As I Am Sneak Peek

As I Am

Emery C. Walters

As I Am ________________________________________

Emery C. Walters

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As I Am

Emery C. Walters

BecHavn Publishing Copyright Š 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First edition.

ISBN: 978-1-105-37843-0

Printed in the United States of America Cover by Emery C. Walters BecHavn.com

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Chapter One

_________________ OF BOWS AND FAMILY There would never have been a fictional autobiography of my life if I had not slammed the bathroom door when I did. My sister had begun drawing back her bow string the minute she heard the toilet flush. I opened the door and caught sight of her just as she began to let the arrow fly. I had time to see it was aimed right at me, and my instant super hero reflexes kicked in just in time. I slammed that door for all it was worth.

The arrow thunked into the door hard, and as it twanged, I slid to the floor, fearing it would come through the cheap plywood. She laughed as she ran away. Thank God the thing had come with only one arrow. As it was, I considered climbing out the window. It wouldn’t have been the first time. We’d been having these little wars all our lives. Don’t get me wrong, we loved each dearly, but this was how we kept each other in line. We sure couldn’t count on our parents doing it.

The Christmas I had turned fourteen was going to be different.

My older sister Marta, our younger brother Rat, and I had finally gotten our heads together and combined our Christmas lists. Rat was the only one of us who still believed in Santa, but then, he was only nine. He was a very precocious nine in some ways, but very immature in others. He still believed he would become a girl when he grew up, for one thing.

Anyhow, Marta wanted the bow and arrow, and I wanted an Easy Bake oven. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m fourteen and a half years old, but Mom still wouldn’t let me learn to cook! In fact, she hated to have anyone come into ‘her’ kitchen at all.

If I’d been any younger, it wouldn’t have worked at all, but as it was, my dad overruled my mom, and they got ‘me’ the bow and arrow and Marta - even though she was going on fifteen - asked for the oven. She asked for Barbie dolls for Rat, too. The girly dress up clothes he always wanted were another matter; we couldn’t ask for those at all. Dad would have killed us, and Mom would have cried –

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we knew this because it had happened before. Sometimes we took pity on Rat - (oh ok, his name is really Radcliffe, but we call him Rat for short, wouldn’t you?) - and Marta and I would take him to the thrift store and let him buy whatever clothes he wanted. Then we’d hide the stuff in the hayloft and let him play dress up. You’d be surprised how much candy and cookies that cost him, but he said he wanted to save his ‘girlish figure’ anyhow. Oh yeah, we didn’t do this strictly out of the kindness of our hearts, hell no. Are you nuts? And everyone ended up happy, and Mom and Dad never knew; so they were happy too.

What’s the harm?

But back to today. There I was on the bathroom floor, giggling.

Suddenly there was a pounding on the door. My brother yelled, “Mom, Bryn won’t get out of the bathroom and I need to craaaap!”

Rat had just learned this word, ‘crap’. I’d told him it meant to brush your teeth. I giggled even harder, trying to stand up but not making much headway.

“Radcliffe Owen Morgan the Third, don’t you talk like that in this house, goddamnit!” shouted my father from the living room.

“Where’d you hear that kind of language?”

I heard Marta laughing her big donkey bray.

Little Master Fastidious pounded on the door again as I remained helpless behind it, giggling feebly. I knew where he’d learned that one, thank you very much, but most of the bad words we knew we had learned from Dad himself.

Nothing in our house is what it looks like, not even the house itself. Our house is nice enough, I guess, though the lawn usually needs mowing, and we have a lot of room because Dad’s office is here and the clinic and the parking lot, and people’s animals are scattered all over our large backyard. The city is always after us to clean up after them faster and to mow the fucking lawn, as Dad says. The house needs a coat of paint and some new shingles, Mom says. The barn is a mess too, inside and out, though like the house, it’s solid and warm in winter and cool in summer.

Inside the house, it’s lovely, really. That’s what Mom and Rat think anyhow. Marta and I can rollerblade on the wood floors, they polish up so well, but only when nobody else is home. We can go in circles from the living room to the kitchen and back around again.

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Upstairs, we each have our own bedroom, which is lucky, since killing siblings is illegal.

My dad looks like a big dork, but he’s a real cool veterinarian; that’s what I tell everybody anyhow. He does look nice in public; he’s tall and rugged, with thick dark hair that falls over his china blue eyes.

Mom says he ‘cleans up well’. Mostly, though, he just wants to play with the animals and muck around in the barn or his office. Since he has to doctor them first to be able to play with them, that’s what he does. All the animals love him, except for Mrs. McKenna’s poodle that bitch hates him. That’s OK, Dad says, cuz he hates that bitch too, ha-ha, and he doesn’t mean the poodle.

Mom looks like a nurse in a WWII movie, statuesque, ‘like a brick shithouse’ Dad says, but she’s really a yoga instructor who loves retro shit. She has that ash blond hair and pouty red lips that you see in old movies. Guys run into trees when they turn their heads to watch her walk by.

My sister takes after her in a skinnier way; she looks like a model, but she’s really just a tomboy. She’s always got her short blond hair messed up, she won’t wear any make-up, and she’d rather be in a tree than in a dress.

Rat looks like a – well, he’s a boy, I’ve seen him naked, trust me, he’s a boy, but not on the inside. He’s all the girl Marta isn’t on the inside. I think the stork got the orders mixed up; I don’t know. He’d rather be in a dress than in a tree, that’s for sure!

As for me, I’m the only normal one in the family, also the best looking one, if I say so myself. I don’t look like any of them, but with my dark red hair and my clean-cut, All American innocent good looks, I’m irresistible. Yeah, old ladies and dogs adore me. They’d probably still adore me even if I took an arrow to the head.

So that’s how things stood that Christmas. We were proud of ourselves, we kids, as we smiled at each other and grinned with glee at getting what we wanted. I’m not sure we actually fooled my parents though, with our switcharoo on the presents. It didn’t really matter who asked or to whom the gifts were addressed. The goods were under the tree, and we all knew whom they were really for.

It’s true that Rat did ask Santa for a tiara, but he didn’t get one.

He wasn’t too disappointed because Marta knew he wouldn’t and

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made him one in shop class. She refused to do the glitter and rhinestones; so I had to do that part. We gave it to him Christmas Eve in the privacy of his bedroom, and he wore it to bed. He woke up at 4 am covered in shiny crap and was soooo happy! I could hear him in there talking to himself and singing. Even putting my pillow over my head did not stifle his little voice. Less than twenty minutes passed before he came twirling into my room to wake me up. I wouldn’t let him leave until I’d wiped most of the glitter and sequins off and combed them out of his hair. After that, I made him wash the rest of it off, including the lipstick and eye shadow he’d somehow put on. He wasn’t too happy about that, but it was still very early. I had to ask him if he wanted Mom and Dad to kill him or not? They were bad enough when they had to get up early even when there wasn’t a sequined and be-glittered little boy jumping up and down and clapping his little hands with glee.

We aren’t allowed to wake Mom and Dad up until 7 AM at the earliest on Christmas so Santa (yeah, Mom, ‘Santa’; I caught you last year, remember?) leaves our stockings on our beds to keep us amused.

After they went to bed, Marta and I dumped all the boy crap out of Rat’s and filled it with the stuff he really wanted just so he’d let us sleep longer, too. We’d been doing this for years and it always worked, though it hadn’t given me much extra time this year at all.

A couple of years ago Marta and I hollowed out a corner in the hayloft behind some bales of hay for Rat to play dress up in. He owes Marta and me big time for all this. Before you get the idea that Marta and I support Rat in his insanity, the answer is no, we’re just in it for the money. Or the cookies and treats. Him being the baby and all, Mom and Dad spoil him like crazy and he’s willing to trade the goodies for our help; where’s the bad in this? There is none, other than me maybe putting a little fat on the old okole… my butt. Marta is so active she burns off whatever she eats. She’s really hardcore into sports, especially basketball.

Anyhow, Mom and Dad were great while we were opening our (each other’s) presents and so proud that we were so excited and pleased for each other (ha-ha!). But after an hour or so Dad got that crazy glassy eye look thing he does going and Mom heated up her coffee with a little ‘spice’ that smelled like gin. That’s when Marta was

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examining ‘my’ bow and arrow and I was reading recipes on ‘her’ little toy stove and I noticed Rat had reapplied eye shadow and glitterized it. Since it was Christmas, Mom and Dad didn’t say anything, but it was obvious that they noticed and did not approve.

By lunch time, Mom was drunk. There was no lunch per se. We kids were all filled up on candy from our stockings anyhow. I think we had breakfast, but I don’t really remember. Who wants breakfast when there are presents to open?

Dad spent most of the afternoon in the barn. He said it was to keep the animals company. Little did he know his little boy was up there in the hayloft above him, prancing around in a pair of secondhand three inch heels. Nice ones, actually, if I do say so myself, strappy and red. Maybe not real classy, but hey, it was Christmas and even at Christmas you can’t always get the classy stuff at the thrift store. This time, I even loaned Rat my new IPod because I was trying to get him interested in show tunes. I was to regret this later on as you will see. Be careful what you wish for.

At some point, one of us left the back door of the house unlocked. The next time I looked up, the room was quietly filling with dogs and the two stray sheep Dad had taken in from the Humane Society. Marta threw a new doll at me and told me to make a crèche with it. Mom was asleep on the couch. This sort of thing happened every year.

