The Amazon Trail
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The Amazon Trail Verbal Arrows |
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by Lee Lynch
I am a butch, I take the verbal arrows
straight to my heart. Forty-three years after coming out I am still a
walking target for abuse. Aren't I too old to have to suffer these ignorant
young fools?
Or old ones, like that fool in the white
house. The fool that about 50 percent of American voters support. I don't
need statistics to tell me that's the 50 percent that still fears and
hates me because I am queer. It's not over yet. Ousting the fools from
the hill will help, legions of us marching for our rights will help, insisting
on living freely and openly will keep us stronger and more healthy, but
as long as this country's leaders are having a field day dismantling democracy,
there will be homophobes, anti-Semites, racists and bigots of every stripe
unabashedly encouraging their young to torment anyone different from themselves.
Why didn't I just cross the street and
say to the kids who were harassing me, "Did you want to say something
to me? 'Cause I have something to say to you. I have never hurt you. Let's
learn to live together." That might have stopped their foul tongues, momentarily
halted the words they learned from their elders.
I didn't because it never even occurred
to me. My head is still somewhere back in the 1950s when the word queer
was whispered, was only an insult.
I have a mindset that expects castigation.
I spent so many years dreading the taunts, the blows, the busts, that
there is a track of fear worn deep in my psyche right between the track
where my defiance resides and the track of optimism. My first thought
is about how soon I can sell my home, my beloved sanctuary. My second,
that the permission's been given from on high, vilification of gay people
is being encouraged again - not only by the social conservatives in power,
but by venomous religious backlash. Some Episcopal men in skirts would
rather start a new church than have a gay bishop. The Catholic head honchos,
perhaps to distract from their child abuse scandals, are preaching against
gay marriage. The message gets to me in the form of these wisecracks that
grow louder and lewder over the months.
My third thought is that these are disenfranchised
teenagers. There's obviously not a lot of money and English is a second
language to them. Should this make a difference? Sure, it should make
them more sensitive to people who share their caste of Other. But it doesn't
work that way; instead, it makes me more sympathetic to them. I rage,
I cry, I understand.
What I'd hoped for here in the quirky,
old part of town, was some anonymity, but I don't dress anonymously, I
don't walk anonymously, I don't write anonymously. Even gray-haired, when
I'm supposed to have reached blessed invisibility, they notice the butch
walk, my companions. Do I bring it on myself, hugging my lover hello or
goodbye in broad daylight? Do I bring it on myself, walking with my short-haired
friend? What do I have to do to live my life in safety? Go straight? Fat
chance.
Here comes my friend now, come to walk,
just walk in peace - until the taunts begin. I will, of course, do what
the anti-gay Episcopalians and the staunchly moral Catholics insist is
right, I will turn the other cheek. It's all I know to do, all I've ever
done even before I knew I was gay and was pelted with words whose meaning
I didn't understand. I keep on keeping on, walking with my head high,
trying to find the positive in all this. I bless them through gritted
teeth. I breathe in all the light I can absorb and thank the goddess for
giving me the strength to keep this up these 43 years. I breathe out peace
and ask the universe to help my abusers to love, not hate. I shrug off
the verbal arrows and turn the corner, where I rant to my also-wounded
friend.
This war has been raging against us forever.
Damn, it hurts. Within a few minutes, though - and until next time - we're
laughing. After all, we're the lucky ones - we get to be gay.
Lee Lynch is the author of eleven books including The Swashbuckler and the Morton River Valley Trilogy. She lives on the Oregon Coast, and comes from a New England family.
© Lee Lynch 2003