72. Fatigue

 

I’d love to make Mrs. Littington disappear. And the lady whose name I never knew, I never want to know. Get rid of all the others, the ones I’ve forgotten or never knew in the first place. What did they have to do with mother, with any of us?

I’ m so tired now. I’ve been tired for so long, I want to close a door and cry. But the tears won’t come now, even if I want them, because I don’t have the emotional energy, or even a space inside me, to allow anyone to see them. For crying in the presence of others is always an involuntary form of sharing, or at least diverting one’s attentions. Those activities require energies that I just don’t have right now.

Maybe it’s this day, and the hope that it will be my last on this block, that’s so drained me. But taking hormones does that to you, too.

The first time you take them, you’re expecting something to happen even though the doctor or whoever prescribes or gives them to you tells you nothing will, at least for a while. Two pills: one is white and has the texture but not the taste of an aspirin tablet. The other, small with a hard shell in a shade of candy-coated cow piss—which is pretty much what it tastes like. Not that I’ve tasted cow piss, candy-coated or otherwise.

After I took those pills every day for a couple of months, I couldn’t notice any difference. But Vivian did. She called me, ostensibly because she wanted to return something I couldn’t recall leaving.  It’d been a few months since she pronounced me “too much of a woman” for her tastes and broke up our relationship. She’d found a watch with a woven black leather band when she was cleaning, she said. And indeed she gave it to me when we met for supper in a Greek restaurant.

But there had to be another reason for her wanting to see me—I could hear it in her voice when she called. I couldn’t imagine her wanting sex with me again. So what, I wondered, did she want?

As I cut into the piece of chicken I ordered, I got my answer. She called my name—my old one. I looked up at her. “Something’s different about you.”

“What?”

She reached across the table and dabbed her fingertips on my left cheek, where she used to stroke. “It feels different.”

“How so?”

“It’s….softer.”

“Huh?”

“It really feels softer.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

All right, I said. I’ll confess something: I am taking hormones. Her face grew longer. “The doctor said my skin would get softer. But not this quickly.”

Then she asked me to stand up. “Wow! Your body’s changing.”

“How so?”

“None of your clothes fit you right.”

“I think I’ve gained a bit of weight.”

“Maybe you have. But it’s in your rear…and you’re growing boobs!”

I couldn’t notice those changes yet, I said. And I felt like I needed more sleep. “But,”she cut me off, “You don’t seem depressed.”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not. I don’t even feel sad that much. Or even angry. Maybe…”

She cut me off again, “Maybe you accept things, or are resigned to them.”

“You could say that.”

She could. None of it surprised her. Before that night, I hadn’t told her I was taking hormones. And I don’t know who could or would’ve told her. But she asked me to supper so she could find out what I was like on hormones. Why else?

The old lady whose name I never knew is looking my way again. Who could or would’ve told her.

Make it tomorrow, please. I’m so tired. I want the operation, then some rest.

64. Fall

Days’ve been growing shorter. At times, that would’ve meant more work, or at least more time for it. At times like that, I’d hardly see daylight. I probably won’t for the next few months.

It’s one of those things you never stop noticing if you’ve had to notice it before: the length of darkness, not the lack of daylight. On this block, you don’t see those bright, sunny vistas stretching endlessly, like the ones you see in all those paintings and photos in the books they try to make you like in school. The sidewalks, the street, the tar and slate on the roofs, the darkening bricks and shingles refract any light from the sky into shadows and other shades of gray.

And the night: It’s just another, deeper shade of charcoal—what’s left at the end of the day.

So in spite of—no, because of—all the fears I’ve had, I’ve never been afraid of the dark. On this block, it’s a bit of a relief. When you’re a very young kid, nobody expects anything of you, except perhaps that you sleep at some specified hour. There’s nobody to beat or harass you on your way to or from school. Nobody snubs you or starts conversation when you’re in your house, alone. And nobody else did when I was with mother.