This time, however, though so much was the same, things were going to be surprisingly different. Right in the middle of all this – the sheep, Mom’s snoring, the dogs - there was a knock at the door. I got to my feet to go get it so Mom wouldn’t wake up; after all, it might be one of my friends.

“Get the door!” Marta hissed from her place behind the tree, where she was eating the bottoms out of a box of candy, carefully replacing the ones she didn’t like. Only on Christmas was she allowed to get away with that. Only on Christmas did Mom forget to hide her candy anyhow.

Like I should talk! I had been at the far end of the couch eating Marta’s rejects as fast as she could put them back in the box. Several of the dogs sat and watched us as if they were at a tennis match.

“You get it!” I tried to reply over a mouthful of caramel, but I

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was already on my way.

The doorbell rang again. Mom farted in her sleep. Marta gave me her Death Glare, which really didn’t frighten me with chocolate dribbling down her chin, but I had given in anyhow.

“Hellooooo! T'is I, darlings!” rang out a hearty falsetto as I crossed the room.

Marta and I exchanged glances, shrugged, and I opened the door.

There stood a sight to stop me in my tracks. All the dogs rushed out and sniffed. One slunk away with his tail between his legs.

The sheep bolted. There on the porch, looming above me, stood a person. I could not at the moment determine for sure the person’s gender, though it gave the illusion of female, and I could not tell its – her - age. Behind - her – snow was falling in beautiful, slow motion, piling up on the barn and driveway and our cars. There was a third car now, something big and floaty-looking with a lot of delicious red color to it. Glancing at the snow again, I realized someone would need to shovel soon. I didn’t intend to be the one who did it. While I stood there taking it all in, the figure before me heaved a deep sigh, a huge intake of breath like the start of the north wind. I came back to awareness of her and how cold she must be.

“Move your ass!” the woman bellowed, kicking out at one of the dogs, which was sniffing her crotch.

“Who is it?” Marta called. “Shut the door, it’s freezing in here!”

“Uh, come in,” I said politely. I don’t normally invite total strangers in, but it was Christmas, and it was a woman, and she looked familiar somehow. Besides, she was loaded down with presents, bags and bags of them. That was enough reason right there.

She – at least, I still assumed it was a she – had on platform heels, fish net stockings, a long slinky skirt, and a fur coat.

She looked like Dad would look if he gained fifty pounds and grew his hair out and dyed it purple. Yep, Dad would look just like her if wore tons of make-up, and if he ever smiled with his heart in it.

“Don’t you know me?” the woman asked, shedding her coat.

Behind me Mom snored. Two leftover dogs barked, whether in fear or warning, I couldn’t tell. Marta, curious, climbed out from under the tree to join me.

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“I’m your Auntie Maru Nanette! Maroon, for short.”

Marta and I gaped, blank. Who? Auntie Who? She sighed. She tossed the fur onto the couch. She took off her shoes – and her hair… “Your Uncle Mornay? Your dad’s brother?” She – he – rolled her – his – eyes. This was getting confusing.

I must have looked as dumb as I felt, because Marta stepped up, a smile taking over her whole face, and took charge then. “Coffee?

Eggnog? A glass of gin?”

Mom drooled and snored.

“Whatever she had,” Maroon laughed, pointing at Mom. At that, he plucked the box of half eaten candy out of my sister’s hand and dug in, laughing. The laugh is what did it. I remembered him now. He hadn’t visited us in a long time, and I’d almost forgotten all about him. I could tell that Marta remembered and liked what she recalled. Mom and Dad never did talk about him; so I don’t know if he ever called or anything. On our birthdays Mom told us he’d sent money to put in our college bank accounts, but who cared, it’s not like you were allowed to spend it. Mom never told us to write thank you notes, and the one time I asked for his address, she conveniently forgot to give it to me. As I realized how much Uncle Mornay seemed to enjoy being Auntie Maru Nanette, I began to understand why.

The three of us went into the kitchen – Mom couldn’t stop us, being sound asleep. The hell with her. Someone had to entertain the company, right?

By the time my mother woke up, the three of us were sitting around the table drinking spiked eggnog. The box of candy was empty and upside down on the floor, little paper candy holders scattered everywhere. There was another pile of presents under the tree.

Maroon was telling us stories of her life ‘before’, as she put it, way back when she was a high school teacher right here in town. He said to call him ‘he’ except when ‘she’ was ‘dressed’. Marta and I got it. After my second cup of nog, I think someone carried me into the living room. I vaguely remember curling up in Dad’s big chair with the two dogs. My head was spinning; I guess I was drunk, but I didn’t know that; I just thought I was tired.

After Mom woke up, Dad came in, and Marta went outside to the barn to sneak Rat back in for more presents and then dinner. Mom

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shooed us all out of the kitchen pretending she still had a lot of work to do fixing dinner. As usual she didn’t want anyone else in there, and she was annoyed to find out we’d been in there, digging in the cupboards for snacks and the eggnog. As I woke up from my doze, I could hear her muttering and cussing out in the kitchen, and I realized she didn't like Maroon very much. I wasn’t really sure Dad did either, even though – or maybe because – he was his own brother.

I could understand that. I thought it was funny as hell, but I could understand that.

We apologized for not having gifts for Maroon, but he couldn’t have cared less. He only cared that we would like ours, and we did.

Even Mom – he’d gotten her a ton of nice clothes and purses and shoes, all in the right sizes and colors. She just glowed like the gazing ball she unwrapped last. She loved that. There was part of her that was trying hard not to enjoy all this, but she couldn’t carry it off.

Maroon had gotten Dad a manure spreader, a hayfork and a complete set of Dr. Who DVD’s. Rat and I looked at each other and shrugged and said, “Dr. Who?” I thought it was hysterically funny.

Dad just raised one eyebrow and looked pissed.

Marta unwrapped a paintball gun, a Swiss army knife, a football and a basketball (“I knew you wanted balls!” Maroon whispered to her, winking and smirking.)

Maroon looked at Mom and Dad and told Rat he might like to open his in his room. He and I helped Rat take them upstairs. “Bring yours too,” he told me, and I went back to the living room to gather my own as well.

I heard Dad sigh in relief as we clumped up the stairs. Mom was still in her precious kitchen, mumbling and banging pots and pans around.

Once we were all closeted (ha!) in Rat’s room, Rat ripped into his packages in a frenzy, but nonetheless carefully setting aside all the bows. He found dresses, girly shoes, jewelry, pink towels, purple sheets, and a karaoke machine. Maroon told him he’d come back later and play dress up with him, and we left the kid in fashonista heaven, ripping open the boxes and carefully snipping off tags, singing happily to himself, and putting the bows in his hair.

Marta excused herself to go to her room, and my uncle steered

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me into my room. Sitting on my bed, he sighed, and relaxed. “I saved you for last,” he said, looking at me gravely, “Because you’re special to me. Open that one first,” he said, nodding to one of the gifts.

It was a cookbook, an old one, full of notes and slips of paper and ancient coupons. I looked at him there in the late light of the early winter sunset, slanting in thin rays through the falling snow through my window. It made him look golden. How had he known I wanted to learn to cook?

“That was my grandmother's,” he said quietly, “then my mother's, then mine. The day you were born I opened it for the first time. I’d always wanted to cook, loved the idea, but because I was a man, I was afraid to. I don’t know if you can understand that,” he mused.

I almost told him I understood, but I didn’t.

“You see,” he went on, “we weren’t sure you or your mother were going to make it. Your mom lost a lot of blood, and you – the doctor called you a ‘stargazer’. He said it meant you’d been born face up instead of the usual face down. The cord was wrapped around your neck three times, and you were blue. But you made it, and so did your mother.

“I had an ‘aha’ moment and as part of it, I decided maybe I should come to life myself. In a way, you see, I’d been as dead as we were afraid you were going to be.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, searching his face, confused now.

“I know, but you will someday,” he said. “Open that one now.”

“Oh my god, my own laptop?” I almost screamed it I was so excited. Never had I even hoped to have my own. “Thank you!”

“The cookbook is the past. The laptop is your future. Your identity, your friends, your education – your exploration,” he grinned.

“Use it wisely, grasshopper.”

I nodded like a six year old. Would I ever! And probably unwisely as well. Who would know? It was mine, all mine.

I went over to hug him, and he held me close; so I sat down and stayed by his side.

There were two more presents, and Maroon smiled. “Go ahead, they’re for now.”

When Mom called us to come down for dinner, he had taught

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me how to use the laptop, how to use and connect the new camera and GPS he’d given me, and how to understand the old fashioned directions in the cookbook.

He’d loaded photo software, bookmarked a site called geocaching.com and even warned me about porn sites. He also told me the facts of life in more detail than I’d ever wanted to know and set up an email program, a Facebook page, and a journaling site for me.

I’d never told anyone about my love of writing before and certainly had never mentioned that I liked to write poetry. How had he known?

Rat and I were the only ones who didn’t drink wine with dinner, but Rat was deliriously happy anyhow. Maroon had gone back up to his room as promised and helped him dress. He came to the table wobbling in little heels, wearing a slinky dress, makeup and a flowered hat. Did I mention the white gloves and the curly blond wig?

Mom and Dad exchanged a look and hoisted their wine glasses in unison.

