Dear Pops, J typed into the computer at Melissa’s house, knowing he could erase it later. This was another one of Philip’s ideas—to write a letter to his father just to see what would come out. How are you? No, that was dumb. He backspaced. Dear Manny. More man to man. How are you doing, living in the apartment where I used to live? That sounded bitter, pitiful. Dear Pops, he tried again. I’m fine, going to school, living with two women on the Lower East Side, working on my career in photography. How’s your life in the subway? Crap, he thought. Philip and his ideas.
One of Philip’s ideas had been a good one—joining the young transgender group downtown. J had gone several times now and was invited to join the We-Pee organizing committee. Technically, everyone was invited to join We-Pee, but J was happy the redhead in charge had remembered his name. And then Zak, looking as muscled and confident as the last time, had invited J to his apartment, since he was “new to the community.”
But for now he had promised Philip he’d write a letter. It was important, Philip thought, for J to express his feelings about Manny, since every time his name came up in therapy, J changed the subject. So they struck a deal: if J wrote the letter, Philip would drop the subject. For a while.
Dear Pops.
I wanted to be like you when I was little. This isn’t your fault. It’s just who I am. I hope one day we can talk again.—J
It took J the better part of an hour to work out those few lines. Despite Philip’s instructions, J couldn’t help but imagine his father actually reading what he wrote. And each time he struck a key, it was like tapping a memory—watching cartoons together when J was little, buying J’s first bike, their special trip to the horse races in Saratoga. Manny screaming from the bleachers when J won a swim race, that unmistakable shout of Pops-pride.
On the table next to the computer sat J’s stack of college applications. A few were past due. They all required essays. Describe an important event that changed your life.
J called Chanelle. “Where are you going to college, again?” he asked, even though he knew. She had one more year of high school to complete, but then she was going to go to NYU, she knew it, on a full scholarship, and would be accepted early admission.
“What if my dad won’t pay for school anymore? Now that…” J asked, trailing off.
“Ever heard of financial aid?” Chanelle was snippy with J again; maybe she was really considering a breakup with Bonez. “And go to a SUNY school. They have late admissions.”
Chanelle knew all the policies and programs of the local schools by heart; she’d been scouring college websites for the past several months, eager to start her life as a capital-p Poet.
“But what about my transcripts? Do they need them for photography?” J was flipping through a brochure for a SUNY school upstate where, it seemed, he could major in photography. He’d need to pull together a portfolio.
“What about them? I thought you said your grades were good.” She was definitely in a bad mood, J thought. Maybe she was jealous that he’d get to go to college before she would. “Everywhere needs transcripts.”
“But”—J paused—“my transcripts all say my other name. By the time I start college—I mean, if I start college—I’ll already be on T. I don’t want anybody to know I’ve been a girl.”
“Hmm.” Chanelle sounded stumped. She said she’d meet him after school in the computer room the next day, and they’d figure it out.
All night long, twisting in his sleeping bag like an oversized worm, J fretted. Going away to college sounded better and better: he’d get to start over, as a boy, in a place where no one knew him. He’d learn more about photography and probably get to use nicer equipment than he could ever afford. Carolina would be proud of J in college—all his life, she’d talked about how important that was. She’d signed the testosterone form behind Manny’s back; maybe she could sign over some of the college money, too. Maybe some of that money was hers alone.
But what if no school would let him in as J? They’d see Jenifer on his transcripts and think he was a girl. Which gender would he check off on the forms? What kind of dorm could he stay in, with his bound-down chest and his (he hoped) masculine voice? Where would he shower?
He couldn’t stay at Melissa’s forever; she’d be leaving to teach at a dance camp in the summer, as she did every year, and then go off to college herself. Karyn wouldn’t want a roommate whose mother wasn’t slipping her rent, and obviously he couldn’t go home.
And even if he could, what would he do there? Play with the cat all day? Get a job at C-Town, bagging groceries? He wanted to be a real photographer; he wanted a chance.
In the college brochures, groups of kids clustered under trees laughing or studying, and not one of them looked trans. What does that even mean? J thought. What if they are? The girls had long hair, and the boys wore caps, and they all seemed to be happily settled at their campus, showing off team logos on sweatshirts or bags.
