Rita Will_Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser

by Rita Mae Brown

  They chose the obvious—sex. My detractors painted me as a female Don Juan. This had the reverse effect. Rather than making me seem hateful, it made me all the more alluring.

  If only I had slept with half the women I was accused of sleeping with—but then I’d never have gotten anything done.

  Since the common view of lesbianism is purely sexual, using sex to tar and feather a leader makes perfect sense.

  And of course, my own ego got in the way. Who wouldn’t want to be thought of as a charming, seductive, irresistible force, with women falling at my feet—or perhaps somewhere a little higher? I did nothing to combat the rumors. I was as dumb as the women who invited the media to the Second Congress to Unite Women.

  At least they could put that behind them. I still have this myth to face.

  For the record, I am very resistible.

  In fact, I was a lesbian in name only, too busy to practice what I preached.

  What did I preach, though? Sex? No. I don’t believe that sex is a topic for political discussion. Harming people because of their sexual preference is.

  Do you think a person wakes up in the morning and says, “I’ll be gay today? I will call down upon my head the hatred of the New Right, the horror of my family and the dissolution of old friendships. Why, I can hardly wait”?

  Get a grip.

  Jerry hated what I was doing. A conservative who still thought he could hide his gayness, he told me to leave well enough alone. If I married him, we could pass. This sudden reversion to marriage was due to his feeling pressure at work. He figured the women’s movement was so tangential that even if a coworker realized who I was, Jerry could laugh it off. He’d have to buy me some nice clothes, though. His wife couldn’t look like a remnant from the military. I hadn’t a penny, and I bought used clothes from the army-navy store before it was chic. That too provided fodder for the mill. Surely this must be some lesbian fashion statement.

  Good God.

  I’d walk home after these meetings glad to curl up next to Baby Jesus. I slept on the floor on two blankets. If the night was bitter I rolled up in them, with a third thrown over me, and sometimes my pea jacket over that.

  Baby Jesus, not some big-boobed babe, was the love of my life. She didn’t care that I was poor. She didn’t care that I was under siege much of the time. After all, if I’d kept my mouth shut, all would have been well. This was my own doing. Politics is a rough arena. She purred at the sight of me. Some mornings I’d wake up and four or five mice would be geometrically lined up for my applause.

  That cat made me laugh. The bloodletting was hard.

  I was learning bruising lessons before I was twenty-five. But the cat was what got me through it all. She knew it would pass and that human endeavor generally turns to dust.

  The horses in the police stables meant more to me than most of the people around me. Those soft brown eyes made everything okay.

  I never spoke of my faith. For some reason the two are one in my mind. Whenever I doubt the existence of God or the Goddess, I look at horses. Only God could have made a horse.

  I am not a conventionally religious person. I’d like to be a member of the Society of Friends, but I don’t measure up to their high standards. Some of the Browns’ ancestors were Quakers. And, of course, so was Dolley Madison, a person whose life I often study.

  But I’m equally happy to worship at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church or Christ Lutheran or St. Paul Episcopal. The denomination is less important to me than the act of giving thanks with other people.

  What better place to give thanks than a stable? It was good enough for Jesus, who made his first appearance in one!

  46

  Footlight Parade

  Anselma dell’olio, Jacqueline Ceballos, Susan Vannucci and I started the New Feminist Repertory. It was better than the endless, mind-numbing ideological debates of the women’s movement.

  Jacqui, in her forties then, was the business brain. She found the Martinique Theater in the old Martinique Hotel at Herald Square. A dumping place for the elderly and mentally infirm, clinging to their government checks, it was an unlikely place for a theater.

  Anselma, wildly beautiful, told the rest of us what to do. She also starred in most of the skits. Susan, married to an understanding man, worked like a dog. So did I.

  Since the others were afraid of heights, I changed the light gels, made friends with the stage manager, blocked actors, worked at the odd, unglamorous jobs. I loved it.

  I’d been fired from my job at a small publishing company, where I wrote press releases, photo captions, you name it, because the publisher read an article of mine in Rat. He blew up. I’d been proofreading a tome for what seemed like the thousandth time when the pink slip came.

