After a bad day at work, on the cusp of my fortieth birthday, I began a journey back to the person I wanted to be when I grew up: a writer. I never doubted I would end up at the end of a keyboard someday…once Life stopped getting in the way (Life being things like education, employment, marriage, children, tea drinking). Life never did stop getting in the way of course, so I simply chose to change my Life. No, I did not get rid of my family or job and I certainly did not get rid of the tea. I just made room. And I stopped making excuses.
On this blog you will find extracts of my writing, scraps of inspiration, works in progress, reviews, theories and regular status reports on my epic struggle to get my novel to your shelves.
The train wakes him like it has nearly every day of his life, shaking the floorboards of the attic bedroom he once shared with his brother’s ghost. For maybe the hundred time, he hears his sister Louise ask him why he stays in ‘that awful old room when you could move into Ma and Pa’s old bedroom?’ He wonders if she could bring herself to lie in that bed.
‘My room’s comfortable enough,’ he tells her. ‘Anyway, I prefer not to sleep with the dead,’ he lies.
Two blasts of the train whistle as it flies through town punctuate his morning wake-up call. The railroad, like the town, grew up around the house he grew up in. So many changes over so many years. So many people crossing the threshold before crossing over. The house saw it all from the steps of its wrap-around porch overlooking one of the main thoroughfares, where horse-drawn carriages once clattered before giving way to automobiles.
He spent the better part of a summer painting that porch Apple Green (the name of the colour on the paint can) when he was ten-years-old. And thirty. He’ll need to paint it again soon before another summer goes by. Something different this time, he decides, washing his hands twice at the chipped sink tucked under the slope of the attic eaves.
Lemon Drop is a nice colour.
‘It is,’ he agrees, wondering if there actually exists a paint colour named Lemon Drop.
Or Vanilla Cream.
Stairs shriek in protest beneath his bare feet as he makes his way down to the kitchen to fill the percolator and suck on a sugar cube. As a kid, his brother Frank suspected Father rigged the stairs so they could never sneak in or out without giving themselves away. They tried everything to trick the stair trap: walking slowly, walking quickly, walking on tiptoe, walking on the left side, the right side, walking each side together in total unison… Those traitor stairs betrayed their every move every time.
It was the only problem they ever tried to solve together. Before long, Frank took to crawling out the attic window and climbing down the porch bannister to see the girls. He never dared. Not after Frank got caught. No girl was worth Father’s wrath.
One was.
One was, he agrees.
He hasn’t heard from Frank for some time now, but those stairs still make their presence known. Maybe the next generation will solve the mystery, he thinks, chewing on buttered toast smothered in blueberry jam, adding another sugar cube to his milky coffee. The niece maybe. What’s her name again? Kitty? Kathy? Too smart for her own good (so Louise says). She’ll figure it out.
Or your son might.
He lets the words tickle, tease, torment like persistent mosquitoes. He doesn’t swat or wish them away. He knows they don’t mean any harm. They’ll be gone soon.
Even without its additional leaf, the dining room table is too big for one person. The empty chairs arranged around it emphasise his loneliness more than the empty spaces in the coat closet or the echoes of his every move in the high-ceilinged parlour. He remembers that the vent in the parlour ceiling connects with the floor vent in Louise’s old room. How many times did they cluster around that vent listening to adult family members spill their grown-up secrets deep into the night? He wonders what he would hear now if he went in that empty bedroom to listen at the floor vent?
Nothing worth listening to.
Plate and mug washed, he retreats to the ice blue bathroom to thoroughly clean his teeth with clove powder. Everything here from tiles to towels was once rose pink. Mother’s choice. ‘Just because what you do in here isn’t pretty, doesn’t mean the room can’t be.’ That was Father speaking for Mother. Interpreting for her as if she spoke a language the rest of them couldn’t understand. Considering how many people in town didn’t even have an indoor bathroom back then, having a beautiful one seemed beyond luxurious. Though the rose-pink is long gone, he can still smell, faintly, the rose soap Father gave her at every gift-giving opportunity, knowing she would never buy something so frivolous for herself. He continued gifting her with it after Father passed. Mother didn’t even like the smell of roses—as she told him over and over, but she liked the colour pink. Damned if he didn’t carry on that rose soap tradition til the day she died.
He washes his hands and face in cold water before climbing back up the shrieking stairs to dress. Already he knows it will be too hot for a suit. Any other day he would just wear a vest and roll up his shirtsleeves, abandoning his jacket on the back of the office chair. Today, he’ll have to put up with the heat. An extra layer of talcum and a few dabs of cooling peppermint oil will see off the worst of it. Someone once told him peppermint oil prevents fever. ‘Keeps you cool and keeps you well,’ whoever it was claimed.
You smell good.
A clean smell, he agrees, blushing slightly.
He dips his already peppermint smelling fingers into a pile of Pep-o-mint Lifesavers. Bright, red-white striped rolls like the pinafores worn by the hospital girls. Do candy-stripers still exist? He’s not sure. It’s been so long since he’s entered a hospital, though he once felt like a permanent figure haunting its corridors. The Lifesaver rolls collide into one another, wriggling and rattling against the sides of the glass bowl. He captures one and shoves it deep into his pants pocket.
From the nightstand, he fishes a penny out of the top drawer to feed the bubblegum machine purchased at a business auction a decade ago. He likes the satisfying click the gears make as he twists the knob; that childlike anticipation as hundreds of sugar-coated candidates jockey for position until, finally, one tumbles down the chute into his waiting palm. He tucks it neatly in the small pocket of his vest where gentlemen are meant to carry watches. He doesn’t mind that it bulges awkwardly, spoiling the line of his suit
Always keep something sweet by your side.
Always do. Always will, he promises.
He pushes through the screen door off the kitchen, past a row of bright soda shop syrup bottles. He likes the way the light filters through the colours, bathing the back porch in rainbow shafts. The front door would be more direct for where he’s going, but using the formal entrance never occurs to him. Habit to always go in and out the door closest to the garage and the car.
That new car.
A shining Chevy Impala—cherry drop red with toffee leather interior. Good to know his hard-earned cash is good for something. Frank would spit nails if he could see it. That much-loved, ever worked on Oldsmobile of his was consigned to the junkyard five years ago. The boys at the repair shop took what they could use from it, along with all Frank’s tools—tools his brother used to tinker with any car that parked near him long enough. He doesn’t need them anymore and it’s good to know someone’s getting some use out of them.
He stops to wash his hands again at the old pump, working the soap cake, wrapped in a stocking tied to the base of the pump handle, between his hands to coax a layer of lather. Growing up in an era of epidemics made him conscious of cleanliness from a young age. As a boy, he never understood why the preacher said it was “next to Godliness.” Surely, the idea of cleanliness was to avoid God and his Heaven as long as possible. Mother smacked him for saying so but didn’t say he was wrong. Young as he was, he knew he was right.
Losing loved ones to those epidemics didn’t keep him young for long. ‘So many ways sickness can make you suffer,’ as Louise so often says. Cleanliness hadn’t helped Mother or Father or Frank or…
Frank was another kind of unclean and another kind of sick and God himself probably washed His hands of him long before this mortal coil did. Father never brought Frank into the family business—much good it would have done him to try. Mother never thought much of Frank’s excuses to be anywhere but church every Sunday. She’d probably have a lot to say about his own church attendance nowadays.
What she has to say doesn’t matter anymore.
Past the place where Mother’s lilies once bloomed, on either side of the porch steps, two rows of peony bushes perk up their pink and white ruffled heads like so many precious pieces of divinity arranged for a ladies’ tea party on an emerald platter. They seem eager to play their part on this important day. He kneels respectfully before them, breathing their delicate scent until it surrounds him like a perfumed shroud.
My favourite.
He wants to pick the prettiest ones, but knows she’ll want the ones that smell nicest. Taking his time, he chooses a dozen that satisfy both criteria, carefully cutting each stem on the diagonal. ‘Makes them last longer,’ Mother said. As an after-thought, he picks a white peony—not fully open, a tightly curled whipped cream garnish of a bloom—and adds it to the collection.
At the too large dining room table, he gathers the dozen peonies together, their ice cream scoop blossoms melting into one another, then wraps the stems with a crisp length of chocolate brown ribbon. In the mirror over the buffet in the parlour, he fixes the white peony bud to the lapel of his suit jacket, securing it with a pearl tie pin. He rubs a thumb against the tarnished edges of his reflection, but it makes no change to the image of a gaunt, grey man in a pinstripe suit, decades out of style, lined face lit by the pale bud glowing near his heart in a shaft of early summer sunshine.
Who’s the lucky girl?
His reflection brightens as he smiles into the silence.
Once, this house was full of sounds: the rattles and shrieks of metal on metal from Frank’s tools in the garage; the snips and trickles of Mother with her garden flowers; the hum of music and conversation from Father’s shortwave radio that picked up noise from every corner of the globe. Gone now. The quiet feels…
Peaceful.
Peaceful, he agrees.
He lays his jacket reverently, careful not to crush the peony boutonniere, across the creamy caramel leather of the cherry red Impala before climbing into the driver’s seat. The bouquet he places on the passenger side next to a brown paper bag folded over at the top. Before starting the engine, he cracks open the small tin of Black Crows he keeps in the glove compartment and pops a liquorice into his mouth.
He turns onto Main Street and parks in front of his office, partly from habit but also for convenience. The old Virgil & Son sign now reads Virgil: Attorney at Law, each letter still bearing that fresh paint gleam. For nearly a decade, he had been content to keep his father’s name intact beside his own, but, ultimately, it caused too much disruption and confusion. No one will be requiring his legal services today though. Today, business takes him across the street—to The Sweet Shop.
Goody, goody gumdrops!.
Twin windows flank the door of The Sweet Shop—each one a feast of sights, smells and tastes. In the left window: rows of chocolate bars line up like soldier boys on parade beside girlish lollipops with paper frills around their necks while, between them, conversation hearts trade messages of flirtatious adoration; waves of cherry mash, hub wafers, honey sticks and cola bottles wash up against a pirate chest overflowing with rock candy treasures; the plaster head of a fiercely cheeky. bowler-hatted gangster advertises candy cigarettes under a speech bubble that reads “Here’s looking at you, sweetheart.” In the right window stands a fairytale gingerbread house covered in tempting penny candies with cinnamon stick trim, ice-cream cone trees, cotton candy clouds and paths pebbled with Boston Baked Beans. A witch marionette leans against her house of temptation, one jointed, green, wooden finger beckoning all good children to: “Come Taste for Yourself.”
