CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

 

 

Trixie wonders what she is doing here. She is not even completely sure where “here” is. She has already forgotten what it felt like to be on the bus just moments ago. The jerking vibrations, the zombified commuters, the faint scent of watermelon vomit and alcohol-drenched urine are all a distant memory. It took two transfers and one hour to complete the trip. In the time between the first transfer, she almost decided to take the bus that would have returned her home. “Here” would have remained “there.” It would be safer and more comforting to be home in her bed, clutching her unwashed sheets that still retain the unmistakable scent of feline.

Now she hovers at the busy intersection of First and Ozymandias, two long blocks from her destination of Sweet Pepper Lane. The streetlight turns green and she glides slowly, avoiding eye contact with the few people bustling about, following the handwritten directions left for her in her mailbox one month ago. She has been informed that the door leading to the Monarch Metamorphosis Syndicate building will not be clearly marked.

She checks the map, double-checks it, then enters a quiet, clean, unassuming alley. Garbage is confined to its proper cans. A blue macaw peers silently at her from inside a tinted apartment window. Two young boys who could have been extracted from a Norman Rockwell painting toss a football back and forth. It may be the only alley in Sweetville devoid of graffiti. She wonders if “here” is even the correct “here.”

Trixie reaches a dull white door with a silver knob. A dime-sized sticker with the number ninety-nine is attached to the top corner of the door. She removes a key from her back pocket. The key was also left in her mailbox, attached to the map with a single piece of clear tape. She inserts the tiny key into the lock and turns the chilled knob. The bolt clicks and unlatches with a crisp tick. She turns to see if the boys throwing the football are watching her, but they have vanished and returned to their normal, picturesque lives.

A thick darkness resides behind the door. Trixie slices the key through it, expecting that the voluminous black mass will have the texture of pudding left to rot. But it is only air. Stygian, shadowy air.

She enters the unknown.

Stairs, stairs and still more stairs leading down, down, down. It cannot reasonably be more than a handful of flights, but Trixie has been descending them for at least two minutes and has already lost count. Strings of blue Christmas lights now illuminate each level, clinging to the handrails like electric vines. Trixie wonders if there is adequate oxygen this far below the surface, if it is even possible to sustain life this close to the Earth’s core.

Trixie has heard whispers, rumors, echoes through the streets over the years, but until this moment, she has never realized that Lower Sweetville takes its namesake so literally.

Trixie reaches the bottom and feels a gush of icy wind as she approaches doorless entry. Powerful, pungent air conditioning. She pauses for a moment before crossing the threshold, considers turning back, then considers she does not want to head back up the endless flights of stairs and back into her past.

She takes the first steps into what appears to be a diminutive underground city. Paved sidewalks, minimal foot traffic. Blinding, creamy lights. A blank, useless brick wall on one side seems to go on for miles, and there are a few spaces reserved for commerce on the other. She squints and thinks she can see a stopping point to this city, then passes a cone-shaped information booth. The person within it is so corpulent, so soft and squishy, that the indicators of his or her gender have been all but erased. A man with a neck goiter the size of a deflated soccer ball rushes by, heading for the exit that was just moments ago her entrance, heading for the precious and natural light of day. A woman with a cotton bandage across her eye, adhered to her face by a melon-colored crust, carrying a plastic bag full of bouncing baby crickets, exits a store called Salamanders of the Underworld. A sign in the window reads: No Newts is Good Newts. A teenage girl with Down’s syndrome sits on a concrete bench, stroking the head of a black Neapolitan Mastiff. Two Junkie Creeps wearing fresh blue jumpsuits shuffle into a store that appears to sell nothing but blue jumpsuits. This is a meeting place for misfits. Less a city, more a mutant mini-mall.

Trixie faces forward as she walks, only forcing brief glances as she passes each new storefront. She does not want to miss her destination. She does not want to go too far, though she knows she already has. She cannot un-see what has been stamped into her retinas.

It is not long before she mercifully encounters Suite D7. The Monarch Metamorphosis Syndicate building. Unsurprisingly, a gorgeous butterfly is painted across the front window, using every possible color choice from the palette. Less expected, however, is the subtle image of a human face superimposed on the butterfly’s head.

She enters the building. It is barely a hospital. Barely a building even. The waiting room constricts and suffocates, seems to grow smaller with each step. It is the size of a two-stall restroom, and does not smell much better. A receptionist’s face and torso poke through a large, professionally cut hole in the wall. Her face is perfectly crafted, pin-up beautiful, her lips wet and waxy cushions, her eyes like pools of chocolate fondue. For a brief moment Trixie feels she is back on planet Earth.

