Written by Ali Naro
Doctors' pills give you brand-new ills
And the bills bury you like an avalanche
And lawyers haven't been this popular
Since Robespierre slaughtered half of France
And Indian chiefs with their old beliefs know
The balance is undone, crazy ions
You can feel it out in traffic
Everyone hates everyone
And the gas leaks
And the oil spills
And sex sells everything
And sex kills
Sex kills
-Joni Mitchell, from her song Sex Kills
________________________________
Friday, December 13, 1985
Marlborough, Massachusetts
Inside of Betty Sheets' car
A 1972 bright red convertible VW Beetle
Parked at the Royal Crest apartment complex parking lot
Located 40 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts
A bitterly cold morning, just as the sun is beginning to break through the dark and cloudy winter sky that is producing a light snow flurry to start Betty Sheets' 39th birthday and her last day in Massachusetts before heading back to her birth state of Florida.
Betty had left Florida for Massachusetts ten years before, newly in love and married for the second time, convinced that this time it was indeed love and not just another impulsive marriage because she was so lonely and so desperate for a partner, like with her first marriage; this time it would indeed work out. But Betty is now returning to Florida divorced for the second time, the marriage only lasting 3 years before it ended with her husband's confession that he had fallen in love with a man because he was, in fact, homosexual. They had remained the best of friends despite the divorce due to homosexuality. And Betty continued to search for love, despite the 2 divorces, but she is now returning to Florida broken-hearted more times than she even wants to remember.
Betty spent the final 2 years of their post-divorce friendship nursing her ex-husband, Jimmy, who had died 6 months previously from various illnesses due to AIDS. Passing away at the apartment that they shared together the last 18 months of his life so Betty could be with her ex-husband to care for him whenever she wasn't at work, Jimmy quietly slipped away from this world to the other side, passing away as Betty slept in a chair next to his bed, holding onto his hand...
Betty has spent the last few weeks selling off and giving away and throwing away her ex-husband's belongings and most of her own belongings as well; only keeping what she can fit into Jimmy's car, which Betty had inherited from him, before driving back to Florida. Jimmy had also left Betty his calico cat, Libby, and a small but healthy sum of money from his life insurance policy. Betty plans on using the money to buy a few things for herself and Libby once she finds a place in Florida to rent, before taking the rest of the inheritance from Jimmy and putting it into a savings account so she can use it to go to junior college to become a nurse thanks to Jimmy's deathbed encouragement to Betty not waste her life, to please go follow her lifelong dream of being a nurse.
Jimmy had been right, Betty had always wanted to be a nurse. She has always been quite gifted in biological sciences, spending hours in the library since she was a little kid, reading, reading, reading everything she could about diseases and germs and plagues and such. And then two years ago, after she found out that Jimmy was sick with this new virus called AIDS, Betty spent even more time in libraries reading, reading, reading anything she could on diseases and germs and plagues and such, trying to help Jimmy when they both had gotten so frustrated and angry with the doctors who seemed to know nothing about this new virus they called at first gay cancer, then GRID for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, and then finally, AIDS for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
Betty found herself doing a lot of soul-searching while she spent 2 years slowly watching Jimmy die, realizing how short life really was, and here she was inching ever so close to 40, and so inching ever so close to her own mortality, and so why was she wasting her life being a waitress or a bartender or a cashier for pretty much all of her working life when she could be a nurse and help people like she had always dreamed of doing???
What city in Florida is Betty headed to? She isn't quite sure since she grew up all over the state, her family having moved several times when she was a kid, with extended family spread out all over Florida, so Betty has always considered the whole state to be her hometown. So it doesn't matter to Betty where in Florida she is headed. She just wants to be back in Florida because she knows that the only way for her to heal from the horrors she had witnessed as her ex-husband spent 2 years dying by inches from strange, awful, disgusting, terrifying diseases that most medical professionals had never heard of, much less knew how to treat, when they would even dare to treat the fag dying of AIDS at all, was for her to be back home. Because despite living in Massachusetts for ten years now, Betty recently realized that home to her would always be Florida.
And so, on her 39th birthday, Betty is going home...
Betty lit up a cigarette as she quietly promised herself to quit the deadly habit before turning on her car. The car had been given to Betty by her ex-husband, Jimmy, a year before he had passed away, having been too sick by then to drive it. He didn't want to sell his beloved VW Beetle to a stranger, so he gave it to, "my favorite girl," as Jimmy always fondly called Betty.
Poor Jimmy.
Dead at 35.
Too young.
Just
way
too
young...
“SHIT!”
Betty yelled into the early morning darkness, scaring Jimmy's cat, Libby, who was in a cat carrier on the passenger seat next to Betty as Betty beat her free hand against the cold, hard steering wheel while holding onto her cigarette with her other hand. She cursed the deadly habit as she continued to beat on the cold, hard steering wheel, promising herself that as soon as she got to Florida, she would quit smoking. No way in hell was she letting cigarettes take her to the grave with a slow, painful death like Jimmy's.