  As it so happened, the company’s most important writers were expected that day for a meeting on the revised edition of the book I’d been proofing, their baby and gold mine. The publisher, a cheery-looking fellow with rosy cheeks and a circlet of gray hair around his pink pate, told me to pack up and get out. His looks belied an autocratic temper.

  Having little to pack up, I was out of there in a flash, saying goodbye to the friends I had made in the small company. I did, however, go to a joke store around the corner and buy a big plastic ass. When the boss strolled out for lunch, I slipped back up, put the ass on the back of his door and left.

  I knew he’d close the door when the writers arrived, and I hoped they’d have a giggle. I also hoped the publisher would suffer an instant coronary.

  He didn’t, but the results proved amusing, according to my buddies at work. He raged through the place, finally deciding the Puerto Rican fellows in shipping had done it. Whenever he couldn’t find a culprit he blamed it on the Puerto Ricans.

  Now I worked at the theater full-time. I hoped we’d make enough in ticket sales to pay my rent. Baby Jesus worked with me. The place, infested with mice and worse, was kitty paradise.

  At that time agitprop theater was the off-Broadway rage. We produced not three-act plays but skits. We did produce one short play that was provocative. We opened at the Village Gate on May 19, 1969, and made the front page of the New York Times Arts & Leisure section the day before. Being involved in two projects that got serious attention from the Times bolstered my confidence among the heathen Yankees. I might not talk as they did, but I made things happen.

  Modest though the receipts were, they allowed us to move to the Top of the Gate. Anselma, beauty to the max, charmed Art D’Lugoff, the owner. He let us follow Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. No longer dodging the sad assortment of characters at the Martinique, we reached a bigger audience.

  Since I sat in the pit, ready to prompt, during performances, I was everyone’s understudy. Having no desire to act, I never imagined I’d be put to the test.

  I was. I walked out in a weekly agitprop piece and said my lines. The audience howled. Each time I filled in for someone, I got laughs.

  Anselma, displeased, found other understudies.

  For whatever reason, I have a comic presence. Mom had it, too. It helps to explain why I’d land in hot water at those interminable meetings and odious consciousness-raising sessions. I was not properly miserable and I did not see the world as a terrible place.

  We ran short a piece one week and I dashed off a five-minute bit. Huge laughs. I dashed off more and soon I was responsible for all filler.

  I wrote one-liners, topical jokes and small character pieces. I was flat broke.

  If I took a waitressing job I’d have no time to work with the theater. One summer I worked for the state in an after-care clinic for patients released from state mental institutions. The work was beyond depressing. Contrary to popular myth, crazy people aren’t funny. My best buddy there, a delightful young woman, Candy James, helped dispel the gloom. I don’t know how she stood it. After that summer I couldn’t go back.

  I worked at Hearst one summer, too, but I’m not a corporate type no matter how attractive the payc
heck. I was stuck.

  I called Aqueduct to inquire about breezing horses, grooming—anything. I was hired at my interview but declined the job once I realized I’d have to leave the theater, hop the subway and get to work by dawn. I needed some sleep.

  At that time the city embarked on a massive housing rehab campaign. Old brownstones were being gutted and rebuilt with public monies. Landlords would receive incentives to rebuild inexpensive housing.

  I bought a red wagon and began going into the buildings before they were totally gutted. The stuff the contractors threw out was a sin. I found old wall telephones, mercury-center doorknobs, brass hinges, brass locks, beautiful old stuff. I even found a pair of well-preserved spats in a torn-out chimney once. I guess they’d been used to fill up the flue when the building switched to oil heat.

  I’d take my wagon of goodies down Hudson Street and sell to the antique dealers. I kept up my practice of haunting the ritzy neighborhoods on garbage day, finding chests of drawers, chairs and mirrors, which I resold.

  I made enough to cover my rent, which was $112 a month for a cold-water flat, bathtub in the kitchen. Usually I made enough for one hot meal a day and cat food. The cat food always came first.

