by Lee Lynch
This early, she had the City to herself. She almost skipped at times from happiness at loving her city and being free to walk the streets. The long grey ribbon of 5th Avenue seemed to shine under the sun. The buildings along it, all tall, all dressed up with their decorative fronts and elegant ground-floor shops, were full of a magic different from what she found in the buildings in the Village. This was a straight magic which had to do with commerce, money, a world not hers. And the people who walked beside these buildings were dressed in a Sunday finery bought from those shops, earned in those buildings. Even the traffic lights, clicking green and red, seemed polished as if New York’s most famous parade route were daily on inspection.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral loomed before her, all spires and stained glass. Throngs of well-dressed people strolled sedately down its steps, down, down to where she walked. They seemed to disapprove of her in glances that refused to rest on her. She didn’t care. They probably wished they too could put on their boots and go walking, carefree, around the City. She looked at the younger women with their parents or new husbands and thought, what a waste that they’re with men. One in particular caught her eye and she walked partway down Fifth Avenue pretending to have her on her arm.
By the time she got to the House of Detention she was starved for breakfast and she wandered the unfamiliar daytime streets looking for a restaurant. People were beginning to emerge from brownstones for their papers, to walk their dogs. She ducked into a narrow place and ordered breakfast at the counter, reading a Daily News she’d bought next door. Mary was probably bringing Jessie her paper and breakfast in bed right then, but she didn’t envy Jessie and Mary their cozy home. She, Frenchy, had her freedom, and she relished it. She put a toothpick in her mouth as she left the restaurant.
In and out of the narrow, sometimes cobbled, back streets of the Village she walked. The sun had grown hot and she welcomed the cool shadows cast by rows of brown-stones and the newer, fancy high rises. Here and there a shop opened to sell flowers, or hippie-type clothing or odd pottery she saw nowhere but the Village. A couple of times she swung by one of the bars, hoping the seedy-looking places would be open so she could stop in for a drink, maybe see one of her pals. Here and there she recognized someone from the bar and said hello if she knew her well enough. She followed one couple who came out of a rowhouse arm in arm. They picked up a paper, stopped at a bakery and sauntered back home, raising their faces now and then to the glow of the sun. One leathery old dyke walked her equally leathery old dog, looking carefree and contented as Frenchy felt. It was funny to see these women outside the bar, mingling on the streets with faggots and artist-types. Maybe they were cashiers too. Or worked in rubber factories. Had mothers and felt, as Frenchy did, that the world was changing too fast for them.
She ended up in Washington Square Park where she finished reading the News on a bench; then she simply sat in the sun wondering if she should go home. Several groups of folksingers had formed around the fountain, under the arch. Their competing voices and guitars, the constantly changing audiences, gave the park a busy aspect that absorbed her attention. Few gays were about, but straight tourists crowded around watching the singers and strollers. A co-ed game of volleyball had started, net and all, on the other side of the fountain. She would have liked to join but saw no gay players.
It was fun just to watch people enter the park. From 5th Avenue and slightly east came the well-to-do residents of the Village, walking fancy dogs. From the east and part of the south students spilled out of New York University dormitories in their mixed garb: sandals and button-down shirts, long-term visitors who tried to fit in. From the south the hippies left their coffee houses to be outdoors, some having spent whatever part of the night they could get away with sleeping on park benches. In the western corner old men and N.Y.U. students played chess and checkers on concrete table-boards while gays from the west side and tourists from the buses paused to watch. Though Frenchy watched everyone with suspicion, especially the hippies and artists, she reveled in all the differences around her. She was just another type in Greenwich Village, a place where people went who couldn’t fit in elsewhere.
A woman in a long colorful skirt and a shawl stepped out of the crowd around the fountain and walked toward her. As she got closer, she looked familiar. She was smiling. “I thought it was you,” she said as she swirled to a stop and sat beside Frenchy. “Do you remember me?”
Frenchy couldn’t imagine where she would have met someone whose earrings hung to her shoulders, who hung out at the fountain. Then she remembered. “Provincetown.”
