by T Cooper
“You can’t keep your name,” I chide, and he looks at me like, Poor stupid rule-follower. And we are right back to where we were the first time Chase disappeared into the Radical Changers “lifestyle.” Him knowing-it-all. Me blindly and prudishly doing what I’m told by The Changers Bible, marching to the beat of the Council drum. Him judging. Me getting overly upset being judged by him. Fun times. How had I forgotten?
“My body may change, but I don’t have to,” he continues, working up an indignant froth—for whose benefit, I have no idea.
“I’m fairly certain that’s the complete inverse of our mission,” I snort.
“You’re oversimplifying it. We don’t have to live by their rules if we don’t want,” he says, zeroing in on me, pupil to pupil, trying to dominate me like a trainer does a dog. “You know that, right?”
I don’t even want to answer. “Why are we fighting?”
“Who’s fighting?”
“Well, it went from down-home week to opening bout in the Octagon pretty quickly.”
“You frustrate me, Drew.”
“I’m not Drew anymore.”
“You sure about that?” he asks, then grins real wide like, Checkmate, beyotch.
I have nothing to say. I just gaze at him, and as I do, I notice that his smile is different, transformed, toothy. I think about the first time I saw him smile, here in this stupid shop, and how it made me feel like I’d fallen down a well. I loved him for that smile. And now that smile is history. And, likely, so are we.
Makes you wonder, if it is so easy to lose who you cared about, what’s the point of caring in the first place?
I want to cry. But I don’t. I don’t even have to fight that hard not to. Which fills me with an ache far worse.
“So. I was thinking of going street-skate-nerd-steez this year,” I finally say, changing the subject, opting to skip all the drama entirely, to do the manly thing and compartmentalize. “What do you think?”
Chase knits his brow, unwilling to relinquish his fortifying righteousness. He’s obviously been spending too much time with the RaChas’ top gun Benedict, drinking that particular brand of ego-stoking Kool-Aid.
“Should I get someone else to help me shop?” I ask, half serious.
Chase, for once in his lives, doesn’t know what to say or do.
“How’d you get this job, anyway?” I push. “I know you’re not all about the fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion.” I give my best help-me-out-here-bro face.
“Tom had to go away for a while,” Chase coughs up, softer. “Bad Changer.”
“Damn. Seriously? What’d he do?”
Chase gives his me his Not here shake-off. “He asked if I could fill in for him while he’s gone—I need to keep a job anyway, or my folks won’t let me homeschool.”
Now it’s Chase who seems a little glum. But he isn’t about to cry either. “I’ll hook you up with a mad credit, yo, for your old clothes,” he pops out, snapping free of whatever hole he was digging us into, and then busily gathers the piles of Drew’s clothes into one huge, girly mass, and dumps it into an institutional-looking laundry cart behind the counter. (Compartmentalization, meet deflection. God, my mom would have a shrink field day with this.)
“Thanks, man,” I say. “And if you could point me to the varsity jackets, DCs, and maybe a fly bucket hat, I think I’ll go get my shop on.”
Chase starts wrestling a three-sizes-too-tight fluffy yellow sweater over his enormous barrel chest. “You 100 percent sure you won’t be needing this again?” he jokes, model stomping and flashing a Blue Steel face.
“That’s a solid NFW. Looks better on you, anyway,” I quip back, both of us doing the BS banter thing, just a couple dudes hanging out and acting dumb, pretending nothing hurts, or matters, or lasts. I don’t know about Chase, but I think I just felt the best part of Drew draining away from me like spilled sand.
* * *
Back home, I’m unpacking, folding, and putting away two full bags of new threads. (Despite all the unease, Chase refused to take any extra money from me, even though I far outspent my trade-in credit for Drew’s clothes.) I decide somewhere between stacking my tank tops and coiling my black punk-rock three-row studded belt to create a new e-mail account and send a note to Audrey.
Yes, I know it explicitly says not to do this in The Changers Bible. Sue me.
