I Am J

by Cris Beam

  “So—let’s talk about your photograph. It was good. I mean, disturbing, because the hammer was going through your heart—”

  “It wasn’t going through my heart,” J interrupted. “It was going through a shadow.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  J paused. “Like I’m killing off a part of me.”

  Melissa didn’t flinch. “You’ve always been doing that.”

  “Now I’m doing it more,” J said. He struggled to find the right words. “Now I’m—”

  “Jay-jay!” A rush of air from the open door, and suddenly J’s mother was upon him, hugging him, kissing his face, pulling back, kissing it again, and standing him up so she could hug him hard and long. “My Jay-jay!”

  J was so startled, at first he didn’t hug Carolina back, but then he said, “Hi, Mami,” and let her smother him. He snuck a look at Melissa, who was feigning shock: J knew that face. It was Melissa’s fake face, the one she pulled whenever she told a lie. She and Carolina had planned this!

  “Why’d you run away, J? We were worried, so worried—your father was worried, I was worried, your cousins were worried—”

  “In Puerto Rico?” J asked.

  “Of course!” Carolina said. “I called everybody. Even Melissa didn’t know where you were.” Carolina started to cry.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” J asked. He touched his mother’s hair, then pulled back his hand.

  “The police—”

  “You called the police?!” J noticed a cop standing at the door. Was this all for him?

  Anger colored Carolina’s cheeks, and she raised her voice. “J! I’m your mother! You can’t run away from me!”

  J was embarrassed in front of all these people; the cop, Melissa, a few customers, and the guy behind the counter were all staring. “I’m sorry, Mami,” he said, shooting dagger eyes at Melissa, who looked back with a desperate What else could I do? expression.

  “Let’s go, J,” Carolina said, hugging him again. “You can tell me everything at home.”

  At this, the cop got up and opened the door for them and shuffled them into his squad car, which was waiting outside. Melissa reached out to touch J’s arm, but he yanked it away. Melissa had betrayed him again.

  In the squad car, Carolina wouldn’t let go of J’s hand. “Don’t ever do that again,” she said. “I was so worried.”

  Manny was waiting for them when they got home, stirring something at the stove. He didn’t turn around.

  “Hello, J,” he said, irony thick and heavy in his voice. “Welcome back.”

  J could tell Manny was angry by the stiffness in his shoulders. How had J bargained for this? He hadn’t asked to come home. “Hi, Pops.”

  “Where were you?” Manny asked, still not looking at them.

  “Just downtown,” J said quietly.

  “And did you enjoy scaring your mother to death?”

  “Manny—” Carolina began.

  “No, Cari,” Manny said, his voice steely. “I want to know. Did you enjoy torturing your mother, when she’s done everything to raise you right?”

  At this, Manny turned on J. He was huge, his eyes red and glaring. “Was it worth it, J? A weekend of partying, downtown, without even one phone call, and your mother’s crying day and night?”

  “Manny—” Carolina tried again.

  “I wasn’t partying,” J said. You don’t know me at all.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you were doing,” Manny stormed. “You talk to her. I’m going out!” And Manny left.

  “Don’t worry about your dad,” Carolina said once Manny was gone, but J could see she was shaking. “He was worried about you, too.”

  “You didn’t have to worry,” J said. “I was fine.”

  Carolina went to turn off the stove. “I don’t understand, J. Why did you leave?”

  Titi jumped up onto the arm of the couch and rubbed up against J’s hip. J scratched her ears, and she purred. “I don’t know,” J said. Why couldn’t humans be more like cats? No questions.

  “No, J, that’s not going to work this time. You have to answer me. Why did you leave?”

  J didn’t know what to say. Suddenly being a man seemed very remote, even impossible, in the face of his old sofa, and Titi, and his mother staring him down, soup spoon in hand. Oh, yes, this was why. He had to try to be himself. It just was going to take longer than he had planned. “I had to, Mami.”

  “Why did you have to?”

  “Because I have a problem.”

  Carolina sat down. “What, J? What is the problem?”

