When We Were Outlaws

by Jeanne Cordova

  “They were summoned to a meeting with the publishers in Beverly Hills!”

  I stopped dead and looked at him. “No kidding? Did they say anything more?”

  “No, that was it. She sounded worried.”

  I wound my way through Production and ascended the stairs to Editorial feeling vaguely threatened by Penny’s meeting with The Freep’s new owners. The paper had been an integral supporter of the New Left since its birth in 1960 when it was founded by Art Kunkin as an anti-Establishment, anti-war, progressive alternative to the L.A. Times. But since our government had pulled out of Viet Nam two years ago, it had been hard to find politically oriented advertising money to keep the paper going. Burdened by loans and fighting to save The Freep from bankruptcy, last year Kunkin had been forced to sell us to two sex industry types, known to staff as “Don and Troy,” of New Way Enterprises LTD. I figured any firm calling itself an innocuous name like “new way,” which said nothing about who they really were, meant “sex” in L.A. porn code-speak. Since the war’s end our advertising had become increasingly dependent on sex toys and sex-driven classified ads. As a result, there was a growing schism between our two kinds of readership, those who cared about civil rights and those who bought the paper for its sexual opportunities. Penny and I had talked about how long The L.A. Free Press could continue this way. And what folding would mean for the movement and our lives as civil rights journalists.

  As I walked into my cubbyhole office, my spirits lifted at the sight of an American flag embroidered with the slogan, “Stars & Dykes Forever.” I hung my war jacket on a nail next to my Venceremos Brigade poster.

  Flipping through Bryan’s messages I saw calls from all over the country. One from the attorneys of captured lesbian fugitive Susan Saxe. Last month The Tide had printed her quote upon being captured, “The love I share with my sisters is a far more formidable weapon than the police state” on our cover. The Freep had me covering Saxe’s trial. Other messages were from political trials and battles being covered by fellow Freep writers.

  The last two messages were from Rachel, repeating, “Where are you?” I reached for my calendar. Had I missed any Mondays or Fridays with her? No, it was Friday and I was supposed to see her tonight. I smiled transporting myself to her bed at Effie, lying with her under the Nepalese embroidered bedspread.

  Before I knew it, I was tilting back in my cast-iron swivel chair and dialing her number. It was getting harder to see her only twice a week. I missed her. What we did in bed together and how we did it gave me a kind of dual spiritual and physical satiation I’d never known. Dynamically we were each other’s perfect yin and yang. Would my political life ever slow down long enough to find out if we could be similarly connected out of bed?

  Her answer machine clicked on. Damn. But then I heard the soft intimacy of her recorded voice, reeling me closer to leave a message.

  “Once upon a time,” I whispered into the machine, seized suddenly by the need to tell Rachel that I loved her. “There were these two tiny dykes. I mean they were very, very, tiny dykes—maybe only six centimeters high. Plus, they were teeny, tiny orphan dykes all alone in a big storm on the ocean in a teeny, weenie little orphan boat that used to have a big mother boat, but had gotten lost—”

  BEEP. The machine cut me off.

  Dialing back, I pondered my plotline, continuing. “And the baby orphan boat spoke to the teeny, dyke with curly yellow hair saying, ‘Look. You two are alone in the sea. You need to hang on to each other. If you don’t get out of this storm, your lives could be very short.’ But the yellow-haired dyke answered the orphan boat, ‘Go tell that to the dumb black-haired dyke at the stern. She thinks she’s sailing this boat.’

  “And the teeny, weenie orphan boat said back to her, ‘I can’t speak for you. Go tell her—”

  BEEP.

  Damn!

  I looked up to see Bryan passing my door, looking at me quizzically. I re-dialed.

  “But the yellow-haired dyke said she was too afraid of losing her balance by walking across the rocking and rolling boat in the storm all the way to the stern. So the orphan boat said, ‘I’ll help you!’ And suddenly, a great calm came upon the sea.”

  I could feel the BEEP coming.

