Hero In Stilettoes

My skirt was too short, my heels were too high, I was wearing fishnets for God’s sake, and my lips were far too blacky-red for me to be riding on that particular L line that night. I was headed to a Christmas party in Rogers Park, in an iffy area, and the train had to go through even more iffy areas, and I realized, too late, what a risk I had taken. There was an edgy energy in the car, an on-the-make electric charge, too many people with nowhere to go, nowhere to be – you could sense it, the looking-for-something-to-happen expression on restless dead-eyed faces – it’s an energy which is unmistakable to folks who live in urban environments, but was new to me at the time. Humans, like animals, have a Fight or Flight instinct. Danger has a scent. I smelled it the second we hit Wilson. I had ridden that train every day for months, but not past Addison. Wilson was another world. A rowdy element got onto the train, and I knew immediately I was in trouble. Or – let’s just say – I knew I had “Target” or “Bait” written all over me. It was one group of guys who lasered their sights on me. They were on the make, man. I got a jolt of unmistakable adrenaline the second those guys got on the train, a turbo shot of the survival instinct. Nerve endings lit up with warning signs, breathing heightened in the chest, eyeballs dilated, everything focused to a laser point with one over-riding goal: survive. Survival depends on you being alert. There are more of them than you. They are jazzed on testosterone and restlessness/boredom, one of the worst combinations in the history of humanity. When there is something to do, somewhere to put all that energy, it does not threaten. But when there’s a vacuum? And all you can do is scan the crowd lazily for someone to take it out on? I was the short-skirted girl with a nice little purse. I was in deep shit.

Tigh and Hubbell were my friends, and they were having a Christmas party at their apartment. I was in my chaotic mid-20s, where I maybe had one soup pot to my name, and a poster of Tori Amos taped to my kitchen cupboard. I had moved to Chicago with two suitcases, and I preferred to travel light at that time in my life. But Tigh and Hubbell, although also in their mid-20s, were a gay couple who had painted their apartment, a spacious falling-down four-bedroom on the top floor of what amounted to a slum, different colors – deep red walls in the living room, the bathroom a midnight blue with gold stars and crescent moons – there were plants and African statues and they had framed pictures on their walls. The kitchen was always stocked with food, and they had a big rackety back porch, where we would all convene on hot summer nights and have cocktails. Going to visit Tigh and Hubbell was like going to visit Grown-up Land for a bit. You felt taken care of. When you slept over, there was a guest room, and the bed had clean sheets and a lavender sachet in the pillow case. They had an extensive movie collection, and we would have movie marathons, and dress-up parties, and fashion shows. Tigh and Hubbell had been together for two years. “That’s 10 years in gay time,” Tigh cracked. They were an old established couple. I was cavorting left and right with inappropriate awesome men, staying out all night, blowing people off who didn’t suit me, and making out with M. (who was on his way to being my main flame) in the corner of the bowling lanes. I had just gotten out of a four year relationship where I had pretty much drowned in domesticity, a domesticity that didn’t suit me. But it sure was nice to visit such a world.

I had known Tigh in college. He was a beautiful boy with high cheekbones, jet-black hair that he wore in a mane down his back, occasionally twirling it up into a pompadour stuck through with Japanese hairpins. Sometimes, after a couple of cocktails, he would put on stilettoes, and lip synch ‘Just leave everything to me’ from Hello Dollyas though his life depended on it . “If you want your roof inspected, eyebrows tweezed or bills collected – just leave everything to me!” He spoke in a high flamboyant voice, would say dogmatic things in a mixed crowd like, “Hollywood went to the DOGS after the studio system fell. I will not hear any other arguments about it. Hollywood needs to bring the studio system BACK!” Someone might say, tentatively, “But Tigh … there was a lot of abuse and people being taken advantage of …” His decibel level would skyrocket and he would bulldoze over you. “THE STUDIO SYSTEM WAS THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ARTISTS IN THIS COUNTRY.” And you know what, he could back up his opinion with facts, figures, box office returns, and how the gaffers and grips on Casablanca felt a part of the process. He was encyclopedic when it came to old Hollywood. I loved Tigh. His role in the relationship was hostess. He would greet us at the door, and swirl around, making sure we were taken care of. Sometimes he would be wearing a vintage cocktail dress, other times pajamas or crumpled sweats. His elegance did not have to do with his attire. It had to do with who he was.