Half a dozen dogs and two pygmy goats ran around the room begging scraps. Somehow Maroon kept us all laughing, even Mom and Dad, though the wine may have had something to do with that.

I watched and listened and took pictures. I let the words flow in my mind, making myself remember some of them to jot down later to weave into poems. It was a glorious time, all because of Uncle Maru.

Names… I’d thought calling my brother ‘Rat’ was weird, but Auntie Nanette? Uncle Maru, Maroon? Did he even have a real, given to him at birth, name? Did it even matter what he was called, what anyone was called? I had no answer to that.

As we sat there over pie and ice cream, Maroon started telling us stories. It started innocently enough when Dad asked politely, “So where have you been lately, Mornay? What have you been up to?”

So Mornay was his real name. Uncle Mornay looked at Dad as if Dad were the craziest person on earth, and smiled, baring his teeth. I wasn’t sure I liked that smile, but it wasn’t aimed at me, and I almost giggled.

“After I quit teaching here,” he started, but was interrupted by Mom saying, “They fired you! Remember what happened in that drama class you were teaching!”

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Dad turned red. Marta and I looked from one to another of the adults. Maroon, um, Uncle Mornay, laughed, “Those llamas were not my fault! Bro, you should have known they’d be in heat. You’re the one who loves animals! What a show that turned out to be, huh?”

Maroon went on. “After that I was in New York for a while, and then went to Las Vegas. A group of us were performing at Caesar’s Palace, and one night we heard about a drag queen contest in Hawaii. We basically said ‘why the hell not’ and ‘let’s blow this popsicle stand’ and packed up and moved, just like that.”

“I’m a queen too,” Rat said happily. Dad and Mom did that coordinated drinking thing again. Mom said, not unkindly but somewhat shakily, “The Queen may be excused if he – she – would like to go play.” Rat smiled and pranced away happily, wiping whipped cream off his nose with a white gloved hand. Maroon watched him go with great pride, then turned to me and said, “Not all knowledge comes from one source. Remember that, Bryn, as you research different things online.”

My dad mused, “In my father’s house there are many mansions.”

“Grampa was a fire and brimstone kinda guy,” Maroon told us, and he and Dad just smiled at each other.

“Your father was a minister?” I asked, surprised I hadn’t known this.

My dad and Uncle Mornay looked at each other, with identical eyebrow raises. The resemblance was uncanny. My mom choked on her wine. I couldn’t tell if she was upset or trying not to laugh.

Uncle Mornay’s eyes lit up. My dad reached over as if to touch him and said, “No, don’t….” but it didn’t even slow my uncle down.

He started laughing.

“Remember the time he substituted for the priest at the neighboring church? The head priest was gone for the day; so he asked Dad to do confession for him. Dad agreed, right? Always willing to lend a – ha-ha! – hand!”

“Noooo!” hissed my father helplessly. My mother glared at first one and then the other. Marta and I just stared from one to the other.

Uncle Mornay calmed himself and continued. “So the first

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person that came in said, ‘Father forgive me, for I just gave another guy a blow job.’ Dad said to him, ‘You have sinned.’ Then he looked at the sheet on the wall that had punishments for certain sins on it, but ‘blow job’ was not on there. So -,” but here Uncle Mornay could not go on as he was laughing so hard tears were running down his cheeks.

Dad was in even worse shape, gasping for breath, hissing ‘noooo, don’t, the children’ and covering his face with his hands. Mom got up and left the room.

“So he went out to ask one of the altar boys what the priest usually gave for a blow job. The altar boy answered, ‘Oh, about five dollars.’”

Other than Uncle Mornay laughing like he was choking on something and Dad crying in little weepy sounds, and my mother trying and failing to stifle laughs of her own, there was dead silence.

Then of course my brother comes back to the table and asks, “What’s a ‘blow job’?” and the three so called adults laughed even harder.

Even I knew what a blow job was, sort of. Marta reached to take Rat’s little hand and said, “Let’s go see if there are any popsicles,” but she turned beet red and ran out of the room.

“I want a lime one!” Rat called after her.

Eventually the grownups calmed down, though they still seemed happier than they ever had before on any given holiday. It was nice, so nice, I wished Uncle Mornay would visit every holiday forever. My parents weren’t fighting. They were both drunk, though; so you just never knew if it could start up again at any time.

Marta returned with pie and ice cream, no popsicles luckily, and conversation returned to somewhat normal. I was starting to wonder if that story had really happened though. Uncle Mornay had winked at me afterward.

“So anyway, that many mansions kind of thing, that’s also true of people, you know.” When Uncle Mornay added that, the smile dropped off my dad’s face, and he and Mom drank in unison once again. I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant at first, but after a minute, I got it. I looked at my brother, still with glitter and bows and make up on, happy as a clam. I looked at my sister and thought about the basketball hoops. I thought about a flood of things that I hadn’t even wanted to think about at all, and suddenly I knew exactly what my

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uncle meant. When he cut his eyes at me, I nodded, and I think there were tears in my eyes.

I think Mom and Dad forgot Marta and I were there. The stories Uncle Mornay told were not really for children. Oh my gosh did I learn things. I made a mental list of more things I wanted to look up online, too.

“Sister Suzette LasPrayer was one of the judges at the Maui Drag Queen Ball. Maru Nanette came in second to a girl from Thailand. Those kathoeys are fantastic! Not so much in the beehive hair and the bazooms,” here Maroon hoisted up a giant, imaginary, set of breasts, “But their posture, poise, makeup, dresses – oh la, la tee double oh wow la. Second place wasn’t bad. I won a free day’s fishing trip and took all my home girls with me. The fish…”

I’m afraid I zoned out for a while here and helped myself from a plate of cookies in the middle of the table. I zoned back in quickly when I heard, “… evidence of twelve foot tall red-haired giants in this place called Olowalu. Apparently two skeletons had been found in a lava cave of some sort, way back in the valley behind this tiny burg. Of course, being the oversized red headed girls we are ourselves… We had to go check it out.”

Now I, like all the rest of my family, was paying rapt attention.

Uncle Mornay took a sip of wine, then glanced at each of us in turn. I suddenly realized how dark it had gotten outside and how the wind had picked up to a howling gale. I shivered.

Uncle Mornay began, “Now of course everybody knows about the Goddess Pele, who created the islands from the volcanos.

However, Pele started out as a physical Pele who traveled the islands.

She was described as extremely tall with fiery red hair, fair skin, great strength, incredible beauty, voracious sexual appetite, and a very nasty temper. In her travels, Pele dug underground tunnels trying to find a spot where she could dig deep caves that did not flood with water, so she could make safe homes for all her family.

“So we took off to find this place, because Pele sounded like she would be a real hoot. We got there, drove as far down this dusty dirt road as we could, got out of our rented Chrysler and started hiking back toward the mountains. We came to the petroglyphs – they were high up on a rock wall, so high that only a giant’s hand could

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have painted them. Then we went on, turning left at a fork in the road.

We came to a small outcropping before the real mountain climb began – and there was this old well housing - I guess you could call it a ‘stand pipe’. Inside it were steps that led down below the earth. At the top was the date ‘1933’. I’d like to think it was merely a water access tunnel, but as we climbed down into the earth with the few flashlights we’d brought along, the steps got rougher and dirtier, and the bricked in walls turned to chipped out rock. Soon it was black and even our flashlights seemed dimmed. I almost lost my footing at one point and when I looked down, I saw I was standing in a footprint that had been formed in the very rock of the passage I stood on. It was at least twice the length of my own foot, with perfectly formed impressions of heel, arch and toes. I wondered if some time, ages ago, a giant had stepped in the earth when it was soft, cooling lava, and left his – or her impression there for me to find. It was eerie as hell I tell you, and chills went down my spine that were not due to just the coolness of the earth. I turned around to laugh with my friends and found I was all alone.”

When my uncle stopped talking, my dad said quietly, "There were giants in the earth in those days,” and my mother added, ““Genesis, chapter six.”

“I always thought it was so strange,” Mom said, “that your dad

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could be so reasonable and yet so crazy, I mean, freaky about religion.

He really believed people – before the flood – lived a thousand years, and you know, if they did, why couldn’t they grow to twelve feet in height – or more? He always cited the Bible as saying how wondrous Eden was, and how the climate was so perfect before the flood, and how large – well, then he’d skip to the dinosaurs like he could accept even them, even though it wasn’t in the Bible, because it went with humans being so tall and living so long and that was in the Bible. It was a crazy combination, but when he spouted it, it made so much sense.”

Considering how much my mother had had to drink by then, it was a miracle that she could make any sense herself, but I thought I understood how something that seemed so obviously not true, could be true at the same time.

We’d finished the pie. We all sat there looking stuffed. The adults seemed to have room for more wine though. After Dad had poured them all some, Uncle Mornay lifted his and looked through the color, swirling it as I’d do with ice in a soda. He slugged some down.

“This wine – the color reminds me of one of the flowers there.

It’s called ‘The Bird of Paradise.’ If you turn it sideways it looks like it’s giving – I mean pointing - a finger to heaven. Usually it just looks like what it’s named after, the beak and topknot of an exotic bird in flight. You see these flowers everywhere there in Hawaii. They’re so unusual looking compared to the ‘normal, average’ round flower like we expect to see here, like a rose, a dandelion, a zinnia or a marigold.

