“Doug? Doug?”
“Huh?”
“There you are. I didn’t find him. I went all over town. I guess you didn’t either.” Maggie stood by my right shoulder; I stirred, lethargic with grief, but didn’t answer.
“I’m so – so . . .” I looked up as Maggie put her hands to her face and began to cry. I watched her dispassionately. In the deep well of my depression, I had no sympathy. Maggie snuffed noisily and came around the front of the couch and sat beside me. She lowered her shoulder to let her bag slip off to the carpet beside the sofa leg, and she bent to it and opened it and began to fish for a kleenex. She dug deep, then pulled a crumpled white wad from the bottom of the bag, straightened, and blew her nose loudly. Slumped against the back of the sofa, I did not react.
“I hate to think of him out there. He’s got no coat.” She opened the kleenex, moved it around and released a fresh volley of tears. I thought I should pat her shoulder, or something. I didn’t. I just watched her cry.
“I was going to . . . Doug, I . . . He just means so much to me. You know?” A sob. “I – I . . . I think I’m – “(here her voice quavered) “I’m in – in l-l-love.” Here she broke down, and turned to me, and leaned over to place her forehead to my collarbone, sobbing wetly against my chest. Finally I brought my arm around and patted her a couple times on the back.
“I know, Maggie. I know.”
Maggie wanted him, too. How strange this whole thing was. And suddenly I wished I had Mack there in front of me, expressly for the purpose of sitting him in a hard chair, turning a hot desk lamp into his eyes, and questioning him mercilessly until I found out exactly who he was. Why he was. What his last name was. And how it worked that men and women wanted this derelict with a totally illogical, completely mindless, ridiculously impossible force that had rendered me impotent with despair and Maggie helpless with tears. Yeah, if I had him here, he wouldn’t get away until I’d learned everything about him there was to know. No food, no water – no trips to the bathroom, by God, till he spilled his guts to my satisfaction. He was gone now. He was gone but there was going to be hell to pay.
Well, of course I did see him again. After that night, after Maggie had her cry and went home, I ate leftovers out of the fridge standing up and put myself to bed via a frightening portion of the bottle of scotch that had sat alone in the liquor cabinet for probably ten years (my dad had left it). In the morning I grimly got up with a splitting headache and bloodshot eyes that made me look like a criminal. Or a drug addict. I stared at my ravaged face in the mirror, feeling hard-boiled, tough, relentless, like a career criminal, a prison inmate.
I dressed with anger. I fed the cats. I went out into the cold morning and got in my car. I felt big and mean. I knew I was going to find him.
And I did. Two minutes on highway sixteen was all it took, and there he was, walking by the side of the road, and when he heard the car he swung fluidly around and faced me, arm out, thumb up. I leaned forward and accelerated. I squealed onto the berm and jerked to a halt. I opened the door and was out of the car like a shot. He recognized me with a sudden jerk of surprise, turned, and started to run.
He bounded off the pavement like a deer, sprinting gracefully through the long grass toward the grove of trees beside the highway. I took off after him and I shouted his name.
I was running faster than I had ever run before in all my thirty-five chair-bound, desk-bound years, and when I got close enough, I leaped forward with my arms outstretched and landed him with a flying tackle that left us both in the tall grass, the breath knocked out of us, my arms around his knees.
Mack gave a cry, an animal sound.
“That’s right, you son of a bitch,” I panted harshly. “I’ve got you. Get up!” I let go of his knees, quickly grabbing his shirt tail with my left hand and the waistband of his pants with my right. I got to my feet, and jerked him to his knees, then up till he was standing in front of me. I yanked him around to face me, grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, and gave him a shake – a hard, hard shake.
“God damn you!” I shrieked. “God damn you, Mack!” And I burst into tears.
My eyes were squinched shut, but I felt his arms come around me, and I second I felt his touch my eyes flew open and I jerked out of his embrace. “Damn you!” I was fairly screaming. “How come you wanna be touched now? Huh? Huh?? What about all this ‘don’t touch me’ crap? Where’s all that now?”
