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First Person:
Shirley

by Lynn Martin

        We were tenement kids, Shirley and I. We lived in a world of concrete, narrow alleys, and no back yards. What we had was imagination. We replayed Saturday movies over and over. Shirley was always a boy. I was sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl. We acted out Hollywood romances. Shirley taught me how to kiss. Now we knew enough not to do that where our parents could see us. We kissed under the bed. I can still feel her arms around me in that warm, dark space far from adult eyes.
       That was one of the monologues I did as part of the recent production of Gay & Grey: Conversations with Our Elders. It was done to the music of Phoebe Snow, singing “Teach Me Tonight.” Very sexy. Never mind that it happened when I was ten and I’m now seventy. For each performance I conjured up both Shirley and I under that bed.
       Fast forward to about twenty years ago. I met someone who knew her, and got an address. I wrote. She wrote back. It didn’t surprise me that Shirley was lesbian also.
       “Where did you go when we were teens?” I asked. She went to Greenwich Village. Shirley might have been younger, but she was always way brighter than me. It took me more than twenty years to follow her example. I didn’t come out in Greenwich Village, but in Vermont. Until May of this year, we continued to call and write. But somehow we never managed to actually meet again.
      In April, just when I was getting involved in Gay & Gray, Shirley called to tell me she had cancer and was dying. You would think with all the years I’ve spent in the AIDS epidemic, with all my knowledge of hospice, with all the family and friends I’ve lost, I would have heard her. No. Instant denial set in. How could she die? She was my oldest friend. I had to meet her again someday.
      So I said something perfectly inane, like “Oh, I’m so sorry,” and went on to talk of other things. But she really was dying. In May, I called her again. The phone was disconnected. I called the police in the town where she lived. They gave me the number of her landlord. They confirmed it. Shirley had died. I blew it. She had given me the chance to say a proper good-bye, and I didn’t do it.
       It never gets any easier. Saying good-bye is not a skill I’ve gotten better at through the years. Death, for me, is always a one-time thing. It is always painful. And, at least for me, always contains some form of “if only.”
       I know that lesbians in Asbury Park lost a good friend in Shirley Headman. I know there was a memorial service. I know they all said good-bye. I know there had to be a lot of laughter. Shirley was a great comedian.
       When we were kids she was always imitating Jonathon Winters. I know she was very loyal and loving. Keeping in touch with me was, I am sure, only one example of this.
       I wanted to say good-bye, Shirley. I will truly miss you. You were my first mentor in love. Someday I will follow you and, hopefully, you will hold out your hand, kiss me, and be there to teach me about death. And this time, I will listen.

Lynn Martin lives and writes in Brattleboro.