I Am J

by Cris Beam

  In the bathroom at the diner on the corner of his block, J’s mood grew certifiably black. Squeezing around the toilet as well as a bucket and a mop in a room the size of a place mat, J wriggled out of the binder, which was soaked in sweat but still stitched together. He put on the sports bras he had tossed into his backpack, avoiding looking at his breasts, trying not to touch them. If only he could slice them off, precise and neat as a rat dissection.

  That night, there was a message from Melissa on the computer. J— she wrote. Can we talk?

  No, we can’t talk, J thought. You don’t know me anymore. You said it yourself.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  The next day, right on time, J was back at the Starbucks. He was early, actually; it didn’t take him as long to get ready, and he had wasted most of the day reading men’s fitness magazines at a newsstand. At two o’clock, when school got out, J was standing in front of the Starbucks, tying his sneaker; he didn’t want to spend the money on coffee. He practiced a bored expression, and when he stood up, as if on cue, there were Madison and another girl, this one with blue hair, walking toward him.

  “Hey, J,” Madison said, spotting him.

  “Hey.”

  “This is Blue,” Madison said. She gave her friend, who was wearing old painter pants and a tight leather jacket, a small push toward J.

  “That’s original,” J said. What was with this group and their colors?

  “So’s that,” Blue answered, squinting up at him. Blue was a white girl; she was short, with a tiny chin and wide gray eyes and an accent, something European. “Everybody has to say something about my name.”

  “So, is it real?” J asked, a little stung but showing nothing in his flat, withdrawn expression. His name was one of the only things he liked about himself.

  “What, my hair?” Blue asked. And out came a tumble of laughs—bright and heavy, like polished apples.

  This girl was snappy, J thought, standing up a little straighter. And pretty, too, in an elfin kind of way. Why didn’t he ever have a clever comeback? Melissa knew what to say in situations like these. Melissa knew how to communicate “come hither” and “back off” with a phrase. But J couldn’t think of anything. “No, your name.”

  “Of course not,” Blue said, still smiling. “Do you think a Polish family with a name like Karasinska would call their only daughter Blue? My real name is Basia. But I hate it.”

  “Blue’s a painter,” Madison interrupted. “Guess what color she paints in.”

  J raised an eyebrow.

  “You should see her work. It’s amazing,” Madison continued. “Whole landscapes and people and cities, only everything’s blue.”

  “Why?” J asked, and then immediately regretted it. Showing too much interest was the kiss of death. He worried he might be giving himself away. He felt the sweat pool in his armpits.

  “I dunno, I just like it,” Blue answered, a little defensively. “Do you do any art?”

  “I take photographs,” J said before he could stop himself. Don’t give yourself away, he thought. Be a dude. Shut the hell up. To change the topic, J pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He halfheartedly waved the box toward the girls, as though he didn’t care whether they took one or not. Each of them did.

  “What do you shoot?” Blue asked. Her lips, he noticed, were soft and pouty. But not in stuck-up way. In a way that might be nice to kiss. Stop it, he thought. You haven’t even gotten a whiff of testosterone. You have no right to be like this.

  “People,” J said. “Sometimes with cameras and sometimes with guns.”

  Blue looked confused, so J laughed, a little half-laugh-half-grunt he’d been practicing.

  “Oh,” she said, relieved. Her eyes, he noticed, glittered with flecks of gold. This girl was actually hot. “What kinds of people?”

  “All kinds,” J said, though this was a lie. He hadn’t ever shot portraits, other than the ones of his parents—he mostly felt too shy.

  “Not much for conversation, are you?” Madison said. “Well, thanks for the cigarettes; we have to go. We have drama today. We’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” J said, knowing full well he’d be right there, right on time.

