Michelle Tea: Black Wave

In Ziggy’s other pocket sat a leather wallet, hooked to her belt loop with a swag of silver chain. The nights Ziggy packed, yet another layer of leather and metal would be rigged across her hips, a heavy dildo curled in her underwear. The overall affect of these accessories was not unlike a woman dancing the hula in a skirt of shells and coconuts, or belly dancers draping their bellies in chain mail. The swinging, glinting hardware propelled Ziggy forward from her core, and, though your eyes were drawn to the spectacle, the flash obscured the femininity — like dazzle camouflage. A lot of butches wore this look, but Ziggy did it best.

Gay Men Fuck Younger Boys All The Time, Michelle said fiercely.

Okay, NAMBLA, Ziggy snorted. Okay, NAMBLA Kay Letourneau.

Not Like That, Michelle said. Just — You Know What I Mean. Older Fags And Younger Fags, Like Legally Young. Daddies. Zeus And Ganymede.

Ganymede was a child, Ziggy schooled her.

Yeah, You Were There, Michelle retorted, On Mount Olympus. You Were Working The Door. You Carded Ganymede. Michelle’s joke reminded her of a true story in which Ziggy picked up a girl with hair so short there was almost nothing for her Hello Kitty barrettes to clamp onto and who wore a pink dog collar around her neck. The girl left her ID on Ziggy’s bedroom floor by accident. She hadn’t been old enough to get into the bar where Ziggy’d seduced her.

That’s not the same thing, Ziggy defended. That girl lied to me. Just by being in the bar she was pretending to be at least twenty-one. That was not my fault.

So, Michelle said, If That Poet Lied To Me About Her Age It Would Be Okay?

It’s too late, Ziggy said scornfully, swigging the Olde English. You met her at the Teen Poetry Slam. It is too late for you, NAMBLA Kay Letourneau. Ziggy’s hips swiveled as she skipped along. She sashayed down the block, nearly running into a shriveled old crackhead woman who had emerged from the mouth of an SRO hotel. At least Michelle thought she was old. She might have been thirty, but crack is such an evil potion it turns maidens to hags in a season.

You know what to do!!!! the woman croaked in a prophetic timbre. Her lips were split with dehydration and cancer. Do it! Do! It! Do it now! Do it now! Michelle and Ziggy looked at one another, alarmed. Lifelong city dwellers, both were accustomed to the spooky public outbursts of addicts and crazy people, but Ziggy tended to treat them as oracles dispensing coded messages.

Do what?! Ziggy asked, suddenly desperate. Do what?! Oh god! I feel like that woman just looked into my soul! Ziggy’s eyes got the focused-unfocused look that only a drunk Pisces with eyes that color green could achieve. She retraced her steps and pulled a palmful of coins from the tight front pocket of her leather pants. She placed them in the woman’s chickeny hand.

You know, she told Ziggy. A bright piece of her fabric wound around her head and her eyes stared out from the cave of her face. You know!

I do, Ziggy replied solemnly.

Michelle thought Ziggy was probably crazy herself, but there was a chance she wasn’t and that the street people of her neighborhood were, in fact, prophets, apocalyptically wise, witches damaged from being born into a time with no respect for magic. Michelle preferred this story over the alternative of everyone having chemical imbalances and genetic predispositions toward alcoholism. She supported Ziggy and helped her puzzle out the cryptic warning of the street oracle.

Is There Anything You Think You Should Do Right Now? Michelle asked.

Ziggy thought.

Write a novel? she mused. Ziggy stuck to poetry, but it was hard to make money as a poet and Ziggy really liked money. Another option was moving to Los Angeles to direct films but that seemed like such an intense thing to do. Apply for a grant? She dug deep. I was thinking about doing yoga, she said. Recently Ziggy had briefly dated a bicurious yoga instructor who kicked everyone’s ass at pool. Prana , the girl, smiled after sinking the final ball, raising her fingers to the barroom ceiling in a spiritual gesture.

You Want To Do Some Yoga And Improve Your Pool Game? Michelle asked. One of the errant ways Ziggy brought in extra cash was pool sharking. Another was shining shoes with an old-fashioned shoeshine kit she lugged from bar to bar, a butch version of those Peachy Puff girls selling cigarettes and candy and useless light-up plastic roses. Just as the Peachy Puffs wore ridiculous and sexy costumes resembling the spangled outfits little girls tap dance in, Ziggy knew which garments would appropriately fetishize her labor. She shined shoes in a stained wifebeater and a tight pair of Levi’s.

Maybe She Was Talking To Me? Michelle suggested. Do It. Like Make Out With The Poet.

The teen, Ziggy corrected.

Lucretia, Michelle insisted. But the name was such a mouthful. Was it her real name? she wondered. San Francisco was full of people who changed their names upon moving to town. Trash Bag, Spike, Monster, Machine, Scout, Junkyard, Prairie Dog, Flipper, Oakie, Fiver, Kiki, Smalley, Rocks, Rage, Sugar, and Frog were only some of the individuals Michelle had met since coming to California. I don’t think you should do it, Ziggy said.

The thing was, Michelle had a girlfriend. Her last name was Warhol so everyone called her Andy, though the name on her driver’s license was Carlotta. Andy was on a lesbian soccer team. Michelle liked to watch her spike the ball with her head like an aggressive seal. Andy cooked meals at an AIDS hospice in the Castro. She was older than Michelle and had been doing this for many, many years and had been around for the terrible era when gay men were dying and dying and dying and dying. Michelle had assumed Andy prepared healthful, nourishing, life-prolonging foods for these men, but as they all had death sentences what she did was cook them their last meals, again and again. Pork chops, ribs, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, fried chicken. Hamburger Helper when it was requested (and it was). Meat loaf, loafed from whatever meat could be found. Cupcakes and brownies and pies with ice cream. Andy fed Michelle, too. It was a foundation of their relationship. Without Andy there were many times when Michelle would have gone hungry, so broke and barely employable was she, so hell-bent on prioritizing liquor above food. Wasn’t Beer Bread? Michelle asked in earnest. Liquid Bread? Especially Guinness, didn’t they give Guinness to pregnant women in some country (Ireland she supposed), and wasn’t Michelle Irish, didn’t years of ethnic evolution give her a genetic gift for absorbing the nutrients in a pint of beer?

Generally, people who did not drink like Michelle — let’s call it heavily — generally, these types of people would not want to date her. It was unusual how Andy not only accepted Michelle’s inebriation but encouraged it. She bought her jugs of beer beyond Michelle’s normal price range. She procured pills from folks at work and urged Michelle to take them. This dynamic inspired in Michelle a variety of emotions. Sometimes she felt like a helpless princess being attended to by a handsome butch. When Andy was a little girl she prayed to unicorns to not get boobs, and it worked. Andy was white as a ghost with a head full of black, black hair. Her black hair fell into a natural Superman swirl on her forehead. Andy was attractive in the manner of an old-fashioned movie star, Michelle thought, or maybe it was her chivalry, if chivalry was what it was. Sometimes Michelle worried that Andy just wanted to knock her out so that she didn’t have to deal with talking to or fucking her. Michelle tended to never shut up and she wanted big drama in bed all the time, requiring her lover to be a roller coaster or tsunami.