Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

by Andrea Lawlor

  Diane was Combat Rock, she was a song building, she was—what was that? a fuzzbox—she was Albertine, a tiger’s paw, a marble faun in a pocket garden, a whiskey sour, a traffic light turning red at twilight. Did Paul love Diane for her looks? Yes. No. Okay, yes. But what did it mean to love her looks? He could see the contrary position: some family Thanksgiving, the suburban television magazine agonies (too big, not feminine, too big, messy, dirty, bovine, slow). Her jaw like a statuary angel, her ears poking out through a sheaf of hair, her bangs in her eyes, her clavicle (new word), her broad features, her straight hips and hard small bumps of breasts in her frayed tee shirt. Her melancholy blankness, her hidden stores of thought and pain. Paul stared at Diane, remembered the day he’d met her in the Michigan kitchen, tried to hold onto whatever first invited this compulsion to stare, tried to understand, to puzzle her out, to possess through figuring out, to maintain, to plumb, to ensnare and study. What kind of creature was she, dark and earth-smelling, a rustic, topsoil-encrusted fingernails and all. The musk of her armpits at night, her red lips the texture of rose petals, the hard muscle of her arms, the occasional gray hair he’d find, her eyelashes like tarantulas’ legs, she was Zeus’s own sweet cow and his tender cupbearer at once, placid slow expanses of skin and what Paul knew to be called big-boned. She was bigger than him-as-Polly or him-as-Paul, a few inches taller and wider. Her shoulders were broader than his. You’ll stretch it! he thought helplessly when she’d borrowed his shirt that morning, but no, better, he’d sacrifice his shirts for her. He’d wear the stretched-out shirt thinking Diane’s body was here and I am now inside the space she left, I fit myself inside her shape.

  “Is everybody coming to dinner?” Gerty asked loudly, startling Paul out of his reverie. She gestured with a novelty red high-heel phone. “I have a table for ten but they’ll make room for a few more.”

  At dinner, Paul and Diane sat squeezed together at the corner of a big table in the back room at Edwidge, an expensive-seeming restaurant upstairs from a pizza place. At least he’d save money if he had to eat vegetarian, he thought. Two of Gerty’s performer friends joined them, ordering martinis and generally lording it over the college girls. Paul had begun to work out the taxonomy of Provincetown (should he say “P-town?”—he wasn’t sure): performers seemed to occupy a stratum between tourists and townies—weekender tourist, all-summer tourist, short-season worker, long-season worker, year-round worker, queer townie, fisherman townie—but which one he wasn’t sure. The performers, a large butch lounge singer in a tuxedo and a glamorous femme comedian, a dead ringer for Sophia Loren, drank copiously but didn’t eat, in preparation for their late-evening shows at “the Crown” and “the Pied.” Paul was careful to take in but not yet use the local patois. He still had newness to spend but wanted to transition easily and appropriately to authenticity when the time was right. Paul couldn’t tell if the lounge singer and the comedian were together, but he could tell the lounge singer was checking him out. He moved his chair even closer to Diane, and made a show of stealing olives off her plate. But the lounge singer had him in her sights, and she fired.

  “Honey child,” she said, in raspy drag queen sotto voce. “What is going on with you two pretty ladies? Who is the man in your little ménage? Let Daddy tell you what’s what.”

  Paul could feel Diane flinch; he cast about for a cutting retort, but before he could say anything the comedian stepped in, with a slow, elegant, but menacing full-body turn in her chair.

  “You leave those nice young people alone, Dynelle,” she said, Southern honey dripping. “They just want to be free.”

  The lounge singer wasn’t having it.

  “Oh please,” she drawled. “I’m just trying to mentor here, run a Big Brother Big Sister program to let these children know they can do something besides each other’s hair. You know me, I’m a walking public service announcement.”

  The Wesleyan girls snickered—or the butch ones, at any rate. The femmes knew what Diane was, Paul thought, knew what she and Paul were doing, even if Diane herself didn’t.