“Let’s just call them,” Chanelle said the next day. They were in the computer room where they’d written the poem for Blue. Chanelle had the website for the SUNY schools up on the screen, and she’d pulled out her cell phone.
“Wait, stop! What’re you going to say?” J tried to grab the phone from her, but she was already dialing. “Don’t tell them my name!”
“I won’t. But they have a GLBT center on campus; it’s a good sign.” Chanelle’s eyebrows furrowed and she sat up in her chair. “Hello? Yes, I was thinking of applying to your school.”
J pulled his cap over his eyes. Sometimes Chanelle reminded him of his mother. No time for negotiating.
“But I’ve had a name change, and I was wondering if that would be a problem….” Chanelle paused, wrote something down. “Right, and where would I put that on the form?”
Chanelle looked at J with a grin—like, See how easy this was? “Right,” she said. “And if I’ve changed my gender?”
J groaned.
“Uh-huh,” she said, entirely businesslike. She dropped her voice to a lower register. “See, I was born a girl, but I live as a man. My older transcripts will say female, but the ones from my school now will say male. Will this be a problem?”
J felt a sudden flood of love for Chanelle. She was dropping her voice for him, acting like a male, which he imagined she hated. She seemed fine, though, prattling on with the person on the phone as if they were old friends.
“Really? And where can I shower?” J felt like Chanelle had been in his brain last night. He flashed to Marcia, in the hotel near the pier. “Honey, we’re all transgender.” He wondered what had happened to her, her fuzzy sweater, her kindness. The paper Chanelle was writing on was filling up, and apparently she’d moved on. “So, how many photographs do I need for a photography portfolio?”
When Chanelle hung up the phone, she smiled smugly. “That was easy.” She handed him her page of notes. “J baby, you’re going to be old news at that school. Nothing special about you.”
There had been others, Chanelle said, and the university was used to it. He could check the M box on the forms and just attach a note explaining he was transgender. The dorms wouldn’t be a problem; most likely, they’d just assign him his own room.
“My own?” J interrupted. “With a door?”
“No, you’ll have to hang a flag from your doorframe and hope nobody peeks.”
I could do anything if I had a room with a door. Chanelle laughed. “You look like somebody went and bought you a car.”
“It’s better,” he said, and reached into his bag for his camera. Even when she laughed, Chanelle’s eyes looked sad. He adjusted the lens.
“You want to take my picture? Now?”
“Just your eyes. Look natural,” J said.
Chanelle started pulling makeup out of her bag—mascara, an eyeliner, and an enormous powder brush.
So J got a picture of Chanelle looking into the camera, her bangs pulled back behind her ears, one eyebrow raised slightly, like a challenge. Her brown eyes were open and unafraid, but if you looked closely, there was something searching in them, too—something lost and long ago. Maybe she does belong in another century, J thought.
“Thank you,” J said.
“It was easy. I just sat there.”
“No, for making that call.” He knew if he did get into a school outside the city, he’d come back and visit Chanelle. He’d help her through if she got sad about her mom or if Bonez broke her heart. There was more to life than the struggles with Blue or his dad, or even getting T. There was family, and this was it.
Zak’s apartment was a mess. He tried to pawn it off on his three roommates, who weren’t home, but J could see that even Zak’s bedroom was a hurricane of books and running shoes and sheets that appeared to be less than clean. The chin-up bar Zak had mentioned was in the doorframe to this bedroom, and as they talked, Zak absentmindedly did reps.
“Sorry there’s not much room to sit,” Zak said, hoisting himself up to the bar. He wasn’t even out of breath. “Just shove some stuff off the bed.”
“When did you finish college?” J asked. He wondered how long it would take him to afford a place like this—a place of his own, with his own room.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be done with school. I’m working on my doctorate.” Zak dropped from the bar to swig from a Gatorade bottle that was nestled in a laundry basket. “In gender studies.”
J didn’t know what to say.
“It’s partly why I’m running the group. It’s material for my dissertation,” Zak said. He had invited J over to hang out before they’d head to the support group together. “It’s called ‘Male-ancholia: Depression and Grief in the Transitioning Male.’ Sometimes I call it ‘Even Transboys Get the Blues,’ but I don’t think my adviser would go for it.”
