“Is that the only reason you left me?” My mom asks again when I don’t respond, as if she has been the victim of neglect.
“How do you do that? Seem innocent, trying to make me feel bad, always turning things around? You were the mother, not me. You sent me to Toronto, remember? I didn’t leave you. And no, it’s not the only reason I stopped talking to you, if that’s your question, but I guess you’ve conveniently forgotten everything, or maybe you really just forget. I know what happened.” I stop and face her. Her vulnerability is not my concern now.
She stayed and I wasn’t there anymore. She could do what she wanted. Free rein, no more pesky daughter to slip the noose around her neck or kick her out of her room, pushing her to be a better mother. She packed me up and made it all look so great from the outside, sending her kid to another city to go to an arts school, while she was manipulating and seducing Clint at home in Montreal.
I inch closer to her bed. “Steffin knew, didn’t he? He told me he saw you at the apartment and that you nearly pushed him out of a window.”
Steffin told me one day while he was on a visit to Toronto during Pride. He said he had been alone with my mother one evening. Her hatred for him had escalated to new heights, and she put her fingers around his throat and threatened to push him out the window where they stood. She blamed him for taunting Clint, blamed him because he knew about her, and she wanted him silenced.
“He’s a liar! He was the one that caused it. He was the one spreading rumours.”
“You choked him.”
Steffin tried to tell. Steffin could read people, push people. “He told me you choked him and nearly pushed him. That wasn’t a lie.” I am now standing over her, my hands clenched around the bars that hold her in.
“I should have pushed him.”
“Mom!” It slips out again, the word mom, but I don’t care. I am in shock that that sentiment, those words, could easily fall from her lips, that she hated a teen that much.
“I’m sorry,” she says and grabs my hand like a Venus flytrap.
For what? I pull away. Her hand falls to her side.
“I’ll be back. I need to go get a drink. I’ll see you later,” I say and slowly make my way to the visiting room and sit by a window, looking out over the bare trees in the courtyard. Surely there had been a time when she was young that she dreamed of more? At what point did her conscience start to slip through her fingers?
I don’t know what to do with myself, wonder if there were other young people my mother tried to seduce, maybe other friends of mine or even Lou’s or Diego’s.
A woman enters the lounge, drying her tears with her sleeve.
“Do you want me to leave the lounge?” I ask.
“No, it’s fine, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to bother you.”
“You’re not … I was just resting, thinking.”
“I’ve seen you here before.” She sits across from me.
“Yeah, my mother has been here for a while. Uterine cancer.”
“I’m sorry. My husband is here. Eye cancer.”
“Sorry.”
“I just don’t know what I’d do without him, ya know?” She is soft-spoken.
“I understand. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, of course you do. It must be hard for you to face losing your mother.”
I look at her and accept her idea of what losing my mother would be like. I have heard these types of phrases my entire life. People assumed a relationship existed, or that we were connected in ways other mothers and daughters were, during holidays, Mother’s Day, or every day. I rarely corrected anyone. It was easier. The idea of mother was sacred to many, or at least the illusion of it. Pedophilia was not the first thing that came to mind for most when thinking about mothers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
1986
OPENING NIGHT OF Carla’s film was held at a beautiful mansion with large, luscious gardens and fountains — a fairy-tale castle fit for kings and queens. I was the lesbian Cinderella in pants and leathers trying to fit in with a crowd of invited artists and intellectuals, the men in black tie, the women in heels and dresses, with their faces perfectly painted masks.
That perfect femininity and controlled beauty always intimidated me. I didn’t understand why, but I knew that they were the desired construct of woman, which meant I was undesirable. I wasn’t sure what Carla saw in me. My stomach ached and I felt out of place in the circle of filmmakers.
