Significant Others

by Armistead Maupin

  The woman swung around. “I know you. Uh … big Buick full of brats.”

  DeDe laughed. “Don’t rub it in.”

  “I’m Teejay, and you’re …?”

  “DeDe.”

  “Right. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for the security chief.”

  Teejay looked around. “I think she’s gone out for … No, there she is … over there, next to the butt cans.”

  “I’m sorry … the what?”

  “Butt cans, precious. You know …” She made a cryptic motion, encircling her waist with her hands. “Her name is Rose. The one with the haircut.”

  DeDe felt her face drain. Rose with the haircut. The hateful Rose. The monster who’d deported Edgar to the boys’ compound.

  Unmistakably the chief, she was leaning against a tent post in loose green fatigue pants. Her breasts, which were bared today, had turned Spam-pink in the broiling sun.

  DeDe approached warily, berating herself for not choosing Garbage Patrol, or even Health Care, for heaven’s sake. Rose looked at her and said: “We meet again.”

  “Looks like it,” said DeDe.

  “You the noon relief?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re not in uniform, then.” Rose reached into a box on the ground and produced one of the black T-shirts, handing it to DeDe. “I need you at the gate,” she said. “I usually handle it myself, but there’s been some trouble over in chem-free.”

  DeDe nodded. “Will somebody show me … uh … what I’m supposed to …”

  “Right. That’s my job.” Rose winked at her almost amiably, and DeDe felt a little surge of relief. If all the woman wanted was to be in charge, DeDe was more than willing to oblige.

  Leading her out to the gate, Rose explained the intricacies of the job. “Mostly you answer questions. Stuff about the various zones, where they should park. Don’t let any cars onto the land unless they’ve got a pass.”

  DeDe was still a little uneasy. “The zones. I don’t really know where …”

  “Here’s a map,” said Rose, handing her a dog-eared pamphlet. “It’s all there.”

  “Good.”

  “Oh, yeah. You’ll probably have to deal with the Porto-Jane men.”

  “I’m sorry … the what?”

  “We call the toilets Porto-Janes,” said Rose.

  Wouldn’t you just? thought DeDe. “Then … I let these guys come onto the land?”

  “Yeah,” said Rose. “They’re the only men we allow onto the land. They clean out the Porto-Janes and leave. It takes about an hour total. They’ve got a truck and ID badges, so ask to see ‘em.”

  “Gotcha,” said DeDe.

  “There’s a walkie-talkie at the gate. You can always call for reinforcements if there’s anything you can’t handle on your own. It’s been quiet so far.”

  “Thank God,” said DeDe.

  “Don’t you mean Goddess?” said Rose.

  The shift turned out to be far less threatening than DeDe had imagined. She spent most of her time chatting with friendly women in overloaded cars. When they groused about the parking regulations, they did it with good humor, and one or two of them had even sent wolf whistles in her direction.

  Twenty minutes before the end of her shift, an enormous white limousine pulled up at the gate. The windows were the one-way kind, so she couldn’t see a soul until the front window hummed open.

  A redheaded woman in a chauffeur’s cap leaned out and asked: “Which way to the stage?”

  “Well,” said DeDe, “it’s down this road and to the right, but I’m afraid you can’t drive there.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s the policy. No cars on the land. You can park in this lot, if you like. There’s a shuttle to the land every fifteen minutes.”

  The chauffeur looked peeved. “We were told to go to the stage.”

  “Well, if you’re a scheduled performer … I mean, if whoever …”

  “Nothing is scheduled. My customer is a friend of the festival organizer.”

  “Do you have a pass?” DeDe asked.

  “No. We were told we wouldn’t need one.”

  “Gosh, I’m really sorry. My instructions are to make sure that no one—”

  “I’ll speak to her!” This was a voice from the back seat, raspy but resonant. It was followed by the whir of another shiny black Darth Vader window as it descended into the door. The face revealed was pale and without makeup, framed by a shock of black hair with a white skunk stripe down the middle.

  DeDe felt her heart catch in her throat. It was Sabra Landauer, the legendary feminist poet-playwright, whose one-woman show, Me Only More So, had been the rage of the last two seasons on Broadway.