It’ll be night—evening for those who don’t work—soon. Nothing you can do about it, but nothing to fear, either. Didn’t some poet say that we don’t die from darkness; instead, we die from cold?

When it gets dark, I get to come in from the cold. Or at least I’d find ways out of it. Late on a fall or winter afternoon—at least sometimes—I walk in the chilly air, looking for my way out. Shadows disappear and headlights reflect off my shiny boots and glows in the sheen of my make-up.

Someone brings me into a room and turns out the lights. After a while, even the acrid, salty smells of a man’s skin and hair fade away with the honking, shouting and skidding on the street. Here is only the rough, bristly feel of hairs when the flesh presses or pulls away my flesh. Of course it helps to numb your nerve endings with the bottle, the pipe or the needle. You move from one to another as your need deepens. It always does; everyone who’s sold his or her body will tell you that if they’ll tell you anything.

All touching, all kissing, all caressing lead to penetration—something that is always, by definition, against the will of the penetrated. So the practices to which people refer when they’re talking about “making love” always pierce into that same places, into the those same places—for me, under my spleen and back in my throat—where you were first entered, through stealth or overt violence.

I’ve been told that at the end of the transition I’m making, I’ll no longer have a sex life or, as some have called it, a “love life’. That doesn’t deter me now. Until I left this block, my body was always used by people—actually, males—I never saw again. Nothing changed, except that now I get paid.

I guess that in that way, at least, I’m not different from most people, on this block or off it. Things happen for no apparent reason; after you get paid for them, then you pay.

And the nights are getting longer now. Just as mother’s leaving.

63. The Price

 

All of my life, I’ve respected only one man: Adam. I recall him whenever I’m in the presence of anybody who’s just died, or when I hear about any death that matters to me.

Death is death. Vivian told me that, I think. She’s probably right, although I don’t know how she’d’ve known. We all become the same minerals; we feed worms, fish or some other scavengers when we’re dead. And in the end, I guess it doesn’t matter whether we’ve enabled a swimmer, crawler or flyer to continue living. It probably doesn’t even matter whether we’re interred whole, or buried or submerged in the ocean. There’s not much difference, really, except that the sad people—he ones born into grief and burdened with sorrow—always seem to want their corpses immolated.

After Adam died—was murdered—an intense heat—one that covered or at least occupied and filled—a hollow within—and I’m not just talking about a mere physical “inside of”—me. Mother often scolded me for leaving the house in the dead of winter without my coat. “But I’m too hot!” She insisted, demanded—but to my recollection, never threatened. And I’d wear my coat for as long as I could stand it or until mother was out of sight.

That feeling—heat coursing through me, as if from a fire no one notices because it’s deep in the ground—pushed up through my pores whenever someone I knew died from AIDS or was driven to that act the police and others conveniently classified as “suicide.”

There was none of that after the cops found the body to which they gave my former name. The cops called that one a murder—case closed. And no doubt it was, at least in the way they understand it. But he was not Adam; he was no Adam.

As I am not.

As for mother, the heat is rising, closer to the surface. It has nothing to do with the temperature of the room in which her body has been laid out: The other attendees—both of them—are wearing sweaters over their black dresses. I took off my jacket but I still feel beads of sweat forming just below my neck. Getting hotter; I don’t want the heat to consume me. Oh, if only there were a pool, or even a bathtub, here! The ocean’s only a couple of miles away. But I’ve never gotten to it from this block and have no idea of how to do that. I know the ocean’s there—at least I’ve always accepted it as some sort of knowledge—from the maps I saw when I was in school. Mother’d never’ve been any help on this one: She never went to the ocean, either.

I don’t know that Adam did, either. I’m not even sure he ever left that stoop, except to go in the house. He wasn’t like all the other men I’ve known—at least the ones I recall—who always seem to have the need to go some place or another, even if they’re always going to the same places. If they came back, they’d lie about what they’d done and where they’d been. They’d slept with everybody, or nobody. They didn’t have to pay for it, or they could afford whatever they wanted. Loved and spat upon, conquering fear yet with fear all the time. No need; they can’t do without. The same stuff, everywhere I’ve gone.