It’s a den of delicious sin—and that’s just the outside.
Once inside The Sweet Shop, greedy customers face a terrible choice. Go left toward the jars of candy stacked ceiling-high on groaning shelves or displayed in long glass cases like crown jewels. Or, turn right to a sparkling silver counter, take a seat on a shining black vinyl stool and order ice-cream sodas, sundaes or multi-layered scoops overflowing with peanuts, coconut, chocolate sprinkles and, of course, a cherry on top.
This is his favourite place in town. The most beautiful. The most holy. This is where she should be.
‘Morning, Mr Virgil,’ greets the boy behind the counter, moving a hand to his bare head as if to remove a cap that isn’t there.
‘Thanks, Ollie. Working hard today?’ Ollie blushes, grins.
‘Yes, sir. What can I—
‘That you, Junior?’ calls a voice through a door. He winces.
‘Sure is, Mr Woody.’
Charles Woody is one of three people still living who call him by his childhood nickname. ‘Big shot lawyer like his dad,’ Woody says to anyone waiting in line for chocolates or sipping ice-cream soda when he happens to be there, ‘but time was everyone in town called him Junior.’ Woody rounds this off with: ‘Wouldn’t know it now,’ and a hearty laugh as he stands next to him comparing heights. ‘Now he’s gotta duck just to get through my door.’ More laughter.
‘I have those bulbs your misses wanted,’ he announces, eyes roving over every inch of the shop he can see, straining to sneak into those he can’t.
He holds up the brown paper bag by its folded down top. One half of Woody’s meticulously waxed moustache pokes around the corner of a door plastered with candy advertisements clipped from magazines old and new. The rest of Mr Woody’s moustache, curling over his candy apple frame, makes its way toward him.
‘Your mother’s heirloom lilies?’
‘Some even older than you are.’ Behind him, Ollie stifles a giggle.
‘Sure you want to part with them?’ Mr. Woody’s hand hesitates, but his eyes fix on the bag and its precious contents.
‘I’m not much of a gardener.’
‘Well, can’t say she’s not had he heart set on these for some time.’ The bulging brown paper bag disappears under the counter. ‘This will make me popular at home.’ A wide smile spreads across Charles Woody’s wide face. ‘On the house today, Junior.’
‘That’s really not—’ But the old man waves away his protests. ‘Thank you, sir.’
Woody shoulders young Ollie out of the way to serve his favourite customer. A shiver runs down the boy’s spine as he shuffles off to the stock room. Woody doesn’t need to ask what he wants because he always gets the same today. While the candy man fills a white paper bag, he lets his eyes wander the shelves and displays, breathing in the smell of chocolate, vanilla, fruit, cream and sugar—so much sugar.
See anything you like?
I do, he gulps, face flushing.
‘My Pearl should come see you soon. Separating from her husband,’ babbles Mr Woody. ‘About time if you ask me. Bad business. Make sure he pays for what he’s done, though, I told her. Get Junior on the case. He’ll sort that scoundrel out.’
Pearl is Mr Woody’s granddaughter. She lives thirty-five miles away in a city big enough to have a hundred lawyers. He nods, not really listening, and vaguely promises to pass her name along to a firm he knows. Woody passes the bag of sweets across the counter, pausing to give him a long, deep look. A hand on his shoulder, snaps him out of his reverie.
‘How you keeping, Junior?’
He hesitates, hand half closed over the bag. He knows this is polite interest—even sincere sympathy. But it’s not necessary and it’s not welcome.
‘I keep fine, thank you. Sir,’ he adds a heartbeat later. ‘Running late.’
Woody nods, gives his shoulder a squeeze. He mumbles softly, under his breath: ‘Miss her. A real Cracker Jack.’
How sweet.
‘Can’t be late,’ he chokes through a tight throat. Mr Woody lets go of the bag. Ollie opens the door for him.
‘Come again,’ they chorus.
Crushing the white bag to his chest, he marches smartly out of The Sweet Shop. He vanishes into the interior of his red-hot car and exhales the breath he has been holding onto. The bag of candy in his arms releases its own lungful of sweet air that soon fills the space. He gives a contented sigh and leans back into the leather.
Better now?
Much.
Ready for what comes next?
Almost.
The drive to Willow Hill Baptist Church takes him to the edge of town. True to its name, several ancient willows dot the hill it stands on, graceful branches swaying in the subtle summer breeze. Unlike Ma’s impressive red brick church, Willow Hill Baptist is a simple white clapboard with a high, angular tower. Round glittering windows above the arched doorway make it seem as if the eyes of God look down on each entering parishioner. Willow Hill is the oldest church in the county. “Built sometime after the ark” goes the local joke. “Over an Indian burial ground,” goes the local legend.
He wonders how Mother would feel about him being here. She was a Methodist born and raised and buried in the plot behind St John’s on the other side of town. Maybe she wouldn’t approve. Or maybe she would be so relieved he was going to church—any church.
She can’t tell you what to do anymore.
Flags, flowers and bunting decorate the exterior of Willow Hill and line the pathways, crowded with a slow, unsteady procession. Men in shady fedoras or freshly pressed uniforms shuffle along, hands firmly in pockets. Matrons with coiffed hair restrained under wide-brimmed hats walk arm-in-arm preceded by impatient children straying from paths to climb trees or worry birds, pursued by chastisements followed by threats.
Everyone carries flowers—wildflower posies, budding corsages, blooming wreaths big as hula-hoops. Everyone greets the preacher, standing beneficently beneath the arched doorway, with kind words, warm handshakes, distant waves, jaunty salutes, touches of hats, nods of heads. Ladies flock around the preacher’s smiling wife, sharing stories, swapping compliments.
He feels the preacher’s eyes on him as he makes his way along the winding path. Everyone here is someone who knows him. They make way as he passes. He feels contagious.
It’s their way of showing respect.
By distancing themselves? By staring? Is that respectful?
Stop. You’re here now.
He’s here now. She’s here. This is the place.
The peonies feel slippery in his palm. Sweat trickles into his collarbone. He passes the bouquet to her, remembering the first time they met.
See anything you like?
I do.
Hard to choose.
Which do you like best?
That’s easy—saltwater taffy.
Really?
Best in the state.
Pretty colours.
Can’t judge just by looks. Like the sign says: taste for yourself.
I’ll take a penny of taste.
Let me know how you like it.
I will. Next time.
Come often as you like.
He did. Again and again and again. Every time he saw her face through the window display of sweet treats. She was the sweetest of all.
They share the contents of the bag from The Sweet Shop: piece after piece of pink and white saltwater taffy. ‘Made of sugar and tears stretched, pulled, twisted and tamed,’ she joked on one of her rare dark days. Apparently, the best saltwater taffy comes from the sea. If that’s true, he’ll never know. This is the only saltwater taffy for him.
Always.
‘Dad, ain’t that Aunt Neoma?’
The name paralyzes him, but sharp awareness quickly pierces cold shock. His eyes slip sideways to a small, round boy some distance away in denim overalls and new recruit hair crouching beside a shaggy black and white dog. Both stare at him. He knows the boy.
‘Her name was Naomi,’ corrects the father. He knows him too.
‘Friends sometimes called her Neoma.’ And the mother.
‘Is that her friend?’ asks the boy.
‘That’s a lawyer,’ sneers the father. His wife laughs. He sighs.
Shut up, Hugh.
A short bark of laughter escapes his lips. Boy and dog tilt their heads in confusion. Even the father and mother stop what they’re doing to look curiously at him.
‘What’s he doing?’ the boy persists.
‘Same thing we are.’ The father, Hugh, returns to his task.
‘Why?’
‘He and your aunt were going to get married,’ the mother explains.
‘Is he my uncle?’ gasps the boy.
‘No.’ The father drops the word like a lead weight. His harshness stops the boy.
‘She died before the wedding,’ the mother adds gently after a tense moment.
‘Oh.’ The boy ruffles his dog’s fur while weighing up the worth of asking more. His mother spares him.
‘Of influenza. Flu killed a lot of people back then.’
Mother. Father. Neoma.
‘I got the flu last Christmas.’ Even from a distance he hears the boy’s voice tremble.
‘That was different. Your aunt died almost thirty years ago. It was a special flu,’ reassures his mother.
‘Don’t sound special if it killed her,’ quips the boy.
‘A specially deadly flu,’ his mother tartly amends.
‘So, he never married because Aunt Neo-ai-mo died?’
‘He wouldn’t’ve married her even if she had lived,’ his father snaps.
That’s a lie!
‘How come?’ asks his son. His father, Hugh, doesn’t answer.
‘The family didn’t like us much,’ whispers the mother.
‘Bit rich if you ask me,’ the father growls. ‘That brother of his—
‘Hush now!’ hisses his wife. ‘He might hear you.’
He hears. Every word slices. Would it do any good, even now, for him to say it didn’t matter what his family thought of her? Would Hugh understand the steps he’s taken to silence their objections?
I know. That’s all that matters.
‘Looks like Mr Lawyer likes her,’ observes the boy.
‘His name’s Virgil.’
‘His office is across the street from The Sweet Shop where your aunt worked,’ narrates the mother.
‘The Sweet Shop,’ sighs the boy with naked longing, laying his head tragically against the dog’s heaving side.
‘Maybe later.’ His mother stands, stretches, adjusts her straw hat against the sun.
‘Walk your dog first,’ commands his father.
‘Yes, sir!’ The boy leaps to his booted feet beneath stubby legs, throws his father a comically exaggerated salute. ‘Come on, Tippy,’ he calls before tearing away, the black and white dog yapping at his heels.
His mother and father gather their tools and load them into a small wheelbarrow. Some people take the decoration of memorials further than others. From what he can tell from the corner of his eye they planted a small garden around a trio of family headstones. It makes his peony bouquet and penny sweets seem pitiful.
I don’t need a garden. I only need you. Now take me home.
As the clock nears noon, a heat haze settles over Willow Hill Baptist Cemetery. The gentle breeze that whispered through the willow trees earlier in the day has gone silent, leaving the low hanging branches to droop in midday exhaustion. “Shouldn’t be so hot so soon,” he hears people mutter as he passes. “If this is Memorial Day, what’s it gonna be like come Fourth of July?” other complain.
