my dress, between my legs. I punched and kicked, but he and the other boys as cheerleaders were blonde. I didn’t know there pinned me down. “I saw you watching us. Come on, I bit the hand nearest my mouth. “Ouch, shit,

other half was African-American and working class.

fuck!” The boy yelled and backhanded me across my Stone Butch Blues 39

face. I could taste my own blood. The expressions on hard I gasped. He wanted me to pay attention to the their faces scared me. These were not kids anymore.

rape. He fucked me harder. “You dirty Kike bitch, you I punched Bobby’s chest as hard as I could. I

fucking bulldagger.” All my crimes were listed. I was must have hit his equipment because I skinned my guilty as charged.

knuckles and Bobby just laughed. He pressed his

Is this how men and women have sex? I knew this forearm against my throat. One of the boys stepped wasn’t making love; this was more like making hate.

on my ankle with his cleats. I struggled and cursed But was this mechanical motion what all the jokes and them. They laughed as though this were a game.

dirty magazines and whispers were about? This was Bobby unlaced his uniform pants and jammed

it?

his penis into my vagina. The pain traveled up to my I giggled, not because what was happening was

belly, scaring the hell out of me. It felt like something funny, but because all the fuss about sex suddenly ripped deep inside of me. I counted the attackers.

There were six.

me and slapped my face, back and forth. “It’s not The one I was angriest at was Bill Turley.

funny,” he shouted. “It’s not funny, you crazy bitch.”

Everyone knew he tried out for the team because the I heard the sound of a whistle. “Shit, it’s the kids teased him about being a sissy. He scuffed the coach,” Frank Humphrey warned the other guys.

grass with his cleats and waited for his turn.

Part of the nightmare was that it all seemed

boys scattered toward the gym.

so matter of fact. I couldn’t make it stop, I couldn’t escape it, and so I pretended it wasn’t happening.

distance away from me, staring. I wobbled as I tried to I looked at the sky, at how pale and placid it was. I stand. There were grass stains on my skirt and blood imagined it was the ocean and the clouds were white-and slimy stuff running down my legs. “Get out of capped waves.

here, you little whore,” Coach Moriarty ordered.

I had to walk the long distance home since my

bus pass wasn’t valid this late. I didn’t feel like this was my life I was living anymore. It felt more like a movie.

40 Leslie Feinberg

A ’57 Chevy full of boys slowed down. “See you tomorrow, lesbo,” I heard Bobby yell as they passed.

in a sickening rush. Did the kids already know? The Was I their property now? If I wasn’t strong enough way they whispered behind their hands as I passed to stop them once, could I ever hope to defend

myself again?

they did. I thought maybe I was being paranoid until I ran to the bathroom as soon as I got home

and threw up in the toilet. Between my legs felt like are looking for you.” They all laughed. I felt like what chopped meat and the shooting pains frightened me. I happened was my fault.

took a long, long bubble bath. I asked my sister to tell I ducked into my history class just as the bell

my parents I was sick and went to bed. When I woke rang. Mrs. Duncan spoke the dreaded words: “Class, up it was time to go to school. But I couldn’t, I wasn’t tear off a half sheet of paper and number from one ready!

to ten. This is a test. Question number one: what year

“Now!” My mother ordered me out of bed. My

was the Magna Carta signed?”

whole body hurt. I tried not to think about the pain I tried to remember if she’d ever taught us what between my legs. My parents didn’t seem to notice my split lip or the way I was limping a little on my ankle.

in a vacuum. I chewed my pencil and stared at the I moved slow as molasses. I couldn’t think clearly.

blank piece of paper in front of me. I raised my hand

“Hurry up,” my mother scolded. “You’re going to be and asked for a bathroom pass. “You can go as soon late for school.”

I purposely missed my bus so I could walk to

“Um, please Mrs. Duncan. It’s an emergency.”

school. At least if I was late I wouldn’t have to face the kids before the bell rang. I forgot everything as I Bobby.”

walked. The wind whispered in the trees. Dogs barked I heard the guffaws behind me as I left the

and birds chirped. I walked slowly, as though I wasn’t classroom in panic. I ran through the halls looking for on my way to any place in particular.

someone to help me. I had to talk to someone. I ran Then the school building loomed over me like

upstairs to the cafeteria, looking for my friend Karla Stone Butch Blues 41

from gym class. When the bell rang I saw Karla in the seen it before. The cafeteria was absolutely, right crush of kids going in and out of the double doors.

down the middle, segregated. “Get the picture,

“Karla,” I yelled, “I have to talk to you.”

honey? Where you been?”

“What’s up?”

“Can I sit with you anyway?”

“I’ve gotta talk to you.” We made our way to the Karla tilted her head back and narrowed her eyes lunch line.

at me. “It’s a free country,” she said as she turned on

“What are they serving today?” Karla asked me.

her heel and walked away.

“Can you see?”

“Hello, white girl! You new in town?” Darnell

“Dreck on rice and shit on a shingle.”

teased as he moved over to let me sit down next to

“Yum! Same as yesterday.”

Karla.

“And the day before.” It was such a relief to

I laughed. There was no other sound in the huge

laugh with her.

room. You could’ve heard a pin drop. My stomach

We got our trays and winced as the school

tightened, and the food on my plate looked more

dietitian dumped a glop of something on each of our disgusting than usual.

plates. We picked up cartons of milk and paid for our

“Karla,” I sat down next to her. “I really need to lunches. “Can we talk?” I asked her.

talk to you, really bad.”

“Sure,” she said. “How about after lunch?”

“Uh-oh,” someone whispered at our table.

“Why not now?”

Mrs. Benson was racing toward our table.

Karla looked at me blankly. “Can I sit with you?”

“Young lady, what are you doing?”

I pressed.

I took a deep breath. “I’m eating lunch, Mrs.

She continued to stare at me. “Girl, have you

Benson.”

gone out of your cotton-pickin’ mind?” I looked confused. “There’s a seating arrangement here. Or when milk sprayed out of Darnell’s nose, well, it just haven’t you noticed?”

couldn’t be controlled.

The moment she said it I realized it was true.

“Come with me, young lady,” Mrs. Benson told me.

I looked around the lunchroom like I’d never really

“Why?” I wanted to know. “I didn’t do

42 Leslie Feinberg

anything.” She stormed away.

I did want to talk. But my mouth wouldn’t move.

“That was easy,” Darnell said.

“Here’s the other troublemaker,” Moriarty said.

“Too easy,” Karla answered.

He had Karla in his grip.

“Karla, I really need to talk to you,” I told her.

Miss Moore pulled Karla close to her. “I’ll take care of this, Coach. You go back to being lunch Actually, his name was Moriarty. The coach was

monitor.”

headed right for me.

He looked at her with open hatred. I could see

I was waiting for him to say something to me,

what a racist he was.

but he didn’t. He grabbed me by the arms, digging his

“C’mon girls.” Miss Moore put her arm around

each of us. “I’ll explain to the principal that you didn’t door of the cafeteria. “You little slut,” he whispered.

mean any harm.”

“I’ll take care of this, Coach.” Miss Moore,

Karla and I leaned forward and looked at each

the assistant principal, intervened. She put her arm other. “I’m sorry,” I told her, “I didn’t mean any around me and led me out into the hall. “Child,” she harm.”

said, “you are in a whole lot of trouble. What the hell Miss Moore stopped walking. “You girls didn’t

were you doing?”

do anything wrong. You came up against an unspoken

“Nothing, Miss Moore. I didn’t do anything. I

rule that needs changing. I just want you both to was just trying to talk to Karla.”

survive it.”

She smiled at me. “Sometimes you don’t have to

do anything wrong to be in hot water.”

All of my panic and fear welled up in my eyes. I come in too. He knitted his thick eyebrows together.

wanted so badly to open up to Miss Moore.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t, Suzanne.”

“Honey, it’s not all that bad,” she reassured

Mr. Donatto shut the door and motioned

for me to sit down. I felt alone in a hostile world.

trouble?” She looked at my swollen lip; no one else together. I looked at the painting of George

Stone Butch Blues 43

Washington on the wall and wondered whether he Miss Moore opened the door. “Can I be of help,

was wearing a white sheepskin coat or if the painting sir?”

“Get out and shut the door,” he shouted at her.

knew he was ready.

He turned back to me and took a deep breath. “I

“I’ve been told you made some trouble in the

want you to understand that what we want is good lunchroom today, young lady. Would you care to

relations between the students.”

explain yourself?”

“Then why can’t I eat lunch with my friends?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I didn’t do anything.”

Mr. Donatto came over to me and leaned so

Mr. Donatto leaned back in his chair. “The

close I could feel his breath on my face. “Young lady, world is a very complicated place. More complex than you listen to me and you listen to me good. I’m trying you kids realize.” Oh god, I thought. Here comes the to hold this school together and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a little troublemaker like you undo all my the colored children and the white students. Did you hard work. Do you understand me?” I blinked as little know that?”

bits of spit hit my face. “You are suspended for one I shook my head.

week.”

“I’m proud that we have good relations between

Suspended? For what? “I wanted to quit

the races at this school. That’s not been easy since the anyway,” I told him.

school district changed. We want to keep things calm, He smirked. “You can’t quit until you’re sixteen.”

do you understand?”

“I can’t quit but you can suspend me?”

“I don’t know why I can’t eat lunch with my

“That’s right, young lady. Miss Moore,” Mr.

Donatto yelled, “this student has been suspended. See Mr. Donatto’s jaw clenched. “The cafeteria is the that she leaves the building immediately.”

way it is because the students are most comfortable Miss Moore was standing outside the door. She

with the arrangement.”

smiled at me and put her hand on my shoulder. “You

“Well, I’m not.” I wondered who was controlling my OK?” she asked.

mouth. Mr. Donatto slammed his palm on the desk.

“Sure,” I said.

44 Leslie Feinberg

“This will blow over,” she assured me.

I made a pleading face. “Let me just see Mrs.

coming back. You must go to college.”

Noble and Miss Candi, please? Then I’ll go.” Miss Moore nodded.

I’m going into the factories.”

I wanted to talk to her so badly, but I felt as

“You need skills, even to be a laborer.”

though I was standing in a boat that was drifting away I shrugged. “I can’t afford college, that’s one

from everyone. I said goodbye and walked away.

thing. My parents aren’t going to spend a dime on me Mrs. Noble was marking test papers. She looked

or co-sign a loan either.”

up as I came into the classroom. “I heard,” she said, She ran her hands through her hair. I noticed for and continued to correct papers.

I sat on top of a desk in front of hers. “I came do with your life?” she asked me.

to say goodbye.”

I thought about it. “I want a good job, a union

Mrs. Noble looked up and took off her glasses.

job. I’d really like to get into the steel plant, or Chevy.”

“You’re quitting school over this?”

“I guess it wasn’t fair of me to want you to want I shrugged. “They suspended me, but I’m not

more.”

coming back.”

“Like what?” I said, angry that I was now a

“They suspended you? Over the lunchroom

disappointment to her, too.

incident?” Mrs. Noble rubbed her eyes and slipped

“I could see you becoming a great American

her glasses back on.

“Do you think I did something wrong?”

for cancer.” She took off her glasses and wiped them She sat back in her chair. “When you do

with a Kleenex. “I wanted you to help change the something out of conviction, my dear, it should be world.”

because you believe it’s the right thing to do. If you I laughed. She had no idea how powerless I

look for approval from everyone, you’ll never be able really was. “I can’t change anything,” I told her. I to act.”

toyed with telling her what had happened on the

I felt criticized. “I’m not asking everybody, I was just asking you,” I sulked.

begin.

Stone Butch Blues 45

“Do you know what it takes to change the world, thin out before I tried to struggle upstream to the feel the same way. The only thing you have to do gym.

alone is to decide what’s important to you.”

There was no one in the girls’ gym when I got

I nodded and slid off the desk. “I’d better be

there. I took my sneakers and shorts out of my locker going, Mrs. Noble, before they send a posse to eject and put them on. I started playing on the monkey me from the school grounds.”

ropes, climbing up one and then across the others.

She stood up and took my face in her hands. She

When I shinnied down, I felt so pent-up I was afraid kissed me on the forehead. For some reason it made I’d explode. I ran around the indoor track until I me think about how it felt in jail with Al and Mona—

almost dropped.

about moments when you’re being torn away from

As I stopped I saw Miss Candi looking at me.

people you love and you feel real close to them.

“Come back and visit,” Mrs. Noble said.

and saw me running. “How long have you been

“Sure,” I lied.

watching me?”

I headed toward the gym to say goodbye to

She shrugged. “I heard you’ve been suspended.”

“Do you think I did something wrong, Miss

“Where’s your hall pass, young lady?”

Candi?” Even as I said it I remembered what Mrs.

“I don’t need one anymore. I’m suspended.” I

Noble explained about needing approval.

sounded cheerful.

“I just don’t believe in rocking the boat, that’s Only hours before I had felt imprisoned in these all,” she said, looking away.

halls. Now that I was leaving, the school felt smaller.

“Wow,” I sighed in disappointment. “Well, Miss

I wandered through the corridors like an alumna. I Candi, I just came to say goodbye.”

I walked past the auto shop—that’s the class

coming from the auditorium. I had forgotten there I wanted. Instead they’d had me making popovers

was an assembly last period. I guessed I didn’t need with lemon sauce in cooking class. How did Mrs.

46 Leslie Feinberg

Noble think I could ever change this world by making inside of me that might never come down again.

popovers?

Over the main entrance to the school the words

“Wanna come?” I shook my head and hugged her

Optima futura were carved in stone. The best is yet to be. I goodbye.

hoped that was true.

I didn’t want to face my parents. I knew they

wouldn’t be home from work yet, if I hurried.

detention room. “Way to go!” I waved to him. “Meet As soon as I got home I took two pillowcases

us later,” he yelled. A teacher pulled him inside and and stuffed all my pants and shirts into them. I shut the window.

reached deep into my closet and pulled out the

backpack that contained the tie and jacket Al and up!”

“They suspended me,” I told her.

The ring! I took it out of my mother’s jewelry

“Me too,” she said. “For two weeks.”

case and slipped it on my left hand.

“Two weeks? They only suspended me for one!

I hurried, afraid my parents would come home

I’m quittin’, though.”

and catch me. I found a piece of paper and a pencil. I Karla whistled through her teeth. “Shit, are you was sweating and my hand shook.

sure about that?”

Dear Mom and Dad, I wrote.

I nodded. “I can’t take it anymore.”

“Whatcha doing?” Rachel asked me.

“Shh!” I continued to write. I got kicked out of down I forgot to ask you what’s up. You said you school. It’s not my fault, in case you care. I’m almost sixteen. I needed to talk.”

was going to quit anyway. I have a job and money. I’m leaving.

That moment was a turning point in my life. I

Please don’t come after me. I don’t want to live here anymore. I felt like a dam ready to burst but I heard myself say,

“Aw, it wasn’t that important.”

my job if they wanted to, but there was a chance that Karla looked concerned. “Are you sure?”

they’d be as happy to be rid of me as I’d be relieved I nodded, feeling the last brick of the wall go up to be gone.

Stone Butch Blues 47

“Whatcha doing?” Rachel asked me again. Her lip trembled.

I laughed. “I got kicked out of school and ran

“Shh, don’t cry,” I told her. I gave her a hug.

away from home.”

“I’m running away from home.”

She whistled and shook her head. “I’d take you

She shook her head. “You can’t,” she said.

home with me, but my husband keeps trying to give I nodded my head. “I gotta try. I’m going crazy

away the kids we already got.”

here.”

I asked Eddie if I could work a double. “I’ll let

“I’ll tell,” Rachel threatened.

you know later,” he said. At 11:00 P.M. the work ran I rushed out the door, afraid to be caught by my out and he sent me home. I tried to sleep sitting up parents at the last moment. They could use force to at the bus station, but the cops kept coming by and bring me back, have me arrested or commit me to

asking me to show them my ticket. I bought a ticket an institution. Or they could let me go. It was up to for Niagara Falls, but they woke me every time a bus them—I’d learned that. I ran down the street until left for the Falls and wanted to know why I wasn’t on my lungs ached. When I was blocks away I leaned up it. I walked around and ate breakfast and drank coffee against a lamppost and caught my breath. I felt free.

and walked around some more. At noon I went to a Free to explore what freedom meant. I looked at my movie matinee. When I woke up, I was late for work.

watch. It was time to go to work. I was almost sixteen Eddie warned me not to be late again.

years old. I had thirty-seven dollars in my pocket.

“You look like hell,” Gloria whispered.

“Thanks a lot.” I started thinking, “Hey, Gloria, remember when you told me about that bar your

brother went to in the Falls?”

“You’re late,” my foreman told me as I punched in.

Gloria tensed. “Yeah, so?”

“Sorry,” I said, and started the machine up right

“So does he know of any bars like that here in

away.

town?” She shrugged. “It’s important, Gloria. Honest

“Damn kid,” he told Gloria.

to god, I really need to know.”

She kept her head down until he walked away.

Gloria looked nervous. She cleaned her inky

48 Leslie Feinberg

hands on her apron as though she wanted to wipe her Genny,” I called out to the bartender.

hands of the whole topic. At lunchtime she pressed a She narrowed her eyes. “Let’s see some ID.”

piece of paper into my hand.

“They never asked me at Tifka’s,” I protested.

“What’s this?” The slip of paper had the word

She shrugged. “So go get a beer at Tifka’s,” she Abba’s written on it.

“I called my brother. I asked him where he goes.

“Havin’ a hard day, kid?” one of the butches at He said he used to go there.”

the bar asked me.

I smiled from ear to ear. “Do you know where it

“A hard day?” My laughter sounded shrill. “I got is?”

kicked out of school, got no place to live, and I’m

“What do I have to do, drive you there?”

sleep so I can be on time.”

asking.”

She pursed her lips, nodded, and took a swig of

I called information and got the address. After

her beer. “You can stay at our place for a while if you my shift I washed up in the bathroom and changed want,” she said casually.

“Are you fucking with me?” I demanded.

She shook her head. “You need a place to stay?

it was time for the ring to reveal to me the secrets of My girlfriend and I have an apartment over our

surviving my own life. I raced downtown to Abba’s garage. You can stay there if you want, it’s up to you.”

and then stood outside, pacing and smoking. I was She signaled to the bartender. “Meg, get the kid a just as scared to go into this bar as I’d been to enter beer, on me, OK?”

Tifka’s. Only this time I was carrying everything I owned in two pillowcases. Where would I go if I was rejected here?

I took a deep breath and walked into Abba’s.

Meg slammed a bottle of beer in front of me.

It was real crowded inside, which made me feel

“Thanks for the beer, Toni.” I saluted her with the anonymous and safe. I squeezed in at the bar. “A bottle. “Can I move in tonight?”

Stone Butch Blues 49

Toni laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. If I’m not too Betty tried to get her into the car. I lay down on the drunk to get the key in the door. Hey, Betty!”

back seat and immediately fell asleep again.

Toni’s girlfriend came out of the bathroom and

“C’mon, wake up,” Betty urged me. We were

stood beside her. “Hey, Betty, meet Dondi. This kid’s in their driveway. Betty struggled to prop Toni up against the car. “Don’t give me two problems to deal know?” Toni laughed and took a swig of beer.

with,” Betty told me curtly. I got out of the car and Betty pulled away from Toni. “That’s not funny.”

helped her get Toni upstairs.

I intervened. “Toni said you got a place I could

“You can sleep on the couch tonight,” Betty

stay. I really need a place to sleep, I mean real bad.”

said.

Betty looked at Toni, shrugged, and walked away.

“Who’s the kid?” Toni demanded to know.

“It’s OK with her,” Toni said. “I’m going back to

“What’s this, your new butch?”

“You invited the kid to live in the garage

apartment, remember?” Betty snapped.

bar. The room was spinning and I wanted to sleep so I curled up on the couch and tried to disappear.

badly. Meg rapped her knuckles on the bar near my After a while Betty came out and threw a blanket over head. “You drunk or something?”

me.

“No, I’m just working round the clock,” I told

“If I could just get some sleep tonight, I’ll be her. I didn’t think she liked me. Then she brought me out of here,” I told her.

another beer.

“It’s OK,” she said wearily. “Don’t worry, it’ll be

“I didn’t order one.”

alright.” I clung to that little bit of reassurance.

Lying there in the dark I started realizing I was As the crowd started thinning out I found an

on my own: no more school, no more parents—

empty chair near the noisy backroom, leaned my head unless they came after me. I gagged on shame as I against the wall, and fell asleep. When I awoke, Betty was tugging on my sleeve, telling me it was time to was afraid I was going to throw up and I hadn’t asked go home. Toni sang “Roll Me Over in the Clover” as where their bathroom was. I wished this was Al and 50 Leslie Feinberg

boys did to me. I felt too ashamed.

I made a vow to myself before I fell asleep. I

promised myself I would never wear a dress again, and I’d never let anyone rape me ever again, no matter what.

As it turned out, I could only keep one of those promises.

Stone Butch Blues 51

05

“HEY KID, WHAT’S UP?” Meg called out as she

“Child, you’re in one damn good mood tonight,”

wiped down the bar. Familiar faces softened as they Peaches said. “You get lucky with some girl or

welcomed me. I had become a regular at Abba’s.

something?”

“Hey, Meg. Gimme a beer, will ya?”

I blushed. She had hit a sore spot. “I just feel so

“Sure, kid, coming right up.”

damn good. I got a job and a motorcycle and friends.”

I sat down next to Edwina. “Hey, Ed, can I buy

Ed whistled. “You got a bike?”

you a beer?”

“Yes,” I shouted, “yes, yes! Toni sold me her

“Yeah,” she laughed, “why would I say no?”

old Norton. We went out to the supermarket parking It was a Friday night. I had money in my pocket

lot Sunday, and I practiced till she got mad and went home without me.”

Ed smiled. “Wow. Big bike.” She slapped my

“And a beer for my elder, Meg.”

open palm.

registered it downtown yesterday? I mean when I

length of the red-painted nails, it had to be Peaches.

actually realized it was mine? I got on that bike and I

“Hi, honey,” she kissed me gently on the ear.

rode it two hundred miles out and two hundred miles I sighed with pleasure. “And a drink for

back.”

Peaches,” I called out to Meg.

Everyone roared. I nodded. “Something shirt and dragged me out the back door. “Out of

excited. I love that bike. I mean, I actually love it. I here, now, get out of here,” they were yelling as I love that bike so fucking much I can’t even explain fumbled with my motorcycle. A couple of cops

it.” All the butches who rode motorcycles nodded fanned out around the parking lot. My legs felt like jelly. I couldn’t kick-start the bike.

shoulders.

“Get the fuck out of here,” they shouted at me.

“Things are lookin’ up for you, kid. I’m happy

Two uniformed cops headed toward me. One

reached for his gun. “Off that bike,” he ordered.

Marlon Brando here.”

“C’mon, c’mon,” I crooned to myself.

The ring must be working! “‘The Avengers’ on

One good kick and the bike roared to life. I

yet?” I asked.

popped the clutch and did an unintentional wheelie Meg shook her head. “Fifteen more minutes.

out of the parking lot. As soon as I got to Toni and God, I can’t wait to see what Diana Rigg’s wearing Betty’s house I banged on their kitchen door. Betty this time.”

looked alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

I sighed. “I hope it’s that leather jumpsuit again.

“The bar, everybody, they’re busted.”

I think I’m falling in love with her.”

“Calm down,” Toni put her hand on my

Meg laughed. “Get in line.”

shoulder. “Calm down and tell us what happened.” I we’d never seen before came in and ordered a gin and out what happened to everybody?” I asked them.

tonic. Meg had just placed the glass in front of him rings,” Betty said. The phone rang. Betty listened Uniformed cops rushed in behind him. The young

quietly. “Nobody got busted except Meg,” she told us.

guy was a plant.

“You’ve just served a minor. Alright ladies,

I rubbed my forehead with my hand. “Are they

gentlemen, leave your drinks on the bar and take out hurt bad?” She shrugged. I felt guilty. “I think they some ID, this is a bust.”

Stone Butch Blues 53

got it worse because they got me out of there.”

Betty leaned on the kitchen table and held her

were a lucrative and captive market. Usually only one head in both hands. Toni went to the refrigerator.

club was open to us at a time. Other owners wanted

“Want a beer, kid?”

our business for a while. But Abba’s owner got

“Naw, thanks,” I told Toni.

greedy, so the Mob had him busted and shut down.

“Suit yourself.”

The new bar was closer to the Tenderloin strip

Fear nagged at me as I fell asleep that evening.

in downtown Buffalo. It was called the Malibou—a But the real terror didn’t surface until I woke up in the jazz bar that would welcome us after the 1:00 A.M.

middle of the night. I sat bolt upright, soaking wet, show ended. Organized crime owned the Malibou,

remembering the bust at Tifka’s. I had grown an inch or two since then. The next time the police got their difference. Her name was Gert. She wanted us to call hands on me, my age wouldn’t save me. Fear boiled in her Aunt Gertie, but it made us feel like a Girl Scout the back of my throat. It was going to happen to me.

troop—so we called her Cookie.

I knew that. But I couldn’t change the way I was. It felt like driving toward the edge of a cliff and seeing only had one exit. It did have a pool table, though, what’s coming but not being able to brake.

and Edwin and I played for hours till the sun came up.

would tuck me in on their couch, kiss my forehead, Ed waited for her girlfriend, Darlene, until dawn.

and tell me everything would be alright.

Darlene danced nearby at a bar on Chippewa Street.

where a lot of the pros—female and male—used to take their tricks. At dawn all the working girls got off The owner of Abba’s had been so deeply in debt a couple of years ago that he had to hand carry beer in to close, or went to a restaurant near the bus station by the case—the Mob wouldn’t allow deliveries until for breakfast.

he paid up. So he put out the word that the bar was I began to notice sometimes Ed didn’t come in

54 Leslie Feinberg

on weekends. What else was there in life besides the bulls at the plant. I like coming in here and spending plants and the bars?

some time with y’all. But I like being with my own

“Hey, Ed,” I asked her one morning. “Where

people too, you understand? Besides, Darlene and I were you last weekend?”

wouldn’t last a month if I hung out on the East Side.”

She looked up from the pool shot she was lining

I shook my head. I didn’t understand.

up. “At a different club.”

“Darlene doesn’t worry about me being here. If

Her answer surprised me. There was only one

I spent this much time at my own clubs, well, let’s just club open at a time, as far as I knew.

say there’d be too much temptation.”

“Yeah?” I asked her. “Where?”

“You hungry?” I asked her.

“On the East Side,” she said, chalking up.

“Naw, man, I’m just human.” She sounded

“You mean it’s a Negro club?”

defensive.

“Black,” she said as she whacked a high ball and I laughed. “No, I mean you wanna get some

sunk it. “It’s a Black club.”

breakfast?”

I took in all of this new information as Ed lined She slapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

up her next shot. “Shit,” she said as she missed it.

We met Darlene and the other girls at the

“Is it different from this club?” I asked as I

restaurant. They were all excited, something about a surveyed the table.

“Yes and no.” Ed wasn’t giving up much this

“Hey, Ed,” I asked her over coffee as Darlene

morning.

reenacted her role in the brawl, “you think I could go I shrugged and indicated the far corner. I missed with you some time? I mean, I don’t know if it’s OK

the shot. Ed smiled and patted me on the back. I had to ask or not.”

a lot of questions, but I didn’t know how to ask.

Ed looked taken aback. “Why? Why do you want

Edwin sunk the eight ball by mistake. “Shit,” she to go to my club?”

hissed, “shit.” She looked me up and down. “What?”

“I don’t know, Ed. You’re my friend, you know?”

she demanded. I shrugged.

She shrugged. “So?”

“Look,” she said. “I work all day with these old

“So this morning I realized how much of you I

Stone Butch Blues 55

don’t know, that’s all. I guess I’d like to meet you on Ed started coming back to the Malibou. Out of

your own turf.”

the blue one morning she said, “I thought about it.”

Darlene tugged on Ed’s sleeve, “Baby, you

Funny how I knew exactly what she meant—

should have been there. We kicked this guy’s ass all about me going to the club with her. “I didn’t know the way to kingdom come! He was beggin’ us for

how I’d feel about taking you, you know? But next mercy.”

Saturday night is an anniversary party for two women.

“I’ve got to think about it. I don’t know,” Ed

One of them is white. I don’t know, I thought if you said.

wanted to go …”

I did. We decided to take Ed’s car.

On Saturday night Ed picked me up late. We

rode in silence.

“You nervous?” she asked me.

Ed stopped coming to the Malibou soon afterward. I I nodded. She snorted and shook her head.

asked Grant what was up, but all she said was that Ed

“Maybe this was a mistake.”

“had a chip on her shoulder” ever since Malcom X

“No,” I told her. “Not for the reasons you think.

was killed in New York City. I wanted to call Ed and I’m always scared before I go to a new club, any club.

talk to her, but Meg told me not to. She told me the You ever feel that way?”

butches at the auto plant said Ed was real angry and it

“No,” Edwin said, “Well, yes, maybe. I don’t

was best to just leave her alone. That didn’t feel right know.”

to me, but the advice had come down from the old

“You nervous, Ed? About going to the club with

bulls, so I listened.

a white butch, I mean.”

“Yeah, maybe a little,” she said as she checked

the diner. I was so happy to see her I reached out my the rearview mirror. Ed stopped at a red light and arms to hug her. She eyed me guardedly, as though offered me a cigarette. “I like you though, you know.”

I looked out the car window and smiled. “I like

like what she saw. After a moment she opened her you too, Ed. A lot.”

arms to me. Hugging her felt like coming home.

56 Leslie Feinberg

I realized I’d hung out on the edges of the Black boldly met mine. After a few minutes she whispered community with friends after school, but I’d never something to her girlfriend and stood up. She was been deep in the heart of the East Side. “Buffalo is wearing blue spike heels that matched her dress. With like two cities,” I said. “I’ll bet a lot of white people a steady step, she made her way directly to our table.

have never even been to this city.”

“Lord have mercy on your soul, girl,” Ed

Ed laughed bitterly and nodded. “Segregation

shouted at me as I rose to meet Daisy. Daisy put is alive and well in Buffalo. That’s it,” Ed added, pointing to a building.

Edwin grabbed my other hand and pulled me down

“Where?”

near her ear. “Are you still uptight?” she yelled.

“You’ll see.” Ed parked the car on a nearby side

“I’m adjusting,” I shouted back over my

street.

shoulder.

We approached the door. Ed knocked hard. An

eye appeared at the peephole. As the door opened, packed wall-to-wall. A lot of butches immediately

“I don’t believe you back there,” Ed said to me hours came over to welcome Ed and shook her hand or

later as we left the club. “I’m adjusting,” she mimicked hugged her shoulders. She gestured toward me and me with a laugh and punched my shoulder. “Girl,

shouted something in their ears, but it was too loud you’re just lucky that Daisy’s ex wasn’t there. She to hear much. Several women beckoned us to share would have kicked your mutherfuckin’ white ass.”

their table and each shook my hand as I sat down. Ed She was interrupted by a hand on her shoulder

ordered us beers and sat down next to me.

that spun her around. I was pushed hard from behind.

“Daisy’s already got her eye on you,” Ed yelled

When I turned I caught a glimpse of a cop car with in my ear. “The woman sitting directly across the both doors open. Two cops were pushing us with

their nightsticks. “Up against the wall, girls.” They you out.”

pushed us into an alley. Ed put her hand on the back I smiled at Daisy. She dropped her eyes and then of my shoulder as reassurance.

Stone Butch Blues 57

“Keep your hands to yourself, bulldagger,” one had plenty of time to consult. There are times, the cop yelled as he slammed her against the wall.

old bulls told me, when it’s best to take your beating Even as I was shoved against the brick wall

and hope the cops will leave you on the ground when I could still feel the comfort of her hand as it had they’re done with you. Other times your life may be in

“Spread your legs, girls. Wider.” One of the cops back. It’s a tough call.

grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head In the blink of an eye, Ed and I decided to

backward as he kicked my legs apart with his boot. He took my wallet out of my back pocket and opened it.

For just a moment things started looking up for us. I I looked over at Ed. The cop was patting her

kicked the cop in front of me in the shins over and down and running his hands up her thighs. He pulled over again. Ed got the other cop in the groin and was her wallet out of her pocket, took out the money, and stuffed it in his own pocket.

As one cop lunged at me, the point of his

“Eyes straight ahead,” the cop behind me had

nightstick caught me squarely in the solar plexus. I his mouth close to my ear.

crashed against the wall, unable to breathe. Then I The other cop began shouting at Ed. “You think

heard a sickening thud as a nightstick connected with you’re a guy, huh? You think you can take it like a guy?

Ed’s skull. I vomited. The cops beat us until I found We’ll see. What’s these?” he said. He yanked up her myself wondering through the pain why they weren’t shirt and pulled her binder down around her waist.

exhausted from the effort. Suddenly we heard voices He grabbed her breasts so hard she gasped.

shouting nearby.

“Leave her alone,” I yelled.

“C’mon,” one cop said to the other.

“Shut up, you fuckin’ pervert,” the cop behind

Ed and I were on the ground. I could see the

me shouted and bashed my face against the wall. I boot of the cop standing over me pull back. “You saw a kaleidoscope of colors.

fuckin’ traitor,” he spat, as his boot cracked my rib for Ed and I spun around and looked at each other

punctuation.

for a split second. Funny, it seemed as though we The next thing I remember was a light glowing

58 Leslie Feinberg

in the sky beyond the alley. The pavement felt cold Neither of us ever saw an emergency room

and hard against my cheek. Ed was lying next to me, doctor for fear they’d call the cops to see if we were in any trouble. When Ed and I could sit up and even touch her, but I couldn’t reach. My hand rested in the walk a little, we began recuperating in the living room pool of blood around her head.

together during the days while Darlene slept. The

“Ed,” I whispered, “Ed, please wake up. Oh god,

couch opened up as a bed.

please don’t be dead.”

Ed gave me The Ballot and the Bullet by Malcolm

“What,” she moaned.

X. She encouraged me to read W.E.B. Du Bois and

“We got to get out of here, Ed.”

“OK,” she said, “you pull the car up.”

we could hardly read the newspaper. All day long we

“Don’t make me laugh,” I told her. “I can hardly lay next to each other and watched television: “Get breathe.” I passed out again.

Smart,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Green Acres.” We Darlene told us later that a family on their way healed in spite of it.

to church found us. They got some people to help Ed got disability pay during her absence. I lost get us to their home nearby. They didn’t take us to my job as a printer.

the hospital because they didn’t know if we were in trouble with the law or not. When Edwin came to, a month later, someone pulled the plug on the

she gave them Darlene’s number. Darlene and her

jukebox and everyone rushed up to hug us. “No, wait, friends came and got us. Darlene took care of both gently,” we shouted, both backing up toward the door.

of us at their apartment for a week before Ed or I

“Notice the resemblance?” I asked, as Ed and I put were really coherent.

our faces near each other. We had matching gashes over our right eyebrows.

remember asking Darlene.

after that beating. The pain in my rib cage reminded were,” Darlene answered. “Alive. You’re both alive, me with every breath how vulnerable I really was.

you stupid motherfuckers.”

I propped myself up at a back table and watched Stone Butch Blues 59

all my friends dancing together. It felt good to be

“I don’t know how to be an emcee.”

back home. Peaches sat down next to me, draped her arm around my shoulders, and planted a long sweet not the star.”

kiss on my cheek.

Peaches threw her head back. “We are!”

Cookie offered me a job as a bouncer on the

weekends. I held my ribs and winced.

waving a wad of bills.

She said I could wait on tables until I healed, if I wanted to. I sure needed the money.

from table to table with an empty Maxwell House

I had heard horror stories about butches and their coffee can, collecting money.

femmes trying to shop for a suit at Kleinhan’s

She came over to the table where Peaches and

clothing store. But this time Kleinhan’s was in for I were sitting and began counting out the bills. “You some discomfort as three powerful queens in full drag don’t have to contribute, darlin’.”

helped me pick it out.

“What’s it for?” I asked.

“For your new suit,” she answered, and

“She’s an emcee, not a fucking undertaker.”

continued counting the bills.

“Earth tones,” Georgetta turned my face in her

“Whose new suit?”

hands, “because of her coloring.”

“Your new suit, honey. You can’t expect to be

“No, no, no,” Peaches said, “this is it.” She held the Master of Ceremonies of the Monte Carlo Night up a dark blue gabardine suit.

you?” I looked bewildered.

dressing room. “Yes!”

“We’re taking you out and buying you a new

“Ooh, honey, I just might swing for you,”

suit,” Peaches explained. “You’re going to emcee the Georgetta exclaimed.

drag show next month.”

Peaches fussed with my lapels. “Yes, yes, yes.”

“We’ll take it,” Georgetta told the salesman, who annoyed.

60 Leslie Feinberg

looked visibly annoyed. “Tailor it for the child. And Two women were freshening their makeup in

make it look nice!”

front of the mirror. One glanced at the other and The salesman pulled the tape measure from

around his neck and tried to chalk the trousers and woman?” she said to her friend as I passed them.

jacket without touching me. Finally he straightened The other woman turned to me. “This is the

up. “You can pick it up in one week,” he announced.

women’s bathroom,” she informed me.

“We can pick it up today,” Georgetta declared.

I nodded. “I know.”

“We’ll just walk around the store trying things on till I locked the stall door behind me. Their laugher it’s ready.”

cut me to the bone. “You don’t really know if that’s

“No,” the salesman blurted. “Come back in two

a man or not,” one woman said to the other. “We

should call security and make sure.”

over her shoulder.

in fear. Maybe it was just an idle threat. Maybe

“See you.” Georgetta blew him a kiss.

they really would call security. I hurried out of the

“C’mon.” Peaches waved for me to follow. “It’s

bathroom as soon as I heard both women leave.

our turn.” They steered me toward the store next door. We were headed for the lingerie department.

smiled. “You took ten years off those girls’ lives.”

I shook my head. “I gotta use the bathroom.

I forced myself to smile. “Naw. They never

God, I wish I could wait, but I can’t.”

would have made fun of a guy like that. I was afraid they might call the cops on me. They took ten years Peaches drew herself up to her full height.

off my life.”

“C’mon. We’ll all go in together with her.”

“C’mon.” Peaches impatiently tugged on my

“No,” I held up both hands. “I’m afraid we’ll

sleeve. “It’s high femme time.” She dragged me

all get busted.” My bladder ached. I wished I hadn’t toward the lingerie department.

waited so long. I took a deep breath and pushed open

“What do you think?” Georgetta held up a red

the door to the women’s bathroom.

silk nightie.

Stone Butch Blues 61

“Black,” I told her. “That black lace one.”

“She can see I’m the fairest of them all.”

“Lord, this boy’s got taste,” she said.

“Oh, please child, don’t make me laugh.”

Peaches sighed. “It’s funny, seeing you trying

I held up both my hands. “Wait,” I protested,

on that suit, all excited and everything. I remember

“you never told me I was going to judge the drag my father making me buy a suit for Sunday service.

show.”

When I dreamed of dressing up, child, it wasn’t no suit. I’ll tell you that much. I dreamt about something, Don’t you worry your handsome little head about it.”

you know, tasteful—with spaghetti straps. Kinda low ballerina in a three-piece suit.”

Georgetta snorted. “More like a fairy.” Peaches

The month passed quickly. I tried to avoid all the threw back her head and dragged me away.

squabbles between contestants over how the show

We went back to Kleinhan’s an hour later. The

should be run. I arrived at the Malibou a little late suit was ready.

the night of the show. I took off my helmet and sat

“We have enough money left over to pick out a

on my Norton in the back parking lot, smoking a

shirt and tie,” Georgetta announced.

cigarette.

“Child, where have you been?” Peaches

more beautiful than any shirt my father ever owned.

demanded as she rocked from side to side in her high The buttons were sky blue with white swirls, like heels on the gravel.

clouds. Peaches and Georgetta settled on a burgundy

“I’m coming,” I shouted, grinding out my

silk tie.

cigarette. “I’ll be right there.”

The salesmen held their heads in their hands as

Everyone stopped and stared as I walked in the

though they all had headaches. Well, better them than door. “You look good enough to eat,” Peaches said, us.

smoothing my lapels.

“I can’t thank you all enough,” I told them.

Georgetta clasped her hands in front of her. “I

“Yes, you can, honey. You best pick me as the

think I’m falling in love.”

winner of that drag show.”

62 Leslie Feinberg

“Yeah, she says that after every blow job,”

all to make our gorgeous sisters in this show feel how much we love and respect them.” The crowd roared Cookie went over the program with me. I

chewed at my thumbnail as she spoke. I’d spent my me and then ran backstage to await their cues.

whole life wishing I could be invisible. How was I going to climb up on a stage, with a spotlight on given me. “Will you please welcome tonight, Miss me? When I got up on the runway it was dark in the Diana Ross, singing ‘Stop in the Name of Love.’” The club. After the spotlight hit me, I could hardly see the music swelled, and I stepped aside.

crowd.

Peaches’ dress shimmered as the spotlight

“Sing something,” one of the butches shouted out.

illuminated her. What a breathtakingly beautiful

“What do I look like, fucking Bert Parks?” I

human being.

yelled back. “OK,” I began to sing, “Here she comes, Stop in the name of love

Mis-cell-an-eous.”

tie as she sang, before you break my heart. Her lips were

“Boo!”

close to mine. I gasped, caught up in the power of her

“Listen up now,” I pleaded, “this is serious.”

performance.

“This ain’t serious, this is a drag show,” someone The applause was thunderous.

yelled.

“Get the kid a towel,” someone yelled as I wiped

“Yeah,” I said. “This is serious.” I realized what I my forehead with the back of my hand.

wanted to say. “You know, all our lives they’ve told us

“Will you please welcome Miss Barbara Lewis,

the way we are isn’t right.”

singing ‘Hello Stranger.’”

I heard some murmurs, “Yeah!”

“Well, this is our home. We’re family.”

absolutely steady on her spike heels as the music rose.

There was a ripple of applause from the

Hello stranger, she draped one arm over my shoulder, it audience. “You’re goddamn right,” one of the drag seems like a mighty long time. I could get to like this.

queens behind me shouted.

The next performer was Georgetta’s boyfriend,

“So tonight we’re going to celebrate the way we

Booker. I’d never seen Booker try on drag before.

are. It’s not only OK, it’s beautiful. And I want you Stone Butch Blues 63

Even in a dress I still thought of Booker as he.

see what was happening. I heard shouting and tables Booker was also doing “Stop in the Name of Love.”

and chairs overturning. I remembered there was only Georgetta peeked out from behind the stage wall to one door—there was no escape this time. At sixteen watch. “Wouldn’t you just know it,” she whispered to years old I was still underage.

I slowly took off my new blue suit coat, folded out you’ve got a sister who borrows your lipstick and it neatly, and put it on the piano at the back of the won’t return it.” I chuckled.

stage. For a moment I considered taking off my tie,

“Lord have mercy,” she said, “that girl’s in

thinking somehow it might go easier for me if I did.

trouble.” The strap on Booker’s dress slipped down But, of course, it wouldn’t have. In fact, the tie made every time he lifted his arm to sing Stop! It could have me feel stronger in order to face whatever lay ahead been very sexy, but he was so nervous he kept trying of me. I rolled up my sleeves and stepped off the to hike up the strap.

stage. A cop grabbed me and cuffed my hands tightly

“Help her,” Georgetta said to me.

behind my back. Another cop was smacking Booker, I handed Georgetta the mike and walked out

who was sobbing.

on stage in front of Booker. I got down on one knee The police van was backed right up to the door

in front of him and pretended he was singing to of the club. The cops roughed us up as they shoved me. Then I circled behind him and pulled down his us in. Some of the drag queens bantered nervously strap seductively. “Leave it,” I whispered, as I kissed on the way to the precinct, making jokes to relieve the his shoulder. Booker pushed me away dramatically, tension. I rode in silence.

singing, Before you break my heart. The crowd roared We were all put together in one huge holding

its approval. Everybody was really enjoying the way cell. My cuffed hands felt swollen and cold from Booker was pulling off this act.

lack of circulation. I waited in the cell. Two cops opened the door. They were laughing and talking to The music died and everyone groaned. Then

themselves. I wasn’t listening. “What do you want, a fucking invitation? Now!” one of them commanded.

shield my eyes from the spotlight, but I still couldn’t 64 Leslie Feinberg

pretty smile for the camera. You’re such a pretty girl.

so long I sucked in water and felt the hard shape of Isn’t she pretty, guys?” They snapped my mug shot.

the shit against my tongue. When Mulroney pulled my One of the cops loosened my tie. As he ripped open head back out of the toilet I spewed vomit all over my new dress shirt, the sky blue buttons bounced him. I gagged and retched over and over again.

“Aw shit, fuck, get her out of here,” the cops

exposing my breasts. My hands were cuffed behind yelled to each other as I lay heaving.

“No,” Mulroney said, “handcuff her over there,

“I don’t think she likes you, Gary,” another cop on top of the desk.”

said. “Maybe she’d like me better.” He crossed the They lifted me and threw me on my back across

room. My knees were wobbling. Lt. Mulroney, that’s the desk and handcuffed my hands over my head. As what his badge read. He saw me looking at it and one cop pulled off my trousers I tried to calm the slapped me hard across the face. His hand clamped spasms in my stomach so I wouldn’t choke to death on my face like a vise. “Suck my cock,” he said quietly.

on my own vomit.

There wasn’t a sound in the room. I didn’t move.

“Aw, ain’t that cute, BVDs,” one cop called out

No one said anything. I almost got the feeling it could to another. “Fuckin’ pervert.”

stay that way, all action frozen, but it didn’t. Mulroney I looked at the light on the ceiling, a large

yellow bulb burning behind a metal mesh. The light Someone hit the side of my knee with a nightstick.

reminded me of the endless stream of television My knees buckled more from fear than pain.

Westerns I saw after we moved up north. Whenever Mulroney grabbed me by the collar and dragged me anyone was lost in the desert the only image shown several feet away to a steel toilet. There was a piece was a glaring sun—all the beauty of the desert

reduced to that one impression. Staring at that

or eat my shit, bulldagger. It’s up to you.” I was too jail light bulb rescued me from watching my own

frightened to think or move.

degradation: I just went away.

I found myself standing in the desert. The sky

head in the toilet. The second time he held me under was streaked with color. Every shift of light cast a Stone Butch Blues 65

different hue across the wilderness: salmon, rose, I closed my eyes and turned my face up to the

lavender. The scent of sage was overpowering. Even before I saw the golden eagle gliding in the updraft relief of warm rain down my cheeks.

above me, I heard it scream, as clearly as if it had with the eagle, but I felt rooted to the earth. The mountains rose to meet me. I walked toward them, seeking sanctuary, but something held me back.

“Fuck it,” Mulroney spat. “Turn her over, her

cunt’s too fuckin’ loose.”

bulldaggers don’t fuck men and they got such big cunts?”

“Ask your wife,” Mulroney said. The other cops

laughed.

I panicked. I tried to return to the desert but

dimensions I’d passed through before. An explosion of pain in my body catapulted me back.

but this time the sands had cooled. The sky was

overcast, threatening to storm. The air pressure was unbearable. It was hard to breathe. From a distance I heard the eagle scream again. The sky was growing as dark as the mountains. Wind blew through my hair.

66 Leslie Feinberg

06

THE RING WAS GONE. The only tangible proof

Now I was tranquil. I didn’t feel much of

it had ever existed were the blood blisters on my ring anything at all. But even through this blessed serenity I grieved for the ring that would have protected me, were cuffed and swollen. The ring was gone. I sat in or at least offered me its wisdom. The ring was gone.

my apartment and stared out the window. I couldn’t There was nothing to hope for now. The ring was

tell how long I’d been awake.

gone.

Betty knocked on the door and let herself in.

She noticed the plate of fried chicken she’d brought me last night was untouched. The chicken looked

I got home, but I was adamant: I wanted to be alone.

like human limbs, and I couldn’t bring myself to bite head back and tried to luxuriate in the tub. Then I bathroom, retching.

noticed the water turning deeper shades of pink and

“I brought you some apple pie,” Betty said. She

a current of red water between my legs. I instantly had bright yellow calico in her hands. “I thought I’d recalled the feel of the hard piece of shit against my make some curtains for this window, if that’s OK?”

tongue and I climbed out of the bathtub in panic, just I’d lived without curtains since I’d moved in more making it to the toilet in time.

than six months ago. I nodded. Betty began to sew.

From time to time she glanced up at me. I knew she with a spoon sticking out of each. She sat down next had probably been sewing in my room for several

to me on the couch and offered me one. The ice

hours when she stood to iron the curtains, but it cream tasted so sweet and cool going down my throat seemed like seconds.

it made my eyes sting with tears.

The curtains were really pretty, but my face

Peaches stroked my hair. I was thinking about

wouldn’t move, even to smile. Betty came over and sat how the world looks when it’s buried in deep snow down near me. “You should eat something,” she said.

drifts—every twig and telephone line outlined with I looked up to acknowledge I’d heard her. She moved inches of snow, sparkling in the moonlight. Silent toward the door to leave and then stopped.

“I know,” she said. “You don’t think anyone

me now. I wished I could tell Peaches or Betty how knows. You can’t believe anyone would understand.

peaceful I felt, but I couldn’t speak.

But I do know.” I shook my head slowly—she didn’t

“You’re afraid to sleep, aren’t you child?”

know.

Peaches’ voice was so soft. “But Miss Peaches is Betty knelt down in front of me. As we made eye here with you now. You gonna sleep safe in her arms contact I felt a sudden jolt of emotional electricity. I tonight. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

saw everything I was feeling in Betty’s eyes, as though She disappeared into the bedroom. A moment

later she came out and led me to my bed. She’d

in horror. Betty nodded and squeezed my knee.

changed the sheets; they were fresh and clean. She

“I do know,” she said, getting up to leave. “I do put me down like a child and lay next to me. I could understand.”

taste vomit rise in my throat, but she gently pulled me I didn’t move from the couch. Darkness settled

to her body. My lips found the curve of her breast.

over the room. There was another knock at the door.

“That’s hormones made them swell up like that, but I wished everyone would go away and leave me alone.

they’re mine now.” She kissed my hair.

Peaches came in, dressed to kill. “My date was a She sang a song in a voice so satiny smooth that dud,” she said, and went into the kitchen. A moment I trusted the sound and followed it right into sleep.

later she brought out two pints of vanilla ice cream 68 Leslie Feinberg

The guy left me a great tip.

“You didn’t know who that guy was?” Booker

Edwin brought over my blue suit coat. She found the doubled over laughing. Everyone chuckled. “That was matching trousers in a pile by my bathroom door and Razor Man. He performs at a club near here.”

took them both to the dry cleaners for me.

I threw down my towel. “This job is fucked up,”

When I didn’t show up at the Malibou the

I protested, but even I started to smile.

next Friday, Ed and Georgetta and Peaches came by

“What’s so funny?” Toni said behind me. I

and picked me up. Cookie threw me a towel when

turned around to explain but her face was all twisted I arrived and told me to start waiting on tables. I up in anger. “I said, what’s so goddamn funny?” she moved in numbness for several weeks, unable to feel demanded.

the sensation of temperature, hot or cold. The world One of the butches tried to pull her back,

seemed distant.

“Come on, Toni, blow it off.” She yanked free and One night at work a guy beckoned me over to

staggered toward me. “You think you’re funny?”

his table and told me to take the french fries back to the kitchen. He said they were cold. I took them A group of pros came in the door and I started

to Cookie, but she said she was too busy. I brought to walk over to say hello, but Toni spun me around.

the french fries back to the guy and apologized. He

“You think I don’t know what’s going on with you picked up a class of water and poured its contents all and my femme?”

over the french fries. “They’re cold,” he said.

Everyone sucked in their breath. I felt stunned.

He opened a traveling case, pulled out a huge

“Toni, what the hell are you talking about?”

snake, and coiled it around his neck. And then he bit

“You think I don’t know, don’t you?”

off a chunk of the water glass and chewed it. “The Betty started toward Toni, but Angie, one of the pros french fries are cold,” he repeated.

who had just walked in, held her back.

“Cookie,” I yelled as I skidded into the kitchen.

“Step outside, you chickenshit bastard.” Toni

“Give me some hot french fries, and I mean now!”

She started to protest. “Now, goddamn it. I want them now!”

Stone Butch Blues 69

outside to talk to her. Everyone followed me out to tonight?” She stubbed out her cigarette. I shook my listen. “Toni,” I appealed to her.

head. “Look,” she patted my arm. “I’m tired, I want to go home and to bed—to sleep. You need a place on, you chickenshit son-of-a-bitch.”

“Look, Toni,” I said, “if you want to hit me, you ideas.”

go ahead. If it’ll make you feel better, I won’t stop

“You been turning tricks all night?” I asked her.

you. But why would I want to hit you? You helped me Angie eyed me distrustfully. “Yeah.”

out when I needed it. You know damn well I’d never

“Then why on earth would I think you were

disrespect you or Betty.”

dying for someone to take you home and fuck you?”

I caught Betty’s eye and she looked at me

Angie tossed back her whiskey and laughed.

apologetically. “Don’t you be looking at my femme,

“C’mon, baby, I’ll buy you breakfast for that one.”

you motherfucker!” Toni sputtered.

“Toni, I’m telling you I wouldn’t do anything,

ever, to disrespect you.”

“Get out of my fucking house,” she yelled at me.

“Tell me the truth,” Angie said as she buttered her She was reeling. “Get out!”

Angie was behind me. “C’mon, baby.” She

Was it really ’cause she’s your friend or were you tugged on my arm. “It’s only gonna get worse out scared?”

here. C’mon,” she said, pulling me back into the bar.

I shook my head. “She’s not like my best friend

Grant and Edwin offered to help me pack up

or anything, but she helped me out a lot. I don’t want my stuff and bring it back. “Hell,” I told them, “I still to hit her, that’s all. She was drunk.”

only need a couple of pillowcases for all my stuff. I Angie smirked at me. “So were you fuckin’

can bring it back on the bike.”

around with Betty?”

When I got back to the club with my things, I

I shook my head. “I don’t play that game.”

found a stool at the end of the bar and nursed a beer.

She watched my face as she poked her eggs with

Angie sat down next to me. “You got a place to stay a fork. “How old are you, baby?”

70 Leslie Feinberg

“How old were you when you were my age?” I fourteen and I saw this he-she.” Angie rested her chin felt annoyed.

on the heel of her hand as she listened. “I’d forgotten She leaned back against the booth. “I guess the

about this. My parents dragged me along while they streets made us old before our time, huh, kid?”

shopped. You know how crowded and loud the stores

“I’m not a kid.” My voice sounded hard.

are before Christmas? All of a sudden, everything

“I’m sorry.” She sounded like she meant it.

got real quiet. The cash registers stopped ringing and

“You’re right, you aren’t a kid.”

nobody moved. Everybody was staring at the jewelry I yawned and rubbed my eyes. She laughed. “Am

department. There’s this couple—a he-she and a

I keeping you up?”

femme. All they were doing was looking at rings, you Angie glanced over at an older pro who was

know?” Angie sat back and exhaled slowly. “Everyone paying her check at the register. “You know,” she told was glaring at them. The pressure just popped those me, “When I was a little girl I remember being in a two women out the door like corks. I wanted to run restaurant with my mother and stepfather and I saw a out after them and beg them to take me with them.

woman who looked something like her.”

And all the while I was thinking, Oh shit, that’s gonna be

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” I said.

me. ”

Angie looked at me and cocked her head. “You

Angie shook her head. “It’s tough when you see

like tough women, don’t you, butch?” I smiled and it coming, ain’t it?”

stabbed my eggs with my fork.

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s like driving on a single-lane

“I remember,” Angie continued, “my stepfather

highway and seeing an eighteen-wheeler heading right for you.”

paid her bill. Everyone in the restaurant heard him She winced. “C’mon,” she told me, “I got to get

say it. But that woman just paid her bill and took a some sleep.”

toothpick and walked out real slow, like she never Angie’s apartment was more like a home than

heard him at all. That’s gonna be me when I grow up, I mine had been. “I like that kind of material you got thought.”

for curtains in the kitchen.” I asked her, “What do I nodded. “That’s like the time I was about

you call that?”

Stone Butch Blues 71

“Muslin,” she said. She got two bottles out of the refrigerator. “Listen, if you need a place, this busted—I was thirteen. The cop kept yelling at me apartment might be available—very, very soon, if you to give him a blow job and he beat the shit out of me know what I mean.”

when I didn’t. I just didn’t know what he meant by a I cocked my head. “Like tomorrow?”

blow job. It wasn’t like I’d never had to do it before.”

She laughed. “Maybe sooner, who knows?”

I got up and walked over to the sink. I felt like I drank my beer and lit a cigarette. I threw

I was going to throw up. Angie got up and put her the pack on the kitchen table. Angie took one and hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, that was a stupid sat down across from me. “I’m gonna be in a little story to tell anybody.” I couldn’t turn around and face trouble soon, you know?” I nodded. “So, if you want her. “C’mon, baby, come sit down,” she tugged on this place, it’s cheap.”

me gently. “You’re OK,” she said as she turned me

“You know,” I told her, “I don’t even know how

around. “Are you OK?” I smiled at her, but it wasn’t to pay bills, or how any of that works. I never lived any place except for Toni and Betty’s.”

“You’re not OK, are you?”

Angie rested her hand on my arm. “I’m gonna

I was so relieved she said it out loud that I

give you a piece of advice—you don’t have to take started to cry. She held me against her shoulder and it. Get yourself a factory job so you don’t end up rocked me. She pushed me back against the sink

spending your whole life in the bars. Life in the and looked at my face, “You want to talk?” I shook Tenderloin’s like lickin’ a razor blade, you know what my head. “OK,” she whispered, “it’s OK. It’s just, I mean? I’m not saying the plants are heaven, or sometimes it’s good to talk about stuff.” She held my anything, but maybe you can get into a plant with the chin in her hand. I tried to pull my face away, but she other butches, pay your bills, settle down with a girl.”

wouldn’t let me. “You know,” she said, “maybe it’s a I shrugged. “I know I got some growing up to

little bit easier for femmes to talk to each other about do.”

this stuff than it is for butches, what do you think?”

Angie smiled and shook her head. “No, baby.

I shrugged my shoulders. I felt trapped and sick.

I’m talking about staying young. I don’t want you to

“Who hurt you, baby? The cops?” She watched

72 Leslie Feinberg

my face. “Who else?” she concluded out loud. “Aw, her warmth. Without words I told her everything I baby, you’re already old, too,” she crooned as she held felt. Without saying anything she let me know she me tightly against her. I buried my face in the safety understood.

of her neck. “C’mere baby, sit down.” She pulled a Then my lips brushed against her breast and a

kitchen chair up next to me.

sound escaped her throat. We looked at each other,

“I’m OK,” I said.

startled. She had a frightened, frozen look on her

“Uh-uh. You’re not talking to the butches now.

face, like a deer caught in headlights. That’s when I Do you open up to your girlfriend?”

realized sex is very powerful.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I reluctantly admitted.

Angie looked surprised, which made me feel

pulled my head back slowly. She brought her mouth close to mine, until I could feel the warmth of her opened up to a girlfriend?”

breath. A grunting sound came from my throat. Angie smiled. She pulled my head back further and ran her She shook her head and looked me in the eye.

“You never had a girlfriend?” I looked down at my lap waist to my knees.

in embarrassment. “How did a good-looking young

She kissed me with her whole mouth. I used to

butch like you ever escape all those hungry femmes think it was disgusting that adults licked each other’s out there?” she teased me, lifting my chin. “How many times you been busted, baby?”

Angie’s tongue was doing to mine set my whole body I shrugged. “A couple.”

She nodded, “It gets harder when you know

mine.

what’s coming, doesn’t it?” I let her see into my eyes.

Suddenly she pulled my head back again and

“Baby,” she sat on my lap. She pulled my face against looked at me with a strange, wild look on her face. I her breasts. “Baby, I’m sorry they hurt you. But more felt scared, and she must have realized it because she than anything, I’m sorry you got no place to go with smiled and pulled me closer. My hands kneaded her it. Bring it to me now. It’s OK.” She held me inside waist and my lips found her hardened nipple.

Stone Butch Blues 73

Without a word she stood up and took me by ear. “That’s what I want you to do for me when we the hand. In her bedroom she kissed me, pushed me fuck. I want you to slow dance with me. I want you to away, looked at me, and kissed me again.

follow me like I’m following you. C’mere.”

Her hand slid down my waist to my crotch and I

She tossed the dildo aside, lay down on the

pulled away. “You’re not packing?” she asked. I didn’t mattress, and pulled me on top of her. “Listen to the know what that meant. “It’s OK,” she said, going music. Feel how I’m moving? Move with me,” she

to her dresser drawer. She muttered to herself, “If I said. I did. She taught me a new dance. When that don’t have a harness in here, I’m going to kill myself.”

song ended another slow song came on, the one from I realized she was looking for a dildo. I couldn’t the movie with Humphrey Bogart—“Casablanca.”

remember anything Al had taught me—not a word.

When it got to the part where the man sang, Woman You could

needs man and man must have his mate, we laughed make a woman feel real good with it or you could make her together.

remember all the ways she’s ever been hurt.

Angie rolled me over and began unbuttoning my

“What’s the matter, baby?” Angie asked. We

shirt, leaving my T-shirt on. She got up on her knees both looked down at the dildo and the harness in her hands. Angie’s face passed through a series of my pants off but left on my BVDs. I struggled to slip expressions I couldn’t read. “It’s OK,” she said as I on the harness and the dildo. Angie pushed me back on started to turn away. “C’mere, baby,” she coaxed me.

the pil ow and took the rubber cock in both her hands.

Angie turned me around, “I’ll show you how.”

The way she touched it mesmerized me. “Feel how I’m Those were the most comforting words I ever

touching you?” she whispered with a smile. She ran her heard.

nails down the sides of my T-shirt and up my thighs.

She went over to the radio and turned the dial

Her mouth was very near my cock. “If you’re going to until she heard Nat King Cole’s silky voice singing fuck me with this,” she said, stroking it, “then I want

“Unforgettable.” She came into my arms. “Dance

you to feel it. This is an act of sweet imagination.”

with me, baby. You know how to make me feel good.

She took the head of the cock in her lips and began to Feel how I’m following you?” she whispered in my move her mouth up and down the length of it.

74 Leslie Feinberg

Now was all she said.

I stopped moving. There was a long pause. Her body Angie rolled over on her back as I fumbled with

her clothing. I touched her with an adolescent’s lack her head against the pillow in annoyance. “Why did you stop?” she asked quietly.

about it. Then I wondered if my clumsiness allowed

“I thought I was hurting you.”

her to be more excited with me than she could have

“Hurting me?” Her voice rose a bit. “Haven’t

been if I was experienced. When I was fearful or you ever?” She stopped mid-sentence. “Sweetheart,”

unsure, she became more present in our lovemaking, she said to me, searching my face for the truth, “have encouraging me. When I got excited like a colt, she you ever been with a woman before?”

guided me back under control.

So much blood pumped into my face that the

No amount of advice I’d ever received from the

room spun around. I turned away from her, but I was older butches, however, prepared me for the moment still inside of her. “Wait,” she said, putting her hands when I knelt between Angie’s legs and had no idea of OK.”

against my thighs, “let me.” She gently guided the Angie got up slowly and brought back a pack

cock inside of herself. “Wait,” she repeated, “don’t of cigarettes, matches, an ashtray, and a bottle of push. Be gentle. Let me get used to you inside of me whiskey. “I’m sorry,” she said. I turned away from before you move.”

I carefully lay on top of Angie. After a moment her body relaxed against me. “Yes,” Angie said as I should be special. It’s sort of a big responsibility, you moved with her, following her lead. I found if I tried know? C’mere, baby,” she pulled me against her. I to think about what I was doing, I lost the rhythm lay quietly in her arms. Billie Holiday was singing on of her body. So I stopped thinking. “Yes.” She grew the radio. We both felt how close my mouth was to more excited. Angie became wilder in my arms.

It scared me, I didn’t know what was happening.

between us.

Suddenly she started to cry out and yanked my hair.

“Roll over,” she told me. I did. “Relax. I won’t hurt you.” She straddled my waist and began to

Stone Butch Blues 75

massage my shoulders through my T-shirt. I could Angie looked at me long and hard. “What?” I

feel the strength of the muscles in her thighs. I rolled was worried. “What?”

over and she stayed over me. I reached up for her face She ran her hands through my hair. “I just wish

and pulled her down to kiss me.

I could make you feel that good. You’re stone already, She gave me another chance. I did better that

aren’t you?” I dropped my eyes. She lifted my chin time.

up and looked me in the eyes. “Don’t be ashamed

We held each other for a long time without

of being stone with a pro, honey. We’re in a stone speaking. Then she laughed. “That,” she said, “was profession. It’s just that you don’t have to get stuck in great. That was really wonderful.” It was so nice of her to say that. She guided me out of her slowly, can trust in bed and you want to say that you need then kissed me all over my face and made me laugh.

something, or you want to be touched. Do you know

“You’re really very sweet,” she told me, “you know what I mean?”

that?”

I shrugged. She kept talking. “I remember when

I blushed, which made her laugh and kiss me all

I was a little kid, I saw a bunch of the older kids in a circle in the playground. I went over to see what they

“You really are pretty,” I told her. She made a

were doing.” I got up on one elbow to listen. “There face and leaned over for a cigarette. I shook my head.

was this big beetle. The kids were poking it with a

“How come you make your living from your looks

stick. The bug just kind of curled up to protect itself.”

and you don’t know how beautiful you are?”

She snorted, “God knows I been poked with enough

“That’s why,” she laughed bitterly. “Whatever it sticks.” I kissed her on the forehead.

“God,” she said, “by the time we’re old enough

You know?” I didn’t, but I nodded.

to have sex, we’re already too ashamed to be touched.

“Will you still respect me in the morning?” she

Ain’t that a crime?” I shrugged.

demanded.

“Will you trust me a little?” she asked. I tensed.

“Will you marry me?” I asked her.

“I won’t touch you any place you’ve been hurt, I We both laughed and hugged each other, but the

promise. Turn over, baby,” she whispered.

sad thing is, I think we were each kind of serious.

76 Leslie Feinberg

She lifted the back of my T-shirt. “God, your back looks like raw hamburger. Did I do that to

you?” I laughed. “God, it’s bleeding a little. Did I hurt you?” I shook my head. “What a butch,” she

laughed. Angie’s hands rubbed all the soreness out of my shoulders and lower back. She slid her nails down my back and sides, and soon her mouth followed

knew it pleased her that I writhed under her touch.

As her hand ran up my thigh, I froze. “I’m sorry, baby, it’s OK,” she reassured me. I rolled over and she came into my arms. “Usually it’s me that reacts like that,” she said. “It’s strange. It’s like being on the other side of the looking glass, you know?” I didn’t, but I could feel myself drift irresistibly toward sleep.

“Sleep now, baby,” Angie cooed in my ear.

“You’re safe here.”