  While J worried that his school would catch on to his multiple absences and call Carolina or Manny, each day passed without trouble. The administration at PS 386 had enough parent calls to make, he imagined, with the petty thefts and fights that broke out each day, to concern itself with him. He left for “school” in the morning, his backpack full of comic books, his chest binder, and extra shirts. He spent the day roaming the streets, feeling a bit safer in his skin, and counting the hours until he could show up outside the Starbucks. He wasn’t sure what people in stores or on the subway thought of him, but he knew that at least two girls on Fourteenth Street believed he was a guy, and he didn’t want to miss a moment with them.

  Wednesday afternoon went pretty much the same as Tuesday, with Blue and Madison chattering at J, and him giving one- or two-word answers and offering up his cigarettes. He wasn’t sure what they saw in him, didn’t know if he would be considered “cute” or if he was just somebody new who could alleviate their boredom. On Thursday, he found out.

  Standing at his regular spot by the tar stain outside the café, J was practicing his absentminded smoking look when Madison bounded out of school and snatched the cigarette from his hand. She took a long drag, smiling at him mischievously.

  This girl is too forward, J thought. Where’d she get such balls?

  “I know someone who likes you,” Madison said, kicking the toe of J’s boot with her sneakered foot.

  God, not the footsie game. That’s what led to trouble with Melissa. Still, he took the bait. “Yeah?” he asked, examining a scrape on his knuckle.

  “Yeah,” Madison said. “Gimme a cigarette and I’ll tell you who.”

  “You’re already smoking this one.”

  “Come on,” Madison whined. “This is a trade.”

  J gave Madison a cigarette and lit it for her. Madison said, “I’ll give you a hint. It’s not me.”

  “You’re not making it very hard,” J said, his stomach leaping up toward his lungs.

  “So, do you like her, too?”

  “I barely know her,” J said, taking off his cap, scratching his hair, and then quickly securing it on his head again.

  “Yes, you do. You know her enough. She wants to know if you want to see her art and show her your photos.”

  “Why doesn’t she ask me herself?” J knew the earlier quip about his photography was too revealing. What if she hated it?

  “She’s home sick today. She’ll be here tomorrow.” Madison stubbed out her cigarette. “Hey, did you get placed in a school yet?”

  “Nah,” J said, surprised at how quickly the lies came to him. “They’re thinking of letting me wait out the school year and just starting me up again next fall.”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause I’m that smart.”

  These were the most words J had ever said in succession to Madison or her troop. He felt exhausted.

  “Oh.” For once, Madison seemed stumped. “Well, anyway, do you want to go over and see Blue’s art? Her house is cool.”

  “That’d be okay.”

  “Cool! Lemme call her and see if we can come over. She doesn’t live that far.” Madison pulled a cell phone out of her bag. A plastic alien charm hung from the case, and it jiggled as she dialed.

  “I thought Blue was sick,” J said.

  “She’s not that sick,” Madison retorted with an eye roll, and turned her back when Blue answered the phone. She talked quietly so J couldn’t hear her. When she turned back around, J was smoking again and reading a comic. “She doesn’t want us to come over. I think she’s pissed I told you.”

  “Oh,” J said, trying to look uninterested. “Well, I gotta go, anyway.” And he sauntered off, his heart lighter, his head terrified.

  That night, Melissa called J�
��s cell phone. J didn’t pick up, but he listened to the message right away.

  “Come on, J,” Melissa said into the voice mail, her voice whiny and impatient. “Call me back. I’m getting worried about you. You haven’t been at school in over a week. Call me.”

  Good, let her worry, J thought. I have a new life now.

  But did he? He had Starbucks, and some girl with a crush, and two flesh-colored bandages stitched together with some now-fraying thread. Not much of a life. He suddenly remembered one day at the East River, not long ago, when he and Melissa had sat on a bench and watched the tugboats after school.

  “If I threw myself in the river and started drowning, would you save me?” Melissa had asked.

  “Yeah,” J answered. This was going to be one of Melissa’s heavy, nihilistic discussions. He lit a cigarette. She grabbed it from his mouth and threw it in the river.