  The waiter came to take more drink orders and the conversation shifted to backstage drag drama—Sahdjie said this and Ryan Landry said that and did you hear about Big Lil! On and on. The Wesleyan girls knew everybody, had waited tables at Café Blasé the previous summer. Paul didn’t know any of the people being discussed but enjoyed proximity to any kind of fame. Diane did not seem to be having fun, which worried him. He wanted to go dancing after, and hoped this wouldn’t ruin their night. The Evergreen girls began to talk amongst themselves. Diane looked lost.

  “Hey,” said Paul. “So, what’s the story with all the whale watching here? And that coastal studies place, that seems a little fishy.”

  The lounge singer groaned and the Wesleyan girls ignored him but the comedian smiled generously at Paul.

  The lounge singer jumped in.

  “The whale watches gather whale data for the center,” she said. “And they keep straight people off the streets, after we’ve taken their money.”

  “No,” said Diane. “That’s wrong.”

  “Really?” said the lounge singer, with a quick look of joy. “I’m wrong?”

  “Yes, you’re wrong,” said Diane. “The coastal studies center tracks whales to protect them, like when they’re beached or whatever. Those whale watches just spew their poison into the water, they don’t help. That whole data-gathering thing is just marketing bullshit.”

  “Oh, I see,” said the lounge singer. “An environmentalist. Of course. I bet you’re from the West Coast, right? Well, what about the connections between the coastal studies center and the secret navy labs in Woods Hole? What do you say about that, huh? Didn’t know about that, did you?”

  What a trainwreck, Paul thought. Diane had gone into a sort of thrall state like that rabbit from Watership Down and the lounge singer was jabbering at her relentlessly. He signaled the waiter for more drinks, though realistically he should save his money in case there was a cover. Fuck it, he thought.

  “That’s just a rumor,” said Gerty. “There’s no military dolphins. Why do you people hate America? Shouldn’t we get going?”

  “Yes,” cried the Wesleyan girls. “Allons-y!”

  The waiter dropped the check on the table and the lounge singer grabbed it.

  “Forty each should do it,” she said. Paul felt a little sick. He looked at Diane, who also looked a little sick.

  “This is so fucked up,” he whispered, pulling two twenties out of his bra.

  “I know,” Diane whispered. “Military dolphins. Jesus.”

  They left in a pack, spilling into the bracing oceanic night. The performers said their loud goodbyes and see-you-laters, and Gerty led the way to the A-House, where they’d probably be the only girls. Everyone was very excited about this; there was a general air of transgression to the proceedings. Paul and Diane hung back a little, Paul chattering away and pointing out special features of the landscape as they passed—What kind of tree do you think that is? It looks extremely old. or Look! A whole store devoted to men’s underwear. Can you believe it! But he could tell Diane was still angry.

  When they arrived at the A-House—which was actually, Paul noted, called the Atlantic House, so he was already seamlessly using the inside words—Gerty got them all in for free. The A-House looked like everything else in Provincetown: a stop on some rich person’s historical landmark garden tour, with rent boys and leather daddies instead of docents and butlers.

  “You wanna see my card, Billy?” Gerty said, flicking the bouncer’s leather suspenders. “You wanna see my friends’ cards?”

  “Friends of yours are friends of mine, Gerty,” said the bouncer, queenishly. “But don’t go telling Amos I let a bunch of underage girls in for you.”

  “Our little secret,” said Gerty. She really was pulling out all the stops. Why did all the dykes in Provinc
etown sound like fags, Paul wondered.

  Inside was any gay bar Paul’d ever been in, with a lower ceiling and redder light. He felt like he was at a gay rave in Narnia. Instead of heading to the bar, Diane pulled him decisively into a corner, next to a giant speaker pulsing out bass. She pushed him up against the wall, kissing and grinding on him so fiercely he forgot everything but his happiness. They were almost hidden from view, just visible enough to be exciting. Diane was surprising; every day she did something he didn’t expect. He would have thought she’d be agonizing over that stupid lounge singer, or moping, not taking Paul exactly as he wanted to be taken. He pushed his wet pussy against her thigh, rubbing himself up and down her like an animal or an unself-conscious teenager. He wanted what he wanted and he was getting it—to be girls together with this hot tomboy girl. A do-over. Right before he came, Diane pulled away and watched him tremble. She maybe really was a top, he thought. At that moment he would have done anything she’d asked. Best to nip that in the bud.