“You think transguys are depressed?” J looked at the chin-up bar and wondered if he could even do one. It had been so long since he’d tried.
“Ever look at a transguy’s forearms? So many of us cut.”
J thought of Melissa. She was the only one he knew, and she was far from trans.
“And then there’s the depression that comes when testosterone doesn’t solve everything, or when we mourn after surgery.”
“What?” J was incredulous. “I can’t wait to get rid of these. I hate them.”
“I did, too. But sometimes there’s sadness. You do lose a part of your body.”
Zak took off his sweater and did a few more chin-ups in his tank top. J stared at Zak’s chest; he couldn’t help it.
“I had my surgery two years ago. Want to see?”
J was sitting at the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees. He nodded mutely. Zak peeled off the tank top and tossed it into the laundry basket, revealing a perfectly toned chest with a small tattoo of a dragon above the left nipple.
“That’s my year,” Zak said, flexing his pecs. “The year of the dragon. Healthy, sensitive, and brave. Plus, I think the tattoo distracts the eye from my scars.”
J didn’t see any scars, but when Zak motioned him to look more closely, he saw two pale lines below the pec muscles. Nothing you’d notice on a beach.
“Did it hurt?” J asked. He sat up a little straighter, jutted out his chin.
Zak said he’d had the surgery in San Francisco, one week apart from a friend who did it, too. They’d made a vacation of it, seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, riding cable cars, so the healing didn’t seem so bad. The surgery itself, Zak didn’t remember.
J suddenly felt annoyed. Oh, sure, he thought. Major surgery, and you didn’t feel a thing. “That’s cool,” he said. “I’m pretty good with pain, too.”
Zak raised his eyebrows and gave a sly grin. He was still doing the chin-ups. “You’ll need to be. Sometimes your muscles get sore even after the testosterone shots.”
Really? Like a tetanus shot? “I know,” J said, looking out the grimy window so Zak wouldn’t think he liked watching the workout. “I have lots of friends who have done it.”
“Oh, yeah? Where? Maybe I know them.”
“No. They’re in Philly.” Why do I always say Philly? What is it with that city?
Zak didn’t know anyone in Philly and asked J if he wanted to do some pull-ups.
“Nah,” J answered. “I’m tired from the weight lifting I did last night.”
“Okay,” Zak said, smiling again. “You don’t want muscle fatigue. But if you need a bench partner, let me know.”
J thought Zak’s world was so much bigger than his parents’, in their little apartment up in Washington Heights. A shiver of guilt went up his spine, and he tried to squelch the feeling.
“You look good. The surgery, I mean.”
Zak looked down at his chest. “Thanks. I’ve got to get some new pictures, though. I posted my transition online, and the ones I have up are really old.”
“I could take them,” J said. And then he coughed. He didn’t want to seem too eager. But, artistically, taking pictures of Zak would be cool. First there was Chanelle, and then Zak—maybe this could be a project, taking pictures of people who had transitioned or were in various stages of transition. It was like the photography term he loved, parallax, where what you got in the picture was more than what you saw through the camera itself. And what you see depends on where you stand. That was so true with transpeople. All people, really. He could really get into photographing “live subjects,” as his old photography teacher would say—much harder than construction sites, which held still.
As it turned out, Zak was a better subject than Chanelle; he liked having his picture taken. He posed doing a pull-up, and J got a close-up of Zak’s bicep, round as a tennis ball, his face a strained but smiling backdrop for the flexed arm. He posed, shirtless, sitting on a stack of books, pretending to read, and again standing, hands in his pockets, looking straight at the camera. Pretty soon they were laughing.
“I feel like I’m taking beefcake shots for a calendar,” J said.
“Yeah, there’s a huge market for topless tranny academics. Right up there with the firemen.”
A few weeks later, when J got home from his trans group meeting, Melissa was waiting up for him. “Your mom called,” she said. She was lying on her bed, flipping through a dance magazine.
J checked his cell phone—no missed calls from Carolina. “Why’d she call here?”