  Scavenging gave me an appreciation for solid construction. Some of the old buildings, those Federal ones built between 1800 and 1830, used construction techniques similar to Amish barn building. A few even had large round wooden pegs driven into the joists instead of nails. Often the masonry work was exquisite.

  The Victorian buildings had more modern materials. In those days the carpentry, especially the fine work, was done by Czech immigrants, the stonework by Italians.

  Scavenging posed a few dangers. Once I emerged from a building down in the meatpacking district, my wagon filled with crystal doorknobs. A roar, followed by a wave of dust, scared me good. The whole floor had collapsed.

  If I’d been trapped in there, no one would have found me until the next morning, if then. I checked floor beams after that.

  I saved and bought a membership to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I am still a member. The scavenging work had piqued my interest in decor. I soaked up everything I could about Chippendale techniques versus Sheraton, and so on. Today the Met’s furniture wing is spectacular and worth a trip across the country. The museum is worth a trip regardless of your interests.

  My grandparents, Reuben and Carrie Brown, on their wedding day in 1901.

  Jack Young, my natural mother’s father, in 1940. A local power in the Republican Party, he was “the biggest bullshitter in York County,” according to Juts.

  The Buckingham girls in 1905—from left to right, Maizie, who died of diphtheria, Juts (my adoptive mother), and Mimi. Juts retained that wide-eyed, curious look all her life. Likewise for Mimi’s pout.

  Aunt Mimi at 15, looking glamorous and soulful. No wonder she was the butt of my mom’s pranks.

  Juts at 14, in 1919. She liberated the parasol from her sister Mimi because she wanted to look like a lady of means. Mimi pitched a fit, Juts hit her over the head with the parasol and broke it. Mimi’s head was fine.

  James Gordon Venable at age 21, in 1935. My natural father was a professional weightlifter. I never met him.

  Juts’s younger brother, George “Bucky” Buckingham, was the best-looking man I have ever seen.

  The two Butches! My dad, Ralph Brown, and Aunt Mimi’s dog.

  At 16, my natural mother looked mature beyond her years. Juts always said Juliann was a brilliant girl.

  Dad and Juts with me at six months. My mom had just recovered from severe pneumonia. Dad is exhausted from taking care of both of us.

  The family at Big Mimi Buckingham’s farm in 1945: Eugene Byers is kneeling, far left; PopPop Harmon is kneeling, far right; Big Mimi is in the second row, third from left; my mom is next to her; then comes my aunt Mimi, far right. I’m the baby held up in the back.

  Me in 1948—age 3 1/2 or 4. I’ve just graduated from baby Sunday school.

  Mom with Tuffy, late 1940s or early 1950s. She’s wearing one of her famous poodle dresses.

  Me at nine. I had no choice but to be good since Mom was so bad.

  At ten years and ten months (I counted) with Tuffy. I’ve never lived without a tiger cat. Life without cats is not worth living.

  At age ten with Ginger. Dad said I was too young to work with hounds. I learned to love collies.

  My senior year photo at Fort Lauderdale High School.

  Mom at the Foxfield Races in Charlottesville, 1980: She has just fleeced half the spectators at the steeplechase meet and is celebrating.

  In the mid-70s, I addressed a political rally in New York City’s Central Park. My new shirt came from singer Lana Cantrell, who took pity on me for my wardrobe.

  With Gloria Steinem around 1971, in New York: Her breadth of vision and depth of commitment to all women have always impressed me, but she is also a most lovable woman.

  At thirtysomething, Jerry Pfeiffer was a whirling dervish of activity with a mouth that never stopped.

  April 1981, in the gardens at Flordon, near Charlottesville, Virginia, where Martina and I lived. I love to garden. Eleven days after this was taken, Martina skedaddled to the next great love of her life. Adios to Martina and adios to the gardens.

  Clare Leach, me, and Margot Kidder at my 40th birthday party, which was a fund-raiser for the women’s resource center FOCUS. Margot jumped out of a wrapped box—my birthday surprise.