“Angie,” I asked her as I slipped into sleep, “will you be here when I wake up?”

“Sleep now, baby,” she answered.

Stone Butch Blues 77

07

IT WAS TIME TO FIND a factory job. The butches

of a frozen food plant. My heart leaped when I saw urged me to try to get into steel or auto. Of course I Grant walking into the factory ahead of me. I caught already knew that. I wasn’t a damn fool. The strength up to her and shook her hand.

of the unions in those heavy industries had won Unloading trucks on the docks was male turf. It

meant a lot to have another butch watch your back.

But Edwin said there was more to it than that.

Grant dug her gloved hands deep inside the pockets The trade unions safeguarded job security. She told of her blue Navy coat. “Brrr,” she shivered. “I’m me that unlike a nonunion shop if she had a run-in freezin’ my ass off out here, let’s get inside.” Then she sauntered very slowly toward the loading docks. She never hurried. She was so cool.

some foreman didn’t like your face. With union

One of the truckers shouted, “He-shes at high

protection, all the butches agreed, a he-she could noon!” Several guys peered out from inside the plant carve out a niche, and begin earning valuable seniority.

and shook their heads in disgust. It was going to be a In the meantime, while I was waiting for an

long shift. I was glad we walked slowly, like we owned opening, I had to work through the temporary labor the goddamn parking lot.

agencies at minimum wage. In early autumn the

We climbed up on the dock. The foreman came

agency sent me to a one-day job on the loading docks out to look us over. Grant took off her glove and

Sweat ran in rivulets between my breasts. But my he wasn’t going to shake her hand, but he did. What little respect Grant got, she earned.

when I noticed with horror that both of the men we The afternoon was waning. The sun dipped low

were working with were missing pieces of their ears.

in the winter sky. A brutal wind blew off the frozen Frostbite.

lake. The huge semi we were unloading served to

block the wind, but not the cold. I shivered. We were down to the second joint, or a thumb. Out here on told we would unload two of these long, long trucks the docks, which butt up against the frozen lake, the during the shift. We both nodded. Personally, I had men gave up little exposed pieces of their bodies. It my doubts.

frightened me. I wondered what I would be forced to We worked in silence with two guys. Neither of

the men spoke a word to us. They hardly spoke to I shuddered. Grant gave me a slight push that

each other. When Grant and I had to get around the made me focus again on the task at hand. She looked men, we all dropped our eyes. It was harder to bear me up and down to make sure I was alright. She

than a storm of insults.

wouldn’t ask out loud. In order to be safe on men’s The cartons of frozen food weren’t as heavy as

terrain it was necessary to work with dignity, as though the job was effortless. I also didn’t want Grant muscles ached and burned. I felt elated as the truck She wasn’t even breathing hard.

load emptied. I worked faster. Grant slowed me down with a well-intentioned glare. I had forgotten another foreman to sign our timecards and hightailed it out semi was coming until I saw it parked, waiting in the to the parking lot. We sat in Grant’s car smoking lot.

cigarettes in silence. My arms trembled with

We had a ten-minute breather as one truck

pulled away and the other backed in. Then we began eight hours. Our smoky breath formed ice crystals unloading the endless rows of cartons in its trailer.

on the windshield. Grant revved up the engine and Stone Butch Blues 79

turned the radio on low as we waited for the car to for a new person to be accepted into the community warm up.

of a plant. Before co-workers invested their caring

“Wasn’t too bad,” I said casually, “huh?”

in you they wanted to know if you were staying.

“Are you kidding?” she asked me incredulously.

“Halfway through I thought I’d die.”

couldn’t make quota. Others made it almost to the eve I registered shock. “For real? You made it look

of the ninety days required to join the union, only to so easy!”

be laid off.

She laughed. “You must be joking. The only

I planned to stay at this bindery, if I could. I thing that got me through was it looked like it wasn’t packing skids. By day two I slowed down. If quota old butch like me could still keep up with a young was made too effortlessly, the foreman would raise it.

punk like you!”

For a moment I felt uneasy. If she relied on me, I wore sunglasses, defensively, all day long. I didn’t she had no idea what a thin reed she leaned on. Then take off my denim jacket and kept it buttoned up over my black T-shirt.

holding me up, even at this moment. “You pulled it This was a small sweatshop with a company

union and I was the only he-she in the plant. If this she added, as a look of fear crossed her face. “Did were a big plant, I would be one of the many he-you see the ears on those guys?”

shes, so many we would have our own baseball or

bowling teams within the factory complex. There I similar thoughts.

would probably have bound my breasts at work, worn a white T-shirt with no jacket, and found my place among our own smaller societal structure within the life of the plant.

But despite the fact that I hadn’t yet been

new factory; it wasn’t easy for anyone. It took a while initiated into this society, kindnesses were not 80 Leslie Feinberg

withheld. At lunch I bought a bottle of pop from sensing the murderous glances he received moments the machine near the time clock and sat down on a after he turned his back. But he was assigned to keep skid to eat my baloney sandwich. Muriel, one of the us under control. That required keeping us divided.

older Native women who worked near me on the

We came from many different nationalities and

line, offered me half her apple. I stood and thanked backgrounds. About half the women on the line were her. I ate it appreciatively. Each morning for the next from the Six Nations. Most were Mohawk or Seneca.

week Muriel offered me coffee from her thermos.

What we shared in common was that we worked

Everyone watched us, weighing everything they could cooperatively, day in and day out. So we remembered observe.

to ask about each other’s back or foot pains, family Those moments before the whistle blew in the

crises. We shared small bits of our culture, favorite morning were precious because they were ours. Only foods, or revealed an embarrassing moment. It was the kerchunk of the time clock stole the last one from just this potential for solidarity the foreman was us. We all dragged ourselves out of bed a little earlier always looking to sabotage. It was done in little in the mornings to be at the plant a quarter hour ways, all the time: a whispered lie, a cruel suggestion, before we had to punch in. We drank coffee and ate a vulgar joke. But it was hard to split us up. The rolls, talked and laughed.

conveyor belt held us together.

We talked all day long too. The owners only

Within weeks I was welcomed into the circle,

rented our hands, not our brains. But even talking teased, pelted with questions. My differences were had to be negotiated when it was on the bosses’ time.

taken into account, my sameness sought out. We

If we seemed to be having too much fun, laughing worked together, we talked, we listened.

and enjoying ourselves too much, the foreman

And then there were songs. When the whistle

would come up behind us and hit the solid wooden worktables with a lead pipe while he growled, “Get to letdown among all the women and men who worked

work.” Then we’d all look at our hands as we worked between its imperative commands. We lumbered to

and press our lips together in silent anger. I think the our feet, stood silently in line to punch in, and took foreman sometimes got nervous after he’d done that, our places on the assembly line—next to each other, Stone Butch Blues 81

got strung out on fry bread and corn soup.

in heavy silence. Then the weight was lifted by the Once or twice I was cajoled to get up and join a voice of one of the Native women. They were social round dance. I must say that although the pounding songs, happy songs that made you feel real good to of the drum resounded in my heart, it never got as hear them, even if you had no idea what the words far down as my feet. I felt awkward dancing and self-meant.

conscious about being so butch.

I listened to the songs, trying to hear the

Of course, Muriel’s daughter Yvonne being there boundaries of each word, the patterns and repetitions.

Sometimes one of the women would explain to us

later what the song meant, or for which occasion or factory. Everyone knew she was the girlfriend of a time of year it was sung.

local organized crime boss. That didn’t stop us from There was one song I loved the best. I found

knowing where each other was in the room during

myself humming it after I punched out in the

those socials. I think all the women noticed right away.

afternoons. One day, without thinking, I sang along.

I’d already decided I wasn’t even going to think The women pretended not to notice, but they smiled about approaching Yvonne, even though she seemed at each other with their eyes, and sang a little louder to like me. Some of the older butches had warned me to allow me to raise my own voice a bit. After that I that sometimes on a job the guys would pressure one started looking forward to the songs in the morning.

of the women to sleep with a he-she, as a joke, and Some of the other non-Native women learned songs, then come back and tell everyone about it. That was too. It felt good to sing together.

the last day on the job for the butch, who usually left One wintry Friday night, before we punched out,

in shame. But sooner or later the stigma also came Muriel invited me to go to an indoor pow-wow on

back around and stuck on the woman who slept with Sunday. I said yes, of course. I felt honored.

one of us, and she had to leave too.

There were a few other Black and white workers

at the social—friendships too valuable to explore wasn’t like that at all. One night when a group of us solely on company time. I began to go regularly and went out after work and got drunk, she told me her 82 Leslie Feinberg

boyfriend had suggested he wanted to watch us make serious. I felt the blood rise in my face. I didn’t want love and she had told him to fuck off. Once that had to call attention to myself. I didn’t want to hear my been said out loud, however, it was hard not to think voice rise alone, even for a minute, above the sounds about making love with Yvonne.

of the machines and the other women. In fact, I realized I felt ashamed of my own voice. “I can’t,” I to a bar near the plant for a few beers. There was protested. I felt near tears. No one said a word. They a heavy snowstorm outside. Inside, we drank and

just kept working in silence. By lunchtime I realized laughed. By the time we left, the snow had nearly there would be no songs until I began one.

covered the cars. I heated the car door key to Muriel’s Why? I wondered. Why are the women doing

old Dodge with my lighter to defrost it. When I

this to me? Are they making fun of me? I knew it wasn’t true. They noticed how quietly I mouthed the on the mouth. She left me in that parking lot, stunned words to songs. They were inviting my voice to join and excited.

theirs. They were honoring me again.

The next night I went to the Malibou and

That night I lay awake in panic. The daily

wondered the whole time what it would be like to routine wouldn’t resume until I sang alone. My throat bring Yvonne there.

clenched at the very idea. I thought about calling in sick, but it was too cowardly and it wouldn’t change listening to Muriel’s stories, waiting for the next anything. No one was going to forget I was asked social. On Friday nights we drank at the bar where we cashed our checks. Saturday nights I spent at the gay Christmas Eve. I would lose my holiday pay if I called in sick. And immediately after the holiday I was Then one day, when the plant whistle blew,

eligible to join the union.

silence hung heavy in the air. I looked from face to In the morning I tried to act normal at work.

I was welcomed as usual. When Yvonne came in, I

you start the song,” she suggested casually, “any song wondered if she had heard. Her smile let me know you want.” I looked around in disbelief, but she was she had. The whistle blew. Each of us punched in.

Stone Butch Blues 83

We took our places in line. The tension was thick. I Christmas Special.” That made me feel much worse.

cleared my throat several times. Muriel watched her Drinking didn’t help either, not that it ever did.

hands while she worked; she smiled gently.

I was thinking about going out to the Malibou

when I heard footsteps thumping up the stairs. I proud of it. After several false starts my voice began opened the door. There was Muriel, Yvonne, and

some of the other Native women from the plant.

I’d learned. Almost immediately the other women

They brought me food and a few wrapped presents.

lifted their voices up with mine to spare me any pain.

They were on their way to a social. I was invited.

We all smiled at each other and sang with tears in our Muriel watched my face with mock solemnity as she eyes.

said, “Now you learn to dance.”

After lunch the foreman called me into his

escorted me to my locker to get my things. I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone.

knew it was because I was so close to getting into the union. And I knew management had been watching

the growing solidarity with great trepidation. But my shame rekindled as I realized the foreman probably heard my voice rising alone in song.

I walked home in the snow. The deep drifts

Immediately after the holiday I’d have to begin job-hunting all over again. When I got home I hoped

the phone would ring. It didn’t. I had nothing to look forward to except watching the “Perry Como

84 Leslie Feinberg

08

“YOU MADE GRADE FIVE?” A butch cheer went

Since I’d been in the plant for a while, I

up in the plant cafeteria. “Alright! Way to go!” All the knew the ropes and was already in the union. So

butches clapped me on the back and shook my hand.

occasionally the other butches came to me for advice I felt euphoric.

enjoyed the unprecedented reversal of roles.

good, kid,” she said. I blushed.

“How’d you do it?” Frankie wanted to know.

division. Giant machines folded huge pieces of paper Actually, I didn’t know why I’d been selected for the stock that were then trimmed into pages. Stacks of job. Maybe it was for the same reason a lot of factory pages were loaded on skids near the massive collating jobs were opening to us: all the young guys were machine. Women ran from the skids to feed fresh

getting drafted left and right.

pages into the pockets of the collator. The pages I’d been at this bindery for six months. It was a dropped onto a moving belt. The women at the end huge factory. Grant and I both got jobs around the added cover sheets and stapled them. I stacked the same time. Two months later, when the educational materials division opened, seven more butches had Every once in a while I got pulled from this

been among those hired. Nine of us. Almost the

work to help unload the trucks bringing in skids of whole team I’d played softball with last summer. Nine fresh paper. I looked forward to it because it meant of us—it was heaven.

driving a forklift. The only part I didn’t like was

“Hey, Tommy, you makin’ a real woman out of

feeling a little distanced from the other women. Not one of my co-workers was ever taken off the line for own crotch.

any other task.

One morning the foreman replaced me on

I looked back at Tommy. He mouthed the words,

I’m sorry.

followed him into the shipping department. “Wait I mouthed the words, Fuck you.

here,” he said.

was idle. I watched as he took out his tools. “Now watch,” he ordered as he began to set the machine for a different-size fold. I couldn’t believe it. This hated his guts.”

was an apprentice job. No one else was allowed to I nodded, but I didn’t speak. Tommy was OK,

learn the mysteries of setting up a job or repairing the but I didn’t know if he’d repeat anything I said.

machines. Apprenticing led to a journeyman’s card.

Tommy looked at the clock. “Almost break

time,” he said. “God, I hated the Navy. Two years of my life they stole from me. I used to watch the clock grabbed a rag and wiped oil off his hands as I tried all day. They could force me to do anything, but they to set the vertical folds. “No, like this,” he corrected.

couldn’t stop time. Sooner or later they had to let me The lunch whistle interrupted us. “After lunch,” he out.”

I shrugged. “So why’d you join?”

Why do triumphant moments have to be so

“Are you kidding?” he asked me. “So I wouldn’t

down, Duffy, the chief shop steward, approached our can walk over to ’Nam.”

table. “Goldberg, can I talk to you a minute?”

I motioned to the chair next to me, “Sure.”

He gestured toward the door. By the time we

got out in the hall, I had a feeling I knew what this 86 Leslie Feinberg

was about. “Duffy, don’t tell me there’s some fucking grade.”

grievance.” The picture was coming into focus.

“Listen, Goldberg, I know you want that grade, and you deserve it. No woman in this plant has ever gone higher than a four, and none of the guys, except one, work with the Black guy. Leroy deserves that job,”

Duffy added.

I narrowed my eyes. “So?”

“Well, so do I,” I argued, but I said it without much steam.

to get you or any of the other women a Grade Five Duffy could see me wrestling with what he said.

“Yeah, you do. And I’ll help you push to get a higher I wanted to punch him out. “Why the fuck not,

Duffy?” He put his arm lightly on my shoulder. I job. Stick with me on this one, Goldberg. It’s really important for the union right now.”

“Why now?” I asked.

you up.”

“Our contract’s up at the end of October. The

company will do anything to split us up right now to with this?

make it harder for us to strike if we have to. We need Duffy pulled out a pack of cigarettes and

to stick together.”

offered me one. I took it. “You know Leroy? Well, I sulked. “Look, Duffy, I’m for the union, you

he’s a Grade Four. Most of the time they have him know that. But butches can’t even come to union

sweeping up.”

meetings.”

I exhaled slowly. “Shit, I didn’t know that.”

Duffy looked confused. I explained to him that

Duffy nodded. “He’s been bidding for the Grade

we were allowed to drink downstairs at the union hall, Five job now for more than a year. When Freddie got but we weren’t allowed to go upstairs to the meeting.

Stone Butch Blues 87

“Who says?” he wanted to know.

The next morning when the whistle blew I took

“That’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always my place at the collating machine, ready to feed the been, as far as I’ve heard.”

Duffy put his arm around my shoulder. “Look,

Duffy was waving his arms and yelling over the din of help Leroy win this one. As soon as the strike’s over, you get the butches together, and I’ll get as many face was all red and blustery.

of the stewards as possible, and we’ll all go into the When I looked over a few minutes later, Leroy

to be there.”

to hand it to Leroy, these guys weren’t going to make It sounded like change. “I guess,” I told him.

life easy for him. As it turned out, they weren’t too

“But how come we have to wait till after the strike?”

pleased with me, either.

He knitted his eyebrows. “Well, we don’t. It’s just that there’s gonna be an explosion about Leroy, one way or the other. I’m trying to hold things together this summer, so that we’re strong if we need to strike, collating line, watching everything.

you know?”

The hardest part was telling the butches at

I shrugged and nodded. The lunch whistle blew.

lunchtime that I was back to Grade Four. “It ain’t ready?” he asked me.

watched the situation unfolding. I told everybody about the promise Duffy made to get all the butches I’m punching out and going home.”

into the union meetings.

and the Beanstalk, you know? She trades a cow for a Goldberg.”

magic bean. Fuck that shit. I don’t want to be part of no union that doesn’t want me.”

88 Leslie Feinberg

My face burned. “We can’t just say ‘fuck the union,’ we’re in it. The contract’s up in October. What one at a time and negotiate? We don’t have a choice.

mercilessly. “Hey, suck this,” he’d shout at me across We’ve gotta make the guys see that they need us too.”

because he held sway as a bully and partly because he choice,” she said. “I don’t want no part of this union.

was so tight with the foreman.

You sold out, kid. Fuck you.”

The whistle blew. Lunch was over. Everyone got

beer.

up and went back to work. I stayed at the table for a moment, trying to remember what it was like to feel so good the day before. I would have done almost right.

at the table. She stood up and put her hand on my shoulder, “C’mon, kid, we’re late.”

far. I was bending over to grab some sheets off the I stood up and sighed. I felt defeated and raw.

skid and I felt something on the back of my thigh.

it, kid?” I nodded, unable to look her in the eye. She had pulled his cock out of his pants and rubbed it gently touched my cheek with her calloused hand. “I up against my jeans. I felt dizzy with fear and nausea.

think you did the right thing.”

I remembered something my English teacher

told me about not looking for approval for doing All the women were watching, instead of

working, so the booklets spilled off the end of the so much at the moment that my eyes welled up with tears of gratitude.

down. It got real quiet.

to put his little dick back in his pants. Boney pushed Stone Butch Blues 89

back.

The burst of bravado startled me as much as it did

“Atta girl.” Sammy, the truck driver, patted my

everyone else. They were brave words, born of fear.

shoulder. “He’s a jerk.”

Walter, the repairman, caught my eyes and

Everybody looked at Boney. He smirked at

nodded his head once in my direction.

me in such a smarmy way that I knew he wanted to reduce me to the same helplessness I’d felt minutes back on, “get back to work, all of you.”

before, but I refused.

“C’mon,” I told him. “What are you afraid of,

huh? Getting your ass whipped by a bulldagger?”

Duffy came running up and then stopped in his

None of us would have attended the union picnic if it wasn’t for Duffy. It was his idea that I should organize all the butches to come. “And you can bring all your could tell Boney wasn’t struggling too hard to get to The look on my face answered him. I knew he was

me, but it emboldened me. “I’ve had it up to here just trying to get to know me better, but that was not with your shit, Boney. We all have. Do your fucking a great place to start.

job and leave me alone or else I’m gonna pound the Girlfriends, I

shit out of you.”

mean.”

I laughed. “You’re alright, Duffy.”

do. They let go of his arms. Boney waved his arm The other butches weren’t all that wild

at me as though he were disgusted and turned away.

“She ain’t worth it,” he told them. “She ain’t worth breakthrough and she promised her lover, Edna,

shit.”

As Boney walked away, Duffy shouted at him,

butches agreed.

“She’s a better union man than you are, Boney!”

90 Leslie Feinberg

We brought our baseball equipment. Once I stood up with her. “No, but,” I rested my hand Abba’s reopened in the spring we had formed the

on her arm, “if you ever need to talk, you know …”

Abba Dabba Do’s softball team.

brought us bottles of beer. “I like him,” Edna said, the only one I know who I could ask this question.” I after he left.

I smiled. “I do too.”

“I wanted to ask you about Ethel and Laverne,”

Duffy said.

kid’s becoming a real union organizer.”

I looked around. “Are they here?” Duffy shook

“Aw, I am not,” I demurred.

his head. “Too bad,” I told him, “I always wanted to meet their husbands.”

we can get. You been doing real good on this job Duffy spoke carefully. “What’s the story with

trying to hold everything together. Take a few bows, Ethel and Laverne? Are they lovers?”

OK?” I swelled with pride.

“Naw, they’re both married. You know that.”

Edna stood up. “I need a cup,” she said.

Duffy fumbled for words. “Yeah, but aren’t they

butches?”

I understand what he was driving at. “Well,

they’re he-shes, but they’re not butches.”

Duffy laughed and shook his head. “I don’t get

me see a little further into her eyes than usual. I tried it.”

to show her how much I cared about her before I

I shrugged. “There’s not much to get, really. I

spoke. “You OK?” I asked her.

mean they look like Spencer Tracy and Montgomery Clift, but they really seem to love the guys they her,” she said.

married.”

Duffy shook his head. “But they’re inseparable.

“I’m gonna get another beer, you want one?”

Don’t you think maybe they’re lovers and they’re afraid to let people know?”

Stone Butch Blues 91

it’s not like they’re getting off much easier by being fucking girls on your team?” she yelled.

married—they’re still he-shes. They’ve gotta deal with Boney shouted in the direction of the other

the same shit butches do. Imagine Laverne going into guys, “’Cause we want to win, don’t we, guys?” He the ladies room at the movies. Or Ethel at a bridal shower. I don’t think people who give them a rough

“Hey Boney,” I called out as I strode toward

time give a fuck who they sleep with. It’s probably them, “you talking about softball? We’ll kick your harder for them, too,” I added. “They don’t have a ass!”

place to go like we do—I mean like the bars. All they A silence fell over the picnic. For one thing,

got is their husbands and each other.”

everyone knew this was about a lot more than a

Duffy smiled and shook his head. “The way

softball game. On the other hand, baseball was sacred Ethel and Laverne are with each other, I was sure they to these guys. The thought of playing against girls were lovers.”

bordered on heresy. If they won, where was the

“Oh, they love each other alright. You can see

victory? If they lost … it was too humiliating for that. But it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re hot and them to consider.

bothered for each other. They really understand each other. Maybe each of them just likes looking in the look on their faces. But it was too late, my boast hung in the air. “C’mon, Boney,” I said. “We’ll challenge back.”

you to three innings, and we’ll whip you, too.”

Duffy put his arm around my shoulder and

Boney sneered. “Bet you won’t, Goldberg.” The

hugged me. “You’re very smart about people,” he

way he said my name made me realize how much he

said.

I blushed with pride and pulled away in

I smiled. “Bet you your glove we will.” The grin embarrassment. “I’m gonna get some food.”

I heard Grant’s voice rising before I saw the

the way most people love their puppy dogs. He kept it confrontation. She was shouting, nose to nose, with in his locker at work every day, even in the wintertime.

92 Leslie Feinberg

“And if you lose?” he countered. All eyes turned realized three innings might not be enough for a team toward me. The smile grew back on Boney’s face. “If of he-shes to overcome our fear.

you lose, Goldberg, you gotta kiss me.”

“C’mon,” I said as we huddled between innings.

“Ewww, yecch,” everyone moaned. Some of

“Can’t we show them we got power?”

them spit on the ground for emphasis.

We scored two runs, but the guys scored two

“C’mon,” I told the other butches, “let’s get our also. We were two runs down. Between innings,

equipment.”

exploded. “Listen to this shit,” she growled. “Why in a huddle.

don’t we just admit we lost the game now, huh? Why

“I don’t know about this,” Grant muttered.

even play another inning?” Her voice got real low and

“Look,” I admitted, “I made a mistake, OK? I

menacing. “This is no fucking joke. You just think knew it the minute the words were out of my damn mouth. I’m sorry. All we can do is play our best game I’m not gonna stand by and let that happen.”

and I’ll take the consequences.”

Grant threw her glove down and put her hands

We took our positions to play, and play we did.

on her hips. “We’ll all pay if we lose, that’s what’s so fucked up about it.”

Frankie intervened. “She said she was sorry. So

smacked her on the back so hard with the ball she hit let’s win, OK?”

the dirt.

That was easier said than done. The men’s team

and his assistant closed ranks with Boney. No one could tell if all the men were squared off against the playing so poorly. After all, most of the guys weren’t he-shes, or if it was just those three guys against us.

in great shape. We played every week. Maybe we were Duffy rushed up between the butches and the men.

intimidated because we believed they were better than us. I suddenly got a sick feeling in my stomach when I they’re down one man, so’s your team. You’re out of the game.”

Stone Butch Blues 93

“Bullshit,” Boney waved his arms around. “It

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

was a fucking accident, that’s all.” We wanted to kill

“Fuck you.” I was still mad at him.

him.

“The bet’s off,” Grant shouted.

“You fucking cowards,” Boney said. The bet was

back on.

sneered. I tried to keep my mind on the game.

Duffy paced. “This is a mistake,” he muttered.

Walter was up next. He stepped up to the plate,

“Yeah?” I asked him angrily. “Who’re you

tapped the dirt off his shoes with the bat, and wiggled rooting for?”

“The union,” he shot back at me.

air. We all pushed our caps back and watched it fall

“Then you better hope that our team wins, not

cap and walked away from home plate with a spring in Duffy mulled that over for a second and then

his step.

smiled. “You’re right.” Duffy clapped his hands and Boney stepped up to the plate. We directed

every bit of our hatred toward him, but he seemed missed.

third out. We were up one run, but our opponents

“Strike one,” we all yelled.

had another inning.

He swung angrily at the second pitch and

missed.

into Grant’s glove. Before he dropped the bat, he gave

“Strike two,” we called out in elation. We began me a wink I could see all the way from my position on to heckle him for all we were worth.

The crack of Boney’s bat against the third pitch Tommy was up next. He hit a weak grounder

silenced us. We all looked up in the sky as the ball that Grant scooped up at third base, but he made it to 94 Leslie Feinberg

broke the ice. “All’s well that ends well, right, kid?”

She put her arm around me. “I think I’d have died The ball fell with a plop, right into Grant’s

before I’d let you kiss that guy.”

glove. It was the third out, so there was no reason I looked shocked. “You didn’t think I would’ve

kissed him if we’d lost, do you?”

landed in my glove with a whack. I braced my arms Tommy ran up, out of breath. “Good game,” he

as I extended the ball and the glove towards Boney’s extended his hand. My expression was frozen, but I nose, which was rapidly approaching me. There was shook his hand. “Look, I’m sorry, OK?” he told me.

a little snapping sound as his nose hit the ball. The I shrugged. “You’re not a bad guy, Tommy. But

in front of the other guys you sink like a stone. I just don’t trust you.” He opened his mouth to speak, but base. I would’ve claimed it was an accident, but no no words came out.

one asked.

him,” she said, “but I’m sure you had a good reason.”

foreman, even at a picnic. His menacing look chilled

“Attention everyone! Can I have your attention!”

me. But I let it go because almost all the guys from It was Tommy, on top of a picnic table. We all came the other team came over and slapped us on the back and said they were glad we won. I realized these guys his hands. “On behalf of the losing team, I’d like to had just lost to a team of he-shes—right in front of their wives and girlfriends—but they didn’t seem sore about it.

tossed the glove to me. “You all won it fair and The butches were happy about winning, but they

square.”

hung back a bit. I knew they were kind of peeved she came over. I saw the same deep pain in her eyes Boney. It could’ve turned into a defeat for all the loved me that much. As Edna approached me, her

Stone Butch Blues 95

mouth twisted into a teasing smile. She held my face lightly in both of her hands. “Good game, butch.”

I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Aw,

Edna, you know.”

She nodded to silence me. “Yes, I do know, but

We both noticed Duffy standing nearby, waiting

me, as he pumped my hand. “The union did win the I got myself an ice-cold beer and a piece of fried chicken and sat down alone under a tree. The air was hot, the breeze was cool. I felt on top of the world.

96 Leslie Feinberg

09

for work on

Monday. I was glad. I wouldn’t have admitted this careful,” she cautioned.

to anyone, but I was still scared of him. So when he I watched the die cutter punch the decks, trying called in sick Monday morning I walked around the to learn its rhythm like a song. My hand darted out plant feeling a little smug.

and quickly brushed some of the trim away. I got most of it. My hands were trembling. When you

work around machines you grow to respect their

shape of decks. Normally one of the guys used a mesmerizing power. I tried to stay in sync with the powerful air hose to blow away the trim before it was all it took.

were all connected to me. The next moment I could Every once in a while, you brush the shit off the press, like this.” He ran his hand across the face of spurted in an arc across the machine, the decks of the die cutter in the split second between punches.

cards stacked on skids, and the wall in front of me.

“Don’t let it jam,” he warned me, before he walked I tried not to look at my left hand, but I did.

away.

My stomach heaved before my mind could even

understand what my eyes saw. I couldn’t have been heard over the thunder of the machines, but it

different direction. I passed out.

didn’t matter. I couldn’t make a sound. Everything It was Duffy’s face I saw as I drifted back to

consciousness. He was smiling, but he looked upset, shouted. People came near but froze in horror.

It occurred to me I should go to the hospital. I knew I couldn’t drive my motorcycle. As I walked to the door I wondered if I had enough bus fare. Walter I didn’t think it was true. I’d seen lots of movies and Duffy ran after me.

where they lie to injured people like that. I lifted my The next thing I remember was being in a car.

head slightly to look at my hand. It was covered with Walter had his arm around me. Duffy was driving and layers of gauze and there was some kind of metal he kept turning around to look for a sign from Walter.

device running from my forearm into the gauze and My whole hand was bound up in a red-soaked cloth. I down my face. I was thinking maybe I should bury it.

wasn’t completely severed.” He turned away as he said I wondered who I should invite.

it. I thought maybe he was going to throw up.

Walter lifted my injured hand up high with one

I was still dressed in my bloody work clothes.

of his large, gentle hands, and held me tightly against

“Get me out of here, Duffy.”

him with the other. I shook violently. “It’s gonna be OK, honey,” he crooned. “I see a lot of these things prescriptions and drove me home. When I awoke

happen. It’s gonna be alright.”

he was gone. There was a note on the nightstand

The next thing I knew I was lying on an

explaining when I should take the pills. He also left operating table. I panicked. What if they took my his phone number and said I should call when I

around me and landed on my hand. My body lurched.

clothes.

I called him later that night and he raced over.

98 Leslie Feinberg

“You know,” Duffy added, “I don’t think I really of the guys saw Kevin removing the safety device.

realized how hard it is for you. I know what jerks the guys at work can be sometimes.” He leaned up against on the blink, but ordering someone to put their hand the sink and folded his arms. “But when I went to the in it was an out-and-out contract violation.”

hospital with you, I saw how they treated you, how I had trouble following what Duffy was saying.

they talked about you,” he rubbed his face. When he It wasn’t just that my mind was hazy with painkillers, I looked back up at me, I saw tears in his eyes. “I felt didn’t want to understand.

so helpless, you know? I kept yelling at them that you were a human being, that you mattered, and it was table and pounded it. “After we took you to the

like they weren’t even listening to me. I couldn’t do anything to help you and I couldn’t make them take care of you the way I wanted, you know.”

I felt woozy with fear. It reminded me of when

I nodded. I did know. And now I knew that

my parents had me committed, or the cops opened

Duffy did too.

my cell door. So many people in the world had so much power to control and hurt me. I shrugged as though it wasn’t important to me. “Look, Duffy, it’s over. Besides, the contract’s up in two months. We got other things to worry about.”

cheered when I walked in. They hung a sign on the Duffy looked at me like I was crazy, but when he wall in the backroom that read: Get Well, Jess! Frankie union investigation of the “accident.”

did to you and we’re going to tell management either he’s out or we all walk out.” I marveled at the idea Edna?” I whispered to Grant. Grant drew an index that straight people would stand up for me, or for any he-she.

alone in the back. I brought over two beers. “Can I sit with you?” She gestured towards an empty chair.

Stone Butch Blues 99

you.” She looked surprised when I said that. “If you understood. But later she told me she prided herself don’t want to talk about it, that’s OK with me. But I on always having been able to seduce her stone lovers.

can’t pretend I don’t know you’re hurting.”

That scared the shit out of me, you know?”

I was thinking how nice that would be to have a

table. “I lost her. I love her and I lost her. What else is femme lover who cared enough to try.

there to say?”

I shrugged. “I know you both loved each other

left me. After all these years. Can you believe that?”

a lot.”

She laughed ironically. “The only woman I ever loved so goddamn much it makes my teeth ache and she left just isn’t enough,” she said. I hoped she was wrong.

me.”

She sighed. “The worst part is, it’s my fault. I knew she was going to leave me and I just couldn’t change back.” She had tears in her eyes as she spoke. “I’d get fast enough to stop her. Who knows, maybe I’m just down on my goddamn knees in front of the whole

too old to change at all.”

bar. I’d do anything. I just can’t change the way I am.

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just can’t, you know?”

she broke up with me, you promise me you’ll never I did. I leaned forward and put my arm around

tell another soul?”

I thought about it before I answered her. “You

hadn’t been drunk she might have been embarrassed.

can trust me,” I said.

Deep down, my insides seethed. I knew I was

“You took long enough to answer,” she said,

stone, too. It was a home alarm system that didn’t warily.

seem to have an on-off switch. Once installed,

“First I had to make sure I meant it.”

the sirens went off and the gates shut, even if the touch me. We never talked about it. I don’t even know who loved me and lose her because of that? If that was true, life seemed too hard to bear.

100 Leslie Feinberg

drinks. I reached for my wallet. Edna rested her hand Edna prided herself on being able to seduce her stone on my arm. “I’m working,” she said. “Let me pay.”

butch lovers. I wondered how she did it. I wondered Edna took a sip of her drink. “You’re really

how it would feel to be touched and not be afraid. I brave,” she told me.

thought about Edna a lot.

I felt ashamed; it wasn’t true. “I’m not, really,” I told her honestly. “I’m scared all the time, Edna.”

Her face softened. “What a brave thing to say to me.”

I hung out at Abba’s almost every evening while I I blushed. She put her hand over mine. Her

nails shined with fresh red polish. “You know what I the bar, afraid to run into Edna. Edna came to the think?” she asked. I leaned forward to hear. “I think bar on Saturdays. I looked forward to that night all everybody’s scared. But if you don’t let your fears week long. When she walked through the door that stop you, that’s bravery.” I decided she was the wisest Saturday night, she was all I could see. Everyone else person I’d ever met.

was in black and white; only Edna was in full, living color.

was such an intimate gesture. She saw the look on my She headed right toward me. I got off the bar

face; she dropped her eyes and smiled. Someone put stool as she approached. Edna reached down for

a quarter in the jukebox. You’re my soul and my heart’s my injured hand. She lightly supported the metal inspiration, the Righteous Brothers sang.

contraption and looked up at my face.

I wondered if I had the courage to ask her to

I shrugged. “It’s better. The doctor says I’ll have dance. “Edna,” I mumbled, “wanna dance?”

feeling in it,” I reassured her.

At that moment the bar door opened and

“How long do you have to wear this?” she asked.

everyone fell silent. Standing in the doorway was a

“I don’t know. They’ll tell me in a month.” I saw mountain of a woman. She wore a black leather jacket concern in her eyes. I felt honored.

We both sat down and I gestured to Meg for two

wasn’t wearing a binder. Her jeans were low slung, Stone Butch Blues 101

unbelted. She carried her riding gloves and her helmet her eyes. But most of all, I wanted her to be different in one hand. Rocco. Her legend preceded her.

than me. I was afraid to see myself in Rocco.

I glanced over at Edna. She was lost in a

I watched Edna’s face. She held herself with

memory I couldn’t see. I watched their faces as they such strength and dignity it made the pain she tried to conceal all the more obvious. I couldn’t tell if she back and forth as though this was a tennis match and was reaching to touch Rocco’s cheek or if I was just I didn’t want to miss a stroke. I could feel how much reading Edna’s mind. I trembled at my nearness to they loved each other.

two such powerful women.

“Hello, Rocky,” Edna said quietly. It sounded like Rocco touched Edna’s elbow. Edna rose and led

a line from a movie.

Rocco to a table in the backroom. I sat alone, shaken.

“Hello, Edna,” Rocco answered in a deep

I felt left out, jealous. I hungered for the attention timbre. Their faces were close to each other and to of both women. As I stole a glance back at Edna, I mine. I could see the beard stubble on Rocco’s chin longed for her to look at me that way. I wished I was and cheeks.

so powerful that a glimpse of me could shake the leaves from her branches. And I wanted Rocco to be so many times nobody could count. The last time the my friend, to reveal all the secrets of the universe we revolved in. I wanted her as a home to come to when Rocco had taken hormones and had breast surgery.

I wasn’t strong.

Now she worked as a man on a construction gang.

I strained to read their body language as they

talked.

that. It was a fantastic tale. I’d only half believed it, Rocco stood up. Edna held onto Rocco’s leather

but it haunted me. No matter how painful it was to be a he-she, I wondered what kind of courage was to go. I wished Rocco could have seen the look on required to leave the sex you’d always known, or to Edna’s face after her back was turned. It might have live so alone.

meant a lot to her.

I wanted to know Rocco. I wanted to ask her a

Rocco was headed toward me to go out the

million questions. I wanted to see the world through door. I searched my brain to think of something to 102 Leslie Feinberg

say to make her stop and talk. Maybe the pained look on my face made her pause in front of me. She asked people might think. But then I gave myself to Edna, concerned only with her comfort. She trusted me

words to say what I wanted; I’m not sure I even knew.

enough to bring her sorrow to my arms. I kissed her hair. The scent made me lightheaded. She looked up Rocco’s face. I saw her guard begin to go up. I

at me. I longed to lift her chin with my hands and kiss couldn’t think of what to do, so I extended my hand her mouth, deeply and slowly. She saw the look in my to her. She looked at it, then she glanced at my other eyes. There was no point in hiding it.

hand, all bandaged and looking like part of a robot.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. Edna was in the

As she shook my hand she nodded—I’ll never know

bathroom for a long time. When she returned I

why. And then she left the bar.

offered her a cigarette and lit it for her. Edna shook The sound level rose again after she’d gone. I felt empty and hollow with loss. If I ached, I knew Edna any more, guess who walks in the door?”

must be bleeding. I waited a decent amount of time I exhaled smoke and watched her face. “What

before I went back to her. “Can I buy you a drink?” I did she want?” I couldn’t believe I’d asked her such a asked her.

personal question.

She looked startled. “What?” She hesitated. “Yes, Edna blinked in surprise at my directness. “She

thank you.”

We drank in silence. I felt connected to her grief.

and came to ask me if there was a chance we could I watched the couples dancing in the smoky darkness.

get back together.”

Out of the blue Edna looked over at me and

I lightly tapped my Zippo lighter against the

whispered, “I hurt.” She said it so calmly and quietly whiskey glass: butch Morse code. “Is there? A chance, I was afraid I’d misunderstood her. But I saw the I mean.”

pain in her eyes so I moved my chair near hers. Edna Edna sighed. “People have seasons, you know?

curled up against me, softly exploring my body with Cycles. I’ve just left an eight-year marriage. Rocco’s hers. Holding her was such a simple joy. She sighed been alone a long time.” It hurt me to think of Rocco once and then her body shook with sobs.

being lonely.

Stone Butch Blues 103

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman like Rocco before,” I told her.

softened.

I could see that Edna wasn’t quite sure what I

“I mean, there’s different kinds of love,” I said.

“I can’t explain how it feels to me, but it’s love. That’s Rocco. “I wish she were my friend,” I said quickly, to how I felt tonight when I saw Rocco.”

make her understand.

She smiled warmly and reached out to touch my

more I get to know you,” she said, “the more I like arm. “Rocco would love you,” Edna said.

you.” She leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the I brightened. “You really think so?”

lips. I blushed from head to toe. Edna smiled.

Edna nodded and shook her head. “You remind

“I’ve got to go home and sleep,” Edna told me.

me of her in many ways. You’re a lot like she was

“Do you want a ride?”

when she was younger.” I wanted to ask her what she I shook my head. “I think I’m gonna stay for a

meant, but part of me was afraid to hear her answer.

while, thanks.”

After Edna left, I replayed the whole night in my found one of our bars, that’s the night I met Al.”

mind, over and over again.

Edna nodded. “You were a friend of Al’s?” she

said. A misty look clouded her eyes.

“You knew Al?” I asked her. I meant knew in

the biblical sense. She understood the question.

“Scabs!” we all screamed as the cops tried to

“This is a small world,” she answered. “This

help them cross our lines and take our jobs away.

circle of people stays pretty much the same.” She Hundreds of us strained at the barricades, and the touched my arm. “Whatever you do now, make sure

cops held the scabs back.

you can live with it for the rest of your life.” I knew

“Faggots!” some of our guys yelled at the

I’d better give that a lot of thought. “Anyway,” she strikebreakers. All the butches pulled back from the said, “I interrupted you.”

police barricades. The word seared like burning metal.

“Duffy,” I pulled his arm. “What’s this faggot

shit?”

104 Leslie Feinberg

Duffy appeared torn in ten directions. “Alright,”

he said. “Listen up you guys. Stop with the faggot

“It’s bullshit,” I told them both. When they went stuff. They’re scabs.” The men looked confused.

back to yelling at the scabs and the cops, I stood next A light bulb lit up over Walter’s head. “Aw, shit.”

to Duffy. “What’s up?” he asked.

He extended his hand to me. “We didn’t mean you

I shrugged. “Are you a communist?”

guys.”

I was hoping he’d laugh, or at least look startled, I shook his hand. “Listen,” I said, “call them

but instead he had a sad look in his eyes. “Do we whatever you want, but don’t call them faggots.”

need to talk about it now?” he asked.

Walter nodded. “Agreed.”

“I told them it was bullshit,” I said. “It is

“You cocksuckers! You motherfuckers!” they

bullshit, isn’t it?”

shouted instead.

“Can we talk about it later?” he asked me again.

I pushed forward at the barricade. “You fucking

I nodded, but I wished we could have worked it out scabs,” I yelled. “You all have sex with other men.”

right there. I just wanted to hear him say it wasn’t true.

about?” Sammy wanted to know.

The cops suddenly put on their riot helmets and

“You have intercourse with your own mother,” I

took out their clubs. We all tensed and gathered in screamed.

front of the barricades. They were ready to bring the

“That’s disgusting,” Walter said.

scabs in past us. We roared so loud that people from Duffy intervened. “OK, they’re scabs and

the nearby projects came out to watch. We rattled the strikebreakers. Let’s call ’em what they are, alright?”

barricades to remind the cops and scabs how frail the Duffy glared at me, but there was a smile underneath wood was, and held up our signs, loosely stapled to it.

two-by-fours.

Grant pulled me aside and motioned towards

As the scabs moved closer, one of them pulled

Duffy. “You know that guy’s a communist?”

I was stunned. “He is not,” I told her.

“Oh yeah?” she asked me. “How do you know?”

that happen she cracked the scab over the head with Stone Butch Blues 105

them. Quickly they opened the van. Four sets of right over the barricades. They threw her up against the police van and roughed her up. Three strikers busted, the four were free.

We all turned toward the group of scabs who

nabbed them and handcuffed them. All four were

were near the plant door. Without a cordon of police thrown into the back of the police van.

for protection they scurried like rats. Several of them

“Duffy,” I yelled, over the confusion. “Duffy, we ran inside the factory and attempted to hold the got to get her out of there. Help her!”

door shut. Some of the strikers pulled at the door, struggling to get at them. Others chased scabs down we got four union people in the van.”

the street. The police pulled back across the street.

“Duffy, you don’t understand. Think about it. It’s We set up a picket line right in front of the plant different for her to get busted. Please listen.” I didn’t doors. “Contract! Contract!” We all cheered ourselves.

have time to explain. Duffy took my arm and looked

“We won,” I shouted to Duffy. “We won!”

into my face for the answer. I let him see the fear and He shook his head. “We won this battle.

the shame in a way I’d never voluntarily let a man see Tomorrow will be even rougher.” What a spoilsport, I before. Duffy nodded. He understood.

thought.

Duffy pushed his way to the barricade, lifted his work boot, and kicked it over. “C’mon,” he signaled the strikers.

a block away to her parked car. She leaned against The cops were caught off-guard as we surged

the car door and heaved her guts up. Her hands were past them. There were skirmishes, but most of us shaking so bad she almost couldn’t light her cigarette.

made it to the police wagon and surrounded it. People I pulled out my Zippo. “I was scared back there,” she from the projects formed an outer circle around us.

said.

“Let them go,” we rocked the van. “Let them go!

I nodded. “Me too.”

Let them go!” An ashen-faced cop wearing gold bars

“No,” she grabbed me by the shoulder. “I mean

I didn’t think I could take it—not alone, not without Edna to go home to.”

106 Leslie Feinberg

I tried to climb from the depth of sleep. “What?

Edna. I pushed the thought back down. “I know,

What did you say?”

remembered things I didn’t want to think about, like meeting is tomorrow night. I want you to organize they were happening to me all over again.”

all the butches to come to the union meeting to vote, She looked up at me and smiled gratefully. “You

you got that?”

understand,” she said. I nodded and dropped my eyes.

“Sure,” I mumbled and hung up.

The next morning I called up all the butches

It was unbelievable. I thought I was a goner and you from the plant so we could go to the meeting Tuesday guys got me out! Unfucking believable!” We laughed night as a group. When I called Grant, she had big until tears streamed down our faces.

“I’ve gotta go back now,” I told her. “Why don’t told me. “They’re accepting applications Wednesday you go home and get some rest.”

morning. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be camping out on the line Tuesday night. By late that night the smiled and turned to go.

line will stretch from Lackawanna to Tonawanda.”

It was a slight exaggeration, but her point was well that?”

taken.

If she only knew how I felt about Edna, she’d

understand what a traitor I really was.

you think we should do?”

“I was kind of hoping you’d tell me what we

should do,” I told her.

I called Duffy on Tuesday afternoon. I told him

I was sound asleep that night when Duffy called.

all the butches wanted the chance to get into the steel

“You were right,” he shouted. “We won it at the table plant. There was a long silence on the line. “It’s a mistake,” he said.

out!”

“You don’t understand,” I shouted. “You don’t

Stone Butch Blues 107

know what it means to us to get into a big plant like I was riled. “It’s my baseball mitt,” I reminded that.”

him and hung up the phone.

He tried to argue with me. “If the vote passes, Tuesday night was bitter cold. We huddled

at least punch in Wednesday morning or else you’ll be a long, long night. My stomach tightened every time I He didn’t seem to realize I was already gone.

“You don’t understand what it would mean to work in the steel mill, do you?”

didn’t answer.

He shouted back at me. “What the hell is this

Fuck Duffy, I thought to myself. He doesn’t about, looking tough?”

understand us.

“Yeah,” I yelled, “in a way. But not like you’re saying it. All we got is the clothes we wear, the bikes were told to return the next night at midnight. There we ride, and where we work, you know? You can

was a snow squall during the day while we slept, but ride a Honda and work in a bindery or you can ride a Harley and work at the steel plant. The other butches We wandered through the plant as though we

are gonna leave sooner or later, and I don’t want had just landed on this rusty corrugated planet.

to get stuck in that sweatshop with that rinky-dink union.”

furnace lit up the sky orange and red.

We gave the foreman our work assignment slips.

retreat. “If you don’t understand that, I can’t explain He looked us up and down. “Come with me,” he said, it to you,” I told him.

and led us outside.

“Well, I think it’s stupid.” He sounded like a

The wind whipped the top layer of powdery

kid. That’s when I knew I had really hurt him. “The snow into tiny tornadoes. The foreman took one of two shovels and he dug until we heard a clank of metal against metal. “Hear that? Railroad tracks.” He handed us each a shovel. “Clear ’em off.”

mitt.”

108 Leslie Feinberg

He looked at my left hand. I had wrapped a He put his arm around me. “I made a mistake,

scarf around my injured hand. The cold made the too. I’ve thought a lot about it. You remember when metal brace burn against my skin. “You gonna be able you were bidding on the same job as Leroy?” I

to work?” he nodded toward my hand.

nodded. “Well,” Duffy continued, “you were willing

“Sure,” I said. “Hey, how far down do the tracks to step aside to make sure Leroy got that job. And go?”

you told me the butches weren’t welcome at the union He answered over his shoulder, “You can shovel

meeting. I asked you to wait till after the strike to deal all night long and never get to the end.”

with it. It wasn’t that I thought your grievance wasn’t as important. I only had so much energy to deal with shovel down. It thumped softly in the snow. I braced everything. But maybe that’s how it seemed to you.

myself, but she spoke quietly. “I’m too old for this horseshit,” she said. “They’re gonna make it hell for and all of the butches to that next meeting and say to us until we quit.” I knew she was right.

the guys, ‘Here we all are, we’re the union!’ I think I

“C’mon,” she told me. “I’ll drive you home.”

made a mistake too.”

I sat up until dawn watching the snow fall. I knew I’d Tommy and Duffy were the only two men who

had ever apologized to me. “I gotta go,” I told him.

“You’re gonna be late.”

light glowed on the horizon I walked to the bindery

“Wait!” he held up a gloved hand. “I have

so I’d be there when Duffy arrived. I came out from something for you.” He unlocked his car door and behind the gate as soon as his car pulled in. I couldn’t handed me a wrapped present. “After I found out

read the look on his face when he saw me. “What do we won the strike, I got this for you.” Duffy looked you want?” He asked it gently, but the words were embarrassed as he handed it to me. He took off his cold.

“You were right.” I nearly choked on the words.

“Thanks for what?”

He shook his head. “I’m not glad I was right.”

He smiled. “Thanks for teaching me so much.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, really. I just came He turned and walked away.

to tell you I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”

Stone Butch Blues 109

I walked home in the snow, trying not to think

“I don’t know. She’s single, I’m single. There’s about anything. When I got home I realized I was still carrying the package. It was wrapped up in an AFL-CIO newsletter and it had a gold bow that

looked left over from Christmas. It was a book, an autobiography of a woman labor organizer named

didn’t say a word.

written: To Jess, with great expectations.

“Say something,” I pleaded.

I went to the window and looked out over the

mounds of snow, wishing I could do everything in my out on your own.”

life once as practice and then go back and do it again.

“Thanks a lot.”

Edna walked in the door. We couldn’t pretend

to be casual. She held my eyes as she walked over to me. She smoothed my lapels and kissed me lightly I sat at the bar and smoked nervously, waiting for on the lips. My heart was thumping. Edna led me by the hand into the backroom. I put my drink down

here yet?”

on the table and started to sit down, but Edna pulled

“Who?” I asked innocently.

dreamed of.

love,” she said, “or is it lust?”

The pleasure of the dance was so exquisite, I

My defenses crumbled. “I just know that I wait

almost couldn’t stand it. I only opened my eyes once all week to see her and when I do …”

Although she was only silhouetted, I recognized her same way?”

jealous rage. In an instant, she was gone.

I shrugged. “I think she likes me.”

Edna pulled back and looked at me. “What’s

wrong?” she asked. My eyes brimmed with tears. She darlin’?”

110 Leslie Feinberg

“Did I do something wrong?” I couldn’t explain that I about what to do, I think you could make sense of the world to me.” Edna smiled gently.

Edna led me back to the table. “Edna,” I began.

“But I can’t be an instant elder. I can’t jump over She shook her head. “I don’t like the sound

all the things I’ve got to learn and I can’t get it all of that. You don’t have to explain,” she said as she gathered her purse and coat in her arms.

you into my arms as a lover—and I will someday—I

“Wait,” I told her. “You don’t understand.” She

want to be more grown-up than I am now.” I sucked dropped her coat wearily. “I want you so much, it’s driving me crazy. It’s just doesn’t feel right.” Edna friend. You told me that what I do now, I’ll have to didn’t say a word. This was my job to try to explain.

live with for the rest of my life.”

“I can’t stop thinking about you.” She leaned

“I did say that,” Edna sighed wistfully. She sat forward and rested her hand on my uninjured arm, back in her chair, just at a moment when I wished but she still didn’t speak.

she’d move closer. “I’m not ready to settle down

“Remember something you told me, about

with any butch,” she told me. “But if I were, I’d be honored to walk into the bar on your arm. If anyone had told me I could hurt as much as I do and still be Edna dropped her head and then raised it. Her

so attracted to you, I’d have thought they were crazy.”

I blushed. These were the words I’d waited

going to tell me I was too old for you.”

“I don’t think you’re old at all, Edna. I think I’m young butch like you would pay me such attention.

a little too young for you. I’m not really talking about You made me feel beautiful at a time when I didn’t age, so much, as about being grown-up. Sometimes think I was. But I don’t think I really realized what I imagine walking into the bar with you and being an you were made of until I just heard what you said. I instant elder because you’re on my arm.” Edna still love butches,” she squeezed my arm. Her words were didn’t speak. She sure wasn’t making this any easier for me. “And sometimes when I get so confused

on the whole world rather than make a lie out of their Stone Butch Blues 111

lives. And somehow they still manage to be honorable women. They were loyal to me and to their friends.” I I told them. “She saw us dancing together.”

nodded and dropped my eyes.

“I respect them for it,” she told me “It’s part of

“I’m afraid I’ve lost them both,” I sighed.

why I love them so much. And I see that in you.”

I was afraid if we kept talking I would forget my Edna was crying and smiling when she walked out of decision and bury myself in her arms. I wanted to ask here. You must have done something right.”

her to teach me how to let myself be touched, but I I shook my head. “I don’t know, it doesn’t feel

like I’m doing anything right.”

Peaches laughed, “You wait and see. The

I sighed in relief. I stood and held her coat for right girl is coming down the road, headed in your her. She slipped her arms into the sleeves and turned direction.”

to me. She kissed me lightly on the lips. I took her If that was true, I sure wished she’d hurry.

waist in my hands. Her mouth opened for me and

warmth.

She pulled back. So did I. She lifted my injured I stood in the same spot for a long time, unable to move.

Peaches appeared at my side. “C’mon child,”

she said, leading me to the bar. “Set ’em up, Meg, and keep ’em coming.”

wouldn’t have said you were wrong, but in my book you did the right thing.”

112 Leslie Feinberg

10

IF IT WASN’T FOR EDWIN I might never have

The woman raised both her hands in surrender.

met Milli. Ed was on her way to have breakfast with

“OK, alright. Don’t blow your cool.”

Darlene one morning. “Come with?” she asked.

Everyone was trying to shout over the jukebox,

When Ed and I walked into that sleazy diner

which was turned up real loud. The Beatles were

singing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” I tapped working girls—male and female. We were welcomed

Darlene on the shoulder. “What’s that song mean, with a boisterous roar. I got kissed and teased.

anyhow?”

Darlene pulled Edwin down on her knee and feigned She laughed. “How the hell should I know?”

threats to all the other femmes to leave her butch My eyes burned from exhaustion. I asked Edwin

alone. It was fun when we all played like that.

to come outside with me and listen while I kick-

Darlene told me about the last television episode started my Norton. It wouldn’t kick over whenever it of “The Fugitive”: the real killer is caught and David was chilly and damp. I didn’t know why.

It was over Ed’s shoulder that I really saw Milli Ed was arguing with a woman sitting across

from us about the riots in Newark and Detroit.

at me. Ed glanced at Milli and then, like a good friend,

“Violence is as American as cherry pie. That’s

Ed walked away.

I have a few photographs I can see in my mind’s

tabletop. “They’re a dress rehearsal for revolution.”

eye. One of them is Milli, hands on her hips, looking

me up and down as if the bike and I were one lean machine. Her body language, the gleam in her eyes, as one with the motorcycle into a deep curve—it just the tease in her smile, all combined into an erotic got better and better.

femme challenge. Milli set the action into irresistible motion by lifting one eyebrow.

Without a word I took off my brown leather

jacket and offered it to her. Neither of us were in any One morning Milli didn’t come to the Malibou after hurry. Once this dance began there was no reason work as usual. Neither did Darlene or her friends. All to rush and every reason to take it deliciously slow. I helped her on with my jacket.

Milli was bleeding in the back seat. Her face was all I think I fell in love with her the moment she

busted up. I got in and held her head on my lap. We swung her leg over the bike and settled in behind me.

had to take her to a goddamn veterinarian to get her The way two women relate on a motorcycle is part of arm set in a cast. We were afraid emergency room their sex together—and she was very, very good on a staff might have called the cops. It was an off-duty bike.

cop who beat her.

I didn’t realize until she waved as we roared

It took Milli a long, long time to get her

off that all her friends were watching us from the restaurant window, smiling those sweet, secret kind of changes you.

smiles at her.

I got a day-shift job at a plastic pipe factory. Milli From that moment on I was her butch and she

worked as a temp at a bindery. Everything was OK, it was my femme. Everybody knew it. So did we. We

was just different. Then I got pink-slipped and Milli told me casually that she was thinking of going back tough cookies, and together we felt unbeatable.

to dancing in the clubs to get us through.

It wasn’t just bravado. We matched each other in

“No, no, no, no, no!” I thought that made my

nerve. For a stone butch and a stone pro to survive, position perfectly clear. But the way Milli was coming they have to tough it out with the world. We walked around the kitchen table after me in response made our talk and we appreciated it in each other. Slow me retreat.

114 Leslie Feinberg

She backed me up against the sink and came feel,” she asked, “when you’re bouncer at the bar on right up under my nose. “Nobody,” she sputtered in rage, “nobody tells me how to run my life, not you, worked up again. “For christsakes what’s the fucking not anybody. You got that?” I conceded she had a difference between you being a bouncer and me

point. “And when did you get so goddamn morally

working as a hostess?”

righteous all of a sudden?” She paced around the kitchen.

every fucking minute you were late from your shift.”

“Fuck you,” I yelled. She knew it wasn’t true.

“Well, fuck you then. That’s your problem, baby,

“You just said that to hurt me.” She conceded I had a not mine.” Milli did a double take at me and dropped point.

her gaze. I thought maybe she was sorry she had said

“It’s just so fucking dangerous for you to go

that.

back to the life,” I argued. “Don’t you remember why

“I’m sorry,” she told me. “It’s just I can’t stand it you quit?” That last thing I said was a big mistake.

when someone does this moral thing with me.”

I realized it when she picked up the nearest dish

“Goddamn you!” Now I was yelling. “Ever since

and sent it sailing across the room in my direction. I you met me you’ve been waiting for me to make one ducked.

fucking mistake, say one wrong thing about you being

“You condescending, motherfucking son-of-a-

a pro.”

bitch,” she shouted. “Don’t you think I know the life

“An ex-pro,” she said sarcastically.

better than you do, you bastard?”

“It’s no goddamn joke. I never laid any bullshit We were both quiet for a moment. I decided

on you about it. You know that. But every time we to do the dishes. Milli leaned up against the kitchen counter with her arms folded across her breasts

make me so mad I’ll make a mistake. Then you could watching me.

leave.”

“I just can’t stand the thought of any guy,

anybody hurting you.” I said it as quietly as I could.

and told her I’d been laid off. “What’s so funny?” I Milli grabbed a dishtowel and started drying

asked sullenly.

the dishes. It was a good sign. “How do you think I Stone Butch Blues 115

“I like you,” she said softly.

I did.

I turned back to the sink and shook my head so

“And another thing,” she kissed my throat.

she could see that I was exasperated. She turned me

“You’re the tenderest lover in the world.” She

around. There was a really warm look on her face. She unbuttoned my shirt as she spoke. The talking was kissed me on the mouth. I kissed her back. Then I over. The conversation had just begun. We conducted electricity between our bodies.

She turned me around again. “We have to pay

Later, in bed, I held her in my arms and

the rent. It’s just for a while. I don’t like it any better than you do.”

“When will you start?” I asked her.

I laughed. “Bullshit!”

Her body tensed. “I’ll call Darlene tomorrow.”

She raised one eyebrow, daring me to pursue it.

I spent all week in a panic putting in applications

“There’s parts of the life you like a lot,” I told at the plants. If I could just get a job before the end her. “I know that.”

of the week.

Milli looked amazed. “Do you really know

Thursday Milli told me real casually at dinner she was going to start work with Darlene the next night at perfectly,” she ran her hands up and down my back.

the Pink Pussy Kat. I poked my meat loaf with a fork.

“Remember those old spy movies where they cut a

“Don’t start,” she warned me.

playing card into two jagged pieces? Then when the

“I didn’t say anything.”

spies meet they put the two pieces together. That’s We ate in silence. On Friday I left for the bar in the early evening while she was still sleeping. I packed know?”

a lunch for her and stuck little red paste-on hearts on She kissed me again. She was a great kisser. Then the brown paper bag.

she grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my head Everybody at the bar knew I was upset. The

back and really looked at me before she spoke again.

butches patted me on the back and told me to cheer

“You’re the only women in the world who hurt almost up. The femmes just kind of smoothed the lapels the same way I do, you know?”

of my suit coat and held me in their gaze for a 116 Leslie Feinberg

“Yeah, sure,” she answered, just like I would have.

“You coming to the bar after work?”

“Cut it out,” she ordered.

She was quiet for a minute. “Can I meet you at

“What?”

home? I’m just so tired.”

I instantly grew sullen because I was scared.

all this drama. She doesn’t need it, honey. And if you

“What’s wrong with meeting me at the bar?”

want to lose her, this is just the way to do it.”

“Can we talk about this another time?” she asked I felt stunned. “I don’t get it,” I answered

me.

honestly.

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

“Grow up,” she concluded, and let go of me.

That night I packed her a lunch with the little

By the time the sun came up I was excited about

red hearts on the bag. She picked it up and smiled—at seeing Milli. When she arrived with the other dancers the bag, not at me.

from the club, I was anxious to leave together. But I felt strange the next morning when the other

they all spent a long time in the bathroom together.

women came to work to meet their butches. As

Finally, each of the women came out, hesitantly each person asked me where Milli was I grew more leaving the camaraderie of their group and joined us, defensive and angry.

one-on-one.

Milli and I fought about it that morning. “Did

Milli’s head rested on my back the whole ride

it ever occur to you that I might be uncomfortable at home. I was afraid she was asleep and might fall off the bar?” Milli shouted.

on a curve.

That had never occurred to me at all. “Why?” I

Once we got home I ran her a hot bubble bath.

asked, puzzled.

I went into the bedroom to tell her it was ready, but

“Because there’s attitude toward us.”

she’d already fallen asleep. I wasn’t tired.

“What are you talking about? Lots of the women

I woke her up around 6:00 P.M. to eat dinner. I’d at the bar are pros.” I was aware I was shouting and I made her favorite meal, but she just kind of picked at wished I would stop.

it with her fork. “You OK?” I asked her.

Stone Butch Blues 117

“They’re hometown girls who turn tricks to pay face was swollen on one side. A little trickle of blood the rent. They’re ashamed of what they do. They was leaking from her split lip. I got a washcloth and aren’t into the life in the same way as the rest of us.

ran cold water. I stood in front of her until she let me We’re different.”

know it was alright to touch her face. She wrapped I had never thought about it. I was reeling.

her arms tight around my waist. I dropped to my

“Get it, baby? That’s your people, not mine.”

knees and held her. Then she pulled away and got up Her ice-cold tone chilled me. “My people are the and ran a bath.

women I dance with. That’s who watches my back.”

I got the message. I went to bed. I was awake

Milli always was a pro’s pro.

when she got undressed and lay down, but I didn’t I grabbed my leather jacket and took the bike far show it. She knew. I think it surprised me more than outside the city limits before I pulled off the road and her when I started to cry. She could deal with me sat down to think.

crying about as well as I could deal with her tears. She The rest of the week we were super-polite to

went into the kitchen and made coffee. I stayed in each other around the apartment. I couldn’t get Milli bed.

to respond to me. She wouldn’t play. “I don’t know,”

She brought a cup of coffee to share and

I told Edwin. “I’m used to being the one who shuts sat down on the bed. Her tone was gentler than I down.”

expected. “You remember the time I got beat up real

“Give her time,” Ed said. “You both just need

bad and I stopped working the clubs? You know, after time.”

we met?”

Sunday morning I was almost asleep when Milli

“Yeah, sure.” I wondered what the point was.

came in. She was in the bathroom for a long time

“Remember when you held me and told me

before I realized something was wrong. She turned you would protect me, you wouldn’t let anyone hurt her face away when I came to the bathroom door. I me?” I winced. Milli put her hand reassuringly on my back. “What you said wasn’t wrong, baby. That’s what

“Yeah, baby. Go to sleep.”

everyone wants to hear when they’ve been hurt. The After a few minutes I got her to look at me. Her only problem was, you believed it yourself. You can’t 118 Leslie Feinberg

protect me, sweetheart. I can’t protect you. I think

“Take it easy,” I soothed him.

you’re having trouble dealing with that lately.”

Booker smashed the guy on the head with a

I didn’t deny it. I didn’t say anything. After a bottle of ketchup. He said later it was the only thing while I drifted to sleep. When I got up to go to work, Milli was still sleeping on the couch. I covered her it gave everyone a lift to see the Marine out cold, with an afghan. I loved her so damn much. What she covered in ketchup. The following weekend we heard said was true. I wanted to protect Milli and I knew I the Marine had been found dead. No one knew who

couldn’t. I couldn’t even defend myself very well. I did it.

was losing my nerve. I was scared, even at work.

When I got home that morning I reenacted the

The night before, just after closing time, young whole scene for Milli. Deep down I wanted so much Sal had staggered into the bar covered with so much to make love to her. I had wanted her all week. But we of his own blood we almost didn’t recognize him. He went to sleep still talking about what a hero Booker was a victim of a Marine who was tying young femme had been.

gay men to lampposts and slicing them with razor It was the next Friday night that we fought so

blades—hundreds of small cuts. Then the Marine

bitterly. I don’t even remember what started it. It would go sit in the restaurant across the street from doesn’t really matter. What mattered was that it was the bar, waiting to see if anyone would dare stop him.

Everyone knew he’d be skulking around, but

of skin off your heart.

none of us expected him to walk right into the bar on I tried to go for a ride. My bike wouldn’t

a crowded Saturday night. I hardly realized what was kick over. I stormed off for a walk around the

block. When I came back, Milli was gone. I sat in it was for me and told me to hustle up, it was Milli. I the apartment for a long time in the dark. I was really upset. My brain wasn’t working too clearly, I noise of the jukebox when I saw the Marine cutting remember that.

right through the crowd toward me. He pointed his That’s when I realized how we were running off

the rails. I suddenly felt I had to apologize to her, to Stone Butch Blues 119

explain, or I’d lose her forever. So I went down to the I went back to our apartment to wait for her.

Pink Pussy Kat. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Milli came home within hours. She left the

I paced outside the club smoking a cigarette.

apartment door open as she stormed up to me. I must You couldn’t see inside the bar because the windows have sensed what was coming because I buried my

and doors were papered with shiny foil.

hands deep inside my pockets. She slapped me hard As I opened the door Darlene saw me

across my face.

immediately. She had her arm around a sailor’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” was all I could say. I really, really She looked up at Milli, who was dancing in a little meant it.

cage just above the bar. Milli had seen me too.