Except from Adam. He’s the only person I’ve known—except for mother, and then only after I left this block—who could give me something without demanding something else from me; who didn’t abandon or betray me when I made choices because I had no choice but to make them. He accepted shyness swaddled in 11-year-old baby fat; she never questioned me about the transformation I’m making, the next stage of which she won’t see.

Nor, for that matter, will the other two women in this room. Does the woman whose name I never knew realize who she’s seeing? She glances my way again; I see her squints and stares. Eyes like hers can’t hide furtiveness, which is to say attempts at stealth. They seem gray, lifeless, to anyone who sees her only for a moment. Any more than that, and you can see her color-- not quite blue or hazel or any other hue you’ve seen before—registering, it seems, tones and volumes pulsing from your blood, your bones or something else you don’t see when she sees you.

At that moment, it seems, she decides whether or not she decides to speak to you. Today, for the first time, I caught her indecision and uncertainty. When I lived on this block, I knew she’d never speak to me. Or to that man who used to come around to fight with mother. She never spoke to Mrs. Littington, and I doubt that she will today.

She’s looking my way again.

I never saw her speak to Adam: She never seemed to leave her house; nor did he leave his. But here she is, with mother and Mrs. Littington.

And him.

Out of respect for mother. For the ones she knew, with whom she shared coffee or roasted chickens, for whoever ate the drumsticks and wings. But not the necks. I still haven’t tried them. Mother never would’ve allowed that. For the boy she raised, from whom she kept his father, at least for as long as she could.

At least I never had to pretend I belonged to him. In fact, I’ve never had to respect him or any other man, so I never did. Except for Adam. He’s probably the only man I ever met, to this day, who could offer me a simple pleasure without obligations, without entanglements. He offered nothing more than those five-ounce bottles of soda and, when the mood suited him—or me—a conversation, sometimes a story.

Too bad about the way he died. But he’s still the only man who, to my knowledge, didn’t kill or inflict some other sort of violence on another person. I don’t know what he did before he got to this block, or at least whether he got to live because someone else didn’t. But, at least for the time he lived here, he didn’t kill or maim, or cause the death of anyone else.

Though bottles of soda are valuable currency in the world of children, he never extorted promises or confessions with them. Usually, when a man pays for something, he thinks it’s subject solely to his whims, his impulses. Don’t ever let a man pay for you; otherwise, you owe him. If he knows he’s going to see you again, he might wait. But if he’s in your life for an hour, he’ll take whatever he can get. If he pays for dinner, he’ll take the night from you. If he pays for your body, he thinks he can beat you. The only question is whether he’ll do it before or after he fucks you.

My stories weren’t so different from those of the girls who walked the streets. None will ever tell you of an encounter with a man like Adam.

On this block, nobody would ever speak of him.

62. Aftermath

There’d never been a fire on this block, at least not one that anybody remembered, until that body to which they gave my name was found in the basement of that house three doors away from the one in which mother and I lived. The brick shell remained; everything else—the walls, the tables and chairs that’d been left behind, the concrete in the basement—had burned into dusty ash. Including the body, or most of it, anyway.

Word on this block said a lot of things. Someone settled a longstanding grudge. But who? Mother? The lady whose name I never knew? From what I know, no woman ever killed a man on this block, mainly because men didn’t stay long enough. Or, like Adam—actually, there was nobody else like Adam; he lived here alone in every sense of the word.

The cause of the fire, like the death of the body in the basement, was never determined—at least not officially. There was no report of an inspection; as far as anybody knows, none was ever done. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised there wasn’t much of an investigation into the death discovered underneath the house.

It’s probably just as well. Some detective, some inspector, could’ve—if he’d wanted and was allowed to do some work—find some “evidence.” The could’ve used it to prove, or at least claim, that someone died at a certain hour from blows to the head, blood loss or shock, and that the body died before it burned. Or whatever. And that the fire began whenever they said it did, sparked by spontaneous combustion. Or whatever explanation they came up with.