Hubbell’s real name was not actually Hubbell. But we all referred to him as Hubbell, because of The Way We Were. Tigh liked to live in a romance in his mind, and there was nothing more romantic than that movie. Also, Hubbell – with his ruddy clear face, his conservative haircut, twinkly blue eyes, and overall masculine handsomeness, was reminiscent of Robert Redford in that film. Hubbell was the responsible one. He kept the steaks going on the grill, he laughed at Tigh’s antics, he made sure we all felt comfortable, and that we always had enough to eat. He was a lot of fun, too. He loved being able to have a nice home where his friends could feel comfortable. You always felt safe when Hubbell was around.

Which brings me back to my ride on the L.

It was just me and the group of guys on that one train. Me against them. They were talking at me, taunting, whistling – almost begging for a response from me. I’m not a paranoid person, and I can enjoy a nice catcall every once in a while, but this was different. This was threatening and reductive. I could feel it in the air. I knew I had been an idiot to blithely get on the L train dressed like that, but I was broke, wouldn’t take a cab, and also I feel resentful of having my independence of movement impinged on like that, so I do take risks. I’ll be damned if I let threatening men get in MY way of living my life.

I wanted to move into another car, but I felt that that would attract undue attention. It would be like blood to a vampire. The thing men like that love is weakness. It is what they look for, and what they thrive on. If you walk around with a “victim” sign on your back, they will get the message. We’re in the Wild Kingdom now. These are animal rules. So I sat stony-faced and grim, as though I were deaf and blind, and could not sense their growing interest in me. But I was already thinking ahead, in a panic, to getting off the train. I knew what that L station was like. It was not a hubbub and more often than not, it was deserted. It was only a block to Tigh and Hubbell’s apartment from there, but a block can be a long long way. I wasn’t sure what to do. I just had a sense. I knew, like I know the color of my own eyes, that when I stood up to get off, the group of guys would stand, too. I just knew it.

I was right. I stood up to get off, they all stood up too. Inside I’m thinking, FUCK. This was before cell phones, so I was screwed. Now what I would do would be manufacture a reason to have a long pretend cell phone conversation during the train ride, which would give me a cloud of impenetrability – and perhaps call ahead to Tigh and Hubbell to let them know I would be arriving. I didn’t want to NOT get off at my stop, because I knew the stops further north were even worse, not to mention being unfamiliar territory.

I wish I could be more specific about what the guys were saying. To be honest, I can’t remember. I know it was focused directly at me, and it put fear into my heart. I am an independent person, and I’ve lived in cities for most of my adult life. I am used to having moments of fear when you realize: Oh. This is a block I need to get off of as quickly as possible. But the fear I felt on the L train was a horse of a different color. It was threatening, whatever it was – and in a direct and immediate way. I felt in danger.

So I stood up, all the guys stood up, and as we got off the train together, one of them turned and said, right to my face, with a leer, “We’re gonna rape you.”

I stopped in my tracks, the train was already pulling away, and the guys all ran down the stairs to the lower level, laughing uproariously, calling back up to me in a taunting way, “We’re gonna rape you! Come on down here, girl, we’ll be waiting!”

Later, when I told M. the story, which I thought was funny (since I got away), he yelled at me. It was my first inkling, despite all of our shenanigans, that he actually, you know, liked me. I mean, I knew he liked me, after all all we did was kiss and get naked, but he was so pissed off at me for the L platform debacle that he wouldn’t talk to me for about 20 minutes. He was shouting at me at Southport Lanes, as we ate chicken wings, and listened to Stevie Ray Vaughn on the jukebox. “This is BULLshit, what the fuck were you doing traveling through those neighborhoods in fishnets? What is your problem?” I was actually flattered that he was bitching me out. “I’m sorry … I wasn’t thinking.” “No shit you weren’t thinking. Why didn’t you call me?” “I … well … I … No idea. No idea whatsoever.” It would never, in a million years, have occurred to me to call HIM in such a moment of need. He said, grumpy in an almost irrevocable way, I thought our whole night would be ruined, “If I ever find out that you’re almost raped on some fucking L platform and you don’t call me to come get you, I’ll never speak to you again.” “Okay. I got it. I’m sorry. I thought it was funny.” “It’s not funny.” “Okay, okay.”

