by Lee Lynch
Kurt continued to stand behind his desk. Now he leaned over it, supporting himself on his fists. His face had relaxed, as if he’d realized that a simple explanation would suffice to resolve this.
“I think you ladies know that I’m a Christian. I manage this company on Christian principles and assume that the rest of the businesses in the Valley uphold decent standards. There is no room in this country for the filthy behaviors we see being paraded in front of our youth. I don’t advocate discrimination, but my job puts me in a position to help draw the line.”
She looked at Chantal. “Tell him,” Chantal said simply.
Despite the air conditioning, she realized that she had broken out into a sweat. She’d never come out in the face of such immediate consequences before. He just didn’t know, about her, about anyone gay.
She leaned toward him. “Kurt, I’m gay. And I’m the one your wife is accusing—wrongly—of touching that young woman at the softball game.”
He paled, looked at Chantal. “And you? You’ve been with me over five years, Zak. You—your friends support this?”
“Don’t talk like we’re perverts, Kurt.” He half fell, half sat in his desk chair. “Annie would no more touch Lorelei Simski than I would. You have a lot of gay employees, always have. If you dismiss all of us there’d be a definite personnel problem.”
“You too?” Kurt said. “This has gone further than I even thought.” He looked stunned. “How many? How many of you are there?”
“That’s not mine to tell you,” Chantal said. “And Annie and I need to get back to work. Neither of us could stay silent, though, with our coworkers out on the floor waving those flyers around. We’re not monsters any more than you are, Kurt. Most of us are good; some of us are bad, just like the straight employees.”
“And,” added Annie, “it’s just no good, trying to hide anymore. I can’t do it. If you fire all of us I won’t go quietly.”
Kurt stared up at them. “Is that a threat?” he asked, but there was no punch to the accusation. He simply looked like a man without a clue. With any luck, he had his clue now.
“No, no threat. Just something you should know. I couldn’t protest at the Farm because I didn’t want to hurt the workers, but here—a little publicity won’t hurt the laxatives. Put yourself in my place, Kurt. I do good work. Would you stand by and just let it happen to you?”
Kurt held his head in his hands, eyes covered. When he looked up there was true puzzlement in his eyes. “How do I reconcile what the Bible teaches with what you’re telling me? You’re a mother, Zak. You’re a model employee, Heaphy. Evil comes in all forms, but am I really prepared to recognize evil? Can I really tell my congregation that their neighbors and coworkers are abominations in the eyes of the Lord?”
“Do you really believe yourself that we’re evil, Kurt?” Chantal asked quietly.
His eyes had become clearer. “I really believe you can be helped and forgiven.”
“And I think,” said Annie, “it’s you who need to be forgiven—for judging us.”
Kurt’s face took on a pitying expression. Annie decided she’d had enough. She led Chantal to the door.
Outside Kurt’s office, they hugged hard.
“He looked,” Annie said, “like we hit him over the head. Maybe—do you think he can learn?”
“I think he’s going to have to. Fast. There’s one thing most people don’t know about Medipak that may make a difference, Sugar. As much as Kurt may strut around like the chief executive peacock, Medipak is part of a multi-national corporation.”
“This is good news?”
“Remember the personnel manager at the Rafferty Street meeting who works for the surgical instrument company in Upton?”
“The black dyke? They have a sexual orientation clause.”
“Same corporation, Sugar. I think Kurt’s hands are tied. Life may be hell for a while, but he’s not going to get himself in hot water over a bunch of queers. The big bosses might even like to know who I saw in the conference room with Mrs. Kurt.”
“Who?”
“Mutt and Jeff. They were folding these stupid flyers on company time and property.”
Annie laughed. “It’d be pretty funny if Kurt was the one who got fired. Not that I wish it on him. It might backfire on us.”
All afternoon Annie strutted through her routine, chest warm with pride, legs still a little shaky, waiting for her pink slip. But it didn’t happen.
