I Am J

by Cris Beam

  It was like hormones, J thought. He had read that testosterone had an effect on people before it even altered a hair on their chin. The hormones made them think somewhat magically, because they knew they were changing themselves—making them stronger, making them men. J asked, “What does it taste like?”

  “It tastes…” Blue looked up at the ceiling. “It tastes like blue. I don’t know. And like dirt. Like sky and earth maybe. I love it.”

  J laughed again but this time tried to stifle it with a cough.

  “It’s okay, you can laugh,” Blue said. “I like your laugh.”

  They were sitting side by side on Blue’s bed. It’s working, J thought. She likes me. Blue looked at J’s profile and tapped him lightly on the mouth with her pencil. “You want to try it?”

  Blue looked like a picture-book drawing of a fairy, J thought, almost like a manga cartoon. But a sexy one. Her nose was narrow, with a little ball at the end, like a marble. Her eyes were wide set and gray as fog, with tiny flecks of gold in them, and her cheeks, which hadn’t yet lost their baby fat, were peach-colored and got splotchy when she was embarrassed. Blue was curvy but compact, probably just under five feet, J guessed, and her hands were ink-stained, with pinkie fingers that bent slightly out from the rest of her hand, as if they were trying to escape. Because J had nodded to Blue’s question, she was using a long brush to mix some watercolor paint and some water in a shallow dish. With her fingers, she squeezed the bristles to a point.

  “You first,” she said.

  “What do I do?”

  “Just stick out your tongue. And, if you want, close your eyes.”

  J stuck out his tongue but kept his eyes open. Blue’s hair, which had been dyed so many times it looked waxen and dry as a doll’s, was pulled up in a high ponytail and made pointy blue dashes around her face. Her expression was serious as she leaned in. She touched J’s tongue once with the brush, so lightly he could barely feel it. Still, his mouth watered in anticipation. “I don’t taste anything.”

  “Let me give you more,” Blue said, dunking the brush back in the dish. J stuck his tongue out again. This time, he imagined the paint was testosterone and Blue was giving him his first dose. The paint would make him more male; he would swallow it, and he would change. Blue drew a figure eight with the brush. It tickled, like an animal tail on his tongue. This time, he tasted it; the paint was bitter, like old almonds, and also earthy, like a dirty creek. I’m a man, he thought. I’m a man.

  “How is it?” Blue asked, her hair bobbing around her like a star.

  “It’s weird…” J said. “And good. I like it. You eat it now.” And then I kiss you.

  Blue rested the brush on the sketch pad and picked up the dish of paint. She darted her tongue into the bowl like a cat, taking tiny dabs into her mouth. At first only the tip of her tongue was blue, but then the whole thing was a faded wash of color. Blue watched J carefully, then closed her eyes and lay back on the bed, the dish resting on her stomach. She breathed in deep.

  “Aaaaah,” Blue sighed. “I love that.” She looked back over at J and sat up. “No one’s ever been with me for that before. I mean, I’ve never shared my paint.”

  “Thank you,” J said. He didn’t know what else to say. His head was swimming again. Blue was his first hormone nurse, except she wasn’t; this was only his second week being a boy, except it wasn’t; Blue was really nice, and he just wanted to use her for hooking up, except maybe he could like her, too. Where did Melissa fit into this picture? Melissa was his friend—and, he hoped, would remain so after he sent the jackhammer picture. And Blue, this sensitive artist Blue, who was sitting on a bed—a bed!—and staring at him… oh, God, this could never work. They’d kiss, Blue would try to take off his shirt, and blam. Think of a dead baby, J commanded himself. A carjacking, a knife wound. Anything to take him out of this picture.

  “I gotta go,” J said, and stood up.

  “Wait, why?” Blue asked, looking startled.

  “I have a girlfriend. I can’t do this,” J said, thinking, Stop yourself. Don’t screw everything up. “Back in Philly.”

  “You do?” Blue looked shocked.

  J sat down on the bed again. “No.”

