Cool, Calm & Contentious - Merrill Markoe [81]
“No thanks,” I said, refusing the pharmaceuticals but relieved by the invitation to escape into someone’s apartment besides my own. The last thing I wanted was to sit in my apartment by myself. So I followed them back into their art deco– and rococo-laden lair, which looked like it had been decorated by someone’s middle-aged aunt who owned a thrift store. Kevin led me over to their Victorian floral print sofa, and his blond partner poured me a glass of white wine.
After my story had worn all three of us out, my new blond friend handed me a big envelope full of photographs he wanted me to see.
“This is me as Judy. And here I am as Barbra,” he said, as I shuffled through a massive pile of photos of my two hosts dressed as female celebrities, stripping onstage. “That’s Kevin as Carol Channing and Lady Bird Johnson!” I oohed and aahed, dwelling on each photo with great enthusiasm, happy to go slowly so I wouldn’t have to leave.
How odd that the weekend had begun and ended with female impersonators. Now Charles Pierce and his impression of Bette Davis became a detail over which the three of us could bond.
“I have a favor to ask you,” Kevin confessed, once he heard I was an art student. “I’ve been doing some drawing. Would you mind having a look at some of my recent work? I’d love an honest critique.”
“I wouldn’t mind at all!” I said with a forced enthusiasm that really meant Just don’t make me go back to my apartment alone.
He brought out a giant pad full of charcoal sketches, set it on a chair, and began turning the pages. I focused intently on examining each of his incredibly detailed studies of male nudes. In almost every case the proportions of their bodies were off: the arms too long, the legs too short, the feet too blocky, the penises much too long or too wide. (Or were they? They were, weren’t they? They had to be, didn’t they?)
Then I threw myself into an earnest and scholarly critique of the drawings that offered all of the formulas for drawing anatomy I had learned in class thus far. At no point during our discussion did either one of us ever mention, even in passing, that all the drawings were of men having anal sex.
Finally it was daybreak. I was relieved to see my old friend the sun on this bright new day. My plan was to start out fresh and put the past behind me. I would resume my student routine as though nothing had ever happened.
Except now every aspect of the world appeared somehow different. Overnight I seemed to have gotten the lead in a Fellini film.
I was floating above myself as I walked to class, scrutinizing my every move with suspicion. Now I was aware, for the first time, of how my clothing hung on my body.
I also seemed to have sprouted some kind of radar or antenna whose job it was to scan the 360 degrees around me for signs of danger. Everywhere I looked, I was picking up worrisome details, subtle vibrations about some stranger’s bad intentions. None of the assumptions I’d had yesterday seemed to apply anymore. As I walked to the university down Telegraph Avenue, all the people I passed appeared to be looking at me through a fish-eye lens. If I caught their gaze, an alarm went off in my nervous system. My heart began to race and my breathing quickened. The hair on my arms stood up. I felt light-headed. What was wrong with these people? Why were they staring at me?
All that independence, swagger, and newly developing sense of power I had begun to try on over the past few weeks of summer quarter went right into the Salvation Army receptacle, along with my miniskirts, my knee-high boots, and my T-shirt dresses. The clothes I was used to wearing suddenly seemed like a dangerous wardrobe for a war zone: a magnet for the wrong kind of attention. Looking attractive now struck me as a very stupid idea.
Too afraid to return to my apartment, I spent the next few weeks on the couches of friends. And along with my increasing paranoia came Rime of the Ancient Mariner’s disease. I felt compelled to tell the story of what had happened to me, over and over