This true story (names changed) got me a hand-written rejection letter from NPR's
This American Life:
THERE'S NO ENDZONE TO A TRANSITION
by Gina Douglas
It was approximately five months ago that I started going to the EndZone Lounge. It's the closest bar to my house. There are two others that are about equidistant, but the EndZone is on my street where it hits the main road, so I can get there and back just by driving a ¾ mile straight line down a side street with no other traffic.
I had felt increasingly restrained by the voluntary segregation that I felt was forcing me to go out socially only to gay bars. I wanted to do some other things, so I went to a gay church and a gay-friendly church for services. Then I went to a downtown straight club with a live rock band, first on Halloween, where I was open with people that I was transsexual. My costume was that I was a "hot librarian." I started with my hair held back and wearing glasses, carrying a library book steamy romance novel. When I sat at the bar and crossed my legs, the tops of lace stockings were visible, and lace lingerie could be just glimpsed through the not-quite opaqueness of my conservative blouse. Then I took off my glasses, let down my hair and shook it out, and unbuttoned a few of the top buttons on my blouse.
The bar was crowded, and the crowd was younger than me. They had an 80's band that night. I was in my second year of college in 1980, but most of this crowd was college age now. It was about 15 minutes before a woman standing with a group near me blurted out in loud surprise, "Oh my God, you're a guy!" I smiled at her, and put my finger across my lips, in a librarian's silent shush. I said, "My costume is that I am a hot librarian, but I'm transsexual, not a guy in drag."
I met and spoke to a lot of people that night, was very upfront, and had no problems. Nobody hit on me. Which was just as well, because I am not attracted to men, and never have been. Not once ever, except for a mild crush I have always had on Dean Martin. Even I would have swooned over Matt Helm in those two movies where Deano played him, and my eyes well with tears when I hear him sing "Everybody loves somebody sometime...."
Then, after church a few Sundays later, I went to that same club for a Sunday afternoon poker game, and continued going there regularly for those poker games. I went there another Friday night when there was a band, and I went there early on New Years Eve, though I intended to be with my lesbian friends at the Bijou Bar before midnight.
But the downtown club is all the way downtown, and it's expensive. On Friday nights, when I was going out regularly, and going to gay bars, I would pass the EndZone on my way. I would see the many cars, and hear the music; and I wanted to go there. It took me a few weeks to actually get up the courage to go inside. The first time that I decided to go there, I drove there but chickened out and went to the Bijou. The second time, I parked my car and sat there for a minute, and didn't go in. Then, at the Bijou, none of my friends were there, and I was tired of the same music, and the same line-dances every Friday; so I left and went back to the EndZone.
There was an empty seat at the bar, and I sat there with my coat still on and ordered a drink. The bar was crowded with karaoke singers, of my generation. Some of them were astonishingly good singers. Everybody was wearing blue jeans, as I was. Everybody was engrossed in their own thing, and nobody was seeming to pay me any mind. I met a few eyes, and smiled, as I looked around and enjoyed the music.
It was about fifteen minutes before the first guy came over to hit on me. My natural voice is deep, but I can do a totally passable female voice, if I choose to. The bar was loud, and it's hard for me to put much volume behind my female voice. Plus I was not going to try and fool anybody into thinking I was a natal female. Because that is where trans panic comes from.
Trans panic is a legal defense to trans bashing. People have literally gotten away with murdering transsexuals, using the defense that when they found out that the person was transsexual and had deceived them; they went into such a panic, that the violence they committed against the transsexual was excused by the jury as being justified. So, to avoid becoming a victim of trans panic, I do not deceive anyone in regards to me being transsexual.
So I spoke with this guy in my natural voice, as we conversed about where he was from, and where I was from. I sensed that he realized I was trans-something, and I let him make a polite withdrawal.
With my second drink, I took off my coat. This made me less passable, because it exposed my large arms and broad shoulders, as well as my small breasts. I have A-cup breasts, and I don't wear a bra. Clearly, mine are real breasts, but with the incongruence between my arm and breast size, I expect the average person to put together the clues and figure I am trans. I can dress to camouflage these elements, but I wasn't dressed that way that night.