After work, Chantal came over to the Grape with Nettie Wilson, the bookkeeper, by her side. Nettie, white haired, heavy, dark skin flushed even darker, was famous at Medipak for her snappish attitude and her capacity to sweat under stress, and today the men’s white handkerchief she clutched was sodden.
“I just want to tell you, Annie Heaphy,” Nettie said, taking one of Annie’s hands in her own clammy one, “I’m so happy for the both of you that you found each other. Don’t you worry either. If Kurt tries any funny business he’ll have to give walking papers to more of us than the gays.” She looked back at the building. “These people need to be leaving judgment to the Lord.”
She swept away trailing a moist powder scent before Annie could think of anything to say. She finally called; “Thank you!” as Nettie rolled down the window of her battered old Impala.
Chantal took Annie’s arm. “I came out to my whole department,” she told Annie.
“You what?”
“It’s the only way to show Kurt that we have some support. Even if he just thinks all of us are weird, maybe he’ll talk to us before he acts.”
She stared at Chantal. “You are some kind of woman.”
“Your kind?”
“My kind,” Annie answered. “Definitely my kind.”
Chapter Nineteen
Annie and Chantal spent more of the weekend by Gussie’s side than in bed, and took some time that rainy Sunday afternoon to get together at the diner with Sheryl, Cece, Louie, Nicole and a few others to tell them what had happened with Kurt.
“Gawd,” said Louie. “Kurt must have preached the sermon from hell this morning. Feel the flames, folks!”
Cece slammed her fist on the table so hard the silverware rattled. “I’m going to come out to that shitheel, too. What good does it do to keep my mouth shut? The insurance covered my bike—and my bike buddies wouldn’t let me dirty my hands. They took care of the kids who did it.”
Sheryl asked, “Who was it?”
“High school punks. You remember the kids who put the black runner in the hospital after that track meet last year?”
“The runner is our neighbor,” Nicole said. “He’ll never compete again.”
“Tell him these creeps aren’t going to pull anything else in this town soon.”
On Monday, her last week at Medipak, Annie went to work filled with an expectant tension. She seemed to be working at double-time, but couldn’t slow down.
“Hold it!” cried Louie.
Annie couldn’t stop. She slammed into him at full speed. Their bins went skidding across the floor, cards of aspirin tins, handfuls of combs, and dozens of bubble packs of lip balm scattering.
“Dizzy dame,” said Louie. “You’re in hyper drive.”
“You’re right,” she admitted. “I’m really sorry. You okay?”
Cece came to help them pick up and separate their orders. “What’re you trying to do, Heaphy? Set a productivity record on your way out the door?”
“I’m just a nervous wreck.”
“You’ll make the rest of us look like we’re on a work slowdown.”
“Not likely. I’m probably making a million mistakes in my orders and I’ll be pink-slipped even if Kurt doesn’t find me morally unsuited to picking and packing. I probably ought to give notice early, before he beats me to it. If this is psychological warfare, I’m losing bad.”
The rain lingered through Monday, but nothing happened at work. Tuesday nothing happened. All day Wednesday, nothing happened. Annie stalked the railroad tracks
behind Rafferty Street, silently ranting at Kurt as he terminated her. She was holding off giving notice until she saw what he did. If Kurt canned Chantal she would quit in protest.
“Life’s not like some TV show,” she complained to Gussie. “I actually have to live through every tedious minute between crises and victories.”
“Be patient. We’ve always survived the cycles before. This’ll get sorted out.”
“You’re right. Now I know first hand about oppression. It’s a long torturous process, isn’t it? Being a despised minority means waiting around for the majority to pat me on the head or smack me.”
“I wish all the kids could get out of Medipak, Socrates. It’s going to make you crazy, watching them hatch their plots against us right in front of you.”
“Don’t I know it? But jobs don’t exactly grow on trees around here.”
Despite it all, the late May twilight was blue with promise at Maddy’s graduation on Wednesday evening. Azaleas glowed like lanterns, leading the crowd into the vaulted auditorium of the high school. The excited adults chattered, the few children were quiet and big-eyed.
