MO-TOWN UBER ALLES

Ted'd followed some man who'd already ditched him to a communist rally in the dead of 1980 winter Detroit. Jammed in a boxy downtown gymnasium, he watched a hairy gal on a platform rant and rave until he felt he needed a drink. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOUR CREDENTIALS?" he screamed.

The speaker, stunned, actually answered. "Why, I am JoAnne Studebaker and I am the Director General of the WSBI GMC [Greater Motor City]. It was clear they were all under three feet of snow, it was crowded and warm, no one was getting out until the thing was at an end, and even then at risk of trampling or fros-titty. During the blizzardy 8-hour trans-industrial tour from Mai-Kaina in an unheated car, Peggy found she could break off a hunk of her freshly shampooed hair like a fibrous herbal popsicle.

Later that night in a Group Apartment full of filing cabinets and armoirs, one or two Workers or Students with a blanket, a Mexican poncho or a polyester sleeping bag were situated roughly parallel, every few feet, as in a slave ship or graveyard. There was no smell of marijuana or drink, just lesbian tea.

Ted always felt they had been sent by someone, possibly Comrade Studebaker herself. They came and settled next to him easily after everyone had quieted down and the lights had been dimmed, as before a naked photo-op. He'd been granted a wide perimeter.

He felt their thudding behind him on the bare wood floor through the nylon that wrapped his clothes that sheathed his body, and there were sickly goosebumps on his back. They seemed to be slithering in and out of one another's sack. Then there were wet clicking and smacking noises, strange aggressive giggling.

The proverbial Sventlana and Judith had really shown him who was in charge of that political landscape. All the guests at the crash pad were polite and hushed. It occurred to Ted that these maybe were just spoiled ivy league kids with a denim and bandana fetish.

Peggy and he her own twin brother had still never met. Even in the womb they had been a hot throbbing membrane apart, jus' two pieces o' pie from the same automat, ass to ass.

Where was she nau? Where was she when he needed her not only to be but to be there and not only to be there but to be a woman?