A Kind of Justice (26 page)

The young oral surgeon enters the office and sits down, smiles at Wilkins, a smile of forced sympathy, the kind he hates.

“Mr. Wilkins, I'm afraid I have bad news for you,” he begins. “We have found oral squamous cell carcinoma in your lower jaw, your gums, and your tongue. That is a serious form of cancer. I want you to see an oncologist I work with at once so that we can confer. He may want you to see an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist and if he does, the same thing applies. Do it sooner rather than later. Your cancer looks
advanced, but I want a second opinion, and if you want to get other opinions, I'm fine with that.

“I don't want to scare you, but you need to know this is a serious condition. I understand from your history that you have a fear of dentists and doctors, but you need to overcome that now and let us do our work.”

The rest of it is like elevator music to Wilkins whose reeling mind goes in and out of the present.

“Do you have any questions?”

Wilkins snaps back to the here and now. The foreboding reality of his shitty life. He shifts in his seat, trying to recall what the man had said, what he was thinking while the man said it.

“Is this life-threatening?” he asks.

“I'm afraid so, Mr. Wilkins,” says the surgeon. “It's very serious. We have to move fast.”

Wilkins sits back in his chair, stunned, numb. This is impossible, he thinks. He hears a voice. It's the oral surgeon. He's lost track of time and place. The man is standing up.

“I understand this is quite a shock,” says the doctor. “Take as long as you need. I'll have someone look in on you in a few minutes to see if you need anything.”

Wilkins doesn't hear him leave, just stares at the wall, thinking about his son, his daughter, his ex-wife. His parents. They flash through his mind like dancers on an old Soul Train, just smiles, no lines. But then they don't have to speak. They tell a story just by being there. His story.

He should go get rip-roaring drunk, but it actually hurts to drink now, too. Maybe he should ask for a shot of some kind of painkiller, or a magic pill—or just put the Glock in his mouth and check out.

*    *    *

T
HURSDAY
, N
OVEMBER
27

In my youth, Thanksgiving wasn't really festive, but it wasn't as glum as the other holidays because my mother loved to cook and making the big meal put her in a good mood. That seemed to lift my sister out of her continuing gothic misery into something approximating a fun mood, too. And my dad would lose himself in football games and not look bitter and angry for most of the day.

That was as close to happiness and bliss as we ever got in my house.

Thanksgivings were better during my years with Betsy even though I was struggling with identity issues. After we split, during my coming-out years, it became a lonely day for me. I started enjoying the day again when Betsy and Don began inviting me to Thanksgiving dinner. It was fun getting dressed up, helping with the dinner, getting treated like a woman. Fortunately, Betsy's parents were always in a warm vacation spot for the holiday. Don's parents often joined Don and Betsy for the Thanksgiving feast, and they were warm, accepting people who added luster to the occasion.

This is already my best Thanksgiving ever. I spent the morning doing hair and nails at TransRising, getting my transgender sisters ready for the big Thanksgiving dinner at the LGBT Center. Betsy and Robbie stopped by to lend moral support. Betsy hasn't given up on our relationship, and I never will. Then my nemesis, Lisa, stopped in, and after I complimented her on her beautiful hairdo—a very chic high ponytail with lots of curls and flair—she worked alongside me for an hour, styling hair and doing nails. She was actually quite pleasant, though most of our conversations were with our clients.

Now I'm off to the Thanksgiving dinner with Betsy, Robbie, and Don's parents and their friends. Dinner's at my place, we all know each other, and we'll have a warm and leisurely celebration marked by good cheer and sumptuous food.

*    *    *

S
ATURDAY
, N
OVEMBER
29

As much as I treasure sharing my life with Betsy and Robbie, I've been looking forward to having this night to myself. A hot steamy bath, a chance to collect my thoughts, to reflect on life, to contemplate the future. A leisurely glass of wine. A good book.

Betsy and Robbie are out with her in-laws at a children's theater presentation followed by dinner. I was invited, but the grandparents will get more lap-time with Robbie without me, and they deserve it. Plus, I could use the rest. I'm feeling jangled by the pressures of my business and my personal life.