“I think she wanted to talk to Karyn, but she wasn’t home,” Melissa said, sitting up. “I told her about the dance performance, and I invited her. It’s in two weeks. J—”
“Yeah?” He was about to go into the bathroom to change into sweats, for bed.
“At the performance space, where the dance is going to be, there’s this long hallway, and Becky and me—we wanted to have some visual art there.” Melissa looked at J, long enough to make him uncomfortable. “I told her my best friend was an amazing photographer, so we booked you for that space.”
“Emmmm!”
“What, J? You can put it on your résumé that you’ve had a gallery show in New York.” She put on her defiant face, with the pouty lips and the flared nostrils.
“I don’t have a résumé,” he said. He hated Melissa’s pretensions. “Unlike you, I’m not trying to pretend like I’m thirty-five when I’m eighteen. And it’s not a gallery. It’s just some warehouse place your friend rented for a night.”
J could see the sting register in Melissa’s eyes, but she didn’t rise to the bait. “Unlike you, I’m trying to make something of my art,” she said. “And, unlike you, I think about more than just myself and my gender. I think about my friends, and I try to help them out.”
“Fuck you, Melissa.”
“Fuck you, too.”
J went into the bathroom and washed his face. How did everything with Melissa deteriorate so quickly into a fight? They were like an old married couple, knowing each other’s wounds so well, knowing just where to press. How dare she say he didn’t think about his friends? He’d helped Melissa so many times. Just today, he’d taken pictures of Zak for his website. And he was forever listening to Chanelle blather on about Bonez, whom she hadn’t even broken up with yet. He brushed his teeth.
Maybe he could hang some pictures at the performance; it wasn’t like people would have to know they were his. And he already had three frames, from his birthday. The problem was getting the pictures—all of his good ones were back at his old apartment, and the new series was just an idea. He spit toothpaste into the sink.
The room was dark when J came out, and he could see that Melissa was under the covers. J unzipped his bag and climbed in, turning from one side to the other, trying to find a comfortable position.
“Melis?”
“Yeah?” She obviously hadn’t been sleeping.
“How many pictures would I need to have?”
“Five,” she said. “Well, maybe four, but five would be better.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Good,” she said. J could hear the grin in her voice. “ ’Night, J.”
“ ’Night.”
J called Carolina on his way to school the next morning.
“Hi, m’ija,” she said, a little too brightly. “Melissa told me you’re showing your photos in a gallery?”
Oh, God, J thought. “It’s not a gallery, Mami. It’s just a dance Melissa and her friends are doing. And I’m gonna put up some pictures.”
“That’s good, Jay-jay. You can put that on your college applications.”
J hadn’t thought of that. Carolina asked when the show would be, and J’s throat constricted. Through the night, he’d been considering the photos he had stored in his camera, most of which he wouldn’t want his mother to see. He considered hanging up, feigning a bad connection.
“Two weeks from today. Friday,” he said.
“Oh, J, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” her voice suddenly wavery. “That’s the night of your father’s and my anniversary—remember?”
J didn’t. He didn’t have a calendar to write down important dates, mostly because he didn’t have any. Still, his stomach sank. How would he explain this to Melissa? He couldn’t miss her performance; she’d already accused him of being a bad friend.
“We decided to make it smaller. It’s not a big party, just a small party, just our close friends who really know us. We don’t want to spend the money.” Carolina always said too much when she was nervous, filling up every corner of space with words. “And it’s going to be kind of an adult party. I mean, there’ll be alcohol there.”
Since when had alcohol been a problem? There had been beer and wine at every barbecue, birthday, wedding, and quinceañera J had attended with his parents since he was two years old.
“Where are you having it?” J asked. He bent to tie his shoe. A gust of wind hit J’s face, and he watched a candy wrapper scuttle across the sidewalk.
“At Martino’s. We’re reserving the back room.”
It wouldn’t be the best place for taking pictures; Martino’s had fluorescent lighting and no windows in the back. “Maybe we can bring some lamps from home,” J suggested.
“What?”
“For the pictures.”
“Oh, Jellybean, I don’t want you to worry about the pictures. I’m looking so old, anyway, and your father’s gotten so fat, and you have Melissa’s dance that night—”
J interrupted. “You don’t want me to take pictures? At your anniversary?”
