Everett Maroon's Blog, page 14

Excerpt: Synergy

This summer I am thrilled to get some feedback on my novel-in-progress at Lambda Literary Foundation’s Emerging Writers Workshop. I sent them the first twenty-five pages of the manuscript about four gender non-conforming people from different moments in time. It’s non-genre, it’s not a humor book, and it’s not a memoir. It’s a stretch for me, and an exciting project, but then again, I came up with it in my own head, so hopefully I’d have some interest in my own damn work. I should also add that it needs a ton of work — in this first draft I was messing around with point-of-view and tense, trying to figure out where the tone of the book intersected with the narration. But here’s the first chapter, in case anyone is interested:

Alex, Baltimore, 2004

Enough moisture collects at my temples that it streaks down the sides of my face, but I can’t stop running or break form to wipe my head. I tell myself that tomorrow I’ll remember my bandana. Now I’m four miles from home and have one more to go before it’s time to turn around. The sun has hit that angry angle after daybreak and I squint to block it out even a little. I’ve probably got about 90 minutes left before my shift at the pier. For the sake of predictability I take the same route six days a week: out the back door of my crappy apartment at the edge of a mostly empty commercial district, past sloping colonial-era pavers and a junkyard, down toward the revitalized harbor, then back again. As far and as fast as I can run, and even though it’s always quiet behind me when I turn around, I always have the sense I’m being chased.

Nobody can find out I wasn’t born male.

To keep my secret, I stay as thin as I can. Hence the hellacious running routine. Jogging hates me, and the feeling is mutual.

I grab the key to the back door from where I stashed it—this week it’s under a small planter because last week an alley cat overturned and busted the birdhouse that was its old hideout. Standing in my kitchen waiting for me is Leroy, a pit bull mix I found wandering around a 20-foot pile of garbage last year when the city sanitation was on strike. As usual he shows his excitement to see me by panting and drooling and wagging his entire rear end. It would be great if he could run with me, but one of his legs was so mangled when I found him that the vet had to amputate it. Leroy doesn’t seem to care or notice.

“Hey buddy, want some breakfast?” I already know the answer. He puts his one front paw on my foot and rolls his head to the side, creating a single line of saliva waterfall to the linoleum.

After filling his dish I crank the faucet handle to the shower and unwrap the bandage I’ve tightened around my chest, leaving a mountain range of red and white strips on my skin from the pressure of binding everything down. I step into the shower and make the water as hot as I can stand it. The pipes rattle behind the light blue tiles that look like they were grafted to the wall 50 years ago. Water spits out at me and I stand underneath, letting it calm down my tired muscles. At some point I’ll look like a boiled lobster, and at that point I’ll be done trying to feel clean.

My soapy hands find my abdomen and feel around on their own, as if I’m not in charge of them.

It’s only a matter of time before my pregnancy begins to show.

#

Eve, Pittsburgh, 2000

She sipped the coffee without enthusiasm. It was a necessary evil to combat fatigue from working three jobs, but it tasted like shit.

“Morning, hon,” said Burke, the carpenter who was her first customer nearly every day. Eve glanced at the grease-covered clock, high on the wall over the service counter. 6:45, right on time for Burke. His red-lidded eyes were evidence that his partying had lasted longer than usual last night. She gave him a fleeting smile.

“Your regular?”

She smoothed the wrinkles on her half-apron while she waited for him to nod. Burke heaved his large frame onto a stool and without words waited for her to get cooking. His construction boots didn’t have a scratch on them.

She cracked three eggs onto the grill, and they slid over a few inches, almost levitating above the boiling butter. Four slices of bacon, pulled from their warming tray, moved by Eve with a flick of the spatula onto a warmer section of the cooking surface so they’d re-crisp. In one fluid move she dropped a fresh English muffin into the toaster.

Burke loved watching her work, and he preferred to be alone while she made him his meal. She certainly was good motivation to get up this early. Her uniform was a size too small, which showed off her firm ass. He’d never worked up the courage to ask her out, and frankly, he wasn’t sure what he’d tell his buddies if they ever saw him out with a chocolate she-man.

Eve felt his eyes burning into her. She was practiced at pretending not to notice, but some days, like today, when she was especially weary, it was harder to forgive.

Flip the eggs for over easy, sprinkle the salt and pepper, slip it all onto a plate with a wedge of orange, she finished up his order and passed the dish to him, then refilled his coffee. He asked if she’d poured from his special pot.

“Of course, honey,” she said with a smile.

He had no idea she regularly added her own urine to his special pot.

#

Diamond, Washington, DC, 1998

The first punch felt like getting whacked by a stocking full of thistle; instead of one solid point of impact it was a hundred needles of pain, arguing amongst themselves about which pin pricks should get attention first from Diamond’s nervous system, which was of course capable of feeling it all in perfect synchronicity. Ze might not have been expecting the assault before it happened, but now synapses were exploding with ideas about potential and immediate strategies for response. Hit back. Run. Scream.

Screaming was a great option, and not incompatible with other options. The sound Diamond made was loud, urgent, and seemed to come from far away. Ze was certainly used to feeling outside hir own body, but this was a new kind of disconnect.

“Shut up!” He gave her an expression that looked like fear, which was funny to Diamond. Hir screaming should frighten him? Diamond was the one with the bruises and lacerations. His stupid jacket, fresh out of a 1980s music video with patches of red leather and too many zippers, looked ridiculous. She responded by laughing.

Ze hunched up the brick wall in the alley, moving from one shoulder blade to the other. Turned out ze was the same height as the attacker. The dumb punk raised his arms again, in defense, as if he hadn’t begun this altercation himself.

Diamond’s ribs were on fire; with each breath they ignited again. Ze pulled hir arms forward in an attempt to protect the painful parts of hir torso. A clot of blood sat at the back of hir tongue. Ze spit it into the young man’s face, without thinking about the consequences of such an action.

He lunged into Diamond, pressing hir into the wall and slamming his fists into whatever flesh he could find. Then he grabbed for hir wallet and took off running down the alley, skittering around the corner into the weak light from the street lamps. Diamond slumped back down to the ground, holding hir freshest wounds.

