“Who do you want me to talk to?” Pody asked, her voice low and referring to the lobbying effort I’d started to make sure our faction had enough votes. We’d been talking all week on the phone.
“Talk to Colin,” I ordered. “See if we can pin down how that waffle is going to vote.”
“Got it!” Pody made a teasing salute as she headed toward Colin.
A half-hour of heated lobbying proceeded until Patton waved for quiet.
“We might as well get right to the main agenda item,” she said with authority. “I have reason to believe that the Center wants to sit down and talk settlement.”
“No way!” June heckled.
Patton continued, “The president of the Center, Ben Teller, has called us. There is pressure from the community to try and find a settlement.”
“Why do you think they want to negotiate now?” asked Enric.
I sighed with relief at how Patton had skirted the question of exactly who had contacted whom first. If it had come up, I was ready to lie outright and say Kight had approached me at another political meeting. But Morris had fulfilled his promise and gotten the president of the Board to call the strikers. This way both sides felt like they’d been first approached by the other. My crossing the line maneuver to make a deal with Morris would remain a secret. Forever, I hoped.
“I have a hunch,” said Patton. “GCSC sees that the September 16 hearing at the Unemployment Benefit Department is coming up. My guess is that the Center thinks they will lose at that hearing, so they want to make an effort to settle before that.”
I jumped on her reasoning. “I’ll bet they want to use granting us unemployment benefits as a bargaining chip. They’ll offer to withdraw their contesting our benefits, in return for us giving them something.” Silence fell as everyone focused anxiously on the possibility of finally getting some money. There was desperation in the room. Half the strikers hadn’t worked for the last four months.
“They hate the picket line and are desperate to get rid of it,” June protested. “That means we’re winning. Now is not the time to negotiate!”
Shouting began. The horses were out of the gate! Taunts were thrown between groups. Questions were thrown at Patton: If we settle will we have to give up our lawsuit? Yes. Will we have to give up the picket line? Of course. Will we get our jobs back? No way to know.
An hour later, the room had congealed into the three groups that clearly delineated the political factions within the Gay/Feminist 16. These were now friendship groups, as well as political affinity cadres. June’s cadre of Communist Party and Maoist allies, who plain out wanted to force the closure of the Center, were firmly rooted near Rachel’s bookcase. These included Dixie Youts, Colin McQueen, Enric Morello, Eddie Culp, and a few others.
Gathered in the middle of the room, against the kitchen’s doorjamb was April’s group, who had also adopted a labor vs. management interpretation of the strike. They simply wanted their jobs or back pay. April, I hoped, knew as well as I did that the Center wouldn’t offer everyone his or her job back. I thought she and her people, Elizabeth “Lizard” Elder, Jesse Crawford, and Terry Pearsy, would settle for receiving weekly unemployment benefits immediately, in lieu of getting their jobs back.
I’d taken my place in the feminist-identified faction, the group that saw GCSC as an important institution that had broken the law and done its employees wrong, but we had never adopted the goal of wanting to close the Center. Gratefully, no one in our all-female group wanted her job back. We no longer wanted to work with men. But there were only five of us: me, Pody, Charlie Jones, Alicia Maddox, and Rachel’s sure vote. To carry the day, my group had to win over most of the middling group. But I felt hopeful. Unlike June’s group, April and company had nothing to win by letting the strike drag on.
By now, it was eleven at night. Empty bottles and cans crowded each other on Rachel’s kitchen table. The haggling had quieted to whispers. I watched Patton place her chair in the middle of the middling group and cross her arms. It occurred to me that she was purposely not running a very shipshape meeting. I wondered if she secretly wanted to let the meeting drag on interminably, hoping that in some exhausted moment before dawn, most of us would leave. Then she could announce that we no longer had a quorum, so no vote could be taken.
I could see the weariness on the faces of my comrades. There was an uncommon sense of deadness in the room as if we were all standing on a ledge, too inert to either fall backwards or forward. Most of us had seen every shirt in each other’s closets. In fact, we’d seen way too much of each other. And like all political battles in their end stages, it had been weeks since new people had come to join our ranks. I knew the time was now or never.