“I even remember your name. Frenchy, right?” She went on, “I always wondered if I’d see you down here. You said you went to the bars a lot.”
“But I almost never come down here during the day.”
“Remember Jenny? The redhead from Ohio?”
“Yes, a real nice person.”
“We still write. Every year I say I’ll go visit her, but between one thing and another... You know how it is.”
Pam was charming — just like the sophisticated ladies you saw in the movies, Frenchy thought, making you want to smile and talk. Still, she hoped none of the kids would see her talking to a hippie. “So how’ve you been?”
“Groovy,” Pam said and Frenchy winced at the word. Maybe Pam was too weird for her. She wondered what she would be like in bed and thought she saw the same question in Pam’s eyes.
“You going with anybody?”
Pam laughed warmly. “I don’t. Go with anybody that is. I’m a free agent, don’t want to get tied down.”
“Me too,” said Frenchy, sitting up in excitement at finding a kindred soul. “But I been finding out how there’s not many of us left. All my friends are getting married or not going to the bars. They just aren’t any fun anymore.”
“What a drag. I know what you mean, though. They want to stay home and watch TV!”
“And listen to drippy singers like Anne Murray and Lana Cantrell. There’s not even any good songs left.”
“You’re into the wrong scene, then. I hear a lot of good music. Some really exciting jazz right here in the Village.”
“I’m not a jazz fan. Sounds like a lot of mistakes they string together.”
Pam smiled. “You’re a breath of fresh air,” she said, touching Frenchy’s hand. That’s when Frenchy realized Pam had been touching her all along as she talked. She was that kind of person. “Listen, I want to go for a bike ride so bad. I’ve been trying to hustle up someone to go with me. Want to come?”
“I got no bike.”
“No problem. The guy next door lets me borrow his all the time. Come on, Frenchy, we’ll bike up to Central Park. It’ll be fun.”
She hadn’t been on a bike since she was a kid. She was a little scared of looking foolish, but she couldn’t admit that to Pam. “I don’t know -”
“Never mind you don’t know. I want to spend the day with you. Come on. Let’s get the bikes!”
Soon Frenchy was inside a tiny apartment that was an incredible mess — unlike anything she’d ever seen. Pam’s colorful clothes were everywhere, thrown on everything. The walls were covered with paintings and with long-feathered hats hanging from hooks. There were no curtains on the windows. The bathroom had been painted black, and when Frenchy went to use it, Pam stuck her head in — shocking Frenchy who was on the toilet - to tell her there was a candle behind her if she needed a light. As Pam arranged to borrow the bike next door, Frenchy looked over the one-room apartment more carefully. There was no TV or radio that she could see. Only a refrigerator the size of a carton, a bed unfolded from the wall and laden with junk; a large collection of tiny pipes and cigarette papers; and, over the two-person kitchen table heaped with dirty dishes, a wall of drawings of naked women making love. She could hear Pam talking next door, but she didn’t approach the drawings; she squinted, trying to see them.
Pam yelled for her. She wheeled Pam’s bike, smaller than the neighbor’s, to the top of
the stairs. Pam was already halfway down the first flight with the neighbor’s bike. “Just pull the door shut, it’ll lock by itself,” she called up.
The bike against her, Frenchy was balanced precariously between the door, which she was trying to close, and the stairs. When she finally worked her way to the top of the stairs she couldn’t imagine how she would carry the big bike down all three flights, but she took a deep breath and started. Halfway down, though her shaking arms told her to stop, she told herself to continue. Pam didn’t seem to notice the sweatstains under the arms of her black sweatshirt or the redness of her face.
