by Michael Earp
I really wanted to say “I love you” to Zig but we were so far from that. I rebelled in many things in life but not in that, courtship was a thing for many years, decades, a slow dance until you discover someone felt for you what you felt for them. Then, only then, after love, do you find out if you are sexually compatible, if they are your type physically as well as mentally. Most people, like my parents, stayed with someone they were mentally compatible with long after they discovered their sexual incompatibility. Love is like that.
It was impossible to be certain of these things but I had an idea that Slade and Bolan were male-bodied and Ziggy was female-bodied. I knew what I was and like my friends, like a few people my age, I made less efforts than my parents to hide my body shape. The gossamer, floating, flowing and shapeless garments on the street were designed to do exactly that, hide the nature of one’s body. It was a generational thing; the older generation were obsessed with bodies and gender being connected, and hid their bodies to not show their genders.
My generation had dispensed with that. Unlike both my parents I did not strap down my breasts. Ziggy must do, they were flat-chested despite my firm belief of their body shape, my understanding of how they smelled. They smelled nicer than the others.
I was distracted, had not seen Bolan leave the room but I did see them return, bringing a tray of drinks, sparkling water for everybody. Pulling my backpack off I tried to pay, Bolan shook their head. “The owner has invited my band to play next week, gave me a drink voucher to sweeten the deal. Drinks are on me for …” they looked at the voucher wide-eyed, “… well, about a year really, at the rate we drink.”
There was a noise, filtering through the thrash from the DJ, which took my attention. I turned to the door.
There was Sweet, the tallest in our group, nevertheless the most perfectly agender-looking: lanky, almost skeletal, stunningly androgynously beautiful. They were wearing platform boots even though they were six feet tall in bare feet and a red satin tuxedo. It was them I had known the longest yet they stayed the most mysterious. In our world where the genderless were considered the most beautiful it was Sweet who turned down the most propositions of all of us to “get to know each other better”.
They looked like they had been crying.
Sweet was holding a paper bag in each hand. They unloaded a breathtaking amount of street food onto the table: tacos, burgers, fried chicken, chips. “Hey you mob, dig in,” they said, something in their voice, their eyes, not quite right, a pain that did not match the words. I opened my mouth to ask the questions that burned on my tongue. They put a finger over those lips, that when smiling could break your heart. “Shhh,” they said. I closed my mouth again. Questions could wait.
We ate in silence for a while. Slade ate at work, the rest of us were almost permanently hungry. Slade was wearing a black one-piece, a shapeless jumpsuit that looked like a police uniform with the insignia ripped off. They had topped it off with a bowler hat.
“I have been doing modelling work,” Sweet said abruptly in a momentary break in the music. “I was going to leave the game company, I don’t think they are ever going to finish anything. Thought I would do modelling until something better comes along. Someone approached me in a burger line, they liked how I looked. I made good money.”
“Well, that’s great,” Ziggy said, “if it gives you enough money to afford all this.” Their gesture took in all the food. I could not disagree even though something felt wrong. In all the time I had known Sweet – it felt like my entire life – I had never seen that expression on their face.
“Drinks!” shouted Bolan before running off, waving the drinks voucher. The only noise was the music, we didn’t even try to talk over it. Bolan returned with a tray of soda water and energy drinks, even a couple of colas, Ziggy’s favourite. There was also coffee, my elixir of life.
When we finished the food and the drinks, feeling sated and sluggish, Sweet gestured they wanted to leave. We stood, followed. A patrol car from Social Crimes passed the building as we left the street food hall. Sweet dodged down an alley and we trailed behind. We traced a twisting path through the streets as Sweet led us on. Into alleyways so narrow we had to turn sideways, through once-abandoned buildings where people slept in piles, down stairs into basements then through holes in the walls into others. I was soon completely lost, hoped Sweet knew what they were doing.
Someone stepped leering out of the shadows, groped for Sweet who squeaked – a sound that would have been amusing if the situation was not so dangerous. I reached down to pull the knife from my cowboy boot just as Slade levelled the creep with a punch like I had never seen from anyone before. Even the sound was surprising, like a bag of ice hitting the roadway in preparation for being used to fill an esky.
I felt it ironic; we appeared to be running from Social Crimes just when we could use them to collect this scumbag.
