Queer Rock Love

Katy claims that it happened like this:

We were in my car, heading north.  She was behind the wheel. “If we were straight,” she said, turning to the passenger side, “I’d take you to Atlantic City and marry you right now.”

And then, purportedly, I said, “For all this talk of marriage, I don’t see a ring on my finger.”

There are two problems with this scenario.  First, I am not a coquette.  It is not my custom to speak like a latter day lesbian Scarlet O’Hara. Second, I am not a believer. I’m the divorced child of divorced parents.  I don’t venerate marriage as a natural state, a keystone of civilization, or even a particularly convenient model of intimate relationship.

Still, “I don’t see a ring on my finger” are the words that, according to the only other extant witness, I am supposed to have uttered on September 10, 2000.

This was our second date. I had recently relocated from Austin, Texas, to rural Pennsylvania. As a newly minted English Ph.D., I was eager to take advantage of a visiting professorship at a small liberal arts college just west of the Allegheny River.  Nevermind that my new home was two hours from the nearest airport.  Or that the local lesbians lived like Jamesian maiden aunts. Or that the weather forecast called for snow from October to May. All the better, I told myself, I’ll hole up by the fire and write.

But I wasn’t writing.  I was thinking of Katy. And I invited her to visit my rural abode.

A week-long second date is a risky proposition. Since I had left Austin, we’d thrown caution to the wind, confessing our dearest hopes and desires over lengthy long-distance telephone calls.  By the time Katy arrived at the airport, we were already building a future on the flimsy foundation of flirtatious conversation.  But we hadn’t even kissed yet.  If our physical chemistry didn’t match our conversational chemistry, we would have to suffer a long and awkward seven days.

After our first kiss (in the baggage claim area), we did considerably less talking.

Five days later, we came up for air. Our time together was almost over, and I wanted to find something special to mark the end of our epic date.

A colleague told me about Lily Dale, New York, a Victorian-era village populated by psychics. I knew that my new love had an affinity for the supernatural, and I thought it would make an amusing day trip.

Founded in 1879, Lily Dale quaintly bills itself as the largest spiritualist community in the world—as if municipalities worldwide are vying to be the capitol of a nineteenth century fad. In Lily Dale’s heyday, spirits knocked on tables and powerful mediums oozed ectoplasmic goo. These days, so-called “physical manifestations” are frowned upon.  But Lily Dale is still home to 90 registered mediums, who commune with the dead in private consultations and regularly scheduled public meetings.

It’s a strange place for a romantic getaway.  Most pilgrims are grieving.  They come in search of answers about the death of a child or lover.  They want to know where the treasure is hidden or whether their dearly beloved is resting peacefully on the other side.

Katy and I arrived just after the regular season, which lasts from June to August.  The weather had turned wet and windy, and mud puddles clotted the narrow streets. Standing water glistened from bright green Astroturf on the ramshackle porches of aging Victorian cottages.  It looked like several generations of American optimism had collided and fallen into benign disrepair.

Holding hands, Katy and I followed the path to a pet cemetery in a stand of ancient trees.  Under their lush green canopy, Katy told me about the deaths of her dogs, Face and General Lee.  She told me about her best friend Jane Ellen, who had promised to visit in dreams after she died. Sitting on a stump in the shade of the forest, Katy told me about her crystal meth days, when she could walk into a library or a metaphysical bookstore and literally hear books calling her name.

Normally, this was the kind of talk that caused me to roll my eyes.

As a teenager, I had been hostage to my mother’s New Age awakening, when she bought a condo in Santa Fe and consulted a psychic to help her find husband number three.  Surrounded by tanned white people with positive vibrations, I had resisted with the only weapons I knew—sunscreen and a bad attitude. As soon as I could, I fled to the gothic mists of the Pacific Northwest. I vowed that folk art angels would never adorn my home.

Rather than putting me off, Katy’s mysticism made me want to get closer.  Her drug-induced visions of talking books had a dark, malevolent edge that was missing from the usual New Age blather.  The darkness allowed me to relax my constant vigilance and adopt a guardedly curious posture toward things that I habitually disavowed.

