Alison Bechdel’s Shortest-Ever Job

One evening—years before her success as a cartoonist, with books like “Fun Home” and “Are You My Mother”—Alison Bechdel and her girlfriend were walking down the street minding their own business. “We were young lesbians in the New York City in the early eighties,” she told The New Yorker Radio Hour, “and we were dressed as such,” sporting Levi’s and denim jackets and short hair. Then a man called out to them: “You fellas want to earn five bucks?”