Now she had to ride the damn bike. She followed Pam, who was walking hers, over to an uptown street. Pam swung, skirt and all, over the bar of the men’s bike. Frenchy, reduced to riding a girl’s bike, gingerly mounted it and after wobbling a bit, took off up the Avenue after Pam. Tense and worried about potholes, passing traffic and parked cars and pedestrians, her eyes fastened on Pam’s back, she followed her every move. By 50th Street she felt like an old pro and looked forward to riding the paths of Central Park. She caught up with Pam at the entrance to the park, her legs tired, but her head filled with the same exhilaration she’d felt that morning walking down 5th Avenue. She couldn’t believe she was riding a bike in New York City with a wild-living artist who wore big earrings and lit a candle in her bathroom.
“We’d better skip the Zoo,” Pam said. “Too crowded for bikes. Where do you want to go?”
Frenchy was too embarrassed to admit she hadn’t been to Central Park since she was a kid. “Any place is fine with me.”
“God, I’m thirsty. Got any money on you? Let’s get a couple of sodas.”
Frenchy bounded off her bike to play the familiar role of buying a girl a drink.
They pushed off, Frenchy with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and feeling more sure of herself, Pam talking to her as they rode side by side through the gentle air. Frenchy was hardly aware of the pedestrians they passed and was beginning to fall a little in love. At the lake she bought ice creams and they lay under a tree, surrounded by soft greens, the noise of the city muffled beyond the trees.
“Isn’t this a gas?” Pam asked.
Frenchy was getting used to her hip talk. “That looks like fun too,” she said, pointing her wooden spoon toward the rowboats on the lake.
“Want to go rowing?”
“No, no,” Frenchy said, feeling old and worn by all the unaccustomed exercise.
“Next week, then. Okay? You free next Saturday? Pick me up at my pad. Early. Like eleven.”
She remembered that hippies slept late and prowled around coffee houses at night. She asked, “Do you work?”
“I collect.”
“You mean unemployment?”
“Is there anything else I can collect?” Pam laughed. “If there is, please tell me! I’ll go apply!”
“I don’t know. I’ve always worked,” Frenchy replied a little boastfully.
“I work when I have to — at whatever I can get, to tell you the truth. Last year I had this job machine embroidering workshirts. A friend of mine decided to start his own business. I can get a job with him whenever I want because I’m good, but when my funds run out I’ll try to get something in graphic art. I wish I could sell some of my work.”
Frenchy asked, picking up both of their dixie cups and tossing them into a nearby trash bin, “Do you draw or paint or what?”
“Or what, is right.” Pam laughed. She was sprawled on the grass, her skirt tucked under her legs, her head resting on an elbow. “I love drawing most. But there’s less of a market for drawing, especially my drawings, than for anything else. I’ve done portraits which I’m pretty good at and watercolor landscapes. What do you do?”
“I work at the A&P in my neighborhood.”
“That’s all?”
“What else could I do?”
“Oh, write poetry or sing or knit, for chrissakes.”
“No. I’m just a cashier. I’ll be there ten years this year.”
“In the same job?”
Frenchy nodded proudly, drawing deeply on her cigarette.
“You like it?”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind it. They keep trying to make me head cashier, but I’m not interested.”
“Amazing,” Pam said, shaking her head. “You’re just a good little all-American dyke, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You work, pay your taxes, and screw around with girls on the weekend.” She reached over and ruffled Frenchy’s hair.
Frenchy didn’t know how to take this. She combed her hair back in place. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. It must be a good way to live. Do you live with a girl?” Pam half-crawled toward Frenchy and lay her head in her lap.
“No, with my mother.” It still embarrassed Frenchy to admit this; she feared girls would think her a sissy. “She doesn’t have much herself. Just my Dad’s pension. So it makes it easier for both of us.”
Pam looked up at Frenchy, then took the cigarette from her lips and dragged on it till it burnt down to the filter. She threw it toward the lake. “Can you row?”
“Me? Sure,” Frenchy said, looking skeptically toward the boats.
“ ‘Cause I’m no good at that at all. Every time I try I get tangled up in other boats and somebody has to come out and untangle me.” She laughed.
Frenchy looked down at this woman in her lap. She seemed to have nothing to hide— no hesitations. She trusted Frenchy as if they were best friends. The woman closed her eyes and nestled into Frenchy’s lap.