Dear Aud,
I’ve been putting off writing this for a long time. It’s only because I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t know what to say. Or maybe I just didn’t know how to say it. Anyway, here goes:
Basically, my folks ran into some financial problems that were out of their control. Really bad ones. And we had to move out of state under the cover of night, like those polygamists on TV. They (my parents, not the polygamists) wouldn’t let me tell you anything. And I’m not supposed to tell you where we are now either. I’m not even supposed to be writing you. I know it sounds crazy like a B-movie, but it’s what happened, and it was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, just leaving you without a word like that. But I didn’t want you starting a new school year thinking I’d totally bailed. Or that I don’t care about you and think about you all the time. Which I do. A lot. An effing ton. In fact, over summer I think I figured out that I love you.
But you probably knew that already.
Anyway, how was camp? How’s sophomore year at Central? Did you change much over the break? Please don’t hate me.
Love,
Drew
CHANGE 2–DAY 3
It bears repeating that one glaring advantage I’ve noticed about this V is how little I worry about how I look. Just like that. Magic. Sure, I wash my face and pump on some body spray. I don’t want to smell like a yeti. And yes, I wanted some threads so I didn’t have to rock Dad’s middle-aged suburban meh every day, but I have to say, it’s a been pleasure waking up and just throwing on whatever and not worrying what anybody will or won’t say about my hair or what I’m wearing. In fact, it would be really jarring if DJ or any of the other guys I’ve sort of gotten on “hello-nod” terms with said anything about my looks. I mean, what would they say? “Your hair looks so cute today.” “You are so skinny, I hate you!”
Outside of DJ bragging about how dope his style is, or the guys taking note of some girl’s lack of clothes covering certain areas—a.k.a. “nipple alerts,” a.k.a. “her Rihannas are out”—I haven’t yet heard a single guy utter a single word about appearances, mine or theirs.
Giant exhale.
Anyway, today.
Basically consisted of me trying to get Audrey’s attention in homeroom, then again in History, and then again on the field after school, when she and the JV squad were practicing near where I was trying out for football because . . . well, I don’t exactly know why I’m trying out for football, other than to refer myself back to my Chronicles from last year when I suddenly, inexplicably, wanted to try out for cheerleading. Because I can?
Granted, cheerleading also had something to do with Audrey—okay, everything to do with Audrey. Which if I’m honest, this football business also has to do with Audrey because I know from last year’s experience that she and the other girls will be practicing when football practices, decorating our lockers, cheering at our games, baking us brownies, riding the bus with our team, dating (etc.) some of us, and so on. Wack sauce on the women’s equality front, but good for me, now that I’m no longer representing that particular gender.
All of that said, here is the more detailed Day Three Audrey Report:
Homeroom: a half-smile as I walked past her desk after the bell rang, while she seemed absorbed with something in her planner. She didn’t even notice it was I who held the door open for her before we all headed to first period, though ever the polite girl, she did say “Thank you” rather sincerely as she and about ten other students walked through while I stood there propping it open for them.
History: Uncomfortable moment when Dr. Hodges introduced the question of how the European
conquest of North America transformed indigenous civilizations and institutionalized African slavery, and all the white kids in class couldn’t help but sneak glances at all the nonwhite kids, which I didn’t realize included me until the second or third kid made sketchy eye contact with me before quickly looking back at Dr. Hodges. It reminded me of fifth grade when we had to watch a video about puberty, and when the narrator got to the part where he said that some girls develop breasts, get their periods, and grow pubic hair as early as age ten, everybody in the class, including me and Andy, immediately whipped our heads around and ogled Melinda Iacocca, who promptly burst into tears and ran out the door to the bathroom, seeing as she was the only girl in class with boobs and hair under her armpits.
