When I was 19, I went to this Gay & Lesbian Expo downtown at the Wolfson campus. I got lost and started going the wrong way down a one way street off Flagler. Then a cop on a horse clomped up to help, but when he looked in the Gremlin, he saw a big roach on the end of this multicolored feather clip in the ashtray.
He said, “What’s that?”
I sat there with my mouth hanging open.
Then he said, “OK, hand it over.” So I did.
I told him I was going to the campus. He dropped the roach onto the asphalt, made the horse’s hoof scuff it, then gave me good directions on where to park. He even gave back the roach clip I’d won at the Youth Fair.
At the end of the day there was a group on the list called, “Lesbians, Etc.” It looked interesting so I signed up along with 55 others.
One person after another talked about how there’s nothing to do for lesbians in Miami except for a couple of bars owned by gangsters. At the end we all decided to send around a phone sheet for anyone who wanted to have a regular weekly meeting.
It was how this group called “ The Friday Night Women’s Group” got started. We met at different women’s houses every week, and at I met Jeanne at one of the meetings. It was an instant attraction when she lit a wood match off her boot heel to give light my Winston while we sat around a bonfire.
I fell for Jeanne because she was hot, but then it deepened after we’d been together a few years and I got to know her on more levels. Then it was love/hate. Or love/confusion... She had a way of refusing to see the dark clouds of chaos looming overhead and thought if she ignored them hard enough they would go away, magically. She taught me that most bad situations almost never get to Worst Case Scenario but I also took away this lesson: ignoring a problem makes it all more likely to flare up like a hemorrhoid.
When we first got together, I was drunk with love. So drunk I let the world slide and unofficially moved into her place leaving my sister/ roommate Ann hanging.
I came back to the apartment for the first time in days from U.M. one afternoon. Some poor bastard had all his stuff on the curb, it looked like. Clothes, boxes of books, the works. I laughed when I saw it. Then I went upstairs and saw my key didn’t fit the door. Shit! That must’ve been my stuff in the trash!
I called Dad in a panic and said, “Ann went crazy! She changed the locks on our door and threw away everything I own!” and Dad said, “Come on over to the house, Janie. We’ll talk about it.”
I drove over with my curb-rescued things and we sat down in the den. He said, “Ann tells me you’re in a homa-sexual affair or something with some old gal. What’s this about?”
I was blindsided. I said, “Her name is Jeanne and she’s not some old gal. I love her.” We’d only been together a little while, but I really did love her already. I was pretty sure.
Dad said, “Well, who is she? What does she do? Does she have any education”
I said, “She manages a hardware store. And she’s a carpenter.”
He said, “Are you thinking of dropping out of college?”
I said no. It didn’t even occur to me. Then for a split second I thought he was going to tell me I was done with school since I could never afford U.M on my own.
He said, “Good. It seems like one of you ought to have an education.”
Then he told me that all he ever wanted as a father is for his kids to be happy. He told me he loved me. He also said he didn’t think it was a natural lifestyle. Also, he could understand women being together, but not men.
He told me not to bring “that woman” around the house because he “didn’t want the girls exposed to it, they’re too young.” He said I shouldn’t say anything to my grandparents, either, but they lived in Georgia so that was no issue.
As for the problem with Ann, it turns out I forgot/ blew off my half of the rent that month, went AWOL and worst of all, came one day and got the dining room table that had been Mom’s for my new girlfriend’s place without even asking. So that’s why she was pissed.
We talked it out, I hauled her table back and pretty soon Jeanne was welcomed into my father’s house because his wife really liked her and insisted. Dad never stopped calling her “that gal” but he was always cordial, if not friendly, with her for the next five years we were together.
Looking back, it was a real gentle coming-out. It was like wrapping a loose tooth in string then tying the string to a door knob and slamming the door shut. Not a real shock because everyone knew that tooth was coming out and not tense since it happened before I could worry and brood on it.
I’m incredibly lucky to have the kind of father who would react so calmly and with that kind of grace. It wasn’t perfect acceptance, but he’s come around even more in the thirty years since, and there was never any doubt he loves me.
