Brownies With Nuts

Truth be told, the Brownies were a big snore.  The mousy troupe leader was the mom of one of the other Brownies, and kept asking for suggestions for activities besides making gods eyes.  My suggestions for mounting theatrical productions, jumping around in a giant vat of mud, and making Danish Modern Barbie furniture were largely ignored.  So was horseback riding and training your dog to do tricks.  The meetings were boring preoccupations with minutes, as the other girls unremittingly tried to earn as many badges as possible through learning pledges about obedience and patriotism, and crafts.  I thought badges and the obsession with earning them were a complete waste of time, an exercise in hoarding.  This was unfortunate, since collecting badges to decorate one’s sash seemed to be the Brownie raison d’etre.  I had only two badges, one for joining the Brownies, and one for memorizing the jingoistic oaths.

I decided to liven things up at a troupe meeting by appearing as one of the comical characters I’d been working on, Fat Legs.  I figured that once the troupe leader and the other Brownies saw some live comedy, they would definitely want to mount a theatre production.  The Fat Legs costume consisted of my too-large thermal long underwear pants stuffed with my security blanket, Silky.  It gave my legs the impression of not only being fat, but stippled with lumpy cellulite, for a whiff of authenticity.  To complete the costume, I wore a large sweatshirt with a throw pillow stuffed in the belly area, with my sparsely populated Brownie sash over the top.  Mainly it was my boorish characterization that I felt carried Fat Legs off.  I felt a little bit bad that I was mocking people with fat legs for a cheap laugh, but I thought that Fat Legs held more than a skin-deep message if you looked closer.  Indeed, my mother had her doubts that this persona would work comedy magic as she dropped me off in back of the local junior high school where Brownie meetings were held, mercifully free of students upon arrival.  “I’m hungry – where’s my cake?!” shouted Fat Legs upon entering the meeting room.  Fat Legs was met with stunned silence.  A couple of Brownies stared with open mouths, their hands hovering in the air where they had been weaving potholders on a toy loom.  

“I’m so hungry I could eat some Brownies – real ones!” Fat Legs shouted.

The troupe leader drew me aside and asked me to change into my Brownie uniform.  Unfortunately all I had to wear was the Fat Legs costume, which I had to sit in for the rest of the meeting while the other Brownies inched further away from me.  The troupe leader then announced that she was gathering together a group of Brownies to sing Christmas carols at some local convalescent homes, and she automatically signed me up.

Two weeks later, now donned in my normal Brownie uniform, we were driven in a van to a convalescent home.  The front featured a typical-looking lawn and flowerbed, with a winding concrete path edged with embedded pebbles that led to automatic glass doors.  But as those doors slid shut behind us, it was clear that a psychic darkness skulked within.  First there was the smell.  It hit you like a ton of bricks, the combination of a toilet-cleaner-esque disinfectant and rotting human flesh.  A large group of old people in wheelchairs and walkers lined the walls just beyond the entryway.  Some girls from our troupe started backing away toward the automatic doors in unison.  One of them started to sniffle.  Our troupe leader pushed us forward, sunnily yelling: “Brownies coming through!  Time for some holiday cheer!” In varying states of undress, it wasn’t clear whether the greenish casts on the convalescents’ faces were from their physical deterioration or from the flickering fluorescent lights.  The old people would not move back, so we had to walk through a tunnel they had created with their frail, jelly-like bodies. It was like an open market in the Middle Ages, with children auctioned off to the highest bidder.  “Pinch their cheeks!” the old people shouted past the Brownies to one another.  “Look at their uniforms!” they shrieked, reaching out to touch our clothes.  “I like the one in braids!” I heard one of the old ladies yell, as she lunged at me from her wheelchair.  “Come to Grandma!” she shouted as I hopped out of her claw-like grasp.  You’re not my Grandma, I thought to myself.  I have three grandmas and they’re much better than you, I thought, as I simultaneously felt terribly, terribly sorry for this oldster trapped in this horrible situation.

 Like a bouncer, the troupe leader protected us from more senile pouncing as we got into the visiting room and started up a jolly round of Jingle Bells.  The old lady who was really into me rolled her wheelchair up so she could touch me and stroke my hair while I sang, intoning Come to Grandma, come to Grandma.  I tried to smile at her and continue as if everything were normal, but her grip was strong and it became increasingly difficult.  As I looked around I saw that many of the old folks were weeping.  Was this what the experience was supposed to be like?  The other Brownies stared at the wall in front of us like zombies, only their mouths moving, intent for the singing to be over so they could run back to the van. As soon as we had done three or four numbers, the troupe leader thanked the seniors and started to hustle us out the door.  Crying broke out, now from the Brownies as well as the convalescents. Who they really need here is Fat Legs, I thought. They obviously needed some comedy in their lives, but no one had wanted to do my suggestions.

How Was Summer Camp?