We took off again through the alleys, this time at a dangerous pace, with all the debris underfoot. Not one of us was a slouch at running through the streets in the dark, we had run from many people – bullies, rapists, racists, thieves, police, Truancy Squad and sometimes even Social Crimes. I had no idea why they kept chasing us.
We went down another narrow alley and then suddenly there was a cafe. It must have been close to midnight yet this place was not empty, there were people there at almost every table. Not one of them in the diaphanous things of the businesspeople or the jumpsuits of the police and workers. In fact they were dressed a little like my friends and me, in second-hand clothing a couple of generations out of date. None of them looked poor enough to be forced to dress that way.
Sweet led us to an empty table, waved over a server, we all ordered our favourite drinks.
“I found this place recently,” Sweet said, “or I should say I was brought here. It’s a good, quiet place, the refreshments are okay and nobody listens to what you have to say or cares about your secrets.”
We nodded even though I suspect nobody understood more than I did, which was not a lot. Somehow Ziggy’s hand found mine and gave it a squeeze. I felt my lungs clench.
“I have something to tell you that’s going to hurt, I don’t know how you are going to react. I am pretty sure you will never forgive me,” Sweet said, crying. All around me my friend’s hearts must have been breaking at the sight of those tears. “I have wanted to say this for a while, it’s been getting to me and while I have been modelling it got worse, far worse. Now I have to tell you and then I have to leave. I can never see any of you ever again.”
I opened my mouth to say something incredulous. Sweet held up their hand to stop me. My mouth closed, so did the three other mouths that had fallen open, ready to say something.
“Please, let me talk,” said Sweet, “I only have limited time. I am leaving the city as soon as I can and I need to tell you why first.” We all waited. I was barely capable of breathing. I felt Ziggy’s hand clench mine harder, whether for their comfort or mine I had no idea. I wanted to talk, felt the others must too, assumed that they, like me, were holding on to that desire through nothing other than the force of our love for our friend.
“I discovered something while I was modelling,” Sweet said in a breathy, pained voice. There was a long pause, weighty in our circle, full of potential agony. I could sense the others reacting to the tense energy radiating from our friend. “I’m gendered” were the words that eventually poured out.
I involuntarily gasped, so did all our friends. Sweet reached out and put their hand over Slade’s mouth before they could speak. “To be precise, I am a woman, female,” she said. “I have felt this for a while, felt different, felt like I must be gendered for some time but just couldn’t put it into words, didn’t know the right words. The only words I knew for what I am were foul, disgusting, terrible. Those words make me sick. You all know what they are, you have all heard them, have said them. Then I met someone in the agency, met her on a shoot and she told me about being gendered. It put a word to the
concept and I know now what I am.”
Sweet paused a breath then continued. “I wish I could be happy being like everybody else but I can’t. I know being a woman is going to be hard but I couldn’t go on like I was, I would rather be dead. I understand completely that you must hate me now and that’s okay, it’s not your fault, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have done this to you. I have been so scared to talk to you but I have no choice, if I didn’t talk to you about it I would never forgive myself.”
There was silence, only the murmurs of the other people in the cafe. They were all talking louder as if to demonstrate they were not listening, had heard nothing. Sweet was weeping like I had never seen anyone weep before. She looked at us one by one and great sobs, that started deep in her chest, at the core of her soul, erupted again and again.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I can’t help it even though I know what you think of me, think of the gendered. Those words, those terrible words are in your mouths right now, I can see the distaste on your faces.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” I said, “you are our friend, we love you.” I was not sure what a gendered person was, had only heard rumours and dirty jokes about the gendered before. All I knew for certain was that they were something from the past, a primitive, barbaric thing. That didn’t matter to me; I was the child of at least four different Indigenous nations, people have always thought we were primitive.
The others one by one chimed in, Slade leaned over and gave Sweet a hug. They had always been sweet on Sweet. “You are special,” Slade said, “you have always been special to me, and this is just one more way you are special.”
Tears streaked Sweet’s face, dripped off as she shook her head.
