Beauty Queen

never fallen in love with Jewel. Away from the job, in the safety of the lesbian world, Jewel had written some startling poetry that was published by Daughters, Inc., and was having a good time between lovers. Mary Ellen recalled one mad weekend when several of them had decided to go out to Fire Island. They had laughed and screamed all the way out. Jewel was with a girl named June. At about one o'clock on Saturday night, in the now-famous island disco, the Ice Palace, Jewel and June had made all the men stop dancing and stare as they let themselves be carried away in a fiery non-choreographed performance to "Macosa." June slowly sank to her knees and pounded on the floor, making the beat that Jewel danced to, and marking the spot on the floor where she wanted Jewel to dance. Jewel was wearing cut-off shorts and a tie-dye halter, and her bushy, glossy, coal-black hair waved loose in the lights. Against the mirrored walls, her body seemed to give off flashes of light, like a pulsar swimming far off in the luminous reaches of forever. She made everyone in the room feel free, unfettered. The women never went back, declaring that Fire Island was too full of men.
    How long ago that was.
    The waitress jostled two cups of coffee onto the table, almost spilling them. Jewel, her bush of hair now pulled into a neat bun, had a pad open on the table and was scribbling notes.
    "I interviewed the chief medical examiner today," she said. "I actually had to go down to the morgue. I had to go into that room where they keep all the bits and pieces, you know, with tags on them. Wow, the smell. . . yes, I'd like something to eat," she said to the waitress. "Do you have some cheesecake?"
    "I'll have a piece of apple pie," Mary Ellen told the waitress.
    Jewel snapped her pad shut. "Well, guess what the latest rumor is. More layoffs."
    "So what else is new?" said Mary Ellen.
    Something in her stomach clenched. It was not nice to think about layoffs. The Police Department, caught in the coils of New York's slow, agonizing financial death, now and then reacted as the dying monster twitched, and had laid off 3,000 out of its 30,000 cops in three years. One wanted to think that one was indispensable and unlayoffable.
    "The Sarge thinks he is going to lose one person off the staff," said Jewel, "but he doesn't think it will be me. They want to save the magazine, and they like the things I'm doing, so . .
    "Did the Sarge read in the Times about Intro Two?" asked Mary Ellen.
    "Funny you should ask," said Jewel. "Just this morning, he talked about California and the forces out there that are allowing open gays to be officers. He said that this would happen in the NYPD over his dead body." She lifted her cup of coffee, raising her pinkie as if she were drinking tea. "So I guess I won't be coming out to my boss for a while."
    They sat and picked at their pie and cheesecake. It turned out neither of them was very hungry.
    "If I thought I would get away with it," said Mary Ellen slowly, "I'd come out, and the hell with it. But I don't know . . . I've talked about it with Danny quite a lot. He doesn't think it's the right moment yet, and I have to agree."
    "Supposing you get laid off?" Jewel asked.
    Mary Ellen sighed. "I don't know how they could lay me off. They've got that sex-discrimination lawsuit against them; they want to get women onto street patrol, into detective school, you name it. I'm one of their Exhibit A's. I'm hoping that I'm safe."
    After a moment, she added, "On the other hand, you never know, do you? I've been a little careless sometimes. Maybe they know about me."
    "I also heard another interesting rumor," said Jewel. "Haskins and Kent know lots of people in City Hall, see? So they pick up all kinds of political stuff. Jeannie Colter is coming back into action."
    "Oh yeah?" said Mary Ellen. "We're going to be out hassling the prostitutes again?"
    "Rumor is, she's running for governor."
    "Ambitious lady, thinks she can fill Rockefeller's shoes."
    "Yeah," said Jewel, "her with not as much money as Rockefeller, and smaller feet, too. And this is the best part of all. She is gonna do another of her big crusades. This time she is not interested in the prosties at all. She is gonna go after homosexualism."
    A cold little chill gusted down Mary Ellen's spine.
    "How do you know this?" she asked.
    "Haskins had it from Kent, who had it from Councilman Mannie Greenhaus, who had it from Colter's campaign manager. Colter is going to be giving