by Renee James
“No, Danni. But I have a lot on my plate right now and I’m trying to narrow things down to my vital interests and things I can significantly affect.”
“You can significantly affect this committee and its work, Bobbi.”
I don’t believe it, but I ask her how I can affect the committee.
“In the first place, you can help keep a dialogue going across the generation gap. You are someone the young professionals can respect. You can carry on a conversation with them as a peer.” I arch my eyebrows in doubt.
“Come on, Bobbi. You could have said something really snotty about Lisa’s work. I knew it, you knew it, and she knew it. You chose not to. It meant something. You could have had an end-zone dance when that cop left the last meeting with you, but you didn’t. You’re teaching them who you are without giving them a reason to resent you. That’s a lesson in itself, and it’s also bringing closer the day when that committee can have an open discussion about things without anyone’s ego getting in a bind.
“And the other thing is, you’re showing them how to get along with the older generation of transwomen. You’re someone they can respect, and when they do, it’s easier for them to respect other women who transitioned later in life.” Danni is good at this. She’s talking about how hard it is for people to get past how we look, but she’s not saying anything negative.
She takes a deep breath and locks me in eye contact. “This is important stuff, Bobbi. We’re the smallest minority in Chicago. We need to work together. And we need to start getting transgender kids off the street. This is our chance. If we can turn around a dozen, fifteen, sixteen a year, get them through high school, into decent jobs or maybe college, if we can do that, people are going to sit up and take notice. People are going to figure out it’s cheaper to save these kids and get them a decent start in life than letting them steal and suck men’s dicks until they die of AIDS or get beaten to death.”
I know she’s right, about the need for unity and the need to start saving some souls. Okay, I tell her. I’ll do my best. She extends a hand to mine and gives me a warm squeeze. It feels good. Having her respect is something to value, even if it means more endless meetings with Lisa and her goslings.
12
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
THE WORLD IS exploding. The earth beneath our feet quakes and rolls like a stormy sea. Nothing is solid. People are losing everything, almost overnight. First the job, then the house, then their self-respect.
It’s not just the poor and working classes. In the shop we’ve heard horror stories of white-collar types who lost everything and are living with relatives, trying to make it on unemployment checks, praying for a job in a market that doesn’t have any and probably will never again have any for people over a certain age. Fear of living on the street pervades all income groups.
People aren’t jumping out of buildings, but there’s a hum of panic just under the surface in our daily lives. You can’t believe in anything anymore. Giant corporations have reneged on retirement benefits and laid off everyone over fifty and everyone else they can. Loud voices in Congress want banks and car companies to fail because it will be good for the economy. People who are heavily invested in the stock market have lost half of their net worth in a year; those who went heavy into higher risk stocks have lost even more than that.
A lot of stores have closed. Betsy tells me that even in Northbrook, the epicenter of the nouveau riche in Chicago, the strip malls are pockmarked with empty stores. It’s like that in my neighborhood, too. We’ve lost restaurants. Dry cleaners. Novelty stores. Clothing boutiques. Even beauty salons, which once upon a time were supposed to be recession-proof businesses. No more. We became vulnerable to recessions when we started figuring out ways to make decent money doing hair.
Several nearby salons have closed. Their employees have come to us looking for their next jobs. I feel awful for them, and for the owners of the salons. The hairdressers will find work eventually, but it won’t be easy. Some will end up in econo-shops, cutting hair factory style. They’ll take a hit on earnings while they rebuild their client lists.
It makes for a nasty business all around. The shuttered salons in our area represent an opportunity for L’Elégance to pick up new clients. I feel like a vulture doing it, but we have been circulating our promotional literature intensely in the areas around those shops. Sam even taped our promos to their doors, right under the “Closed” signs.
It’s not like anything we do is a silver bullet. We’re still limping along. Sam tells me I should be grateful that our volume is steady, that the promotions are working, that we’re doing better than most by holding our own as everything around us is melting. I wish I could feel good about that. I just paid my big bills for October and I don’t see any hope for November. My savings is completely gone. I have no salary. I have to get through this month on tips and private customers I do at home.