Maddy’s dad had refused to travel out from Nebraska to watch his queer child graduate, but Giulia, more stern-faced than usual, and Mario, bowing and smiling to everyone, were back from their honeymoon. Teachers were encouraged to attend, so Venita, in a loosely woven straw hat whose brim made a radical dip down one side of her face, sat with Paris and Peg. They’d been able to get tickets for Annie and Gussie from other teachers. Chantal managed two tickets from an ex in-law whose sixth grandkid was graduating. She offered a seat to Jennifer Jacob. They flanked Maddy’s mom, Sophia Scala, filling half a row.
“Only one man, Mario?” asked Sophia. “There should be more men. It doesn’t look so good.”
Annie looked at Peg who made a face, but whispered, “I’ll try.” She returned several minutes later with one of Maddy’s gay Yalie friends. Peg introduced him to Sophia, who patted him into the seat next to her.
“How come you never come by the house?” Sophia asked him in a loud whisper. “I didn’t know my Maddalena had any boyfriends.”
The boy was saved by the first notes of the high school band. He grimaced. Gussie briefly covered her ears only to have a wrist playfully swatted by Venita. Annie and Chantal interlaced fingers. Annie was a sucker for “Pomp and Circumstance.” She felt herself getting ready to cry.
As the graduates began their procession from the lobby to their seats, Chantal whispered, “I remember Merry and Ralph in their black gowns. Merry was absolutely solemn. Ralph kept twirling his tassel with an index finger, grinning like a kindergarten graduate. And me, both times I used so many tissues the inside of my purse was damp for a week.”
Annie rocked back and forth on her seat, craning her neck to watch for Maddy, but instead found herself meeting eyes with the guy in white who’d been smoking outside the hospital the day she’d stopped to talk with Dusty, Elly and Judy. She whispered to Chantal.
“There’s nothing,” Chantal said with a knowing grin, “like a little town for running into trouble. Where is he?”
Annie showed her.
“Oh! That’s my ex-husband.” Chantal waved. He gave her the thumbs up. “I told him all about you. He’s just checking you out. He’s a supervisor in the hospital cafeteria. His sister must have dragged him here to watch his niece graduate.”
“You mean he’s not the enemy?”
“No. Scowling is his natural expression. He’s remarried, has two new babies and is glad I leave him alone. He’s not above telling lesbian jokes, but really he could care less.”
She hadn’t quite sorted through the idea that there might be neutral non-liberal heterosexuals in the world when she saw the first triangle.
“Chantal,” she whispered, taking her hand, “look. I should have known Maddy would use buttons.”
A good third of the kids wore oversized pink triangles, yellow stars, black triangles and other insignia for the Nazi condemned. “Holy Navratilova,” said Annie.
To be certain their meaning was lost on no one, each construction-paper cutout had been affixed with a swastika and a word: Gypsy, Disabled, Gay, Jew, Jehovah’s Witness. Only twice was it obvious to Annie that the badge matched its wearer: the blind student and the young woman on Canadian canes.
Maddy, who was still fumbling to attach her black triangle—they must have put them on at the top of the aisle, just past the censorious eyes of teachers—also wore a Gay and Proud button.
Chantal was trying to save her eye makeup with a wet wad of tissues. Peg, on the other side of Annie, stood so erect she looked as if she’d burst her fancy vest buttons with pride. Jennifer was springing up and down on the balls of her feet, silently clapping her hands. When the last kid filed in, the Yale boy started the real applause and, although much of the audience did not join, it took the national anthem, haltingly played by the band, to stop those who had. Annie’s row sang the anthem with unbridled vigor. Look at me! she wanted to shout. Here she was at a small town graduation, singing the anthem, watching a political protest. She felt American in a way she never had before.
Later in the ceremony, as the principal introduced Maddy, Chantal leaned to whisper, “Has she heard if she’s getting into Yale yet?”
“They’ll take her, but she’s waiting for the financial package.”