Kind of reminds me of Slugger here, whatshisname this week?” My brother grinned.

“I read somewhere that they represent joyfulness and even not surprisingly - paradise itself. There’s a bird called the huma that is also called the bird of paradise. It’s said to have both the male and female natures in one body, each nature having one wing and one leg.” He eyed my brother questioningly as if to ask, how the hell do you do that?

I was bored and thinking oh dear god, tell me more… sarcastically, when he winked at me and I knew another lesson was in the making. “You don’t want to prune this plant young – it takes a long time to bloom and never if it freezes. A garden always looks

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better with something rare and beautiful – or odd – blooming in it, don’t you think so? Could a bird of paradise ever grow up to be a marigold? And if it could and did, wouldn’t that be a loss to the world?“ There was a silence then and during it I thought, I get it, and I looked at my brother and smiled. People, flowers, birds – and even cars, all different, and some more different than others - and all of it good.

“Anyhow,” Uncle Mornay continued, “After that, we went to the beach. Can you believe we went out on a whale watching trip in drag? It was a GLBT thing sponsored by the Bed & Breakfast we were staying at. Then we went back there and got changed once again, this time for a photo shoot. I’m sorry, but boats and feathers and boas just don’t do well together. To make things worse, Cammy had gotten seasick. You have no idea how much a drag queen her size can throw up. She was up for the photo shoot though, and we all piled back into the Chrysler and headed across the island.

“This old mill…. It was an abandoned sugar mill. It was so covered in colorful graffiti that it was awesome. Just a little would have spoiled it, but it was a showpiece, an outdoor museum of neo-art.

And the trees – they went up and up for hundreds of feet. The roots alone were thirty feet high – from the ground, covering the remaining walls like giant snakes, vertical giant snakes. And the spiders, oh lord, those things were huge…”

I glanced at Marta. As butch as she was, she had a thing about spiders. It was her only weakness, and as Mornay started discussing the spiders of Maui, Marta’s usually robust complexion went pale. I took pity on her and suggested she and I go see what Rat was up to.

Of course, I lurched and squeaked at her as we made our escape.

Rat had gone back to the barn with his new clothes and toys; so I grabbed my camera, and we ran out to the barn as best we could through the deepening snow.

We could hear him singing the second we opened the door. All the lights were on, and Marta stopped dead in her tracks. “Basketball hoops. Look Bryn! How cool! They put up hoops for me!” Sure enough there were two hoops high above the doors, and somewhat cleaned areas below for her use.

Rat hadn’t heard us apparently, as the show tunes continued

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without pause with his surprisingly decent boy soprano belting them out. He sure had never learned those words in glee club or choir but he knew them all, as far as I could tell.

Tiptoeing up the creaking wooden stairs to the loft, we peeked around the bales of hay and saw him, dressed to the nines, wig and make up in place, standing in a spotlight he had rigged up. I set my camera to movie and began to record it, thinking it would be great blackmail material at some future time.

It was too good for that. When he was done and took his bow, er, curtsey, Marta clapped heartily, whistled and shouted ‘BRAVO!’ – and so did ‘Auntie Maroon’, who had crept up the stairs behind us. I almost jumped out of my skin. Not so Rat; he just took another bow, and then rushed forward, shouting at me, “Did you get it? Did you get it all?”

I am embarrassed to say I took movies of three more songs, the last one with Maroon and Rat singing together. I had a feeling they might be worth a fortune in the far distant future. Rat’s happiness was contagious. It made for a very happy evening, one I fall back on in memory whenever I need cheering up. The warmth and joy of that evening come back to me whenever I smell new cut hay or the light shines on a performer in just the right way. However, I can’t help but wonder how much influence this night had on what happened later at the Holiday Talent Show at school. More on that, soon.

XXXXX The few days between Christmas and New Year’s flew by, with things at home being fairly normal, well, what’s normal for us. Rat was happy, I was happy, and Marta was ecstatic. I had homework to do over the holiday and for the first time ever, I was enjoying it, researching things online and writing tons of papers.

I was learning the photo software, too, and realized how much I enjoyed photography. I think, I was pretty darn good at it too, for a beginner, and a kid at that. I wondered if you could make a life out of taking pictures, and of course I started noticing photos everywhere, like they had never been there before. Of course they had, in the newspapers, in the magazines, online… and now I wanted mine to be

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there too, someday.

Uncle Mornay had gone off to California where he was going to try out for a bit part in a movie as Maru Nanette. He friended me on facebook, and that was great. He wrote a lot about the movie stars he saw and the filming and all the new clothes. Well, I wasn’t too interested in that part, but I told Rat all about it. I wish I hadn’t; maybe he wouldn’t have decided to perform in the talent show.

As day followed day, the snow settled in, the cold followed, and chaos reigned. As soon as the sun was up, Rat gulped down cereal and ran outside ‘to play’, and I’d soon find him in the hayloft, standing in a ray of sunlight, singing his heart out. I have no idea how he learned all the songs he knew, though later on I found out he’d somehow learned to read sheet music. That stuff just came so naturally to him. From time to time, I’d suggest one and play it for him on my computer. After hearing it only one time, the kid knew it by heart. He was incredible.

Marta was busy with her friends, away all day sometimes, and spending the night other times. We barely saw her. I missed her, but at least I was safe from bows and arrows for a while.

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Chapter Two

_________________ OF BOWS AND TOMATOES AND HORSE APPLES If I hadn’t been so busy with my own affairs, playing online and learning all kinds of new and – fascinating – stuff, maybe I would have known what Rat had planned. Marta wasn’t paying either of us any attention, and I found out she had a girlfriend – yes, THAT kind of girlfriend. Mom and Dad didn’t know. I wondered what Marta and she – her name was Thelma - actually did all the time when they were ‘at the library’ and having sleepovers, but I never asked for fear she might actually tell me. I had a feeling that I did not want to know, and if I did, I could look it up online.

Really, Mom and Dad should have been the ones to stop Rat, but they didn’t take that much of an interest either. They never had.

They knew he liked to sing, but that was all. They figured he’d sing something at the talent show, of course. And did he ever. Mom even bought him his first suit, which of course, he hid in the closet and never wore. Nope. He had a bag with him that night of course, and we all assumed he had the suit in there. I should have known better. All of us should have known better. But it was not long after New Year’s, and we were all excited. I figured he’d sing one of the songs I had videoed of him doing in the barn that night.

The day of the performance came, and after supper we all dressed up and went. The snow and cold had backed off for a while. It was a beautiful night, calm and with a sky bloated with stars.

Rat hustled off to the backstage area, refusing to let any of us go with him. Right there, I should have known, but I ran into some of my friends and was happy to stay there chatting with them until we had to go in and get seated.

None of us saw it coming. None of us had any idea. Leaving a kid like Radcliffe alone with his planning and imagination must have been some form of child abuse.

The program began. The first two kids were awful. A fat girl my age sang in such a high voice some of the people stuck their fingers

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in their ears to save their hearing. The next kid did some sort of rap song that might have been good, but little old middle class, middle America us had no idea whether it was good or not, nor did most of the audience like all the four letter words in it. Next a chubby third grade girl danced a hula to canned music. Then two sisters sang some Christmas songs badly, with the older girl pinching the younger one whenever she stopped singing and just stared open mouthed at the audience. And then… another girl – no – wait – there came Radcliffe out onto the stage, in a pink swirl of satin and feathers and high heeled shoes.

Oh my god. To my left, I saw my mother sliding down into her seat. To my right my father had put one hand over his eyes. He pulled a flask out of his coat pocket and tilted it up behind his hand. I could hear him gulping. But even worse, Marta shouted out, “Go Rat! That’s my brother up there!”

When my brother first came out on stage, before it all really sank it that he was actually a boy, thanks to Marta, you could see everyone smiling and thinking, oh isn’t she the cutest little thing? Then he bowed and introduced himself and the realization hit; what the hey, she’s a cute little BOY? But – that dress – that hair – those shoes! I think we all went into shock, everyone in the whole audience. I know Mom did. Sliding down into her seat wasn’t enough. After Marta shouted out whose darling little boy he was, Mom turned white, bolted out of her seat and left the auditorium. Dad, after draining his flask, was too shocked and horrified to move, other than to slowly slide further down in his seat, as if that would hide him. I thought nastily, well Dad, that’s what you get for ignoring all the signs, but then I felt sorry for him.

When the first tomato hit my brother, I stopped feeling sorry for anyone but Rat. He took the spotlight in a lime green satin dress with fake boobs, glittery high heels and a ton of makeup and the damn wig Uncle Mornay, that bitch, had given him. He turned on the background music and started belting out a song I’d never heard before called “Big Spender.” He spun magic like you would not believe, even at his age, nine and a half years old, and even with his obvious boyness beneath all the gleam and glitter. When he belted out

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“I don't pop my cork for every guy I see,” he mispronounced ‘cork’ and said ‘cock’ – and that’s when the tomato flew. It hit him right in the shoulder, but he never missed a beat. When he was through and took his bow, however, he glared out in the direction it had come from and was immediately booed from that corner. I searched and saw only guys older than me there, laughing their asses off. There was scattered applause until Marta and I stood and whistled and clapped and stamped our feet, then others joined in. He really was a great little performer with a fantastic voice, and he blew kisses while he took multiple bows.