  J’s phone buzzed. It was Blue. He put the ringer on silent. Blue was part of the problem. She believed he was a boy; how long would it be before she would want to meet his mother, his friends? See his school, see under his shirt? His mother was a problem; she believed J was a girl. How long would it be before she would need to know the truth? His whole life was a problem.

  “Do you know what testosterone is?”

  “J, I’m a nurse.”

  Of course she was a nurse; maybe she’d even heard of his condition. Maybe that was a good thing; maybe it was bad. J had started sweating. “I don’t have enough.”

  “Enough what? Testosterone?” Carolina asked. “J, what are you saying?”

  “I don’t know, Mami, what I’m saying is hard.” J lay back on the couch and put a pillow over his face.

  “J, you have to try.”

  Through the pillow, J said very softly, “I’m a boy.” But it sounded more like “Mmmghhouy.”

  “What, J? I can’t understand you. Take the pillow off your face.”

  J suddenly had an idea. He had an information sheet about the effects of testosterone, from the clinic. He took it out and handed it to her. “Read this,” he said. Then he went into the bathroom and shut the door.

  Once again, J was faced with the prospect of surviving off water drippings from the bathroom sink. Oh, God. Oh, God, he thought as he lay his head against the cool porcelain of the tub. I wasn’t ready for this. Not yet.

  Blink, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. J’s eyes started to strain. He could only go fourteen seconds between blinks, but he tried to stretch it longer each time. When that didn’t distract him from the silence outside the bathroom door, he counted tiles. There were hundreds of them, tiny black hexagons, each surrounded by gray, dirty grout. The tiles must have taken some serious time to put in; why didn’t they use bigger tiles back in the day? What was his mother doing with that testosterone information? J couldn’t stand it anymore; he cracked open the door.

  Carolina was sitting on the couch, her head cocked back, her eyes closed. The sheet was on the cushion beside her.

  “Might as well come on out,” she said, without opening her eyes.

  J shut the door again.

  “Don’t be a baby,” Carolina said. He could hear her getting up. Then she was knocking on the door. “Come out of there.”

  “I think I’m sick.”

  “You tried that already, remember?” Carolina’s voice was thin and sarcastic. “When you skipped school?”

  “I’m not going back to school,” J answered defiantly, to the door. Who asked him to come back here, anyway? And he really did feel sick.

  “Jenifer Juana Silver, you are not a delinquent!” his mother yelled. She rattled the doorknob. “Get out here right now.”

  The name! This was the second time she’d used it in many years. J felt his face grow red, knew he’d look splotchy and terrible if he stood and looked at himself in the mirror. “That’s not my name!” he shouted.

  “Ai, J! Your father was right! We’ve spoiled you!”

  J watched the door shake in its frame as his mother gave it one more push. But he wasn’t letting her get away with that one. He opened the door and faced her.

  “Pops was right?” he yelled. He gestured wildly at the living room that was his bedroom, at the computer they all shared, at his two pairs of s
neakers by the front door. Other kids had far more; she knew that. “How have you spoiled me?”

  Carolina’s voice deepened into a low hiss. “You run this house, J. Ever since you were little, you had to do your own thing, act your own way. And we let you get away with it.”

  J thought of his curfews, his cheap allowance, the rules his parents set about grades. He’d never argued with any of this; until he’d run away, he was practically the poster child for restrained adolescence. “What are you talking about, Mami?”

  “J!” his mother shouted, slapping her hand on the coffee table and startling the cat. “Other girls your age want piercings, want tattoos. You—you want testosterone? What am I supposed to think?”

  “Think that I’m transgender!” J yelled back. “God, open your eyes!”

  There was a knock at the door. J and Carolina looked at each other, frozen. The handle slowly turned, and a face peeked in. Mercie.

  “Everything okay in here?” she asked, stepping in gingerly and glancing around. “I heard shouting.”

  “We’re fine, Mercedes,” Carolina answered, smoothing her hair and stepping toward the door. “We don’t need your help.”

