Out of Orange: A Memoir Page 3

  When the taxi pulled up to the curb at the airport, everyone was quiet and calm. Henry paid the cab fare. He was the keeper of money. He had been so the whole trip. He handed me a one-hundred-franc note and Bradley one too. This was where we would all go our separate ways. We would pretend like we didn’t know each other until we stepped back into a taxi in Chicago, hopefully, all of us.

  “This is it.” Henry was right too. This was it, my last chance to bail. He walked away and Bradley followed just a couple of seconds behind him. They both entered the stream of traffic inside the revolving doors.

  I had not eaten any heroin-filled capsules; all I had were the jackets packed in my bag. Henry and Bradley had both. Bradley couldn’t leave his stomach behind, but I could leave the jackets somewhere and bail. The only thing standing between me and getting home safely was a decision: How did I want to do it? I had one hundred francs in my sweaty little palm, the cost of a phone card. I could buy one in the airport tabac, call home, call Hester at the hotel, and what? I could also just fucking get this shit over with. Do the stupid deed, make ten thousand dollars, and deal with my sister and her boyfriend problems later. I couldn’t stand out on the curb forever. I would miss my flight. I walked into the airport, past the tobacco shop, and without hesitation right up to the security checkpoint. The feeling was just like walking right up to the end of the high dive, gracefully turning, and stepping back so that only my heels were free and my toes held me there.

  When I got to the gate, I saw Henry and he didn’t so much as look in my direction. But Bradley caught my eye and gave me a look that said he was about to cry. I looked away from him as if I hadn’t noticed the face he’d made.

  We boarded the plane and I took my seat, carefully stowing my garment bag full of the heroin-packed jackets in the overhead compartment. I pulled a French language tutorial out of my bag with a pen before taking my seat. I had definitely crossed the line. This was past the point of no return.

  I stayed awake the whole flight back. I did the French lessons from front to back. I had bought the book in the O’Hare Airport six weeks earlier, before the trip had begun. I watched a movie, The Last of the Mohicans, and cried at the part where one of the sisters throws herself off the waterfall rather than be raped. I studied what I had already written in my fake journal, making new fake entries for each of the days I had been in Paris. By the time they passed out the customs and immigration forms before landing in Chicago, I had created a story for each and every day in Paris, even for the ones I was actually in Africa. My new passport had no stamps indicating my venture to Africa, which was the point of replacing it.

  I watched a plane crawl across a map on the screen where the movie had been playing. It approached the Great Lakes and then Chicago. I hurriedly got up out of my seat and grabbed my purse so I could make my way to the bathroom one more time. It amazed me how Bradley and Henry both ignored me every time I passed each of them. I couldn’t help but look at them, if only to be sure they were still alive. Henry’s face was blank and Bradley’s had a pained expression, but aside from that, they were both breathing. I wondered if Bradley was scared or excited. I couldn’t figure out which I was. But I couldn’t wait to get back to my world and away from this whole mess.

  When the plane landed, I was deaf. My ears had not popped yet, but I kind of liked the way everything sounded muffled. It was easier to turn my thoughts inward, back onto what should be playing over in my mind: the musings of Cleary the art collector, critic, and historian, not Cleary the drug-smuggling fool about to ruin her life.

  I was surprised when I disembarked the plane. We were all actually being loaded onto a shuttle, a shuttle that could lift up and down and had its doors at the front and back. It was like a big creature that latched onto the plane and opened its big mouth to suck out all the passengers. I opted to stand and hold on to the pole in front of a young man dressed as sharply as I was. He offered me his seat, but I declined. “I can’t sit down for another minute.” He smiled but kept staring at me like he was interested. That would only happen to Cleary the art collector, not Cleary the frumpy dyke. I could see myself reflected back in the window behind him, and a ball of fear and excitement down in the pit of my stomach tightened again.