The stage door across the alley opened, and the club manager saw her star performer crumpled in the storm drain runoff.

“Diamond, what the hell?” Lou’s fat arms scooped hir up and she urged Diamond to lean on her.

“I guess when someone wants your wallet, you should just give it to them,” ze said. Diamond probed a wound in hir mouth with her tongue. “I think I swallowed a tooth.”

“Holy shit, Di.” Lou glanced around to make sure they were alone. “Come on inside.”

“Ow. Not so rough, boss.”

“Poor baby. Let’s take a look at you in the light.” They passed each step to the door gingerly. “I really wish this neighborhood would gentrify already.”

Diamond frowned, hir costume for the drag show ripped and mangled, hir face swollen all along hir right jawline. “Gentrification bad,” said Diamond.

If Diamond was making jokes, ze was okay, Louise figured.

#

Terry, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1980

The wind picks up and I can’t shut my eyes fast enough before the dirt has infested me. I’m sure I’ll scratch my cornea like I did five years ago. Yanking my hat down lower to deflect the dust storm from my face, I look like a real cowboy, at least from a distance. Cream-toned straw, woven tightly, it’s held in shape by a thin leather strap I dyed myself some summer in my childhood.

By the time I cross the field and pound up the front steps to our house, my boots are caked in any light brown dust that couldn’t hold onto being part of a larger dirt clod. This was once fertile, dark soil, and now it seems like a dream that we farmed thick crops here, mostly sorghum. The sunflowers were my favorite, long rows of joyous yellow, but it’s been nearly forever since they’ve graced our land. They used to make the whitewashed walls of the house glow.

I walk up to the house still expecting to see Sally Jessup’s fresh milk on the stoop, but of course she hasn’t had a milking cow for six years.

Not much farming goes on out here anymore. Two of the oldest farming families in town sold off their land for pennies per acre, just to get out of the business altogether. Father is wondering if he should do the same, but he doesn’t dare breathe a word of it to Ma because she would have his hide. This is her grandfather’s land, and she could leave here like she could leave her body behind on a walk into town. But maybe the place is a ghost already.

I stamp my feet onto the sagging porch boards and pull open the screen door, waiting for my eyes to adjust from the bright morning outside. My sister Helen is standing at the threshold of the kitchen in the back of the house. She twirls the end of the green belt that cinches her flowery house dress tight across her small waist. While I scratch my head wondering if I knew she’d be visiting today, a sinking feeling moves into my stomach—her cheeks are wet with tears. I walk forward quietly, but the bang of the screen door behind me makes my family turn around to look at me. Their faces look collapsed. I walk up to my parents, my sister, and my brother-in-law, Charles, who leans against the far counter, running his fingers over his ridiculous moustache.

“Terry,” says my father, his voice sounding as dry as the dirt out back, “Helen is sick.” A pause. “Cancer.” Direct talk for a quiet man.

Helen mumbles that she only has a few months to live and then she bursts into tears, cupping her hands over her face. Ma squashes her in a hug, doing her best not to add her own crying.

I come into the room and hug my sister, wondering if I can feel for signs of cancer in Helen’s body. We are twins, but our closeness has never been about a genetic bond. I’m the mutant, and Helen is the good girl. I should be the one with cells in revolt.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, and then I want to take it back. I just made it real.

Helen slips her arms under mine, still crying into my shoulder.

Finally we pull apart. I look at her face that looks so like mine, but better in all of her features.

“So you fight it. We’re here for you, Butter Bear.”

“Honey Bear,” she says to me, “the doctors, the doctors found it too late.”

“Come on. Maybe you need better doctors.”

Charles pipes up. He’s worn some fresh wrinkles into his forehead since the last time I’ve seen him. Which I guess is not surprising.

“Terry, we went to Kansas City, to a cancer clinic, one of the best in the country.”

Every breath feels like acid in my lungs.

Friday Flash: The Tree Planters

He grabs a seedling out of the thick canvas bag and drops it in the hollow pole. Schuuuck as the baby slides down, the quiet noise almost a song by the time it reaches the bottom of the tube. The seedling only sits ready to be planted for a moment before it takes its place in the brand new soil, the very youngest in a staggered row of conifers.

The first sun isn’t quite over the ridge yet, but Hax is ready for it, or more accurately, he’s tired of squinting in the pre-dawn light. He and his coworker Marnie will have three solid hours of planting before the second sunrise, and then they’ll need to take cover because radiation from two stars is harsh on human skin. Like, third-degree burns harsh. So many people have died trying to make Valus habitable that Hax and Marnie have lost faith in the capabilities of the Health Service.

Schuuk. Marnie tamps down the moist dirt with her boot, just enough for the seedling to stay put but not break stride. She and Hax have an ongoing bet about who can get more trees in the ground in a day, a week, a mountaintop. So far for the week she’s ahead by 327. It’s too close a margin, in her opinion.

On the next peak ahead they can see the soil-laying machine, like a gigantic bulldozer working in reverse. It’s as close to Earth soil compositions as anyone out here can create. But it stinks like rotten broccoli and after a day of seeding the mountain, they get back to base reeking of it. The smell is so bad Marnie is grateful for her oxygen mask.

They need the trees to make enough oxygen to support everyone. There are a lot more mountainsides to go on Valus.

“I didn’t see you at Woulf’s last night,” says Marnie, her voice muffled by the mask.

“Yeah, I didn’t go. I just wanted a quiet evening.” Schuuuk. 187 Schuuuk. 188.

“Okay. So what did you wind up doing?”

She’s in one of her chatty moods, he thinks, pulling a seedling from his bag. All of their equipment is painted some shade of green. As if who knows, maybe they’ll forget they’re from Forestry Service.

“I just played video games, I guess.” With a couple pints of homebrew at his side, but he doesn’t want to tell her that or she’ll come over and drink everything he has.

Marnie holds back a snort. Hax is lazy, often a complainer. And defensive about both.

“Well, you know we’d love to see you. Jance is not a great tournament partner.”