“How much farther is this place?  We’re gonna break the axle,” complained Barb as Mother’s aging Honda Civic bumped and slammed over the rutted dirt road.  Mother had heard of the camp during a discussion with other lesbian moms at Mama Bears Café in Oakland. A woman named Sorrel Big Mountain was opening her Mendocino County property to girl campers for a couple of weeks over the summer.  Mother, perennially desperate to stash me away somewhere for the summer, decided that this situation would be perfect. It was cheap and remote. Emphasis on remote.

“We’ve been on this road for at least an hour,” hassled Barb.  Finally, some evidence of human life came into view. A couple of shacks and a small wooden house.  We pulled into the “parking lot,” a patch of dirt near the house where the grass had died. As we pulled in, we noticed a backhoe in full operation, excavating a large hole in the dirt near one of the shacks.  Womyning the digger was a bare-breasted female in a hard hat, her boobs swinging in time to the backhoe’s movement. As we gaped at this spectacle, another approached: a 350-pound woman strolling down from the house to greet us.  She was wearing a loose t-shirt and nothing else. One’s eyes were immediately drawn to her crusty bare feet and enormous black bush. Sorrel Big Mountain.  

Sorrel addressed me warmly.  “Welcome, Camper. What’s your name?”  I went through the typical motions of explaining how to pronounce my name while trying politely not to look down.  As these introductions were being made, Barb unceremoniously dumped my baggage on the ground next to the Honda as she and Mother drove off. I was left alone with Sorrel and the dyke on the digger, watching as the car hightailed it out of there, burning rubber kicking up clouds of dust on the dirt road back to civilization.

With the sun blazing overhead, Sorrel pointed out the various features of the camp.  Where the dyke was digging was our swimming hole. Near a ridge at the edge of the clearing we were to pitch our tents.  Close to the tents in a small ravine we would dig our latrines. Beyond that was a redwood forest that extended for hundreds of miles.  Sorrel was relaxed and friendly, and I began to forget that she was an obese stranger with no pants, in whose care I would be for the next two weeks.

I was the first to arrive, and other campers began to trickle in.  I was particularly anticipating my best friend, Summer. During the past year at Dunbar School, Summer and I had discovered that both of our moms were lesbians, and this had given us a close bond.  Mother had recommended the camp to Caryn, Summer’s feckless mom, and she had signed Summer up as well, as she had her own toxic Sapphic relationship drama to sow.

Summer arrived, and we watched as the final campers were dropped off.  A girl from Palo Alto was there to join her best friend, who had a lesbian mom.  As her mother’s boyfriend introduced himself to pants-less Sorrel, she politely but curtly informed him that this was the domain of separatist lesbians, and no men were allowed on the property.  I guess there’ll be no excursions to visit the Boy Scout Camp, I whispered to Summer archly. I had seen a sign pointing to it on our long journey up the dirt mountain road. Not that any boys even wanted to talk to me, let’s face it.

With all the campers in place, we went to the top of the ridge, where we began pitching our tents.  Assisting us were a couple of older girls who acted as camp counselors. One of them, Andy, was a sixteen-year-old runaway from Ohio.  She instantly latched on to Summer like a limpet to a piece of coral.

Assembling the tents became difficult as the temperature rose to over 100 degrees.  Much more difficult was digging the latrines. To do this we used a latrine digger, which was a pole with two strong spoonlike scoops at the end.  We rammed the latrine diggers down into the earth and scooped away what we could, creating a hole that we would squat over to relieve ourselves. Since the eldest of us were only twelve or thirteen, it was quite unwieldy using such a heavy tool.  Many girls gave up after only a few scoops. They spent the two weeks of camp shitting in the dirt and trying to cover it up with pine needles.

The hole that the dyke with the digger had dug was filled with water from a hose.  Never crystal clear, within a few days it became a vile pit of mud. We girls abandoned our bathing suits after they became unwearable, and the camp thus became clothing optional.  This was a challenge for me, as I was very self-conscious about my Michelin Man midriff and newly-growing breasts. The mud was eventually so thick that we could only wallow nakedly, like hippos at a watering hole.

Sorrel had a teenage daughter who lived in the wooden house with her.  The daughter was the polar opposite of Sorrel: she was slim, adorned in trendy clothes and feathered Farrah hair, wore layers and layers of frosted makeup, and spoke in a California surfer patois.  The daughter emerged only to board dusty cars that arrived late at night to spirit her down the mountain to do God knows what in Willits. She took a liking to me and said that we could borrow some of her outmoded K-Tel albums.  Thus my passion for disco was backhandedly indulged.  As there was no set camp curriculum, Sorrel was open to my suggestion of night time dance parties around the campfire.  We dragged an old record player on to the porch and boogied for hours under the moonlight to the strains of I Wanna Do Something Freaky To You and Doctor’s Orders.

