Beast (16 page)

The shelves in bodegas and corner mom-and-pop shops always make me smile. It's a hodgepodge of stuff they ordered once but didn't sell, so they let it sit on the shelf with all the other items to turn yellow and fade under the fluorescent lights. I straighten my sports coat and chuckle at one package of generic diapers, next to a pile of wrenches, next to some old travel bottles of shampoo, next to some faded boxes of birthday candles, and a box of off-off-off-off-brand teeth whitening strips left to die next to two bags of Acme kitty litter.

It reminds me of my head. A pile of random shit crammed together. I almost want to buy the teeth whitening kit just to bring it home and give it a proper burial. Maybe I'll add it to my list, which is pretty brief. The only thing on it is Beer.

Two six-packs and a pack of gum from every corner store we go to.

Because I am a bit of a math nerd, I actually looked into how many ounces of beer it would take for someone my size to get drunk, and the answer is a lot. Since we don't want to be caught, we figured that if we buy two six-packs and some random gum at each store, no flags are raised. If we hit up enough stores, we slide under the radar, secure plenty of suds, and have a lovely long constitutional whilst getting said brews.

Jamie has to wait outside as I browse in my man drag, select beer, and buy it. We already know it works because we stashed a brown paper bag from the last store under a row of scrub bushes, but I'm still sweating like a pig. No one seems to notice. Why would they? We scoured all the closets at both our houses and found usable man things. Thankfully her dad is real tall and doesn't seem to be missing his scratchy brown-plaid sports coat. Jamie and I worked up my everything real good before we left. Gave the coat some Professor Huffinblad patches on the elbows that her mom had been meaning to add forever but never got around to, and with my wire frame glasses to boot, it's all complete. Jamie swiped them from her grandpa, and as long as I sink them down the bridge of my nose and look over the top, my eyes don't kill too much. She said that was a perfect touch because it makes me look like I need bifocals and I'm too stubborn to get them. Good for the age range we were going for.

In addition to the khaki pants and the respectable socks and loafers, she sliced a rigid line through my hair with a fine-tooth comb and parted it to the side. Flecked with scattered gray hairs at the temples that she individually painted. Put together, but not too much. Casual. I look like a banker approving a loan for a pot farm.

The
pièce de résistance
is the beard.

It's thicker than it should be after three days and covers everything. Neck, high up the cheeks, and almost under my ears. I hate it. It's itchy and looks stupid. Jamie laughed her ass off while she painted about seventy-five hairs on my chin gray. So of course her laughing at me made it better. Just kidding, that sucked.

The girl behind the cash register is older than I am, but not by much.

“Excuse me, sir,” I hear behind me.

I spin around on my crutches and glare at Jamie. “You're supposed to be outside.”

She holds up a box of Only Dudes hair dye. “I was wondering if you could help me?” She tries so hard not to laugh. “See, my dad is the same age as you, old as hell, and he's turning gray and sagging into his shoes too. Do you have a preference when selecting cheap hair dye for old men—and by ‘old,' I mean actually-pay-attention-to-boner-pill-commercials old—to pretend they're still in the game?”

Jamie shimmies with glee. This whole beer excursion came from one long exploded dare with one another. “I'll do it if you do it” became “Let's do it.” Turns out we both always entertained the thought of getting blitzed but never had the opportunity. And now we do. Thanks, Mom!

“Young lady, you are quite a hoot.”

“Thank you, sir. I like to think so too.”

I check the clerk behind the counter. She's not watching us, and I give Jamie's shoulder a little bump. “Dork,” I whisper under my breath. I was excited about getting all this beer, but it turned out it's just us doing what we do best, and that's my favorite part.

“You look great!” she whispers back.

She gives me a shove. I give her a shove. She bumps me with her hip. I turn around and knock her with my butt. Jamie bounces into the teeth whitener. We glue our mouths shut because whoever laughs first loses, so we snort up a storm.

“You're horrible,” she says.

“No, you're horrible.”

“We're both so incredibly horrible,” she says, and I'm like, oh hell yes, we are. Forever and always.

Jamie walks away and I tap her lifting heel with my crutch, making her trip. “Don't blow your cover,” she shoots back with a huge grin.

“You started it,” I rumble back.

She situates herself by the sodas and I scan the store for people. We're waiting for someone to check out and I'll stand behind them, so it looks like I'm just another man buying beer and gum before going home to the wife and kids.