“It’s not that, J.” Carolina paused. “It’s just going to be an adult party. It won’t be fun for you, anyway. And you have your other photography event; you have to go to that, J.”
“Okay, Mami,” J said. He got it. “I’m at school now. Talk to you later.”
They don’t want me there. J hung up the phone and shoved it in his back pocket. He wasn’t at school; he’d started walking in the opposite direction as soon as his mother mentioned the back room at Martino’s. They’re embarrassed of me. Oddly, this realization didn’t make J mad, just more resigned to what he already knew. His mother had been protecting Manny for months now, speaking for him, and protecting J, as well, from whatever Manny thought of him. How long could she last, sandwiched as she was between them?
J stopped in a deli and bought a coffee. It was too hot, but the burning soothed him. It let him focus on his tongue for a moment, and the numbness that spread after the first shocking sip. It would be like that with Manny after a while, too; J would grow cold to his father’s disdain, J’s emotional sensors thickening until there was nothing more to feel.
J imagined Carolina and Manny talking about the party. Without him around, they wouldn’t have to close their door. His mother would be crying, begging Manny to let J come. “It’s our anniversary,” she’d say, tears in her eyes. “And J’s our only child.” The dishrag in her hand would be twisted into a soggy knot. In his mind, his mother looked like a soap-opera character he remembered—the wayward nun, clumpy mascara streaking her face, pleading for mercy.
Manny would slam his hand on the bureau, making the loose change jump. “Cari, no!” he’d say. Manny looked like Manny, only bigger, his face splotchy with rage. “If J wants to run away and then act the fool, let her do it on her own dime. I’m not taking responsibility anymore.” As J imagined the scene unfolding, his father’s words grew more clear and realistic. How many times had he called J a fool in the past?
“But what will we tell J?” In J’s imagination, his mother was whimpering from the bed. “And what will our friends think if she’s not there?” Manny grabbed his keys and turned to leave, just as J had seen him do countless times before. “I don’t care what you tell her, Cari. She’s your daughter now.”
J knew this scene was made up, but it seemed so plausible and rang so true that he could barely light a cigarette. His hands shook, and the lighter sputtered before the flame finally caught and J could take a long, calming drag. It’s just your own messed-up head, J told himself. You don’t know what he really thinks.
J knew he shouldn’t indulge in this abandonment illusion for long. He had to clear his mind for something more important: the clinic had called. They were ready to give him his testosterone shot.
J was scared. So scared, he’d even told Melissa. And Chanelle. And a few guys at the group the other night. After all the buildup over T, J couldn’t believe it was actually going to happen. The guys at the group congratulated him, and Melissa and Chanelle each asked if he wanted them to go with him to his appointment, but he’d said no: this was something a man had to do alone, like running away, or like—well, like what? There really was nothing like it. It felt momentous and impending, an ending to something, and a beginning. What was it that astronaut had said? One small step for man, one giant step for mankind? Something like that.
Plenty of people had done this before, J knew, so why was he so afraid? As soon as he’d brought it up in the group, he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It was the same way with Philip, who said taking testosterone would feel like going through a second puberty. It would be slow, oily, with pimples and emotions, sexual urges, and a new, curious relationship to his body. Talking about it made him queasy, so with Philip he’d changed the subject. The doctor had talked about the psychological responses, too. He told J that everyone reacted to testosterone differently: some people did feel more aggressive with the hormones, but some felt more at peace—calmer than before—and others didn’t notice any difference at all.
But everybody got the voice. The voice that squeaked at first, like the tentative turning of a rusty bike, but then loosened and tumbled into the darker timbre that J craved. With a new voice, J wouldn’t have to answer in single-syllable murmurs, his chin bowed down toward his chest; he would be marked unmistakably “male” as soon as he ordered a slice of pizza or called a stranger on the phone.
J felt as if he were at the edge of one of his construction sites, staring at the deep hole in the earth that always came before the building. People forgot about the excavation once the building went up, once the shiny windows and elevators and rooftop terraces made the edifice seem so permanent, so entitled to its height and stature. But beneath the building was still the deep cut in the land that allowed for its growth, the hollow space that was once mulchy and dense. And where did all that dirt go, once it had been dug up and hauled away? J didn’t know.
