Kinflicks (44 page)

Sliding out of bed, Mrs. Babcock put on her green flannel robe. Her bruises weren't aching, as they usually did when she first stood up in the morning. Looking out the window, she saw the sun coming up — a glowing red ball — over the hill behind the factory. At her eye level in the tree outside were the frantically busy squirrels that leapt from branch to branch in scurrying pursuit of each other.

Mrs. Childress came in with her razor. Mrs. Babcock lay down and, with her eyes closed, felt her stabbed ear lobe throbbing to the ticking of the clock. Mrs. Childress was alternately dabbing the puncture and following the second hand of her watch. Much sooner than usual, she turned away.

‘Seven and a half minutes, Mrs. Babcock!' she announced, as though Mrs. Babcock had just broken a track record of long standing.

‘Is that normal?'

‘Close to it.'

‘What's normal?'

‘You have to ask Dr. Vogel. I'm not permitted to discuss it.'

‘Why in the world
not?'

‘He's the doctor.'

‘You're
the nurse.'

‘Four minutes is normal,' she whispered, glancing around guiltily. ‘But you're down from twelve, honey. That's real fine!'

9
Divided Loyalties

Eddie's and my life after Worthley stood outside of time. Contrary to popular belief, there are
really
three kinds of people in the world: those who wear watches, those who don't wear watches, and those who sometimes do and sometimes don't. Eddie was firmly entrenched in the second category and was compulsively late in everything she did; I am in the third category, but that year I was decidedly watchless.

Our apartment was on Broadway in Cambridge, on the third floor of a decaying tenement that was slated for urban renewal some time in the next decade. The pipe to the gas stove leaked, so that we had to leave the kitchen window cracked, even in the winter as snow drifted in. We were limited to sponge baths because the shower leaked into the apartment below, which was occupied by a frazzled welfare mother of five who had enough problems without her plaster ceiling's collapsing as well. The narrow porch off the living room, which overlooked the busy trash-strewn street, was infested with squatters — pigeons who cooed and shat all day long. The entire place, advertised by its unscrupulous owner as furnished, was fitted out with the rejects from some furniture store's Fire Damage Sale. The gas oven was so slow in lighting that it threatened to blow up the dreary linoleumed kitchen.

In short, it was squalid. Eddie and I loved it. We were finally living arm in arm, cheek by jowl, with The People. Was it our fault if all The People in our neighborhood had applications in for the high rises in the redevelopment areas? Could we help it that they moved out as fast as they could, only to be replaced by people like ourselves? Were we to blame that the welfare mother below us scowled and guarded her small children behind her back when we passed on the stairs, muttering under her breath, ‘Filthy dykes'? I had to keep reminding myself that I was now officially a lesbian. I felt that, although I now wore wheat jeans and turtlenecks and sandals and a braid like Eddie's, basically
I
hadn't changed. Faces glared as Eddie and I strolled to the Stop & Shop with our arms around each other; necks craned with outrage in movie theaters when we held hands. Public indifference to me had shifted to disapproval since I had left Worthley; but I was still me, whoever that might be.

Our only heat was an aging kerosene space heater in the living room, and the only really cozy spot was our bed with its endless layers of ratty quilts salvaged from trash cans and institutional blankets ripped off from Worthley as our parting gesture. Since we were paying our rent and meager expenses with my dividend checks, we had no appointments to keep. Consequently, we spent most of our time huddled in this bed, not particularly knowing or caring if it was day or night.

Eddie did, however, continue to play her guitar two nights a week at a coffee house in Cambridge, as she had when she was at Worthley. I became her groupie and sat alone at a dark corner table, listening to her protest songs and watching with pride as people admired her husky voice and her earthy good looks, which were amply evident in the black turtleneck and tights and skirt she wore for performances. At her breaks, we would sneak a joint together, hiding it under the table. We would get back to our dingy apartment at 3
A.M
. or later and would sleep until late afternoon the next day. One day blended into another, and we lost all sense of the passage of time. I slipped into my majority — and into control of my trust fund — without even knowing it, until papers requiring my signature began arriving from lawyers and brokers.

