Driftwood Dragon
By Emery C. Walters
Published by Queerteen Press
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Copyright 2014 Emery C. Walters
ISBN 9781611526097
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America. Queerteen Press is an imprint of JMS Books LLC.
* * * *
Driftwood Dragon
By Emery C. Walters
The last thing my father said to me before he shipped out overseas was, if I persisted with this drama of thinking I’m gay, it would kill my mother like a dragon breathing fire on her. So of course I had to build a dragon.
I hadn’t intended to build a dragon. It’s just that after he’d moved us here to the island the base was on, he’d left. I had no friends here, couldn’t take my music lessons anymore, and there was nothing to do and no way to get to it if there had been. We lived just off base, off the bus lines, close to a rocky strip of coastline where the water was too cold for swimming or surfing, and I knew nobody at all.
I couldn’t get a job and there was nowhere I could even volunteer. Staying home with my mother until school started was a no-go. She was too crazy, IMHO. Other people thought she was fine. The other problem was she missed my sister, and her own sister too, because back in the city we’d lived only about a mile away, and Mom had the car every day. Not that she needed it; we could walk everywhere or take the bus. Plus, we had two cars and Dad didn’t need his every day. So my sister, being older as well as ‘the responsible one’, could drive the second one sometimes, and I, being just turned seventeen, should have been able to, but Dad hadn’t wanted me to go ‘out on my own’ yet and neither Sis nor Mom would go with me. They weren’t trying to be mean (they said), but they were just both so busy, you know.
So we moved. Sis, being eighteen, stayed in the city, moving in with Mom’s sister. She started community college and smoking pot at the same time; well, she may have had a head start on the pot. I could smell it from her room sometimes. It gave me migraines. I’d make a lousy doper. Once Sis had slipped me marijuana-laced brownies and I’d been sick for three days. She was disgusted with me. Mom was offended because we couldn’t tell her what had done it so Sis said it was probably something I ate, which translated into something Mom cooked. Nobody else was sick so Dad figured I must have a test at school or something and just wanted to get out of it. Nobody in their right mind makes up vomiting as a school excuse and I was in no way bulimic, just sick. Being sick made me sick! No, seriously, even if you just talk about someone else who is throwing up, my stomach decides that a full in-house cleaning is just what it wants. Either direction, or both, move it out, folks!
Gah, enough. I’m trying to stop looking at what I can’t do and look at what I can do, which is lie here and complain. No, come on, self, you can do better than that. I could go for a walk or clean my desk or finish unpacking my clothes and stuff. Oh hell, Mom just turned on her Celtic music. I’m going for a walk.
Summer? Does the sun ever come out? I know it ‘rains all the time in Seattle’ but who cared? Besides, it was mostly mist. But here? Ugh. It’s cold and the wind is cold and I’m wearing my jacket. And shorts. Fuck this, it’s summer. I’m walking on a beach that’s colder than our old vacation beach was in winter but I refuse to wear jeans in summer.
Our vacation home was in Hawaii. FML.
You know what I had left from our last vacation? My tan, my muscles, happy memories, a not so happy encounter with a wave too big for my skills, aka, scars, and a wonderful encounter with my gay ER nurse who not only stitched my leg up, but…well, let’s just say we got together a few times after that north of the nude beach, okay?
I, uh, I miss him.
I usually walk north but today, with the tide out as far as it was, I walked south. I hadn’t been this way before. About half a mile along, I came to an old cemetery, up a short, maybe six foot high bluff, twenty feet or so above the high tide line. I pulled myself up and stood there, astounded. It was completely overgrown with weeds and wildflowers, with trees taking root over some of the headstones, vines climbing up some of the monuments. There was one those—what do they call it, little building, where the dead are put inside. The door was open. I didn’t go in. I was drawn to a couple of toppled steles that were falling over the side of the bluff. They had Japanese writing on them. I hoped there weren’t any bones or anything sticking out. Some of the dates on the stones were over a hundred years old, and many were of children. Their stones had little lambs and Bible verses on them. There was one where the child—infant, really—had died the same day it was born. That took my mind right back to last year when Sis had made me take her for an abortion. All I did was drive and keep my mouth shut, before, during and after, not even defending myself when the other people in the waiting room cast horrid glances at me, accusation in their eyes, presuming I was the father. I was horribly embarrassed but I knew it had to be ten times worse for Sis. By the way, we call her Sis because she wants us to, because she hates her name. I like her name. If I were a girl, I’d want to be called Gertrude Primrose too, wouldn’t you?
I knew I’d never tell her about the little gravestone by my feet.
* * * *
I turned and walked back onto the beach, leaping down the six feet like I really hadn’t a clue that I couldn’t fly. Of course I landed hard and fell onto my knee, where the scar from my surf encounter still stood out. That made me miss my boyfriend. Then I sat on the dry sand, and had a major pity party for myself.
How had I not known the tide was coming in? What did it matter? In Hawaii there was only about a two foot tide. I hadn’t realized that here it was as much as ten. It came in fast, the beach disappearing almost as I watched. I was momentarily visited by the dead-fairy, the maybe I’ll die and then they’ll be sorry they moved here fairy. I had to laugh at myself. What a dope.