  But eagle-eye Mercie was scanning both of them up and down and shutting the door behind her. Mercie never missed a chance to partake in some drama; she was always in the front row of rubberneckers when a fire truck pulled up or when the cops shackled a kid on the corner. J stepped back into the bathroom and shut the door.

  After a while, he heard the teakettle whistle. His mother must have surrendered to the battleship. In some ways, he was thankful to Mercie for breaking up the fight, but he was getting tired of these bathroom quarantines. He listened to them talking in low tones at the kitchen table. He scooted closer to the door to listen but couldn’t understand what they were saying. And then, a laugh! Were they laughing about him? He could tell Mercie was doing most of the talking, his mother adding a few sís here and there, but then silence.

  J got up and slowly peeked out the bathroom door. His mother and Mercedes were sitting at the kitchen table, their heads bowed. Were they praying? His mother hadn’t prayed in years. Mercedes popped her face up.

  “Jeni! You finally came out!” she barked, heaving her jiggling bulk from the seat and limping toward J. He winced. “Give Mercie a hug!”

  Mercedes smelled like bacon and sweat, but J hugged her dutifully. “Everybody was worried about you,” she said. “You ran away and scared us all, you stupid kid.” She took off J’s cap and tousled his hair. Mercie held J by the shoulders and examined his face. “But you don’t look too bad, for a runaway. Looks like you even had a bath or two.”

  J tried to force a smile. Then he noticed that Mercedes was clutching the testosterone sheet in her sweaty fist. Carolina saw him looking.

  “Jay-jay, I showed Mercie the paper you gave me,” Carolina said.

  “This?” Mercie said, pulling it out in front of her. “I told your mom you shouldn’t have run away over this. J, you remember Pedrito, right? We used to call him Tiny?”

  J shook his head. What was Mercie talking about?

  “He’s my sister’s kid. He used to live with me, when you were little. A few years older than you. Anyway, now he’s Tina. She moved to California. I have pictures of her downstairs, if you want to see. It’s not that big a deal. There was another person, too, lived in this building before your parents moved in—she was like a guy, with a girlfriend and everything, went by the name of Mac. Wanted us to call her he. Now even the soap operas got transsexual stars. All My Children had one—she was even pretty.” Mercie paused to take a breath. She pulled a rag out of her bra and wiped her brow. “Wow, you keep your apartment hot. I was just telling your mom about my Tina when you finally came out of that bathroom.”

  J suddenly wanted to hug Mercie. He wanted to dance around the room with her, take her huge body in his arms and squeeze her with every ounce of gratitude he’d ever felt. Instead, he just stared at her.

  “Close your mouth, honey,” Mercie said, tapping J gently on the chin. “You look like you’ve never seen Tía Mercie before. You’re going to be fine. My Tina takes estrogen pills, and she looks great. You want testosterone? So take testosterone. Just don’t give your mother ulcers over it.” Mercie wagged the information sheet in the air.

  “I don’t want J to change,” Carolina said. J had almost forgotten that his mother was in the room.

  “Well, not much you can do about that,” Mercie said, pulling at her double chin. “Might as well try to stop the sun from shining. Or me from eating.”

  “But Tiny’s not your kid,” Carolina protested in a choked voice. “That’s just your nephew.”

  Mercie looked as if she’d been slapped. J knew, from the countless Saturday morning complain-o-ramas, that Mercie had passed her prime. She’d wanted children, but since her no-good husband left her years ago she had nowhere to turn but the snack aisle for comfort. And other people’s business.

  “I know how to love my family. And that ‘where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ ” Mercie stared Carolina down, her jaw solid. She could trump Carolina, quoting Scripture, since Carolina had stopped going to church, and Mercie was faithful, every Sunday.

  Carolina averted her gaze and changed the subject. “What if the testosterone’s dangerous?”

  “It’s not,” J said. “I can show you websites—”

  “Why, J?” Carolina said, tears filling her eyes. “Why do you want to be a boy?”