A while later, the initial guy came back, and asked me directly what my gender was. I told him that I am a woman, but a transsexual who was born a male. He didn't inquire further. If he had, I would have told him what I later told others who inquired further. I have been on female hormones for approximately one year, am going through the legal process called transition, and have not had any surgery. If people inquired into my sexual preference, I would tell them that I have always been only attracted to women, and that the reason I didn't transition already, when I was younger, was that it had always been against the rules. They wouldn't let you be transsexual if you were attracted to women.
I knew that what information I put out to a few would soon get around to everyone. I planned on that as being an easier way for me to be honest with people, than a lot of uncomfortable conversations with a lot of individuals.
I smiled at people, I said hello to people, but I didn't meet or speak to many people the first night. But I wanted to go back. I liked it. I liked the music alot. I liked being with people of my own generation, as the crowds at the gay bars had been primarily younger people looking to meet other young people. I liked the feeling, even if it was an illusion, of just being normal. I liked just being another woman in a crowd of mixed men and women.
I started going to the EndZone at least twice a week, sometimes thrice. I would go every Friday for karaoke, and every Sunday for poker early and karaoke later. Sometimes I would go there on Tuesday or Wednesday night as well. Gradually, I made numerous friends. Particularly amongst the women, many of whom came to offer greeting and goodbye hugs. After a couple of months, even the bar-owner's wife was greeting me with a hug.
After the first few weeks, I started singing karaoke, sometimes singing male songs, and other times female songs. One of my signature songs was Nutbush City Limits, which I often introduced by saying, "This song was recorded by both Tina Turner and Bob Seger. My version is a combination of both." Everybody in the bar knew that I was transsexual, but it was rarely discussed. For the most part, I was just another female regular-customer at the EndZone Lounge.
There were a few minor problems. The first instance involved a woman who came up to talk to me at the bar. She was being friendly, and was curious about transsexualism. I didn't sense that she was flirting with me, or romantically interested in me, simply curious. She was married, with a husband serving with the military in Iraq. This didn't come out immediately, it came out when the people the woman had come with, tried to make her stop talking to me.
She asserted her right to talk to anybody she wanted to talk to, and I supported her in that. Her sister in-law and some friends were literally trying to drag her away, and she was resisting them. Then the sister in-law came to me and told me not to talk to her sister in-law, or else she would get some guys in the bar to beat me up.
Bonnie, the bartender and night manager, was observing the situation. She took the sister in-law off for a brief private conversation and the problem went away. I imagine Bonnie told the woman that her sister in-law can talk to who she wants to, and I can talk to who I want to, and threats of violence are not permitted, much less actual violence.
The next time I went there, Bonnie spoke to me about it, in general terms. She told me that she had been watching me, and she liked the way I handled myself, and that she was glad that I was coming there, and that I should feel safe there, and if there were any problems I should come to her right away. I thanked Bonnie for her concern and her support, but the fact was that we were both uncomfortable talking about transphobia so directly, the same way many people are uncomfortable talking about race and religion. So Bonnie and I did not discuss issues in much depth that night.
The next incident didn't involve me at all, except it provided a context for Bonnie and I to have a more serious conversation. I was not the first transwoman to go to the EndZone. One or two times that I was in the bar, I saw a woman named Monica, who was obviously trans. But Monica is trans in a much different way than I am. In fact, I'm not sure Monica is transsexual so much as she is a transvestite that has turned transvestism into a lifestyle. I think we have all heard Chris Rock's routine about the difference between black people and niggas. That's exactly how I feel about Monica.
Monica is older than me, a throwback to a different generation of
>-bleeped-< that I never wanted to associate myself with. I have heard that she turns tricks on the street, and that she likes to shock people by flipping up her skirt and showing the cock inside her panties. She dresses slutty and inappropriately, wears too much makeup, and acts like a flamboyant tart.
I never spoke to Monica, I never even smiled at her. I went out of my way to stay physically as far away from Monica as I could get. Like Chris Rock stays away from niggas.
One night, Bonnie wanted to talk to me about something that happened with Monica. Monica had gotten drunk and loud, was flipping her skirt up, and when she left the bar had gotten bushwhacked by some gang of fellows she had earlier offended. Monica had been seriously injured and hospitalized. Bonnie had witnessed the end of it, and chased the guys away.
For this reason, Bonnie asserted, she was concerned for my safety. I tried to make it clear that Monica and I were totally different. I could take care of myself, I can defend myself, I am cautious to stay out of trouble, and I don't create trouble for myself – all quite different than Monica, who is about 110 pounds of skin and bones, a self-loathing walking victim waiting to happen, and probably hoping for it.
