I’d title her trans-channel-movie-of-the-week special, High School Honors Student by Day, Castro Street Hooker by Night, I’ma Teenage Trans.
“We met.” Mean Girl-Eurasian boy smirks. “Kidd.”
Yeah, Queen, I’ll say we “met.” And you forgot to flush. Next!
There’s a radiant sun beside Kidd’s Death Star. Two pink, perfectly shaped lips have been placed, perfect, on the handsome face. Muscles. Blue eyes.
Hammer’s an All-American Skinhead. Or, the President of the Aryan Youth Nation. His head glows, a spray of gold fuzz. Hammer takes Anita’s hooker look a step further: He’s shirtless. A thirty-six pack ripples under his tight, smooth skin. All these six packs. Maybe I’ll catch one. The way people do the flu.
I stare. Nobody seems to mind. Maybe the safe house is also a nudist colony. Hammer poses, flexing. His melon-sized biceps pop, tiny waist cocks to the side, abs rippling the gold happy trail. My eyeballs are stuck on his tiny blue running shorts. He could be the model on an enormous Times Square billboard. Hammer, oh ye of the spandex boxer briefs, here’s my heart. Smash it.
Hammer rolls his head, neck muscles doing the sexy man dance. His mouth falls open and gives me a wide angle view: perfect, straight white teeth and deep throat. Done, he looks at me and … winks.
Hidden behind Hammer’s stunning stray (straight-gay: no one that good-looking could be gay), there’s a girl.
“Hi, I’m Alice,” she whispers. “I mean, Nadya.”
Alice / Nadya has pink hair and creamy white skin. Light catches the Star of David hung on a gold chain. Little Miss Identity Crisis looks like a Popsicle.
“J.D.?” Marci asks. I wonder if J.D. is (a) male (queer, potential boyfriend), (b) female (dyke, B.F.F. material), (c) Trans, or (d) gender indeterminate (Peanuts).
“Hiding under the bottom bunk,” Anita says.
“No, smoking,” Kidd says.
Marci walks toward me. She holds up a plate. On it, a muffin.
I shake my head. Just the idea of food makes me ill. A second girl steps out the kitchen doorway. She could be Alice / Nadya’s sister: She’s also pale with bleached blond hair. But unlike Alice / Nadya, there’s nothing shy about her. She walks to the bunk and holds up a coffee cup. Another temple offering. Am I the fifteenth Dalai Lama?
“I figured you for one cream and no sugar except—that’s my name. So I gave you one blue.”
Sugar’s Riottt Girrlll punk ’do is at odds with her free love, Rasta hippy chick vibe. Large breasts dance, bra-free, under a sheer blouse. Smiling, she looks up at me, expectant. They all do. They expect me to speak.
“Later?”
Peanuts jumps off the ladder and “runs”—two steps—to-ward a dresser. “I have the bottom drawer ’cuz I have the top bunk.” Oh, now I grasp Peanuts’s interest in my sleeping patterns. The sooner I get up, the sooner s / he can reclaim the top bunk.
“The window,” Marci says, “displaying” the tarp with arm gliding, baby dyke, game show hostess savoire faire. “There’s a fire escape outside—in case you need to leave.”
“Run hella fast,” Peanuts adds, “‘cuz the cops bust in. Wolf! Wolf! With Dawgs! The bitey breed.”
“Great,” I think. “Or, the Blue-Eyed Bathroom Rapist finds us and picks the lock.” I should get up and leave. I hate dogs, especially the bitey breeds. Absentmindedly, my hand drops down and feels the bite marks. OMG, I bet it looks like I’m touching myself. I jerk my hand out.
“The only time I go outside is the roof,” Alice / Nadya says, speaking in a barely audible, little girl voice. She steps back, a visible disappearing act.
“That’s about half of us.” Sugar sips my coffee and makes a face. Eww. Later, I’ll tell her: I hate the Blue, too. “The other half stay here until we turn eighteen. Like me.”
The group gaze is stuck on moi. I guess they expect me to say something. I should confess: I’m not the Great and Powerful Oz. I can’t think much less speak. T.M.I. Cops? Windows? Bitey breeds? Eighteen? Then it occurs to me. If Nadya is an Alice stuck in the alternate universe anti-Wonderland, then I’m a friend of Dorothy. Close my eyes, click my heels thrice and say, “I feel kind of dumb asking this but, um, people get to go home? Sometimes? Never?”
