Purple Golf Cart: The Misadventures of a Lesbian Grandma (8 page)

“It’s too much! I can’t stand it. We’re going back to the hotel.” His teeth were clenched. I’d never seen him so angry.

“We need to eat, Jake,” I said, fully ignored by him. We rode in silence back to the hotel. When Jake got out of the car, I scooted over into the drivers seat.

“We just passed a Burger King. What do you want?” I tried to keep calm for the children. Erik was asleep in his car seat in back but Berit was sitting straight up, next to me, at attention, eyes wide open, trying hard not to cry.

Jake raged. “If you bring anything back for me I’ll smash it in your face!” he screamed. Berit started to cry, and, frankly, so did I. Erik was frightened into wakefulness. In that moment, I knew I was leaving this man. I just didn’t know when. I wanted to gun the engine right then and there, drive north on I-75, then west on I-10 to Los Angeles, to my family, leaving his angry ass at the hotel.  I should have, but I didn’t. I just drove away, until the children and I were feeling safe and calm again. When we returned to the hotel a while later, Jake was fast asleep, empty beer cans lined up on the dresser. Thank God he was a mellow drunk. However, over the next several months Jake’s rage escalated.

~~~~~~

I often worked Saturday evenings at Burdines when Jake could be home with the children. I got home from work on one particular Saturday evening in December of 1977 and found everything as usual. Jake drinking beer and watching television, the children asleep in their respective rooms.

Early the next morning, Berit, who was almost five, came into our room and climbed into bed with me. “Mommy,” she said softly. “Derek made me do things yesterday.” Derek was the 15 year old boy who lived two doors down from us. I felt a sudden hit of nausea begin to churn in my gut.

“What things, sweetheart?” I tried to be calm, not knowing what to expect, and yet knowing exactly what I’d hear. She explained in detail what had happened. I felt my anger rise, my patience plummet. I couldn’t breathe! I had to find my breath....fast! For her...

“Did you tell Daddy, honey?” I asked, trying hard, so hard to be calm, to not frighten my little daughter.

“Yes, I told him yesterday.”

Yes???? YES???? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but my daughter, at age 4, didn’t know what it meant to lie. With every ounce of gentleness I could muster, I asked her to go play in her room for a few minutes, that I needed to talk privately with Daddy.

“What in hell just happened?” I was seething. I asked Jake if what I heard was accurate. He said Berit told him this last night but he didn’t believe her.

“Jake, you ass! Berit doesn’t lie. She doesn’t know what it means to lie. What happened?” I growled, my body tight, ready to strike.

“But this really couldn’t have happened,” he said, almost with disinterest.

“Fuck you, Jake. It happened. I’m calling the police.”

“Don’t, Ronni. You’re just asking for trouble.”

Whaaat??? I lost it! “Our daughter was sexually molested, Jake! There’s going to be trouble all right! I need the police here or I’m gonna go kill that kid myself, and you should have already done it. DAMN you!”

I called the police, then told Berit that they were coming to talk with us. I told her that what Derek did was bad, that such behavior is reserved for adults who love one another, that she did nothing wrong. Derek did, and he needed to be punished. The police came to our house quickly. I explained what had happened. A female officer talked with Berit in private. Next, a male officer interviewed her. Berit seemed relatively calm throughout the ordeal, unlike her mother who was flipping out between trying to be sane for Berit and wanting to murder both Jake and that kid! Berit’s story was consistent in both interviews and credible enough that the officers arrested Derek.

In the meantime, Jake called his parents. Surprisingly—or maybe not—they were appalled that I had the audacity to call the police. “Ronni, you’re just draggin’ the family name through the muuud,” was Cynda’s response. I told her I didn’t care, that Berit’s well-being was far more important than the friggin’ family name, that this kid had to get off the streets. Though Derek was charged and found guilty of sexual molestation, my mother-in-law hated me even more than she already did. Jake told his mother he was “at a loss as to how to handle” me. Go handle yourself, Jake, you ass!

