FLUX 1996

F~ux 199G EDITOR IN CHIEF

THANKS To: CONNIE SNYDER BALLMER

Sean M. Smith t its best, journalism s~~w~ you what is not in the ne~s. It tran~ports you, disrupts your equilibrium and forces you to question what is and what could be.

In this issue of Flux, we invite you to travel into the lives of people who do not fit into the boxes society tries to construct around them. A woman surviving a lifetime of sexual exploitation stays in the neighbor, hood that stole her childhood, .helping other women escape the streets.

Men who are often labeled as deviants donate their time and money to help the battered, the abandoned and the dying. A poet fighting a battle against breast cancer faces the camera to break the silence and shame surrounding the disease. And along the trails of Oregon's Cascade moun, tains, two sisters offer people with physical restrictions a chance to hold freedom in their hands.

The greatest teachers are those whose lives are their lectures. In these pages, we offer you the opportunity to hear their stories and to recon, sider what it means to be a victim, a survivor, a hero, a freak. Being different is the gift these people were given, and it is the gift they give back. Through their faith, hope and charity, they change the world around them.

Journalism allows us to share in the sorrows and triumphs of people's lives and to communicate what we learn to the world. The men and women in these stories dare us to challenge our perceptions, catch a glimpse of life along the edges and understand a little more about ourselves.

Their lives are a testament to the grace and strength of the human spirit. Their lesson is captured in the image of a child who will never walk, sitting high in the saddle with the wind in her face: If you believe in yourself, if you reach high enough, you can touch the sky.

A

Sean M. Smith Editor in Chief

JOHN BAUGESS ' GENERAL MANAGER

Tracy Picha

.

MANAGING EDITOR

ART DIRECTOR

Michele Osterhoudt

Matthew Bates

SENIOR EDITORS

ASSISTANT ART

Rosemary Camozzi Colleen Pohlig

DIRECTOR

PAUL BRAINERD

P AT CUSICK, HULT CENTER DALBEY

&

DENIGHT ADVERTISING

EUGENE PRINT

Mike Elias HUNGRy-HEAD BOOKSTORE

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

ART ASSOCIATES

Paige Bills Noelle Greenley Samantha Martin Sonja Sherwood

Mark Clemens Stacey Croll LeeAnn Dakers LoriAnna Hinton Dave Williams

SARA HUNTINGTON ASSISTANT DEAN GREG KERBER PROFESSOR LAUREN KESSLER

COpy CHIEF

Diane M. Schuirman

PHOTO EDITOR

Laura Goss EDITORIAL INTERNS

Jennifer Carter Kendra Smith

ONLINE EDITOR

Mike Elias

ASSISTANT DEAN JENNIFER KING DICK LENNOX DEAN DUNCAN McDoNALD PAUL MURRAY, UNISOURCE

FACULTY ADVISER

Mark O. Howerton

RICHARD OTT RANDOM LENGTHS, INC. / JON ANDERSON

Flux m?gazine is planned, written, edited, designed and produced by students in the Oniversity of Oregon's School ofJournalism and Communication. Most of the photography is the work of University of Oregon journalism students as well. Staff members are selected by faculty through a competitive process similar to a professional hiring. Staff members receive academic credit for their work. Flux is designed and produced in the School of Journalism and Communication Ballmer graphics lab and printed at Eugene Print in Eugene, Oregon.

Flux is available online at: http://ballmer.uoregon.edu/flux96.

TANYA ROSE PROFESSOR BILL RYAN SMITH FAMILY BOOKSTORE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON BOOKSTORE JIM WALLACE PROFESSE0R TERRI W ARPINSKI MICK WESTRICK

CONTRIBuTOR!)

RRRIVAL!) FLUX 1996

Samantha Martin visited the pioneer of hair research, Dr. Robson Bonnichsen, at his office in Corvallis, Oregon, to piece together the strands of her story, Back to Our Roots (Page 7). "I look at my hairbrush in a whole new light," Martin says.

Serious researcher Tracy Picha tripped over the light fantastic with ballroom dancers in the course of writing Dance Hall Days (Page 8). "Anytime I asked one of them about ballroom dancing they beamed," Picha says. "They were the happiest people I've ever met."

Cathleen Hockman trailed along after Spalding Gray for an afternoon during his stay in Eu.. gene, Oregon (Confessions of a Family Man, Page 10). "How do you interview a man who makes a living out of talking about himself? How do you find a question for the man who's been asked everything? I still don't know."

Paige Bills (Without Her, Page 18) was present when her own mother was taken off life support three years ago. She and Angela Nurre spent many afternoons curled on a couch in Angela's apartment, talking about a subject seldom discussed in society.

Rosemary Howe Camozzi's visits to the HORSES ranch permanently altered her definition of disability (Taking the Reins, Page 14). Disabled people don't see themselves as restricted the way we do, she says. "The need for adventure is universal. They're determined to experience adventure despite all obstacles."

COLLEEN POHLIG

"There's a brilliance to people who live outside the sphere of normalcy," says Jennifer Andrews (Her Majesty's Secret Service, Page 24). Fringe specialist Andrews hand..picked her Queens during a ball at a local gay club, finding "the most vivacious, bold and kick..ass Queens in town."

"She just sees life," Colleen Pohlig says of Sue Ryan, the woman she profiles in Lioness in Winter (Page 36). Pohlig describes Ryan's effort to give breast cancer a face as tremendously inspiring. Somebody's finally talking back to the "silent killer" by speaking, showing and exposing.

Sonja Sherwood infiltrated the glamorous world of Oregon's prison system to research Prison House of Style (Page 42). Hobnobbing with well..dressed felons taught Sherwood a valuable lesson: "If I ever de.. cide to take up a life of crime, I'm going to make sure I have a good publicist."

Standing Water (Page 48) represents Derek Martin's reflections on the fragile interaction between science and nature. He contrasts the meaning that can be found by people who view life through a microscope against the wonders that can be discovered by those who dedicate their minds and bodies to simply looking. '.

SONJA SHERWOOD

t started with this image: He was running down 42nd Street, naked except for a red jock strap.

There he was, a never.. heard.. of-.him actor in New York City. It was 1979, and Spalding Gray had just left a theater group he had cofounded. He knew he wanted to go solo, whatever that meant. But he had no idea how.

He just had this image.

"I realized I was trying to expose myself, but when I opened the raincoat, I wanted you to see it all: genitals, heart, knees, throat, brain. I'm an exhibitionist but a very creative one. My nature is to confess and do it welL Con.. fession as entertainment ultimately it's a healing act."

Oh, the man can talk. During the last seventeen years, Gray has written and performed fifteen au.. tobiographical monologues and ap.. peared in six feature films, most re.. cently Diabolique with Sharon Stone. Two of his monologues the award.. winning Swimming to Cambodia and Monster in a Box have been made into films.

Seventeen years of talking about himself in front of thousands of people: Is this nothing more than narcissism run amuck?

Gray prefers "poetic journalist" to describe himself (please don't call him a monologist). But if he were a poet, he would be a straight Allen Ginsberg - if you can imag.. ine Ginsberg as an ironic, neurotic, existential, hypochon.. driacal ex.. Christian Scientist from New England. Gray's favorite definition of his role came from a 1Q.. year.. old girl he once saw hanging around after a performance. When he asked what she was doing, she replied, "My dad said I had to come and see the talking man."

You'il find Gray's monologue films in the stand.. up com.. edy section of your nearest Blockbuster Video, although he is often billed as a sit.. down comic. But sometimes it's hard to understand why he's labeled a comic at all. Sure, Gray's stories are often hilarious, and he has an acute eye for the ironic and the ridiculous in everyday life. But there's al..

I

ways a dark side to his light, an underlying sadness - much of it public mourning for his mother, who killed herself when Gray was 26.

"The audience doesn't see the enormous amount of pain the humor comes out of," he says. "They laugh right over it. There's a line in one of my monologues - it's funny but not funny - that my father never went to see Swimming to Cambodia because he wouldn't miss cocktail hour. The au.. dience would just howl, but that was the truth."

Still, Gray feels guilty about exposing the audience to his pain, even when it is masked with humor. "They need to laugh. I try to entertain them because I'm so fearful to take them into my sadness," he says.

The remarkable thing about his latest monologue, It's a Slippery Slope, is that he does risk reveal.. ing that sadness.

Slippery Slope is the story of what Gray calls his three . . year slow.. motion car crash. For decades he had dreaded turning 52, the age his mother was when she went into the garage, started up the car and let the carbon monoxide take her away. Gray was convinced that he too would kill himself. In a way, he did.

He had an affair with his neighbor. She got pregnant and refused to have an abortion. The affair (and the baby) ended Gray's relationship with his long.. time girlfriend and short.. time wife, Renee Shafransky. As if that weren't a big enough life change, Gray took up skiing - a sport he says you've got to have a death wish to try. But try he did. He wanted to get out of his head; he wanted to stop being a detached ob.. server of life and experience it instead.

After fourteen monologues filled with drugs and booze and sex and politics, the story of learning to ski and to live again might seem tame. Or it may be the most shocking of alL Optimism and tenderness do not come easily for Gray.

But the birth of his son, Forrest Dylan, has lightened his darker side. After years of death.. obsession, Gray seems to

After years of talking about sex, suicide and self-obsession, Spalding Gray finally gets personal.