“If—if—your parents don’t have cause or, more typically, the funds for another involuntary committal,” Sugar says, eighteen going on forty, the safe house’s Mini-Magistrate. “But, yes, definitely, you can go back.”
“Or, you’ve been gone such a long time they forget about you,” Kidd says. “But why would you want to?”
“How long is a long time?” I ask. I need a time line. Some idea of how long I should plan to bunk down in da crib with the other crazy kiddies.
“Two years.”
“Me, it’s been three years, plus change,” Sugar says. “I’ve been underground for four, but three’s about how long I’ve lived in the closet.”
“Security!” Peanuts says. “We gotta tell him.”
Security—that will have to wait. I turn away, to the wall, and close my eyes. Thorazine, take me away! I drift, back to my favorite destination of choice:
Bliss, Death, Sleep.
Chapter 26
“Ahh!”
The shriek wakes me. My body’s tense. Rigid. Cold. Sweat covers my skin. Animal instincts: Trapped and facing a predator, you (a) run or (b) play dead.
Please choose “B” and proceed to survival.
“Shit! That hurts like a motherfuck!”
“What about his ID?”
“Ahhhh!!!!!”
“Hold still, or”—a boy scolds—“I’ll cut your wrist.”
“Ahhh!” Another shriek. “Heartless motherfucker!”
“We should skip this and get a dead baby name from City Hall.”
“Or, the Internet?” asks a girl.
Who are these people? Gay Teen Terrorists?
“I like the DMV,” deep-voiced boy says. “Cops look once and it’s like, ‘Okay, you can go.’”
“Ahhhh!” A third shriek. “This feels like circumcision.”
“Like she’d know anything about that!”
“Don’t start with that fucking—AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” A yelp. “—'girl’ crap.”
“Why are you talkin’ shit? You got foreskin for days.”
They’re talking about dick. Arguing about it. So long as it’s someone else’s dick that’s being cut, I don’t care, roll over and go back to—
Chapter 27
“What?!”
I sit up. My sleeping frenzy ends. Done. Over. Eyes wide awake. I sit. Up.
Run—
I—
“Where am I?”
Am totally freaked out.
“Hello?”
Not at home, that’s for sure. Serenity Ridge, bus station, youth shelter. I talk myself down. Look.
Clothes at the end of the bed. Cargo pants, shirt and safari hat. Outfit Number Three, the one I wore in the truck that drove me to the bus station in downtown Vegas and—
Write it down, make notes, map it out. My story. So when I leave, I’ll know what I left. Unlike before when I shut my eyes and jumped.
I feel for the blue notebook. I find it where I left it: tucked in the folded-up pants. I didn’t take off those pants. Someone else must have. I sniff the pants. They smell fresh. I wonder if they read my journal. I reach under the bed and pull it out. The pen’s tucked inside, right where I left it.
I write:
i am cast out
so far a-way
from a home
that is no longer
home but just
a memory
My good mood blooms and wilts in nineteen words. I close ’n clip the pen, shut the notebook and fall back. Dead or asleep, I can’t tell the difference. I stare at the ceiling. Listen to the snores. And try not to choke on the nasty-smelling farts. I hate this. It’s almost worse than
boot camp. At least Serenity Ridge smelled clean.
The ceiling. I stare at it. I try to will my body to fall asleep or die. How can I? Float away without ever having to jump.
Chapter 28
“What!”
There’s a hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t!”
I sit up, finger in electric socket shocked.
“Here,” she says. “Put this on.”
She sits on the bunk, next to my shoulder. A nurse, she’s here to give me a dose. I’m back in Serenity Ridge. My escape—the whole thing was a hallucination.
Cold sweat (who needs air conditioning when you have fear on tap) panic attack. I remember Marci’s words, “Long-term safe house.” I want to know, what part of the house is “safe.” There’s zero privacy, same as Serenity Ridge.
“I—”
She smiles. Yes, I’m dreaming. Nobody looks like this in the hospital. A princess. Or, an angel. I put the pieces together. Face, voice, touch. The girl who brought me the steaming cup of coffee, no cream, one blue is—
“Sugar?”
“Yes,” she says. “There’s a good-bye barbecue up on the roof.”