And difference would any of it’ve made, anyway? If that body had been mine, the cessation of its movement would’ve mattered only to two people on this block. And mother’s on her way out. For everyone else, it’s another story to exaggerate or embellish in whispers. You can’t spread anything without stretching, bending or otherwise distorting it.

I was there to revenge or collect—what? And someone stopped me. That’s one story I heard. Another: some lover, some ex-lover did it. What would that person’ve been doing on this block, anyway? What would I’ve been doing there, for that matter?

Funny how nobody asked those questions. Not the cops, not the fire inspectors; nobody. Then again, I don’t imagine that anyone on this block would’ve talked to them. I know I never would. They wouldn’t know a murder if it were mailed to them. I mean, they listed Adam as a suicide. And up to the day I left, that’s what everybody insisted—if they mentioned him at all.

61. Exposure

 

Drizzly, rainy day. Late morning. Or later in the day, perhaps.

One window at the end of two long walls, my head at the other end. In between, gray grainy haze. Could be the rain, but I don’t hear it; I didn’t hear the window. Only the cold.

I pull the sheet over my face. The bed—just a mattress propped on iron bars—I don’t recognize it. These sheets bristle, grainy against my skin.

Otherwise, I’d’ve never noticed I hadn’t showered in a few days. In those days, I could get away with that. I could’ve—in fact, later I did—grow a beard and nobody would’ve cared. Except maybe for him.

He’s bored his head into my chest and tangled himself around me so I can’t see him. Only the gray, rainy haze; the sheets—I couldn’t see the color—bristling against my skin. And cold on the other side.

Dark hair. How did I know? His chest rasped against mine. But I never saw it, never saw him. Or his lips, at my neck or at the tip of my penis. Only felt his lips when they were around my soft slack slab of skin. Skin and saliva between my thighs.

Wet and gray and grainy. Then just wet, and cold outside. Wet, a sudden rush, I’m not ready. Never saw it coming; never saw it. Just a rush through me; I couldn’t hold it back. Not because he wouldn’t let me.

60. Without Witness

 

One of the first things you learn on this block is that you didn’t see. If anybody asks you what you saw, you didn’t. And if you’re asked what you know, you don’t.

Still, the stories—At least some of them are true, or all of them have some truth!—still, the stories go around. Even through all of the years I’ve been away, I’ve heard the stories.

Especially the one about the body in the basement. It startles—but actually doesn’t surprise—me that someone actually talked to the police. Or so I heard. Nobody’ll ever say who talked, or if anybody did. But they’ll all tell you that somebody left that house at three, three-thirty, four in the afternoon—nobody’s really sure of the exact hour.

And who might that person who left the house ‘ve been? Five foot seven, five foot eight, five foot nine. Not slender, but not quite stocky. Straight hair—everyone agrees on that—very straight, combed down past the ears, maybe to the shoulders. Blonde, reddish blonde, red, maybe even streaked. But definitely straight, and turned inward at the end—at the earlobes, at the collar or just past it. Straight, and hardly a strand rustled or tousled. As if that person combed or brushed it, carefully, before coming up from the cellar.

Things get really bizarre when people describe the clothes. Jeans, T-shirts and sneakers, they say, but that could describe the attire of any number of people standing or passing through this block at any given time. No colors, at least not from those witnesses. But somenone else saw a “long, dark coat”, which would’ve been strange, even though the day was unusually chilly for the time of year. Someone else saw a “smock;” still another self-proclaimed winess saw a “dress, light on top and dark on bottom.” Should I be surprised that someone else identified a skirt and a blouse or a top. But nothing more specific.

And the shoes: Things get even stranger here. Everything from candy-apple red stiletto pumps to running shoes. Ballet flats and combat boots, too. Even bare or stocking feet weren’t excluded. That would make that person tougher than me: I couldn’t go shoeless on broken concrete!