I told Dad that Marta and I would wait and walk Rat home, and Dad took Mom home early. When I saw her, she was still white and shaking. She said it must have been something she ate. Marta and I went backstage to find Rat and tell him how terrific he’d been and that tomato-throwing was really a sign of respect, like bouquets of roses. He had been terrific; we had no problem with telling him that.

We left early. Marta said she had something she had to do first, and I told her to be careful. I knew what she ‘had to do’ – she had to find out exactly who had thrown the tomato. I feared for his life if – and when – she found out. I took my brother’s bag and we walked back toward home singing together softly. He was back in his usual jeans and shirt and jacket. The snow was starting to fall again, but it was still beautiful out. Stars shone where there were no clouds, the ugly dirt of December being covered over with a blanket of fresh white snow. We stopped at the drugstore, and I told him to order whatever he wanted at the soda fountain. We had hot fudge sundaes together, and I told him I was proud to be his brother. I didn’t add that I was also terrified and amazed. He said he wished I was his dad. I told him I would never have kids, and I realized it was true but didn’t give a thought as to why. I just knew I never would. I liked kids. But… By the time we got home, Mom had gone to bed with a valium and a cool cloth on her forehead. The kitchen smelled like gin.

Dad said, “Look…” he was watching TV and holy fucking hell, excuse my French, but the local channel was showing the talent show recorded live. They would be showing this over and over for the next several months… everyone in the world would have a chance to see – my brother, dressed like a drag queen, belting out the word

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‘cock’ instead of ‘cork’.

I wanted to die. The phone rang. Dad was unable to get up and answer it, and he looked half in the bag anyhow, sitting there staring, a bottle of vodka beside him and a glass in his hand. He looked somewhere between proud and wishing he was dead.

I picked up the phone with fear, but it was Uncle Mornay, thrilled to death. He’d been watching the show on his satellite TV and was chock full of praise for Rat. I wanted to tell him to shut it, that it wasn’t all as wonderful as he thought, but apparently the tomato part hadn’t been clear to him, or else he thought it was high praise too. He didn’t sound very sober either.

After we hung up, I took Rat upstairs and got him ready for bed. He was so wound up and excited. I told him what Uncle Mornay had said, embellishing it to make it sound even better. My kid brother had guts and talents, and though I was scared for both his and my survival when we went back to school the next week, I was very proud of him. The hug he gave me when I tucked him in warmed my heart.

Maybe it would be all right after all.

Two hours later, just when I was shutting down my computer and getting into my pajamas, Marta burst into my room. “Nice ass,” she said. “Can’t you ever knock!” I shouted. As she giggled, I hurriedly pulled my pants back on, dying inside. When I turned around she was on to the next subject already. “I know who that was, and he no longer has a future.”

“Who?” (Back up a minute; my ass is nice? What did she know about boys’ behinds?)

“Ted the Plug,” Marta went on excitedly, rubbing her hands together with maniacal glee. “And he’s going to be a plug with a hole in his head.” She was steaming mad now and threw herself down on my bed. “Hey, is your dick starting to grow yet? You got pubic hair?” she went on, quicker than I could – or wanted to – keep up.

My next question died in my throat. Why couldn’t she just be a normal sister and not want to even talk to me at all? None of my friends had sisters who liked them. “I, uh…” I squeaked and could not go on. I gulped and really looked at her. Her cheeks were red and not just with cold. Her eyes were frosty as well. She had a look of determination on her face that I had not seen in three years, not since

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Ted the Plug had tied a tin can onto one of our cats’ tail. You’d have thought he’d have known better than to piss off my sister after what she had done to him then. And no, I can’t tell you because she swore me to secrecy, and the statute of limitations hadn’t expired yet.

We were both quiet a moment and could hear Rat singing his prayers. I wasn’t sure whether to cry with the beauty of it or cringe.

Marta sat there idly rubbing her breasts. I was kind of grossed out. She saw me staring and said, “Oh don’t look so freaked. You’ll be doing this yourself soon enough. Just don’t steal any of my girlfriends, ok? I mean, when you’re old enough.”

My eyes got so round and wide I thought she would surely notice, but she didn’t; she just sat there staring off into space, thinking evil thoughts. I had to look away. Breasts? Me? Ever? Nuh uh, which made me want to ask myself a question, but I didn’t. Now wasn’t the right time. Maybe never was the right time.

“You know, these things can be used as a magnet, or as a weapon,” she mused, cupping her breasts and looking down at them with pride. Then she caught me gaping again, and dropped her hands to her hips. “Hmmm. What would you do,” she asked me suddenly, “if dealing with Ted were up to you?”

Me? I thought of how much animal poop I had to scoop up every spring when the snow melted. I thought of mucking out the stables sometimes. I thought there might be a use for some of that stuff… and I grinned and said, “What kind of car does Ted drive?”

And that’s why we were out after midnight on New Year’s Eve, with plastic bags over our shoulders hushing each other and whispering things like ‘Walk quietly!’ and ‘Will you stop that giggling?’ and ‘Oh crap, this shit stinks!’

It was truly a beautiful night, cold but not icy cold, the sky clear enough for many stars to show, but with enough clouds to keep it warm enough to breathe. I could tell I was breathing; I could see the damn stuff, and my eyes were watering from the load on my back. It was less than a mile to Ted’s house and when we got there it was dark and silent. His car was parked out front and glory be, unlocked. We stood in the street and Marta opened the back door with her gloved hands. Some of the contents of our bags was still warm… which was a good thing, because once it all froze it would have been too easy to

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remove and too odorless. Ah well, we did the best we could, and some of the animals had been very cooperative, if you know what I mean.

We dumped our bags and snicked the door shut again, trying our hardest to be quiet and not break into hysterical laughter.

We were very content on our walk back home, and we sneaked in the back door with no problem, parting outside our rooms with muffled giggles. I love my sister so much.

Mom was not in the kitchen when I finally dragged myself down there around 11 am. I was starving; all that fresh air the night before, you know, makes a boy have an appetite. Nobody was in the kitchen. I went in the living room where Dad was watching TV and reading the paper, or trying to, as three cats were on his lap ‘helping’.

He said mom didn’t feel well and to fix myself something to eat. I ran upstairs and got my new cookbook and returned to the kitchen. The hell with the Susie bake oven. I was in a real kitchen now. You snooze, you lose, Mom, I thought wickedly.

Uncle Mornay had marked some of the recipes that were easy and I looked them over and checked to see which one we might have all the ingredients for. There were two; a quiche, whatever that was, and cheese-cake. It was hard to choose between the two but the cheesecake looked easier, plus it said ‘cake’.

As I got out all the ingredients, I discovered why Mom didn’t want us in the kitchen. Behind the flour there was a big bottle of gin.

Under the sugar was a box of wine. In a large pot I’d never seen Mom use were empty tiny bottles of various liquors like brandy and bourbon, whatever those were, and they were all empty.

I almost laughed. So this was her secret? I had better secrets than that, and I hadn’t even really told them to myself yet! It’s not like we’d never seen her drink before!

Getting back to work, I turned on the radio to the rock station.

Nobody bothered me, and I set to work. It was so easy; the hard part came when I read the instructions about having to wait a couple hours for it to set or whatever. So I looked up another recipe and did that. It was an old, old one. I got to this one page and couldn’t go any farther; this was it, this had so many delicious sounding ingredients. It was called “Mulligatawny - a rich soup flavored with curry.” Whatever curry was, we had some, it was with the other spices. The directions

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read: “Make some good gravy with the coarse parts of a fowl, strain off clear two hours before dinner, fry the remainder of the fowl, cut into pieces with an onion sliced very fine, one and a half dessertspoonfuls of vinegar, a cup of bourbon and a little ketchup. Mix all smoothly together, and stew till dinner time. Serve with rice. This soup is just as good made with rabbit.”

Well I wasn’t about to go kill a chicken or a bunny, though we had some of both in the barn. It wouldn’t be a good meal if Dad killed me, you know? But I saw some canned chicken in the pantry and started off with that. There was gravy leftover from Christmas and I got that. Then the ketchup and the vinegar and bourbon and a hefty dose of curry. Oh yeah and the onion and a carrot and an apple. Those I didn’t cut up or anything, just rinsed off and threw them in the pot with the rest. Gave it a big stir and set it on the stove to ‘bring it to a boil’.

AND I cleaned up after myself and only broke one dish, AND I cleaned that up too. This all wore me out so I got the cheesecake out of the fridge, got a spoon, and had at it, and OMG was it good!

I turned the burner down to let the soup simmer until supper time. It must have smelled good because Marta came in, saw me with the cheesecake, got a spoon and joined me. “It’s still kind of runny,” she said, not that it slowed her down any, “But it’s great. Did you make this?” I was so proud. We ate about half of it and decided to save the rest for dessert tonight, after the soup. After Marta left to go to a friend’s house, I added some more spices to the pot, and something called ‘Grand Marnier”, which spilled so all of it went in. It made the soup a little more watery but I figured it was soup, after all, and if a little was good, a lot would be even better, right? Cooking was so easy; I didn’t understand why Mom had never let me cook anything before, well, duh, except for the booze.

Tomorrow, we would go back to school. The only reason I was looking forward to it was to hear what was being said about Ted the Plug and his smelly car.

Well, the less said about dinner, the better. Nobody liked it.