“I’ll bet you are,” Milli said. Her voice was cruel and cold because she was hurting too. “Did you get to danced. It wasn’t that it mattered, I just realized I see everything you wanted?”

had never wondered about it. I took in the sights and

“I’m sorry, baby,” I tried to explain. “I didn’t sounds and smells of the world in which she worked.

go there to hurt you. I wanted to start over. I made a I listened to the music she danced to: I never loved a mistake.”

man the way that I, I love you.

“You sure did,” she said, but her voice was

I had been in so many sleazy bars there was

quieter. She looked at me quizzically. “What were something sort of familiar and commonplace about you thinking of?” Then she stopped being angry for it all. I could see immediately who was working in the a moment. “How did you feel when you walked in

room. It was, of course, the women. But you could tell more by their attitude than their sex. This was,

“It’s funny,” I said. “I sort of felt closer to you after all, a job. It paid well for women who could right then. And I was thinking about how brave you take care of themselves. And Milli could take care of all are.”

herself.

“Brave?” Milli narrowed her eyes.

But I knew I had made a fatal error walking in

“Yeah. I don’t think I could be strong enough

the door—the last mistake I would be allowed to

make. I realized in that moment it was too late for us.

looked at me without speaking. Then she went into 120 Leslie Feinberg

our bedroom and started throwing clothing into a ran downstairs and outside, but she was already gone.

suitcase. I didn’t move from where I stood. When she Besides, I didn’t know how to change everything back came out, she acted like she was looking around for to the way it had been.

whatever else she wanted to take, but I knew she was I went back upstairs, opened a bottle of beer,

stalling.

and sat on the edge of the bed. That’s when I

“Is there anything I can say?” I asked, already

recalled the weekend before when Milli had called knowing the answer.

Milli softened her expression and came closer.

when I realized the Marine was coming toward me, I

“I’m sorry, baby.” I told her as the tears streamed forgot—it sounded like she was crying. I just didn’t down my face. She came into my arms for the last remember, with all the excitement, to ask her later time.

why she had called. Now I’d give anything to know.

“I know I made a big mistake tonight, Milli. I’m The telephone rang. I ran to pick up the receiver.

sorry I hurt you.”

It was Edwin. Of course she knew. Darlene had

She shook her head and took my face in her

been waiting downstairs with the car while Milli came hands. “It was a mistake. But that’s all it was. I’ve upstairs to pack. Darlene wanted Ed to tell me how made some pretty big ones with you. That’s not why sorry she was and how much she loved me, too.

I’m leaving.” She went over to her suitcase and took

“You OK?” Edwin asked me.

“I don’t think so,” I told her.

years before and put it down on the coffee table near There was a long silence.

me. She came back and put one hand on my cheek.

“You were great together,” Ed said.

“I just don’t think it’s going to be much different than

“Yeah, we were, weren’t we?”

it is, not for now anyway,” she explained. “I want to

“She really loved you,” Ed reminded me. “Those

leave before we break everything.”

lunches you packed for Milli in the brown paper bags Milli brushed my cheek with her lips, and then

with those little red hearts on them?”

she walked through that open door. She was gone.

“How did you know that?” I asked. “Did the

I sat down on the couch and cried because I

other girls tease her about it?”

just didn’t know what else to do. I jumped up and Stone Butch Blues 121

“Hell no,” Edwin said. “They were jealous. You

“Nah,” she reassured me, “you just got a little

made it hard on the rest of us butches. We all had more growing up to do.”

to start packing ‘love lunches.’ Anyway, promise you

“I don’t know if I can do it,” I told her.

won’t tell Darlene this?” I promised.

My friend laughed. “You got no choice.”

“Milli told Darlene that she thought she might

have been loved once or twice in her life, but nobody had ever cared about her as good as you did.”

I took a deep breath. “Did she say that a long

time ago?”

“Nah,” Ed said, catching my drift, “recently.”

“Ed, I hurt.”

“I know,” Ed said gently. “I’m sort of in the

same boat. Things are kind of rough right now with me and Darlene.”

“Why is it so hard?” I felt confused.

“I don’t know,” Ed sighed. “I guess love’s never easy. But it’s different between a butch and a pro.” Ed sounded lost in her own thoughts. “It’s love with no illusions.”

There was a long silence. We both took a deep

breath.

“My bike isn’t running.”

“Go to work tonight,” Edwin advised. “I’ll meet

you there in the morning and we’ll take a look at it.”

“Ed,” I said, “I really fucked up this time.”

122 Leslie Feinberg

11

I STOPPED GOING TO THE bars for a few weeks.

needed. So I gave notice Friday night at the pipe I’d heard Milli left town, but I just didn’t feel like factory.

seeing anybody. I got two temp jobs in order to pay When I got home Saturday morning, I found

for some major repairs on my Norton and to keep me Ed sitting on my front porch. She was wearing dress busy. My life felt so hollow after I lost Milli.

pants and a starched white shirt with ruby cuff

During the day I packed cartons of milk at the

links. Ed was a sight for sore eyes. She stared at me dairy on Niagara Street.

like she’d seen a ghost. “What’s that green shit all At night I worked at the plastic pipe factory in over you?” Only my eyes showed under the coat of powder. “You better get cleaned up,” Ed told me.

“Don’t you know about the funeral today? Old Butch and plastic pipe would push out the other end. The Ro died.”

Butch Ro was very much loved by all the old

minutes after the shift started—it was jammed with bulls. She was the elders’ elder. She had worked in the powder. I got coated from head to foot with that Chevy plant longer than anybody could remember.

dust.

I could hardly imagine the depth of grief the older After a couple of weeks I was exhausted from

butches were feeling. They had loved each other so working doubles. I saved up more than enough to

long and shared so much together.

Ro and her lover almost never went out to Ed drove her car to the funeral home. I followed the bars. I’d only seen them once in Niagara Falls on my motorcycle. Once we arrived, I sat on my bike at Tifka’s. But whether I had known her or not, it in the parking lot. I wanted to show my respect for was important for me to attend her funeral. All the Butch Ro, but I wished I didn’t have to go in. “What’s butches would be there. It was a sign of respect for the role she played in our community.

“I don’t know,” I told her. I felt a sense of dread.

I showered while Ed made coffee. She shouted

something about dressing up as I was drying off.

the right room. Then I knew we had found it. There,

“What?” I called from the bathroom.

around the open casket, were Butch Ro’s lifelong

“We’re supposed to dress up.” Ed yelled.

friends. All of them were wearing dresses. That’s how

“Yeah, of course.”

much they loved her.

“No,” she shouted. “You know, like girls.”

These were burly, big-shouldered he-shes who

I put on a robe and came into the kitchen to

carried their womanhood in work-roughened hands.

make sure I’d heard her right. “Says who?”

They could playfully slap you on the back and send

“The old bulls said so.” Ed shrugged. “But I

you halfway across the room. Their forearms and

don’t put on a dress for nobody!” She told me we biceps were covered with tattoos. These powerful were going to a funeral home to see a body, not

butch women were comfortable in work chinos. Their knocking on heaven’s gate to get let in.

spirit roared to life when they wore double-breasted I couldn’t put on a dress. I shuddered at the

suits.

thought. Besides, it was a moot point—I didn’t own Wearing dresses was an excruciating humiliation

one. But if the word had come down from the older for them. Many of their dresses were old, from

butches, something must be up.

another era when occasional retreats were still

“C’mon, hurry up and get dressed,” Ed urged

necessary. The dresses were outdated, white, frilly, me. “Everybody’s probably already there by now.”

lace, low-cut, plain. The shoes were old or borrowed: It was too late to call up anyone for advice. I put patent leather, loafers, sandals. This clothing degraded on my blue suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie.

their spirit, ridiculed who they were. Yet it was in this 124 Leslie Feinberg

painful drag they were forced to say their last goodbye to the friend they loved so much.

since the night she saw me dancing with Edna. Now Ro’s femme, Alice, greeted each one of them.

she really hated me.

You could see how much she longed to fall against A few minutes later Alice came in, supported by

their solid bodies, to feel the gentle strength of their a butch on each side.

arms. Instead she respectfully refused to acknowledge Ed and I were completely isolated. I wanted to

the pain they all shared together. She held in her leave. It was too painful. After a few minutes Alice own. Ro—the butch Alice had loved for almost thirty came over to us, like an emissary. I felt bad that she years—lay in the casket next to her, laid out in a pink had to play diplomat at a time when her grief was so unbearable, but I knew the butches were too angry What cruel hand controlled this scene? I

to speak to us. I stood as she approached our table. I saw them just as they saw Ed and me. It was Ro’s took her hand; she kissed my cheek.

family—father, mother, and brothers. They saw us the

“The old butches are pretty mad at you two,” she moment we walked in, and whispered in the funeral explained gently. “Some of them feel like you spoiled to say goodbye to Ro, you young ones could, too. It’s like that.

not your fault, really. But you two better keep a low Ed and I went to the local diner for coffee. We

were sitting there when all the older butches came Alice’s anguish was so discernible that I ached to reach out and hold her, but she wouldn’t have let me.

to change clothes, even if it meant crouching down I understood. It was easy for me to feel strong, to give in the backseat of a car. When they saw us, they all of myself, dressed the way I was. For the butches who headed straight for the opposite side of the diner.

were watching us from across the diner, it had been painful and hard. Alice kissed my cheek lightly. “It’ll blow over, you’ll see,” she whispered. I hoped she was right.

Stone Butch Blues 125

a week or two, until I got some sign it was alright to

“I’m sorry about everything, you know what I mean?”

appear at the bar again. But weeks of exile passed We both knew I had shifted the conversation to the without a single phone call that would signal the ice had thawed.

like you think, really.”

Mornings grew chilly. Autumn was in the air.

There weren’t many jobs. The temp agency sent me to the cannery at Four Corners. It was an unpaid two-the bottle of whiskey. “It’s OK.” She took a slug hour ride each way.

and shivered. “No harm done. You ever work at the I boarded the company bus at 4:45 A.M. It was

cannery before?” I shook my head.

cold and damp. Someone passed a bottle of whiskey She smiled and patted my cheek roughly. “I’ll

around. I reached for the bottle and drank as I looked show you the ropes.” With those kind words she

out the window.

welcomed me back to the only real family I’d ever known.

you gonna share that, or what?” She was kneeling on forward and grabbed a handful of my jacket. “Do you get it yet?” she demanded. Her face contorted with shifting emotions.

I nodded. “Yes, I think I understood right away.

I just didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I messed it up for all of you to say goodbye to Ro.”

“Ah, it wasn’t your fault,” she said. “The next day at the burial the family made us stay one hundred yards away from the grave. That wasn’t your fault either.”

126 Leslie Feinberg

12

I STILL REMEMBER THE MOMENT

of it landed on a conveyor belt headed toward me.

walked into the cannery and I saw Theresa, standing right there in front of me. She was working on a The foreman handed me a stick. I looked at it

machine, coring apples.

stupidly. He told me to hit the cores and peels one I was trying to get a better look at her,

way, the apples another. “That’s it?” I asked. He wondering what color her hair was under that white snorted and walked away.

paper net. “You coming or not?” the foreman asked Thus began my short-lived career as an apple

me. I hung back for a moment. Her smile told me she hitter.

already knew she had my complete attention.

I knew Theresa was watching so I wanted

to do it suavely, but that was kind of stretching it, considering the task.

Theresa never stopped affecting me just that much.

“What are you doing?” she asked me.

The foreman noticed, but he must not have cared

I shrugged. “I’m inspecting the apples—you

because he assigned me to work on the line near her.

I watched as each woman put an apple on a

the coring and peeling operation.”

spindle and pressed a foot pedal. The apples spun She threw her head back and smiled. “You mean

around and were peeled and cored in the process. All you’re an apple-bopper?”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “Something like that.”

of apple-bopping. But although it wasn’t a complex

“Hey you, asshole!” someone at the end of the

conveyor belts yelled. OK, so I had let a few peels go cartons were packed with heavy cans of applesauce.

down the apple belt. Big deal!

They hurtled at me with tremendous velocity, and Theresa laughed softly and went back to her

I had to hit them to divert them. I nearly fell off. I learned to hit the boxes from an angle, not head-on.

one of life’s unexpected pleasures. Almost as soon After I got the hang of it, I realized what an

as it started, it ended. The foreman announced he interesting vantage point I had. I’d never seen the life was moving me. “I could do a better job hitting these of a factory from a bird’s-eye view. The arrangement apples,” I insisted.

of the machines, the sequence and interrelatedness of I followed him to another part of the plant

tasks, the organized scurrying of workers.

where the actual canning was done. The noise

I noticed a ruckus near the women’s bathroom—

conveyor belt running parallel to the ceiling. I saw a guy up there straddling a giant pipe near the point where the conveyor belt split into two. Every few on hips and her mouth moving like she was shouting.

seconds a carton came down the single belt. He

I could see how defensive and embarrassed she felt by diverted them alternately one way or another. I was watching her body.

replacing him.

I never would have heard the foreman yelling

The foreman showed me a metal pole with

for me below. He banged a hammer against a metal footholds. I waited for the guy who was already up pipe connected to the one I was sitting on. The

there to climb down, but he swung down from pipe vibration startled me, and the next box almost took to pipe, brushed off his hands, and walked away. I me over and down. He pointed to his watch. It must assumed he had been doing this job for a while.

be lunchtime.

I had hoped I could climb above the din, but

both the height and the roar made me nauseous. This because some women in the bathroom claimed they

job looked like it required all the skill and judgment 128 Leslie Feinberg

thought she was a man. They said God didn’t create couldn’t recover my composure. “For Christsake, be answered them. I laughed as she told the story, but it really wasn’t funny.

“Theresa.” I savored her name, repeating it over I saw that good-looking femme come in, but

in my mind. When you do that, it’s a sign something big is happening in your heart.

“They said they thought I was a man when they saw At the end of the day I looked for Theresa at

the time clock, but she was hidden in the wave of really thought I was a man you’d of run out of the hundreds of workers leaving and hundreds more

bathroom yelling.’” I nodded. She was right.

entering for the next shift. I didn’t talk much on The woman sat at a table with her friends. I

laughed softly and shook her head.

shoulder to see what I was looking at. “See something The next day I could hardly wait to get to

I squirmed in my seat. “Aw, you know. She’s

heavy work. I was leaning up against a pole smoking probably just playing with me.”

a cigarette when Theresa walked by to go to the

bathroom. Actually, the bathroom was in the opposite

“Whaddya mean?” I shot back.

direction. I felt embarrassed because I was dripping

“I heard she asked someone what your name

was.”

smiled. “I like sweaty butches,” she said, as though

“You’re kidding me. I don’t believe it.”

she’d read my mind. Man, those boxes sailed out

I got my hopes up. Then they sunk. “Oh, it

feathers.

probably doesn’t mean a thing,” I concluded.

For the next week I didn’t sleep much. I

leaped out of bed as soon as the alarm rang and she did ask if you were single.” My jaw dropped. I rode the long distance out to the cannery in excited Stone Butch Blues 129

anticipation. I saw Theresa at least twice a shift. I was me, but she restrained herself. So did I. I kissed the cheek she offered me.

I saw Grant near the jukebox. A moment later I

“Got some bad news for you, kid.” Theresa had been heard “Stand By Your Man” playing. Thanks, Grant. I asked Theresa to dance. She took her time smoothing my collar and adjusting my tie before she led me to in the shin, yelled at him, and then kicked him in the told me later we looked as good as Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

I crashed from the summit of euphoria. It was

All the while we were dancing, Theresa traced

just a job after that. Worse, really, because it had been the back of my neck above my collar with her

so much fun. I knew it was time to ask the temp

agency for another assignment.

the point. I know I was driving her crazy, too, but I was being very, very careful doing it. Sometimes when you just move a little, carefully, it’s a whole lot more powerful than grinding.

The following Friday night I showered and dressed up. When I got to Abba’s, I was glad I had. There Theresa pulled me back. “I wasn’t trying to be mean was Theresa, leaning on the bar. I had never expected to you at the plant. Did you think I was?”

to see her again. She had cajoled some friends into

“No, it felt good.”

driving her to Buffalo to look for me. Lucky for me She smiled. “I don’t think I was very nice to you.

there was only one gay bar at a time.

I was just teasing you, to get your attention. I liked The hue of Theresa’s hair reminded me of

you.”

the lustrous colors of a chestnut. It was well worth waiting to see. Her eyes didn’t hide how happy she a bar before—I mean in the real world, you know?

was to see me. I think she would have liked to hug It made me feel normal.” She nodded like she really understood.

130 Leslie Feinberg

We talked for a while about our lives. She was a were questions like which tie, cologne or no cologne?

rural girl from Appleton. She came right out and told Something so sweet took a lot of care.

me she got friends to drive her to this bar just to look I brought Theresa daffodils. When I handed

for me.

Then someone tapped Theresa on the shoulder.

nobody had treated her like someone special before. I The women she rode to Buffalo with were leaving.

silently vowed to always make her feel that way.

She took my face in both her hands and kissed my

“I’ll just be a minute,” she called out from the mouth. I blushed from head to toe. She stood back kitchen. I was glad for the time to nose around her and grinned at my color, proud of her work. “I’ll living room and get a sense of her. One thing I could make you dinner at my house next Saturday night if you want,” she offered.

she called out moments later. “Do you mind eating

“You’re on,” I said, still blushing.

here in the kitchen?” I’d never eaten anyplace else.

She scribbled her phone number down on a

She’d made me a steak and mashed potatoes

cocktail napkin. “Call me,” she shouted over her with gravy. God, it looked delicious. Then she put a shoulder.

mound of soft, green stuff on my plate.

“You can bet on it,” I answered. I was still

“What’s that?” I asked as politely as I could.

blushing.

“Spinach,” she said, locking me into her gaze.

You would have thought I’d won the Kentucky

I circled it with my fork. “Is something wrong?” she Derby the way everybody came over to congratulate asked.

me. I felt like a million bucks. I just wondered if I’d

“I just never eat vegetables, that’s all.”

ever stop blushing.

Theresa took off her oven glove. She sat down

on a kitchen chair next to me and took both my

hands in her hands. “Never say never,” she said.

“We’re too young to close the door to anything in our It took me all day Saturday to get ready—pick out the lives.”

right clothes, bathe, shower, shower again. Then there I discovered I was already in love with her.

Stone Butch Blues 131

Actually, I found out spinach isn’t all that bad either, I ran out of underwear, picking up after myself.

if you put lots of butter and salt on it.

Most importantly, I learned to say I’m sorry. This After dinner I helped her wash the dishes and

relationship was too vital to let dust accumulate in its clean up. Then, by the sink, we moved close to each corners.

other. I felt shy. That turned out to be okay. Gently, I began to realize how emotionally wounded I

we kissed each other. Our tongues discovered a silent was, how damaged. But Theresa could always sense language to express our needs. Once we started, we when I was about to petrify like stone. She could see never wanted to stop. That’s how it began.

it coming by the way I held my body as I walked in Within a month we rented a U-Haul trailer and

the door. She could hear it building up in the stories moved into a new apartment together in Buffalo.

of life’s daily abuses—on the job, at the corner store, Theresa negotiated with the landlord. He lived in on the street. Those were the times she would tell me Kenmore, so we hoped he’d never actually see me.

stories in bed—wonderful, sensuous, tactile fantasies We got real furniture. I mean, it was Salvation

about how your body feels when you’re lying on sand Army, but it was real. Our names were printed inside in the sun and the ocean’s waves are lapping near a heart on the dishtowel that hung on the refrigerator your toes. Or climbing worn wooden stairs to visit a door handle. We got it made at Crystal Beach. It was a quaint sunlit room where a lover awaits. The stories brave thing to do. But later we spilled loganberry juice were relaxation therapy and sexual fantasy combined, on it, so we used it for dishes because we couldn’t meant to simultaneously calm and arouse me. They bring ourselves to throw it out. And there were

did both. Theresa could always melt my stone.

marigolds in amber glasses on the windowsill, daisies in a green cut-glass vase on the kitchen table, fresh It was a home.

It was 1968. Revolution seemed to glimmer on the I grew up in leaps and bounds. I learned to

horizon. Millions took to the streets in protest. The reduce the anxieties of life by paying bills on time, world was exploding with change. Everywhere, that keeping receipts and promises, doing laundry before is, except in the factories where I worked. Every 132 Leslie Feinberg

morning at dawn we punched in as usual. We only

“Where’d you get this?” I shouted to her.

dreamed at night.

She called back from the kitchen, “In the mail.”

It wasn’t that we didn’t know there was a war

“You got this sent to our address in the mail? Was raging. There were hardly any draft-age guys in the it wrapped? What if someone in the building saw it?”

plants anymore. Co-workers who were absent for

After a long silence, Theresa came in with a

several days were assumed to have lost a husband, hand mirror and held it up to my face. “Did you think son, or brother. The ashen grief on their faces when you were a secret?”

I knew there was a war. I wasn’t stupid. I just

didn’t know what on earth I could do about it.

It was Theresa’s job as a secretary at the

Theresa needed a root canal, but she couldn’t get any university that opened a window, allowing me to feel overtime at the university. So when the temp agency the hurricane force of change. She brought home offered me a triple shift at the electronics plant, I jumped at the chance. Theresa wondered if the read about Black Power and Women’s Liberation. I emergency production at the factory had something began to understand that outrage against the war was to do with the war. In any case, we needed the money much deeper and more organized than I’d realized.

so I took it.

“There’s campus rallies and protests almost every day I started the triple on Thursday evening. What

now,” she told me, “not just against the war, but to a killer. By the end of the third shift I could scarcely open up the schools to everybody.”

feel the wires as I soldered. I kept burning my index Theresa ordered home subscriptions to the

morning and evening papers. One day she left a copy Theresa was out when I got home Friday

of The Ladder on the couch. It was a magazine put night. I left her a note, stumbled into bed, and lost out by a group called the Daughters of Bilitis. I didn’t consciousness. When I woke up, she was lying next to know who Bilitis was. I’d never seen anything about me, smoking one of my cigarettes. I knew something women like us in print before.

was up. She didn’t smoke. Theresa left the room and Stone Butch Blues 133

Then some of the older butches who did hitches in

“Did you hear Dr. King was killed?” she asked me.

the service started talking about the war. Some of the I lit a cigarette and lay back down. “Yeah, I heard things they were saying didn’t sit right with everyone.”

about it Thursday night at work. What day is today, I listened quietly.

anyway?”

“Grant said we ought to drop an A-bomb on

“It’s Saturday afternoon,” she said. “There’s been Vietnam. She said no one would miss them. Ed told Grant she was a racist and said we should bring all

“there was real trouble at the bar last night.”

the soldiers home. Ed said she felt like Muhammad I felt a pang of jealousy. “You went without

Ali, that she didn’t have any beef with the people over me?”

there. Grant called her a communist.”

Theresa smoothed my hair. “It was Grant’s

I shook my head and started to speak. Theresa

birthday, remember?”

I smacked my forehead. “Fuck, I forgot. How

honey,” she said. “Grant said some terrible things was the party?”

about King being killed, about the riots. She wouldn’t Theresa reached for another one of my

stop. So Ed hit her.”

cigarettes. I grabbed her hand. “Whoa! What’s going I crushed out my cigarette. “Oh shit.”

on?”

“Anyway,” Theresa continued, “Grant got Ed up

against the bar, choking her. Peaches hauled off and she said.

pounded Grant on the head with her high heel. Other I frowned. “Are you OK?” Theresa nodded.

people got involved just because they were drunk.

“Cops?” I asked. She shook her head. “Well, what Ed’s face got cut up. Grant got a concussion. And happened?”

now Meg is saying no Blacks will be allowed back at Abba’s for a while.”

Grant’s family Thursday night that her brother got I couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Shit,

killed. Grant was already drunk when she showed

Theresa, what did you do?”

Theresa looked me dead in the eyes. “When

134 Leslie Feinberg

Grant tried to hit Peaches over the head with a bar I knew enough to surrender early. “OK, alright.

stool, I cracked Grant over the head with a beer bottle Should we take the car?”

and knocked her out. I’m barred from Abba’s, too.”

Theresa shook her head. “Get the bike out of

I leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. “It the garage.”

sounds like a mess.” I sat up. “I’d better call Ed and

“Are you crazy?” I laughed. “It’s cold!”

see if she’s OK,” I said.

Theresa slid her hands around my waist. “It’s

Theresa tugged my arm. “C’mere, baby. Don’t

April, honey. Let’s live like it’s already spring.”

call yet.”

The moment we swung our legs over the Norton

“Why not?”

I knew it was a good decision. It felt so good to turn Theresa shrugged. “What are you going to say to

into the curves together. One of Theresa’s hands slid Ed?”

down to my thigh. I revved the engine in response.

“I don’t know. I want to know if she’s OK. I

The cold wind sucked the laughter from our mouths.

We rode slowly past the island marsh. Theresa

need to stick together.” Theresa nodded as though I’d The beach itself was almost deserted. A couple of against her body. A wave of exhaustion rolled over mothers meandered along the boardwalk with their me.

toddlers.

before you call Ed.” I pulled back my head and

boardwalk. The sun was strong and warm. We could studied her face. I never could read that woman’s hear a radio playing faintly in the distance.

mind.

I leaned up against a dune and spread my legs.

“Let’s go somewhere,” she said.

Theresa curled up between my thighs and leaned back I moaned. “I’m too tired.”

against me. I wrapped my arms around her and closed Theresa grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my eyes. The sound of lapping water and cawing gulls my head back. “Too tired to neck with me behind a soothed all the tightness from my muscles.

sand dune at Beaver Island?”

“Honey,” she said. Something in her tone made

my muscles tense again. “You and I never really talk Stone Butch Blues 135

about the war. I don’t even know how you feel about it.”

time in my life I’ve had a job where I can see what’s My lips were close to her cheek. “I read those

going on in the world. Al day long I hear people arguing about things that are happening. I used to just listen. But Theresa turned to look at me. “But what do you

now I care. Now I’ve got feelings about what’s going on think?”

and I want to help try to change things.”

I shrugged. “What do you mean? I hate wars.

I held up one hand to stop her. “Slow down,

They’re gonna do what they want to do. Why are you her words scared me so much. “Is that why you

asking me this?”

brought me out here today? To talk to me about

Theresa pulled my knees against her sides with

this?” I shielded my eyes from the sun to watch her face.

There’s protest rallies on campus almost every day.

She shook her head. “I brought you out here so

If anyone from the staff gets spotted at one, we can you wouldn’t call Ed right away—not till we talked next week anyway.”

I frowned. “Why?”

Theresa smiled and lay so close I could feel her breath on my ear. “You know one of the things I It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I’ve got to do something.”

I was being handled, but gently, so I didn’t mind I lay down on my belly in the cool sand. “It’s

much. “Tell me,” I smiled.

funny to hear you talk like this. You know, I didn’t Theresa laughed. “You were always the

realize before how different our jobs are. All this peacemaker. Whenever the butches got tanked up and stuff ’s going on where you work. It doesn’t touch hot under the collar, you found a way to step in and us at the factory, except when one of the guys gets defuse things. I even noticed that sometimes when drafted or killed.”

two of the older butches would get mad at each other 136 Leslie Feinberg

they would drift over to you one at a time and you’d the news yet. Cities are burning. There’s troops in the streets.”

I turned my head to look at her. “There’s a point I shrugged. “That’s different.”

here, I’ll bet.”

Theresa squeezed my arm. “That’s one of

out where you stand.” I exhaled smoke and watched your strengths. The way you soothe people when

the wind lift it up and away.

they’re mad at each other. Sticking together is really Theresa watched my face with obvious concern.

important sometimes. But not always.”

I sat up. “What do you mean?”

you talk to Ed or anybody else about what happened Theresa sat up next to me. “Sometimes you have

last night.”

to take sides.”

I listened to the seagulls’ caws. Theresa tugged I reached for my cigarettes and lit one. Theresa on my arm, demanding my response.

took it from my hand. I lit another for myself. “Sides

“I’m listening. I’m glad you didn’t let me call

on what?” I asked her.

Ed all half-cocked. Everything’s changing so fast.

Sometimes I understand what’s going on and then I you stand on the war, for one thing. If you come out lose the thread again. I’ll think about it. I just don’t against the war, you’ll have to take on some of the old know what to think.”

butches. And I think that’s going to be very hard for Theresa kissed my lips. “That’s a great answer.

you.”

I sighed. “Of course I’m against the war. Who’s I dropped my eyes. Theresa lifted my chin with her for war?”

hand. She asked me with her eyes what I was feeling.

Theresa sighed. “Some of the butches are for

“I’m just scared,” I told her. “All this stuff

the war, honey. And are you sure you’re really against hasn’t really hit me until now. But all of a sudden all wars? Are there any wars you feel different about?”

I’m realizing how much you’ve been changing, and it I did a double take. “Like what?”

scares me to death. I’m afraid you’re changing and I’m Theresa took a long drag on her cigarette. “Ed

not.”

feels like she’s in a war here at home. You haven’t seen Stone Butch Blues 137

Theresa pulled me down on top of her. I glanced around to see if anyone was around. We were Theresa smiled. “Did you mention me?”

alone.

I laughed. “Not at that point. I told Meg by the time she excludes everyone who might be offended to let me change. We’re all changing. Who knows?

by Grant when she’s drunk, she may as well shut

You could end up changing so much you’d leave me down the bar. I said it would make more sense to bar behind.”

Grant when she’s plowed.”

I laughed at her words. “Never,” I promised.

Theresa nodded. I lit a cigarette. “So?” she

“That’ll never happen.”

urged. “Then what?”

I sighed. “I said it wasn’t just about me and Ed being friends. I told Meg I didn’t think she handled it right. She said she’s got a business to run. I said I Before I could turn the apartment door key in our know that, but I wouldn’t go to an all-white bar.”

lock Theresa opened it. “How did it go?” she asked Theresa slapped my shoulder. “Good for you,

me.

goddamn it. Right on!”

“Anyway, when Grant got there she apologized

She said pretty much the same thing I did to you—we for taking out her anger at her brother’s death on everybody else.”

could be a real pain.”

Theresa nodded. “Good.”

Theresa led me to the couch. “Did you talk to

I shook my head. “Well, it wasn’t enough, really.

Meg?”

She wouldn’t say she was sorry for the racist shit she said. Grant shook Ed’s hand. Ed told me to let it go before everyone else showed up to the meeting. I told for now.”

Meg even if she barred the Black butches and queens Theresa jiggled my arm. “Did you and Ed talk?”

that wasn’t gonna keep the peace because I would I smiled. “Yeah, we went over to her house

have jumped in Grant’s face over the shit she said, afterward. I told Edwin I love her—she’s my friend.

138 Leslie Feinberg

I said the world was changing faster than I am Theresa and I both heard the commotion outside the and I needed to do some catching up in order to

bar at once. She put down her beer bottle and ran understand. Ed talked to me for a couple of hours.”

outside. I grabbed our bottles in case we needed to Theresa began kneading my shoulders. It felt so

break them to use as weapons. We both stopped dead damn good. “What did she talk about?”

I tried to remember. “So much stuff that it’s

stood over her. His club hung loosely at his side. I saw hard for me to put it all together and tell you. You know, I always fall back on assuming that what Ed and I deal with every day as butches is pretty much people had drifted outside the bar in order to drink the same, you know? Ed reminded me about what she their beers. Two cop cars were parked in front of the faces every day that I don’t.”

bar. Four cops faced us. “Get inside, all of you,” one Theresa smiled and nodded. “What did you

of the cops barked. None of us moved.

say?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t say anything. I

of her hair. “On your feet,” he ordered. She stumbled listened as hard as I could. Look what Ed gave me.” I as she tried to rise and fell back onto the concrete.

showed Theresa the copy of The Souls of Black Folk by Theresa slipped off her high heels. “Take your

W.E.B. Du Bois. Theresa read the inscription: To my hands off her,” Theresa told the cop. Her voice was friend, Jess—Love, Edwin. Ed dotted the i in her name low and calm. “Leave her alone.” Theresa walked

with a little heart.

slowly toward the cop with the high heels at her When Theresa looked up I saw tears in her eyes.

sides. I held my breath. Georgetta took off both her She pulled my head down and kissed me all over my stilettos and held one in each hand. She walked over to Theresa. They exchanged a look I couldn’t see and stood side by side.

The cop put his hand on his gun butt. Somehow

we all knew instinctively that none of the butches should move.

Stone Butch Blues 139

I heard Peaches’ voice. “What’s goin’ on out here?” We glanced at each other. “Uh-oh,” she said.

I smiled. “I’m so proud of you.”

Theresa’s voice was low like a moan. “Leave her

Theresa studied my face. “Really? I was afraid

alone.” She and Georgetta inched forward until they you’d think it was a really stupid thing to do.”

I shook my head. “You were really brave.”

“I was very scared,” she sighed.

Georgetta’s arms and pulled herself to her feet. When I smiled. “Somebody once told me that being

brave means doing what you gotta do even though

her waist to steady her.

you’re scared.”

The cop unholstered his gun. “You fucking slut,”

he sputtered at Theresa. “You fucking perverts,” he Her question stunned me. “Are you kidding? I’m

shouted at all of us.

scared all the time.”

Another cop pulled on his arm. “C’mon, let’s get She nodded. “I thought you must be, but this is

out of here.” Slowly, the four cops retreated.

I exhaled as the cops drove away. Theresa and

“Really? Don’t I talk to you about how I feel?”

Theresa bit her lower lip and shook her head.

I started to rush to Theresa but Peaches wrapped My face burned. “I thought you knew.”

her arm around my shoulder. “Give ’em a minute, She nodded. “I do know—sometimes, most of

honey.” She advised.

the time. But you never talk about it.”

We formed a larger circle around them. Theresa

I sighed. “I don’t have any words, honey. I don’t turned and fell into my arms. I could feel her body know how to talk about what I feel. I don’t know if I trembling. “Oh god, are you OK?” I whispered into even feel things like other people do.”

her hair.

Peaches gently pulled Theresa away from me.

She buried her face in my neck. “I’m not sure

“C’mon y’all. We’re gonna buy Georgetta and Theresa yet. I’ll let you know in a few minutes.”

drinks till they can’t stand up.”

“I thought he was gonna shoot you,” I told her.

Ed arrived at the bar twenty minutes later. “I

140 Leslie Feinberg

missed it?” she shouted. “Oh, shit. Why couldn’t I I looked around. “Is Theresa here yet?”

have been here?”

Ed shook her head. “Not yet. C’mon, hurry up.”

I laughed. “Be glad you weren’t. It could have

I pulled the silk handkerchief out of my inside gone another way. It was right on the edge.”

jacket pocket and opened it. The gold band was

studded with a tiny diamond and two small ruby

femmes showed them tonight— don’t mess with us.

chips. Everyone made the same sound at once. Oooh!

It was like what happened in Greenwich Village a Ed patted me on the shoulder. “How long you

couple of weeks ago.”

two been together?”

I frowned. “What happened?”

“Close to two years.”

“Stonewall!” Grant shouted. I looked at Ed and

Ed laughed. “And how long you had that ring on

shrugged.

layaway?”

I smiled and shrugged. “A long damn time. Is

everybody ready?”

drag queens and he-shes really kicked ass.”

Grant laughed. “I heard they tried to burn the

bathroom getting ready. They couldn’t get white

bar down with the cops barricaded inside.”

dinner jackets so we all got cream color. Is that OK?”

I sighed. “Shit, I wish I had been there.”

I beamed. “It’s alright with me if they all look as good as you do.” Ed cuffed my shoulder. I fretted.

how I feel about missing what happened tonight.”

“Does everyone know their part?”

Ed laughed. “I’ve been practicing ‘Blue Moon’

so much around the house Darlene said her Valentine present could be to never hear that song again.”

My friends converged on me the moment I set foot

“Holy cow,” I called over to them. “You guys look inside Abba’s. Ed looked as excited as I was. “Let’s see great!” It was the truth. They beamed.

the ring!” she said.

Peaches pushed her way through the crowd.

“Look!” she smiled proudly. She held up a huge

Stone Butch Blues 141

Valentine’s Day. That’s a high femme holy holiday.

over—the other side was gold. I did a double take.

You been planning this thing for a long time now. Are

“How come the face of the man in the moon looks you gonna let it all go down the drain?”

so much like you, Peaches?”

I pouted. “What the fuck can I do?”

Peaches drew herself up to her full height.

“Where do you see a damn man? The moon is

“You mean really sing? In my own voice?”

femme, child—high-in-the-sky femme—and don’t

Ed nodded emphatically. “Yeah! We can give you a you forget it.”

nice do-wah-do backup.”

I checked my watch. “Damn. Theresa will be

here any minute.”

about having the guts to tell Theresa how much you love her. Edna once told me there’s nothing a butch about this.”

can do to prove her love more than to risk looking My stomach clenched. “What?”

foolish. I’m not saying I can do it, but I’m passing Meg rubbed her forehead. “I set up the

that along.”

dip-di-dip thing at the beginning. The needle slid across knew I was going to do it.

not.”

she whispered in my ear.

I looked at Ed. “What’s she saying?”

“Um,” Ed winced, “I think she’s saying we don’t

of the bar. I hid behind it. Meg knelt down next to have music.”

me. “I’m sorry, kid,” she said.

“What!” I panicked. “Oh man, this is all fucked

I waved my hand. “Forget about it. If I live

up now.”

through this, I could care less.”

remembered every dip-di-dip and dinga-dong-ding before 142 Leslie Feinberg

she slid into a deep bass Blue Moooonnn.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to

I emerged from behind the bar. It was the look

me,” Theresa whispered. She took my left hand in on Theresa’s face that gave me the courage to raise hers and ran her thumb lightly over the scar on my my voice: You saw me standing alone. My voice cracked and pitched with embarrassment and emotion.

I shook my head sadly. “I thought about it, but

Theresa chewed her lower lip and cried.

I’d be too scared. I think if the cops ever took that Do-wah-do, my friends backed me up. Peaches ring from me I’d just go berserk.”

stood behind me, waving the painted blue moon back Theresa touched her cheek. “If you’re afraid to and forth in a wide arc over my head.

lose what you love, you’ll never be able to let go and But then you suddenly appeared before me, I extended feel it. I’ll put all my love for you in a ring if you’ll my hand toward Theresa. And when I looked the moon wear it. And if someone ever takes it from you, all had turned to gold!

they’ll be able to steal is a metal band. Then I’ll go out gold side. Everyone cheered. Peaches curtsied and and get you another ring and put all my love in that continued swaying with the moon.

I nodded and buried my face in her neck. Do-

dancing in her arms.

wah-do, everyone in the whole bar sang to us as we I realized it was true, I wasn’t alone. I had love swayed to their music.

of my own.

It was the sweetest moment of my life.

Do-wah-do, the chorus was soft and smooth.

I pulled the handkerchief from my breast pocket and opened it carefully. Theresa lost it when she saw the ring. I cried, too. The moment really was perfect. I about how much she meant to me but I couldn’t

remember the words. “I love you,” I told her. “I love you so damn much.”

Stone Butch Blues 143

13

THE POLICE REALLY STEPPED UP their

thumped the table. “They told me that butches were harassment after the birth of gay pride. Cops

male chauvinist pigs!”

scribbled down our license plate numbers and

I knew what male chauvinist meant, but I

photographed us as we entered the bars. We held

regular dances at a new gay bar, using police radios they know we don’t deal the shit, we get shit on?”

to alert everyone when the cops were about to raid

“They don’t care, honey. They’re not going to let us. We heard about weekly gay liberation and radical us in.”

women’s meetings at the university, but Theresa was the only one in our crowd who knew her way around one of these meetings and try to explain?”

campus. It was still another world to the rest of us.

Theresa put her hand on my arm. “It won’t help,

Everything was changing so fast. I wondered if this honey. They’re very angry at butches.”

was the revolution.

“Why?”

One day I came home from work and found

She thought about the question. “I think it’s

Theresa stewing in anger at the kitchen table. Some because they draw a line—women on one side and

of the lesbians from a newly formed group on

men on the other. So women they think look like

campus had mocked her for being a femme. They

men are the enemy. And women who look like me are told her she was brainwashed. “I’m so bad,” Theresa

sleeping with the enemy. We’re too feminine for their body and kissed my hair. She gave me time to think taste.”

about what she’d said, instead of shooting off my

“Wait a minute,” I stopped her. “We’re too

mouth. I felt scared, so I got up and started making masculine and you’re too feminine? Whatdya have to dinner. Theresa just sat at the kitchen table looking out over our backyard.

middle?”

Theresa patted my arm. “Things are changing,”

she said.

“Yeah,” I told her, “but sooner or later they’ll I wished we hadn’t traveled to meet friends at the bar change back.”

in Rochester that weekend. If we’d just stayed home,

“Things don’t change back,” she sighed, “they

I wouldn’t have gotten busted. But that was wishful just keep changing.”

thinking.

I slapped the table. “Then fuck those people.

Who needs them, anyway?”

city, my mouth pressed against the cold concrete. I Theresa frowned and played with my hair. “I

wondered if I was close to death because I seemed to be drifting away from the world. Only two things you once told me about a factory you worked where tethered me to life—one was the feel of the cold the guys didn’t want the butches to come to the union stone against my lips, the other was the faint strains meetings?”

of a Beatles tune coming from a radio somewhere in I nodded. “Yeah, so?”

the jail. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.

She smiled. “You told me Grant said to hell

I drifted in and out of consciousness. Theresa

with the union. But you knew the union was a good was propping me up against a brick wall in the

thing. You said what was wrong was keeping out the precinct parking lot and assessing the damage with butches. You tried to organize to get the butches into the union, remember?”

places on my shirt. “I’ll never get these stains out.”

Theresa held me tight against the warmth of her She held my head on her lap all the way back.

Stone Butch Blues 145

And then the terrifying image I had held back came head gently into her lap as she braked.

And then I was in our home again. Theresa was

Theresa’s face when I was arrested. In her eyes I had in the next room. I settled into the warm, soapy bath seen the pain of being overpowered and helpless. It water and leaned my head against the porcelain. Only was the way I felt almost every day of my life.

my head existed, above the bubbles. The comfort

I pushed the memory back down as Theresa

softened me, but I could feel panic gnawing in my stood in the bathroom, searching my face with her gut. Every time I came near its borders I was hurled gaze. Her eyes were red-rimmed and moist. My own back. Fear choked me. I needed Theresa to come and eyes felt dry as dust. My breath came slow and easy, as help me, but I couldn’t call out to her—my throat though I was inhaling and exhaling molasses, not air.

constricted, strangling me.

Theresa touched my face with her hand, turning my My teeth ached. When I pushed against one of

head slightly to study the swelling around my mouth.

them with my tongue, it popped out and lay in my I had no words. If I could have possibly

palm like a Chiclet in a tiny pink puddle of my own found them, I would have brought them to her.

blood. I climbed out of the tub quickly, sloshing water over the sides. I slipped on the tile, lifted the emotions on Theresa’s face shift like sand dunes in toilet lid, and vomited.

As I looked in the mirror I felt sorry for the

her words sound like, resonating in the air?

Theresa bit her lower lip and squeezed her eyes

mouth with toothpaste and a handful of water. My shut. I sat down on the toilet seat. Theresa cleaned legs quivered.

the wound on my mouth with peroxide. “I’m going

Theresa had left clean white underwear on top

of the toilet tank. I dried off and slipped on a pair It might need stitches.” I shook my head slowly. No of BVDs. I’d just pulled the T-shirt over my head hospital. I needed gentleness and safety. Theresa gave when Theresa opened the bathroom door. “I, um,

me both. She took me to bed, held me, caressed me, just wanted to see if we have bandaids,” she said.

146 Leslie Feinberg

I awoke later and realized Theresa wasn’t next For a moment I almost told Theresa I was afraid

to me. It was still dark outside. I staggered to the I couldn’t go on much longer—even with her love.

kitchen. My body hurt, but I knew the worst stiffness Emotions moved from my throat to my mouth; the

and pain would come a day later.

words banged against the back of my teeth. And then Theresa sat at the kitchen table, with her head

they ebbed. Theresa asked me a question with her in her hands. I noticed the level of whiskey left in the bottle. I pulled her head against my belly and stroked Since I had no words to bring the woman I loved so her hair. “I’m sorry,” she kept repeating. “I’m so much, I gave her all my tenderness.

sorry.” She lurched to her feet and fell heavily against me. I felt the frustration building in her body like a storm. I heard it in the small strangulated sounds from her throat.

I found Theresa in the bathroom splashing her face with cold water. Her eyes were red and swollen from them. They cuffed me so fast. I just couldn’t do tear gas. I tried to hold her tight, but she was excited.

anything,” she cried.

She pulled away and started to tell me about what had That’s exactly how I felt. We really were in this happened on campus. All the words tumbled out on life together. We might not have the words, but we top of each other.

both knew exactly what we were choking on. There

“The students called a strike. They took over the were so many things I wanted to tell her in that campus and Main Street. The cops were everywhere moment. Feelings worked themselves up to my throat in riot gear. I stuck around but the tear gas got so bad I couldn’t see. My friend Irma found me and drove I kissed Theresa’s sweaty forehead. “It’s OK,”

me home. Looks like I’m not going to work for a

I whispered. “It’ll be alright.” We both smiled at the while.”

irony of my words. I took her hand and led her back I shook my head in amazement. “Won’t you get

to our bed. The sheets were cool. The night sky was in trouble if you don’t punch in?”

Theresa smiled and patted my cheek. “Would

soft and caring.

Stone Butch Blues 147

you cross a picket line?” she asked me. “Come into I listened to her. “I don’t feel it so much,” I told the kitchen, I want to show you something.”

her. “Maybe ’cause I’m a butch.”

I made coffee while Theresa unrolled something

She kissed my forehead. “Butches need women’s

she’d brought home. “Which of these posters do you liberation, too.”

like better?” Theresa asked me.

I laughed. “We do?”

I held one up. “Do you know what this looks

Theresa nodded. “Yes, you do. Anything that’s

like?”

good for women is good for butches.”

Theresa nodded. “That’s what it is.”

“Yeah,” she said. “And another thing.”

I did a double take. “Aren’t there laws against

I sighed wearily. “Uh-oh.”

that?”

Theresa smiled. “When a woman tells me, ‘If I

Theresa laughed gently. “What a prude! What

wanted a man I’d be with a real one,’ I tell her, ‘I’m about this one?” It was a picture of two naked

not with a fake man, I’m with a real butch.’” I beamed women wrapped in each other’s arms. I read the

with pride. “But,” Theresa added, “that doesn’t mean words out loud: “Sisterhood—make it real. What does that butches can’t learn a thing or two from the that mean?”

women’s movement about how to respect femmes.”

I slid Theresa off my lap. “Hey, what are you

women need to stick together. Can we put it up on talking about?” I got up and started washing dishes.

the wall?”

She turned me around by my shoulder. “I

I shrugged. “Sure, I guess. You’re really getting mean,” she continued, “that it’s time for women to into this women’s lib stuff, aren’t you?”

start looking at how we treat each other. Femmes Theresa sat me on a kitchen chair and plopped

need to work on it with each other, too.”

down on my lap. She pushed the hair out of my

It was a momentary reprieve, but I took it.

eyes. “Yeah,” she said, “I am. I’m realizing a lot of

“What do femmes need to learn?”

things about my own life—about being a woman—

Theresa thought for a moment. “How to stick

that I never even thought about until the women’s together. How to be loyal to each other.”

movement.”

“Hmm.” I weighed the information. “OK, what

148 Leslie Feinberg

do butches need to learn?”

Theresa pushed me back against the sink. “The

next time all you butches are sitting around talking at Surprise!

the bar, listen to how many times you hear the words

“Happy birthday, honey,” Theresa beamed. The

chicks or broads or hooters or headlights.”

smile faded from her face. She held my head gently Theresa leaned her body against me.

and turned it. The cut over my eye looked worse than

“Honey? You know how sometimes you say ‘I’ll

it really was.

never understand women’? Well, think about it,

Theresa calmly took me by the hand. “C’mon,

sweetheart—you are a woman. So what are you really let’s clean that up.” I sat on the toilet seat. She dabbed saying? It’s sort of like a gun with a barrel that’s at the cut. “What happened?”

open on both ends. When you shoot it, you end up I shrugged. “Three guys outside the 7-11. They

wounding yourself at the same time.”

were drunk.”

I turned and washed dishes in silence. Theresa

“Are you OK?” she asked.

wrapped her arms around me. “Honey?” she nudged.

I smiled. “Yes and no.”

“I’m listening. I’ll think about it.” I paused

She taped over the cut with two bandaids.

for a long moment. “Hey, wait a minute.” I turned

“Maybe this party wasn’t such a good idea,” she

around and faced her. “I’m not the one who says I’ll sighed.

never understand women. I say I’ll never understand I grabbed her hand. “What? All the people I love femmes.”

in one room when I need them?”

Theresa kissed my forehead. She lifted my hand

the belt loop on my jeans and pulled my pelvis against and turned it over. My knuckles were bloody and

hers.

swollen. She smiled. “Right on, honey! I hope you

“Oh, baby,” she whispered seductively, “you’re

fucked ’em up good.”

right about that.”

I shrugged. “It was three against one, but they

were really, really drunk. I did the best I could.”

Theresa pulled my face gently against her

Stone Butch Blues 149

belly. She kissed my hair and smoothed it with her

“Hey,” Grant shouted at us. “You’re all standing in front of the refrigerator. What do I have to do to It was a great party. The mood was no longer

get a beer around here?”

boisterous, but we could each taste and feel how

“You have to give me a hug,” I demanded.

much we meant to each other.

“Oh, c’mere,” she laughed and put her arm

around me. “Now gimme a beer.”

got out two beers and offered her one. “You alright?”

I could hear the sound of Tammy Wynette’s

she asked.

voice singing “Stand By Your Man.” I found Theresa I wanted to tell her that I didn’t think I was

in the living room and reached out my hand to her.

alright at all. It was so hard to be different. The Her body settled against mine. We moved together pressure never let up for a minute. I felt all messed up inside and bone weary. That’s what I wanted to tell of my hair. I pulled her close, asking her body for her. But the words wouldn’t come.

comfort. She gave it to me. Her arms felt like the only I shrugged. “I’m twenty-one today and I feel

safe haven on earth. “Baby,” she whispered, “are you old.”

OK?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I’m alright.”

been through a lot. There’s some age you can’t count by years. You know how they cut a slice from a tree and count the rings? You got a lot of rings inside that trunk of yours. You know what? I think it’s time

“Hi, honey,” Theresa stood in the kitchen door.

I stopped calling you kid. You stopped being a kid a I crossed my arms. “Dinner’s ruined.” Theresa

long time ago.”

came toward me with her arms extended. I ducked

I nodded. Ed came up behind me and slid her

them. “Where were you?”

arm across my shoulder. “Happy birthday, buddy.”

“Oh, baby,” Theresa kissed my neck. “You

I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her forgot I was going to that meeting tonight after work, close.

didn’t you?”

150 Leslie Feinberg

“What meeting?” I pouted. “You still trying

“Are you crazy?” she shouted. “We’re gonna go

nuts if we don’t get out of here. We never go out, we home, as was intended.

never do anything.”

“No, it was to raise support for the Indians

I slumped at the kitchen table. “It’s getting too at Wounded Knee. I would have thought you’d be

scary out there, Theresa. It feels like it’s getting worse.

sympathetic to that.” Theresa scored a direct hit. She I hate to even go outside anymore.”

softened her tone. “Still no work, baby?”

Theresa sat down at the kitchen table. “You’re

I shook my head. “Nothing. I never thought the

depressed, that’s all. That’s just another reason why jobs would dry up for this long. My unemployment we need to get away from here.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “I’m telling Theresa nodded and stroked my hair. “We’ll

you, it’s getting worse out there.”

manage.”

Theresa slapped the tabletop. “It’s always been

“Not if you keep ruining the dinners I’m

hard. When has it ever been easier?”

cooking you. See if I slave over a hot stove for you

“I don’t fucking believe it!” I shouted. “I’m

anymore.”

trying to tell you I can’t take it anymore, and you’re

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” she whispered. “It’ll saying I’m going under?”

be OK. You’ll get a job soon, you’ll see.”

Theresa leaned back in her chair and searched

She was wrong. By 1973 it seemed as though

everyone we knew was laid off.

going under.” The words echoed in the silence of the Theresa lost her job at the university. That

kitchen. I stood up and walked toward the bedroom.

dashed our hopes of taking a vacation together—and we sure needed it. The months of me scouring for

“To bed,” I told her. “I’m really tired.”

work and money getting tighter were taking their toll on us. We had to get away, but all our escape routes seemed blocked.

“I don’t even want to go on vacation,” I told

Theresa.

Stone Butch Blues 151

When I arrived at the temp agency at dawn, I saw passed them, the dark-haired man hurled an empty two men leaning up against the entrance to the labor pint bottle of rum at my feet. I fell backward, against the brick wall, startled.

“Hey, bulldagger,” the dark-haired man called to

“You fucking he-shes. You stole our jobs,” he

me. His friend laughed. They were both drunk. There shouted as I hurried away. I wondered who I could must not be any jobs inside again.

blame.

The blond man squeezed his crotch. “I got some

That night I awoke from a dream. Moonlight

work here for you, bulldagger. It’s a big job, you think illuminated our bedroom. I wanted to go back to the you can handle it?” I pushed past their laughter.

dream, but I was wide awake. I was still immersed in

“Hi, Sammy.” I called out to the dispatcher.

the feel of it.

He smiled apologetically. “You want to wait

In the dream I was walking through a town. All the people. No dogs barked. Everything was silent.

one of the guys.

I looked around at the men who were waiting

trail of wispy smoke in the sky above the forest. I found a hut in cigarettes burning dangerously close to their tobacco-anger. I had done nothing to them, but at the moment All the drag queens were there: Justine and Peaches and I was the nearest person to hate.

Georgetta. Butch Al was there, and Ed. There were a few other

“Naw, Sammy. Call me later if you got anything.

people nearby, but shadows covered their faces. I discovered Rocco OK?”

sitting next to me. She reached forward and stroked my cheek. I Sammy nodded and waved. “Maybe tomorrow,

touched my own face. I felt the rough stubble of beard. I ran my

“Yeah, maybe tomorrow.”

comfortable among friends.

I began to shore myself up to walk past the two

“Where’s the others?” I asked.

men who I knew were waiting for me outside. As I 152 Leslie Feinberg

Justine nodded. “Everyone’s going in different directions.”

and Georgetta. And Rocco was sitting next to me.” I didn’t know how to describe the feeling of the dream other again.”

to Theresa. “I felt like I belonged with them, you know?”

you worry.”

I could feel Theresa’s hand sweep once gently

I leaned forward and squeezed Peaches’ hand in mine.

across the back of my T-shirt, then she began to drift

“Please don’t forget me. Please don’t any of you forget me. I don’t back to sleep. “Theresa,” I shook her, insistently. She want to disappear.”

moaned. “I forgot to tell you this part. In the dream Peaches put her arm around my shoulder and pul ed me closer. “You’re one of us, child. You always will be.”

happy. It was like a part of me that I can’t explain, I felt panicky. “Do I really belong here with you?”

you know?”

Affectionate laughter rose to answer my question. One by one Theresa shook her head. “What’s it mean,

each person in the hut hugged me. I felt safe and loved in their honey?”

arms.

I crushed my cigarette. “It was about something

I looked up. The hut had no roof. The stars winked on old in me. It was about growing up different. All my life I didn’t want to feel different. But in the dream I liked it and I was with other people who were

pleasure.

different like me.”

“Where’s Theresa?” I asked.

Theresa nodded. “But you told me that’s how

I woke up without hearing the answer.

you felt when you found the bars.”

“Honey, wake up. Please.” I shook Theresa

I thought about it for a moment. “That’s true. It gently.

was like that. But in the dream it wasn’t about being She lifted her head off the pillow. “What is it, gay. It was about being a man or a woman. Do you know what I mean? I always feel like I have to prove

“I just had this really amazing dream.” Theresa

I’m like other women, but in the dream I didn’t feel rubbed her eyes. “I was in a place that felt very old, that way. I’m not even sure I felt like a woman.”

Stone Butch Blues 153

The moonlight illuminated Theresa’s frown.

It was like Halloween, only it was creepy and painful.

“Did you feel like a man?”

The wigs made us look like we were making fun of I shook my head. “No. That’s the strange part.

ourselves.

I didn’t feel like a woman or a man, and I liked how I Grant told me, “I put one on, now it’s your turn, was different.”

Theresa didn’t respond right away. “You’re going mirror for me to see.

“Yeah, but what do you think about my dream?”

he-she with the wig on than with a goddamn DA.”

Theresa tossed a pillow at me. “I think we

“Well, have it your own damn way,” Grant yelled.

should go back to sleep.”

“Leave me alone, Grant,” I shouted back at her.

Whatever kind of response I’d wanted from

“You think you’re the only one who’s scared?”

Theresa, that wasn’t it. But the subject wasn’t put to Grant faced me nose to nose. “What the fuck

rest so easily.

am I gonna do if I get evicted, huh?”

Toward the end of the summer Edwin and

If it works for you then do it. But nobody’s gonna hire me with that fucking wig on. And makeup’s not Katie, looked real uncomfortable, like they’d been gonna do it, either. I need a bushel basket to hide who I am.”

“This is a real crisis,” Grant stressed. “We either got to change how we look or we’re gonna starve to death! Katie got some wigs and some makeup. There’s grudgingly shook hands.

“Honey,” I said to Theresa, “if you don’t mind, don’t know about you, but I need work. It’s only for a while, until the plants reopen.” Katie and Theresa grab a couple of beers, OK?” I knew Theresa wanted retreated to the kitchen.

me to stay, but Katie was real upset, too, so Theresa Four stone butches trying on fashion wigs.

just nodded.

154 Leslie Feinberg

The four of us sat in silence around the table Edwin glared at Grant. “He asked us to call him

in the backroom of a neighborhood bar on the West he—remember? We ought to do it.”

didn’t look at each other. We stared at our beer bottles as though the answers we searched for could be

was a guy even when he was little. I’m not a guy.”

found there.

Grant leaned forward. “How do you know that?

“I’ve been dreaming a lot lately,” I said. “I had How do you know we aren’t? We aren’t real women

this nightmare last night that I was being chased by are we?”

something to the edge of a cliff. I’m scared of what’s Edwin shook her head. “I don’t know what the

coming behind me; I don’t know what’s ahead of me.

hell I am.”

And suddenly I decide I’d rather jump than wait for it I leaned over and put my arm around her

to catch up to me.”

shoulder. “You’re my friend.”

“What’s it mean?” Grant asked me.

Ed laughed sardonically. “Oh, great. Like I can

“You know,” I told her.

really pay my rent with that.”

Grant shrugged. “I know how it feels. I don’t

I smacked her on the shoulder. “Fuck you.”

know what it means.”

Grant went to the bar to get another round of

I looked at Ed. She knew what I was talking

about. I knew she did. “I’ve been thinking about opened the door marked Ladies. No women ran out, Rocco,” I said.

was OK.

to scrape the label off her beer bottle. “I knew that’s Ed punched me on the shoulder. “I’m sorry,”

what you were talking about.”

she said.

I nodded. “I can’t help thinking maybe I’d be

“How long we been friends, Ed?” She dropped

safe, you know?” Ed still wouldn’t look at me.

her eyes. “So how come you can’t tell me what’s going Grant nodded. “God help me, I’ve been thinking

about it, too. You know Ginni? She got on a sex-

won’t talk to me.”

Stone Butch Blues 155

Ed shrugged. “I feel ashamed.”

I thumped the table in frustration. “I wish I

“Ashamed you’re doing it, or just ashamed?”

could talk to Rocco. Does anybody know where she Grant came back to the table balancing four

is?” Heads shook no. “What happens? Does it just last for a little while? I mean can you go back to being eyes over and over again.

a butch later, when it’s safe to come out?”

“What’s going on?” Grant asked.

Grant smiled sadly. “I saw this movie once.

I looked at Ed. “It’s no shame,” I told her.

It was about this guy with a disease there was no Ed nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

cure for. So these scientists froze him. Later in the

“We’re all at this same crossroads, not just you,”

future they found a cure for the disease so these I reminded her. “If you can’t open up to your friend, other doctors brought him back and cured him. The who the hell can you talk to?”

Ed sighed. “I know I’ve got to talk about it.”

anymore.”

“Will somebody tell me what the hell’s going on

I fought back tears. “Yeah, but we’re not sick.”

around here?” Grant wailed.

Ed sighed. “I started on male hormones. I got

you think it’ll ever be safe again? It may be over for them from this creepy quack.”

people like us. We may be stuck out here forever.”

“Holy shit,” Grant said. “Wow. Hey, how the hell move out to Olean with her and her husband. They run a little dairy. The thing is, they said it’s only OK if a little bit. I can hear it. Besides, I oughta know, I’m I move out there alone, without Katie. They said they wrestling with the same shit myself.”

don’t want their daughters to see anything perverted.”

the music playing on the jukebox. “Hey, Ed. Can

fucking years old and my little sister’s treating me like you give me the name of that doctor? I’m not saying she’s my mother. It’s not right. None of this is right.”

I’m gonna do anything. I wouldn’t mind having

I nodded. “What are you gonna do?”

some options, though. You know what I mean?” Ed

She shrugged. “I don’t know yet.” She put her

nodded.

arm around my shoulder. “I’m supposed to be the old 156 Leslie Feinberg

bull. But now I wish I had someone older to talk to.

Ed sighed and jotted his name and address on a

I wish Butch Ro was still alive. She’d know what we bar napkin. “Good luck,” she said.

should do.”

I punched her shoulder lightly. “Thanks. I need

it.”

any of us knows what to do.”

It wasn’t right, how long I had stayed out. I

Grant stood up. “I’m going to buy a case of beer came home tanked up, not expecting Theresa to be and go home to watch TV. You guys wanna come

waiting for me. She sat so quietly on the couch in the dark I nearly went through the roof when she spoke.

Ed put on her jacket. “Hey, Ed,” I told her. “We

“Where have you been?” Something in her voice

gotta talk, man. If you don’t talk you’ll explode. And I frightened me.

really got to talk to you. I’m scared, Ed.”

I sat on the couch near her. I wanted to touch

her but I began to realize how angry she was with me.

“Remember that book I gave you?”

After a while she reached out and brought my full I hoped she wouldn’t quiz me on it. I’d

weight against her. She was more upset than mad.

appreciated the gift, but I hadn’t read it. “Yeah. The

“I’m sorry, baby, really,” I told her. “I was only book by Du Bois?”

thinking about myself and I’m sorry.”

Ed nodded. “There’s this paragraph I marked for

She nodded. “Where have you been?”

you. I carry it in my wallet. Read it. That’s how I feel.

I didn’t answer for a long time. I was drunk and I couldn’t say it any better.”

confused. “I know where I’ve been, I just don’t know I stood so close to her I could smell the delicate where I’m going.” It was all I could think to say.

scent of her skin and her hair. “Ed,” I whispered. “I She looked at my face, trying to read all my

don’t want to lose you. You’re my friend. I love you so thoughts and feelings. I don’t know if she found what much.”

she was looking for, but afterward she stroked my head.

said. “I’ll call you.”

“You remember I told you about Butch Al and

“Ed, um, what about the name of that doctor?”

feel like I’m going under, too.”

Stone Butch Blues 157

Theresa looked at me. She seemed calm and emotional rock, when I completely shut down like a worried at the same time.

slab of granite and needed her to chip away until I was free, she railed against me. It didn’t work. I was night,” I explained.

still trapped in stone.

“Seems like it,” Theresa smiled. “What’d you talk

“Talk to me,” she shouted.

about?”

“I’m watching TV!” I lied.

“Honey, I can’t survive as a he-she much longer.

She got up and stood in front of the television.

I can’t keep taking the system head-on this way. I’m

“You’re not talking to me.”

not gonna make it.” Theresa held me tighter. She I exhaled dramatically in exasperation. “Fine.

didn’t say a word. “We were talking about maybe

Now you want to talk. Great. Let’s talk.” My tone was starting on hormones, male hormones. I was thinking I might try to pass as a guy.”

“Never mind,” Theresa stormed out of the

I waited for Theresa to speak. I could hear her

room.

breathing, deep and even. I stroked her shoulder and I continued to stare at the television. She banged the bedroom door. Now both our doors were shut.

muscle. “Honey, we’ve got to talk about it,” I said.

I snapped off the television and smoked in silence.

She sat in silence with me for a long time. Then she The stone walls around me melted, leaving me feeling got up without a word and went to bed.

vulnerable and raw. Now that Theresa had retreated from her frontal assault, I remembered how much I needed her.

Suddenly I panicked. Maybe I’d already lost her, For weeks we didn’t talk about it. We didn’t talk much but I just didn’t realize it. I got up and walked slowly at all. But we found little things to argue about, small toward the bedroom. Theresa opened the bedroom

explosions that threatened to ignite big ones.

door and walked toward me. We embraced each other When I shut down sexually, Theresa could

feverishly. “I’m sorry, baby,” I told her. “When I get always melt my stone. But when I turned into one big like that I don’t know how to get out of it.”

158 Leslie Feinberg

I leaned forward. “But I’ve listened. They don’t I’m sorry too.”

call the Saturday-night butches he-shes. It means I could hear the faint strains of Marvin Gaye on something. It’s a way we’re different. It doesn’t just someone’s radio outside. “You know what I wish?” I mean we’re … lesbians.”

asked her. “I wish there was still a gay bar where we Theresa frowned. “What’s the matter?”

could go dancing, like we used to.”

I shrugged. “Nothing, I just never said that word Theresa sighed. “They have lesbian dances on

before. It sounds so easy when you say it. But to me it campus. I wish we could go there. I wish we could go sounds too much like lezzie and lesbo. That’s a tough somewhere and be welcome.”

word for me to wrap my tongue around.” Theresa

We held each other and swayed to the sound.

and I smiled at each other in spite of ourselves.

Theresa pulled slightly away from me. She looked me

“Honey,” my tone had changed, “I’ve got to do

my belt. She gently pulled me toward our bedroom.

all my life. I’m tired. I just don’t know how to go on Let’s get it on, she sang quietly.

anymore. This is the only way I can think of I can still We fought and we made love in order to make

be me and survive. I just don’t know any other way.”

up. It became an alarming pattern.

Theresa sat back in her chair. “I’m a woman,

up my mind when I was growing up that I was not

going to betray my desire by resigning myself to

“You’re a woman!” Theresa shouted at breakfast. She marrying a dirt farmer or the boy at the service pushed her plate away. Her part-time temp work had station. Do you understand?”

put that meal on the table.

I shook my head sadly. “Do you wish I wasn’t a

“No, I’m not,” I yelled back to her. “I’m a he-

butch?”

she. That’s different.”

She smiled. “No. I love your butchness. I just

Theresa slapped the table in anger. “That’s a

don’t want to be some man’s wife, even if that man’s a terrible word. They call you that to hurt you.”

woman.”

