Dear Theresa, from Stone Butch Blues

Dear Theresa, from Stone Butch Blues Leslie Feinberg Dear Theresa: I’m lying on my bed tonight missing you, my eyes all swollen, hot tears running down my face. There’s a fierce summer lightning storm raging outside. Tonight I walked down streets looking for you in every woman’s face, as I have each night of this lonely exile. I’m afraid I’ll never see your laughing, teasing eyes again. I had coffee in Greenwich Village earlier with a woman. A mutual friend fixed us up, sure we’d have a lot in common since we’re both “into politics.” Well, we sat in a coffee shop and she talked about Democratic politics and seminars and photography and problems with her co-op and how she’s so opposed to rent control. Small wonder—Daddy is a real estate developer. I was looking at her while she was talking, thinking to myself that I’m a stranger in this woman’s eyes. She’s looking at me but she doesn’t see me. Then she finally said how she hates this society for what it’s done to “women like me” who hate themselves so much they have to look and act like men. I felt myself getting flushed and my face twitched a little and I started telling her, all cool and calm, about how women like me existed since the dawn of time, before there was oppression, and how those societies respected them, and she got her very interested expression on—and besides it was time to leave. So we walked by a corner where these cops were laying into a homeless man and I stopped and mouthed off to the cops and they started coming at me with their clubs raised and she tugged my belt to pull me back. I just looked at her, and suddenly I felt things well up in me I thought I had buried. I stood there remembering you like I didn’t see cops about to hit me, like I was falling back into another world, a place I wanted to go again. [End Page 220] And suddenly my heart hurt so bad and I realized how long it’s been since my heart felt—anything. I need to go home to you tonight, Theresa. I can’t. So I’m writing you this letter. I remember years ago, the day I started working at the cannery in Buffalo and you had already been there a few months, and how your eyes caught mine and played with me before you set me free. I was supposed to be following the foreman to fill out some forms but I was so busy wondering what color your hair was under that white paper net and how it would look and feel in my fingers, down loose and free. And I remember how you laughed gently when the foreman came back and said, “You comin’ or not?” All of us he-shes were mad as hell when we heard you got fired because you wouldn’t let the superintendent touch your breasts. I still unloaded on the docks for another couple of days, but I was kind of mopey. It just wasn’t the same after your light went out. I couldn’t believe it the night I went to the club on the West Side. There you were, leaning up against the bar, your jeans too tight for words and your hair, your hair all loose and free. And I remember that look in your eyes again. You didn’t just know me, you liked what you saw. And this time, ooh woman, we were on our own turf. I could move the way you wanted me to, and I was glad I’d gotten all dressed up. Our own turf . . . “Would you dance with me?” You didn’t say yes or no, just teased me with your eyes, straightened my tie, smoothed my collar, and took me by the hand. You had my heart before you moved against me like you did. Tammy was singing “Stand By Your Man,” and we were changing all the he’s to she’s...