the tiny journal

miami beach stories 

CARLA GRANAT

First, I was a little girl in a little girl’s body. My journey to womanhood started when I was fifteen, walking to a bus stop on Collins Avenue — the main tourist and cruising strip in Miami Beach — when some pre-Castro Cuban bus-boys and hotel workers on their way back to the mainland drove by me, hanging out the windows of their steaming, disintegrating Fords, yelling “puta!,” and other Spanish words I didn’t understand, and I felt something click with a force inside for the first time, a bull’s-eye.

I didn’t know what ‘puta’ meant. But I knew it had to be dirty. It was the first time I had gotten any kind of unsolicited attention, and I felt an unfamiliar surge – a faint signal that I had an effect without seeking it. Something moved in my lower midsection, a visceral disturbance, scary, and revoltingly thrilling; similar to the feeling I had the year before, when I sneaked a copy of  “The Amboy Dukes” into the house, and devoured it in bed, lit with a flashlight.

I turned away from the curb and kept walking. My pulse raced and the heat from the steaming street came up and hit me in the face as I got to the bus stop. The pink sidewalk glistened with particles of mica.  Down the street, the asphalt was a shimmering mirage, waves of heat roiling over the slick of the surface oil. 

I remembered a day in Junior High. My friend, Gee-Gee Gale and I were pulling clothes out of her older sister’s closet to see if anything fit, and if it did, we’d hide it and wear it to school. Both of us were still little girls, but that day, trying on a t-shirt, I noticed a tiny bump on my chest, under one nipple, and when I pushed on it, it felt like a sore, something like that boil I had in camp – only that one was on my butt, and popped when I fell off a horse.

But this bump was different. The pain radiated and felt like a button pushing against my skin from the inside. I pushed on the other nipple, and sure enough, it hurt, too. I thought something must be wrong with me, so I asked my mother, and she said, “it’s nothing to worry about, you’re just developing.” Developing. I knew women had breasts, but I never actually thought it would happen. It scared me. One girl, Margie, developed early. In the 6th grade she had breasts for real. She was the laughingstock of the class. The boys, especially, made fun of her, and girls shunned her as a slut.

The memory faded as the bus rolled up and snorted to a stop. I plopped down on a seat and stared through the window at Indian Creek simmering in the sun on the other side of Collins Avenue. My newly developed breasts ached — sore under my nipples, in spite of my advanced-beginner’s bra. I pulled my blouse loose from the waistband of my skirt to try to lighten the weight.

I remembered a snapshot of me when I was about ten, standing in our front yard, wearing nothing but cotton underpants, my hair pinned back with a barrette, legs apart, feet planted in the grass, chest fully expanded out into the world, unconscious joy on my face. There was power in that little girl baring her chest. I felt like I was still that little girl, but now with a woman’s body. 

Oh, yeah. I found out later that ‘puta’ means ‘whore.’

ft. lauderdale foray

CARLA GRANAT

I’m leaning against a bar with my best friend Myrna at a faux-Japanese fishing-net, glass-float lounge that’s about as far from Japan as you can get. It’s perched in the penthouse of one of the oceanfront skyscraper condos in Ft. Lauderdale, far enough north of our hometown, Miami Beach, to assure anonymity, given that we were way underage.  This is new ground, away from the familiar boring high school boys. The elevator ride is swift and silky. We primp and giggle to the top, where the doors slide open to the view – the ocean, the sky, the smell of alcohol and seafood.

Myrna and I sit down, and order, using our fake IDs. Miraculously, they don’t ask questions. After my first fruity drink, I notice this one guy leaning toward me a few seats down the bar. He has bushy red-blond eyebrows, freckles peeking out from under a dark tan, a pack of cigarettes poking out of the top of his t-shirt sleeve. Definitely not familiar. He raises an eyebrow and sidles up to me.

“Are you alone, young lady?” a drawl so drawled, I barely understand him.

