Back in the Land of the Free

I love my country
by which I mean I am indebted joyfully
to all the people throughout its history
who have fought the government
to make right

--Ani Difranco, “Grand Canyon”

By the end of my travels in South America, I was really looking forward to coming home. I was feeling pretty up on America (North, that is). I had realized so much that I’ve always taken for granted—just how important quality of life is, and how what we mean when we talk about poverty is a completely different thing than what a Peruvian means when he talks about poverty. That even though our government lies, cheats, and steals just like any other, at least, in general, I could stop and ask a policeman for directions without worrying that he will try to follow me there, steal my wallet, and have an illicit affair with me along the way. At least we have the Bill of Rights. At least our government doesn’t just print more money whenever it feels like it in order to finance its leaders’ new Ferraris (well, as far as we know). The list went on.

Then we got to the Miami airport, and I gave Jodi one last hug before entering the immigration lines (separate lines, of course, for residents and aliens), where she would be interrogated, fingerprinted, and retina-scanned and I would walk through with barely a nod from the tired, uniformed officers, as though I owned the place, a princess of this free, imperfect country. Silent tears ran down my face. “See you on the other side,” she said.

And I remembered what I had been running from in leaving America, the democracy-turned-theocracy, the fear of foreigners, the fear of everything, the Focus on Family, the wars waged for peace, the need to amass wealth the way people in other countries need food and shelter. I had stayed blissfully ignorant of news and current events for the whole of my travels—I remembered isolated incidents from passing through restaurants with CNN on their televisions. Glimpses of the Terry Schiavo case, the death of the Pope (or El Papa, in Spanish, which also means “the potato.” I had a good chuckle with that one), aftershocks of tsunamis in regions of the world remote to mine. I deleted emails from MoveOn and the Environmental Defense Fund while I was traveling. “I can’t do anything about that right now,” I would rationalize. “I’m a citizen of nowhere.”

I did see Jodi on the other side. She had a relatively easy pass through immigration, since she was moving on to Australia in three days’ time. I had missed my connection and had 4 hours to wait in Miami, and the unenviable position being the one left behind when Jodi’s flight left in one hour. Over these almost-two years, I’ve answered that age-old question of “is it easier to be the leaver or the left?” Definitely the leaver. The leaver is immediately thrust into the next segment of their life; they must look forward, watch the stewardess, fasten their seat belt, watch land and water recede beneath them. The left person has time. Time to sit in a sterile airport and remember, in painful slow motion, last moments. Time to watch the plane sit on the tarmac for 45 minutes, wondering why, if it was going to sit there, did they have to take her away so soon? Time to watch it taxi into the distance, until it faded away in a glimmer of Florida heat and left me wondering if there had ever truly been a plane there at all.

It has been great to be home. It’s spring and everything is blossoming—flowers in North Carolina in April seem to have no idea that winter ever happened, that deserts even exist, that there are places in the world flowers do not grow. My animals seem to live for the moment when a person comes home from school or work or errands. They glean meaning from their leash-led walks each morning and night, and from a warm body to sleep with or the dying embers of a fire to watch (yes, my cat loves to watch fires). It’s so innocent and precious, and sometimes I wish so much that I could narrow my life down to those simple comforts, and leave the world with its factions of hate and violence to tear itself apart around me. I could probably go on for quite awhile before everything started to fall to bits and intrude upon my bubble of warmth and home. But eventually, it would intrude.

I’ve been listening to NPR, and I’ve started reading the MoveOn emails again. While I was traveling, it was easy and comforting to envision Bush as a lame duck now, because how much more damage can he really do in just three and a half more years, really? Hillary Clinton can just reverse all his nonsense anyway. Now I’m being shorn of my innocence—he can do lots of things that are irreversible. The first three news items I remember from my return home were: drilling in ANWR (in four more years, it will be too late to say “Sorry, polar bears, that was just a misunderstanding, you can have your habitat back now,”), the demise of the filibuster (if you don’t like the Constitution, just change it! That’s what I say.), and the election of a former Nazi as the Pope (but at least he’ll get things back on track, right where Jesus would’ve wanted them).

Of course, some of these depressing developments have come coupled with rays of hope. For example, one night Terry called me, distraught from a bad day at work proofreading for the Texas House of Representatives. For some of us, a bad day at work means we had cramps, a nasty customer, stingy tips, or plummeting stocks. For Terry, a bad day at work means that he had to grab his little red pen, read a bill that denies gay people the right to be foster parents, and mark it “OK, looks great!” I asked him if he felt like a Nazi collaborator. “You know, when this is all over, it will be people like you whose only defense will be ‘I was just doing my job.’” But I knew, even then, that I was being harsh. There is nothing he could have done about it, except quit. And then he would have to revert to prostitution, and they’d just get some other starving English major to fill his position. Enormous protests, petitions, and referenda all easily fail when there is someone in power who wants something pushed through. Even if Terry marked through the whole bill with his red pen, saying, “Wrong! Cut! Not only have you employed split infinitives, but you are EVIL,” it would have passed. I’ve ceased thinking of our government as a receptive, flexible instrument of the people. It’s now a mindless bulldozer that uses too much gasoline.