  “And so they all lived happily ever after, my love. In case you missed it, the moral of the story is that you should always listen to a boat when it talks to you. I just want you to know that I…ah…” My tongue refused the words “love you.”

  BEEP.

  I fell back into my chair grabbing a stack of paperclips. I twisted them furiously. Fuck tiny orphan boats, I thought, bending a clip into a tight square. Emotions are insignificant in the course of great political events, I paraphrased Angela Davis. If Rachel needed a bleeding heart poet for a lover she should have picked someone like Pody who had nothing better to do with her life than write poetry to BeJo. If I spent my life composing verse, The Lesbian Tide would be a one-page leaflet.

  I flipped on the Selectric and began a story.

  “Do I need an appointment to see the Human Rights Editor?”

  The sound of her voice stopped my fingers. I swiveled around.

  Rachel leaned provocatively against the doorjamb, tilting her head against the wood. Her powder blue eyes winked invitingly. I sat still and stared. She was a shaft of joy in my life.

  “Why do I love you so much?” she asked.

  I jumped out of my chair. “Because I miss you desperately!” Circling my desk, I grabbed her and pressed her into the wall.

  “Go sit down.” She pushed me away. “I want to talk.”

  “Talk?”

  I returned to my chair. She leaned toward me over the desk. Her blouse fell away from her neckline.

  “I came to confirm that you are coming to my house tonight. I don’t like calling you at home. BeJo answers the phone frequently.” She sat down in the chair across from me. Suddenly, the twinkle left her eyes and they looked quite serious. “There’s something important we need to talk about, Jeanne.”

  I grimaced and shut my eyes. “Good news or bad?”

  “I think its good news. I hope you do too, darling.”

  Startled at her new term of endearment, I rolled it around in my head. Darling one-upped sweetheart. Darling was what my father and mother called each other. Darling probably meant staying past breakfast! I liked it—but her tone left me unsure. “Did you get off work early today?” I changed the subject.

  “Yes. I thought you might be able to leave early and we could go to a movie this afternoon or do something normal like other people do.”

  “I’d love to,” I said, “but I’m watching the shop. Penny is at a meeting. I’m in charge until they get back.”

  “I’m always waiting for you.”

  I was taken aback by her sharpness. This felt like long-held anger.

  “I’m here now, sweetheart,” I offered.

  “Until when?” she retorted. “The next ten minutes? Until midnight tonight?”

  I reached across the desk and took her hand.

  She leaned forward. “Seeing the joy on your face and in your eyes when you just now looked at me, I know you love me. That’s why I don’t understand why I see so little of you. It’s always the police, or the Feds, or the gay revolution. I’m growing weary of this, babe. I need more from you, more time together…a fuller relationship. I want us to go away together for a whole weekend, to the desert or the beach. Or even stay home with no phone calls, no meetings, and no politics.”

  I started to sweat, but couldn’t think what to say. I’d felt full and satisfied with our nights together making love.

  “Why don’t we sit together at night and read, or go to the beach together on the weekends?”

  A spasm of panic churned my stomach. What would Rachel and I say to one another if we sat on a beach for a whole weekend? I couldn’t imagine what we would talk about for two days, especially if we couldn’t talk politics. But I had to come up with something. “I’ve got a g
reat idea for how we can spend more time together!”

  Rachel’s face brightened.

  “How about you join The Tide Collective? Then we’d work together every Thursday night and probably some weekend days too.” My voice grew excited. Sharing my child with Rachel was a brilliant idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

  “That’s an outrageously bad idea, Jeanne!” Rachel pulled her hand out of mine. “Why would I want to join a group of your present and ex-lovers? That’s not what I meant by us having a personal life!”

  The stomach spasm tweaked again. I tried to mask my hurt. Rachel didn’t want to join The Tide…my family. Sure there’d be some problems to work out with BeJo, but I’d fix that. Other lovers of mine had joined the staff.

  “I want more time with you!”

