Mick and michelle, p.17
Mick & Michelle, page 17
Surfing the net for more articles about transgender experiences makes me acutely aware of how difficult, if not impossible, it’s going to be to keep not only from telling more people but also prevent my body from changing further than it already has. I read happy stories, despondent stories, tragic stories. I compare myself to every story but find nothing that matches exactly or close enough. I must make up my own story, carve out my own path.
Am I ready for this?
Am I ready to say it out loud to the people who matter? Gabriel still matters. There’s no use in pretending he’s a nobody, not even now that he’s lost to me.
If I make a list of everyone I know who matter in my life, how will that list look once I take the plunge? Will name after name be crossed out and the list shrink to almost nothing? I can make new friends, I guess. But family? Impossible to replace.
And most importantly, there’s Grandpa. Grandpa must never know. Never. The stakes are too high. Maybe I can pretend to be the same old Mick when I’m with him. Would that work? Or would that be disowning myself, betraying my stand?
The circles I walk around and around in give no answers. At nearly 3:00 a.m. I hear Dad come home. I dive into bed. He never goes to bed without checking on his kids, no matter the hour. He tiptoes up the stairs, continues up to Ash’s door first. Ten seconds later, he opens mine.
“You still awake?” he whispers. “I saw the glow from the computer. Lights up your room like fireworks.” I open my eyes and look at him. He does his The Shining routine and tries to give me a lunatic’s smile while squeezing the door on his head, failing as always.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I say.
“It’s not every day you turn sixteen,” he says.
“What went down at work?”
“Some major drug bust by the docks. Shepherded a dozen people to jail. You can read about it in the morning. Go to sleep now, sweet sixteen. Real life starts tomorrow.” He chuckles.
“Good night.”
After he closes the door, I creep over to the laptop and take it with me into bed. I find no news about the drug bust, but Dad gave me an idea I need to research more. I might be able to buy myself some more time after all and stop all this creepy, unwanted, and hopeless stuff from happening to my body. If I take charge of myself now, then I can keep my secret longer.
Chapter 25
“HAVE YOU been practicing?” Grandpa asks on Sunday afternoon. I played “Michelle” as if the devil was chasing me. Or the fairies. They’re kinder and more alluring anyway.
“I’m giving up the guitar,” I say, totally unplanned and out of the blue.
“You’re not that bad,” Grandpa says.
“I used to have fun playing, but now… I’ve hit the darn wall, and it’s just growing taller.”
“Wash your mouth, young man. Swearing won’t get you far.” He speaks very clearly. Slow but determined. That’s good.
“So you never swear?”
“Of course I swear. But around your elders? That’s most disrespectful. Young people these days….”
“Sorry.”
“Ah well, you live and learn. Your granny would give me a hiding if I forgot myself and dropped a few ill-advised words within her earshot.” He chuckles for a few seconds before the stern frown replaces the flash of softness on his face. “And don’t walk around expecting to be good at everything. You have to work harder before you give up.”
“I’m just not improving. Takes ages to get the hang of anything new.”
“Have patience. It’s not perfect. At times quite jarring, to be honest, but you have a few songs nailed at least.” He takes a deep breath. “Today you played brilliantly, even. You have that shine on your face when you play, so don’t you go and sell that guitar I gave you just yet.”
“I wouldn’t dream of selling it. Come on!”
“Well, if you’re quitting it, you should leave it to someone more interested in keeping it tuned. It’s not fair on the instrument to leave it untouched. That’s more serious than swearing. It amounts to sacrilege to abandon instruments like that.”
“Fine,” I say, totally relenting. I’m not that hard to convince. When Grandpa brings religious words into the conversation, bowing out becomes a necessity. “I’m keeping it. And playing it. Same old songs. Maybe I’ll hack away at some new ones.”
“You bored with the drums too?”