That smile is definitely not an angel. She’s all fairy. She reminds me of a life-sized Tink. That must mean I’m a Lost Boy. I’ll follow her anywhere.
“Put this on,” she says, hands me a black hoodie and slides off the bunk. I follow, to the kitchen window. “Sure,” I’ll say. “Let’s hold hands and jump.”
“Wait,” she says. I stop. She moves the tarp and peeks. She lifts the tarp, steps through the window and waves me out. I hesitate.
“C’mon,” she says. “It’s safe.”
I step toward the window, ready to leave. Then, I look down and see—
The ground. The fire escape’s nothing but rusted pipe held together with thin, metal slots and paint. In my imagination, it buckles and falls off the building. My head hits the ground and splits, cantaloupe style.
I freeze.
“Come on!” Tink bleats, impatient.
“I—” I withdraw my foot and let the tarp drop. The only way I’m leaving is the way I came in: through the front door.
The tarp moves. Sugar’s head pops through the gap.
“Let’s go.”
“I can’t.” I’m a total wuss. Tink looks pissed, about to beat me with her wand. I brace myself, ready to duck.
“We had this other kid, Kevin, he had it, too.”
“It? What?”
“Vertigo.”
“And what happened to Kevin?”
“The last raid, he got caught. He was scared of using the fire escape. You know, ‘Ben!’” she says, in a sarcastic c’mon-I-know-that’s-not-really-your-name tone. “This is a safe place.”
“But Marci said,” I stall. Maybe she’ll get discouraged and leave. “Isn’t this a closed safe house? Aren’t we all supposed to stay inside forever? Or, until we turn eighteen?”
“Tonight’s an exception,” she says. “Hey, I’ve got an idea.”
She reaches up, pulls off her Cholita kerchief and wraps it around my head. Great. I live with Gay Gang Bangers. I knew it. Upstairs, I’m gonna be jumped in.
“See? What you can’t see, you can’t be scared of. Look.”
I do, it’s true. My blindness has a red hue. She takes my hand and leads me up and out the window. The bandana solves my fear of heights. Problem is, I can’t see the ground below. This means I’ll need to trust her. I don’t. I don’t trust anyone. I left my trust behind, bedside, the day I was kidnapped. She knows none of this. She takes my hands and places them down. I feel two, thin metal pipes.
“Hold and up!” she barks, an aerobics instructor style. I step up. “Good. I’m right behind you!”
Underfoot, the fire escape slants up, same as the bunk bed’s ladder. Blind, I climb up-up-up, hoping we’re close to the roof. Or, if we fall, heaven. I’m Muslim enough; I still deserve the seven virgins promised to martyrs. (But I’ll settle for three if at least one looks like Hammer.)
“Oh!” she freezes. “Stop!”
“What?!?” I almost shit my pants.
“The neighbor’s—they—they just got home.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So they might see us. Don’t move. She just set down her groceries. She just set down the bags and … Hurry! Up! Quick!”
“How far”—I say, climbing, fast as one can on a rusty fire es-cape—“is it to the top?”
“Twelve more steps and—” She helps me up the final step. It feels different, flatter than the others. “You good?”
I nod. I lie. Truth is, I feel nauseous. This step feels somehow different because, I realize, it is different. I’m on a ladder that goes straight up. Vertical. As in, it’s bolted, flat, against the side of the building. Worse, the wind. Cold as a wicca’s tit, it whips me from all sides. In San Francisco, even the weather’s badass. I’m tempted to reach up and rip off the fucking Madonna “Like a Virgin” bandana. I need to look and confirm my fears. To see we hang in the air, high above ground. I swallow. What happens if I faint? Will Sugar catch me if I fall?
My tummy growls, hunger trumps fear, and I follow her—Up! Up! Up! I focus on the sound of her combat boots clomp-clomping on metal and rely on my human primate monkey grip to conquer the rungs. One, two, three, I count. Nine to go. “Eleven, twelve.”
We reach the top rung. The bandana blindfold slips off my face. It’s okay, I tell myself, the last step is the roof and we’re done. No. We’re not there yet. We have one more path: a catwalk.
I haul myself up, frozen hands guiding me up the narrow path. I fight two battles. Fear and wind. My palms crush old paint. White flakes curl back and reveal metal, pockmarked with rust the color of dried blood.
