For the last year plus, for the first time in my adult life, I am living the single life due to shared parenting with my ex. I was single for a short time in my early 20s, but I was a single mother to a baby whose father wasn't around (due to him running and hiding from the FBI. God, sex with men is so complicated). More and more, dating men has me wondering where women of a certain age (post-post-post adolescence) sign up for the lesbian sex. I know lots of women who switched teams (I know. I'm an asshole. I won't say it again) midstream, and they seem very happy (seriously. Why do they look so fucking happy? What do lesbians know that they aren't sharing with the straight men of the world?) I have a reputation of having grown up wild, raised by monkeys in the jungles of Iowa (hey. If 1-2 people believe it, it's a reputation). And it's true. But my version of wild was quite gender-traditional and didn't involve any of the lesbian sex I understand young women today get to experience.
My forays into the wild did include a short time as a gang member. This was the 90s, before girls became as crazy and violent as boys. It was still quite common for girls to get "fucked in" to gangs (to be clear, I was neither fucked in nor beaten in. I just showed up at the appointed time and place, one of two white girls in a group of tough black men standing in a circle with their arms crossed for the meeting). At this time, gangs from Chicago were realizing how easy drug sales in Iowa were, and the hand full of big towns close to the Mississippi were flooded with drug dealers in Illinois-plated caddys. The women followed (or led. I don't know) with their children, seeking education and housing options that were much more amenable than those in the big city.
So, my best friend and partner in crime and I were invited to join the newly established branch of the Iowa female gangsters. The Lady Gs (I actually can't remember what they were called, but I'm banking on the fact that none of you know either). Mostly my friend and I were hoping for an in to the parties where the hot guys were-- the "free" (shoplifted) alcohol and endless blunts. Instead, after our first meeting we were given our first "mission." Which was to drive the 16 year old girlfriend of the probably 30 year old gang leader to the Quad Cities (probably a four hour round trip) so she could check on his baby mama and their kids (pre cell phones and social media, this is how people got checked on. It was a different time, children).
If you can't think of a good reason not to join a gang, let this be it. Gangs (at least then) were misogynistic and firm believers in gender roles not from the 1950s, but more from the middle ages. We were seeking mayhem, violence, Banging in Little Rock, and instead we got checking on baby mamas, driving the beaten (disciplined) men to the ER for stitches, and meetings about how to bail the REAL Gs out of jail. Right away we were on our second mission-- how the fuck do we get out of this? We met with the head Lady G and explained our quandary. We wanted the men, the sex, the parties, and the drugs. We didn't so much want the involvement in federal drug trafficking. A mature and benevolent Lady Killah, the head Lady G graciously allowed our exit and still allowed us entrance to the good parties. More likely, she was thinking "these dumb white bitches are going to get someone killed."
Which wasn't totally wrong. For a very short time I dated the head of security for the local branch of the gang, a young man newly arrived from Chicago whose older brother was a big shot leader whose visits to town for meetings accorded hushed voices and good behavior. My security-dude got maybe one kiss out of me before I showed up at a party with a huge group of men from out of town, whom he allowed in because they were with me. In the confusion that followed (which I only heard because the women were quickly rushed upstairs and cordoned into a bedroom. See. Misogynistic.) guns were drawn and the situation became quite tense. Unbeknownst to me, the men were of a rival gang. To which I offer this defense: I didn't know, and they were hot.
The night ended without gunshots exchanged, and the women were eventually let out of the upstairs bedroom. The next time I saw my security-dude his lips were swollen beyond their ability to stretch (his punishment included a vicious beating from his brother and their fellows during which he couldn't defend himself. There was always a defined time or shot limit they knew before the punishment began) and I had to break up with him out of guilt or just maybe because I couldn't be with someone dumb enough to trust me.
My checkered history of sex with men of course includes my oldest daughter's father, Anthony (I change his name because it is my firm belief that someone who sleeps with a drunken, poor, high school dropout living in the projects cannot be expected to believe that that same girl will some day move away, get some degrees, and become a writer. He is as he was, and I am not. Fair's fair.) When we go home to visit and run into people from the old days, they see my daughter and say, "Is that Anthony's daughter? Looking JUST like him! Yo daddy is an OG for REAL, girl!" (OG in this case means Original Gangsta. At 39 and still in the game (not dead or in prison), he is a virtual grandfather of banging). I advise her beforehand to smile and nod and I'll explain later. A super star student, actress, and musician in her own right, she rarely remembers to ask and instead just accepts the praise and fame as her due.
When I first saw Anthony again after 12 years he guided my hand to his head, where the deep impression from a shovel hit during a neighborhood brawl travels from his hairline to his brow. He described the tattoos covering the multiple gunshot wounds he had, the time he almost died from a heart attack. I've been advised by people who have way more confidence in my writing than is warranted to attempt to recreate Anthony's speech in dialogue. I cannot. Having grown up in the language, I can understand (but not speak) about 25% of what he says. Often when I am with him he is on the phone with people from Chicago, discussing negotiations of moving the inter-gang gun violence from one block to the next. I couldn't tell you exactly what's happening, but I can understand the general gist of it. My daughter, who never spoke the language, cannot.
After a half hour phone conversation with her birth father I ask, "What did he say?"
She says, "yeah. No idea. I just said 'bye' when his sentences got shorter."
In school she's learning French. On visitation she's learning Chicago-land Thug-Speak. Thus far this has manifested itself in a popular hip-hop pidgin of phrases like, "You don't choose the thug life. Thug life chose me."
But to get back to the sex. Just in case my daughters stumble across this blog-- the oldest is almost 16-- my time to destroy them body and soul is ticking closed. My checkered past of sex with men leaves very little to recommend it. But how does one actually BECOME a lesbian when one is way too old to wear a t-shirt saying "I want to be a lesbian" to the bar or way too afraid to just go to Craigslist. The problem with being occasionally funny is that people think you're always being funny. But I'm dead serious when I ask my friend who recommends not knocking lesbianism before I try it, "I'm not! Where do I sign up?"
I could google it. "How does one become a lesbian?" but I'm afraid. Maybe I'm too old. I'm set in my dickish ways. I might just try the lady pond (again. I'm an asshole. I won't say it again) and not like it, and then I'm REALLY stuck if men suck AND women suck. So, while my kids spend time with their dad, I sit at home doing laundry and watching Netflix and heading to bed at 9pm, my wild days so far in the past they don't even bubble anymore. And I face the realization that all that I know and ever will know about lesbian sex I learned from Orange is the New Black.
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