“Not really.” I played my bodhrán this morning. I beat the daylights out of the leather. Chased Dad out of bed too. He grumbled when he came downstairs but never said “Stop the noise, for the love of Sunday,” so I just kept going until Ash whipped the tipper off my hands with a karate-like move, grumbling that I’m “fucking annoying.”
“You could always bring the fiddle, and I’ll teach you,” Grandpa says. “It’s been idle too long.”
“You think the other residents around here will appreciate me killing a cat twice a week?” I hark out, my throat suddenly constricted. He wants to teach me now? His mother was a wise woman, they say. Perhaps he inherited her visions and has seen me put his fiddle to my chin that one time at his house after I asked him if I should bring it to him here and he said no. Can you feel it when someone touches your beloved instrument? Do you leave a print there, a mark that is either welcome or not?
“They’re half-deaf, the lot of them. They don’t hear the damned alley cats at night even,” Grandpa says and coughs.
“The two of us aren’t deaf, nor are the nurses, so I say it’s a bad idea.” I shake my head, picturing me torturing Grandpa’s precious fiddle and the staff rushing in to see who’s dying.
“Bring it around next time. We’ll see. Now, any interesting news?”
“I can tell you about Dad’s drug bust last night. Read about it this morning, plus he filled me in on some details.”
“Depressing news, I’m sure. In my heyday, only the rich did drugs, and we ordinary people drank instead. You drinking yet?”
“I’m sixteen, Grandpa.”
“I started drinking at fourteen. Smoking when I was sixteen. Which will it be?”
“None of the above. Seriously.”
“Good man. I’m just testing you. See if you’re any different with your advanced age. You spent the money on anything?” The envelope from him contained one hundred bucks in crisp ten-dollar bills. A note from him, in Ash’s handwriting, told me to spend them wisely.
“Not yet. Maybe I should buy some new strings.”
“Or visit the barber? Your hair is too long.” I must look offended—which I sort of am—because he laughs and shakes his head. “Just pushing your buttons. Gerry had longer hair when he wooed Nessa,” he says slowly. “Looked ridiculous, but at least he was the decent sort. My Brigid taught him well. No question there.”
Grandpa being in such a good mood today makes me want to skip down the flight of steps at the home in an intricate sequence of taps and forget the whole mess my life is veering straight into. He hardly even slurred, which is a vast improvement from last week and an enormous one compared to a month ago, when he spoke so slow and still had trouble with several of the letters.
I half debate whether to do a little solo show with the guitar on some corners, see if I can garner any contributions for my own private charity case. I never did go get that permit, though, so instead I go straight home and start surfing for what I’m spending Grandpa’s one hundred dollars on. That’s the right focus.
The house is quiet, only the distant sounds from the TV disturbing me. Ma is back, having marathoned, if that’s a word, home from Seanin’s and now slouching on the couch with Dad. I recognize the music. They’re watching some Law & Order reruns.
Both Ash and I now know to steer clear when they watch series involving cops. They always dissect the way the police work is portrayed. I used to enjoy this, soaking up the knowledge like some infatuated addict—in a good way, sort of—but at one point their unstoppable observations got a bit too much. “Did you see how he held that gun? Where do they hire these actors?” is a familiar comment from Dad. “Jesus, that’s no way to hold down a suspect. Do they want to strangle the man? This is the kind of stuff that gives us a bad rep,” another one.
While the cop show drones on downstairs, I research like mad on the laptop, and I gradually weed out the uninteresting sites and come out on the other end, the hopeful one, with a list of places that can provide me with exactly what I need.
My hands shake, and I have trouble hitting the right keys when I pause and think too much about what the hell I’m doing. I know it’s not right but not quite illegal either, and at this point buying myself some time presents itself as the most practical option. I have to halt whatever puberty is doing to me before it’s too late. I need a pause button, because the countdown is killing me.
Time to involve Ash and make her my accomplice.
She owes me, so she’ll do what I ask her. She’s the only support system I have right now.
