Morgan M. Page
Two cans of beans and an eggplant, a big one like you used to get at a supermarket before everything went for-real organic. Pretty good haul from a half hour with this client, and he was sweet, too. It’s enough to eat for a couple of days. And a Rolex – doesn’t work but looks like the day it was made. Sarah puts them into her satchel, stained and patched a hundred times over, different colour leathers, holding together all these years later.
She gets onto her bike; it’s dinged up pretty bad and starting to rust, practically ready for the scrap heap, and she heads away from the condo. The building’s mostly intact, has almost all of its windows, just a few missing here and there like knocked-out teeth. She heads up Bay Street, across Wellesley, and rides around Queen’s Park, not through it. It’s still daylight out, but the park’s not a good place any time of day. The long-since burned-out shell of parliament quietly looms over it in the south, and she’s always glad to get some distance between her bike and that wretched place.
When she gets in, past two sets of doors, five sets of locks, down the long dark hall in the basement filled with debris that hides the door to their little apartment from possible burglars, she finds Johnny on the floor again. Must’ve been another bad day. Sarah puts down her satchel near the door carefully, so she doesn’t mush the eggplant, and sits on the floor next to him.
“Hey, baby,” she says in her client voice. Stops herself, readjusts. Regular voice: “What’s going on? You okay?”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t make a sound. Doesn’t take a breath for a good long while, and then exhales slowly and says plainly, “It’s just loud again today.” Johnny sits up, and he’s got that look on his face that used to just break her heart. But you can only get your heart broke so much until you’re numb to it. “Maybe we should move to the country. Get away from all the city noise.”
“Yeah, maybe some day.” Sarah stands up then. Their little daily drama, his dreams of fleeing the city. “But there’s no work out there. Not for me.”
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It didn’t change too much for Sarah after The Crash. Sure, it was better before with the Internet and video games and her dates gave her cash she could spend however she wanted, but, when you already live on the fringe of society, it doesn’t make a big difference when society just stops functioning. So now she trades favours for canned food and “fresh” produce.
But, really, the only thing she misses. The thing that keeps her up at night. The thing that dominates her thoughts any time she passes a mirror. The only thing she can think about when she thinks about the future. Hormones. Now, she’s pretty lucky because before The Crash, Sarah got her bits nipped and tucked permanently, so it’s not like she has to worry about her damned body flooding her with testosterone each and every passing day. Not enough to make her hair fall out. But she misses the little blue estrogen pills that made her breasts perky and her skin so much softer.
Right when it was all going down, five years ago, her first thought: Get to a fucking pharmacy, bitch. The looting had already begun, but, luckily, no one was really on the lookout for estrogen pills. Each pharmacy was cleared out of every kind of pain medication, and most of the important antibiotics and medications, but without fail, there they’d be. Bottles of estrogen. Estrace the synthetic, and Premarin the natural made from pregnant mare urine. She briefly considered trying to raise a horse, but couldn’t quite put together how that would lead her to a wellspring of estrogen without, like, having to drink glasses of horse piss – and she knew enough about science to think that probably wouldn’t be terribly effective.
But those sources long since dried up. She’s not the only transsexual in town, and there are, of course, post-menopausal women and all the little drug dealers who think they can charge a ransom for any pill they find.
But without hormones her body betrays her, as it’s done her whole damn life. She’s tired all the time, and maybe someday her bones will become brittle and snap, or cancer might eat her up. And she’s got to keep her girlish figure for clients and sweet, broken Johnny, which is what brings her to Jetta’s loft near the Distillery.
Sarah parks her bike, locks it to a pipe, and goes up the three flights of dark stairs to Jetta’s. Outside the door, one of Jetta’s boyfriends, all muscle, shaved head, stands watch with a couple of candles going. He looks Sarah up and down, and she rolls her eyes because he’s seen her a dozen times before. When he moves aside, she slides the stupid-heavy metal door open.
Inside it’s all twinkling lights, candles and oil lamps everywhere because the sun’s starting to set. Racks of clothes line the apartment, and at the other end is a well-stocked kitchen with just about every stainless steel kitchen gadget you could imagine, and tiny Jetta back there chopping carrots.
