with teenage peer pressure and performance anxiety. I may have been the only one who cared about running fast in between the make-out portions of the game. I once suggested we time the racing couple, but the others laughed it off, not believing I was serious. Lynn raced with Rob, Melanie with Donald, and I was paired with Alvin, a nice—albeit quirky—lifelong member of our gang with poor handwriting but surprising kissing prowess.
Until then, I had felt neutral and resigned about my own sexuality. Kissing Alvin produced a strange throbbing between my legs, but still, nothing about the experience made me want to be his girlfriend. I noticed boys and found them attractive, but much of my admiration lay in wanting to look like them. I really liked Donald, but this was based far more on mutual interests than attraction. When the time came, though, it seemed to me that he would be the logical boyfriend choice.
I was so sexually repressed and convinced that my attraction to girls was really admiration of their femininity that it never occurred to me that I might be a lesbian—I didn’t even realize that was a life option. I understood enough to know that lesbians were women who liked women, but I felt sure I was destined to become a man and a husband to a woman one day. My sexual longings were all focused on an imaginary future where I existed in a male body.
At that age, my friends and I were inhibited, sheltered Catholic kids. Sex rarely came up in conversation, even among my closest friends. We had no language to describe sexual orientation, that there might be options in terms of who we were attracted to, gender-wise; nor did we have any way of describing gender identity, one’s internal understanding of one’s own gender. Gender was never questioned; it was seemingly immutable for everyone but me. Lezzie and fag were slurs I occasionally heard in the schoolyard, but more as general insults than loaded put-downs.
I had never paused to consider what the life of a lezzie or fag looked like or meant for such people romantically. My imagination held them fixed in the schoolyard into infinity, stuck in a kind of purgatory of junior high taunting. In the Catholic, conservative Alberta of my 1970s youth, nobody talked about gay people, let alone any LGBTQ role models.
Meanwhile, transgender people were strictly the stuff of circus acts.
4
THE POLISH STUFF
(1979)
I GLANCED AT the large Dairy Queen clock: 6:45 PM. Fifteen more minutes until the next phase of my Friday night plan. I was fourteen years old and working my first real part-time job. As I cleaned the deep fryer and bleached the counters, Lynn exited the men’s washroom, bucket in hand.
“Men are so gross,” she lamented, as she did every shift we worked together. Our boss’s creepy son leered at Lynn’s breasts whenever he could and always assigned washrooms to her before leaving for the day. “You almost done?”
“Yeah,” I answered, spraying the fry area with degreaser and wiping it down. “What time should we come over?”
“After eight,” she replied. “When do your parents go out?”
“Their concert starts at eight, so they’ll be gone by seven thirty.”
“Perfect. James bought a ton of beer. I’ve already snagged some and put it in the basement fridge for us. Is Melanie coming?” She slipped off her DQ uniform and replaced it with a snug sweater. I changed too, eyes resolutely down, as always.
“She has to come—the only way I can go is if I sleep over at her house so my parents won’t know. They’d never let me go to a party without the parents home.”
“No, that’s fine. I like her.” Lynn set the alarm, locked the back door, and we exited into the cool, crisp October evening.
Melanie’s family was out that night when I came to call for her. She gestured for me to come in.
“Let’s hang out a bit here first,” she suggested.
“Okay,” I shrugged.
“Do you want a little drink?”
“Sure. What have you got?” I asked, trying to sound like my dad. I hovered over Melanie while she peered into her parents’ liquor cabinet.
“Wanna try this?” She pulled out a forty-ounce bottle of clear liquid with an incomprehensible label. “It’s the Polish stuff.” Rumored to be over 170 proof, revered and spoken of in hushed tones by the adults on our street, “the Polish stuff” was a potent vodka served on the most special of occasions and even then only in thimble-sized glasses, sipped with excruciating slowness.
Melanie pulled out two scotch tumblers and filled them with three fingers of the Polish stuff. “I usually add some water to mine,” she advised matter-of-factly as I followed her to the kitchen sink. We each added a splash of water and slammed it back, eyes watering, throats aflame.
“Gahhhhhhh,” I gasped. Melanie smiled.
“Good, huh?” I nodded. Since I was a small child I’d been given sips—and more recently full glasses—of beer and wine, and every time I had a first hit of alcohol, relief flooded through me almost instantly. I reached for the bottle and poured us both another. We tossed it back. I poured myself a third glass, but Melanie stopped me before I could pour hers. “I’m good. We still have a party to go to,” she reminded me.
“Right.” I slammed mine back, already well into my first experience of being drunk. “Let’s go!” I have no memory after that and only learned the remainder of that night’s story from Melanie, who shared her recollection with me over the next few days.
We reached Lynn’s house to find the high school party in full swing, mainly populated by her sister and brother’s eleventh and twelfth-grade friends. Their parents were in Hawaii and mine were safely ensconced at a Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra concert.
Apparently none of my friends could tell I was blind drunk, and my intoxication didn’t stop me from drinking several beers while there. From what Melanie said, I was fun, funny, and relaxed at the crowded house party. After a few hours, Melanie and I walked back to her house and crept inside, her family now home and in bed. I was making noise and goofing around, ignoring her repeated requests to speak more quietly. She led me down to their unfinished basement in an attempt to keep me from waking her parents and three older brothers on the top floor.
Once downstairs, I tried to recreate our childhood playacting games, beginning with Aquaman, my favorite, where I played the lead and Melanie played Aquagirl. But Melanie wasn’t playing along.
“C’mon, Mel, be Aquagirl,” I implored. Melanie shook her head.
“I think we should go to bed; I’m tired.” Ignoring her growing frustration, I began to set up the ironing board. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“It’s an underwater rock—I’m gonna swim over it,” I announced, backing up to the far wall. “Watch out!”
“Lori! No!”
I ran and leaped, hurdling the ironing board. I ran back and forth, jumping over it several times before catching a toe and crashing, ripping my elbow open on the rough concrete wall and smashing the iron into pieces. I crumpled to the floor, then