As for November bills, my hair show gig will cover the mortgage on my brownstone, but I need the salon to generate enough profit to cover my business loan payments. The signs aren’t positive.
What’s unnerving is that even if everything goes well in the salon, I could go under anyway. If my upstairs tenant in the brownstone doesn’t pay his rent, I can’t make the mortgage payment even with the hair show money. If I have to write a check to a lawyer, I’ll default on something. I feel like I’m living a modern version of that Perils of Pauline scene where she’s tied to the railroad tracks and the train is bearing down on her. But in my contemporary vision, there is no villain. I just woke up on the tracks. And there’s no hero to save me. I am going to die and the only thing that will happen after the train passes is someone will complain about what a mess I made.
Cecelia tells me to take out a couple more credit cards so I can gut it out for a few more months if it comes to that. Smart advice, but I hate credit cards. I have two that I got long ago just to establish a credit rating. I only use them for emergencies. I don’t like owing anyone money. I won’t take out more cards and run up more debt.
My worries somehow seem mild compared to Betsy’s, though. She’s still in mourning for Don. She feels like she’s failing Robbie by working, but she lives in fear of losing her crappy job because it’s the only one she can get, and she hates going to work because her boss is such a slime ball.
The stuff with her boss gnaws at me, too. I want to deal with him the way I dealt with one of the men who raped me back when. I shouldn’t have feelings like this. I’m a lady now, or at least I’m trying to be one. I deal with my other frustrations like a woman, but if ever someone was just begging for a terrible beating, it is the arrogant slob who puts his hands on Betsy’s flesh, pinches her butt, feels her up, and makes dirty innuendos.
To deal with my urges for retribution, I have turned to Thomas, my gay friend who looks like a brute himself, but has devoted his adult life to helping vulnerable people cope with bullies and other forms of human cruelty. We are the only occupants of a quiet chapel in the hospital where Thomas works. He doesn’t like what he’s hearing from me.
“If you threaten him or rough him up, he’s going to make it harder on Betsy, I guarantee it,” says Thomas. We haven’t talked in ages, other than to say hi to each other at the gym. I really miss his company. I miss seeing the humanity that comes from a man who looks like an ogre at first glance.
“How could it be worse?”
“Guys like that are sneaky cruel. Maybe he starts a whisper campaign about Betsy’s sex life, or he starts finding fault with her work, or he sets her up for something.”
Thomas is no shrinking violet when it comes to dealing with people like Betsy’s boss. He set up the retribution party for my rapist and I’m sure he’s unleashed his Superman complex on more than a few of society’s other predators. So when he counsels against action, I have to listen.
“What can I do then?”
Thomas shakes his head sadly. “I don’t know, Bobbi. From what you say, it sounds like a bad
situation with no solution. Even if she gets the boss off her case, does she really want to be there? It sounds like a toxic environment, especially for someone dealing with all the things she’s dealing with.”
We talk about that for a while. I try to come up with arguments for keeping the job, but they don’t hold water. The more we talk the more I know I need to get Betsy out of that hellhole.
We drift on to other topics. Thomas is fully engaged in the battle for marriage equality in Illinois and fills me in on the struggle. They’re making progress, but it’s inch by inch. There’s an irony here—I can marry a man under my new legal name and gender, or I could legally still be married to Betsy, because trans people are different than gay people with this insane set of laws. It just shows what mockery you create when you try to justify bigotry.
I tell Thomas I’m a capitalist now, but close to being a penniless bum. He tells me I should have bought a bank. A little bitter humor. The banks that triggered this crisis are getting bailed out by their victims while hundreds of thousands of small businesses are going belly up and millions of workers are losing their jobs.
Our conversation languishes for a moment. I fill the silence.
