Women In The Shadow. Ann Bannon

Beebo said. She said it bitterly, and the tone of her voice turned Laura on her heel and sent her out of the room to bed. Beebo went to the open kitchen door and leaned unsteadily on it.

      “Laura, you’re a bitch!” she called after her. “Laura, baby, I hate you! I hate you! Listen to me!” She waited while Laura slammed the door behind her and then stood with her head bowed. Finally she looked up and whispered, “I love you, baby.”

      She turned back to Jack, who had finished the coffee and was now drinking out of the whiskey bottle without bothering with a glass. “What do you do with a girl like that?” she asked.

      Jack shrugged. “Take the lock off the bedroom door.”

      “I already did.”

      “Didn’t work?”

      “Worked swell. She made me sleep on the couch for five days.”

      “Why do you put up with it?”

      “Why did you? It was your turn not so long ago, friend.”

      “Because you’re crazy blind in love.” He looked toward her out of unfocused eyes. Jack’s body got very intoxicated when he drank heavily, but his mind did not. It was a curious situation and it produced bitter wisdom, sometimes witty and more often painful.

      Beebo slumped in a chair and put her hands tight over her face. Some moments passed in silence before Jack realized she was crying. “I’m a fool,” she whispered. “I drink too much, she’s right. I always did. And now I’ve got her doing it.”

      “Don’t be a martyr, Beebo. It’s unbecoming.”

      “I’m no martyr, damn it. I just see how unhappy she is, how she is dying to get away from me, and then I see her brighten up when she’s had a couple, and I can only think one thing: I’m doing it to her. That’s my contribution to Laura’s life. And I love her so. I love her so.” And the tears spilled over her cheeks again.

      Jack took one last drink and then left the bottle sitting in the sink. He said, “I love her too. I wish I could help.”

      “You can. Quit proposing to her.”

      “You think I should?”

      “Never mind what I think. It’s unprintable. I’m just telling you, quit proposing to her.”

      “She’ll never say yes,” he said mournfully. “So I don’t see that it matters.”

      “That’s not the point, Jackson. I don’t like it.”

      “I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

      “Jack, you don’t want to get married.”

      “I know. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

      “What would you do if she did say yes?”

      “Marry her.”

      “Why?”

      “I love her.”

      “Drivel! You love me. Marry me.”

      “I could live with her, but not with you,” he said. “I love her very much. I love her terribly.”

      “That’s not the reason you want to marry her. You can love her unmarried as well as not. So what’s the real reason? Come on.”

      If he had not been so drunk he would probably never have said it.

      “I want a child,” he admitted suddenly, quietly.

      Beebo was too startled to answer him for a moment. Then she began to laugh. “You!” she exclaimed. “You! Jack Mann, the homosexual’s homosexual. Dandling a fat rosy baby on his knee. Father Jack. Oh, God!” And she doubled up in laughter.

      Jack stood in front of her, the faintest sad smile on his face. “It would be a girl,” he mused. “She’d have long pale hair, like Laura.”

      “And horn-rimmed glasses like her old man.”

      “And she’d be bright and sweet and loving.”

      “With dames, anyway.”

      “With me.”

      “Oh, God! All this and incest, too!” And Beebo’s laughter, cruel and helpless, silenced him suddenly. He couldn’t be angry, she meant no harm. She was writhing in a net of misery and it eased the pain when she could tease. But the lovely child of his dreams went back to hide in the secret places of his heart.

      After a while Beebo stopped laughing and asked, “Why a girl?”

      “Why not?”

      “You’re gay. Don’t you want a pretty little boy to play with?”

      “I’m afraid of boys. I’d ruin him. I’d be afraid to love him. Every time I kissed him or stroked his hair I’d be thinking, ‘I can’t do this any more, he’ll take it wrong. He’ll end up as queer as his old man.’”

      “That’s not how little boys get queer, doll. Or didn’t your mama tell you?”

      “She never told me anything.” He smiled at her. “You know, Beebo, I think I’m going mad,” he said pleasantly.

      “That makes two of us.”

      “I’m serious. I’m even bored with liquor. By Jesus, I think I’ll go on the wagon.”

      “When you go on the wagon, boy, I’ll believe you’re going mad for sure. But not before.” She put her own glass down as if it suddenly frightened her. “Why do we all drink so much, Jackson? Is it something in the air down here? Does the Village contaminate us?”

      “I wish to God it did. I’d move out tomorrow.”

      “Are we all bad for each other?”

      “Poisonous. But that’s not the reason.”

      “It’s contagious, then. One person gets hooked on booze and he hooks everybody else.”

      “Guess again.”

      “Because we’re queer?”

      “No, doll. Come with me.” He took her by the hand and led her on a weaving course through the living room to the bathroom. The dachshund, Nix, followed them, bustling with non-alcoholic energy. Jack aimed Beebo at the mirror over the washbowl. “There, sweetheart,” he said. “There’s your answer.”

      Beebo looked at herself with distaste. “My face?” she asked. Jack chuckled. “Yourself,” he said. “You drink to suit yourself. As Laura said, you drink because you like the taste.”

      “I hate the taste. Tastes lousy.”

      “Beebo, I love you but you are the goddamn stubbornest female alive. You don’t drink because anybody asks you to, or infects you, or forces you. You’re like me. You need to or you wouldn’t! Ask that babe in the mirror there.”

      “I can’t live with that, Jack,” she whispered.

      “Okay, don’t. I can’t either. I just made up my mind: I’m quitting.”

      She turned and looked at him. “I don’t believe you.”

      He smiled at her. “You don’t have to,” he said.

      “And what if you do? How does that help me?”

      He shook his head. “You have to help yourself, Beebo. That’s the hell of it.” He turned and walked toward the front door and Beebo followed him, scooping Nix off the floor and carrying him with her. “Don’t go, Jack,” she said. “I need somebody to talk to.”

      “Talk to Laura.”

      “Sure. Like talking to a wall.”

      “Talk anyway. Talk to Nix.”

      “I do. All