“Mija!” she calls out, turning to see Sarah come in. “How are you, mami?”
“I’m good, honey. I’m good,” Sarah smiles. Sure, she’s Jetta’s client, but she always makes her feel like this is home.
“I’m making carrot tonight! A big carrot for all my boys!” Jetta finishes chopping and puts it aside. “You want to stay for soup?”
“No, I’m good. Really.” Because everything comes at a price and you only want to owe Jetta so much. “You got time to give me a little booster shot in my boy pockets?”
It takes her a few minutes to set up over by the medical exam table stolen from some hospital. First, Jetta sterilizes the needles. Now, Sarah is not stupid. She knows that you aren’t ever really going to get those needles sterile. But there isn’t much choice. Then Jetta goes off to another corner of her loft, opens a great big safe – another item lifted from elsewhere – and comes back with a plastic bottle. There’s a picture of a smiling woman and the most beautiful ass you’ve ever seen in the world, with the words “SILICONA – COLOMBIA” in a circle around the picture.
When Jetta’s ready, Sarah pulls down her skirt and her dirty tights, lies down on the exam table, and lets the woman do her work. Jetta pumps the silicone into her hips, five needles on each side. She leaves the needles in, each one atop a big round bubble of silicone, until she’s finished with both sides. Then she takes out the needles, says, “You know this gonna hurt,” and starts rubbing. Sure, the tearing flesh feeling of the silicone going in is bad, but it’s nothing compared to the rubbing Jetta calls her “special massage.” She pushes the silicone around, forms it into the perfect hips. She injects some more into Sarah’s boy pockets, the little dimples on the sides of each butt cheek that are supposedly a dead giveaway of ass masculinity.
Silicone is forever. Mostly. “You gonna lose some, maybe half by next week,” Jetta says, as she dabs superglue over the injection holes and covers them in Hello Kitty Band-Aids. The silicone absorbs a bit into the body, but most of it will stay. Hopefully.
All the girls have heard horror stories about silicone gone bad. The body can reject it, or it can move and disfigure you. But at least Jetta’s face is reassuring. Her cheeks are round, her lips are plump – all in a slightly unnerving but exquisitely beautiful way. She’s more than just a woman, she’s an artistic representation of femininity. Or one kind of femininity, anyway. She could be any age – 27, 43, 52 – it’s impossible to tell with such flawless skin. Clearly, she had work done before The Crash. Professional work. Maybe in Guadalajara, Bangkok, Rio. Quality work.
Sarah’s so sore, she tries not to cry as she leans over and reaches into her satchel, pulls out the Rolex. Jetta snaps it up and looks it over, gets a look on her face like Ursula in The Little Mermaid. “Mm, this is good. My boys love it. Next time you get something good, you come back here and we’ll top you up. Make those breasts of yours really pop!”
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When she opens her eyes, slowly, sleepy, he’s not beside her. Runs a hand over the warm spot where her Johnny should be, and then she frowns and rolls over. Just a small shaft of clear moonlight coming in through the tiny grimy basement window, slicing through the dark room and hitting the edge of the bed. Her eyes adjust, and no Johnny. She catches the tension in her eyebrows as she’s squinting through the darkness, doesn’t need more lines, more reasons to get pumped. Relax.
Sarah gets out of bed, wobbles, rights herself, and makes her way carefully to the doorframe. One hand on the wall, she walks down the short hallway. First door, the bathroom. No Johnny. Farther down, she reaches the living room.
At first she can’t make out anything. Then a little whisper. She takes a step forward, so quiet, so careful, listens close for that little whisper. And there it is again. And then a little movement, enough that she can start to make out the edges of someone in the dark corner of the room. Her Johnny.
The only words she can make out, words spoken like terrible secrets, words meant to stay secret from her, are “I can’t.”
“Johnny.” Silence. Stillness. “Johnny, come back to bed, honey. Please.” Nothing for a few seconds.
He stands up and crosses the room, moonlight hitting just the lower parts of his legs as he sulks back over to her. “I’m sorry,” he says. Means it, too. Takes her hand and leads her to the bedroom. “It’s just so loud. It’s too loud in here, I couldn’t sleep.” Dead silence.