By CatWeen Hockman Photos by Natalie Montgomery 10 FLUX

1996

have become - of all things - future focused. Spalding Gray is turning toward the son.

Gray first saw his child when Forrest was 8 months old.

It was a perfect paradox. Now I could die, but I also had to stay alive to see this little guy through. I took him home with me and laid him on the floor. I bent over him and looked into his eyes - those absolutely clear no.. . agenda eyes - and I fell in. It

was, 'Oh my God, until death do us part.' It's not like being seduced by a woman. There's always another woman. But you don't go around saying, 'Hey, there's a son. Take a look at those , sons.

Forrest, his mother, Kathy, and her daughter, Marissa, moved into Gray's loft in New York. Now they're a family, a three.. ring circus. To Gray's astonishment, it's working.

In his monologue, Gray reflects on how his life changed while his feet dangled from the seat of a slow ski lift. The peace, the silence, gradually slipped into melancholy. "Let it go," he thought. The remorse and the sadness. His be.. trayal of Renee. His mother's madness. His father, who died three days after Gray first cradled his son in his arms. "Let it go." His sorrow floated away like a gossamer thread waft.. ing down to the snow.

At the top - the slope icy and dangerous - Gray met a 72.. year.. old man who had been carving deep arcs down the mountain. When the man returned, Gray said to him, "I don't know if I'm having a good time or trying to kill myself."

"That's when you know you're alive!" the man answered cheerfully and once again launched himself down the slope.

In that moment, Gray saw the man as a specter of his future. He saw himself alive at 72, not dead at 52 - alive and with his son, skiing down the mountain, finding bal.. ance in motion, taking leaps of faith at every turn.

But it hasn't always been this easy to get Gray's adrena.. line pumping. There was a time, in the decade between free love and New York visions of self...exposure, when it took a lot more for Gray to find life's perfect moments, as he did when he first saw his son.

In 1967, Gray was introduced to Richard Schechner's Performance Group in SoHo as it presented a contempo.. . rary Dionysis. Back then, only the extremes were able to meet Gray's demands for stimulation.

It was terrifying, what I saw. The actors were naked, and

they started playing conga drums. They actually turned that space into an orgy. People would come down from the audience and take women under the bleachers and start to make love to them, and Pantheus would have to run around in his loincloth trying to get people back into the space. I climbed up to the highest bleacher;

I didn't want anyone near me. I left the theater, but I couldn't stay away from it. I was buzzing like a fly.

Stories like this one make it hard to imagine that Gray can now find stimulation in the Leave.. It.. to.. Beaver world of family life. But somehow, he does.

Kathy, Marissa and Forrest have been flying in to see Gray during his current tour. His program alternates be.. tween the more traditional format of Slippery Slope and Gray on Gray, an evening of questions from the audience and answers from the talking man. Forrest, now 3 1/2, can sit through the whole show. He will one day ask his father "Why do you always talk about yourself?" By then, Gra; may be able to tell him without irony that confession is indeed a healing act.

Of course, Gray is still doubting, questioning, unsure, scared. And he's still thinking about death, that king, that absolute queen. During an interview with University of Oregon radio station KWVA, Gray and his interviewer began talking about Timothy Leary's threats to commit sui.. cide on the Internet. Gray's first question was, "What is his method going to be? Has he said?"

But for now, Gray takes satisfaction in knowing that perhaps the worst has passed. The slow suicide of his darker life has given birth to a new perspective. And as Gray shares his delight in the beauty around him, one can't help but wonder whether he would have been so touched back in the days when it took conga drums to make his blood stir.

After years of flashing his audience his genitals, knees, throat and brain, he is at last exposing his heart.

During a performance of Gray on Gray in Eugene, Or.. egon, an audience member asked if Gray had experienced any perfect moments. "Well," Gray cautioned, "you have to be careful about those perfect moments. If you look for them, you'll never find them. But yes, there was one."

For two nights, Gray had been doing time at the Eu.. gene Hilton Hotel with the Sweet Adelines, a women's barbershop group. He woke up slowly and fuzzily after a night of too many microbrews, wanting only to eat his oatmeal in peace. But the singing competition was over, and the Sweet Adelines were riding high.

They were celebrating - wow, wow, chaotic, with that great liberated woman laugh, that the children.. . are.. . now.. . in.. col.. . lege.. . or.. . married.. and.. . we.. are.. having.. . a good.. . time.. . together laugh.

I t was annoying because it was chaotic, and they were having a better time than I was. But then they were all singing 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.' The tears poured down. It was so divine.

Totally unexpected.

Unexpected, Spalding? Unexpected healing, indeed. CD

AKING THE

People with disabilities are riding into the wilderness, going places they never dreamed possible

EINS

By Rosemary Howe Camozzi t a secluded spot deep in Oregon's Three Sisters Wilderness, a full moon illuminates a quiet campsite. Dinner is over, songs have been sung and campers have bedded down in their tents.

Horses move around quietly in their corrals, an occasional whinny breaking the silence of the night. Celeste, who has had a sleep disorder since her head injury six years ago, has no trouble sleeping tonight, comforted by the sounds and smells of the horses.

In the morning, as she awakens to the smell of coffee cooking on the campfire, she hears a roar from a nearby tent. Bob, the wilderness packer who has volunteered his time and mules for the trip, appears in the doorway.

"Somebody's gonna be dead!" he bellows. The other campers look sleepily at him as he stands in his white socks. "There's two things you never steal from a cowboy. You don't steal his horse and you don't steal his boots!"

A couple of campers giggle, but no one says a word. Celeste hopes he's not as serious as he looks. She stole the boots, but she's already passed them off to someone else.

Early the next morning, two campers wake from a peaceful sleep as their tent suddenly collapses on top of them. Bob has had his revenge.

This group of campers is no ordinary o~e. Most are bound by physical limitations that make camping beneath the steep mountain face of Three Fingered Jack seem inconceivable. But thanks to the work of two sisters, the impossible has become possible.

Photos by Laura Goss and En-Min Chang

Their coats add an extra note of color to the rich hues of Oregon mountain soil.

Kerrie Knaus.. Hardy and Sue Rosen direct a program called Horseback Outdoor Recreation, Specialized Equipment and Services (HORSES). This program gives people with disabilities such as autism, blindness, paraplegia and cerebral palsy the chance to develop riding skills and build self.. confidence. "A lot of times when you have a disability, there are a lot of things in your life you can't control," Sue says. "But when you're with an ani.. mal, you have a great relationship and you have a sense of power and control."

"It's incredible," says one rider with cerebral palsy. "I'm sitting on this great animal that has strong muscles and four good legs. My disability goes away."

The HORSES ranch sits on ten acres at the top of a ridge off Crooked Finger Road near Scotts Mills, Oregon.

Outside its weathered barn on a cold spring morning, thirty horses graze under towering Douglas firs. Their coats, from milk white to cinnamon brown, add an extra note of color to the rich hues of Oregon mountain soil, damp and glis.. tening from a winter of rain.

Opening the bam door, visitors are greeted by the smell of leather and the sight of dozens of gleaming saddles hung neatly on log posts. In the hallway leading to the office hang bridles, each with a label: Bucky, Brumby, Blueberry - Misty, Nimbus, Nicole ...

Kerrie works at her computer at the end of the hall.

She pauses for a moment and glances out the window, remembering the summer she was 8 years old.

Her mom had gone to work and Kerrie sat watching Sue canter around the field on a neighbor's pony. Born with muscular dystrophy and confined to a wheelchair since the age of 3, Kerrie had never ridden a horse. The closest she had come was when Sue would stack up Grandpa's wooden planter boxes and lift Kerrie on top; they would ride boxes all day long.

But on that particular day, Sue decided it was time for Kerrie to try the real thing. "I found an old Formica kitchen chair," Sue says. "I put it on the saddle and tied the saddle strings around the legs to hold it on. Then, I lifted Kerrie up and tied her on with a dish towel - one of those old white ones that Grandma always had." The towel barely fit around Kerrie's waist, but for the two fearless sisters, it was good enough. Sue led the pony in a triumphant circle around the field. "We didn't know it, but we had just in.. vented our first adaptive saddle," Kerrie says with a laugh.

They rode secretly many times after that until other interests took Kerrie away from riding. But her love of horses never faded. Although she moved to southern California to attend college, Kerrie visited Sue in Oregon as often as she could. "It was like coming from a desert to a fountain, a garden of Eden," Kerrie says. "It made me start thinking about my life as an alter.. abled person. It requires so much stuff - electric wheelchair, specially designed vans, all my equipment - I realized that I lived in a mechanical, artificial environment."

The sisters talked about the possibility of Kerrie riding again, but therapeutic riding teachers told Kerrie she shouldn't even think about it. "But I consider myself an adult making informed decisions about my own safety," Kerrie says. "Besides, I was looking for recreation, not more therapy." Sue offered to train a horse for Kerrie. They bought a 10.. month.. old filly named Brumby who was sensible, people oriented and confident. Sue spent the next few years training her, and Kerrie visited from San Diego whenever she could.

In late December 1985, the horse was ready. On New Year's morning, with a blanket of fresh snow on the ground, Kerrie sat in a custom.. made saddle and rode Brumby for the first time.

Kerrie was thrilled to be back on a horse, but she wanted more. "My goal was to be able to ride in the

canyons, hills and mountains. I wanted to be able to watch a waterfall, fish in a stream, see a herd of elk in the morn.. ing fog." In 1988, she gave up the fast pace of southern California and bought a ranch near Sue's family in Oregon.