  “Why’d you do that?” J asked, his eyebrows knitting together.

  “Because if you keep killing yourself with cigarettes, you’re not going to be able to save me.”

  “You smoke, too.”

  “Not as much as you,” Melissa countered. She kicked off her flip-flops and put her feet in J’s lap. It was spring, and an ice-cream truck jingled from far away. “Can you give me a foot rub?”

  J hated giving foot rubs; touching made him nervous. Melissa always wanted them, though, after all the dance rehearsals. He gingerly pulled at Melissa’s toes, which were dirty from the city streets. Melissa continued. “I mean, what if I really did die? It’s not like New York needs another dancer.”

  “Come on, Melis, don’t think like that.”

  “Do you think they’d find my father for the funeral?”

  J considered. Melissa’s father had never shown an interest in his daughter, even when Karyn tracked him down to tell him she was pregnant, and a few times through the years when she was looking for child support. Karyn didn’t like to talk about him, only said that he was a musician who was briefly in town for a gig.

  “Your mom would be wrecked, for real.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking,” Melissa said, pulling her feet back and crossing them underneath her. “I’m asking about my father. Why are men such assholes?”

  “Not all men.” Not me.

  “J, I know not all men. I’m not an idiot. God.” Melissa fished in her bag for a hair tie and deftly pulled her curls back into a loose bun. “I just hate them. I think sometimes it would be easier to be with women.”

  J froze. What was Melissa saying? Crazy, boy-crazy Melissa could be with girls? God, he wanted a cigarette, but he didn’t want Melissa to throw it away again. He couldn’t look at her.

  “Sometimes I think you’re the only person in the world I trust,” Melissa said. “Sometimes I just wish you were a guy.”

  I wish that, too, J thought before he could stop it. You don’t know how I wish that, too. To change the channel in his brain, he thought of Titi at home. He thought of her getting run over by a car, finding her mangled and bloody in the street. J imagined a cat funeral, how he’d have to get a suit, a black one, and a new pair of black sunglasses. He changed the subject. “M, you can’t kill yourself. Don’t be throwing yourself into the river.”

  “I wasn’t serious,” Melissa said, flashing him one of her goofy grins. Her moods could change on a dime. “Come on, let’s get ice cream.” And she grabbed his hand and pulled him up from the bench, running off toward the sound of the ice-cream truck.

  Listening to Melissa’s message again and thinking of that afternoon, something clicked for J. He hadn’t kissed her that night of the party out of nowhere; Melissa had been leading him on. Yes, they were best friends, but Melissa had liked him, too, at least some days, at least on the days she let herself entertain the possibility. But J had been so busy hating himself that he couldn’t believe someone would actually like him. Blue had a crush on him, J thought; why couldn’t Melissa? He was a stud; he wasn’t that bad-looking. Or at least he looked okay on some days, when he caught a good angle.

  He sent her a text. “Can I come over?”

  The reply came back immediately. It was yes.

  “J, I don’t like you going out so late on a school night,” Carolina said when she saw J bundling up.

  “Ma, I gotta go.”

  “Where do you have to be that’s so important?”

  “Melissa’s. She needs something.”

  “J, no. It’s late. You can see Melissa tomorrow,” Carolina said. She was getting ready to feed the cat, but she stopped and gave J her serious face.

  “No, I can’t,” J said. And he pushed out the door.

  “J!” Carolina shouted, but he was already gone.

  Karyn was home when J got there, so he and Melissa went to the corner for pizza.

  “Okay, so where have you been?” Melissa asked, blowing on her slice, the grease dripping in fat drops onto her paper plate.

  “Nowhere,” J said. He had been so confident when he left his apartment, but now he didn’t know what to say. He wished he’d worn the chest binder. He felt exposed, childlike. He tried to rouse his anger, but it was halfhearted. “Your e-mail was a bitch.”

  Melissa sighed. “Can we be a bit more articulate?”