I told Bonnie, "If I had any whiff of trouble, I would just leave; but if I had to defend myself, the person you need to worry about getting hurt is the other person, not me."
Bonnie said, "I don't want you to leave. I want you to tell me, and let me handle it."
I expressed to Bonnie that I didn't think that was the best strategy, that it would probably work out better if she just let me deal with things on my own. But she was insistent, she said, "Then I don't want you coming here."
So I assented to her authority. I agreed that, since she runs the place, I'll leave it to her to deal with this too. In retrospect, this is probably where I went wrong. I have been living with transness all my life; I'm somewhat of an expert. Not just on the condition, but on how people react to trans people, from a deep well of my personal experience. Bonnie, on the other hand, was not an expert on transness, and had little or no experience dealing with the kind of issues that crop up around it.
The next incident was a little more extreme, but still pretty mild. The EndZone tried to start a new poker game on Tuesday nights, and I went. But nobody else from the poker league did. The bar was almost empty. I decided to wait and see if anybody showed up, so I ordered a beer. Bonnie was off that night, the substitute bartender, Rita, was there. After a while, I went outside for a cigarette, and into the propane-heated tent provided for smoking. There was a lone man in there, whom I had never met. I politely smiled and said hello.
He had obviously heard about me, as he answered back, in a threatening voice, "Don't talk to me." So I didn't. A few minutes later, he says, even more threateningly, "Don't EVEN talk to me." He's drinking alone, from a pitcher, and he's pretty drunk. For all I know, maybe he thinks I am talking to him. But I just ignore him. A few minutes later, he says, ever louder and more threateningly than before, "Don't EVEN
>-bleeped-<ING TALK to me!"
So I said, "Or what? Don't even
>-bleeped-<ing talk to you, or what?"
He says, "Or I'll punch you in the face or break your nose."
So I gave him chance to try it, but he didn't do anything, and I said, "I have a suggestion for you. Next time you want somebody to not
>-bleeped-<ing talk to you, why don't you try not
>-bleeped-<ing talking to them. And especially you should try not
>-bleeped-<ing threatening them, because I can
>-bleeped-<ing guarantee you that I am not going to stand here and just let you threaten me and bully me."
He took his beer and stormed out of the tent. Standing alone outside of the tent, he started on a rampage against queers, how queers are taking over, how we should kill all the
>-bleeped-<ing queers before they take over the world. Then I heard the door to the bar open as somebody else came outside to smoke. The hostile guy went back into the bar.
Then Rita, the bartender came outside to ask me what I did. The ranting guy had complained to her that I "had tried to provoke him into a fight." I told her, "Yeah, I provoked him. I provoked him by being here." Rita told me that she would handle it, and I wouldn't have any more trouble from the guy. Nor did I.
But the next time at the bar, I told Bonnie what had happened, as per our agreement. Bonnie said she would find out what was going on, and the next week she told me, "He's trying to stir up
>-bleeped-< around you, to make it so you can't come here. But I handled it, just stay away from him and stay out of trouble, ok?"
The next instance of trouble involved a very large, angry drunk man who briefly mistook me for somebody else. I had never seen him before, and as I walked past him, he blocked my path, and said, "Are you a guy?" Without stopping, I dodged around him, and continued past him, saying, "I'm a female transsexual." He turned around towards me, as I continued to put distance and people between us, and he yelled, "You grabbed my wife's ass in Calamity Jan's, and I'm gonna kick your ass!" Immediately there was a solid wall of people between us as I kept going farther away. Rita was already pushing the guy out the door, and I told Bonnie, "I never even been to Calamity Jan's," and she said, "I know." That seemed to be the end of it. When I talked to Rita, she said she knew the guy, told him it wasn't me, and there was no problem.
The most recent minor incident involved a guy who had never been to the EndZone before, who came with some friends who had. The friends greeted me, and introduced the new guy, and I said hello to him, and he was rude. I just walked away, and one of the girls came over and apologized. Later in the smoking tent, he was rude again, and his friends dragged him back inside, again apologizing to me. Later, a male friend named Craig came over to me and asked me what happened, and I told him. Next thing I know, Craig is bringing over the rude guy, and the rude guy apologizes. I don't know what methods Craig used to persuade the rude guy of the need to apologize, but it was clearly important to Craig that he do so.