The one event that the camp had planned was the Moon Goddess Festival.  The moon reached its zenith about a week into the camp, when we were summoned to a bonfire at the edge of the woods.  As we waited, we sat around the fire singing our camp songs. These were mostly mid-century standards with lyrics rewritten by horny lesbians. 

“Nothing could be finer 

Than a kiss on the vagina

In the morrrnin’!”

Nothing could be sweeter 

Than my sweetie when I eat her 

In the morrrnin’!”

With our voices raised to the full moon, we heard the beating of hooves, looking up to see Sorrel riding in on a white horse, led by the other adult wimmin.  She wore a full-length white robe and a wreath of white flowers on her head. The other wimmin led her around and around the fire, singing a song of motherlove.  Where they got the horse, I didn’t know, but I was very concerned that it should not be bearing all that weight.

One morning we wallowed in our mud hole until the heat became too blazing to stand.  I felt very weak and managed to crawl out, which was no mean feat, as the sides of the hole were caked with a thick, steep mire.  To exit, you had to make a run for it, grasping for the weeds at the edge above to prevent you from sliding back down into the pit.  I barely made it out, laying panting at the side, naked and covered in muck. I turned and retched in the weeds. Summer went and got an adult.

The nice dyke who was Sorrel’s assistant let me take a shower in the house.  Before that point, there had been no mention or method of bathing; after wallowing in the mud, we had the option of being rinsed with a trickling hose.  In between my vomiting and the mud sloughing off my body, I noticed that I was as red as a cooked lobster. In this pre-sunscreen period of history, I had been wearing a t-shirt as a means of sunburn prevention, but had soon ditched it, as the growing mud ruined our swim gear.  The womyn led me to a shed. It was windowless and airless, but somewhat cooler than the burning midday sun outside. She had set up a cot with an army blanket, and had brought me a glass of milk. She left me alone, and I tossed and turned in a fever dream for an unknown period of time.  I woke up occasionally to vomit in a bucket that was left for me on the plank floor. There was a knot in the wood where the sun shone through the floorboard.  

It became dark, but the barfing went on.  The milk I had been given had turned sour in the heat.  Sorrel came in and told me that I appeared to have heat stroke, and wanted to call my mother and have her pick me up.  No, I pleaded, please don’t do that. I like it here at the camp and would like to stay for the whole time. Please don’t send me back to my mom and Barb.  Sorrel patted my hand sympathetically and I stayed in the shed until the vomiting subsided.

In my absence the tent I shared with Summer had been taken over by Andy.  She had decided that Summer was her girlfriend, and had moved in when I fell ill.  I was shocked that Summer had turned gay, since she had always shared an interest in boys.  Summer seemed confused by this turn of events, and appeared only to be in the relationship because Andy had decided it for her.  Andy went everywhere with Summer, her arm hooked around Summer’s neck or shoulders. I didn’t care for Andy, and thought that if Summer was indeed a lesbian, that she could do a lot better.  Andy seemed exceedingly stupid, with stringy hair that was covered with a tattered, dirty baseball cap. She also had rotting teeth and the body of a fire hydrant. I was upset, as I felt that sixteen-year-old Andy was taking advantage of naïve, thirteen-year-old Summer.  At night, as I tried to fall asleep as quickly as possible, Andy wormed her way into Summer’s sleeping bag. I heard Andy’s whispered sweet-talk over Summer’s protestations. At one point, I looked over and saw the strained, silent mask of Summer’s face as Andy leaned over her, her arm moving rhythmically inside the sleeping bag.

Finally, the two weeks of camp came to an end. Mother and Barb begrudgingly returned and picked me up. It was a bitter farewell for me, as Summer and I were to attend different junior high schools when the seventh grade started in the Fall.  When Summer’s mom and her barely-of-legal-age girlfriend came to pick Summer up, Andy got in the car and left with them.  

Many months later, Summer’s mom Caryn arranged for a camp reunion at their new house in Santa Rosa.  Though I was excited to see Summer and some of the other campers, I was dismayed at Summer’s demeanor and living situation.  Though she was taller and more beautiful than ever, her eyes were glassy and her smile was fixed, like a brainwashed hostage.  Andy had been living with Summer and her family since camp ended, a relationship Caryn had encouraged. Sorrel Big Mountain asked if we could go around the room and describe something important that had happened to each of us since camp ended.  I was struggling to think of something to say other than “staying alive” when Mother jumped in. “Muire has something important she would like to share.”  

“I do?” I desperately queried my mother, wild-eyed.  

“Tell them, Honey.”

The group of hardcore lesbians and their daughters turned to me with rapt attention.

“Oh God.” 

“Muire started her period last month!”  Mother beamed as if she herself had brought about this great accomplishment.  I felt the blood burning in my face.  

“Muire is a womyn now,” pronounced Sorrel.

I was far, far away as the applause beat in my ears and the dykes’ faces glowed with pride.  Some were practically crying. If this was being a womyn, I didn’t want it.