~~~~~~

I worked with two young men at Burdines Department Store who were openly gay which was rather courageous for late 1970s Florida. Tony was 19. His best friend Richard was 22. They identified me as an understanding, open-minded person, not having a clue that my own coming-out was just around the corner. Tony gave me a book entitled RubyFruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown, which, he said, would help me understand him better. That was the first gay-related book I ever read. Tony included a note with the it that read: You’re a wonderful friend and I love you. Thank you for caring about me and for understanding.

Tony dated older men and was very excited about the new person he was seeing. The man was at least two decades older than Tony and a pilot of a small Cessna airplane. He was coming to Burdines to get Tony to fly him to Miami for dinner. Tony couldn’t wait to introduce me to his new lover. When the man arrived, Tony brought him to me. The man froze, clearly not able to decide if he should run or just die on the spot. He was my colitis doctor! I’d known him for seven years, and he, of course, knew me—inside and out. I knew he lived in my town, had a wife and children, and had recently been elected to the local airport authority board. He practically dragged Tony out of the store. While the good doctor was obviously horrified at seeing me, I was elated! I didn’t care what he was doing with Tony. I just knew that for the very first time, I had someone with whom I could talk about my sexual orientation. And who better than my apparently gay-and-closeted doctor? I couldn’t wait for my next appointment. When I saw him a week later, he was extremely nervous but he calmed down when he realized that I had no intention of blowing his cover. I just needed his help.

~~~~~~

By April of 1978, Jake and I were living under a truce of sorts. Tony and Richard invited several straight couples from Burdines to go dancing at the Parliament House, the largest gay bar in central Florida. Jake was to meet me at Burdines after work and we’d go with everyone to the club on South Orange Blossom Trail. The Parliament House was not only the largest gay bar in Florida, it also had a drag show that was immensely popular among straight and gay folks alike.

Jake called about 20 minutes before Burdines closed that evening. “I don’t feel like going, but you go ahead. Have fun, and bring me a 6-pack when you come home.” I wasn’t disappointed. I knew I needed to go to this place, to see these people, my people still unrevealed to me. I remember walking into the Parliament House dance hall after the drag show ended. There were hundreds of folks, it seemed, women dancing with women, men dancing with men. For the very first time in my life, I felt like I was someplace where I belonged, though I didn’t know a soul. I didn’t talk with anyone, just watched, just allowed myself to be present in this space that I knew was mine. My coming out had begun.

My heart was very full that evening and I knew I needed to talk with another woman, another lesbian. I just had no idea where to begin to look for support or friendship. No rush though. I’d waited this long and I needed time to think about a game plan.

I got home from the Parliament that night around 2 A.M. I didn’t get Jake’s beer because it was late, but really, I just forgot. I’m not a drinker myself, and I had so much on my mind that didn’t include him. Jake was waiting up for me. Though he had been in a fairly cheery mood earlier in the evening when he called me at work, he was furious now.

“Where the hell have you been?” he screamed.

“Shhh...you’ll wake the kids.”

“The hell with the kids. It’s 2 A.M. Where’s my beer? What’ve you been doing all night with those faggots?”

“Jake, what’s your problem? Are you angry that I went without you? What?”

“I’m angry alright! Hell, I’m pissed! Faggots! If my son ever comes home and tells me he’s a faggot, I’ll get a gun and kill him!”

What???? I felt both shock and terror, and deeply intense anger. Jake was a musician and had lots of gay friends. Some people even thought Jake himself was gay! And maybe that was the real issue but we, of course, didn’t go there. But kill his own child if he were gay? This guy was losing it, and I was frightened. What will he do when he learns about me?

“Jake,” my words were deliberate and measured so that I wouldn’t explode. “How can you be so emotional, so angry, about something that may never happen, when you didn’t give a shit when your daughter was sexually molested a few months ago? What the hell is wrong with you?”

I turned on my heels and walked away, not needing an answer to either of my questions. I don’t remember nor cared if or what his response might have been. My fear disengaged my brain.