Dad pretended the top of his head blew off. He claimed it was ‘just a tad too HOT!’ Marta tried to feed hers to the dogs, but they wouldn’t even try it. Mom had a couple big bites and then bolted to the kitchen sink where she started drinking water with her head tilted, right from

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the tap. Then she said, feebly I might add, “That was de - de - hahaha!” and went back to bed. Rat liked it. Or at least, he said he did. His bowl was clean anyhow, though oddly enough, by the next day the large houseplant behind him was dead. To be honest, I didn’t care for it much either, but with Mom gone and Dad already having gone back into the living room with a can of beer in each hand, the leftover cheesecake only had to be split three ways, and Marta, Rat and I loved it. I talked to Uncle Mornay on the phone later, and he said the recipe was probably just too old for my family’s modern-day tastes. He always had the nicest things to say. No wonder I loved him so much. I thought I heard him gulp when I mentioned the bottle of Grand Marnier, though I don’t know why.

Marta and I ate the most of our soup, and it was a very jolly evening that the two of us shared, I think. I remember giggling a lot but not why.

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Chapter Three

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_________________ JANUARY SCHOOL When I started to get dressed the next morning, none of the clothes I had worn before vacation fit me! Even my shoes were too tight. What the heck had happened to me? I was standing there in my too-tight underwear and when I looked down, realized it wasn’t just that the underwear was too small because my butt and hips had grown, but my dick at ease was bigger too. I pulled my waistband out and peeked at myself; yup. Nothing to be ashamed of there! For the first time in my life, I was almost looking forward to the showers after gym class. Will you look at that, I thought proudly, and there’s all that new curly hair too!

When I went down for breakfast with my ‘floods’ and my too tight shirt, Mom took one look and said, “Yeah, we’ll go to the mall this coming weekend. It figures. Overnight…”

Rat was smiling, and that worried me. He usually hated school.

His backpack looked unusually full. I told myself I did not want to know. Marta looked terrific. She hadn’t seen Thelma in four days and was ready to see her in the showers after gym class too, if you know what I mean. And of course, we couldn’t wait to hear about Ted the Plug.

When we got to the bus stop, most of the other kids were already there, but the bus wasn’t due for a while yet. It was barely light out. I hated standing out there in the cold, shivering yet trying to look cool. It never worked anyhow. Nobody looks cool shivering and with a nose all red and dripping.

All conversation ceased the minute the three of us walked up.

That bothered me. That stopped bothering me when I heard a noise behind me, turned around, and there were the two sheep Dad had taken in. Oh crap! And here came the bus.

I rolled my eyes. Marta just smiled sympathetically. She’d taken the animals home the last time. They did this every other week or so. Dad never seemed to get around to fixing the broken latch. I think I was willing to kill him this time. I could feel everyone on the

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bus staring as I took the sheep by the collars and started for home.

They’d follow me anyhow, but this looked less dorky. The bus roared away without me. I pictured the kids roaring with laughter too.

Too bad. I’d have to miss the first and possibly second hour classes. Ha-ha. And Dad would have to drive me. When the bus turned the corner I let go of the sheep’s collars and they followed me like obedient little – sheep.

The walk back home was very freeing. It gave me ideas for the future. I could now foresee a large number of days of skipping school on purpose. I almost wanted to thank the sheep for giving me this opportunity. I marked this day in my mind as one of the great turning points of my life. Hadn’t I just taken over the kitchen and produced my first meal (such as it was, bleagh). I could do anything! I was invincible! It must be the curry that makes a man out of a boy, or else curly hair around his saint peter.

I have a little question for you. Do you believe everything I’ve written here? Is it my autobiography for real, a totally made-up story, or half and half? I could write anything here and you wouldn’t know the difference. I could be anything at all in this story. I could be perfect! Remember, I told you in the very first line that this was a fictional auto-biography. Or is it? Maybe that sentence is the untrue part. However it is, I am what I am, or maybe, I am not. Which do you think?

Nobody was home when I got there. I put the sheep back in the barn and made sure the gates and doors were all firmly shut as well.

Dad is such an airhead sometimes, but at least this time it was to my advantage. I wondered briefly where he was. Mom was at work, or should be. I went into the house to warm up and decide what to do.

Food – yeah, second breakfast sounded good, so with my new found self-given kitchen privilege, I made eggs which turned into something I’ll call Eggs Bryn. Like Eggs Benedict only with hot fudge sauce. Hey, don’t laugh; it was great. Needed ice cream though; maybe next time.

Then the mysterious world of mothers, dads and sisters popped into my mind. What exactly was new in Dad’s underwear drawer where he occasionally kept girly magazines, only ‘for the articles’ I’m sure. And did Mom have any new silky underwear or had Rat snagged it all? And Marta – well, all she ever had was pictures of

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girls. She sometimes had Dad’s old Playboy magazines. I didn’t want to look at boobs and satin nightgowns anyhow. I wanted to look at….

The doorbell rang. Holy shit! And there I was getting a hard on. Should I answer it? The knob was rattling. Someone banged on the door harder. I started to get scared. Then a voice I sort of knew shouted, “We know you’re in there! Open the fucking door. I’m going to fucking kill your fucking ass for what you did!”

Scared for real now, I peeked out the living room window and saw Ted the Plug’s car sitting out in the middle of our driveway with all the windows rolled down. And then I remembered the kitchen door was unlocked… mostly I remembered this because it opened and Ted’s best friend Warren burst in. Remembering I had feet that weren’t glued to the floor, I turned and ran for the stairs. Behind me the front door burst open. Shit, Dad was not going to like that, cars in his driveway, busted doors, shit. If I lived through this there was going to be a lot of trouble. However, right now, I had to make some split second decisions such as, where the hell was I going to hide and should I? What would they do to the house? My stuff? My sister’s stuff?

Dad’s gun. Yes! I ran into my parents’ room and ripped open his nightstand drawer. Yes, there is was. Quickly I jammed a cartridge into the – whatchamacallit. Relax, it’s only a tranquilizer gun, he’s a vet, remember? Luckily an animal vet and not a Vietnam vet, ha-ha.

I heard the two boys swearing death and dismemberment and clumping up the stairs, and coolly I blew on the gun as if I’d already shot it, and strolled out onto the landing, thinking of that old urban legend where you go, “Coming up one step, coming up two steps, GOTCHA!” and stood there drawing down on them. “Halt or I’ll shoot!” I shouted.

Ted stopped so quickly that Warren ran right into his back and slid to his knees. I hoped he’d fall all the way down the stairs, but he grabbed Ted’s pants and held on. Ted’s pants did not. “I’ll fucking kill you!” Ted shouted, lunging for me. He would have reached me if it hadn’t been for Warren’s desperate clutch.

When I shot him, his pants were around his ankles. The dart took him right in the shoulder and he screamed like a little girl, or well, like my little brother screaming like a little girl. “I’m hit!” he

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cried, clutching his shoulder, and then they both went down the stairs in a huge, jolting, cursing, thudding wad of arms and legs and – oh geez – urine.

And the front door opened again. I saw Marta step in with her friend Thelma holding her arm. “You know what,” Marta said, sighing with resignation. “Let’s go get something to eat. Suddenly I’m not horny after all.” And they left; they left me there alone with the smoking gun. Sort of. That bitch, I thought incredulously.

Then I started to laugh. I laughed all the way back into Dad’s bedroom, put the dart gun away, and dialed the police. The truth; the truth would be the best thing, sort of. A fictional truth, if you will.

“Yes, I was home from school because the sheep followed me to the bus stop – yes, I said “sheep”, you know, like ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb?’ Yeah, and when I brought them back I came in the house and then I saw these guys on the stairs and one of them had my dad’s gun” (would I have time to wipe my fingerprints off it before the cops came?) “and – yeah, the front door is open, I’m hiding under the bed” (or I will be by the time you guys get here. No, don’t ask me how I got by them, OK?) It was starting to sound like a comedy skit. The door opened again. I heard Dad’s shout, “What’s going on in here!” and moaning, lots of moaning. I yelled into the phone, “My dad’s here! I’m saved!” hung up, ran out onto the landing, and cried, “Dad! Thank God you’re here!” Then I went back in the bedroom and calmly wiped my fingerprints off Dad’s gun.

The cops arrived, an ambulance was called, Dad was trying not to hyperventilate, and I was doing my very best Frightened Innocent Little Boy act of all time.

When I dared to come downstairs, Dad was all over me making sure I wasn’t hurt, making sure the chocolate on my shirt wasn’t blood, thanking me for bringing home the sheep, assuring me that he would, finally and forever, fix the damn latch so it wouldn’t happen again. When the cops left, the ambulance took Ted and Warren off to the hospital with broken legs, arms, whatever, and Dad went to the bathroom. I was still a little shocky, but my main thought was, holy shit, Ted’s dick is huge. Which, unfortunately, led me to acknowledge a truth I could no longer deny. You might say I now

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knew what I wanted to look at online. Porn, lots of porn, porn filled with dicks, and only dicks. No breasts allowed.

I tried the words out in my head. I’m g..g..g.. gay. It didn’t feel too bad, actually. I didn’t turn lavender (ha-ha), and the universe did not explode. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anyone else that or speak it out loud, though. But on the inside? I think I was relieved, not, you know, ragingly happy about it or anything, but just relieved to let it be. I had told myself, and it was OK. I’d also shot somebody, but that felt good too. There was no am or am not or fiction about that fact. I was what I was; G.A.Y.