Betty was doing a lot of cursing and screaming, and screaming while cursing, and cursing while screaming lately; crying out to stop the unbearable sharp pain that kept returning to her broken heart every time she thought of Jimmy being dead. The pain returned with such a vengeance this particular time and striking Betty so suddenly that she couldn't help but cry out and beat her hand against the cold, hard steering wheel, hoping for physical pain to distract her from her heart that just wouldn't stop breaking into a million fucking pieces.
Every day Betty's heart broke over and over and over again.
Every day Betty tried to put the scattered pieces of her broken heart back together.
But she always failed because every night she went to bed all alone, crying herself to sleep as her heart broke into a million fucking pieces all over again thinking of Jimmy...
Thinking of his horrific, slow, painful death...
Thinking of all the people who ignored him...
Thinking of all the people who hated him for being sick with a virus that was killing the outcasts of the world...
Thinking of all the people who just didn't give a fuck that this beautiful, smart, kind, talented young man was dying...
And now Jimmy was dead, and still, no one cared.
Some were even glad he was dead.
It just wasn’t right.
It just wasn’t fair.
Life was so NOT like Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best or My Three Sons, where everything was right and fair by the end of each episode.
Betty had loved those shows as a kid because the kids on those shows had what Betty never did - a father who actually gave a shit about his kids and actually showed up to their kids' lives.
Wake up already, Betty!
Your father never knew best, because he never bothered to show up to your life, because you weren't the son he always wanted.
You were just the first of three daughters he never wanted from a wife he never loved.
Life is NOT like TV or the movies where everything ends happily ever after...
Happily ever after died with Jimmy...
Dead at 35.
A horrible
Slow
Agonizing
Painful
Nightmarish death.
With no one but Betty and a few of Jimmy's gay friends, some of them dying of AIDS as well, to care for him.
Ostracized by his family.
Fired from his job.
Ignored by doctors.
Mistreated by nurses.
Betty had no idea how cruel and awful people truly could be until she witnessed Jimmy dying from AIDS.
"Please, Betty, please don't let me die in this horrible hospital with these awful people who hate me. Please, let me die in our apartment even if you are at work and it's just me with the cat when I die. At least Libby loves me. At least she is kind to me. Unlike these cold assholes here who just see me as a fag who deserves to die," Jimmy had pleaded to Betty while lying in yet another hospital bed just a month before he passed away, so weak from being so ill, he could barely get the words out.
The sharp, unbearable pain in Betty's heart returned, and the tears fell down her face while she beat on the cold, hard steering wheel again, scaring Libby once again, as she remembered Jimmy's tear-stained face as he begged her to take him home.
No one gave a shit when he was dying.
No one gave a shit now that he was dead.
People actually cheered for his death and the deaths of so many other beautiful, young gay boys just like Jimmy who were currently dying by painful, terrifying inches too.
The fags were getting what they deserved, everyone was saying.
God, people were just so fucking awful!
Hating someone for loving the same sex.
Hating someone for dying from an illness no one knew about until just a few years ago.
So much hate when instead there could be love...
Love...
Whatever happened to love?
Betty had loved Jimmy so much, and Jimmy had loved her.
Their marriage had been an amazing one.
Except for the part about Jimmy being gay.
His admission that he had fallen in love with a man three years into their union had crushed them both because they had loved each other so much, but it wasn’t a romantic love. Betty knew that now. She was 39 years old, and had been married and divorced twice, but Betty had never been in love; rather instead, she had been quite fond of her two gay ex-husbands.
That knack Betty had for loving gay men and those gay men loving her right back had led to both of her ex-husbands, a couple of her ex-boyfriends, and even a few guys she had casually dated, all claiming their confusing closet case issues solved now thanks to Betty’s love for them. Betty figured that gay men loved her so much because of her enormous breasts, her enormous laugh, her even more enormous heart, and her uncanny ability to be the “mom” always to these men. Men who usually didn’t have a mom because of their gay ways, yet somehow they always found their way to Betty, and Betty never could help but put her arms around them and love them all like the children she always wanted but never had. And she continued to love them even after they left her for another man, or just for men in general because those boys sure did love to fuck around.
Except for Jimmy.
He had always been about love.
Well, okay, so he fucked around a bit too even though he had a loving partner. But they had an open relationship before Jimmy's lover died 18 months before Jimmy. It seemed to be something that gay men could do, fuck around and still be madly in love with their partner.
Too bad all that fantastic fucking that Jimmy loved telling Betty all about and Betty certainly didn’t mind hearing all about, got Jimmy killed.
What a terrible thing to do to something as wonderful as sex – make it a death sentence.
