#volumevi

The following Monday I took the morning to shoot. Dom was pretty quiet and to himself except when performing.

Emilia was the female lead in the video. She said she doesn't do the whole video vixen thing (a video what?) but she agreed to this one because they didn't have her acting ratchet. Something her mom could be proud of. We realized we lived a few blocks away from each other in Brooklyn.

Coodie (white hat) is Chike’s directing partner. His wife was the makeup artist and they brought their daughter.

Chike holding the starbucks cup. After this scene I skipped back to work which was luckily just a few blocks away.

Busy day. I had a separate gig shooting for a band called Tribe Society. I texted Chike when I finish to see where he was at–10 min away filming in a recording studio.

In front is Jay305, another rapper close to Dom. Goofy, happy dude.

The next day I linked up with Chike again after work. This was up in Harlem.

Last scene, done! That's Mike on the end in plaid and jeans, Dom's Art Director. Did you know musicians have art directors?

Back at the airbnb for drinks. Hip-Hop is a very small world. Archie (holding champagne bottle) and I found out we were both on set for the Drinks On Us music video in LA earlier that summer.

A couple additional people dropped including this one petite woman with a powerful voice. She introduced herself as Ashley. I overheard her talking about her new boo who was not "in the industry." I guess that's significant?

You should get her email, she always needs a good photographer.

A year later I shot Dom’s Los Angeles Is Not for Sale, Vol. 1 album cover. Dope! Thank you Chike, Dom & Hindz.

I don't know who you are. Please believe. There is no way I can convince you that this is not one of their tricks. But I don't care. I am me, and I don't know who you are, but I love you. 

I have a pencil. A little one they did not find. I am a women. I hid it inside me. Perhaps I won't be able to write again, so this is a long letter about my life. It is the only autobiography I have ever written and oh God I'm writing it on toilet paper.

I was born in Nottingham in 1957, and it rained a lot. I passed my eleven plus and went to girl's Grammar. I wanted to be an actress.

I met my first girlfriend at school. Her name was Sara. She was fourteen and I was fifteen but we were both in Miss. Watson's class. Her wrists. Her wrists were beautiful. I sat in biology class, staring at the picket rabbit foetus in its jar, listening while Mr. Hird said it was an adolescent phase that people outgrew. Sara did. I didn't.

In 1976 I stopped pretending and took a girl called Christine home to meet my parents. A week later I enrolled at drama college. My mother said I broke her heart.

But it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free.

London. I was happy in London. In 1981 I played Dandini in Cinderella. My first rep work. The world was strange and rustling and busy, with invisible crowds behind the hot lights and all that breathless glamour. It was exciting and it was lonely. At nights I'd go to the Crew-Ins or one of the other clubs. But I was stand-offish and didn't mix easily. I saw a lot of the scene, but I never felt comfortable there. So many of them just wanted to be gay. It was their life, their ambition. And I wanted more than that.

Work improved. I got small film roles, then bigger ones. In 1986 I starred in "The Salt Flats." It pulled in the awards but not the crowds. I met Ruth while working on that. We loved each other. We lived together and on Valentine's Day she sent me roses and oh God, we had so much. Those were the best three years of my life.

In 1988 there was the war, and after that there were no more roses. Not for anybody.

In 1992 they started rounding up the gays. They took Ruth while she was out looking for food. Why are they so frightened of us? They burned her with cigarette ends and made her give them my name. She signed a statement saying I'd seduced her. I didn't blame her. God, I loved her. I didn't blame her.

But she did. She killed herself in her cell. She couldn't live with betraying me, with giving up that last inch. Oh Ruth. . . .

They came for me. They told me that all of my films would be burned. They shaved off my hair and held my head down a toilet bowl and told jokes about lesbians. They brought me here and gave me drugs. I can't feel my tongue anymore. I can't speak.

The other gay women here, Rita, died two weeks ago. I imagine I'll die quite soon. It's strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and I apologized to nobody.

I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one.

An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I don't know who you are. Or whether you're a man or a woman. I may never see you or cry with you or get drunk with you. But I love you. I hope that you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better, and that one day people have roses again. I wish I could kiss you.

Valerie

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