“Remember that cop who wanted to blame me for the Strand murder?”
Thomas nods.
“Well, he’s back. He has reopened the case and I’m suspect number one. He thinks I’m a man-hating serial killer.”
“Seriously?” he says.
I nod. “His name is Wilkins. He thinks I had something to do with that guy getting mugged in the alley and he thinks that’s related to the Strand murder.”
Thomas flinches a little. He didn’t do the mugging but he used intermediaries to hire the goon who did the dirty work. He didn’t like the idea of doing it in the same alley where I was raped, but it was vital to my self-esteem. It was a message—to myself and the people trying to intimidate me—that I was not going to play the helpless victim.
I asked one other favor of Thomas after the mugging. I asked him to use his resources to get me a tranquilizer that could take down a man in seconds. I didn’t tell him who it was for, and he never asked me for details. He just got the tranquilizer and gave it to me in a syringe with the right dosage. We kept our distance after that. I didn’t want him implicated if the police somehow tracked me down.
As Thomas and I speak in hushed tones in the silent chapel, I can’t help wondering if he was the one who finished off John Strand. He sometimes followed me home from work in those days to protect me from Strand’s goons. He could have followed me that night . . . I shake off the thought. I don’t want to know.
“I want to forewarn you about Wilkins, just in case he gets to you,” I say. “He’ll never hear your name from my lips, but he’s shrewd and he might show up on your doorstep someday. Just remember this—he bluffs a lot. He’ll try to make it sound like he’s got rock-solid proof you did something and the only way to save yourself is to confess. Don’t fall for it. He doesn’t have anything and he won’t have anything and even if he did, you don’t talk to him until you have an attorney to advise you. Okay?”
Thomas looks worried as he nods his head in the affirmative. Is he worried for me or for himself? My curiosity is raging. I want more than anything to ask him right now, right here, where he was that night. But I don’t. Nothing good can come of knowing one of my friends killed Strand.
* * *
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
Betsy sips her third glass of wine. Robbie is sound asleep. We’ve waded through the awful memories of her week at work. Today her boss felt her up again and laughed when she cursed at him and said she was going to complain to HR. He told her to go ahead. They both knew it was fruitless. She is mad enough to kill and hurt enough to crawl into a hole and cry.
When she’s out of things to say, I deliver the line I’ve been working on since I first raised the subject of her moving in with me. “Betsy, it’s time for you to quit that sick job and move in here. On Monday. Quit in the morning, move in here in the afternoon. Spend a week just enjoying Robbie. Look for a preschool, go to a museum, walk along the lakefront. After that, settle up with your creditors as best you can and start looking for something you want to do. You don’t have to work full-time. You don’t have to make money. I can support us all just fine. You need time to recover and get yourself together. Your parents can’t give you that. No one but me can give you that and I want to.”
I’m aware that my financial situation is a lot more precarious than I let on, but transsexuals learn to not let grim circumstances intimidate them. I will make it because I must.
“That’s nice of you, Bobbi, but I can’t move in with you.” She still says it like it’s a silly idea.
“Excuse me, but why can’t you?” I’m huffy.
She doesn’t answer with words. She makes a face, like it’s too obvious to say out loud. Now I’m angry.
“You’re worried the neighbors will think you’re a sick, tranny-loving lesbian and Robbie’s schoolmates will tease her for having a transsexual family member. Come on, Betsy, say it.”
“Yes.” Her voice catches. Her face is grim. As hurt as I am, I can see the pain she’s feeling. She feels like she’s betraying me, adding another layer of stink to the manure-rich garden of my life. I shove my anger aside. I’ll deal with it later.
“I know most of my neighbors and they know me,” I say to Betsy in a measured voice. “They won’t give two thoughts to our relationship unless someone wants to ask you out, in which case, they’ll ask you. The ones I don’t know I never see and you won’t either, so why worry about them? Robbie’s friends won’t be into cruelty for several more years and by then you’ll be back on your own.