  “I already am a boy,” J answered, looking to Mercie for backup, but she was reading the testosterone sheet.

  “No, you’re not a boy!” Carolina said. “I gave birth to you. A lesbian, maybe—can’t you just be a regular lesbian? Your father will deal with that.”

  “Is this about Pops?” J asked. He toyed with the teapot on the table.

  “No, J, this is about you. You’re the one that’s making problems here.”

  “You’re always worried about what Pops will think,” J said. He knew he was hitting a nerve. “What about what you think?”

  “I think you’re being selfish,” Carolina said, holding J’s gaze, her voice shaking. “Your father and I have sacrificed everything for you. See that table there?” Carolina pointed to J’s desk by the couch. “That stack is all college applications. I had to send away for them because you’ve been too preoccupied with yourself to remember. On your first birthday, we started saving for college, so you could have a good life, a chance to do whatever you wanted. We’ve saved everything, every year. And now all you want to do is hurt us with this, this shit, J. Leaving school, running away. All you care about anymore is what you look like.”

  “That’s not true!” J said. It was so much more than that. He did care about college, about the sacrifices people made for him, but he’d already spent seventeen years of his life trying to make other people happy. Couldn’t his mother see he was dying inside his own skin? There’d be no college if he shriveled up in there. He chewed on his thumbnail, muttered “damn” under his breath. His mother told him there was no need to swear.

  “Why can you swear and not me?”

  “Cari,” Mercie said, softening again and coming up behind Carolina to rub her shoulders. “This isn’t about what J looks like. Give the kid a break.”

  Exactly, J thought. Thank you, Mercedes. Finally, someone with some sense.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Manny called later that night to say he was going to crash at his friend’s place. J was relieved: he knew for sure Manny wouldn’t react to J’s announcement as well as Mercie or even Carolina had. In the morning, J and his mother were delicate and careful around each other, politely offering up cereal or milk, J feeding Titi before he was asked.

  “Should we take a drive?” Carolina asked.

  “The car’s working?” Their old Toyota, parked in a garage by the river, was like a cranky old man, wheezing and sputtering and complaining if you drove too fast.r />
  “Daddy worked on it this weekend.”

  “Okay,” J said. “Where do you want to go?”

  They drove out past the George Washington Bridge, Carolina playing love songs on the tape deck and humming along. Cold air whistled in around the windows, and the heater blew in a comforting smell, like warm tar and caramel. J watched as the buildings went from brownstone to brick and then to ugly and industrial as they passed through Yonkers and then on to the smaller towns with their A-frame houses and their lawns. Finally, Carolina pulled over in Tarrytown and parked the car by the train station, with a view of the river. The water was slate-colored and flat, and together, in silence, they watched a red tugboat head back toward the city.

  After several long minutes, Carolina spoke. “You know, I didn’t love your father when I married him.”

  Of all things, J wasn’t expecting this. “What?”

  “He loved me, but I didn’t love him.”

  J had been preparing for a lecture, maybe more of Carolina’s tears. Through the night, he’d been gathering the courage to talk more about his body, which made him want to run into a cave somewhere very far away, like maybe Iceland. His mouth tasted bitter, as if he’d just woken up. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “It was a different time, J,” Carolina said, picking at some leather that was fraying from the steering wheel. “I was new in New York. He had a good job, my mother wanted me to marry someone else and move back home, I don’t know.”

  “Do you love him now?” The taste in his mouth grew stronger, and he peeked at her, quickly, through his eyelashes.

  “Of course!” Carolina looked shocked. “That’s the thing. You can learn to love the life you’re handed.”

  The sun was breaking through the clouds and sparkling on the river in front of their car. So this was it. His mother was sharing an old secret to teach him a lesson. Great, he thought. Screw me up even more. “I’ve tried, Mami.”

  “J, you’re only seventeen. I thought I knew everything when I was seventeen, too. But things change as you get older. You realize certain things in life are good for you, and others are not. You don’t want to make an irreversible decision now that you may regret for the rest of your life.”