  Tuxedo, rescued from starvation and disease, January 1995.

  Sneaky Pie signs her first book contract in 1988. Gordon Reistrup, then my assistant, has a firm hand on Pie.

  Summer 1994: Taddy snatches my straw hat. I had sat down to rest after a long, hot afternoon on the tractor.

  Pewter, Sneaky Pie’s plump sidekick, takes a snooze after solving yet another mystery.

  Corgi to the rescue! This is the real-life model for Tee Tucker. How can you not love a corgi?

  Tuxedo living the good life with Rookie, his best friend and a one-cat demolition derby.

  Muffin Spencer-Devlin, the pro golfer, and me after her first foxhunt, in October 1996. The fox survived and so did she.

  January 1996 at the Rockfish River near Tea-Time Farm. It was a winter of whopping snowstorms.

  Elizabeth (Betsy) Sinsel, me, and Tassle, who did not want to pose.

  (Photo by Sue Gerhart)

  Betsy Sinsel and Cindy Chandler. Cindy is a gardener extraordinaire and a wonderful friend.

  At a December 1996 book signing: I love meeting my readers. They are interesting people, thoughtful and good-natured.

  The opening hunt at Oak Ridge, October 1996. I’m surrounded by beloved hounds and brave people. It doesn’t get any better than this.

  Wendy Weil, my agent, and her husband, Michael Trossman, in 1997. We’ve gone from being agent and client to being dear friends. I can’t imagine life without Wendy and Michael, whom I refer to as the King of Testosterone.

  With Joan Hamilton and Betty Behave (the mare) at Kalarama Farm in Springfield, Kentucky. Joan and her partner, Larry Hodge, are two of the best friends I have in this life. Through my friends God has blessed me.

  Me and Lynne Beegle (right) coming in after a hard chukker, summer 1996. Nobody is rich—it’s sandlot polo. We have great fun.

  The wind machine used for this photo drove me to distraction. Mother hated this picture. “False glamour!” she pronounced it. She was right, but a girl needs a little false glamour now and then.

  (Copyright © Skrebneski)

  Few museums were dedicated to the living arts. It was catch as catch can.

  The theater was exhausting. How could I or anyone make a living in theater? I couldn’t sing, dance or act. Worse, why be in front of the footlights? I much preferred being behind them.

  My pieces drew good responses, and I thought I could write for the theater, but research told me I’d starve. I’d starved enough. And experience was teaching me that I was so totally different from the f
eminists as well as the gay men that I’d be knocking my head against the wall.

  One experience from those days stands out especially. I was walking in the Village with Martha Shelley on an evening in late June 1969. She was squiring two ladies from out of town. Even though it was nighttime, the heat was still rising off the pavement in waves.

  I often took Christopher Street because it was a shortcut; like Greenwich Avenue, it ran on an angle. There were bars on Christopher, but mostly for gay men. Sometime during this stroll Martha and her guests parted company but Martha and I continued to walk. The statue of hateful General Sheridan (he ravaged the Shenandoah Valley) loomed ahead near the intersection of Seventh Avenue.

  A Black Maria could be heard tinkling. I don’t remember seeing it but I saw other police cars. The next thing I knew, hordes of men exploded out of Stonewall, a bar. Within seconds, like a flash flood, men poured toward the spot from all around Sheridan Square. Buildings disgorged their occupants.

  Parked cars were overturned like toothpicks.

  There stood Martha Shelley and I in a sea of rioting gay men. Exhilarating as their wrath was, I wondered what they’d make of us. In such violent circumstances lengthy explanations don’t work.

  “I’m your friend” seemed wishy-washy.

  Also, I heard sirens. “Martha, we’d better get the hell out of here.”

  She concurred. We backtracked as fast as we could, winding up at the Women’s House of Detention—no longer standing today—on the corner of Greenwich and Sixth Avenues. But the mass of furious people spilled over there, too. The women in the House of Detention began rioting. We heard one voice in particular screaming, “I want to be free. I want to be free.”