  “Wait—” Blue said, slowly setting the dish of paint on her desk. “Do you or don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  “I don’t,” J stammered. “I mean, I did. We broke up. I’m just freaked out being here with you, I mean, after that.”

  Blue’s face softened. She smiled at J, looked at him full on, her eyes wide. “Oh, J, you’re sweeter than I thought. When did you break up?”

  “Um, it’s hard to talk about.”

  “She broke up with you?”

  J nodded. He was really working the sympathy card; maybe Blue would kiss him after all. But that’s it, he thought. Then you’re bolting out the door.

  “I understand—you need time,” Blue said.

  J put his hand on Blue’s knee. It was smaller than he’d expected, and bonier. He played with the ribbing on her tights. “You’re shaking,” Blue said. She leaned in closer.

  J tried not to breathe. She was so close, he couldn’t focus on her features anymore. His hand on her knee felt awkward, detached from his arm. Do I squeeze her knee? Do I kiss her?

  “Nah,” J said, deepening his voice, trying to cover for the tightness in his throat. “I’m just cold.”

  “Here,” Blue said, taking off her thrift-store cardigan and carefully laying it across J’s shoulders. She paused, looking at J’s face, and then slowly wrapped the sweater around his neck, like a scarf. J stiffened, panicking. Don’t look so closely at my neck, he prayed silently. Don’t look for an Adam’s apple.

  “You have nice eyes,” Blue said quietly.

  “I do?” J blurted, too loud, relieved. Why was he so bad at this? He was supposed to be the one in control.

  “Yeah, I like their shape.”

  “What’s their shape?” He took a quick intake of breath and held it.

  “Well, they tip down a little toward your nose, like boats, but they’re big and round—like manga characters.”

  “I was thinking that about your eyes!”

  “Like manga? That’s funny,” Blue said. The gold flecks in her eyes sparked. Then she looked serious, cocking her head to assess J’s face more closely. “But mine aren’t as beautiful a color as yours. The brown is almost like a henna, with some amber tones, and your irises are outlined in a dark brown, almost black.”

  J did like his eyes, that was true. But he’d never seen amber in them. He thought, if he passed, he might look like a regular Jewto Rican kid, kind of light-skinned, boring, plain. But Blue said his eyes were nice. Thank God she hadn’t mentioned the lashes. That was nice, to be nice. Nice didn’t mean feminine. A man’s eyes could be nice.

  “Basia!” a voice called from across the apartment. “I need your help in here!”

  It was Blue’s mom. It was time for J to go.

  After Blue had pecked J on the cheek (so much for hooking up) and bustled off to help her mom, J found himself back on the cold sidewalk, staring at a dead cell phone. He hadn’t packed his charger, had no idea if his parents had tried to reach him. It was after six; Carolina would be home by now, and worried. So what if he’d stayed out all night, he thought—that wasn’t a federal crime. It wasn’t like he was doing anything. Just thinking. Other teenagers did much worse things; J had been a good kid until now, and his parents should remember that. If his parents tried to punish him, he’d argue for his rights. At least until he got his phone charger, and some money stored up, a better chest binder, a real plan. If he was really going to become a man, full-time, he’d have to do it where his parents wouldn’t see him. And to make a real getaway, he’d have to prepare—long, hard, and smart. And he would, just as soon as he got some sleep.

  Back at the apartment, J heard Carolina before he saw her. At the turn of his key in the door, Carolina started screaming.

  “Jenifer Juana Sil
ver!”

  Uh-oh, J thought. The full name.

  “Get in here!”

  J took off his shoes as slowly as possible. “Now!” his mother screamed.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Carolina demanded as J ducked his head into the kitchen. Carolina slammed a wooden spoon so hard on the stovetop that it bounced back up into the air and hit the floor with a splat sound. She didn’t even bend to pick it up.

  “I’m sorry, Mami,” J said. He was prepared. “I just had a lot of thinking to do.”

  “Thinking?! Thinking?! What does thinking have to do with truancy, J? What does thinking have to do with screwing up your chance for college?” Carolina’s face was bright red, her voice strained from the screaming. “Why are you doing this to yourself?!”