Owning one horse and a Shetland pony, the sisters decided to start their own recreational riding program. As they began, they consulted with experts in the field. "We were like lepers," Kerrie says. "They told us we were stupid and that everyone would be killed." But Sue and Kerrie didn't understand the meaning of the words "you can't do it."

Since then, HORSES, run entirely on donations, has had the support and dedication of countless volunteers who help with everything f~om teaching riding skills to sending out newsletters. Many disabled riders also contribute their skills to the program. ~killS learned in the arena are put to work on the trail as, r' ers guide their horses over rocky areas, up and down dIs and through mountain streams. Fun and companionship are central to the program. The trips - to a ranch in the Oregon desert in May, to a mountain wilderness in August and to the Oregon coast at the end of summer - are the heart of the路 HORSES experience.

Families and friends are welcome in all aspects of the program. They participate in lessons, and they go on the trips. Husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers can share in the wonder of the outdoors. "For years, I sat and watched as the kids did things," says Pat, who has been paralyzed from the waist down since an auto accident thirty years ago. "Then I took my 23 . . year.. old daughter riding with me on Baker's Beach. It was the first time we'd been able to do something physical together."

All riders tell stories about things that didn't go the way they expected. The first camping trip was not as idyllic as Kerrie and Sue had planned. The first night it was freezing cold. Then all the horses ran away and had to be caught. And it rained so hard all the tents flooded. Yet for the five riders who went on the trip, it was the best adventure of their lives.

Both the unpredictable nature of the outings and the element of risk inspire these riders. On Pat's trip to the Oregon coast, her horse decided to lie down and roll part way over in the sand near the surf's edge. What Pat remembers best is not being scared but having the chance to look the ocean right in the eye. Because she couldn't get her wheelchair through the sand, she had not been down to the water for thirty years. "I was suddenly level with the waves; I was amazed at how big they were," she says.

But these experiences are not limited to the sighted.

At 80, Gladys had been blind for ten years. Throughout her life, she had been an avid horsewoman, riding frequently on the many trails in the Three Sisters Wilderness. After she lost her sight, her family forbade her riding. HORSES gave her the chance to get back in the saddle.

On her first trip, the group had been riding for hours when the leader needed to stop and help a rider at the back of the group. He asked Gladys to lead everyone back to camp. "Jeff," Gladys said, "you know I can't see."

"That's OK," he replied. "The horse can see, can't he?"

C

Gladys moved to the front of the group and headed for camp. When they arrived, she turned to Jeff with tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you."

Two years later, when Gladys broke her hip, doctors told her she'd never walk again. "You get this fixed," she told them. "I've got a pack trip to go on next summer!"

The camaraderie of able and disabled people, the relationships with the horses and the sheer adventure and beauty of it all are a catalyst for self.. confidence. "One way we know we really are alive is by the risks we take," Sue says. "When you go back to your wheelchair, when you go back to doctors, parents, husbands, wives or whoever is saying 'you can't do that,' you can just smile and say, 'Hey, I already did. '" CD

Sue (below) and Kerrie didn't understand the meaning of "you can't do it."

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1996

FLUX

17

"I love you, Mom," she said softly. "l'll se~'you tomorrow." he squeezed her mother's hand and then left £~r her boyfriend's a r ment.

Only minutes after she arrived, the phohe rang. "Ange, you ee 0 come back to the house," her brorher..in..law said.

"And ring somebody with you." Angela hung up the phone and began to sob. After nearly five years, her mother's battle with ovarian cancer was over. {.

Back at the house, Angela watched C\stw6"1Jl~pplaced her mother in a black plastic bag and zipped it up~They lifted her mother onto a gurney and rolled her o~t intb the cold rainy night. "I'm not ready for this," Angela thought. "r,ih not ready to never see her again. I'm not ready to be ol!'my~bwn." uring the months that follow~,d,Aqgela,'aidn'ttalk 'about her mother's death and,the saqness',~ 'anger and . guilt that accompanied i.~. In a culture.that fears death rather than celebrates it as a natural part of life, mother loss is rarely discussed. People whose mothers are alive don't want to think'

would provide;-but Angela was never interested in money or material things. She can still fit all of her belongings in the back ~f a pickup truck, and she prefers it that way. The youngest of four children, she felt her mother treated her like a child no matter how independent or mature she became. Angela left home at 17 f spent four years working and traveling, and has supported herself ever since. She was determined to prove that she could cut the cord and live on her own, but now that her mother is gone, she realizes how much she still needs her.

Angela's mother was a source of emotional support, but she-wasn't nurturing in the traditional sense. "We weren't best bucl,dies," Angela says. "We didn't spend evenings sitting on the bed eating Haagen..Dazs, watching old movies and crying."

Norma.was a working mother, and her career as a surgical nurse was important to her. "I grew up feeling like her job came first and we came second," Angela says. "And that was OK. Mom was independent; she could have her life.

But we weren't her life."

Norma's life began to change, however,

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Shortly after Ang'ela returned, she enrolled at the University of Oregon, but school was a mixed blessing. "It was nice being able to go someplace where I could think about something otherthan my mom and the cancer," she says. But it was hard for her to focus on her studies. "What's the point?" she thought. "My mother's dying, and this is just a grade." Making friends did not come easily. Other students had df'J: d A 1 ld ' i lerent concerns, an nge a cou n t , r e l a t e to them. She kept to herself and didn't

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needs. If she didn't like what was on TV, somebody changed the channel. If she .1~· :;';:~~jrfc~~(~y~q,:~'f~{f~~~~:f.)ipusapq.s.of'Y()ql~n:~<..:.::~'~...~{'>" '. ". didn't like the topic of conversation, ~" : ~,;·~:\?\\~~~;~~qier~~;r.'~p~1>t;~:~,,~!9fqll,:pd:effe,ct',Q)J)taer:~\ <~"i{'~\<'i:u,' ·~:{S',.';;:':;r . :;· .•. . ... :'. somebody changed the subject. Having to .i} " ?~};;l~$~Ji~'!l~J6~!i~eltjHi\fe$) ':MotPe~ loss' }p.its. righ1;at,tl}~ ~~~;'. };1$ive h~rqlother so much attention while her own needs were , '. '). ;O.',~" 'i:'tbf.,~t.Jm~td~-ep::seat{#fears an.cnnsecur.ities,'~ Edelmafi;~\{js<;,~jgnprea'made Angela burn with resentment, but she couldn't t . I ' ;' ,:'/0 ~:t~ft\l~; ~,,1 ~f ;being left)IQ?:c. an~ '1tiprov~eeI fpi,;~~~~'}' 'J'1?~g herself to discuss her feelings ,:"it~ other family membe~~. ,'!'t,' , J"I,¢~,:-t~t~~;fI~U~~~Qqd~'~~> '. d'\'/'~'~:";::' .•' .~;;}{;:.' :>'~r;;,~:y:;::~-;~:'Whar~poutllle anq my young lIfe? Angela wondered. } ,l't;~_,AA~l)l'j:~olJ[)}inin ~rl'weJ;lties loses¥t~(,mothen..she::~c~t{ :,tt~ed acceptance, and I ned people to pay attention to me."

I~~f. !t/~~ ;~1)~'l!'.b:~tqdt,s;.:says:"Nilpmi,'~6"",i.nsicY"",P'~:;P:\, .B\:lt she said nothing. ~. \ L~}j~i~~,:~ , ~~il?:\~~t\api\st~, "wJ{o :specialize,<s'/ in <morhe;r.. daugh't'ei:.· : A " s her mother's illness advanced during the next several

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, '~{f~~~nit~Jly~'~h!~.,I~the) ,:.~,.r:;e.:'. ~ ':" ; i~.~.~}11,·.5·::.Il./.:~.;.p. :.s.~. '.~ ~.';.I.:,.f.':~.':h.•:· ~.p.·tlll):eln . ~s.".a d,iff."l~f~wht:n i~.'.Ult., l;el.~~~?ns hiP:w..· t.h.:. .h er m.:o. ~h.e.r. ?>;" ycoaster. . ears, Angela grewangry tired about of the haVIng con~tanttoemotional.r.oller It begins, ~o.~et worke4' , '.

She was put her lIfe on ·)Qti~i;.~~~~It':~~~'~'~~l1¢~~r,~t1~~~l~~\l~"I1evt;Fge~ to;.,t~st~';, '. . »: '" ';hold, and sometimes she wished her mother would die. "God, . '~,;~j~itfli,e:4i:'ok~'Apgeta;"'llllI~eJo~ l1~~elf ~ fro<m her rela 'w.hata terri1;JJe daughter I am," she thought. "I'm going to live pa~~;;6i~; tJ3:e·,~>~~~r,~p·~(l)<t9· h~er,;w3:sfi;~qnd ..go groom~~g ~ 'were ' £o'r the hext thirty years, and I'm begrudging my mother the " nq~~~lw(l,~~~h~:ohes he~<~Qth¢r, Nqrma" would have preferr~d.' last,~ix months of her life." But Angela didn't have any place N6ITnawoulcl spen(lat:l~as't an' hCJlir:"~a,ch m.o'ming curlingh~r' 'to put her anger, and eventually it was swallowed by guilt. gj .~hi:Ck bi~\Ylyhq~~~~n(Lm~kiflgup>her fa~e; and she 'Yasfrustrated: < .f}ccording to Edelman, the experience of a young adult ,tl~'~i:t~&-~rltlaught~r'stefu~altodq.~heS1me. "I think she thouglJi woman who loses her mother is often misunderstood. Because '~i,t~ '~':~~'~:~<'~~}l~9 b.~'so inueh'TIlore;:e:ve? in littl.~ ways ~ if I jusrdid she i~: likely to be independent and living on ~er own, she ;' >.~~i.: '.~ :~w~~~r' 9lfferently or put on a bttle make..up, Icoul? b,e so may.feel frustrate? and co:nfu~edwh~n her mothe; s death sends ',' (1V,~16:,p.ref't1er,'~Angela says. "My mother was stuck w1th two her mto an emotlOnal tallspm. As 1f that weren t enough, she aifignt~~s:whq;wer~~Qmboys, and it drove her nuts." , ' \ ' is also likely to hear, '''[She died] when you were 25? Well, you .:.N~tqi~» ,:~~p:t~l"A:n:gelato'h~ye the security astabl~,jbb really didn't,n~ed a mother anymore.'"