“I can’t watch the show with everyone. I’m going to the projection booth,” Carla said in the bathroom, visibly nervous as she paced in front of me. Her hair had been gelled so that it stuck up on the top of her head in a horrible mullet. She was wearing more makeup than I had ever seen her wear, and she was as nervous as I was. Spontaneously, I grabbed her hand and we stood close to each other, face to face, almost hugging, her fingers in mine. Her breath was hot on my skin.
“It’s okay … don’t worry, they’re going to love it because you wrote it and because you’re brilliant,” I said, still holding her hand. She didn’t let go.
“You think? You’re so sweet.” Carla dropped her head on my shoulder. She was wearing a black miniskirt and jacket and smelled like pineapple, alcohol, and perfume. Her hair touched my neck and a surge of electricity passed through me. I pulled her in closer for a hug.
“Well, we better get out of here before someone thinks something is going on.” Carla pulled herself away slowly, then opened the door. “Come find me when the screening is over, okay?” She disappeared.
I did a little dance and stared at myself in the large bathroom mirror before running out to take my seat.
Carla and I were the only two left in the building after drinking and partying all night at the bash. I requested the Pretenders’ “I’ll Stand by You,” and played air guitar for Carla, singing along to the whole song. I belted out the lyrics, half kneeling on the ground in front of her, in love, not caring who was left at the party, my energy and Carla’s like a cosmic collision, a comet crashing into Earth full speed ahead.
I sipped my beer and looked at her on the couch where she sat looking back at me. I got up to sit beside her and let my hand fall near her thigh.
“I have the key to this place, you know. It’s four in the morning,” she said.
“What do you want to do?” I asked, my hand touching her thigh on the couch, hidden where no one could see, just in case.
“I’m heading out,” said the director of program. “You can stay, but make sure to lock the door, Carla,” he said as if he knew we weren’t going to leave.
“Yup, we’ll be going soon. Just going to have one more beer and a few more songs.”
“Good work tonight, Joanne, Carla. G’night.” He left.
“Is it really just us left in this mansion?” I asked.
“Yeah … want to grab another drink and go upstairs on the veranda?” Carla put her fingers through my hair for the first time. “You’re so fucking cute. I couldn’t fucking stand watching you sing along with Chrissie Hynde and not kiss you.”
I looked at her, my heart in my throat.
“Have you ever been with a woman before?” Carla asked after we had climbed the circular staircase to the top floor of the building. We walked down the hall, hands clasped together, and found a large darkened room with large bay windows and double doors that led to a veranda, a beautiful porch with the moon above and the fountain below, a constant flow, the sound of water like a song playing just for us as the trees whistled in tune in the green evening with the smell of summer all around.
“It’s so romantic here, don’t you think?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s beautiful … and no, I have never been with a woman before.” I didn’t know what to do or how. Wasn’t sure if I was supposed to lead or she was. I didn’t know if there were unspoken rules. I was shy, uncertain.
“Can I kiss you?” she asked, tucking strands of my long hair behind my ear, looking into my eyes while her other hand held mine.
I leaned in to kiss her without answering. We kissed tenderly and held each other’s faces, hands brushing up and down backs as we kissed some more and explored with our lips, gentle, light.
“How was that?” Carla asked.
“Amazing. Can I kiss you again?” I asked, leaning in to kiss her a second time. My heart trembled, wanting to feel hers close to mine, against my chest.
After we left the veranda, we made a mattress out of couch cushions and held one another, kissing softly until we fell asleep, arms entangled, bodies curled together, a perfect fit. When we woke, we stared into each other’s eyes, glossy, giddy, brushing each other’s palms with our fingertips.
“I always wanted to kiss you, but thought maybe I was the only one that had feelings,” I said.
“I had a crush on you the minute I saw you in that audition, with that leather jacket and your Jimmy Dean jeans and those big eyes,” she said back.
“I think I did, too, that first day. I was convinced about you. I was so nervous and I just wanted you to pick me, to cast me, kiss me.”
“You’re a kid.”
“Ha. My first boyfriend said that, too.”
