Monday, August 01, 2005
SEXUAL CONFUSION ON THE ROAD TO VENTIMIGLIA
My favorite kind of weather for hitchhiking. Dark, overcast clouds on a cold November day. Good for me. The wind is picking up too. With any luck, I can get a ride from somewhere near Nice, along the French Riviera all the way across the border into Italy. But I have no luck at this, and end up waiting a couple of hours somewhere between Nice and Ventimiglia, which is the first town you hit just across the border into Italy.
I had flown to Nice from California to visit an old boyfriend. He was now separated from his wife, also a good friend of mine. She decided she wanted to leave her husband, her baby boy, to become a full-time lesbian. She returned to the States, gave me the other half of her plane ticket, and suggested I visit E in the small town he now lived in outside of St. Tropez. I did. But he and I were in different places now, and our long anticipated reunion did not quite go as either of us had planned.
So after a week or so visit, I decided to head out on my own. Back down into Italy, where I had visited some years earlier.
I like hitchhiking, it's fast, usually pretty reliable, and certainly, always, interesting.
But today had little traffic, and they must have been uptight French bourgeois types, not inclined to stop for yet another scruffy looking hippie kid standing by the road with a backpack. Thank God it wasn't summer, the roadside competition would have been fierce.
My theory about hitchhiking is, if you're female, you fly. Today was therefore an oddity. Maybe the gloomy weather had conspired to put every driver on the coast into a funk of sorts.
So as I stood there, and waited, I looked around the area, seeking distractions. I found one rather quickly in the guise of a Spanish gardener, who was working in front of a villa situated right by the road.
He saw me eventually, and ambled over for a chat. I could tell he was not French, but at first - given we were close to the border - I thought he might actually be Italian. But no, I heard him roll his "r's" in the best Spanish tradition, and realized he was a foreigner here too. It's funny, my French is far from perfect, but I can always understand the other foreigners when they speak it.
Speak it we did. We must have chatted for about five minutes about this and that, when I became aware he was peering at me more closely. Quite closely.
What came out of his mouth next really floored me. "So, are you a boy or a girl?" he inquired, somewhat hesitantly, like he had a wager on it. I was a little insulted at the time, but looking back on it, why wouldn't he ask?
I was late 20s at the time, fresh out of Berkeley, I had a lean, boyish frame, my blonde hair fell below my shoulders, I had that scruffy long-haired look that a lot of the boys travelling about had back then. Girls too. I wore battered jeans, a denin shirt, and I had a tan suede jacket to ward off the cold.
I should have replied, "Which one would you prefer I be, monsieur?" Or, "I can be either, it depends up to you." Hhmmm, which would he have preferred, I wonder. In retrospect today, that's what I would have said. But back then, I was young and stupid, and quick repartee did not come so easily. So getting annoyed with his question was the best I could do.
Now that we had established I was a female, he seemed relieved, and more interested. Luckily I saw a car coming and I stuck out my thumb. The driver stopped, wonder of wonders, so I was plucked away from this gardener and his quickly accummulating dark clouds of evil thoughts about what he might like to do with me.
The car was a Mercedes, and I felt good about things right away. Always nice to be in a nice car when you're travelling on the Riviera, I say. To my surprise, when I opened the car door to speak with the driver, I saw she was another woman.
TO BE CONTINUED
I had flown to Nice from California to visit an old boyfriend. He was now separated from his wife, also a good friend of mine. She decided she wanted to leave her husband, her baby boy, to become a full-time lesbian. She returned to the States, gave me the other half of her plane ticket, and suggested I visit E in the small town he now lived in outside of St. Tropez. I did. But he and I were in different places now, and our long anticipated reunion did not quite go as either of us had planned.
So after a week or so visit, I decided to head out on my own. Back down into Italy, where I had visited some years earlier.
I like hitchhiking, it's fast, usually pretty reliable, and certainly, always, interesting.
But today had little traffic, and they must have been uptight French bourgeois types, not inclined to stop for yet another scruffy looking hippie kid standing by the road with a backpack. Thank God it wasn't summer, the roadside competition would have been fierce.
My theory about hitchhiking is, if you're female, you fly. Today was therefore an oddity. Maybe the gloomy weather had conspired to put every driver on the coast into a funk of sorts.
So as I stood there, and waited, I looked around the area, seeking distractions. I found one rather quickly in the guise of a Spanish gardener, who was working in front of a villa situated right by the road.
He saw me eventually, and ambled over for a chat. I could tell he was not French, but at first - given we were close to the border - I thought he might actually be Italian. But no, I heard him roll his "r's" in the best Spanish tradition, and realized he was a foreigner here too. It's funny, my French is far from perfect, but I can always understand the other foreigners when they speak it.
Speak it we did. We must have chatted for about five minutes about this and that, when I became aware he was peering at me more closely. Quite closely.
What came out of his mouth next really floored me. "So, are you a boy or a girl?" he inquired, somewhat hesitantly, like he had a wager on it. I was a little insulted at the time, but looking back on it, why wouldn't he ask?
I was late 20s at the time, fresh out of Berkeley, I had a lean, boyish frame, my blonde hair fell below my shoulders, I had that scruffy long-haired look that a lot of the boys travelling about had back then. Girls too. I wore battered jeans, a denin shirt, and I had a tan suede jacket to ward off the cold.
I should have replied, "Which one would you prefer I be, monsieur?" Or, "I can be either, it depends up to you." Hhmmm, which would he have preferred, I wonder. In retrospect today, that's what I would have said. But back then, I was young and stupid, and quick repartee did not come so easily. So getting annoyed with his question was the best I could do.
Now that we had established I was a female, he seemed relieved, and more interested. Luckily I saw a car coming and I stuck out my thumb. The driver stopped, wonder of wonders, so I was plucked away from this gardener and his quickly accummulating dark clouds of evil thoughts about what he might like to do with me.
The car was a Mercedes, and I felt good about things right away. Always nice to be in a nice car when you're travelling on the Riviera, I say. To my surprise, when I opened the car door to speak with the driver, I saw she was another woman.
TO BE CONTINUED