So where is that ray of hope you mentioned at the beginning of the last paragraph, you’re wondering. Soon after that conversation with Terry, I was driving home from babysitting and passed a city park thronged with hundreds of people. I slowed to read the signs, and couldn’t believe my eyes: “Charlotte Pride Festival.” “What??! There aren’t enough gay people in Charlotte to have a festival, and most of the ones that are here probably aren’t PROUD of it,” I was thinking. It crossed my mind that maybe it was just unfortunate word choice for something put on by the city for people that are proud of living in Charlotte. But I looked closer, and there were rainbows everywhere, girls with short hair, men with fashion sense, and—wait—was that a drag queen onstage in the distance? And then, on the fringes, I saw picketers with signs that said “YOU CAN’T MAKE A CIVIL RIGHT OUT OF A MORAL WRONG” and groups of people with matching red shirts that said “CLEANSED IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS” and I knew I was in the right place.

It took me half an hour to find a parking space (and finally I did, at the Baptist church). As I walked toward the park, I realized that the noise wasn’t just from a monster sound system; there really were hundreds and hundreds of people there, attending the festival. By contrast, the protesters were there in scant numbers. There were police officers in abundance, which I thought was a nice gesture, but wondered if they would really do anything in our defense if shit went down. It was a beautiful day, and I made my way in solitude through the throngs of people—laughing people, loving people, some people engaged with the staffers of booths in activist-conversations about what they can do to get involved with the fight for equality. As I entered the park, someone handed me a newspaper that listed queer happenings in the southeast—including the Pride Festivals in East Tennessee, Central South Carolina, and Central Alabama. I had been surprised to see a Charlotte event, but Central Alabama? That was a bomb threat waiting to happen. Still, I was filled with a silly, strange sense of hope.

Into my other hand was thrust a pamphlet that had a photo of a guy with a mullet on the front, with a speech bubble proclaiming “I WAS gay.” Inside was John’s story, how once he had succumbed to the evil forces of Satan that led him into temptation, but was able to suppress his Satanic desires through counseling and prayer. I think I actually said “thanks” to the guy who handed me the pamphlet; I didn’t even look at it until a minute later. I looked back, and saw the red-shirted people with the mullet-emblazoned pamphlets in one hand and their golden-paged Bibles in the other, stopping people on their way in and out and trying to engage them in proselytizing conversation. They seemed to attempt to speak only to couples holding hands, butch women, and men with lots of piercings—people who, to them, must have “looked gay” (I didn’t note any mullets among their victims, though). I had gotten away with just the pamphlet. How embarrassing for them, if they had lunged at me with their doctrine and I had turned out not to be gay! I could have easily been one of them! Best to stick to the obvious ones. I was glad they hadn’t spoken to me, but felt like a bit of a traitor as well. Causes are not forwarded by blending in.

I wandered through the booths, smelling falafel and funnel cakes and watching couples kissing on the grass. I signed a petition supporting the granting of same-sex-partner benefits to city workers. I wandered, and I thought of all the things I would say to those protesters, if given the chance and the guts. Why are you so scared of me? maybe. Or I feel really sorry for you. A bit harsh, perhaps. Who would Jesus love? They wouldn’t get it, probably. How many people’s minds do you really think you changed today? That might take them aback for a minute, but inevitably they would reassemble their wits and say something like “It doesn’t matter if we change anyone’s mind; what matters to God is that we are out here upholding what we believe.” I thought of Jodi’s words: See you on the other side. In a way, it was the perfect thing to say. But I knew it wouldn’t communicate either.

I sat on the grass for awhile on the fringes of the amphitheater, reading the gay newspaper and every now and then looking up at the acts onstage. They were, for the most part, unimpressive—drag lip-synchs or weak comedians who began “How many of y’all out there have been drinkin’?” But then I heard the crowd start murmuring and I realized everyone was standing up and I couldn’t see anymore. I stood up too, and saw one of the Bible-beaters marching across the stage, in front of the current drag queen, brandishing his Good Book, and yelling something that no one could hear above the music and the response from the crowd. Perhaps he was speaking in tongues. He was out there for a few minutes, ignoring the MC’s request that he please leave the stage. An effeminate Asian guy skipped up from the first row of the audience and kneeled in front of the man, stuffing a dollar bill in his waistband. The crowd went wild. I kept looking at the police milling on the edges, wondering what they were there for if not to defuse stuff like this. Finally, two of them came and interrupted the evangelist’s tirade, and walked him offstage. Everyone cheered. Through all this, the drag queen had never missed a step in her dance, and for the rest of the act I watched the police trying to reason with the evangelist, and with several of his friends who had shown up as reinforcements. I couldn’t hear their conversation but it looked like something along the lines of “It’s a free country and you’re inhibiting my rights to express my beliefs by interrupting this performance,” and the police nodding and saying “I understand that you’re angry, but we need to be respectful.” Perhaps I lend them too much eloquence in my conjectures.

