O.K. Hello! Well. . . y'know I'm really thrilled to see so many of my friends out here for my anniversary celebration. This is really something. Calluchi and me have been thinking about having an anniversary celebration for a long time. We've just never got anything arranged.
Y'know you people are talking so much, I can't even hear myself. And that's my most favorite thing--hearing myself.
Y'know, I don't see none of my family here tonight. You probably don't think that's unusual. Well, let me tell you, my family doesn't think there is no anniversary before 25 years. They don't celebrate nothing outside of silver. But y'know, I think my 15 is as good as their 25 anytime! They got everything in the world trying to keep them together, and me and Calluchi, I swear to God, we've had everything in the world trying to tear us apart.
Yea, that sure as hell is right. Y'know I've been doing this shit a long time. I was just a kid when I come out. My first real memory was like I'm 9 years old. I'm 9 years old and I am in trouble. O.K.? I've just found out from a reliable source that I am a homosexual. Now this reliable source is a book my mother give me that's called The Facts of Life, y'know, you probably all got the same thing, or whatever. This book, well way in the back of this book--the very last chapter--is a chapter called "Wrong Love." O.K., this chapter has got three parts to it. "Love in the Clouds," y'know I still don't know what that is; "Love in the Triangle," I didn't really find out about that till later; and "Love for the Same Sex." Don't I see myself there! There is this little girl down the street, here, that I'm just crazy about--Trisha.
So now I'm terrified. I am scared to death. I don't know what all the upshot of all this "wrong love" shit is going to be. I run over to my next door neighbor Lana's house. She's in the 7th grade, so I figure she's in the know. And her mother says, "Oh well, Lana is up in the bathroom, she's having a bath, go on up there Judy." So I go running upstairs, bust into the bathroom, sit down on the toilet and I'm crying my eyes out, I say, "Lana, I'm a homosexual." Lana--she's cool; she says, "Well, honey, why do you think that?" And I say, "It's Trisha, I am so crazy about her, every time she comes around, I just can't breathe!" And Lana says, "Sweetie, that's just a phase you're going through. The next time Trisha comes around, you come over and see me." And I look over at her in the bathtub and I see her little nipples are winkin' at me, and I think this is just more trouble here. This phase business is all over the place. So now, I got no one to talk to anymore, y'know.
Me and Trisha, we're sneaking around, sending secret messages to each other, we got a code made up, y'know. This has been going on for about two years, we're doing o.k., we're not in no trouble. We're past kissing now. Couple months later, we're up to what Sylver Celeste calls "the big nasty." We've done this thing about three times when--don't we get caught. Yes.
Trisha is staying overnight with me, and we're up in my bedroom and we've got our jammies off, she's on top of me and we're just undulatin' away. And I don't know why, but my eyes just popped open, and I look over and see standing in the doorway, my mother. And I'm thinking--hell, this is all over with now. Well, she just closed the door and goes away. Well something was all over with.
Now, I don't know what to expect here. Nothing happens. The next day, we get up, Trisha goes home. Lunch, nothin. Dinner, nothin, nobody says nothin. We're watching t.v., family stuff, nothin, same old thing. Not until about three o'clock in the morning, my daddy is dragging me out of bed, dragging me down the stairs, throws me into a chair in the kitchen. And now my parents are pacing back and forth in front of me. They're throwing every threat possible at me now. They say, "Well, we're just going to have to send you up to Mitchelville!" Mitchelville? This is the Mitchelville Home for Juvenile Women. Hey, I know these women up there from Mitchelville. We been playing them in basketball, y'know, and they beat us every damn time, cause them women are tough. These are the kind of women they got their name tattooed into their arm with a ballpoint pen; they got rings on every finger, the kind that turn your finger green--thumbs too. And they play basketball with those rings on, and you got to watch out, cause wham right across the face, and then holy shit, I'm bleeding--that'll intimidate you, y'know. Anyway, I'm sitting there thinking, well, Mitchelville, huh? I go up there, I can play basketball on a team that wins for once.
So then they say, "Judy, we're going to have to take you right now to the psychiatrist." Hell, y'know, in my family, it ain't never a time in my family that they're not taking you to a psychiatrist that it ain't 3 o'clock in the morning. Well, that don't scare me. Not only do they not know what a psychiatrist is or does, they don't even know what kind of hours these people keep. I know that much. Oh, yea, a psychiatrist. . . . jees*s f*ckin chr*st.
Oh yea, then they try--this is good. They're going to try bribery on me. Mom says, "Judy, you know that motorcycle you been wanting? You stop seeing Trisha, and your father is going to buy you that motorcycle." Now I have to choose between the two things that I want most in my life--Trisha and a motorcycle (preferable a Harley Davidson). I'm torn in half. Trisha? Harley? Trisha? Harley? Trisha, Harley? So anyway, I guess I don't jump up fast enough, because now they whip out what they consider the big guns. They say, "Judy," with a big long pause here, about 30 second so it scares me to death, and again, "Judy, if youÕre not careful, youÕre going to grow up to be just like Ugly and Uglier." Ugly and Uglier--there name's are Judy and Lois. And Judy and Lois are said to be, in Leon, Iowa; these two women are said to be the two biggest Lesbos that ever walked the earth. Well besides me, they were the only two "lesbos" in Leon--a town of 800 people. As if the people in Leon know anyway?
Ugly--well, Ugly is just ugly. But Uglier, and this is why they call her Uglier: This woman is one helluva diesel dyke. You got to see this woman. This woman wears her bluejeans way down--cocked on her hips, rolled up twice. She wears these great big motorcycle boots, spikes and studs all over them. She always wears a white t-shirt, got her camels rolled up in her sleeve. I think she might be part Indian, because she's got dark skin; high cheek bones; black, black eyes; jet black hair that she wears back in an amazing Elvis Presley duck tale do with a curl that comes right down here in front. And this woman is tough. She rides a Harley Davidson, a real one, not one of those motorbikes. And she never wears no helmet, not this woman. When she walks around town, she swaggers. She ain't afraid of nobody. Oh yea! I think this is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. This woman--to my little 9 year old mind--is like Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe all wrapped up in one perfect package. Hell yes, I'm afraid of her--but not for any reason my parents would approve of. Damn. So anyway, I chose the motorcycle!!! Because Trisha had now moved up to Elk Grove, and I couldn't get there to see her unless my parents drove me up there--as if that was ever going to happen. So, I got that motorcycle, and I drove up there every damn day!