My Bio - Part 15

Andy and I often went to gay bars, but I didn’t care much for the people. Like in most bar scenes, many were into drugs and heavy drinking. A lot of them also felt phony and immature. The women, in particular, weren’t as feminine as I liked.

I looked my best between twenty-three and twenty-nine—thin, fit, and confident in short shorts and miniskirts. But despite my perfect makeup and long, flowing curls, gay women often ignored me, assuming I was straight. Andy tried to comfort me, saying I was too attractive and intimidated people, but I didn’t buy it. Did people want unattractive partners? I believed I was ignored because I was so feminine. Plus, I often heard that short women weren’t desirable in the gay world. Getting a man, on the other hand, would’ve been no problem if that’s what I’d wanted. All I’d have to do was snap my fingers, and they’d flock to me like pigeons after breadcrumbs.

I did have some luck in 1990. First, there was a one-night stand with a plump Puerto Rican/black girl named Diana, and later, one with a skinny white paramedic named Lisa. I didn’t plan on these being one-nighters—it just turned out that way.

I also competed in karaoke contests, singing in both English and Spanish, and won a couple of times. It came at a perfect time since I was out of both cigarettes and money, so the $125 I won at two places in one night really saved me.

One day at a Dunkin’ Donuts in a section of Springfield called the X, I struck up a conversation with two young women. When I mentioned wanting a roommate, one of them—Crystal, who was twenty-three—said she’d like to move in.

Crystal turned out to be quite troubled. She cut her wrists, was in an abusive relationship, and had lost her kids due to neglect. She said she was too broke to care for them and once nearly threw her son out of a fourth-story window in frustration.

She was also a lousy roommate—she wouldn’t do her share of the chores, and I had to hound her for her share of the rent. She spent most of her time getting fired from jobs or being kicked around by her boyfriend.

Eventually, she turned into a kleptomaniac, stealing mostly clothes. When I kicked her out a few months later, I knew she had duplicated the key, so I changed the locks. Just in time, too—a neighbor saw them trying to get in when I was out. They would’ve robbed me blind if they’d gotten in.

Then there was Mary, whom I met through Crystal. Mary was twenty-nine, lived with her twin sister and her husband, and really hoped I’d want to be with her. She wasn’t my type at all—short, plump, homely, with too-short hair—but I was too kind to tell her that. We hung out a few times, but eventually, she started canceling plans on me.

One night, annoyed with her, I prank-called her, saying nothing. She knew it was me, though. The next day, she came over to pick up a record she’d lent me and, without warning, suddenly flew into a fit of rage and toppled a piece of furniture over. We ended up fighting until she got bored and left.

I filed a police report, but nothing came of it, and I never saw her again.

Around that time, I met all sorts of people through random phone calls. One night, I called a cab company and told the dispatcher I’d heard she was gay—just to mess with her—but it turned out to be true! We chatted and later became friends. Her name was Linda, and although she was hideously ugly, we stayed friends for a while until she started hinting at wanting more than friendship.

I also randomly called a young woman named Tammy. She was barely nineteen, tall and slender with long red hair, and looked just like the singer Tiffany. The single mom was pretty but also immature, angry, and had issues with her alcoholic mother. Eventually, Tammy became unstable and unpredictable, and we stopped talking.

Al was another mistake. He was a twenty-four-year-old accountant who didn’t look a day over sixteen. He was negative, acne-riddled, and a sexual misfit with premature ejaculation. After a few months of hearing him criticize me, I ended it.

Then there was Nissa, and she hurt the most. She was a gorgeous, bisexual bus driver I met through another driver. We talked, laughed, and sang together on her bus. She even gave me money for snacks when I’d run errands for her. I thought she liked me, even though she had a girlfriend and told me so upfront. But when I wrote down hints I at least thought she dropped suggesting she may like me, she stole the notes when I ran into the store for us and was not flattered. She seemed offended actually, and I felt terrible and totally not worthy of anyone. I never saw her again after this, of course.

Towards the end of the two years I lived on Oswego Street, reality hit hard. I felt depressed. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Money was always tight, and my asthma and allergies were a problem. At twenty-three, cigarettes had already taken a toll on my lungs.

I was lonely and believed I’d never find the kind of relationship I longed for with the type of woman I was attracted to—both inside and out. Andy would tell me the chase was better than the capture, but there wasn’t even anyone to chase. I started to wonder if I’d have had the same bad luck if I were after men.

Although my friendship with Andy had its good points, one day I had to sit down and ask myself a hard question: If I were suddenly stranded somewhere, who could I call?

The answer was no one. Absolutely no one. I realized, more clearly than ever before, that the people I considered “friends” were either too unreliable or too self-centered to be counted on in times of need. When I was depressed and needed a shoulder to cry on, I knew I couldn’t turn to Andy—he just couldn’t handle it. Fran and Nervous were the last people I would have considered reaching out to. Fran was too messed up and Nervous was obsessed with me.