He’s not sure when Decoration Day became Memorial Day. Those labels don’t mean anything to him. For him, today will always be their Anniversary. On this day, twenty-seven-ago, he would have married Naomi Minniver Harold. No matter what her brother says or what his mother said. Nothing would have stopped him from making her his wife.
Til death do us part.
Not even death.
He hasn’t decorated his own family’s graves in years. It feels too much like invitation, and he has worked too hard to expel their presences. Father hasn’t come back to play his shortwave radio in the middle of the night since he let Louise take it with her last time she came to visit. Frank never crashes around the garage or lifts the window sash since he gave away his tools and nailed down the window frames.
He often wonders if his brother haunts other people now. All the ones he thinks did him wrong. Plenty still around.
Mother’s ghost was the hardest to exorcise. If she wasn’t pruning the flowers by moonlight, she was making the porch swing creak or polishing the silverware. And talking—constantly talking. After Father died, she never shut up. Always filling his head with advice.
Find someone new. Make a family. Carry on the Virgil name. Your son might…
Neoma’s spirit never felt at home with Mother’s ghost. Her presence agitated Father too, who, with no radio to play, took to climbing the same staircase he boobytrapped in life just to whisper phantom disapproval in his son’s ear.
That shop girl wasn’t good enough. Her family is trash. Aim higher, son.
That was when Father started moving books around and filling in the newspaper crossword puzzle while his son was doing his part to keep the family business alive. Father’s books of poetry and history were donated to the local library. The law books went to his college alma mater. Removing Father’s name from the law firm’s sign sealed his tomb.
Giving away Mother’s heirloom lilies will be the last straw for her. Oh, she got mad as hell while he dug them up, but now they’re gone, Mother will be too. Louise will kill him when she finds out what he did to Mother’s flowers, but, for her sake, it had to be done.
For Neoma. All for Neoma.
In the gothic horror stories he loves, folks use salt to protect themselves from evil spirts. They put a line of it across every threshold to keep them out. But he didn’t want to keep them out, he wanted to bring one in and keep her there. “Catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar,” the saying goes. He can’t imagine why anyone would want to catch flies, but he reasoned the same might work for ghosts. And what better way, he thought, to welcome in the candy shop girl?
He fills every corner of his house, pockets, office, car with something sweet for her—gumballs, peppermints, sugar cubes, syrup. He consumes high amounts of sugar to truly keep her in his heart. In his blood.
Unlike some husbands, he never forgets an anniversary. Every year he leaves a bridal bouquet of peonies and a bag of saltwater taffy on her grave. He’ll do the same until he joins her, so they’ll always be together.
Together, sweetheart. With your sweet Neoma. Forever.
Naomi, also known as Neoma, was my father’s aunt who died in October 1930, when she was only twenty-two years old, of an illness no one can quite agree upon. Family lore has always been that Neoma died of Spanish Flu, but reports from newspapers at the time of her death claim it was infantile paralysis—polio. Were the doctors trying to conceal the nature of her death to avoid the panic of a community flu outbreak or did the family misremember the circumstances of her death? We will probably never know.
One Memorial Day, my father noticed a stranger laying flowers at his aunt’s grave. When he asked his mother who the man was, she told him the story of his Aunt Neoma, engaged to be married to a local lawyer before she died. Every year, those flowers appeared on Neoma’s grave…until her lost love joined her in death.
It’s PRIDE MONTH and my dear friend and muse’s BIRTHDAY!
In honour of the double occasion, I give you a birthday extract from my work in progress tentatively titled Some Kind of Something.
Though set in the mid 1980s America, the emotions and situations of my main character Len/Lenny/Helen remain relevant. Growing up and falling in love are complicated enough without questions of queerness and identity and, while things are much better now than they were, the world continues to challenge anyone who is different.
This is a work in progress, so feedback is appreciated.
Len believes that Althea has put a love spell on them. What else could possibly explain all these strange and unfamiliar feelings?
Hector, unable to stomach all the attention I’m getting, makes himself scarce over my entire birthday weekend. Best present ever. I eat three bowls of Dad’s famous French Onion Soup and keep down ever hot, cheese-topped bite.
On Saturday afternoon, Daisy and Isaac come over. The three of us sit on my screened-in front porch eating birthday pie, drinking rootbeer and feeding nacho cheese tortilla chips to Achilles the Cat.
‘I love how he just licks the cheese off them,’ Daisy giggles as Achilles crawls across the back of the sofa and down her shoulder to get at the chip in her hand.
‘Right. Like that’s really cheese,’ Isaac smirks.
‘Licks the nothing like actual cheese cheese-type topping off them,’ Daisy corrects, not missing a beat.
‘What’s this?’ Isaac jerks his thumb at the open window in the direction of the living room stereo.
‘Court of Possibility.’
‘I like,’ Isaac nods in time with a punklike polka song about a pencil case. ‘Make me a copy?’
‘For sure.’
‘Althea coming over?’ asks Daisy while Achilles drips from her left hand to her right and back again like a furry slinky.
‘She’s got a swim meet today.’
‘Swim meet,’ Isaac echoes thoughtfully.
‘Yeah,’ I shrug, then grunt as Achilles, bored of being Daisy’s slinky, leaps from her hands to my lap, claws splayed. ‘Apparently she’s a swimmer.’ I clench my teeth in pain and pry the kitten one claw at a time from the leg of my jeans.
‘She’s not just a swimmer,’ interjects Daisy, ‘she a Swimmer,’ she capitalises, emphasising the word with a jazzy hand gesture.
‘What you mean?’ Isaac tempts Achilles with a nacho chip.
‘Brendan says she’s like, ranked ninth in the state.’
Daisy steals the chip and shoves it in her own mouth. Isaac is too agog to protest the theft. I’m a bit shocked too. Not just at Althea’s swimming prowess (I take for granted that she can do whatever she puts her mind to) but that Althea has been a topic of conversation between Daisy and her jock boyfriend. I don’t doubt the information. Brendan swims for The Josiah Youth Squad and probably knows all about local swimmers.
‘Ninth?’ Isaac gasps, ‘in the state?’
‘I know, right?’ Daisy steals another chip. ‘What can’t that girl do?’
‘Bake,’ I sneer. Daisy laughs.
‘So, where’s this swim meet?’ asks Isaac.
‘At the river,’ answers Daisy.
‘The river?’ I assumed it would be at the pool. Then I vaguely remember Althea saying something about currents and water temperature.
‘It’s like some big national event,’
‘Tri-State Championship,’ I murmur, like it’s something I heard in a dream.
‘A Tri-State Championship open water swim meet?’ Isaac exclaims.
‘I think that’s what she said,’ I gulp back the image of Althea dripping on a rock surrounded by sea foam. Curse after-shocks.
‘Oh, we gotta see this!’ Isaac is halfway off the sofa when Daisy snorts in protest.
‘It’s like ten miles outside town!’
‘Perfect opportunity to take Len’s new wheels for a spin.’
Three pairs of eyes drift from the nacho cheese licking kitten to the shiny, green mountain bike leaning against the edge of the porch. Mom and Dad decided I have enough high-end stereo equipment and what I really need is to work off my long-lingering baby fat. They didn’t actually say that, but I’m pretty sure they think it. Isaac practically drooled on it. He loves bikes. I named her Gretl. First name that came to mind.
‘You guys can go,’ Daisy waves her hand in premature farewell. ‘I am not biking twenty miles. Not even to see Althea in a swimsuit.’
My face flames. Blood rushes to my ears. I bury trembling hands in Achilles’ fur to hide the electric sparks exploding from my fingertips.
‘Lazy ass,’ sneers Isaac.
‘Damn right,’ hoots Daisy, pushing herself out of the couch. ‘Besides, Brendan gets off work in like an hour.’
‘Booty call,’ Isaac grins, rolling his shoulders and rhythmically snaking his neck suggestively.
‘Damn right,’ Daisy smiles, shameless.
‘You and me, then Len.’ Isaac holds his hand out to me, palm up. Let’s see what Gretl can do.’
I can’t go to Althea’s swim meet. I’m trying to keep my distance from that witch. If I go, she’ll re-thrall me or something.
My head argues this. My hand, however, has other ideas. It dutifully high fives Isaac then reaches for my helmet.
Stupid hand.
Riding Gretl is nothing like riding my antique banana bike. The speed alone is a little dizzying. And awesome. I want to take off my helmet to feel the wind, but that would mean taking a hand off the handlebars—and I’m clutching them for dear life.
Iowa looks beautiful at this speed. Freshly furrowed cornfields fly by on either side of the rural highway: line after smudged line of ankle-high, green tufts and dark, rich earth, with cow fields in between to break the maize monotony. Midwestern spring.
Most of Iowa is covered in gentle, rolling hills. Our part is not. Our part of Iowa is flat, flat, flat. Flat as pancakes, flat as paper, flat as my chest.
‘Look to the sky, Lenny,’ Dad told me once when I complained.
‘Why,’ I whined, ‘is it flat too?’ I was nine. Nine and smart-assed.
‘You tell me.’
Dad put a granite finger under my chin and pushed my face upward. I looked, straining my head left and right, leaning and turning circles to see the whole of the sky. There was a lot of it. I’d never noticed. So much sky. Too much. I stumbled backward, overwhelmed. Dad tried to catch me and we almost fell on our butts.
‘You’re right,’ I gasped, half impressed but holding as tightly to my thread of sarcasm as I was to Dad’s arm. ‘That is one big sky.’ Dad ignored my snark. He was still looking up.
‘Our land may be flat, but it lets us see the whole of the sky,’ Dad rhapsodised. ‘Who could doubt the world is round with a dome like this overhead? Makes me feel humble.’
He was right. The sky was a great big dome. Like a glass lid on a vegetable steamer or a cake. A giant, blue and white swirled cake stand lid—as if the world were on display for someone.
But it didn’t make me feel humble. It made me feel suffocated and exposed. Pressed to the earth like a bug on the card of an godlike entomologist.
Not today though. Today I feel free. Ten miles is nothing on Gretl. Soon I see a ribbon of blue alongside the green and brown corn and cow fields. Once upon a time, steamboats chugged up and down this waterway. One or two still do, but they’re just tourist and special occasion boats.
