In high school (as in much of my adult life) I really wanted to be in a rock band. I would peruse the ads in the local entertainment mag, Scene Magazine, and be really tempted to respond to them, but ultimately I wouldn't out of fear. I was young, black, not particularly talented, not hot, and my equipment was shit. I was aware enough to know that I'd be laughed out of a lot of situations. I don't remember what was special about the one I finally responded to —it was probably perfectly irreverent and anti-establishment—but I wound up traveling by bus to an Arabica coffeehouse in the suburbs to meet Jellybean and Adrienne Bartholomew. It was the summer before I went off to college.
We hit it off right away. They were the poster children for teenage rebellion. At the time, I thought they were just cool peeps on my wavelength that could accept me for who I was; now I can see that they were typical high school kids trying to piss off their parents, jaded and disillusioned, needing ways to channel their feelings of isolation. They didn't care that I was black, lesbian. In fact, they thought it was cool. It gave them credibility. This was in the era of grunge, right, when it was all about disaffected youth and standing against the mainstream, etc. etc. I sound jaded myself right now I know. I didn't feel that way back then. I was psyched to be amongst people who were "like me" in some way. It was about this time that my high school friends had dropped off the face of the Earth, out of school in fact, and that I lost contact with my main cohort. I was lonely and surrounded by people who had no idea who I was. I thought Jellybean and Adrienne were my new "gang". The band was the icing on the cake. We called ourselves Gonorrhea, because we were so hard core.
Jellybean was the drummer. He could not play drums though. The one time we all "practiced", it was like a scene out of Bill and Ted— before George Carlin paid them a visit. Just terrible. He was also supposedly bisexual and considering gender reassignment because he felt like a woman. You know, he was a feminist and hated men and listened to Riot Grrrll music and all that. He also happened to have a pretty well-off, standard issue suburban family that undoubtedly did not approve of his choices, so that all went together nicely in terms of textbook rebellion.
Adrienne was a slightly different story. I spent considerably more time with her, even living with her and her folks in their tiny apartment (sleeping on their foldout couch) for a few weeks at one point. They were generally nice, funny, laid back people. They didn't have a ton of money; their apartment was small. They were the quintessential working class family full of sass and love, y'know? Her dad had some health problems I remember.
Adrienne and I grew fairly close. We'd stay up talking forever. I also had a consuming, burning, disastrously hopeless crush on her that no doubt ratcheted up the import of those nights for me and me alone. She claimed to be bisexual, but she never really...vibed, know what I mean? Again, I think it was all about the image and simply wanting to be what passed for edgy in those days. She too listened to the Riot Grrlll stuff. I remember sitting in her room, listening to Bikini Kill or Babes in Toyland, and she would play along on her bass. She, unlike myself and Jellybean, actually had skill.
So we were a band that never practiced and were not actually any good. I rarely saw Jellybean in fact, but as I said I spent a lot of time
I talked Adrienne into skipping out of her house one night and going to a party with me at my buddy's house. By buddy I mean some random guy I'd met in queer group. He was fun, volatile, crazy, super gay, and about the only one left for me to hang with as my time in town was drawing to a close. I had actually starting staying with him because I felt like I was really taking advantage of Adrienne's family. So I convinced her to go with me, and we wound up spending the night there. I slept next to her on a mattress on the floor. Jesus. Sometimes I think we were so close to...but then she gave me a letter essentially owning up to not actually being into women. She was sweet about though. Even threw me a bone and said that if she were into women, she'd be into me. That was nice of her.
We spent the night, I lamented all kinds of things that would not be, and in the morning I took the bus with her back to her house to make sure she got home okay. She climbed into her bedroom window. I waited a short while before finding a pay phone and calling her to make sure everything had gone okay. Her mom answered. Her sweet mom, Sharon, laid into me on the phone in a big way. Way bigger than the scenario warranted I think. I don't remember all of the details of what she said, but one phrase has stuck in my mind all these years: You're destroying our family. That was...I mean, I was shocked and devastated. I kept Adrienne out overnight, sure, but man: isn't that kids do? I didn't think it was a family-ruining moment. To this day I believe something else was going on. I never got a chance to find out though. They forbade me to see her. This was before the days of cellphones and email and stuff like that, and we didn't go to school together so...that was pretty much it. I got another buddy of mine to wait outside her high school with me one day to see if I could talk to her. I never saw her. Shortly thereafter I left for school.
We've had contact twice since then. The first time was during my first summer break. I don't know who contacted whom (I imagine I called her) and we sat and talked on the phone forever. We'd discussed getting together in person, but I balked. I was already dating someone at school, and I was afraid that seeing Adrienne would stir up feelings that would make it hard for me to go back to my girlfriend at the end of the summer. Not that I thought that Adrienne had suddenly gotten into women, but that it would be difficult to be with my girlfriend knowing I was still in love with someone else. We left it at that phone call.
The second time was after I graduated. I was working at a travel agency, my first time with long access to a computer and the internet. That's where my habit of Googling people I used to know began, although it wasn't Google at the time. I found enough information to ascertain that she was still in the area of our childhood, working in customer service (I forget if it was a restaurant or receptionist work at some other company). I got an email address and emailed her. She wrote back, telling me that she was married and had 3 little boys. I was amazed, but happy for her. I emailed her back asking her about her kids and telling her about my own life, including mentioning that I was still a lesbian and involved with a great woman. I never heard from her again. For the longest time I thought she'd gotten freaked out by my admission and decided it best not to talk to me, that she'd thought she'd be leading me on or something. You know how it goes. People get old, get families and move to the 'burbs and mentally divorce themselves from their "sordid" past. I figured that's what she was doing. I was hurt, but decided not to push it. If she'd moved on, so be it.
That brings us back to yesterday's Googling. In short: what the fuck?! I thought for sure it was just one of those typical shared name dealies. If you Google me you get some soccer player for the first 3 pages. I checked out the pics though, and I would recognize that face anywhere. It was her. I don't even know what to do with myself. You read about these things and you think, What monsters! Nothing burns my ass like hearing about people hurting kids. I know (knew) this woman though. I can't wrap my head around how the girl I knew could be party to something like this. It hurts my heart. I can't imagine what happened in her life, what choices and circumstances occurred, that resulted in this awfulness. That poor child. It's crazy how life can spiral out of control. I hope the remaining children find safe, healthy homes.
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