“Jance can’t play his way out of a wet paper bag.”

Neither of them knows what the hell a wet paper bag is, but they reckon it’s a terrible insult so it gets used in conversation often.

“Eh, it’ll make you a better player,” says Hax. Condensation from his breath has started collecting in his mask, making his thin beard scruff damp in a really annoying and disgusting way.

Schuuk. 235.

“Well, I did okay without you, I guess,” she says, taking a peek behind them. She needs a glimpse of their progress every so often. Hax never turns around. Not knowing would drive her nuts. He’s so sure of himself. But then why does he hide out in his unit almost every time they get R&R?

Up ahead the brown earth stretches out, curving away on a gentle slope. Maybe someday Valus will be beautiful like Earth was. Or rather, like they’ve heard it was.

“So who lost,” asks Hax, as if he’s disinterested. But the act of asking, well, she can see past his pretense.

“Kenlee lost,” says Marnie. It’s too bad. She liked Kenlee.

“Damn, I thought Kenlee would get to the finals.” Between both of them, five more tiny trees stick out of the ground.

“I know, right? Meanwhile that slime ball what’s his name is still in the running.”

“Slime ball, slime ball, there are so many to choose from, so who could you mean? Do you mean Deeble?”

“Yes, that’s his name. I always forget.” Schuuuk. Schuuk. “I repress it. I swear he cheats but I can’t figure out how.”

“A lot of them cheat. Why wouldn’t they, since the stakes are so high?”

“But it ruins the competition.”

“Maybe the competition is bigger than just the tournament.”

Marnie pauses for a moment. Hax takes the opportunity to install three more seedlings, all in a row. Damn him.

“I get what you’re saying, Hax,” she says, double loading and plunging trees into the soil in a few seconds. They aren’t supposed to do this. Forestry Service has calculated growing efficiency and the babies have to be a certain distance apart. But she’s not thinking about her seedlings just at the moment.

“Then admit that competing is more than just within the tournament. We’re all in a grand contest, really.” Hax snarls without meaning to.

“I will admit no such thing,” says Marnie. “We’re here for the common good. The tournament is about getting us all to step up and be our best selves.”

He snorts, making his oxygen mask get almost unbearably greasy inside.

“Damn it,” says Hax, taking a big gulp and ripping the mask off.

“What are you doing,” asks Marnie, her eyes as big as the second sun. “You can’t breathe the air!”

Hax rubs his shirt tail in the mask in two, three strokes, and without inspecting his work slams the mask back over his nose and mouth. They have completely stopped planting seedlings for the moment, despite the risk. Those happy green tubes will summon Police Service if they’re idle for too long and it’s not an authorized break time. Hax’s tube flashes a warning signal. He grabs a seedling and loads it.

“I just couldn’t stand it anymore,” he says, and they get back to their usual pace. Schuuk, schuuuk. Marnie has lost track of how many she’s planted. The pole meter will tell her at the end of their shift.

Across the meandering valley, the sky looks almost blue, like in the pictures they’ve seen at the Library and History Service Building. This is all worth it, Marnie tells herself.

Finally it’s only about fifteen minutes until lunchtime and the second sunrise, when they’ll meet up with the shuttle and head into their bunker. Hax will miss being outside.

“I shouldn’t have picked testosterone,” he says, almost to himself.

“What?”

“I should have picked the other.”

“Estrogen? Why? I thought you wanted to go masc.”

“I did, I guess. I mean, I don’t know. What if I feel kind of in between? Testosterone makes everything so greasy and gross.”

“Well, estrogen isn’t all cheesy breezy, either. You went to the Health Service presentations. They said we had to pick one or the other, to become more like we used to be.”

“I don’t buy it. I think we should just be us as we are.”

Maybe he’s not lazy, she wonders. Maybe he’s depressed or crazy or something.

“Talk to Health Service. Maybe they can switch you.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Marnie, are you stupid or something? Jerrent did that last year, and do you know what happened to him?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“Okay, but do you know what happened?”

“I’m not talking to you anymore until you admit I’m not stupid.” She walks away from him, casting new trees into the ground as if they didn’t always agree to walk together. Schuuk.

“You’re not stupid, you’re not stupid, Marnie, come on.” Hax trots off after her.

She stops, turns around, still planting in a new line back to her original trajectory.

“You think pelvis expansion is a cakewalk?”

“No.” Hax has never used the word chagrined in a conversation, but he is at this moment.

“For puck’s sake, they’re just hormones. It’s for the common good, remember?”

He sighs. They are in this together. Maybe he should go to the tournament one of these weeks, see if he can qualify for a larger home unit. Or a one-way trip to Balta, the luxury planet in the sector.

“It’s just different and I don’t like change,” Hax admits. Schuuuk.

“Look,” says Marnie, in a whisper. Rumors pop up from time to time that their Forestry Service gear has listening devices embedded in the paint. That innocent fucking green paint.

“It’s hard for everyone, but at least we’re not in the coolers down below waiting for the planet to be ready, too frozen to even hope that we survive the thaw. Would you prefer that?”

Hax shakes his head.

“So keep planting trees, and stop complaining, and shut up about Jerrent. Jerrent had a lot of issues.”

Yeah, thinks Hax. Like Jerrent didn’t want to be masc. And I don’t, either. And now I know I can’t talk to anyone about this, not even my best friend.

Schuuk. Schuuuuk. The row of seedlings stands behind them, ready for the second sunrise, eager to soak up as much radiation the light beams can carry.

THE END

Lowered Expectations — Media, Money, & Mad Men

It’s not that I’m in a bad mood on this rainy Tuesday, it’s that I don’t have any energy left for annoyances. Yesterday started off with someone relaying a situation to me: what if a woman was being pestered to get an HIV test because a previous boyfriend of her hers was HIV-positive (or so they presume). What if the boyfriend refused to get one for himself and refused to use a condom? Could I test her and call him to say she was negative? Also, can people get AIDS from toilet seats?

There are so many things wrong with that hypothetical that I scarcely know where to begin. But maybe this is a good Square One:

What about this syringe looks like a good idea?