More recently, there was a serious incident. I wasn't there when it happened, but I know that Bonnie cancelled the poker game and closed the bar early because of it. I was there for part of it, and am essentially the cause of it; but I don't know exactly what happened, because I wasn't there.
It started with two guys of Mexican descent, father and son, muy machismo both of them, who play in the poker league. The father is named Ramon and the son's name is Roberto. One night, at the poker game at a bar called Bomber's, the final two players were me and Roberto, the son. Ramon was eliminated already, but was watching the game and rooting for his son. I had the big stack, and tried to bluff with 5-10, a terrible hand that I habitually fold in any other situation.
Second place money was good enough for me, and I wanted to get paid and leave, I didn't care if I lost the hand. I just wanted to get all-in, win or lose, and leave. The game could have went another hour between the two of us, if I played normally, because we are both good players.
I wanted Roberto to realize that I was bluffing, and raise me back. As it happened, Roberto had ace-king, the fifth best starting hard, and he raised my bluff. I knew Roberto had a better hand than me, and in most circumstances, I would have folded and let him win the pot. But, instead, I bluffed back at him, raising his bet for all his remaining chips, I think making it patently obvious that I was bluffing. Roberto called. I got what I wanted. At the end of the hand, I could get paid and leave, happy with either first or second place.
But Roberto, the machismo son, he was very proud of himself, because he thought he had out-played me, to get me all in with a hand that he was a big favorite to win. I feel I outplayed him, by getting him all-in for one big hand. I got lucky and won the hand, and first place. I won't say that this was a factor in Roberto's growing hostility towards me, but it may have been. In my opinion, Roberto's machismo couldn't take losing to a woman, much less a
>-bleeped-<, in front of his father.
A few weeks later, also at Bomber's, after Roberto and his father were eliminated, they started a cash game. This cash game would get so contentious that it would end with one guy with a baseball bat chasing another guy across the parking lot to the second guy's car, where the second guy got a gun and fired two shots at the guy with the bat. The testosterone levels were spiked over this cash game.
Before the cash game reached its finale, when the league tournament was on a break (on a night that I again won the tournament, beating Roberto, his father and everybody else), Roberto's father said something to me, ending his statement insultingly with the word "sir." I told him, "I'm transsexual, please don't use male references with regard to me." So Roberto bounces out of his chair, kinda gets up in my face and says, "Why not? You're a man, you got your balls don't ya? Go ahead call me liar."
I said, "I will call you liar. I am a woman, and it's not your place to say otherwise. You don't get to make the rules and definitions and then apply them to me."
Then I went back to the poker table, and Ramon made some crack about how they should all have a look at my "mangina." I let it go and concentrated on winning at poker. When the shooting started, I had just collected my winnings, and I left in a hurry.
The next game was the Sunday game at the EndZone, and it had to happen that, at the beginning of the game, I drew a seat next to Roberto's dad, and again he called me "sir." So I told him, very politely and loud enough for everybody at the poker table to hear, "I'm a female transsexual, and using male pronouns at me is deliberately insulting, I want you to stop doing it."
Ramon started about how he had the right to his own opinion, and could say what he wanted to say. Several other people cut him off and started telling him he was wrong. So Ramon tried to make the point that if I showed him my driver's license, and it said female, he would refer to me as female. Again, other people at the table started arguing with Ramon. I didn't say anything more to him.
What I did instead was I told the dealer I wanted to change seats. I asked Kevin, who runs the poker league, to please get somebody to switch with me, as Ramon, Roberto's dad, and these other people were still arguing. The guy completely across the table quickly offered to switch seats, and we did.
The thing was, this seat was right next to Roberto. Roberto could see that his father's stance was really unpopular, so he just shut up and played poker. But he was uncomfortable next to me, played recklessly, and was eliminated within a few hands. Later, when we had a break in the poker game, I honored my deal with Bonnie and told her what happened, before I went out for a cigarette. I suggested that maybe if she took the angle with Ramon that he wouldn't like it if other people were harassing him about his Mexican heritage, or making derogatory comments, or asking to see his proof of US citizenship or green card.
Ramon, who doesn't smoke, had stayed at the poker table. A few minutes later Bonnie comes out to the smoking tent, and tells me that she punched Ramon. She says, "I just went right over there and punched him hard in the arm and said, 'I hear you been
>-bleeped-<ing with Gina. Is that true?' He didn't say nothing, so I said, 'Nobody
>-bleeped-<s with Gina, and I don't want to hear nobody telling me somebody did.' That should settle it."
