Chicken Girl

by Heather T. Smith

  I snorted. “It didn’t look empty to me,” I said. “Isaac had shitloads of stuff.”

  His face turned pink. “They’re just things, Pidge. Thumper has more than I do. And he has nothing.”

  I stole a sideways glance at him. He looked empty, like a bag of skin filled with organs and bones.

  “I was jealous,” he said. “You, Thumper, Lewis, and Miracle—you’re all good. And I’m not. It’s not that I’m bad, it’s that I’m weak. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is.”

  I felt bad for him because I knew how he felt. I wasn’t that good either—but I was getting better. I wished I knew how to help him, to make him stronger. But that was a road he’d have to cross himself. Too bad he had to go it alone. After all, rule number one is, always cross with a buddy.

  He ran his fingers through his hair. It went all swoopy on the top. “You can go get that brother of yours to give me a knuckle sandwich if you want.”

  I laughed. “There’ll be no need for that.”

  He smiled. “I really did fancy you.”

  He had charm, oodles of it.

  I smiled. “I know.”

  He moved to the backyard gate.

  “Buck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You put that hundred-dollar bill in the tin for Lewis’s surgery, didn’t you?”

  He smiled. “He’s a great guy.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “he is.”

  He was almost out of the yard when I said, “Did the money mean anything to you? I’m just wondering because, well…the rent, the money for Lewis…they’re big gestures…but are they a sacrifice?”

  He looked hurt by the question. “They made a difference to the people who received them,” he said. “Isn’t that enough?”

  I thought of Miracle’s three dollars and forty-five cents.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Is it?”

  He stared off into the distance, then closed the gate between us.

  “Take care, Pidge.”

  Then he was gone.

  I looked at the wooden fence around the perimeter.

  I remembered back to the beginning, when Buck had recited Tramp’s speech about life off the leash, about the world being a place of fun and adventure. Don’t fence yourself in, Pidge.

  I stood up and brushed myself off. I liked Miracle’s yard. Maybe we could all pitch in and get her a swing set or a sandbox or a slide. Living life off the leash may have its benefits, but I figured a six-year-old could do with a little fencing in.

  * * *

  Cam and Lewis were hitting it off over a sandwich platter. Cam raised his eyebrows at me. I’d tell him to keep his hands off later.

  I went to the living room. Miracle was sitting cross-legged in Thumper’s lap. Thumper held one of her little feet in his hand.

  I sat beside them, tweaked one of her toes. “How did you lose your shoes?”

  “I took them off during my dance lesson.”

  “What dance lesson?”

  “The one in the river.”

  Thumper and I exchanged a glance. “You had a dance lesson in the river?”

  “Just up to our ankles. MaJonna said it was good for balance. He said it was good to feel mud between your toes.”

  “That’s cool,” I said. “But why didn’t you put your shoes back on afterwards?”

  “MaJonna wasn’t wearing any and I want to be just like him.”

  I smiled. “You do?”

  “He’s going to build me a ladder so I can reach for the stars.”

  Thumper chuckled. “And I’ll bet you’ll climb it too,” he said. “Two rungs at a time.”

  His old, wrinkled hand, her baby-smooth foot. It made my heart swell.

  I leaned over, kissed Miracle on the forehead. “I’m glad you’re home, Miracle.”

  * * *

  Cam and I headed home. He told me he liked my friends. I said they could be his friends too. Cam and me, we shared everything.

  Frank was in front of his house, painting his picket fence.

  “Where’s Ralph?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. “What do you think,” he said, “we just sit here all day talking about the price of gas?”

  My face reddened with shame. “No,” I said. “Of course not.”

  He nodded back to Ralph’s house. “He’s putting his wife to bed. She needs lots of help, you know, with the dementia.”

  I had been so obsessed with the bad side of people, I’d been imagining it in people who were good.

  I wasn’t sure what to say so Cam spoke for me. He always had my back. “Let Ralph know we’re thinking of him. Okay?”

  Mom and Dad said they’d heard the news. They wanted to take us out to celebrate but we just wanted our beds.

  “Tomorrow?” they said.

  Cam and I smiled. “Tomorrow.”

  We parted on the landing.

  “That Lewis,” he said, swooning. “Man.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And he’s all mine.”

  * * *

  The next day, Mom and Dad went out so we could have the house to ourselves. We spent hours in our little living room, setting up a backdrop with the bright-yellow bedsheet from the Salvation Army store and using various lamps to get the lighting just right.

  Cam and Lewis took turns with the camera.

  I re-created the pose, my modernized version with the skinny jeans and red Converse boots as well as the 1942 original with the denim workshirt.

  I wanted some pinup shots too, which Lewis was more than happy to take. I wore a vintage striped bikini and played around with a variety of poses. I lay on my stomach with my legs crossed in the air behind me, my chin on my hands. In another I bent slightly forward, one hand on my waist, the other holding a tube of lipstick to my mouth.

  Lewis started sounding like a professional photographer. “Beautiful, Poppy. Gorgeous. Hot.”

  Cam told us to get a room.

  I changed into a vintage dress. I posed in a chair, legs crossed and back arched, the skirt of my dress raised just above my garter belt and thigh-high stockings. Lewis almost lost his mind.