I took a deep breath, walked to the center of the room and held up my arms for attention. “The object of a strike is to win something,” I said, appealing to the several men in June’s group who seemed less shrill. “We can’t win anything if we never talk to the other side.”
I turned to face the women in April’s group. “Doesn’t it bother you to see lesbian strikers and lesbian scabs pushing and shoving each other on the picket line? This sistercide is tearing the lesbian community apart. No changes are being made inside GCSC. Let’s stop this division and go to the table.”
Lastly, I turned to Patton, not about to let her outmaneuver me again. “We’re all exhausted and talked out. I demand that we take a democratic vote, by secret, written ballot. Let everyone vote their conscience.”
No one said anything. Even June was too embarrassed, or too surprised, to countermand my demand for a secret vote. Up to now, her group had been the loudest and had intimidated others. Now, I put my hopes into a written ballot in which no one would know how their friend, or enemy, voted.
Patton looked around the room, but heard no counter.
“Pody,” I called out, “Can you tear up little pieces of paper? Everyone, grab a pen.”
Quickly Pody’s scraps made their way around the room.
“What’s the goddamn question?” June whined.
Patton’s voice cut the silence, “A yes vote means we sit down to negotiate. A no vote means no negotiations.”
A few conferred with others. Most said nothing. We wrote, folded our paper, and gave it to Patton.
I’d retired to Rachel’s back porch to wait for the vote counting. A buoyant moon rose over Rachel’s roofline. Numbly, I stared out into the night, wondering which constellation my lover slept under. A large cloud beamed back a silver lining.
“And the ayes have it,” I heard Patton scream out. “The vote is ten to six!”
“Blessed be!” Pody yelled.
I rejoined my group in a much-relieved group hug. A smile broke out over Alicia’s usually poker face. She grabbed Enric and Eddie and the three of them began jitterbugging in the middle of the room. Someone turned on the radio and blared disco. A male voice started shouting, “Yes! Yes!” to the beat of the music, and for one long beautiful moment we were all just a bunch of dykes and fags, gay-ly happy, all on the same side.
“Everyone! Calm down!” Patton shouted, “We need to pick a negotiating team. Come back to order!”
June yelled out quickly, “Don’t nominate me,” she said. “I’m too angry and I won’t sit at that table. I nominate Enric and Eddie in my place.”
The two boys were quickly elected. Next, I was picked to represent my faction. April, ever the diplomat, was chosen as the fourth member of our team.
Now, two days later, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Oddly, I had a fleeting impulse to jump back into bed and pull the blankets up over my head. A lump formed in my throat.
Why the sudden cold feet, I wondered, trying to find the part in my hair. I’d been desperate for months to find a politically viable way to resolve the controversial mess I’d helped create. Yet part of me didn’t want to go to the negotiation. I’d lived with the reality of the strike primary in my thoughts every waking hour. In a way, I didn’t want there to
be an end. I’d seen this kind of resistance in others in previous campaigns. A long and deep fight would become so enshrined in an activist’s psyche that, at some critical point, the struggle itself became deified instead of the goal. The strike had become a sacred cow in my life, a consuming organism that wanted to live.
“Just put one foot in front of the other,” I ordered, as I finished putting my shoes on and stood up to go. “Just find the faith and do the deed.”
Forcing myself to walk to the garage, I slipped into Lionheart. Maybe, by this time tomorrow, I could be free of the strike. If the negotiation went well, maybe Rachel would come back and we could reclaim our magic. Maybe when she felt that she wasn’t being forced into a political life and the hate and anger this one involved, she’d recover that playful wholeness her personality had when we’d first met. We could then have some peace together. The thought spurred me forward. Today was the beginning of the end of the Great Strike!