The thing about testosterone, J realized, was there was no turning back. The doctor had told him that some things would revert if he ever decided to stop taking T; his ovaries would function, he’d get periods again, and if he gained weight, he’d gain it like a girl. The voice, though, that would stay low forever. But J wasn’t really worried about the physical changes. It was deeper than that. Despite what his mother or father wished, despite what his friends thought of him, despite being barely old enough to vote or buy cigarettes, despite his own brain convulsing at times with confusion, here he was: making a change dictated entirely by his suffering. It felt like a matter of life or death. But if this suffering turned on him later, well, the change would have already set in his soul. Psychically speaking, he couldn’t just knock down the building, find the hole, and fill himself back up with dirt. There would always be a scar.
Describe an event that changed your life, he thought, remembering the essay question from the stack of college applications that sat on Melissa’s kitchen table. He resolved to write his essay before Thursday after next—before the scheduled injection.
There were some other things, too, that J wanted to clean up before he took his first T. Like that day in the pet store with Blue. Testosterone, in his mind, was becoming like a spiritual rite. He wanted to be pure for it, and his experience with Blue was anything but pure.
He had lied to Blue—that much was clear. He had lied about the poem and where he came from. Even the necklace wasn’t a present he’d picked out, the way he’d led her to believe. J wasn’t sure if he loved Blue or if he loved the way she saw him—as a male named Jason (it was Jason, wasn’t it?), a heterosexual, normal guy, whatever that was.
The guys in the transgender group called it “disclosing,” and they all had lots of opinions about it. Some felt as Chanelle did—with straight girls, they thought, the less you said, the better. Others, like Zak, thought you should “disclose your status” right away, to avoid more pain later. J didn’t know where he stood.
The phone rang three times before Blue picked up.
“ ’Sup?” J tried to sound equal parts friendly and disinterested.
“Nothing. I’m just painting. Wassup with you?”
It was lunchtime on a school day. J had expected Blue’s voice mail. “You skipping school?”
Blue said it was her sister’s birthday, so she was outside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, painting her a card.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“Freezing.”
“Wait for me. I’ll be there in a few.”
Blue was crouched on the steps in front of the church, squinting up at the Gothic towers, when J padded up behind her. She clutched a postcard-size canvas in her left hand and had a paintbrush in her teeth. Cute, J thought. Always so damn cute.
J handed her a cappuccino. “Looks good,” he said.
Blue jumped, startled. When she’d given him a (brief, stiff) hug and regained her composure, she took a long, grateful drink of the cappuccino and held her painting out at arm’s length. There was one tower, all in watery blues, reaching toward a strip of sky. The topmost point was sharp, but the lower spires and the triangular windows were twisted—tangling, almost—in their effort to reach the apex.
“I know it’s not realistic,” Blue said, cocking her head, “but I think Jadzia will recognize it.”
“No monsters in this one?” J lit a cigarette, and Blue took it from him, pulling a long, thoughtful inhale.
“Not for Jadzia. She doesn’t have any demons.”
J wondered how deep the foundation was for this cathedral; it had to be more than thirty stories high. “How old is this church?”
“Dunno.” Blue nodded at the bunch of tourists knotted at the entrance. “Want to go in?”
J shook his head. It had been years since he’d been in a church. First Communion had been his mother’s idea, and something Manny tolerated. After that, J went occasionally with Carolina, but by the time he was ten, both he and his mother had pretty much given up. As far as he knew, his father hadn’t been in a church since his own wedding day; and he never went to temple. Apparently, he’d even begged out of J’s christening and just showed up for the party.
J didn’t want to go inside because of the guilt that was already percolating pretty strongly beneath his rib cage; big, vaulted sanctuaries tended to exacerbate that feeling. He’d deceived Blue, made her think that he was angry with her, when he was really just tumbling around inside his own pain. He’d ignored her and then begged her back, hoping to win a double date with her for Chanelle. And here she was, sweetly painting a watercolor for her sister. The last time he saw her paint, all he could think about was getting busy with her. And his hormones. Those ever-present hormones. Had he ever really looked at Blue before? Had he ever looked at anyone?