Until she notices the receptionist’s breasts. There is not a letter in the alphabet for her cup size. Enormous, solid masses that would be suitable for the lead percussion in a tribal drum circle. Nipples poking through the fabric of her shirt, curving like opposable thumbs.

“You must be our two o’clock,” the receptionist says. Trixie nods and forces a smile, approaches and tries to fool herself into thinking this is a routine check-up. Maybe just a simple skin tag removal.

“Do I need to sign in or anything?” She is really going through with this.

“No, doll. You’re actually our only o’clock today. Dr. Kast has been expecting you.”

Trixie wonders if she can afford the procedure, if she will owe despicable favors, if she will have to live on ramen and chunky salsa for the next few months, then counters these thoughts by realizing that she cannot afford not to have it done. The price of her mental stability is immeasurable.

“Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll let the doctor know you’re here.”

“Thanks.” Trixie avoids eye contact. She can barely breathe. The oxygen supply in this waiting room feels even less substantial than in the entrance to this underground world. She thinks the room might be shrinking.

The receptionist disappears momentarily, then reappears. Her face shines like it has been brushed with vanilla glaze. “And don’t worry,” she says, “you’re in amazing and talented hands. He’ll make an already beautiful girl like you into pure perfection. Trust me. I know from personal experience.” She winks and vanishes again.

Trixie backs into a plastic folding chair, the only seating that has a chance of fitting in the room. There are no tables, no decorations on the walls save Kast’s framed medical license, which Trixie cannot read as it is written entirely in Siamese. A piece of paper is folded and trapped beneath one of the chair’s feet, presumably left and forgotten by a previous patient. She lifts her weight, takes the paper and unfolds it. It is a page torn from some magazine, a portion of an unnamed essay written by Dr. Dorian Wylde. She floats into a sitting position and reads the words:

 

A technicality: as embryos, we all begin as female. Appearances can be and often are deceiving. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that we begin the daunting journey to eventual doom with the absence of any sex between our legs. The playing field is perfectly even from the get go. However, at some point during those critical first few post-fertilization weeks, the indifferent gonads take form. Either X or Y has ridden the sperm coaster to ovarian heaven. Nature has covered its eyes, plucked down its trusting finger and taken its pick of the white wiggly wonder that has traveled so far in hopes of completing its magical insemination. Soon after the initial weeks, the female Müllerian and male Wolffian ducts begin to develop. Do those names not sound like superior beings from another galaxy?

Gender is alien, foreign.

It may also be fluid, fickle and free. A fetus cannot be expected to hold true to its original blueprint.

Both sexes will form a ureter. One will earn a vas deferens. The other Fallopian tubes, uterus and cervix. Androgens or estrogens soon come forth and determine the future of one’s gender identity. Which features will degenerate? Eventual stimuli via clitoris or glans? Ambiguous genitalia? Intersexuality? Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome? How does one explain a man’s useless yet still sensitive nipples? Or a woman with a distinct laryngeal prominence?

Being female does not consist of the absence of maleness. It is the presence of a goddess within, a force that will be released no matter what lies between one’s legs. However, there is a catch: the goddess and god are often interchangeable. Take the Hindu deity Ardhanarishvara, whose name translates to “the Lord who is half woman.” The concepts of androgyny and fluidity of gender are considered a privilege. This angle can also exist for situations that are not bound to religious connotations. Consider Henry Darger’s Vivian Girls, a colorful, innocent depiction of arguably ambiguous genitalia that does not match the norm, an unspoken acceptance of these free-spirited deviations.

Are gender identity and the physicality that oftentimes does not correspond with said identity just chance or fallacious miracles? A hormonal crapshoot? Sometimes, nature’s magic makes an egregious error. Sometimes, that error is a domino that can impact one’s life in unfathomable ways.

 

Trixie is in a congested, confused haze. She chooses to not read whatever is printed on the other side of the paper. Not yet. She folds it back up and stuffs it in her back pocket. It is not stealing. It is trash turned treasure, a free gift to herself. It may be further words from Dr. Dorian Wylde. It may be a frantic note screaming from the page Get the hell out of this madhouse while you still can. It may be coupons. She will save the surprise for later, when she recovers from the surgery.

When she is complete.

* * *

Him.