“I’m not proposing marriage, Betsy. I’m asking to help when you need it. No strings. When you’re ready to go, go.”
We wrestle verbally for another half hour.
I break a moment of silence between us with a question that’s been nagging at the back of my mind since we started talking. “Why is this coming up now, Betsy? Your aversion to who I am? Being seen with me? Having people know you love me? You’ve been there for me every step of the way, watching over me after my surgery, including me in your family life . . .” I go on listing the countless ways she has shown her love and affection for me.
“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” she says, when I finally stop. “Before, it was me being the big sister. I was showing you the way, supporting you. It was all about me being a good person. But if I move in with you, you’re the big sister. I’m the weak one, leaning on you. It’s just so pathetic, you know? I’m so hopeless I have to go crawling back to my ex-husband who isn’t even a man anymore. It just says so much about me, what a failure I am.”
God, that hurts. She’s not saying it to be cruel, that’s why it hurts. She’s speaking a truth that we both recognize: she and I can see me as the woman I am to the very depths of my soul, but others will see me as a dickless man, and see anyone who loves me as some kind of pervert. On a more positive note, we’re finally getting to her real issues. She wants me to address them. Her resistance is weakening. She won’t say yes, but she’s close. I can feel it.
“Thank you for your honesty,” I say. “I’m not crushed. I’m not angry. These are things we can always talk about, Betsy. We can talk about anything. We love each other. We must. Look how far we’ve come.” Indeed, even as I say it, a sequence of images flashes through my mind, scenes from our life as a traditional male-female couple, scenes from my transition, scenes from the moments we’ve shared since Robbie was born. Betsy is having the same thoughts, her face a study in contemplation, her large brown eyes soft and misty.
“It’s not about you or me, Betsy. It’s about people being there for each other. You would do this for me and I would accept. You have been there for me; now it’s my turn.”
She nods ever so slightly, deep in thought.
“Good things will happen if you move in now,” I say. “You’l
l get a great start to your new life because you’ll have time to build a good foundation for it. And I’ll get to feel a little better about my worth because I got to do something for people I love.”
Betsy wraps her arms around me and hugs tight, our ears pressed together. I hug back. “I’ll think about it,” she says when we break. I dab at my eyes so I don’t spoil everything with tears. Betsy’s eyes are dry, but soft and loving. We have crossed some kind of threshold.
* * *
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
When Betsy awakens and sleepwalks into the bathroom, Robbie and I are just finishing a skillet full of bacon. Robbie calls her mother to breakfast, excited to be springing such a monumental surprise on her.
By the time Betsy has finished her morning bathroom ritual, the eggs and toast are done. We seat her at the table and serve her as if she were royalty.
“Is this going to be an everyday thing?” she asks.
“Does that mean you’re staying?” Cecelia has taught me that you can cut through a lot of crap by answering a question with a question.
“Do you still want us?”
“With all my heart.”
She’s wearing a happy smile and her brown eyes have a light humor to them that I haven’t seen since Don died. She’s relieved. But I can read other feelings, too. Affection for me. Traces of anxiety. She still has mountains to climb in her life. And maybe that sort of stunned feeling people get when they find themselves in a moment they could never imagine would happen until it did. I’m feeling that one, too. Who imagines that one day they will be roommates with their ex-spouse?
13
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2
WILKINS SIGHS. FOR every breakthrough in this investigation there have been endless days and nights of frustration. This night is looking like another disappointment.
The owner of Chicago Sizzle knows nothing. He’s never seen Strand or Logan or the person in the doctored photo of the male Logan. So, of course, he knows nothing about Strand’s girlfriend. Wilkins is sure he’s lying about some of it. Logan had to come in this place once in a while. It’s the hottest transgender bar in Chicago. He probably knew Strand, too. The man had an appetite for transsexuals and this was the place to find them. But Wilkins has no leverage on the guy, no way to make him talk. So he moves on.