“Blue, I haven’t been totally straight with you.” Blue was shaking her paper cup in slow circles to blend the foam into the coffee. She gazed at the cup as though it required her entire attention. “That necklace—I didn’t buy it for you. I mean, it was mine. It came from my tía Yola.”
“You stole the necklace from your aunt?”
“I didn’t steal it! She gave it to me. For my First Communion.”
“Whoa,” Blue said. “Understanding aunt. That necklace was pretty girly.”
J narrowed his eyes in confusion, but Blue continued. “I haven’t been totally honest with you, either.”
J reached into his pocket for a smoke, but the pack was empty. He gestured for her to continue.
“I followed you to your school one day. I know where you go.”
J sat down hard on the cement step. This he wasn’t expecting. But then he remembered having seen flashes of blue one day when he walked to school; he hadn’t been imagining things. “So, you know about me.”
Blue nodded her assent, but J couldn’t see her. He was staring at his hands. When he spoke again, his voice came out lower, darker than usual. “Why’d you do that?”
Blue sat down next to him. “Because, J, I didn’t know what to do. Every day it was like you were a different person. One day warm, the next day cold, the next day missing,” she said. “Then I understood. You had a secret.”
“It’s not a secret!” J kicked over Blue’s now-empty cup. Calling it a secret made it seem bad, dirty, something to hide. When here he was—he’d risked everything—his parents, his home, his best friend, his school—to live the life that was coursing through his blood. “You’re the one who kept a secret! Following me around like a spy. Damn.”
“You’re right, J. I’m sorry.” Blue quickly tried to touch J’s knee but then pulled her hand back just as fast. “But how is it not a secret if you never told me you were gay? When you were kissing me and everything?”
J looked at her, astonished. “What?” Now he was really pissed. “Gay is different from trans!”
“What are you talking about, trans? Trans what?” Blue’s tone, for once, seemed to be ratcheting up as quickly as J’s.
J knew that people scrambled gay and transgender all the time; they thought that every lesbian wanted to be a man and that every gay boy wore dresses. But Blue was too smart for that. J didn’t like being thought of as gay; it reminded him of the time everyone thought he was a lesbian. He was a boy, and if he was a boy, he was straight. Well, queer. But queer-straight. Or whatever.
J got up to throw Blue’s coffee cup into the trash can. This talk was supposed to clear the air between them; he didn’t want to be angry at her. But he didn’t want to educate her, either; he’d already done plenty of that with his mother and Melissa. And he was sure there would be others down the line. When he turned back, Blue was scowling.
“What do you mean, trans?” she asked again.
“Transgender.” Is she playing me? J thought.
“You mean you’re really a girl?”
Blue’s jaw dropped. J closed it for her with one gloved finger, but she didn’t look at him, just stared off at some indistinct spot in the horizon. “Like that god,” she said softly.
“Who?”
“From the Greek myths. There was a god who had both male and female parts—I forgot his name,” she said. “It’s weird. When I used to paint nudes, I would sometimes paint them with both male and female parts.”
“I don’t have both sets of parts.”
Blue looked at him. “Oh.”
They sat together awhile, watching the tourists stream in and out of the cathedral. Tourists made J nervous. The light shifted, signaling afternoon’s descent.
“I’m glad you were my first boyfriend,” Blue said.
“So, I’m not anymore?” J wasn’t sure he wanted a girlfriend right now, with testosterone coming up, and college, and finishing high school, and Blue was so—so difficult. He didn’t have another word. Still, his pride was hurt.
“I don’t know,” Blue said, still staring into space. “I mean, I think we’ve both lied to each other too much. It’d be weird.”
“I didn’t lie to you about being male. I mean, I am that. I’m trying to be better at that.”
Blue looked at J and held his gaze. Her eyes welled. “We’re all trying to be better at something.”
Blue stood up to go. “I’ve got to get back. We’re celebrating Jadzia’s birthday after school, which is where I was supposed to be right now.”
J raised an eyebrow. “So you lie to them.” Like you lied to me.
Blue considered this. “I let them think what they want to think about me, and I keep what I know about myself to myself. That way we all agree.”