  The shuttle was full, and it closed its door and then lowered itself down to street level. We zoomed across the tarmac, past a row of huge planes, their butts sticking out from the building. It looked like a bunch of giant birds at a feeding trough. The bus came to a stop in front of one of the buildings and rose up again, pulled forward, and jerked a little before the door opened. My knees were shaky and my heart was racing, but my reflection looked as calm and bored as everyone around me. My garment bag’s strap was digging into my shoulder; the pad intended to keep that from happening was twisted and made it more uncomfortable than if it had not been there at all. But it gave me something to focus on.

  I had been one of the last few to get on the bus, so I was near the front and one of the first to get off. I walked alongside the handsome young guy who had offered me his seat. He didn’t offer to take my bag and carry it for me. That would be funny, I thought. I walked along the same route and kept pace with the crowd. Henry and Bradley were on another bus or busses; they had been seated much farther back in the plane, and there had been three busses waiting to devour passengers disembarking. I felt my hip pocket. My passport and the Customs card I had filled out were there; everyone else had theirs in their hands. I pulled them out and gripped my keys to the kingdom tightly.

  We finally came out into a big area full of other passengers, maybe a couple of planeloads, where everyone was splitting up and heading for different lines. Instead of cashiers, like in a grocery store, these lines terminated at a series of booths, each one fitted with a Customs agent. I picked the line where a bunch of twentysomethings would be right in front of me. If they’d had skateboards flung over their shoulders, it would have matched their outfits and messy grunge hair. The guy directly in front of me had an Amsterdam T-shirt.

  Our line crept forward each time I heard the whomp of the passports being stamped. The crowd of grungy youngsters in front of me was quiet until one of the guys turned around and said something to one of the girls. He spoke Dutch. I looked at the passports everyone in my line held. They were burgundy. Holy shit! I was in the wrong fucking line.

  I should have been in line with Americans. I scanned the ten other lines and saw passengers carrying blue passports and light blue Customs cards at the opposite end of the big lobby. I was not able to just hop out of my line and scoot right over. First, I had to negotiate my way back through the waiting people and their bags behind me. Each line was delineated by a barrier, like at a movie theater. I could go under it, were it not for the Customs agents floating around the lobby. Henry had told me that these ones watch for any irregularities, and they randomly pick folks out for a more thorough questioning.

  If I left the line where I was, I would pop right into the line of sight of one lady who was standing with her arms crossed, legs parted, blankly staring down all the foreign passengers. I was not supposed to attract attention to myself in any way. What would Cleary the art snob do in a situation like this? I asked myself. She would hop the fucking line, the hell with the barrier. I slid under it and stood back up. I had caught the Customs agent’s attention. I held up my blue passport, smiled at her, and shook my head, like Look at me, the big dummy in the wrong line. Her blank expression cracked, and she smiled and started walking. I turned and walked toward the correct lines, hoping like hell that when I turned around, it was not toward me she had started to move. I picked the shortest line and turned around. Fuck.

  She was standing up by the booth, waving for me to come to her. I smiled, pointed at myself, like What? Me? She nodded, still smiling, and I walked forward. In movies, this is when the hallway stretches out and the star can’t seem to reach the end of it. In reality, I was standing in her face in a flash. She motioned for me to head to the booth, turned
to the agent in the booth, and said, “She’s been over in international.” She made a funny face at me, like an exaggerated Oops. The agent waved me on up to the spot everyone was waiting for, and she walked away.

  The guy laughed and said, “It’s a madhouse here today.” He took my passport and Customs card. “Where are you coming from?” I knew this by heart. Every question he might come up with I had the answer ready to fire back.

  “Paris.”

  “Purpose of your trip?” He asked this while making notes on the blue Customs card.

  “Business,” I answered as glibly as I could. He looked up, gave me a quick once-over.

  “Anything to declare?” His attention was back on my Customs card. This is where I was supposed to list the valuable items I was bringing into the country. Of course, I had not noted the heroin, stuffed in the lining of the jackets I had packed in my garment bag.

  “Welcome back. Hand this to the agent on your way out.” He slammed a stamp down on the Customs card, made some big squiggly mark on it, and handed it back to me, tucked inside my passport.