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by jennifer andrews Aretha Franklin's voice wails and beats out of black box speakers into the din and clamor of the beaded, baubled, swanky..assed, stiletto.. heeled crowd. Her voice dips and broods and winds its way into the can.. sciousness of every person at the ball. They come here because it is safe.

They come here because they are accepted. They come to find love. But above all, gay men and women come to this tiny club in Eugene, Oregon, to be embraced by a deep respect for the individuals they are and the individuals they have fought so hard to become.

Diva and Velour are working the crowd. Milo and Megan sit at the corner of the bar comparing hair colors and swatting each other with their fans. Velour snakes through the crowd, easy long..legged strides on three ..inch heels made graceful by years of practice. She glides, tosses her mink..rich mahogany hair over her shoulder and passes a manicured hand through the gray threads of an admirer's hair. She loses a nail. Damn.

photos by kim nguyen

Diva saunters up to the bar, leans in, stretches her arms out in front of her, then squeezes just a bit. Her cleavage is a touch tawdry tonight, but she likes it just fine. So does the bartender. "A rum and Coke, sweetheart," Diva says. Her voice is a husky silk that wraps around smooth then whispers away.

She's in her sequined fuchsia minidress. It's tight in all the right places. She takes a long draw on the rum and Coke. She's up soon. She fingers her Diana Ross hair out of her eyes with a frosty nail, looks out over the crowd and moves in for the kill.

The crowd quiets. The silver ball above the black and white checkered dance floor twinkles against the glittered New York City backdrop.

Music comes up. Velour is in the back room, pacing. Diva is on the edge of the dance floor, focused. Diva waits.

Time, time, hold, now. She's on.

Diva grinds, slithers and lip syncs her way through Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know."

She hits her stride. The timing of each choreographed gesture is as tight as the minidress that slides its way up and over her curves.

The crowd lets loose during the last chorus and sings it with her.

They push toward the dance floor, three deep, dollars in hand, wait.. ing for Diva. She turns her back to the crowd, spreads her legs long, throws her head back and mouths the last line. Sweet.. ass sizzle.

While Diva gathers her tips, Velour moves through the club and waits

in the wings. Regal and quiet, Velour waits out the testoster.. one buzz then glides onto the floor and stands center. She's in a low.. cut tuxedo with a glamour.. girl black corset and suede pumps. She spreads her legs and places her hands on her thighs.

She bows her head, moves her hands slowly along the hills and valleys of her lithe figure, then stops. The crowd stops too. If Diva rocks hot, Velour rocks cool with a capital C. Barbra Streisand's "I'm Still Here" comes up and floats over the crowd. Velour pumps and pushes, sways, prays and Rockettes her way through the song.

The crowd is with her, caught up in the message: Despite all odds, I made it, I'm proud and I'm still here. As I am. The crowd roars the roar of the satisfied and the united. Velour takes a bow and is escorted off the floor. But Velour Montana isn't the belle of the ball. Rather, she is a Queen - a 'drag queen.

Drag queens were once relegated to back alley basement clubs - out of sight, out of mind, out of danger. Society continues to label Queens as deviants and de.. generates. Even the gay community, of which they are part, ostracizes Queens, deeming them an embarrassment. Although many gay men applaud drag queens on stage, few, it seems, are comfortable seeing them in daylight, under the gaze of the media. But like it or not, the cam.. eras are on them, and a slow yawn of understanding has begun to over.. come mainstream society. Drag queens have made it to the big screen.

Hollywood, traditionally predisposed to entertaining the masses without

ruffling too many common denominator feathers (read: dollars), has taken on the task of intro.. ducing Queens to middle America by casting them in sympathetic and humorous roles. Re.. cent films, such as The Birdcage and To Wong Faa, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, make light of "drag" and "gay," splashing fun and color across .cineplex movie screens.

But just because Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze play "drag queen" doesn't mean soci.. ety accepts men who dress as women. It sim.. ply means Hollywood has found yet another character to exploit. Like all things' in the proverbial. Hollywood closet, these colorful characters have been shaken out, dry cleaned and put under hot路 lights, exposing their lives, choices and culture to society.

What these recent reams of Celluloid do not do, however, is paint the truth.

To be a drag queen is risky. To be a drag queen is painful. But to be a drag queen is to play out the ultimate fantasy. Under the illusion of a masquerade, the drag queen is grander, bolder, wiser and funnier than the man as a man could ever be. Living the illu.. sion, the boy gets to be the girl. Mark gets to be Velour.

Mark always wanted to be a girl. His father already had one son, who was definitely all boy, and he had his princess girl. Mark was extra. And he wasn't the kind of boy his father could crow about. Even as a child, Mark knew he was different, but he did his best to hide it. Never slip, never draw attention, keep it down, deep down- bury it.

Mark grew up in the small town of Anderson, Oregon, under the forearm of a logging contractor father and a quiet unassuming mother. He was meticulous, a good student, not big on sports but popular, especially with the girls. But Mark's father thought anybody who dressed or acted differently was a queer. "Faggots and queers should all be shot dead," he said.

Mark was horrified by faggots and queers. He was horrified of himself. He buried his identity and tried for the next thirty years to please his father.

In 1969, drag queens spear.. headed a riot at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, initiating the modern gay liberation movement. That year, Mark was 15 - a ripe teenager busting with test.. osterone and desire. The desire got shoved down. The testoster.. one got misplaced in the military.

Mark signed up for the Marine Corps and shipped out to Fort Gordon, Geor.. gia, on Christmas Day 1973, the day he turned 19. Six weeks later he got married. Nine months and two weeks later Mark held his first child in his arms. He was a hus.. band and a father and on his way to being a U.S. Marine Corps sergeant. He was normal. He was in control. It was bullshit. But he wouldn't acknowledge the charade through three children and eight years of marriage. He cooked, cleaned, diapered, mowed, washed, tinkered, fixed and flexed.

But he never admitted.

It wasn't Mark who asked for the divorce. His facade was built strong and wide and waxed a shiny normal. Mark needed the facade. Without one, he was devastated. It was only then that all the moments he had so carefully orchestrated and con.. trolled came bubbling up to suffocate him. He would rather be dead than one of those vile creatures that didn't deserve to live. So he tried to die. Several times.

Unsuccessful, he knew it was time to face himself square.

He began to explore and accept that part of him that had always been so much of who he was and so much of who he had denied. He began the long arduous journey of self.. discovery and acceptance.

For some, opening a book or watching a movie about be.. ing gay is like entering a gay club for the first time: it is an environment of affirmation and acceptance. But even today, it is safer to read about it than to be it. Hate crimes aimed at men in the gay community are on the rise. According to the U.S. National Council on Crime, an average of more than 1,000 hate crimes have been committed against gay men in the United States each year since 1993. But this number re.. flects only those crimes reported - an estimated 70 percent never are. The more violent white supremacists, neo.. Nazis and fundamentalist fascists take great pride in ending a gay life. It is one less degenerate.

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But if being gay is difficult, being a drag queen is more difficult stilL The community of which you are a part becomes smaller. The very people who embraced your courage to be openly gay condemn your choice to be a drag queen. The circle moves in tighter; the ties become more intimate, and for most, friends take on an even greater impor-tance. They become family. Of course, ev-ery gay man is not a drag queen, and every drag queen is not necessarily gay. But for most drag queens, the decision to dress as a woman and play the charade is based as much on desire as it is on self--acceptance.

Mark has been out of the closet for nearly twelve years. He has come to terms with many things about himself, and in doing so, he has taken that extra leap of faith. He has withstood further prejudice from within the gay community and, in the ultimate gesture of self--acceptance, has become a drag queen. Mark finally gets to be the girL He gets to be empress in a ceremony held by a court of painted Queens.

To be a drag queen, you must first be "painted" by another drag queen and come out at the Closet BalL The ball is held for first--timers, who are judged on their dress, walk, mannerisms and performance.

Candidates have their faces made up by established Queens and have sixty minutes to transform from man to woman. Drag queen Megan Montana painted Velour. Because she was the first to paint Velour, she became Velour's "mother," and Velour adopted the Montana name. Her first time out, Velour was a hit.

The annual Closet Ball inducts would--be drag queens into the court system. Started in San Francisco in 1936, the court system has spread to cities across the nation and enables the small populace of drag queens in each community to come out, socialize and perform. More im-portantly, courts provide a place for those with like desires to gather and wrap themselves in the love and support of others in the drag community.