My instincts are almost never wrong. Like I said, I’m not a paranoid person or a fraidy-cat. I get annoyed by catcalls, especially if they are designed to make me feel uncomfortable – or to reduce me to my parts – that’s what I don’t like … but whatever. Giving someone the finger who does that to you usually makes you feel better, even if they laugh in your face, and you can stroll on your merry way. But here I was in a situation that I sensed from Moment One was something else. They were stalking me like an animal on that train ride. Not with movement, obviously, but with undivided attention. Being looked at like that is a threat, in the same way that a wounded bird staring up at a cobra (thank you, Kipling) knows that just to be looked at in that moment means the end is near.

I was on the L platform on a freezing December night, and those guys who were “gonna rape me” were below, as far as I knew. Nobody else was on that platform, and I felt paralyzed. I knew I could not go down those stairs. I was not ready for some kind of Ninja-like fight with the rapists below. There were too many of them and I just didn’t want to risk it.

I stood up on that platform, like a trapped animal, for about 15 minutes, trying to figure out what to do. No other trains came by, where I could maybe blend in with the other commuters as they all went downstairs. I stared down the stairs, and couldn’t see anything. No leering rapists. I couldn’t even hear them. So maybe they were just messing with me, liked freaking me out, and had already moved on with their bullshit night full of loser behavior. But I had no way of knowing. What if they were lying in wait for me down there? What if they were huddled at the other end of the stairway, out of sight from me, waiting to pounce on me? If they were hiding there, then they knew I hadn’t come down. I was trapped. And pissed at myself!

There was a phone on the platform, and finally (finally!) I called Tigh and Hubbell to explain the situation. I had so wanted to try to get out of it myself, but I couldn’t figure it out and I was so scared that I felt a little bit indecisive.

The funniest thing about the whole night is that you could actually see Tigh and Hubbell’s apartment from the L platform. I had been staring over there longingly, seeing the figures in the window, moving this way, that, silhouetted, it was a party, there was a Christmas tree, we were doing a Yankee swap, and I could sense, from my frigid position on the L platform, the warmth and laughter and music emanating from those windows. So close and yet it might as well have been in Kathmandu for as reachable it was to me. If only I could levitate myself across the intervening block and knock on those windows!

I hate to make waves. I hated to be the girl calling the party, having a problem. But there was no way around it. I dug in my purse for change with my shaking little twig fingers (it was freezing) and dialed the number.

Tigh answered, in his swirly voice. “Merry Christmas!!” he said.

I launched right into it. “Tigh, it’s Sheila!”

He started shrieking. “Sheila?? Where ARE you? Everyone’s here!”

I said, mortified, “I’m stuck on the L platform near your house.”

I didn’t realize it would be possible for a gay man to yell louder or higher than he already was, but Tigh went up an octave. “You’re whaaaat?????”

And then, I saw a silhouette in his window, with the familiar bouffant pompadour, as though a Geisha girl were working the party. But I knew it was Tigh. The sight of Tigh’s silhouette, staring across the space for me, in my lonely solitude on the L platform, was tremendously comforting.

Tigh screamed at the top of his lungs, “OH MY GOD I CAN SEE YOU!”

I began to see other little black silhouette heads peering out the windows of the apartment, all of my friends, staring at me, and wondering what the hell I was doing all the way over there.

I said, like an assassin, “Okay, listen, here’s the situation. There were some scary guys on the train and they got off this stop with me and one of them told me he would rape me. And I’m afraid they’re waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.”

Tigh went ballistic. “DON’T MOVE. STAY WHERE YOU ARE.” And he hung up on me.