  I walked toward the exit of the big entry hall, one blue door still flipping closed from the last entrant, and there was now one more agent between me and the end of this fucking trip. I pulled the card out of my passport and handed it to him. He was perched on a tall stool and looked more bored than anything else. He had a stack of cards already amassed in his hand. He reached out, took mine, scanned the front and the back, nodded toward the door, and said nothing.

  I walked through the door and into the busy baggage claim area. I didn’t have to wait for any luggage; I just had to wait for Henry and Bradley on the curb outside. I made my way to the door, skipping an opportunity to trade my hundred francs for dollars. I would keep this as a souvenir. I got outside and it was bitter cold, but I felt fantastic. I pulled a cigarette out of my purse and lit it, then moved toward the area where people were getting into taxis.

  I saw Bradley come out the doors. He spotted me and walked over, reaching out with two fingers, a give-me-your-cigarette gesture. I handed my lit cigarette over and he took a long drag. “Holy shit!” Smoke and his breath in the cold air came out in two big plumes.

  “That was so fucking easy!” I said this to Bradley, under my breath.

  “Speak for yourself. Try holding your poop for six hours.” He handed me back the cigarette and made a groaning noise. He looked terribly uncomfortable. I was just about to suggest he go on ahead to the hotel when Henry came out the door and headed to the last cab in the line of taxis. We hustled to catch up and practically dove into the backseat of the taxi. Henry was in the front seat, telling the taxi driver he was sorry, but we could not wait in line. He had diarrhea. The driver objected strongly, telling us to get out, then Henry held out two hundred-dollar bills and said please. Henry turned and smiled at us, like a proud father, as soon as the taxi left the curb.

  2 Homeward Bound

  Northampton, Massachusetts

  March 1993

  NORTHAMPTON IS A COLLEGE TOWN, a picturesque little village nestled in the Berkshire Mountains of New England in Massachusetts. Think of Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post cover images decades ago: simpler times, when kids sat at old soda fountains talking to white-smocked, rosy-cheeked old men—a perfect little town, with clapboard homes and white picket fences. That’s Northampton. Just add a lot of lesbians to Rockwell’s painting.

  I was the only passenger left on the bus when we pulled into the Northampton station at nightfall. The big snowstorm my driver had been racing to beat was already heavy in the air, muffling the quiet night. I surveyed the empty parking lot, recalling the distance to my hotel. I used to live right near the bus station, but back then I’d had my motorcycle to go into town. I hadn’t been walking then, and I hadn’t been dressed up with bags to lug. Fortunately, I had packed light—just the one bag and my purse. The Tumi bag had tough little rollers, so I decided to make the walk to the hotel. It’s not that I had an alternative. There were no taxis around and the pay phone to call one was inside the closed bus station.

  I took a deep breath of the cold, clean air and my mind filled with images of hot chocolate, glowing fireplaces, and familiar faces. It was odd not having an actual home to return to, especially with the storm coming. Storms made me want to curl up in bed and cuddle with my kitties or a lover if there was one handy. But I didn’t have my cats, Edith and Dum Dum, with me, my love life was in shambles, and I didn’t even have a bed yet.

  The remnants of a previous storm still littered the sidewalks. Salt and piles of compacted and refrozen slush might make it a difficult walk. There was a shortcut up a steep hill to Main Street. I chose the longer but safer route and avoided wiping out. My Italian leather boots had heels, but they were just a couple of inches high. I wouldn’t wipe out on this route, not if I was careful. I loved the way the boots felt—slippery, soft, and pliant inside and out. They weren’t particularly warm, but they were cute, and the clack and the crunch they made on the sidewalk sounded expensive to me.

  I pulled out the thin leather gloves I had picked up at a boutique in Paris and slid them on. My coat was designed for show. Long, black, and lightweight, it was not intended for snow. I was warm though; I had a surplus of adrenaline and layers. Each layer was thin and slippery—silk, linen, and a wool and silk blend—my coat, a jacket under that, and blouse. I had shopped for two days in Chicago, assembling the outfit, getting my hair and nails done again like I was going to some big formal occasion. It wasn’t formal, but it was definitely an occasion. I had made it. Now I just needed to make it to a bathroom before I ruined my fabulous outfit.