Eugene's court, the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Em-erald Empire (ISCEE), was established in 1974. The court spon-sors balls that set the stage for crowning a new empress, prin-cess, debutante or one of the several ~itles given each year to talented Queens. The highest honor be-stowed, that of empress, is given to the most re" gal and gracious drag queen. The Coronation Ball takes place each year, and with great pomp and circumstance, an empress is crowned. In Au-gust 1994, Velour was crowned Empress XXI. But drag queens do more than wear tiaras and per-form. They raise money. And they work it hard to get it.

Each court has a governing body that establishes goals and directives to im-prove its community and raise money for the needy through charity balls. In the last ten years, courts have begun to fun-nel greater amounts of money into AIDS research, services and centers. They have be-come a force for change and are playing an increas-ingly important role in the gay community. ISCEE gives the more than $1 7,000 it raises each year to a battered women's shelter, an abuse outreach program, a home for abused children and HIV Alliance. Diva and Velour travel to court balls around the Pacific Northwest pumping, preening and performing. The more dynamic their performances, the more money they raise. In effect, courts "court" one another, asking per-formers to appear at their shows. Diva and Velour are always invited. They raise the bucks because they work the floor.

But the work isn't all glitz and glamour. Not only is it physically painful to be a drag queen corsets that squish, stiletto heels that pinch, tiaras that poke and hot--headed wigs that overheat tired brains - but it is costly as welL Diva and Velour each spend more than $5,000 a year on hotel rooms, make--up, shoes, dresses, corsets, dance tights, jew-elry, nails and boobs. Mrs. C's in Portland, Oregon', is the only place for wigs. Off--the--rack shoes at Nordstrom are a bargain and usually come in size eleven, sometimes twelve. Dresses and jewelry are garage sale treasures; Los Angeles is a good place to scour for the dress that kills, and the sale rack at Saks' is sometimes good for a hot bargain. The make--up counter at Meier & Frank is wonderful, but watch out for those snippies at The Bon.

In short, being a drag queen'is hard work. And it's not always pretty.

For all the public attention and awareness Velour attracts, Mark is petrified his children will ~eject him for being a drag queen. They accept him as gay, but Mark is not ready to let them know he vacuums the house in three--inch heels to learn balance, shaves his chest for low--cut gowns and per-forms to raise money for people in need. He is not ready to let them know he has come full circle and accepted himself for who he is.

The show is in two hours. It is early evening. Orange has moved over and' a dusty pink has swept its way across the sky. In a small one--story home, Diva, Velour and Megan have gathered to transform.

"Honey, there is nothing uglier than a Queen flat on the floor with a dress over her head. Get those ugly shoes off and try these on. They have no--skid heels." Diva squeezes her tired 12 1/2s into Velour's 12s. They are in the drag room, rocking out to Motown and painting it on thick. After Mark gets his eyebrows on and his lids done, he begins to be Velour, with all the gestures and flighty stinging language that is part and parcel of drag. It's only after Anthony's corset is cinched and his dance tights are on that he becomes Diva. Megan is sitting on the maroon chintz couch, legs crossed, fingering her fiery hair into place and waiting.

Diva and Velour tear through the closet digging out ensembles. A foam boob flies out, then another. Scarves, skirts, jackets and se-quins litter the air; hairspray holds on heavy.

The room is thick and fat with ev-erything feminine and gaudy.

They've got ten minutes.

Diva yanks on her minidress, throws her arms through the spaghetti straps and drapes a pink organza evening jacket across her shoulders. She bo 1ts for the ki tchen where her wig has been drying and pulls it over her own kinky black hair. Velour is trying to dry her nails be-fore she has to don her wig. She rifles through the stack of boobs, shoves two into her corset and takes another look in the mirror. Per-fect. Her false lashes fall at just the right curve; her brows are even, the shadow dra-matic, and she has been blessed with a beautiful lip line so the red lies out all smooth and sultry. She wiggles into the black suede pumps, ducks her head into the mahogany wig and, with great care, places her crown upon her head.

As Velour, Diva and Megan make their way out the door to strut, pump and grind under hot lights, to play glamour queens and to raise money for AIDS research, Velour stops. She turns to the neighbors peeking out of their homes, gathered at their doors and windows, and stands quiet for a moment. She lowers her head, and with regal grace she sweeps her body into a low courtly bow. She is empress, after alL CZ)

orne with me into the Tender~ loin and this is what you'll see: Winos wrapped in rags, lying on the sidewalk in cardboard boxes.

Dealers on the corners, selling crack on one side of the street and heroin on the other. Topless bars, peep shows

an,: ru tels here women are bou!! t and traded. Johns w ' 'ing through or cruising by in guars. A place where nq one w;~ts",to be after 5 p.m. .

By Ruth Morri.s s told to Rosenlary Ho\\ ef. CanlOZZ\ Photo Illustrations by Mike Eilas and Laura Goss il!

But in 19'19, toa 14.. year~0Ia girl from th~ East Bay,~~~::Fia~,; my pimp. But no~, with th~rt~en~,.menmaking mo~~ WM .. '. t' cisco looked fast, bright and ri~h. I wanted to become a part 6f that became more abusive. life across the bridge, just a 25¢ bus ride away.

When he got drunk, he threal~ned and beat us. H~ said we n~ et I wanted to be part of something, to feel hope. made enough money. Nobody from the outside world tried to help My family moved to Oakland, California, from rural Louisiana us. In this criminal world there are no police calls, and there are no ~fieD: I was 12. Soon after, my parents began to split up. They were emergency room rnns. The outside world is like an enemy. both alcCQholics, and my father often beat my mom with sticks, chairs, We are a population no oncr. cares for. We are abused by the males bricks -,f;wuatever was handy. He'd beat me too because he said in our lives, starting with our fathers. I accepted the violence from wasn't his child. At 8, I began to sniff glue and gasoline to escape the my pimp the same way my moiher accepted beatings from my father. pain. When I was 10, my brother molested me, and I lost a part of As time went on, I started smoking crackt more and mOre often. myself forever. I coulcln't find any self..worth, and I began to act out You have to keep using in order to not feel, you h~ve to keep prosti.. tuting to pay for the drugs, and you keep using to keep prostituting. sexually with all the boo/:.? in my neighborhood.

I started spending mor~ aq~d more time away from home, going Even when you don't want to go out, your addiction drags you. It tells to friends' houses or just hanging out on the streets. One night at the you, "Get up, you have to go now. I need you to take care of me." age of 14, I was walking home from a friend's house when I met a max!

Once I got my first triok of the night, I would run down and buy who offered me money for sex. I gratefully agreed. I was desperate for ~rack and alcohol. Then my fear would transform into an inner rage school clothes and other things I needed. After that, I often walked that came out in violence against tricks, the police or oth~Fu~omen. along the same street, looking for the same man; I thought it would Whenwl,,,,,.was20, we were st$lying in New York wherirwtrgot six be easier than doing it with someone new because! wouldn't feel so arrests for armed%fobbery in six weeks and spent a year in jail. Crack angry or filthy. takes your life faster thai). anything I've ever known, and I was losing Between the ages of 14 and 16, I was on the streets most of the myself to my addiction. J' @} time. I turned tricks for alcohol, money or pot. At night I sometimes I moved back to qaJMand when I got out, and returned to the tried to trade my body for a warm meal. The tricks were getting to streets. Crack became my~imp. Crack is a fast death and your body know me, bu~ I was still hiding it from my parents. I was ashamed for suffers; prostitution is slow de'ath and your body still suffers. them to know that I was a prostitute.

I worked from 7 p.m. to midnight," aking $300..$500 a night. I By the time I was 17, I was spending most of my time in the went in and out of drug treatment c~Ilte; but nothing worked. My Tenderloin. One day I met aCldiction would not be a charming young man cod\rolled. I tried suicide, wearing a gold and dia..

I triedh~:jQi the city, but '* mond ring. He paid atten.. ,Ml!!;!;pro.stitution al1d drug§ wer~ tion to me. He brought me . everyWner;~, went. gifts - the little things you By th~'J was 26, I need when you're living on had two more, daughters, thl~ streets. He took me out born in the widst of addic.. to dinner and ~ought me tion and chaos, and my perfume. Even though I aunt took both of them to knew what he. was, I didn't raise. I felt hopeless m<:are. I thought he would be stuck in a cycle of genera.. my savior. I was ,proud to tions of worrl'en working move in wifh him. the streets and getting high.

Soon;; as a y6ung face, I was making more than $400 a night. I Prostitlltion f~lt a ticket out of poverty because I didn't ~now spent $i09? day on alcohQI and gave'a lot of money to my pimp so any+other waf· w he could bUy clothes, alcohol and his new drug,{crack cocaine.

When I f'wedt out on the street, I never knew wha~hto expec(t Turning the first trick of the night was tb-e hardest because most S6me tricks"wiL!;beat you and some' w~ll cut you for th~ir pleasu,~e. o~ithe time I was still sober and could think clearly. Fear overcame Others are ~ut ~d out killers. Those are the kil!ers w~~ never get me. "What am I doing?"I ~~9ught.?'''It's~~~k.. I'm alone. What'if I c~ught - te who go from $iity to city murderi~? as mal1Y prosN don't come home tonight?" After my (i~st tfi,~k,tI had enough money ~Jtutes as trey tant. . i ";;) to puy alcohol. It helped take the fear'aw(l'y~ti{t'; One ~tmer'met a tr~.ck in an alley. After we were done, he &rabb~d () Six wee~s after I mo~~d in with mypim~;a weJ)ought a n@w car. 'i~ brick, q~sh~p my he~d in and stole all my money. I went. to the,..

