Best of The Amazon Trail: Second-Hand Posh by Lee Lynch

 

An excerpt from a  classic "Amazon Trail" column in Lee Lynch's first collection.

 

 

...I came from the kind of family that has two sides: the side that wouldn't shop in a thrift store and doesn't have to; and the side that did, but didn't want to talk about it.

The breakthrough came when I discovered books and the joy of owning them. My compulsive personality found its outlet in collecting when I was too young to be able to afford new books. As a matter of fact, I'm still too young to be able to afford many new books. Humbled, I learned to enter those mildew-scented, poorly lit palaces of instant gratification, the kinds of stores that would now and then have leather-bound editions of the classics with perhaps water stains on their uncut pages. Water stain, watermark, how was I to know the difference? I was into leather-bound editions of the classics by age 15.

It wasn't until I went to college, though, that I really learned to indulge myself. I had expense money. I also had wheels: I was the only student in the dorms who had brought her bike to college. As I was also the only lesbian in the world, me and my bike continued our exclusive relationship when I wasn't recruiting for the cause.

This all took place in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which turned out to be not a bad place to ride. Flat streets, plenty to see. My memory is actually foggy about Goodwill's exact location, but it was at least in the shadow of one of those Early Barnum edifices. Approaching the store for the first time I felt like a character out of Ali Baba and the Second Hand Thieves. I tethered my trusty two-wheeled steed and strode cavalierly into the den of treasure. (It's real hard to stride cavalierly in Bridgeport. They look at you funny.) I was in luck. The dimly lit cavern was presided over by a genie. At least, she looked kind of like a genie.

The Genie was a very tiny woman with a limp. Of indeterminate age, with ashy-dark skin and tightly-controlled hair, she dressed in what looked like the cream of Goodwill genie coordinates. The counter behind which she was installed was heaped with goods of every description. She suspiciously inspected every person and object that moved into or out of the cave, as if jealously guarding real splendor. I was scared to death of her.

No matter: the front sales room, to me, held nothing but junk (If I could get my hands on some of that junk today! Art deco furniture, antique oak chests, '50s paraphernalia!) I went back to the long hallway, perhaps 60 feet of it, double-lined with floor-to-ceiling books - every shelf holding an unbelievable double row. They held first-edition Willa Cathers, John Steinbecks in original paper editions, perfect Modern Library Classics. Prizes, in other words, to make a budding bibliophile give us lunches for years.

Nor was all of this sheer indulgence. My isolation drove me to desperate measures at college. Whether I missed the last train out of Grand Central and therefore curfew after a night at the bars, or was caught at 4 AM in a hotel room passed out with a girl, I racked up enough of these queer offenses to be referred to a shrink. He did more harm that good peddling “healthy boy-girl relationships" as the solution to my errant ways. He never did figure out the source of my deep depressions. He did, however, share one of his own cures for the blues. "Go down to Goodwill,” he instructed me, "and buy some used books.” Thus was my second-hand mania legitimized.

The next phase in my thrift-store career was generational. In the mid and late '60s we pinko queer effete snobs created a market for those army surplus items that became our wardrobes. For discarded jewelry that we transformed to love beads. For bedspreads turned into curtains and curtains that metamorphosed into skirts. For faded jeans that became the official uniform. Army-surplus stores boomed. New second-hand shops opened everywhere with cute names like Second Hand Rose, San Francisco's Purple Heart Thrift Store and Provincetown's Uptown Strutter's Ball. Stores that catered to us displayed new merchandise that looked old. Even today pre-washed jeans command ridiculously high prices.

I shop at the local Penney's only for underwear and gifts. Otherwise, why bother with high-pressure sales people in stores that don't stock what I want? I get tired of mumbling, "It's for my teenage nephew!” or raising eyebrows when I go into the try-on rooms with male apparel. Not to mention the perils of being braless when sales ladies rip open curtains to see how you're doin', dearie. Give me Sally's Boutique any day...

Have gay women and men always been drawn to thrift stores? Because many of us financially need to shop there? Because of our fascination for costuming? Recently I found myself shopping next to two men. I was looking for passable clothing for my job, they for something outrageous for their real lives. In Macy's women's department they could not have had such fun. In a thrift store, even in this fundamentalist town, the straight customers just smiled at their low-key histrionics.

I love our gay culture. It's as comfortable for me as second-hand clothes. We're bold and innovative enough to dip into the straight world's refuse, to salvage not only their unwanted possessions, but their unwanted people: ourselves.

Lee's newest novel is Accidental Desperados and you can find out about it here.