  “One more outfit,” I said.

  I went upstairs.

  When I came back down Cam tweaked my beak. “This getup never gets old.”

  Lewis took the photo. I wondered if Mr. Chen would hang it in his shop. Me in my chicken suit, wing flexed, a red bandana on my feathery head.

  Cam said I was amazing. He left the room and when he came back I was blown away. His chest was beautifully bronzed and his shorts matched the blue of his perfectly lined eyes. His head protection obscured much of his face but his red-painted lips popped.

  The best part of all was his craptacular heels.

  My sweet Cam.

  He was the eyeliner queen and the boxing king all at once.

  * * *

  After the photo shoot, Lewis and I went to my room. He asked to see my entire vintage clothes collection so I tried them on, every last piece. Lewis zipped the zips and buttoned the buttons. He did everything slowly and I was glad. I liked his touch and I wanted it to last. We could have gone farther, as far as I liked, but I knew our time would come. And when it did he wouldn’t need to ask if it was tender enough. It just would be.

  My final outfit was a deliberate choice. A denim button-down shirt paired with high-waisted shorts. Lewis tied my shirttails into a knot at my ribcage. I breathed in deeply and exhaled fully. My internal organs were safe and sound. Cam would be glad.

  I patted my bed. Connections were all well and good but they had to be tight. Loose connections were garbled and fuzzy.

  Lewis sat beside me.

  I said, “Cam says people lose their shit about where transgender people pee.”

  He leaned back against the headboard. “I had to use the staff bathroom in high school because a bunch of parents complained.”

  “Complained about what?” I asked.

  “What was in my pants,” he said.

  I frowned.
“How did they know what was in your pants?”

  “My dad told the principal. It was an innocent mistake. He should have just told them I was having my tonsils out.”

  Poor Lewis. The thoughts in his brain were a tangle of wires.

  He smiled. “Sorry. I’m not explaining this very well.”

  I nestled into him. I hoped my head on his shoulder and my arm around his waist would help the wires unravel.

  “I lied to you,” he said.

  My heart skipped a beat. “You did?”

  “I went to your school,” he said. “Before my transition.”

  I immediately tried to imagine him as he was then, to feminize his strong and angular face so that I might recall a time when our paths had crossed. Then I stopped myself. He was Lewis now. That was what mattered.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have mentioned it. It’s just—ninth grade was a crazy-ass year. I wasn’t who I am now and—”

  I squeezed his arm. “You don’t need to explain.”

  He went quiet for a bit, his eyes fixed thoughtfully on my Rosie poster.

  “There’s this photo of me in a dress,” he said. “I look like a hostage. It’s as if, just out of the shot, there’s a kidnapper holding a gun to my head. My eyes are pleading to the camera—Get me out of this getup, please. Pay the ransom, no matter how much it is. I was four.”

  He laughed to himself. “It’s pretty funny, actually, how uncomfortable I looked. My grandmother had insisted on the photo. The next day my mother took me shopping. She brought me to the boys’ department, asked if there was anything I liked. She was cool like that. A year later, she was hit by a car because sometimes life is cruel. My father bought me a waistcoat and tie for her funeral. He was cool like that too.”

  “So they knew?” I said. “Way back then?”

  “Kind of,” he said. “But not really.”

  I glanced up at him. I could almost see the wires untangling in his brain.

  “You know how some parents expect their daughters to be girlie girls?” he said. “Well, my parents weren’t like that. They saw me as a tomboy so I saw myself that way too. I liked who I was. Until I started developing. Then I hated myself. With every physical change I lost a bit of who I was. I felt robbed somehow. Of who I was supposed to be. The girls in my class, they celebrated their changes—their first bras, their first periods. I felt guilty, because I wasn’t celebrating. I was mourning—which was weird, because how can you mourn something you never had?”

  I reached for his hand, gave it a squeeze.

  “The worst part was getting my period,” he said. “When my dad gave the cashier $4.99 for my first box of Kotex I burst out crying—like that one transaction was sealing my fate or something. Poor Dad, he was so confused. He took me out for ice cream after, rambled on about the wonders of puberty. He said that each period was something to be thankful for, that each one was a symbol of my womanhood. That’s when I told him that I was never, ever, going to be a woman, no matter how many glorious periods I had. He went quiet, for a real long time. Then he took a piece of paper out of his pocket and said, ‘Well, I guess I won’t be needing this.’ He ripped it up into a million pieces.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  Lewis grinned. “Cheat notes on how to talk to girls about their periods. My aunt had written it for him.”

  I laughed. “Your dad was the best.”

  Lewis nodded in agreement. “He took me to the family doctor after that and got me a referral to a gender dysphoria specialist. I had counseling all through eighth grade and into ninth grade. I learned that everyone transitions in different ways, but for me, I knew it had to be medically. Dad supported me one hundred percent. When I said I wanted to go on testosterone he scrimped and saved to pay for my treatments. When I said I wanted top surgery he got me on a waiting list. All of these things he did because he didn’t want me to be a hostage again. He wanted me to be free.”