  Huh? Had Carolina not noticed he’d been out all night? Had he freaked out for nothing? “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Carolina slapped him.

  “You liar! You act like you go to school every day, and they call here to say it’s been two weeks! Who are you, J? What have you been doing? Are you taking drugs? ¡Pendeja!”

  J widened his eyes.

  Carolina took in a breath, very slowly, as though she were sucking it in through a straw. “I’m too angry. Go talk to your father. He’s in the bedroom.”

  Manny was sitting on the bed when J walked in. He looked like he was expecting this. His face, like Carolina’s, was strained, but he forced a smile.

  “Come here, J,” Manny said, patting the bed beside him. J sat. “We got a call from the assistant principal today.”

  “I know,” J said. He hung his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “You know, J, when I was your age, I did the same thing.”

  J looked up. What was his father talking about?

  “I was working at the racetrack at Belmont—” Manny put a hand on J’s knee. J tried not to shift away. He’d heard this story before. “All I wanted was to be with the horses. I was just a stable kid, you know, cleaning up after the horses. But me, I wanted to be a jockey. When we’d have big races, and jockeys would come in from all over, I’d skip school to talk with them, find out how they built their careers.”

  J nodded. Where was this going?

  “I knew in my heart, though, that I would never be a jockey. My body was too big. Look at me.”

  J looked. His father was over six feet tall; that’s where J had gotten his height. Thank God for that height. “Even at seventeen, your age, I weighed one-eighty. I wanted so much to change my body, to be somebody different.”

  J stopped breathing. Did Manny know? Had he seen J leave the house and change in the diner bathroom? Manny squeezed J’s knee, where his hand had been resting.

  “I’ve seen you change, too,” Manny said, and paused. J couldn’t look at his father. “You’ve gone from swimming to lifting weights at night. I know you do that.”

  My God, J thought, do you know why? He started to shake. This was the most his father had said to him, alone, in over two years. Mostly Manny had acted nervous around J, or angry, or some twisted combination. Why now, when J was in such trouble, was Manny trying so hard to be nice? J thought he might be sick.

  “It’s okay, Jay-jay. You don’t have to be scared. Being a teenager is hard.” J could feel Manny trying to get him to look at him, but he stared at Manny’s hand on his knee. The knuckles were wrinkled, his fingers thick and hairy, so much more masculine than J’s would ever be. “Anyway, when my parents found out I was skipping school to hang out at the racetrack, they were very angry. Nice Jewish boys didn’t become jockeys—even though there have been some great ones. But I just liked horses more than people. I didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t see why it was important.”

  J had never met his father’s parents—they had had Manny late and had died before J was born. He had a feeling his dad never got along with them very well.

  “But now I know why it’s important,” J’s father continued. “You need school to get a good job. To go to college, to get an even better job. To figure out who you want to be. You’re smarter than I am, J. You have your whole life ahead of you. And your mother and I—we’ve been saving money—you can go to almost any school you want.”

  J pulled his knee away from his father’s hand. He had to. This was too much. Manny sighed. J risked a glance at his father’s face, saw the anger flush his cheeks, saw him try to swallow it down. Manny had rehearsed this speech in his head; he was going to get through it.

  “J, listen to me. I know you’re changing. I’ve noticed you haven’t been on the computer as much as you used to be.” Here, Manny paused again. J could hear Carolina slamming pots around in the kitchen. “And that’s okay. If you don’t want to go into computer science, or even photography, like you’ve talked about, that’s fine with me. You can be anything you want.”

  Here, J looked up and made brief eye contact. What was his father trying to say?

  “Just be something, J. I know we used to put a lot of pressure on you for the swimming. And I wanted you to get A’s in your computer and math classes, because programming and engineering are good jobs to go into. But if you want to do something entirely different with your life, your mother and I support you. If you want to be a DJ, or an architect, or, I don’t know, an actress, we’d help you do that. Just go to college, that’s all I ask.”