Stone Butch Blues 159

I turned up my palms. “Then what should I do?”

mouth until she made small sounds of desire I

She shook her head. “I just don’t know.”

recognized.

Theresa asked me to pick up our dry cleaning

and to go grocery shopping while she was at work.

“What are you doing in my garden?”

But the moment she left the house, I felt lost. I wandered into the backyard and knelt down beside

“Did you pick up the dry cleaning?” she asked.

Theresa’s garden.

“Or the groceries?” I shook my head. “Have you been By the time the sun was directly overhead I was

sitting there all day?” I nodded.

sitting between the rows of squash blossoms and tomato vines. This garden was a part of Theresa I walked away. “I could use a little help around here.”

didn’t know. And I began to realize this little patch of ground was a postage-stamp memory of the country soil in which she’d grown. Where was I when Theresa had planted this garden in the spring? Now it was Ed and I kept an eye on the guys near us at the bar.

overrun.

“What’s it like, Ed?” I pressed.

I thought about the way things grow in their

She shrugged. “It’s not much different. Not yet, seasons and how much takes place underground. I

anyway.” Her voice had deepened. She had wispy

thought about the things a gardener can’t control, like facial hair.

weather and critters.

“Can you pass?” I asked her.

The sound of Theresa’s footsteps in the grass

Ed shook her head. “It’s like I’m not taken for a behind me was familiar, but it startled me nonetheless.

man or a woman anymore. They see me as something I hadn’t realized it was late afternoon.

in between. That’s scary. I wish I could hurry up and I remembered earlier in the summer I’d found

get to the part where they just think I’m a man.”

“But Ed, people always act like we’re half-

heat. I laid her down in the grass nearby and pressed woman, half-man.”

her body into the dirt with my hips and kissed her

“It’s true. But now they don’t know what I am

160 Leslie Feinberg

doesn’t change soon, I can’t take it much longer. I’m you kiss me goodbye at the door I get so mad at you doubling the shots of hormones just to try to make it because you act like I’m coming home for sure and I work faster.”

want you to say goodbye to me like we might never I put my hand on her shoulder. Two men turned

see each other again.”

and looked at us. I dropped my hand. “How’s Darlene I bit my lower lip. “I don’t feel like I’m worth dealing with it?”

anything. It’s only when you love me that I feel worth Ed slowly turned her face toward me. The

anything at all. And I’m afraid I’m losing you. What sadness in her eyes frightened me. “We don’t talk would I do if you left me?”

about it,” Ed said.

I tried to cry quietly, so I wouldn’t wake her.

I shook my head in disbelief. “You don’t talk

“I’m so sorry for the times I’ve been such a jerk. But about it? How can you ignore something that big?

I love you so much. Maybe too much. Please don’t Wait a minute, what am I talking about? Theresa and I leave me, baby. Please don’t go.”

aren’t exactly communicating either.”

Theresa rolled over and touched my face. I

Ed and I sat in silence, nursing our beers. I felt Theresa’s voice was hoarse with sleep.

with men. It was time to leave.

“No, honey,” I stroked her hair and kissed her

“You know the worst part of not talking to

cheek. “Go back to sleep.”

Theresa,” I said to Ed as we parted, “I really don’t even know what it is I want to say.”

Theresa was already asleep when I got home that

night. I crawled into bed and curled up against her.

Theresa watched me from the kitchen doorway as I

“Theresa,” I whispered, “there’s so many things I’ve repotted the spider plant. “There’s a bigger pot under been trying to tell you, but I don’t know how.”

the sink,” she reminded me.

She sighed in her sleep. “I get this feeling that I shook my head. “This one does better when it’s rootbound. The more pressure on its roots, the more life won’t have meant anything. Some days when

it thrives.”

Stone Butch Blues 161

Theresa came up behind me and wrapped her me inside. Maybe I’m like the plant: my feelings got arms around my waist. “Is that like us, honey?” I so choked up that I grew in a different way.”

didn’t answer. Theresa turned me around to face her.

Theresa smiled as she weighed the thought.

I couldn’t look her in the eyes. “What is it, baby?” she

“Yeah, maybe it’s what makes you so sensitive to pressed.

other people’s feelings. Sometimes you see so much I shrugged. “I don’t think I have feelings like

about people that it used to make me feel naked

other people do. Sometimes you want me to talk to around you.”

I sighed. “Why do feelings have to be such a big other people inside. Maybe I don’t have real feelings.”

deal?”

Theresa smiled. “You mean your feelings, honey.

on my shoulder and pulled me close. “Sit down,

You always treat other people’s feelings like they’re baby,” she sighed. She pulled a kitchen chair close to a big deal. It’s a hard place for you, sweetheart. But mine. “Oh, you have feelings, honey. I think you can don’t leave me out here alone.”

feel love, maybe more than other people.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

She took my hands in hers. “There’s so much

“I mean,” Theresa said gently, “that I have

going on in your heart it scares me sometimes

feelings about what happens to us, too. And you’re because I’m afraid you’ll explode if you don’t have the only person I can really go to about them, and some sort of safety valve. I think anger is real hard sometimes you’re not home. Remember last year

for you. Maybe your own rage scares you. And I think when we went to buy you a new suit?” she asked. I humiliation is a rough feeling for anyone to deal with, winced in pain and turned away from the memory.

and I think you feel that way a lot.”

I almost couldn’t stand to listen to her words.

nightmare. I was there too, remember? We both felt My temperature rose and I felt dizzy. Theresa pulled humiliated. When we got home there was nobody

me closer and brushed my cheek with her lips. “Take in the world for me to turn to about it except you.

it easy, honey,” she whispered.

But you had already shut down, and I knew it would I pulled back. “But maybe I don’t have feelings

be days or weeks before you relaxed again. I needed like other people. Maybe the way I grew up changed you.”

162 Leslie Feinberg

I stared at my hands, clasped loosely on my lap.

Theresa leaned back against the chair, the

“You know how I feel sometimes, Theresa? Like I

warmth in her face cooled. “I put on lipstick and high don’t have anything to give you. I would give you heels and walk down the street arm in arm with you, anything that was in my power, but I don’t feel like I have gifts for you. I mean that. You’re the strong one, I love. Don’t try to take who I am away from me.”

you’re the one who holds everything together, you get My chin trembled. “Well, what do you think’s

us through. All I can do is make love to you.”

being taken away from me? What the fuck am I going to do, Theresa? Tell me, what can I do?”

And please, please try to let me in sometimes.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you what I’ve been

wrestling with lately, but you haven’t wanted to talk know anymore.”

about it.” I shrugged. “I can’t go on much longer without something changing.”

be with a butch. And I’m starting to feel like part of Theresa and I sat on the couch together for a long the women’s movement, even though I can’t be all time without talking. We were both worn down and the parts of who I am at the same time. My world’s weary from months of low-level arguing and distance.

expanding.”

“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?” she

“Great,” I snorted. “Mine’s shrinking. But the

asked. I knew her tone was colder than she meant it hormones are like the looking glass for me. If I pass to sound.

through it, my world could open up, too.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I sorted through hundreds of

Theresa shook her head. “I don’t want to be

options.” I hadn’t meant to sound so sarcastic. “God, Theresa, I’m so scared. I don’t want to die and I don’t

“I’d still be a butch,” I protested. “Even on

know how to live. I’m really afraid.”

hormones.” Then I said something I really feared, but Theresa pulled me close. She squeezed me so

regretted having spoken out loud. “Maybe you’d like it tight I could hardly breathe. “I’d do anything to be if I was a guy. It would be easier to be with me.”

Stone Butch Blues 163

strong enough to protect you,” she said. “I’d do you saying? You won’t stay with me? Why? That’s how anything if I could only keep you safe with me.” She much you love me?”

Theresa stood up and moved toward me.

understand what you’re saying. I just don’t want to

“Please, honey. I can’t. I just can’t stay with you if you admit that I think you’re right.”

do this.”

I was relieved. I tried to hug her, but her body Rage boiled in my throat. “If you loved me … ”

was limp. I pulled back to examine her face. She Theresa’s face was cold and angry. “Don’t you

wasn’t done talking yet.

ever say that to me again.”

“I’m scared, too,” she continued. “If I’m not

with a butch everyone just assumes I’m straight. It’s isn’t it?”

like I’m passing too, against my will. I’m sick of the All the steam leaked out of me when Theresa

world thinking I’m straight. I’ve worked hard to be started to cry. She buried her face in my neck. “It discriminated against as a lesbian.” We both smiled.

doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I love you so much I

“You’ve made your decision,” she said, “I

don’t know what to do. I just can’t go with you. I’m know you have. I’m not really surprised. I’ve been trying to understand you. Can’t you try to understand me?”

down her face. I tried to wipe them, but she pushed I shook my head. “How come nobody ever gives

my hands back and held them tightly in her own.

me any choices in life? I can’t go on living this way, but you won’t go through the only door that’s open world and pretend that you’re a man. I can’t pass as for me. Thanks a lot.”

a straight woman and be happy. I can’t live as the Theresa punched me hard in the shoulder. I

scared couple in apartment 3G who can’t trust people grabbed her wrists. We struggled until we fell wearily enough to have friends. I can’t live like a fugitive with against each other. We sat down next to each other on the couch. “I don’t know how else you’ll survive,”

understand, sweetheart.”

Theresa said. “I just can’t do it.” My throat tightened.

I pulled away from her. “What are you saying?”

I hoped I could change her mind. “Don’t try to

She just shook her head. I stood up slowly. “What are 164 Leslie Feinberg

change my mind,” she added. She always could read

“When do you want me to leave?”

mine. “And I won’t try to change yours, OK?”

“Tonight,” Theresa said, and she broke down

I looked at her incredulously. “Please, honey,

and sobbed. I held her tightly in my arms, for the last don’t leave me now. I’m scared. It’s too hard. Please!”

time.

Theresa jumped to her feet. “Stop it,” she

She was right. Once we both understood that we

demanded. It hurt her too much. I pulled myself back couldn’t continue, I had to leave. The pain was already in.

unbearable. Theresa stroked my face and repeated, “I I went over to her and gently turned her to face love you so much.” I nodded as tears streamed down me. “What do you want me to do?” I asked her.

my face. I knew it was true, but part of me raged She said it simply: “You’d better leave.”

against her for not loving me enough to stay together.

It was strange the way I loved her so much and

I went in the bedroom and stuffed some

yet felt so far away. “You’re serious?”

clothing in a backpack. I knew she would pack up my She nodded and walked over to the window, as

other things with care.

if she could see out into the darkness. “I’ll pack up Theresa walked me to our door. We couldn’t

the things you need. Your friends will help you.”

hold back our tears, but we were trying not to sob.

I kept feeling this couldn’t be happening.

“Part of me wants to go with you,” she said. “But

“Please,” I said. “Can’t we try? I need you!”

if I did, I’d be living your life, not mine. I’d end up

“I don’t know what to do either.” Theresa told

resenting you for my decision.” She stroked my face I’m going under, too. This time we can’t rescue each skin.

other.”

the hormones and pass?”

words.”

“Then you’ll probably be killed on the street or She smiled and nodded. “Write me a letter

take your own life out of madness, I don’t know.” We someday.”

stood in silence.

“I won’t know where to send it.”

Stone Butch Blues 165

“Write it anyway,” she said.

“Is this really it?” I asked her. She nodded.

We kissed each other as deeply as we could.

Then we parted physically. I walked outside the door and turned to look back at her. She smiled, almost apologetically. I nodded. She closed the door.

Suddenly I thought of things I needed to say to her, but I knew she didn’t need to hear them just then.

I sat on the landing for a while. But it occurred to me Theresa might call a friend to console her and I didn’t want to be on our stairs.

I went downstairs and out into the backyard. I

overturned a wooden milk crate and sat down on it.

The sky was black and strewn with stars. I felt alone on the planet. I was so scared I could hardly breathe.

I didn’t know where I was headed. I didn’t know what direction to begin walking.

I sat on that crate all night long, looking up into the sky. Sometimes I cried, sometimes I just sat. I strained to look into my future, trying to picture the road ahead of me, searching for a glimpse of who I would become.

All I could see was the night sky and the stars

above me.

166 Leslie Feinberg

14

THE NIGHT SKY LIGHTENED FROM black to

Wet denim stretched taut and cold across my thighs.

indigo. I was still sitting on the crate in our backyard.

Every street corner was a new crisis. Turn left? Turn Soon the sun would rise. I didn’t want to be there right? Go straight?

when Theresa and the rest of the world began their day.

I swung my leg over my Norton and kick-started

answer. I didn’t want to call Ed this early because it. As the engine roared to life between my legs, I Darlene would be sleeping.

Now this was the place I found my mobility and my walked up and down the aisles eating them. My jeans safety—on this bike, under this helmet.

stuck to my legs as I moved. I followed women who As dawn streaked the sky I rode through a

maze of silent city streets. Mist clung to the asphalt, Those who stared at me made sure I registered

suspended like smoke. A light rain began to fall. I their disgust before they turned away. I did.

rode into my own future as though it was only a

dream. Rain fell harder, pelting me. Water beaded on a woman who looked familiar. One child wound

my helmet, ran in little rivulets down the back of my around her legs. The other held her hand and stared neck, and soaked my shirt beneath my leather jacket.

at me. “It’s me—Gloria. Remember? We worked

together at the print shop. You used to work there joking.” I complained to the attendant when I saw after school.”

how much a tankful cost.

I nodded, but my mind felt swaddled in gauze.

“Don’t blame me,” he said. “Blame the Arabs.

I tried to follow her words as they shot past me: They got us by the balls.”

Gloria was divorced, the foreman put the moves on

“Oh, c’mon,” I told him, pointing to the river.

her, she quit. What was happening with me?

“There’s tankers full of oil anchored out there just Her last question startled me. I shrugged. “I’m

waiting for the prices to shoot sky high.” I knew—I’d tried to get the temp agency to send me out there to work and get an apartment. By the way,” I told her, clean the ballast holds, but the agency said it was a

“I’ve always wanted to thank you for giving me the man’s job.

names of those bars. It changed my life.”

Once I got on I-190 headed north I really

Gloria glanced nervously at her children. “This

opened up the throttle, hearing everything I was feeling in the engine’s growl.

Mommy used to work together.”

Late in the afternoon I headed back to the city.

Scotty hid behind Gloria’s legs. Kim maintained

I stopped at a West Side pizzeria for chicken wings. I her slack-jaw stare. Her gaze unnerved me, but there stood at the counter growing impatient, but the man behind it wouldn’t wait on me. I turned around to see exploding in a dark sky.

staring at me.

“You can stay with us tonight, if you have no

I rapped on the counter. “Excuse me.”

place to go. On the couch, I mean.” Gloria gave me

“What do we have here?” I heard a man’s voice

her address. “After 7:30,” she said, “after I put the behind me say. It was time to leave.

kids to bed.” That left a long time to kill.

One of the guys blocked the only exit. I pushed I stopped for gas. The line of cars snaked down past him real hard and ran outside to the parking lot.

the block. Newspaper headlines blaring about a

I jumped on my bike, but it was too late. They were gas shortage had panicked everyone. “You must be almost on top of me. My bike toppled as I leaped 168 Leslie Feinberg

off it. I left it lying on the asphalt and ran. My lungs Theresa broke up, too.” We sat in silence. I had no ached as though they might explode, but I didn’t stop wheels to get to her. “Can you pick me up, Ed?”

“Darlene took the car,” Ed said.

a tree, gasping for air. I wondered when it would be

“She took the car? It was that bad?”

safe to return for my bike.

Ed sounded the same way I felt. Numb and

It was almost dusk when I went back. I stood

detached. “No, I gave her the car to take.” Gloria across the street from the restaurant. I couldn’t see caught my eye and looked at her watch.

anyone inside except the guy behind the counter. I

“Ed, I got no bike. I’ll tell you what happened

found my Norton in the parking lot. There wasn’t later. I’ll call you, OK? Hang on. Are you alright?” I’m much on the bike that wasn’t smashed or twisted.

not sure what she answered.

They must have worked it over with a tire iron or a Gloria called her girlfriend. I could hear her

baseball bat. I wondered how they had shredded the crying softly in the kitchen as they talked.

thick rubber tires.

I lay down on the couch. I’d spent a lot of

I knew it was only a motorcycle, but I felt like my life on other people’s couches. I hadn’t really let a ghost looking down at my own mutilated body on myself feel anything about breaking up with Theresa the asphalt. I walked away from the wreckage. It was until that moment. I almost cried out loud, but I beyond salvation.

clamped my emotions like a tourniquet. I had no

It took me forever to get out to Gloria’s house.

privacy here, no space anywhere in the world where it You could die before a bus comes in Buffalo. I didn’t was safe to grieve, so I pushed it down and found the tell her what happened, it was already awkward

only escape route open to me: sleep.

between us. I asked if I could use her phone. She said I awoke to the slam-bam sounds of cartoons.

yes, if I wasn’t on too long. She was expecting a call.

My eyes burned. They felt swollen shut. Kim and

I rang up Edwin. Her voice sounded hollow and

distant. Darlene had packed her things and moved slept on. Kim glanced over her shoulder at me.

out.

“Is he awake?” Scotty asked.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” I told Ed. “Me and

“Yeah,” Kim answered, “she is.”

Stone Butch Blues 169

her, too. She works nights. I drove the kids to school in her car and picked them up so she could sleep

“You’re better off without her, kid,” Grant told me.

when she got home. Then I worked second shift. It

“She was a fucking communist.”

was perfect. I like her kids. I still take the kids out on I sucked in a deep breath of air. “Grant, don’t.

the weekend sometimes.”

I love Theresa. I’m real upset and sore right now. Be Grant grinned. “Sounds real homey.”

very careful where you push.”

“Aw, Grant. Change the subject. Hey, have you

Grant shrugged. “Well, it’s time to get over

heard from Ed?” We both looked up at each other, her and move on.” The whistle blasted. Grant and I startled. I had forgotten for a moment about the bar headed for the lunchroom through skids stacked so high with boxes they reminded me of desert buttes.

rage. I loathed the part of Grant that was so meanI was glad to have a job. The recession was

spirited and hateful.

deepening. Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors had Grant watched me remember. “Ed never liked

just announced massive layoffs.

me,” she said. “She doesn’t like me ’cause I’m white.”

Grant tipped me off about this steady temp

I shook my head. “Oh, that’s not true, Grant.

work at the box factory. We punch-cut corrugated She’s mad at you for the things you said to her the cardboard, pizza boxes—all kinds of boxes. My head night you fought her in the bar.”

hurt from the endless staccato of the jackhammers used to chisel away the trim.

sorry.”

“So did you get your own place yet?” Grant

“C’mon, Grant!” I slapped the tabletop. “What

asked.

if some guy called you a pervert or a freak and then I nodded. “Yeah. I ended up at Gloria’s for a

later he told you he was sorry he raised his voice? I month before I saved up enough money.”

don’t get it, Grant. I’ve watched you at work; you’re Grant smiled. “She let you stay that long? Maybe friendly with everybody.”

she likes you.”

Grant rubbed her eyes. “Well, sometimes

I shook my head. “Naw, it just worked out for

my mouth just doesn’t know as much as the rest

170 Leslie Feinberg

of me, especially when I’ve had a few too many.”

am really a guy and I was just born wrong. That might She shrugged. “I’m a real fuck-up sometimes.” I

explain a lot of stuff.”

wondered who Grant was under all those layers of

“So why don’t you go to the program?” I asked

hurt and anger.

her.

Grant leaned back in her chair. “Are you going

She smiled wistfully. “Because what if I’m not?

through with it?”

What if it turned out I’m something even worse than I knew what she meant—hormones. “Yeah. I

I thought? Maybe it’s better not to know.”

don’t know what else to do.”

I smiled and put my hand on top of hers. She

Grant poured me coffee from her thermos. “It

looked around and pulled her hand away. I sighed. “I would be a lot easier if we went to the sex-change don’t know what the fuck I am. I just don’t want to clinic. They give you hormones for free. The only be different anymore. There’s no place to hide. I just thing is you have to take all these tests and they want everything to stop hurting so much.”

interview your family and everything.”

The whistle blew again. Grant stood up to go

I shrugged. “Yeah, but I just want the hormones.

back to work. “I almost got enough money together And the surgery.”

for the hormones. How about you?”

Grant widened her eyes. “What kind of

I shrugged. “If we can get in a few doubles, I’ll surgery?”

have the money soon.”

I made a face. “What kind do you think? I don’t

“I’ll wait for you,” Grant said. For just a moment want to have breasts like this anymore.”

her hand rested on my shoulder.

Grant whistled low. “How do you know you’re

not a transsexual? Maybe you should go to the

I shook my head. “I’ve seen about it on TV. I

“Will you help me put together my Texaco station?”

don’t feel like a man trapped in a woman’s body. I just Scotty held up a bag full of colorful plastic pieces. I feel trapped.”

sprawled out on the rug and spread out the parts.

Grant sipped her coffee. “I don’t know. Maybe I

“How do you know where the pieces go?”

Stone Butch Blues 171

Scotty asked.

Kim shook her head. “That’s dangerous.”

I held up the instructions. “I’ve got this. It’s like I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Why don’t you

a map. It tells me this is A and this is B and these become the sunshine, Scotty? Then you could keep two go together.” They didn’t. “I mean this is A and me warm.”

maybe this is B.” They weren’t. I worked in silence.

Scotty shook his head emphatically from side to

side. “No, the wind.”

television screen. Scotty looked mournful. “I wish I Kim looked far away. “Hey, Kim?” I asked her.

had a pet rock.”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?

“A pet rock?” I laughed. “What’s that?” He

“I don’t know,” she answered.

pointed at the TV. I stroked his head. “Don’t worry,

“That’s alright,” I told her. “You don’t have to I’ll get you a really good rock.”

know now.”

Scotty rolled over on his belly and watched

Kim looked worried. “My mother says I should

me very closely. “You’re not supposed to glue them be something special when I grow up.”

together until you know where they go and you gotta I cupped her head with my hand. “You already

put a newspaper on the rug,” he advised. “You know are,” I said.

what I’m gonna be when I grow up?”

I held up a tiny gas pump and something

face.

“What?”

Gloria came home from work early, gripped

“I’m gonna be the wind.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “He’s really weird. He sits and drop the kids off at school in the morning. She outside and waits to feel the wind.”

looked green around the gills. When I urged her to go I smiled at Scotty. “That’s not weird. If you

to bed, she didn’t argue.

grow up and become the wind, I’ll take off my helmet Scotty emerged from sleep the next morning as

while I’m riding a motorcycle and you can blow

though he was stuck in glue. Kim opened her eyes, sat through my hair.”

bolt upright, and hugged me.

172 Leslie Feinberg

I cooked pancakes for breakfast. I tried to make I checked my watch. It was almost time to drive

them to school. “Well, Kim, teachers know a lot of them over the raisins sank into the batter.

things, but they don’t know everything. Finish your

“I think I found his smile,” Kim announced,

breakfast.” Kim stabbed her pancake, angry because I picking at her pancake with a fork.

hadn’t really answered her.

Scotty looked over at Kim’s plate. “That’s her

I sighed. “You know, anyone can fall in love with eye,” he said. I heard my own laughter. It reminded anyone,” I told her. “If a boy and a girl fall in love, me of spring water bubbling from the earth.

everybody’s real nice to them. But when a girl falls in

“Are you married?” Kim asked me.

love with a girl or a boy falls in love with a boy, some people make fun of them or try to beat them up. And throat tightened. “Not anymore.”

you’re right, Kim. They’re not allowed to get married Scotty nodded. “My mommy and daddy are

the same way a man and a woman can. But they really diborced.”

love each other.”

“Di-vorced,” Kim corrected him. “Who were

Kim’s forehead furrowed. I could see her mind

you married to?”

working as she chewed. “Did you ever kiss her?”

If I spoke openly with the kids would Gloria

forbid me to see them? I took a deep breath. “Her sure,” I said, as casually as I could.

name is Theresa.”

“Ewww!” Kim dropped her fork. “With your

Kim weighed the information. “Was she pretty?”

tongue? I saw Daddy stick his tongue in Mommy’s

I smiled. “Very pretty.”

mouth once. Yuck, it was disgusting.”

Kim frowned. “Wait a minute, girls can’t get

I laughed. “You don’t ever have to kiss

married to girls.”

somebody that way if you don’t want to.”

Syrup dripped slowly down Scotty’s chin. “Yes,

“I’ll never do that,” Kim declared.

they can,” he said. I wiped his chin with my thumb.

“Me either,” Scotty added.

“No, they can’t, stupid.” Kim told him. She

Kim ate in silence. When she looked up I could

looked back at me. “My teacher says boys and girls get feel the question before she asked it. “Did you love married when they grow up.”

her?”

Stone Butch Blues 173

My chin trembled. “Yes, I do.”

white, like currents in a fast-moving river.

“Then why did you get divorced?”

“Do you know what these are?” I asked the

That question hung in the air. “I don’t know,” I young woman behind the counter.

told her honestly. “I can’t explain it.”

She shrugged. “I just work here.”

On the ride to school Scotty called out the name I wanted to spend the day there. Each room off

of every brand of car that passed. Kim watched me the huge center hall was devoted to a different branch as I drove. “Was she nice?” Kim pressed. I nodded.

of science. One was named the Hall of Man—it

“Do you think she misses you?”

turned out to include women, too. There were rooms I smiled. “I hope so.”

that revealed the secrets of atoms, of universes.

It was a relief to pull up in front of their school I wished I could stay and devour all that

and kiss and hug them goodbye. As soon as I was

knowledge. I hoped somehow it would make sense

sure they were safely inside, I pressed my forehead of the world to me. But I could feel my bladder begin against the steering wheel and cried.

to ache, and the two bathrooms were in plain sight I had a car and the whole day to kill.

of the woman behind the souvenir counter. I just Scotty’s pet rock! I wanted to see if the Science couldn’t deal with it. I left the secrets of the universe Museum had a souvenir shop that sold rocks and

behind, got back in the car, and drove to Gloria’s crystals. I’d never been to the Museum before. A giant house to use the bathroom in privacy.

stuffed buffalo stared at me as I walked in. The space felt still and quiet inside the building. I found exactly what I was looking for at the gift counter. I picked out was a small cave studded with purple and milky white

“I’m scared,” she admitted.

crystals. It was a rock you could get lost in if you

“Me too. When I was a kid,” I told her, “I felt

That’s how I feel now.”

polished stone the size of my hand, swirled with Grant nodded and exhaled cigarette smoke

through her teeth. “I tell you, kid, I don’t know what’s 174 Leslie Feinberg

worse. Never knowing what it’s like to be accepted or muscle. “You give yourself one shot every two weeks.

having what little bit you had taken away, you know?”

Any questions?”

I sure did. “C’mon, let’s go,” I urged her.

“I’ve got some questions,” I said. Grant and the The doctor’s name was stenciled on the

doctor both looked startled. “Like how long before it translucent glass door. It looked dark inside. “Maybe works and are there any side effects?”

he’s not here,” Grant said.

“Well,” the doctor rolled a pencil between his

I grabbed her arm. “I’m not pushing you,” I told her, “but I’ve run out of options.”

“Why is that?” I wanted to know.

Grant sucked in her breath. I tried the door—it

“Because this is rather,” he hesitated,

was open. The doctor was in. Dr. Monroe led us to

“experimental. You may experience side effects: hair loss, weight gain, acne.” Great, I thought, just great.

“Is it dangerous?” I asked. Grant leaned forward all your diplomas?” Grant glared at me.

to hear his answer.

She addressed Dr. Monroe. “You remember I

Dr. Monroe ripped the script off the pad.

called you.”

“It’s just hormones. Your body produces hormones He looked me up and down. God, he hates us, I

naturally. Do you want this or not?” he asked, as thought to myself. He licked his lips. “I believe it was he waved it back and forth. I nodded and took it.

concerning a hormone imbalance you both share.”

He ripped off a second and handed it to Grant.

What did this guy think, that we had tape recorders She looked unsure, but she put it in her pocket. Dr.

wired to our bodies? “Did you bring the money?” he Monroe counted our money, slipped it into his desk asked. As we pulled out our wallets, Monroe pulled drawer, and bid us adieu.

out his prescription pad. “I assume you’ve given this

“One more thing,” I said. The doctor sighed

a great deal of thought,” he said, like he was really heavily. “I need a referral for breast surgery.”

concerned. We both nodded.

He scribbled on a piece of paper. “Two

He showed us how to draw one cc of male

thousand dollars,” he told me, handing me a name hormones into a syringe and stick it into the thigh and phone number.

Stone Butch Blues 175

It was over and we were back on the street.

I leaned across the table and stroked Grant’s

“C’mon.” I slapped Grant on the shoulder.

hair. “It’s gonna be OK,” I reassured her.

“We’ll go to the pharmacy, then I’ll buy you a beer.”

“Oh yeah?” she said angrily. “Bullshit. It’s

She reluctantly agreed.

different for you.”

We sat at the bar in the middle of the day. The

“Are you kidding? Why’s it any different for

bartender seemed to barely tolerate us. We each put me?”

Grant blew her nose on a bar napkin. “There’s

and vials of hormones on the bar in front of us.

things about me you don’t know. Things I can’t tell

“We’ll have two beers and two shots,” I told the anybody.”

bartender. “No pun intended,” I added as an aside to I tossed back a shot of whiskey. It burned my

Grant, but she wasn’t listening. “What’s up, Grant?”

throat and warmed me all over. “Grant,” my voice

“My whole fucking life is turning upside down,”

sounded gentle, “there’s nothing you can’t tell me.”

she said. I could sure relate to that.

She studied my face. “I’m not a real butch,” she

“It’s a big deal, what we’re doing.” I agreed. She said.

nodded, but there was something else on her mind.

I looked at her blankly. “What?”

We ordered another round, and then another.

I laughed incredulously. “Well, you could have

Grant started to open up a little.“How’s it going to fooled me.”

be with women? I mean, who would ever go out with She shook her head. “You don’t really know

us?” I wished she hadn’t said that out loud.

me.”

“I’m forty-one years old,” she told me. “My life The booze hit my brain like a ton of bricks. I

is so fucked up. There’s no place left for us. I just wished I hadn’t had so many drinks. The bartender don’t know what to do.” Her tears plopped on the came over and began wiping the table we were sitting bar. We both looked around to see if any of the guys at. “Time to go,” he said. We recognized the hatred noticed she was crying. We picked up our packages on the faces of men who were blocking the door

and quickly moved over to a booth. Grant broke into we would have gone out of. The bartender nodded

silent sobs. It scared me to see her cry that way.

toward the back door. “Time to go.”

176 Leslie Feinberg

We grabbed our bags and raced out the back you’re not butch. You are what you are, Grant. You door and into Grant’s car. I locked the doors as she don’t need to prove it.”

started the engine. Several of the men fanned out Grant handed me her package of hormones.

across the parking lot. One of them had a tire iron.

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

Grant peeled rubber. She drove right over the curb She shrugged. “I’m not sure of anything right

and in front of an oncoming car that swerved and now.”

hit a parked car. Grant took off at full speed until we When I got upstairs I called Edwin’s house and

were safely away.

let the phone ring a long, long time. I drank a beer We stopped in front of my house. Each of us

before I took out the syringes and looked at them.

Needles scared me so much I couldn’t believe I was got a shot at the Indy 500.” She didn’t smile. I knew about to stab myself with one. I examined the vials she was too drunk to be behind the wheel. “C’mon of hormones as though their mysteries would reveal upstairs with me,” I told her. “You can drive home themselves to me right there at the kitchen table.

later.”

They didn’t.

Grant shook her head. “Where are you going?” I

I went into the bathroom, took off my chinos,

asked her.

and hung them on the bathroom door. I sat down on She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

the toilet seat and prepared the syringe. Was I really

“C’mon upstairs with me,” I urged again, but I

going to do this?

I thought about one of Grant’s questions that

car window and started up the engine.

hit too close to home. Would I ever lie in a woman’s Before I closed the car door I told her, “Hey,

arms again? For just a moment I remembered the

Grant. Try telling those guys back there you’re not sheer pleasure of Theresa’s arms around me. It made butch.”

Grant looked at me. It was hard not to turn

Theresa. She didn’t love me enough to stay when it away from the sadness in her eyes. I pointed to the was hard.

rearview mirror. “You look at yourself and tell me My life ran through my head like a movie I

Stone Butch Blues 177

didn’t want to see again. I thought about the time my body plumpened. My moods swung. Whatever was

parents caught me dressed in my father’s clothes.

going to emerge wasn’t here yet, but it was coming.

I’d have to say goodbye to Kim and Scotty soon.

Gloria would never let me see the kids once I started them now. I was alone at this crossroads.

to change.

I couldn’t bring myself to sink the needle into On a wintry Saturday I arranged to take them to

my thigh. Then I pictured my Norton, all smashed to the zoo. It was snowing so hard that the bus ride to smithereens in the pizzeria parking lot. I stabbed my Gloria’s house seemed to take forever.

thigh with the needle and injected the hormone. It

“I’m going away,” I told Gloria.

wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

“You want more coffee?” she asked. I covered

I felt a wave of excitement—the possibility that my cup with one hand and shook my head.

something was going to change, that an enormous

Gloria sat down next to me. “You tell the kids

weight might be lifted from me. Maybe now I could yet?” I shook my head. “Those kids think the sun rises and sets with you—I don’t get it.”

leaned my head against the tile wall.

Her words wounded me. “I’m loveable, Gloria,

After a while I stood up and put my chinos back

what can I tell you?”

She shook her head. “Be careful when you tell

Still me, looking back at me.

them, OK? They’re still shook up about their father and me.” I nodded.

Scotty and Kim practically knocked each other

over running into the kitchen to greet me. They

were both so bundled up I could only see their eyes hadn’t deepened. I knew that for a fact because every between their hats and their scarves.

day I called telephone information and the operators Gloria tossed me the keys to her car. She looked still called me ma’am. The only changes I could notice upset. “Be careful, driving in the snow.” I didn’t think were not what I’d hoped for. My skin broke out. My that’s what she was concerned about.

178 Leslie Feinberg

“Don’t worry about us,” I told her.

haunches. The little bear rooted for her breast and By the time we got to the zoo the snow was

suckled. “I’m hungry,” Scotty announced.

The concession stand was almost deserted

many people out, just a few parents with their kids.

inside: two zoo maintenance men sipped hot coffee in

“Let’s make snow angels,” Kim suggested.

the corner. I ordered hot dogs and hot chocolates.

“Not yet,” I told her. “Let’s not get wet till we’re

“We need peanuts,” Kim reminded me, “for the

ready to leave.”

animals.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to feed them,” I

perch. When we got closer, I realized there were two told her.

eagles—a male and female sitting next to each other.

“Then we need peanuts for us,” she said.

The female hopped down into the snow and unfolded

“And three bags of peanuts,” I added to the man her powerful wings. She leaped and twirled in the behind the counter. He glared at me in open disgust.

snow. I remembered the newspaper reported her

Oh, please, I thought, not in front of the kids. I got my egg had hatched last week, but the eaglet had died. I money ready—the faster the transaction the better.

wondered if she danced in bitter grief.

He came back with the food and drinks in

“What’s he doing?” Kim asked me.

a cardboard container. “That’ll be $9.80, sir,” he smirked.

good an answer as any. “That’s the girl eagle.”

I threw a ten dollar bill on the counter and

“How do you know?” she asked.

picked up the container. “Keep the change, ma’am,” I

“Because the girls are bigger than the boys.”

told him.

Both kids spotted the polar bears before I did

“C’mon kids. Want to eat outside on a park

and ran ahead. The mother bear was out with her cub.

bench?” It was OK with Scotty; Kim didn’t seem so According to the newspaper, the cub was born three sure.

months ago and hadn’t been seen outside of the cave I brushed the snow off a bench. “Why did you

yet.

call him ma’am?” Kim asked.

“Aw,” the kids cooed as the cub toppled over

I shrugged. “He was being mean to me.”

into a snow bank. The mother bear sat back on her Stone Butch Blues 179

She wouldn’t let it go. “He didn’t like you?” I could see beard growth already. “What do you see?” I shook my head. “Why not? How does he know he

asked her. She shrugged and put her gloves back on.

doesn’t like you?”

“You know what we’re getting you for

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Don’t you ever meet Christmas? A radio!” Scotty told me excitedly.

bullies at school who are mean to you for no reason?”

“Scotty!” Kim’s voice rose in anger. “You

She nodded. “Why did he call you sir? Doesn’t

weren’t supposed to tell. You ruined it.” Scotty’s eyes he know you’re a girl?”

I sighed and put my hot dog back in the

“It’s OK,” I hugged him. “It’s OK. Listen you

cardboard container. The last bite I’d chewed was guys—you kids—I have to tell you something.” Kim stuck like a knot in my throat. I sipped some hot sat down heavily, as though she had been expecting chocolate before I answered. “He knew I was a

this. I put my arm around both of them. “I have to girl. He was picking on me ’cause I’m different.” I anticipated her next question. “I don’t look like your There was a long silence. Scotty wrapped his

mom. I look different from a lot of other girls. Some arms around me and cried. “No! Don’t go away,” he people don’t like that, they don’t think it’s right.”

pleaded. “Please? I’ll be good. Please don’t go away.”

Kim knitted her eyebrows. “Then why don’t you

I kissed the top of his snowsuit hood. “Oh,

wear dresses and let your hair grow long, like other Scotty, you’re not bad. Both of you are very, very girls?”

good. It’s not your fault I’m going away. I love you I smiled. “Don’t you like me the way I am?”

both so much. I’ve just got to get a job.”

Scotty looked up at me and beamed. I wiped the

Kim sat with her hands on her lap, looking

ketchup off his nose with my glove. “I don’t want to straight ahead. “I love you a lot,” I told them again.

change,” I told her. “I think girls and boys should be

“I’m really gonna miss the two of you.”

able to be any way they want to be without getting

“Then why are you going away?” Kim’s voice

picked on.”

pounded with rage. “Why can’t you get a job here?”

Kim knelt on the bench, facing me. She took off

She needed more of an explanation. “Kim, it’s

her gloves and stroked my cheeks. I wondered if she not safe for me here, because I’m different.” Her face 180 Leslie Feinberg

softened, which allowed the tears to well up. “I’m I thought before I answered. “You’ll see me

going somewhere I’ll be safe.”

again, but not for a while. Not till it’s safe for me to

“Can I come too?” she asked. I pulled Scotty

come back.”

closer to me and extended my arm to Kim. She didn’t I pointed to the golden eagles nearby. “You

move closer, but I could tell she wanted to.

know, there’s not many eagles left. The food they

“It’s not really a place I’m going to.” I wondered eat got all poisoned with chemicals, and sometimes how much the unwritten laws allowed me to tell a people shot at them. You know what the eagles did?”

child. “Imagine that you’re looking for me in a room.

You look everywhere—in the closet, under the bed, the mountains, way up above the clouds and they’re behind the door—but I’m not there.”

Scotty looked up. “Where are you?” he asked.

it’s safe to come visit.”

“I’m somewhere safe where no one would look.

Kim knelt on the bench and put her gloves

I’m up near the ceiling. Imagine you’re looking for me on my checks. They were cold and wet with snow.

here—behind the trees, under the benches, behind the

“Please take me with you,” she whispered.

elephant house. Where would I be safe?”

My eyes burned with tears. “I have to hide alone, Both kids looked at each other and shook their

Kim. And your mommy loves you a lot. She needs

heads. “Up in the sky, where the wind blows,” I told you, too. Grow up the best way you can, Kim. I’ll them. “I’d be safe in the sky, where no one would come back to you, I promise.”

look for me. But I’m still around. I’ll still be watching The snow was falling so heavily that it nearly

over you.”

covered us on the bench. I got up and brushed us off.

Scotty wiped the tears from his eyes with his

I kissed Scotty’s cold nose before I retied his scarf mittens. “When I’m the wind I could be in the sky across his face. I waited on one knee for Kim to come with you.”

to me. She fell into my arms so hard we both almost I nodded and pulled him closer. Tears dripped

tumbled over.

down Kim’s chin, but her face appeared calm. “Can As we approached the eagles, Kim ran ahead.

you come back and visit us?”

She stopped and watched them. “Are they happy in Stone Butch Blues 181

there?” she asked me.

“It’s OK,” Scotty said gently, “She could be a

I shook my head. “They’d be happier up there.”

snowman, right?”

I nodded. “Help us make his head, OK?” Kim

and cheeks.

“Can we make snow angels now?” Scotty

in place. I scrounged for stones under the snow, and demanded.

we used them to make a mouth and nose and eyes.

“He needs a scarf, right?” I asked. They both

the snow and thrashed their arms and legs. “Look at nodded. I pulled off my scarf and put it around his me, look at me,” they each shouted.

neck.

I made a snowball and rolled it until it was as

I took out my pack of cigarettes. “No,” they

big as a boulder. “What are you making?” Kim asked.

both shouted in unison, “don’t smoke!”

They both came close.

“Well, I don’t have a pipe for the snowman.

“I’m making a snowwoman,” I told her.

Should I put a cigarette in his mouth?”

Kim made a face. “It’s not a snowwoman, it’s a

“No!” they shouted. “He doesn’t smoke! He’s

snowman,” she sulked.

smart!”

“How do you know?” I asked her. “You haven’t

I laughed. “OK, OK. But that’s a pretty good-

seen her yet.”

looking snowman we made, isn’t it?”

Scotty started rolling a tiny lump of snow. “Can Scotty nodded and fell on the ground. “Watch

I help make her?” he asked. I nodded and started a good-sized snowball for him.

and legs.

Kim stamped her foot. “There’s no such thing as

“Are you OK?” I asked Kim.

a snowwoman. It’s a snowman.”

She nodded. I pulled her scarf snug around her

I put Scotty’s smaller snow boulder on top of

neck. “I’m sorry I upset you,” I told her. “I was just teasing.”

She shrugged. “It’s OK.”

shoulders. “Are you really that upset?” She nodded

“I’m sorry anyway,” I said.

and cried. I wiped her runny nose.

182 Leslie Feinberg

“No,” she told me. “I mean it’s OK about it Scotty yawned. I kissed his sweaty hair. A mobile being a snowwoman.”

turned slowly over our heads, casting the shadows of I smiled. “How about if we decide that this is a moving ships against the walls.

snowperson and we like him or her just the way she is?” Kim nodded without smiling.

If you were a bird, and lived on high,

She silently stared out the car window during the long ride home.

My voice cracked like a teenage boy’s and then

“Did they eat?” Gloria wanted to know. I

dropped a bit deeper as I read. The hormones were nodded. “Time for your bath,” she told them.

beginning to work.

“Aw, Mom, we’re too pooped,” Scotty said.

Gloria laughed. “Alright, smart aleck. But

You’d say to the wind as it took you away:

tomorrow night you both take a bath, and I don’t

‘That’s where I wanted to go today!’

want to hear any whining.”

Kim stared at me. Her face was still and sad. “I’m bed?” Gloria glanced at me. I nodded.

never going to see you again, am I?” she asked.

Scotty and Kim changed into their pajamas and

I came over to her bed and kissed her forehead.

kissed Gloria good night. I tucked each one under

“I’ll come back to you when it’s safe. You’ll see me their covers.

again, I promise. I love you, Kim. Go to sleep now.”

“You have to read us the story about when we

She sighed and pulled the covers up to her chin. I were little kids,” Scotty instructed me. I picked up the continued to read until her breathing became heavy book from the nightstand.

and rhythmic.

Kim pointed to a bookmark. “That’s where

Mom left off,” she said. I began to read, my voice What does it matter where people go?

quiet and low:

Anywhere, anywhere. I don’t know.

Where am I going? I don’t quite know.

Stone Butch Blues 183

15

IT WAS A MORNING IN APRIL that everything

seemed to change at once. The birds chirped loudly now. I had saved sixteen hundred dollars over the outside my window at dawn. I rolled around lazily in winter toward breast reduction surgery.

bed. The sheets felt cool, the air smelled sweet.

I took a hot, soapy shower, enjoying the feel of I reached for a cigarette, but the thought

my hands on my skin. It had been so long since I’d revolted me. I decided to take a long shower instead.

been at home in my body. Soon that was going to

As I brushed my teeth, I glanced in the mirror and change.

had to look a second time. Beard stubble roughed my As I combed my hair in front of the mirror,

cheeks. My face looked slimmer and more angular. I it occurred to me that I might be able to go to a stripped off my T-shirt and BVDs. My body was lean barbershop. Our perfect DAs—one-inch all over—

and hard. My hips had melted away. I could actually were maintained in the kitchens of hairdresser friends.

see muscles in my thighs and arms I never knew I I’d bought an old Triumph motorcycle during

had. Were the hormones stimulating muscles or just the winter from a guy at work. I took it out of the revealing them?

garage, put a fresh quart of oil in it, and drove it This was almost the body I’d expected before

across town to a barbershop in a neighborhood I’d puberty confounded me. Almost.

never have to come back to if it turned out badly.

I remembered the girls in high school who

The barber smiled at me. “I’ll be with you in just moaned because their breasts were small. I envied a minute, sir.” I tried to hide my excitement as I leafed

through a copy of Popular Mechanics. I’d never dared enter men’s turf like this before.

me and gave me a hand mirror so I could see the back The barber snapped a huge red cloth in the

of my hair. “What do you think, my friend?”

air. “Sir?” he beckoned for me to sit in the chair. He This time I didn’t try to hide my excitement. I

covered me with the red material and pulled it snug was passing.

around my neck. “A trim?”

It was time for the most important test of all: I looked at myself in the mirror. “Well, maybe

the men’s room. I walked around a department store something different. Maybe it’s time for a change.”

until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I paced outside The barber smiled. “That’s up to you.”

the men’s room. What would happen if I walked in?

“I don’t know. Something neat.”

The barber smoothed back my hair and pursed

the door. Two men stood in front of urinals. They glanced at me and looked away. Nothing happened. I

“Yeah! That would be a change.”

found an empty stall and locked the door.

The electric razor buzzed across the top of my

They could still see my feet if they looked. Did DA from back to front. Clumps of hair fell on my nose. The barber brushed them off with the soft hairs cover the sound. I immediately felt something wet of a brush. He clipped and trimmed my hair until it and cold against my ass and thighs. The toilet was me off thoroughly. I started to get up. “Not yet,”

were soaked. I rebuttoned my jeans and hurried out he said. He lathered my sideburns and the back of of the men’s room. I pushed my way through the

my hairline with shaving cream and scraped a clean crowds of shoppers and made my way back to my

line with a straight razor. He toweled the last bits of Triumph.

All I wanted was to drive home, strip off my

jeans, and shower off the feeling of stupidity. I sat and rubbed it on my cheeks. He shook powder on the down on my bike and thought about it. It hadn’t been brush and swept it across the back of my neck. With Stone Butch Blues 185

toilet without paying attention to the water level as it

“Where’d you go to high school?” Eddie asked

rose. But I thought back to the moment I’d walked into the men’s room. They hardly noticed me.

Should I lie or tell the truth? “Bennett,” I

I could go to the bathroom whenever and

answered honestly.

wherever I needed to without pressure or shame.

“No kidding? When did you graduate?”

What an enormous relief.

I fumbled for an answer. I had lied on my job

application for this truck delivery position. I said I’d graduated from high school. “Uh, I transferred in my junior year.”

“Yeah? When?”

feeling like a gauntlet I had to run through. But very

“Oh, I don’t know. Around ’65, I guess.”

quickly I discovered that passing didn’t just mean

“No kidding? My brother-in-law went to Bennett

slipping below the surface, it meant being buried alive.

around the same time. His name’s Bobby—played

I was still me on the inside, trapped in there with all my wounds and fears. But I was no longer me on the clenched and I ground my teeth. “Naw, I don’t think outside.

so.”

I remember the morning I left work at the

Eddie nodded. “No loss. He could really be an

macaroni plant just before dawn. I was walking up asshole, if you ask me. You alright?”

Elmwood toward my bike. A woman on the sidewalk

“Yeah, just a little sick, that’s all.”

ahead of me looked over her shoulder nervously. I

“Well, sit down a minute,” Eddie said.

slowed my pace as she crossed the street and hurried

“Listen Eddie, I’m gonna run to the store for

away. She was afraid of me. That’s when I began to something.” And then I walked away. I just kept

understand that passing changed almost everything.

walking, faster and faster. I was running from my own Two things didn’t change: I still had to work for past.

a living, and I still lived in fear, only now it was the I guess I could have left the city, but it felt as constant terror of discovery. I never realized what a though I’d fall off the edge of the earth. So I stayed.

small town Buffalo could be.

186 Leslie Feinberg

But I always had to be looking over my shoulder Kim broke loose and ran toward me at full

in public, afraid I’d run into someone who knew

speed. I lifted her into my arms and hugged her

me as a woman. Sometimes I didn’t see them until tightly. “Do you still love me?” she whispered.

they saw me, like the time Gloria and the kids were I kissed her nose. “More than ever.” I put her

shopping downtown. I was an aisle away in the men’s down and she ran back to Gloria.

department. Gloria recognized me just a moment

“Ex?” a salesman asked me.

before I saw her. Her jaw dropped. She grabbed Kim

“Huh?”

and Scotty by their hands and tried to drag them away.

“Ex-girlfriend?” he nodded with his chin toward

Scotty got scared and cried. Kim called my name.

the door.

“She’s an ex, alright,” I answered.

I came up to Gloria and put my hand on her

shoulder. She pulled away in horror and wrapped

her arms around Scotty and Kim as though she was protecting them from Count Dracula. “Gloria, for I got a steady gig at a bindery as a mechanic’s

Christsakes, I’m just trying to survive, you know? It’s apprentice. The guy who interviewed me looked me not such a big deal.”

up and down real hard. I felt color rise in my face.

“Get away from me. What have you done?”

“You look like a clean-cut young man,” he concluded.

she asked me in a strange, low voice. “What are you Only a short time before I had been a monster.

doing?”

Having a job was the good news. But there

“Trying to live, Gloria. Give me a break, will

wasn’t much else to do or anyone to do it with. That ya?”

was the bad news. My greatest recreation was riding Kim reached out to me, but Gloria grabbed her

my motorcycle. I decided to buy a really nice bike.

hand and squeezed it. “Come on Kim, Scotty,” Gloria Early one Saturday afternoon I rode to the West Side said, pulling them toward the door. “You are really to take a look at a Harley Sportster I saw advertised in sick, you know that? You really need help.”

the newspaper. “Ask for Mike,” the ad read.

I turned up my palms in a gesture of exasperation.

“You know about bikes?” Mike asked me. We

“Gloria.” People nearby stopped to watch.

squatted next to the bike in his driveway.

Stone Butch Blues 187

I said yes, but I felt like I was lying. It’s funny, a President Ford was expected to pardon the draft

guy gets a Honda 50 mini-bike and he talks like he’s an expert on bikes. A woman could ride a full-dress But I still couldn’t cross the border. I had

Harley all her life and she still feels like she’s faking no valid ID in case I was pulled over at customs.

her end of the conversation. He told me he loved that I opened my wallet and looked at my ID. Birth

bike, and I could tell by the way he touched it that he meant every word. He hated to sell it, he told me, but marked female. How could I get ID as a male?

he fell in love with a woman who made him choose between her or the bike. He made the right decision.

couldn’t even open a checking account without some I handed Mike a wad of bills and revved the

sort of ID. A credit card was out of the question.

engine. “Take her up to Canada,” he suggested.

I felt like a nonperson. Even outlaws probably had

“You’ll be across the Peace Bridge in ten minutes and more ID than me.

you can really open her up on those roads.” I put on I turned my license over and looked at the

my helmet, waved, and drove away.

I stopped at Ted’s for a foot-long hot dog. I sat more months. How could I get a license marked

on top of a picnic table outside, surrounded by gulls Female renewed as Male? What would happen to me

impatiently waiting for the end of my bun.

if I got stopped by state troopers on a lonely road I could see the line of cars at the Peace Bridge.

in the dead of night and handed them this license?

How many hundreds of times had I gone to Canada But what if I was caught driving without a license?

this way? But passing as a man meant I hadn’t been Either option sounded like a nightmare. Yet it was able to cross the Peace Bridge because I didn’t have a impossible to work or live in Buffalo without some draft card.

form of transportation.

I stared across the Niagara River, longing to

It seemed amazing to me that the people of that open up my Harley on those roads I knew so well.

tiny country had won against such monstrous odds.

A feeling of claustrophobia choked me. Even as my Maybe all those rallies Theresa had attended helped.

world was expanding, it was shrinking.

188 Leslie Feinberg

the thought of feeling good in my body once again.

I wished Theresa could have come this far with me.

My beard grew in full of color: blond streaked with Why couldn’t I have had one night to make love with her while I felt comfortable in my body? Theresa.

my beard was a bush to hide behind. Almost no one Once I’d thought of her it was too late to put her seemed to recognize me anymore when I was out in memory away. I tossed and turned.

public.

Wherever I was going, I knew I was headed

I hated my breasts more than ever. Binding them

there alone.

The next morning I arrived at the hospital

the surgeon Dr. Monroe had referred me to. I told necessary forms. “Who are you here to see?” the

admissions nurse smiled.

“Breast reduction.”

“Dr. Costanza.”

“Is it going to be very painful? Will I be out of work a long time?”

“No,” he told me. “It’s not a radical mastectomy.

No arrangements seemed to have been made. But she We make an incision and remove some of the fatty tissue. Although you’ll be uncomfortable, you should be back at work within a week or two.” I felt a little desk. “I have an appointment for surgery with Dr.

queasy, but all surgical descriptions made me feel that Costanza.” The nurses glanced at each other.

way.

One sighed. “There’s no room ready for

“Do you have the money?” he asked.

you right now. You’ll have to prep yourself in the I did. I was ready. I scheduled the surgery and

bathroom.”

left work Tuesday pretending to be ill.

I hesitated. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Tuesday night I lay in bed and stared at the

ceiling. I felt anxious, but not scared. I was excited at a hospital gown, razor, and Betadine. “Shave your Stone Butch Blues 189

underarms, chest hair, and pubic hair with this and her head shyly. She pointed to a gurney in the hall.

then put on the gown.”

“Can’t I walk?” I asked her. She shook her head.

“Pubic hair?”

I lay on the gurney as she rolled it down the hall.

She frowned. “That’s the procedure.” I hoped

All I could see were ceilings. Huge lights appeared over me. I was in surgery. Masked faces above me. I I’d have time to consult with someone before the hoped they weren’t too hostile. “Which one of you is operation began.

Dr. Costanza?” I asked.

“Don’t go in there,” one of the nurses cried

One of them answered, “He’s on vacation.

out as I neared the men’s room. I turned toward the Don’t worry.” I started to protest but a needle pierced women’s bathroom. “No, not there either,” another my arm and the room started to dissolve.

called out. I stood stock-still. They found a room for When I awoke the world seemed fuzzy. I

me. I washed myself with Betadine and shaved my couldn’t focus. The man in the bed across from

mine stared at me. Nurses peered in at me from the doorway. I fought for consciousness.

shave regularly. This would be my last time.

A priest came into the room. “Where is she?” he

As I shaved my beard I promised to take good

looked around.

care of myself. And I swore that no matter what

“Who?” I asked. The room spun.

happened I would never allow madness to consume

The priest came close to my bed. “There’s a lost me.

soul who needs my help,” he whispered.

I sat down on a chair in the room to await

“They just wheeled her down the hall, father,” I surgery. Two nurses talked loudly at the desk outside said, pointing. “If you hurry, you can catch her.”

the room. They said there would be hell to pay when I tried to sit up. A dull pain pounded in my

healthy tissue was sent down to the pathology lab.

chest. I called out to the nurses standing in the They said sooner or later this would blow up and doorway. “Can I get something for the pain?” They there’d be trouble.

walked away.

A nurse came in the room, smiled, and dipped

One of the nurses came back. “Look,” she

said, “I don’t understand any of this. But I can tell 190 Leslie Feinberg

you this hospital is for sick people. You people make some arrangement with Costanza on the side, that’s inside. I could tell from my beard growth I had slept your business. But this bed and our time is for sick for days. My chest was bandaged. There it was—the people.”

body I’d wanted. I wondered why it had to have been How much time would they give me to

so hard.

recuperate? An hour? Two? I didn’t want to be there I stumbled into the kitchen and chugged a Pepsi.

another minute. I wanted to be safe in my own home.

I found a slice of cold pepperoni pizza and a piece I swung my legs over the bed and tested standing on of chocolate cake in the refrigerator. My childhood them. Once I felt steady, I carefully dressed.

dream breakfast.

It took forever for the elevator to arrive. I

I called Edwin’s house. We’re sorry, I listened to stepped inside and pushed the button for the lobby.

the recording in shock, but the number you dialed has been The young nurse who had brought me down for

disconnected. I rang her sister’s house. In a quavering surgery held the elevator door open and pressed

voice Edwin’s sister said, “She shot herself—weeks something into my hand. It was four Darvon wrapped ago.”

in a paper towel. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I put the receiver down gently, trying not to

I had to walk a long way from the bus to my

disturb Ed’s memory. “Edwin, Ed,” I whispered as though she was asleep in my arms and I could wake door, but I remembered the door needed to be pulled her.

I went back to the bedroom and lost

enough to turn the key, I knew I had hurt myself a consciousness. When I woke, I hoped Edwin’s death little. But I was home.

was just a dream. I called my foreman. “Where the I lay down on my bed. The last thing I

hell you been, boy?” he shouted.

remember is wondering what day it was.

“I’ve been sick. Real sick.”

“Can you get a doctor’s note?”

I was. A dull pain throbbed in my chest. I stood I stopped and thought for a moment. “No,” I

up carefully. When I opened the closet door, I saw said.

Stone Butch Blues 191

I looked at the inscription, the way she’d dotted I slept on and off for several days. A nagging

the i in her name with an inky heart. Pain roared pain woke me up, but it was emotional, not a result of the surgery. I changed my bandages in the bathroom.

“Ed,” I cried out loud. “Please come back. Give me another chance to understand. I’ll be a better friend if with the stitches they looked like railroad tracks. After you’ll just come back.”

a little more than a week it looked like it was healing Silence.

pretty well. I pulled on a clean white T-shirt.

One beer followed another; I got pretty drunk.

Something propelled me into the kitchen to get

And then I broke down and cried for the loss of

a beer. As I snapped off the cap I located the source Edwin and for all the tears I’d suppressed since I’d of the pain: Edwin’s suicide. It couldn’t be true that lost Theresa.

Ed no longer existed in the world. How could she I went for a walk and ended up on a bus headed

be gone? Hadn’t I known she was seething inside? I to the amusement park. I wanted to win one of those remembered she said she’d marked a page in the book big stuffed bears that Theresa always loved. First I she gave me that summed up what she was struggling thought I needed more beer. The two young women

with. I tore through the books on my shelf, but I behind the concession counter whispered and giggled as I approached. “Can I help you, sir?” The dark-discovered it in an unpacked box in my hall closet and haired woman asked me.

“A beer.” I pulled out my wallet.

marked the page in blue ink:

The red-haired woman nudged her and giggled.

“Tell him.”

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this

“Tell me what?” I asked.

sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others

“She thinks you’re cute.”

… two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two The dark-haired woman pushed her. “I do not.

warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone She’s just a jerk.”

keeps it from being torn asunder.

192 Leslie Feinberg

without the beer. A powerful rage rose inside me.

I stood there with the big blue bear in my arms. She Why was I so angry? This was what I wanted, wasn’t called Theresa.

it? To be able to be myself and yet live without Theresa stood outside her door to talk to me,

fear? It just didn’t seem fair. All my life I’d been told but she left it ajar.

everything about me was really twisted and sick. But

“How are you?” I asked her. She shrugged.

if I was a man, I was “cute.” Acceptance of me as a I beckoned with my chin toward the door.

he felt like an ongoing indictment of me as a he-she.

“Housekeeping butch?” It was a mean-spirited thing I obsessed about winning the bear for Theresa.

to say. I was glad she didn’t respond. There was a long As I threw the baseballs at those dolls on the shelf I silence, then Theresa turned to go.

could feel a few stitches on my chest tear, but I didn’t I whispered Edwin’s name out loud as tears ran

care. I pitched in a frenzy. I kept putting money down down my cheeks. Theresa wheeled around and threw on the counter, and the man kept taking it. A small her arms around me. She knew. She understood. She crowd formed. The prizes I won got a little bigger each time, but I couldn’t seem to knock down a

looked at my boots. She watched my face. There

couple of those dolls.

were tears in her eyes, too. She touched the stubble

“Sorry pal,” the guy behind the counter told me.

His teeth were clenched on a cigar.

thoughts; I never could. It was time to leave. “You working?” I asked her.

loud. “You take my money and I’ll show the people

“Some,” she said.

here which dolls are weighted.”

She touched my cheek again and turned to

He swung around and handed me a giant pink

go. “Theresa,” I called her name. She looked at me.

bear. “I want the blue one,” I told him.

“Does she sit between the rows in your garden?”

“Fuck you,” he muttered, but he exchanged it.

As I bolted up Theresa’s stairs that night I felt only one.”

excited. By the time I knocked, I was scared. A young I picked up the big blue bear and extended it to woman with a soft butch exterior answered the door.

her. She smiled sadly and shook her head again. Then the door shut and she was gone.

Stone Butch Blues 193

I walked a couple of blocks to the supermarket and stood outside the automatic doors. After a while this little kid came by, holding onto his mother’s hand.

He stared at the bear as he approached and then

turned to watch it as he walked by. His mother sort of dragged him along before she turned to see what he was looking at.

“Is it OK?” I asked her, nodding toward

the bear. She looked surprised, but she nodded. I handed the bear to the boy. “Take good care of her, promise?”

He nodded. His arms could hardly get around

the stuffed animal.

His mother nudged his shoulder. “Say thank you

to the nice man.”

194 Leslie Feinberg

16

over the horizon.

window. Annie, the waitress who had my complete

My breath froze on my beard. I wearily boarded the attention, was pouring coffee and joking with the temp labor bus.

men at the counter. A powerful longing pulled on me, almost drawing tears.

reached out his huge, calloused hand, as he did every

“How’d you like a piece of her?” a guy in the

morning. He could have crushed my hand in his, but seat in front of us asked his friend.

Ben watched me cringe. “Hey, shut up,” Ben told

his gentleness. I looked at this great bear of a man him.

and smiled, genuinely glad to see him.

The man looked over the top of his seat at us.

The bitter cold didn’t seem to affect him. I

“What’s it to you?”

“That’s my sister you’re talking about,” Ben

glared.

a long swig and coughed as I handed it back to him.

“Oh, sorry,” the guy said. He looked at me and

“Wild Turkey,” he smiled. “I like a little nip in the squinted. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

morning to get me going.” Actually, Ben liked little

“You ever work in Texas?” I asked him. He

nips throughout the day to keep him going.

shook his head. “Then you don’t know me,” I told We were parked next to a coffee shop. From

him.

where I sat I could see through the restaurant

The bus lurched into motion. We were headed Another temp bus arrived. The men who got off

out to a plant in Tonawanda. The agency promised that bus gravitated toward us. We formed a group of us a steady gig with the possibility of permanent hire.

sixty men. I looked around at the guys I rode in with.

Ben and I rode in comfortable silence. When the

The oldest of the men announced loudly, “The devil noise level on the bus became boisterous I whispered can’t buy my soul!”

to him, “Is Annie really your sister?” He smiled and

“Well, I need a job, goddamn it. I got a family to winked.

feed,” someone behind me yelled.

“Did you really work in Texas?” he asked me. I

“I’m no scab,” Ben shouted. “I never crossed

smiled and winked back.

a picket line in my life and I never will. And I’ve got As we approached the plant I saw picket lines

no respect for any man who does.” He took his UAW

barricading the entrance. Then I understood—we

card out of his wallet and held it aloft so the picketers were hired to break a strike. “Scabs!” the shout went could see. Several of the other men pulled out their up the moment we got off the bus. It was hard to union cards and held them up proudly, too. I clenched catch my breath in the frigid air.

Ben stood at my side. “I don’t want any part of

Less than a dozen of the temp laborers agreed

this,” he said.

to be escorted by police into the plant. Most of the I heard a woman’s voice shouting through a

guys got on the bus again and asked the driver to bullhorn. “We’re gonna hold this line. We’re not going take us back to the agency. I listened to the men talk to let a single scab through. I’m ready to do whatever to each other as we rode. This bicentennial year was I have to do to defend our jobs and our union!

Are you?” The union women and men roared their

were sounding more and more like Theresa used to agreement.

talk.

“There’s more hard times coming, mark my

helmets and held their clubs horizontally across their words.”

chests. Those billy clubs were almost as thick and

“Yeah, but you can bet the rich are still gettin’

long as baseball bats. The cops were ready to attack in richer.”

order to bring us in as scabs.

196 Leslie Feinberg

“It wasn’t just Nixon—they’re all a bunch of

“Why not?”

crooks. This new peanut man in the White House

I shrugged. “Oh, it’s a long story. I don’t really isn’t going to change anything.”

like to talk about it.”

They talked about the layoffs that had abruptly

“Where’d you grow up?” he asked, signaling the

altered their lives. Harrison, Chevrolet, Anaconda.

waitress for another round.

Fifteen years seniority, twenty years, thirty years.

“Different places.” I worried that I couldn’t keep

“I gave Chevy my whole life,” Ben told me.

up with this evasion for a third round.

The waitress brought two shots and two beers.

to tell you the truth, I’m scared shitless that I’m never Ben smiled warmly at her. “Thank you, darlin’.”

going back. My whole life’s in that plant, you know Ben turned his attention back to me. “You know,

what I mean?” I nodded. Ben nudged me. “We’ll still I’m curious about you.” I tensed. “I told my wife get paid today for last week. Let’s go cash our checks about you. I told her there’s this guy I really like.”

at the bar and have a drink.”

Ben stopped and held up one hand. “Don’t get me

I shook my head. “Naw, I better get home.”

wrong.”

I waved away his momentary fear that I might

gotta do. You’re gonna have a drink with me and

think he was sexually attracted to me. His speech was that’s that. Unless you think you’re too good for me.”

a little slurred. “I told her that every time I try to get to know this guy, he clams up. You know what my

thumped my thigh with his gloved hand.

wife said? She says I’m the same way with her. She Someone played “Stand By Your Man” on the

says that’s what she’s always complaining about.”

bar jukebox. I was lost in my own past as Ben talked to me about growing up without his father. “How

’Cause if you are, you can tell me. I’m not much in life. But I’m a good mechanic and a good friend. All your dad around?” I nodded. “Were you close to

my buddies worked at Chevy with me. I miss those him?”

guys.” I nodded, thinking about my old friends.

I shook my head. “No.”

“Are you running from the law?” he asked me.

Stone Butch Blues 197

“’Cause if you are, I understand.” His voice dropped.

“Nice bike,” I pointed to the Harley in the

“I was in jail. Two years.”

photo. He smiled.

