Sunday, January 18, 2009

It’s Time... (DRAFT)

I have linked around to other bloggers via Ambulance Driver Files, visiting here and there. A couple of days ago I stumbled into Real Live Lesbian's Blog. And while snooping around there, I read one of her featured past blogs Suicide - Full Story.... and so I write:

It was New Year's Eve. Y2K. Either the whole world would end at midnight tonight, or we would wake up in the morning just as poor and miserable as we were this morning. I had just graduated EMT school and was about to take all my licensing exams. While waiting for all this to come about, I was working this ridiculous minimum wage job at the neighborhood pizza spot, delivering pizzas to rednecks who have no concept of tipping the delivery girl. I was barely breaking even, but the lights were still on and we were eating. Michael had gotten a job here too, which helped. Our other friend, Eric, stayed at home because he was emotionally recovering from yet another traumatic explosion in his 6 year on again, off again, relationship. The three of us had been tight friends since 1995. They were my gay boys, and I was their lesbian fag-hag. We had our ups and downs, but we made it work.

Like I said, it was New Year's Eve. I was running my ass off, delivering pizzas to drunken rednecks and big parties. Dick Clark could not count fast enough for me. We were open late that night to catch up with the damage done during this 4-5 hours of pure hell. And wouldn't 'cha know it, when I thought I would get back to the restaurant to help clean and close and do all my end of shift duties, a late order comes in.

So, off I go. Some late night partiers just had to order a couple of pizza's and a pasta dish, with a side salad. I'm driving up and down this section of Warren Road looking for for the address on the order. Of course it's dark. Of course there are no street lights here. Of course it's poorly numbered. Actually, it's NOT even really numbered at all. I only found a cluster of mailboxes beside one driveway where this address should be... and all three have the same family name on them as the order. Damn.

I turn cautiously down the driveway. It's important to drive slowly. Out here, if you pull up into the wrong yard or knock on the wrong door you can get your ass shot. There a lot of old skool country folks here still. Sometimes what they do, they don't want strangers knowing. Even as our little community grows, folks even on the skirts of being in "neighborhoods" still make home-brew and moonshine. Some grow weed. These days some of them cook meth. The last thing you want to do is be mistaken for police, DEA, or a snooping neighbor. As I creep along, I am relieved that the porch light on the middle shack begins to flash on and off. Yes, shack. Thankfully they have been watching for my arrival.

The yard is dotted with a few junk cars and trucks, rusted farm equipment, old crates, and piles of beer cans hopefully, to be recycled, but probably not. There is a barking dog somewhere in the distance. Great. There were chickens on the loose. Even better. This "house" if you will, has obviously been added to several times over its life, each section made of different materials. Reluctantly, I pull closer to the house and park my truck. Gathering the items in the order, I know there is no tip waiting for me here.

As I get out of my truck, I reach back in to pick up the order. My back is to the house. That probably wasn't a good idea. Suddenly I hear, "I'm glad you got here. Thought I was gonna have to skin one of these chickens. I got the munchies like a mo-fo." I wasn't sure what caught my attention first, the fact that she obviously smokes weed, or that her voice was sexy as hell.



Dare I glimpse?



My gawd! This was the hawtest baby dyke I've ever seen! Right away she noticed the rainbow sticker on the dark tinted back window of my Dakota. She didn't hesitate to tell me how happy she was to know she wasn't the only lesbian out here in the sticks. She explains how she is staying here with her dad for a while because she just broke up with her "ole lady". We chat like old friends for probably 15 minutes until the conversation is broken by my cell phone ringing. It was my boss wanting to know where the hell I was, screaming with his ill-contained Napoleon Syndrome that this was my only order and the address less than two miles away. I explained how I had a hard time finding the place, blah blah blah, but I was with the customer and I would be on my way back to clean the restaurant in a minute. I got a rush of courage and gave her my cell phone number and roughly told her where I lived, and said we should hang out sometime. I didn't even get her name.