Mack looked at me with eyes sunken in acute sorrow, but I had no pity for him at all. “You’ve got some explaining to do, buddy,” I said savagely. “Right now! So get going.” My right hand released its handful of shirt and gripped his upper arm and I turned and began to walk back to the car, pulling his stumbling body alongside mine. I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad in my life. My lips were pressed together so hard they hurt. Damn you, I kept repeating in my head. Damn you damn you damn you.
I reached the car and stuffed him inside, never looking at his face. He sat quietly as I marched heavily around the front of the car and thumped down behind the wheel.
But I didn’t start the car. I turned to him instead. A pickup truck whizzed past us on the road.
“Right now,” I said to him, looking daggers into his eyes. “Just right damn now, Mack, you’re going to tell me exactly what the frigging hell is going on, and I’m not letting you out of this car until you do.”
Mack was looking down at the hands in his lap. The sound of my harsh breathing filled the small space of the front seat. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll tell you.”
Somehow that was the last thing I expected to hear. For all my threats, I really didn’t expect him to acquiesce. I sat up a little, pulling away, and I thumped my hand down with a whack on the steering wheel. “Okay, fine. Fine. Go ahead. Go ahead.” I nodded strongly, then took a deep breath and let it out. At last. At last, I was going to know.
Mack was still looking down, his knees slanted toward me, sitting half-turned in the seat. He was smoothing each finger nail of his left hand in turn with his right thumb. When he got to the little finger, he started over. Slowly. Gently. Hypnotically. I stared at his long fingers as he began his tale.
“Once there was a little girl who wanted to be a boy.” He paused, and did not continue. I blinked.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I demanded. I was still in my ‘I’m not taking any crap’ mood, but I had an feeling I was going to have to hang onto it with both hands. Mack stroked his little finger gently, and started again with his thumb. Something powerful, like an ocean wave, washed over and through me, but I stood my ground. “What’s that supposed to -“
“I thought I’d make it like a story, you know? Like a fairy tale. “Once upon a time there was a little girl who wanted to be a boy.’ See?”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. I shook my head, hard – trying to shake it off as
I signaled that no, I didn’t understand. Mack stopped the motion of his hands, folded his arms across his chest, and leaned back slowly into the corner of the seat and door. I stared at him wordlessly.
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl who wanted to be a boy. Boys were better. She thought boys were better – and so did everyone else. They were stronger, and smarter, and bigger. They got their way. They called the shots. And she wanted that. She didn’t like girls. She didn’t like babies, they were too helpless. Women were helpless. She didn’t want to be a mother. She didn’t want to grow up into a woman. She didn’t like her girl’s body. She despised it, even. She dressed like a boy, and her hair was short like a boy. She played with the boys, and climbed trees. She got dirty – as dirty as she could. She picked up worms and ate bugs. She collected frogs. She did everything she could on the outside. But every time she went to the bathroom, you see – there it was. Her girl’s body. It was a betrayal. It was her enemy. Or so she thought.”
Mack tilted his head and gazed at me. “Do you follow me so far?”
“No. I think this is complete bullshit. Women aren’t helpless – lots of women are plenty tough. Tougher than men. Where did you get such a stupid idea that men are so great and all powerful,” I sneered.