Some guy comes in and I'm relieved. He's gotta be like eighteen or something, but I bet he'll buy an energy drink and I'll look crazy old by comparison. Then I lean against the beef jerky because I don't like looking like this.

Having this thing on my face feels exactly like that time I got trapped under my grandma's thick wool blanket when I was four: I can't breathe. I can't get out.

Stop. Focus. I breathe. It's just a beard, not a death sentence.

I need something else to do in the store and decide on examining shoelaces. My choices are brown, black, and white in either twelve- or twenty-inch lengths. Twelve seems too short, but the twenty looks too long. One of the laces isn't wrapped properly at the end, and the end is fraying. The store should offer it at a discount. A ruckus hits my ears.

The guy has Jamie pinned in a corner.

He's in her space, her back against the wall, and picks up a lock of her hair. She smiles, a fake one, and twists her hair away as he laughs. I'm there before her hair hits her shoulder. “Leave her alone,” my voice booms above him.

The dude turns around and faces me. “What's it to you?”

“Get what you need and go,” I say, stepping in between him and Jamie.

“What if I'm in the middle of getting her number, huh?”

I look at Jamie. Her head shimmies no, just enough for me to see. “Is he bothering you, miss?” I ask her.

She clamps her lips down. “I'm fine; you can go.”

“You heard her,” I tell the punk.

“No, you,” she says.

“What?”

Anger slips across the way from her to me. It's so strong, I almost want to hold on to the shelves. “I'll be fine. You don't have to be here,” she says, as if she just found out I drowned all her new puppies in a sack. Then warmth comes over her and she smiles at this fuckfaced jerk. “Hey,” she says to the guy. “Thanks, but no thanks. And you, sir,” she says to me, suddenly cold again. “I'm good. Okay?”

“You heard the girl, bro,” the guy says to me. “Step off.”

“She told you the same thing. Take a hike.”

The guy shoves me with his pointy little fingertips. “You got something to say on this hike of yours, tell me outside. I always wanted to take on the Man.”

Hold on, I'm the Man?

I have been a bully. I don't think I want to be the Man.

My reflection in the dim light of the window is everything I don't want to be, because that's not me. That's what I might be. I'm not some old man in a sports coat; I'm a kid. I should catch a glimpse of some thin-shouldered twerp in a ratty old T-shirt and beat-down hoodie with acne all over his face.

Jamie called me sir, but not in the fun jokey way. Feels like I'm the bad guy now. She stands firm and I have no idea what to do. My only talent is growing bigger, so I wish she'd just let me chest-bump this dude all the way to Idaho.

The punk looks me up and down and all over, hands flexing in and out of fists because he can't figure out what's next. He wants to take me on—I can smell it, hear the blood rush in both our ears. I step back, I want no part of this. He gets tighter in my space. Daring me. Jamie watches us from the side, her hand sneaking out to grab the neck of a glass bottle, just in case.

Out of the corner of my eye, Jamie creeps back many steps. Safe.

“She's not interested,” I say in a low whisper.

“Let her be the judge.”

“You guys…,” Jamie says.

“She already said no thanks. You got a hearing problem?” I say. “In case you do, I'll talk real clear. She's underage. She's off-limits. A real judge would throw the book at you for trying to get with a minor.”

The jerk's got nothing after that. He slinks out of the store and finds his bike, riding off into the night. I turn to Jamie just as she puts the glass bottle down. “Are you okay, miss?”

She nods but doesn't say anything.

Please look at me,
I ask her without words.

She does.
Why'd you have to do that? I was fine. Everything was fine.

How could I not?

I'm so pissed at you.

Why?

You're not my fucking bodyguard, okay?
she says back as she stares at the ceiling.

Oh. “Let's go,” I whisper, turning to leave.

She pinches the fabric of my sleeve. “Get the beer first.”
I need to get shitfaced. I was kinda joking before, but I'm for real now.

I can't be the prince, can't be a bodyguard, definitely do not want to be the Man, and now even being a friend feels all shot up with holes. Don't quite know what that leaves me, but it feels like nothing.

Jamie stands fast, not moving until I get more beer. Opening up a cold door, I get another six-pack and walk to the front. The counter girl's phone is like a barnacle on her hand, practically burrowed into her skin. She was texting so hard, she never saw anything. Perhaps searching for the perfect meme GIF was involved. I hope she found it. The beer settles evenly on the counter and I wait for the girl to do something.