A hundred bobbing yellow buoys knock heads with the current across the length of the river. The bouncing buoys are arranged in twelve precise lines, marking out swimming lanes, Along both shorelines, stick people with brightly coloured swim caps, like wrapped lollipops, move back and forth, taking positions at the water’s edge. Twiggy limbs twist and stretch to warm up. Any one of them could be Althea. From this distance, they all look the same.
‘How cold you think the water is?’
‘Somewhere between shrinking balls and hypothermia,’ Isaac quips. ‘Not that Althea has to worry about shrinking balls.’
‘They’re not going to swim from one side of the river to the other, are they?’ It seems like a Herculean task from where I’m sitting, perched on my bike beside what passes for a slope around here.
‘No.’ Isaac shields his eyes from the sunny glare, the better to see the lollipop people drown. ‘They’re going to swim from one side to the other and back again.’
‘No way!’
‘Way.’ At a tiny pop of a starting gun, ten lollipop stick people launch themselves into the river. ‘I think this is the men’s race.’
‘Why?’
‘No tops on the swimsuits.’
‘Oh.’ I exhale the breath I held thinking Althea might be in the water, struggling against the river current.
‘That’s discrimination really,’ Isaac comments. ‘Women should be free to go topless if they want to.’
‘You just want to stare at boobs,’ I accuse.
‘Duh.’
The swimmers start making their way back to our side of the river. Somewhere nearby a loudspeaker gives commentary, but I can’t understand a word of it. Isaac remounts his bike.
‘Come on,’ he urges. ‘Let’s see if we can find her.’
I want to protest, but my traitorous body follows Isaac through the parking lot crammed with vans and minibuses. Some have waves painted on the side, logos of various swimming teams and clubs. Aside from all the Iowa plates, there are two or three Missouri ones and at least five from Illinois.
Tri-state indeed.
The female competitors cluster in a pack. It doesn’t take long to spot Althea. I just look for the bright spot in the universe.
‘Hey!’
‘Hey.’
‘I can’t believe you’re here.’
‘Isaac wanted to come,’ I say, not looking her in the eye. ‘He’s never seen an open water swim meet,’ I babble. ‘So here we are. To cheer you on.’
‘Well, I better impress you then,’ she slaps my shoulder and I risk a look at her face. She smiles that uncertain smile just for me. My legs wobble.
Before I can look away, she shrugs out of her red and gold warm-up jacket and I see more of Althea’s body than I thought I ever would. I never realised just how far up her legs go. All the way to her hips. I never noticed her hips before either. They circle her like planetary rings brought too close by gravity until they merged. Before I can back away, she passes her jacket to me, then flounces off to the shoreline.
I can’t believe all that black hair has been restrained under that tiny red swimming cap. Now I see her back, shoulder blades winging out either side of a sinewy spine, I resent her hair’s existence. How dare her hair cover up her amazing back!
The starting gun blows to start the race. Althea dives with all the elegance I’ve come to expect (outside the kitchen). Her lithe body barely makes a splash in the gently waving river. Like the water isn’t repelling an invader, but welcoming home a lost sister.
My little mermaid, I sigh to myself and hug her jacket to my chest.
‘Holy shit,’ Isaac murmurs, stunned. ‘Who is that girl?’
‘I have several theories,’ my mouth replies before I can stop it.
‘I’m going with siren.’ Isaac sounds uncharacteristically serious. ‘I mean,’ he adds, ‘look at her swim.’
‘You should her hear play cello. Or violin. Or viola,’ My slumbering inner-beast growls in remembered jealousy over the easy way she’d played my instrument.
‘Definitely a siren,’ Isaac pronounces. ‘Musical and aquatic.’
‘Witchcraft,’ I add before I can stop myself.
‘Maybe.’ Isaac grins.
Am I talking about magic? With Isaac? Is this happening?
I should be relieved but I’m terrified. I’ve never told anyone about my belief in magic. It’s private and embarrassing. I wrap my arms protectively across my heart.
‘Did I say something wrong?’ Isaac asks.
‘No,’ I grunt.
‘Why are you getting defensive?’
‘I am not—
‘It’s ok, Len.’ Isaac gently pries my arms apart. ‘I’m not attacking you.’ He holds my released hands; gives them a reassuring squeeze. ‘Talk to me.’
I pause. I don’t know what to do. I breathe and take a leap of faith.
‘What do you believe in, Isaac?’
‘You mean, like, God?’
‘Not specifically. But maybe other supernatural stuff.’
‘Like ghosts?’
‘Ghosts. Aliens. Fairies.’
I search Isaac’s face for signals. He doesn’t look worried or like he’s about to burst out laughing. He tilts his head to one side, twists his mouth to the other side then looks directly up, as if consulting with that great entomologist in the sky.
‘I like to keep an open mind,’ concludes Isaac.
‘Tadah!’ Althea runs up to us waving her winning gold medal.
‘You won!’ I cheer, waving an imaginary pompom in my free hand—the other still clutches her jacket.
‘We should totally celebrate,’ enthuses Isaac.
‘Well, the team is going for pizza,’ Althea explains.
‘I could go for pizza,’ Isaac suggests. He looks from Althea to me, then backtracks. ‘Unless we’d be crashing.’ Althea looks from me to her teammates then back to me.
‘Free country,’ she shrugs. Isaac beams.
Monica’s Pizza is Josiah’s oldest and best pizzeria. Isaac and I get a table for two, usually reserved for romantic couples judging by the raffia-wrapped bottle of Chianti stuffed with a dripping candle. Althea’s swim team squeezes into a corner booth and quickly becomes the centre of attention for the harassed waitresses.
‘So, you think Althea is a witch?’ asks Isaac as I start on a slice smothered in Monica’s Homemade salad dressing (don’t knock it til you try it). I think while I chew.
‘Well,’ I lick thick red dressing from my thumb, ‘She put a curse on me.’
‘What kind of curse?’ I still can’t tell if Isaac’s making fun of me or not.
‘You know the brownies we’ve been baking?’
‘Yeah.’
‘She bewitched them.’ Isaac chews thoughtfully at his own slice dripping with dressing. He sips his coke. ‘Bewitched them with what?’
‘I don’t know. Bat wings? Newt eyes? Henbane?’
‘I mean, what kind of curse?’ He wipes dressing off his chin with a napkin. ‘Or is it part of the curse that you can’t talk about the curse?’
‘Love curse,’ I blurt.
‘Okay.’ He waits for me to say more, so I do.
‘But I cured it.’
‘How?’
‘Salt and iron.’
‘You hit yourself with a frying pan?’
‘I gorged on burgers and fries.’
‘And that helped because…’
‘Iron and salt defend against magic.’
‘Okay.’
Another thoughtful pause. Isaac chooses his words carefully. Like he’s tiptoeing through a conversational minefield.
‘How do you know you’re cured?’
‘I don’t feel the effects of the curse anymore.’
‘And what effects were those?’ My turn to tiptoe.
‘I felt kind of tingly every time Althea touched me. And feverish. And I felt compelled to always be around her. Like, my feet took me to her house the other day without me noticing.’ I hear what I’m saying and I know how it sounds, but I keep going. ‘Sometimes I have trouble breathing when she’s around.’
‘And you feel these things because Althea bewitched the brownies with a love curse?’ Isaac doesn’t sound judgemental or dismissive, he sounds like a doctor asking for clarification from a patient.
‘I—’ I start to say yes, but the word dies in my throat. I sigh deeply. An exhale of defeat. ‘I don’t know what to believe anymore.’ My head drops into my hands, the weight of my stupidity presses my elbows into the thin linen of the red and white checked tablecloth. ‘I don’t know what to think or how to feel or who I am,’ I confess, my weary head slipping through my fingers.
‘What about your heart rate?’ Isaac presses.
‘What about it?’
‘Does your pulse speed up when you’re around her?’
‘Yes.’ I sit up straight in my seat, alert. Isaac understands.
‘Can I offer a semi-professional opinion as a boner-fide science nerd?’
‘Please,’ I urge, ignoring his use of “boner-fide”.
‘The reactions you describe could be symptoms of a panic attack.’
‘Yes!’ I leap onto his theory, eager to make my problem something easily solveable. ‘I get those sometimes.’
‘Or,’ Isaac cautions.
‘Why does there have to be an or?’
‘Science demands it.’ I make an exasperated, horsey exhale and drop back into my waiting palms. ‘Or,’ Isaac pauses, then delivers a prognosis: ‘you might be in love.’
‘Well, duh,’ I slump in my seat. ‘Althea browniewitched me.’
‘You said you cured the curse.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So you should no longer be showing symptoms.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So why do you keep looking over your shoulder to stare at her?’
It’s PRIDE MONTH! In honour of the occasion, I will be giving you weekly extracts from my work in progress tentatively titled Some Kind of Something. Though set in the mid 1980s America, I feel like the emotions and situations of my main character Len/Lenny/Helen remain relevant. Growing up and falling in love are complicated enough without questions of queerness and identity and, while things are much better now than they were, the world continues to challenge anyone who is different.
The character of Sammy Strader is a tribute to two friends of mine who contributed their stories of growing up gay in Midwest Americaduring the 1980s and 1990s. The incident described in this extract is inspired by an actual experience–sadly not an uncommon one. Part of my motivation in writing Some Kind of Something is to remind my young, target audience that, though we have come a long way, it was a brutal journey to get there and the destination is still distant and uncertain. Never take progress for granted.
This is a work in progress, so feedback is appreciated.
One day in early October three years ago, a month after Hector started at Josiah High, my brother came home with big news.
‘There’s a gay at our school.’
‘What?’ Mom exclaimed. Her hand fluttered to her heart.
‘Yeah.’ Hector nodded, acknowledging her horror. ‘An actual, honest to gods fag. Sammy Strader.’
At the name “Sammy Strader” Hector struck a pose. His hip pushed to one side while his opposite arm flicked upward just before his wrist dropped down and his eyes rolled up. At the time, I thought he was demonstrating a new dance move he had learned at school.
‘Did you touch him?’ Dad asked, voice urgent.
‘No way!’ Hector swept the idea and his recent dance pose aside with a gesture. ‘I’m not touching that girl.’
‘See that you don’t.’
‘Is Sammy a boy or a girl?’
For several minutes I had silently followed this bizarre conversation, my head swivelling from one family member to the next searching for some explanation of what was happening. The only part I really followed was the name. I thought Sammy could be a name for a boy or a girl. Dad said “he” but then Hector called Sammy “that girl.”