Football tryouts: When Coach Tyler told me to “run as fast as you can, touch the 50, and come back,” I did so, my helmet bobbing around my face to the point that I couldn’t see the ground in front of me. So when I saw the 35, 40, 45, and what I thought was the 50 beneath me, I reached down to the grass to touch the only white line within view, quickly ascertaining it was possibly the other 45 yard line I was gripping a handful of wet chalk from. I promptly tried to correct myself and find the 50, but instead ended up tripping over my own feet and face-planting in the turf, my helmet torquing completely sideways to the point that I probably looked like the girl from The Exorcist.
“Ooof!” A choral response from the guys who were waiting their turns behind me, plus a couple of girl voices thrown in (followed by giggles), which, when I managed to climb onto my hands and knees and straighten my helmet, I noted one of which was Audrey.
I tried smiling at her in an obviously self-deprecating way through my face mask, but I’m pretty sure she couldn’t see. Coach Lois strolled between me and Aud then, barking something at the squad, at which point Audrey turned around and gave full attention to her splits.
I stood up, straightened the pads in my pants, and brushed the dirt off my knees, and was just about fully composed—when I felt I hard, sharp slap on my ass as somebody blew by me.
“Much easier to run without pads, boo!” It was Kenya, who flashed a friendly smirk before returning to the track.
I turned and jogged toward Coach, peering behind me to find Audrey a couple times, but she was busy observing Chloe demonstrate back handsprings for the group.
“Son, you look like you should be faster,” Coach Tyler chided me, before telling us all to take a cool-down lap and then stretch it out. “Tomorrow, let’s see if you can catch a ball.”
CHANGE 2–DAY 4
Skating home after football this afternoon, I headed to the ReRunz parking lot to reacquaint myself with a few tricks I used to know, back when I was Ethan, and before I’d become Drew—worst skater since Ryan Sheckler. I had just landed a perfectly executed hippie jump over a low rail and was really digging on my reinvigorated skating skills, when I darted past Michelle Hu, the Stephen Hawking of Central, nearly rolling my board over her Chacos.
“Sorry!” I shouted, jumping off and landing on the pavement.
She just smiled and gave me a peace sign. I quickly retrieved my board and skated back toward her to (re)introduce myself.
“Oryon,” I say, extending a hand. “Apologies about the near guillotining of your toes.”
“Michelle,” she says, taking my hand and giving it a hearty shake. “No worries. Sweet trick.”
“Thanks. It’s nothing, really.”
“Actually, it’s the physics of projectile motion—where the vertical component of velocity is the only one that changes, since gravity only works in a vertical direction. You know, your basic parabolic arc.”
“Wow, I’m more awesome than I thought,” I say, not even trying to decipher her deGrasse Tyson–speak. “Do you skate, or—”
“Die?” she interrupts with a cute grin. “Nah. I just like knowing how the universe works. I find it comforting.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Science will set you free, man,” she says, completely sincere. “You should join our physics club—The Fun-damental Particles. We meet every Thursday at seven thirty before school.”
“You meet at the crack of Christmas to talk about science?”
“Yes! It’s super stimulating. Better than coffee. I bet you’d dig knowing the how behind the action,” she says, gesturing toward my board. “Science is the reason for every season.”
It occurs to me that in my entire last year of school, Michelle Hu spoke probably twenty words to me when I was Drew. Or perhaps it was I who spoke just twenty words to her.
“The how behind the action?” I ask, rolling my board back and forth under my shoe.
“Yes,” she says, not quite sure whether I’m serious or mocking her. “Take a front-side 180,” she starts, at first hesitantly, before allowing her excitement to bleed through. “You can only land one by rotating your upper and lower body in opposite directions. It keeps your angular momentum at zero. Basically, you’re controlling the way you interact with the laws of nature.”
I keep nodding with absolutely no understanding of what she’s talking about.
“Which is to say,” she continues, “sometimes to move ahead, you have to split yourself into two entirely separate people.”
Now that I understand.
“Anyway, I gotta bounce,” Michelle says. “My moms are waiting at the climbing wall. But it was most awesome meeting you, Oryon.”
“Same,” I say. “See you around school.”