If you’re concerned your sexual partner has HIV or AIDS, don’t have sex with them without a condom. I don’t know, seems like decent practice to me. Also, if your fiancee insists you have an HIV test, tells people on social media he thinks you have AIDS, refuses to get a test himself, and IS SUCH A DUMB ASS HE SCREWS YOU USING NO PROTECTION, do not, under any circumstances, marry him.

I open up my work email inbox, and lo and behold, there are two messages asking for me to donate money to a person who is crowdsourcing some thing or other. My work email. And I have no fewer than four personal email accounts.

I must get 7–10 indiegogo or other crowdsource requests a week. These are on top of the emails from the Pride Foundation, Planned Parenthood, the alternative high school’s health clinic, any nonprofit I’ve ever donated to, and any nonprofit I’ve ever worked with as an executive director. I just do not have enough money to give to all of these organizations and people. So I am drafting a set of guidelines for my future giving. It’s nothing personal, people and organizations who need funding. I know what the economy is like. I know the 99% of us are working with less than ever before. But from here on out, I probably will not donate to any of the following:

A project that should be funded by your employer—as in, this is a project that benefits a larger institution—This should be funded by the organization, not individuals, and especially not individuals who are themselves on the margins, with little access to institutional power/money.
A project that is super-tentative or extremely vague—I want to do something with kittens and global capitalism and the performative—don’t we all, my friend. Don’t we all.
A project to give the creative grantee “space to think.” That’s called time management. I mean, I get that it’s hard to do anything creative when one has no time, and/or lots of responsibilities. Forgive me if I sound flip, but carving out such space and time is part of the creative process, not simply a precursor to it. Okay, so maybe I’m talking myself out of my reservations for this, but there are a few funding requests on this subject that just strike me as somewhat unnecessary.
A project that already has several established funding avenues—I get that lots of grant programs are really competitive, or limited to nonprofits, or unavailable to individuals, so in those cases it makes sense to think about crowd funding. But if the the project is mainstream enough that there are other ways to get funding already open, consider knocking on those doors first, and not mine.
A project that is looking for $250 or less—There may be some situations that come up that need mircofinancing, of course. But I’m going to reserve my giving for people who need an amount of money that they couldn’t collect in a year on their own.

Maybe a list of excepted funding requests sounds harsh. Maybe it makes me a bad person. But honestly, I’m making these decisions on a regular basis, and at some point, and I have to say no more often than yes. I’m definitely partial to trans-related health care and surgery, moderately well defined book or creative projects, projects that benefit a group of underserved people, and projects that have a principled purpose but no institutional or alternative means of getting funded.

Okay, so Mad Men. I realize after last week’s descent into urban hell that the entire show is an apology for men’s ability to deal with past traumas. We’re watching them through the figures of Don Draper, Pete Campbell, Roger Sterling, and others, be cruel to women, over and over again. If Dick Whitman grew up the orphaned child of the house of prostitution, then no amount of speed doping in the guise of a vitamin shot is going to restore his soul. We’re watching 40-something and older white men take their frustrations out on the people around them. I suppose my unease watching the first few episodes of the series was well founded, in retrospect and all. Now watching a show about a man named Dick created by a man named Mr. Weiner is making me feel like I’m on the bad side of a penis joke. Mad Men is losing me.

Back to the rainy afternoon, now. Hopefully I’ll find a new mood soon!

The Small Town HIV/AIDS Organization

She comes in, won’t make eye contact with me. I have to hold my breath so I can make out what her mumbles mean. But before I’ve had time to process the low tones of her language, I know why she’s in my office: She wants to get tested for HIV.

There’s definitely shame in the eyes of the people who come here looking to exchange their used syringes for new ones, but oftentimes they’re so desperate to be done with me that there’s nothing halting about their speech or presentation. The folks worried they’ve got the granddaddy of sexually transmitted diseases well, they have a reason to put off the potential certainty of a diagnosis. Those exchangers are all too anticipatory, and it is a readily accessible difference that I can assess inside of five seconds.

No matter the need of a given individual, I put on my most reassuring face. Get professional, avoid any hint of judgmental snark or attitude. In most engagements, they’ve spent copious amounts of time beating themselves up for their behavior, their mistakes, their bad decisions. I’m not one for piling on.

I ask this latest sorrowful woman to fill out a form, over here at the table, and I’ll be with her in a few minutes. She shouldn’t have to face the questions about her drug use and sexual history with some random guy watching her. I’ll be all up in her business when we do the cheek swab, so I give her a moment to get herself together.

I’ve turned many people away, or referred them to someone else, because an HIV test was not what they needed or not appropriate. They often come in too soon—I can’t test anyone within six weeks of exposure—or they may describe something that never would lead to HIV transmission. One young woman, developmentally disabled, was certain she had AIDS, but she’d had no sexual contact with anyone. Some men come in having checked the boxes for unprotected sex with men, and then scribbled them out so intensely they ripped the paper form, or stormed out, lest I think they were gay.

Other people are not so timid, or horrified at themselves. One man came in every other month for a test. I suggested he make his visits to me quarterly. Now I see him every three months, always gently suggesting that this retroactive check on his health is not as helpful as using a condom would be. (Note to parents of sons: Tell them as early on as possible that condoms are important, and don’t focus on their sensation. Sensation and protection are two different things, and one should not be deprioritized for the other.)

I test strangers. I test people I’ve seen around town. I test people I know, reminding them that I am bound by law not to tell anyone else they came in, what their result was, or anything they said to me during the test. If the county Sheriff came in wanting to know who I tested on a given day, I would not be able to tell him. Sometimes this total, unshakable confidence makes my testing room something of a confessional, and people blurt out all kinds of things about their sexual practices and relationships. I’ve slipped domestic abuse hotlines into women’s palms, even though they’re printed up as hair salon business cards. I’ve answered questions about sexual positions and times of the month, penis size, and on and on.

