GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE MARCH 8, 1996

ABOVE THE FRUITED PLAIN

Alice's adventures in Lesbianville: part two

by Aubrey Wertheim

We are barrelling up the ramp to Northampton! We have passed into the outskirts!

Two billboards flip into view; Burger King, Lorraine's Bridal Shoppe.

Burger King? Lorraine's Bridal Shoppe? We dismiss these as quaint signs of foolhardy failed business ventures or oversized Smith undergraduate humor. (The one billboard does depict a woman holding up a wedding dress with an expression that can only be characterized as moronic bliss. Weddings, we must acknowledge, are yet another example of Western culture's appropriating

Eastern tribal rituals-in this case, the funeral pyre and rendering them unthreatening. But I digress.)

We continue into town. An unpretentious little burg—damn! There is a Burger King! A smattering of older, architecturally endearing buildings-Mary! Lorraine's Bridal Shoppe does exist—and there are ninnies inside, buying that crappe!

Where are the winter solstice rituals in the town square, the monument to that bedrock of female higher education, the Boston marriage? Where's at least one outrageous public display of same-sex affection?

Yeah, yeah, we catch the occasional Amazon bumper sticker or rainbow flag, but you

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can see those anywhere. You see 'em on the west side of Cleveland, for corn sake. We want SapphoUtopia.

We stop at a bagel place to revive with carbohydrates of reassuring shape and texture. Two girls behind the counter are liplocked to the cheering accompaniment of a band of peers.

We are ecstatic. We experience multiple orgasms in our deepest fibre. Our innermost is moist.

"So there!" one of the girls says, breaking off. "You boys better start treating us better or we'll go lesbo on you!"

We are decimated. We are one with all dolphins blitzed in the recent round of French offshore nuclear testing.

We stagger out and trudge toward the college.

We pass townswymyn of every size but bundled up in so much winterwear, no telltale haircuts, jewelry, sweatshirts or tattoos are visible. And being New England, every womon has sensible shoes.

Waiting for the elevator at the Smith library, we peruse the bulletin board. Over a generic assault-awareness poster is scrawled: WIMMEN RAPE, TOO! Over a plaintive handwritten notice by someone trying to sell a used fake-fur coat, a number of different hands exclaim: "THIS STILL CONDONES A STYLE ETHIC THAT ANIMALS ARE FASHIONABLE." "FUR IS MURDER!” “SHAME ON YOU, YOU SPECIEIST!" Such sniping in one of the last femayle colleges remaining on the continent is downright sickmaking. Whither goest sisterhood?

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I present my project needs to the allfemale staff of Special Collections. Efficiently, they set down my boxes of material and withdraw without comment. Here, there is short hair in abundance, explicit accessorizing in abundance; clearly sympaticas, but no gestures of recognition.

Can't they see past this obvious exterior to my inner lesbian? Surely, they've met no end of wymmon taller, butcher, hairier. Goddess knows, I have.

Not a nibble. Not a sideways cruise.

My research is completed. Twilight greets us as we head out of the building. Time to abandon Northampton and our girlish fancies of a Paradise for dykes and dyklings.

At the crosswalk, someone is distributing a continuing education catalogue. I start thumbing through it as I saunter toward my car. I stop.

"Kate Millett on the Lesbian Literary Tradition!" Two big-haired Jewish social workers (and life partners) on long-term dyke coupledom! "Annie Sprinkle on the Ultimate GirlGirl transformational Fleshpots!" And more, and more.

We are barrelling back to the distribution point! All our faith in Northampton's restored! We will relocate immediately! Enroll this very minute!

I pounce on this savior handing out catalogues: "How do I enroll in these classes?" "Oh! Well, the address is on the cover: Bradford Street."

"Is that walking distance?” (I'm practically airborne!)

"Well, hardly."

"Well, why?" My inner lesbian's about to burst. "WHERE IS BRADFORD STREET?” "Provincetown."

Aubrey Wertheim is a freelance writer living in Oberlin.

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