Can there possibly be someone besides me in Josiah that’s hard to categorise?
‘Good question,’ Hector sneered. This did not help.
‘Hector,’ Mom whispered.
‘Huh?’
‘Sammy is a boy. Dad settled my question with a long drink from his usual before supper beer.
‘For now maybe,’ Hector jeered then threw a side-long glance at me, grinning.
‘Drop it, Hector,’ Dad snapped. But I still had questions.
‘Why can’t Hector touch…err. Sammy?’
‘Len,’ Mom whined.
‘As if I would!’ Hector winced.
‘Make sure you don’t,’ Dad warned.
‘But why?’ I wondered.
Dad explained that gays had a disease they could pass on if people touched them or sneezed on them. According to Dad, you could die if you touched a gay person. I was a little worried about the possibility of being infected by a deadly disease, but that wasn’t my main question three years ago.
‘What’s a gay?’ asked eleven-year-old me.
‘A freak!’ retorted fourteen-year-old Hector.
Hector called me a freak on an almost daily basis. Did that mean I was gay? Did I have a disease? That might explain a lot of things.
‘They’re monsters,’ Hector added.
‘Hector,’ Dad hissed, and my brother fell silent.
‘Someone who is gay,’ Mom began, paused, sipped her wine, then continued, ‘is someone who likes…umm…’ she faltered, took another sip of wine. ‘A boy who chooses to have a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend.’
‘But Hector’s got boyfriends,’ I protested, still confused.
‘No I don’t!’ shrieked Hector.
‘What about Riaz and—
‘Riaz!’ Hector’s face screwed up in horror and disgust. ‘He’s my friend not my boyfriend. I’m not going to f—’ Dad hissed and Hector hesitated, then continued, ‘fornicate with him and kiss him and…’ Hector trailed off and mimed puking into his open palms then wiping imaginary vomit on his jeans.
‘What’s forni—
‘That’s enough,’ growled Dad. He rose unsteadily from the table, crossed to the refrigerator and selected his second bottle of beer. ‘I don’t want anyone talking about it in this house.’
With that, Dad closed the fridge and the subject. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Sammy Strader. Apparently, he was a boy, but I still wasn’t totally clear what “gay” meant. I tried to look up “fornicate” in my Dictionary for Kids but wasn’t sure how to spell it. The only thing I found for “gay” was: “happy or jolly”. That made no sense. If Sammy was jolly, why did the topic of Sammy make everyone in the house angry?
How did Hector know Sammy was gay? Did someone touch Sammy and die? Was it in the newspaper?
Mom and Dad read The Josiah Journal every morning. Hector skimmed it for articles featuring himself (Honor Rolls, Soccer team results, announcements of concerts he was going to play in or had just played in). I read the comics and tried the crossword puzzles, but I never read the news before. If everyone knew about Sammy Strader—if he had killed someone, that would have made the front page of the Journal. And maybe I could learn more about this gay plague Dad warned Hector about it.
That night, I read all nine pages of The Josiah Journal news section but found nothing about Sammy Strader or gays or plagues. Until three weeks later.
It wasn’t in The Josiah Journal. It was in The Gazette, Griffin College’s student newspaper. But I didn’t read it in the Gazette, I read it on my bedroom door, where Hector glued the article so I wouldn’t miss it.
October 25th, 1983.
Student Attacked on High School Football Field
In the early hours of Saturday morning, police were alerted to a public disturbance near the football field of Josiah High School. Adam Jones, Jamie Smith and Seth Wilson were taken into police custody by the arresting officers for the assault of a fourth student, Samuel Strader.
Strader was rushed to Josiah General Hospital. The victim, aged 17, appeared to have suffered multiple injuries to his face, legs and torso, allegedly inflicted by Jones, Smith and Wilson.
“They assaulted him just because of who he is. For daring to be himself,’ quoted Katie Strader, a Griffin College freshman and sister of the victim. ‘Sammy has received threats. Anti-gay messages painted on his car and on his locker. They called him a girl and said they would make a man out of him.”
‘This is crime of hatred,’ stated Griffin College’s Gay-Straight Alliance President Brian Marks. ‘Sammy came to us for support and this is what happened.’
Josiah High School Principle George Wilson refused to comment on the actions of his students or his son, Seth. No charges have been pressed against Jones, Smith or Wilson.
Don’t tell me monsters aren’t real. Jones. Smith. Wilson. A three-headed hydra. Cerberus at the gates of Hades. Why hurt him? Did they think Sammy would pass on this gay plague? And what’s a Gay-Straight Alliance? Some kind of chivalric order?
I sat at the old wood and metal one-piece school desk that used to be my Grandpa’s. Under the seat was a compartment where I kept drawing paper, coloured pencils, stickers and notebooks. Aside from my bed, my viola and my small collection of stuffed animals, this desk was my favourite thing in my room. That night, after reading the news article Hector left on my door, I wedged myself into the desk which, by this time, was way too small for me. I sat the desk with my paper and my crayons and coloured a better image of the world to erase the one of Sammy Strader bleeding behind the bleachers.
‘Do you think it worked, Helen?’
I heard Hector’s voice around the edge of my door. Ignoring his use of my full, feminine name, I chose a golden yellow coloured pencil and returned to my half-finished picture of a sunflower. Hector crossed the threshold into my room.
‘Go away.’ I carefully outlined the sunflower, struggling to keep my hand steady.
‘Sammy Strader.’ Hector closed my bedroom door behind him. ‘They didn’t just beat up that fag. They did things to him. Things you don’t understand yet. But you will.’
‘Go away,’ I repeated, pressing my pencil harder to the page, trying to block Hector. I had a lot of sunflower to colour and I didn’t want to hear this.
‘You think they made a man out of that girl?’ Hector closed the distance between us. ‘He’s a real brother to you, isn’t he? More than me.’ I kept my eyes on my sunflower, tracing each spiky, golden petal. ‘I know what you are,’ Hector whispered. They’ll know too. Jones. Smith. Wilson. Everyone. Maybe they’ll make a man out of you.’
Hector yanked the pencil out of my hand and snapped it. Two shards of golden yellow fell on my unfinished picture. Like he’d broken a sunbeam—my own, precious sunbeam—right in front of my face.
That was the moment Hector first unleashed my monster.
My face burned. Red hot. So hot. I knew if f I opened my mouth, fire would pour from it and burn my brother to a crisp. Heat singed my throat as it travelled from my head to my shoulders, down arms and across fingers that, until recently, held a stick of gold between them. My anger burned so hot it scared me.
A monster in me.
That’s what it felt like. A growling, angry thing stirred under my skin. Hungry for meat dangling just out of reach.
I uncoiled my legs from under the desk and stood on the chair I’d been sitting on. It made me taller than Hector by a head. His head.
Off with his head! the monster inside me roared.
I launched myself at him. Unfortunately, my inner monster, blind with rage and hunger, wasn’t very co-ordinated. I tripped on the table part of my desk and brought the whole thing down on me and my brother. We tangled in the desk, but it didn’t stop us. Coloured pencils and coloured pages flew everywhere, but we didn’t stop. I cried and kicked. Hector screamed and punched. We unleashed the worst cuss words we knew.
Don’t fuck with my monster!
I don’t know how long Hector and my monster fought each other and the desk before Dad awkwardly separated us. Hector blackened my eye with his elbow. My beast made his knee swell up like a grapefruit. The desk survived unharmed.
That was the first time I remember feeling angry. More than angry. Like a vicious thing living inside me was let it out of its cage.
‘I’m a monster,’ eleven-year-old me sobbed at my father while I picked up my desk. ‘I’m cursed and there’s a monster inside me.’
I cried and tried to put the pieces of my room back together. Almost half my coloured pencils were broken; my drawing book buckled and warped. Dad sat on my bed and said nothing. Normally when I was upset, Dad would comfort me with words or hugs, stories or tickles, ice-cream or hot chocolate, but he said and did nothing that night. He just sat on my bed with the Griffin Gazette news article clutched in his hand.
‘Dad?’
My voice tip-toed, unsure how much trouble I was in for—technically—starting a fight with my brother. I waited for Dad to look at me, talk to me, yell at me. His eyes locked on the news clipping. His hands—his large, hard, loving, capable, hairy at the knuckles hands—shook slightly.
‘This won’t be you,’ Dad trembled. ‘This won’t ever be you.’
‘OK,’ I mumbled numbly.
‘You hear me, Len?’ When Dad finally looked up at me, his blue eyes burned fiercely. Like there was a monster inside him too, scorching his edges. With scaly paws, he screwed up the newspaper clipping until it became a tiny, insignificant ball between his claws. ‘Don’t let this be you.’
Three years later, Josiah still sings The Saga of Sammy Strader. He left but we didn’t forget him. His story remains a cautionary tale. The moral is pretty obvious: don’t be gay.
It’s PRIDE MONTH! In honour of the occasion, and because it’s been way too long since I’ve posted, I will be giving you weekly extracts from my work in progress tentatively titled Some Kind of Something. Though set in the mid 1980s America, I feel like the emotions and situations of my main character Len/Lenny/Helen remain relevant. Growing up and falling in love are complicated enough without questions of queerness and identity and, while things are much better now than they were, the world continues to challenge anyone who is different. This is a work in progress, so feedback is appreciated.
The first time Dad ordered me into the car without explanation was after my first panic attack on my first day of high school. Because who wouldn’t have a panic attack on their first day of high school? Josiah High was basically designed to be a red brick panic fortress.
The almost one-hundred-year-old building takes up an entire block between First and Second Street of Josiah Avenue. Six mighty brownstone columns stretch across the front of the school like stone cold sentries. The peculiarly shaped scrolls at the top of each pillar resemble clenched fists—as if the school is ready to throw down a gauntlet at your feet or, more likely, on your head, should you chose to infiltrate its hallowed grounds.
Like every good medieval fortress of torture, Josiah High comes with its own moat infested with dangerous monsters. It’s called the student parking lot. If you manage to dodge the slings and arrows of cigarette butts flicked at you by the ring of smoking ogres that surround it; if you ably avoid the nyphos making out in their shining metallic pick-up truck bowers without seeing anything so blindingly horrifying that it seals your eternal virginity, then—and only then—will you face your final hurdle: the teachers. Don’t make eye-contact. Their death stares drain the souls of all who dare.