This woman has checked off enough boxes that she is at high-risk in terms of practices. Walla Walla, for its part, is a low-prevalence area, but we had four new positive cases last year, so there is a quiet nervousness among a few of us as to how many other undiagnosed people are here who are playing a terrible waiting game with their immune systems. I’m currently looking for a long-term former partner of one of my clients—they broke up two years ago—who apparently seems sick. She lives somewhere in Walla Walla but works over the state line, so getting different jurisdictions to find her and get her tested has been onerous. I think about her often.

I suggest we do the rapid test so we can have results in 20 minutes, and my test subject agrees. Her foot taps the tiled floor. We’ve only been in this office since last July, but at our old office the carpet was worn in two spots where people did what she is doing. I guess that at some point the finish will be worn off that tile square.

The good old boys of Walla Walla like their perspective on the city—it’s clean for the most part, often sunny, with some grand brick buildings from when it was the capitol of the territory of Washington. They see white families in nuclear family model, meter-free parking, a thriving farmer’s market, an annual rodeo, lots of chuch-going folks on Sundays. I know this is all present in town, but there are also teenagers having secret sex with their peers, bubbling pockets of meth and heroin use on the outskirts of town, a revolving door at the district court because we have so few resources for people with chemical dependency issues, and whirlpools of poverty that snag generation after generation of people here.

I watch the blue dye climb up the window of the rapid test. Five minutes. I need to see one line to verify the test is valid. If I see the second line, then I know she has antibodies to HIV—a sign of exposure. I would have to follow up with a conventional test, sent to the state lab in Olympia, and if that was positive, she would need to get a blood test from a doctor’s office, and she would have an official diagnosis, with which she could get state insurance coverage. She’d also feel like her life was never going to be the same.

Instead it’s negative, and like I’ve witnessed with so many others, she exhales in relief. There’s a moment, just a flash, where she seems to process all of the anxiety and angry thoughts she’s had about her choices, where it looks like she’s trying to promise herself she’ll be perfect from here on out. It’s similar to what I used to do in confessionals with the priests at my school, back in my practicing Catholic days. I know what happens after that moment, because I’ve done it too. She’ll find a way to laugh off the tension, dismiss her worries, and slip back into her habits so effortlessly it’ll be like this experience never happened.

The Writer Emerges

Life this winter and spring has been less about balance and more about fulcrums. You know, like when you’re moving up and down a lot but not getting anywhere. At least a roller coaster has forward momentum and a few thrills along the way. A seesaw just lifts up and crashes down with a jolt at the end of each direction. Nearly all of the endeavors I’ve made since last fall have come with commensurate concussions. Case manager is leaving for a full-time job. Hire new case manager. Send in manuscript to potential agent and wait. . . finally getting rejected by potential agent (but in the nicest way possible). Move office to other side of town, deal with people yelling on the phone that the office has moved. Start new manuscript, get sidelined by a different project. Apply to literary contest, fail to make the finals. Apply to writer’s workshop with no hope of getting accepted.

Then gasp at the screen when reading the acceptance letter.

I still pinch myself that I’ll be a Fellow at this year’s Lambda Literary Foundation’s Emerging Writers Workshop in LA, working with Samuel Delany for a novel in progress of mine. Even though the subject line said “Congratulations,” I figured it was going to be an email asking me to send my congratulations to the 2013 fellows who naturally wouldn’t include me. Thus the gasp.

“What,” asked Susanne, who started reading over my shoulder as HGTV played softly on the television across our small living room.

“I got accepted to the Lambda Literary workshop,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”

“I can,” she said. Reason number 327,465 why I’m on Team Susanne.

I admit that I read the email half a dozen times before I believed it. It wasn’t spam or a phishing scam. The next series of thoughts that crossed my mind were all related in their ludicrousness–but I’m not cool enough to hang with other authors, I don’t even have a tattoo; I’ll need to get a single so I don’t snore my roommate into a homicidal rage; the baby will be so mad at me for going away for a week; but who will help Susanne with childcare for eight days; I don’t have enough nice outfits; maybe Annie Danger can tattoo me before the end of July; holy shit I think my manuscript stinks worse than a dead possum so when am I going to fix it.

Big breaths, Everett. Big breaths.

I have spent so much time running around Walla Walla for work and the wee one that I hardly come up for air, just in general. Since February I’ve been revising my YA time-travel novel, often wishing I had a temporal transportation pod so I could redo most of last October. I’ve dragged this laptop around to so many places the actual case is falling apart, and no amount of Mr. T-themed bumperstickers will keep it together. Maybe it’s a metaphor for my shitty organizational capacity, come to think of it. I have stress dreams about losing all of my documents, so thank goodness for the external hard drive. Too bad my dreaming self never remembers the external hard drive. My dreaming self listens to no one.

We talked the night I read the acceptance letter, about how to make it work. I honestly never thought I’d be accepted. I’m not all that different from last year, when the rejection email appeared just as suddenly one day. But I am different, in ten thousand tiny ways. And this is one more lesson that when I stop worrying about my value and just write what I think is truth, that people get interested. I will try to bring that honesty to Los Angeles. Bring my best self and most impassioned writing ability.

I may still try to get a tattoo from Annie, though.

Responses to Random Comments from Others

Let the inner monologue begin.

