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I have met these sad lonely creatures before. They shuffle around stores buying their cat food and eyeballing all the women around them. Sneaking looks at the married couples and trying to hide their envious stares. There used to be one in the flat I lived in. Two floors up and I would watch her every Friday and Saturday evening cram her fat arse into a taxi and go down to the clubs in town.
Occasionally she would bring someone home with her, drunken loud and crashing into the building’s lobby and since my own flat was just above the entrance I often caught these comings and goings. Her company would stay an hour or two and then I’d hear the horn of the taxi when the company decided to leave. Sometimes a minor scene would play itself out on the walkway as the fat one begged the other to stay til morning. Sometimes I just heard the lift as it passed my floor.
I was fresh out of the army and while I was thinking about pastoral work I still hadn’t committed myself to the pastorate. I was, myself, in a state of flux in many ways and didn’t have a lot of the views I have now. I remember feeling sorry for the old gal. I don’t even think she was that old really but years of smoking, drinking and eating wrong had added years to her pleasant face.
I actually liked this poor slob in a lot of ways. When she was happy she had a great laugh. Her whole face lit up and you could see the young girl inside who wanted to be loved. If you needed help with something moved she loved to flex her “butch muscle” and give you a hand. She was the strange nonentity that lived in our building. Everyone knew her but no one knew her.
Years of loneliness though and contending with a hedonistic gay lifestyle had taken their toll on her. I remember once she told me that the official public view of lesbianism was that they were all politically correct but the private view was they were still hateful, shallow individuals who fought over the best looking women and kept others locked out of their parties and friendships. She told me that the lesbians in her favourite book “Our Bodies Our Selves” were nothing like the real lesbians that she knew. Women who cared publically but privately dealt unkind hate.
You know it’s funny but I can’t even remember her name for sure. I think it was Lauri or Laurelle. Big fat thing with short cropped hair. Cherishing her heavy mannish boots and stuffing herself into a pair of dungarees at least one size smaller. I probably got to know her better than any of her lesbian friends and I can’t even be sure of her name any more.
I heard through the grapevine about two years ago from someone I had also known in the building that she had moved out not long after I had left. She took her two cats and moved into a cheaper building in Hertfordshire. Word had it that she ended up taking her life. She had asked her sister to watch her cats for her whilst she had to go for a “job interview” in Scotland and whilst everyone thought she was on a train heading north, she instead went to Dover and overdosed on the beach.
I only hope our Father in Heaven loved her more than her lesbian friends did.
But it isn't likely is it?
Occasionally she would bring someone home with her, drunken loud and crashing into the building’s lobby and since my own flat was just above the entrance I often caught these comings and goings. Her company would stay an hour or two and then I’d hear the horn of the taxi when the company decided to leave. Sometimes a minor scene would play itself out on the walkway as the fat one begged the other to stay til morning. Sometimes I just heard the lift as it passed my floor.
I was fresh out of the army and while I was thinking about pastoral work I still hadn’t committed myself to the pastorate. I was, myself, in a state of flux in many ways and didn’t have a lot of the views I have now. I remember feeling sorry for the old gal. I don’t even think she was that old really but years of smoking, drinking and eating wrong had added years to her pleasant face.
I actually liked this poor slob in a lot of ways. When she was happy she had a great laugh. Her whole face lit up and you could see the young girl inside who wanted to be loved. If you needed help with something moved she loved to flex her “butch muscle” and give you a hand. She was the strange nonentity that lived in our building. Everyone knew her but no one knew her.
Years of loneliness though and contending with a hedonistic gay lifestyle had taken their toll on her. I remember once she told me that the official public view of lesbianism was that they were all politically correct but the private view was they were still hateful, shallow individuals who fought over the best looking women and kept others locked out of their parties and friendships. She told me that the lesbians in her favourite book “Our Bodies Our Selves” were nothing like the real lesbians that she knew. Women who cared publically but privately dealt unkind hate.
You know it’s funny but I can’t even remember her name for sure. I think it was Lauri or Laurelle. Big fat thing with short cropped hair. Cherishing her heavy mannish boots and stuffing herself into a pair of dungarees at least one size smaller. I probably got to know her better than any of her lesbian friends and I can’t even be sure of her name any more.
I heard through the grapevine about two years ago from someone I had also known in the building that she had moved out not long after I had left. She took her two cats and moved into a cheaper building in Hertfordshire. Word had it that she ended up taking her life. She had asked her sister to watch her cats for her whilst she had to go for a “job interview” in Scotland and whilst everyone thought she was on a train heading north, she instead went to Dover and overdosed on the beach.
I only hope our Father in Heaven loved her more than her lesbian friends did.
But it isn't likely is it?
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