Although she was constantly on my mind (and in my dreams), I didn't hear from her. I wished I had thought to get her number. I was smart enough not to ever go back to her dad's. He probably would shoot me, not knowing me. At least two weeks had passed. Eric had moved on to his next short lived relationship with some guy he met on the internet. I had dropped Michael off at work and had been out and about, running errands, doing laundry over in the bustling crossroads of Shannon. I returned home to find a strange car in my yard. A beat up early 80's Cutlass, shit brown and rusted the same color in a few places. Much to my delight, she got out. My heart fluttered.

She had paid attention when I told her where I lived. Apparently she had paid close attention, because she found me. She had actually called my job and found out when I was off, and decided to drop by... and had been waiting a couple of hours for my return. That's patience. Or persistence. Or stalking?

She chuckled when she properly introduced herself as Jordan. Much to my delight, she came bearing gifts of weed, and wanted to hang out for rest of the day. We smoked, talked, laughed, and got to know each other. Oh my gawd, I was sooo in love with this girl. I was blown away by the fact that although she had bounced back and forth between living with her mother and father, for most of her life she had only lived a mile or so from the farm I grew up on.

Until recently, we had never met. Then I discovered the reason why. I had just celebrated my 25th birthday. She was 17. She could not get into any of the local bars or pubs I went to. She certainly couldn't get into any gay bars. Most importantly... she was jail-bait. Serious jail-bait at 17 in Georgia. Not only was gay and lesbian sex still on the on the law books as "sodomy", but to partake in same-sex relations with anyone under the age of 18 was felonious child molestation - although age of consent was 16 for heterosexual activity.

She was flirting with me, hard core flirting. At times the conversation was undeniably sexual. What my ears heard, my appetite ate and stored for future dreams. She was no first-timer. She was experienced. Very experienced. At 17, she spoke of things I'd never even dreamt of, but at 25, I now really wanted to try... with her! And when she leaned in to kiss me, hard reality set in. I couldn't. I wanted to. But the last thing I wanted was her old man beating down my door, raising hell about how I took advantage of his daughter, and being carried away by the police. And I explained this to her. She looked confused. Apparently she'd never been turned down before, especially by older women. I wasn't sure how to feel about that.

She would call now and then, or drop by to burn one. We ran into each other now and then over the next year. Eventually, she met someone and moved away to Smyrna. I married my new job in Atlanta. Around that time I also met Candice, who I would end up spending the next 5 years with. Candice and I broke up for a few weeks during the summer of 2002. And with her amazing intuition, Jordan found me online one night and sent me an instant message. Within an hour or so I had managed to be dressed and driving toward Atlanta. She wanted to spend the evening hanging out together.

I remember this night clearly. Candice and I were "taking time off", and I had just caught her talking to some other chick online. I knew that Jordan was still interested, and now she was legal. I followed the directions she gave as I kept her on the phone, and arrived at her quasi-ghetto apartment just outside of Atlanta. She came outside to meet me. Dear Lord, she was hawt.

She needed to ride into Atlanta to pick up a special package for tonight. By this time I was intimately familiar with all corners of Atlanta, all the shady neighborhoods, after working for Grady. We headed off to a part of Atlanta known as the West End. More specifically Ashby Street. I waited nervously in the truck while she went it to make her purchase. I was the only white girl for miles (who wasn't working the streets). Being on duty in the ambulance is completely different. That ambulance, and the uniform, gives you automatic street cred with the dealers and thugs. We've saved many of them. But in my own truck, in street clothes, off duty... I was a sitting duck.

Apparently she knew these folks well, because her transaction didn't require call-ahead reservations. Within a couple of minutes we were on our way back to her apartment on the north side of town. Along the way I saw a broke down car full of teenage girls. Stranded after going to a concert in Atlanta, they had a flat. Although they were in the stretch between Atlanta's ghetto and Cobb County's suburbia, they were still too close to be left out here to wait for Triple A. I turned back around and stopped to see if we could help. It was a just flat tire, which I could easily solve. I told the driver to call triple A and cancel her request.

As I began changing the tire, in my heels and finery, I realized that this baby-butch had absolutely NO IDEA about how to change tires, much less where to find the jack and spare. I gave an silent internal chuckle and chalked it up to her relatively young age. God knows, I'd had plenty of junker cars over the years, and out of necessity had become quiet the shade-tree mechanic. Surely she's have plenty of time to learn how to fix her own cars.

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