In the process of looking them over and taking charge of ‘my' monies, a dilemma started nagging at me over the nature of my investments. Eddie and I, for all our languid lolling in bed, were also on the demonstration circuit. We had bought crash helmets and had put American flag decals on them, upside down. Like horse owners on the racing circuit, or football fans with season passes, we went to every demonstration, large or small, that we happened to hear about — peace marches, rent strikes, work slowdowns. Usually we took picnic lunches, and we had gotten to know many of our fellow career demonstrators quite well.

One gorgeous October afternoon we went to a war protest in downtown Boston. The air was crisp, and the sun was hot, and colorful leaves skittered around on the pavement. We were all in high spirits, even more so when we saw how unalone each of us was, how packed the spacious courtyard was becoming. To the clerks looking down from the towering office buildings and dropping shredded government documents as confetti, we must have looked like a palpitating invasion of locusts.

The speaker, a former official in the attorney general's office who had lost his position due to his vehement antiwar stand, was eloquent on the topic of the futility of violence. Earnest young mothers with sleeping babies in back packs nodded intent agreement. Students led cheers at appropriate points. Suited businessmen flashed peace signs to delighted young rabblerousers. It seemed impossible on that brilliant afternoon that peace and good will could not prevail among
all
the peoples of the world; surely in a matter of days President Johnson would bow to the will of The People and withdraw American troops from southeast Asia. The crowds in the square, abasing themselves at the feet of the gleaming glass and steel government buildings, throbbed with brotherly love. And not the least Eddie and I, who hadn't even brought our crash helmets, which at that time we reserved for use on picket lines at construction sites. As I surveyed the babies and the dogs and the mothers and the businessmen and the students and the government workers leaning out their windows, a lump rose in my throat. It was the same lump that used to rise there when, as a child, I had recited the Lord's Prayer or sung ‘America the Beautiful.' We could not fail! Eddie and I looked at each other, and then threw our arms around each other and burst into tears of joy. How sweet it was to be so right, and in such company!

The glow lasted all the way back to the apartment. The sun was setting as we wearily climbed our dark dirty staircase, past the battered door behind which several children and their mother were shouting abuse. Eddie and I gazed at each other expectantly and walked hand in hand to our bed, trembling with moral and spiritual uplift from the triumphant afternoon. We enjoyed a round of incredibly passionate sex, culminating in a breathtaking series of multiple orgasms, triggered by the insertion of greased little fingers into each other's anus.

From Physiology 110,1 knew that our inordinate response to this gimmick was merely a function of the reflex stretch mechanism of our anal sphincters. But I was striving mightily to forget much of what I had learned at Worthley in order to elevate my view of our love to a loftier plane than chemical secretions and genetically induced reflexes. Besides, things were going on between Eddie and me that Physiology 110 hadn't covered. For instance, the way in which our bodies, immersed in smells and sounds and sights and tastes, would suddenly lurch like cars going too slow for the gear they were in, until we were swept up out of the realm of physical sensation. Seconds or minutes or hours passed, we never knew or cared. Exciting stuff for a country girl, but sinister, too, as I lay scarcely breathing afterwards, speculating on its similarities to my plunge down the cliff from Clem's speeding Harley.

But on the whole, I had to admit that lovemaking with Eddie agreed with me, never mind what Mother would say. The goal being so much less apparent than in heterosexual encounters, more imagination was required. And after that evening's display of imagination, I decided that I had to come clean. I felt dread unhinging my joints. How could she ever lick me to orgasm again if she knew the real truth? True, Eddie felt that the wealth should be shared, starting with my wealth. But would she still want to share blood money? On the other hand, I knew I couldn't
not
tell her.

‘Eddie?'

‘Hmmm?' she sighed, wrapping her arms around me from behind and burying her mouth in my neck just as Joe Bob had loved to do in the trunk of Doyle's Dodge.

‘There's something I have to tell you.'

‘Hmmm?'

‘Are you listening, Ed? This is very important.'

‘Hmmm? Can't it wait?' She nibbled my ear lobe.

‘No, it can't. I have to tell you now. I can't stand it any longer.' I was about to cry.

‘Why, what's wrong, Ginny?'

‘You know those papers I signed about my trust fund?'

‘Hmmm.'

‘Do you know where my money comes from, Eddie?'