Hey, did you see that article in the newspaper about that transgendered couple? Yes. I subscribe to the newspaper. It’s easy to read, too, because it’s only 12 pages long.
Hey, do you know the transsexual couple in the paper today? Yes. I’ve met them, mostly by chance. It’s a small town. I’ve met the mayor more times than them.
Oh my God, was that you in the paper today about being trans? Only if I’ve been blasted with a reverse-aging gun, and shifted my entire skull structure. I hope someone lets me in on it if that’s what happened. Do you have a mirror I could borrow?
Hey, there’s a high school student/college student/totally grown adult who is starting to transition. Could you talk to them? I mean, I haven’t talked to them yet to find out if they’d like you to do that, but you know, could you do that? Of course I’ll talk to them. It’s a small town and starting transition is way beyond difficult. But they get to have the last say in whether they sit down with some middle aged guy from New Jersey. I really hope that’s clear. And for the record, I am not the spokesperson for Transgender America. That would be Chaz Bono.
I’m a great ally, but I’m not really out about being an ally. So please don’t go telling people I think it’s okay to be trans, all right? By definition, that makes you NOT an ally. Go home, fake ally, you’re drunk.
That’s a nice idea and all, but you know this isn’t DC, right? You’re right–let’s not have any expectations for people in Walla Walla, that we can support each other, pass things like anti-discrimination regulations, and help LGBT people in crisis. Let’s leave liveability to people in big cities. But when we do that, Dan Savage wins. We can’t let Dan Savage win!
You sure talk about being trans a lot. Like, aren’t you happy just being a man? I’m so far beyond happy it would blow your tiny little mind. But I feel a need to be open about my history, you know, so all the closeted and other allies can ask me to be a resource for others, or tell me that Walla Walla isn’t the District of Columbia.
You might have a hard time finding a job here, because you’re overqualified. You know, that happens to men. Wow. I’d never heard of that before I transitioned in 2004. Thanks for cluing me in!
What was your old name? Buy the book to find out.
Do you know the pregnant man? Nope, but I know like 7 pregnant men who were pregnant years before him, and who didn’t feel the need to go on Oprah.
Hey, did you hear the pregnant man is getting divorced? Yes. And he’s seeking this claim even if it means possibly hurting future transgender-related marriages in the future. One guess how I feel about that.
Did you make that baby with Susanne? Let me refer you to WebMD.
Does it bother you that your baby isn’t related to you? No, but I bet it bothers you that you aren’t related to such cuteness.
Why do all trans men have such crazy facial hair? If I told you, I’d have to kill you.
Do you mourn the old you? No, but I mourn the loss of knowing you before you asked that dumbass question.
Do you ever think about going back to being a woman? Not until just now. Excuse me, I feel a wave of laughter coming on.
I was just wondering, do you have phantom breast sensations? Tell me, do you have phantom intelligence sensations?
Hey, do you know <>? Yes/No/We just hung out last night! How’d you know?
Does it feel weird to take your shirt off in the pool? I mean, I hate that wave of cold water as much as the next person…huh?
I understand how hard it is to find a doctor in town. My mom had <> and she had to drive to Seattle to find a specialist. Was this after the physician here insisted on giving her a prostate exam? Because that guy is really on my shit list.
Is it like, totally weird living in a small town? Why, does nobody ask you how weird your city is?
Are you interested in giving the newspaper an interview about being trans in Walla Walla? I’m hanging up now.

Insert your comments and responses here.

Why It’s a Pain in the Ass to Be Trans in a Small Town, Or A Simple List of Stuff People Have Said to Me

Hey, did you see that article in the newspaper about that transgendered couple?
Hey, do you know the transsexual couple in the paper today?
Oh my God, was that you in the paper today about being trans?
Hey, there’s a high school student/college student/totally grown adult who is starting to transition. Could you talk to them? I mean, I haven’t talked to them yet to find out if they’d like you to do that, but you know, could you do that?
I’m a great ally, but I’m not really out about being an ally. So please don’t go telling people I think it’s okay to be trans, all right?
That’s a nice idea and all, but you know this isn’t DC, right?
You sure talk about being trans a lot. Like, aren’t you happy just being a man?
You might have a hard time finding a job here, because you’re overqualified. You know, that happens to men.
What was your old name?
Do you know the pregnant man?
Hey, did you hear the pregnant man is getting divorced?
Did you make that baby with Susanne?
Does it bother you that your baby isn’t related to you?
Why do all trans men have such crazy facial hair?
Do you mourn the old you?
Do you ever think about going back to being a woman?
I was just wondering, do you have phantom breast sensations?
Hey, do you know <>?
Does it feel weird to take your shirt off in the pool?
I understand how hard it is to find a doctor in town. My mom had <> and she had to drive to Seattle to find a specialist.
Is it like, totally weird living in a small town?
Are you interested in giving the newspaper an interview about being trans in Walla Walla?

Responses tomorrow.

Representative Misunderestimation

Walla Walla’s Washington State Senator, Mike Hewitt, is not known in progressive circles for being a friend to the queers. Trans people aren’t even on his radar. His office caused a ruckus in the blogosphere (a.k.a. The Huffington Post in this case) when some as-yet-unnamed staffer told an angry caller that gays should “grow their own food” if, under his co-sponsored bill, any business owner decided to deny service to LGBT people because of “a sincerely held belief.” The “grow their own food” was apparently an option if any LGBT person living in a rural area with few grocery stores (as is actually the case in large swaths of Washington State) was denied as a customer by store owners.

Of course this was an angry caller from Seattle, not Hewitt’s district. Of course this was a stupid off-the-cuff remark from the staff member, not the Senator himself. And to further contextualize things, this Senate Bill 5927 is in response to a florist from a nearby city who refused to serve a couple looking to get gay married. She is now being sued. But that’s the point of anti-discrimination statutes. A florist is not a church. And flowers seem unimportant–as in, they’re not food–but even small moments of ignorance and bigotry cast wide ripples. For SB 5927 doesn’t limit lawsuits, it opens the floodgates for any individual with a product or service to refuse access, solely on the basis of dislike. It’s a total negation of including sexual orientation as a protected category in the state, setting up a hierarchy of communities based on which ones have unstoppered protection and which ones fall under this proposed law’s exception.

Certainly this isn’t the first time some sort of “philosophical” exception has made its way into the laws of the land. Extreme right-wing organizations actively recruit close-minded people into medicine and pharmacy now in order to have more “soldiers” on the front lines of the battle over reproductive rights in order to use their “sincerely held beliefs” to say they won’t supply Plan B to women, or offer pregnancy termination when it’s requested (or hey, needed). There is now so much room around these moral objections that the very notion that any of us in the general public finds these exceptions problematic is itself an assault on religious freedom.

This is how a misinformation campaign works: muddy the terms of conversation, introduce reductive logic, add a few critical inaccuracies, and ratchet up the stakes. Then sit back and watch as conversation morphs into “debate,” people declare they’re offended over unrelated issues that are not germane to the original discussion, and we all lose sight of the boundary around concepts like “victim,” “oppression,” and the right to have an opinion, no matter the content of said opinion.