Unfortunately, this is not to be a quiet evening at home. Moments after my loved ones leave, Phil calls. A friend just gave him two tickets to
Blue Man Group
, a raucous theater production that has been playing to rave reviews and full houses in Chicago for years. If it were anyone but Phil, I'd have said no. I should have said no anyway. This relationship is getting weird, the physical attraction, the friendship, Phil's struggle to accept me and to accept himself wanting to be intimate with a transwoman.

I say yes because he is a nice man and I like him. If it were just the sexual attraction, I'd have said no.

Blue Man Group
is a fun show, even though I'm not in the mood to be out. Phil's tickets are third row center, which would be fabulous at a jazz concert, but at
Blue Man Group
the seats come with sheets of plastic and the advice that we should use them to protect our clothing. I prepare myself for a pie fight.

The blue men are apparently here from another planet and they explore ours through a combination of mime and pounding rhythms that lead to sight gags and a paint fight. The paint fight is where the
audience gets involved, at least those seated in the front rows. We are splashed with a fluid that looks like paint. It's not that serious, we're told. The colored liquid easily wipes off the skin and washes off clothing. So we laugh even as we are besieged by fluid-flinging aliens.

When the show ends, Phil invites me out for a drink. I have drops of blue on my clothing, and even though I've rinsed my face and hands, I feel like I'm still wearing whatever it was they were splashing up there. I beg off, explaining my desire to change and wash up. He understands.

When Phil pulls up to the curb in front of my apartment, only the outside light and the entry light are on, which means Betsy has gone to bed. I thank Phil for a great time, kiss him on the cheek, and get out of the car. He gets out and walks me to the door.

It's a cold night. Plumes of condensation form with each breath we release. We get to the door, and I thank him again. As I try to plant another kiss on his cheek, he guides my lips to his and embraces me. It happens to me again. I lose all control. First my body, then my mind. We make out like a couple of teenagers under the glow of my porch light.

I break the clinch, my hands on his chest, pushing him back lightly. “Let's not, Phil. We've been here before. Nothing's changed.”

Sane, smart words. But the voice saying them is panting with desire. And the man I'm saying them to has opened my coat and pulled me to him. I can feel his hands on my butt, pressing us together, and he is breathing heavily in my ear.

He whispers. “I can't help it, Bobbi. You're all I think about. I want you. I want to be with you. I want to feel your bare skin, your body . . .” His voice drifts into the vapors. I'm focused on my own desires. I've never made love with a man I loved, or even one I knew well and liked. I haven't made love with anyone at all in weeks. Months maybe, though this is not a time for me to do calculations. I am so aware of
his body, his hands, his erection, his lips, I really can't think of anything else. In the dim recesses of my mind I know this is a mistake. There will be regrets. Deep, dark regrets.

But there's an answer echoing, too.
Face down your fears
. I want him. I've wanted him for years. It's time to do this and find out where it ends.

I lead Officer Phil silently into the apartment and to my room. I close the door and turn to him in the dark. I peel off my coat and step out of my dress while he wrestles his clothes off. Our naked bodies find each other, his skin impossibly warm, his erection hard against my pelvis. Five years of post-op fantasies begin playing out on a dark, cold night in late November. When he mounts me, when he penetrates deep into me and his body covers mine, I feel like a petite blond homecoming queen, a young woman who has always been a woman, being seduced for the first time by a sweet young man, two innocents giving in to natural desire, a man and a woman bonded by interlocked body parts. I try to control my moans and gasps as he brings us both to orgasm, try not to wake Betsy with my wanton behavior.

Surely she will forgive me, I think, just before my mind is consumed by sensations that block out all other reality.

*    *    *

S
UNDAY
, N
OVEMBER
30

Regret doesn't come all at once, like an avalanche descending in a wall of nightmares. It evolves slowly, hour by hour, as I wait for a phone call from the man to whom I gave my body and soul last night.