  “Oh … Miss Landauer,” said DeDe. “Welcome to Wimminwood.”

  “Thank you. Is there a problem here?”

  “Well, a bit. If they’d told me you were performing …”

  “I’m not performing. I’m visiting my friend Barbara Farrar, the founder of this festival.”

  “Ah … well … of course.” Her resolve crumbled. When it came to catching hell from Rose or catching hell from Sabra Landauer, there was no contest. “So anyway, the stage is down this road, then off to the left. It’s the only big clearing. Anybody with a blue wristband can help you.”

  “Thanks,” said the chauffeur.

  “And Ms. Landauer,” DeDe added hastily, touching the limo to make it wait, “I have to tell you … Medusa at the Prom is my favorite book of poems ever.”

  Sabra Landauer made a pistol barrel out of her forefinger and fired it rakishly at DeDe. “Read my latest,” she said. “There’s something in it just for you.”

  Before DeDe could respond, the dark window ascended. The limousine sped off down the road in the proverbial cloud of dust. Left standing in it, DeDe felt mildly disgusted with herself.

  Why on earth had she said that? She had never even read Medusa at the Prom. Why had the mere sight of a famous woman made her lose it completely?

  Muddled, she flagged on two other cars, only to be jolted back into reality by the sight of two rough-hewn men in a pickup truck. Remembering their mission, she stepped forward crisply and said: “Porto-Janes?”

  “Yo,” said the driver, showing a snaggletooth smile. Poor guy, she thought. To have such a job!

  She flagged him on, giving him a thumbs-up sign by way of moral support. The pickup moved on, slowly at first; then it scratched off amidst a barrage of maniacal laughter. Both men reached out the window to flip her the bird.

  “Dumb-ass lezzie!” one of them shouted.

  She stood there for a moment, paralyzed by shock, her head ringing with Rose’s admonition to ask for an ID badge. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Those weren’t the Porto-Jane people at all!

  She lunged for her walkie-talkie, but couldn’t remember what people always said in the movies. All she could think of was “Roger,” and that, she felt certain, was patently sexist.

  “Hello, Security,” she said at last, all but shouting into the walkie-talkie. “Security, this is DeDe…. Come in, please…. This is an emergency.”

  No reply.

  She checked the talk button to see if it was set correctly. Who knew? She tried again: “Emergency, emergency … This is DeDe at the gate. Men on the land! Men on the land!”

  Still no answer. She shook the machine vehemently, then threw it into the ditch in a fit of pique.

  Coming to rest in a blackberry patch, it startled her by talking back: “Security to gate, Security to gate … Come in immediately….”

  She climbed into the ditch and made her way gingerly through the treacherous tendrils, holding them at arm’s length like dirty diapers. As she reached for the walkie-talkie, a bramble sprang out of nowhere and pricked her hand. “Damn!” she muttered.

  “DeDe, this is Security…. Come in.”

  She fidgeted with the button again. “Men on the land, Rose! Men on the land!”

  “Tell me!” Rose re
plied, just as the renegade pickup roared out of Wimminwood, occupants still cackling, spewing a cloud of reddish dust over everything.

  Numb with terror, she stared at the departing marauders, then turned back to the walkie-talkie. “Is everybody O.K. down there?”

  A damning silence followed. Finally, Rose said: “Wait there, DeDe. Do you read me? Wait there!”

  The wait was almost half an hour, reducing DeDe to a nervous wreck. When Rose appeared at last, her jaw was rigid, her eyes chillingly devoid of emotion. A thin white icing of sunscreen now covered her breasts. “O.K.,” she said. “What happened?”

  DeDe spoke evenly. “I thought they were the Porto-Jane men.”

  “Did you ask to see their IDs?”

  “No. I asked them if they were the Porto-Jane men, and they were driving a pickup like you said.”

  “I didn’t say pickup. It’s a big truck, DeDe. It sucks up the shit.”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know?”

  The security chief shook her head slowly. “You are something else. You reeeally are.”

  “O.K. I made a boo-boo. I apologize.”

