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| María Fernanda - middle I may have
been around 5 when my confusion about women began. I was in a Buenos Aires bus
with my mother. At a stop a woman with a little creature got on the bus. It was
a little girl (not sure because she had a dress but her hair was shaved). I was
not sure if this was boy or a girl. By the time
I was in kindergarten my class had the Diligenti quintuplets (two boys and two
girls). For reasons that I cannot explain I kept hiking up the skirt of María
Fernanda. When I was 9
my mother was teaching at the American School. An American friend came for a
visit to our Coghlan neighbourhood home. She brought her daughter. The daughter
faced me and asked me, “Do you want to see it?” That was the first time I ever
saw it. I was going
to the American Grammar School which was not far from where my mother taught. I
was interested (I was not quite sure what that meant or entailed) with two
girls. One was Mary Lou Chase and the other was Susan Stone. At night I would
dream of them smiling at me (and no more). Susan Stone’s father was the General
Manager of General Motors Argentine. She would send her father’s Cadillac to
pick me up and take me to their palatial home to play. It was there where I saw
my first TV. During a
Buenos Aires pre-Lenten carnival I was in the subte (the subway). On the car
behind me I spotted a woman’s back against the glass. I was confused as it was
muscular. That was my first view ever of a man dressed as a woman. I have no
memory of any of the girls I might have liked when we moved to Mexico City and
I went to the American School there. My mother then moved to Nueva Rosita,
Coahuila to teach at a two-room school house for the family of the engineers of
American Smelting and Refining Company. She taught 8th,7th,
and 6th grade. I was with 5 other boys in the 8th. In the
7th there was a lovely girl called Ana María Ramos. All I could do
was stare at her. She would smile back. But that was it as when she left school
she was met by a friend called Romeo whom she eventually married. I was much
attached to my maternal grandmother Dolores. One day she told me of a great
aunt. “Alex, she rides a horse like a
man.” This was the subtle way I learned about Lesbians. My mother
sent me to a Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas. The only woman on
campus was a black cafeteria cook. The girls, from a Catholic school on the
other side of Austin, St. Mary’s Academy, came to our sock hops and some were
cheerleaders. I adored one of them, a very short Judy Reyes. Since I was a
member of the school band (the alto saxophone) we played a football games right
there with the cheerleaders. I waited for that moment when Judy would jump into
the air and I could see her white underwear. By then I had an idea of where
babies came from. I had a
couple of dates with her but because I was a nerd and did not know how to dance
our relationship was short-lived. During my
conscription in the Argentine Navy (1966-67)
I had two girlfriends. The first one, Corina Poore was an Oriental
(República Oriental del Uruguay). After a few months she decided to go and
study art in London. I said goodbye to her with tears before she left on her
ship (when ships had destinations). She advised me to seek some relief at our
lost by visiting her friend Susy Bornstein. I fell for Susy even though I was warned
that her mother was a nymphomaniac (is that word ever used now?). One day Susy
called me on the phone and dumped me telling me that I had no culture and I was
doomed to failure. I listened to Kind of
Blue, over and over, during a cold, rainy and dark Buenos Aires winter.
Years later in 1987 I rang the bell at her door in Buenos Aires and when she
opened the door she said, “Alex aren’t you going to kiss me?” In the early
60s in Mexico City a friend told me about a girl he wanted to introduce me that
according to him was perfect for me. I faced a black woman who said, “Alex, I
am Jewish, my name is Benjamin but call me Benji. After a few months of this, I
was ready to go to Buenos Aires for my military service. A female friend told me,
“Alex, Benji had leukemia (a lie it was)
so she wants you to take her to bed
before you leave.” My first sexual experience? I will not reveal that here.
But I was indeed a gentleman. But it was
Rosemary Elizabeth Healey from New Dublin, Ontario whom I met in Mexico City on
16th July, 1967 and we were married 8 April, 1968 that became the
woman of my life. She died 6 years ago and I miss that constant companionship
of the woman she was. I am 84 now and I have no confusion about women. I am
only interested in one of them. She is dead. |