Not all points in a conversation or debate are equal. Not everyone has the same level or kind of privilege as everyone else. For a florist to deny making an arrangement for a lesbian couple because she thinks they’re sinners is more offensive than the gay couple thinking she’s a douche for her opinion–in this case she’s denying them a service and they’re feeling ill will. Let’s say floral arrangements are trivial, luxury items. What do we think when it’s a physician withholding wound care treatment from a gay man with AIDS? When he’s the only physician this individual can find for 150 miles? Or on the bus line?

When Senator Hewitt’s staffer dismisses a non-constituent caller with a “let them eat cake” line, he betrays many prejudices and ignorances, some of them more complicated than others:

Not everyone has time, money, and, land to grow the kind of garden that would feed them for a lifetime
If small government advocates want the free market to attend to feeding the public, then private businesses can’t have easy lines of opting out of market transactions whenever they feel like it
LGBT people vote and don’t like laws like this
Rural areas cry about a lack of resources because rural areas are faced with A LACK OF RESOURCES and it’s the job of elected officials to lessen those burdens on their citizens
It hurts the feelings of LGBT people when people refuse to treat us AS people
Hewitt’s office didn’t think through the logical extensions of this quickly written bill

Many readers of mine know I work on HIV issues in Walla Walla; it would take more than the fingers on both of my hands to list the stories I’ve heard about doctors, dentists, and pharmacists withholding services from HIV-positive people here in the valley. I’ve got even more examples of LGBT people facing hostility in Eastern Washington. Even without SB 5927 becoming law, expectations out here are that folks can deny providing their wares to LGBT people at any time, with impunity. They may think it has the effect of driving queer and trans people out of this region, but for the most part it doesn’t–LGBT people may be from this area originally, or they’ve returned to care for their parents (because hello, we do understand commitment), or their partner is employed here, or they have a fondness for small-town life.  Much more likely is that the lives of LGBT people living here are degraded. We’re not as happy as we could be. We fight through more stress because of someone else’s unoriginal and inaccurate opinion of how valuable we are to our families and this society. We don’t earn as much money, and we have a harder time finding housing, and we have a ton of trouble getting through school.

If Mike Hewitt were interested in the long-term welfare of the Walla Walla economy, he would be more supportive of LGBT people. Our success is Walla Walla’s success. Certainly one of our two state representatives, Maureen Walsh, gets that message. It’s not an impossible chemistry, then.

I’d like to make two last points here: The write up in the local paper about those who are criticizing Mike Hewitt, and the criticism itself, are fine, but ultimately, it’s not about whether the image of Walla Walla is sullied by the staffer’s remark. It’s that the proposed law is offensive and wrong, and it should be left to die on the floor of the chamber. For his part, Hewitt seems to be backing away from the bill, saying he hadn’t read it carefully enough. (You THINK?)

My departing point is this: the identity of the staffer who made the “grow their own food” comment has been carefully hidden throughout this whole affair. In a country in which we’ve leaked the names of the Chinese graduate student who died in the Boston Marathon bombing, and the names of a series of rape survivors who were underage, why are we so protective of this guy? A finite, small number of people work for the Senator, after all. Not many of them take phone calls from the public. What is this protection about?

Everett Versus Bird

At first I wasn’t sure that what I was hearing existed in the outside world. It could have been an echo of a dream, or a misinterpretation of a real sound by a sleepy, 5AM brain.

And then it happened again. And again. I strained to figure out the identity of the sound. My mind compared it, I suppose, to every other sound that came in striking distance of this one. It was a rap. No. It was a wham. No. The sound, skipping like a record player but slower, was somehow tamped down. It had multiple parts that chimed at once–it was like a sharp thud. What the hell is a sharp thud? How could anything sound like that?

When deconstructing a sound, there is complexity. The start of the sound, the middle (this is optional) and the finish. Every sound pushes against air, creates something from nothing and then travels out in all available directions until a fraction of that creation reaches our ears, where it is funneled down to our eardrums. And then when our tiniest bones rattle our experienced brains quickly sort through our dendrite-supported memory and label those sound waves. A dog barking. Glass shattering. A soda can opening. There may be individual differences among those canines, windows, and pops, but they’re similar enough that it doesn’t take us very long to assess and categorize what we hear. All things being equal, of course.

But here I was, the clock relaying the early hour to me, and the sound. The sound. The sound.

It’s unusual for someone in their 40s to hear a completely brand new wave. (Ha. I wrote new wave.) And yet, I couldn’t place this on listening alone. So I got up–clad in boxers and a faded t-shirt. My hair was pillow-conformed. I forgot my eyeglasses on the bedside table, so I wasn’t great at seeing anything in front of me, either. (Rookie mistake.) I stood in the dining room, swaying a little, waiting for the next eruption.

Fw-whap-bang. There. In the corner of the living room.

I hoped it wasn’t a bat. I’d dealt with a loose bat in the house back in 1991, in Syracuse. It plagued me and my cat for the better part of a week. But there was no ticking noise like bats make, so it wasn’t that.

Fw-whap-bang. Bang! I saw movement again, and this time I was 10 feet closer. It was a bird, trying to fly into a living room window. And succeeding, except for the window is a solid object part.

Fw-whap, fw-whap-bang.

Orange. Wings. Rapid fluttering. The window was getting a full-on attack from the bird. My heart sank, remembering a bird that smashed itself to death in our big picture window a couple of months earlier. But this bird wasn’t going all dive-bomby on me. It was up in arms, over its own visage.

I took a page from our newspaper and propped it against the window, thinking that would change what the robin was seeing. It stopped the assault for two minutes, which was just enough time for me to get back in bed with the covers over me.

Fw-whap-bang! Fw-whap-bang!

This had begun to take on the sensation of a leaky faucet that will not be silenced. Next to me, Susanne slumbered on. The baby in his nursery had not a care in the world. And now I was wide awake. Fw-whap-bang. Fwfwfwfw-whap.