“I know, honey,” she says, climbing into bed. “But there’s nothing there. There’s no one there.” She almost catches herself, but it’s too late. The words have already fallen out of her mouth. He stops, won’t get into bed.
“You think I’m crazy?” Johnny says, the hurt thick in his voice. “I can hear them. I’m not crazy. Su Ling could hear them! You said you believed her.”
“Can we not have this fight? Can we not right now?”
“Do you think I’m crazy?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just, you know, trauma. Like it was hard on everyone, when it all went down, and we all process it different, you know?”
“That’s just a nice way of saying crazy.”
“Johnny, I’m sorry.” She reaches out for his hand in the darkness, squeezes it. “You’re not crazy. I just don’t know what to believe.” She pulls his hand, gently, pulls him back to bed. Sarah puts her head down on his chest and runs her finger across the long, thin line of scar tissue under his pec. “I’m sorry. I love you.”
For a while, they lie there in silence, neither of them asleep and both know it. “We need to get out of here. It’s better in the country, like Su Ling always said. We need to get away from the city.”
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It started about a year after The Crash. After everything stopped working, after the fighting, after the looting, after so much death. First, the rich fled the city. No use staying, they’d just be a target for gangs of thieves and looters. Sarah heard there were rich families holed up in farms way out in the middle of nowhere, up near Algonquin Park or somewhere like that.
With no government, no one came to collect the bodies. The remaining city folk started to bury them, mostly to make things hygienic. But there were too many, and digging’s a lot of work. People made huge pyres. Sure, it stank up the place with the scent of charred flesh for a while, but that was quickly overpowered by the rotting garbage smells. Life after The Crash was smelly. And that’s when Johnny, Su Ling and, Sarah was certain, many others began to hear it.
Johnny had been with her since before The Crash. They’d met at some sweaty queer dance party in the West End, around the time they’d both started transitioning. They’d stuck together as the whole damn world fell apart around them. He was strong and funny and sneaky then, a great looter early on. Until the pyres had burned away the last of the dead. They’d both seen friends and neighbours and so many legions of unknowns go up in flames.
He got a funny look on his face one day, looked around like someone had called his name. They were in an alley, had just looted a stockpile of canned food Johnny had found in the basement of some building. He thought they’d been caught, grabbed Sarah’s hand tight and ran.
Soon after, Johnny told her. “It’s like chatter. I don’t know, I can’t describe it. I think it’s an ear infection.” And so, Sarah saved up a bunch of stuff from tricks to barter for some medicated eardrops. No change. He tried to push it out of his mind.
Two streets over in the Annex, their old friend Su Ling was living in the attic of an old Victorian with whatever girlfriend of the week she had at the time. They used to go over for dinner sometimes, pool their food together and have a feast. Well, a meal.
One night over something that was almost borscht, Su Ling said she was leaving. “It’s time. It’s just death here.”
“But what’s out there? You gonna farm or some butch shit?” Johnny laughed.
“I’ve never even been out of the city since The Crash,” Sarah said, picking at a beet with her fork. “What’s even out there?”
“I have to. It’s not right here—” Su Ling tried to explain.
Her girlfriend cut in, “She thinks she’s going psychic. She hears—”
“Marla!” Su Ling snapped. “I just. I hear this, like, talking in my ears. It’s worse in some parts of the city. It’s like city noise. I gotta get out of here, and get some fresh air. It’ll be quiet in the country.”
A full minute passed before Johnny opened his mouth and let it spill out that he heard it, too. But there was no relief in sharing, all it did was unnerve the four of them further.
Su Ling left a week later with her pretty girlfriend in tow.
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Derrick is usually easy. He is quick, relatively clean, and polite. Skinny, white hipster boy with manners, a seemingly unending supply of canned food, and the faintest hint of a paunch coming in as he hovers around 30. He gives her four cans of beans and a mason jar of moonshine for the date when she gets to the collective house.