Maddy bounded to the podium to give her speech. The legs of her jeans—no white dress for her—were obvious under the gown. The kid’s curly black locks looked wilder than usual, spiraling out from under her cap. She punched the air as she spoke. She grinned. She mopped her eyes with a lavender bandanna as she told the audience what it felt like to have suddenly found out that she was going to be considered a freak the rest of her life.
“But it doesn’t have to be like that!” she shouted into the microphone. There was a smattering of applause. “I’m Maddy Scala, daughter of a junk-picker and a welfare mom. Two years ago, I was one step away from a street corner and a dirty needle. I was a major dropout, a teenage runaway. Like Janis Joplin sang, freedom was just another word for nothing left to lose.”
“Right on!” shouted a student in the audience.
“Why?” Maddy continued. “Because of my packaging: I was different from most of you because I’m a gay kid. Do you know what it feels like to be despised because of who you are? There are small-minded people in every town and in Morton River, some non-gays have decided to blame us for unemployment and crime and affirmative action and the fact that they can’t understand or keep up with the changes in the world. These mean little people want our Selectmen to assume that gays molest while the real molesters—so many straight husbands and fathers—get away with murder in their own homes!”
Louder applause and a slew of yeses from female voices punctuated this remark. On the platform behind Maddy, the school principal whipped the skirt of his robe closer around his knees. The valedictorian looked as if he were trying to swallow his delight. Annie was trying not to bounce in her seat. The kid was hot.
“I don’t care who passed what gene on to me, or what any shrink or senator or colonel or preacher says about me, I have a lot to offer Morton River, and Morton River would be terrifically stupid to refuse the gifts of any of its kids.” This got a resounding response, but one man stood and shook his fist toward the stage. A hand reached up to pull him back to his seat.
Venita whispered down the row, “I’ve never seen an audience so lively over a graduation speech!”
The deep breath Maddy took was visible. “And today I, Maddy Scala, daughter of a junk-picker and a welfare mom, teenage runaway and gay paisan, am also Maddy Scala, salutatorian of Morton River High School, and Maddy Scala, only the fifth kid from Morton River ever to be accepted to Yale on a full scholarship.”
“She got it!” cried Chantal, jumping out of her seat.
The whole row leapt up to cheer and applaud, Sophia Scala wearing a wide smug smile to show that she’d been in on Maddy�
��s secret. At least half of the audience had risen to give Maddy a standing ovation.
Annie shot up a fist and yelled, “Yes!”
Afterward, outside, a contingent of members of the gay group at Yale, V.O.W. activists and PFLAG members lined the sidewalk under lampposts to reinforce Maddy’s message, smiling pleasantly behind their poster board signs: Separate Church and State—Don’t Legislate Hate! No Screening—Discrimination Hurts Us All!
There were people who scurried by, but more who read the signs and even a few who stopped to talk and ask questions.
Annie and Gussie found Elly and Dusty. Summer would arrive officially the next week and, as if to celebrate, the night was warm enough that almost no one wore jackets. Annie said, “I thought you two would be resting up before your flight. Isn’t tomorrow the day you catch a five a.m. limo to JFK?”
“We were too thrilled to sit home when we could be part of the demonstration. It’s like winning Revolutionary-For-A-Day,” Elly said, a new brand of excitement in her eyes and voice.
Verne might never have happened.
Dusty observed, “We should be home packing.”
“You’ve been filling that suitcase for a month, you old pack-rat.” Elly hugged Dusty’s arm and explained, “Every two days she takes everything out and in goes an alternate wardrobe.”
“The weather keeps changing over there. And it won’t take a truck to get my things to the airport, like it will this one’s,” Dusty explained, pointing to Elly with a thumb. “If you hear we’ve gone down over the Atlantic, you know who’s to blame.”
“Come to Rafferty Street for cake and ice cream,” Gussie ordered them, taking Elly’s hand. “We’ll make it a bon voyage as well as a graduation party.”
“Can we bring Lorelei?” Dusty asked.
“Could you?” asked Annie. “I’d love to see her.”
Elly answered. “The Simskis found the decency to let her go back into a group home. Lorelei was just pining away. And they’re not total monsters.”