“Look. I was raised in a very traditional family, and there were many fine things about that. But the way men and women were was not fine. Men had all the power. Women had to obey or else be the victim of that superior male strength and get beaten. Not only had to obey, had to obey cheerfully, willingly, gladly – because Dad was always always right – and you better stay on his good side, oh yeah. My mother and I walked on the thinnest of eggshells around him. He was right solely because he was the man. I saw my mother get beaten many times. He beat me, too. But if I had been a boy he wouldn’t have beaten me. He wanted a boy and got me instead; he was sorely disappointed, he made that very plain. Yet my father was a good man, I thought of him as a good man. I admired him. He was strong and capable, respected in the community, he always knew what to do, he did everything right. Which meant, of course, that my mother was wrong, was weak, was silly, was empty-headed, was too emotional. Was meek in a way that sickened me as she flattered and sucked up to my father. And I wanted to be him, not her. To give the beatings, not get them. To be listened to, to have my word be gospel. To have the power. To me it was just a question of not being a woman, that was what was wrong. My father was not wrong in his behavior. It broke my heart to see my mother get beaten, but instead of blaming my father I had to blame her. I had to, because otherwise it hurt too much to bear. It had to be her own fault that she got hit, otherwise the pain would have killed me. She eventually died, I always assumed as a result of one my father’s beatings; she had an aneurysm in her brain and it ruptured. That’s what being female would get you. And everyone felt sorry for Dad and rallied around him and pampered him and brought him homemade treats, the poor widower. That’s what being a man got you. That’s when I left home. And I’ve never been back.
“So I wanted male parts. I found male parts fascinating. Symbols of power – I mean, really. A nice big shaft, a big spear, a lance, a sword. A cannon. Compared to what a woman has, right? Nothing, in other words. I got older. Boys noticed. Boys wanted me. And I wanted them – but only in one certain way. I wanted to be them. I worshiped the male body. And I wanted one. I wished for one. I wished for one every time I . . . worshiped one. And finally I got my wish.”
I stared. I had no idea what to say, my mind was spinning. If this was true, it was too horrible.
Mack nodded. “The little girl who wanted to be a boy – her wish came true. Yep, it came true. Not all at once, you understand. It took a while. About six months, actually, if I’m remembering correctly. It happened gradually, and it was like the way boys grow into men – like puberty. See?”
I couldn’t breath.
“First there was the diminishing of her own female parts – her breasts got smaller, and then flat. And her voice changed. It was really the oddest thing, in retrospect, but to the girl it didn’t feel the least bit odd at all. No, she thought it felt right. She thought it felt right.” Mack nodded to himself thoughtfully. “So she redoubled her efforts, and the process speeded up. And her crowning glory was when her – female parts began to . . . elongate. And change. And turn into male parts.” Mack’s voice sunk to a whisper. “Male parts. All the right male parts. Small, but perfect. So that was how it came about. That was what happened.” He shifted, and unfolded his arms, and clasped his hands in his lap like a choirboy. “See?”
See? See? No, I didn’t see. I didn’t see at all. And the hair was pricking on my arms, and the anger was flooding back. I slapped the steering wheel again, and shook my head angrily. “No, Mack. No. I don’t see. I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t like this kind of -“
“I’m a woman.” He stared at me, evenly, right in the eyes. “I’m really a woman.”
“You’re a woman?” I was beginning to boil. I could fell the steam curling around my neck.
“Yeah. Yeah, Doug. I’m a woman. I mean, I’ve got a man’s body now, but I was born a woman.” He nodded a couple times. “I’m the little girl who wanted to be a boy.”
The rage exploded out of me with the force of a volcano. I was trembling, and my face was red, and I gripped the seat hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t at all.”
“It’s what I told you. Just exactly what I told you.”
“That you’re a woman? Were a woman? And your woman’s body changed into a man’s body? All by itself? Is that it? Is that what you’re saying? Not like transgendered, not like you always knew you were a boy in a girl’s body and then you got a sex change operation and hormones and stuff like that. Just miraculously, your female body changed into a male body?”
Mack blinked, and sank down a little bit into his corner. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”
Then I blew. “Of all the – ! I just – ! You expect me to swallow that kind of – “
“It’s true. It’s all perfectly true,” Mack interjected coolly.
“Well, that’s completely impossible, and I, for one, do not believe this blatant piece of crap, this ludicrous attempt to feed me some ridiculous – “
“It’s true, I said.”
“Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!” I clamped my hand over my eyes, and gnashed my teeth. I made a noise, then after that there was silence in the car. There was silence in the car for a long long time.