Card me. I dare you.

She gives me the slightest once-over and scans the bar code with her plastic wand. It beeps. “Eight dollars and seventy-five cents.”

I don't budge. I'm fifteen years old, card me. My wallet flops open to my school ID. It's me, only with no beard. I push it toward her. “Don't you want to card me?”

She flips a hand. “Nah, you're good.”

I take off the glasses. I tug at the acrylic paint in my beard and let several tiny gray tubes fall to the ground.

The clerk is oblivious to the point of pain. “Sir?”

I don't want to be called sir ever again. “You shouldn't be selling me this beer because I'm only fifteen years old.”

“Right. And I'm the pope.” She snorts with laughter. “Eight dollars and seventy-five cents?”

“Your Holiness.” I throw down a ten, grab the beer, and crutch as awkward and fast as possible out of the store.

Jamie sneaks outside right behind me. “One more store?”

“No. I'm done.”

There is a sun setting above us and we do stare at the wonder of it all, but it's been entirely silent between us. The incident at the store looming large. I'm afraid of bringing it up, because what if she says she doesn't want to hang out anymore? The longer we don't talk, the more nervous I get, and I'm starting to wonder if we should just call the whole thing off and get her home before it gets any colder out.

I make one last shot.

“Knock, knock,” I say as we walk through the chilly streets, glass bottles clanking in our backpacks.

“Who's there?” she answers. The first words we speak in like twenty minutes.

“To.”

“To who?”

“To
whom
.” She laughs and I do too.

“Cheesy goodness,” she says.

Then it's quiet again.

“I think…” My voice breaks across the cold air. “I think you're a really brave person.”

“Ugh.” The groan comes from her gut and goes way long. “You sound like that girl who stopped me in the lunchroom at my new school and was all like, “I think it's great you're trans. You are so brave,” and all I could think was, I am so hungry and you are blocking me from my food.”

“I can't think you're brave? That you're a warrior?”

“A warrior? Have I been drafted into battle or something? Where's my cool armor; who's at the gate?” she busts out. “Seriously, Dylan. You don't have to hurt yourself. I'm not mad at you.”

“You sure acted like it in the store.”

“No, I didn't. I wanted to just enjoy myself a little. Is that so crazy?” She stops dead on the sidewalk under a frigid tree. Tiny drops of mist and rain collect and drop on and all around us. Winter will be here soon. The rain threatens. “Maybe…,” Jamie says, not looking at me. “Maybe I like it when a guy gives me a compliment. Even if it's a creepy dude saying gross things like how he wants to lick me like a lollypop.”

I wince in disgust.

“I know! It's ick times infinity, I know. And I know I shouldn't say anything like this because it's conceited and all the rest of it, but…I'm pretty. And I like hearing it.”

“But did that guy say you were pretty?”

“Not verbatim, but it was like—hey, I find you attractive and I'm going to inform you in only the most gross way I know how.”

“Jeezus, Jamie.” Bubbles simmer. “That's so wrong, I can't even.”

“And you're the expert? You have the inside scoop on what to do when someone says you're hot? Because I'm thinking no one's ever—” She stops herself.

The gravel under my feet. It's all I can study right now. There are no books.

“I'm sorry,” she says.

“It's okay.”

“I'm sorry, that came out really wrong.”

I look at her. “I just don't want anyone to hurt you.”

“Why is that the only thing I hear from everyone?”

“Because we read the news. Because I have a ‘transgender' Google alert now, and shitty things are always in the feed. Because people are crazy.” Because we care about you.

“I have the same Google-fu as anyone else, and the majority of the stories are good. Trans professors, teachers, parents, lawyers, actors, actresses, models. You name it and all totally conquering the world. I am happy being me. My glass is half-fucking-full, I do not exist to be your tragedy,” she says. “I'm not stupid. I knew what to do. If that guy hadn't taken no for an answer, I would've hung out next to the girl at the counter until he left.”

“But what if he was waiting for you outside? What if he had friends with him?”

“You're worse than my mom,” she says. “She worries all the time. It's all I ever hear. ‘What if, I'm just saying, you're not thinking…' Look, you see these boots?” She tips her beat-up knee-high leather boots my way. The same ones she was wearing when we met, back when they were shiny and new. “I'm wearing the heels down from stomping all over town because when I'm frustrated or mad or whatever, I'm off. I walk. I clear my head. I bump into people. I make eye contact. I go on my way. I do it alone. When I walk, I feel free.” She puts her foot back down with its twin. “Let me enjoy being myself.”