  Damn, I whistled under my breath. Time was the one thing I didn’t have to give. I could barely juggle my work as it was. More time with Rachel meant less time for politics or giving up my arrangement with BeJo.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Rachel said as if she’d read my mind. “When we first met you told me that you and BeJo were very non-monogamous. What exactly does being very non-monogamous mean?”

  I gulped, somehow feeling a trap was being laid. Was it time to be honest with Rachel? Now that I was in love with her I wanted her to trust me. “About four or five women a year,” I answered honestly

  “Is BeJo the reason you won’t spend the weekends at my house or go away with me?”

  “Of course not,” I dodged her question. “It’s about time. I don’t have extra time. What does BeJo have to do with you and me?”

  I fiddled with a cig, tapping both ends on the desk. My feet dug into the carpet. This was dangerous ground. Sure, BeJo and I had arranged days and nights, but BeJo dividing up time seemed to be the only way to live a non-monogamous life.

  Rachel saw my forehead wrinkle, saw me holding my breath.

  “Why do we only see each other on Monday and Friday nights, Jeanne?” she asked. This time she didn’t drag out my name.

  “You and I spent most of a weekend together—”

  “Once,” she stopped me. “Do you spend particular nights of the week with BeJo?”

  My brain scrambled. D-day had arrived. You love her, no slippage. “Yes. Okay. We have…an arrangement,” I blurted.

  “An arrangement?” Rachel dragged out the word as though it described a disease.

  I stood up, came around the desk, and fell on one knee in front of her chair. “It started long before I met you,” I explained, cradling her hand. “Years ago, BeJo and I decided, so that we’d know where each other were…”

  I felt Rachel’s body start to stiffen.

  “Stop. Jeanne. What is the arrangement?”

  “Geez, Rachel.”

  “Tell me.” She wouldn’t let it go.

  I forced the words to come out. “That we see our other lovers on Mondays and Fridays.”

  “Other lovers. And you spend every weekend with her?”

  “I can’t remember the last time I was home…I mean, with BeJo for a whole weekend. I’ve always got meetings and marches on Saturdays and Sundays, even the nights…”

  “But in theory, your weekend arrangement is with her.”

  “That’s an empty theory,” I defended. “I’m with you Friday nights and Saturday…”

  Color had left Rachel’s face. Without a word, she brushed me aside, got up and walked, slowly and deliberately, to the door.

  I sank back on my haunches. The “arrangement” wasn’t even about BeJo and me. I’d been living with the same arrangement since I’d ended my monogamous lifestyle in 1970. Since feminism I’d always lived non-monogamously, having two, occasionally three, lovers simultaneously. That’s how feminists were supposed to live outside of patriarchal colonization. We weren’t supposed to be living behind white picket fences. We were radicals. We were engaged in political revolution.

  Rachel stopped at the door, and turned around to face me. “Do you have a beer in this place?”

  “I’ll go check,” I said, walking past her and into the hallway, anything to get away from her staring at me so forlornly. I started down the hall knowing full well that no one drank at the office. Damn! I kicked the wall outside Penny’s office hard enough to make my ankle ache. I should’ve told Rachel weeks ago. Now it sounded like I’d been lying, and at least by omission, I had. But now that she knew, what now? How did other lesbians schedule their non-monogamous lives? Surely, they didn’t spontaneously decide each night whether they’d lay their head down in one lover’s bed or the other’s. That would be emotional and structural chaos. Surely other non-monogamous dykes had pre-planned arrangements.

  Stalling for time, I walked into Tom Thomson’s empty office. The problem was that Rachel wasn’t seeing anyone else. At least, I didn’t think she was. Other than that first night over her bookshelf, we’d never discussed monogamy, never broached the subject. I’d intentionally never wanted to know what she did on nights I wasn’t with her.

  Pausing at Tom’s desk, I felt my stomach muscles churn. Thinking about Rachel with another woman had never crossed my mind. But now the thought made me sick to my stomach.

  Thinking about previous lovers with their other girlfriends had never bothered me. Picturing BeJo in bed with Pody felt…acceptable.