We took expensive vacations, sometimes jumping on a flight;to,Lds, %'police fori'<help, but they arrested me and let the jphn go.

Angeles to buy underwear at Frederick's of Hollywood. All die while Polif-e aHliover this country are mostly the same. 'They treat pros..

I was working, and my pimp was adding more women to our family. titutes l~e an eas rrest or a piece of meat. They rape you, beat you At 18 I was pregnant. I stopped drinking and stayed off the streets and then throw ¥pu in jail anyway. until three months after my daughter was born. But I wasn't ready to I realized I would rather be the abuser than the abused. I carried give up the lifestyle. I gave my baby to my mother and went back to a strai~ht r.az,9f for protection, b]J'f I l?sed it for revenge. I robbed

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Crack 1S a fast death and your body suffers; prostitution is a slo,\\ death and your body still suffers.

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crippled old men who came to me for sex and stabbed tricks because they didn't have enough money for me to get loaded. I went from suicidal to homicidal and back and I never knew where the middle was. ' One night, I saw a police officer walking toward me.

My first reaction was, "Oh, God! Some asshole cop, that's all I need." But this officer was different. Not only was she a woman but ~he als.o s~emed to understand where I was coming from. I thought, Your Job 1S to take me to jail, and my job is to resist, so why are you being so nice to me?" She took me to jail, but she also took care of me and helped me get into a treatment program.

This time, I was ready to get out. I hated to see my daughters growing up without me. I feared the cycle repeating itself; I feared seeing my own daughters on the street corners. I was determined to

better myse'lf anq take care of my children. ; For the next two years, I got clean and began counseling. My three daughters came back to live with me and we began to build a new life together. I started back to school to get my GED and enrolled at a community college to learn about outreach. It was only by the grace of a loving God that I had been spared.

There were so many times I could have been killed. There were sO\,many times I could have overdosed. God saw fit keep me here for a pur-pose.

I heard about a new program starting up' cf the edge of the Tenderloin called PROMISE: Pre-vention Referral Outreach Mentoring and Interven-tion to end Sexual Exploitation. It was a treatment center focusing on the special issues that prostitutes face.

No one had ever talked to me about how prostitution was tied in with other addictions. I wanted to be a part of bringing that into the open. I wanted to help create a place where prostituted women could feel safe.

PROMISE plants a seed of knowledge and under-standing in the women who come in to take advantage of its services. It presents alternatives to life on the street, and more important, it gives these women a place where they can find support from someone who has walked in their shoes. If they want something to eat, if they want to talk or if they just want to sit and take a break, PROMISE is there.

I t~amed up with the director of PROMISE and became the outreach coordinator. Today I walk the streets again, haqding out condoms and pamphlets that explain sexual exploitation and define prostitution as sexual abuse. I \\1ork at the center on our drop--in days, and I talk to the women who come in.

I tell therp. they don't have to accept theirlives ;the way they are. I show them there is a way to escape the 'madness, to escape the abuse. And I tell them they can free themsel~'es from bondage.

Butitis not easy. Most of the time, women are se-cure' in' t~e\lifestyle. You can't tell them to give up $400 a.nlgrl:t and go to a place where they don'~even havea;job. It has to be the woman's c;poice. :Sut if she ~an fil}d it in herself to reach out for help, J cal). help her find it. C D " .-

Ruth Morris is a p~ewjonym. The subj~C:~;dfJf this ,rticle ~equested that her real name bechflngedttqIJ"C@tect ,t hlr ide::itity.

J

once ruled my kinsdom, not much did J fear: but all that has chansed now that death may be near. ue Ryan could no longer ignore the dreams.

The first night, her sister holds out her hand, pleading with Sue to follow. Sue wants nothing more than to grasp her sister's hand, but she slowly shakes herself out of the fog. To follow is to die. The following night, Sue's aunt appears, softly telling her to prepare for what lies ahead but not to fear it. On the third night, a doctor appears, menacing, eyes laughing as his leaden words jolt her from sleep: "Sue, you're riddled with cancer."

Awake and barely breathing, she touched her right breast. The hard lump beneath her trembling hand confirmed what she already knew.

Nearly two years later, people of all ages wander into the annual Mayor's Art Show at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, Oregon, with smiles on their faces and light conversation on their lips. Once inside, their laughter stops.

Assembled on the walls of the studio are photographs of a dy.. ing woman. Tiny wisps of frail hair clash with dark determined eyes.

Her pale skin, made old by the drugs, is leathery and taut. She holds her downcast and balding head in her almost translucent hands, her agony incomprehensible. Her naked breast is robbed of its nipple, a five . . inch scar in its place. The poetry that lines the edges of each image sends an inescapable message: Here I am. Acknowledge me.

See my disease. See me.

The visitors emerge one by one. Some cry. Others grasp hands, their eyes toward the pavement. Women hug each other. They hold their children for long moments. Turning to another, one says quietly, "God, can you imagine? We're so fortunate."

As they walk down the steps, away, they pass a woman they know intimately but would never recognize. Sue sits hugging her knees to her chest, hidden behind sunglasses and a wide hat that covers her renewed tresses of curly amber hair.

Being recognized isn't important to her; it's the message that counts. "People don't like to talk about breast cancer," Sue says brushing her hair out of her face. "I did the exhibit because I wanted to personalize breast cancer. I just wanted people to know."

J

once stood next to you. once walked with you.

J

When her older sister Pat died of breast cancer in 1989, Sue's world collapsed. Only two years younger, Sue had idolized ,Pat and followed her everywhere.

When Sue graduated from high school, she joined her sister at San Jose State University where they majored in sociology and lived together. Sue wrote Pat's papers for her; Pat introduced Sue to all the older guys. Even when Pat married and gave birth to her only child, Suzanna, nothing could break the bond the sisters shared. Nothing, that is, except the cancer cells that were silently multiplying in Pat's body.

By the time the breast cancer was detected, it was in its last and most fatal stage. Little could be done.

Pat told no one about her illness until six months after it was diagnosed. She hid under scarves and wigs for the last 'Inonths of her life and refused to let anyone take her picture. Four months before she died, Pat wrote Sue a letter asking one final favor.

Dear Beautiful Gentle Susie, Oh, Susie, I love how you love Suzanna. That is what really hurts most - not being able to see her grow up. I had such dreams for her, and now I won't be here to see them realized. I know you love Suzanna as much as I do. I know you will help her become a

good human being. I know you will tell her what is right and wrong.

I want you to be with her every step of the way, Susie. She will need you in more ways than you will ever know. Hold her and kiss hercall her Muffy, Puppy.. Girl - please, Susie, take my place.

The letter needed no reply. n a cold October morning, Pat called for the ambulance, asking the paramedics not to use the siren. She didn't want to die at home. She didn't want Suzanna to re . . member her mother's dead body being taken away. Sue stayed at the house until the nurse called that evening. Her sister's feet were discoloring, a sign that Pat was dying. Sue left Suzanna at a friend's house and rushed to the hospital.

Trembling, she took Pat's frail hands, talking to her soothingly at first, then beg.. ging, frantic. Sue needed to see her sister's eyes one last {time. She still had so many things to say to her. But Pat was already far from her sister, far from her pain, deep in a coma. When Pat died an hour later, three nurses had to pry Sue from her body. "She was my sister," Sue says, "my best friend."

Pat is in another room. Sue can see her shape but never her face. A shadow masks Pat's eyes; her head is turned. Always, Sue is em-barking on a new adventure. Always, Pat is

left behind.

Sue found out she was pregnant less than a year after Pat died. Her boyfriend told her he wasn't ready to be a father and left town. Sue had never wanted a family and went to an abortion clinic several times, each time failing to go through with it. She realized she couldn't leave the table empty. "I had lost so much," she says, "and that baby was the gift. He was life."

Flynn was born in June the next year.

Sue fell in love the minute she saw him, but she knew this new life could never take the place of her sister. Despite the friends who were with her at his birth, she felt alone. She wanted her sister there to hold her hand through the delivery, to see her son's crystal blue eyes and to cry with her. he next two years were filled with the joys of new motherhood, and Sue spent all of her time with Flynn and Suzanna. She loved being a mother. She loved being a treasured aunt. She hated the emptiness inside. Every time she saw a woman with golden.. red hair in a crowd, she started moving toward her, thinking, for a second, that she had seen her sister. She constantly dreamed of Pat, often waking to find herself clutching the phone receiver, dialing Pat's number.

Sue can see Pat's smiling face as they sit on the sun--drenched porch

of their favorite bed and breakfast. Pat holds Sue's hand, telling Sue she must move on with her life, that she has much to live for and many people who need her. Sue can't - won't - let her eyes sliP from her sister's gaze. Pat's soft laughter washes over her. Sue feels happy, relaxed, whole.

Gradually, Sue's pain began to dull and she felt more grounded and secure than she had since her sister's death. She began writing again and found laughing came easier, lighter. She went to Suzanna's soccer games and to Flynn's preschool parties. She was living again.

