Chapter 3.3: 1994, Ruiz
"Thank you so much for coming," sad Charlie said, looking very somber.
I nodded to him, and looked at my feet. My black ballet flats peeked up at me with their tiny bows. I was dressed like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face, all black and form fitting, black top and black pants. My casual outfit du jour.
He picked up a brown paper bag full of groceries, and then motioned for us to leave the store. Things were rolling along as it was a late Sunday morning. Even though this wasn't really a busy section of the city, it seemed like every old lady in the city was here trying to go to church. It was hilarious but I couldn't muster a laugh because of how somber the occasion was.
Charlie walked along the sidewalk in front of me, looking down at the concrete. We didn't talk.
As we walked, I thought about our phone call yesterday.
I had just gotten off work and changed from my uniform from the restaurant. I worked there part time as a dishwasher. It wasn't glamorous or anything, but it helped pay the bills and I was happy to be able to help my Mama that way.
I checked the clock, and it was around 5:20pm. I sat across the kitchen table from Mama, who was doing some accounting. She had her red glasses on, and they were drifting down her nose like a librarian. She looked very worried. I couldn't figure out why, but then I remembered what was in my purse from the night previous.
"Mama," I said, getting her attention. She looked up at me, pushing her glasses up her nose with one finger in the middle.
"What?" she asked.
"I got...I got the money," I said, filling with a proud feeling.
"Yeah?" she asked, looking back down at her papers, making pencil marks. "Where is it?"
"I'll get it, its in my purse," I smiled, wanting to skip, feeling so happy to be helping my Mama.
"Your purse, huh?" she snorted.
I decided to ignore her tone. She looked very stressed. She wasn't always nice when she was stressed. So I just walked to my bedroom which was connected to the kitchen from a little hallway, which connected both of our bedrooms at either end. Scanning the room, I closed my eyes and tried to remember last night. Then the image of me kicking my purse under my bed popped into my brain. Kneeling down, I pawed under the bed and found my purse behind a black and white seven inch platform heel, then I threw the heel out from under the bed in order to retrieve it.
"There it is," I sighed, straightening up and turning around.
But then I froze. In front of me, holding my seven inch platform heel, was Mama, looking very disturbed. Quickly, I reached into my purse and found the pair of crumpled up $20 bills. I held out my hand, trying to smile at her even though her expression was so strange.
She was still staring at my platform heel, and her mouth slowly opened. The pause in the room felt pregnant with a strange feeling. Expectant, hanging.
Then she spoke, and my heart broke.
"Ruiz..." she said slowly, "don't tell me you...I don't want your money if..."
Suddenly her eyes got fierce and I didn't have time to react. Suddenly a seven inch platform heel was coming at my head and all I could do was duck at the same time I let out a shriek.
"Are you sucking cock for money?!" she exploded in her rage, "is that where this money is from?! That is a stripper shoe, Ruiz! Are you a whore?! Is that what its come to?! I know you do drag, but I don't want your money if you're a whore!"
I was on the floor now, on my knees, unexpectedly in a beggar's position in more ways than one. Tears began to bubble into my eyes but I didn't want to cry in front of her. I just wanted to smile. I just wanted her to smile, too. That's all I had wanted, that's why I had been in the competition. I just wanted to see her smile.
"Nooo, Mama," I begged, my voice cracking as the tears began to fall down. "No, Mama, that shoe was part of my drag costume. I went with Ambrose. Ambrose won that money for you, Mama. We won that money for you, Mama..." My body began to heave uncontrollably, unsure what to do at my core as I began to gasp and sob.
Silence fell upon the room again, and the silence dug into my heart as a fear, consuming me and making me shake even harder. I felt like I was going to pass out.
A loud thump filled the quiet, and Mama was on the floor with me on her knees. She looked so apologetic, so very sorry. She began crying, too.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Ruiz. Dios mio, qué he hecho? What did I just do to my only son? I'm so sorry. I'm so stressed out, but you know that. But there's no excuses. I'm so sorry. Come here. I'm so sorry," she apologized, tears falling down her cheeks like mine.
Relief spread about my body so quickly it was a shock to my system. "Mama, I'm sorry," I choked.
"You have nothing to be sorry for, your Mama's in the wrong, my little love," she whispered through her tears as she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me on the floor. "I'm so proud of you for wanting to help me. I'm so proud that you are using your love of fashion to pursue something you love. Really. I'm so proud of you, please stop crying, my sweetie. Lo siento, lo siento."
