I noticed the
anti-male sentiment not long after I first rolled into town, and
it wasn't just because I was staying with Brenda and Eagle. Of course,
given their Sapphic orientation, they made no bones about not being
drawn to 'male energy.'
This was no
problem between me and Brenda. I had known just about as long as
she
herself had known that she was gay. I love her more than any other
member of my
family and who she beds with makes no difference to me. I go to
bed with girls,
she goes to bed with girls. Only once did we compete for the same
lady. She
turned us both down.
I noticed right
away that the women up here in the hills were pretty damned
uppity. After a few forays into what passed for nightlife in Garberville,
I
began to understand the feelings of the old folks in the south when
the
"nigras" stopped saying "yassuh boss." Though
I never considered myself a
chauvinist pig, the reaction I got to my usual line, which worked
perfectly
well in San Diego, led me to re-evaluate some of my attitudes. Well,
actually,
I re-evaluated my strategy. My attitude I was in no hurry to change.
I soon came
to realize that any woman who can raise enough pot on her own land
to pay for her own trip is not about to giggle and flash her baby
blues (or
browns, I'm not particular) at me just because I have a vague resemblance
to
Tom Selleck. (They don't even watch much TV, so being a Magnum look
alike makes
no points). They might be nice to me if I promise to come out and
split their
firewood...all six cords of it, or if I help them install that skylight
weighing in at over a hundred pounds. (Their last old man split
before he had a
chance to finish the job) After a few encounters like this I began
to feel
used; an object. Not a sex object, mind you; just any old object
possessing a
strong back. Definitely not a sex object. I had one mountain mama
let me know
her vibrator was a lot quicker and cleaner than me.
When I mentioned
some of this to Brenda, she just looked wise, and said
something on the order of, "Well, that's what I've been trying
to tell you for
the last fifteen years. Women don't want to be treated like a walking
vagina,
but if that's what it takes to get by then they'll be the biggest
cunt they can
be. You know, it's like the Army commercial. 'Be all that you can
be...'"
Her trilling
grated on me. This was serious, damn it. "But I like high heels,
and perfume, and lacy underwear," I whined. "I get off
on it."
"Great,"
Brenda snapped. "So do I. So go jack off in cuties undies.
I don't care
what gets you hot. Just don't get the idea that because you like
that stuff,
all the girls are going to. And a whole lot who don't like that
game came up
here to grow dope so they could play by a new set of rules, that's
all. You're
wasting your city charms on the hill women."
"Then what
about Kiki?" I shot back. "I admit that sometimes she
can be a real
ball breaker, but she also likes to flash her satin bikinis at me,
and..."
Brenda broke
in. "Kaka (she loved to call her that, our nursery word for
shit.
As I said, my sister and I were rarely attracted to the same people)
is not
your typical hillwoman grower. She's still into keeping score, ending
up each
month with more notches in her pussy."
"How did
she wind up here, anyhow? She's never told me."
"Everybody's
got to be somewhere," Eagle drawled. "Might as well be
here."
"I heard
she was a hooker in Vegas and got in bad with the Mafia," Brenda
said,
lighting up yet another joint. "They say she had to literally
flee into the
night with only the clothes on her back and her babe in her arms.
And this is a
pretty good place to hide out."
I didn't want
to hear any more. "That's the wildest story you've come up
with
all day," I scoffed.
Brenda shrugged.
"Okay. How's this one? She rose out of the Eel River one
morning, just like Aphrodite on the half shell. She insisted she
had amnesia,
and disclaimed any knowledge of a '67 Chevy found south of town,
near Piercy,
which was registered to one Belinda Bernstein of Las Vegas, Nevada."
I shook my head.
"You're full of it. I'll just ask her myself. I'm sure if I
just ask, she'll tell me the real story."
"I don't
understand you?" It was close to a scream and directed at Kiki.
At not
much past 8 A.M., she and Rain had come rattling into my compound,
as I loosely
call the area where my tent is pitched, my truck parked, and the
Anapurna of
shit looms over the scene. "Why do you decide that you want
to fuck at an
ungodly hour of the morning, before I've even made any coffee, and
your kid is
roaming around just itching to get buried in shit?"
"Ass-hole,"
Rain volunteered.
"Now you
want to fuck, but last night, you wouldn't let me touch you. I don't
understand..."
"Why should
you understand!" Kiki sounded patronizing. "Why do men
want to
understand women anyway? I don't want to understand you, or any
other man. It's
a waste of time and energy. Let's just fuck. Rain, go play in the
dirt. Make
roads or something.." Rain moved off cooperatively, He was
pretty normal in
that respect: tell him to get dirty, and he was gung ho to get on
with it.
"Well,
maybe now I don't want to...Belinda Bernstein!" What Brenda
had been
passing on to me the day before cut deeper than I had admitted.
And that night,
Kiki, quite uncharacteristically, had clammed up on me when I'd
asked her for
the story of her life. Usually women just love to be asked. "Tell
me all about
yourself, baby. I'll bet there are a lot of tears hidden behind
that pretty
smile..." It was a line I'd picked up in group therapy.
When Brenda
had once overheard me use that approach, she'd given me a vicious
kick. I still have the scar on my shin. Thanks to my sister, if
I ever turn up
missing, there'll be a lot of identifying marks and scars to put
in my
description.
But Brenda's
reaction aside, I've found that line quite useful. You ask the
question, and the lady starts her monologue. (Believe me, it's always
a
monologue.) You get taken right through chicken pox, her first menstrual
period, her last broken fingernail. At about the time she reaches
age six in
her narrative, you can turn off your ears and start moving in.
Only with Kiki,
it hadn't worked like that. She had turned those reddish-brown
eyes on me like she was inspecting a piece of fish. "You want
to know about
little old me?" She purred. I should have been warned: Kiki
never purred unless
she was getting ready to attack. I should add that she was wearing
a low cut,
almost sheer blouse, so when she started to hyperventilate, I was
understandably distracted by the rise and fall of her unconstrained
breasts.
"I suddenly
feel uninterested in this conversation," she said, stifling
a mock
yawn. Then she got out of the truck, and before I even had time
to yell, sidled
up to some clown in the parking lot of the "Blue Room."
A guy named Terry
something or other, who insisted on taking his damned bongo drums
everywhere. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except he also insisted
on playing them. And
there was Kiki, tapping her little fingers over his bongos, and
chirping like
some insane parakeet. Gathering my cool, I got out and retrieved
her.
We had a beer
in the Branding Iron, and danced one dance...if you can call it
that, Kiki wiggling her ass in everybody's face but mine.
So my never
fail technique had failed. But was that any reason
not to go back to the motel room I'd taken for the night? And then
just as contrarily, to show up at my tent the next morning?
I was sorry
the instant I blurted out the name, "Belinda Bernstein."
I mean, I'm
not a bad guy, and if all the name meant to Kiki was pain, I wasn't
rat enough
to want to open old wounds. Not too wide, anyway.
I made my apology.
"I take it back. I really don't care who you are or where you
came from. I mean, it's like the Foreign Legion up here. I'm even
thinking of
changing my name. What do you think of 'Rock'?"
"'Rock
Funk?'" She pondered. "You know sometimes I think you
are nuttier than I
think you are. So how about 'Lunk,' as in short for 'Lunkhead?'"
We had a nice
day after that. She even helped me carry some of the fertilizer
over the hill to my patch. Would a Mafia moll do that?
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