  “Made a boo-boo?”

  “Fucked up, then.”

  “Do you have any idea what those assholes just did?”

  DeDe caught her breath. Please God, don’t make it gross. She shook her head warily.

  “They drove past the Aura Cleansing Workshop, screaming ‘Fucking dykes’ at the top of their lungs—”

  “I realize I—”

  “Wait a minute. Shut up. On their way out, they knocked over a Porto-Jane.”

  “God.”

  “With somebody in it, DeDe.”

  DeDe pressed her fingers to her lips as her stomach began to churn. “Was she … hurt?”

  An excruciating pause followed. “She was severely traumatized,” Rose said at last. “We had to hose her down at the Womb.”

  Racked with nausea, DeDe looked away from her accuser. “If I’d had any idea …”

  “You didn’t follow instructions,” said Rose. “It’s as simple as that.”

  DeDe nodded. “You’re right … you’re right.” She couldn’t help wondering, though, what would have happened if she’d refused entry to the marauders. Would they have obeyed her? Her children certainly never did.

  “I’d think you’d want to prove yourself,” said Rose. “Considering your background.”

  “My background?” said DeDe.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t. Please tell me.”

  “I know about your father, O.K.?”

  “You know what? My father is dead.”

  “Your stepfather, then. Whatever. I’ve known all about his fascist Reagan connections.”

  DeDe’s face burned. “So what does that make me, then?”

  Rose shrugged. “You tell me.”

  Hesitating a moment, she considered several retorts, then handed Rose the walkie-talkie. “It’s past two,” she said. “My shift is over.”

  She walked back to her tent in a daze, tormented by an issue far more troublesome than a toppled Porto-Jane: How could Rose—or anyone else—have known about Booter, unless D’or had said something?

  And why would D’or do that? Why?

  Broken Date

  BDOOTER’S LAKESIDE TALK HAD BEEN A RESOUNDING success. So far, at least a dozen Bohemians had pulled him aside to congratulate him, comparing him favorably to Chuck Percy and Bill Ruckelshaus, who had also addressed the multitudes that week. Sure, he had scrambled his notes once or twice, but no one seemed to notice, and the ovation afterwards had verged on thunderous.

  He was walking now to burn off energy, filling his lungs with the pungent afternoon air. On the road above Green Mask, he passed a shirtless young man in his late twenties. His age and musculature suggested that he was an employee, so Booter felt duty bound to say something.

  “Hot one, isn’t it?”

  The young man made a sort of whinnying noise to indicate that it was.

  “You work here?” Booter asked, doing his best to sound pleasant about it.

  “Yessir.”

  “Well, there’s a rule about shirts, you know.”

  The young man looked at him blankly.

  “You have to wear them,” said Booter.

  “Oh.” He reached for his shirt, dangling from the back pocket of his khakis.

  “It’s fine by me,” said Booter. “But … somebody else might give you trouble about it.”

  The young man slipped on the shirt, buttoned it up.

  “I’d say the same thing to a member,” Booter added, not wishing to seem a despot. “It’s just the rule.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s a hot one, though, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Booter smiled at him and continued on his way back to the river road.

  Order. Mutual respect. This was why the Grove was his favorite place on earth.

  He found Jimmy Chappell in his tepee at Medicine Lodge. “There he is,” piped Jimmy. “The William Jennings Bryan of the SDI.”

  Humility was in order, so Booter grunted disparagingly and sat down on the cot next to him.

  “You want a drink?” asked Jimmy.

  “Nah.”

  Jimmy poured cognac into a plastic cup, downing it with a satisfied smack. “Low Jinks sounds good,” he said.

  Christ almighty. Was that tonight?

  “It’s called ‘I, Gluteus,’” Jimmy added, picking up a Grove program to read: “ ‘Bohemians and guests will thrill to love duets by Erotica and Testicus, shiver at the plot hatched by Castrata against Fornicatio, giggle at the airy antics of Flatus, and feel tension mount between Nefario and Intactica, leader of the Restive Virgins.’ ”

  “Fart jokes,” said Booter. “Can’t we do better than that?”