“Just me and my friend,” I say. I order another drink. Having quickly sucked down the first one, I feel a nice warmth moving up my legs to my head.

            He glances at Myrna, who’s trying to engage the bartender in conversation.

            “Where you from?” He leans in.

            I hesitate. In Miami Beach, when tourists ask where I’m from, I say “Miami Beach,” and they say, “but where are you from”?

            “Miami Beach,” I say. “I’m from here.” Blank stare. Then, as though they’re talking to a moron,

            “Okay. Where were you born?”

            “Here,” I say, “I was born here.”

            And after a longer pause a look of disbelief, dismissively,

            “No. No one is born here!”

They think Miami Beach is an attraction, like what Disneyland was invented to be decades later, and no one lives in Disneyland. Or do they. Hmm.

To us, it’s home and they are the exotic ones with their white skin, loafers with white socks, sun hats, dressed in colors they mistakenly think appear in nature, with their bags of pool accoutrements lined up next to their chaise lounges; their coconut suntan oil, thermos bottles, sunglasses, changes of bathing suits, hats, trashy magazines.

On their first day the pool boy chats them up, sets up their chairs, and warns them about staying in the sun for more than fifteen minutes on their first day, a warning they almost never hear, to their inevitable regret.

That’s why I hesitate. I don’t want to have that conversation yet again.

            He leans in closer, “So, you just visitin’?”

            “Miami Beach. I’m from Miami Beach.” I’m waiting for that comment about where I’m really from.

            He hoists a beer languidly to his lips with a little smack.

“Miamah Beach, eh?” there’s that annoying mainland accent. I recross my legs and take a sip through the straw of my illegal daiquiri.

            “Yup,” I say.

            “Hm.” He pauses, taking it in, turning away to gaze out the window reflected in the mirror behind the bar, then swivels his head quickly back.

            “You ain’t one of them Jewwws, are ya?”

My underarms prickle, a new kind of fear ripples through my body, as though the ground under me is moving, signaling a frightening truth, my first encounter with what I had heard about, but had never experienced. Until now. I don’t answer. I can’t look at him. I finish my last sip, take a breath, turn, and poke Myrna, who’s now sitting right next to me. My back to him, she reads my look, and the roll of my eyes.

            “Let’s get out of here,” I whisper.

Two drinks in, we’re both pretty dizzy. We get on the elevator. The doors close. I tell Myrna what he said. She stares at me. My heart is pounding, and I start to feel claustrophobic. A few moments later, the elevator doors open. We haven’t moved an inch. The doors had closed, but we hadn’t pushed a button.

So here we are, gazing out the open doors at that sea and sky, going nowhere. We look at each other. Myrna presses the button, the doors close once again, and we head for the lobby, hugging each other, screaming and laughing with relief the whole way down.

Hair-Envy

CARLA GRANAT

I had serious hair-envy from childhood into my twenties. I didn’t just have bad-hair days, I had a bad-hair life. My hair was lank, dirty-blonde and didn’t hold teasing. Nothing worked in my search for hair-allure, which I believed was the key to happiness. I even tried wigs. Once I had a wig that was like a dream come true. It was glamorous, sexy. One day I decided to wear it to work, in spite of the fact that it itched like mad, and the pins holding it on made dents in my scalp.

The cute doctor I worked for seemed impressed. That morning, he said I reminded him of Jane Fonda in “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” I hadn’t seen the movie, but Jane Fonda! In 1969, she was at the peak of her glamour! I floated through the office for the rest of the day, my glamour image assured. But fantasy dies painfully. My friend, Susan, informed me that Jane played a down-and-out character trying to win a marathon dance contest. She staggered around the dance floor, with hair that looked like it had been styled with an eggbeater.

So when Susan introduced me to The HeadHunter’s Hair Salon in Miami Beach, I was ready for transformation. The salon’s name sounded kind of sinister; but I wanted to find something that would remake me, and a good hairdo might be the answer.

