Just WhenYou Thought It Was Safe........HEEEEERRRRRRRE'S LISA!!!!

The other day a Rose tenant was riding the 15, when two women boarded the bus near the methadone clinic on Belmont. One was a fairly attractive young woman. The other was the inestimable Lisa Iacuzzi, self-styled activist, homeless coalition spokesperson, gender discrimination consultant (from her office at Sisters of the Road cafe), dog trainer, teacher, vodka-dispensing teen mentor, you name it.

But omit “self-serving manipulator”, one of the nicer descriptions from a former co-worker. And don't, for heaven's sake, call her “Buzz Cut.” Lisa's friend Paul Hamilton, who polishes Lisa's better-written pieces for her blog, scolded her beloved “hate mob” of “homphobes” for it, saying it “is very much like the Germans dehumanizing the Jews in World War II so that they could gas them.”

[See: NAGQ-OAE CHARGED WITH NAZISM!
http://notagoodqueer-oae.blogspot.com/2008/01/nagq-oae-charged-with-nazism-boli-and.html]

Be that as it may.......when Lisa boarded the bus, the tenant turned her face to the window, pretended interest in the scenery, and hoped Lisa wouldn't see her. No such luck.

The other woman seated herself in front of the tenant, while Lisa busied herself with bus fare. When she turned and saw her former neighbor, she was visibly taken aback, then glowered as she made her way down the aisle. “You fucken freak!” Lisa hissed, by way of greeting her former neighbor.

The tenant continued to stare out the window. Lisa seated herself several seats behind the tenant and the other woman. “He doesn't like you very much,” was the comment from the woman who had boarded the bus with Lisa.

“Well, first of all,” the tenant said, “that's not a 'he'. She's a she.”

The woman disagreed. “No, he's a guy.”

“No, she's a woman.”

“No, he's a guy.”

“No, she's a woman,” the tenant said. “I know this because she lived in my building and was my neighbor. She almost tore our building apart with her actions. She made so many threats, we had to get 24-hour security because of her.”

The woman half-rose and looked down the aisle to where Lisa was seated. She dropped back into her seat. “That's a woman,” she said incredulously.

“Yes,” the tenant said, “it is.”

“She tried to pick me up,” the woman said.

The tenant took out her cell and called a friend, to ask directions where to proceed from the bus. The woman who had boarded the bus with Lisa joined in the conversation, offering advice on directions. The friend on the phone inquired as to the identity of the other person. The tenant said, “Well, she's on the bus.”

Lisa's reaction to this was untoward: at the next stop, she scuttled off. The tenant surmised later that Lisa assumed she was calling 911.

After all, Lisa had boarded the bus in the vicinity of the clinic, and the stalking order currently in place against her – for which she had already been haled into court, and found guilty of violating – forbade her to come near the place. Another violation of that order and she would have been facing a very long jail sentence, longer certainly than the 29 days she spent in the pokey last November—most of it in the jail psycho ward, due to her faked suicide attempt with a plastic shampoo bottle.

“I can't believe that was a woman,” the woman said incredulously. “She was weird.”

“You have no idea,” the tenant said.

The tenant could have told the woman about another Lisa pick up that failed, but didn't.

* * * * *

A little later, another tenant encountered Lisa at the food bank where that tenant worked. She was on the back porch with another volunteer, taking a break, when the other volunteer called out, “Hey, cute dog!” The tenant turned and saw Lisa and her dog, strolling down the street. “Oh gawd,” the tenant said. “It's my ex-neighbor.”

“The one you told us about?”

“The same.”

“Better warn the others, before anything happens.”

All that happened turned out to be less interesting than the other tenant's encounter on the bus with the woman Lisa tried to pick up by the methadone clinic. Lisa and Rowdy came in, went to the front desk, and asked for clothes. The receptionist said she was sorry, but clothing was closed that day.

Lisa scowled. “I need clothes.”

“Sorry,” the receptionist said. “We haven't enough staff to open anything but food today.”

“But I need clothes,” Lisa said, in a louder tone, as if this would increase the number of staff on hand.

“Sorry,” the receptionist said.

“I really need clothes,” Lisa said emphatically. “It's an emergency. All my clothes are dirty.”

After a few more exchanges along these lines, Lisa left. A community service worker asked, “Was that Lee Iacuzzi? I know her.”

“Sorry to hear it,” the tenant said.

“Yeah,” the worker said. “She used to come into the Pot, where I hang out sometimes. It's a coffee house up on 25th”

“I know that place,” the tenant said. “I used to live up the street. When I could afford to live up the street.”

“They 86'd her,” the worker said.

“Don't tell me,” the tenant said. They both chuckled.

* * * * *

Lisa's other failed pickup was a shade more dramatic than the pickup Lisa failed to make near the Belmont methadone clinic. It happened during one of Lisa's recurring periods of homelessness. The report comes from a friend of the woman, who, taking pity on Lisa, offered her a roof over her head and a couch to sleep on. Lisa always essays the role of poor little lamb with consummate skill. Naturally she accepted the Good Samaritan's offer, and went home with her.

Briefly, then, after preparing for bed, the woman started into the living room to tell Lisa good night, then stopped short. Lisa was just then finishing the process of disrobing; “unbinding,” is how she later put it. As the woman stood there, Lisa made it known that she considered the offer sexual, rather than the charitable one it was, and intended to make good of it. Perhaps it was the threat of forced sex, perhaps it was that combined with sight of those expansive rolls of pallid Aryan flab. It galvanized the Good Samaritan to beat a hasty retreat to her bedroom, slam the door and lean against it while making a frantic call to 911. The police arrived and escorted a furious Lisa from the woman's home.

That's the gist of the report; the details can be filled in by those who, from past experience, know Lisa better than she knows herself.

Lisa crows on her blog that since her release from jail, she has become “a legend.” Well, maybe if only a very minor one. It's a pity her self-delusion doesn't permit her to see her "legend" for what it actually is. Were it otherwise, she might begin to make the life changes necessary to arrest her increasingly rapid slide downhill. But, where there's life, there's hope.

Let's hope that Good Samaritan who took Lisa in, and was almost taken in by her, is a bit more discerning about where she chooses to dispense charitable acts of kindness.

Not A Good Queer – Or Anything Else
We still rise! (despite morning inclinations to stay in bed)