Sarah’s pulling her best post-apocalyptic Amy Winehouse – hair up in a messy bouffant, floral print retro dress that’s damn near mint condition, except for the small tear in the seam just under her armpit that she really needs to fix up before it rips further, and beat-up burgundy cowboy boots.
The date goes quickly. Rub, tug, blow, repeat, and it’s over. She gets up and goes over to the gold-framed mirror on the wall of his room, one long crack down the middle of it, cutting her face in two.
“You ever been outside?” she asks, fixing her hair in the mirror’s reflection.
“Like out of the city?” he says, still lying there in the afterglow.
“Yeah, some place rural. The country or something.”
“My buddy and I went out to this farm in, like, Aurora,” he says. “It was a pretty sweet set-up, but it’s way too much work. The city’s harder, I guess, but you don’t have to get up at dawn here and work in the sun. My back!” He laughs, and she can see him through the mirror, rubbing his stomach.
“You’re just a city boy at heart, huh?”
“Not cut out for working. I’m the first to admit I’m a trustfund baby.” His voice darkens only a little. “Or I was. Anyway, I like the city better. Make some booze to trade, and I can get up whenever I want.”
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The roof of their building is covered in gravel and plastic bins full of abandoned attempts at rooftop gardening. Neither of them have green thumbs, no natural inclination to keep things alive except each other, so it’s all dead and dried out, growing weeds instead of tomatoes. Johnny passes Sarah the mason jar, wipes the booze from his mouth with his other hand.
She takes a sip of the bitter drink and watches the patch of sunset light slowly moving across his brown skin. Johnny’s dirty white tank top is off, tucked into the waist of his jeans, and he’s leaning against the raised ledge, resting his head on folded arms. In that moment Sarah can see beyond the drama, the craziness, the pain, and all the wretched processing to the beautiful boy she took home one night, so many years ago. This forever, she thinks. And she drinks more of her trick’s moonshine.
“All right,” she says, and coughs for a second. “All right, I’m in. We can try it.”
“Try what?” Johnny asks, letting one arm droop down over the ledge.
“Let’s leave the city. Let’s go outside. I’m in. I’m with you.”
Johnny turns to her and, slowly, a big smile spreads across his face. She can’t remember the last time she’s seen his eyes so bright and alive. They kiss and laugh. He runs his fingers through her hair, presses his forehead against hers.
“It’s going to be so great!” he says, beaming at her. “We’ll get fresh food! We’ll grow things or pick berries or something! We can go anywhere. Anywhere! No more worrying about getting mugged or burglars or anything. I’ll get a bow and arrows and we can hunt for our food.”
“No more tricks,” she chimes in.
“No more tricks! And it’ll be so quiet out there.”
They stay up there, future-dreaming together until it starts to get too cold and too dark out, and they have to retreat to their basement hideout.
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The darkness is complete. Without streetlights, the headlights of passing cars, the tiny glow of digital alarm clocks, and the reassurance of a smartphone lighting up periodically to let you know who’s liked something on Instagram, it is total. And on a cloudy night, there isn’t even the light of the moon and stars. So, when Sarah opens her eyes there is no meaningful difference besides the feeling of air on her exposed eyes.
The dark used to terrify her, even into her young adulthood, even before it became so thick after The Crash. Now, just a mild sense of unease creeps through her body. It’s just the night. And she puts one arm around the warm body beside hers, around her Johnny, the muscles on his body feeling as tightly coiled as ever.
She makes a list in her head as she waits to fall back asleep. They’ve spent two weeks pulling it all together – the tins of food and bottles of water from her eight regulars, a compass and sleeping bag Johnny bartered some books for, and the not too beat-up backpacks Jetta gave her as a goingaway present at her last pumping session.
Beneath her arm, Johnny’s chest rises and falls. She can’t see it, but she can feel it.
This city has been everything to her. This city gave her life, an escape from the terrors of small-town queerdom. Access to doctors who took her seriously, or seriously enough that she could get what she needed. A chance at something like happiness. Shelter through the whole ordeal of The Crash, and enough work to keep her alive and well. And this beautiful boy under her arm.
And for him, for his madness or his gift, however you want to frame it, but for him regardless, she will give up this city.
Tomorrow, they leave.