Up front, Sugar jumps off the catwalk. Air poufs her white ballerina skirt. For a moment, she hangs in the air. She drops out of sight. To death. There’s a reason I was born without wings.
“Where are you?”
“Down here.”
Jump!
My body won’t move.
It knows.
I can’t fly.
Chapter 29
I peer over the edge. An abyss. I’m gonna die. My eyes adjust. It’s not an abyss, it’s the roof. I hope it’s the roof. All I see is The Void. The Madonna / Cholita bandana has slipped and covers my mouth, bank heist style.
Then, I notice—The City—sparkly light cast off by bridges and buildings brightens as night consumes twilight.
“Fuck it.” I shut my eyes and jump. I drop off the catwalk and land on spongy asphalt. It’s still warm, heated by daylight’s Indian summer sun.
Chest high, the first roof creates a protective barrier and hides us. Not that it matters. Nobody looks—or cares—about us. We’re surrounded by office buildings. I doubt the lawyers and janitors working the swing shift are the least bit interested in our queer crew.
In front of me, there’s an enormous, rectangle-shaped pane of glass. It takes up nearly the whole roof. The surface catches fragments of light. I step toward it and glimpse a boy’s face in the reflection. His cheeks are hollow. Dark circles are carved under haunted eyes.
Who is he?
“Sorry,” I say, and step around him. He copies my movement. Oh, shit, I think, that boy is me. I look like shit. I need a facial.
Sugar looks back. Her ballerina skirt brushes glass, punk rock fairy princess style.
“What’re these things? Skylights?”
“Solar panels.”
“Yo!” Hammer raises a big blond arm, waving a beer bottle. Forget the hops, I could get shit-faced drunk on his bro’ish gor-geousness. My heart skips a beat. Maybe there is hope. Maybe we’ll share the bunk and cuddle.
“Careful.” Sugar reaches back and guides me toward the group. A homo homing pigeon, I set my sights on Hammer. I bump into something—someone—else.
“Ah!” I squeal, ’fraid, ’fraid, ’fraid. The hospital’s turned me into a pins and needles kinda queen. Ev
erything scares and / or startles me. My nose twitches, and smells perfume.
“Haifa?”
A smile materializes in the dark. White teeth. Another monster who wants to gobble me up.
“No, Anita,” she says, grand. I can’t look away from her face. Anita’s face is perfect with this beautiful yet tragic movie star quality. I bet people stare at her all the time.
“Wanna toke?” she rasps, smoke caught in her throat. She holds out a tiny cigarette. Small, smokey puffs blast my face. A sweet smell, the weed makes me wonder if the roof’s exempt from the zero tolerance rule.
“No, thanks.” The hospital drugs blunted enough of my five senses.
“Dork,” Kidd mutters.
“Sweetheart,” Anita coos. “Please, ignore the hater. All you need to say is, ‘Thank you, hater, that just means there’s more for you.’”
I sit on the picnic blanket. The wool makes my ass itch. Down here, the city lights cast a preternatural glow on the hazy sky. (Preternatural being one of those snooty vocabulary words I love.)
Nearby, Sugar kneels and prods the barbecue. Red-orange embers spark, dancing in the dark before flying up and away like fireflies. Low, old skool reggae music tumbles out a battered boom box. My eyes adjust. There’s Peanuts, Kidd, the deep-voiced boy, and two I don’t know.
“Here.” Sugar hands me a paper plate heaped with food.
Hunger trumps vegan ideals. I haven’t eaten in days. I scarf the barbecue meat, beans and asparagus sticks. Food tastes so good. So good, in fact, I choke. Nobody notices.
Chapter 30
“When I get out, the first thing I’m gonna do is”—Sugar announces—“go shopping.”
“With what?” Peanuts cracks. “You got a secret trust fund?”
“No. I’ll get a job.”
“That is So. Fucked. Up. You turn eighteen,” Kidd seethes. Or is it Hammer’s? I tell them apart by their heads. Hammer’s a blond skinhead to Kidd’s tight, terrorist black beanie. “What do you have? You’ve spent the last three years hiding in someone’s apartment. You imagine you have some freedom but in reality, you have nothingggggg. I mean,” he says, spitting out his hard, ugly words, “who are you kidding? Only difference between fifteen and eighteen is welfare.”
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