Just then the phone rang and I knew who it was. I gasped, remembering Charlie. Remembering Georgina. I jumped up, and my Mama was left on the floor looking confused. "I'm so sorry, Mama, I have to take this phone call, really I'm sorry," I kept saying, unable to stop myself from apologizing due to the lingering feeling in my heart.
"Okay," she said, gently accepting it as she gathering the two crumpled up twenties on the floor and walking with me back to the kitchen to resume her accounting.
I let the phone ring a couple of more times before I picked up, steadying myself, shakily breathing in and out from the left over tears. My hand grabbed the receiver and I picked up quickly.
"This is Ruiz," I said, still shakily but hopefully undetectably so. Mama looked up at me from her papers, still looking sorry. I gave her a little smile, then walked to my bedroom, the curly phone chord traveling with me.
"This is Charlie Goldberg, you know, from the grocery store...Um, I'm calling about George. Remember? You gave me your phone number, and..."
I guess I had looked more drunk than I thought. He didn't think I would remember. But, oh, I remembered. I remembered with all of myself.
"Yes, Charlie, I remember. And tell you what, I did a little research. I know exactly who George is," I told him proudly, my former knowledge of her piecing together in my mind as I spoke.
"You do!" Charlie gasped, excited, "good. Good good good. Well, I've known her for a long time. Heck, my family's known her for a long time. We've been delivering groceries to her every day for goodness knows. She's always seemed sad to me, never smiling, just giving me the money from her wallet, never even opening her door all the way. She's always wearing the same thing, too. A blue robe. It never changes. I never see her out and about either. I don't think she leaves her apartment, and I don't think she's left it for a long, long time. Like a long time. Except...the other week...you see..." He paused here, clearly troubled.
I mentally leaned in, preparing myself.
"The other week...I was delivering her groceries and she seemed a little off. It scared me when I saw her like that, all discomposed and such. She had forgotten her wallet, and this was a major change in routine. We've done the same thing every day for...its got to be ten years, honestly, since I was a kid. I felt like I watching my Grandmother like before old people have strokes, that's how disturbed I was by it. I knew something was horribly wrong, I just didn't know what. Then when she closed her door I heard a very loud noise in her apartment, and I just knew something was wrong. Something bad. So I knocked her door in and there she was laying behind her counter like...like she was dead. I was so panicked. I can't describe it. So I called the ambulance and they got there and I accompanied her to the hospital where they told me she had a panic attack? I know something about psychology, and well panic attacks happen when you're really stressed out. Something's stressing her out, and I don't know what. I can't talk to her...we're not close like that. But I'm so worried about her. She needs help. She needs help bad, but I know she wouldn't ever get it herself..." He trailed off, seeming unsure what to say next.
My mouth had opened as I was listening to him recounting his story. Was this really Georgina Monroe? Was what I was hearing correct?
"Please you know," he started abruptly, making me jump a little because of the previous silence. "I don't know what the terminology is, maybe you do, but...she's like a...I know she's a man, but she looks like a woman, acts like a woman. She just...is a woman, do you know what I mean? Is 'drag queen' the correct term for that?" He asked, sounding very sincere, delicate, and not wanting to offend.
I gasped inaudibly. Georgina was...? I felt myself becoming dizzy, a tiny feeling in my heart coming alive like a beeping little receiver.
"She's a 'transwoman', Charlie," I said as clearly as I could in my sudden feelings.
"Oh...oh, thank you. Yes, she is a...trans...woman," he said slowly, feeling out the words.
"How am I going to talk to her?" I asked, the feeling in my heart making me eager, restless. "Over the phone?"
"Oh no, not over the phone. I don't think she has one? You could come with me during one of my deliveries to her. I can introduce you to her, gently, you know? I don't want to scare her, overwhelm her, you know?"
I nodded, but then realized he couldn't see me nodding. "Yes, Charlie, I understand. When?"
"How about tomorrow? Any day that's good for you, but it has to be soon."
I understood completely. "Tomorrow is good for me, its a Sunday. I can come after church."
"Thank you so much," he said, his voice distorting the sound on the phone as he breathed in relief at the same time. "Thank you. What is...what is your name? I just realized I don't know it."
I smiled. "Its Ruiz," I said. "Just Ruiz."