On my first day of high school, I perched by the Second Street sidewalk as my world inhaled sharply around me. My skin broke out in cold sweat. My heart exploded.
It was obvious what was happening. I was turning into a werewolf.
The signs had been there for a year. Monthly mood swings, blood, unexplained rages. It didn’t matter that it was broad daylight with a crescent moon clearly visible in the sky, any minute now I would transform into a thirsty beast and devour the entire student body.
Lycanthropy is stress related, not just moon related. There is plenty of mythological evidence for this, I rationalised. I must avoid crowds and stress. I can’t possibly be trusted around the hormonal tasty treats of Josiah High.
I need a bathroom. Somewhere to calm down, throw up, freak out. Whatever.
Nothing looked like a bathroom. I walked past classrooms that smelled like old books, classrooms that smelled like chemicals, classrooms that smelled like pencil shavings. Where, I asked myself, was the room that reeked of urine and peace?
A giggling frosted blonde in a pink minidress asked me if I was lost. Two other pastel-clad girls with similarly frosted, teased and tortured hair flanked Miss Pink. They looked like a coven of bitter flower fairy witches. I told them I was looking for the bathroom.
‘Which one?’ asked Pink. The other members of her coven giggled.
‘Nearest one,’ I croaked.
‘Which one?’ Pink repeated. More laughter from the coven. I said nothing. Pink sighed in annoyance at having to spell it out for me. ‘Do you need the little boy’s room or the little girl’s room?’
Something spiked inside. Adrenaline, magic, panic, werewolf rage. Whatever. My face burned as Miss Pink and her coven of wicked witches looked me up and down trying to figure me out. They laughed.
Oh, very original. Witch, you think you’re the first person not to know what to make of me? Screw you. Screw your coven. Screw every bathroom sign in this school!
I marched away, intent on completing my quest for the bathroom. Hot on my heels, the three cackling witches followed. I tried to lose them, but they wouldn’t give up. They chased me through floor after floor, down corridors and up stairways chanting: ‘which one, which one, which one’ and laughing their frosty heads off.’
After hearing about my horrible day, Dad ordered me into the car. I hoped we were going out for ice cream, instead, he drove to a cornfield outside town. Josiah is surrounded by corn fields—like a defensive maize maze. After parking at the edge of the field, Dad ordered me out of the car. Soon I stood amidst the sad remains of what, a month or two ago, would have been a crowd of corn plants taller than me. Now, it was a field of pathetic, post-harvest corn corpses.
‘See this?’ Dad asked, ‘This is you.’
‘I’m a corn zombie?’
‘No,’ he grinned. ‘You’re outstanding in your field.’
‘Daaaaaaaad,’ I groaned.
‘Outstanding in your field,’ he insisted. ‘That’s how you should be. You should stand tall and above it all.’
Stand tall and above it all. Be outstanding in your field. I’m not sure I am, Dad. Not yet. But I want to be.
It’s PRIDE MONTH! In honour of the occasion, and because it’s been way too long since I’ve posted, I will be giving you weekly extracts from my work in progress tentatively titled Some Kind of Something. Though set in the mid 1980s America, I feel like the emotions and situations of my main character Len/Lenny/Helen remain relevant. Growing up and falling in love are complicated enough without questions of queerness and identity and, while things are much better now than they were, the world continues to challenge anyone who is different.
This is a work in progress, so feedback is appreciated.
There was a girl in my pre-school that wanted to be a boy. Lasandra Guthrie. She was the tallest, blackest four-going-on-five-year-old girl I had ever met with hair that added at least half a foot to her height—an explosion of head fluff that made her look, to four-going-on-five-year-old me, like a dandelion fairy.
‘Are you a dandelion fairy?’ I asked her.
‘Yes,’ she confessed without batting an eyelash.
‘Cool.’
‘I’m Larry,’ she asserted.
‘But isn’t your name—
‘I am not Lasandra anymore. I want to be a boy and that boy’s name is Larry.’
‘Can you really do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘Become a boy?’
‘My mom says I can be anything I want to be.’
‘Mine too.’
This was a lie. My mother suggested a range of options for my future, but they were limited. With those hands, you’ll be a pianist. You’re going to be tall like a fashion model. You’re so kind—you’ll make a great mother someday.
‘Can I be a boy too?’ I asked Larry.
‘Not with a name like Helen you can’t.’
‘What about Lenny? I could be Lenny. Larry and Lenny.’ I liked the sound of those names together.
‘Copycat,’ sneered Larry.
‘Am not.’
‘Are to.’
And so on.
Larry’s hair obsessed me. I got in trouble at least three times a day for trying to touch it. Larry would slap my hand away and say: ‘You ain’t allowed!’ This made me wonder if Larry’s hair, like mine, was cursed.
My earliest memories of are of Mom doing things to my hair: brushing it, patting it, stroking it, arranging it, sticking things in it, washing it, spraying it with mysterious substances. Never cutting it. Never. No one was allowed scissors around me. Like Sleeping Beauty’s spinning wheels, scissors took on a dark, supernatural aura of horror.
‘How could anyone think of cutting this?’ Mom would croon.
She wasn’t wrong. I’ve seen the photographs: perfect, pale golden curls twisted and tumbled artistically around my plump, cherubic face. Fairy tale hair.
‘Like an angel,’ said Mom.
‘Little Shirley Temple,’ said Grandma.
Except my hair refused to grow. It curled around my ears and tickled the back of my neck, but never reached further. Year after year after year the same exact length. It grew darker, morphing from pale gold to tawny gold, eventually, settling on a dusky shade of sand. But it never grew longer.
Mom tried everything. Special foods. Hair tonics. Potions. Spells. Nothing worked. My hair stayed permanently short, dooming me, along with my taller height, deeper voice and angular features, to forever being mistaken for a boy.
I often imagine an androgynous fairy waving a magic brush over my cradle: “Your daughter will be blessed with hair of finest spun gold that never grows as she gets old; though you may encase her in frilly dresses, it shall not lengthen out her tresses; gift her, if you will, with dolly toys, but she’ll only want to play with boys.”
And so on.
This is why people forever play the What Are You? game with me. Are you a boy? Are you a girl? What bathroom do you use? Everyone wants to label me pink or blue.
Grandma Mouse says: “Tell them: I’m lavender, honey and you best beware the sting of my bees.”
That mostly confuses them which gives me enough time to run.
It’s PRIDE MONTH! In honour of the occasion, and because it’s been way too long since I’ve posted, I will be giving you weekly extracts from my work in progress tentatively titled Some Kind of Something. Though set in the mid 1980s America, I feel like the emotions and situations of my main character Len/Lenny/Helen remain relevant. Growing up and falling in love are complicated enough without questions of queerness and identity and, while things are much better now than they were, the world continues to challenge anyone who is different.
This is a work in progress, so feedback is appreciated. If you think it’s too gushy or preachy, let me know. If you think: oh, wow—I’ve had this same conversation in my head, let me know that too.
Daisy, Len’s best friend, has just confronted her about her feelings for another girl, Althea. Even though Daisy tries to reassure Len that being in love with another girl is no big deal, they argue over Daisy’s attempt to shove Len out of the closet.
As I’m about to leave school, I find a carefully folded note in my locker. I know it’s from Daisy because of the “Happy Birthday” handwriting. She used origami witchcraft to force the paper into the shape of a triangle, smeared the triangle with neon pink highlighter then drew two purple violets in the middle, their petals crossing so it looks like they’re holding hands. Whether the violets are meant to represent me and Daisy or me and Althea, I’ll never know because I’m too enraged by the pink triangle to ask.
That’s when I dent my locker for the second time in one day. At least I manage to hit the same spot. My knuckles don’t thank me for it though.
Does she think I won’t get it?
I sat right next to Daisy in Modern European History the day Mr Snowden covered the classifications of concentration camp prisoners—gold stars and every colour of triangle. I know what the pink one means. She knows I know what the pink one means. If anyone else put this in my locker, I’d think they did it to be cruel, but Daisy did it and I can’t think why. If she doesn’t stop, she’s going to spoil the whole Althea thing.
Don’t let her, growls the rageful monster inside me. It doesn’t usually talk, but it has a lot to say today. She doesn’t choose for you.
But that’s the problem, I explain to my inner beast, I don’t get to choose.
In my heart, I know Daisy thinks she’s helping me come to terms with a version of me she’s imagined. Shoving me out of the closet she’s created into the pink triangle spotlight where I’ll live as her imaginary free and happy little lesbian. But it’s not her spotlight. I already live in an unwanted spotlight and most of the school already thinks I’m gay or lesbian depending on whether they see me as a boy or a girl. They can’t decide what’s in my pants, but they still care who gets in them with me.
Thinks is the operative word here. They think I’m a lesbian. It’s their label. Not mine. But if I were to claim that label for myself—stand up to them and say: yeah, that’s me and, oh by the way here’s my girlfriend; what you gonna do about it? Then they would know I’m a lesbian. And there is a big difference between people thinking you might be and people knowing you are because you’ve said it out loud and proud.
It’s all very well for Daisy. She’s got nothing at stake here and she won’t be the one tied to it. Me? I’ve got a stake hanging over me like a Damocles sword and a town full of pitchfork-wielding villagers hot for a reason to burn me on it.
And, the truth is, I don’t know how I feel. It’s complicated to think about boys because half the time I feel half-boy. Half-boy but not at all boy. Thinking about girls is just as confusing because I’m a non-girl—which is not the same thing as being a boy. I know other girls make a point of not undressing anywhere near me in the locker room. I also know they watch me when they think I’m not looking. And I know what’s at stake if I say anything to them about it.
So, I ask my monster, what am I supposed to make of all that?
Don’t care what they think, my monster grunts.
Which is exactly why I wear headphones so I can’t hear what they have to say and keep my head down so I can’t see how they look at me, I explain to my slightly soothed savage beast. It’s not a nice way to live, but it’s safe.
Then came Althea: funny, fierce, talented, smart, pretty, wild, magical Althea who can do anything. From the moment she found me on the bench outside Prairie Hall and decided it didn’t matter what I was and every moment since then. She treats me like a person—not a boy or a girl or straight or gay, but just a person she likes to be with. And that’s enough for me. Being her friend is enough.