I wasn't particularly thrilled with the way Bonnie "settled" it, but I had agreed to let her handle this type of thing, and she had done so in the manner that she felt was appropriate. But, for a machismo guy to be punched and bullied by a woman, and to have to sit there and take it – I kinda doubted that the issue would sit well with Ramon. Or Roberto, if he found out what happened, though he had already been eliminated that night, and left the bar.
The next Friday, Roberto and Ramon had a problem that was totally unrelated to me, though it would figure in later. Ramon's wife had come with them, along with a female friend of hers. The friend's purse was stolen. There was some arguing, police were called, and the EndZone Lounge quickly cleared out.
I arrived early for the poker game the following Sunday, and sat at a table with a female friend, where we shared a pitcher of beer. When the poker game started, my friend and I chose poker seats near our table, where the pitcher, and our coats (and my purse) were close, and in our clear view. We left our pitcher of beer on the table also, though we took our glasses to the poker table.
Before we went to the poker table, I tied my purse to the chair, making a slip knot around a part of the chair-back. This is a trick I had learned from my first wife and her girlfriends, as it was how they secured their purses in a bar, putting their coats over the back of their chairs in such a way as to hide the purses, and keep anybody from being able to get at the knots securing the purses, without moving their coats.
When the game was underway, Ramon, his wife, and Roberto came in. The poker table was full, so they would have to wait for players to be eliminated before they could get in the game. The three of them settled at the table that my friend and I thought we were reserving, by the presence of our coats and pitcher. Ramon sat on the chair my coat was covering, not even aware that there was a purse there, because he sat forward on the edge of the seat. My coat was black and tended to blend in with the décor, Ramon probably didn't even see it. But my friend's coat is brilliant white, and Roberto's mom sat right on it, like she didn't even see it.
There were plenty of empty tables. Under any other circumstances, I would have asked the people who had usurped our table to kindly find another table. But I didn't want another confrontation. So I went over to the table, and pointed out to Ramon that he was sitting on my coat and purse, and would he mind standing up long enough for me to retrieve them. He didn't want to stand up, but I told him the purse was tied to the chair, and I couldn't untie it unless he stood up, which he did. I took my purse and coat over to the poker table, and rigged them to another chair that nobody was using. Then I went back to get the pitcher.
When I did, Roberto angrily confronted me, "Why are you always stirring up trouble for my family?!?"
My impression was that Roberto was very drunk, and possibly on drugs too. Plus, he probably had a chip on his shoulder over Bonnie punching his father the previous week. I told Roberto that I wasn't stirring up anything, just getting my stuff.
Roberto followed me to the poker table, still yelling at me. "Oh no, you're always causing trouble, always stirring
>-bleeped-<. I want you to
>-bleeped-<ing leave my family alone!"
I put the pitcher down, and I turned on him. I yelled right back at him. "I'm not starting
>-bleeped-<. Don't accuse me of starting anything. If anybody started anything, it was you and your family, coming in here so self-absorbed that you don't even notice you are sitting on other people's coats. Look at your mom, sitting there totally oblivious to the fact that she's sitting on my friend's white coat. How can you not see a bright white coat reserving a chair? Or do you just not give a
>-bleeped-< whose coats you sit on because you go where you want and you do what you want and
>-bleeped-< anybody who doesn't like it! So who's really starting
>-bleeped-<, Roberto?"
The mom was now hugely embarrassed, and quickly got up and brushed off my friend's coat and brought it to her, apologizing.
So Roberto then yells at me, "Oh yeah? Well no real woman would leave her purse unattended like that. Every REAL woman I know, keeps her purse with her all the time."
By now, Bonnie is involved, and she starts smoothing it over. "We sit on people's coats, it's no big deal, we're all friends here...."
I sat down and played poker, and they sat down and ate, and it seemed to blow over. But when the smoke break came, I took my purse with me. Roberto was in the front of the tent, and I quickly went to the back of the tent and started talking with other poker players. One of the women asked me, what was the thing about the purse. So I demonstrated my first wife's trick about tying the purse, and I told her, loud enough for Roberto to hear, that since it was my first wife's trick, and all her girlfriends did it, that Roberto was way out of line to say, "no real woman" would do that.