For years, I blamed myself, thinking I wasn’t good enough for good, decent, honest people. Then, one day, I asked myself—why not? Why shouldn’t I be? Sure, I wasn’t perfect, but I was kind, giving, and a good listener who tried to be honest. Maybe the problem wasn’t me after all. Maybe it was just that people, in general, didn’t fit with me because I wasn’t like most of them. As I got older, I began to think differently—maybe most people just weren’t worthy of my friendship. I became more selective about who I associated with. After being burned so many times, I was afraid to trust people. I couldn’t even trust my own parents and if you can’t trust your own parents, who can you trust?

So, unlike others who usually trust someone unless given a reason not to, I was the opposite. I wouldn’t trust anyone until they earned my trust. For the most part, I was a good judge of character—perceptive and observant—so I could usually tell who was trustworthy and who wasn’t.

In short, I was broke, alone, couldn’t breathe, and had no idea what my purpose in life was. But in four years and 3,000 miles, I would begin to find out.

In early 1989, Jo told me that the Locust/Woodside building was now owned by Russell, an older man, so I decided to call him about moving back. This was just before Jo and Eddie bought a condo, where Eddie soon passed away.

I was tired of life on Oswego Street. One time, I had nearly been run over by kids fleeing from the cops in a stolen car. That was just one of many scares. When I spoke to Russ, he informed me that my old apartment was empty. My parents agreed to help by sending him about $100 a month toward the now $440 rent. Russ had a couple of maintenance men help me move, and I agreed to clean his house once a week. He and his wife, a librarian I never met, lived in a huge house just five minutes away. But I didn’t work for them long since I couldn’t stick to a schedule.

My only complaint with Russ was that the apartment was freezing in winter. Unlike at Oswego Street, tenants couldn’t control their own heat. We even ended up seeing a mediator over it. Russ wanted me to move, but I wasn’t going anywhere until I was ready, which wouldn’t be for just over two years. Meanwhile, the guy who lived below me figured out how to access the temperature control box for that side of the building—it happened to be in my apartment.

The apartment itself had a few changes done to it while I was on Oswego Street. The bathroom had been modernized, with the old footed tub and white porcelain sink replaced by a new sink with a cabinet and a large mirror. The old indoor-outdoor carpet had been swapped for linoleum.

The changes outside were more dramatic. Jo wasn’t exaggerating when she said the neighborhood had gone downhill. It was rapidly becoming like Oswego Street—where there used to be the occasional summer brawl, now the streets were filled with negative activity, day and night, year-round.

In the summer of 1989, Andy and I both took third-shift jobs as a waitress and waiter at Denny’s. It wasn’t fun, though it was not without adventure. After just two months, I quit. Waitressing wasn’t for me—I just wasn’t a people person.

Not long after leaving Denny’s, the performing arts school I attended closed after one of the owners had a stroke. Bill, who was gay and lived with his boyfriend in Northampton, needed a place to teach his Springfield students. I offered my apartment, and he used it a few times a week. In exchange, I got free voice lessons and twenty dollars a week.

This time around, I had better luck with my neighbors, though I started off on the wrong foot with one of them—until I set them straight. Actually, another neighbor ended up doing that before I could.

I had just unpacked the last of my boxes and was heading out back to take them to the dumpster when I noticed the back door open of what used to be Nancy’s studio. A guy sat at the kitchen table.

“Hi,” I said.

The guy jumped, startled.

“Sorry,” I quickly apologized.

“No, that’s okay,” he replied and introduced himself as Jai.

Jai, a 27-year-old aspiring doctor, was pretty smart, and we had a lot of conversations over the next couple of years. He moved out shortly before I did. Although he was attracted to me, we never acted on it, and his girlfriend Jenny—a sweetheart—wouldn’t have liked that anyway. Jenny used to tell Jai she was worried about me because I was “gorgeous.”

On my first evening back in the apartment, I was exhausted and ready to relax after all the unpacking and setting up. But relaxation was not in the cards.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Someone was banging in the apartment below me. For some reason, I went down and knocked on the door. Maybe I thought someone needed help. Or maybe I was just curious.

A woman answered, and I asked if everything was okay. “I don’t live here. He does,” she said.

The “he” turned out to be a blitzed 31-year-old named James. After I returned to my apartment, the banging continued for another half hour. Fed up, I called the cops. When they arrived, I stepped out into the hallway. From what I overheard, Rita—the woman who thought I was prank-calling her—wasn’t too happy with the situation either. She lived beneath Jimmy, which was the name James preferred as I’d later learn.

“I just got in,” I heard Jimmy lie to the cop. But after they left, he did quiet down.

The next day, Jai and I were heading down the back stairwell to get some groceries. Jimmy happened to be out back, looking over the balcony.

“Hey, you got a problem with me?” he asked in a confrontational tone as soon as he saw me.

I started to tell him that I certainly did if he was going to bang on his ceiling for hours at a time, but Jai intervened. I don’t remember what Jai said, but I do recall him telling Jimmy not to use the word “crazy.” I guess Jimmy had called me crazy, but I didn’t care if he thought that—as long as he stopped the ceiling thumping.

From that day forward, we got along. We even played music for each other, and sometimes I’d be the one banging. If Jimmy overslept, I’d stomp on the floor to wake him up, if I happened to be up when he was supposed to be. I could tell he was awake by the sound of running water below me. He gave me rides a couple of times and respected the fact that I wasn’t interested in men.