The dingy, brown-walled conference room threw off an aura of radical, and therefore noble, impoverished life. Wrangling about where to negotiate—none of us would cross the picket line to meet within the Center—had landed us at the Echo Park People’s Law Collective, Patton’s office. Other than the cigarette-stained wooden table and eight wobbly chairs, the room was as simple as the issues were complex. Not even a pitcher of drinking water graced the table that separated the two teams.
I strode into the negotiation room projecting cool and confidence, wearing black wraparound sunglasses and a black leather wristband with metal buckles. I was not here for warm and fuzzy. I sat across from Morris and drew a deep breath.
My godfather’s negotiating team brought some surprises. Quickly he introduced GCSC’s lawyer, Allan Gross, and two strangers. Street rumor had circled back to us that Gross had said that the picket line looked like “a Bolshevik goon squad out of Doctor Zhivago.” A pleasant-looking young man, with the pale complexion of those recently living on the East Coast, was introduced by Morris as Bob Sirica, the Center’s new Executive Director. Morris’s fourth team member was a woman named Sharon Corneilson. A new Board member, he said. What the hell is this, I wanted to shout at him. Morris had brought in a brand new Director recently airlifted from another city, and a new activist who I knew still publicly called herself “homosexual”—summer replacements with no background. Why not Dr. Teller or Betty Berzon? Something seemed off.
Patton wore a freshly pressed blouse, but underneath the table her bare feet were encased in leather sandals. Calmly, she introduced our troops. The two teams locked eyes, but nodded politely. I sent Morris a small, knowing smile. He signaled me back. A silence fell. Even Morris seemed afraid to test the atmosphere. It was clear there was to be no small talk. It felt like one wrong move, before the dove of peace had a chance to perch, would send both sides to the door.
Gross, the strong-faced attorney for the Center spoke first. “Let me take a few moments to frame the issues and to say that GCSC is here to propose an out of court settlement to the dissidents,” he said.
My team bristled at the center’s refusal to call us “the strikers.” I faded out on Gross’s hundred dollar silk tie and all-American crew cut, not a laminated hair out of place, and turned my attention to Morris. Once again I saw my father’s face in him. His blotchy pink and white skin was nothing like my father’s olive complexion, but I knew the mind behind the face fed on power. It moved Morris to win by any means necessary. Just like Dad. Morris at least respected my political work. Before the strike, I’d even let myself believe that Morris loved me like a daughter. My father, on the other hand, thought that being a gay activist was tantamount to championing Lucifer’s right of return to heaven.
“What we have in front of us is a lawsuit,” Patton interrupted Gross.
“Two lawsuits,” Gross countered his silk tie bobbing as he spoke. “The Center is countersuing the strikers seeking twenty five thousand dollars in damages that the picket line has cost us in donations.”
“Toward the resolution of their lawsuit,” Patton cut him off. “My clients wish me to present demands to you for them to be granted unemployment benefits, to be re-instated with back pay, to approve a reinstatement or revision of the Center’s Personnel Policies and Procedures that comply with California labor law, and…lastly…” Patton paused, and laid down her paperwork. “A public acknowledgement that their terminations were wrongful. And they want to work with you to restructure management and the Board to reflect feminist representation therein.”
Morris spoke. “The Center is proud of its organizational structure. There is no need or desire to change it. What we came to discuss is the abusive and violent picket line and the unsavory boycott of our establishment.”
My teeth sank into the pencil between my lips. To calm myself, I drew a lopsided tiara on the edge of my tablet. Kight had brought his venomous queen side. Forgiveness was not in the air.
Modulating my voice, I spoke to Morris warmly. “It would be a definite sign of good faith in these negotiations if the Center would allow us to claim our unemployment benefits.”
“That is a most reasonable request!” Morris’s tone changed and he waved his arm broadly as though he were granting the benefits on the spot. “If…in a reciprocal sign of good faith, the dissidents would kindly dispense with the picket line.”
“The picket line stays until we get our jobs back!” Enric spoke in a flat, hard voice. He leaned forward combatively, a cheetah ready to launch.