But Len, I hear Daisy plead, if you could only see. You light up around her.
This is probably true, but I’m not sure it’s true for the reason Daisy thinks it’s true. The truth is that half the time I don’t know if I want to be with Althea or to be Althea. I don’t know if I’m her friend or her apprentice. Either way, maybe she’s training me to be a new version of myself? But it can’t be more than that. It can’t be like Daisy wants it to be. I don’t want to burn at the stake and I don’t want to see Althea flaming at the stake next to me.
For the first ten years of my life, I was often mistaken for a boy. I wore my hair short, I wore boyish clothes, hung out with and did boyish things. This mostly stopped when my boobs became glaringly obvious, but for most of my adolescence, I was still “gender suspect.” (I think I just made up that phrase, though someone else has no doubt used it already.)
I wasn’t a boy, but I wasn’t quite girl enough to be a Girl (note the capital letter). I played softball, but I sang in choir (alto, of course). My friends were mostly boys, but they were gay boys. I wore dresses, but not make-up. My hair was short and product-free, but I had DD-cup boobs. My walk was half Boy Scout Hiker, half Punk Band Roadie in my delicate Mary Jane shoes.
If I’d joined half a dozen sports teams or owned at least one baseball hat, I couldn’t have been a Tom Boy. But I wasn’t. No one, including me, knew how to categorise me except to label me as a Lesbian. I knew this wasn’t totally accurate, but I mostly let it go because I didn’t care enough to correct anyone. It seemed easier.
Given my gender suspectness, I should have become a Trans Ally much earlier. But I didn’t. In fact, for a very long time, Trans was something I struggled with on an intellectual and political level. It wasn’t until earlier this year that I began to understand, thanks in part to an ignorant feminist and a patient student.
My first encounters with Trans People must have been in the mid-nineties. I remember meeting a transwoman, just starting her transition, at a gay bar in Midwest America. She was utterly gorgeous and glamorous. A Queen of the Fairies in our mundane world. No one could quite believe she was real.
At one point in the evening, she turned to me, one of the few other women at this particular gay bay, to make some kind of complaint she thought only another woman would understand. I don’t even remember what it was, but I remember feeling annoyed. As a woman who struggled with misogyny all her life. As a feminist brimming with the righteous indignation of a heavily educated twenty-something.
How dare you? I thought. You just got here. You’re trying on my gender for size and you think you have the right to claim sisterhood?
Later in life, I met more transwomen. Though outwardly sympathetic and supportive, inside I burned with resentment. Each one embodied what, in my opinion, were the worst, most stereotypical aspects of femininity. Characteristics that, in any other woman, I would find annoying. Soft, high voices. Heavy make-up. Meticulous hair. Modest mannerisms.
You don’t want to be a woman, I thought to myself, you want to be a 1950s housewife pin-up. Is this really what you think women are like? Again, I thought: get out of my gender.
The idea of reassignment surgery bothered me. It seemed excessive and invasive. When everyone started using the terms sex and gender inter-changeably, I was incensed.
Sex is biology, you morons! Gender is socio-cultural! Not that same thing! Get it right!
Most of all, as a feminist, I felt like Trans People were not blurring the lines of gender, they were reinforcing them. Each time I read an article about someone feeling like they were “in the wrong body,” I thought to myself: why? Why can’t you just be a different kind of man or woman? Why not challenge societal beliefs about what makes someone male or female instead of jumping ship?
I held up Eddie Izzard as my gender champion. Eddie Izzard who wears three-piece suits and full-face make-up. Who sometimes looks butch and sometimes femme. That’s how it should be: blurred lines not iron gates.
Then, earlier this year, I got a serious, two-fist punch of a reality check that changed everything.
The fist hit to my gut came from an article I thought would finally say everything I’d thought about Trans for the past twenty-odd years. It would be quite helpful at this point for me to post a link to said article, but I don’t remember who wrote it or even where I read it. I only remember how it changed my mind.
The op-ed article was written from a feminist perspective outlining many of the arguments I’d already formed in my own head. It wasn’t until I saw my own thoughts thrown back at me from someone else that I realised how stupid and wrong they were. Namely, the idea that transwomen don’t get to be part of the sisterhood because they haven’t experienced a lifetime of patriarchy.
Reading this, I remembered my past refusal to acknowledge a transwoman who hoped I would understand what it was like to suffer as a woman. It sounded totally stupid. I sounded totally stupid.
What was I thinking? That a girl has to clock up a set number of hours’ worth of oppression before she gets to talk about her suffering at the hands of the patriarchy? That men don’t suffer under patriarchy? That anyone trans doesn’t?
Of course they do. We all do. If I don’t sincerely in my heart, mind and soul believe patriarchy causes pain for everyone, I have no business calling myself a feminist.
Still, I wasn’t ready to give up all my old opinions. Around Pride Month, I got into a long discussion with some students in my form about trans issues. I tried explaining the difference between sex and gender and expressed the point of view that reassignment reinforces gender roles. One student called me Transphobic and walked off, but another one patiently listened.
‘People should be free to embrace their inherent femininity and masculinity,’ I argued. ‘Be a different kind of boy. A different kind of girl. One that doesn’t have to conform to society’s strict rules about gender.’
‘Fair enough, Miss,’ said my patient student. ‘Maybe someday the world will be like that. But for now, we have to live in this world.’
Well, shit.
That was the moment I truly understood my own privilege. I may have grown up a little bit gender suspect, but I was certain of my womanhood. A different kind of woman, but always a woman. I have some masculine mannerisms, but I am female. I have no clue how it feels to be alienated by my body.
And what about all the people in-between? The ones who are neither male nor female either in heart or mind or body or all three? What right do I have—what right does anyone have—to dictate their identity when it harms no one? When we’re all just doing the best we can to survive the patriarchy?
I still believe the world will be a better place under the Izzard Flag, where we can embrace our inner duality and be celebrated for it in a world free from oppression. Until then, we have to live in this world. Live and let others live.
The following extract is from my work in progress: a YA novel entitled Some Kind of Something which is inspired by my best friend’s first love. Chapter Three reminds me a lot of how said best friend and I first met. Happy Birthday to my Len-spiration!
Chapter Three: Giant Girl Made of Hair
Bench near the parking lot of Pioneer Hall. March 25th, 1986
If someone wears headphones—big headphones, proper headphones, the ones that look like cybernetic earmuffs slurping at your skull with spongy musical love, and an insulated cord so long it reaches all the way back to the womb. If someone sits on their own in the middle of a bench wearing headphones like that, it’s a clear signal that someone wants to be left alone. Most people understand this.
Althea Ray does not understand.
I have temporarily escaped from the Illinois Youth Orchestra. The last straw was watching my brother flirt with First Chair Violist Megan who, I think, was flirting with Glowing Jordan of the Flutes. I’m not sure if Glowing Jordan was flirting with anyone, but it didn’t seem like he was going to be ascending or transforming anytime soon either.
Hate to miss that.
But I need fresh air and I don’t care if it’s allowed or not. I’m sitting on a bench outside Pioneer Hall, watching the security lights in the parking lot tremble to life as the sun sinks below the horizon. I’ve got my headphones on, there’s no one else around and there’s a fresh, crisp spring breeze blowing through my hair. If anyone asks, I’m waiting to meet my parents before the concert.
The idea of the concert and my parents spoils the peaceful moment. My pulse starts to race and my everything clenches in anticipation. I’m not sure which looming crisis scares me more: performing as one of the youngest members of the Illinois Youth Orchestra or performing with my brother for our parents as one of the youngest members of the Illinois Youth Orchestra.
The security lights in the parking lot flick on and off like they can’t decide whether they’re meant to be up yet. Or they’ve woken up ready to party. A disco strobe parking lot.
Their indecision is not helpful. My breathing becomes quick and shallow, my throat constricts and I’m about to launch myself off this bench and onto the disco parking lot, when the sound of heavy panting followed by a solid thump makes me jump. Huge quantities of black hair greet me from an impossible height.
‘Hi.’
Talking black hair. Flickering security lights silhouette the sleek head in lightening bursts like something out of a horror film. I shrink into the collar of my black turtleneck. One hand emerges from the shadow and gives a little wave. A second hand rests on the shoulder of an enormous purple case which contains either a giant guitar or a small child.
The giant’s hair is everywhere. Black sheets of it slide from a neatly parted scalp, down the sides of a heart-shaped face, over narrow shoulders, across the purple case/coffin. She—I assume it’s a she beneath all that hair—realises it’s in her way because one hand pushes it back, revealing a person. In the dark, with the flashing light behind her, I can’t make out her features, but I think they’re mostly female and human.
‘Hi,’ she repeats.
She smiles tightly down at the part of the bench occupied by Chordelia then raises her black eyebrows as if asking my viola for permission to sit down. Her full lips widen into a manic, sunbeam smile, all white teeth and infectious cheer. The sort of smile beauty queens and talk show hosts practice in the mirror. It’s a: “You’re going to like me and I won’t give up until you do so you might as well face it and make room for me because I can charm you under the table with my teeth tied behind my back” smile.
Fingers still trembling, I pull Chordelia, safe in her case, onto my lap, making room for the hairy giant with the monstrous purple coffin to sit down next to me.
‘Thanks,’ she mouths. Her long legs vanish beneath the bench. ‘I felt a bit stupid just standing out here by myself,’ she shouts into my ear. ‘With this thing,’ she slaps the side of the purple case, possibly as a signal to silence the poor creature trapped inside it.
Why is she out here at all? And why is she shouting?
‘What are your listening to?’ the giant girl of hair bellows.
Oh. That’s why.
I forgot about my headphones. Easy to forget because they aren’t plugged into anything. The jack is stuffed into the back pocket of my pants. I don’t wear headphones for entertainment, I wear them for protection. Like armour. When I wear my headphones, no one tries to talk to me. (Usually.) I can pretend not to hear the nasty things people say behind my back and to my face. My headphones defend me.
Beside me, the girl made of black hair stretches caramel-coloured hands and shakes out long, slim fingers. Pianist hands, I think, though it’s probably not a piano inside that purple beast. Now that my head isn’t picturing horror films, I recognise it as a cello case. Like Hector’s. Only purple.
Great. She’s a giant hairy cellist.
‘What are you listening to?’ she repeats, louder, closer and slower, tucking stray strands of hair behind her ears. That hair has a mind of its own. It wants to be free.