I shut our bedroom door. That took the noise down a few decibels, but it was a strategy used too late. Now my brain had keyed in on the sound and would have heard it from two miles away. It was like trying to muffle a jet engine.

Get ahold of yourself, I told me. You lived in DC for years. You’ve slept through everything from sirens to cicadas to Puerto Rican firefighters breaking down the door to your hotel room (long story). This is just a little more repetitive.

Well, then. So are many forms of torture.

Eventually I became so exhausted I slept through the shenanigans. But I’d lost two hours of sleep, and on the morning after my out of town business trip. I could have used the sleep.

The next day was Saturday. My little bird brain friend began the next wave of attack at 5:38AM. This time I knew what the godforsaken sound meant.

I marched out onto the porch in my boxers and t-shirt. I grabbed the half-broken broom I keep out there to beat back the cobwebs, and I menaced the bird with it. He flew to the top of a 100-foot high maple tree and nattered at me in irritation. Oh, HE was pissed at ME? I’m the one standing on the porch in my underwear with a busted household cleaning device!

I named him Robin the Asshole Bird. I did this in my own head, still sane enough not to announce my naming choice to the neighborhood. Robin the Asshole Bird gave me twenty minutes of quiet time, during which I dreamed of something completely unrelated to robins. I only know this because when I was awakened at 6:13 by Robin the Asshole Bird, I was shocked that beings like territorial robins even existed.

Arrrgh. Fwfwfwfw-whap-bang. He was back. I put the pillow over my head, which surprisingly enough, made it too difficult to breathe.

Sunday rolled around. Quietly the sky brightened as the planet named Earth rotated to face the day.

Fw-whap-bang. Fw-whap-bang. Bang. Fwfwfwfw-whap.

5:19. Ante meridian. Oh. My. Xena.

I posted about it on Facebook, looking for suggestions and sympathy. I got some of that. And true to form, I also received a lot of jokes. Susanne moved things out from the windows that we thought Robin the Asshole Bird found interesting. Move along, bird. Move the hell along. Someone on Facebook told me our windows were too clean. For the record, our windows are filthy. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has washed these windows in twelve years. There are no fewer than eight layers of dirt dried onto the glass, some dating back to the Jurassic Period. I’m pretty sure there is a new form of energy caked onto our windows, if only BP would go looking. That Robin the Asshole Bird can see any object in these windows, much less himself, is testament to the total insanity of this situation.

Monday morning. My little friend didn’t want me to forget about him. 5:32AM. I groaned.

It’s not just the early hour, it’s that this wake-up call continues for hours. And Robin the Asshole Bird comes back at dusk for an hour or so. I don’t know what the hey Robin the Asshole Bird is guarding, but it better be the bird equivalent of Fort Knox up in that maple tree. When he busted up my slumber this morning, I had been dreaming about taking out small woodland creatures with a BB gun. Robin the Asshole Bird is like that demon from Buffy the Vampire Slayer who loved to listen to Cher and sucked Buffy’s soul away bit by bit.

I am Buffy in this scenario, in case it wasn’t clear. And Robin the Asshole Bird is like hearing “Believe” on repeat for a solid year. A year, I swear.

I came home from my morning at the office, a less pleasant person than usual because of Robin the Asshole Bird, and Emile gave me a smile. Susanne had hung towels all over the windows on the west side of the house. Still, there was the repeated

Fw-whap-bang. Fw-whap-bang

from Robin the Asshole Bird. Emile, in his high chair, gave me a grin and said, “Uh oh, tweet tweet.”

Kid knows how to tell it.

Down the Rabbit-Hole

Let’s pretend violence is incomprehensible. Let’s pretend that the problem with guns isn’t about a lack of background checks or the extreme availability of weapons but with crazed madmen and an unabridged desire to kill people. Let’s pretend there is no relationship between NRA public relations and gun lobbying on Capitol Hill and the fact that Congress refuses to change gun laws even though 92 percent of Americans want to see universal background checks.

Let’s pretend that bombing the finish line of a marathon is a great time to check to make sure that Tagg Romney is okay. Let’s pretend that the well funded news machine isn’t in competition with people’s photos posted on Twitter and Instagram. Let’s pretend that it’s okay to put out any garbage about the calamity still happening in Beantown and call it news–unchecked, unverified, unconnected with any journalistic integrity. Let’s pretend that social media doesn’t morph into one huge trigger for the survivors of 9/11, Newtown, Aurora, the London Underground, or the Madrid bombings. Let’s pretend though that the sight of blood on the sidewalk in those Twitter photos is even more gruesome to American viewers because our regular news is so sanitized, while bombings are a near-daily occurrence in places all over the world.

Let’s pretend that we’re not about to descend into politicized name-calling from both parties about Patriot Day and intelligence failures and President Obama’s failures as a leader. Let’s pretend that there won’t be spotlighted Senate hearings at taxpayer expense to examine how bombs could go off on US soil while we were celebrating achievement and American exceptionalism. Let’s pretend we’ll have a helpful conversation about violence and what fuels such anger among some people that they would take to calculating explosions at a sporting event. Let’s pretend those conversations will get us anywhere better as a people.

Let’s pretend this will never happen again. Let’s pretend we can avoid telling our kids about what happened today, lest their worlds be interrupted by bombs and selfishness and dismemberment and bloody shards of glass. Let’s pretend we have some hope of healing and not descending into finger-pointing and a series of cruel memes on the Internet.

Let’s pretend it’s yesterday, or the day before PanAm 103 exploded in the air over Scotland. Let’s pretend we can stay in the 5 minutes after we woke up this morning where all we were thinking about was our first cup of coffee and the lovely feeling of hot water streaming out of the shower. Let’s pretend we can turn off news of this tragedy and just look out at the spring day and the tulips across the street even if all we can muster is a weak smile.

Let’s pretend these families will find solace and recovery and strength from their communities, and when they lobby their elected leaders to improve the lives of the rest of us, that we listen to them because they earned their position of advocacy in the hardest way.

Let’s pretend to be a country with interest in each other.

And maybe then we can move on to someplace new.