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As I Am

Chapter Four

Emery C. Walters

_________________ BAD BOYS There was a big argument outside after a while when the tow truck driver told the cops he refused to tow anything that smelled that bad. They all took turns opening and then immediately slamming the doors of Ted’s car. Finally Ted’s dad had to come over. He opened and slammed the door, slipped a pair of twenties into outstretched hands, and towed Ted’s car off himself, probably back to their own house. I never did see it again, so maybe not. Ted’s dad had been to school with my dad, and they hadn’t liked each other then, either. Dad refused to go outside while the guy was there, unless he could take his gun, but the cops had taken it. I was so glad I’d wiped my fingerprints off it. Too bad I hadn’t been able to put Ted or Warren’s on it, though.

Nothing’s perfect, I suppose, but things were good enough just as they were.

I could see Dad at war with himself, wanting to go out in the barn with the animals, wanting to fix the latch while he was still fired up about it, and knowing he should take me to school first. I told him if he let me stay home to recuperate… After all the horror I’d been through… Uh oh, he was looking at me funny now. Well, I would stay in my room and rest (look at porn online). Nope, he was taking me to school; nothing should interfere with the importance of education, blah, blah and blah. He told me we’d leave in half an hour so I could get cleaned up and calmed down. I ran upstairs and spent ten minutes on my computer, and then twenty minutes in the bathroom. And I was indeed, cleaned up and calmed down… Thanks to the wonders of modern technology. I could hardly wait to get to school so it would be over and I could come home and get calmed down again.

Oh. My. God. Yeah, I missed first and second hour classes, but I got there just in time for third… gym class. Locker rooms. Showers.

Naked boys. I didn’t know whether I was terrified or enchanted. What if I... What if I… what if my being gay showed, if you get the idea?

Fortunately I was so terrified that nothing ‘showed’. Showering after class, however, I noticed one of the guys looking at me strangely. He

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wasn’t looking at my face, by the way. I’d never really noticed him before because he was quite shy. His name was Derek and shy or not, he was damn cute. Cute? Suddenly I had to dress quickly. I had to turn my back and dress quickly. So much for terror doing its job. When I turned around again, he was standing with his back toward me, fixing his belt or something. Is this the kind of thing Marta went through in her gym classes? And what the hell was poor little Rat going to do when he got to this age? I thought maybe I’d have to take up karate so I could beat up anyone who laughed at him or threw tomatoes at him.

Putting animal poop in someone’s car might not always be the best answer, you know?

Study hall. Derek was already sitting at a desk in the corner of the room. I just bluntly went over and sat down with him. Didn’t even look around and pretend there was nowhere else to sit. I just sat there.

He was reading a book on Ninjutsu, hidden inside a larger book. The coincidence was too much for me, and I found myself babbling about my brother and his girlishness and how I’d just thought maybe I should take up self-defense… Blah, blah and blah. Holy hell! The floodgates were open now, just like the closet door.

He looked up at me from beneath the longest, fullest eyelashes I had ever seen. His eyes, dark brown like my own (how I’d wished for mine to be blue or green, something exotic, but now? Who cared!)

“You could come to my Dojo,” Derek said with a wistful smile. “And your brother really should come too. Especially if he – he likes to dance and all. Besides the self-defense I mean, which really any kid should take, and well, it makes you graceful.” His own babbling died, and he blushed.

O.M.G. My heart flipped. My dick stood up and cheered. I could hardly breathe. Clunk. That was the sound of me falling hard.

We both tried to look at each other without getting caught, but we both got caught, and we both grinned and looked away and back again. The porn I’d looked at earlier came rushing back into my head. I wanted to throw him under the table and … or maybe not, sure, that stuff had done the trick but it was still kind of gross. He squirmed. So did I… A distraction, I needed a distraction, but not the one that came.

Someone came over to our table and stood behind me. He tapped my

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shoulder. I almost jumped out of my skin. Derek’s eyes shifted and narrowed. I turned, and found Ted’s brother Walter standing behind me, looking as mean as he could. At 300 pounds and 5’10” tall already, he looked almost more ridiculous than mean, but he could still squash you to death if he sat on you.

“I hear you shot my brother and pushed him down the stairs.

What you got to say to that, asshole?”

Asshole, porn, Derek… come on distraction! I stood up to my full 5’4” or whatever it was since my Christmas break growth spurt. I looked Walter right square in the chest. There was a stain on his shirt right at my eye level. When Walter’s arm shot out it was so fast I didn’t even see it coming - the first I knew was his fat fist stopping in midair inches from my nose. As I backed up and was able to focus, I saw Derek’s hand firmly and steadily bending Walter’s thumb back, and pushing his arm aside. Walter’s eyes were wide and his mouth an ‘O’ with pain. I don’t know what came over me but I took the opportunity to stomp on Walter’s foot as hard as I could, and there was a very satisfying crunching sound echoed by his scream.

By the time the librarian and her two senior student aides got there, it was all over. Walter was shaking and pointing and swearing.

Derek and I exchange a furtive smile, and then we all got hauled out to the principal’s office. This is how it went.

“Walter Hess Pflug, for God’s sake, you again?”

“Derek West, oh, you’re Doreen’s brother; how’s she doing at M.I.T.?

Will she be Valedictorian there too?

“Bryn Lawrence, remember when your dad saved my horse’s life?

What did Walter do to you?”

When we went to lunch, Derek and I sat together. Walter had been sent to the hospital with a broken foot and a badly sprained thumb. Derek and I sat next to each other with our backs to the room.

Some other kids came over and sat with us but kept their distance. We could see they were just outcasts, so it was OK, in fact, I thought, maybe this is where I belonged. Suddenly my group of best friends didn’t seem so wonderful anymore, as I remembered all the gay jokes they had yold and how much they – all right, we – used to verbally

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abuse the new kids, the different kids, even the special ed kids. I was suddenly ashamed.

I’d like to say that right then and there my whole life changed for the better and that I turned and talked to the weird kids sitting with us, but even I can’t write that much fiction. I did nod and smile at a few of them when I caught them looking at me, but mostly I kept my eyes on my lunch, and on Derek. I was afraid to talk openly, with all the other people around; so I just asked him about his Dojo and where it was, stuff like that. I asked him if he’d like to come out and see the sheep. He nodded and said he loved sheep. Other than that I have no memory of anything else we talked about, just of how full of life his eyes were, how beautiful his eye lashes were, and I think I was eating cardboard. I have no idea what I ate for lunch that day. All I know is I was seeing him tomorrow here at school and then I was, assuming Dad still thought I was traumatized and needed distraction or something, going to be with Derek at his Dojo on Friday, and on Saturday he was coming over to my house to see the sheep. And maybe my new computer. And maybe what I could find on my new computer.

The bell rang, and I could not stand up. Yeah, I’d definitely outgrown my pants.

I made it to my next class, barely in time. We had a substitute; she was hunched over at the desk, rocking back and forth in fear. I didn’t think we’d learn much this hour. As I slid into my seat near the back of the room, my friend Mark slid in beside me. I looked up when I heard the sub say for us to read chapter twelve. I’d already read chapters twelve and thirteen, so I relaxed. Mark didn’t bother writing me a note on the paper he had pulled out. He just leaned over and spoke softly, “I saw you eating lunch with that dorky kid, whatshisname. You know he’s a fag, right?”

I looked him right in the eyes and when I’d caught my breath, replied tersely, “Yes, I do.”

He nodded. “OK then. It’s just that the guys were talking, you know. I told them to shut their traps, that you were probably just trying to be nice. I wanted to tell you they’re gossiping though. I thought you should know… But, uh, you know, if you… if you want to tell me anything… I’ll still be your friend.”

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Mark was sweating, and his cheeks were red. I didn’t know if I was ready to tell him ‘anything’ or not.

“You don’t have to tell me anything at all, but if you want to, I’m OK, you know, with... whatever.” He cleared his throat. I watched his Adam’s apple bob, and he turned his frank blue eyes on me, almost scowling, breathing fast. “It’s just that I found out today that my brother… Frank… he’s, um, he’s dating some guy up in college.”

My heart warmed to him. I couldn’t speak, so I just patted his arm, and even that felt, well, gay. A smile split my face though, and his eyes lit up. I think I had tears in my eyes. I know he did. And then we talked about other things. And I couldn’t resist, I admitted what we’d done to Ted’s car and swore him to secrecy. I told him about the dart gun and them falling and everything. I even told him about Marta. And then, then I told him about – me. And you know what? He just nodded, and it felt good. I felt warmth flood through me. Relief, or something, I knew instinctively that not everyone I told would react that way, but to have my very first one respond so well? I can’t tell you how much that meant to me, that my best friend was OK with me being exactly what I am.

Everyone already knew about my little brother. The show tune performance had cinched it. His fate was sealed. If he didn’t get beat up and killed, he was going to be an outcast for life. Unless… well I’d have to ask Uncle Mornay how to handle it. He’d have some ideas.

The substitute teacher was talking. Nobody was listening until she held up a box. “Doughnuts,” she called out. “Who wants doughnuts?” And of course, we all did. “Yes it’s a bribe,” she laughed.