  “Let’s get drinks,” Paul said, miming a bottle. “Drinks!”

  “Oh,” said Diane, nodding.

  She led them to the bar, where they waited and waited. And waited. Boy after boy came up, ordered drinks, and returned to the dance floor. That barman was extremely unprofessional, Paul thought.

  A handsome older bear walked up to the bar and stood next to them.

  “Let me help,” he said, and flagged down the barman, who came over immediately. “My friends would like a drink.”

  “Thank you,” said Paul, accepting bottles of beer for himself and Diane.

  “My pleasure,” said the bear, tipping his leather baseball cap at them before walking away. Paul watched him walk back to his group of friends, bears all, except for a much smaller daddy–boy couple who both looked familiar. While dancing with Diane, Paul chewed on the question of how he knew them. After a few minutes he realized who the daddy was: Jack Manjoyne, the Falcon star who’d been in all those films with Joey Stefano. This was not an observation to share with the group, but Paul couldn’t help taking a few more sneaking looks at Jack Manjoyne’s boy-toy. Maybe another porn star? No, that wasn’t it. But so familiar. Paul realized, with a start, who the boy was—the youth from Chicago! The youth who had definitely been a girl when last they’d seen each other.

  Just then, Gerty came up to him and Diane, dancing brashly with Paul. Could no one see that he was with Diane? He danced away, not entirely oblivious to Gerty’s charms.

  “We’re all going over to Jesse’s house to party,” Gerty said, tapping one finger under her nose significantly. “If you guys want to come.”

  “Sure,” said Diane. Another surprise.

  “Let’s go,” said Paul. He snuck one more glance, tinted now by a free-floating jealousy, at Jack Manjoyne and his boy, who had never once lifted his gaze from Jack. What did Paul care anyway? He was about to try cocaine, probably for free, it sounded like, with the coolest dykes he’d ever seen.

  * * *

  ×

  Very early Monday morning Diane left for her job on an all-women construction crew with a bunch of Gerty’s townie friends. Diane was the apprentice, and the head carpenter was this leather daddy named Bev, who had also been at Michigan and who Paul was pretty sure Jane had mentioned ten or twenty times. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole Bev situation.

  “You’ll be okay, Polly? I should be home by four, definitely by five. I’m not sure when they’ll let me go.”

  “Of course! I’ll be fine,” Paul said brightly, at once bereft and offended to be thought so. He kissed Diane goodbye and watched like a housewife from the sliding glass doors as Diane jumped into the waiting contractor-thick pickup, handsome and unknowable in her painter’s pants and splattered boots. The truck drove off and Paul pulled his special maroon satiny bathrobe around him, sipping his coffee. He poked through the house’s music collection and popped a Carly Simon tape into the kitchen boom box, letting the trilling heartbeat of its drumline wash over him. This song was about him, he thought. He was particularly vain! He probably should wear more apricot. He gazed romantically out the window for a moment, but without an audience the pose was both boring and uncomfortable.

  “Hey,” said a compact little butch who walked down the stairs, yawning. “We haven’t met. I’m Zoe, the other housemate.”

  “Oh!” said Paul, knocking over his coffee. “I’m Polly, Diane’s, um—”

  “Right!” said Zoe, and handed Paul a dishrag. “Diane’s mysterious long-distance girlfriend. I never even met you at Michigan. We’ve been calling you the Snuffleupagus.”

  “No, I’m real,” said Paul, pleased to have been discussed, and at some length, apparently.

  “I’m driving into town in a bit to check my mail, if you want to come with,” said Zoe.

  Paul decided he should take the offer, check out the scene. Zoe chatted the whole way, pointing out the few places open in January—the post office, a twelve-step bookstore (“everybody who’s here spends the winter either in AA meetings or in the bars”), the Governor Bradford (“the town straight bar”), a pizza place, and the Vault, a basement-level fag bar Paul pretended not to notice.

