Atlantic Coast
By noon I was on the Tappan Zee, crossing the Hudson. There were derricks and cranes floating out on the river, evidence that a new bridge was being built. I didn’t really know what was wrong with the old one. Peter, Paul, and Mary were on the satellite radio, singing “In the Early Morning Rain.”
Light rain pattered on the windshield. The wipers kept time.
I thought about the hate in the eyes of the man I loved as he gazed upon me. Not her! Falcon stood between us. One of the machines Jake was wired to started beeping, like my mere presence was enough to give him a heart attack.
“Listen, Ma,” said my son. “I think you oughta go.”
“Judith,” said Cassie.
For a moment I stood there, paralyzed. Another machine started beeping. “Mom,” said Falcon more insistently. I turned and fled, leaving my family in the capable hands of Cassie Hudson.
I passed Brunswick, Freeport, Portland, Kennebunkport, heading south. I crossed the Piscataqua River and into New Hampshire. In Massachusetts, I saw the sign for Bonker’s, somewhat the worse for wear after almost thirty years. But it was still there, urging the moms and dads of Boston to take their kids down below for pizza and pinball, although it was hard to imagine anyone playing pinball anymore.
Casey, I thought, and remembered sitting there with him in the ruined chapel of the prison. I had become the companion of dragons, a friend to owls. Casey had shook his head. Dude, you’re not a friend to any owl. You’re a friend to me.
I hoped he would be more forgiving than my husband had been. I imagined myself arriving in the meetinghouse, pulling off the veil, and Casey’s kind face turning to anger. Not her. And the thing is, I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t being trans that had made me the companion of dragons. It was my certainty that the people I loved were incapable of understanding—a certainty based not on random fear but on actual experience. Exhibit A? The reaction of Jake, the only person in the world who loved me even more than Jon Casey had. Even my son: Listen, Ma. I think you oughta go.
I wanted to yell at everyone. You’re all so sure what the right thing to do would have been. What if there was no right thing? What if you’d been born with a condition that, by its very nature, stuck you with an unsolvable philosophical puzzle, from your earliest recollection of childhood to the present? Is it so impossible that you might imagine what it must have been like to have felt the things I’ve felt, and not known what to do?
Of course, there’s a road map now. But when I was growing up there wasn’t any map, there was nothing. I was fifty years old before I ever saw anyone like myself on television, or on a TV show, or in a book. In the absence of story, the very clear message was, People like you do not exist. The only transgender women I ever saw in the big mirror of the culture were murder victims in detective shows; or sad sacks on talk shows being ridiculed or held up as circus freaks; or drag queens with comical stage names. There weren’t any moms, or teachers, or cops—people who just wanted to move on. To disappear into the anonymous, loving gray of a normal life.
I’m a relic, though. That’s what I realize now. The world has become a safer place for trans people, for some of us anyhow. Maybe it’s become safer as a direct result of people coming out, being visible, living openly in the world. But I was never that brave. I set out to save the Shire…and it has been saved. But not for me.
“Gollum,” I said. “Gollum.”
I still remember going into Olin Library at Wesleyan when I was a student there, looking for books about the thing I was struggling with. What I found, of course, was nothing—or, in some ways, worse than nothing. The only books I found were full of theories that were just hilariously, ridiculously wrong. There was one that said people were trans because our “fathers were too passive.” Or we “wanted to be closer to our mothers.” Or that we were fetishists. I remember reading those books and thinking, Gee, that doesn’t sound right. Are they sure? It reminded me of a cartoon I saw once of a woman reading a book called All About You. The author of the book: Not You.
I have a different theory, which is even more harebrained. It goes like this: Maybe we should all just love one another, even if we don’t completely understand the things that people bear in their dark, strange hearts, even if the stars that other men and women are following seem invisible to us. If we make ourselves open to the humanity of others first, maybe understanding will follow. An incomprehensible theory of the universe isn’t necessary if your only ambition is to embrace another soul. What you need, maybe all you need, in fact, is the willingness to love.
I crossed the Delaware River. To my right was the iron bridge with its sign: TRENTON MAKES. THE WORLD TAKES.
Yeah, well. Sucks to be you, Trenton, I thought.