Robbin Finkle was black, beautifully large, blue-eyed, and full of lesbian pride. I had seen her around the clubs in my early twenties spouting self righteous pretentious concepts. At one point she ran for Mayor of West Hollywood, but no one knew what the hell she was ever talking about. At one rally she even gave a speech about the horrors of Jane Fonda and when someone asked her about water rationing, she retorted abruptly that the questioner didn't know what was relevant or important.

She lost the election but continued her politically aggressive passage. Often I received flyers in the mail asking for my attendance. Lesbian rights, women's rights, battered women's rights, children's rights, dog rights, cat rights, duck rights. She was always the organizer and always the speaker.

I didn't know if she'd remember me, but she spent the night with an old roommate of mine once and the three of us went to Dollar Diner the next morning for dollar pancakes.

As she dripped the eye-matching blueberry syrup over the three stacks of silver dollar sized pancakes, she rambled about the social injustices against women.

"Why for instance, in 1989, can it still be that women in comparative jobs are still paid 25% less than men? There's no justification."

"Just the way it is,"I shrugged. "Tradition."

"Tradition does not a valid argument make."

"It may not be valid but it doesn't make it not true."

She looked excitedly at me, "Hey, you can speak."

"Excuse me?"

"You want to speak at the next rally. It's for the ducks who live in the Venice Canals. They'd rather kill them than clean up their shit."

"Is that true?"

"Well, there's some disease too, but if they all already have the disease what difference does it make that they hang out in the canals? We don't kill our diseased people. What right have we got to kill a bunch of sick ducks? Tell me, do you know?"

"No, I don't, but I got to tell you. I don't really care."

"It's that kind of apathy that's going to be the doom of humanity."

My roommate Alexandra finally piped in, "You're being a little dramatic, aren't you?"

"Not as dramatic as you last night." Robbin said, rolling her eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You faked it. I wanted to ask you in private, but you brought it up. I feel cheated and lied too."

Alexandra laughed, "You're a freak."

Robbin stabbed her last pile of pancakes and plowed them into her mouth like a welcomed penis. I felt ill. She swallowed. Garbled, "I may be a freak, but at least I have purpose."

She stood and left without any reach for money from her own pocket. We laughed, I said, "You got to stop bringing home strays."

That was a long time ago, but it was on my mind all day since I had gotten a message from Robbin Finkle upon my arrival that morning.

In Helen's trailer using her cellular, since she was on set, I dialed the number on the paper.

"Finkle here." Righteous.

"This is Fran Charleton calling you back."

"Yes, hi. I appreciate you returning my call. You don't know me but I'm holding a meeting at Mocha Daze for my group Hollywood Queers and my organization was hoping you would attend."

"Excuse me?" She had no clue of our passing history.

"Hollywood Queers."

"No, I heard you, but I just can't believe you'd call me outright like this at my work."

"Well, I didn't name the group."

"Yeah, but you named your name."

"Look, the meeting is Friday at eight. Please come."

"I don't think so."

"You're out, everyone knows you're out. Twenty years ago you wouldn't of been able to be out and have that job. You owe it to your previous lesbians to show up."

"I don't owe anybody shit. Don't call me again." I hung up. My anger sporadically revealed itself all day by snapping at innocent work-mates. Forget that, I thought, I worked hard to get here. I owe that to myself and myself alone. I continued to persuade myself all day.