Chapter 26
I HONESTLY thought Ash would grab my hundred bucks straightaway.
“Are you insane?” she hisses when I calmly explain to her what I need her to do. She peeks over her shoulder, and unsatisfied with the soothing hums from the TV downstairs, she closes the door. “You seriously want me to get drugs illegally? I can’t believe my ears.”
So much for my theory on her asking no difficult questions and just obeying me.
“It’s not illegal. See here?” I take her arm and drag her closer. I point to the screen. “You can buy this stuff online, only you have to be eighteen on the pages I’ve checked. I don’t want to make a stupid mistake on a legal technicality.”
Ash shakes her head.
“All I have is Grandpa’s cash and some.” I have an additional thirteen dollars and sixty-five cents in coin and rumpled bills. “I need you to get this stuff for me,” I add.
“No. Seriously. No way. You need to see a proper doctor about this. You go downstairs and tell Ma and Dad. Right now. They’ll understand.” She pinches my arm, but I don’t flinch. I’m already wide-awake. I have one goal now, and she has to play her part.
“No,” I say. “Not yet. I need more time for that, and I’m already running out of time with this. I need this. Please, Ash.”
She keeps shaking her head, takes a step back toward the door. “This is too insane. You’re supposed to be responsible, and the responsible thing right now is to go downstairs. You tell them before this gets out of hand.”
It’s already out of hand. I grab a straw, and I throw out the one unsisterly card I hoped never to use. “Oh, like you told them about your secret mission last year?”
“Fuck you,” she hisses at me like a feral cat. “This is different. This is you taking drugs. These things need monitoring by experts. I’m not a nurse yet, but trust me—this is dangerous. You never do anything stupid, and this, this is off the charts wrong.”
“This is me taking charge of my life, like you did last year when you talked me into coming along with you to that clinic and keeping your secret. So you could be in charge of your life, remember?”
“Just shut it. Totally different thing.”
“Not really. You know I don’t judge, not at all, but some people call what you did murder.”
“You know I couldn’t possibly tell them I wanted an abortion after all the trouble they went through to have us. They’re still making the payments on the loans, damn it. They would have been devastated to find out I didn’t want that baby. My record is already bad enough.”
“Eye for an eye, Ash. Will you help me or not?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“I know which drugs I need. It’s only estrogen, for God’s sake. You can get them off the streets if you don’t want any online traces. Your contacts might be able to get them.”
“My contacts? Jesus, what do you think I am? I know one guy from my class who has a dealer brother. One! I haven’t even smoked anything, not as much as a joint.”
“I know some of your friends have. You know people who know people.”
“What would the druggies know about female hormones? You could end up with something dangerous. There are always side effects. This crazy scheme could kill you. Jesus fucking Christ. You know about the clinics in the city who can help, almost free of charge, right?”
“They make you go through counseling sessions first. It probably takes months. I don’t have time.”
“You’re sixteen and a day. The average life expectancy for women is eighty or thereabouts in this country. You have plenty of time.”
“My voice can break for good any day now. Don’t you see? Tomorrow might even be too late. I wake up with Dad’s voice and I’m screwed.” The right thing to do is get hold of those pills, and fast. I don’t want his voice, however much I love him.
“But wouldn’t your voice go lighter again if you’re on hormones? Like, they’d reverse the process?”
“No. It’s irreversible. You can’t shrink vocal cords once they’ve grown. Listen to my voice—it’s already getting deeper. I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t stop this crap from happening to me.”
“Fuck, are you suicidal too now? This is too much. I’m telling them. No way am I handling this alone if your life is on the line.” She reaches for the handle on the door, and I lunge for her hand and wrestle her away from there. My grip on her arm might bruise her, but I can’t let go. I’m like a bulldog who can’t unlock his jaws once he’s bitten something.
“I’m not going to kill myself. Come on! I want to stop all these changes, and if I can just get started on something to stop my voice from growing deep and manly like Dad’s, I’ll tell them, okay? Just let me get hold of the drugs and I’ll tell them. I promise.”