Sue loo~ed forward to the nights when her dreams took her to a place far away, a place only she and her sister shared, a place where

she could finally see her sister's eyes.

But the peaceful images and Sue's sense of security were about to end.

Four years after her sister's death, the three dreams came - the dreams Sue believes saved her life, forcing her awake to feel the hard mass in her breast. The tumor had been overlooked by路her annual mammograms for years.

Sue was diagnosed with the most common form of breast cancer, found in the third stage, the fourth being the deadliest. But Sue couldn't imagine dying. She intended to fight. "My sister seemed to give up," she says. "She was ashamed and hid the cancer as if it were her fault. I felt that' if I did something totally different from my sister, maybe there would be a different outc~me."

Whatever the outcome, Sue planned to document every moment of her disease in black and white. .

On Valentine's Day, two weeks after her illness was diagnosed, Sue sat in a room filled with cancer patients, all eyes avoiding con.. tact, while intravenous tubes dripped potent drugs and a mild anesthetic into her blood.

She remembered going into the room that Thursday, but not coming out. Friday she slept, barely able to keep her eyes open to see her son. By Saturday, the drugs hit her liver. Getting out of bed was nearly impos.. sible. Doubled over, Sue crawled to her bathroom and lay on the cold tile, vom'it.. ing. By Tuesday the pain would be gone, but only for sixteen days. Then, the cycle would start again.

J once looked like a lion, my tresses sparkled red with hiShlishts of sold.

Now, J sit before you naked feelins lost and very cold.

By the second round of chemotherapy, Sue's hair began to fall out, first in light wisps, then in fat cruel clumps. The girl, the college student, the woman blessed with a red.. gold mane - gone. Her identity - shattered. "I was known for my beautiful hair," she says, "and all of a sudden I was bald, naked."

Despite the unrelenting attack on her body, Sue remained vigilant in her commitment to record the progression of her disease.

Working with friend and photographer Jane Gibbons, she compiled more than thirty images of herself throughout the eight.. month duration of her treatment. n May, after her last treatment, Sue underwent lumpectomy surgery to remove the tumor. The 3 Ij2... centimeter mass was hidden directly beneath her right nipple; both were cut away.

All the while, the camera kept clicking. If she was going to die, she wanted to leave something behind.

Radiation treatments followed to destroy any remaining cancer cells. Every day for seven weeks, Sue went to the hospital for the same treatments, saw the same cancer patients and heard the same silence. The radiation exhausted her. She slept night and day, saving the little energy she did have for Flynn and Suzanna. "I feel as though I lost at least a year of their lives because I was in bed," she says. "I'm still trying to regain that time."

Today, at age 41, Sue has been cancer free for two years. But the effects of the disease remain.

For Flynn, now 5, cancer and death have become part of his

199 6 FLUX 39

vocabulary. He sees that Suzanna is lonely without her mother, and he often asks if Sue will die. Sue can only hug him and say she wants to be with him forever. At an age when most boys are starting to display their independence from their mothers, Flynn follows Sue everywhere.

Suzanna has become like a daughter to her. Now 11, she often asks Sue about her mother, and Sue talks long into the night about the kind of woman Pat was. Sue tells Suzanna how desperately Pat wanted to see her daughter grow up.

But Sue must now do more than relish her time with her son and niece. Having won her own battle against breast cancer - at least for now - her fight has switched to educating and making people aware of this deadly disease. "So many women hide under turbans, wigs and scarves that people never see how many women actually have cancer," she says.

As 1set closer 1 besin to see the liSht.

Now my journey is endins, I've made it throush winter's niSht. Pat snakes into the darkness and extends her hand. This time she forces Sue to follow. Her face is dark and haunting with eyes that no longer plead but demand. Crying, Sue darts in one direction; Pat chases her. ecently, Sue has noticed herself tiring more easily and crying at simple things. She's a couple of months late having her annual chest exam and bone scan done.

After two years of enduring three doctors every four months, Sue says, "I'm just tired of going to doctors. I'm really tired.

But I have to see Flynn and Suzanna grow up until they're on their own. That's all I want to do - for them and for me."

Besides, there is still much to do, and Sue wastes little time. In addition to exhibiting the photos, she volunteers with the Oregon Breast Cancer Coalition and gives informational talks to local groups about the disease. She also plans to begin writing a book soon - a celebration of life, she says, and of the hundreds of women in the Pacific Northwest who have fought breast cancer and won.

"I realize how essential goals are for health and for life," Sue says. "Every day I try to set and accomplish creative goals for my.. self. The creativity brings depth and passion to my life." She pauses, curling a red lock around her finger. "I lost that for many years, but now it's back. All I did before I got cancer was day.. to.. day living.

Now I'm really alive."

1 realize that 1 am home.

1 know that love surrounds me and 1 no lonser walk alone.

Sue's lightly freckled face is radiant in the beam of sunlight streaming through the cafe window. The room is buzzing with light chatter; the smell of coffee hangs heavy in the air. Slowly, she scans her surroundings, taking in every face, every covered head. "I always do this," she says. "Everywhere I go, I think, 'one in eight women in this room has breast cancer.' There are about sixteen people here, and I'm one. Who is the other?"

Then, with a wide grin, she adds, "God, that sounds so nega.. tive. But the truth is I'm a realist." Doctors tell her that only 40 percent of the women with her advanced stage of cancer are alive five years after diagnosis. "A lot of times I don't believe I'll be here," she says. "I just feel so temporary." She pauses, takes a deep breath and settles into a slow smile. "But maybe that's how we all should feel." CD

Convict-made clothing is hot, but Oregon is discoveri ng its inmates are the real commodity

S

unshine glints off the steel legs of the tripod. A half,dressed man confronts the camera mustachioed and unsmiling. He stands like a block against a brilliant white backdrop, chest bare beneath a denim jacket, up to his ears in a stiff blue collar.

His photographer was flown in from Italy. Hair by Goody. â&#x201E;˘ Clothing courtesy of Prison Blues. Shot on location at a medium, security prison in Pendleton, Oregon. .

The photographer postures him, makes him fabulous, makes him remove his watch. He points at the model's smooth chest and flings a remark to his assistant. She translates his Italian: "Giovanni wants the tattoo in the picture."

The model spreads the flaps of his jacket open to expose a tattooed heart encircled by a blank ribbon. He watches more pantomimed instructions and obediently puts his hands on his hips, tucking his fingertips into the pockets of his beltless jeans. He's tough, tattooed, bad to the bone. He's sporting an attitude even the paparazzi of fashion can translate: machismo.

The camera clicks. Ciao.

1996 FLUX 43

Made on the inside to be worn on the outside.

-Prison Blues slogan The model is inmate #6972914, alias Russell Bicknell - courtesy of Eastern Oregon Corrections Institute (EOCI). Bicknell is a convicted criminal sentenced to seven years in EOCI for burgling homes all over Oregon, including one owned by the parents of a prominent judge.

The tattoo is the work of a friend who died of a heroin overdose six years ago. And the clothes are the product of a controversial Oregon inmate work program known as Prison Blues. By muscling in on the popular gangster look, EOCI hopes to steal a portion of the profits that make up the $6.5 billion jeans industry and use it to sus-tain a prison program that supports itself.

Bicknell and more than thirty other inmates have become voluntary poster boys of badness in an industry in which to be anything but chic is criminal. The chilly indigo--toned photos of their chests, biceps and tattoos have put Prison Blues on the same maps that pinpoint Nordstrom, Meier & Frank and the Emporium. The clothing they model is the mandatory prison uniform for all of Oregon's 8,000 inmates. They wear it, they make it and their mugs help sell it.

After an afternoon posing for his public, Bicknell is escorted back inside the hangar--like Prison Blues factory. High ceilings and skylights create the illusion of open space; the factory is bright, modern and immacu-late. Bicknell resumes his place at a row of fast--paced work stations where he and more than fifty other prisoners spend their weekdays hunched over sewing machines running strips of cloth through sergers and back--tackers. The hardy paint--chipped machines zip the denim through textile teeth so quickly that some inmates wear bandages to protect their fingers from cloth burns.

A radio tucked in the rafters delivers distantly cheery pop tunes to the men below.

Some of these men have gone on talk radio to an-swer questions about the program. "What are you in for?" is always the first question. "Has the program bettered you?" is typically the second. From there, callers tend to pitch their tents in one of two camps.

The citizens who want inmates put to work see Prison Blues' success as a solution to the high cost of incar-ceration (more than $19,000 a year per inmate in Oregon). For every dollar an inmate earns, 80 percent of it is returned to the state in the form of taxes, "rent," drug or alcohol treatment, family support and victim restitution.

But others wonder how far the program's govern-ment umbrella, Oregon State Corrections (OSC), should go to employ inmates. Does the state have any business mixing incarceration with the free market? At what point does the advertising and publicity cross the line of good taste? And the biggest worry: Is felony becoming fashionable?

The critical camp - the mothers, the state politicians and the people who've watched the TV show Cops too many times - don't want

reminders of America's prison crisis facing them on the clothing rack. This country's fascination with violence is severe enough, they say, without the state selling it, marketing it and shipping it overseas. They point to ads depicting a rope of jeans knotted together dangling from the window of a prison cell with the caption, "Wear them out," and they wonder, "Is this rehabilita-tion or is it irresponsibility?"

We've never sold the gangster look, and we've never promoted - except humorously - the fact that these goods were made by prisoners.