“Ha ha ha, shut it.” Carla kissed me again.
A breeze came through the window, sending a chill into the room. I pulled Carla in closer, until we faced each other. I didn’t know that loving a woman would align my insides like a photograph coming into focus. “Can I look at you, just your eyes and your face? I just want to see you,” I said gently cupping her face, tracing the lines on her skin, the tiny scar near her right brow, the shape of her eyes. I was afraid she looked a little sad, but thought it was just my own insecurities, my own self-doubt. I wanted everything bad to recede. I kissed her forehead and we held each other close, as if we were one solid, strong body filled with tenderness.
“Do you seduce all your actresses?” I asked, sipping cognac in the pub a few days later, “I want to know everything.”
Carla lifted one side of her mouth in a half smile. “No, only you. I’ve never been with any of my actresses before.”
“Oh bull.”
“No, really…”
“What about jailbait?”
“Again, only you.” She sipped her drink. All I saw were her lips, the small crease along her neck, her collarbone half covered by a white cotton shirt under a worn leather jacket with a painted eagle on the back. I touched her legs under the table with my hand, over her knee. The old Irish pub was dark, with middle-aged drunken patrons hanging from barstools with pints. There were no women here, let alone lesbians, except for Carla and me. We rattled through all our favourites: De Niro, Judi Dench, chocolate ice cream, Frida Kahlo, Bette Davis, sleeping on the left or the right, Joan Jett, Audre Lorde, Sylvia Plath.
“How can you call yourself an actress without having seen Days of Wine and Roses?” she asked.
We were drunk on whisky and repressed kisses.
“Pat Parker,” I said.
“Don’t know him.”
“It’s a her. And how can you not know Pat Parker?” I teased. “Famous poet? Activist? Black Panther?” She shook her head no. “There is more to life then movies, you know.” I wanted to touch her and hold her in public, but I knew better.
“No, there isn’t,” Carla said.
“You’re missing out on real revolutionaries … they’re not just in moviesss.” I slurred a little. “What about how we live? Why it’s so fucked up that gay people live like we do, in hiding?”
“The world doesn’t like hookers or fags —”
“We’re not that,” I said, not because I had anything against hookers or fags, but it felt like a slur and I wanted no part of that. “We’re just people.”
“You’re naive. But sweet. Come on, let’s get out of here and grab a little food,” Carla said.
We stumbled out of the bar and fell off the curb together without noticing, missed the whole step down entirely and dropped onto the road with a thud. We couldn’t get up, we were laughing so hard. Carla’s pants ripped at the knees. I kissed the flesh exposed on her leg, then moved up to her lips, there in front of a tree planted in a patch of soil surrounded by concrete. She pulled me up and away from the street. We grabbed a slice from the three-for-one pizza place below my studio on Parliament Street. We walked up the steps to my room, where we left the uneaten slice of pie on the table, kicked off our shoes and clothes, and collapsed into bed in hunger for each other.
Carla and I started spending all our free time together. On the days I knew I would see her she would say, “Don’t eat today because I want to take you to dinner and I want you to eat with me, not push the food around the plate.”
I would only have dinner with her if I had not eaten lunch, and sometimes I didn’t want to have sex with her if I’d eaten. I felt too heavy with food. Not eating allowed me to float, disassociate. Sex was intimate, messy, with uncontrolled feelings I did not want to expose, not even with Carla. I couldn’t fully let go, and the nagging voice inside my head was like a tripwire, sometimes sounding like my mother, words incessantly rotating in my head, like fat or Don’t cry or Do you love me? I didn’t want her in my head. It was exhausting. Keeping an internal world secret and suppressing childhood memories took a lot of energy. I could only share stories of my childhood with Carla in short bursts, unable to tell all. But I would, eventually.
Carla was just trying to enjoy herself with me like normal grown-ups did, except I wasn’t normal and I wasn’t entirely grown-up. I was a baby dyke. That’s what her roommate called me when I went knocking.