So Roberto yells at me, "What are you saying about my family now?"
"I'll tell you what I am saying. I'll tell you exactly what I'm saying, so you won't have any question at all about what I am saying. My purse was tied to the chair, and hidden by the coat in a way that my first wife TAUGHT me. You were way out of line to say 'no real woman would do that'. That's what I told them, and that's what I'm telling you, and you can be damn sure that the next time you hear me talking about it, that's what I will be telling them too."
Roberto charges over, yelling, "Stop talking
>-bleeped-< about my family, or I am gonna kick your ass!" He comes right over until his chest is in contact with mine, and leans forward into my face screaming at me. I was watching his body, and his body language, and his eyes, ready for him to strike. I wasn't listening to what he was saying. It was like a bear growling or a lion roaring, unintelligible to the state of mind I was in under such threat. I wasn't hearing the words, I was too focused on reading the body language of the person attacking me. What's his posture, are his fists balled, which muscle groups look tense, where are his eyes looking, what's his breathing pattern, how angry is he, how drunk is he?
Not on what specific verbal threats is he trying to scare me with.
I put my hands up between us, palms open on his chest where it was pressing against mine, and yelled, "Get out of my face!"
He yelled back "Get your dirty
>-bleeped-<ing hands off me!"
To me, this was prelude to him striking, as he had just justified doing so, on the grounds that he was defending himself from my hands on his chest. In my mind, he was about to start swinging on me, combat was not longer imminent, but engaged. So I disconnected my hands from his chest, by shoving him with all my might, back towards the front of the tent, and damn near out of it completely.
He came out of the shove with his fists balled, his right hand already starting to throw a haymaker. Then he realized how far away he was, how far I had pushed him, way out of range to throw a punch. This made him check up and reconsider, as he realized he was up against a strong opponent in a fight, not about to enjoy dishing out an ass-kicking.
In the time it took Roberto to check up, five people were between us, and there was not going to be a fight. Bonnie came out, and told me to come inside. But before I went back in with Bonnie, I had more thing to say to Roberto. I said, "Don't you ever get in my space again. Don't come put your body on mine, and tell me I'm touching you. You went too far, and I won't stand for it again, Mother
>-bleeped-<er!"
At that moment, I went too far. I was coming off an adrenalin rush where I was fighting for my life, and I was still a little crazed. And I had drank ¾ of a pitcher of beer. But I still shouldn't have called him "Mother
>-bleeped-<er."
I was mad at myself, because Roberto had proved himself right in a way. Just for a brief moment, he brought the man in me back out. It was a fighting-mad man that had shoved Ramon, and I didn't snap out of it, until back at the poker table, Bonnie pointed out that I still had my cigarette in my mouth.
As I dropped the cigarette on the floor, and ground the lit end under my shoe to put it out, I came back to myself. Roberto's mom then came over to me, and told me that Roberto was too drunk, but that she would talk to him and straighten him out, and there wouldn't be any more problems. We hugged, and I told her that I was sorry, and I know she probably has to apologize for him a lot, and I'm sorry for that too, and we hugged again.
But I needed to leave and recompose myself, so I bet all-in with some crappy hand and lost. I told my friends I'd be back for karaoke later, and headed for the door. Bonnie told me she wanted to talk to me later, and I told her I would be back. I went home, made something for dinner, freshened my makeup and perfume, and listened to music over dinner, getting my mind set for singing karaoke.
But when I got back to the bar, about ninety minutes later, there were no cars, no music, and the door was locked. It was only about 10PM. The next day, one of my friends told me that there was a big fight, and Bonnie shut the place down for the night. Roberto and Kevin had gotten in a fight, Kevin being the guy who runs the poker league. I had to assume that Kevin talked to the other players and witnesses, figured out what had happened, and told Roberto that Roberto was out of line. But Roberto didn't want to hear it, and started a fight instead. Kevin later confirmed that this was what had occurred.
The next time I went to the EndZone was the following Wednesday. Rita told me that Bonnie had told her not to serve me, until I had talked to Bonnie. Rita called Bonnie. At first it seemed that Bonnie was going to come to the bar, and then she didn't. I told Rita to call Bonnie back, and I'd talk to her on the phone. Rita said that Bonnie wanted to talk to me in person, but that Rita would buy my first beer, and we'd just forget about it until I talked to Bonnie.