Suddenly something changed in Ben. His whole

I could feel the pressure building. “When I was

body settled into a stillness that frightened me, like young,” Ben said, “I thought I was a tough guy.”

the smooth surface of a lake before a storm. I felt the turbulence churning beneath his surface. Ben’s was a butch’s way, too, of revealing heart.

hurt was presenting itself. I waited. Pain emerges at its

“Then I got busted for stealing a car. You ever

own pace. I sat in silence, my heart pounding. Maybe this was just my imagination or the drama that Wild shook my head no. Ben nodded. “I’d been in reform Turkey ushers in. But when I looked at Ben I knew school a couple of times. I was a wild kid, I broke I wasn’t wrong. The storm was closing in, and it was my poor mother’s heart.” Ben tossed back another too late to run.

shot. The waitress caught my eye. Another round? I Ben opened his wallet and pulled out two

shook my head slightly. “I was a tough guy. You think pictures. “Did I ever show you my wife and

jail’s nothing, those guards can’t break me.” I leaned daughter?” I saw an exquisitely warm Down’s

toward him. I already knew.

Syndrome smile on his daughter’s face. “I love that And then suddenly it was there, in his eyes, all lot.” I wanted to ask him what he’d learned but I was the tears to drip down his cheeks, but they didn’t. I still emotionally barricading myself from Ben. He wanted to touch him, to lay my hand on his arm. But wanted so much to know me, and I couldn’t let him.

I looked around at the guys we worked with every What if I trusted him and I was wrong?

day and I knew I couldn’t. I leaned closer to Ben. He looked me in the eyes.

front of me. I studied it and laughed. “Is that you?”

In silence, without words, his eyes told me what He nodded, without smiling. I looked at the young had happened to him in prison. I didn’t look away.

Ben, a skinny kid with huge hands, slicked-back hair, Instead, I let him see himself in my own mirror. He and a beat-up leather jacket. “You were a greaser?”

He nodded again.

198 Leslie Feinberg

“I never told anyone,” Ben said, as though our making me crazy. I was all upset inside, you know?” I conversation had been out loud.

nodded.

In his own way he had done what I had never

“I wanted to kill that guy and then take off.

been able to do—reveal the humiliation. And I

Frank knew. He pushed me up against the garage wall wanted to trust him, to tell him everything. But I and he was yelling at me, trying to get through.” Ben was afraid. Yet I couldn’t leave him alone inside laughed. “You’d have to know what a quiet guy he himself. “You know why I like you so much, Ben?”

was to appreciate him yelling at me like that. I told His eyes were eager as a child’s for the answer. “I like him I had to prove I was a man.” He took a swig of you because you’re as gentle as you are strong.” Ben beer.

blushed and dropped his eyes. “There’s something I smiled at the butchness in his story. “What

about you, Ben, that’s good and that I trust. And happened?”

I’m wondering: how did you turn out this way? How

“I’ll never forget what Frank told me. He said,

did you get from all your hurt to the man you are

‘You’re already a man, you don’t have to prove that.

now? What changed for you? What decisions did you You just have to prove what kind of man you want to make?”

The great bear smiled shyly. This was the

Ben’s voice was as intimate as his smile. “What

intimacy he’d wanted, the attention he needed. He leaned closer. “When I got out on parole, I went to What’s your life been about?”

work at a gas station. The mechanic there, Frank.

In a world with any justice I would have poured

That guy changed my life.” Ben’s voice dropped

out my life story to him. I would have given him back low. “Frank cared about me. He taught me to be a in kind the trust he’d shown to me. But I was afraid mechanic. He taught me about a lot of things. But and so I betrayed him. “There’s not much to tell,” I there’s one thing he told me I’ll never forget. One day said.

I was gonna run away. There was this guy who was He blinked in disbelief. I wanted him to let it

always fucking with me at the garage and I couldn’t go, but he wouldn’t. He was brave enough to bloody whispered, “tell me something about you.”

Stone Butch Blues 199

I was frozen with fear, unable to collect my didn’t notice me. But then she’d catch my eye and thoughts enough to invent a story that even appeared turn away from me, wrapping my attention around

to reveal something about me. “There’s nothing to her like a shawl. She was as tough as a gangster. God, tell,” I told him. I was closed and protected. He was I liked Annie. She treated every customer like a trick.

left naked.

She worked them for a tip and didn’t let them drop till The warmth drained from his face and anger

they left it.

rose to replace it. He was too gentle a man to lash out I sat at the counter and watched Annie relax

at me. Like a butch, he kept it inside.

with her co-worker, Frances. The men in the

I stood up. “I’d better be going,” I said. He

restaurant seemed to think the women’s attention only nodded and stared at his beer bottle. I let my hand existed for them. If they had seen how intimate the rest for a moment on his shoulder. He would not

women were with each other, the men might have

accept the comfort or look at me. I wanted to say, Ben, been jealous. But they didn’t notice. I did.

I’m so sorry I hurt you. I only did it because I was scared. I Annie saw me at the counter. “Hey, sweetheart,

didn’t know men could hurt the way I do. Please let me back what’s shaking this morning?”

inside.

I laughed. “How are you, Annie?”

But of course, I didn’t. Instead I said, “See you

“Finer than a frog’s hair quartered, darlin’.

Monday.”

Whatcha havin’?”

“Coffee and eggs over easy.”

“You got it,” she said over her shoulder as she

swung away from me. Her body demanded I pay

The loneliness became more and more unbearable. I attention.

ached to be touched. I feared I was disappearing and Frances and Annie showed each other their kids’

I’d cease to exist if someone didn’t touch me.

school photos while they waited for their orders from One woman in particular turned my head every

the grill.

morning: Annie, the waitress at the coffee shop near

“Can I see?” I asked Annie as she brought me

my job. When she brought me coffee, it seemed she my eggs.

200 Leslie Feinberg

She eyed me warily as she handed me the photo.

“Don’t see why not.”

smacked Frances on the shoulder.

Four rows of sweet children’s faces looked back I wanted to spend time with Annie when she

at me. “Which one?” I asked. Annie wiped her hands wasn’t working. It was no secret now.

on her apron and pointed out her daughter.

Annie brought me a white paper bag. “What’s

“God, she’s great,” I told her. “She’s got your

this?” I asked.

eyes—smart and angry at the same time.”

She shrugged. “Coffee and a cherry danish.”

“Where do you see that?” Annie demanded as

I was confused. “I didn’t ask for it.”

she snatched the photo from my hand. She stormed off. A moment later she brought my coffee and

house,” she shot back. “It’s fresh. The danish is slammed it down so hard it sloshed over the rim of fresh.”

the cup. Then she lifted it up, wiped the counter, and I smiled, left a tip, and paid the cashier for my spilled it again. “Next time you want to read a book, breakfast. Then I came back to the counter and tried go to the goddamn library.” She spun on her heel. I to get Annie’s attention. She made me wait.

put down a tip, paid the cashier, and left.

“Whatdya forget?” she asked.

“I wanted to know if you …” I hesitated. It

sorry I got personal,” I told her.

could be a big mistake to go out with someone who

“Aw, well, I don’t mind you gettin’ personal,

knew my co-workers. She could make real trouble for me if she found out; I’d have to quit my job. But I

“Agreed,” I agreed.

was desperately lonely.

“If I’d what?” She sounded suspicious.

I smiled, “A mum for a mum.”

“If you’d want to go out with me sometime?”

She frowned. “Oh, I get it.”

Annie put both her hands on her hips and

Annie’s body language was very reserved with

looked me up and down several times. “Ask me again me. But as soon as Annie and Frances got together, sometime.” Somehow I thought that was a good sign.

she loosened up. They whispered. Frances smelled Stone Butch Blues 201

It was fun. It felt good. It reminded me of the old or something.” I did want to come in.

days between femmes and butches. But this was not The three of us stood awkwardly in her living

between women. At least that’s not how the world room. “My babysitter, well it’s my sister’s kid actually, around us saw it. And, I reminded myself over and she got sick, so I have Kathy home tonight and she’s over again, that’s not how Annie saw it.

running a little fever.”

The amazing part was that this courtship dance

I raised my hand to stop her. “It’s OK. I can see could take place in public and everyone—co-workers you’ve got your hands full. Relax!”

and strangers alike—encouraged and approved.

Annie unwound a notch. “Sit down. Would you

Meanwhile, Anita Bryant was thumping the Bible in like something to eat? I could make us something.”

a well-publicized campaign to overturn a simple gay

“Aren’t you sick of serving food?”

rights ordinance. I wondered how human affection She laughed. “It’s OK. I don’t mind.”

could be judged so differently.

“Want me to sit in the kitchen so you can

function in one room?” She smiled and nodded.

out again, she wiped her hands on her apron and

I set the small canvas bag I’d brought on the

answered, “Sure, I guess. Why not?”

Friday night I knocked on her door. It took

a dildo had been too optimistic. Then again, being a long time for her to answer. I heard her yelling caught without one could present its own crisis. I something. I got a funny feeling in the pit of my tried to breathe past my anxiety as I followed Annie stomach. Annie only opened the door partway.

and Kathy into the kitchen.

“Uh …” she started. I could see a child wrapped

“Can I help?” I offered.

around her legs.

She looked surprised, “Naw, that’s OK.”

“It’s OK,” I interrupted. She wanted to cancel. I Kathy clung to Annie’s leg with one arm and

tried to conceal my disappointment. “Maybe another clutched a stuffed rabbit with the other. I smiled time.”

at Kathy. “Does your rabbit have a fever, too?”

“Wait,” she opened the door all the way. “I mean Kathy looked at the rabbit and then at me without if you want to come in I could make you some coffee answering.

202 Leslie Feinberg

“Later,” I told Kathy, “if you think your rabbit tried to do the same thing. Her glass tipped over, has a fever, I’ll take its temperature. Is it a girl rabbit pouring milk all over the table. Annie immediately or a boy?” Kathy held the rabbit up in the air as tried to mop the milk off my plate with her napkin.

though I could determine its sex.

I jumped up and came back from the sink with a

“Ah, it’s a girl,” I surmised. Kathy looked up at sponge. We got most of it.

her mother.

Annie looked tense. “Your meal’s all spoiled.”

“Go show him your rabbit,” Annie urged. Kathy

“Naw,” I said, “milk’s good for you.”

shook her head violently and clung to her mother for Kathy seemed ready to cry. She hugged her

protection.

bunny tighter. I smiled at her. “Sometimes when I

“You like macaroni and cheese?” Annie asked. I

drop something I think everybody is gonna be mad hate macaroni and cheese.

at me,” I told her. “I’m not mad at you.” Kathy

“That would be great,” I answered.

narrowed her eyes as she checked me out, just the way Annie served up three plates of sliced ham,

her mother did.

macaroni and cheese, corn and white bread. The

“Would it make you feel better if I spilled

my beer?” I asked her. Kathy smiled and nodded

Flintstones still visible underneath. “Is that mine?” I emphatically.

asked Kathy. She shook her head and squeezed her

“Don’t you dare,” Annie warned me with a

bunny tighter.

hidden smile.

Annie set my plate in front of me and sat down.

The rest of the dinner went much smoother.

After dessert Kathy thrust her bunny at me. “Take it with milk. “Want a beer?” she asked me while the her temperature?” I asked. She nodded.

refrigerator door was open.

“This wabbit needs to go to bed soon,” I told

“Sure,” I said.

her. “I think she’s got a cold.” Kathy weighed the

“Need a glass?” I shook my head. She smiled.

information and nodded. “Does your wabbit need a Annie brought two beer bottles to the table and

sat back down. We lifted our beers in a toast. Kathy to side.

Stone Butch Blues 203

“Oh yes, she does,” Annie laughed and scooped man,” she told me. She came closer. My body turned up Kathy in her arms.

toward hers. It was happening.

I was washing the last of the dishes when Annie

“I’m not dangerous,” I promised. “I’m

came up behind me. She grabbed a dishtowel off the complicated, but I’m not dangerous.”

refrigerator door. I washed the pots while she dried

“Whatchya lookin’ for, darlin’?” Annie ran her

the dishes. It felt good. But the longer Annie dried dishes, the angrier she seemed to become. “What’s good.

up?” I asked her.

I sighed deeply. “I’ve been hurt. I’m not looking She threw down the towel and glared at me. “I’m

to get married, I’m not looking to disrespect anyone. I not an easy lay, you know. You guys know a woman guess I just need some comfort.”

“That’s it?” she probed. “Like a one-nighter?”

get whatever you want, right?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know,” I told

I rinsed a sponge under the faucet and walked

her honestly.

over to the kitchen table to wipe it off. “I got what I Annie weighed my words carefully in the scales

wanted at dinner,” I told her.

of her own need. She turned away from me, but I She looked stunned. “What, macaroni and

knew after a moment it was alright to touch her. I cheese in milk gravy?” We both laughed.

kissed the closest cheek. My lips brushed her ear and

“I just wanted to spend some time with you

traveled down her neck. I could hear her breathing when we’re both off-duty, you know.”

change. She turned and looked at me for a long

“Why?” She measured me with those keen eyes

moment before offering me her mouth. We kissed

again.

deeply, but still carefully. Slowly we began to move

“I like you. I guess I really like tough cookies, against each other. I could feel how she offered her and god knows, you are one.”

body to a man as a test. I was gentle. I was slow.

Gradually her body became aware that my tempo

“So what?”

She pressed her pelvis against mine and looked at me quizzically. We both knew I didn’t have a hard-on.

204 Leslie Feinberg

“Mommy!” Kathy called from upstairs. Annie come back to me. Then she took my hand and led me looked apologetic. I nodded toward the sound of

to her bedroom.

Kathy’s voice. Annie was gone for a few minutes.

Annie was afraid. I knew that was true. What she couldn’t know was that I was too. I wanted so much Cinderella glass with water. “I’ll be right back,” she to be in her arms that I was willing to risk exposure said hoarsely.

and humiliation.

I remembered the bag I’d left in the other room.

She turned on the light in her bedroom as we

walked in. A Harley-Davidson gas tank hung from the the bag and raced into the bathroom. I locked the ceiling. “You like bikes?” she asked me. I nodded. I door and took off my pants and BVDs.

walked over to the light switch and snapped it off. She stood awkwardly near her bed. I came up behind her briefs. I pulled my pants back on and checked my and rested my hands on her shoulders. I lifted her hair wallet for a condom. I heard Annie call my name

with one hand and nipped the nape of her neck with my lips. I pressed my pelvis gently against her ass as water for a moment, and came out to meet her. I was I pulled her shoulders back so that my mouth could out of breath.

take more of her neck.

“What were you doing in there, running?” she

Annie turned and gently pulled me down on the

laughed.

bed. She trembled. “Are you afraid?” I asked.

It would take time to get back the feeling. I ran

“Fuck you,” she answered with a twisted smile.

“You’ve been hurt before,” I said to myself out She closed her eyes and parted her lips. The

loud.

phone rang. We both laughed. “Forget it,” she said. It

“What woman hasn’t?” she snapped.

kept ringing. I pulled her close to me. She pressed her I rolled over on my back and pulled her against

pelvis against mine. This time she smiled.

my body. “I’d really like to make you feel good,” I She pulled back and searched my face with her

whispered. “If you’d trust me enough to show me eyes. I leaned against the sink and waited for her to what you want.”

Stone Butch Blues 205

“What’s your trip, mister?” she snorted. “You of her jeans I could feel her passion building, but she want to fuck or not?”

deserved the luxury of wanting it real bad.

“We can if you want to,” I said. “Or we can do

Then she said something to me I knew took a

other things. It’s up to you.”

lot of courage. “I’ve always wanted to come before I Annie did a double take. “Whatdya mean it’s up

fuck.” She turned her head away in shame.

to me?”

I kissed the part of her throat she left exposed.

“It’s your body. What do you want? I mean, you

“Anything you want,” I told her.

can show me how you really want to be touched. Or She turned her head to look at me. She had tears you can act excited and hope I come—not too quick, in her eyes. “Anything?” she asked.

but don’t take too long—right?”

Together we began to undress her—my need,

Annie shook her head and sat bolt upright.

her urgency. I pulled off my chinos and my dress

“You’re scaring me,” she said.

shirt. I was wearing only a white T-shirt and BVDs.

“Because I want you to really be there when I

My hands ran up her thighs and down the inside

touch you?”

crevices. I could feel her heat and wetness through She nodded, “Yeah, exactly.” I lay quietly.

her underwear. I began to work my body down her,

“I don’t know if I can,” she said.

using my lips and tongue to create new erogenous I sat up and took her in my arms. “Try,” I

whispered and pulled her down on top of me. I rolled took hold of the elastic on her underwear and began Annie over on her back as I kissed her, deep and long.

to slide it down her thighs as her hands grabbed my and teased her breasts for a long time before I came I looked at her with a question on my face. “I’m just gettin’ over my period,” she said.

them, lightly, and felt her body shudder. I took each I shrugged. “So?”

nipple in my mouth and played with it ever so gently.

Emotions played across Annie’s face: disbelief,

Somehow she told me with her body where to touch, anger, relief, pleasure. Pleasure was the unmistakable how to touch, when to touch. As I rubbed the front emotion still on her face as I began to tease her thighs 206 Leslie Feinberg

with my mouth. She gave into her own desire and, in I rolled a condom onto my dildo. “I don’t think I doing so, reached her orgasm with an almost relaxed can have any more kids,” she told me.

trust.

“I don’t want to take any chances, and it’s up to I held her close to me as her breathing slowed.

me, after all,” I said.

“Well, ain’t that a switch,” she laughed.

Her touch felt so good that tears welled up in my eyes I pushed the head of my cock gently inside

and spilled down my cheeks. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”

of her. She tensed her body; I waited. Then Annie she asked with concern. I shook my head and buried relaxed and her hips began to move, pulling me

my face in her shoulder. For the moment her arms into her. When I was deep inside of her I lay still protected me from my own life.

My mouth was near her nipple. I felt Annie’s

other. I didn’t move until she did. I stroked her just breath quicken. She tugged at my T-shirt. “Take it a little slower than her motion demanded; her body off,” she insisted. I hesitated. It was dark in the room.

demanded more.

I was on top of her, so she couldn’t see the two lines I felt her orgasm building long before she came.

across my chest that revealed it had been reshaped.

As she began to come her hands clawed at my back.

I took off my T-shirt. Annie ran her nails

Once she pulled my hair so hard I cried out with her.

across my shoulders, down my back. I shivered with As her orgasm began to ebb I followed it gently—

circles in the broken surface of a pool of water. I moved her pelvis against mine. She was relaxed with searched with her for the next orgasm before the last me, until the moment I was above her, ready to enter one had subsided. Together we found it, and later a her. I stroked her thighs until she looked up at me.

smaller one.

“It’s for you, or not at all,” I told her.

“I want you so bad,” she whispered hoarsely. We

both moaned softly as she said that. I pulled my dildo like warm raindrops.

carefully out of my briefs in the dark, afraid of being I was still rock hard inside of her. We both

discovered. What made me think this could work?

realized it at once. “What’s the matter, darlin’, you stuck?”

Stone Butch Blues 207

“I can’t come with a rubber on,” I said. “Let into my briefs. I turned away from her, slipped on my me take it off and I’ll pull out just before I come, I T-shirt, and headed to the bathroom in the darkness.

promise.”

I locked the door, pulled my bag out from behind the She turned her head away. “I’ve heard that one

tub, and replaced my dildo with a sock in my briefs. I before.”

looked in the mirror as I splashed cold water on my

“I promise. Trust me.”

face. Still me looking back at me.

“Lord have mercy, those are the four most

There was a knock at the bathroom door. I

dangerous words out of a man’s mouth. OK,

unlocked it. Annie came into my arms and kissed me sweetheart, you’re lucky I don’t think I can get deeply. She put her hand gently between my thighs pregnant again.”

and squeezed the sock. “I got a lot of pleasure out of It’s true I faked an ejaculation, but not my

this tonight,” she said. “It was like magic.” My body pleasure. Annie’s body felt so good. She kissed me tensed, and she withdrew her hand.

deep and slow, moved for me, gave me everything a I stroked her hair. “All magic is illusion,” I

woman can give to a lover, and I was excited. At the admitted.

moment when it became unbearable for me to go

The light was on when I returned to the

on any longer I pulled out gently, ground my pelvis bedroom. I clicked it off. Annie came back and sat against the sheets, and cried out.

down on the edge of the bed. “Hungry?” she asked I lay face down on the bed with my head resting

me.

on her belly. Her hands played with my hair. Her

“Mmm,” I pulled her back on top of me and

kissed her until I realized I was making promises I surface of my skin. I wished I could just stay in that couldn’t keep. “I’m tired,” I said, “but I want to hold moment in time.

you.”

We lay together without speaking for a while. “I Annie came into my arms and nestled against my

have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

shoulder. “You are one strange man.”

“Me too,” she laughed.

“Whatdya mean?”

“First of all, I never met a guy who wasn’t afraid 208 Leslie Feinberg

of a little bit of woman’s blood. But you know what’s I noticed Annie’s body language as she cooked.

the weirdest about you?”

“Something on your mind?” I asked.

Every muscle in my body got hard, except

She turned and wiped her hands on her apron.

the sock. Annie laughed. “Relax, baby. I’m not

“I know this is crazy to ask you.”

complaining. What really blew me away is that you

“Go ahead,” I said.

knew I had to take care of my kid and you didn’t

“Well, my sister’s getting married tomorrow, and, demand my attention till she went to bed. That, and well, it’s crazy, I mean it’s too short notice and you the fact that even my ex-husband never did the dishes, didn’t commit to nothing last night—”

and he’s the one that dirtied most of them.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

Annie shook her head. “You don’t fuck like

Annie sat down in a kitchen chair next to mine.

some other guys, either.” I rolled over on my stomach

“You really don’t mind?”

protectively. She massaged my shoulders. “I mean,

“I really don’t mind, as long as you understand.”

you take your time, you know. It’s like you got a brain in your dick instead of a dick for a brain, you know?”

heart asks for more sometimes,” she said, “but my We both laughed and rolled around on the bed

head wants the same thing you do.” I nodded.

together.

Annie got up and walked to the stove. “There’s

I fell asleep, safe in her arms.

one catch,” I added. She didn’t turn around, but her I turn on the cartoons?” Annie mumbled, “Go

her shoulder.

ahead.” Shortly afterward she kissed me on the ear

“We have to go on my Harley. It’s the only

and got up to make breakfast. While Annie cooked wheels I got.”

pancakes, Kathy sat on my lap and told me everything Annie took off her apron, threw it in the sink

she could think of about Road Runner and Wile E.

and came over and sat on my lap. She kissed my

Coyote. Annie tried to hide her pleasure at watching mouth so sweetly. “Nine o’clock,” she said, “not a us together. “She’s usually scared of men,” Annie said minute later.”

when Kathy left the room. “You’re real good with I got near her place at 8:30 actually. I turned off her.”

the engine a block away and rolled it in front of her Stone Butch Blues 209

house so I wouldn’t wake the whole neighborhood.

She blinked back tears. Then she sounded angry.

I sat on her porch, smoking a cigarette, until I heard

“Whadya go and do that for?” she scolded. I smiled at her door open and Annie said, “You comin’ in or

the powerful woman who stood before me. Her face not?”

softened and she smiled back.

She looked me up and down appreciatively.

“Where’s Kathy?” I asked her.

“You look real handsome, darlin’.” My blush visibly She scowled, “With Frances, from the restaurant.

My ex-husband might be skulking around the

coffee,” she called out from her bedroom.

wedding.” I didn’t understand, but I let it drop.

“I’ll get it,” I yelled back, “you want some?”

The wedding was a formal church affair. I’d

She came to the door of her bedroom, holding

never been to a wedding before. Everyone in the

the back of her dress together. “Yeah.” She smiled.

audience looked so teary-eyed and melted by the

ceremony. Annie’s sister honestly had to promise to me over her shoulder as I did. I kissed the side of her obey this guy for the rest of her life before the priest face. Her hair was swept up and held in place with would proclaim the two married. I thought it was kind bobby pins. I kissed the base of her neck. “You keep of feudal.

that up and I’ll never get ready, darlin’,” she pulled The reception was held outdoors. There were

away from me.

tables and chairs set up all over the lawn. Drinks and I got two cups of coffee and brought them to

food were served under a huge striped tent.

her bedroom door. The door was ajar, but I knocked Annie introduced me to all her people who’d

on the doorframe. “Your coffee’s out here.”

traveled up to Buffalo for the wedding. She stayed When she came out moments later I sucked in

on my arm the whole time. I met Cousin Wilma. She my breath and let it out slowly. She smoothed her dress. “How do I look?”

to agree to come with Annie today.” Annie squeezed I sighed. “Like I died and went to heaven.” She

my arm like a tourniquet.

made a face and lifted her arms to wrap them around

“It’s my pleasure.” I put my hand on Annie’s

my neck, but I pulled back and handed her an orchid hand which was cutting off the circulation in my arm.

corsage I bought the night before.

210 Leslie Feinberg

Without taking my eyes off Annie’s I told Wilma, “It

“Is he really gay?” I asked her.

isn’t everyday that a woman as strong and beautiful as

“You bet. Probably fuckin’ all the children in the Annie will give me the time of day.” Wilma turned on family.”

her heel, and Annie chuckled into my shoulder.

“Get us a bottle of champagne,” she said.

hate somebody just because of who they love?”

I did. “How many glasses, sir?” the bartender

She looked at me with shock. “You like

asked me.

faggots?”

“One.” I picked up a small bottle of club soda.

I shrugged. “We aren’t all the same, Annie. So

“Can I have this?” The bartender nodded.

what?”

“What’s that for?” Annie wanted to know.

She shook her head and spat on the ground. “I

“Hell, somebody’s got to drive us home.” She

wouldn’t let a faggot near my daughter.”

kissed me so tenderly right then and there under the I thought before I spoke. “Annie, if anybody was tent that not a man or a woman within eyesight didn’t gonna fuck with Kathy it would probably be a straight stare wistfully.

guy, not a gay man.”

Annie and I found a shady place under a tree

“Yeah?” she yelled. Annie stood up and gripped

where we could watch all the goings-on. She kicked the champagne bottle tightly at her side. “Well, I ain’t off her shoes. I put my suit jacket down for her to sit lettin’ no funny men around my daughter. I left my on. Annie shook her head. “Your momma sure taught own husband ’cause I caught him molesting Kathy. I her little boy some manners.”

tried to kill the man with my bare hands. No fucking She gave me the lowdown on all her folks: who

fags are coming near my girl, you understand?”

was a closet drunk, who beat or cheated on their wife I did understand that this conversation could go and who was giving it to the milkman.

no further. Annie kicked up some dirt and grass with

“That fag,” she said contemptuously. I was

her pumps and then sat down again. “Aw, shit, what’re stunned at the hatred in her eyes. She was glaring we wasting our time talkin’ about queers for anyway?”

I couldn’t wait till we left the reception. Annie shoulder of one of the many aunts who roamed the rode with her arms around my neck and her face

reception. “Who let that queer in here?” Annie hissed.

Stone Butch Blues 211

against my back. By the time we got to her home both different from any other guy who stands to pee.”

her shoes were gone and the exhaust pipe had burned

“Well,” I shrugged, “maybe just a little

a hole in the hem of her dress. “Pay it no mind,”

different.”

Annie said. She was drunk.

“You tell that woman who hurt you I’m gonna

When we got to the porch she threw her arms

come after her and rip her to shreds. She spoiled it for around me. “You comin’ in, darlin’?”

the rest of us.” Annie’s smile faded. “Ain’t no use us

“Naw,” I said. “I gotta get ready for work in the standing out here talkin’, is it? You best be goin’.”

morning.”

I nodded. We looked at each other for a long

She looked down at her stocking feet and back

moment. I took the keys from her hand and unlocked up to my face. “I ain’t gonna see you again, am I?”

the front door. I kissed her lightly on the mouth.

she asked.

“Hey, thanks for what you said to Wilma back

I looked down at my shoes. “I don’t think so.”

there.”

She nodded. “Why not?” It hurt my heart the

“I meant every word of it.”

way she asked it.

She looked me straight in the eyes. “Thanks for

“I’m afraid I’d fall in love with you,” I said. It everything, darlin’.” I smiled and turned to go. She was partly true, but it sure didn’t tell the whole story.

stood on the porch and watched me kick-start my

It’s one thing for the magician to reveal the art of bike. “Hey,” she yelled over the roar of the engine.

illusion. It’s another thing to tell a straight woman that

“What?” I cupped my hand near my ear to hear.

the man she slept with is a woman. That’s not what

“The wabbit.”

Annie agreed to get into. Sooner or later it was going

“What?”

to blow up. And after this afternoon, I had even more

“Kathy’s wabbit.”

reason to fear the explosion.

I nodded and strained to hear what she was

“What’s wrong with falling in love? What’s the

repeating.

matter with you guys, anyway?” she slurred.

“Kathy’s wabbit isn’t a girl, it’s a boy!”

“I’ve been hurt, Annie. I need time.”

“Shit, I thought you were different. You ain’t any 212 Leslie Feinberg

17

I FELT LIGHT-HEADED AND DIZZY. My

stomach clenched. I was about to heave my guts

Bolt ran to me. He was lead man on the set-

up. The worst part of it was I knew I couldn’t leave up crew. He put his hand on my shoulder while I

the injection-mold machine I was working on. If I threw up my breakfast. “It’s OK, you’ll be OK,” he switched it off, the plastic would harden throughout reassured. I was more embarrassed than anything.

the machine. The machines ran continuously—the

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Bolt repetitive sounds were the music we worked to in the pulled an oily rag out of the back pocket of his blue molding department.

work chinos and handed it to me. “You’re the third I looked around for the foreman, but I didn’t see guy on this shift to puke.”

“How hot you think it is in here today, Bolt?”

“Hundred and ten degrees.”

on the skid to my left and pushed the suction hose in I whistled. “That’s probably right on the nose.

a little deeper. Puffs of steam shot from the machine How do you do that?”

as it cooked the pellets and popped out little plastic Bolt laughed. “The thermometer on the wall in

parts. It stunk as bad as a burning rubber dish drain.

assembly. You alright?”

Mind over matter. I willed myself not to think

“Yeah,” I smiled sheepishly. Throwing up had

about the stench, my stomach, and the hot, stagnant only made the smell worse.

air in the factory. Matter won out. I vomited all over

Bolt patted my shoulder. “No shame in puking. I my mess, after all.”

do it myself about every Saturday night. I’ll send one of the guys from maintenance over to clean this up.”

“Hey, Bolt, what are these parts we’re making?”

much, or mostly clean up?”

Bolt shrugged. “Something for computers.”

I shook my head. “It’s weird to spend half my

“Bolt’s not a bad guy. He tries to throw some decent waking day making something and I don’t even know work my way.”

what the hell it is.”

The lunch whistle blew. “I better not eat lunch,”

Bolt laughed. “Be glad it has something to do

with computers. That means we’ll probably both

this afternoon.”

have a job down the line.” He started to walk away He laughed. “The air in here doesn’t move. You

and then hesitated. Bolt turned around and put his should get outside and breathe.”

hand on my shoulder. “Listen,” he said, “if you’re I punched out for lunch and started to walk

interested, there may be a job opening up soon in to the shipping and receiving end of the plant. The shipping and receiving. At least you can breathe in factory was the size of a large supermarket. I didn’t there. How long you been working here?”

know the guys on this end; I’d never even been back here. It was another world, and besides, I was afraid three months I was a temp, I don’t know if that to leave the safety of working alone on a machine.

counts.”

When I got to shipping and receiving, all the guys Bolt nodded. “I get around the plant. I’ll keep

had already gone to lunch. I walked out on the open my ear to the ground for you.” He slapped me on the loading dock. The temperature was thirty degrees shoulder and walked away.

cooler. The summer air smelled fresh.

I wanted to stay at this plant. No one knew me

out here in Tonawanda, on the outskirts of Buffalo.

on the maintenance and set-up gangs were white.

But working that machine was making me sick. Maybe

“Can I help you clean it up?” I asked him. “It is it was worth taking a risk and bidding for this job.

214 Leslie Feinberg

were in their late twenties or early thirties. Walter shook my hand. “Hey, son. You worked here long?”

Scotty was at least thirty years my senior, but I could I shook my head. “A year.”

never have gotten that last box hoisted up and into He laughed. “Where’d you work before?”

place in the truck’s trailer without him. My arms felt I shrugged. “Around.” Walter and Scotty glanced

like jelly after loading this one. Scotty wasn’t even at each other.

winded.

I was relieved when another one of the guys

“So how do you like working in shipping and

interrupted us. “I’m Ernie. This here’s my sidekick, receiving, young fella?” Scotty asked me.

Skids. I used to be an operator. I quit when I started coughing up blood.”

“Sure. You’ll get the rhythm of this job down.

Skids threw a towel at him. “You coughed up

You work real hard, then you take it easy. It’s almost blood because you smoke, asshole.” Ernie grabbed lunchtime. Come on, let’s go wash up.”

Skids in a headlock and ran his knuckles back and I took a deep breath as we walked into the men’s forth across Skids’ scalp.

room together. It looked just like the one on the other A young man with a ponytail shook my hand.

end of the plant. There was a huge concrete circular

“I’m Pat.”

sink in the center of the room. Scotty and I each Ernie laughed. “You haven’t met Patty yet?”

slapped the powdered soap dispenser in the middle Pat made a face at Ernie. “Shut up. I’ll tell you of the sink and stepped on the foot pedals that sent before they do: I was a conscientious objector. If you sprays of water our way.

got a problem with that, keep it to yourself.”

“You got a locker yet?” Scotty asked me. I shook Skids thrust his chest out. “I was in ’Nam. Hey, my head. “C’mon,” he said, “follow me.”

Scotty silenced the banter in the locker room.

All the blood rushed to my head. I wished I was

back in the molding department where the noise level got transferred from operator.”

protected me from idle questions. “I didn’t go,” I Except for Scotty and Walter, most of the guys

mumbled.

Stone Butch Blues 215

Ernie groaned. “Another one. What’d you do, tell them a fairy tale?”

I thought hard. “I was exempt. Medical.”

By the end of the summer I was considered one

Walter interrupted. “Leave the kid alone. You

of the guys. I actually looked forward to coming to got a locker? Here, use this one.”

work most mornings because it was my only human

“Hey,” Ernie said. “You need to spice up that

contact.

locker a little.” I knew what he meant. All the other Friday at lunchtime we were headed to the

guys had pin-up posters on their locker doors. “Get Italian restaurant on the corner when Bolt stopped yourself a calendar from the restaurant on the corner.

me. “You know somebody named Frankie?”

We all go there together on payday. Miss August will I felt the blood rush up into my face. “What’s he cook your balls. Hey, Walter, you better get one, too.”

look like?”

Walter shook his head slowly. “Some guys need

Bolt shook his head. “It’s not a he. It’s a

bulldagger. She used to work with you at a bindery—

I smiled. “I brought my pin-up over from my

said you two were on strike together. She told me you old locker.” Ernie handed me two bandaids from the did a lot of work with the union.”

Frankie told Bolt about me. She must have. I

magazine ad of my old Norton.

dock, hop down onto the driveway, and keep on

Ernie.”

walking to my bike. “Where did you meet Frankie?” I The lunch whistle blew. I looked around for

asked Bolt.

Scotty, but he was gone. “Hey, Walter, where’s

“She was on second shift. Starting Monday she’s

Scotty?”

moving onto day side. She’s an operator. She said Walter shrugged and pantomimed lifting a bottle

you’re a good guy.”

to his lips. “He’s having a rough go of it. His wife’s I blinked in disbelief. “She said that?”

dying of cancer. He don’t stick around when the guys Bolt nodded. “She said you’re a good union

start talking about pussy.”

man.”

216 Leslie Feinberg

I laughed in relief. “How did she know I worked Scotty tipped the bottle to his lips and swallowed here?”

three times. We sat in silence. “You married?” he

“She saw you leaving the parking lot. She a

asked me. I shook my head.

friend of yours?” Bolt asked me.

He dropped his head to his chest. “My wife’s

real sick.” He rubbed his eyes with his hands. His face used to work with.” My own disloyalty sickened me.

brightened. “Did I ever show you a picture of my Bolt headed for the dock. “You coming to

wife?”

lunch?”

I shook my head. He pulled out a leather wallet, I shook my head. “I’ll be along, go ahead.”

thin and smooth from wear. “Here she is. That’s my It was a relief to be alone. I wandered into the girl.”

warehouse and sat down on a stack of skids to think I laughed and whistled. “That’s you?”

about Bolt’s bombshell.

He smiled. “Yep. You think I was born this age?

Frankie was coming onto the day shift. It

I was once a young fella just like you. Had my whole scared me to realize she might have exposed me. But life ahead of me.”

apparently she didn’t. Frankie was sharp. She must We both laughed. But when I looked at him

sounded hoarse. “I wish I could go before she does.

with another butch! Maybe we could hang out

I know that sounds terrible. I mean, who would take sometimes. Maybe she knew where some of the

care of her, you know? But sometimes I don’t think I old crowd was. Maybe she could introduce me to a can stand letting go of her when the time comes.”

femme.

His head dropped down again. I reached out and

“Hey, young fella.” Scotty interrupted my

lay my hand gently on his back, ready to remove it quickly if my touch offended him. It didn’t.

“You’re young,” Scotty said, abruptly. “Don’t get Daniels and offered it to me.

stuck in a job like this.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking a swig.

I shrugged. “This job seems pretty good to me.”

Stone Butch Blues 217

Scotty shook his head. “I mean a real job. I had His warning disappointed me because I liked

twenty years in the Chevy plant. I got my UAW card, Bolt. But lucky for me, I didn’t really trust anyone.

you want to see it? Twenty years of my life in a plant and they laid me off. Can you believe it?”

“Chevy? Did you work with Bolt?”

Scotty nodded. “Yeah. But he wasn’t there as

I felt a hand on my shoulder as I punched out

long as I was. He worked at Harrison for a while. Got Monday afternoon. “Hey,” Frankie spun me around.

laid off there, too.”

“Hey, Frankie. Listen, we got to talk.”

Bolt interested me. “Was he in the same union?”

“All us old-timers are UAW,” he said. “I’ll be a know.”

union man on the day they lower my casket into the I followed her out to the parking lot. “I’m really ground. You gotta have a union, young fella. If you glad to see you and everything, Frankie. It’s just I’m scared. I’ve got a good thing going here. And the I laughed. “Not too likely we’ll get one here any newspapers are talking about another recession.”

time soon.”

Scotty shrugged. “Well, you never can tell.

Don’t you think I get it?”

There’s been talk. We need a union here. I’m too old

“How did you survive this long?” I asked her.

to do it. You young ones, you’re gonna have to do it.”

She shrugged. “I’m living out here in Tonawanda

I sighed. “I wish we had a union, too. But I just with my parents till I can save up for my own place.

want to keep my job, Scotty. By the way, what do you It’s not too bad. I stay at my girlfriend’s on the think about Bolt? He seems like a good guy.”

weekend.”

I whistled. “You got a girlfriend? Lucky you.”

out for Bolt. He’s not really one of us anymore. He’s Frankie pursed her lips. A car horn blared.

part gang foreman, part set-up man. Mark my words: When push comes to shove he won’t know which side he’s on. Don’t trust him.”

218 Leslie Feinberg

being lovers, the more it upset me. I couldn’t stop together before the strike. We all played softball thinking about them kissing each other. It was like together.”

two guys. Well, two gay guys would be alright. But two butches? How could they be attracted to each other?

was butch and I know you don’t mean her,” I laughed.

Who was the femme in bed?

Frankie widened her stance. “Yeah, that’s exactly I found myself obsessing about Frankie and

who I mean. She’s waiting for me in our car over there.”

morning that I didn’t notice Scotty and I were the only guys in the department. Scotty motioned toward

“C’mere.”

the men’s room. “You better go in there,” he said.

“You must be kidding,” I whispered to Frankie.

“What?” He just nodded toward the men’s room.

She put her hands on her hips. “She’s my lover,

I didn’t know what to expect when I opened the

My mouth hung open. I shook my head from

from my department, some I didn’t recognize. Bolt side to side. “Honest, Frankie, I just don’t get it. I don’t understand.”

Frankie smoldered. “You don’t have to

have told the guys about me out of spite. I should have known better than to trust her. Whatever

can’t, then just keep walking.”

misunderstanding we had should have been between That’s exactly what I did. I couldn’t deal with it, us. I’d deal with her later. Right now I was badly so I just walked away.

outnumbered.

It wasn’t hard to avoid Frankie after that—we

Bolt reached out his hand and moved toward

worked at opposite ends of the plant. I hung back me. I backed up against the wall. My temples pounded in the afternoons. I didn’t want to run into either of with blood. Bolt grabbed me by the shoulder; I

them at the time clock.

pushed his hand off. I was cornered. “Leave me

The more I thought about the two of them

alone,” I growled.

Stone Butch Blues 219

Walter moved toward me. “Take it easy, son. We

“The fumes are terrible,” Ernie added. “None of

just want to talk to you.”

us know what we’re breathing. And it’s so fucking hot

“Yeah? About what?” Bolt and Walter looked at

you can hardly breathe some days.”

each other and backed away from me.

Bolt touched my arm. I jumped back; he looked

“About the union,” Walter said. I shook my head

hurt. “There’s big safety problems here, too. We see in confusion. “Ernie’s wife works at a factory that the a lot of stuff in maintenance and set-up that you textile workers’ union organized. She put us in contact with a really good guy who helped them. We need to molds, stuff like that. The company tries to intimidate know where you stand.”

I had trouble regaining my composure. “You

mean this is an organizing drive?”

in the wastepaper basket.”

Bolt shrugged. “We been talking up till now.

I listened and nodded. Bolt shrugged. “So we

We need to get a union organizer out here and call a general interest meeting. This shit can’t go on much I sighed. This was a good job for me. I wished

longer without blowing up.”

it would stay that way. But everything was always This job didn’t seem that bad to me. “What kind

changing. “Look,” I told the guys. “You want to bring of grievances?” I asked.

“Like we make shit wages and they make us

Bolt moved closer to me. “That’s not good

work overtime practically every weekend,” Ernie said.

enough. We need you on the organizing committee.”

I nodded. “Yeah, but then we get other days

I didn’t want to make waves. Why couldn’t I just off.”

sign a union card like everybody else and do my job?

Skids answered me. “Sure, because they don’t

“I don’t want to get involved,” I told him.

want to pay us time and a half.”

“Listen,” he said as he leaned toward me. I

Walter nodded. “Two people can be working the

backed up a bit. “I’m sticking my neck out on this same machine and get paid different. It’s all based on thing and I don’t even know if I’ll be eligible for the whether you suck up to the foreman.”

union because the labor board might consider me a gang boss.”

220 Leslie Feinberg

“You can count on me in an election,” I told everybody get back to work. It does no good to stand him, “but I’m not an organizer.”

around.”

Bolt shook his head. “That’s not what Frankie

I was surprised when everyone went back to

told me. She said you helped win that strike.”

their jobs. I was half expecting an insurrection. That

“Look, Bolt, I don’t want to get involved. I’ll

came two weeks later.

The accident was all we talked about. The

Bolt shook his head. “I thought you were

company was experimenting with bigger molds that different.”

could stamp out plastic garbage cans. George was I sighed. “I don’t want to be different.”

assigned to use the forklift to carry the mold over to the injection machine. While he was standing in front of the forklift attaching the mold, the brakes gave out. One of the arms of the forklift pierced George’s We heard the shouting all the way from the other end back just below the lung.

of the plant. We ran the length of the factory. By the Anger still simmered a week later. Walter rushed time we got there, all that was left was blood on the into our department on Wednesday afternoon. “Have you heard? Management wrote up George for the

“Who got hurt?” I whispered to Bolt.

accident! They’re blaming him.”

Bolt was right behind him. “Listen up, guys.

“George.”

We’re calling a meeting Friday at the VFW post down the road. An organizer from the textile workers is dead?”

gonna meet with us. They’ve pushed us too far this Bolt shrugged. “We don’t know yet.” He

time.”

He was right.

this tow motor myself last month. The brakes were We all punched out at 3:00 Friday afternoon. I

shot.”

didn’t rush out right away; I didn’t want to run into The plant superintendent waved his arms. “Let’s

Frankie. I wondered if she’d be at the meeting.

Stone Butch Blues 221

When I got to the VFW post at 3:45 there Booze is his Achilles’ heel, but he’s a good guy. He’s an old UAW man. So’s Bolt.”

was represented. Excitement buzzed in the air, with Duffy nodded. “Tell me about Bolt.”

people waving their arms and talking a mile a minute.

Two Black women I didn’t recognize tapped

Bolt caught my eye from across the room. I nodded Duffy. “Excuse me,” one of the women said. “I’m and smiled. Frankie was standing next to him. I

Dottie. I work in the assembly department. This is my avoided looking at her. I was still unnerved about friend Gladys. She’s worked here longer than me.”

Duffy shook their hands. “How many here from

couldn’t explain why.

your department?”

I noticed Frankie whisper in some guy’s ear.

“Six,” Dottie said, “out of twenty on day side.

When he turned around, I recognized Duffy. The

smile on Duffy’s face when he saw me made me feel Someone yelled from across the room. “Let’s get

warm inside. Frankie grabbed his arm and whispered this meeting started.” A cheer went up.

something else to him. I wondered if she was

Duffy excused himself and moved to the front

explaining my situation.

of the room. “I’ve heard a lot of the grievances this afternoon.”

my hand. His grip felt familiar in mine. “I’ve thought

“Yeah!” Discipline broke down. Everyone

about you so many times. How long you worked

shouted about conditions in the plant.

here?”

Duffy held up his hands. “Every single one of

“More than a year.”

your grievances will be addressed. I promise you that.

He smiled. “We’re gonna need your help.”

There’s not a single one that’s not important. But let’s I started to protest, but Duffy noticed Ernie and Scotty bringing drinks from the bar into the meeting Bolt patted me on the shoulder. “C’mon out

room. He waved to them. “Get the booze out of

here a minute. I want to talk to you.” I started to here. We’re serious in here.”

protest. “C’mon, this meeting will still be going on.” I I tugged his sleeve. “Go easy on the older guy.

followed Bolt out to the bar.

222 Leslie Feinberg

He ordered two beers and paid for them. He Duffy shook his head. “This really is a great

lifted his bottle. “To the union,” he said.

I nodded. “I’ll drink to that.”

workers from every department lined up.”

Bolt yelled out, “Maintenance and set-up are

Duffy?”

solid.”

I shrugged. “He’s alright in my book. I trust

“What about assembly?” Ernie shouted. “Those

him.”

girls aren’t going to be with us. They’ve got husbands

“Some of the guys heard something about him.

to take care of them. Shit, I heard two of them still Somebody said he’s a communist.”

live with their parents.”

I laughed. “He’s no communist. He’s a good

Dottie stood up. “And I’m one of them. Yeah,

guy.”

I live with my parents. I’m trying to raise two kids Bolt smiled and nodded. “Alright. As long as

without a husband. And Gladys is living with her somebody knows the guy.”

parents because she’s supporting them and she can’t

“Hey, Bolt. Did you ask Duffy about whether or

afford her own place. But we’re both here. You don’t not you’d be eligible to join the union?”

know jack squat about our department.”

Bolt shook his head. “I’ll ask him later. After the Gladys stood up beside her. “That’s right. Our

meeting.”

We both heard a roar from the other room.

all day. We’re making lousy money and we have to

“C’mon,” I said, “let’s get back.” I was starting to feel work weekends. A lot of the girls have husbands who a little excited.

also bring home a paycheck, it’s true. But a lot of

“Let’s sign the cards now!” Ernie shouted.

them are fed up and they’ll sign—you’ll see.”

Duffy raised both hands. “You got 120 people

Duffy smiled at them. “The sisters are speaking

in your shop. It’ll take 30 percent plus one as a up, guys. You better listen.”

We all agreed to end the meeting and hold

turnout, but we need more.”

another one the following week. But nobody was

“Where the hell is everybody?” someone yelled.

eager to leave. We milled around talking.

Stone Butch Blues 223

“Hey, Duffy,” Bolt called him over. “Am I gonna and shook her head. The guys looked from Duffy to be able to get into the union? I’m lead set-up man.”

me and back again. I stormed out of the VFW post I wished I could tip off Duffy about Bolt’s

and headed for my motorcycle.

worth, but I could see Duffy already recognized it.

“Management knows you’re a leader,” he told Bolt. I up to me and grabbed my arm.

I yanked it away. “Thanks a lot, Duffy.” Seeing

Do you review the guys or discipline them?”

tears in his eyes made it worse.

Bolt shrugged. “It’s kind of hazy. I’m really just the most experienced guy in set-up, but they sort of mean it.”

treat me like gang boss, too.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what you meant to Duffy nodded. “The company will argue about

do. I’m out of this job now.”

which side you’re on in order to delay the elections and use the time to intimidate people. I think you could stay. I’ll talk to the guys.”

already know which side you’re on, but you have to I laughed bitterly. “You don’t get it, do you?

make it real clear. If you work hard to bring the union Which bathroom you think I’m going to use on

in, it’ll make our argument easier that you should be Monday, Duffy?”

in.”

Duffy put his hand on my arm. I glared at him.

Bolt shook Duffy’s hand. “Do you think we’re

gonna win?”

that.”

Duffy smiled and nodded. “Yeah. But it’ll take

I pushed his hand off my arm. “Well, you did.” I turned and walked away.

you’re mad. That was really fucked up. But it was a Everything happened in slow motion. When

mistake. He’s really upset.”

I heard Duffy say she I turned in horror, my jaw

“Leave me alone, Frankie. You don’t understand,

dropped. Frankie slapped her forehead with her palm either.”

224 Leslie Feinberg

Frankie look stunned. “What’s your fuckin’

problem with me? Are you really gonna cut another butch loose just because you can’t deal with who turns me on?”

I wished someone had muzzled me because

I was so worked up I couldn’t control my mouth.

“What makes you think you’re still a butch?” I asked her sarcastically.

Her smile was cruel and defensive. “What makes

you think you’re still a butch?” she countered.

I spun around and stormed off. Part of me was

hoping that Frankie or Duffy wouldn’t let me go. But they did.

Stone Butch Blues 225

18

THE LEAF WAS BIG AND WET and glowed with

I belonged. So every morning I willed myself back the oranges and reds of autumn. I found it stuck into existence. I went to the gym already dressed in to the seat of my Harley on Saturday morning. It sweat clothes. That’s where I brought my tension and made me sad when the leaves began to fall. I wanted frustration, my rage and my fear. I put it all into my another beginning, another chance,

workout.

I hated the thought of putting my Harley away

I thought about my body a lot as I pressed

for the winter. It was dangerous for me to ride—I’d against the resistance of cold iron. I enjoyed getting been driving without a license for three years—but leaner and harder. Was that a goal the world had I lived to cruise on that bike. It was my joy and my taught me? Probably. I thought of my femme lovers freedom.

who cursed each thickness and fold in their bodies—

There were only two things I looked forward

to every day: pumping iron at the nearby YMCA and clench my muscles while I pumped, I found the

whipping into the wind astride my motorcycle.

weight and shape of my own body that pleased me. I When my alarm jangled in the morning, I awoke

concentrated on my discipline and endurance. I tried, in the best way I knew how, to love myself.

my own life—there was no memory of me that I

I learned that strength, like height, is measured could grasp. There was no place outside of me where by who you’re standing next to. I was considered a

scrawny guy in the gym. That opinion was written lightning illuminated the sky over the park. I loved on the faces of men whose muscles were bigger

dramatic weather. It was the excitement that made than mine. And all the while the lifetime of cruel one day different from another.

judgments about my body and myself throbbed like The women in the zoo entrance booth were

unhealed wounds.

enjoying a lazy day. They waved me in without paying.

Yet sometimes when I stood in front of my own

The condor’s head was tilted back into the wind, mirror at home, I saw a powerful me. I couldn’t hold and her wings were spread wider than my height. I onto the image, though. It slipped like a globule of opened my own arms and turned my face toward the sky and laughed.

Maybe that was the lesson I tried to teach

The snowy owl’s neck puffed up as I came near,

myself with each repetition—that power is something and he huffed as though he was out of breath. I qualitatively more than strength. And that the world hurried past.

was wrong about me. I had a right to live.

Raindrops dripped from the beak of the red-

Every day the men around me came to exercise

tailed hawk whose left wing had been sheared by a their bodies; I came to exorcise my demons.

shotgun blast. She looked miserable.

Euphoria was my reward for the tenacious

The male eagle was balanced on a branch—his

workout that autumn morning. It was Saturday. There feathers slicked back by rain and wind. He moved was nowhere to go, there was nothing to do. I turned up the collar on my leather jacket. Fall was here and His eyes focused on the distance. There was no

winter was just behind it. The sky was overcast. The border between his frustration and his madness. For just a moment he dropped his gaze and held me in I revved my bike without knowing where I

the intensity of his golden stare. He looked up again, was headed. I had money in my wallet and a whole weekend to ride as far as gasoline would take me.

past on widespread wings.

After the storm let up, I rode my motorcycle

tank, I pulled over and put on my gear. Bolts of through the rain-soaked streets longing for so much I Stone Butch Blues 227

couldn’t name. Sometimes mundane tasks stuffed that We both laughed. Edna blushed. “I get off at

feeling back down—I decided to go food shopping.

3:30.” It was only 2:00.

The supermarket was packed with women. The

I paced the pavement near my Harley, rode

conveyor belt at the checkout line wasn’t working, so I pushed the food forward as the woman at the cash windows, stopped for coffee—it was still only 3:00.

register rang it up. “That’ll be $22.80,” she said. I held At 3:30 I pulled my bike up in front of the

out a twenty and a ten; she reached for the bills. We supermarket. I wished I had a second helmet. Edna caught each other’s eyes.

looked my Harley up and down and smiled, as though I whispered her name out loud: “Edna.” Funny

she liked what she saw. Then she looked at me the how, even years later, I still thought of her as Butch been?”

I could have asked her when she broke up with

The woman behind me in line sighed heavily.

“Honey, can we speed this up?”

that contraption and we were on strike. I think it was The last time I’d seen Edna I had told her I was

’67, so it’s been twelve years. I’m almost thirty, can too young to be the kind of lover I’d wanted to be for you believe it?”

her. Now life was giving me another chance.

Edna nodded. “That means you’re just about

I helped her bag my groceries. Neither of us

the age I was when you thought I was such an old spoke. I pressed my lips together to keep from asking, woman.”

“Are you with someone?” I thought of a neutral

I shook my head. “That’s not fair, Edna. The

question. “Can we talk?”

problem was I was so young. I never thought you

The woman behind me banged a box of laundry

were old.”

detergent on the conveyor belt and asked Edna,

Edna took my face in her hands. I felt my cheeks

“Honey, do you go on break soon?” Edna looked

at her blankly and nodded. “Then could you please I offered her my helmet. She swung her leg

continue your reunion then?”

over the bike and settled behind me. Her body felt so 228 Leslie Feinberg

damn good against mine. “Where are we going?” she to the gym. She touched my lips, my hair, my neck—

asked.

as though she was searching for me with her hands.

“I don’t know.” I gently popped the clutch.

“Have I changed so much?” I asked her, afraid

We ended up at the zoo. The air smelled fresh

to hear her answer.

there, washed by the rain. We walked on a bed of She smiled and shook her head. “No. In a way

wet leaves, under a latticework of branches. I ached I don’t know how anyone in the world could think to hold her hand. We tried to make small talk, but you’re a man, especially if they looked into your eyes.”

there wasn’t anything either of us said that seemed With a light touch she turned my face to hers.

Then her hands settled on my chest like a bird’s question clenched in my throat, but I couldn’t put it wings at rest. Our faces were very close. It felt to me off any longer.

as though my whole life was held in the balance of I turned to her. “I can’t take another step till I that moment. If Edna had turned away from me, I ask you a question.”

don’t know where I would have gone or how I would She shook her head shyly. “No.”

have found the strength to go on. But she didn’t. She

“No, I can’t ask you a question?”

brought her lips near mine, allowed me to celebrate She smiled. “No, I’m not with anyone.”

the moment before it began, and then gave me her A grin spread across my face, then I checked it.

mouth. All I had to offer was in that kiss. Edna’s

“I was just wondering.”

hands cupped the back of my head and pulled me

We stood and faced each other under a maple

toward her.

tree. “How about you? Are you with anyone?” she

The kiss lasted until I stopped fearing it would asked. I shook my head.

end and enjoyed it as a journey we’d just begun. Our The maple seeds whirled around us. I caught

lips didn’t part until the wind splattered cold rain one on my palm. “We used to call these helicopters,” I down on us from the branches above. She pulled

said, as I let it twirl to the ground.

away from me and began to walk. I caught up to her on my cheek. I wished I had shaved before I’d gone Stone Butch Blues 229

“Are you hungry?” I asked her.

Even after her front door closed and the lights came She stopped and turned toward me again. “I

on behind her curtains I didn’t leave. A light rain fell have to get home soon.” My disappointment showed.

on me. The wind carried autumn and the scent of

“I’m sorry,” she said.

fallen leaves.

“Can I see you?” All my hopes rested on her

reply.

She hesitated and nodded. “Next Friday night.”

Friday! Today was Saturday and I’d had trouble

When the waiter walked away from our table Edna

just killing an hour and a half until she’d gotten out leaned forward. “What’s it like, passing?” I could tell of work. Edna tugged on a branch overhead. A

she’d wanted to ask me that all evening.

shower of raindrops fell on us.

“All my life I’ve been told there’s something

As I drove her home, her hands rested on my

really wrong with me because of the way I am as a shoulders, the side of her face pressed against my woman. But if I’m a man, then I’m a nice young man.

back. “This is it,” she pointed. I slowed and parked.

“You sure you want to see me Friday?” I needed

“Some of it is fun. I was tied up so tight all the reassurance. Edna stroked my cheeks. I couldn’t really time as a he-she. It feels good to be free to do little things, like go to a public bathroom in peace or to be touched by a barber. It’s nice to be smiled at by grown a beard I wished it would vanish.

Edna nibbled at my mouth, pulled away when

Edna studied my face. “Then why are your eyes

I moved forward, then drew me back hungrily. “I’m even sadder than I remember?”

“Oh, I think …” I sighed.

meant it. My feelings rose in my throat. I swallowed Edna interrupted me. “I’m interested in what

and nodded. “Meet me here, at 9:00 on Friday?” she asked.

forgotten how much I loved femmes. Another butch I nodded again and watched her walk up the

would have nodded when I sighed, content that the sidewalk to her porch. She looked back and waved.

230 Leslie Feinberg

whole story had been articulated in the rush of air.

“I don’t know how to say this. I’m afraid I’ll

But Edna pressed for words.

make a mistake,” she hesitated.

“I feel like a ghost, Edna. Like I’ve been buried

“Try,” I urged her. “Please. I need to hear it.”

alive. As far as the world’s concerned, I was born the

“I don’t think femmes ever see butches as one

day I began to pass. I have no past, no loved ones, no big group. After a while you see how many different memories, no me. No one really sees me or speaks to ways there are for butches to be. You see them young me or touches me.”

harden up or be destroyed. Soft ones and bitter ones and took my hand in hers. The waiter interrupted us.

and troubled ones. You and Rocco were granite

“More coffee, sir?” I shook my head.

butches who couldn’t soften your edges. It just wasn’t When he’d walked out of earshot, Edna told

in your nature.”

Edna took a bite of food. I wished she’d hurry

up chewing and continue. “I love all the different My smile felt shy. “Sometimes people call me

ways butches can be. I love butches’ hearts. But the ones I worry most about are the ones who aren’t

whatever you want, just try to remember the right tough inside.”

pronoun in a public place. It could get real ugly.”

I frowned and dropped my eyes. Edna leaned

Edna sighed and nodded. I’d forgotten she was

forward. “You see, I hurt you. I’m sorry. You and Rocco’s lover, too.

Rocco both had beautiful hearts that were so easily

“Did you know, Edna,” I asked her, “did you

hurt, and I loved you for it. But I didn’t know how know I would make the same decision Rocco made?”

long you could survive.”

Edna shook her head. “I only knew your options

“I think about her a lot,” I told Edna.

were as few as hers. But when you were young I

She stared at her plate and nodded. “Me too.”

recognized something in you that I’d seen in Rocco.”

“I’d give anything to talk to Rocco,” I said,

I chewed my lower lip, waiting for the words of

wishing Edna knew how to reach her.

a woman who knew me.

Edna nodded. “I’ll bet.”

Stone Butch Blues 231

I sat back in my chair and scuffed the rug with there anymore. It was mostly university women. I my shoe. “I wish I could ask her a million questions.”

started to feel embarrassed about showing up in a Edna leaned forward. “What don’t you know?”

dress, with makeup on. It seemed like everyone in I shrugged and played with my fork. “I’m not

sure. How to survive this, I guess.”

That’s not me. But there was no other place to go. A Edna smiled gently. “What makes you think

few of us went to a dance on campus,” she said. “But Rocco knows?” Her answer surprised me.

we were dressed different, we danced different.” She

“I’m not like Rocco,” I said. “She’s like a legend or something. She’s so strong, so sure of herself. I dance made fun of the butch I was with because she don’t feel that way at all. If I could just get to know helped me off with my coat. I was so upset that we her.”

left right away.”

Edna gently took the fork from my hand and put

I nodded. “My ex-lover Theresa worked up at

UB. I remember getting mad and telling her how

my forearm. “People get buried under legends. Rocco much I hated those women for rejecting us. She used doesn’t have all the answers. She’s got questions, just to say: ‘They’re right about needing a revolution, but like you do. She’s trying to get through it the best way they’re wrong to think they can do it without all of she can, just the way you are. That’s what makes you us.’”

both so strong. There’s only one thing Rocco had that Edna shrugged. “I know I’m not a straight

you don’t have,” Edna told me.

woman, and lesbians won’t accept me as one of them.

I leaned forward. “What?”

“I’ll show you later.”

the other femmes. I feel completely misunderstood. I Was she always going to make me wait?

“Edna, where have you been all these years?” I

For a long moment we held a conversation

asked her.

without words. Our eyes welcomed each other home.

She picked at her lasagna. “After the bar scene

The waiter brought the check to me, an automatic changed I stopped going. The butches I loved weren’t gesture.

232 Leslie Feinberg

I chuckled. Edna frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“Try it on,” Edna urged, holding the jacket for me to

“Until I talked to you tonight, part of me really slip into. It was heavy; the weight felt reassuring. “It believed that everyone I knew was sitting in a bar somewhere together having a good time without me.”

lips.

We rode back to her home in silence. I wanted to I opened my arms. She shook her head. “I need

touch her. I wanted to matter to her. And I ached to to be alone. I’m sorry, I’m just not ready. I hope you sleep, safe, with her body close to mine.

understand.” I didn’t. But I was so afraid to lose her I pulled up in front of her house. She took

that I forced myself to smile and nod.

off the helmet and beckoned for me to follow her. I I walked back out to my Harley and swung my

stood in her living room trying to know her through leg over it. I heard my own power in the engine’s roar.

her home. She rummaged through her hall closet. “I I drove away wearing Rocco’s armor.

found it!”

She came back into the room smiling. “There’s

only one thing Rocco had that you don’t have.

Armor!” Edna handed me a heavy black motorcycle

“Be careful!” Edna shouted as the ladder tipped. I jacket gleaming with silver zippers.

grabbed the metal tray before the paint inside of it I took it in my hands. It was soft with wear. The could spill. “Get down from there!” Edna ordered.

right elbow was badly scuffed.

I climbed down and wiped my forearm across my

“That’s where she skidded when she dumped

forehead. Edna laughed. “You just smeared paint on her Harley on the way back from Niagara Falls.” Edna your face, c’mere.”

She held my arm as she gently rubbed my

almost as much as her bike. She called this her second forehead with a cloth. I clenched my biceps. “I’ve skin.”

been working out,” I boasted.

Edna’s eyes glazed. “She left it to protect me.

Edna suppressed a smile and said, “I noticed.” I That’s what she said. It was so much a part of her didn’t suppress mine.

that I could never bear to wear it.” I couldn’t speak.

She kissed my lips. “Thank you for helping me

paint my living room.”

Stone Butch Blues 233

I smiled and shrugged. “What are butches for?”

Contained in those four words were all my hurt

her bedroom she unzipped my jeans. Only then did I and confusion over why, a month after we’d been

allow my passion to meet hers.

reunited, Edna still wouldn’t let me make love to her.

Once it began, all of our needs were unleashed.

“Oh no,” Edna said, shaking her head slowly.

She knew exactly what she wanted and she took me

“Butches are wonderful about lending a hand. But there, demanding everything from me that I could that’s not all you’re good for. Butches have moved give. And I gave gladly, without restraint. Even as I my world. They’ve made me feel beautiful when the touched her body with my mouth, with my hands,

world took that away from me. It’s butch love that’s with my thighs—I knew it was not only pleasure I sustained me.”

was trying to give her, it was all my love. And as she alternately caressed me with her hands and dug her the frustration of restraining myself from touching nails into my back, I could feel all of hers.

her.

I lay in her arms, dressed only in a T-shirt and wanted me, and yet I couldn’t be sure that her whole my shoulders. She smiled seductively. I’d forgotten the body wanted the same. “You are so beautiful,” she sheer pleasure of a high femme tease.

whispered. “Handsome, I should have said you are so Edna moved against me, tormenting me with

handsome.”

her nails and her lips until I felt crazy with wanting I laughed. “Oh, I’ll take either right about now.”

more. Fear gripped my throat. I couldn’t remember All I saw was her mouth, so close to mine I felt how to submit, but I wanted her to guide me there.

the warmth of her breath. Still I didn’t move toward Her nails trailed up the inside of one of my thighs.

her. Edna hesitated. I held my breath as I waited for

“I’m scared,” I admitted out loud.

her to come to me—hoping she would, fearing she

She stopped touching me and lay still in my

wouldn’t. She came into my arms afraid, but trusting arms. Even after she’d fallen asleep in my embrace I me. I welcomed her with my embrace.

stared at the ceiling, longing for her to take me past Edna fumbled with the buttons on my paint-my own fear and now knowing how to ask.

234 Leslie Feinberg

you touched my loneliness

and my crisp, brown husks

yielded to a tender newness.

her. “Oh, irises. They’re so beautiful.”

I kissed her on the cheek. “They remind me of

Edna burst into tears. She kissed my face all over you.” Edna found the card I’d tucked inside.

“Wait,” I restrained her hand.

really write that just for me? It’s beautiful.”

Edna laughed. “What’s wrong? Did you write

“Edna,” I whispered in her ear, “was that

something you shouldn’t have?”

expressing a feeling?”

I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “I wrote

Edna pulled back and held my face in her hands.

you a poem. I never did that before. Maybe you’ll Her lower lip trembled. “Oh yes, honey. That’s exactly think it’s stupid.”

what it was.”

Edna pulled my face against her neck and

We held each other and swayed to music only

wrapped her arms around me. “Honey, you wrote a

we could hear. She took my hand and led me to her poem for me? Oh, thank you. That means so much to bedroom. I tried to make good love to her. But I me. I don’t even have to read it if you don’t want me couldn’t read her body signals—all I got was static.

to.”