Headhunters was an air-conditioned, faux-tropical-jungle pleasure garden, with fake hanging vines, Spanish moss, plastic coconut palm trees, and a waiting area with leopard-print fainting couches that vibrated. I was surrounded by the sounds of tropical birds heard through the drone of hairdryers, air-conditioning, and vibrating couches. Bamboo curtains rattled as people moved to and from the shampoo area. Every few minutes, a papier mache parrot squawked “Pretty girl, Pretty girl!” 

The waiting women wore Springolator stilettoes, tight black capri pants, and halters. I pictured them sliding out of limos on the arm of a Rat-Pack wanna-be, for 10 pm steak at a Miami Beach hot-spot where Lenny Bruce hung out. Every shade of blonde chemically possible was represented, with styles ranging from the new shags to bouffants which were provided with knitting needles for scratching scalps between appointments.

The smell of coconut oil and hair products made me dizzy, so I lay down on one of the couches. A bronzed hunk wearing a loin cloth and tiny apron instantly materialized and asked me if I’d like a Cuba Libre or a Mango daiquiri.

Alfonso was the Head Headhunter, the militant, arrogant, wiry ruler of his jungle kingdom, with the energy of a greyhound, and a long, black shag.  Short and slight, he prowled through the salon like a panther, wearing tight jeans from the boys’ department of Jordan Marsh. He looked like the aging third-rate lead singer in a second-rate rock band, so thin that when he stood behind the chair, he was completely invisible. You knew he was there by the snipping sound of the scissor’s tips, with three in the air for each one with hair between the blades. Finally, he’d thrust a mirror into your hands and walk away, never asking ‘how do you like it?’ because, of course, he knew the answer. You look up, he’s gone! My hair definitely looked better. But after several visits, I felt intimidated; diminished, somehow.

On my next visit, I sat in the chair as usual. I knew Alfonso had arrived behind me, invisible, when I heard the scissors start to snip, and saw hair fall onto the rubber mat around the chair. I couldn’t see him, nor did I dare say anything about what I wanted or didn’t want. I was as invisible to him as he was to me. Just as he was about to trim the bottom layer that lay on my neck, I got up my nerve and asked if he would angle those hairs a tiny bit, so they wouldn’t stick out, which they sometimes did after a few days. Silence. The snipping stopped. After a few moments, I turned around. Alfonso was gone. Not a word. Just gone.

I was stunned; then I had a retinal flash. I saw myself sitting at my desk at school when I was eight years old. I hated my thin hair. My mother parted it in the middle, and braided it every day, as best she could. Each braid was no bigger than my finger. One day in school, I was sitting with a pair of scissors in my hand and no instruction from the teacher. In a sudden, fleeting moment of awareness, I decided to cut bangs.

I slid the scissors under my hairline on both sides and snipped. The stringy liberated hairs from both sides migrated slowly to the middle. Bangs! I didn’t have a mirror, can’t remember if the teacher even noticed. All I remember is going home, and my mother’s face as she took the rubber bands out of my braids and held two strips of hair no longer attached to my head. Kind of shocked me, too.

Twenty years later, sitting in Alfonso’s chair, I realized that back then I had made a powerful decision: in one quick stroke, I had expressed myself. Now I felt emboldened to make what later turned out to be the first of several powerful decisions about who I was: I would not allow myself to be treated with cavalier indifference, like just another‘head.’

I finally understood the truth in Arthur Miller’s play, “After the Fall,” when he says that one must take one's life in one's arms like an ugly baby, and love it. I stood up, pulled off the cape, picked up the scissors, snipped off the hair across the back of my neck, laid the scissors down and walked out, and as the bamboo door closed behind me, I heard the muffled “Pretty Girl! Pretty Girl!” squawk of the parrot for the last time.

Carla Granat writes about the unique environment of Miami Beach,
Florida, where she grew up. She wrote and performed "Blow-Out", a solo
piece, in Seattle, where she now lives, and has produced several
documentaries, including "Singing Bill O'Reilly," "It's Just A Dog,"