“Okay” is all I say.

We start moving again.

“Maybe it's different for you because—”

“Because I'm ugly as fuck?” I spit out. “Maybe it is.”

“No, no, no. I wasn't going to say that, anything like that, I swear.” Jamie holds my arm. Her fingers are freezing, I can feel them through my coat because her touch is electric. “Maybe it's just you're so big, you don't need to be afraid.”

Bullshit, I want to scream.

Bullshit.

But of course I say nothing.

We stop walking and pause. The ground is thick with wet leaves glued to the edges of the sidewalk.

Operation Tattle Ye Not, Neighbors has begun.

Once out of the park, we land in a gully that steers the rain runoff into the sewers and walk along the drainage line until we hit the alley of unfinished road that runs directly behind my house. Mostly gravel and dirt with giant muddy potholes, which is good for us. No cars, not ever. We walk side by side, quiet again but with concentration, until we hit my backyard. I pick up Jamie, my massive bag full of glass bottles that I've been lugging like a pack mule, and help her and the beer over our chain-link fence and into the wet lump of turf we call a yard, then we split up for tactical reasons.

I go all the way around the block, pop out of the alley, turn right, and keep going until I cruise up my front walk, take out my key and open the door. No harm, no foul. Hi, Swanpoles. I'm home by six o'clock. Text that to my mom.

So funny, the last thing my mom said before she left for Pittsburgh was “It's a school night. If you're going to binge-watch something, keep it to only four episodes.” That and “Shave that thing off; it looks ridiculous.”

And now that Jamie and I got the beer, shaving my beard off is the only thing I can think about. Not that I have anything to compare it to, but it was the shittiest beer run I've ever been on. I go to the back door and let Jamie in. She's just as cold, if not freezing. That skirt has to be drafty.

It's weird: a month ago the only thing I would've focused on is what's underneath the skirt and now I don't care. I'm only worried about whether or not she's warm enough.

I leave Jamie in the kitchen to unload the beer and aim for the bathroom. “Dylan?” she calls after me. “Little help here?”

“Be right back,” I say as I head straight for the box nailed underneath the mail slot. I pick through all the letters. Nothing but a bunch of junk mail. How long does it take to check some hormones in a blood test? Seriously. Takes forever apparently, it's been five days. Five. I leave the mail in the box and shut myself inside the bathroom because I can't stand my beard. I need it off my face. Time to get rid of this itchy, scratchy reminder of everything I don't want to be. As soon as I close the door, I exhale at my reflection in the mirror.

I throw the glasses off. They hit the bathtub with a clunk and skid rattling into the drain. I turn on the water in the sink and lather up.

I'm fifteen years old. I want to be carded.

My face sheared, I breathe a little easier and pat dry with a towel. I slip off the sports coat and plunk it on an empty hook. Jamie wedges the door open with her toe, two bottles in each hand. “Oh no, your beard is gone.”

“So?”

She hands me the full bottle. It's cold. Ice cold. Every ad I've seen since I was a baby has made beer in glass bottles out to be nectar of the gods. It's amazing, the happy music and bikini girls won't let you forget it. You will drink it and have a party. So, here we are, our plan executed to perfection, and I don't want it. It's unearned. I put it on the bathroom counter and leave it there.

She puts her unopened bottle next to mine.

The chill in my bones from walking through all that frigid slop makes me sink. Jamie glances about the room, but not in an “oh wow, I really like the tiles, they're so beige” way. It's more of a maybe-I-should-leave face. Perhaps she's already mapping out her escape route and the mileage she's going to put on her boots walking home.

I don't want her to go. I never do. The thought that she might sucks.

Corroborating her observations might help. That always worked in biology lab last year. “I do know I'm hideous. I just don't know what to do about it,” I say.

“Oh come on, Dylan, don't make me feel worse, I know what I said was mean,” she says in a blur. “It's a certain look and you make it work, I swear on a stack of…whatever's not blasphemous.”

“It's okay; I am aware.” I gesture to myself, trying to laugh and holding up my hands, furry side out. “What I want to know is what do I do with it all? My whole everything. I'm a throw rug. You might think it's dumb, and maybe it is, but I hate being so hairy. It's everywhere. The last time I saw my skin, it was screaming red and scaly from a bad wax. And that's just one thing that bugs me.”