Femmes can be so smart about these things. Of

Edna’s nipple tightened like a bud and then

course I wanted her to read it, especially since she was blossomed in my mouth. I heard her gasp. One sob giving me a choice. “Oh, alright, go ahead and read followed another. I brought my face near hers, and it,” I told her, and braced myself for her reaction.

I blushed because it surprised me when she read

shook violently. She buried her face against my neck it out loud. But I liked the way her voice elevated my and cried so hard it frightened me. I held her tight. “I words:

can’t,” she said.

“Shh. It’s alright.”

As yellow as leaves give way

“Don’t be mad at me,” she pleaded.

to the gentle insistence of the green

“I’m not,” I whispered. “I’m not mad at you.”

Stone Butch Blues 235

Edna didn’t say what was going on inside of I sighed. “I don’t like being neither.”

her, and I was afraid to ask. If I was undesirable it Edna moved her face close to mine. “You’re

more than just neither, honey. There’s other ways to I’d been so unbearably lonely for so long that the be than either-or. It’s not so simple. Otherwise there sex didn’t matter to me as much as this intimacy. I continued holding her and settled into the simple comfort that her closeness offered.

see that.”

We lay without speaking for a long, long time.

“I wish everything could go back to the way it

was,” I told her.

think I’m a woman?”

Edna looked off into the distance. “I don’t,”

Edna got up on one elbow and looked at me.

she said. “I don’t want to go back to the bars and the

“What do you think?” she asked gently.

I sighed. “I don’t know. There’s never been many I want to be accepted for who I am, and not just in other women in the world I could identify with. But the gay world.”

I sure as hell don’t feel like a guy, either. I don’t know I felt left out of the fantasy. “What about me?

what I am. It makes me feel crazy.”

Can I be accepted too?”

Edna nestled against my shoulder. “I know,

Edna lifted my hand to her mouth and kissed my

honey, I really do. I don’t think I’ve ever had a butch lover who hasn’t felt torn up in the same way.”

I smiled. “It’s a nice dream. How do we make it

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “but it’s different for me

happen?”

because I’m living as a man. I don’t even know if I’m

“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

still butch anymore.”

Edna stretched her thigh across my hip. Her lips She nodded. “It’s true that you and Rocco have

rested on my T-shirt. “I wish I could save you,” she whispered. “I wish I could be everything that’s been still live. But believe me, honey, you’re not alone in the taken from you.”

feeling that you’re not a man or a woman.”

236 Leslie Feinberg

Edna leaned on one elbow and looked me in the I sighed. “If I can’t make love to you, and I can’t eye. “You wish I could save you, don’t you?”

“No,” I lied, afraid of losing her.

What can I give you?”

She sat up. “I don’t know how you couldn’t. It

Edna smiled and settled back into my arms.

“Give me time,” she said, “and a little space.”

much you must need. I don’t have that much to give you.”

I rolled over and wrapped my arms around her

waist. “Then I’ll try to need less.”

Edna noticed the buds on the trees at the zoo before She grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my

I did. She rarely touched me anymore. I envied the way she touched them.

I’m so sorry I’m hurting you. Don’t you think I know We bought some peanuts and walked around

how much it’s hurt you when I couldn’t let you touch aimlessly. I watched a caged tiger pace back and forth across his tiny cell. He dipped his head and roared.

you that it has nothing to do with you.”

Edna watched my face. “Sometimes I get the feeling

“Thanks a lot,” I laughed bitterly. “I’m the one that when no one’s here you talk to these animals and you don’t want, so it has plenty to do with me. All they answer you.”

that means to me is that there’s nothing I can do I smiled. “I’d walk into these cages without fear.”

about it.”

Edna frowned. “They could maul you, without

meaning to.”

I nodded. “But I’m not afraid of them.”

can’t explain it.”

We walked in silence till we came to the still

I sat up eagerly. “Then talk to me, Edna. I could pond where the ducks drifted and dunked. As we sat help.”

by the pool I realized something was going to happen.

And nothing could delay that moment from arriving.

“You know,” Edna began, “I’ve always waited

Stone Butch Blues 237

for a butch to ride up on a horse and save me. I’ve I reached for her out of instinct. She held me at an always leaned on my butch when I felt weak.”

arm’s length with a light touch.

I cracked open peanuts, one after another, and

tossed them to eager ducks. I knew better than to knowing I had many nights ahead of me to grieve.

utter a word. Edna stared at the ducks for a long time

“Why?” I asked her. “I just don’t understand why you without speaking. She pressed against my body. As can’t try.”

she turned her face toward me I could see the streaks of tears.

tried. I just don’t know what’s happening. I’m just as I think I knew right then, but sometimes

lonely as you are. I need so much. That’s what scares knowing comes in layers. I whispered her name out me, that and how much you need me.”

loud. “We can work things out,” I told her.

“Oh, Edna. Isn’t there something I can do to

She shook her head. “I just can’t be with anyone keep you from leaving me? Isn’t there anything I can do to change your mind?”

make sense. If there was ever a hero, you could surely Edna shook her head. Tears streamed down her

be mine. You’re everything I ever wanted in a butch.

You’re strong and gentle and you listen and you try so me.”

I was relieved when she came into my arms to

As Edna cried, she turned her face away from

cry, until I realized she was letting me hold her for me. I didn’t touch her. I longed to, but I knew I the last time. A wave of panic almost drowned me. I shouldn’t. “You know,” I told her, “the moments

could feel in my gut what my life was like before Edna I remember most in my life are the ones where

came back into it. “Edna,” I whispered.

something happened that I didn’t want to have

happen and I couldn’t control it.”

she said.

Edna held my face in both her hands and looked

do it for me. And I don’t know how. I’m so scared.”

I was strong enough to save us both.”

238 Leslie Feinberg

One at a time I broke the shells of the peanuts.

myself say. We both laughed out loud. “That was a I threw some of them to the ducks and ate the others very butch thing to say, wasn’t it?” I admitted.

myself. I felt more alone and afraid than ever before.

“Oh, very,” Edna laughed.

We slipped back over the boundary of our

laughter to our tears.

I wondered if she would have left me if there

had been more inside of me to love, or if I just could have needed less.

Edna kissed me on the mouth. If I had moved

toward her she would have pulled away. And so I held very still and her kiss lingered a moment longer.

If pleading would have kept her in my life I

would have dropped to my knees, but I knew she

wouldn’t stay.

“Can I drive you home?” I asked, hoping for

time to try to change her mind. She shook her head.

I stood up and let my lips memorize her

forehead, her cheeks, her chin. I loved the way age had softened her face. “Can’t I see you sometime?

Talk to you?”

She put her hand on my chest. “Maybe at some

point. Not now.” Her lips were close to mine. I kissed her hesitantly. She didn’t draw away from me. For a moment I felt her need, then she pulled back. I watched Edna walk away from me.

Stone Butch Blues 239

19

IT SEEMED TO BE A Saturday morning like

it above my naked thigh—and then paused. My arm

any other. One day had become so much like the

felt restrained by an unseen hand. No matter how I next. Each hour dragged so slowly that I didn’t pay tried I could not sink that needle into my quadriceps attention as months turned into years.

as I’d done hundreds of times before.

As I made myself coffee, I watched a blue

I stood up and looked in the bathroom mirror.

The depth of sadness in my eyes frightened me. I feeder. Neither noticed the orange-marmalade cat lathered my morning beard stubble, scraped it clean crouched below them, ready to spring.

with a razor, and splashed cold water on my face.

I took my time in the shower, trying to scrub

The stubble still felt rough. As much as I loved my away the grime of isolation with hot, soapy water.

beard as part of my body, I felt trapped behind it.

Loneliness had become an environment—the air

I breathed, the spatial dimension in which I was I couldn’t recognize the he-she. My face no longer trapped. I sat in a boat on a deathly calm sea, waiting revealed the contrasts of my gender. I could see my passing self, but even I could no longer see the more And so it never occurred to me my life might

complicated me beneath my surface.

change again dramatically that day. It was quite simple, I stared far back into my past and remembered

really. I drew one cc of hormones into a syringe, lifted the child who couldn’t be catalogued by Sears. I

saw her standing in front of her own mirror, in questions, but even asking them was a sign to me that her father’s suit, asking me if I was the person she tumultuous change had been boiling just below the would grow up to become. Yes, I answered her. And surface of my consciousness.

I thought how brave she was to have begun this

I searched the apartment for a cigarette, but as I journey, to have withstood the towering judgments.

picked up the pack I watched my hand crush it.

But who was I now—woman or man? I

That night I dreamt I was struggling in deep

fought long and hard to be included as a woman

among women, but I always felt so excluded by my molasses resistance. My lungs ached from holding differences. I hadn’t just believed that passing would my breath. I desperately needed to inhale. I began to hide me. I hoped that it would allow me to express slowly swim toward the surface. The pressure eased the part of myself that didn’t seem to be woman. I on my body. I felt liquid velvet against my hands as didn’t get to explore being a he-she, though. I simply they sliced through the water. I could see the sky, became a he—a man without a past.

facets of light shimmering above me. My lungs were Who was I now—woman or man? That question

ready to explode. I broke through the skin of the could never be answered as long as those were the water. I felt the sun and breeze against my face, warm only choices; it could never be answered if it had to and cool at the same time. I heard the sound of my be asked.

own laughter.

I thought about the long road I’d traveled. I had never stopped looking out at the world through my own eyes. I’d never stopped feeling like me on the inside. What if the real me could emerge, changed I think I really believed that when the hormones by the journey. Who would I be? Suddenly, I needed wore off I would discover I’d traveled full circle and to know. What would my life be worth if I stopped returned home to my own past. But the journey

wasn’t over yet. I realized that the day I saw Theresa fear tightened around my throat. Where was I going shopping in K-Mart.

now? Who was I becoming? I couldn’t answer those I held my breath the moment I recognized her.

Stone Butch Blues 241

She had hardly changed a bit. Would she say the same cicadas rose and fell.

about me? I hid behind the men’s underwear display Theresa had asked me to send her a letter

and watched her. What would she do if I called out someday. I wanted to write it now. I longed to deliver her name? I wanted her to embrace me and take

a bundle of sentences wrapped like a gift to her me home. After all, she’d left me because I’d begun doorstep—words that would light up the night sky, hormones; now I’d stopped. Could she love me again?

words that would soothe and heal. But the words still I saw someone put her arm around Theresa. I

wouldn’t come.

angled around the aisles to get a better look at the During the long night I realized that if love had woman. It was the same soft butch who had opened been enough, I might never have lost Theresa. But I Theresa’s door almost ten years ago—the same lover.

did. I could say we came to a fork in the road. That What could Theresa possibly see in that Saturday-was the truth, but it wasn’t the whole truth. I knew I night butch? It was so much harder to be me; I

had lost Theresa in little ways long before we parted. I needed Theresa’s love a lot more than she did. I hated had been at the center of her world; she had become to admit that she must be special if Theresa loved her.

my whole world. As my universe shrank, I needed her I heard Theresa laugh, warm and relaxed. Her

to be everything for me, and in return I longed to be face crinkled with love. And then I knew I wasn’t everything she needed. Neither of us could live up to going home, I wasn’t traveling backward. I was

the expectations.

hurtling forward toward a destination I couldn’t see.

And yet, how could it be otherwise? How could

And if I was ever going to lie in Theresa’s arms again, I not sink to my knees at the end of the day and ask it would be in some distant future, not now.

her for sanctuary? How could she refuse, loving me I hurried out of the store before they could

the way she did? The moments she pulled my head

see me and raced home on my bike, just ahead of

onto her lap and stroked my face were all I knew of the tears. I lay on my bed for hours, until the steamy refuge and acceptance. For her, my admission of

afternoon shifted to evening. Oak leaves rustled in the breeze outside my bedroom window; the streetlight don’t know where else I could have gone for safety projected their shadows on my wall. The whine of in an unsafe world. And I don’t think she could have 242 Leslie Feinberg

possibly sustained her love for me if I had remained menstrual blood on my BVDs. I threw them out

a fortress. Maybe the problem was that I’d begun to rather than risk anyone at the laundry seeing the believe her love could protect me, begun to expect apparent contradiction. But the real motion was

it, to demand it. Maybe she believed if she just tried taking place inside of me. I had to be honest with harder she could keep me safe. When she wiped the myself, it was as urgent as breathing. When I sat alone blood from my face did it mock her power? Would it and asked what it was I really wanted, the answer was be any different if we were in each other’s arms again?

change.

Someday I would tell her the little things I was I didn’t regret the decision to take hormones. I beginning to understand. But for now, I could only wouldn’t have survived much longer without passing.

write seven lines for her—a short poem squeezed

And the surgery was a gift to myself, a coming home from the clenched heart of a he-she:

to my body. But I wanted more than to just barely exist, a stranger always trying not to get involved.

Especially in the cool night

when leafy boughs make patterns on the walls Whoever I was, I wanted to deal with it, I wanted to and consciousness gently ebbs

live it again. I wanted to be able to explain my life, making way for sleep to lap my shores

how the world looked from behind my eyes.

in that long moment of no control

Yet I was so afraid to come out and face the

coals of remembering glow softly

world again. I wondered why I had to choose the

lending the darkness a different hue.

opening years of the Reagan administration and the rise of the Moral Majority to demand the right to be Nothing happened when I stopped taking hormones.

myself. Would they arm villagers with torches and For months I got up every morning and raced to the stakes and stalk me through the countryside? Would mirror, breathless with anticipation. Nothing changed.

I stand alone, handcuffed in a precinct cell, with no It was sort of anticlimactic. It took many hours of one to turn to if I survived the nightmare? But then electrolysis before I began to feel the softness of I acknowledged that no matter who had been in

my cheeks again. One morning I got up and found

the White House, it had always been hard to be me.

Stone Butch Blues 243

Between a rock and a hard place—something told me this lifetime wasn’t going to get any easier. I’d already

“other.” I am different. I will always be different.

been through a lot though, and it didn’t seem to me it I will never be able to nestle my skin against the could get much worse.

comfort of sameness.

Once again I couldn’t see the road ahead. I

“How the hell should I know what it is?” the

was still steering my own course through uncharted man behind the counter remarked to a customer as I walked away. The pronoun echoed in my ears. I had I wished there was someone, somewhere I could ask: gone to being an it.

What should I do? But no such person existed in my Before, strangers had raged at me for being a

world. I was the only expert on living my own life, the woman who crossed a forbidden boundary. Now

only person I could turn to for answers.

they really didn’t know what my sex was, and that was unimaginable, terrifying to them. Woman or man—

the bedrock crumbled beneath their feet as I passed by. How the hell should I know what it is? I had I knew I was changing when people began to gawk

forgotten how hard this was to endure. But I knew I at me again. It had taken a year. My hips strained the was emerging into the next phase of my life. Fear and excitement gnawed at me.

from electrolysis. My face looked softer. Once my There was not much keeping me in Buffalo

voice was hormone-lowered, however, it stayed there.

any longer. Yet I was still afraid to leave. I wanted to believe that whatever home I was looking for, I’d gender characteristics, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

my home might be waiting for me somewhere else.

I remembered what it was like to walk a gauntlet of strangers who stare—their eyes angry, confused, inside myself. In any case, there were jobs in New intrigued. Woman or man: they are outraged that

York City. The dispatcher at the temp agency told I confuse them. The punishment will follow. The

me I could get work in Manhattan. And he said the 244 Leslie Feinberg

twenty-four-hour movie theaters in Times Square named. New scenery shot past my window. The earth were the cheapest hotels in the city. While I told emerged—wooded, bleak, and bare. A long ride lay myself I couldn’t move because I didn’t have enough ahead of me.

money, deep down I feared New York would chew

“Is anyone sitting here?” a woman asked me.

me up and spit me out.

I shook my head. She put her luggage in the rack It wasn’t just the hope of steady work that

overhead. A little girl peeked around the woman’s legs drew me there, however; it was partly the anonymity that attracted me. Somehow it seemed easier to

Amy stared at me. I nodded and smiled. “I’m

be a stranger in a city of strangers. And I hoped I to be left alone to think and to wonder.

Buffalo.

Amy curled up on her mother’s lap. “Tell me a

One morning I came downstairs and found an

oil slick where my Harley had been parked. I couldn’t the seat.

believe it had been stolen. I walked around the block

“Once up a time …” She wove a story about a

for an hour trying to convince myself I’d simply sorcerer who would tell her what she was supposed on the curb and faced that my bike was gone, I knew to do with her life. But on the way the girl was it was time to leave Buffalo.

her path. She was very frightened by the dragon.

“What shall I do?” the girl cried out. Suddenly she noticed a huge boulder balanced on the cliff above.

As the Amtrak train pulled out of the Buffalo station If she could push the rock, it would fall and kill the I felt as though I’d left myself behind. I didn’t know dragon. But how could she get up there? The girl what lay ahead, but the train was hurtling through the called out to an eagle, “Brother Eagle, please help darkness toward that destination.

me slay the dragon!” And the eagle swooped down

The winter sky was as blue as a childhood

and lifted the girl up to the cliff. The dragon saw the dream, and the clouds formed shapes waiting to be boulder falling, but it was too late. When the rock Stone Butch Blues 245

crushed the dragon, it disappeared in a cloud of The world rushed past my window: streaks of

smoke. The girl was very happy, but she was afraid vermilion, magenta, burnt umber. Silver birch and the whole mess had made her late on her journey and patches of snow. Crispy ocher leaves still glued to branches. Golden waves of graceful weeds reigning stopped and camped under a weeping willow beside a over marshland. Brown ducks bobbing in still ponds.

vultures. Weather-beaten houses tucked away on hills toasting marshmallows. She knew it was the sorcerer Sleepy rural towns turned their shabby backs

because he was wearing a tall pointed cap with stars toward the railroad tracks. Block-long main drags: and moons on it. So she sat down and asked him,

“Mr. Sorcerer, please tell me what I’m supposed to do cooking. Lime, lemon, peach pastel homes. Sagging with my life.” And the sorcerer smiled and told her, porches. Pick-up trucks and children’s swings rusting

“You are supposed to slay a dragon.”

in the backyards. Trailer parks—yesterday’s dreams Amy smiled at her mother and curled against her

of mobility stripped of wheels. Abandoned factories, breast. “Mommy, is that a girl or a man?” she asked, familiar as a lover’s sigh. Ribbons of roads, trestle, and track tied all of our lives together like a gift.

I began to feel the pleasure of the weightless

state between here and there.

“Can I get you anything from the café car?” I

But hours later the earth began to recede under

the weight of acres and acres of factories and high-She shook her head.

rise apartment buildings. We were approaching New I bought a bottle of pop and a deck of cards and York City. The buildings loomed larger till they sat in the café car and played solitaire. When I came blocked the sky. I descended deeper into a forest of tenements. Some lived in, some abandoned—the

have gotten off at Rochester. I relished the privacy.

differences were slight: boards or cloth tacked up over 246 Leslie Feinberg

windows. Laundry snapping in the air, strung from spray-painted with names.

I could taste the poverty—familiar grit between

my teeth.

“That’s Harlem,” I heard a man say to his

traveling companion. Harlem! I felt breathless with excitement.

Stone Butch Blues 247

20

I STOOD STOCK-STILL OUTSIDE Grand

I pressed my back against the façade of a

Central Station looking up. I felt like a child again, standing at the bottom of a concrete canyon with realized this city required a strategy and I didn’t have sky-high walls. Crowds of people rushed like rapids.

one. I had six hundred dollars. It had to get me an Strangers slammed me as they passed. Move it, asshole.

apartment with enough left for food and tokens till I remembered how it felt to grow up in the adults’

world, as though everyone had met together and

It turned out to be true that 42nd

with all-night theaters. Admission was three dollars I worked my way to the curb and asked the guy

for kung fu movies endlessly strung together. I chose at the newsstand, “Where’s 42nd Street?”

a theater and entered an all-male world. The theater

“You’re standing on it,” he snapped.

smelled like stale cigarettes and reefer. Many of the seats were broken, something I didn’t discover until asked.

nearest me checked me out and went back to staring who’s got a rent-controlled apartment and kill them.”

at the screen.

He wasn’t smiling as he handed me a copy of the I loved the movies. They seemed to share a

Village Voice and took my money.

theme. A young man is faced with a powerful enemy.

pants back up, the door opened. “What are you doing in monkey style, praying mantis, tiger, eagle claw, in here?” a man in a red blazer asked me.

scorpion. The twist is that the teacher is not powerful I let my voice settle into rough. “Taking a shit.

enough on his own or dies before the young man is Do ya mind?” I pushed past him and went back to my ready. It always takes some special combination of skills and insights to defeat the foe. The hero was doze.

honorable—marked by humility and discipline and

The next morning I walked, asking directions of

was very respectful, if not chaste, with his girlfriend.

nearly everyone I passed, till I was on the doorstep of But every time a woman appeared on the screen,

Voice.

the men around me shouted, “Eat that pussy! Fuck

“Do you have anything cheaper?” I asked the

woman agent.

the exception of me, this was an all-male audience.

“You want an apartment or a dump? Two

Who were they talking to if not each other? Was each man who shouted from his stoned stupor trying to I thought about it. “When can I move in?”

convince the men nearby that a woman could still

“Here’s the keys,” she said.

make his dick hard? That no matter how the weight I reached for the keys, she pulled them back.

of the streets had crushed him he was still a real man?

“That’s one month rent, one month security, and a I kept putting off going to the bathroom,

but after a while I just had to. The stench hit me

“I only have $500,” I told her, hoping the extra as I opened the men’s room door. An older man

$100 would last me till I found a job and got paid.

was sitting on one toilet, a needle stuck in his arm, She looked me up and down and held out an

nodding. The tile was gummy with crud. There

open palm. “Give me the $500 now. You’ll owe me

were no doors on the stalls. Most of the toilets were up with the money by then, you’re out.” I thanked her I snuck into the women’s bathroom. It was

as I signed the lease.

She needn’t have given me the keys. The

apartment had no locks. It also had no stove,

Stone Butch Blues 249

and grabbed my duffel bag, eager to get out of this carefully between the two-by-fours underfoot.

dangerous dump. What had made me think I could

survive this city?

called the agency. “It’s unlivable,” I told the woman.

I didn’t know any other place to spend the night

“That’s not my problem,” she said.

except the kung fu theaters. They felt a whole lot safer

“I want my money back!”

than an abandoned building. I stopped a Chinese

She laughed, almost gently. “You signed a lease, man on the street and asked him where I was. “Mott honey. It’s yours for thirty days.”

Street,” he answered. “Where you wanna go?”

“I want my money back! There’s gotta be laws.

I sighed. “Times Square—42nd Street.”

You can’t do that,” I sputtered into the dead receiver.

He indicated the distance with a wave of his

It was dusk and I was cold. The man in the

arm. “A-train.”

corner liquor store gave me a couple of cardboard Where were the damn trains? How did people

wedged a piece of cardboard in the door to keep it someone pointed to a staircase leading down under the street. I bought a token and entered the world of for a bed. I lay there feeling like a damn fool. Now New York City subways. Nothing in life had prepared most of my money was gone and I had no income.

me for this.

I heard footsteps on the hall stairs. I wondered In Buffalo I always had my own vehicle. Even

who it could be since the building appeared to

when I had to take a bus, we all sat day-dreaming in be deserted. The footsteps grew closer, paused

the same direction. On the subway, we faced each other.

trying not to breathe. One push on my door and

The subway car was crowded. I had never had

this stranger would know I had wedged it from the the opportunity to observe people this way. Most of inside. I was quiet for a long time as someone stood the riders looked asleep on their feet, their eyes glazed silently outside my door. Then I heard the footsteps over. Others buried their noses in newspapers and recede back down the stairs. I jumped to my feet books. I suddenly realized that at least a few people 250 Leslie Feinberg

were doing exactly what I was doing. They were I got off at the next station and walked back

looking at people; they were looking at me.

down 8th Avenue toward 42nd Street. If I made

The woman sitting across from me stared as

enough money, maybe I’d go back to Buffalo. At that though I was from another planet. She nudged her moment I believed it.

boyfriend. “Is that a guy or a girl?”

“Looking for fun, honey?” A woman stepped

He looked at me from head to toe. “How should

out in front of me on the sidewalk and opened her I know?” I hoped we would arrive at 42nd Street soon.

fake leopard coat to show me her black bustier.

“Hey,” he demanded, “are you a guy or what?”

“Let me take good care of you,” she pursed her lips and hooked her arm through mine. I remembered

asked you a fucking question. Are you deaf?” I didn’t coming out as a baby butch and being nurtured by the answer.

strength of pros like her. Once I had been on their He got up and stood over me, holding the

side in the world. Now I was seen as a trick. I pulled straps for support. He leaned near my face. I could away from her in horror.

smell beer. “I’m asking you one more time, you

“Fuck you,” she spat on the sidewalk in front of motherfucker. What the fuck are you?” The train

me.

stopped at 42nd Street and the doors opened. He was I noticed a squad car parked diagonally across

blocking my escape.

the intersection. I heard sirens racing up behind me.

“C’mon, hon,” his girlfriend tugged at him.

I neared a small throng of cops. One of them

I stood up. We both squared off nose-to-nose. I against a squad car and cuffed her hands behind her back. She turned her face toward me. Help me, she again today.”

asked wordlessly.

They both turned to get off the train. I decided I don’t know how, my eyes answered.

to stay on. “You fucking faggot,” he shouted at me.

Two cops were hovering over another drag

“Fuck you,” I yelled back at him.

queen who was sprawled on the asphalt. The blood

“It’s a guy,” he told his girlfriend.

bubbled out of a wide crack in her forehead. One Stone Butch Blues 251

of the cops knelt down beside her. He never took have been tall enough to meet the driver’s eyes. She his eyes off me as he reached forward and took one wore a thin, short jacket and seamed stockings. She of her hormone-swollen breasts in his hand. “Honk, must have been freezing. I saw her walk around to the honk,” he laughed as he squeezed it.

passenger side of the car and get in.

I couldn’t run or walk any further. I leaned my

with hatred. I couldn’t think of a way to intervene forehead against the cold brick face of a building. The except to stand there and witness. The cop standing physical pain began in my chest and worked its way nearest me walked over. He brought his face up

up to my throat. I opened my mouth to scream, but close to mine. “What’s your fucking problem?” he no sound would come.

asked me. He’d eaten garlic recently. I didn’t move or speak. He jabbed me in the rib with the end of his nightstick. “How’d you like me to run you in?” he asked. The thought of getting busted alone in New The next morning I was waiting in front of the 42nd I paused. He grabbed his nightstick with both hands in a plaid sports coat read over my application. “What and held it horizontally across my chest. “Yes or no, kind of discharge?” he asked me.

asshole?”

“Huh?”

I exhaled. “No.”

“The service. What kind of discharge you got?”

“You mean No, sir,” he taunted me.

I pressed my lips together. He stared into my

application. “I wasn’t in the service.”

eyes. “Get the fuck out of here,” he ordered.

He leaned back in his chair. “Why not?”

I ran down 46th Street until I couldn’t hear their I leaned forward. “Mister, you got a job for me

laughter any more. My breath came in short gasps. An or not?”

icy wind blew off the river.

He slammed his pen down. “You got a driver’s

A young child was standing near the driver’s side license?” I shook my head. “Get one,” he said.

of a car, talking to the man behind the steering wheel.

“No,” I told him. “I don’t want to drive in this If she hadn’t been wearing high heels, she wouldn’t city. Too crazy.”

252 Leslie Feinberg

He wrote something down on a piece of paper.

She sighed. “A man needs more food,” she said.

“Know how to drive a forklift?” I nodded. “Sewing After work I bought two strong hasps and

machine factory,” he said. “Skid work.” He was a man two locks at the hardware store and went back to of few words.

the abandoned building on Mott Street. I installed

“What’s it pay?”

them so I could lock the door from the inside or the He smiled. “$80 a week. We take $40 out this

outside. Then I bought a piece of plywood to cover week and next.”

I leaned forward in anger. “What for?”

scared to death in this building at night. Now, a week I exhaled through clenched teeth. “Yeah, I’ll take later, I thought I’d die if I didn’t get a few nights of it.”

privacy.

His spirits seemed brighter. “Good, here’s the

There was no running water in the building. But

directions. Listen kid, nothing in life comes free.”

when one of the guys at the movie theater had found During the week I lived on peanut butter

me rinsing a T-shirt in the men’s room sink, he told sandwiches. On payday I treated myself to the

me Grand Central was a much better place to clean cafeteria across from the factory.

up.

“Brisket,” I pointed to it. The man behind the

During the day I worked temp assignments

cafeteria counter nodded and began to carve it.

washing dishes and loading trucks. After work I

“Lo mismo,” the older woman on my left told waited till the rush hour thinned, washed out a T-shirt him.

in the men’s room in Grand Central Station, and

My stomach growled. The woman smiled

took it home to dry. At dawn I went back to Grand knowingly at me. We both hungrily eyed the meat

Central Station to wash up. At that hour the men’s being carved.

room belonged to homeless men who, like myself,

The stack of meat on my plate continued to

struggled to hang onto the last shred of self-worth.

grow, and still the man piled on more. The woman On two occasions I suspected that a homeless man, nodded at me. I raised both eyebrows.

bundled up in coats, was really a woman.

Stone Butch Blues 253

Through a second agency I got a job as a night almost forgotten her smile was a gift.

watchman. At least I could use the bathroom in

“Theresa,” I whispered, “I love you so much. I

private. I had to make rounds every sixty minutes.

miss you, honey. Please take me back.”

With the help of an alarm clock I could sleep forty-She silenced me with her hand. Jess, you have to go two minutes each hour.

to the hospital.

Double shifts were killing me, but I was driven

I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m too sick to protect to earn enough money to get a real apartment.

myself.”

As the weather got colder, I developed a cough

It’s time now,

I couldn’t quiet with lozenges and syrups. My throat sweetheart. You can do it. I know you can.

was raw. I hoped it would go away. “Go home, for

“Theresa, I’m so scared.”

Christsakes,” one of the guys on the loading platform said earlier in the week.

hair. I know, Jess. I know.

“Can’t afford to,” I told him.

I shook my head. “I don’t just mean the hospital.

Fever consumed me. Sidewalks rolled under my

I don’t know how to live my life anymore. I’m afraid.”

feet. Buildings curved over me and blocked the sky.

She nodded. You’re doing it, Jess. Just hang on.

Wind tore at my clothing. I made it to my apartment I tried to get up on one elbow, but I sank

back down. “I’m so alone, Theresa. I don’t belong each landing.

anywhere. I don’t even know if I still exist.” Theresa My sleeping bag and pillow looked inviting.

wiped the tears from my eyes. I took her hand in mine. “Please, Theresa, stay with me. Please don’t go.

warm enough. Too warm, really. As I lay down to

I’m so scared.”

I’m right here, baby, she reassured me. I’ve always been here with you.

beating wings. I fell asleep to escape my terror. When I rolled down a hill toward unconsciousness.

I awoke I saw Theresa sitting next to me. My pillow

“But you’re fading,” I whispered.

was soaking wet. Her hand felt cool on my cheek. I’d 254 Leslie Feinberg

I strained to walk against a bitter wind. I couldn’t I frowned. “What is it?”

make it to the hospital. My legs wouldn’t carry

He shrugged. “Medicine. I told him what you

me much further, and I felt too weak to submit

told me. You got another ten dollars?”

to an examination. Theresa had overestimated my

“Why?” I answered. That meant yes.

strength—physically and emotionally.

“I got four codeine here. That oughta make you

I coughed so violently I was afraid my ribs might stop coughin’, or at least stop carin’.”

crack. The sound of a distant siren seemed to bend I smiled and handed him another ten dollars.

like taffy. City lights shimmered. I walked aimlessly

“Thanks,” I said, and meant it.

through the streets of the Lower East Side, unsure He shook my hand. “You take care of yourself

how to get back to my apartment. “C&D,” a young now, hear?”

man whispered as I passed. “What you looking for?”

I bought two quarts of juice and found my way

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

back to the abandoned space I called home. Every His eyes lit up. “What you need?” I coughed

few hours when the coughing woke me, I’d pop a pill and coughed, until the street lights spun around me.

and codeine tablet and go back to sleep. When I woke

“Man,” he said, “you’re sick, huh?”

up Sunday morning my bedroll was soaked. I sat up

“It was just a sore throat, but now I can’t stop and rubbed my eyes. I felt stronger. The illness was coughing.”

breaking up and leaving me.

“How much money you got?” he asked. I

The rent on this place was due at the end of

shrugged. “You got twenty dollars?” I nodded. “Wait each week. I’d found a cheap hotel near the temp here,” he told me.

agencies where I could rent by the week until I

I stood on the corner so long I forgot what I

could save up for a decent apartment—a real home.

was waiting for. He came back with an amber vial.

I looked around. I couldn’t believe I’d lived in this As I reached for it he pulled it back. I handed him a dump for a whole month.

twenty dollar bill.

“You take them four times a day. You gotta take

all of them, you know? That’s what the man said.”

Stone Butch Blues 255

“How much?” I asked the super.

for my garage apartment. I glanced at the door once more to make sure it was locked.

security deposit.”

escape. From there I could see the East River.

I nodded. It had a small bedroom, kitchen, and

Competing sounds of Latin music from cars and

living room, all in one straight line. I gave him the cash; he handed me the lease. “Wait,” I said as he in the street. Their mothers yelled at them from the turned to leave. “There’s no bathtub?”

windows. In any language their warnings meant Be

“There,” he pointed to a corner of the kitchen.

careful.

It was a tub covered with a sheet of metal. Strange New buds were popping from the skinny trees

city.

that lined the street. It was spring. I noticed wiry I locked the door of my apartment and turned

weeds, almost as big as saplings, growing between the to look around. It needed paint: yellow for the

buildings and in vacant lots. They pushed through kitchen, sky blue for the bedroom, creamy ivory for cracks in the cement, growing with scarcely any soil or the living room. I needed rugs. And dishes, silverware, pots and pans. Cleanser for the sink.

they could survive here, so could I.

I opened my duffel bag to look for a pad and

pen to make a list. There was the china kitten that Milli had left me. I placed it gingerly on the mantle in the living room. I put the amber glass, from the home A woman in the supermarket turned and stared at me Theresa and I once had, on the windowsill in the as I clawed at my crotch. The itching and burning had become unbearable over the months. It wasn’t going I left the wedding ring Theresa had bought me on the away by itself. I had a vaginal infection. I’d put off mantle.

doing anything about it, refusing to admit I needed to I decided to buy yellow calico curtains for the

see a doctor. Why did the infection have to be there living room windows, like the kind Betty had made of all places? Why couldn’t it be an ear infection?

256 Leslie Feinberg

the bottom. New names: Goodwomyn, Silverwomyn.

lifted off a lamp post, advertising a women’s health I could hear myself being discussed in loud

clinic in my neighborhood. On Wednesday night I

voices. “He’s crazy.”

mustered my courage and went. “This clinic is for

“Well, why can’t they be crazy in their own

women,” the receptionist smiled.

space?”

I nodded. “I know. I have a vaginal infection,” I I found an empty chair and sat down. I noticed

whispered.

a book on the rack next to me called Our Bodies,

“A what?” she asked.

Ourselves and made a mental note to buy it in a I took a deep breath and spoke in a stronger

bookstore.

voice. “A vaginal infection.”

A shadow fell across me—a woman with a

Stillness fell over the crowded waiting room. The clipboard. Her nameplate read Roz. Once inside the silence punished me. The receptionist looked me up examining room Roz threw down her clipboard on

and down. “Are you kidding?”

the desk and nodded toward a chair. “What’s this all I shook my head. “I have a vaginal infection. I

about?” All my words tumbled out. I tried to tell her came here for help.”

everything—who I was, why I’d come.

The receptionist nodded. “Have a seat, sir.”

Roz sat back in her chair and nodded as though

I debated leaving, but the itching and burning

she really understood. Then she said, “I don’t know were getting worse every day. I watched the

what your problem is, but this is a clinic for women receptionist greet the woman who arrived after me.

who are sick and you’re using up the resources right now.”

“The doctor will be with you shortly. Help yourself to

“What?”

herbal tea.”

“You may think you’re a woman,” Roz

Everyone in the waiting room was staring at me.

continued, “but that doesn’t mean you are one.”

I looked at the bulletin board: women’s dances and My anger ignited. “Fuck you,” I shouted.

rituals; therapists, masseuses, and accountants. New She leaned back in her chair and smirked. “What

symbols: a two-edged hatchet, a circle with a cross on a very male thing to say.”

Stone Butch Blues 257

I felt my face grow purple with rage. “Fuck all on a pad. “It should stop the itching and burning of you!” I got up to leave.

sensation. Next time you take antibiotics, eat a cup of A doctor blocked my exit. “What’s going on in

yogurt each day.”

here?” she asked. Roz must have made a gesture I I wondered if she was pulling my leg about

couldn’t see. The doctor nodded. “Come with me,”

yogurt. “You believe me, don’t you?” I asked her.

the doctor said. I followed her into the hall.

She shrugged. “You might be a man. But if you

“What’s going on?” she asked me.

are a woman, I don’t want to send you away. It doesn’t I sighed. “I have a vaginal infection.”

cost me anything to write you out a prescription.

She searched my face with her eyes. “Have you

When’s the last time you had a pap smear?”

taken any antibiotics recently?”

I froze. She pressed. “Within the last three

I brightened. “Maybe. I took something a couple

years?” I dropped my eyes, but she wouldn’t let go of of months ago for a bad cough.”

She nodded. “How long have you had the

I shook my head. “I don’t know what that is,” I

vaginal infection?”

admitted.

I shrugged. “A couple of months.”

When I looked up she had tears in her eyes.

Her eyes widened. “You’ve had this for a couple

“Now I believe you,” she said.

of months and you didn’t do anything about it?”

“Why?” I asked her. “Plenty of men don’t know

“Well, I was hoping it would go away.”

this stuff either, do they?”

She smiled slightly. “Let’s take a look. Come with She nodded. “Yes, but they don’t feel ashamed.

me.”

Who’s your regular doctor?”

I stiffened with fear. Too much had already

“I don’t have one.”

happened to me here. I couldn’t let her touch me She continued to watch my face in a way that

there. “I can’t,” I told her. “Please. It’s been hard to unnerved me. “I’d like you to come back for an

do this. I just can’t.”

examination and a pap smear.”

She watched the emotions I couldn’t hide.

“Sure,” I lied. I doubted I’d be able to get up the

“This is a prescription for Monistat.” She scribbled emotional energy to face the scene in the reception 258 Leslie Feinberg

area again unless I was in real bad shape. And On my most ambitious weekend I sanded all

besides, the thought of a doctor opening my legs and examining me chilled me to the bone.

corner of the apartment and polyurethaned myself

“Thanks for listening,” I told her. “Almost

out the door. That night I slept at a 42nd Street theater nobody hears me anymore.”

again—just for one more night!

She squeezed my arm. “You can make an

appointment at the front desk on your way out. Don’t dimension underfoot, as though the ceilings were put it off too long.”

raised, or the apartment had grown in size.

I could still feel her hand on my arm after

she’d walked away. I suddenly realized I didn’t know her name. I might need to come back someday. I

living room and stood back to look. It reminded me started down the hall after her. Roz came out of the examining room and blocked my way.

Gradually I bought furniture—a sturdy couch

“What’s her name?” I asked Roz. “I forgot to

and reading chair, a mahogany kitchen table and

ask.”

chairs. At the Salvation Army I found a bed—the

Roz’s voice was cold. “You got what you wanted,

head and footboards were ovals carved out of cherry.

now leave.”

I went crazy buying sheets at Macy’s.

“You’re wrong, Roz,” I corrected her. “I got

As my house came together, I suddenly wanted

what I needed. You have no idea how much I want.”

things that made my body feel good. I threw out my old jeans and bought new chinos, underwear, shirts, and two pairs of sneakers, so that I didn’t have to pound the pavement in the same pair every day.

Every time I got a paycheck I used part of it on my I bought thick, soft towels and fragrances for my apartment. I spent one whole weekend spackling the bath that pleased me.

cracks in my walls and ceilings. As I applied paint to And then one day I looked around at my

each room with broad strokes my spirits lifted.

apartment and realized I’d made a home.

Stone Butch Blues 259

21

LIVING IN NEW YORK CITY wasn’t easy—

sometimes my nerves felt like grated cheese—but it about reproductive rights. I had no relationship to my was never boring. I liked that. Something was always own uterus. But I remembered how upset Theresa

happening in Manhattan, good or bad. There were

had been after I got busted in Rochester because she things to do almost any hour of the day or night.

couldn’t remember when she had her last period. I There was a bookstore on practically every

never kept track of my menstrual cycle. But Theresa corner in New York City. I read the books furtively always knew when my period was in relation to hers.

until I realized nobody cared if I hung out for hours.

It suddenly made sense to me: she was afraid I might have gotten pregnant. The idea had never occurred to to discover I wasn’t smart enough to understand

me. What would I have done if I’d gotten pregnant after a rape?

I stopped skipping over the sections in books

on the discussions going on between women without about women controlling their own bodies. Maybe all being seen. It turned out to be true that I couldn’t these things that were so important to other women understand a lot of the theory. But I felt as though would prove to have meaning for me, too. No matter I was rushing into a burning building to rescue the how much I read at the bookstores, I always ended up ideas I needed in my own life.

spending a lot of my paychecks on books.

I also discovered classical music. On my way The foreman led me to a machine. “Here’s the

to work one morning I stood and listened to a man manual. I don’t have time to train you now. Start playing the cello in the subway station. The music typing this text. When it’s done, run it out and give it grabbed me by the collar and wouldn’t let me go. I to the proofreaders in there. I’ll show you the format crouched down next to the pillar nearest him as he codes later, or look them up. Got it?”

played. The music articulated emotions for me, the I nodded. “Wait,” I stopped him, “how do I run

way poetry did. When the rush hour crowd thinned I it out?”

realized I was late for work.

He shook his head disgustedly. “That’s what you

The musician put down his bow and wiped his

got a manual for.”

brow. “What were you playing?” I asked him.

From where I typeset I could see four women

He smiled. “Mozart.”

working inside the proofreaders’ room. I could hear I began to haunt music stores as well. I scraped their laughter, easy and relaxed. The foreman poked together enough money for a stereo. I also explored his head in and said something I couldn’t hear. They reggae and merengue, charanga and guaguancó, jazz broke off their conversation. One woman nodded.

and blues. One spring afternoon I found myself

He left. Their laughter rose again.

scrubbing my apartment. I had turned up Pachelbel’s I wondered if men know that women talk

“Canon in D Major” full blast.

differently among themselves. I guessed the same I realized I was changing on the inside as much

must be true for the Black and Latino workers too, as I was on the outside.

when no whites were around.

The women huddled to share a secret.

I typed up the text and looked up the codes to

run it out. I actually looked forward to being inside

“If you’re an organizer for Local 6,” the owner leaned the proofreaders’ space for a moment—women’s

across his desk, “you can punch in, but you may not space. The women stopped talking as I walked in. I punch out.” Ironic. He was afraid the union had sent held up the repros. “Put them over there,” one of the women said. She didn’t look at me as she spoke.

out I’d only recently learned to type.

I sighed, dropped them in the basket, and left. As I Stone Butch Blues 261

walked away, I heard their conversation resume and He leaned forward. “It’s too fucking weird working their voices rise in laughter once again.

nights in a plant with no windows. You could come I only lasted one shift in that shop. But New

York City was chock full of typesetting shops that ran meltdown and you never knew it.”

around the clock. They were always hiring on third shift—lobster shift. After faking my way into enough shops and learning a bit at each, I soon realized I sighed. “I know what you mean, though. I remember one time I came out of work at dawn and there was It wasn’t a bad rhythm of life. For six or eight two feet of snow on the ground. I didn’t even know months out of the year I earned top dollar.

it was going to snow. I felt like I missed something I loved the leisurely predawn ride home,

the whole rest of the world saw and I was somewhere traveling in the opposite direction to packed rush else.”

hour trains and crowded streets. But it was dark when

“It’s like working in a fucking submarine,” Bill agreed.

I thought I’d lose my sanity, it was summertime—

layoffs. I became eligible for the maximum

continued. “I get so disoriented about which is today and when is tomorrow. When I get up at night to go During the summer I explored the city. My

to work, my girlfriend says she’ll see me tomorrow.

biggest problem was loneliness. I didn’t have anyone But for me, I’m going to see her later today.”

to talk to all summer long. By fall I longed for casual I nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. I

conversation between co-workers.

feel like I’m living between the cracks of today and tomorrow.”

“Ooh,” Bill said, “I like that. Can I quote you?”

We all laughed.

Bill pounded the lunchroom table for emphasis. I read

“You know what I really hate about shift work?”

the newspaper. “Isn’t that the truth?” Bill asked me.

262 Leslie Feinberg

shift. When I get off work I don’t want bacon and aunt who had been a union organizer, and have my eggs. I want steak and baked potato. I want dinner!”

picture taken in front of the Stonewall bar where the rebellion took place in 1969.

movie.”

After visiting a lot of gyms I found one in

“And go dancing with my old lady at a club so

Chelsea that felt comfortable. It was mostly gay men, wild it stays open past noon,” Bill said.

some lesbians, different nationalities. It was expensive,

“And when I turn on TV,” I added, “I don’t want

but the nice thing about having a decent-paying job to see game shows and soap operas—it’s depressing.”

most of the year was it meant I could join.

“Hey, guy,” Bill said. “Why don’t you come to

Next I set out to learn about my aunt who

the gym with us in the morning? We go swimming

died in New York City around 1929. She became

right after work. They got a steam room, too. We can an organizer for the International Ladies’ Garment get you in on a pass.”

Workers after her husband died. My father was always It sounded like heaven, but I fumbled for an

so proud that she merited an obituary in the New York excuse. “I don’t have a swimsuit or towel or anything.

Times. I remembered seeing it in the family scrapbook.

Maybe another time.”

I spent two weeks searching obituaries at the

library, with no luck. I came close to giving up, but they wouldn’t care if you swim naked.”

decided to try 1930. “There’s a half-hour limit today I shook my head. “I knew I shouldn’t have worn

because we’re busy,” the woman behind the research my Fred Flintstone boxer shorts today.” The guys counter said as she handed me the spool.

laughed. “Another time. But thanks for the offer.”

Bill shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

routine of scanning headlines. I almost passed this one without registering its meaning: “Male Butler Discovered After Death To Be Woman.”

My breathing slowed. I popped a quarter in the

During the summer I made a list of things I’d like machine and printed out the article. I read each word carefully. The obituary reported the death of a servant Stone Butch Blues 263

in 1930. Her body was found in a rooming house. Her asked two gay men who were leaning up against a

name was never mentioned. Nothing more: no diary, lamppost in Sheridan Square.

no clues. All I had were these few words on a page to

“That used to be the bar.” One of the men

know her by. I closed my eyes. I would never have the pointed to a bagel shop.

details of her life and yet I could feel its texture with I sat down wearily on a park bench. A homeless

man picked through the garbage can nearby. I’d seen Now I knew there was another woman in the

him before. His bright African print fabric skirt world who had made the same complicated decision brushed the sidewalk. Gauzy material wrapped his Rocco and I made. Time separated me from this

upper body, slung across one shoulder like an East anonymous servant. Space separated me from Rocco.

Indian sari. He glided with grace and dignity. For a The headline chilled me—her life reduced to

moment he looked up to argue with someone only he could see. The guttural words he spoke were strangely recorded in eight words or less. I stared at a spot high beautiful. No one else on this planet understood up on the wall, feeling empty and small.

“Sir,” the librarian’s voice broke my thoughts,

talked, like dark birds winging on warm currents of

“your time is up.”

air.

I closed my eyes. The sun was hot and high.

I tried to recall what my life had been like back in Buffalo. My past already felt like a dream that receded in the moment of waking. Life in New York City shot Stonewall bar. I remembered the impact when we

past me every day, hurtling by like clattering subway heard about the battle with the cops in 1969. I wanted cars. I couldn’t remember a time when the world was to ask a passerby to take my picture in front of it. I slower and I was part of it.

Screeching tires woke me from my reverie.

the photo and understand me a little better.

A woman’s scream raised goose bumps on my

“Do you know where the Stonewall bar is?” I

arms. I raced to the corner. “Call an ambulance,”

264 Leslie Feinberg

she shouted. “Hurry! For god’s sake, hurry!” The She shook her head and rocked back and forth

ambulance needn’t have rushed.

on her knees. “Oh god,” she repeated, “they were I knelt down beside his lifeless body. His hands laughing.”

He patted her on the shoulder. “Calm down,

from his lip with my thumb. A gurgling sound came lady,” he soothed her. “It was only a bum.”

from his mouth and blood bubbled over his lips and down his cheek. A pool of blood spread under his head.

A nightstick poked me in the shoulder. “On the

It was one of those muggy New York City summer

sidewalk, buddy,” the cop nudged me. His squad car nights when the temperature sticks at one hundred was parked in the middle of 7th Avenue.

damn degrees. I stripped down to light sweatpants The man from the newsstand came over to look

and a tenement T-shirt and headed for the gym.

at the body. “What’s he wearing, a skirt?” he asked the I didn’t usually go to the gym in the evening. I cop.

hated the after-work crowd lined up for weights. But

“Beats me,” the cop shrugged.

I guessed right that night. The city’s population wilted The woman sobbed. “They hit him on purpose,

in the intense heat and headed for the coolest spots in town. The gym was practically all mine. I worked my women. The light was red. They stepped on the gas body till it felt like coiled steel, and groaned when the and ran him over. They were laughing.” The words trainer announced it was past 11:00 P.M. closing time.

tumbled out, punctuated with sobs.

She dropped to her knees and keened. “Oh my

could be. As I turned from Avenue A onto 4th Street I god,” she sobbed, louder and louder. “Oh my god!”

could see red lights revolving, il uminating the buildings, An older man put down his briefcase and moved

the crowd. The whole neighborhood looked up in the toward her. “Are you alright?” he asked.

same direction, riveted. I walked a little slower. The

“Oh god!” her voice rose.

street was slick and glistening. There had been no rain

“Lady, are you hurt?” He sounded panicky. “Are

for weeks. I walked slower still.

you OK?”

Stone Butch Blues 265

morning warning us to take the things we loved most roared from the windows of my building straight up into the sky. Sparks shot up like volcanic eruption rent increase.

My wallet! I left it home when I went to the gym.

curtains blew between broken shards of glass as The rest of my paycheck was in it. More important, though a storm was raging inside my apartment. A the only picture I had of Theresa was inside that billfold. I’d lost everything. Everything except Rocco’s they dissolved in a poof, the way cotton candy melted leather jacket. I’d brought it to the cleaners to get a on my tongue.

The wedding band Theresa had given me! In an

“Abuela! Abuela! ” A woman broke free from the arms of loved ones and pushed her way through the cooled pool of metal on the mantle and get it recast. I crowd toward the burning building. Friends restrained imagined the pop of Milli’s ceramic kitten. I pictured her. She fought to break free.

the water in the amber glass on the kitchen windowsill

“What’s she saying?” I asked the super.

boiling furiously in the furnace of heat. I saw a small grandmother.”

until they curled in on themselves and exploded

I shivered. Did he mean the old woman who

in brighter yellows and oranges than ever before. I could never leave her house because she lived on the envisioned Edwin’s slim volume of W.E.B. Du Bois burning down to the single page she had marked.

bring her bread, coffee, milk, or sugar—showed me Why couldn’t the landlord have just told us he

the wrappers when I didn’t understand.

was going to have the building torched? Everyone

“Mrs. Rodriguez?” I asked incredulously. The

knew he was having trouble selling it. Most of the super nodded. The young woman stopped screaming

other buildings in the area had been burned during when she heard me say her grandmother’s name. Our eyes and our lives connected in one timeless moment.

slipped a note under each of our kitchen doors this She began to sob uncontrollably. Friends led her away.

266 Leslie Feinberg

matter how excruciatingly hard it was to survive here.

Where do my tears

“Who would ever want to be a juggler?” the

go? Why is it that I can’t cry now when I need to? Yet I knew woman next to me asked her companion. “I mean,

that later my tears would be unexpectedly triggered by what’s the point?” They both shook their heads and the scent of lilacs, or the low hum of a cello.

walked away.

Eventually the black sky lightened over the East The joy I’d felt watching the juggler drained

River. I sat on the curb, my back to the smoldering from my face. At the moment she’d spoken, I was

thinking how wonderful it would be to learn a skill that could be practiced alone, simply for the pleasure our homes. I sat very still, not knowing where to go of self-amazement.

from this spot.

The man standing near my right elbow looked

me in the eyes and cocked his head. His gaze made me uncomfortable. I wanted to turn away from him.

It was as though he could see the play of emotions I I was starting all over. I sat on a bench in Washington was feeling. But somehow he drew me to look at him Square Park and inventoried my possessions: a pair of more closely. I saw a gentle man whose own feelings sweatpants, a T-shirt, and twenty dollars in my pocket.

rippled across his face. It was as though we were All my money had been hidden in the apartment.

carrying on an emotional dialogue without words.

Back to double shifts. Back to sleeping in the 42nd He raised his eyebrows in question. I shrugged.

Street movie theaters on weekends. I had no energy; I

“Cynics.” I smiled.

had no choice.

He shook his head and executed graceful

My mind couldn’t fully accept the loss. I bought motions with his hands—Deaf. He saw on my face

a hot dog and soda pop for one dollar and walked that I understood. I smiled. He smiled. Then I was around the park, hungry for diversion. I was drawn stuck. I looked at my hands, inarticulate at my sides.

toward a large crowd watching a young man in a top Once again I was bereft of words, left longing for language that could speak from heart to heart.

part of the life of this city that I grudgingly loved, no Stone Butch Blues 267

I turned up my palms and shrugged helplessly.

caught one in his left hand, then staggered to the right and caught another. The third one landed on his toe, indicated.

sending him hopping behind a tree in mock agony.

He examined the ground. He pointed to

He peeked out from behind the tree and winked.

something behind a tree and nodded with a smile.

It felt like such a relief to laugh—not in spite of Then he picked up an imaginary thing with three

my grief, but because of it. We laughed together. It was deep, belly laughter. The kind that brings you to the way he lifted it with both hands to his face. Still tears. The kind that releases emotions thick as mud.

Two men approached him from either side. He

though he was—bowling! A bowling ball.

smiled at them and their arms turned in windmills of I nodded emphatically. He found a second

exchange. He indicated my presence. We all shook bowling ball on a branch over my head. This one he hands.

placed carefully on his right foot. He searched with Before he turned to go, he reached forward very

his eyes for a third and found it. With a bowling ball slowly with his hand and touched a tear on my cheek.

in his right hand and another balanced on his foot, he He touched his own eye with my tear. And then he slowly bent down to lift a third ball with his free hand.

walked away.

He wobbled. Could he keep the ball from falling off his foot? He did it!

I held my breath as he began to juggle. I could

see the heavy weight of the bowling balls, the

strength required to send each one higher. His skill increased: the balls passed under one leg, behind his back, and over his shoulder. All three balls were sent high into the air … they didn’t come back down. He paused and looked up at the sky, scratching his head in bewilderment. Suddenly he lurched forward and 268 Leslie Feinberg

22

I FELT LIKE THE FIRE left me no choice. How

could I give up? Surrender was unimaginably more escape across the street, combing each other’s hair as dangerous than struggling for survival.

they sang pop tunes from Hong Kong. A man and

The typesetting industry didn’t pick up till early a woman fought bitterly in an apartment below me.

fall, but I found work catch as catch can.

I tensed at the sound of a crash. It was followed by By September I signed a lease on a tenement

an even more ominous silence. From the open living apartment just above Canal Street. It was a pretty big room window of my next-door neighbor’s apartment I could hear the steady hum of a sewing machine.

The faint glow of the city softened the darkness I’d do it a little at a time. I bought an air mattress, a of night. If there were still stars in the sky, they blanket, and a pillow. That’s what I really needed in weren’t within my sight.

the apartment. It was a safe place to sleep, that’s all.

escape. I could see a few green trees lining a tiny strip of something people in this city call a park.

I saw my next-door neighbor a month later. As I

unlocked my apartment, she opened hers. I said hello had thinned. The music of mariachi and Mandarin before I even looked up. She didn’t answer.

Her face startled me. It was badly bruised on one ahead of me on the stairs. “Can I help you carry side like a rainbow—yellow, red, blue. Her hair was those?” I offered.

outrageously crimson. I could tell that womanhood

“Do I look weak to you?” she asked.

had not come easily to her. It wasn’t just her large I stopped on the stairs. “No. Where I come from

Adam’s apple or her broad, big-boned hands. It was it’s just a sign of respect, that’s all.”

the way she dropped her eyes and rushed away when She continued up the stairs. “Well, where I come I spoke to her.

from,” she called out, “men don’t reward women

Every day I saw others like me in this city—

for pretending to be helpless.” Once I heard her enough of us to populate our own town. But we

apartment door close I kicked the stair in anger and only acknowledged each other with a furtive glance, frustration.

fearful of calling attention to ourselves. Being alone in All day long I sat in my apartment rehearsing

how I would introduce myself to her. I stood outside smack in the center of an unbearable sideshow. We her door and listened to the Motown music blaring didn’t seem to have any of our own places to gather in community, to immerse ourselves in our own ways to knock. Someone turned the music down as she

and our own languages.

cracked open the door. I lifted my hand to silence her But now I had a neighbor who was different

before she could speak. “I’m sorry to bother you,”

like me. As weeks passed I became intrigued by

I said, “but I didn’t make a very good impression the sounds and smells coming from her apartment.

before. I know you think I’m a man, but I’m not. I’m She sewed endlessly. She loved Miles Davis. And

a woman.”

whenever she opened her oven, the hall outside her She sighed and unhooked the chain. “Listen,”

she opened her door a little wider, “I don’t need a One Saturday afternoon I found her clutching

gender identity crisis on my doorstep. This is my two huge bags of groceries and fumbling with the home and I’m with friends. Please understand, I really downstairs front-door lock. I pulled out my key.

don’t want to be bothered.”

“Here, let me.” She didn’t say thank you. She hurried I heard a drag queen’s voice from inside her

270 Leslie Feinberg

apartment. “Who’s that, Ruth? Ooh, he’s cute! Let because it’s cold.” I sighed and looked up at the sky.

him in.”

She spoke more softly. “It’s a beautiful night,

“Tanya, please.” Ruth silenced the drag queen

isn’t it?” The shades of gender in her voice were with a glare. I could see someone else peering at me intricate, like mine.

from the living room.

I smiled. “That’s a harvest moon up there

Ruth was visibly annoyed at the curious way her

tonight.”

friends and I were checking each other out. “I’m not Ruth laughed. “What’s a city slicker like you

trying to be rude, “she told me, “but let me make know about harvests?”

myself clear: This is my home. I do not want to be Her words and tone angered me. I was sick of

annoyed.”

being everybody’s “other.” But part of me still needed I rested my hand on her doorframe. “But I need

Ruth’s friendship so damn much. So I took a moment to talk to you.” She glared at my hand. I removed it.

before I answered and spoke without anger.

“But I don’t need to talk to you. Excuse me.”

She closed her door.

pitch dark under a billion stars, with no sound except I had no choice but to give Ruth the wide berth

the music of crickets and cicadas.” Ruth nodded she demanded.

as she stared at the moon. I leaned my head back against the brick. “And I know how a white-capped river looks when it’s racing toward the falls—how it’s translucent and green at the place where it bends over the edge, like bottle glass when it washes up in the to let go of the day. The temperature had risen to surf.”

I smiled at Ruth. “And I know your hair is as red chilly evening breeze still smelled fresh by Manhattan as wild sumac in early autumn.”

standards.

Ruth looked at me wide-eyed. “What a lovely

Ruth poked her head out of her living room

thing to say. You’re from upstate. I can tell by your window. “Oh,” she sounded startled. “I didn’t know accent. Me, too.”

you were out here. I’m going to close my window

Stone Butch Blues 271

I nodded. “I know.”

Ruth and I opened our doors at the same

Ruth’s whole demeanor toward me changed. She

moment and looked away in embarrassment. I held

seemed ready to open her door partway for me. That’s back to let her go ahead of me. From the landing she when I discovered I was still hurt and angry at her called up to me, “I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but earlier rejections. Before she could say another word what was the music you were playing yesterday? Do I told her “Good night” and climbed back inside my you remember?”

living room.

“Why?” I called down to her. “Is this an indirect I leaned my head against the windowsill and

way of saying it was too loud?”

watched the moon continue to rise over Manhattan.

There was a long silence. “No,” she said. “I liked I never would have known Ruth was doing the same it, that’s all. Do you mind me asking?”

thing only a few feet away from me if I hadn’t heard

“If it sounded African it was King Sunny Ade.”

the scratch of a match and smelled the smoke from

“Thank you,” she said curtly. I heard the front

her cigarette.

door shut.

I didn’t see her again for a couple of months. I Now I knew that she listened to my music just as think she went away for a few weeks over the holidays I listened to hers. So I began to play tapes for both of because I didn’t hear music or sewing, and the hallway us, wondering as I did which ones she enjoyed most. I went back to smelling like a urinal.

imagined our lives connected in spite of the thin walls I got tired of sleeping on an air mattress and

and closed doors physically separating us. That’s when I bought a bed from the Salvation Army. I also got I realized just how lonely I was.

a used record and tape player that was so beat-up I On the morning of the spring equinox, I wearily wouldn’t care if someone stole it.

climbed my stairs at dawn, eager for a hot shower One Saturday afternoon, after weeks of working

and a long sleep. The pungent aroma of simmering overtime I woke up late. My apartment looked so

rhubarb pulled me up the steps two at a time. The irresistible smell was coming from Ruth’s kitchen. I grey by the time I bundled up to go out for cleaning was a child the last time I’d smelled rhubarb cooking.

supplies.

272 Leslie Feinberg

with saliva and my glands ached from the aroma.

“Thank you.”

“Did you paint them?” I asked. She nodded.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not skulking—honestly. It’s

“This is beautiful.” I pointed to a framed

just been a long time since I smelled rhubarb cooking.

handkerchief, embroidered with colorful pansies. “I It takes me back.”

always loved pansies, but they embarrassed me, too, Ruth nodded. “I’m making pies. Would you like

because that’s what kids used to call me when I was a some coffee?”

little girl.”

Ruth looked me in the eye and then went back

But I was so weary of our caution and defensiveness.

to stirring the pot. “It’s almost ready,” she said. “Sit

“Thank you,” I smiled. “Oh,” I groaned as I walked down. Would you like decaf so you can still sleep?

into her kitchen. “It smells so good.”

You work nights, don’t you?”

Ruth smiled. “Well, I wish I could send you

I smiled and nodded. She had directed at least

home with a small pie, but these are for friends in the a little attention toward her neighbor, just as I had.

hospital.”

“Some regular coffee would be great. I’m trying to I nodded. “When I was a kid I used to eat it

stay up and clean on the weekends, but all I get is one plain in a bowl with brown sugar.”

layer deeper into the crud.” Ruth’s immaculate home Ruth stirred the pot. “I’m sure there’s enough

inspired me.

for that.” She stopped puttering and buried her hands

“Where are you from?” she asked me.

“Buffalo.”

I pointed to one of the small watercolor

She smiled. “We are neighbors. You know where

paintings on her kitchen wall. “I recognize the Queen Canandaigua Lake is?” I nodded. It was about two hours outside of Buffalo. “I’m from Vine Valley.”

“Asters,” she said. “And that’s goldenrod.”

I frowned. “I never heard of Vine Valley. Is it farm country?”

Ruth nodded. “Oh, yes—vineyards.” As she

I saw them. “These are really nice,” I said.

poured the coffee I could smell cinnamon in it.

Stone Butch Blues 273

“I miss Buffalo,” I sighed. “Well, at least I miss have discovered Miles Davis, and my hair might

the way it used to be. It was such a blue-collar town always have been brown as dirt.”

when I grew up. I never could have imagined that the Ruth got up and spooned soft rhubarb into a

plants would close and the people from the suburbs dish, then crumbled brown sugar over it. I slipped a would move in and buy our houses dirt-cheap.”

spoonful into my mouth and sighed. “I had forgotten Ruth nodded and stirred her coffee. “I know.

about taste.”

I saw life in the country change, too. When the big She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I eat just because I’m hungry. Fast food,

the little family vineyards on the hills alive. The call of take-out. I don’t really taste it. But this tastes so good the cities lured people to work and shop.”

it makes me want to cry.”

I smiled. “I always thought country life didn’t

Ruth nodded without smiling. “I cook for my

change much.”

own pleasure. I enjoy the preparing as much as the Ruth laughed gently. “That’s the view from the

eating.”

city.”

I shrugged. “I’m not really set up to cook.”

“I know how it felt to grow up in Buffalo. But

She leaned forward. “This is very personal.

it must have been hard growing up in such a small You don’t have to answer, but why don’t you have place.” I wondered if what I’d said sounded too curtains?”

personal.

“Well, my apartment is just where I sleep.”

Ruth sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I

Ruth shook her head. “That’s strange to me. I

don’t know if it was hard. I just know it wasn’t easy.

really live here.”

I’d be surprised if the population of the whole valley

“It’s different working nights.” I made excuses.

is more than two hundred. But in a way, I think that’s

“I just crash when I get home. Besides, I lost

why I survived. We didn’t have outside help for the vineyards—we all had to rely on each other. So those old bonds of cooperation weren’t completely broken.

it. Now I don’t want to care.”

I had a place there. But if I hadn’t left I would never Ruth pursed her lips. “You mean if you don’t

274 Leslie Feinberg

have anything you care about, then you won’t have Ruth returned a moment later with a cut-glass

anything to lose?”

vase. She couldn’t conceal her horror at my barren I nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”

apartment. I shifted my weight uncomfortably. “I Ruth looked at me wistfully. “Then I guess

haven’t had time to shop for furniture or anything.”

everything’s already been taken from you. You’ve nothing left to lose, have you?”

middle of the empty living room. “They’re really to invite me in, but suddenly I felt stripped and vulnerable. So I took a last swig of coffee, and the last thing to do.”

tart mouthful of rhubarb, and stood up to go. “Thank you,” I told her. “That was a treat.”

to go and stopped. “You know, I don’t even know

Ruth saw me to the door. “I go to the farmer’s

your name.”

market at Union Square today. Can I get you

anything?”

I unlocked my front door and shook my head.

“No, but thank you.” Once inside, I threw open the windows and began a serious cleaning frenzy.

Hours later I scrubbed the gunk under my

sink while my music blasted. The knock at the door When she left I went back to scrubbing. Hours

startled me, and I hit my skull on the pipes. I rubbed my head angrily as I opened the door. Ruth extended an armful of orange gladiolas. “I thought you might afraid to lose anything I cared about meant I’d already like these. I heard you cleaning and I hoped they lost it all. I heard another knock on my door, the would brighten up the place after all that hard work.”

second time in one day. It was Ruth. She extended a I opened the front door a little further. “Thanks.

bundle of unbleached muslin.

I don’t think I have anything to put these in.”