Her brain struggles to form the letters that spell his name, as if they are encrypted into some foreign cipher with no hope of translation.

She believes that he will finally want her after all the slicing and shifting is over and done with, once the transformation is complete. There is a chance. He cannot help that he has rigid desires. He is a regular guy with regular needs. She simply needs to remove the irregularity. Only then will she be capable of fulfilling these needs. It is possible that he could conveniently forget about the parts of Trixie that were never supposed to exist. Pretend they were fragments of fractured dreams. He will come to his senses and realize the only thing that matters is how they feel about each other, how they face the world together with strong hearts. She knows he will.

He has to.

Except there is no way she can force this to occur. Wishes are just bits of fiction that sometimes manage to cross over into memoir.

Trixie has spoken to him sporadically since he walked out on her back in May. He was kind enough to call her a couple of weeks later to see how she was holding up. They have remained on the cusp of cordiality. A torturous limbo.

Fine, she had said during the call. An outright lie. He knew it, she knew it, but it was the only word she could have spoken. Anything else would have stirred her emotional stew. She called him back soon after, attempting to bridge the gap, left pitiful notes begging for forgiveness at his doorstep. Anything, everything, nothing. He did not budge, and she had single-handedly destroyed her dignity.

She had almost called him again, the day after she had encountered her father wasting away in The Angelghoul’s hovel. She had planned out every little detail. She would have offered to meet him at Vladimir’s. Neutral ground. She was ready to tell him every pivotal moment of her teenage life. She had needed him then as she needed him now. Who else could she have confided in?

But she realized that none of her efforts would be worth a damn unless their reconciliation was a sure thing. She would read him the unabridged book of her life only when she was certain he would be her devoted listener.

This morning, just hours before her current predicament, she attempted to contact him. Twice. She could not bring herself to leave a message. She hated the way her voice sounded on those stupid machines and had already brought enough embarrassment upon herself. What could she have said that would have made sense anyway? Oh, hi, ex-babe. In case you’re not sick of me calling you yet, I’m finally getting rid of my final link to boyhood. Wanna come with? You can watch if you want. Maybe they’ll serve popcorn. If you’re too busy, I can ask them to put what’s left in a jar with formaldehyde, take it home and show you later. Bet you’d think that was real swell, huh? Call me back! Muah!

But he was not at home. Not at work. Not available.

Now Trixie wishes he were here by her side, his callused fingers squeezing hers, his hushed voice cracking inappropriate jokes, his wintergreen breath soothing her senses on this most important of days.

Him.

She will never put him through hell again.

She is going through hell just for the chance to prove that.

Maybe she can ask the receptionist to use the phone. Just for a quick call.

A harsh cough shatters Trixie’s daydream. She runs her tongue across her teeth. She can still taste the faint flavor of grape bubblegum from earlier in the day. She wonders how much time has passed, if there is still daylight outside or if it has shifted into night while she has been entombed within this room.

Trixie lies stiff like a fresh corpse on the arctic operating table, protected by a loose-fitting, gender-neutral hospital gown. She keeps a steady, constant pace to her breathing. Her heartbeat pulses in her head, the pressure like deep-sea narcosis. Mint-green hues dominate the room—set for solace, bound to fail.

Dr. Julius Kast hovers over her, which she feels must be an optical illusion. This sensation is rectified when she glances to her side and notices he is standing on a wooden stepladder. He is smiling, his sparse teeth displayed like forgotten ruins. A surgical facemask hangs below his chin like a wattle.

“Darling,” Kast says, lightly patting her hair. “It looks as if you are still awake. That should not last long. I promise you will not regret taking this adventure. My associates and I will take great care of you. Only the utmost professionalism.”

Kast nibbles at the end of a red licorice stick and moves his deformed hand to her shoulder. Despite the hand’s rough, scaly grain and abnormal weight, the motion is comforting. He smells like an Old Spice factory spill. His violet eyes seem benevolent, which softens the impact of the bizarre scars on his face.

This is the first time Trixie has been able to see them in a fully lit space. Swirls and curls like ocean waves, patterns of forgotten language, offset by intersecting straight lines. The scars are precisely carved, deep and deliberate grooves, likely performed by a talented colleague here in Sweetville’s surgical underground. It is like looking at a tic-tac-toe table designed by a sadist.