Jimmy had fallen in love, and it had killed him.
But at least he found real love before he died.
These gay men that Betty always found herself romantically involved with always seemed to be able to find love after they left her or sometimes even before they left her, and Betty couldn’t help but feel sorry for herself about how painfully lonely her heart was for real love.
Betty spent her lonely nights dreaming of being with a partner.
But real love never could find Betty, yet she couldn’t help yearning for real love just the same.
When was it her turn to find someone for her heart?
Hell, when was it her turn to have sex again?
When was it her turn to be doing that Billy Idol rebel yelling and screaming of more, more, more in the midst of ecstasy instead of always living the Cyndi Lauper she-bopping life?
God, Betty was so sick of masturbating.
Betty was so sick of hearing that damn Cyndi Lauper song, She Bop, and realizing that could be her for the rest of her life - she bopping her way to being crowned Masturbating Queen.
Betty so badly wanted to have sex with a real physical body instead of just alone with only herself and her fantasies and her right hand or that fabulous vibrator that she used on more occasions than Betty liked to admit to thanks to always being without a partner at night.
Masturbating took the edge off in the moment, but afterward, it left Betty feeling so lonely and sad and still yearning for more.
There was no one there to hold onto and kiss and snuggle while falling asleep in the afterglow of lovemaking.
Just Jimmy's cat, Libby, would sometimes jump on the bed afterward or even during, which was very odd, so Betty would have to nudge Libby off of the bed because no way in Hell was she masturbating with the cat on the bed with her. It just felt too weird and screamed that she was turning into one of those desperately lonely old cat ladies.
God, Betty was so lonely.
And if Betty was really being honest with herself here, and why not at the crack of dawn with no one else around to know on this cold, December morning in the quiet parking lot of the Royal Crest apartment complex in good ole Marlborough, Massachusetts, that Betty was so very horny too. Hence all that masturbating that she did that just left her wanting more, more, more...
Betty knew that she needed someone to touch her and caress her and hold her and press their naked, sweaty body against her naked, sweaty body and make her cum and cum and cum, again and again, and again…
But even when Betty was with a man, she was still the only one who gave herself orgasms.
Betty was so tired of being the only one who gave her orgasms.
She was so good at giving orgasms too and had given so many to her partners, so wasn’t it her turn now to get some orgasms too, dammit?
You know, besides from her own damn self?
Men always came back begging for more of the amazing orgasms that Betty had a natural gift at giving, even the gay men. And Betty certainly enjoyed having sex with the dozen or so men that she had been with; she loved touching them and stroking them and licking them and most of all, she loved making them cum. Penises were such fun toys to play with, even if your partner is dreaming of Richard Gere instead of you and so he can’t find your G spot to save his life because he’s too busy giving Richard Gere a blowjob in his dreamy, delusional head.
The few straight men Betty had been with weren’t any better at sex with women than the gay men she had been with.
In fact, they were kind of worse at it.
At least the gay men she had been with tried in bed.
Probably because when gay men were in bed with her, they were trying so hard not to be gay.
The straight men didn't try, period, end of story. They were usually done before she knew it had even started. Straight men seemed to be so turned on by Betty's big breasts and her curvaceous figure that they had been known to cum just by looking at her naked body. It was a nice compliment in a very weird way, but it didn't help Betty with her own needs.
Maybe Jimmy had been right?
Maybe Betty should be pursuing her romantic dreams with a woman instead?
It had been something Jimmy had said to Betty half-jokingly on several occasions during their friendship after their marriage had ended. That maybe Betty should pursue her attraction to women instead of only going after men since she had such awful luck with men. That maybe she shouldn't go the way of Laverne and Shirley and only chase after men while they were missing out on the best romance that ever happened to either Laverne or Shirley, and it was with each other.
Betty had only pursued her attraction to women when she was in high school, and only with fellow cheerleader, Annie. The physical relationship between Betty and Annie started out as an excuse to practice making out while they were waiting to get a date with an actual real boy to actually make out with. They just kissed at first, but God, that kissing was sooooo gooooood that before they knew it, Betty and Annie weren't just kissing each other's lips, but they were kissing each other everywhere.
Betty and Annie had only a few physical encounters, all in the guise of practicing for a boy, but deep down Betty knew she wasn't just making out with Annie so she would be a better kisser once she finally kissed a boy. Betty had made out and basically made love with Annie because she fucking loved it!
And if Betty really thought about it, her romance with Annie had been the best damn romance of her life including her two marriages.
