Out of the closet and under the huppah—a lesbian couple and their traditional wedding. How do you treat your household help? A post-9/11 search in lower Manhattan.
Table of contents Get the issueA hard sleety snow buffeted the four of us as we trudged up a slushy sidewalk in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, Michigan. We—that is, Jennie, my fellow Rocket Nate Manoff in a Sad Sackish 85th Division private’s uniform, his girlfriend Louise, and me in my George Raft velvet collar topcoat—(I was awaiting draft papers)—approached... Read more »
“Oh, Playmate,Come out and play with me… “ When she comes, I’m in her shoes, poisedon peasant feet. She, her eyesa scrim of smoke, is silent, exhalessparks of bright light;and, wind inher hair, she runs throughaspens ringed by cigar-haze fromthe grandfather I never met.Grandmother sings as grandfatherlifts, ravishes her againstthe cellar door. At first light,... Read more »
The bar is crushed with women ordering vastly overpriced alcohol, but since this is one of the few places I’ve been to that serves anything other than sour apple vodka and beer, I don’t see fit to complain. My friend and I are nursing martinis that may just put me out a week’s groceries, talking... Read more »
"I needed an un-marriage ceremony," Stock says. A therapist tells, surprisingly, of how moving and useful she found her Jewish divorce.
Are you Jewish?” a young woman asks as Mom and I step into the summer heat outside Kroger’s market. “Yeah. I am,” I reply, an unfamiliar pride landing in my chest. The woman smiles, and holds up a cellophane bag. “Would you like some Shabbat candles?” “Sure,” I say, taking the bag. I notice her ankle-length... Read more »
I am sitting in a Brooklyn diner, having breakfast with Marlene Champion, 61, a tall, striking woman from Barbados. Champion makes her living as a domestic worker, and right now she works as a nanny caring for a four-year-old girl in Brooklyn Heights. Champion is also an active member of Domestic Workers United, a Bronx-based organization... Read more »