  Melissa had tromped out of the house in her pajamas, and J had to admit, she looked adorable sitting there in her parka and flannels with the stars and moons and fluffy sheep, pink Timberlands peeking out beneath. Here was Melissa, bossy as always, pushing J for the truth.

  “You accused me,” J said. And then, into his paper cup full of Coke, “I think you wanted it.”

  Melissa’s eyes bugged out. “Wanted what? The kiss? No, J, you’re my friend. I told you I’m not gay. But we can forget about it and move on.”

  “You said you think about me sometimes. You told me, that day at the river.”

  “J—” Melissa said, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. She sat silent for a while, her eyes distant. Suddenly they lit up, as though she had been scanning the horizon and had finally spotted a landmark. “J, everybody thinks about girls sometimes. It’s a normal, healthy part of human sexuality.”

  Melissa sounded like she was quoting a textbook. J looked down, fiddled with his jeans. “Not everybody.”

  “What, J, you think about guys?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” J said, proud he had a comeback for once. “Melissa, this is about you.”

  “No, J. It’s about you. About how you kissed me. When I was sleeping.”

  “And about you. You told me you don’t want to be my friend anymore because I’m not as serious about my art as you are.” J put on a mocking tone.

  “I said I wanted to take a break, not stop being friends,” Melissa said. She got softer then and tried to touch J’s hand. He pulled it away. “I was scared. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She’s as scared as I am, J thought. J loved Melissa again in that moment, the fluorescent lights of the pizzeria making her face look yellow and alien-beautiful. Girls are amazing. They can be so vulnerable. He made his face more gentle. “Scared of what?”

  “Oh, God. Don’t get mad, okay?” Melissa snarfed down the last few bites of her pizza. “Five hundred calories before bed. And I’ve been so good about not eating after six.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “J, I get confused. You’re my best friend; you’ve always been there. You’d save me from the river, remember?”

  J nodded.

  “And I know you’re a girl, but sometimes you seem more like a guy.” Melissa started rushing her sentences, wouldn’t meet J’s eyes. “And when you seem like a guy, I am attracted to you. But then I remember you’re a girl, and I just can’t go there. I don’t know. Don’t hate me. I’m just confused. Do you want more pizza?”

  Melissa jumped up and got in the line that had suddenly formed at the pizzeria. J hadn’t even noticed people walking in. He gr
ipped the edges of his plastic chair, watching her, checking his instinct to run out the door. The thoughts rushed in, like a fire.

  I was right—she did like me. She saw me as a dude! Whoa, she saw me as a dude. Could Melissa be my girlfriend? No, you idiot. She doesn’t want you. She sees you as a girl. But I’m not a girl. Should I tell her? Should I tell her I’m in love with her? No. She already knows that. Should I tell her about the chest binding, that I’m changing more? Fuck that! She’ll really abandon you then. Don’t say shit. What do I say now? She wants to be all comforted and shit, for her confession; girls always want to be comforted. Fuck Melissa and her honesty. Fuck honesty. Fuck everything. Oh, fuck.

  Melissa sat back down, a Diet Coke in her hand. “J, what are you thinking?”

  “Too many things at once.”

  “I’m sorry I said that thing about you taking advantage of me.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Are you freaked out I said I sometimes thought of you as a guy? I mean, don’t worry, I know you’re not.”

  “No.” J felt like a hand was choking him. Tighter, tighter.

  “Can you say something? I’m feeling really weird.”

  “Um, I don’t know what to say.”

  “How about what you feel?”

  J paused. There was so much to say, and no way to say it. “Can I take a picture, maybe, and show it to you? I think that’d be better.”

  Melissa smiled. “Yeah. Take a picture. E-mail it to me.” She stood up. “ ’Cause I have a feeling you’re not coming back to school for a while. Am I right?”

  J gave her one of his half smiles back. Does she really understand? he thought. Does she really know why I’m not going to school?

  “I love you, J,” Melissa said, giving him a hug. She smiled. “As a friend.”