As for the identities of those self-proclaimed witnesses, I couldn’t say. I doubt Mrs. Litttington was one: After all, as far as I know, she hadn’t returned to this block from the day she moved away until today. The other people who might’ve remembered me are also gone, except for the woman whose name I never knew. There’re only two who’d’ve remembered my name or the person, the body, to which it was attached. One is dead now. Yes, mother.

And yes, I can keep a secret. It’s easy when there’s no one you can tell. Well, you know, that’s the only way a secret is ever kept. There was—is—mother. And the lady whose name I never knew, who’s here now and whose gray-on-blue eyes glance occasionally in my direction. She sees; does she know? She’d never say, except to mother. And for once, I hope that the one thing I’ve always said about this block—“Nothing Changes”---doesn’t change.

That, I know, is something lots of people say about wherever they’ve lived. People move away, die; things are built; other things fall down. But nothing changes, they say. You always recognize the place, no matter how long you’ve been away. And, like they tell you, you can’t get away from it.

Door squeaks. Who’s there? Man, in blue jacket—uniform! Oh—relief—it’s not one of them! Just a funeral home worker, a gardener or maintenance man. Maybe a security guard. It’s all right. They can’t bother me, I don’t think. I’m here, seeing mother, and I’m even in black. What would they know, anyway? Then again—They’re on this block. Nobody knows and everybody tells and everybody knows and nobody tells Even so, I’d guess—hope—they haven’t heard.

Then again, I have to wonder: Who would they believe anyway, if anybody? Why should they believe me?

Truth is, nobody will, at least not totally. Nobody does. But they don’t totally believe anybody else, not even mother. And she’s the most truthful person I’ve ever known; still is. And she’s believed—or at least never questioned—anything I’ve told her, at least not since I left.

That guy’s left, the door squeaking behind him, just like he came in. I always thought funeral homes were supposed to be quiet. I must admit, it was, at least until that guy came in and did whatever he did. Still, you’d think a funeral home director or somebody’d think of a detail like a door.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he’s on this block, though I don’t think he’s lived here. It figures, though—the cops didn’t notice the door was missing from the basement when they got there. It’d been nailed shut and boarded over before the body was discovered. It squeaked—at least it did, way back when I lived here.--like no other door, at least none I’ve seen lately.: a full-throated squeal from old brass hinges. And from the looks of things, nobody’d fixed it or anything else on that house, ever since the last occupants moved out and someone sealed it shut—or thought that’s what he or she’d done.

I would imagine that it squeaked when the man who would die on the other side of it opened it—unless he somehow completely knocked it out of its well. Still, it’d’ve made some kind of noise, whether from the yielding of the boards or the blows to them. Nobody mentioned it—at least from what I heard. Nobody heard anything coming or going, or even from the man before his wrists and lips were bound by strips of tape.

Mother didn’t tell me that part of the story. At least, I don’t remember that she did. I;m not really sure of what I did or didn’t hear from her, at least about that man and that house. That’s what happens on this block. When you hear, you don’t recall who told you, or whether anybody did. Just like when you don’t remember being molested you and you're  left teetering between the fears of the consequences of being believed, or not. You can’t revisit it or recount it until one day, perhaps, when it rises from the rumbles that’ve muttered in your sleep and echo like stutters.

What was that? Another noise; I jump. Who else’d come to this funeral? Who will? Would they?

Pretend you didn’t see. No, don’t pretend. You didn’t. Nobody came in the door this time. You heard. Or did you? No one else did, or seemed to. No one else in this room flinched. And they didn’t seem to notice that I did.

All right, they didn’t. So I didn’t, either. No—there it is again. The squeal of that door hinge, low and almost croaky, perching into a higher-pitched squeak, echoed through the plywood boards. That noise—nothing drives me crazier! Well, not many things do. And nobody ever hears them.

That’s the only time people can agree: when they didn’t see or hear something. Like the ones who saw only jeans and a T-shirt or “long” hair. How would they know about the door?