ugly p 24

Ah, life with Miles.

What can I say?

It's been over a month.

He slipped into your apartment is my apartment routine real quick. And I am man you are woman, therefor I lay about with my new friends and you cook and clean for us, and for Christ sakes keep that brat quite when we are smoking our joints.

All of this will "I love you, babe." Every now and than.

He had a grand plan to live off the state while he went to school. He seriously had the plan of me popping out a few more babies so I could get more money. Every time we had sex he would say, "Take my seed. Receive my seed. Woman's job is to take the seed ." Later he would say it was just "sex talk". I went down to the clinic after the first night of that and got on the pill. There was no way I was going to have baby after baby. I had plans. I love my Freedom, but I have plans.

I could not live of the state effectively with Freedom. I still needed to ply my trade in the Boston commons or near subways or at the financial district. The tourist in summer and the businessmen rich and on cocaine were the best tippers. One guy in a suit and a car salesman's smile gave me a 50 dollar bill because my song reminded him of his first girlfriend. How Donovan's Atlantis reminded him of an old girlfriend I do not know, but I was happy to have the money.

When I had good days, I squirrelled the extra away. Miles had an idea how much I made on an average day and so he expected it when I got home. You see the first week he moved in he did everything with me, including the sidewalk gigs. He held Freedom and I sang. Now he counts on the money I do laundry and by diapers with for him and his friends to get drunk or high. I convinced him the diapers were needed and laundry still needed to be done.

Some how he thought it was my duty to do his too. Never giving me money for laundry or detergent, nor did he even carry the laundry to and fro. He said "I'll watch the baby so you can have time to yourself. See you in an hour, no later than two, I can't watch her all day. "

You know I realized after 3 weeks, I realize he never calls her by her name, it is always ways, the brat, the baby, the squirt, your child, etc, but never Freedom.

He watched her while I did my sidewalk gigs. Now I could go out every day, not just on weekend when Sandra and Carol used to come by. Since Miles moved in they don't come by no more. He never liked them anyways. He would say "Being around those dikes will turn the baby into a carpet muncher." Though he had no problem with my gay men friends. As long as they didn't hang around him and his friends.



One of the things I looked forward to was being able to see them. On different days we would do the same areas. My closet buddy is Eric Star. He is Micmac. He actually had an English last name or French But he dropped it saying it was to white and he was red outside and rainbow inside but not white. It was an Indian joke I didn't get for a few weeks after I meet him.

Eric I would see a few times a week. He would juggle and sing and ride a unicycle, he said he learned from some French circus troupe up in Canada. He was fun to watch. He Was mostly joy bundled up in a hug. But under there was pain.





Oh , Eric had friends. The gay men all seemed to know each other. One had a small club. Eric convinced him to let me play the club one night a week. I would open for a local favorite like Til Tuesday. I got to know more musicians in the town. Soon people liked me too. I introduced the young punk crowd to punk with some soul, blues and anything else I felt like playing. I played with a harder edge in the club, then I did on the streets.

Before I went on the first time, Miles made me wear theater makeup to cover my wings. He said people would think I was a freak and never hear my music. I believed him. On the street people expect the street performers to be , well not normal in a lot of ways.

Eric always complained about me wearing the make up. I told him all people who go on stage where a mask of some sorts. He asked me if I was Seneca.

"What's Seneca?"

"Iroquois. Butterfly, They have that false face society, always wearing masks, serious juju stuff. But girl you are doing just the opposite, you cover your power up, didn't the old Navajo grand mother tell you about it when she named you? "

This was a talking to I got almost every time I wore it on stage , which was every time I went on stage. He came down to just calling me False Face, when I was going on stage.

At least I can play my music, make some music, have someone watch Freedom while I did so. Even if Miles didn't know how much I really made.

One day I was in the park with Eric setting up. I saw this young man. He Was playing a steel drum and all sorts of instruments for Africa. He is fun of sunshine, his skin so beautiful, his smile like the the rainbow in the sky when it is still dark menacing clouds. He head full of small braids that fly around like a mane when he swings when he really gets a rhythm going. He becomes part of his music.

"Who's he?" I said to Eric.

"Who's who, bub-la?"

"Yonder young man?" I motion with my head. As I am not looking at him now.

"He good looking?"

"Hell, yeah, can't you see?"

I turned to look and he was gone. He must of left as I was trying to nonchalontly get Eric to look. A old man in his place on the bench now.



"Girl, I didn't know you had a grandpa fetish, but anything would be better than that boy you got at home. When you going to take out that trash anyway?" Oh Eric has his way of saying thing no-one else could get aways with.

I look at him hard.

"Hey just telling it as it is, nothing you don't know, girlfriend"

"Where did he go?"

"Who?"

"The Bob Marley look alike that was over there."

"You'll find him some day if it was meant to be. There are only so many places in the city you can hide, as my last lover." Eric laughs at his own joke.

"What if I don't?"

"Trust in the universe, honey, it always provides, just usually not when we want it to. What was he doing?"

"Playing drums and stuff."

"Ah than you will see him again as long as Miles still watches that precious little jewel of yours. He will be around. Fresh meat on the common, people." Eric says while waving about.

"It's not like that."

"than how is it like."

"It's something inside."

"You didn't say anything to him yet, and vice verse, you sure it isn't something stirring inside you?"

"Not like that."

"It's always like that."

"Not always. Something. Some connection. Like I have seen him before, but I never did."

"I forget how young you are sometimes." Eric said while siting on a bench.

"Thanks, pull the older and wiser card out, you know that will only get you kicked."

"No, girl, Butterfly, come sit with me for a few minutes before we start." He pats the bench next to him.

I sit down next to him and await his wisdom.

"You saw one of your kind, I suspect. You are not the only one of your kind in the world. Oh , don't get me wrong child, you are one unique creature, endangered for sure, but not to extension, you are not alone."

"What are you talking about?"

"You never noticed you are different, you don't fit in? I noticed that about me when I was just a little boy. I new back on the rez, the other boys were not like me. Endangered spices, I am. But in the city, there are for more people like me, not as much as these others." He wave his arm as if to point to all the people around us. "Not that one over there, he's a boy like me, and she's a boy like me, too."

"We are all different."

"Yes, but some of use are more different than others. And those of us who are endangered species have to stick to get together.We aren't always the same, yo think the boys down here in Boston understand what it was like growing up on the res? No. But we do understand a lot more about growing up knowing we were not like what our fathers wanted from their sons? "

"I'm not gay."

"Nope, there are more of us than there are of you. But you stick with us and we with you. Once, I was told, people excepted people, no endangered species, we were all the same and different and it was o.k., but that was long before the French and English and Dutch and Spanish came here. Now peoples they exclude, it's always us and them. So now us endangered species , we got to stick together to survive."

"What does this have to do with the man,I don't think he was one of the boys. "

"You saw one of your kind, you could feel it down to your soul. You now know, you now know."

"Know what?"

"You are not alone. Have you not been listening? You have found another one of what ever you are. I recognized it on your face, your voice, I remember when I first found one of my kind, it was the same way."

"So what are you saying, I am not alone, but I lost him pretty quick."


"You'll find each other again, if it meant to be. Good morning morning glory."

"Good Morning, dude your clock is off it is afternoon."

"Morning has broken for you, my love, time to whip the sleep out of your eyes and let the sun shine in, you have just become enlightened to a universal truth... now go play while there is money to be made. "