“I’m scared,” Trixie says, her voice barely a coherent mumble. “Why does it have to be this way? Isn’t there a…um…”

Though general anesthesia is beginning to take effect, the room is tight enough that her clouded eyes are able to take in most of the sights. Holes decorate the walls like polka dots. Whether placed there by an angry fist or a rat’s jagged teeth, Trixie cannot tell. Tiny moats of stagnant water block the two corners of the room that she can see from where she lies. There are strange machines and devices that she cannot comprehend. They look nothing like what she has seen on Doogie Howser, MD. These machines bleep and blip like something out of a no-budget science fiction film. Rows of sharpened silver surgical tools with very specific duties are strewn across another table, organized by size, shape and sting. Trixie has to trust in their sterility. All of Kast’s excessive hand jewelry is placed nearby in a small wicker basket like the glistening gold of a pirate’s precious booty.

His two Withering Wylde assistants are dressed for duty, swaying like supermodels in questionable fashion, waiting for their turn on the runway. Elongated arms extend from their white lab coats, fuzzy tendrils floating in empty space. Their facemasks do not prevent them from giving Trixie the terror shivers, but instead create an image even more fearsome than usual. They are beanstalks with souls. She is under their spell. The masks make them appear as if they have no mouths, and so Trixie wonders what devious thoughts might be dying to escape their infernal maws.

She thinks she can hear them whispering, presumably to each other, though they are both looking in her direction. The hushed tones crawl across the walls and wiggle their way into her ears. She wishes William Ekkert were here. He would know how to translate, how to whisper into her ear and tell her just what the Withering Wyldes were saying. Even if it was a comforting lie. A lie repeated in rhyme.

“Did you think it was going to be magic, my dear?” Kast asks. He does his best to stifle a laugh, but tact has never been in his nature.

His claims of professionalism are clearly a façade. Trixie questions if it is too late for her to back out of the agreement, if this is possibly a terrible decision. But the anesthesia forces that thought to take a hike before it has a chance to fully gestate. She can only pray that his craft trumps his etiquette, that his artistry excels despite his physical limitations.

“I assumed by now you were well aware that I’m far from your fairy godmother,” Kast says. “There will be no waving of wands or ‘Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo’ occurring in this room. Sorry, love. As skilled as I am, there are some things even I can’t accomplish. I won’t lie. This will hurt, but you will not feel a thing. At least not during the procedure. Recovery is a reliable lover. Does all of this make sense to you? I will take care of you, and you will be satisfied with the end result. That much I can promise.”

Trixie whimpers. She is a helpless infant. She can feel the Withering Wyldes fiddling with the bottom of her gown. Terrible tufts of fur tickling her toes. Fidgeting fingers sliding across her shins like a swarm of centipedes.

“Dream, my sweet pupa,” Kast continues, “and wake up as you were always meant to. A beautiful woman.”

“No…but…wait…what about…” Trixie drifts off to the Land of Nod. Not terribly different from any relaxing night at home, drifting into a deep sleep while watching late night reruns of The Newlywed Game or Win, Lose, or Draw. Her dreams are strange, occasionally bland. Shopping at Modyrn Gyrlz with a rotund girl in pigtails who she has never met, stuffing absurd amounts of bras and underwear into her pockets as a freckled sales associate flirts with a man made solely of muscle. Making spaghetti with mushroom sauce and cheesy garlic bread for Christopher—she drinking a glass of flat red wine and he a can of ginger ale. The garlic bread is burnt and, for some reason, gives off an indeterminate citrus flavor. Her mother, in perfect health, life surging through her eyes, a Barbie doll vibrating in her hands like it has Parkinson’s. Wearing a fuzzy pink snowsuit, trapped beneath an impervious block of blue ice, beating at it until her fists are numb and raw, her father nowhere in sight. Federico dragging a dead baby possum across the living room floor, staining the carpet with puddles of blood that will never be cleaned. The corner of Fifth and Quail at an undisclosed hour—except now Trixie is the one steering a vehicle through the sullen streets, struggling to make her difficult decision at the manly meat market. The men on display are plentiful and nude. Their enormous exposed appendages swing back and forth like vines awaiting Tarzan’s grip. Or maybe Jane is the one acting like the human monkey this time. Who knows?

Upon recovery, Trixie will not recall these illusions. They are lost and buried in memory’s tomb. She will one day only remember the distant delusion that she was once a girl who dreamt she was a boy for many years and did not love it. But now the dream is more than dormant—it is dead forever and the true, wonderful woman is finally allowed to awaken.

Reassign, realign, redefine.