“What a fine warm day,” Pam murmured. “Want to fall in love?”
Frenchy laughed. “Okay,” she said. “Why not?”
“Come live with me, Frenchy. What’s your real name anyway?”
“Genvieve Tonneau.” She’d been so confused by Pam’s invitation that she let her real name slip. Never, never, did she tell a girl her name except once and when they broke up the girl had told everybody. She’d spent years living it down.
“What a beautiful name.”
“Yeah, it really fits, don’t it? Most of my friends can’t even pronounce it.”
“May I call you Genvieve? You know you have a beautiful face. Really a fine bone structure.”
The woman was crazy. She made everything topsyturvy. You didn’t tell a butch she was beautiful. You tried to get the butch to say that to you. But she couldn’t say that to Pam, who had heavy, thick features, thick eyebrows which almost met in the middle of her face, a long hooked nose and tangled hair. This was not a beautiful woman by her standards. Yet, she thought, there is something about her. Pam looked fierce and strong, like she was nobody’s fool. “No, you can’t call me Genvieve. I hate it and please don’t tell anybody else my name.”
Pam looked at her again, then sat up suddenly. “You are adorable. You really are. I could just hug you to death.” She hugged Frenchy and rocked her back and forth in her arms. “You’re so little and so cute and so tough. I don’t know where I found you, but I’m not putting you back till I’ve had my fill of you, Genvieve Tonneau.”
“Stop, hey, no!” Laughing, Frenchy protested, “We shouldn’t be touching like this in the park.”
“Why not?”
“We could get arrested!”
“Don’t be so square. Nobody’s going to arrest two women for hugging. Now if you reached up under my skirt, which is what I’d like you to do, then they’d have a case.”
Frenchy stared at Pam. “That’s what you’d like me to do?”
“Sure. Isn’t that what you’d like to do?”
Holy shit, thought Frenchy. This woman was scaring her. She’d never known anyone so forward.
“Well,” insisted Pam with a mocking smile, “isn’t it?”
“I haven’t even kissed you yet.”
I should have known, Frenchy groaned inwardly. Pam had reached up from where she lay again on Frenchy’s lap and p
ulled her mouth down to her own. She was kissing Frenchy with her lips and tongue and teeth. Frenchy felt like a leaf caught in a storm. Nobody’d tried to kiss her since Mercedes. Giving in to this consuming passionate wet insistent kiss — in public yet — was beyond her.
Pam pulled away to breathe. “There. Now we’ve kissed.”
As she wiped her mouth, Frenchy felt stirred by this woman who felt larger than life. This was a real woman.
“I don’t play games, Frenchy Tonneau. I find you very attractive and I want to make love with you.”
Frenchy tried to breathe normally, but her heart was fluttering. “Pam,” she said thickly, turned on in spite of herself. “What the hell,” she said, and leaned to kiss Pam again, to kiss her with her own controlled passion, hoping she would like it. But where would she find control? She reminded herself that Pam was just another girl. She’d been with plenty of different kinds of girls. She could handle Pam.
Frenchy lifted her lips to Pam’s, then kissed her gently, brushing left to right, and finally stopping.
Pam opened her eyes. “You’re good, beautiful, aren’t you?”
Frenchy leaned back and lit a cigarette for Pam. They lay side by side, sharing the cigarette, not talking for a while. “Can you come home with me tonight?” Pam asked.
“No. I have to start back pretty soon. My mother’s expecting me for dinner and I have to go to work in the morning.”
“Yeah, I think it’ll be a late night when we get together.”
Strange chills went through Frenchy as Pam said this in her throaty voice. Her words sounded like deep, dark sexual promises of things Frenchy had never known. With effort she took her eyes from Pam’s to look at her body, to measure the woman.
“You sure you can’t come tonight?” Pam asked as Frenchy looked at her. She moved off her back and leaned toward Frenchy, her hips and breasts moving provocatively.