Okay, so I’m crying now. Tiny frustrated tears that itch on my soft chin as they trickle down. Ash eases out of my now limp grip, shakes my shoulders, and gets so close we practically rub noses.
“Mick, Michelle, you have to promise me—swear on Grandpa’s life—that you’re telling them soon. Like, this week or next.”
Ash lets go, her tight grip having carved bumps into my skin. She crouches down and covers her face with her hands. “You find out what you need online and I’ll pay with my card. That way there’s no need for any shady street business. I’m going to regret this, so bad, but okay.”
“Thanks, Ash.”
“Shit, this is so fucked up and wrong.” She’s got tears streaming down her cheeks when she gets up from the floor and throws herself on my bed, groaning. “But you’re my brother… sorry, sister, whatever. Annoying little kid. You and me, right? I owe you. We’re in this together now. Always.”
Throwing the abortion card at her surprised the both of us. We’ve never talked about it, not after it happened anyway.
Ash got herself pregnant last summer, with her on-and-off boyfriend Lake. According to Ash, he was a bore but had magic hands she couldn’t stay away from for long. When she told me this, I tuned out due to the indecent level of grossness on offer from my own sister.
“You haven’t heard about condoms? The pill?” I asked, all high-and-mighty, when she came to my room one night and told me the news. I had held a condom in my hand exactly once, during sex-ed class at school. Just the word condom struggled to leap off my tongue, it felt so alien.
“Condoms break sometimes, smartass. Don’t make me crawl. I’m not sorry I had sex, but I’m sorry I have to do this.”
“Then why not have the baby and put it up for adoption or something?”
“Because, Mick, this isn’t the 1950s or whatever. I’m in charge of my own life, and I’m not going to let a baby ruin my plans. I want a scholarship, and I want college. You see why I can’t tell Ma or Dad, right? They spent years and a fortune on fertility treatments to have us, and here I plan to get rid of a baby I label a mistake. There you have it. Not going to hurt them, Mick. No way. If I think too much about it, I might change my mind, and I can’t. No way.”
“Lake would be there for you, wouldn’t he? He’s pretty decent.”
“He wants me for the sex. I want him for the sex. That’s all. We’re not serious. We’re just having fun.”
“Okay, I don’t want to know any more details. You’re oversharing already. Can’t one of your girlfriends come with you?”
“Lucinda will gloat, and Yasmin is away for another two weeks. Molly is too holy. Besides, I want this done while Ma and Dad are visiting Aunt Maura. I already booked the appointment. Please come with me. I’m not allowed to leave the clinic alone, and I’m supposed to have someone with me all weekend. I’m only a few weeks along, so they’ll give me a pill to get it out.” That’s when she started crying, and Ash is not one to spill tears easily, unless someone has died or is suffering.
I went with Ash to the clinic so they could give her the drugs, and then I stayed close by all weekend while trying not to freak out. She didn’t have to say “I owe you” or anything, our joint mission just an automatic collaboration. Until today, when I said she owed me after all. Not the fairest way of getting my way.
We even had Grandpa over for dinner the day after the clinic visit, and he stayed late. We knew he’d been told to chaperone us, maybe even stay over on the uncomfortable guest bed, but Ash was in bad enough form for him to see that she wasn’t going to sneak out to any parties while we were home alone for two nights. When she stretched out on the sofa, clutched her stomach, and said, “It sucks to be a woman,” he darted out of there.
Ash got a near full ride to college, so she’s obviously smart. I guess she made the right decision on the pregnancy. It was her choice to make anyway.
And now she spends all night googling my situation or whatchamacallit.
Exhausted, I fall asleep while she does her own research on the sources I gave her.
I wake to Ash tickling my feet and telling me she’s singled out one online store where I can buy the drugs I want. Then she snatches the hundred bucks off my desk.