It helped that she had all the trappings of a Romantic hero: Long, dark hair, a prominent brow, and a death sentence.  When she quit drugs a decade earlier, Katy had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C.  The future looked like cirrhosis or cancer. Then, a few years later, a new generation of antiviral drugs brought hope for people with Hepatitis C.  Katy had weathered their punishing regimen—only to find that her particular strain of the virus did not respond.  Now she spoke matter-of-factly about her early expiration date.

“When I’m 65, I’ll start drinking again,” she said. “We can go on one of those Delbert McClinton blues cruises and booze it up until my liver gives out.”

I nodded my head. I had no idea who Delbert McClinton was. In her company, I felt unmarked by loss and experience. Being with her was like visiting another planet. It was like fucking an alien.

I told her about my recently deceased cat, for whom I had built a small (secular) shrine.  I told her about my exes, which were the closest things I had to ghosts.

Despite all the stereotypes of lesbian merging, I had no intention of actually changing my mind about New Age spirituality.  However, because I was drunk on infatuation, and because I wanted to continue having exciting alien sex, I didn’t voice my usual opinions on mediums (quacks), the afterlife (unlikely), or monogamous marriage (extremely unlikely).

We kissed in the dappled light under the trees. An old man in overalls wandered past the headstones of long-dead pets.  I was wearing a blue vintage dress and spiky hair.  Katy was wearing combat boots and a black bowling shirt with the name “Dick” emblazoned on the pocket. I wondered, when the old man looked at us, did he see a man and a woman?  Or two dykes defiling the woods?

We emerged from the forest and into the circle of Victorian houses where mediums entertain spiritual seekers.  My ambivalence was like a powerful alternating current, propelling us up the stairs of each house and then repelling us back down into the street.  Each time we found a medium at home, Katy looked at me, trying to sense whether this was the one.  Each time, I shook my head no.

In truth, I did not want to get a reading because I was afraid that Katy would see my disbelief.  I did not want to pretend to believe, but I didn’t want her to think I was incapable of believing, either.  It was confusing. The air was full of other people’s hope and grief and yearning.  They mixed with my own swirling feelings and manifested as a lump in the back of my throat.

I do not know if Katy sensed my ambivalence.  Having grown up in a culture of ruthless affirmation, I had learned to hide mixed feelings.  But, as a dissenter, I had also learned to trust my instincts.  And now my instincts were guiding me to the Crystal Cove Gift Shop.

In the car, when the subject of weddings had arisen, Katy had predicted that a place like Lily Dale would surely have a crystal shop with rings. Now that we had passed up all of the potential mediums, she suggested that we seek it out.

Inside the Crystal Cove, I felt like the planchette on a Ouija board. I glided to the jewelry case.  Scanning the rows of quartz and hematite, my eyes lit on a silver diamante figure eight, an ersatz antique infinity symbol.

“Can I try that one?” I asked the heavily bejeweled white woman behind the counter.  I thought, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I thought, I want it.

While the saleswoman was busy below the counter, I glanced at Katy to see if I was overstepping the bounds.  She looked happy and excited.  She told me that the ring was perfect for me.

I wanted something of hers to keep. (Later, before she went back to Texas, I would steal her shirt and keep it under my pillow, where I could press it to my face at night and breathe her in.)

If the ring fits, that will be a sign.

It fit.

I kept looking at Katy. Are we really doing this? She was selecting a ring for herself, a chunky Celtic design that looked at home on her big hand.

We paid for each other’s souvenirs. Back outside, we sat on a wrought-iron bench bedecked with cherubs. We hadn’t spoken about what, exactly, we were up to.  Now two small, white cardboard jewelry boxes were sitting between us.  Katy looked nervous.  I closed my eyes and searched for words and ritual that would consecrate the moment without overwhelming it.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you,” she replied. Tears streamed down both of our faces. I was crying because I was vulnerable and because it was okay. The lump in my throat was fading away. I felt for the rings and removed hers from the box.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” I said, quickly.  I slipped the ring on her finger and smiled.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” she echoed. She slipped the ring on my finger.

I do not believe in mediums, but I do believe in the future.

Photo credits: Tuffy by Ross Griff; Forest Temple by MHBaker.