“I felt like I was floating in a sea of moist”
BY ROSSI
The following excerpt comes from The Punk Rock Queen Of The Jews, an outrageous, queer coming-of-age memoir by Rossi releasing on 23 April. Dubbed a “rebel” by The New York Times and “the wildest thing this side of the Mason-Dixon line” by Zagat, Rossi charts her transformation from a young Jewish girl pressured to conform to societal expectations into a queer punk rock rule breaker, embarking on an adventure to discover her true identity.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Cindy. I’d never seen a woman in leather pants before. To me, she looked like a punk-rock Audrey Hepburn. It was pretty easy to look exotic in New Jersey, but there was something more than that about Cindy. She drew me in.
I started hanging out with Cindy after rehearsals. I’d tell my mother the show went late, and Cindy and I would go punk-rock barhopping.
I had a hard time sleeping after spending evenings with Cindy. I felt jumpy, like electricity ran through my veins. One night, after saying my prayers, I shoved my face in the pillow and finally fell asleep. I woke up with a start. Cindy had replaced Wonder Woman in my dreams.
And we were kissing.
The next night, after we’d been jumping around for an hour or so on the dance floor of a club appropriately called Toad Hall, we went into the bathroom to freshen up.
I lit my eyeliner pencil, then drew it across my lower lids. Cindy spiked up her red hair.
“Hey, Cindy… I had the weirdest dream…”
“What was it?”
“I dreamed I kissed you. I mean like a real… Hollywood kiss.”
“Oh yeah?” she said. She grabbed me by the cheeks, pulled me in, and stuck her tongue in my mouth.
I was so stunned I froze. But then, as she fished around in my mouth, I felt like I was floating in a sea of moist. Parts of my body I’d barely known were there, like the back of my neck, were suddenly on fire.
We stood in that bathroom, under the harsh light, making out for what felt like hours, but probably was five minutes. When she finally pulled away, I had to lean against the sink. My head spun with confusion, but also with an excitement the depths of which I’d never felt before. I felt like someone had just turned the lights on in a dark room.
“I’m gonna go get us a couple of drinks,” she said, as if the world hadn’t just shifted on its axis.
As the door slammed behind her, I stared into the cracked mirror in front of me. “That’s why!” I screamed to no one.
In bed later, I started into my nighttime prayer as usual. “I pledge allegiance to the flag, to the Torah, and to the Jewish people. I promise to live a good Jewish life and marry a nice Jewish—”
I froze when I got to the word boy. All those years of Mom trying to squash the boy out of me… Had this been what she was really afraid of ?
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