“These are the curtains I used to have in my

Stone Butch Blues 275

living room. My windows are the same size as yours bought Queen Anne’s Lace jelly, just because I

so I thought I’d offer them. It’s up to you.”

loved the way it sounded. I found fat blueberries at I stood and looked at Ruth and at the gift in her Balducci’s and a Miles Davis tape at Tower Records large hands, and I said yes to both.

that I was sure she didn’t have.

A week later I brought Ruth’s vase back to her,

Ruth laughed with pleasure at the small shower

of gifts. “These blueberries are going to be our have a vase?” she asked me. I shook my head. “Come dessert. And I think I’ll use a spoonful of this jelly for in. Here, do you like this?” She handed me a cobalt our tea. But how did you know I wanted this concert blue glass vase.

tape?”

I sighed. “Oh! The color is so intense it pulls me I smiled shyly. “I’m your neighbor.”

in. I can almost taste the color.”

Ruth laughed. “That you are. Sit down.”

Her kitchen was layered with smells. Ruth set a

huge salad in front of me. There were yellow-and-the depth of the deep blue. “If I made you dinner orange blossoms in the bowl along with greens I’d tonight, what would you eat? Fish?”

Ruth shook her head. “Oh no, you’re not a meat

Ruth smiled. “Those are nasturtiums. They’re

and potatoes kind of guy, are you?”

beautiful, aren’t they?”

I dropped my eyes. “I’m not a guy, Ruth.”

“Can I eat them?” She nodded. I shook my

She nodded. “Well, then it has a little twist when head. “I hate to eat this. It’s like a work of art.”

I say that, doesn’t it? Alright, I’ll make you red meat.

Ruth sat down next to me. “That’s part of how

But I warn you, I’m going to expand your appetite.”

starved you’ve been. I think you’re afraid this is the What a wonderful offer! But why was she being

last beautiful thing that’s going to happen to you, and nice to me now?

you want to hold onto it.”

I shopped that afternoon for new chinos and

“How did you know that?”

a dress shirt. I stopped at the farmer’s market and Ruth smiled. “I’m your neighbor. It’s a wonderful 276 Leslie Feinberg

one will be luscious, too.”

Ruth squeezed my hand. “The color of my hair

I blushed and put down my fork. “You know

is my declaration to the world that I’m not hiding.

when your leg falls asleep how it hurts when the It’s a hard color to stand behind, but I do it to circulation starts again? I’m not sure I want to hope. I celebrate my life and my decisions. Most people are don’t want to get disappointed again.”

embarrassed by the color of my hair. It took a very Ruth patted my arm. “We both already know all

special person to compare it to the color of sumac.”

about disappointment. Let’s not anticipate it.” She got I laughed and picked at my salad. “Do you know

up and put on the music I’d brought her.

if I’m a man or a woman?”

As I ate the salad, tears ran down my cheeks

“No,” Ruth said. “That’s why I know so much

for no apparent reason. Ruth smiled. “It’s balsamic about you.”

vinegar. Isn’t it wonderful?”

I sighed. “Did you think I was a man when you

How could I explain why the tastes of

nasturtium and balsamic vinegar on my tongue made me cry? “I’m sorry,” I wiped my eyes. “This is just straight man. Then I thought you were gay. It’s been a why you didn’t want to let me in, isn’t it? Why are you shock for me to realize that even I make assumptions being so nice to me now?”

about sex and gender that aren’t true. I thought I was Ruth put down her fork and covered my hand

liberated from all of that.”

with hers. “I’m sorry I was so cold. I misunderstood I smiled. “I didn’t want you to think I was a man.

you. I thought you were frightened and confused and I wanted you to see how much more complicated I

I was afraid you’d sap my strength. After you backed am. I wanted you to like what you saw.”

attractive quality in my book. You seemed to be much shivered. “Well, I didn’t understand right away, but I thought you were awfully cute and handsome and So I changed my mind.” Ruth smiled, “It’s a woman’s interesting-looking.” Even Ruth’s words were gifts.

prerogative.”

I dropped my eyes so she couldn’t see my

Stone Butch Blues 277

hunger for her attention. “Oh, Ruth. I wish we had I clinked my mug against hers. “Yes,” I

our own words to describe ourselves, to connect us.”

answered, “to our friendship.”

Ruth stood up and opened the broiler. “I don’t

need another label,” she sighed. “I just am what I am. I call myself Ruth. My mother is Ruth Anne; my grandmother was Anne. That’s who I am. That’s where I come from.”

spring thaw. Ruth seemed more excited than I did I shrugged. “I don’t want another label either. I as the steady stream of deliveries arrived. Gradually just wish we had words so pretty we’d go out of our my rooms began to assume shapes. Ruth hung her

way to say them out loud.”

framed handkerchief embroidered with pansies on As Ruth set the plate down I stared at the steak.

my kitchen wall and gave me the tie quilt she’d made

“What are these little sprigs of things on top?” I with her grandmother for my bed.

asked.

But I really knew Ruth and I were becoming

“Sage.” She spooned tiny carrots and miniature

close when she admitted how much she wanted help squash onto my plate. She opened the oven door and repainting her apartment. It was an absolute pleasure served me steaming bread and sweet butter. Every bit to see the joy on her face as I covered her walls with tasted like music in my mouth.

fresh colors. She excitedly cut shelf paper while the

“Now we’ll have the wonderful dessert you

cupboards were still tacky with white enamel.

I enjoyed the complex layers of life in the city with blueberries, drizzled them with heavy cream, and and longed to explore those nooks and crannies

sprinkled them with sugar.

with Ruth. But we never left our apartment building I blinked away tears and squeezed her arm.

together because of what she called her geometric

“Ruth …” The words got stuck in my throat.

theory: two people like us in public are more than She covered my hand with hers. “I know

double the trouble.

Instead we brought each other little gifts from

friendship?”

our daily travels. I gave her Villa Lobos, she gave me 278 Leslie Feinberg

kitchen chair and laughed. “You are my pleasure, impatiens. And after a while we exchanged our tears Ruth. You’re the last ice-cold Coca-Cola in the

and our frustrations, as well.

“Why, Ruth?” I stormed around her kitchen.

I had forgotten I could do that.

“Why do heads turn when we walk down the street?

Why are we so hated?”

and sat close to each other as the afternoon shifted Ruth stopped scrubbing the inside walls of her

to evening. I’d never held a body larger than mine stove. “Oh, honey. We’ve been taught to hate people before. The street below us was blocked off for a who are different. It’s been pumped into our brains. It festival—tiny lanterns strung up between booths of food, couples dancing in the intersections to a live I slumped in a chair. “I used to want to change

mariachi band.

the world. Now I just want to survive it.”

“Ruth, if we lived in a world where we could be Ruth laughed. Her rubber gloves snapped as she

anything we wanted to be, what would you do with pulled them off. “Well, don’t give up just yet, honey.

your life?”

Sometimes things don’t change for a long time and Ruth smiled wistfully. “Oh, I’d still sew. I’d dress then they catch up so fast it makes your head spin.”

people in their dreams so they could walk proudly I sighed. “When I was growing up, I believed

down the street. And I’d cook for all the people who I was gonna do something really important with my had ever been hungry. I wouldn’t be afraid to leave my life, like explore the universe or cure diseases. I never house. Oh, I’d love to explore this world. What about which bathroom I could use.”

I leaned my head back against the brick. “I

Ruth nodded. “I’ve seen people risk their lives

think I’d be a gardener in a woods just for children, for the right to sit at a lunch counter. If you and I and when they came by I’d sit and listen to their wonderings. And the ocean would be nearby. I’d live coming up will have to do it.”

in a little house on the shore. At dawn I’d strip off all I leaned my head back against the back of the

my clothes and swim. At night I’d sing a song about Stone Butch Blues 279

the way life used to be. It would be such a sad song it would make the grownups nod and the children cry.

But I’d sing it every night so that no one would ever confuse nostalgia with wanting to return.”

dreams I can hear how much you hurt.” I kissed her being alone, I forgot how lonely I am underneath. I have friends I love, like Tanya and Esperanza and the showgirls I sew for. But I feel so close to you … I can’t explain it.”

I rocked her gently. “Ruth, if your life was set to music, what kind of instrument would be playing?”

She snuggled against me. “A soprano

saxophone.”

I smiled. “Because it’s so sad?”

She shook her head. “No, because it’s so

evocative. What kind of instrument would play your I sighed. “I think a cello.”

Ruth held me tight. “Because it’s so sad?”

I shook my head and looked out over the city.

“No, because it’s so complicated.”

280 Leslie Feinberg

23

I CLUTCHED THE QUARTS OF elderberries

That’s when I made a mistake. I moved further

against my leather jacket and grinned, knowing how back into the station, away from them. In doing so, excited Ruth would be that I’d found them in the I moved further from the exit or any possibility of wintertime. They’d taste like home to her, like her help. Some mistakes in life are not punishable, others life’s seasons. I could already smell hot elderberry teach you a lesson you never forget.

pie. I leaned forward on the subway track and looked When I heard their footsteps growing closer,

down as far as I could see. I was anxious to get home.

I knew better than to hide behind the pillar. It’s far The sun would be up within hours. Ruth’s sewing

worse to be caught cowering. I reached inside the machine would be humming. Wait till she saw the

bag and pulled out a small handful of elderberries.

elderberries. Her smile would be my dawn.

Their tart taste heightened my senses. They stained I heard the three teenage boys before I saw

my hands with the color of battles won and lost. I set them. They shouted in boisterous camaraderie as

the rest of the berries down on the platform, wishing they jumped the turnstile. White boys pumped up on Ruth could have known I had found her elderberries in the winter in this paved city. I wanted more time on a bench. They rousted him, kicked him, passed with Ruth. I wished I had thanked her for breathing a him from one set of brutal hands to another. They little life back into me.

laughed as he pushed through the turnstile and ran.

trapped between the end of the station and the three faces getting closer. They are the hunters; I am the breath—I would be theirs. I braced myself against the prey. For just a moment, before it began, I cursed leftover grit of elderberries between my teeth. Any Ruth for making me hope again. Then I let go of

moment it would erupt. Any moment.

everything except the moment confronting me.

I looked the leader in his eyes, refusing to show The leader of the pack emerged. He reached

him my fear. Of course we both knew I was afraid. I for my face. “What have we here?” he asked, almost wasn’t ready to die. Oh, I was scared alright. But what gently. I blocked his hand with my own. He smiled.

I hadn’t shown him yet was my rage. I might never get my hands on the powers that twisted and unleashed sight. I didn’t reveal my readiness. His buddies leered these bullies on me, but if I was going to die, I was and sneered. But his smile was harder to stand up to.

sure as hell going to try to take them with me. I could It reminded me of a cop’s smirk, meant to force me feel a breeze on my face—a train was approaching.

to admit powerlessness.

Would it come in time to save me?

“What the fuck are you?” he asked quietly. “I

The attack began at that moment. His body

betrayed him. He telegraphed his intention to move.

huh, guys?” His taunts and threats rolled off me, not because I was impervious to them, but because I was At the moment of impact he bit off the end of his tongue. His blood sprayed my face. More of his blood I tried not to listen. It didn’t matter what he

said. It didn’t matter what I answered. All that was roared into the station.

important was the action, the positioning of their bodies and mine, the juxtaposition of matter and into it as hard as I could. Even over the racket of the space, open throats and unguarded kneecaps. At the train I could hear the gurgling sound as I pulled out instant the action exploded I would have a moment my keys.

to strike, to change the relationship of forces. When one of their punches connected with my body, when my jaw. The opposite side of my skull slammed into 282 Leslie Feinberg

the metal column. I staggered down the platform, Another nurse laid me down gently. A gale

rubbing someone else’s blood from my eyes.

wind blew behind my eyes. Doctors and nurses bent The train doors opened. The early morning

over the table and peered at me. I wondered what rush hour crowd moved away from me in horror.

they saw. The ceiling began to move. I was being When the doors closed I looked around. They hadn’t wheeled somewhere. I remember opening my eyes

followed me onto the train. I looked at my hands, and watching a doctor sewing my mouth. I wanted to stained with elderberries and blood. I wondered how struggle but I lay still. My head ached.

much of the blood was my own. My head throbbed

When I opened my eyes again there was only

more and more insistently. A steel rod of pain pierced a nurse in the room, writing on a clipboard. I tried to sit up. She came over and steadied me. “Take it focused and blurred again. I couldn’t hear the sounds easy,” she whispered. She read the fear in my eyes.

of the train over the roar in my ears.

“Do you know where you are?” she asked. I nodded.

I got off the train at 14th Street. It was Ruth I

“You’ve been in and out since you got here. Your wanted to see. If I was going to die, I wanted it to jaw is broken. You’re going to be drinking a lot of be in the arms of someone who understood me. But milkshakes for the next couple of months. We’re I knew we risked a hideous scene if we went to the going to bandage your head wound. You have a

hospital together. Maybe if I went alone and they concussion. The doctor’s waiting for the x-rays to didn’t make me take off my T-shirt they might help come down. He may want you to stay overnight for me.

observation.” My face and head felt huge and bloated.

There was kindness in her smile. “One of the

through the double doors of St. Vincent’s Hospital.

Then hands reached out for me, guided me. A nurse My eyes widened in fear. “It’s required by law,” she peered in my face as she pushed forms toward me. I said. “You just lie there, now. Don’t try to get up. I’ll invented someone who had insurance and no fear of be back in a while.” I stood up as soon as she left. The being traced. How long would it take them to check room rotated around the axis of my feet. I had trouble out my lies?

focusing my eyes. My head wasn’t working right.

Stone Butch Blues 283

clotted with blood. I calmed my breathing, fearing insurance. Momentarily a cop would arrive. Every bit I’d choke to death if I vomited. A moment after I’d of information I gave him would be a lie. I was still a closed my door I heard a knock. I knew it must be gender outlaw—any encounter with the police might Ruth. I held still and didn’t move until she walked end up with me in their custody. I panicked. It was away and closed her door.

time to escape. I checked my wallet. I had more than Why? Why was I suddenly so afraid to see her?

enough for a cab ride home.

Because I feared bringing so much need to her? What The emergency room was so chaotic no one

if I asked for too much? What if she turned away noticed me leave. The icy blast of wind outside felt from me? What if I lost her?

good against my swollen face, but it made my scalp I wanted to go to her, though. I wanted to

ache. I stumbled to the corner of 14th Street and kneel in front of her and ask her to hide me, to keep hailed a cab. The driver turned around in his seat.

me safe. And I wanted her love to protect me from

“Where to, pal?” I couldn’t answer. He frowned.

harm’s way. More than anything I just wanted to be

“Where to, mister?” My hands moved in frustration.

held. But I was so afraid to ask.

“You drunk or something?”

My head hurt and hurt and hurt. I couldn’t open

Ruth. I wanted to get to Ruth. I grimaced so he

my jaws. Panic burned like acid in my throat. I felt could see my gums were wired. “Holy shit,” he said.

claustrophobic, trapped inside my head. My skull I mimed writing. He handed me a pad and I wrote

throbbed, and the room tilted like the fun house at down my address. He watched me in the rearview

mirror as he drove. “What happened?” I shrugged.

not to ask for what I needed than I was to be rejected.

“Oh, yeah. You can’t talk. I forgot.” He pulled

I fumbled trying to open the lock on my door. I

up in front of my building. “That’ll be $3.40,” he told slammed it behind me and hurled myself against

All I could think of was Ruth’s arms. But by

answer fast I’d lose my nerve.

the time I got to her door I hesitated. Even though Ruth opened her door, wearing that oldI could hear her in her apartment, I didn’t knock.

fashioned apron. She pushed her red hair out of

I quietly took out my own house keys. They were

284 Leslie Feinberg

her frightened eyes. My chin ached and trembled. I

“Honey,” she stroked my cheek. “I’m so sorry.

struggled to speak. She saw my gums, laced with wire.

I just don’t want it to be you. C’mon, honey. Please.

Ruth reached out one hand to me, led me into her Come.” Ruth guided me to her bedroom. I covered

kitchen, sat me down. I tried to repeat two words over my eyes against the sunlight streaming in her window.

and over again but she couldn’t understand me.

She pulled the shades.

She brought me a pad and pencil. I couldn’t hold Ruth laid me down on her bed. I could feel the

the pencil in my swollen right hand. She pulled an old embroidered edges of her pillowcases against my baking sheet from the dish drain and opened a can of cheek. My head hurt even worse when I lay down.

Crisco, then smoothed a thick layer of lard over the I sat up, unable to explain why. Ruth touched the aluminum and set it on the table in front of me. With back of my head. I winced in pain. She stared at her repeating: Help me?

whispered, “I’m afraid.”

Ruth knelt in front of me and buried her face

My eyes narrowed in anticipation of another

in my lap. She cried so bitterly I tried to comfort her, rejection. Ruth lifted my hand in both of hers and kissed each bruised knuckle. I wasn’t afraid to die in covering her wide shoulders. “This is why I didn’t her bed with my hand in hers.

want to let you in my life,” she sobbed. “Because I She gently pressed my head against her body. It

knew I’d have to look. When it’s me I don’t have to hurt, but I needed her closeness. Her voice dropped see it. But when I care about you I have to look. I see low, like a whisper: “I once read in an old drag it and I don’t want to.”

magazine about a time, long, long ago, when people asked for too much. I stood up slowly and staggered you back and leave you there with people who would care for you as much as I do. I’d know you were safe, sit down. Where are you going?” She wiped her eyes and you’d be loved.”

with the back of her hand. I looked at her calmly, hiding the crisis of rejection.

to rest.” I moaned as I tried to lay my head against her Stone Butch Blues 285

breastbone. Ruth propped me up with pillows. She outlined against the sky. But it was the vines that curled up between my thighs and stroked my chest brought us out to discover spring. We might not

with her wide hand. “Shh,” she whispered. “I know have noticed the smell of the earth thawing if it you’re frightened, too, but it’s gonna be alright. It’s hadn’t been for the work that needed doing. The men always the worst when they hurt my head. I’m always trimmed the vines, and we tied them to the locust afraid I’ll lose my thoughts, my memories. I’m scared posts.

I’ll lose me. Is that how you’re feeling?” She wiped the

“The women all working together in the

tears from my cheeks.

I closed my eyes. “Try to stay awake, honey.” She it was hard work lugging those heavy grape trays. But pleaded. “Please. I’m afraid for you to fall asleep right all I remember is talking and laughing together. All now.” I wanted to go away. “I’ll tell you stories,” she the stories seemed to begin with the same sentence: smiled. “I’ll tell you about where I grew up. Would

‘Remember the time that … ’”

you like that?”

Ruth glanced up to make sure I was awake.

I blinked back to consciousness and nodded.

“When I was eight or nine, my Uncle Dale tried to Ruth rested her cheek against my chest and squeezed take me out with the men to prune the vines. But my mother said no. She and my aunt and my grandma

vineyards. I wish you could smell the grapes in the took me to work with them. They already knew my

fall air.” Ruth looked up at me and smiled. “Someday nature.”

I’m going to make you grape pie. After my Grandma I stiffened as the pain grew inside my head. Ruth Anne’s and my mama’s, I make the best grape pie in rubbed my chest until the hurt subsided. “I remember the valley.” Grape pie didn’t sound very good to me, my Uncle Dale told my mother I needed a man around.

but it didn’t matter much at the moment.

My dad died when I was so young. Dale used to come Ruth mesmerized me with her voice. “I wish I

by to take me hunting. Mostly we just walked in the could show it all to you—how the hills change with woods. He taught me to respect Bare Hil —that’s the the seasons. In the winter, my Uncle Dale could name birthplace of the Seneca Nation. The government cut a every tree for me just by the shape of its silhouette road right through the burial grounds there.

286 Leslie Feinberg

“Anyway, Dale seemed to get more and more that I wasn’t growing up to be a man. But after that upset about the way I was growing up. There certainly day we didn’t pretend to hunt anymore. We just went wasn’t anything manly about me, and I think he felt for walks. He loved those hills more than any human it was his fault. One spring day we were walking on being. I was so proud he’d take me up there with Bare Hill. The clouds were moving fast, throwing him.”

shadows over the valley and the lake as they passed.

She reached for a Kleenex and blew her nose.

Uncle Dale seemed so disgusted with me I thought

“Want to hear something funny?” she smiled. “Years he’d stop taking me on those walks.

later I reminded him about the man we met on the

“At the top of the hill I saw a man whose hair

hill and Uncle Dale told me it never happened like was long and chocolate brown, like muck. Someday that. He said it must have been one of the spirits of I’ll show you the land we call muck—it’s very fertile the Senecas who walk those hills. I didn’t know if it and very beautiful. They stood there talking. Then really happened or not. I do know that something Dale nodded toward me and said, ‘I’m trying to teach changed between me and Dale that day, and I know it the boy to be a man.’ His voice sounded like he’d was real hard for him to admit.”

already failed. I felt so ashamed standing there, this I rolled my head gently against the pillows until I stranger hearing the disappointment in my uncle’s found a place on my skull that didn’t hurt. My eyelids voice at the same moment I did.

“But the man put his hand on my uncle’s

shoulder and he said, ‘Let the child be.’ After a minute before I lost consciousness.

Dale hung his head and nodded. He looked at me

In the days that followed I drifted in and out of awareness. A woman came into the bedroom with

time.”

Ruth. Their hands felt reassuring on my body. Ruth Ruth cried softly against my stomach. I ran my

propped me up while the woman cleaned a spot on

my scalp that hurt real bad. When she was done she much. And after that he did. I knew he cared about wrapped my whole head in gauze. Ruth helped me sit me before, but I didn’t think he’d be able to accept up and urged me to drink through a straw. I saw my Stone Butch Blues 287

blood was everywhere: sponge-print circles on the Ruth touched my face. “I know you must be

wall behind the bed, soaked stains in Ruth’s beautiful really mad at me.” I shook my head. It was a mistake, embroidered pillowcases.

that’s all. I thought about Duffy, the union organizer As the days passed I could hear the sound of

who’d done the same thing, and I forgave him in

Ruth’s weeping replace the steady hum of her sewing retrospect.

machine. Even in a state of semi-consciousness I knew I asked too much of Ruth this time. My blood write with. Ruth came back with a pen and paper. My was all over her life, and the stains weren’t going to right hand was stiff and sore, but the words I wrote scrub out.

were legible—the message life had given me another One morning I felt her lips on my forehead and

chance to deliver. Ruth read the words out loud: opened my eyes. I forgot about my jaw and tried to Thank you for your love. And then we cried together.

speak. When I couldn’t, I grabbed my face. She put her hands over mine. “It’s OK, honey. You’re getting better. Look at me. Let me see your eyes.” She held my head between her hands as though it was a crystal I visited the graphic arts employment agency in

ball. When I saw her expression I wondered what had person and wrote down that I was looking for work.

made me think I had to ask for her love.

I started a new job the same night. That’s when I She dropped her eyes. “I’ve done something

realized I’d become a valuable typesetter. Christmas was a month and a half away and the third shift could next door and found the name of the company where hardly handle the volume of work the ad agencies you work on the check stubs you keep on the kitchen were sending over. I took all the overtime they

table. I thought if I called you in sick, you might be offered. I wanted a chunk of money, fast.

able to keep your job. I told them you got mugged At night I lived inside the coding strings, my

face illuminated by the ghostly light of the terminal.

to you as she. I wasn’t thinking. They heard it. I’m so The code phrases became my poetry. The curves

sorry. I know it means I lost that job for you.”

of type against space sang to me: the melody meant 288 Leslie Feinberg

everything, the words meant very little.

At dawn I worked out at the gym, pausing only

my jaws clamped?

when the throbbing in my head frightened me. I

The lobster-shift foreman handed me the

moved my will to live down deeper into my body.

last check I needed two days before the Christmas Since my rage and frustration couldn’t escape through weekend. In the morning I’d go to the check-cashing my clamped jaws, I screamed through my muscles. I the money I needed to buy the gift for Ruth.

out at the gym reduced the pressure, but after a I snuck into the lunchroom without punching

while the frenzied workouts became part of it. I was out and slipped between the two vending machines a time bomb, ticking, ticking, moments away from in the corner that formed my favorite hiding place at detonation.

work, carefully leaning my head against the wall. The I didn’t sleep very much, just a few hours in

headaches were milder, but they still frightened me.

the morning and late afternoon. I feared losing

I heard Marija and Karen, both typesetters,

come into the lunchroom, laughing. “You got

Ruth seemed worried about how much time I

change?” Marija asked. I sat very still, afraid of being spent away from the apartment. I could tell by the discovered.

relief on her face every day when I knocked on her Marija’s hands always captured my attention.

door to check in with her. “Where do you go?” she’d Some people drag their hands through life like heavy sigh as she poured me a protein shake. I could tell she weights; others speak with their hands. But Marija’s didn’t expect an answer.

hands were different. Although they communicated, Restlessness drew me to Far Rockaway beach

they seemed to be carrying on an entirely separate on a cold December morning. As I walked along

conversation than the one she was verbally engaged the shore I thought about how fear and silence had in. When she talked with other typesetters, she

welded my jaw shut for more of my life than I’d laughed nervously and chewed her lip. But her hands realized. I wondered if silence had killed Rocco, and were calm. While her words cut cruelly to the quick, the anonymous butler, a little bit at a time, too. What her hands found the sore places on a co-worker’s Stone Butch Blues 289

shoulder or neck. I imagined feeling those remarkable through a straw before I cut each wire that laced my hands stroking my head, caressing my neck.

gums shut. I pulled each segment out with a sure

“I tell you it’s creepy,” Marija said, “the way he stroke, the way I pulled off old bandaids—not fast, looks at me.”

not slow, just steady. After I was sure I’d gotten the

“Who?” Karen asked.

last piece of wire out of my gums, I rinsed my mouth with whiskey and then drank the rest of it so I could I’m telling you the way he stares at me creeps me sleep without remembering how Marija’s words had out.”

stripped me of my humanity.

Karen laughed. “Maybe he’s got the hots for

When I awoke I walked up to 34th Street,

you.”

maneuvering in the throng of shoppers like a warrior.

“Yeech!” Marija said. “He looks at me like I’m a I knew exactly what I was looking for. The best sewing piece of meat or something.”

machine you have, I wrote on a piece of paper and

“He’s harmless,” Karen chuckled.

handed it to the saleswoman. And then I realized my

“You don’t know that,” Marija countered. “He

jaw wasn’t wired shut anymore. Silence had become a could be a psycho.”

habit.

Karen interrupted. “He’s so effeminate. He’s got She led me to the display models. They all

to be gay.”

looked pretty much the same—except for one.

I heard them leaving. “I’m telling you,” Marija

I didn’t sew, but I knew it was the right machine concluded, “he’s the kind you gotta watch out for.”

when she pointed to it. It glinted in the light like a I could see Marija’s hand gently rest on the small of motorcycle. The saleswoman talked to me about

Karen’s back. I closed my eyes and waited until I was attachments and the endless things it could do. I sure they were gone. Then I walked out of the shop smiled, not understanding a word. I could already knowing I would never return.

When I got home I leaned the bathroom mirror

stitching her magic into fabric. As I paid for it in cash up against the couch and found a pair of scissors and I felt excitement, something I hadn’t felt in a long tweezers. I took a couple of long pulls of whiskey time.

290 Leslie Feinberg

A light snow fell as I lugged the machine back told her. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for through the crowded streets and hailed a cab.

me.” We pressed our foreheads together.

As soon as I got home I cleaned my apartment

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know it was an awful lot to with a vengeance. When the house sparkled I realized ask.”

“Hush,” she whispered.

the water soften my jaw so it didn’t click each time

“Ruth, I love you.”

I opened my mouth. I dried off and put on a clean

“Shh, I know.” She held my face in her cupped

white T-shirt and khaki chinos. While I combed my hands. “I love you too, honey.” Ruth pulled me close hair, I caught sight of myself in the kitchen mirror.

against her body. We hugged as though we’d never let My eyes looked so sad I couldn’t meet my own gaze.

go.

My face seemed much older than I’d remembered it. I

“Ooh, let me have some of that,” Tanya said.

“Come in here, boy.”

my shoulders and chest and arms. Suddenly all those long hours at the gym seemed to be proof of my will B-girl,” she told Tanya. I hadn’t heard that word in to live. I’d sent myself a gift—a memory of body, of many years. B-girl—the old code word femmes used self.

in public to refer to butches when they were afraid of I shopped on Grand Street for handmade

being overheard. There was so much about Ruth I still Chinese wrapping paper. I pointed to what I needed. I didn’t know.

still didn’t speak.

“Ooh, honey,” Tanya looked me up and down

appreciatively. “I could swing for you, girl.”

Ruth introduced me to Esperanza. “Mucho

you? I was scared silly. Come on in. Tanya and

gusto,” Esperanza whispered in a voice as complicated Esperanza are here.” I didn’t move. “Are you OK?”

as Ruth’s and mine. Esperanza blushed as I kissed She looked worried.

her hand. “We’re trimming the tree. You want to help I moved my jaw slightly. “Ruth.” Tears welled up us?” She handed me tinsel.

in her eyes when she heard my voice. “Thank you,” I I smiled shyly. “I never did this before.”

Stone Butch Blues 291

Esperanza frowned. “You never decorated a

“I’ll teach you to bump and grind on the dance

Christmas tree before?” I shook my head. “You didn’t have Christmas when you were a child?” I shook my I laughed. “I’ll show you a thing or two on the

head again. “Too poor?”

I laughed. My jaw clicked as I answered. “Too

“Lord have mercy,” Tanya fanned herself with

her large hand. “Kill me now.”

Ruth offered me a cookie she’d just decorated.

Esperanza smiled. “I’ll teach you an old dance,

the merengue, the dance of the enslaved.”

a bite.” I rediscovered taste. “We’re making cookies I remembered Ruth’s present. “I’ll be right

to take to friends who are stuck in the hospital with back,” I said. When I lugged the heavy rectangular AIDS.”

present into her living room Ruth sat down heavily Up until that moment I had felt as though the

on the couch as though she’d been hit with bad news.

epidemic was taking place a million miles away from

“It’s for you,” I smiled.

me. “Can I go with?” I asked.

“Open it, girl,” Tanya urged.

Ruth sighed heavily. “Yes, if you want to.”

Ruth chewed her lip. “You shouldn’t have.”

Tanya offered me a mug. “This is Tanya’s killer

All my love was in my smile. “Oh, hush.”

eggnog. If this don’t give you the holiday spirit She sighed, opened the paper carefully, folded

nothing will.”

it, and put it aside. When Ruth took the cover off the Ruth wiped her hands on her apron. “Take it

sewing machine she gasped. I could tell by the way easy with that stuff.”

Tanya made a face at her. “Don’t listen to her.

made her. “I’ll make you a suit,” she whispered.

I beamed. “Really?” Ruth nodded and bit her

all have to hang out with him.”

knuckles. She stood up and walked over to the half-

“We’re going out to a drag club later tonight.

decorated evergreen. “This is for you.” She handed You want to come?” Esperanza asked. I looked at

Ruth. She smiled and shrugged.

292 Leslie Feinberg

It was a book called Gay American History. My but I could shut my own and remember the way the hands trembled as I leafed through the pages.

color of your eyes changes in the light.”

“Look,” Ruth took the book from my hands

Ruth sat down next to me on the couch. We put

and turned to the index. “Remember I told you about our arms around each other and rocked. Esperanza what I read in a drag magazine about how people like us used to be honored? Look at this whole section My chin ached and trembled. “You know,” I told

about Native societies. But, wait, look at this.” She them, “I’ve been searching for you all for such a long like you who lived as men.”

Ruth tightly in my arms as we both cried.

Tears clouded my vision.

Esperanza rested her hand on my thigh. “Do

Esperanza looked at the title and shook her

you know what my name means?”

head. “I wish we weren’t always lumped into gay.”

I shook my head. “No, but it sure is pretty.”

Ruth changed the subject, as was her way. She

She smiled and looked at me with a sure,

handed me a package wrapped in red tissue paper.

unwavering expression. “Esperanza,” she explained—

“it means hope.”

with emotion, looking up at a host of stars. It was a beautiful face, a face I’d never seen before. It was my face.

“Let me see that, honey,” Tanya reached for it.

“Ooh, Ruth. That’s nice. That looks just like him.”

“Ruth,” I chewed my lip. “Do I really look like

this?”

She nodded and smiled through her tears.

“When I thought you might die, I started to sketch your face. I wanted something more than my

memories of you to remain. Your eyes were closed, Stone Butch Blues 293

24

IT WAS THE FIRST DAY of spring, when everyone

at the ceiling. Ruth had painted it velvety black who lives in this city agrees to feel good at the same with pinpoints of constellations I recognized. The time—a day when it seems as though every woman,

darkness softened to light around the edges. I could see the outline of trees against the sky.

at the farmer’s market in Union Square, killing time.

Ruth lay down next to me. “Do you like it?”

The sun dipped behind the buildings to the west

“It’s just incredible. I can’t believe you’ve given of the island. Ruth made me promise not to come me the sky to sleep under. But I can’t tell if its dawn home until late afternoon. It was time to discover my or dusk you’ve painted.”

surprise.

She smiled up at the ceiling. “It’s neither. It’s I knocked on my own door and waited for Ruth

both. Does that unnerve you?”

to answer it. She wiped her hands on a cloth and led I nodded slowly. “Yeah, in a funny way it does.”

me into my bedroom. “Close your eyes,” she urged.

“Remember you told me I could do anything I wanted me I have to accept. I thought it might be what you to to it?” I smiled and nodded. “OK, open your eyes.”

need to deal with, too.”

I looked around and then up at the ceiling—there it I sighed. “I really do have trouble not being able was.

I sat down on my bed and fell back to look

or about to be night.”

Ruth rolled toward me and rested her hand on I smiled sadly. “In the beginning I was her dawn.

By the end I was her twilight.” We both sighed.

“You want more truth, Ruth? There’s a place

that connects them.”

somewhere inside of me where I’ve never been

Ruth’s face was very close to mine. We became

touched before. I’m afraid you’ll touch me there. And aware of the symmetry of our breathing. She slid I’m afraid you won’t. My femme lovers knew me well, her hand slowly along my body from my chest to my but they never crossed those boundaries inside of me.

stomach. She dropped her eyes.

They tried to coax me across the borders into their

“I’m afraid,” I answered the question she hadn’t arms, but they never came after me. You’re right there asked out loud.

with me. There’s no place for me to hide. It scares

“Why?” she asked. “Because I’m neither night

me.”

nor day?” I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew I would Ruth smiled sadly. “Isn’t it funny? That’s exactly lose her if I wasn’t honest; I knew I might lose her if why I would like to make love with you.”

I was.

We lay quietly. I kissed her hair. “Oh, Ruth,

“Yes,” I told her. “That’s part of it. Remember I haven’t had to navigate sex in a long time, with your geometric theory? More than double the

anyone. I don’t even know who I am as a lover

trouble?”

anymore. But I’m scared you’ll leave me now. Can’t Ruth rolled onto her back. “I’m not suggesting

we do it in the road.”

I need you so much.”

I stared up at the sky. “You know what I mean.

Ruth got up on one elbow and kissed my lips. “I

But that’s only part of it. If I really have to be honest, need you, too.” I held one of her hands, marveling at it’s because I’m afraid not to be with someone who is how small mine looked in hers. She dropped her eyes night or day. I guess I felt like the femmes I was with while I kissed each one of her knuckles.

anchored me. It was the closest to normal I’ve ever

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my life since

felt.”

my jaw got broken,” I told her. “I once read about Ruth curled up into my arm. “Were you her

warriors who resolve before they go into battle that dawn or her dusk?”

‘Today is a good day to die.’”

Stone Butch Blues 295

Ruth smiled. “It’s a brave thought, but I don’t make it look as important as it feels to me. That’s want to die.”

what I want to leave behind, Ruth—the history of this ancient path we’re walking. I want it to help us myself to death. But now I think it means facing my restore our dignity.” Ruth pressed my hand to her lips.

own life at the moment I’m facing my enemy. Maybe

“But I want more, Ruth. There’s things I’ve been afraid to face in my life. They may sound small, but they hold me back from pride. Remember when I told Ruth frowned. “Like what?”

happened to her.

“I always wanted to leave something important

“And there’s a butch I once put down because I

behind. Remember the history book you gave me for couldn’t deal with the fact that she got turned on by Christmas?” Ruth nodded. “I’ve been going to the other butches. I thought being butch automatically library, looking up our history. There’s a ton of it in meant being attracted to femmes, just like I assumed anthropology books, a ton of it, Ruth. We haven’t transvestism meant gay.”

always been hated. Why didn’t we grow up knowing Ruth smiled. “It’s an easy misunderstanding. You that?”

were hanging out in gay bars.”

Ruth propped herself up on her elbow and

I nodded. “Yeah, but I always wanted all of us

watched my face as I spoke. “It’s changed the way who were different to be the same. I can’t believe I I think. I grew up believing the way things are now rejected a butch friend because she took a butch lover.

is the way they’ve always been, so why even bother I want to tell Frankie I’m sorry.”

Ruth kissed my cheek. “Anything else?”

it was ever different, even if it was long ago, made me I nodded. “Yeah. There were two little kids—

feel things could change again. Whether or not I live to see it.

them someday. Oh, and there’s one more thing I need

“At work, when everyone else is at lunch, I’ve

to do.”

been typesetting all the history I’ve found, trying to 296 Leslie Feinberg

I lay back and stared into the universe on the ceiling. “I want to write a letter to Theresa, a woman really you? It’s been a long time.”

I still carry around in my heart. We parted in a real I cleared my throat. “Yeah, it has been. Listen, Frankie, I really want to talk to you. If you don’t want she never reads them.”

to, I’ll understand. But I owe you an apology, and it’s My eyelids felt heavy. Ruth curled up against me long overdue. I’d like to offer it to you in person, if you’ll see me. I’m living in New York City now, but I me.

could come to Buffalo.”

I sighed. “First I have to let my own memories

Another long silence. “You know something,

come back. I put them away somewhere because they hurt. Now I have to remember where I put them.”

afraid I am. And I’ll tell you something else. It matters The breeze from the window chilled me. I pulled

to me that you called to say that. I’ll be in Manhattan the tie quilt over both of us and snuggled up against on the 15th, at the labor college. I could meet you at Ruth. She felt warm and comforting beside me.

the Duchess for a drink around 11:00.”

“Sleepy?” she asked me.

I paused. “Is that the lesbian bar in Sheridan

I nodded. “Stay with me for a while, Ruth.

Square?”

Please?” She nodded. I buried my face in her neck.

“Yeah.”

She stroked my hair and kissed my forehead.

“Well, I don’t know if they’ll let me in. Can I

“Sleep now, my sweet drag king.”

meet you outside the bar?”

“Sure,” Frankie said. “I’ll see you then.”

streetlamp outside the bar chewing my thumbnail.

I almost hung up when I heard Frankie’s voice on I saw Frankie approach from across the street. We stood awkwardly. Neither of us knew where to begin.

remember me, Frankie?” That’s all I could think of to I reached out my hand; she shook it. I found our say.

shared past in her grasp.

Stone Butch Blues 297

I’d forgotten how much I love butches until I Avenue—Blue Violets. I can’t think of anybody else, except for Duffy. You remember Duffy, the union

of her stance, one hand jammed in her trouser

organizer?”

pocket, her head cocked to the side.

I smiled. “Yeah, I remember Duffy.”

I don’t know which shocked me more, the

Frankie leaned forward. “You don’t know how

ways Frankie had changed or how much she looked

sorry he was that he fucked up that job for you. He exactly the way I remembered her. Strange to see soft wrinkles in that freckled teenage face, silver I nodded. “Yeah, I know he didn’t. I want his

hairs among the wiry red ones. “It’s good to see you, phone number, if you’ve got it. I’d like to talk to him, Frankie.”

too.” Frankie nodded.

She scuffed her shoe against the pavement. “It’s We stood in shy silence. “Frankie, I’m sorry.

good to see you, too.”

I always thought I was so open-minded. But when

I tried to keep my lower lip from trembling.

I came up against my own fears, I tried to separate myself from you. I’ve done some growing up since looking at you is bringing back a whole part of my life then. I can’t take it back, but I’m real sorry.”

I really need right now. It’s really good to see you.”

Frankie gestured with her thumb toward the

I opened my arms and we hugged each other

Duchess. “You don’t know if they’ll let you in there?

tight, then we wrestled playfully. I scruffed her hair, Well, in our day I was afraid if I showed who turned me on my own people would shut the door in my

down in the past, we’re still from the old days. You face. That’s a terrible way to feel. I’m sorry that’s still matter to me,” Frankie said.

I thought that was such a generous thing to say.

is I respected you. I wanted you to respect me.”

“You ever see anyone from the old crowd?” I asked.

I rubbed the sadness out of my eyes. “Well, you She nodded. “I see Grant a lot.”

deserved it. C’mon,” I took her by the shoulder. “Let’s

“What about Theresa?” I held my breath.

go to the piers.” We walked slowly down Christopher Frankie shook her head. “You remember Butch

Street toward the Hudson River. “You know, Frankie, 298 Leslie Feinberg

that I got nothing to prove. It was a very liberating out: I’m a butch because I love femmes. That was concept for a baby butch.”

something beautiful. Nobody ever honored our love.

I smiled gently. “I never thought of Grant as

You scared me. I felt like you were taking that away very liberated—not that any of us were.”

from me.”

Frankie nodded. “Grant never took her own

Frankie shook her head. “I wasn’t taking

wisdom to heart. She’s a prisoner of her shame, but anything from you. But how do you think I felt when she didn’t want us young ones to end up like her. She you told me I wasn’t a real butch because I sleep with only seduced baby butches when she got real drunk.

But I never felt like we made her happy. I think she has some secret passion that scares the shit out of I don’t have to prove I’m butch to them. How come I her.”

got to prove it to you?”

I frowned. “Like what?”

I shook my head. “You don’t.” I put my arm

around her shoulder. We crossed the West Side

something inside of her she thinks is twisted, like Highway and walked to the end of the pier. The full maybe she fantasizes about being with strong old moon illuminated the clouds. Light shimmered on the bulls, or men or something. Poor Grant. I wish she’d dark water.

let me in. I love that old bulldagger so much.”

We sat in silence, listening to the waves lapping bull really brought you out?”

against the pilings beneath us. Frankie sighed. “You I smiled at her memory. “Butch Al, from

Niagara Falls.”

in to loving other butches.”

“For me it was Grant,” Frankie said.

I laughed. “I don’t know why, but I have this

“Grant?” I remembered Grant as a mean drunk

image of you sleeping with a different femme every who could offend everyone.

week.”

Frankie watched my face. “Grant meant the

Frankie nodded without smiling. “I thought that

world to me. She taught me that I am what I am,

was what I was supposed to do. Inside my head I was Stone Butch Blues 299

asking each one: Could you love me? Do you love me? Am I Frankie leaned forward. “Neither of us were.

loveable? Of course, the minute they did care about me What you meant was who does the fucking and who

I knew I couldn’t respect their judgment so I moved gets fucked? Who ran the fuck? That’s not the same on to the next. God, I was a shit to femmes.”

Frankie looked out over the water. “It was only

Frankie moved closer to me and touched my

shoulder. I tensed. “Relax,” she whispered, “I’m not on my body that everything changed for me. The

more I saw what I loved about other butches, the

“I’m sorry. I’m not so used to getting touched.”

more I began to accept myself. You know who gets it Frankie’s hands kneaded the soreness from my

shoulders. “You know, I have a confession to make. I bull with graying hair, a cocky smile, and sad eyes.

used to have a crush on you in the old days.”

You know the kind of butch with arms as big as your I laughed nervously. “Oh shit. I was just starting thigh? Those are the arms I want to hold me.”

to relax with you.”

She patted me on the back. “You’ll get over it.”

thigh. “I love them so much, too. But what gets it Frankie rubbed my neck. “You were like a fucking for me is high femme. It’s funny—it doesn’t matter whether it’s women or men—it’s always high femme that pulls me by the waist and makes me sweat.”

has pulled me through, but it hasn’t left much leisure Frankie rested her hand on my arm. “You and I

to think about it.”

“Am I so different from you?” She whispered

leave me out. I’m sick of hearing butch used to mean her thought out loud.

sexual aggression or courage. If that’s what butch

“You have to decide that. To me we’re still kin.”

means, what does it mean in reverse for femmes?”

A cruise ship passed; laughter from the people

I shook my head. “I never thought about it like

that. But I have to admit that when you told me about the femme in bed?”

300 Leslie Feinberg

I felt her body sink against mine. “It’s hard for Frankie. But I can’t hear my own voice say the words out loud. I’ve got no language.”

I sighed and nodded. “Hey, Frankie. When two

Frankie opened her arms wider, took more of

butches are together—like lovers I mean—do they

me in. I leaned my face against her arm. She offered talk about their feelings?”

me refuge, the way I held Butch Al years ago in a jail

“Feelings?” Frankie asked. “What are those?” We

cell. “Frankie, I’ve got no words for feelings that are both chuckled, warm and relaxed. We laughed harder tearing me apart. What would our words sound like?”

and harder, until tears streamed down our cheeks.

I looked up at the sky. “Like thunder, maybe.”

Frankie pressed her lips against my hair. “Yeah, body against Frankie’s. I allowed myself to enjoy the like thunder. And yearning.”

strength of her arms around me.

I smiled and kissed the hard muscle of her

“You know, Frankie,” I whispered. “There’s

biceps. “Yearning,” I repeated softly. “What a

things that happened to me because I’m a he-she that beautiful word to hear a butch say out loud.”

I’ve never talked about to a femme. I’ve never had the words.”

Frankie nodded. “You don’t need words with

I shook my head. “I do need words, Frankie.

Sometimes I feel like I’m choking to death on what I’m feeling. I need to talk and I don’t even know how.

Femmes always tried to teach me to talk about my feelings, but it was their words they used for their feelings. I needed my own words—butch words to

talk about butch feelings.”

Frankie pulled me tighter. Tears welled up in my eyes. “I feel like I’m clogged up with all this toxic goo, Stone Butch Blues 301

25

“YOU MAKE YOUR OWN TRIP to Buffalo, and

them off and drive away. I’ve got to introduce you.

I’ll make my own trip home,” Ruth insisted.

They’ll offer you coffee.”

“But why?” I couldn’t understand why she

I grew sullen. “Oh, now I understand.”

refused Esperanza’s offer to lend us her car. “You said you haven’t been home since your grandma died.

ashamed of you.” Her voice dropped. “I’m ashamed You’ve been saying you should visit. I could see where of them sometimes.” I started to protest but she held you’re from. I want to see the lake and the hills and up one hand to stop me. “It’s a no-win situation. If the vineyards you talk so much about.”

you like them a lot, I’ll be angry with you for not Ruth sighed. “To you it’s pretty. But I escaped to understanding why it was so hard for me to grow up save my life. It’s not easy for me to go back there. I with them. And if you don’t like them, I’ll despise you want to do it alone.”

for not recognizing their worth.”

I shook my head. “I’ll just drop you off and get I shrugged. “OK, I get that it’s complicated. I’ll back on the Thruway to Buffalo. Where we’re going drop the subject. But I’m going to Buffalo to visit.

is only two hours apart, and I can’t drive without a license. We could pass as a nice married couple.”

Although I didn’t discuss it further, we both

knew the subject wasn’t dropped. I kept putting off You can’t just drive up to someone’s house and let my trip, partly because I knew it could be painful, but

mostly because I still hoped Ruth would come with Ruth sighed and patted my hand. “Thursday.”

me.

In early September I asked Esperanza if I

could borrow her car to make the trip. Ruth puttered around the kitchen pretending not to hear us.

The world is our restroom! That was our motto on the Days before I planned to leave I brought Ruth a

trip upstate. We brought plenty of toilet paper so we half-gallon of mulled cider. She sat down in a kitchen wouldn’t need to risk a rest stop. We left the city well chair next to me and stared at her mug. “When I get before dawn on our six-hour trek. By the time the sun beat up,” she began in a quiet voice, “it’s always worse when it’s visible. It means other people can see I’ve together.

been hurt. That’s humiliating to me.”

Ruth packed muenster cheese sandwiches with

I waited for her to continue. “My people aren’t

sun-dried tomatoes and arugula on freshly baked

bad,” she said. “I love them more since I left. They bread. We drank quarts of iced tea. The world is our love me the best way they know how. I’m family. But restroom! we laughed.

it’s hard, and I don’t want anyone who’s not family to Ruth’s face softened as I drove. She called out

see it. I think they’d make you feel welcome as a guest, the names of all the beautiful wild weeds. The anxiety but I’m not sure. If they were unkind to you, I’d hate of Manhattan melted into the distance behind us.

them for it. They’re not cruel. But it’s a big risk for me The upcoming tension was hundreds of miles ahead.

because I could never forgive them if they hurt you.”

Somewhere between here and there Ruth and I really I stirred my cider with a cinnamon stick. “When

met each other all over again.

are we leaving, Ruth?”

She looked surprised. “I didn’t say we were

headed toward Canandaigua Lake, Ruth grew visibly going.”

excited. “See?” she pointed to a condominium

I smiled and nodded. “Yes, you did, honey.

development. “That used to be Roseland Amusement Neither of us wrestle that hard with things we’re not Park. Pull over. Let me drive now.” Ruth knew those ready to take on.”

roads like the veins on her hands.

Stone Butch Blues 303

hills he loved. I’m like him. My heart’s in these hills, new crop since I grew up here.” I recognized the but I left for the city.”

goldenrod and purple asters that Ruth captured as We pulled up in front of a small home at the

memories in her watercolors.

edge of the woods. A golden Labrador retriever

She pulled over near the lake and parked in a

barked and clawed at the screen door as Ruth turned space no wider than three car widths. “I could never off the ignition. “This is Dale’s place.” She handed me a piece of paper. “Here are directions to pick me up at my mama’s house.”

square inch around the lake is private now except for I nodded. We sat in the car until our arrival was two little spaces like this one and the patch behind the acknowledged. “Robbie!” I heard Dale call out to country store. They’re even posting the hills now.”

Ruth. “Robbie, you’re home!”

She turned the key in the ignition and backed the Ruth sighed. We both got out of the car. I

car out. “The summer people killed my daddy.” Her their hands knew each other’s back and shoulders.

a hairpin curve to watch the deer. My daddy swerved to avoid them. Went off the road right over there.”

lives in Manhattan, too.”

We drove past in silence. “I hate the summer people.

The dog jumped up and licked my face. Dale

Only problem is, my mama’s one of them.” I didn’t pulled his collar. “Bone, get off of him. Where’s your speak. Ruth knew what she was and wasn’t willing to manners?” Dale shook my hand. His hand was hard

say. “Of course, my mama was a renter. Her people and calloused within his gentle grip. “You all want weren’t yuppies. She fell in love with my daddy before some coffee? I just made some fresh.”

the summer passed. But if you loved that man, you My eyes lit up. Ruth shook her head. “You best

knew he’d never leave this valley. He and my Uncle Dale hear the hills calling them like lovers.”

way back to the Thruway?”

Ruth smiled. “Funny thing. My mama’s a city

I laughed. “Yeah, follow the lake and make a left girl, but after my daddy died she stayed here in these 304 Leslie Feinberg

“You sure you don’t want to come in and rest up A memory suddenly gripped me: the look of

a little while?” Dale asked. I looked at Ruth. Her face pain in Theresa’s eyes the night I was arrested in was resolutely impassive.

Rochester. I covered my face with my hands so I

“Thank you, Dale. But I still got a chunk of

wouldn’t see it, but the image was behind my eyes. Let driving to do. I’m headed to Buffalo. Maybe I’ll see it come, I thought to myself. It’s all there anyway. Let you when I drive back to pick up Ruth.” I froze. Did I it come up.

make a mistake by calling her Ruth?

I walked to a pay phone on the corner and called Dale nodded. “Well, you be sure to stop in

information. I wanted to keep the promise I had

around suppertime if you do. I’ll make Dale’s famous made to Kim and Scotty to come back and visit. I fried zucchini for you. Robbie’ll tell you I make it real remembered how my coming had shaken Kim, root

good. I got some killer zucchini out of my garden this and branch, and my leaving had hurt her most. Would year.”

she remember me? Would Scotty? Did he become

Ruth sighed. I took it as my cue to leave. I got back in the car and started it up. Dale still held onto book. Maybe they still lived at home with Gloria. Her Bone’s collar and waved with his other hand. Ruth number was listed.

looked at me with soulful eyes.

Goldberg,” I repeated. “We worked together at the print shop. You let me stay at your house. I’m back in town for a day or two, and I wanted to see Kim and The streets of Buffalo were as familiar as my own Scotty.”

There was a long, long silence. Gloria’s voice

I pulled up in front of the apartment building

dropped to a hoarse whisper. “You leave my children where Theresa and I had lived. Her name wasn’t on alone. Do you hear me?” The phone went dead in my the mailbox anymore. I walked around back, half

hand. I stared at the receiver, stunned. Slowly I began to realize that Gloria held the power to keep me from crate staring up at the sky, straining for a glimpse of her own future. Here I was, back searching for her.

Stone Butch Blues 305

again. I slapped the glass wall of the phone booth How come everybody else is getting a happily-ever-with my open hand over and over until it stung and after?

burned. Then I kicked the glass as hard as I could. A It hurt so much to see her standing there I

police cruiser pulled over to the curb.

wanted to run outside and get back in the car and go.

“What’s going on?” a cop called out to me.

But I discovered an important piece of my dignity in I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I just lost some

the way I held my body and in the soft strength in my money in it.”

voice as I whispered, “Hello, Edna.”

“Let’s take it easy, son. It’s just a quarter.” He She came out from behind the counter and

waved and drove off. When he was out of sight I started toward me. I stiffened my body involuntarily.

kicked the glass over and over again. I told myself I’d times.”

at the moment.

I felt my anger rise up to block her words from

The operator gave me the address and phone

here?”

Edna chewed her lower lip. “She’s in the

shop. I could smell the perfume of roses and lilies.

greenhouse out back.” The phone rang. I took the

“Can I help you?” A familiar face looked up at

opportunity to leave while Edna answered it. I leaned against the cool brick outside the door. I’d thought the pain might splatter me all over the walls of the out what she was doing there, working behind the shop, but it hadn’t. It just hurt, a lot.

ex-lover. They must be together again.

It wasn’t fair! I could understand if Edna left me The greenhouse looked like a grownup’s

because she couldn’t be with anyone. But then how playhouse—a self-contained world. Humidity fogged the glass inside. I opened the door and stepped over the threshold. My boots sank into the wet straw

306 Leslie Feinberg

My voice rose. “Do you think Lydia knows?”

the good smell of damp earth.

strong, broad shoulders. Her hair had turned to silver.

I took a deep breath. “Would you ask Edna if

She rose and looked at me. Her glasses rested on top of her head. She slid them down to her nose. “Am I getting so old I can’t trust my own eyes?” she asked.

know Edna and I had been lovers. “Tell you what,”

my hair and kissed my head as I cried. “I’ve thought drink?”

about you so many times,” she whispered.

It sounded excruciatingly painful, and

My lip quivered. “I didn’t really believe I lived in unavoidable. I nodded. “Maybe Frankie would want anyone’s memory except my own.”

to come too?”

You were one of those baby butches I knew I’d grow She wrote down the address of the bar.

old with. How long you here for? Where are you

chilly air startled me. Her pick-up truck was parked

“Manhattan,” I answered. “Frankie told me

in the garage behind the store. Next to it was an old bike. “I haven’t ridden it for a long time but I keep it running. You want to use it while you’re here?” I alive.”

smiled and nodded emphatically. It had been years sputtered to life. She squeezed my shoulder. “You are a sight for sore eyes. It’s good to see you, kid.” I in touch with Lydia, whose butch worked at the auto plant with Al for a long time.”

I whispered out loud, “I’m not a kid anymore.”

Stone Butch Blues 307

Edna stared at her lap and nodded.

We met that night in a working-class bar on the

We all sat in the uncomfortable silence.

outskirts of Buffalo. It had been a long time since I’d been in a bar with lesbians. It was still early in the happened to all the old butches and femmes.”

evening, so the place wasn’t packed yet. There were

“I think we’re sort of underground,” I said

about twenty or thirty women in the front room. I quietly. My heart was in the conversation Edna and I weren’t having. “Waiting for a time when it’s safer to Was it my imagination or were a few of the young come out.”

women butch, a few femme?

Grant sighed bitterly. “But some of these young Everybody looked at me, and then each other,

kids you can’t even tell what they are—goddamn

when I walked in, but nobody stopped me. I peeked green hair and safety pins in their faces.” We all sighed in the backroom, hoping that Edna wouldn’t be there collectively.

“Grant,” I shrugged, “who cares?”

“It just isn’t right,” Grant slapped the tabletop.

I laughed, which made her angrier. “Grant, that’s her eyes as I formally kissed her cheek. Frankie and I what they said about us!”

hugged. Grant shook my hand. “Well, I’ll be damned.

“Well, that’s different,” Grant said with a wave Look who’s here!” She signaled the waitress. “What’s of her hand.

everybody drinking?” Grant asked.

I leaned toward her. “There’s a lot of things I couldn’t accept when I was younger, Grant, like the clear-headed, especially with Edna at the table.

fact that there’s lots of different ways for butches to

“You too good to have a drink with us

be.” I watched her expression change. Frankie audibly anymore?” Grant challenged.

sucked in her breath. “But now I’m trying to accept

“A whiskey,” Frankie interrupted. “Straight up,

people as they are.”

so to speak.”

308 Leslie Feinberg

and stroked the arm of my leather jacket. “Nice,” she could see it in her eyes. I knew a secret about Grant’s said.

desire and I wanted to wield it like a weapon. I wanted butchness to be quantity, not a quality, so I could out-soft, worn leather of Rocco’s armor. “Thank you.” I butch her.

closed the subject. Edna exhaled in relief.

“I’m sure glad I didn’t do those hormones,”

Grant announced.

Frankie silently pleading with me to let Grant off the I bit down hard on the plastic bar straw in my

hook.

mouth. “Why’s that, Grant?” I braced myself.

I refocused on Grant and saw a beaten butch,

“Well you’re sort of stuck now, aren’t you? I

preserved in alcohol. I could smell her humiliation. I mean you’re not a butch or a guy. You look like a remembered how she forced the men in the factories guy.”

to show her some respect. Slowly her belief that she Everyone at the table stiffened, but no one

deserved it had eroded. And suddenly my own words answered her. I bent the straw into a circle. “Be echoed in my ears: How much of myself was I willing to careful, Grant,” I warned her. “You’re looking at your give up to distance myself from her?

“You know what I remember, Grant?” Everyone

Grant laughed. “I ain’t like you. I didn’t do the looked up at me. “I remember when we unloaded

change.”

frozen food on the docks near the lake.” I glanced at My anger was greater than the situation called

Edna. The faint smile on her lips was a gift for me.

for. I could taste it, bitter on my tongue. I leaned Grant nodded. “Yeah, those were the good old

forward. Everyone held their breath. My voice was days, weren’t they?”

low and menacing. “How far are you willing to go, I shook my head. “Some of it was a nightmare. I Grant? How much of yourself are you willing to give sure wouldn’t want to go back to the bar raids and the up in order to distance yourself from me?”

Grant’s face betrayed her. She had felt my power don’t have to live them anymore.”

for a moment and it aroused her. I knew it had, I Grant leaned forward. “You wouldn’t want to go

back to those days?”

Stone Butch Blues 309

I laughed. “Not even at gunpoint. The only We both knew she was talking about more than

things I miss are the ways we stood up for each other, Al, but I refused to admit it. “Goddamn it, Edna! I how we tried to make a home for each other. And we don’t care if Al is on Death Row or married with kids could do that right here.”

and wearing high heels. I love her and I want to see It was time to change the subject. I glanced over her.” My teeth clenched. “I just want to say goodbye.

Is that so hard to understand?”

happened to Al?”

Edna shook her head. “No. It’s just hard to do.”

She put out her hand as though I were a dog that her eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, kid.”

It’s just that some things are better left alone.”

“Is she still alive?” I asked. Silence. I took a

“I have a right to learn my own lessons.” I tried to soften my voice. “Look, Edna. There’s some things Edna to hear. “You know Al meant the world to me.

that eat me up more than pain—like always feeling If I’d known I might never see her again, there’s a lot of things I would’ve told her. When I was young, nobody can tell me where she went. I promised a

I thought I had all the time in the world. I don’t feel little girl years ago I’d come back, and her mother just that way anymore. If she’s still living, I want to see refused to tell me where she is. Now you’re telling me her.”

Al is alive and I can’t see her.”

Edna stared at her beer bottle, apparently

Edna turned away from me as I continued. “I’ll

unmoved. I was so afraid I’d explode in anger that tell you what I’m already discovering on this visit, I got up and stormed into the women’s bathroom

Edna. I can deal with a lot more pain than I realized.

without realizing how long it had been since I’d been But I don’t know where to go with this frustration. I inside of one. I splashed cold water on my face.

I was surprised when Edna came in. “I’m sorry,”

“It’s not a good idea.” Edna said it so simply, like she said in a gentle voice. “I know you’re real mad at the subject was closed.

me.”

“How dare you?” I raged at her. “You have no

right to keep that information from me.”

310 Leslie Feinberg

I felt connected to the Triumph as I turned sharply into the curves of the expressway. An old power everything OK in here?” Edna and I were locked in a glare.

moment I cut the engine in the parking lot of the Grant rose to the occasion. “Let’s leave them

asylum. I took off my helmet and looked up at the medieval building. Every window was latticed with iron bars. A cold shiver ran though me. But I wanted here?” She was getting the picture.

to see Al more than I wanted to run away.

I never took my eyes off Edna’s. My voice was

I’d spent a long, sleepless night in the back

wintry with irony. “Now you’re gonna protect me, seat of Esperanza’s car, parked on the street across Edna? Now you’re gonna save me?”

about what I wanted to tell Al. But while I was going Al’s in the asylum.”

through visitor intake I panicked because I couldn’t I opened my eyes wider. “On Elmwood Avenue?

remember what I’d wanted to say. I kept coming back She’s that close?”

to two simple things I’d never said out loud to her:

“Damn you,” Edna repeated as she stormed out

Thank you and I love you.

of the bathroom.

As an elevator door opened, I tried to recall

Sixth Floor—it was

each other. “Kid, I think you’d better leave right now,”

printed in bold letters on the big plastic visitor’s ID

I’d been given at some point in this process.

“I’m not a kid anymore,” I told her as I pushed

“Are you related?” I blinked. A nurse addressed

my way out the door.

the question to me. I was standing at the nurse’s station. It was time to pay attention.

“Her nephew,” I answered. She looked at charts

I couldn’t see. “Hmm,” she said.

“I haven’t seen my aunt for a long time,” I made Stone Butch Blues 311

small talk nervously. “Is she well?” The nurse looked a punishable crime? Could they use force to keep at me over her spectacles.

me here? I felt their power over me. Most of all they

“I mean …” I quit talking.

had the power to keep me from seeing Al. An hour

“I’m afraid she’s in therapy,” the nurse

passed. I noticed the nurse whispering to a doctor. I concluded. “I don’t know who arranged your visit, wanted out of here, but I didn’t want to leave without but it won’t be possible today.”

Al.

All the color rose in my face. “I have to see her

“Mr. . . . umm,” the nurse was standing over

today.”

me. I jumped to my feet. Without a word she turned The nurse took off her spectacles and put one

on her heels and walked off. I raced to catch up with end near her lips. “Why is that?”

her. As we got to a dayroom she stopped and pointed For a moment I was afraid if I showed them

toward a bank of windows.

how upset I really was they might have the power to I looked in that direction. “Ah, you said physical therapy? Is that why Al…Auntie is here?”

“She suffered a stroke while she was here. She

back to be at my job. I haven’t seen my aunt for a long has lost the use of one of her arms and leg.”

time. I’m afraid she might die without me ever having

“Can she walk?”

seen her again. You see, it’s very important to me.”

The nurse pushed her spectacles further up the

The nurse was taken aback. She looked around.

bridge of her nose, signaling that the conversation

“Can’t I wait while she’s in therapy? How long

was nearing an end. “She does nothing. She sits and could it be? An hour? Fifty minutes?”

stares. I doubt she’ll recognize you,” she said over her

“She’s in physical therapy, Mr. . . . umm.”

shoulder as she walked away. She left me standing, She was looking at Al’s chart and questioning my relationship to her, I was sure of it. “Wait over there, The rays of light between the bars illuminated a please,” she said, beckoning to some chairs.

snowstorm of dust particles. A dozen patients were in the dayroom. A few spoke to themselves.

nephew, or called the family? Was cross-dressing still

“Young man, you shouldn’t have come,” an old

312 Leslie Feinberg

Valiant. Of course, if this were the old days she’d get my nose in emphasis. “No good will come of it! I’ve a haircut.

told you that before, over and over again. I told you, I I sat down next to her. Al’s face reminded me

told you.” She was old and very beautiful, not in spite of a dried riverbed, etched by the currents of waters of her age but because of it. I smiled and eased past her, hoping she was not an Oracle.

to restrain myself to keep from stroking it. It felt It wasn’t hard to recognize Butch Al. She sat in intrusive to be peering at her so closely, so I sat back front of the windows. She was slumped in the chair, in the chair. From another point of view Al had staring either through the windows, or at them. I hardly changed a bit. Everything about her seemed couldn’t tell which. She was wearing a hospital gown familiar and comforting.

and slippers. The arm furthest from me was in a

I looked out the window. I wanted to see what

plastic brace. As I got closer I saw that she was tied to she was seeing and give her time to feel my presence.

the chair with a strip of a bed sheet.

The windows were half obscured by a brick wall with

“She doesn’t talk to mortals,” the Oracle said

barred windows. Part of the view looked out over behind me. “She listens to voices you can’t hear. She can’t hear you.”

motorcycle. I thought for a moment Al might have I smiled over my shoulder. “It’s OK,” I reassured seen me pull up and knew, somehow, that it was me.

her, “I’m a ghost.”

Of course, this was my fantasy.

The old woman came around and peered into

Beyond the parking lot was a strip of grass and my face. “Why blessed be,” she exclaimed, crossing a few trees. Seagulls wheeled and turned in the distant herself. “That’s a real live ghost,” she announced to sky. I took everything in as though I had been looking patients who did not seem to hear.

out at this view for years and had no hope of seeing I pulled up a chair beside Al. In a way she had

any other landscapes on the horizon. That’s when I changed dramatically. Her hair was almost entirely knew I was seeing exactly what Al saw. “Not much to white and longer than I had ever seen it. If this were look at, is it?” I said out loud, almost to myself.

the old days I’d tease her about looking like Prince Al glanced at me for a moment. Her eyes were

Stone Butch Blues 313

glazed over as though she suffered from emotional you again. You know, that’s how kids are, they think cataracts. Then she looked back at the windows.

things are never gonna end.”