Like me, J thought. Blue was deep, no doubt about that. He felt a sharp stab of regret for breaking up like this—under the shadow of a church, no less—but the feeling ebbed when she hugged him. This hug was real and long, and Blue laid her head against J’s collarbone. It was half-sexual and half-sisterly, this hug: Blue didn’t press her body against his as hard as she had in the past, but he could feel her lips brush against his neck. He didn’t need this confusion right now, these mixed messages; why were girls so weird? If he gave in, he knew, Blue would either accuse him of violating the breakup they’d just settled or else be mad that he didn’t call her enough in a few days’ time. Blue was deep, but she was also a teenager, and J was about to become a man. Eighteen and testosterone equaled man in practically any nature documentary. He wriggled himself free and squeezed Blue gently on the shoulders. She got on her tiptoes and kissed him on the nose.
“I’m keeping the necklace,” she said. “I still like it.”
“Good,” J said. He helped her gather her paints that were scattered about the ground. “It doesn’t fit me.”
J watched Blue walk away, her old-man overcoat open to the wind and flapping behind her. J waved, but Blue didn’t see.
Describe an event that changed your life. J stared at the computer screen, chewing on a pen. He was sitting in the computer room at school, a tattered poster of Sylvia Rivera looking down on him. He’d learned about the Stonewall riots in class, and about how, back in the fifties and sixties, it was illegal to be a person like him. Anyone who was caught even wearing clothes of the opposite sex could be arrested. But one night, Sylvia Rivera fought back. She was in a bar, the Stonewall Inn, in 1969, when the cops raided the place. They wanted to arrest all the gay and transgender people who hung out there. Sylvia, who was “assigned” male at birth, threw the first bottle, and, as his teacher explained, the modern gay rights movement was born. The fight lasted three days. That was an event to write a college essay about.
The fights J had endured mostly ended in humiliation, and they certainly didn’t lead to anybody’s liberation. But he hoped he could do some damage with his camera. The pictures he’d been taking were getting better; they were telling stories, he knew—but he wanted them to do more. The photos he snapped of Zak and Chanelle had inspired him; he imagined a series of portraits of the people his father would have called freaks, making their way into magazines and books and, hell, maybe even galleries. Not that he went to galleries, but Melissa did. Forget shooting musicians; that dream was tired, it had been done; J wanted his pictures, his people, to fight back. He didn’t want Melissa to dance his story; he wanted to photograph it.
J didn’t even know what he meant; these were the kind of loose, disjointed thoughts he had when he woke up from a dream. Or tried to write an essay. How could he be accepted for a photography major if he couldn’t even articulate a sound idea for a project? Describe an event. J looked around the empty room. The collected Shakespeare works was still sitting on the table where Chanelle had left it; she obviously wasn’t worried about someone pocketing that. J started typing.
On the second day starting my new school, J wrote. He knew the grammar sounded wrong, but he kept going. I met a girl named Chanelle. This event changed my life. Chanelle is like me in some ways—we both are easily misunderstood. J worried this sounded simple, or vague, or both. Couldn’t you just buy essays online? Before Chanelle, I was often hateful, but Chanelle wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t afraid to go back to high school, even though she is already twenty years old. She isn’t afraid to write poems or read them to strangers. She isn’t afraid to tell people she’s transgender. Might as well come out, J thought. They’ll know it from the transcripts. And if Zak can be a doctor of gender, then hell. The first day I met Chanelle, she asked if I was an artist. With Chanelle, I knew I could be transgender and an artist. She was my first transgender friend. Meeting her was an event that changed my life. Next Friday, I’m showing my photographs in public for the first time. I’m sending you some photographs, and I hope very much to get into your college and your photography program.
“Needs more of an arc,” Chanelle said when she phoned J to tell him she read his essay. “But it’s so sweet.”
“I didn’t write it to be sweet,” J said. He felt embarrassed. “Do you think I’ll get in?”
“With this essay? No.” J could practically hear her playing with her bangs over the phone. “But writing about me is a good idea. It’s a subject I happen to know a lot about. I’ll help you with it.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, J?” Chanelle’s voice was gentle. “When are you getting your shot, again?”
“Next Thursday.”
“I’ll be there.”