When the song had finished, the MC, before introducing the next act, said, “And as for the gentleman who tried to help us with that performance….” A few boos arose from the crowd. “Now don’t boo ‘em. Don’t boo ‘em. That’s not friendly.” She was the perfect Southern belle drag queen. “Let’s all just look at ‘em and say ‘We love you!’” And she counted to three, and five hundred people all looked toward stage right, where the protesters were continuing to argue with the police, and in a booming, collective voice of benevolence (not unlike the adjectives with which we might imagine God’s voice), five hundred people shouted in unison, “WEE LOOOOVEE YOUUUUU.” Fists were raised and grimaces were formed on faces in response. But I, at that moment, felt great.

As I left the park, not long after that, I saw that I would pass groups of red shirts milling in uncertain twos and threes. I rehearsed saying “How many people’s minds do you really think you changed today?” but as I walked by them I just looked at the ground. I had just engaged in a collective expression of love; I didn’t want to ruin it with an individual expression of hostility. I also passed a group of policemen, who seemed jolly, happy to be on an assignment that had them outside on a beautiful day. I said hi, and “Thank y’all for being here.” “Oh of course, of course!” one of them responded. He seemed so sincere, like some of my friends from high school’s dads when I would thank them for having me over. “We really appreciate it,” I said, and continued walking toward my car (and the Baptist church). I didn’t look back, but I imagined them staring after me for a few seconds, taking in my long hair and Roxy T-shirt and CK jeans, surprised that I was someone saying “We” to mean “gay people.” But I didn’t look back, so I don’t know. Maybe I’m not giving them, or me, enough credit.

Yesterday I drove to Chapel Hill, then Durham, then Winston-Salem, and then back home. I listened to NPR for about 6 hours, and each news item seemed more chilling than the last. Two car bombs exploded in Iraq. Kansas (and 18 other states) want to teach Creationism in science class again. Medicaid, Social Security, and the retirement pensions of United Airlines employees are all doomed to failure. A state legislator in Alabama wants to ban all books by gay authors or with gay characters from public school libraries (“It’s not censorship,” he said, “it’s protecting our children.”). Protecting our children from Shakespeare and Michelangelo? Whatev, as certain college roommates of mine would say. A North Carolina woman was fired from her job because she lives with her boyfriend, to whom she is not married, and there is a LAW from 1806 prohibiting unmarried cohabitation. Apparently six other states have these laws, and North Dakota has motioned to repeal it 3 times, and each time the state legislature has voted to keep it! One of their reps was quoted: “Cohabitation is an unfortunate fact we have to live with in today’s society, but the government shouldn’t condone it.” And 5,000 people showed up in Raleigh today to show their support for an amendment banning same-sex marriage. I suppose it was only a matter of time.

There was also a severe thunderstorm watch in effect through the evening, and even though Susan and Amanda tried to get me to stay, it wasn’t raining at the time so I started back to Charlotte. About 20 minutes down the road, I ran into the rain. For awhile, I could see enormous, brilliant lightning bolts every few seconds directly ahead of me, but there was no thunder and no sign of rain. And then it found me. At first it wasn’t so bad, and then it was so hard I crept along at 40 mph, rocked with apocalyptic thunder and flashes of lightning that seemed like strobe lights, and buckets of rain assaulting my dad’s new-old truck, which I had never driven in the dark or the rain before. I knew that when I was growing up they used to say that the car was the safest place you could be in a storm, because the tires were rubber and would protect you from lightning, but I wondered if there were newer theories on that, the way they go back and forth on whether you’re supposed to eat dairy or not. I started to worry that Susan and Amanda had been right, and I had made the wrong decision, and I should have stayed. I had this horrible feeling that I was trapped by destiny, that there was a Right Decision to be made and I had no idea what it was—would I have avoided an accident by staying? If I turned around and went back right now, could I still avoid it or is it making that decision that would ultimately throw me in the path of danger? I know it doesn’t make sense, but I was truly scared. I’ve never really had intuition worth listening to; I’ve had much better luck analyzing situations and making rational decisions based on the data. But now I felt like that could cost me everything.

Every now and then the highway would pass under bridges, where the road was dry and there was a brief respite from the rain. It was quiet—for this leg of the trip I had abandoned NPR to wallow in its depressing tidings and put on some Paul Simon, and under those bridges, for a split second, I could actually hear it: “poor boys and pilgrims and families, and we are goin’ to Gracela—” and “angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity, hey, hallelu—” I kept going, though. I had decided to drive home, and I had to stick with it, stop second guessing myself, and drive through this storm. I saw another bridge coming up, and looking forward to that brief second of silence, I said to myself, See you on the other side.