Then, just because I could, I gathered up all the driftwood and started piling it up, trying to build a mausoleum—that’s the word I wanted before—for myself, or maybe it would be just a dog house, I don’t know. Some kind of erection—hah—you said erection—or maybe a monument.
After a while I got tired of it and it was getting colder, looking like it would rain yet again. When I started back toward home along the beach, I found that except for where I had been, there wasn’t any beach. So once again I had to climb the bluff, and either go back to the cemetery where it was only six feet high, or climb it right here where it was about thirty feet high, partly sand, partly tree roots and scrub brush. Then I noticed what looked like a path, or steps, part ladder, part roots, going up to the top. Gratefully, I began to climb that. Not that it was necessarily better than just straight up the bluff. I fell a couple of times and when I did it started to rain. It was like God was laughing so hard at my efforts that he cried. I was quickly engulfed in mud
and was lucky not to slide to the bottom. At the top of the bluff, relieved to be there, wherever it was, I couldn’t see a thing, except way back in the trees a single, misty light. Simply because it wasn’t raining so hard under the tall trees, and it was all I could see, I headed there. I heard a horrible knocking noise, and saw a huge black bird fly away. My heart was going at double speed as I watched it. What the heck, a raven? Like in Mom’s Celtic songs? Black on black; I was surprised I had seen it at all.
And then I saw the bear. It was the first one I’d seen outside of the zoo. It was huge, mean-looking. It seemed to be right beside me, tracking me. I think it must have been a grizzly. Just then I tripped over the edge of the porch of this old cabin that was from where the light was coming. The bear was so close I could feel its hot, stinky breath, smell its wet fur…I pounded on the door. Now I’m not much of a one for panicking, but something about the day, the graves, the—oh shit, the door opened and an old woman stood there, cradling a pistol.
She looked me up and down, grunted, and said, “Come in out of the rain, if you have a mind to.”
I did. Shuddering, I said, pointing behind me, “There’s a b-b-bear!”
She looked behind me. “Oh?” Her left eyebrow began to inch slowly upward toward her short, reddish hair. I dared to glance behind me but only saw shadows.
She rolled her eyes. “It was only a cougar.” So saying, she shut the door behind me and ushered me into her kitchen, which was really just a nook. I could hear the rain increase to thunderous proportions. She sighed, “You got here just in time. You got stuck out on the point by the cemetery, didn’t you?” She put glasses on, and examined me more closely. I stood still, not used to this type of dynamic interaction with a total stranger, and this was a woman who was in no way similar to my mother or my sister. She was my height, thin and lean, with big shoulders. Her hair was thinning on top and she had big hands. Torn jeans and a paint-splattered sweatshirt completed the picture. Actually, she was a mess.
“You’re a mess,” she told me bluntly. “Over there’s the bathroom. The water ain’t hot, but go take a shower. With your clothes on. Then leave them there. I’ll give you something to wear.” She grinned so quickly I almost missed it. “Better use one of the big towels!”
At the moment I was so glad she wasn’t a man, I almost fainted with relief. I knew what strange men in the woods could do to boys. At least, she wouldn’t hurt me, not like that anyway! But—but the witch in Hansel and Gretel…damn it, I told my mind, shut up! Just the same, on my way to the little bathroom, I glanced at the oven. It was quite small and I felt better.
After my shower I was cold and smelled like fruit, but the towel was big and soft and I wrapped up in it from armpits to knees. When I came out she was standing there with a slinky red dress on a padded hanger, high heeled shoes in her hand, and—unmentionables draped over her other arm.
“Here!” she chirped.
All the color fled my face. I felt it go. I got lightheaded. God knows what my face looked like but I let go of the towel somehow and that dumb thing fled too, right to the floor. I was lucky I’d just peed.
The woman dropped all the clothes and laughed hysterically. She laughed so, she had to sit down. “Your face!” she finally got out, almost screaming it in her amusement. “Oh, oh, God, you kids, you precious, sweet, adorable, innocent, and naïve kids.” After a few gasps and snorts, while I grabbed for the towel with my ass in the air, toward her, which was almost worse than still facing her…she calmed down enough to add, “I’m so sorry; I just couldn’t resist. Oh God, what makes me do these things?” She looked heavenward as if she expected an answer. “You probably hate me and won’t ever come back to visit. Me and my stupid sense of humor. Really, there are jeans in the bedroom, and other more appropriate clothes. Go see what fits. Some of it is good stuff, from, from, town, yeah, town.”
She was still barely coherent with laughter. I should have farted, I thought meanly, standing up with the towel around me again, clenched in both fists. “I have cheesecake,” she offered, ‘Chocolate chee-eesecake!”
As if I could be bribed. Except there was thunder and more rain and lightning and a—what—a cougar?
“It wasn’t really a cougar out there,” she added as if she’d read my mind, “nor a bear.” As I got ready to sigh in relief, she added, musingly, “Sasquatch is a possibility, though.”