“Let’s talk about the Center’s voided Personnel Policies and Procedures,” I interrupted calmly, steering us back onto a workable issue. “We would like them upgraded and reinstated. GCSC cannot continue to operate outside the law.”
Morris huffed. “We are a gay institution and the first to offer gay jobs. The Center has achieved national significance by showing the straight world we can shepherd our own!”
“Well, then, some of your lambs have certainly been sacrificed,” I retorted.
April ignored me and said with a firm and even tone, “All the more reason to set a nationally significant example.”
Sirica popped in, “I’m happy to report —the Personnel Policies have been reinstated.”
“How convenient,” Enric hissed. “It’s comforting to know that you only void them when you need to fire people.”
Even I was taken aback by Enric’s venom. He hadn’t been able to find work all summer. To eat and live, he’d moved in with a friend.
Unruffled, Patton asked, “Are the Personnel Policies & Procedures now in accordance with California labor law?”
“I believe so,” Gross replied.
“Are you open to us reviewing them to ensure that they are?” Patton persisted.
“I don’t think that’s proper!” the new Executive Director interrupted. “For a non-profit organization to allow a group of…of…outside agitators to approve their employee relations guidelines?”
My team glared at him as if he had missed the last two cycles of the moon.
“There’s very little that has been proper,” I said. “If your Board has indeed rewritten the PP&P’s and brought them up to standard, and then we just happened to see them lying around somewhere, we wouldn’t be ‘approving’ them. We would just know that GCSC is now in compliance with labor law.”
Morris grunted. Gross looked at him and raised his right eyebrow. Morris nodded back.
“That could be arranged,” Gross affirmed.
I gave Patton a quick, small smile. Chalk up one for our side! My brain searched for the next least threatening issue.
Gross offered, “We are willing to drop our lawsuit if you will drop yours.”
In the silence I wondered about making the same deal with Rachel. I’ll drop my other lovers, if you do the same. If only love were more like politics, predictable and sequential. I sighed.
Patton rejoined, “Your lawsuit is predicated on ours. It’s frivolous.”
Gross folded his pinstriped arms across his c
hest.
“What about the unemployment benefits?” I blurted to Morris. “Now that is something you can give easily. Just don’t show up at the Department’s hearing.”
“Paying employment benefits to fifteen people will substantially raise our unemployment tax for a long time to come,” Morris refuted.
Eddie shot out of his chair. “You should’ve thought of that before you fired us!” he yelled.
April grabbed his arm. “The guys and I are going to get some bottles of water,” she declared. “It’s too hot in here to think. You all go on.”
Everyone kicked back for a break. I hadn’t expected shouting so early. I watched Morris huddle with his lawyer.
Turning to Patton, I whispered, “How about we offer to suspend the picket line for one week while we review the Personnel Policies?”
Patton shook her head. “That’s not enough. Throw in the unemployment appeal too.”
April and the boys returned, passing out Coca-Cola cans to both sides.
Before Morris could open his mouth, I spoke. “We might be willing to call off the picket line for ten days,” I said slowly, emphasizing might and looking around to gauge the reaction of my own team. April and the boys came to attention. “If…” I dragged the word out, “if the Center drops contesting our benefits, gives us that time to review the PP&P’s and talks proceed the following week.”
Gross looked at Morris and Morris shrugged. “We can agree to these things,” Gross replied.
I knew my eyes danced with delight, so I lowered them quickly. My hope now was that we might be able to solve the thornier issues of jobs and back pay in accordance with my arrangement with Morris.
I was hoping that most of the strikers didn’t care about back pay. They had to know, the whole community knew, the Center didn’t have any money. Besides, the strike was about issues, not money. But I knew June’s faction, represented by Enric and Eddie today, had no interest in the Center’s financial health or future. I only hoped that Morris would play his pro forma part and put the job offers on the table. Then I could massage the money issue out of existence. This could be a win-win.
When We Were Outlaws Page 34