Now in front of George's apartment building, I felt the same restless feeling. The doorman nodded to Charlie, and let us up into the apartment building. Charlie looked at a line of little mail slots, found the one he was looking for, and swung open one of the mail slot doors with a little key. He gathered a few things from it, then closed it with a swift turn of the key. He looked at my curious expression.
"George's mail," he explained, holding it up in his free hand then putting it in the grocery bag.
"She doesn't get her own mail?" I asked in what I hoped was a non-accusatory tone.
"No, never," Charlie responded, starting up the stairs.
I took that in, and followed him up the stairs. Three pairs of flights up, we came to a landing with a few doors. I knew from when I had seen her window, her's must be the one on the right.
I was correct, as Charlie stepped in front of that door. He knocked smartly on her door five times in quick succession, and I wondered if it was a code or something.
My heart filled with a very bright feeling, bubbling and threatening to burst as I heard the little sounds of a chain lock going. Georgina, my brain squeaked, that's Georgina Monroe...that's...
But then my heart fell when the door opened just a crack, revealing a face I had not seen entirely due the shadowing from her light last Friday night.
The face of George was entirely different than Georgina Monroe, though entirely the same in a way that made my entire self confused. She looked so...sad. So... I understood exactly what Charlie had meant on the phone with one look in her eyes. They looked so dead...
My heart fell to my toes for her. I felt broken just looking at her and I couldn't describe why.
No wonder Charlie was so desperate. No wonder.
"Hi, Mrs. George," Charlie beamed, sounding so chipper it was a shock to me because of how sad he had been just seconds before. Quickly as he spoke, I realized he was putting on a face for her. My heart broke even harder.
"Who's that," George asked, looking at me with those dead eyes.
Charlie was clearly startled by this response. He looked over at me like he expected me to do something. I had entirely no idea what to do.
I decided to smile, too. Its all I could think to do. "Um, I'm Ruiz. Nice to meet you...G...Mrs. George," I stumbled, deciding to use the name Charlie had used, one she was probably used to.
As she stared at me, it reminded me of the stare she had given me from her window when I had been with Ambrose. A stare that made a shiver go up my spine, so unwavering it was, almost a proud stare, but where was it coming from with those eyes?
A pause followed as she just stared and stared at me. Charlie and I stood in the hallway awkwardly. Then we jumped as she spoke again.
"I recognize you," she said plainly. "From my window. I saw you with your drunk friend. Fine friend, that is," she continued rudely.
I was utterly shocked.
"I don't get it," she continued, "you drag queens. I don't get you. Getting drunk like that. Why? What's the point of it? It doesn't make you happy. It..." She trailed off, as if wanting to say more, but catching herself.
You drag queens. I absorbed this sentence like it was the plague. I suddenly felt anger, filling me from a small part of me inside which I coudn't place. My eyes lost their softness and gave her a piercing stare.
"Look, I know who you are, okay?" I said, trying to sound confident. "A lot of people do. I know you were a drag queen once, so you have no right. NO RIGHT."
Her eyes widened, as if scared. She froze.
Charlie shifted his footing, clearly feeling uncomfortably awkward, having no part in this anymore. This was tumbling out of control for all of us and clearly wasn't going as how he had planned.
She slowly spoke again, in an unexpected tone that surprised me and made me confused, completely caught off guard.
"They know who I am? Do they...know where I am?" she asked cautiously, her voice small like a scared kitten's.
What? I couldn't comprehend what I was hearing.
"Um, no, ma'am?" I answered. A sad feeling overcame me, all of these feelings overwhelming me so fast. Angry, then confused, then sad, everything. I didn't know what to do.
She breathed. "Oh, good," she said, closing her eyes. "Look, I think maybe we got off on the wrong start. Where are my manners? Your name is Louise? Look um...maybe I can offer you some tea or something. I'm sorry I snapped at you like that."
Where the heck was this coming from? I didn't understand her at all. Was she manic? What was going on? I felt that sad feeling more and more, just the whole situation.
"Sure, Mrs. George. I'd love to," I responded, still unsure.
Charlie smiled, a true smile. One of relief. "I'll leave you to it," he said, the first time I'd actually seen him anything resembling happy. "Have a good one, Mrs. George. Ruiz."
As he left, his footsteps going down the stairs, I looked at George in the eyes. She wasn't smiling, but looking nervous.
And when she opened her apartment's door all the way to let me in, I knew my life was about to change forever.