Page 36 of Nearly Roadkill: Queer Love on the Run
I started doing it, too, so I’d be normal: stockings, skirts, high heels… which I hated but figured something was wrong with me. When I came out as a dyke, my girlfriend said if I didn’t like makeup I didn’t have to wear it; I haven’t since.
But there are lots of lesbians who wear skirts and lipstick, etc.
Because they like it. “Femme dykes” are never noticed as lesbians.
It’s a particular thorn in their sides, because they’re always getting come-ons from guys; a lot of lesbians don’t notice them either.
They’re caught in the middle. It’s like they’re invisible. They call it “femme invisibility.”
Winc: The $64,000 Question, Scratch, and it comes in a lot of parts: Why were you attracted to me? What turned you off about me?
Scratch: I was attracted to everything. Not a damn thing turned me off.
Winc: Awwwwwww.
I guess those are my questions for now.
I’m getting on with my life, surfing and avoiding the law. Oh! Speaking of which, that Lt. Budge thinks you’re a guy.
I need some space, Scratch. Oh I hope to see you from time to time when these wounds are healed. No, I’m not being Ingrid Bergman, just realistic. I love you.
Scratch: Space is what you want, space is what you have with all my love.
Oh… Budge is convinced you’re a helpless sweet thang, so we must be doing something right. Motherfucker. Did he try to play you off me? Tell you I told him everything? You *know* I’d never, right?
I love you. I love you.
END WINC JOURNAL ENTRY
NARRATIVE ENTRY, JABBATHEHUT
A weary, wary Wally Budge stares disconsolately at the message. Shel said she got it from her connection at ACI, and that Budge should read it. OK, Budge is reading.
To: Undersecretary LaBouchere, Bureau of Census and Statistics
From: Robert Blaine III, Allied Consumer Industries
Subj: No Registration/No Money
I’ll dispense with the amenities, Margaret, and cut to the chase. We are in deep brown sauce. Permit me to summarize:
Registration has ground to a complete stop. Rubes everywhere are Registering as variations of “Scratch” or “Winc,” and *that* has begun to foul up our database.
E-ads are being ridiculed to the point of ineffectiveness. Don’t get me wrong, when ads get ridiculed, people remember them. But this is different: ads are being *ignored*.
Go find the Scratch and Winc page. A grassroots campaign has been mounted: “If Scratch and Winc Don’t Need It, Neither Do I.”
And I thought this was America.
Direct email campaigns are failing. People aren’t signing up for giveaways. They see that they don’t have complete access to the Net, but only to areas our demosurveys indicate they would enjoy.
The punters are demanding COMPLETE ACCESS.
Have you any idea what a mess that would be?
And why do you suppose they want complete access, when most of them can’t even use their microwaves correctly?
Because Scratch and Winc have full access.
And they’re using illegal bypasses, which your department cannot seem to stop!
Lastly: If Scratch and Winc are not behind bars in five days, we’re pulling all funding for the Internet.
Yours truly,
—Robert Blaine III, Esq.
Budge closes his eyes for a moment. They had a point. Hey, he shit-cans every ad that comes to him. Shelly does the same thing. But tossing ads away has nothing to do with Scratch and Winc—it’s common practice. Even before the Internet. So why are they hanging it on these two jokers?
Then it hits him. They’re trying to stick Scratch and Winc with their own fuck-ups.
All that money—public funds, corporate grants—sunk into the Net as the ultimate advertising medium.
And it flopped beyond belief. Scratch and Winc are taking the rap.
So insisting on Registration is the desperate move to recover their losses.
But even Registration isn’t going to last. People are smart.
END JABBA NARRATIVE ENTRY
To: Drew
From: T. Sparrow
Subject: Come down off that ledge
Yes, that is sad. Now you can’t even say a word near your phone without an ad popping up. We need smart people with good hearts now more than ever.
Love,
Dad
SCRATCH JOURNAL ENTRY
To: Winc
From: Scratch
Subj: Us, Midnight…
I’m a bear of little brain. I can’t remember what our particular isms or differences are, and I don’t care.
I’m furious at this Budge character. I miss you fierce.
I miss Toobe, I mean, the old way we used to write to him.
So much to teach him, so much that he teaches us.
Lately my letters to him have been whiney.
I feel such love for you, my friend, my lover, my fellow traveler.
Your vulnerability is overwhelming sometimes, until I realize it is my own.
There’s no support for outlaws, even among ourselves.
Your path is so lone, as is mine, and we cannot help each other, any more than we do in comforting words.
Nevertheless, we still return to relating, to the realizations, albeit alone.
As more people get online, I’m sad that when I try to connect to people as someone without a gender, or without a specific sexual preference, just me, gender-free and loving whoever comes along, I get blank faces. Tinged with fear and judgment.
It kills me how one choice instantly obliterates others. As a grown-up, when I must make choices, I watch possibilities slip away. My inevitable reaction is to turn inward, to write, to confide sometimes.
It’s all the same thing—the connectedness of spirit, a capacity we’re born with, and either spend our lives denying or searching out to the farthest corners.
I want that connection, to see and be seen, with someone. The point is, Winc, you do see. That’s worth everything to me. More than any of my ignorance or fear of change. I miss you. Have you had enough space now? Can we meet? Please.
Thanks for listening, my love. Goodnight.
—S.
To: Scratch
From: Winc
Subj: Was reading some Zen stuff, and my brain fried…
Chuang Tzu taught that the mousetrap exists for the sake of the mouse: once the mouse has been caught, you can forget the trap.
He further taught that words exist for the sake of their meaning: once the meaning has been grasped, you can forget the words.
And the fool in me extrapolates that identities exist for the sake of relationships: once the relationship has been established, you can forget the identities.
Now here I yam, looking for someone who’s forgotten identity…
So?
—W.
To: Winc
From: Scratch
Subj: My brain with fries to go
Yes!! Me! Me! Take me! I’m forgetting identity! Trying anyway!
—S.
END SCRATCH JOURNAL ENTRY
GWYNYTH DIARY ENTRY
Word has gotten out that the orphans of the cyberstorm have various safe havens online created by none other than moi. Not good. If the “good guys,” as Toobe calls them, can find those two, then someone else can too.
I’m sure I can put together a white light spell that’ll blind anyone who makes the mistake of looking in my direction.
But hackers are afoot, breaking down bridges as soon as I build them. Winc has been tagged and needs extra links, which still don’t hold very long.
Note to myself: Collect more sage.
END GWYNYTH DIARY ENTRY