I put my feet up on the windowsill and leaned

I thought Al nodded. Maybe it was my

back. “Young man, please don’t do that,” a nurse imagination. I put my hand ever so gently on Al’s arm admonished me. I sat up, chagrined. Al glanced at me again and looked away. For a moment I thought I saw she turned and looked at me, then looked away. In her smile, but I was wrong.

that brief moment I saw her peeking from behind a Al was locked up in a fortress. I didn’t know how wall.

to scale its walls. I remembered a fairy tale about a

“Al,” I tried to say, but I choked on the words.

prince who had to climb a mountain of glass to free I put my forehead down on her arm and cried. I just the woman he loved. I couldn’t remember how he

couldn’t hold my body up anymore. I pushed the tears accomplished it.

Somewhere I read that people in comas can hear

pockets for a Kleenex. One appeared before my eyes, you. I knew she wasn’t in a coma, but I didn’t think it thrust forward by the Oracle. I nodded in thanks.

could hurt to talk to her.

“Butch Al,” I said quietly, “if you can hear me, I almost felt as if no time had passed. If I

please just nod, blink, do anything.”

She turned and looked at me.

conversation we’d ended a quarter of a century ago.

“Al,” I smiled.

“Al,” I said softly. I looked around, but no one was Her hand clamped on my arm like a claw, her

paying any attention to us, except the Oracle. “Al, it’s face contorted with anger. “Don’t bring me back,” she growled.

you looked at me you would.”

“Run away, now!” the Oracle warned me.

Al didn’t move, but I pretended that her

“No,” I said. I could hear the fear in my voice. I presence was closer, that she was listening, in order to wouldn’t run from Al, I was willing to face anything.

focus what I was trying to say to her. “There’s things This moment was all I had with her and it would be I would have told you, Al, but I always thought I’d see my last.

314 Leslie Feinberg

“Don’t bring me back,” Al repeated. Her nails Al nodded and turned back to the window.

“We’re from the old days.” She did remember!

Suddenly I understood what she was saying and

An emotional storm cloud passed over her face.

I felt ashamed. How had Al survived? By forgetting, She turned to me angrily. “Leave the old days alone.

going to sleep, going away! She went underground, Don’t bring me back, I’m dead.”

hid for safety just as I’d done.

I pulled away from her and then forced myself

to lean forward again. “You’re not dead, Al. You just with tears. So were mine. I put my free hand gently got hurt real bad. You fought long and hard, but they hurt you bad. You did real good.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “forgive me, Al. This was

She turned her head toward me and let it droop.

Her hand grasped for my arm, “I just couldn’t, I just …

me. I wasn’t thinking about how it would be for you.

I …. ”

People tried to tell me, and I didn’t listen.” I covered My voice dropped low, like a lover’s. “It’s OK

my face with my hand. “Go back to wherever you go now, it’s alright. You did so good that now you get to to be safe, I won’t bother you anymore. I’m sorry.”

rest. It’s alright, Al.”

“It’s OK, kid,” a familiar old friend’s voice said.

She rested one hand on my head. The weight of

“It’s alright,” I looked up and saw Butch Al smiling at me. The tears streamed down my face. She wiped you that haircut?” I missed a beat, then I smiled and them with one hand. I could feel the effort it took to nodded.

lift her arm.

Al squeezed my arm. “Kid, tell her I’m sorry.”

“You look nice,” she said. “Can anybody else see you, or just me?”

“I’m real, but only you can see me.”

it was true. “It’s true,” I lied, “she said don’t worry.

Al looked over my head and then her eyes

She loves you, Al. There isn’t a day goes by she lowered to mine. “You look young,” she told me.

doesn’t think about you, and so do I.” Al smiled and I smiled. “I’m gonna be forty in a couple of

patted my cheek.

years, if I play my cards right.”

Stone Butch Blues 315

“Al,” I said, but her spirit had left like wind you proud of me. Al, I loved you then and I love you slamming a door shut. “Al?” She was staring out

now.”

the window. Her body temperature dropped several I wiped tears off my arm twice before I realized degrees.

they weren’t coming from my eyes.

“She’s gone,” said the Oracle.

“I told you, you shouldn’t have come,” the

“Al,” I said, jiggling her arm. “Al, please, don’t Oracle whispered over my shoulder.

go. Not yet, please, just give me another minute.”

“No, it was important to come,” I said. I stood

I hated myself for doing that. Only moments

up and put my arms around Al again. I kissed her before I had sworn I would let her go back to her gently on top of her head, and let my lips linger on peace and now I was trying to drag her back again.

her hair.

My lip started to quiver and then my whole chin.

“I love you, Butch Al.” I whispered.

My jaw ached. I had a second chance in life to tell The nurse watched me from the doorway. I

her I loved her and then I blew it, just like I did as a straightened up to go.

teenager. And, like a kid, I didn’t want to leave until The Oracle crossed herself. “Blessed be,” she

she reassured me that she loved me too. I leaned said, looking at me and shaking her head. Moving forward and put both my arms around her neck. “I’m very slowly, I took her hand in mine and kissed it sorry,” I said. “I’ll leave you, Al.” The tears wouldn’t lightly. She dropped her eyes and blushed.

stop. “It’s just that I came all this way, across all these

“Goodbye, Grandmother,” I told her, “thank

years, to tell you how much I love you, and now it’s you for letting me come.”

too late.

“I wanted to thank you. If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have known I had a right to be me. You taught me enough to keep me alive all these years. There I pulled the Triumph into the driveway behind Blue isn’t a day goes by that I’m not grateful for everything you gave me. You’ve meant so much in my life, Al. I always wanted to grow up in a way that would make smoldered. I walked outside behind the greenhouse 316 Leslie Feinberg

what you think.”

the fuck didn’t you tell me?” she demanded.

I shrugged. “I’m gonna tell you anyway. I think

“It wasn’t my place,” I shrugged. “I didn’t want there’s not enough love to go around. I’ll tell you what to come between you two.”

else I think. We all go back a long way. We really need each other, even if we’re real upset right now.” My I inhaled through clenched teeth. “Actually, I

voice softened. “I’ll speak for myself. I really need know that. I couldn’t hold onto Edna. But am I gonna lose you too? I didn’t do anything to you. It’s not fair.”

to you.”

be fair. I’ve got a right to be pissed.”

tell me I don’t have a right to feel what I’m feeling.”

“No, you don’t,” I shouted at her. “You’re the

I shrugged. “I’m just scared about losing you.

one that got her. You two have each other. I’m the What if I gave it a little time and I tried to be brave one who has a right to be hurt.”

and called you. Would you speak to me?”

“You went behind my back and fucked my girl!”

“What?” I slapped my thigh. “You must be

called after me.

kidding! You and Edna hadn’t been lovers for twelve

“Yeah.”

years!”

“She recognized you?” I nodded. “Was it hard?”

I could feel the sadness in my smile. “It would

so fucking funny?” she demanded.

have been hard either way. I almost couldn’t stand I shrugged. “You’re mad at me for dating Edna a

thinking about strangers touching her, controlling her dozen years after you broke up. I’m mad at Edna for body. I got real scared. When I was a kid I looked at getting back together with you almost a decade after Al and I saw my future in her. I looked at her today she and I stopped seeing each other. You know what and thought maybe that’s my future, too.”

I think?”

Stone Butch Blues 317

down the road.”

canning tomatoes. All three were wearing the same My voice dropped low. “I was thinking about

Edwin’s suicide, too. I took it for granted that Ed uproariously as I entered the room. Hazel wiped tears would always be around. Then she shot herself.

from her eyes. “We were just telling stories about the Suddenly I wanted another chance and it was too late, old days.”

she was gone. So I buried her in my memory because

“Come sit in the kitchen, child. Have you eaten?

it hurt too much. Maybe I was afraid her suicide was Can I make you a little something?” Ruth’s mother my future, too.” I rubbed my face. “I’ve gotta go, asked me. I glanced at Ruth. She smiled and nodded.

“Yes, ma’am. That’d be real nice.”

“Call me Anne. Everybody calls me by my

mother’s name. How about a big piece of elderberry your luck, kid.”

pie?”

“Oh, yes. Please!” Anne set down a huge wedge

of pie in front of me. “Eat it all, now. You’re a growing boy.”

I pulled onto the gravel in front of Ruth’s mother’s Ruth looked at me nervously. I told her with

house and waited in the car until someone came

to the door. Mist draped the hills. The surface of from New York I told you about. She used to live in Canandaigua Lake mirrored bright blue. I heard the Buffalo.”

front door open. Patsy Cline was singing, Crazy for Hazel rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how you

thinking that my love could hold you.

girls could live in that city with all them—”

Ruth called out to me. “C’mon in, honey.” She

“Aunt Hazel,” Ruth’s tone cut her off mid-

looked happier and more relaxed than when I’d last sentence.

seen her.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Hazel said. “I just Ruth introduced me to her mother—Ruth

think—”

Anne cut in. “Hazel, eat your pie.”

318 Leslie Feinberg

I rolled my eyes with pleasure. “Did you make dishes, right over there,” she pointed. “I was

this pie?”

wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into

Hazel smiled. “Anne makes the best elderberry

pie in the Valley. You could ask anybody. You ever out the kitchen window and I see this buck standing taste a pie that good?”

in the clearing outside. I didn’t even stop to think.

Ruth dropped her eyes. “Well,” I said, “I’ve eaten I got one of Cody’s guns and I shot that deer. I ran Ruth’s elderberry pie.” I looked around nervously to outside and started dragging it by the antlers. It was see if I’d upset anyone by using the name I knew my heavy, but I was so damn mad at Cody I had the

friend by. Ruth shrugged. “I must say, ma’am, I can strength of a bull. Cody comes downstairs a few taste the family inspiration in your child’s pie.”

“Well, that was some fancy footwork.” Anne

told him, ‘Now you clean the damn thing.’”

smiled as I devoured the pie.

I knew laugher had rolled around the kitchen

Hazel rocked with laughter. “Anne, do you

this way all weekend long.

“Oh, I wish I’d a camera to show you Cody’s

began the story. “She was a city girl when she married face. I can see it now.” Anne hooted. Her smile

my brother Cody. First winter she was here, she was trembled. “I wish you could have met him,” she told me. “I think you would have liked him a lot. He was now. So over breakfast one morning, my brother tells a real good man.” She sighed. “You want some more her he’s gonna go hunting. He told her that deer meat pie?”

would help see them through the winter and sooner I nodded emphatically. Ruth shook her head.

or later she’d have to learn to prepare it. I had told her

“You’re gonna be puking purple all over the car.”

I’d show her how. But she was willful. She told Cody: Anne put her hands on her hips. “This boy’s not

‘I’ll shoot the damn deer. That’s the easy part. You leaving this valley without tasting my grape pie.”

clean the damn thing!’ Well, my brother just laughed I held up my hands in surrender. “Yes, ma’am.”

and went upstairs to shave.”

“That’s better,” she said, putting an even larger Anne picked up the story. “So, I was washing

slab of pie in front of me.

Stone Butch Blues 319

Anne, Hazel, and Ruth hovered as I tasted the I shrugged. “Well, we’re doing it with all the

dignity we can. And Robbie—Ruth—she’s real loved to heaven. This is the best pie I have ever eaten in my in New York City by her friends.”

whole life.”

Anne nodded without smiling. “She’s real loved

Anne beamed. “Robbie, you take a couple of my

here, too. Folks may not understand her, and they may pies home with you.”

not always know what to say, but they know she’s one Ruth shrugged. “I’ll make her my own pie,

of us.”

Mama. I’m going upstairs to pack. Then we gotta go.”

Anne called up the stairs after her. “Honey, look Anne hugged and kissed and fussed all over Ruth.

in my cedar chest. Your grandma’s apron is in there.

You might want to take it with you.”

She put her arms around me. Touch is something I Hazel went out back for wood. Anne struggled

could never take for granted. “You come back here to get up from her kitchen chair.

anytime, you hear? And I’ll make you another grape

“It’s not easy getting old,” she told me.

pie that’ll knock your socks off.”

I stood up when she did. “I’ve actually been

I blushed. “Thank you.”

thinking about that. To tell you the truth, I never

“Take good care of my child,” she whispered.

expected to live this long.”

I squeezed her shoulder. “Yes, ma’am.”

Anne came close to me. “It’ll come soon

Ruth and I rode in silence through the vine-

enough. But you got the whole rest of your life ahead covered hills. I could smell grapes, the aroma of of you. You can’t waste time worrying about it.” Her asked sleepily.

my Robbie. You know what a gleaner is?” I shook my I nodded. “Soon, I think.”

head.

“Then I’m gonna need some coffee. We should

“When the farmer’s done with the harvest, he

lets the gleaners come pick through whatever’s left.

I looked at her nervously. “You think we should

I wanted more for my child than that. I expect you risk stopping at a restaurant?”

deserve more, too.”

320 Leslie Feinberg

She sat up and sighed. “We need coffee. Pull Ruth smiled. “I’m from Vine Valley. I’m Ruth.

over to that diner. Let’s live dangerously.”

I laughed. “Yeah. Like we don’t already.”

City.”

No one paid any attention to us inside the diner.

His eyes brightened. “I want to get out of here.

I want to go to a big city where there’s never a dull own stories at booths and tables. The waitress looked moment.”

weary. We stood in front of the cashier, waiting to Ruth laughed. “Then Manhattan’s just the place

pay, anxious to leave before there was trouble. A man for you.”

appeared from the kitchen. He couldn’t have been

“Come with us,” I told him. “Come on! Let’s all

more than three feet tall. He climbed up onto a stool get in the car and go.”

in front of the register and rang up our purchase. He Carlin shook his head sadly. “Part of me wishes looked at Ruth’s face and then at mine. His expression I was the kind of person who could do that. But I’ve softened. Ruth and I looked at each other shyly, then got people here. I’d have to disengage slower than smiled at him. He beamed at us. “How’s your trip that.”

going, gals?”

Ruth scribbled her name and phone number on

Ruth and I looked at each other wide-eyed

the back of a napkin. “Call us. Come visit. We’ll show and chuckled. I leaned closer. “It’s been an amazing you why we love New York.”

journey. And somehow we’ve survived it. So far,

I nodded. “We’ll show you why we hate it, too.”

anyway. How about yours?”

He leaned closer. “Are you gals really serious?”

His smile was a series of expressions. “It’s not I leaned forward till my forehead was almost

what I thought it was gonna be, but it’s made me into touching his. “We don’t have the time to waste on somebody I can live with.”

being insincere.”

Ruth shook his hand. “Are you from around

Carlin patted my cheek. “How about a nice fresh

here too?”

peach pie for the road? Helen, bring me that pie, He nodded. “Born and bred here. My name’s

please.”

Carlin.”

As Carlin and Ruth shook hands, I saw how

Stone Butch Blues 321

beautiful his very small hand looked as it clasped her very large hand. We all said our goodbyes.

Ruth and I got back in the car. I poured us each a cup of coffee. “You think we’ll hear from Carlin?”

She nodded. “Oh, I’d bet on it.” Ruth rested her what you were looking for?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. Every time I go looking about the trip later. I’m just too tired to sort it out now. How about you?”

Ruth sighed. “It was a patchwork quilt.” She

leaned over and kissed my cheek. I felt my color rise.

“It’s nice to remember where you come from. But

now I’m ready to go home,” she said.

home.”

322 Leslie Feinberg

26

THE MOMENT I CLIMBED THE subway stairs at

He handed the microphone to a woman whose

hair was wrapped in bright African fabric. She urged words lesbian and gay. When I emerged to street level, others to come up and speak.

I found myself in the midst of a crowd of hundreds A young woman from the crowd climbed

of people listening to speakers at a rally.

up on the stage. “There were these guys in my

I’d seen gay demonstrations in the streets before.

neighborhood in Queens.” Her voice could hardly

I had always paused to watch from across the street, be heard, even with the microphone. “They used to proud this young movement was not beaten back into yell things at me and my lover. One night, I heard the closets. But I always walked away feeling outside them behind me. I was alone. They pulled me into the of that movement and alone. This time one voice parking lot behind the hardware store and raped me. I stopped me in my tracks. It was a young man who

couldn’t stop them.”

took the mike and in a strong voice, trembling with Tears streamed down my face. The man next to

emotion, described being restrained and forced to watch his lover being beaten to death with baseball with tears, too.

bats by a gang. “I watched him die there on the

“I never told my lover what happened,” she

sidewalk,” he cried, “and I couldn’t save him. We have whispered into the microphone. “I felt like we’d have to do something. This can’t keep going on.”

both been raped if I told her.”

As she climbed down from the stage I thought:

“I know about getting hurt,” I said. “But I don’t This is what courage is. It’s not just living through the have much experience talking about it. And I know nightmare, it’s doing something with it afterward. It’s being brave enough to talk about it to other people.

It’s trying to organize to change things.

outnumbered and I usually lose.” An older drag queen And suddenly I felt so sick to death of my own

on the edges of the protest slowly waved her hand silence that I needed to speak too. It wasn’t that there back and forth over her head in silent testimony.

was something in particular I was burning to say. I

“I watch protests and rallies from across the

didn’t even know what it would be. I just needed to street. And part of me feels so connected to you all, open my throat for once and hear my own voice. And but I don’t know if I’m welcome to join. There’s lots I was afraid if I let this moment pass, I might never of us who are on the outside and we don’t want to be.

be brave enough to try again.

We’re getting busted and beaten up. We’re dying out here. We need you—but you need us, too.

my voice. The woman who was chairing looked at

“I don’t know what it would take to really

me. “Did you want to speak?” I nodded, dizzy with change the world. But couldn’t we get together and anxiety. “C’mon up, brother,” she urged me.

we be bigger? Isn’t

My legs could hardly get me up on stage. I

looked at the hundreds of faces staring at me. “I’m that we’re not always alone?”

I got the same thunderous applause that those

“I’m a butch, a he-she. I don’t know if the people gathered gave each person who found the courage to who hate our guts call us that anymore. But that speak. To me, the applause was an answer: yes, it was single epithet shaped my teenage years.” Everyone got possible to still hope. This rally didn’t change night very quiet as I spoke, and I knew they were listening; into day, but I saw people speaking and listening to I knew they had heard me. I spotted a femme woman, each other.

about my age, who stood near the back of the crowd.

When I handed the mike to the woman who

She nodded as I spoke, as though she recognized me.

was chairing, she put her arm around me. “Good for Her eyes were warm with memories.

324 Leslie Feinberg

you, sister,” she whispered in my ear. No one had ever I shrugged. “I don’t know if I can deal with

called me that before.

arguing my way into a women’s dance.”

I stepped down and made my way through the

Bernice shrugged. “We could meet you outside.

crowd. Hands reached out and shook mine or patted We could all go in together. My friend’s on the door.

me on the shoulder. A young gay man who was

Nobody’ll hassle you if we’re all together. That’s part of what you were talking about, isn’t it?”

was really brave to get up there and say that.”

I laughed. “I didn’t quite expect to see it right I laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.” He away.”

Bernice shifted from foot to foot. “So what do

government’s neglect of the AIDS epidemic.

you say? You wanna come?”

“Hold up,” I heard someone say. A young butch

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I’m scared, but I do want to

extended her hand to me. She reminded me so much go.”

of my old friend Edwin that for just a split second I

“Cool,” she said. “Here’s my number. Give me a

thought Ed had come back to life to give me another call.”

shot at friendship.

I climbed up on the rim of a garbage can and

“My name’s Bernice. I really liked what you

looked around the edges of the crowd for the femme said.” I shook her hand and found her power in the woman whose eyes had recognized me.

sureness of her grip. “You been out a long time, She was gone.

huh?” she asked me.

I hurried home and ran up the stairs two at a

I didn’t know if she meant how long I’d been

time. “Ruth,” I knocked on her door. “Open up.”

gay or how long I’d stood and watched the gay

movement from the outside. Both were true.

“I spoke, Ruth. There was this rally in Sheridan

“There’s lesbian dances at the Community

Square and they let people get up and talk and I did.

Center on the third Saturday of each month. I could I spoke, Ruth. In front of hundreds of people. I wish introduce you to some of my friends. Maybe we could you could have been there. I wish you could have talk.”

heard me.”

Stone Butch Blues 325

Ruth wrapped her arms around me and sighed.

I had wondered if Duffy and I would still

“I have been hearing you, honey,” she whispered

recognize each other. Of course we did. He spotted in my ear. “Once you break the silence, it’s just the me the moment he walked into the restaurant. I stood beginning.”

“Can I use your phone?”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

waited years to tell you how sorry I am.”

I knew exactly who I wanted to see. I called the

“It’s alright, Duffy. I know you didn’t do it on th Street and asked for Duffy. I

purpose. It was just a mistake.”

recognized his voice right away. Its familiarity warmed Duffy dipped his head. “Can I have another

chance?”

I laughed. “You haven’t used up your chances

yet.”

Can you forgive me for exposing you on the job the Duffy dropped his eyes. “I think in all the years way I did?”

I’ve organized it might have been the biggest mistake I smiled. “Oh, I forgave you a while ago. But I’m I’ve ever made. And all I could think about was what all excited today. I want to talk to you. I want to see I’d cost you. I would have done anything to make you right this minute.”

Duffy laughed. “Where are you? How did you

sorry.”

I smiled. “You know, Duffy, there’s this person I

“I’m living here. Frankie told me where you

love named Ruth. She’s different like I am. One time worked.”

I got beat up and she called me in sick to work and

“How long would it take you to get here?” he

she did the same damn thing. I know I was real mad asked.

at you at the time. But even then I knew you were I checked my watch. “Fifteen minutes, tops.”

always on my side. There weren’t that many people I

“There’s a restaurant on 16th, on the west side of could count on to stand with me, but I always knew Union Square. I’ll meet you there.”

you were one of them. Hey, how about the mistakes I made that you let slide?”

326 Leslie Feinberg

I changed the subject. “Something incredible You let me off real easy.”

happened to me today, Duffy. I got up in front of a I laughed. “Well, you’ve always been a good

rally and talked over a microphone. I wanted to tell friend.” He blushed. “Sit down, Duffy.”

them how it was in the plants, how when a contract’s We caught up quick by painting our lives in

almost up management works overtime trying to

broad strokes.

divide everybody. I didn’t know if they’d get what I

“Got red-baited out of the bindery where

meant if I said it took the whole membership to win we used to work,” Duffy explained. “I got kind of the strike.”

burned out, drank too much. Then I quit drinking Duffy smiled. “Yeah, and nowadays it takes

and got that job organizing, and I’m still working for more than just one union to win.”

the same union.”

I sighed. “I came to ask you if you think it’s

I told him I’d stopped taking hormones and

possible to change the world? Or do you think it’s moved to New York City and now I was a typesetter.

always gonna be a defensive battle?”

“Nonunion?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. When the computers came on

do believe we can change the world. It’s changing all the time, only a lot of the time it’s getting worse. I’m to transform the old hot-lead industry. So they hired not just an optimist. I think conditions are gonna all the people the old craft union didn’t realize were important to organize. That’s how they broke the things.”

back of Local 6.”

He looked right at me in a way that made me

“I want to understand about change—I don’t just

want to be at the mercy of it. I feel like I’m waking hasn’t it?” I shrugged and nodded.

up inside. I want to know about history. I have all this

“It shows in your face,” he said. “You look less new information about people like me down through scared but more hurt.” Strange, him knowing me like the ages, but I don’t know anything about the ages.”

that.

Duffy leaned forward in the booth. “That’s the

Stone Butch Blues 327

Try imagining a world worth living in, and then ask consider working with me as an organizer.”

“What?” I shouted.

“Wow,” was all I could say. “I got to think about all of this.”

think about it. You were always an organizer. I know it would be complicated, but your life has always been I’ve got to go back to work,” he said. “If you’re free that way. I know it would be hard for you to organize tomorrow night, I’ll buy you supper. Let’s talk some openly as a woman. But maybe you could. I’d back more.”

you up all the way. There’s some others I think also

“Let me check my schedule.” I squeezed my eyes

would. And if that’s too hard, then you could tell me shut. “Yup,” I opened them. “I’m free. You’re on.”

how you wanted to do it and I promise I won’t mess Duffy handed me a book titled Labor’s Untold it up.”

Story. I opened the cover. Inside he’d written: To Jess, Duffy pounded the table with the heel of his

with great expectations. “It’s a book I always wanted to hand. “You’ve got a power you’ve hardly used yet. But give you,” he explained. “Lucky I had it in my desk you can’t do it alone. I really think there’s people who drawer when you called.”

are ready to stand with you now. I think we can make I thought back to the autobiography of Mother

them understand.”

I exhaled slowly. “I don’t know, Duffy. This hope way. “Does this mean I get another chance?” I asked.

thing is kind of new for me. I’m a little afraid to get He smiled warmly. “You haven’t begun to use up

my hopes up too much all at once.”

Duffy shook his head. “I’m not saying we’ll

We both stood up and shook hands. He turned

to go. “Hey, Duffy. I once asked you a question and for change makes you stronger. Not hoping for

you never answered it. Are you a communist?”

Duffy turned around slowly. “I don’t know

You’re already wondering if the world could change.

what that word means to you, so I don’t know what 328 Leslie Feinberg

a yes would mean. What do you say we sit down over who was a man. Their faces radiated a different kind of beauty supper and I’ll tell you how I see the world and my than I’d grown up seeing celebrated on television or in magazines.

place in it?”

I nodded. “Fair enough.”

I felt proud to sit among them. I was proud to be one of them.

It was hot that night, almost too unbearable to sleep.

oldest in the circle caught my eyes. I didn’t know if she was a man or a woman at birth. She held up an object. I understood I was breathe. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I thought supposed to accept the realness of this object. I looked more closely.

about how my life was changing, in little ways and big It was the ring that the Dineh women gifted me with as an infant.

ways.

I felt an urge to leap to my feet, to plead for the ring to be And I thought about Theresa. I’d never written

returned to me. I restrained the impulse.

that letter she’d asked me for. Could I write it She pointed to the circle the ring cast on the ground. I someday soon? What would I say? Where could I

nodded, acknowledging that the shadow was as real as the ring.

send it?

She smiled and waved her hand in the space between the ring and The rain pelted my windows. As I fell asleep

its shadow. Isn’t this distance also real? She indicated our circle. I thinking about the letter, lightning bolts streaked the looked at the faces around me. I followed the shadow of her hand sky. During the night I had this dream:

surrounding us.

She called me to the present. My mind slipped back to the I headed toward a small round hut near the edge of the woods. I past, forward to the future. Aren’t these connected? she asked had a feeling I had been in this place before.

wordlessly.

There were people who were different like me inside. We I felt my whole life coming full circle. Growing up so different, coming out as a butch, passing as a man, and then back circle. I looked around. It was hard to say who was a woman, to the same question that had shaped my life: woman or man?

Stone Butch Blues 329

The sound of a street argument, born of frustration, woke me from sleep. I didn’t want to come back to this world. I struggled to return to the dream, but I was wide awake. It was near dawn. I unlocked the bedroom window and crawled out on

eyes.

I recalled the night Theresa and I broke up, how I stared into the night sky, straining for a glimpse of my own future. If I could send a message back in time to that young butch sitting on a milk crate, it would be this: My neighbor, Ruth, asked me recently if I had my life to live all over again would I make the same decisions? “Yes,” I answered unequivocally,

“yes.”

I’m so sorry it’s had to be this hard. But if I hadn’t walked this path, who would I be? At the

moment I felt at the center of my own life, the dream still braided like sweetgrass in my memory.

I remembered Duffy’s challenge. Imagine a world I closed my eyes

and allowed my hopes to soar.

I heard the beating of wings nearby. I opened

my eyes. A young man on a nearby rooftop released his pigeons, like dreams, into the dawn.

330 Leslie Feinberg

Author Notes on the 20th

anniversary Edition

Leslie had hoped she would be able to write an introduction to NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR

this 20th anniversary edition of Stone Butch Blues. But before STONE BUTCH BLUES

she was able to do so, she went into hospice care at home. The notes below are a combination of material Leslie had already 20th Anniversary Edition

written and notes I typed sitting by her bedside as she continued FALL 2013

to work. Leslie said of the Author Notes: “This was the best I could do.”

Leslie died at home on November 15, 2014. For more I HAD HOPED TO WRITE an introduction to

details on Leslie’s health, go to “Casualty of an undeclared place this novel within its social and historical context, war,” her research notes on the Lyme/+ epidemic at: the last half of the 20th century. Context is everything

www.transgenderwarrior.org

in politics, and Stone Butch Blues is a highly political You can read a short account of her life, which polemic, rooted in its era, and written by a white she and I wrote together, at: http://www.workers.org/

communist grass-roots organizer.

articles/2014/11/18/leslie-feinberg/

I’m so ill, however, that at the time of

publication I am only able to write these three brief

—Minnie Bruce Pratt

notes.

Stone Butch Blues 333

ON LANGUAGE

ON PRONOUNS

The use of the word “transgender” has changed over I respect each person’s pronoun as an important part the two decades since I wrote Stone Butch Blues.

of their personhood. My own pronoun usage has had Since that time, the term “gender” has

to be complex because of overlapping oppressions.

increasingly been used to mean the sexes, rather than But in recent years, I have become as concerned

gender expressions. This novel argues otherwise.

with the pronoun we as I am with the pronouns she, he I have been isolated by illness from discussions and ze.

about language for more than half a decade.

I am including links to two articles I wrote after So I can only note that, like planes, trains and Stone Butch Blues, which are about the pronoun we: automobiles, the same technological vehicles of

hormones and surgeries take people on different

“Many Histories Converged at Stonewall: Lavender & journeys in their lives—depending on whether their Red 71”

oppression/s is/are based on sex/es, self/gender

http://www.workers.org/2006/us/lavender-red-71/

expressions, sexualities, nationalities, immigration status, health and/or dis/abilities, and/or economic

“Honoring LaTeisha Green”

exploitation of their labor.

http://www.transgenderwarrior.org/ltgreen

I agree with CeCe McDonald, who wrote from a

prison cell:

“We need for our mission to promote racial,

social, and economic justice for trans youth,

expression.”

Nov. 16, 2012, http://supportcece.wordpress.com/

334 Leslie Feinberg

I wrote the novel on a borrowed laptop, I wrote

it at night after work, I was told to cut it by a third just before it went into production, and I wasn’t as trained as I am now at copyediting.

For twenty years, typos, missing copy and other

small mistakes have marred the novel and have made me stop and say out loud when I was reading from the book in public: “That was a mistake!” This new As my eyesight destabilized and I became so sick I couldn’t re-read the novel, Minnie Bruce and proofreader Becca Shaw Glaser went through the book,

Photo credit: Leslie Feinberg

found questions and brought those to me. I made all

‘Family and supporters of LaTeisha Green’

decisions about errors that were found in the original.

I have always approached editing and copy-

editing and revision—my own work and that of

ON REVISION

others—with great respect for the original text. I brought that same ethic to this new edition of Stone Everything that exists is subject to change and

Butch Blues.

development.

This 20th Anniversary Edition of Stone Butch Blues is as close to the original as possible.

Star Wars

The poet/writer who most meaningfully sums

edition were too old to use in recovering the original up for me the guiding ethics of revision is Audre printed text. The novel had to be turned into a new Lorde, who said a revision should make the work

digital manuscript. It had to be retyped from the print

“more of what it needs to be in order to do the edition, proofread numerous times and copy-edited.

emotional work it was intended to do.”

Stone Butch Blues 335

AUTHOR AFTERWORD:

to be reintroduced to characters that I birthed, who EXCERPTS

of their own, independent from mine. I discover STONE BUTCH BLUES

a journey not identical to my life’s path, and yet 10th Anniversary Edition

blazed with the intimate familiarity of my own lived 2003

experience. I locate theory—the way it is lived—

in motion and in interconnection. Not hard to

understand; hard to live.

ON THIS, THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY of the

publication of Stone Butch Blues

of resistance to oppression.

odd to you?

tone Butch Blues in a

I wrote this narrative from the inside, awash in bookstore or library, what category was it in? Lesbian its depths, towed by its currents. By the time I held The

the blues in my hands the inked words seemed like Well of Loneliness

faint animal tracks on a smooth landscape, a cold trail is a lesbian novel and a transgender novel—making I couldn’t follow.

“trans” genre a verb, as well as an adjective.

Now, a decade later, I am surprised. Astonished

336 Leslie Feinberg

bearded females, intersexual and androgynous people, Is it real? Oh, it’s real all right. So real it bleeds. And bi-gender and tri-gender individuals, and many other yet it is a remembrance: Never underestimate the Perhaps what resonates most for me are reports

When Stone Butch Blues was published, I thought that copies of Stone Butch Blues are passed around in I would keep cartons of copies in my closet to give prison cell blocks until they are worn and tattered.

out to people who were ready to read it. But this This book has journeyed to lands that I have not book, like the movements for social change it was yet seen. Letters and emails have traveled to me from inextricably connected with, exploded the closet door the tip of South America to the far reaches of the off its hinges.

North, from Africa to Asia. The novel is translated Since then I’ve received the gift of hundreds

into German and Dutch. The Chinese-language

of thousands of letters, emails, and phone calls; edition, with a preface I wrote for readers there, has heartfelt emotions shared by individuals I’ve met at been serialized in Taiwan’s leading daily newspaper, rallies, universities, colleges. I’ve been stopped by recommended as reading for teenagers and adults

strangers—in places from a gas station in rural Iowa alike. And more translations are in the works.

Has publishing this novel changed my life? Yes.

of whose life battles do not seem to be related in any And no. It hasn’t altered the trajectory of my life.

way, shape or form to oppression based on sexuality, Stone Butch Blues I had already

gender or sex, took time and care to explain to me lived in the vortex of the left-wing LGBT liberation the impact the book made on their thinking, their current for 30 years. I’d been a revolutionary activist decisions, their actions.

for more than 20 years; a weekly journalist and

People who have lived very different lives

editor for Workers World newspaper. I had fought have generously related to me the similarities they against Pentagon wars of aggression. Supported

recognized in these pages with their own struggles—

Palestinian self-determination. Worked to defend the taste of bile; the inferno of rage—transsexual men and women, heterosexual crossdressers and

Peltier. Been a leading organizer of the 1974 March Stone Butch Blues 337

Against Racism in Boston. Toured the country in Recovering collective memory is itself an act

1984 speaking about the AIDS crisis. I’d mobilized of struggle. It allows the generational currents of to stop the Nazis and Klan, helped protect women’s reproductive rights, and made national rallies and together—the awesome roar of our many waters.

demonstrations more accessible to Deaf and disabled activists. …

banks like the Hudson River—it is ours to determine.

I leave it to historians, herstorians and

From Selma to Stonewall to Seattle, we who believe in hirstorians to analyze the changes in the decade since freedom will not rest until every battle is won.

this novel was written, and to place the publication of Stone Butch Blues within broad and persistent social and with Pride. What year is it now, as you read them?

political efforts to right societal wrongs.

What has been won; what has been lost? I can’t see from here; I can’t predict. But I know this: You are I am—does anyone else want to discuss these

experiencing the impact of what we in the movement important issues? I wrote it, not as an expression of individual “high” art, but as a working-class organizer past are the trajectory of the future. But the arc of history does not bend towards justice automatically—

as the great Abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed, sign a copy of the book for a friend who was too shy without struggle there is no progress. …

to speak to a published author, it broke my heart. My That’s what the characters in Stone Butch Blues life’s work is about elevating collective organizing, not fought for. The last chapter of this saga of struggle elevating individuals. …

has not yet been written.

Stone Butch Blues is a bridge of memory. The immense human toll of the AIDS epidemic, and of oppression as a whole, have created a gaping chasm; virtually generations lost. As a result, the history of social movements and their lessons are episodically recalled.

338 Leslie Feinberg

AUTHOR PREFACE

is unarguably the most massive social upheaval in STONE BUTCH BLUES

history.

As a factory-worker’s daughter, I did not know

Chinese Edition

that the wealthy rulers of my country were enraged 2003

by the loss of China as—from their point of view—a colonial treasure to exploit mercilessly. But I felt the It is a great joy and honor for me that you are reading impact in my own life of the domestic reactionary my novel Stone Butch Blues in Chinese. The hard work political crusade that this ruling class embarked on of the translators has now made it possible for my within the United States as a result of their rage about work to be read by one-quarter of humanity.

the Chinese Revolution.

Progressive people feared losing their jobs and

in my own hands was a very moving moment. I

being driven out of their towns. In those early years thought back on my life and realized that perhaps the of my childhood, anti-Asian racism—especially

single most momentous impact on my consciousness, my beliefs and the course of my life’s work was the rampant. And anti-Semitism dangerously deepened.

great Chinese Revolution by workers and peasants When I was a child, the post-WWII job categories in 1949—the year of my birth. This single event for women were restricted to “homemaker” and

Stone Butch Blues 339

“mother.” This period of extreme sexual reaction carried out terrible crimes against the peoples of Asia had a tremendous impact on my growing up as a

masculine girl child.

seriously my own responsibility to you to conduct the But one of the prominent features of this

battle here, in the belly of the U.S. beast, to defend domestic witch-hunt was the hounding of lesbian and the right of self-determination and sovereignty of all gay people. Extortion of people accused of being the peoples of Asia.

gay—whether or not they were—was commonplace,

Revolutionaries—like revolutions—seek to

as I am painfully aware happens today in Taiwan.

unweave all the threads of prejudice from the

It was because of the exacerbation of repression tapestry of their thought. That is not an easy task during the 1950s that mass social movements arose to accomplish given the crushing weight of media to challenge the worst features of oppression in the and education that reinforce the messages of the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Movements dominant elite, on top of repression.

for Civil Rights, the Black Panther Party, the Young Of course if education were all that was

Lords Party, the American Indian Movement and the required, we could write many books and repair and movements for women’s and gay liberation arose as a uplift human thinking. But trying to combat the

governing ideas of the master class with education I came of age and consciousness during these

of water!

change. They shaped me. As a result, I have devoted All the ruling propaganda about what is

my life, together with my fellow travelers, in trying to

“natural” and “normal” is aimed at justifying the weed out every seedpod of bigotry and discrimination that is rooted in the very unjust and unequal social economic and social system to rationalize and defend!

and economic system in which we live in the U.S.

I live in a society that has the greatest

I am also fully aware that those who rule from

polarization of wealth and poverty of any

the citadel of wealth and power in my country—like industrialized country in the world. This is the most those in the palaces and mansions in Britain—have irrational system imaginable: Those who do the most 340 Leslie Feinberg

get the least and those who do the least get the most!

consciousness about how the age-old spectrum of

Every day I see elderly people who have

human sexuality has been distorted and vulgarized in nowhere to live eating out of garbage cans next to order to defend heterosexuality as the state-enforced sleek, long limousines.

“norm” and uphold the punishment of same-sex

How could such a grossly unfair social reality

love.

continue?

I wrote S tone Butch Blues in 1992 in order to raise It could not unless those of us who do the

a form of oppression that is connected by tendrils work that creates such sumptuous wealth were not to the struggle for the liberation of women and of kept pitted against each other. In my own country, lesbian women, gay men and bisexual people. And yet for example, a central division is the oppression it has to be understood as its own social question.

of whole nationalities that are treated like internal In this novel I am writing about those who

colonies—Black, Latino, Native, Arab and, of course, face terrible social punishments because they are many Asian peoples, including Chinese, Filipinos, not considered to be “real” men or “real” women.

Vietnamese and Koreans.

This may be because they are transgender—meaning But there are other vicious attempts to turn the they are considered too masculine as a female or too copiousness of human diversity into a weapon of feminine as a male, or display gender ambiguity or

“difference.”

contradiction. They may be transsexual—meaning

I was part of the second great wave for women’s rights and liberation in this country that exposed how quick decision made by a stranger in a delivery room the degradation and discrimination that women face when they were born. Or they may be intersexual—

is an institutionalized component of capitalism—just people born on the exquisite anatomical sweep

as it was an integral and necessary part of slavery and between female and male.

feudalism.

In the years since Stone Butch Blues

And I was part of the young gay liberation

I published Transgender Warriors: Making History.

movement that arose in 1969 in New York City after a battle against police repression. We raised social cross-cultural, cross-historical evidence that these Stone Butch Blues 341

forms of human expression are very ancient and If you pride yourself on these qualities, then were once honored in communal societies on every I believe that once you have looked at the world continent. And I found evidence that the hostile laws through the eyes of someone who is “gender

and attitudes towards trans expression, the role of different” through reading this novel, you will try to women, and same-sex love, arose with the cleavage of take a stand against the cruel jokes and mockery and societies into haves and have-nots.

social isolation of those whose only crime is to be part of the gender and sex diversity that has existed in all human societies. What a wonderful contribution many, many more examples from your own history—

you could make!

both of the acceptance of trans expression and of the social origins of this form of oppression.

Today, we as U.S. revolutionaries have put

we will have forged a bond that can continue. I hope these demands for sex and gender liberation on the that we discover we have become comrades in a

agenda of struggle. As a lifelong revolutionary, it lifelong struggle to win the liberation of every human means a great deal to me to see the demands for trans being who is degraded, devalued and downtrodden by liberation raised on banners and shouted as chants in exploitation and oppression.

all major protests in this country.

But whether or not you and I share a common

view about the future of humanity or which road will take us forward, I believe we may very well share other beliefs that are very important. We strive to be the best human being—the best person—that we

can possibly be. We try to live a principled life. To uplift our knowledge and our consciousness. To leave the world a better place wherever that is within our power.

342 Leslie Feinberg

AUTHOR NOTE

puno hvala

STONE BUTCH BLUES

Thank you very much!

Serbo-Croatian Edition

Thank you, Milica, for your message to me that

September 24, 2012

the Serbo-Croat edition publication was launched,

“[I]n the second biggest town in Serbia, at a feminist festival. It was great, the people massively love the Serbo-book.”

Croat readers:

On facebook: https://www.facebook.com/

of the translators of Stone Butch Blues into Serbo-

events/412873802108596/?ref=ts

Croatian, and to the entire Kolektiv Queer Beograd that shared my work with Serbian and Croatian

Link to translation: http://faktiva.net/vest/stoun-buc-

readers by publishing Stone Butch Blues:

bluz-lesli-fajnberg

I will be publishing a new 20th-Anniversary

Hvala puno

Author’s Edition of Stone Butch Blues on May Day Stone Butch Blues 343

2013. The online digital edition will include links to against the merciless two-month U.S./NATO

your translation.

blitzkrieg of cities in the multi-national Socialist Because I am ill, your translation will be the

Federation of Yugoslavia, which were ordered by the last until I can publish a notice about translation Clinton administration and other imperialist powers.

agreements online. Illness is forcing me to resort to group communications.

and steadfastly, against such overwhelming military If I were in better health, I would have asked

technology.

if I could write an introduction to the Serbo-Croat readers of Stoun Bu Bluz.

who marched from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Instead, I send this message of introduction to in Washington to the Pentagon. We demanded:

readers of Stoun Bu Bluz, as best I can write at this

“Money for jobs and education, not for war against time:

Yugoslavia!”

Message from Lesli Fajnberg:

I am proud that the Kolektiv Queer Beograd

EXPOSING ‘BIG LIES’ OF WARS OF PROFIT

published Stoun Bu Bluz

!

The monopoly media tried to claim that Pentagon

I feel respect for the activists of Kolektiv Queer and NATO forces, and the Kosovo “Liberation”

Beograd because they confront racism and fascism Army (KLA) they armed and uniformed, were

with direct action.

“liberation forces.”

Please allow me to make this brief introduction The imperialists don’t care about the rights of

of my own relationship in the U.S. to today’s struggles nationalities. Domestically, the imperialist countries in Serbia, Croatia and Kosovo.

are prison-houses for peoples who are oppressed

In the Spring of 1999, I took part in protests

based on nationality, immigration status, sex, gender 344 Leslie Feinberg

expression and sexualities.

I joined protests when former Yugoslav

One of the “Big Lies” of the monopoly media

President Slobodan Milosevic was tried for “war-

was the claim that the U.S./NATO bombing was

crimes” in The Hague. Milosevic was forced to stand trial because he would not surrender Yugoslavia to the As a revolutionary journalist, I wrote the

International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

following articles that document how mass rape was Instead, the Pentagon and NATO generals should be taking place in a lucrative sex-enslavement industry tried for war crimes.

set up after the NATO occupation.

In the U.S., the media works around the clock

to “justify” covert and overt wars for economic and In occupied Kosovo—NATO, UN admit women

geo-strategic advantage—from threatening “regime are enslaved: http://www.workers.org/ww/2000/

change” through fomenting and arming reaction

kosovo0525.php

and counter-revolution, lynching leaders of other countries, psychological operations, overwhelming

‘Big lie’ and breakup of Yugoslavia. Lavender & military force, troop occupations, formations of red, part 114: http://www.workers.org/2007/world/

mercenary armies, and emboldening fascist forces.

lavender-red-114/

Wars, lies and ‘mass rape’ charges. Lavender & LESSONS OF THE PINK TRIANGLE

red, part 115: http://www.workers.org/2007/world/

lavender-red-115/

revolutionary, I too have studied the historical lessons In May 2000, I wrote in Workers World newspaper of the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain—

about how the Kosovo “Liberation” Army—covertly

attempts to save capitalism for the 1%. These lessons armed by Germany and the U.S.—was a mercenary

inform my life’s direct action. …

army. Many of its leaders traced their roots to a I see that the Kolektiv Queer Beograd, the

fascist unit set up by Italian occupiers during World Belgrade Pride organizers, and “Antifa in Action” are War II. ( New York Times, March 28, 2000) Stone Butch Blues 345

showing great bravery and steadfastness in the face of The rise of fascist bullying has led many

attacks and threats from fascist forces, with reported oppressed youths to end their own lives.

state and police collusion.

Others are organizing, and winning activist

FIGHTING RACISM, FASCISM & WAR FROM

INSIDE THE U.S.

‘FREE CECE NOW!’

Domestically in the U.S.—during this period of

A war against transwomen—particularly women of

capitalist economic crisis—apartheid passbook laws color—is claiming lives from Oakland, California; to are being written into law; undocumented workers Chicago, Illinois; to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

are being rounded up, detained and face mass

But CeCe McDonald survived!

deportations; Muslims are targets of this state “war CeCe McDonald, a young Black (trans)woman,

of terror”; and white supremacist, fascist shock and her friends were violently attacked by a group of troops are receiving arms and funding.

Racist, fascist massacres targeted Black people

actions, slurs, and swastika tattoo.

in Tulsa, Oklahama—the second anti-Black massacre CeCe was badly cut at the onset of the attack, in in the city’s history—and took the lives of Sikhs at which one fascist died.

a temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Police gun down Today, CeCe is in prison, and her friends have

people of color with virtual legal impunity.

reported ongoing racist, fascist harassment.

Youth of color in the U.S. are facing no jobs, no CeCe McDonald’s courage and tenacity has

recreation centers, no education or massive student inspired liberationist currents in the U.S. political debt, police “stop and frisk” actions, racist passbook struggle, and in countries around the world.

laws, the school-to-prison pipeline, homelessness, lack of health care, no place to gather, and curtailed one-year anniversary of the attack, and the day CeCe McDonald was sentenced to prison. I wrote the

346 Leslie Feinberg

peoples’ verdict on the jailhouse wall: “FREE CECE

NOW!”

As a journalist, author and proud member of the National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981—I’m most

proud of writing those three words.

My action was public—in front of hundreds of

demonstrators and in front of nearby sheriffs. I go to jury trial in mid-October—not to “plead” but to declare: I am not guilty of any wrongdoing!

Solidarity is not a crime, and neither is self-defense against oppressions!

Stone Butch Blues 347

publication history

Stone Butch Blues

MARCH 2012:

Rights again revert to author

people—living or dead—is strictly coincidental.

1997-2013:

MARCH 1993:

Translated into: Chinese, Turkish, Slovenian, Serbo-First English-language print edition published by Croatian, Greek, Italian, Dutch, German

Firebrand Books

and Hebrew (author royalties donated to Palestinian ISBN: 1-56341-030-3

ASWAT)

MARCH 2002:

FALL 2014:

Recovered author rights out of LPC/Firebrand

20th Anniversary English-language Edition

Chapter 11

Author Copyright asserted for this edition

NOVEMBER 2003:

Visit www.lesliefeinberg.net for: 10th anniversary English-language print edition

free online read

published by Alyson Books

free pdf download

ISBN: 1-55583-853-7

free device/s download

13 978-155583-853-9

at-cost, print-on-demand

12-point & 16-point editions

348 Leslie Feinberg

Thanks to the Team!

THE OLD RIGID EXTERNAL FLOPPY DISKS

people worked with me through all the stages of

on which I wrote Stone Butch Blues, and the huge roll completing this edition, and through a rollercoaster of changing abilities in my health.

onto paper, are in storage.

A multi-media 20th Anniversary Author’s Edition

New digital tools have replaced those old

is in your hands, or on your screen, because of the technologies.

team effort by a group of wonderful individuals.

So here is a new digital version of Stone Butch Blues—retyped, copyedited, corrected of errata My heartfelt thanks to each member of the team!

in earlier editions, proofread and edited for style consistency and for punctuation that maintains the Minnie Bruce Pratt, who facilitated all stages of all work necessary to prepare this edition—in particular again, re-formatted, re-designed and published as a issues of manuscript copyediting and preparation of multi-media edition on a new WordPress site: http://

the new front and back matter. She brought every

www.lesliefeinberg.net/

single copyediting question to me to discuss, which When it was time for me to read over and

Stone Butch Blues

in her garden in 1992. Now we are celebrating more unstable and my health was poor. A small team of Stone Butch Blues 349

than 20 years of teamwork in life and love together—

Kuan Luo, who designed the new edition’s cover, in sickness and in health.

chose the Marais cover typeface and the Garamond interior text font.

Minnie Bruce Pratt

I thank her for her patience and wellspring of

http://www.mbpratt.org

creativity. I particularly thank her for allowing me for coming soon: http://www.minniebrucepratt.net

and not have to represent, on the novel’s front cover, Krista Kennedy, who came to my home to teach me and to discuss emerging digital technologies

Kuan Luo, Brooklyn-based designer, “crafting

and questions of digital ethics. As I became more the visuals and user experience on Grand St.”

ill, Krista took on more than the role of teacher

https://grandst.com/

to keep this project moving forward. She became

kuan.luo.11@gmail.com

digital publishing co-developer and site project co-twitter: @kuanluo

coordinator for this new edition. I thank her for helping to give me a digital voice and embodiment at a time when I was being silenced by diseases.

Elizabeth Parks, who took on the interior design of the novel, and with her skill made the text

Dr. Krista Kennedy

harmonious with the cover design.

Assistant Professor of Writing & Rhetoric

Syracuse University

Elizabeth Parks

http://kristakennedy.net

freelance publication designer

twitter: @kakennedy

http://elizabethparks.com/

350 Leslie Feinberg

George Rhinehart, who was co-coordinator with Krista in coding/building the new WordPress site as a home for Stone Butch Blues.

Robin Higgins, who re-typed an old print edition of Stone Butch Blues into a new digital text, one word at a time.

Becca Shaw Glaser, who proofed and re-proofed the new edition with an eagle eye and an exemplary love for precision.

My thanks to photographers Gabriel Foster, Greg

, Billy Navarro, Jr. , Vanessa Edwards Foster, Deirdre Stapp and Marilyn Humphries for their photographs and permissions.

Thank you, Phillip Frankel, for contributing your expert legal advice on intellectual property and for your help in defending my copyright.

Stone Butch Blues 351

AUTHOR RIGHTS & REQUESTS

I HAD TO WORK TO RECOVER my rights to

Those who are seeking commercial contracts

Stone Butch Blues

are persistent, and sometimes don’t take “no” for an Chapter 11 court, I had to spend thousands of dollars answer.

of my wages on legal fees to recover the right to this I am too ill to respond to inquiries about

novel, and to Minnie Bruce Pratt’s book of poems, contracts or permissions.

Crime Against Nature.

So I have taken Stone Butch Blues off the capitalist While very ill in Spring 2012, I recovered my

market. I will not be signing any new commercial rights again.

contracts for this novel or renewing existing contracts Once and for all, I hold the author copyright—

when they expire.

by law and by labor—to S tone Butch Blues. The novel is No further commercial or permission

not represented by a literary agency. I hold all digital inquiries, please!

rights.

I’ve written the following regarding author’s

I am receiving messages from readers, teachers,

rights and requests, in as clear a way as I can, to bookstore owners, publishers and translators asking answer the questions I am asked most frequently in me:

individual inquiries.

Where can copies of Stone Butch Blues be ordered, I give this novel back to the workers and

or permissions be gotten for reprint rights, translation oppressed of the world.

agreements, etc.?

352 Leslie Feinberg

The revolutionary and anti-capitalist movements While Stone Butch Blues

for social and economic justice have given me so But the capitalist deeds of ownership that say the 1%

much in life. I give this novel back, as a tiny hand-owns everything that has been produced by collective labor, both enslaved and waged—those deeds are of the world.

I have retained full Author Copyright to Stone And on the day those paper deeds of ownership

Butch Blues, rather than license this 20th Anniversary are torn up, it won’t matter about protecting Stone Edition through Creative Commons.

Butch Blues anymore from commercial exploitation.

The reason is not out of a fetish for ownership Hurry that day!

of property but rather to protect my work from being exploited commercially by corporations.

Marxism has never been opposed to private

The law locks up the man or woman

ownership of personal property or products of one’s Who steals the goose off the common

own labor—and, in fact, holds that everyone should But leaves the greater villain loose

be able to have these things. Instead, Marxists say Who steals the common from the goose.

that the 1% banks and corporations have seized the giant worker-built apparatus of production and the The law demands that we atone

distribution of production as their own—they claim When we take things we do not own

they own it all.

As a communist, I am for abolishing ownership

Who take things that are yours and mine.

by the 1% of the socially-built apparatus of

production.

The law locks up the man or woman

Workers and oppressed people—already doing the

Who steals the goose from off the common

work of the world every day—can run that productive And geese will still a common lack

apparatus to make historical y overdue reparations and Till they go and steal it back.

to meet the needs and wants of the 99%.

Stone Butch Blues 353

From the 1600s through the early 1700s, this was a No permission for derivative use:

popular protest rhyme against English capitalist-class A cartoonist was trying to parlay her comic book foreclosure of commonly-held land.

drafts of Stone Butch Blues into a book deal. She contacted me about this and I denied permission. She then put her version of Stone Butch Blues up on the AUTHOR RIGHTS

web.

Her cover was an interracial butch/femme

In the meantime, here I assert my author rights to couple slow-dancing, a white butch and an African-Stone Butch Blues in this 20th Anniversary Edition: American femme with a gardenia in her hair.

This was the artist’s fantasy. This couple and this No permissions, no contracts, no commercial use, no derivative scene is nowhere to be found in Stone Butch Blues.

use, no digital rights.

I repeatedly asked the artist to take her comic

book version off the web, but was only able to get No derivative uses

her to take down this derivative work after repeated efforts and great exertion on my part.

No adaptations:

I had never given permission for her derivative/

Don’t tell me you’re honoring me by saying you can digital use of Stone Butch Blues.

tell this story better than I did.

Respect begins with asking and receiving

permission. I do not give permission for any

No movie version:

derivative use of Stone Butch Blues, and not just Stone Butch

because of illness.

Blues until I discovered that the producer’s prospectus When I was a child, I made my own crystal radio

was trying to raise capital from investors by offering set from a block of wood, orange juice cans, some a sexual fantasy: an invitation to watch butches being wires and transistors, and I discovered the world of raped by police. I requested that no movie be made; narrative dramas I couldn’t see—not like the movies I don’t believe any movie can be made true to the and TV. These were stories I could only hear, and intention of the book.

354 Leslie Feinberg

imagine in my mind what the characters looked like.

Stone Butch Blues for all time and all readers. It’s their That’s how I wrote Stone Butch Blues. A lot imagination re-writing the entire book for all readers.

of people say it’s cinematic, but they are seeing it I do not give permission for Stone Butch Blues to projected on the screen of their own imagination.

be re-written based on someone else’s imagination.

I made a decision in writing Stone Butch Blues As a white communist, I am responsible for the

based on my anger at seeing how many white writers book’s strengths and weaknesses.

used whiteness as a default and only described a Stone Butch Blues is not merely a “working class”

character if they were of color. Based on my anger at novel—it is a novel that embodies class struggle.

writers who only used thinness as the default and only No digital rights. I’m sticking with the union!

name a character if they were able-bodied or didn’t have a disability, but did label them if they did.

I do not assign any digital rights.

I decided I wasn’t going to do that. In Stone Stone Butch Blues lives on the digital page at: Butch Blues we discover the characters through their

http://www.lesliefeinberg.net/

reactions to racism and other bigotries. I don’t name Please do not digitally remove Stone Butch Blues who the characters are. I don’t tell, I show.

from the digital page where it lives; please do not That means that different people who read this

repost the book or parts of the book.

book may have different views about the sizes, and As an author, I have always retained my digital

shapes, and abilities, and so forth of these characters.

rights. My union—the National Writers Union/UAW

And as readers those are all valid experiences.

But for derivative artists, intent on making

publishing contracts. I’m with the union to defend the derivative art using a narrative I have written, this digital rights of workers.

means that they take their individual idea of who is Black or white, fat or thin, able-bodied or disabled—

own interpretation for all time, as if that’s the truth of Stone Butch Blues 355

Here are excerpts from the National Writers Union Digital Bill of Rights:

their work being devalued and their profession reduced to that of “content providers.”

www.nwubook.org/DBOR.pdf

In response to this erosion of our copyright and demeaning of our profession as creators, we, the freelance writers of This bill of rights was submitted February 2008 by Susan E.

the National Writers Union, have created a Digital Bill of Davis, Charlotte Dennett, Bruce Hartford, Timothy Sheard Rights as a means of educating other writers and the public at large about the importance of preserving the most important Passed by National Executive Committee February 2008

possession writers have: our copyright.

Preamble added August 2008

DIGITAL BILL OF RIGHTS

PREAMBLE

Freelance writers published in the United States possess exclusive ownership of their work according to the historic We are living in a time of profound changes in the publishing principle of copyright established in Article 1, Section 8 of the industry–changes that directly threaten the livelihoods of U.S. Constitution. This ownership allows the author to license writers. With the advent of instant copying through digital or sell various copyrights (digital, geographic, foreign language, technology and Internet distribution, writers’ works are being and others). The one exception is when an author signs a reproduced without their knowledge and/or permission and work-for-hire contract, and in return for just compensation, the then marketed without compensation. This is in violation of publisher owns the work, not the writer.

the U.S. Constitution, which vests the ownership of creative When writers publish their work on the Internet, their works in the name of the creator and protects creators against copyright protection and exclusive ownership of the content copyright infringement. While software companies like Google remain. Electronic reproduction and distribution of the and Microsoft trumpet the importance of making creative document, or of substantial portions of it, do not abrogate the works instantly accessible and often free to consumers (while writer’s title to the intellectual property. Content that can be 356 Leslie Feinberg

read on the Web without a fee is still protected by copyright.

When Digital Publishers (DPs) electronically copy or publish all or substantial portions of a work on the Internet for gain without the author’s permission, in violation of Constitutional law, writers have the right to demand redress for the violation of their copyright and theft of their intellectual property.

When writers discover that a DP has illegally reproduced all or substantial portions of their work from any source, they have the right to demand immediate cessation of the infringement, removal of the content from display or sale within 48 hours, and/or either payment of damages or a negotiated fee for past and/or continued use based on current fee standards.

Stone Butch Blues 357

translation agreement

TRANSLATIONS

I THANK THE TRANSLATORS WHO have

I agree to any translations that meet the following contributed their labor to editions in languages criteria:

including Chinese, Turkish, Slovenian, Serbo-

I give permission solely for translations of this Croatian, Greek, Italian, German, Dutch, and

20th Anniversary Author’s Edition of Stone Butch Hebrew. My proceeds from the latter go to the

Blues.

Palestinian group ASWAT.

The translation must have a statement of clear

I have received many generous offers to

attribution acknowledging that it is a translation of translate Stone Butch Blues, without cost, into numerous my novel Stone Butch Blues, in its entirety, as well as an languages, including Kannada, Spanish, Russian and acknowledgement of me, Leslie Feinberg, as author.

French.

The translation must be non-commercial, that

But I remain too ill to get back in touch with

is, be a print edition that is priced to meet only willing translators, or to negotiate individual contracts.

production cost and/or a digital edition that is a free Therefore, I make the following translation agreement on-line read.

via this public communication.

You the translator may include NO introduction

to the translated edition. You may provide notes on 358 Leslie Feinberg

your language decisions. (See explanatory note below.) NO “INTRODUCTIONS”!

I retain the right to post a free digital version or a substantial segment of your translation work on the For many decades, as I grew up, the only publications Stone Butch Blues publication site, where translations about people who were oppressed based on their

will be hosted: http://lesliefeinberg.net

sexes, gender expressions, and sexualities were books If you are producing a digital translation that that had psychological/psychiatric “experts” writing meets the above requirements, you the translator about those lives.

and/or publisher will send your name and contact The words of the oppressed individual then

information, and a digital link to, or a digital version became the “patient narrative” that was stretched or of, your translation of Stone Butch Blues, to me at the chopped, as if into a Procrustean bed of torture, to

address posted on http://www.lesliefeinberg.net/

If you are producing a print translation that

Stone Butch Blues speaks in its own voice and meets the above requirements, you the translator needs no expert between reader and protagonist.

and/or publisher will send your name and contact I accept that translators into other languages may information and 2 copies of that print version to me want to provide translator notes about overcoming at the address posted on my web site.. I will also post a link to your print edition information at http://

But—please do not introduce the novel to

www.lesliefeinberg.net/

readers!

For more information about translations, visit

This novel can introduce itself to readers, and so

http://www.lesliefeinberg.net

Stone Butch Blues is the voice of someone who is living the oppressions, resistance and pride.

Stone Butch Blues 359

about leslie feinberg

—Managing Editor of Workers World newspaper (on medical leave since 2007)

—Proud member: National Writers Union/UAW,

Local 1981, and Pride @ Work/a constituency group of the AFL-CIO

—

Feinberg speaks in support of Abu-Jamal at Madison Square Garden, 2000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV4rxNZaF9M

—Co-founder, Rainbow Solidarity for the Cuban Five Feinberg says “Free the Cuban Five!”

From Lavender & Red: 120-part series

http://www.workers.org/lavender-red/

360 Leslie Feinberg

More information about Leslie Feinberg:

http://www.transgenderwarrior.org/

http://www.lesliefeinberg.net/

A resumé of struggle:

http://www.transgenderwarrior.org/references.html

A list of books:

http://www.transgenderwarrior.org/books.html

A partial bibliography of writings, compiled by M.R.

Cook:

http://www.transgenderwarrior.org/references.html

A social biography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Feinberg

Palestinians mark Land Day with protests

by Leslie Feinberg

Sakhnin, Occupied Palestine, April 8, 2007

http://www.workers.org/2007/world/

palestine-0412/

Photo credit: Leslie Feinberg

‘Land Day,’ Palestine, 2007

Stone Butch Blues 361

On October 21, 2007, I was felled by illness while traveling. I have been mostly at home dealing with an acute health crisis since that time.

See: “Casualty of an undeclared war”

These are my research notes on the U.S “Lyme/+ wars”

http://www.transgenderwarrior.org/

For updates:

http://www.lesliefeinberg.net/

Facebook:

Photo credit: Vanessa Edwards Foster

https://www.facebook.com/

‘Leslie Feinberg honoring Sylvia Rivera’

groups/155129424499130/

2002 Memorial, New York City

362 Leslie Feinberg

‘Free Cece!’

‘Leslie Feinberg arrested’

Stone Butch Blues 363

INFORMATION ABOUT “FREE CECE”

FROM WWW.WORKERS.ORG

by Minnie Bruce Pratt

Sept. 20, 2012

Leslie Feinberg upon release from jail:

http://www.workers.org/2012/09/20/leslie-feinberg-

“Free CeCe McDonald!”

by Kris Hamel

http://www.workers.org/2012/us/free_cece_

Prosecution fears support for CeCe McDonald!

mcdonald_0621/

by Leslie Feinberg

Oct. 11, 2012

http://www.workers.org/2012/10/11/from-leslie-

Court re-charges transgender author Leslie Feinberg

feinberg-prosecution-fears-growing-support-for-cece-

for action supporting CeCe McDonald

mcdonald/

by Kris Hamel

Sept. 6, 2012

http://www.workers.org/2012/09/06/court-re-

charges-transgender-author-leslie-feinberg-for-action-

LESLIE FEINBERG’S

supporting-cece-mcdonald/

5-PART WEEKLY PRE-TRIAL SERIES

Special thanks to Monica Moorehead, LeiLani Dowell and Minnie Bruce Pratt, who edited the by Kris Hamel

Workers World series I wrote on the struggle to free Sept. 13, 2012

CeCe McDonald. As my eyesight was destabilizing,

http://www.workers.org/2012/09/13/leslie-feinberg-

I worked with LeiLani Dowell on the second article.

Monica Moorehead was overall editor of the article series. Minnie Bruce Pratt copy-edited the series.

364 Leslie Feinberg

Many writers have experienced adversarial Part 4:

relationships with editors. I want to give special thanks to Monica, LeiLani and Minnie Bruce. To me, from guns, war & reaction

a great editor brings all of their life experience and

http://www.workers.org/2013/01/03/in-defense-of-

consciousness and skills to each article. It was a thrill

peoples-power/

to work with these revolutionary editors again!

Part 1:

Part 5:

Guns—weapons or tools? Pointed which way?

http://www.workers.org/2012/12/07/free-cece-

http://www.workers.org/2013/01/13/guns-weapons-

or-tools-pointed-which-way/

posted Dec. 7, 2012

Part 2:

CeCe McDonald & Anoka students tear white hood off “bullying”

LESLIE FEINBERG’S TWO-PART PUBLIC

http://www.workers.org/2012/12/13/oppressed-

TRIAL STATEMENT

posted Dec. 13, 2012

Part 1:

Signal boost the peoples’ verdict—“Free CeCe

Part 3:

McDonald!”/

CeCe McDonald & friends fought, survived lynch 1% & its hired guns can’t suppress growing solidarity mob / U.S. surge in police and neo-fascist lynchings by Leslie Feinberg

http://www.workers.org/2012/12/20/u-s-surge-in-

http://www.workers.org/2013/01/28/signal-boost-

police-and-neo-fascist-lynchings/

the-peoples-verdict-free-cece-mcdonald/

posted Dec. 20, 2012

Stone Butch Blues 365

Part 2:

Resistance proves irrepressible—“Free CeCe!”

Help deliver the peoples’ verdict

by Leslie Feinberg

http://www.workers.org/2013/02/02/resistance-

proves-irrepressible-free-cece/

posted Feb. 2, 2013

TRIAL RESULTS

Feinberg is convicted but walks free:

saying “Free CeCe!”

by Minnie Bruce Pratt

http://www.workers.org/2013/02/04/feinberg-is-

convicted-but-walks-free/

posted Feb. 4, 2013

Photo credit: Deirdre Stapp

Town Hall, New York City, 1999

Madison Square Garden, New York City, 2000

www.youtube.com

366 Leslie Feinberg

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