  “Well … you laughed your ass off at that song I did for … What the hell are you talking about? You helped me write it.”

  “I was drunk,” said Booter.

  Jimmy snorted.

  “I can’t go tonight, Jimmy.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m … going into town.”

  “Town?” said Jimmy.

  “Yeah.”

  “Monte Rio?”

  Booter nodded.

  “Why the hell would you leave the Grove on the night of the Low Jinks?”

  “You’re not gonna be in it,” said Booter.

  “Well, I know, but … what the hell, forget it.”

  “I’ll be at the Grove Play, Jimmy. Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Booter felt the weight of his guilt. He and Jimmy hadn’t missed a Low Jinks together for at least a decade. Jimmy was a born annotator, a bantamweight Boswell who loved nothing so much as the act of explaining. Without a listener, he was lost.

  “Look,” said Booter. “If you keep your trap shut, I’ll tell you the real reason.”

  Jimmy’s scowl slackened. He scratched himself under his arm. “Go on,” he said.

  “It’s George,” said Booter. “He’s coming in tonight.”

  Jimmy blinked at him.

  “The Vice-President.”

  “Yeah. So what? I knew that.” He scratched again and frowned. “What does that have to do with Monte Rio?”

  “Nothing,” Booter replied. “Forget I said that. There’s gonna be a reception up at Mandalay.” This was a much safer lie, since Jimmy had never been invited to Mandalay.

  “A reception?” Jimmy said quietly. “During Low Jinks?”

  The truth, Booter decided, might have been preferable to this tangled web. “It’s very small,” he said at last. “They don’t wanna make a big noise.”

  Jimmy nodded slowly, taking it in.

  “You know I wouldn’t miss the Jinks with you if there wasn’t a good reason.”

  Jimmy ran his fingers through his wispy hair. “Yeah, well, that’s a reason, all right.”

  Booter could tell he was hurt. />
  Jimmy looked up dolefully. “Tell him I said hello, will ya?”

  Betrayed

  STINGING FROM THE INCIDENT AT THE GATE, DEDE RETURNED to her campsite, to find it empty. D’or and Anna were gone, apparently still on their shopping spree at the Crafts Tent. In her current state, she found solitude unendurable, so she doubled back to the boys’ compound and asked for Edgar.

  He arrived dripping wet, fresh from the swimming hole, already the color of a new catcher’s mitt. “What’s up, Mom?”

  “Oh … nothing in particular. Just thought I’d stop by and say hi.”

  He nodded. “I’m O.K., Mom.”

  “I know that.”

  Gesturing behind him, he said: “There’s this really major water fight …”

  “Go for it,” she said, smiling at him. He smiled back, then vanished into the undergrowth.

  She headed inland toward the Day Stage. The walk and the music would be just the thing for her blues. She was here to have a good time, wasn’t she? Why let somebody like Rose Dvorak ruin her day?

  Once out of the woods, she rejoiced in the feel of the sun against her skin. Linda Tillery was on stage singing “Special Kind of Love.” An endless line of women snaked jubilantly across the clearing, drunk on the music.

  She had been there less than five minutes when she saw Sabra Landauer.

  The first thing she noticed was the skunk stripe. The second thing was the tall, bare-breasted woman who stood at Sabra’s side, deep in animated conversation with the poet-playwright.

  It was D’or.

  Her throat went dry. Her skin grew prickly with dread.

  Before she could retreat, D’or spotted her and waved. “Come join us.”

  As if in a nightmare, she moved across the field.

  “I want you two to meet,” said D’or. “Sabra … this is DeDe Halcyon.”

  Not “DeDe Halcyon, my lover,” just plain old “DeDe Halcyon,” thank you very much. Sabra, of course, didn’t need a last name.

  “Hello,” said DeDe, shaking the large, bony hand of the poet-playwright. She was certain she wouldn’t be remembered, and she wasn’t. She turned back to D’or and asked: “Where’s Anna?”

  The accusation in the question wasn’t lost on her lover, but she remained breezy. “Over in Day Care, bless her heart. She wanted to show off her treasures to the other kids.”