  “They have a backroom down there,” said Zoe, in a possibly wistful manner.

  “Cool,” said Paul, not entirely sure what tone to take.

  “Yeah, right? But no girls allowed. There’s also the Dick Dock, which is basically right in the center of town on the beach, where all the boys go to cruise at night—even in the winter. Fags have everything good…”

  “It seemed like a lot of people were cruising at Michigan,” Paul said. “It’s not like women don’t hook up.”

  “Sure, well, at Michigan,” said Zoe. “But not anywhere else. I mean, I have tried, girl. I have tried.”

  Zoe said was she going “up cape” to do laundry with her friend Elena and Elena’s toddler, and did he want a ride back, but Paul figured he could make his own way. He decided to explore the West End first, then on his way back he’d stop for coffee at the only open café in town. He waved Zoe off, nice as she was, and pulled his peacoat close against the wind.

  Provincetown in winter did not look so very gay, Paul thought. How different was it, really, from any closed-up New England beach town? What was he doing here, in a village the size of a University of Iowa dorm, chock-a-block with quaint and gaudy bed-and-breakfasts? At that moment, he happened to glance into the front yard of one of the more gaudy than quaint bed-and-breakfasts, wherein he saw displayed a lush diorama of bondage Barbies and SM Kens trussed up with ball-gags or resting in miniature slings. Somewhat mollified, he continued westward, which Diane had said was the “more gay” end of town. What did it mean, then, that Diane lived on the East End? He came upon a fork in the little toy road, and neither way appealed to him. He crossed over to the bay side and picked his way down to the beach. He’d walk back to the center of town and if he happened to see Zoe’s famous dock, it wasn’t as if he’d sought it out. He just liked to know where things were, was all. He thought about Diane, and for a full minute sincerely wished she was with him, wished they could look for the secret dock together.

  He crunched through the frozen sand in his Frye boots, the tide a few inches away, nipping at him like a playful dog. Paul stared out at the bay. The bay was not the ocean, he reminded himself dutifully, without understanding. Diane had drawn him a map, showing him the special spiral of the town from a bird’s-eye view, offered him a compass and even a quick lesson in celestial navigation, but Paul had no head for directions and promptly forgot everything she’d said. If he headed back toward the enormous phallic monument in the center of town, he’d find his café home base. He moved back up the beach, investigating the boarded-up houses. Who lived there? Rich old gay guys, probably, gone inland for the winter. Gay snowbirds. He had never been anywhere so empty of people before. He hadn’t seen a
soul in ages! He imagined being here with Diane, walking boldly through the front doors of all these closed-up cottages and rummaging through the owners’ belongings. He wanted to do everything he wanted to do, but with her. That seemed like a sign of something, right? He wasn’t going to have enough money to pay his tuition bill for the semester, so why not just stay here and avoid his growing stack of Incompletes for a little while? Why not let rhetoric and chemistry fade into pleasant memories, struggles vanquished by time or his own craftiness? Maybe he could transfer somewhere in Massachusetts once he paid off last semester’s tuition bill. Jane could mail him the rest of his stuff—tucked neatly away in her hall closet—by book rate, and…

  He’d made his way back to the post office without noticing any docks. Perhaps another sign from the universe? He left the beach, found himself back on solid sidewalk, back to civilization with its attendant cappuccinos and new people. He pushed into the café, which though very small contained multiple queers as well as a few lesbians and a gay. Sweet relief! He ordered coffee to go from a tall fellow with piratical hoop earrings and a face tattoo and quickly left the place, in order to prolong whatever new-in-town mystery he might possess. He walked back in the general direction of Diane’s house. He found a Norman Rockwell drugstore where he bought a few postcards, more for the relief of the transactional than out of a desire to communicate with anyone he’d left behind. He took his time, studied the shop windows—most stores were closed “for the season”; others, like the bookstore, the astrologer, and two fudge stores, only opened on weekends.