It's pathetic that someone who has been through as much as I have would be so naïve. I was convinced when he left my bedroom last night that he would call this morning or surely this afternoon to
express his affection and maybe even rave about what a hot-blooded lover I am. The illusion was nice while it lasted. I woke with an all-over glow, body and mind purring with contentment. I fantasized about his call coming at work, me taking time from a service to pick up the phone, hear Phil greet me with sighs and kisses, ask if we can do it again tonight.

But the call never came. By five, I knew it never would. By six I realized that he called me last minute for the
Blue Man Group
because his original date cancelled late. Who better to call as an emergency fill-in than the perpetually unfulfilled transwoman. Ugly, but easy. And it gives you a war story to share with the guys, the night I fucked a tranny. I try to remind myself that I was willing to risk this rejection just for one night with him, but it doesn't remove the sting. It makes it worse because it highlights what a desperate fool I was. Am.

This is a workday for me, so some of my shame is diluted by working on clients and talking to people. Until I go home. Betsy treats me with icy distance and tells me she and Robbie have already eaten. I deduce that while humiliating myself with Phil, I also made enough noise to wake Betsy and leave her permanently disgusted with the image of her ex-husband getting laid in the next room.

I microwave a frozen dinner. I'm still picking at the meal when Betsy finishes putting Robbie to bed. She sits across the table and stares at me with intense eyes. “Did you have a good time last night?” It's not a question. It's a condemnation.

I stare back, so conflicted in what I want to say that I can't say anything. Yes, I got laid and it was beautiful. No, the day after was worse than dying. I got to feel like a woman for twenty minutes, and the price is feeling like trash for maybe the rest of my life. Mostly I just want to beg her not to join the unseen mob pummeling me right now—every person who has ever made me feel bad about myself is beating me with baseball bats made from the judgment tree.

When no words come, I burst into tears. They pour down my face. I push my chair back from the table and lean forward, face in hands, and sob. This is the final humiliation. I have made myself repulsive to Betsy.

Her face softens, but she stays on her side of the table. When I stop crying and sit up again, she asks another question, her voice still icy. “Who were you fucking? Or is that none of my business? I'd just like to know you weren't putting my child's life at risk by bringing in some kind of prostitute or maybe a drug dealer or a porn star.”

“I would never do that.” My voice is just above a whisper and shaky.

“I wish I could believe that, Bobbi. I'm scared out of my skull right now. You don't say a word about going out or having someone over or anything. I come home and you're not here, then in the middle of the night I wake up and hear you banging and moaning. For a minute I thought you were being raped.” Her face is severe, her disgust obvious.

“It was Phil.” The tears start again, but I refuse to sob anymore. “You weren't in any danger. He's a cop. And other than never wanting to see me or touch me again, he's a nice guy.”

“What?”

“I got laid by I guy I really like. I've been hot for him for years. Last night he notched up a tranny on his been-there-done-that belt and I'll never hear from him again. Because I am a stupid, ugly slut and no one will ever want me as a woman. I'm sorry I grossed you out, but could you give me a day or two before you tell me what a piece of shit I am?”

I get up and go to my room. I can't take any more. I know we need to talk this out, but I can't do it right now. I strip, put on my bathrobe, and trundle to the bathroom. Betsy has gone to her room, the light glows from beneath her door. I draw a bath and slide into the heat and bubbles and stare at the ceiling light through the refracted vision of my tears.

T
UESDAY
, D
ECEMBER
2

I
T
'
S EERIE LOOKING
around the room and realizing I'm the oldest person here. Good grief, I'm only forty-three.

My assistant Jalela has hauled me to this meeting in the basement of the TransRising building. The upper floors house the live-in residents, while the basement provides classrooms and a meeting area for the residents and dozens of other transpeople who come here for support services. This meeting is the kickoff to the TransRising's mentoring program, and Jalela wants me to be someone's big sister. She has some girls in mind and introduces me to them. We sip cider and nibble on cookies and work the room. The diversity of the gathered transwomen is mind-boggling, even to me. There are about two dozen of us. We run the gamut from mid-teens to ancient me. We are tall and short, heavy and thin, pretty and not pretty, feminine and masculine, and we are everything in between.