Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

Disease Only.’ “
Paul looked at his lover. “They still do, dummy.”
“But they always scratched out the ‘Disease’ part and wrote in ‘Babies.’ Now straight people don’t even use them anymore.”
“Yes they do.”
“No they don’t. They use the pill, or they get vasectomies or something.”
While Douglas and Paul continued with this halfhearted quarrel, Michael signaled Ned, to indicate he was leaving. He slipped under the flap and made a beeline for his tent, avoiding even the slightest glance at the rise where Roger and Gary were encamped. He was almost there when a voice called out to him.
“Is that you, Michael?” It was Gary.
“Uh-huh.”
“Come on over,” said Roger.
He picked his way through the darkness until he found the path leading up to the rise. Only the moon lit the faces of the lovers, snuggled together under a zipped-open sleeping bag. “See”—grinned Roger—“we didn’t run off to fuck.”
“It must be the mushrooms,” said Gary. “We’ve been telling ghost stories. It’s really nice up here. Why don’t you get your sleeping bag and join us?”
He looked back at the dark dome of his two-man tent, sitting empty under the stars. “I think I’ll take you up on that,” he said.
They fell asleep, the three of them, after Gary had told the one about the man with the hook.
Michael dreamed he was once again on the ridge above the campsite, only this time it was Jon who knelt beside him. “Look,” Jon whispered, “look who’s down there.” Mona emerged from one of the tents, so tiny she was almost unrecognizable. Michael waved and waved, but she never saw him, never stopped once as she walked into the desert and disappeared.
    Mona Revisited
S EATTLE HAD ONCE STRUCK MONA AS AN IDEAL RETIREMENT spot for old hippies. Its weather was moderate, if wet, its political climate was libertarian, and a surprisingly large number of its citizens still looked upon macrame with a kindly eye. In the time it had taken Jane Fonda to get around to exhibiting her body again, almost nothing had changed in Seattle.
Almost nothing. The lesbians who had baked nine-grain bread in the sixties and seventies now earned their livings at copy centers across the city. Mona was one of those lesbians, though she was every bit as puzzled as the next woman by this bizarre reshuffling of career goals. “Maybe,” she told a friend once, in a moment of rare playfulness, “it’s to prove we can reproduce without the intervention of a man.”
Mona lived on Queen Anne Hill in a seven-story brick apartment house the color of dried blood. She worked four blocks away at the Kwik-Kopy copy center, a high-technocracy in varying shades of gray. Neither place did very much for her soul, but when was the last time she had worried about that?
“Cheer up, Mo. It can’t be as bad as that.” It was Serra, her co-worker at the neighboring copier. Serra, the perky young punk.
“Oh, yeah?”
Serra looked down at the huge manuscript she was collating. “It can’t be as bad as this.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“ ‘A Time for Wimmin,’ ” answered Serra.
She made a face. “How is it spelled?”
“How do you think?” said Serra. “Maybe we should call the Guinness Book. If my hunch is right, this could be the longest dyke potboiler in the history of the world.”
“Any sex?”
“Not so far,” said Serra, “but a helluva lot of nurturing.”
“Yawn.”
“Really,” said Serra. “What have you got there?”
“Much worse,” she replied. “That queen from the Ritz Café is having a thirtieth-birthday party.”
“An invitation?”
“A Xerox collage, no less. Featuring a lovely photo of his dick and some old stills from I Love Lucy. He’s made me do it over twice.”
“Of course,” said Serra.
“The dick is loo orange and Lucy’s hair is too green. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Who gives a shit, huh? Is this art or what?”
Serra laughed, but her face registered concern. “You need a day off, Mo.”
She looked down at her work again. “I need a lobotomy.”
“No, Mo. I mean it.” Serra left her machine and moved to Mona’s side. “You’re pushing too hard. Ease up on yourself. Holly can spare you for a day or two.”
“Maybe so,” she retorted. “But Dr. Sheldon can’t.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Barry R. Sheldon,” she explained. “A periodontist on Capitol Hill who’s on the verge of repossessing my gums.” She offered Serra a helpless smile. “As we speak, young