  Manny put his hand on J’s back and gently rubbed it. “I didn’t finish college, J. I was so busy getting away from my parents—and it’s the biggest regret of my life.”

  He knew he shouldn’t hate it when his father touched him, knew Manny was trying hard to bond and force his way through a heart-to-heart. But J had things other than school on his mind right now. Like Blue, and the kiss that almost was. And Melissa, and the photograph he might send her. And becoming a man. That was more important than school, surely. That was more important than everything. Wasn’t it?

  “If this is why you’re cutting school, because you’re changing directions and don’t want to tell us…” Here, Manny faltered. J thought he heard some doubt creep into his father’s voice. Didn’t Manny know this was just wishful thinking, that he was sticking his head in the sand like always and pretending the real problem lay elsewhere? Manny, as usual, was years too late. “I just want you to know, we love you no matter what you do with your life.”

  Manny took his right hand back and clasped it with his left on his lap. “You’re growing up, Jay-jay. Just stay in school. And go make up with your mother—she loves you.”

  Manny stood up and pulled J into a hug. “You’re still my baby girl,” he said into J’s baseball cap. His voice was sweet and crooning. “You’ll always be my baby girl.”

  J stiffened, resisting the urge in every one of his nerve endings to pull away. What if I’m not? he thought. What if I’ve never been your baby girl? He knew, for sure, his father would never accept him. He’d have to leave his parents’ house. Now.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  The pier down by Christopher Street looked the same as it had when he and Manny went fishing there so many years ago, only colder. Seagulls were squawking their morning rage at the wind, and J watched their slow swoops and dives, jealous. If I had wings, he thought, and a way to catch my own food…

  I’d live on the water, too, be a waterbird. J took his camera from his backpack that was stuffed with clothes, some comics, and the gold necklace he had gotten for his First Communion, which he’d sell if he got desperate. He watched the gulls through the camera as they touched down on the surface of the Hudson River and spiked back up, airborne again. Water’s weird. All these animals down there that we can’t see, that we can’t cage up. They can’t even live up here with us; we don’t even breathe the same. If he had a choice, J thought, he’d live back in Puerto Rico, right on the beach, right where the earth is on the verge of becoming something else. He snapped a picture of a gull flying, but when he looked at the image, it was only a blur, an indistinct smudge of
gray against a gray winter sky.

  J didn’t see any kids like him on the pier, didn’t see anyone at all, really, save for a man walking two big dogs, his collar turned up against the wind, and a homeless woman bundled on a bench, sleeping in her stench of stained coats and too-big shoes. J shuddered. He had to find somewhere to stay. He had to do this thing, even if this thing was still unformed in his mind. He had to find a way to be a boy. A man. A man boy? A transboy? J. He had to find a way to be J. And to do that, he had to get away from Carolina and Manny. And probably Melissa. And maybe Blue, too. Or maybe not. Or maybe for a little while. And then he could go home again. Or not.

  Fear can’t stop me. Don’t be afraid, J repeated to himself like a mantra as he crossed the West Side Highway, the little red-hand crosswalk sign blinking at him as he hurried across. Art is the lie that tells the truth, he thought, remembering the first day he met Melissa. I am the lie that tells the truth.

  The West Side Highway—unlike its cross streets, West Tenth, Charles, Perry—was not entirely gentrified. It still had its share of bars and triple-X video shops and, J discovered, one hotel.

  “We rent by the week,” the grizzled man at the desk told him. His old face was yellow, and his teeth were yellower.

  “How much?” J asked, trying to sound as though he’d done this before.

  “Three hundred forty.” The man was reading the comics page of the Daily News and didn’t look up. “Cash.”

  J had two hundred dollars in his front pocket, squirreled away from his allowance and from selling his old bike for forty bucks a few months back. All his money in the world.

  “Could you just let me stay for the night?”

  “Nope.” The man didn’t look up from his paper.

  J looked at his feet, the laces still threaded in straight lines from Melissa. He turned and slowly shuffled away.