  From the corner of my eye I could see the tears welling in his eyes.

  “Soon I had things to celebrate too,” he said. “A deeper voice, facial hair, a squarer jaw.”

  I reached up, traced the outline of his face with my fingers.

  “I was changing,” he said. “But what I didn’t know was that my dad was changing too. When he told me about the cancer I changed my name to Lewis. I thought that by choosing his name he’d live longer. Stupid, huh?”

  I moved my hand from his face to his chest. I could feel the thump-thump-thump of his heart.

  “It’s not stupid,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”

  Lewis laid his hand gently on mine. “Shortly after his diagnosis I started tenth grade at Westvale. It started off really well—I was living my life as it was meant to be lived and Dad was responding well to treatment. But that spring, things went downhill. Dad didn’t think twice about telling the principal why I would be off for two weeks. He thought surely she’d keep my surgery confidential.”

  I looked up. “She didn’t?”

  Lewis shook his head. “She said she told the staff for my own protection—whatever that meant. It wasn’t long before everyone knew I was transgender and the bathroom thing became a huge deal. There was even a petition to keep me out of the boys’ room. When I complained to the principal about how unfair it all was she said, ‘All this fuss. Wouldn’t it be easier if you just became a lesbian?’”

  I cringed. “That’s horrible.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It was. But it’s over now. And I’m stronger for it.”

  I lay quietly, thinking about all he’d just said.

  “Lewis?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I understand why you changed schools,” I said. “But I wish you’d stayed at Pearson High. If anyone started a petition I’d have started a counter one—I’d have fought for your rights. I’d have been your number one supporter.”

  I’d have probably blundered my way through it but at least I’d have stepped up.

  At least I hoped I would have.

  Lewis laughed. “Yeah. You’d have brought it to the attention of the whole student body during one of the assemblies.”

  I eyed him suspiciously. “You remember me?”

  “Of course,” he said. “You and your brother emceed all the events.”

  It was my turn to go quiet.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I propped myself up on my elbow and looked down at him. “I feel…I dunno…jealous. You got to know me before I got to know you.”

  “I didn’t know you,” he said. “We never said two words to each other. I just saw you onstage a few times. It’s no big deal.”

  He was right but I couldn’t help but feel put out.

  He reached up and touched my cheek. “I wish I never mentioned it now,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

  “I’m not sad,” I said. “It’s just—if I had met you back then maybe you would have told me about yourself and maybe I would have been there for you every step of the way and maybe what we have now, we could have had this whole time.”

  He laughed. “There you go, overthinking things again.”

  “Seriously though,” I said. “Just think about it. Maybe one day I dropped something in the hallway and you picked it up and maybe we actually touched.”

  He moved his hand to the small of my back, the tips of his fingers inside the waistband of my jeans. “We’re actually touching now.”

  I bent down, put my face close to his. “Yes. We are.”

  I kissed his lips, then settled back into his arms.

  He pulled me close and looked back at Rosie.

  “I can see why you like her,” he said. “She kind of bridges the gap between masculine and feminine.”

  I slipped my hand inside his shirt and kissed him, from the base of his neck to his ear. “Yes,” I said. “She’s pretty cool.”

  * * *

  Early the next morning I stood at my window breathing in the late summer air. I
could see Ralph sitting in his garden drinking what I imagined to be instant coffee, the just-add-hot-water kind that came in a jar.

  I leaned on the windowsill and had a good hard look at him. He ran his hand over his face like he’d just walked through a cobweb and was wiping it off.

  I watched him bring his mug to his lips. For all I knew he went to the trendiest coffee shop in town and bought fresh beans that he ground at home with a fancy grinder.

  When Ralph finished his drink, he cradled the empty mug in his hands and gazed into it as if he wished it would magically refill itself.

  I wondered what it would be like to have so much weighing heavily on your mind.

  I closed the window and went to my closet. I changed from my pajamas to a pair of short denim overalls with a white cotton crop top underneath. I looked in the mirror and applied my makeup in my usual forties style. I penciled in my naturally arched brows, plumped up my lashes with dark mascara, and liberally applied rouge to my cheeks. I reached for my bandana. Once it was tied around my head I painted my lips with Cam’s Chanel Rouge Allure.

  Twenty minutes later I was at the arena. The doors were locked but I’d known they would be. I knocked until Eddie answered. He took one look at the skates slung over my shoulder and said, “You’ve got a half hour before the public skate starts.”

  I sat at the edge of the rink and laced up. I stared at my feet for two whole minutes before I stood up.

  I started to skate. Slowly at first, but then I picked up speed until the space around me blurred, but in a good way. It felt good. I was tired of sharpening the focus, zooming in, making things bigger than they were.

  Life whirled around me. The good and the bad spun through the air, twisting and tumbling like debris in a tornado. I knew that when I slowed the dust would settle and something bad might land right in my face, but that was okay—all I’d have to do was start skating again, and the debris would lift off and life would whirl once again.

  A sweat broke out in the small of my back. If I was in my chicken suit I’d be cursing but this was different. The sweat rolling down my butt wasn’t a consequence of poor working conditions—it was a reward for hard work. I’d earned that sweat and I wanted more.