“Carla, the baby dyke’s here,” the singer with a famous song said from behind the door. She was beautiful, mature, and confident. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her music, but I stayed silent, embarrassed by my youth somehow and wishing I could appear more adult. After all, I was simply a baby dyke to her, not so much a grown-up lesbian.
Navigating the world of lesbians could be tricky. There were all these power dynamics to adjust to, like in any family or tribe. Especially at the lesbian bar in Toronto we referred to as the Hose, where everyone seemed to know each other, a large dysfunctional family that included the cocaine-addicted DJ who looked like a female version of Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, the bartenders who could have picked me up by their pinky fingers, large and strong looking, and the patrons, from the butch bull dykes to the pixie queers to the softest and tenderest femmes. Some were young like me, sometimes carded or snuck in by others. It was the only place for women to be where they could feel safe, to dance, to hide. Sexual energy filled the bar, especially when a slow song was playing and women crammed in together on the floor, swaying and kissing. In the bathrooms, we all knew if the door wouldn’t open that people were either having sex or doing drugs, or both. Someone would inevitably get angry and knock. “Open the damn door and take it home. People have to use the toilet.”
Women cruised all the time. I felt the eyes of women, usually older, following me like I was fresh meat. And when those eyes locked on me, it was like they were undressing me. I was ridiculously uncomfortable, uncertain of my place in the world of lesbians, not knowing if I was supposed to be a femme or a butch or if those roles mattered anymore. It wasn’t the 1950s, but lesbians came in all sorts of packages, and I just didn’t know what sort was mine. But I knew that the women were strong, even the softest ones who sat in corners nursing drinks. And the ones who bound their breasts and wore suits and ties, who stood tall and dignified even though they could be jumped at night or harassed on the outside of the women’s bar, out in the jungle of our city where queers were still vilified. And especially the butches, the ones who did not pass or try to. They were the bravest of us, out there for all to see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I WAS PRACTISING for a part I was hired to play on Street Legal, a fifteen-year-old blind prostitute. I borrowed a cane from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and wore dark-tinted glasses, then spent the week on the streets with my props, pret
ending to walk without sight in the downtown core, at crosswalks, on sidewalks, and in public spaces.
Carla had a little Havanese, a small teddy bear–type dog with black and white fur that she brought everywhere she could with her. One night we had the dog with us and we really wanted to go into a pub but knew we couldn’t take him in, so I put my glasses on, held my cane, and grabbed the leash.
“Can we come in? Can I bring my guide dog?” I asked, thinking we would get turned away because no one used a Havanese as a guide dog, but the wait staff let us in. We spent most of our time giggling because I had to pretend I was blind all night, which became harder to do the more beer I drank. For a girl who had never made it through high school, I was certain that intelligence did not equal academic achievements, and if college kids working at bars thought Havanese were trained dogs for the visually impaired, then I was going to do well in the world.
The following day I practised with my cane on Bay Street. A group of four teenage boys passed me, calling me four eyes and every other name they could think of. I whipped off my shades and started to chase them up the street toward Bloor, trying to hit them with my cane. “Who you calling four eyes, you fuckers?” I raged, swinging the cane as they ran from me screaming.
“Holy shit, she’s crazy!”
Carla and I laughed ourselves to sleep after I retold the story a second and third time, each time with a new detail about how their arms were up in the air or the high-pitched screams they made. I loved that laughter was the last thing we heard from each other before sleep, stroking hair, bodies entwined, giggling into quiet before dreamland. We were still enjoying the bubble we had created, living inside our own little black-and-white movie together, in hiding. I would keep our new relationship under wraps, which at first wasn’t hard to do. We were used to compartmentalizing, and I was used to embodying other characters as an actor, abandoning myself for make-believe. But abandoning my own truth to keep someone else’s secret would prove to be devastating.
All We Knew But Couldn't Say Page 15