“Not if I see you first,” she jokes, sounding like an old-time, take-my-wife comic. My immediate thought is that I want to call Audrey and tell her how great and goofy Michelle Hu is, and how we should totally start hanging out with her (not necessarily in the physics club or anything—let’s be real). But before I even finish this interior monologue, I realize again that I can’t call Audrey, because Audrey and I aren’t friends anymore, and I feel the hopeful air whoosh from my body as I drop my backpack and sink onto the curb, deflated all over again.
In a fit of desperation, I start rooting around my bag for my CB, feeling it at the very bottom. I pull it out, look around to make sure nobody’s nearby, and then flip it open to a section I remembered spotting in the index called: Change Two: Adjustments.
I laugh a bitter “Ha!” at the word Adjustments, like being breathed into a whole new person is some tiny lifestyle tweak, like buying a push-up bra or cutting out dairy, but I read on nonetheless:
Be aware of the colliding systems of motivation and emotion. As your unique biology intersects with the chemical changes of ripening adolescence, you may feel restless, exuberant, intense, desperate. Resist the urge to be reckless, both physically and emotionally. Year Two Changers tend to underestimate risks and overestimate rewards. Especially social rewards.
Tell me something I don’t know, CB.
Life in our community is a long and varied one. Bear in mind the consequences your actions will bring to others. Becoming an adult means becoming accountable. Delayed gratification is the hallmark of the mature. Your Touchstone will model this maturity for you.
It is precisely then that I glance up and across the largely empty parking lot and spot none other than my very own model Touchstone Tracy blowing a giant, bright pink bubble of chewing gum. She is giggling, her be-ribboned head bobbling when none other than my favorite homeroom teacher Mr. Crowell pops the bubble with the tip of his index finger. Ah yes, the pinnacle of maturity.
I finish the section:
Remember, your journey is not about you. Your journey is not singular. No Changer walks alone. In the many, we are one.
I am just shutting my as-ever-useless CB when Tracy practically skips over sans Mr. Crowell, the spring in her step rivaling a kangaroo’s.
“Most excellent,” she beams, straightening the giant plaid bow in her hair with a flourish. Her head looks like a holiday gift basket. “Now that’s what I like to see.”
“What? Abject despair? Paralyzing confusion?” I snot back
.
She waves her hand in front of her face. “Noooo, silly. You reading your CB, digging into the mission.”
“I’m just looking for answers,” I say flatly.
“Exactly,” she replies with a smug nod. “Any luck?”
“Nope.”
“How do you know?” she presses, chirpy, even for her.
“What do you mean, how do I know?” Even as I ask, I regret taking the bait.
“Sometimes an answer doesn’t reveal itself until you ask the right question.” Tracy is practically erupting with self-satisfaction.
“Really, Iyanla: Fix My Life?” I look for Mr. Crowell, who seems to have disappeared into the sub shop. “Here’s the right question: what is going on between you and my homeroom teacher?”
Tracy’s face fills with light, her smile nearly cracking her jaw in half. “Nothing.”
“Never play poker, Trace,” I say.
She tilts her head, as though a distant alarm has started sounding. “Dinnertime!” she declares, glancing back at the sub shop. “You should get home too. I bet your folks can’t wait to hear how day four went.”
I look up at her skeptically, but she doesn’t notice, just swivels on her little flats and merrily click-clacks away.
CHANGE 2–DAY 6
Mom and Dad somehow talked me into going to see a movie with them this afternoon, some optimistically lit, schmaltzy thing about rich white people with gigantic, rich white-people kitchens (which are, incidentally, also always white) getting a second chance at life and love and other invented first-world problems. I was, shocker, the only young person, not to mention the only black person, in the audience, which of course Mom wanted to “process” with me on the ride home. The whole conversation was wearying, and I found myself already getting tired of white-people guilt a mere week into my new identity. Like, is it my job to make you feel better about feeling bad? I’m not a shame mirror.