I stood there, watching all the frantic scurrying about of the black silhouettes at the party, and I knew that my predicament was being declaimed to the throngs, and so although I was embarrassed, it certainly was awesome to know that someone knew where I was, and that help was on the way.

The L platforms are open to the elements in Chicago, so it was freezing cold, and eerily quiet. I was almost certain that the guys were not waiting for me, but my legs had turned to mush, and all I could picture was me walking down those stairs and then suddenly having to run as fast as I could, with all of them pursuing me, and it was too horrible to contemplate.

And then, through the eerily still winter night, I could hear Tigh approaching. It was too far, obviously, to hear his heels on the pavement. No, what I heard was – him roaring like a lion to the men he thought might be waiting for me, “MOTHERFUCKERS, ARE YOU READY FOR A FIGHT? I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU … I AM COMING RIGHT NOW TO KILL YOU, I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU MOTHERFUCKERS HERE I COME HERE I COME … YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKERS…” It was unbelievably terrifying. He hadn’t even seen them on the street, he didn’t even know what was awaiting him when he got to the L station – but he was announcing his arrival as someone NOT to be messed with.

I’ve always sensed that there is nobody on earth tougher than a flamboyantly feminine man. Because nobody is messed with as consistently and as viciously as people like that. You make fun of a drag queen at your peril, peeps. That girl will put her stiletto through your heart without thinking twice. They know what threat means, on an even more cellular level than women. They are even more other. They are the baddest motherfuckers on the planet.

Tigh and Hubbell had actually come together, but it was Tigh making all the noise. Through the quiet neighborhood came a roaring Geisha girl in stilettoes and a 1940s era cocktail dress. Screaming, “MOTHERFUCKERS HERE I COME FOR MY FRIEND SHEILA.”

It turns out that the guys had already disappeared. Tigh and Hubbell burst into the L station below, to find it empty and silent. Nobody lying in wait. But I am 100% certain that if they had been there, Tigh would have ripped them to shreds. He was a tough Rhode Island boy at heart, he fought for his life every day – in little ways and big ways – and the testosterone raged in him as he burst into the station. Raged! Hubbell, in his camel trenchcoat, dress shoes, coat and tie, came running to the stairway leading up to the platform, calling out my name. I could hear Tigh downstairs, still screaming, “FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!” To … no one. They were gone. But as we all know, the prospect of a fight leaves you trembling with anticipation. You can’t let it go in a second. I ran to the top of the stairs, and saw Hubbell twinkling up at me, saying, “Nobody’s down here, Sheila. It’s safe now.”

I ran down the stairs to them, and Tigh raced towards me ferociously and hugged me, screaming in my ear, “THAT MUST HAVE BEEN SO SCARY FOR YOU!”

Hubbell took my hand and put it through the crook of his arm, grinning at me quietly, like a staid and honest go-to guy, and said, “Let’s get you in out of the cold, and get you a cocktail.”

I walked in between them to their apartment, all of us linked arms, Tigh reliving his experience of seeing me out the window and how sad and tiny I looked and how there was a flurry of activity when everyone found out what was going on, and everyone wanted to come and save me. The entire party wanted to pour out into the night, trailing fuchsia boas and silken scarves, and kick some ass. But Hubbell was the voice of reason, and talked them all out of it. He and Tigh would go.

When I walked in the door, I was hailed like a long-lost goddess of ancient Troy, who had traveled millions of miles to get to my destination. Someone got me a cocktail. Tigh never left my side, clinking martini glasses with me, complimenting me on my outfit, my makeup, and telling me that he had a fake diamond pin he found in an antique store that he thought would look really good with my ensemble. He was back to his elegant chic self.

But the other Tigh. The one who shouted his apocalyptic warnings of violence through the night like a talkative Rambo, ready to do battle, eager to do battle … cruisin’ for a bruisin’ as my father would say. As pumped up on testosterone as the guys on the train, but with a different object, a place to put it. I’ll never forget that other Tigh. I only met him once, but man, that boy meant business.