“You don't like being hairy? That's the big deal?”

“It's mostly just gross. Feels like it's endless.”

“It's not a death sentence. If there's something you don't like, work it out.” She scans the room, thinking. “Let's fix it right now.” Jamie grabs my electric razor and clicks it on with a bzzzz. “Shall we?”

My neck tightens. “I don't want you to see my back. It's disgusting and I hate it.”

“But this is such an easy tweak, it's stupid.” She shakes her head. “Besides, confession time, I'm mildly curious what you'd look like without a pelt. We're friends, right? So it's no big deal.”

We're friends, we're friends. That word is starting to tick me off and it shouldn't. Friends hang out, friends get beer when their mom is gone. Friends shave each other's backs. Oh my god, what are we doing?

But I trust her.

I stare at the buzzing razor. “You know how to use one of those things?”

“Let's just say the one I got for my thirteenth birthday is legs-only now.”

“Right. Okay.” I fumble with the buttons on my shirt and dump it in the hamper. Reaching behind my back, I grab my undershirt and pull it forward, folding it over the side of the tub. I look up at Jamie. This is the first time she's seeing the full effect. Everything is thick. Dense. She flinches. I want to hide. “I told you it was bad,” I say.

“No, no. It's all good. Friends help friends.” The razor comes down and cuts a swath from the back of my neck to my shoulder blade. “See? Going great.”

A disgusting blob of back hair falls on the floor. “Nope.” I reach for my shirt. “This is too gross, no way.”

“Don't look.” She makes another pass. “It'll be fine. We'll get the Shop-Vac later.”

I pretend it's completely normal to watch clumps trickle down like deformed little black snowflakes. That all kids our age do this when no one is home. It's not sex, drugs, and rock and roll that teenagers seek in the abandoned dusk of twilight; it's a guy sitting on the side of a tub while a girl kneels on a toilet and shaves his back.

Halfway through, Jamie sighs and drops her yellow scarf on the sink. “Getting hot in here,” she mutters, and taps the head of the razor clean. In the mirror, I see her wipe her brow and grimace. Determined to finish the job and attacking my shoulders, my arms, my sides, like I'm the biggest hedge in her yard. She dumps her jacket and steps out of her boots. Her hands skim the width of me. Gliding as she works. By the time Jamie's done, she's glowing and pink. Hands on hips and satisfied.

“Done,” she says, winded. “Honestly, I didn't mind the way you looked before, but don't mind it much now either.”

I stand up. She did a great job. Pivoting in the mirror, I nod my approval. This is way better than when I got waxed for Splish-Splash. Looks natural. Just the right amount of chest hair, arms no longer look like a flattened family of squirrels. On my back I have two distinct scapulas. Pretty cool. “It's so much colder,” I say.

Jamie blots her forehead with the corner of her scarf. “Yeah, well, I'm a sweaty mess. Enjoy until we need to do it again.”

“You'd do that?”

“Sure. I'll shave your back, and you can…Hmm. We'll figure something out.”

I hold my hands out. There's a freckle on the back of my hand I never knew was there before. The hand is topped by clean fingers and knuckles. They wiggle and I move my arms through space. Up and down, like I'm pushing something high above my head and pressing it low again. Bending my elbows, I twist side to side to check my biceps. Everything is bare. Air hits my skin like molecules of ice. Little goose bumps erupt and I shiver. When I look up, Jamie's staring intently at me. “What?”

She swallows. “Just happy to be here.”

“I'm jealous.”

“Why?”

“Because you're happy. I mean it when I say I think you're a warrior. I don't think I could just stomp through the world and be like, fuck it, I'm taking a walk. I stomp because I am big and have nowhere to hide,” I say. “Can I tell you something?”

“Always.”

“There was no football,” I say. “Up on the roof. It was never there. I opened the window and got up on the roof and stepped off.” I look down because as much as I love her face, I hate seeing pity on it. It's happened before; not in the mood to see it again now. Instead I fiddle with tossing off my one loafer. Easier said than done, and it ends up crammed sideways under the sink.

When I look up, there's no pity. No sadness. Just Jamie. “I know.”

“You did?”

“It wasn't written in stone or anything. But I knew,” she says. “You claimed you hate football, hate people thinking you're a football player, but you were trying to get a football off the roof. Didn't add up.”