I barely recall having another conversation with him for months, until I nearly filed for divorce, just after our 7th anniversary that November of 1978.

11. Coming Out

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1979

U.S. President
: Jimmy Carter

Best film
: Kramer vs. Kramer; All That Jazz; Norma Rae; Apocalypse Now

Best actors
: Dustin Hoffman, Sally Field

Best TV shows
: The Dukes of Hazzard; Angie; Hart to Hart; Nightline; Knots Landing; Antiques Roadshow; This Old House

Best songs
: Le Freak, My Sharona, Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?, YMCA, Ring My Bell, Bad Girls, Reunited, I will Survive, Good Times, Hot Stuff, Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

Civics
: Margaret Thatcher becomes British Prime Minister; Iranian militants seize U.S. embassy in Teheran: Kent State University massacre in Ohio; Nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, PA; CAT scan developed.

Popular Culture
: The Dead Zone by Stephen King, The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer, and Sophie’s Choice by William Styron published.

Deaths
: Arthur Feidler, John Wayne, Nelson Rockefeller, Charles Mingus

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Jake and the children and I went to Los Angeles to see my family during the winter school break of December, 1978. I tried to file for divorce a month earlier but didn’t have the courage to go through with it. Jake found the papers and demanded an explanation.

“Why are you doing this?” he screamed through clenched teeth. It was Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, our seventh anniversary. (Funny, neither Jake nor I could ever remember the exact date of our anniversary from year to year. I finally mounted our wedding invitation on the wall of our bedroom just so it looked like we cared.)

“Are you leaving me?” His anger escalated quickly.

“We fight so much, Jake. It’s so hard on the kids, on me. We’ve had serious issues arise and we’ve not dealt with them. I just can’t do this any more.” These were real reasons. I just couldn’t tell Jake the truth. I was afraid of his recurring rage so I let him believe it was because I was unhappy. He singularly decided that if he found a job in Los Angeles, I would be near my family and everything would be okay.

I secretly thought if I could get the kids and myself to L.A. without Jake, we’d be in the arms of my loving family and I could somehow pursue my coming out as a lesbian in a safe environment. With this plan, we’d all go to Los Angeles though he’d be there, too. Jake managed to get a courtesy interview as a band director at a school in Westwood near UCLA, but the Los Angeles Unified School District was eliminating its art and music programs at the time, so the job search was unsuccessful. Was there a Plan B for me?

While Jake was in that interview, I spent the time by walking with the children along Westwood Boulevard, looking in the windows of the little shops that dotted the street. Suddenly, from one of the windows the word lesbian popped out at me. Lesbian? Did I really just see that? I stopped, backed up, and looked again. There! On a poster! Lesbian. There it was! The first time I ever saw it in writing beyond that old 1962 Encyclopedia Britannica entry! Lesbian...me. I turned the stroller around and pushed my two small children into the Sisterhood Bookstore on the corner of Westwood and Rochester. It was early January, 1979.

The bookstore was small but the isles were wide enough for the stroller. Books were piled high all over the tiny store, on shelves, on counters, next to magazines, posters, buttons, and coffee mugs.

“Kids books section?” I inquired at the counter, trying not to look like I needed the Lesbian section which is what I really wanted to see. I just couldn’t say the word.

“Sure, back there. Holler if you need some help.” The young woman pointed to the back right corner of the store, next to the books about goddesses, just past the herbal healing section. Of course.

Lesbian. The word kept catching my eye, all around me, everywhere. It was, after all, the reason I went into the store. I saw the word in writing only once before and now it was surrounding me, like an old friend, or maybe a new lover or an exciting adventure. There was both comfort and intrigue in that word, and yet the fear of it made me shudder. I never acted on my feelings, never kissed a woman, never embraced my sexual identity. But there was no doubt in my mind that the word described me. I took my children to the kids’ section and found something Berit could read to Erik. I began to explore.