“Find real love before you die, please, Betty…,” Jimmy had painfully whispered to Betty through his sore-covered, chapped mouth during one of the rare moments that he was conscience in his last days. And thank God for Jimmy mostly being unconscious during his last days so he didn’t have to deal with the unimaginable pain he was in. "And not with some guy," Jimmy continued slowly, struggling to get the words out, "Please. Enough with men and your obsession with finding the right one to settle down with forever. You and men just don't work out beyond friendship. Find yourself a nice girl. Like that Annie that you loved in high school. I have never seen your eyes glow with such love like when you speak of those few weeks with Annie and your making out sessions in high school. You were in love with Annie. You still are, Betty. Find yourself a nice girl like Annie. I always saw you with a nice girl, anyway." Jimmy wasn't half-joking at all like he had been so many times before when speaking to Betty about dating a woman after their divorce. He was quite serious now that he knew how very short and very precious life was.
Betty wanted real love so badly, but God, being with someone of the same sex was so fucking hard.
All the crap society gave you for it.
All the laws that were against your love for each other.
All the laws that don't exist at all, and probably never will, that could protect lovers of the same sex.
Betty had seen firsthand from Jimmy's experiences how hard it was.
But then again, life was short, and after spending 2 years watching Jimmy die, Betty knew that now.
And if it is real love, did it really matter how hard it was just because some people thought being with the same sex was wrong?
But then again, how often do people actually find real love?
In the movies or on TV or in novels, yeah, sure, all the time.
But in real life?
Well, Jimmy found real love before he died, and okay, her first ex-husband had also found a loving partner soon after their marriage crumbled, but Betty was beginning to wonder if they only found love because they were gay. That maybe only couples of the same sex found that magical kind of love that only seemed to exist in stories, especially since she had never known a straight couple that were as happily ensconced in their relationships as the gay men in her life.
Was that what Jimmy had been trying to tell her just before he died? Those final days when Jimmy was just a skeleton with skin covering him like a loose bed sheet; AIDS having taken every last bit of his healthy, muscular, young body; turning him into an emaciated, weak, old man just two short years after showing signs of having the virus when he died.
Just thinking about Jimmy on his deathbed brought Betty back to the present day in her car, ready to take off for Florida. She attempted her best Scarlett O’Hara impression when she felt tears beginning to form and sting her eyes again, and so decided she wasn’t going to think about Jimmy being dead and those last horrible months of his life now or about dating a nice girl.
She would think about all of that tomorrow.
Or at least, Betty wished she could put off those thoughts forever because she didn’t want to cry anymore.
Betty had cried enough.
She was ready to be happy and find real love like Jimmy had asked her to do…
But with a nice girl instead of with a man?
Was Jimmy nuts??!
No, he had known for a long time that Betty's heaven wasn't with men.
And now Betty was beginning to understand that too, because ever since Jimmy had died, Betty hadn't been able to stop thinking that he was right. That there was a nice girl out there waiting for her.
And if Betty really thought about it, she knew that Jimmy had been right because she had started getting a strange feeling just before Jimmy died; the kind of strange feeling that she got every once in a while when she knew something was coming.
A kind of psychic ability that Betty figured she had and there it was, back again...
This time it was a feeling that had been itching at the back of her head and heart for months now, that something or really someone was waiting for her in Florida. Betty just needed to get her butt to that something or really someone, which she strongly suspected was a nice girl.
But did she really want a nice girl?
Yes, if Betty was being absolutely honest with herself, she did want a nice girl.
Wasn't that why Betty decided to move to Florida during the last few weeks of Jimmy's life?
Because of the feeling that She was waiting for me at home...
“Come on, Libby,” Betty said to Jimmy’s cat, who even though she was pissed about being in a cat carrier, was being very quiet and patient about her temporary imprisoned predicament, “It’s time to get the Hell out of Dodge and go home to Florida.”
Betty then started up the car and turned the volume of the radio up, up, UP!
Glen Fry's The Heat Is On was playing, and Betty was ready to get back to sunny and always way too hot Florida after living in the tundra of the North for the past 10 years.
Betty tried not to cry and think about Jimmy and finding a nice girl as she drove out of the Royal Crest apartment complex and Massachusetts for good, but she never was good at imitating Scarlett O'Hara and putting off dealing with her problems forever, because she kept on crying and thinking as she drove for the next 3 days. Crying and thinking about what kind of nice girl she wanted and Jimmy and all their good and sad times and smoking endless numbers of cigarettes and listening to top 40 radio at full blast, catching a top 100 songs of the year countdown from Casey Kasem that she was able to find on various radio stations as she drove back to her home state of Florida, hoping to once again begin again…
And as Betty drove closer and closer to Florida, despite all the crying and thinking and smoking that she did on the trip, despite the horrible memories of Jimmy's long, two-year journey to his death flashing in front of her constantly as she drove, drove, drove away from the pain; Betty began to feel freer than she ever had in her life.
Betty's whole life was ahead of her now and she was going to make one hell of an adventure out of it because life was too damn short not to...
THE END...
For now...
Episode 2: Betty Has a Date with a Girl