‘Where?' she asked with a yawn.

‘Mostly from my father's factory, that's where.' There! It was out. What Eddie did about it was up to her. At least I'd leveled with her.

‘So what?'

So what? Had I misunderstood Eddie's principles somewhere along the line? So what?' Maybe there was no moral conflict in paying our expenses to antiwar marches with money generated by supplying explosives to that war? After all, what had Eddie been teaching me if not that logic a la Miss Head was flawed, that commitment and contradiction were the way to Truth? Perhaps the only conflict was in my own over-rational brain?

‘I didn't even know your father
had
a factory,' Eddie murmured. ‘What does he make?'

Oh oh. So that was it. The truth
wasn't
out after all. ‘Explosives,' I whispered in misery.

‘You mean like for digging mines and building highways and stuff?'

‘No, I mean like for shells and bombs. I mean like for Vietnam.'

No sound or movement came from Eddie for a long time. Eventually I rolled over. Her face was frozen into a grimace.

‘If you want to leave me, I can understand why,' I said faintly. ‘I'm sorry, Eddie. I should have told you sooner. But I didn't really get the picture until I saw those papers.'

Eddie, still grimacing, said nothing.

‘Can you ever love me again?' I wailed.
‘Can
you?'

Still she didn't answer. I looked at her closely. She had fallen asleep.

If that night I dared to hope that that was the end of the matter, the next morning I discovered I was sadly mistaken. When I got up around noon, Eddie was stalking through the living room muttering, ‘Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.'

She resolutely refused to look at me or speak to me.

I mumbled humbly several times, ‘I'm sorry, Eddie.'

Finally she demanded coldly, ‘Have you told anyone else about this?'

I nodded no miserably.

‘You must tell no
one.
Do you understand?
No one.
My reputation could be ruined.'

‘You can count on me,' I assured her gravely, as a pigeon pecked at the chipping putty around a broken storm window.

‘Now! As I see it, you have to cash in your stocks and invest the money in a company that makes medical supplies or artificial limbs or something.'

‘I
can't.'

‘What do you mean you can't? They're yours, aren't they?'

‘Yes, but I can't do anything with them until both my parents are dead. It's a tax gimmick. To escape inheritance taxes. Besides, a subsidiary of the same corporation in New Jersey
does
make medical supplies — plasma bottles.'

‘Well, that's
something,
I suppose,' she said thoughtfully. ‘Oh
Jesus.'
She resumed her trek across the listing living room. ‘The
corruption
of it all is overwhelming. I'm so appalled that I can hardly bear looking at you, Ginny. I've been living on profits from companies that are fueling the war machine!'

‘I'm sorry. I know it must make you feel so dirty. I'd give anything to have been able to spare you this, Eddie. I've hurt the woman I love. I can't bear it!' I burst into tears and collapsed onto the rickety couch, which in turn collapsed onto the floor.

I lay weeping on the faded flowered rug. Eddie squatted down like a baseball catcher and caressed my moist face. ‘There, there. Don't worry. We'll figure something out.'

What we figured out was a trip to Tennessee to picket the factory and to confront the Major with his war crimes. If I couldn't divest myself of my stocks, I could at least funnel some stockholder input into the executive level.

As she surveyed the huge white-columned mansion, Eddie grumbled, ‘Jesus. It's downright feudal!' Maybelle, our cook, came rushing out and whirled me across the lawn in an embrace. I tried to offer her my hand in a gesture of dignified equality instead, having read disapproval in Eddie's face. But finally I gave in and whirled with Maybelle of my own accord.

‘Law, yes!' Maybelle said to Eddie in her Power to the People T-shirt, ‘I done been wid de Babcocks eber since Miss Virginia was two foot tall! Law, I used to set her in mah lap an' teach dat po li'l thing how to tie her shoes…Why, Miss Ginny, she don't hardly know
nuthin'
ole Maybelle ain't taught her. Why, I declare, iffen…' She went on and on, her accent getting thicker and thicker, thicker than I could remember its ever having been. I studied her black face closely and thought I detected malicious pleasure in her eyes. Whether the malice was directed at Eddie or at me, I couldn't be completely certain. Eddie was thoroughly scandalized.