-Perrin Damon, communications manager Oregon State Corrections Everything we've done has been an attempt to get out that basic fact: Prisoners make these jeans.

-Rick Dalbey, Dalbey & Denight Advertising, Prison Blues' advertising agency Two years ago on Donahue, an audience of housewives and tourists was treated to the sight of three handcuffed, heavily guarded inmates from the Prison Blues factory. The inmates' chaperone was Fred Nichols, then--director of Oregon State Corrections Industries. Between Phil Donahue's hyperactive interrogation of the inmates, Nichols told the audience: "We don't totally disagree that the Prison Blues product could be seen as glorifying prison life, but we asked that question to Rotary Clubs and Kiwanis Clubs even at trade shows in Italy and Japan - and everyone associated Prison Blues with rehabilitation.

"There are 10,000 different labels out there, and for us to be successful we have to find a niche something that gives us free advertising. We don't have a multimillion dollar ad campaign out there, so we have to promote what makes us unique and real."

Nichols was the man who turned a prison employee's suggestion into a going proposition back in 1989 and let Prison Blues products loose on the public in 1990. He went on Donahue in 1994 and was fired for "political incom-patibility" in 1995.

Nichols envisioned - some would say hallucinated - that Prison Blues would grow to employ 300 inmates and generate sales of up to $18 million a year. Instead, the program has hit its ceiling at a work force capacity of sixty and less than $2 million in sales. In the words of Bob Pace, the prison employee who gave Nichols the idea for the garment factory, "Nichols promised the world, and then he couldn't deliver."

With nearly 200 inmates on a waiting list to join the factory, there's no satisfying explanation for why Prison Blues isn't employing the number of inmates Nichols predicted.

The program has a hot product line and no shortage of cheap labor. America's staggering crime problem has resulted in the largest captive labor force in the world. Even Oregon's relatively modest inmate population is expected to double in the next decade. Last year, Oregon voters made their wishes clear when they passed the Inmate Work Act, legislation stipulating that OSC increase the number of inmates employed behind bars.

The reasons being touted to explain why Prison Blues remains a mild - but not a smashing - commercial success all revolve around money. Although the wages paid to inmates eventually lead back to the government's coffers, some union leaders object to paying inmates minimum wage. They argue it's unfair to employ criminals when so many free citizens are out of work.

Federal commerce laws add to the conundrum. Inmates are paid prevailing industry wages (typically higher than minimum wage) for products shipped across state or national lines. This makes the "cost" of inmate labor comparable to that of private sector labor. These concerns, coupled with the nagging worry that Prison Blues' bad--boy image might alienate a public put off by gangster chic, all complicate the program's mission to teach inmates a work ethic.

But the main reason Prison Blues isn't a bigger success than it is has nothing to do with the product, which is superb; nor with the inmates, who aren't responsible for how it is packaged. Nor does it lie in any of the largely transparent arguments that have been assembled against work programs in general. The reason lies back in Salem, Oregon, at .OSC, where officials are quick to admit they're not business people - they're people people.

One consequence of this became obvious imme-diately after the Donahue episode aired. In what was essentially an infomercial, Phil Donahue appeared

1996 FLUX 45

before his audience dressed head to toe in Prison Blues apparel, modeling the product line like a middle..aged Gap clerk. Viewers responded accord.. ingly, and in the weeks following the show, several thousand Donahue fans deluged Prison Blues with requests for jeans.

Here was OSC's door to the public's dollars flung wide open. But the people people in Salem, seemingly oblivious to the concept of supply and demand, struck out.

"Prison Blues didn't have the stock on hand," Bob Pace says. "There were a lot of people wanting jeans, and they never got them." The event caught OSC literally with its pants down, without so much as a catalog to harvest its new customers. In what could be Prison Blues' epitaph, Pace adds, "If you want to play with the big boys, you've got to be ready to step up to the plate."

All that publicity didn't sell jeans; it was just hype.

-Brent Wakeman, garment division manager Prison Blues

I think we were using those inmate images to get into the fashion market, but the sales haven't been there to indicate that it worked.

-Debra Dawes, executive assistant Oregon State Corrections Industries Prison Blues' annual sales have shown steady and sizable increases since it went public, beginning at $125,000 in 1991 and growing to nearly $2 million by 1995. Fully two..thirds of those sales were made in the "fashion market."

If Prison Blues' sales now seem spotty, the underlying dermatitis is political- the kind of hives people people get when faced with business decisions. The latest decision - whether to continue hiring slick photographers or to get out of the fashion business altogether - coincides with the end of OSC's 3 1/2.. year pro bono advertising contract with Dalbey & Denight.

Until recently, Rick Dalbey and Charles Denight have been Prison Blues' contact with the outside world. Their Portland, Oregon, agency has been behind Prison Blues' brilliant award..winning (and free) advertising campaign.

Dalbey and his partner managed to spread the word about the program through word of mouth. They hauled Prison Blues jeans around to trade shows, sparking the fires of charity with the matchsticks of commerce. Their networking eventually paid off. They landed donated ad space in such national magazines as Spy and Jibe and swept national advertising awards in the process.

The "hype" they successfully generated came to an end late in 1995 when OSC ordered Dalbey & Denight Advertising to stop photo.. graphing inmates, remove existing photos of prisoners from its Web site and dispose of the (post .. Donahue) catalog. OSC, in the words of one official, was "changing its philoso.. phy" toward the work program.

Dalbey estimates that he and his partner annually invested $60,000 of their time promoting the image that OSC now claims didn't work.

"Everybody believed in the program except the people in Salem," Dalbey says. "If they would just let us advertise the jeans, their business would triple and they'd be employ.. ing lots of inmates. But the tallest nail gets hammered first; they didn't want anybody to notice them."

OSC has been working on ways to employ inmates without getting its nail hammered. Its main objective now is to revamp Prison Blues' image. "We didn't want to look like we were glorifying inmates or inmate life," says Debra Dawes, executive assistant at Oregon State Corrections Industries. "What we want to promote instead is the value of inmates working."

No more sashays, chantes or ciaos. The decision makers in Salem are leaving the fashion industry to Levi's and concentrat.. ing on promoting Prison Blues garments as durable work clothes.

The jeans that once appeared in a Playboy fashion layout are now being targeted at lumberjacks, h~nging alongside saws and suspenders in mom..and..pop stores throughout the state. A lone salesman trucks the products around rural Oregon getting to know the store owners. He tells them about the prison in Pendleton and chats with them about the merits of rehabilitation, selling a handful of pants at a time.

Meanwhile, back at the prison, Prison Blues' future is on trial.

The department is making some major policy decisions about whether we're going to be in the manufacturing business at all or concentrate on labor leasing. Right now, with the product as it is, we're happy at the break.. even level.

-Perrin Damon, communications manager Oregon State Corrections The people at OSC know that Prison Blues products can't compete without some form of marketing, but they've relied on the charity of Dalbey & Denight Advertising long enough. Faced with the chore of weaning its toddler industry, OSC is more likely to commit infanticide than do what it takes to make Prison Blues' revenues more than just a drop in the rehabilitation bucket. "We need a marketing philosophy, a large clothing line and a good ad budget," Brent Wakeman says. "How do you sell an ad budget to the legislature?" OSC hasn't even considered it.

OSC must walk a thin barbed line between utility and consumerism. Forget about photographs and fashion shoots.

Forget about sticking the state's political neck out to sell jeans.

Why bother with prison..made products when the prisoner himself can be packaged? Instead of parading inmates' biceps before the public, OSC prefers to hire those muscles out to private industry.

OSC officials call it labor leasing. They offer existing manufacturing companies enticements (e.g., Valuable Working Inmates TM) to move their operations inside prison walls. The companies provide the product while OSC provides the labor (the muscle) and the security (the even bigger muscle). Prisons are attracted to labor leasing because the businesses that sign labor..lease contracts are responsible for paying the inmates. Thus, the payroll burden is shifted away from the state. Since 1990, thirty states have legalized contracting prison labor to private companies.

Best of all, labor leasing eliminates OSC's old bogey: business. "Our expertise is in managing people, so it makes sense that we leave business to the business people and work in partnerships that are win..wins for everybody," says OSC Communications Manager Perrin Damon.

Prison Blues' place in the "win..win" world of labor leasing is still a matter of some debate. The optimistic overhead radio inside the factory sounds hollow on slow Friday afternoons when orders are light. The weekly visits from camera crews and journalists are petering out. Prison Blues' striking ad campaign has been replaced by apolitical anonymity.

Dalbey & Denight Advertising's new assignments - paid this time - are limited to designing catalogs for some of OSC's less..distinguished work programs. Growth is being kept at a standstill until OSC decides just what the hell to do with all those pants. And instead of expanding the line (a survival tip given to Prison Blues by its erstwhile rival Mossimo), OSC plans to begin manufacturing prison towels and sheets inside the factory -leading to speculation: Hotel EOCI, maybe?

One day, the only way to tryon a pair of Prison Blues jeans may be to commit a crime. The heads in Salem are still wearing their thinking caps, but for now, with OSC content to simply "break even" on sales, Prison Blues remains deadlocked by a mixture of philosophy and politics that may sentence the pro.. gram to permanent probation.

It's a great program; the prisoner wins, the victim wins and society wins. If only the politicians would just stop to realize that this is nothing to disassociate themselves from ...

- Rick Dalbey, Dalbey & Denight Advertising CZ)