  I heard Rachel’s footsteps behind me. Momentarily, I froze, unable to turn and face her. Apparently, she’d figured out the Editorial Department was empty and there was no beer.

  “Jeanne?” she called softly, dragging my name out like a joint of the finest Colombian as she put her arms around my waist and laid her head between my shoulder blades.

  I turned around slowly. She raised her eyes. They were red and tear-stained.

  “Your arrangement with BeJo has to end,” she said simply.

  I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her lips.

  “Yes,” I sighed and promised. “I know.”

  Chapter 22

  Crossing the Line

  [Los Angeles]

  Mid-August, 1975

  “Rachel?” I spoke excitedly into the receiver. “I just spoke to Morris Kight on the phone.”

  “Morris called you?”

  “No, I called him. About the strike.”

  “Why on earth?”

  Quickly, I told Rachel about the meeting at the WWC and Ariana’s suggestion. “Someone has to cross the line and talk to Morris. Let him know that our side wants a negotiated peace.”

  “Whoa, babe, I’m worried about you. Why you? And I’m not sure the strikers want a negotiated peace!”

  “I know, I agree. That’s why I have to make them believe that Morris called me. That he wants to sue for peace.”

  “My God, that’s quite a stretch in thinking.”

  “Who else is going to make this leap?” I asked.

  Silence. Then, “No one.”

  “Damn sure, no one. Including our attorney.”

  “So what did Morris say? Will he do it?”

  “He seemed shocked. I heard him stop breathing for a second. And then, he pretended my call was the most normal thing in the world, just like old times. He’s open to sitting down and looking for a resolution. He said to come today.”

  “How can you just cross the line? You’d be a scab, wouldn’t you?”

  “Not if my only purpose is to talk terms about the strike. Someone has to cross the line in order to negotiate. Technically, yes, I should get the Strikers Steering Committee to elect me to negotiate for us. But that’s never gonna happen. Plus, they’re fixated. They’re demanding that any offer to settle must be initiated by GCSC. So that’s exactly what you and I are going to do—initiate.”

  “Wait, what do you mean you and me?”

  “I want you to come with me. How soon can you meet me in The Freep’s parking lot?”

  “Did he say to bring me?”

  I sighed, realizing that she was scared. “I’m sure he knows you and I
are lovers. He’ll just think I brought you because we spent the night together, and I made a sloppy personal decision in bringing you.”

  “Are you making a sloppy personal decision?”

  “No, darling. It’s better to have a witness. This way he can’t wiggle out of this later and say he never promised what he did, or that the conversation never happened.” Secretly, my asking Rachel also had to do with moral support.

  “Having a witness cuts both ways. It puts me in a potential hot seat.”

  “I know.” I paused and took a deep breath.

  Rachel was silent. Then she said, “The strike hasn’t gone well has it?”

  “No. It’s quite stalled. But,” I added, “if it ever comes out publicly that you were there, I’ll say it was my idea. I talked you into it. But you can’t trust Morris. He might use it against you.”

  “I have nothing further to lose at the hands of Morris Kight,” Rachel said, letting out a little whistle through her teeth. “If there is a breakthrough I want to bear witness.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  We agreed to meet in the parking lot in one hour. I spun around in my swivel chair, giddy with hope. I sorely wanted to convince Morris that working collectively with women within GCSC would not be the end of his world. At long last, the Great Strike might begin to end today!

  The red light on my private line began to blink. Damn, it was probably Rachel calling back to say she’d changed her mind.

  I picked up. “Rachel?”

  “Is this Córdova?” a deep, male voice asked.

  My brain jumped around. Few men had my private number.

  “Joe?” I asked out loud.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “This is Tomassi.”

  “What a surprise. How are you?”

  “Skip the chat, I’m in a hurry. I want to do another interview.”

  I drawled the two syllables out slowly. “Oh-kaay. Are you up to something new?”

  “We’re getting ready to bomb that Bookstore in Santa Monica I told you about. I want you to cover it for me.”

  “The Midnight Special?”

  “Don’t say that name!” Joe yelled. “They’re tapping your phone.”