‘What?’ I ask breathlessly. I slide half a headphone to one side, pretend I haven’t heard her, try desperately to think of how to answer, wish she hadn’t asked and wonder if she can tell I’m breathing like a marathon runner on mile twenty.
‘What are you listening to?’ she asks for a third time.
‘Umm…’ My face heats. I suck at lying.
‘Is it shocking?’ she grins in a voice borrowed from some English Victorian parlour drama. ‘Or just embarrassing and ridiculous?’ She rolls her the “r” of ridiculous.
‘Both,’ I puff, kind of truthfully.
‘I think I’ve seen you around the practise rooms at school.’
‘Probably,’ I nod, grateful to move on from the topic of what I’m not listening to on my headphones. ‘I spend a lot of time there.’
‘I’m Althea.’
A caramel hand stretches out from behind the ebony curtain of hair and takes mine. Despite the early spring chill, her hand feels warm. My cold, shaking fingers hold her too tightly for too long.
Althea doesn’t seem to mind. She smiles. Not the beaming beauty queen smile she flashed because she wanted something, but a real smile. An awkward smile that doesn’t look forced exactly, just off. Like her smile is still trying to figure out its purpose in the world.
‘Len,’ I mumble.
I try to take my hand back, but she holds onto it for another minute before letting go. A familiar routine plays out on Althea’s face. One I’m used to. If she has noticed me before, hanging around the practise rooms, it’s probably not the first time she’s played this game.
I can almost hear her brain wonder: What are you?
Her eyebrows, black and thick as her hair, knit together. Her eyes, big, black and almond-shaped, with almost no fold at the lids, study my face. I wonder if she’s Asian or Indian. I wonder if it’s OK to ask. Her eyes drop from my face down to my chest then up to my neck.
Smart girl. Too bad. I’m wearing a turtleneck.
I wait for her to make up her mind. To take in my square jaw and peachy skin; my long lashes and chiselled cheek bones; my short hair and gentle curls. I wait for her to put this together with my alto/tenor voice, my long, lanky body, softened by puppy fat but still unformed, and my unhelpful name. I wait for her to ask. Like everyone else.
She never does.
‘What you listening to, Lenny?’ Althea doesn’t change her body language one bit. Not to slide in closer or shift to make room. Not that she could have. Most of the available space belongs to her. ‘Before I interrupted you,’ she adds apologetically.
‘Nothing,’ I confess, but she talks over me.
‘The Vivaldi piece? That’s a tough one for the violists.’
‘Yeah,’ I respond, answering the second question, avoiding the first.
‘The third movement is kicking my ass,’ she sighs.
‘The embellishments on the first are a bitch,’ I agree, matching her swearing.
‘Don’t you think Vivaldi’s like the angry gym teacher of the string section?’
‘The one who makes us run in place and calls it a rest period?’
‘Yeah,’ laughs Althea. ‘That one.’ I made her laugh. Encouraged, I stretch the joke even further.
‘He’s like the bitter coach who thinks he’s pushing us to make us stronger.’
‘Totally,’ she giggles.
‘I hate that guy.’
‘Vivaldi’s a bully.’
‘He was a violinist,’ I shrug.
‘The diva sopranos of the string section,’ she replies.
‘Totally,’ I chuckle.
‘Maybe he wanted revenge for all the hours spent practicing.’
‘Probably,’ I agree.
A dark cloud settles over the conversation. I wonder how many years she has sacrificed to the gods of music. As many as I have? I wonder how good she is. Better than me? Better than Hector?
If she turns out to be better than Hector, that would be awesome!
‘Sounds like we have a lot in common, Lenny.’ She places one hand on her purple case and one hand on Chordelia’s, patting them with a grim kind of fondness.
‘Len,’ I correct her.
Then, before I can stop myself, I give away the punchline to my favourite joke. Just blurt it out. Like it means nothing. Like it isn’t my weapon and shield.
‘It’s short for Helen.’
I wait, breath held, for her reaction. She shrugs. Like it doesn’t matter. Boy? Girl? Vegetable? Mineral? It’s almost always the first thing people want to know about me. But Althea doesn’t seem to care.
Well, this is different…
‘J Althea Ray,’ she proclaims formally, holding her hand out again, this time waiting for me to take it.
I worry my hand will be too clammy or slightly shaky but, to my surprise, it feels steady. The pulsing terror at my throat is gone. Like magic.
‘Helen R Timothy.’ Her hand feels deliciously warm.
‘Timothy?’ she repeats, incredulous. ‘As in Hector Timothy?’
‘Yeah.’ I take my hand away and pull Chordelia to my chest. The spell is broken. She’s going to be another Hector fan, I just—
‘But he’s such an asshole.’
The world stops spinning for a moment. Did she really just call my brother an asshole? Wonderful Hector? Genius Hector? Hector that everyone loves?
‘Umm…’ I mumble, completely wrong-footed in the best way. Like stepping off a high dive and falling into a pool of cotton candy rainbow clouds.
‘Sorry,’ she backtracks, ‘no offense, but your brother is kind of a—
‘Dick,’ I finish for her enthusiastically. ‘Yeah. He totally is.’
And in that moment, I know. The instant she calls my golden brother an asshole, I know this is someone special and magical and important.
‘What’s the J stand for?’ I ask, struggling to tone down my sense of wonder.
‘If we’re still friends a year from now,’ she grins mischievously, ‘I’ll tell you.’
I think I needed it more than they did. Not for me exactly, but for the ones who came before: the friends who struggled and suffered in so many ways; the heroes who made it possible; the haters who finally, reluctantly, dragged their asses to the band wagon. Of course, it didn’t go as planned. Does it ever?
It’s Pride Month and I didn’t want Pride Month to go by without marking it with the ones who matter: my students. Because I remember how it was and, as much as things have changed, I’m not so naïve to think the battle has been won.
When my daughter came out to me, I was gutted. Not in an “Oh my god my kid is queer,” hand wringing sort of way, but because she was so blasé about it. There was no tearful conversation over hot chocolate that went late into the night. It was just: ‘You know, mum. Most of my friends are pan.’ Later, I had to look up what that means.
Obviously, I am delighted that she and her friends have that freedom. Even more delighted that my friends—the parents of her friends—have barely batted an eyelash. I’m still a little bitter at being denied the opportunity to bake rainbow cupcakes for an official Coming Out Party, but I’ll get over it.
One girl in my form came out as Pan over the summer and another has spoken openly about her girlfriend to me and others. And they are not alone. There’s at least one lad in Year 10 who is out and a trans kid in Year 9 who was the topic of a Staff Meeting. The Deputy Head wanted to make sure we call him by his new name and informed us of the arrangements in place for him.
All this fills me with a kind of joy that, as their teacher/colleague, I can’t express properly because it might get me fired. I want to hug them and kiss them through tears and tell them how proud I am and overwhelmed by the world they are shaping for us all. I want to dance with them to Erasure.
On the other hand, I had a stern conversation early this year with two others in my form for queer bullying. The battle is far from over. Which brings me to Pride Month.
Last week, I decided to mark Pride with the students in my form. I wanted them to understand the origins of Pride and to appreciate the monumental progress which has taken place in a relatively short period of time. After a lunchtime spent sifting through options, I showed them Tyler Oakley’s Chosen Family: Stories of Queen Resilience. The queer girls cheered when they saw the rainbow and the word “queer” in the title, though their attention drifted as Tyler Oakley investigated the history of The Stonewall Riots and interviewed a bunch of old queers.
I wanted to scream. Don’t you get it? Two generation ago, you would’ve been arrested for partying with your friends! A generation ago, you wouldn’t have dared come out. A generation ago, you would’ve had the shit beat out of you. Your parents would have disowned you and their friends would have sympathised with them. My friend’s mother brought a priest to their house to perform an exorcism when he came out. People died. So many people died. And your attention is drifting!
How dare you?
‘It wasn’t that long ago,’ I explained, ‘that police raided gay bars—
‘That were ages ago,’ interrupted Girl Who Talks Openly About Her Girlfriend.
‘—for no other reason than they were gay,’ I finished.
‘Half a lifetime ago,’ added Pan Girl.
‘That’s not that long,’ I protested. ‘It took women two thousand years to get the vote. It took blacks in American three hundred years to get from enslavement to the presidency. Never take your liberty for granted.’
‘And anyway, if the Stonewall Riots were in June,’ continued Girl Who Talks Openly About Her Girlfriend. ‘So why do we celebrate Pride in August?’
‘We don’t. York Pride was last week and Harrogate Pride is this weekend.’
‘Yeah, but London Pride—
‘Is in the first week of July so it doesn’t clash with Wimbledon,’ I argued, guessing wildly.
Girl Who Talks Openly About Her Girlfriend shrugged and the bell rang and the moment I invested so much in died. This is how it is to teach teenagers. I want to grab her and shake her until she gets it. Again, this would get me fired. I also want to hug her, cry on her shoulder and tell her how grateful I am that she lives in a better world. Not a perfect one, but better.
Because I remember how hard it was for people I loved to live life in the closet. I remember how painful it was for them to come out and how terrible it is when they decide not to—to permanently live the lie. I remember families rejecting them. I remember beautiful people dying of a disease that became the butt of every joke for a decade.
I worry that everyone else has forgotten. There has been so much progress so quickly: gay marriage legislation; more adoption equality; a community that has exploded as one famous person after another comes out and new ones step forward in a rainbow spotlight. It’s easy to forget and grow complacent. Until the Supreme Court rules in favour of a baking bigot.
As the various people in the video say, we must do what we can to honour those who came before. The ones who put their bodies on the line so that we can have the freedoms we have today. They risked their lives—many lost their lives. To forget would be a true tragedy.
My students might not get it yet, but I do. Bless those drag queens of yesterday. May their heels not break on rough roads tomorrow.
It’s PRIDE MONTH and my dear friend and muse’s BIRTHDAY!
It’s PRIDE MONTH! In honour of the occasion, and because it’s been way too long since I’ve posted, I will be giving you weekly extracts from my work in progress tentatively titled Some Kind of Something. Though set in the mid 1980s America, I feel like the emotions and situations of my main character Len/Lenny/Helen remain relevant. Growing up and falling in love are complicated enough without questions of queerness and identity and, while things are much better now than they were, the world continues to challenge anyone who is different. 
Katharine Eisley 