I went to get dressed.
* * * *
The clothes laid out in the bedroom were very appropriate and a better brand than I’d ever been able to afford. I found a pair of jeans that fit and then took a man’s V-neck T-shirt, and a sweater.
“You have good taste,” she approved when I came out.
I didn’t have a clue what to say, so I smiled. I almost laughed, but I felt that all the shreds of my former dignity would peal out along with the laughter.
“Just the same,” she added with a wink. “You are fortunate to be one of those people who look better undressed than dressed. Oh, and you can keep those clothes. I won’t need them anymore.”
That went right over my head. We sat at her kitchen table and proceeded to devour half a cheesecake. With just a few words, she had me talking about myself like I’d had my fingernails pried off and been threatened with more.
* * * *
After her guest had gone, Genevieve—Jen, formerly known as Gene—sat at the table a while longer, debating whether to eat more cheesecake. She decided to stick it back in the fridge in case the boy returned in a day or two. She hoped he would; he was a good sport and great company. She figured he was gay, which made him family, not that he knew that yet.
There were times she didn’t like her choice of residence—but she’d had to get out of Seattle before she was found out. People in the old boys’ club of her profession didn’t take kindly to their brothers in arms deciding they had to finally become who they really were. She had been sitting in the dark in her back yard on First Hill with her gun in her mouth when she decided—as they say—that she had to transition to female. The hell with them. The hell with them all.
So she had moved out here to her uncle’s old cabin. Nobody’d been out here for years, but it was still intact, other than the roof leaking, but after she recuperated from her surgery, she was on that roof in a heartbeat, laying down new shingles. Being legally and anatomically female was no hindrance at all. She’d kept a lot from her life of ‘male privilege’—her education, sharpshooting skills, the money she’d earned in that all- male profession, and some of the old wardrobe, which she had gladly passed on to the boy to replace his Kmart special mudders. He deserved to be dressed nicely; he could carry it off. He was adorable. Too bad she still liked women. Too bad she was two, no, maybe three, times his age.
Time to feed the outdoor cats, and then it would be five o’clock here, and that meant sundowners, whether the sun was actually setting or not.
What she found extremely odd, however, was that she knew her visitor’s father, quite well, in fact. She made a face indicative of her feelings, which almost scared the two cats at her feet, and went inside to get out the gin.
* * * *
I wasn’t actually thinking this but it came up later: if I had been building a dragon, it would breathe fire and kill people because it was angry, and because breathing fire is what dragons do. I myself wasn’t angry that way, see, as anger was never allowed in our home. Even ‘Off Fighting America’s Enemies,’ my father said, there was no place for anger there, either. You had to be in control. It was okay if a woman got angry, wasn’t it cute, how sweet and silly and endearing, but a man had to control that sort of girly thing.
I was vaguely aware that behind a superficial, acted-out emotion, there is often a second emotion, the real one, hiding behind the first like a great porcupine fish hiding behind a wall of coral like they do, or a turtle hiding under a shelf of lava, like they do. I had a feeling though, that my new friend—what was her name? Had we even told each other our names?—woul
d understand completely. I’d have to ask her. I had to ask her.
So I did, several days later, and she said one word; ‘channeling’. She’d said it the first day we’d met—I don’t remember how the topic had come up, but she’d explained that anger was a tool to use for communication or to create change, not a weapon to hurt or be hurt by. I could understand that, and that’s what I continue to do to this day. It’s one of the most useful lessons I’ve ever learned, and surprise, it even includes language, the way you use your words. Tools or weapons—it’s your choice.
Not surprisingly, Mom had never noticed me come in wearing an entirely different set of clothes that night. I saw she hadn’t bothered to cook any dinner and meanly, I didn’t seek her out and ask her if she’d like me to make anything. I grabbed a bag of chips and one of cookies—for a health freak, she sure kept the house stocked with junk food—and went into my room.
No surprise either that the next day I was out on the point again, throwing driftwood at my erection. Ha! I said erection. Well, I kinda knew it wasn’t going to be a dog house anymore, but it was going to be something I could be inside. Certainly not a mausoleum where everything was dead though…no, I wanted it to be something more than just shelter from the rain. I wanted it to be something alive, something in which I could be free to be angry if I wanted, and yet be safe. Huh, what an odd combination of thoughts, though I could see where they might come from. I could let myself belch out all the anger I wanted, just like a real dragon would belch out flames and smoke. Nothing could touch me there; nothing could hurt me. I could hardly wait.
As I worked I thought of my father, and my mother as well, which did surprise me. I realized as I worked that I was furious with her too, for her passivity, her neglect, her agreeing with everything ‘God’—Dad—said or did. She could have made us stay in town; I knew she had wanted to.
Working in a frenzy, staggering back and forth, digging the long white driftwood out of the sand and muck—I must have been having a wonderful time—because I forgot all about time. The first thing I noticed was the wood was getting wetter. I figured I was having to go out farther to get it, which didn’t make sense. Then I realized I was stuck, completely stuck in water that was only up to my ankles, but the sand was soft and my feet were sinking.
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