“Don’t even ask!” Right then the whole doughnut thing made me realize something. My home, my family – me – substitute teachers – none of it was what it looked like on the surface. It reminded me of when I was little and my sister would say I was a dope, I would say hotly, “AM NOT!” Or if mom was there, I’d say, “I’m not a dope, amn’t I not?” which didn’t make much sense, I suppose, but that’s what I said. Huh. I’d have to stop having all these insights; my head was getting too full. I took a second doughnut and smiled at the teacher, who really was OK, just a brand new teacher, not much older than we were. There was no way I could hate having her there, now. I wondered if my sister would think she was hot.

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As I Am

Emery C. Walters

Most of the time, Marta and I ignored each other on the school bus ride home, due to the fact that it picked up the younger kids after we bigger kids got on. It was usually packed; so the younger kids had to sit three in a seat up near the front. Today, I already knew Marta wasn’t going to be on the bus. I sat down, some random kid sat beside me (we ignored each other completely), and the bus took off. At the grade school, I watched idly to see when Rat would get on and if he was talking to anyone. He never got on. I had an instant bad feeling, I don’t know why; other times when this had happened, he’d had a dentist appointment or something. Today a shiver went down my spine, and I leapt to my feet, pushed my way to the front of the bus, and got off.

The school yard was emptying rapidly. Two other buses left and a parade of Moms and Dads drove away, each with one or two kids inside the car with them. I’d always thought picking up your kid to keep them safe only made it more dangerous for all the kids, with all the cars and people getting annoyed and kids all running amok, but then, the universe never asked for my opinion, did it. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had a doctor appointment and I was being stupid for nothing, but I had to check. I wished Uncle Mornay had gotten me a cell phone but my parents were against them. Mom said they caused cancer. Dad was just too cheap.

It was twenty minutes before I found him. He’d been stuffed into his locker and left there. Thank God I’d had that feeling. The way he’d been jammed in there, he might have suffocated. As it was, when I pulled him out of there, I had to support him, and he threw up and almost passed out. When he was done being sick, I wiped his mouth and took him into the bathroom. Screw the mess in the hall. Fuck it.

When he was cleaned up better and had had some sips of water, he threw himself against me and cried like a four year old. I knelt there and held him, and he felt so small against me. If – no, when – I found out who had done this, I’d kill them. The grade school went up to sixth grade, and some of those kids were huge compared to the younger kids, like Rat. Ted Pflug, aka Ted the Plug, and his brother Walter, had another younger brother named Bill, who was in sixth grade, I think.

When I asked Rat who had done it though, he wouldn’t tell me.

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The bathroom door opened and one of the few male teachers came in. I think he taught second grade. Marta had had him at one point. Mr… Uh, Mr. Wiley? He knelt down beside us and turned Rat around to look at him. “Are you OK, dear?” he asked, as if he were an old grandma and not a young man.

Rat nodded but set off to crying again anyway, and folded up against Mr. Wiley even closer than he had to me. Beep-beep-beep went my inner warning system, not in a bad way, but more in what they call a ‘gaydar’ way. This was not a bad thing. Especially not when the teacher’s eyes met mine across Rat’s buried head. His eyes were the most beautiful blue I had ever seen. His face was cleanly shaven and as smooth as a girl’s. If there was a stereotypical gay man, this was him, and I liked it. Rat began to mumble and then blurt through his tears. I managed to stand up before my knees broke. Mr. Wiley seemed perfectly at ease with a sobbing child attached to him.

My brother sounded like he was four years old as he hiccupped and sniffed against Mr. Wiley’s formerly clean suit coat. I knew all too well what he’d sounded like at four years old, because he’d been pushed off the top of the slide by some kid when he was four, and I was the only one of us to see it. I was the only one who ran to him and held him while he spluttered and cried, more scared than hurt, luckily.

I was only eight or nine years old myself then, but when he was OK enough to run off to find our mother, I hauled the kid who’d pushed him off to one side and threatened to break his little fucking neck for him. I wouldn’t have done it – couldn’t have done it anyhow – but it felt good to scare him, even though I was the one who got in trouble later. It figures.

Right now I was wondering if Rat was talking just loud enough that I would be able to hear him, or if he’d completely forgotten I was even here. I have to admit, I was relieved that an adult was here this time. Rat was being bullied. It had been going on all year. And it was getting worse. By the time he got around to today’s misadventures, he was sobbing again. Can a kid his age have a nervous breakdown?

Because he was completely engulfed in sadness, and the last thing he said was, “I wish I was dead.” Mr. Wiley looked up at me with troubled eyes, and I felt like an adult myself right then, for the first time, serious and sober and capable, though of what, I had no idea. It

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was still, as far as I knew, illegal to kill children, no matter how mean and ignorant they may be.

I was beginning to get confused about myself, OK, gay, that’s fine, but what was I? A kid myself, or now a member of the adult world, where I had to be mature for my baby brother and know what to do for him, which compared to Mr. Wiley, I most certainly did not.

Apparently, I was both.

Mr. Wiley did have a cell phone and called our house, but of course, nobody picked up. He left a message and told me he was going to drive us home, assuming that was OK with me. It certainly was. I couldn’t get enough of looking at the man, let alone how much I valued his comforting my brother – and how lost I would feel if I had to walk home alone with this sobbing, snuffling little boy.

When we got to the house I realized I’d left my backpack on the bus. I did not have a door key – and – of course, nobody was home. There were no lights on in the barn. Nothing. Nada. Mr. Wiley was getting a bit annoyed. I thought for sure he must want to get home to his own family (if he had one; did he have one?) and get rid of us, but instead he just said, “How about we go get something to eat and then I’ll call the bus barn and see if we can get your backpack.”

My brother’s eyes lit up – he was always on for a meal – and so I said yes. Why the hell not, actually, but I didn’t say that part out loud. I sort of understood that Mr. Wiley was taking a chance, he might get in trouble or something, but I didn’t know what else to do. I heard him mutter, “I’m not leaving you poor kids out in the cold in your yard, not after what you’ve been through today.” Oh God, he may look soft, but his face flushed and his voice was as determined as I’d ever heard one, and I liked that a lot.

We got to the restaurant, a nice family one we’d been to before and enjoyed. He asked if we had any other family around, and I immediately thought of Uncle Mornay; he’d know what to do… but would he or my parents be upset if I called him? Not that I really knew how to reach him. Enough, I thought; my parents were going to give me information on how to contact him and that was that. Even if he was just a ‘funny uncle’, sort of, he was still the only extended family we had, as far as I knew. I mentioned his name to Mr. Wiley as the waitress said hello and took our orders. I asked for a burger and fries –

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I know, how typical – and Rat asked for scallops au gratin, a dish I had never heard of before and had no idea what it was, nor did I particularly want to. Mr. Wiley smiled – and ordered the same thing.

Rat had the nerve to ask if he could have a ‘Shirley Temple’ – what the hell? Who? I had a Coke. Mr. Wiley had coffee. I bet myself he’d rather have a beer, or no, wait, a glass of wine or a martini. Isn’t that what gay men drank? Certainly not beer! Did they?

When the drinks came Mr. Wiley took out his cell phone – a fancy one – and looked up my Uncle Mornay on it. He apparently found something, for he punched in some numbers, and I could hear it ringing! I choked on my Coke; I was that surprised. Trying to cover that up made me feel definitely uncool, but when I heard my uncle’s booming voice answer, tinny or not, it boomed, I had to wipe away the sudden spurt of tears that came to my eyes. I’d never realized it would be so easy to find him; all this time. I felt stupid, but now I knew, and it only made me feel stronger than I had been.

Mr. Wiley turned his head so I couldn’t hear him. Rat was playing with his drink, hoisting it with one dainty little finger crooked into the air, talking some pretend game to himself. I wished I was still young enough to do that. He looked so serene.

The food came. Mr. Wiley hung up and started asking the usual questions adults ask kids, only he went a bit further with them and drew us out, and he really listened. He asked about my sister and how she was, and I thought, you know what, I bet she’s over at Thelma’s, and I said that out loud and Mr. Wiley dug out his phone again.

We’d gotten to dessert, and I was starting to feel OK again. Rat had cheesecake, and I had a piece of chocolate cream pie. Mr. Wiley had something called sorbet. I thought about his choice. Would I have to give up chocolate cream pie and hamburgers? How old did I have to be before I had to act gay? What did they say about the ‘gay lifestyle’? What was that all about, food and drink? That couldn’t be all, could it? Suits? Was there an instruction manual? That thought made me laugh. If there wasn’t, there should be.

“We’ll pick up your sister on the way home,” Mr. Wiley said in that same, strong manner. “Your folks should show up sometime, hopefully… but you know what? I want you to call me if they’re not

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back by ten or eleven. Would you do that for me please?” His blue eyes had deepened, and his cheeks looked rouged, with a gorgeous blush showing up high on his gorgeous cheekbones.

He sounded so serious though that I nodded, but then immediately got real concerned. Would they be in trouble? Were they already in trouble? Were they lying hurt somewhere? Just when we got up to leave, I thought I heard my mother’s laugh. I looked around, startled, but didn’t see… wait, wait, back in the corner by the pay phone, that woman… all I could see was a scrap of fabric, a paisley print that looked very familiar. There was some guy seated with the woman, some guy I didn’t know. And then I saw the woman’s hair, the same dark red as my own, and I knew. I knew but I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. It was my mother.

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