  There were so many people I wanted to see. But I wanted everything to be perfect when I saw my friends. Just the same, I was impatient. I wanted to run into somebody on my way to the hotel right then, maybe just an acquaintance, just to see if they recognized me. Nobody knew I was coming. I looked totally different, and I had never been able to afford to dress as nicely as I was dressed at the moment. No, my friends would expect a short, dumpy tomboy in tattered jeans and motorcycle boots, if they were expecting me. But they weren’t.

  I walked by the steamy windows of Spoleto, a restaurant I had worked at before deciding to leave Northampton and move to Chicago two months before. The restaurant was packed, but it was impossible to tell who was in there. I couldn’t see who was working. All I could make out through the sweating glass were the general shapes and number of people crowded in, trying to get seated. It was hard to believe it had been only two months since I had left. It had been snowing then too.

  The Hotel Northampton felt like the deserted hotel in The Shining or any one of Vincent Price’s haunted mansions. When I walked into the big empty lobby, there was no one around to greet me, and the only sound came from the wind outside. I supposed they were operating with a skeleton staff, probably because of the expected snowstorm but more likely because nobody visits Northampton at that time of year.

  I took the elevator to my floor after checking in. When the elevator door opened, I peeked out, looking in both directions, listening for signs of other guests, before stepping out. It was silent, except for the closing elevator doors behind me. I walked down the carpeted hallway to my room, picking up my pace as I neared my room number. When I closed the door behind me, I felt the hairs rising on the back of my neck. I was totally spooked. I made two quick hops to the bathroom, as if by hopping I was safe from whatever had spooked me. I did my business, and then I turned on every light in the room.

  Washing my hands, I was shocked by my reflection. I had seen myself every day through some fast changes, but I was still surprised to see myself in a mirror. My rebellious curls hadn’t changed, but my brown hair had gotten lighter, turned golden from all the sun. My face was thin—I had a chin and neck now—and I wore makeup. My black-rimmed glasses were a new look for me too. They looked a little like the glasses my father had worn or that Clark Kent wore when he wasn’t being Superman. The glasses
made me look intelligent and nerdy. They had taken me some time to appreciate; they were a much bolder look than my old tortoiseshell specs I’d been wearing since high school, but Henry had loved them. The mascara and tan made my eyes look bluer and the whites whiter. The lipstick still looked weird to me.

  I suddenly had the urge to remove my makeup. I had been back in Northampton for thirty minutes, and the new me was already starting to crumble. The makeup felt wrong, like a mask or something of my mother’s I shouldn’t be wearing. I knew that was crazy—some bizarre ass-backward insecurity I had about myself. Most women wear makeup because of their insecurities. I was uncomfortable being pretty, or trying to be. Cute I had no trouble with, but pretty made me squirm. I was a tomboy at heart.

  When I was in seventh grade, my father was called into a parent-teacher conference with my school counselor at Anderson Middle School. I had taken to wearing my father’s shirts to school. Dad was an office man and a very sharp dresser. I liked his starchy white oxford-cloth shirts and thought they looked cute on me. I had gotten the idea from a Doris Day movie in which she was running around in a similar shirt with no pants on, tan, with her golden hair a mess. I’d thought she looked fantastic. Doris was probably an early crush, the first tingles in my gaydar going off, but that concept wasn’t yet part of my consciousness. In any case, I had finally seen something famously worn that I liked, so I felt like a movie star wearing Dad’s too-big shirts. If that happened today, my flare for creative expression in my attire would have made me a fashionista, not a deviant in need of reprogramming, but it was 1975.

  The counselor attributed my innocent fashion faux pas to something insidious. He wanted my parents to deal with the troubling crisis he saw brewing or remove me from among the perfectly preppy young darlings dressed in Ralph Lauren, Izod, and J. Crew. In his defense, I think he was suffocating in his own gay closet. It wasn’t just the shirts that would fix me, and he had to have known that; his swish and lisp hadn’t been corrected by his plaid flannel. Perhaps he thought that if he caught it early enough, he could save me from his fate. I don’t know, but I was a tomboy. The men’s shirts just gave him the circumstance to do what he felt was needed: talk to my father.