“You all don’t understand,” Sweet said, “even if I believed you are still my friends I still have to leave. That friend who told me about being gendered, she was taken away by Social Crimes. It’s not just frowned upon to be gendered now, it’s illegal, they passed the law and nobody cared. The gendered, we are just animals to them, worse than animals. Gender was declared by the government to be antisocial and they are cracking down on people like me. I have to get out of the city, get as far away from Social Crimes as I can. I don’t even know if there is anywhere safe but I have to get out, start again.”
My world spun, I was uncharacteristically lost for words. Nothing was right, I did not want Sweet running off. I didn’t understand gender but that didn’t mean I wanted to lose my friend.
“My parents were gendered,” said Bolan, “they lived out in the desert, thought the non-binary cult, as they called it, that took over the country was weird. There are a lot of gendered people out there around Alice Springs. My grandparents’ generation got the government to ignore their gender there, said genders were cultural property there, got protection.”
“Then that’s where I have to go,” said Sweet, “I have all I can carry packed and behind the counter of this cafe, I am leaving as soon as we have all said our goodbyes.” She started crying again, tears streaking the foundation on her cheeks, making her mascara run. She always was too feminine to truly fit in, just as I was a bit too weird, Ziggy dressed a bit too strange, Bolan was too culturally black, Slade a bit too butch. I suddenly realised why Social Crimes were always following us. They had absorbed responsibility for Gender Crimes years ago.
I looked into Sweet’s eyes, all I could see was fatalism and a depth of pain I had never seen before. I had never seen someone so sad before, someone who had lost everything just because of who they were. Behind that, deeper, I thought I could see a steely determination, I knew Sweet was sure of who she was.
“Not alone,” Slade said and I realised I would never let Sweet leave alone either.
“I am going with you,” Slade continued.
“I can’t ask you to drop everything and leave,” said Sweet.
“You didn’t ask, and yet.”
I thought for only a second, it seemed a no-brainer really. My friends were real friends and as long as I had them I knew I could get everything I needed. “Me too,” I almost yelled, “I am coming too, you guys won’t be safe without at least one more.”
“You need a guide,” said Bolan, “I think it’s time I go home for a while and practise in peace.” They were holding their guitar, which they carried everywhere, and would need nothing else.
“What are we waiting for?” said Ziggy, and I turned to them in surprise. “We need to get moving because it’s going to take time to get somewhere safe.”
Sweet was still sobbing, I hoped in relief. I stood up, put my tiny backpack on my back, checked my phone was charged, pulled my T-shirt dress straight. The others stood too, Slade helped Sweet stand. Nobody spoke as we slipped out of the cafe into the streets, ready to run if Social Crimes came.
I turned and abruptly embraced Ziggy, unable to contain my feelings. Putting my mouth near their ear I tried to talk. “I …” was all that would come out.
“Yeah, me too,” they whispered back.
“I have everything I need,” I said aloud.
As a group we started walking, prepared to run.
ON.
OFF.
In a dark, cavernous bedroom a single light bulb silently begins to flicker.
ON.
OFF.
ON. OFF.
The space is devoid of sound. The walls are stained with a damp smell and eerie stillness. Drips of sweat trickle down the pipes, pooling on the hardwood floor.
ON. OFF. ON. OFF.
The outline of a body becomes clear in the centre of the room. They are cocooned in a blanket, shivering. Their face and head is covered.
ON OFF ON
As the bulb flickers faster, each staccato illumination endows the shadowed corners with bright rays. There are no windows. No doors. No escape. A gentle hum of electricity seeps into the cracks on the ground. Old wooden floorboards start to creak. The cold, lifeless air momentarily painted golden, and whispered, guttural noises emerge from the silence. The blanket falls open and reveals the person’s naked body; their throat grasps at the air, hands clasping their knees tightly under their chin. Their skin is clammy and cold and their fingers slowly slip away from each other due to the moisture. Their forehead pasted with gluey strands of hair and eyes sit deeply sunken in their face. The rest of their hair is badly matted, their face gaunt.
OFF.
The inky blackness swallows the room whole once again, each time, darker and heavier. The body tries to hide from itself, to return to its cocoon. But once it has been ripped off, there is no going back.
I was never afraid of the dark.
When I was young, really young, my parents used to find me hiding in enclosed spaces all over the house. Under beds, in wardrobes, in the laundry under a pile of clothes, wherever I could curl myself up and disappear. They thought I was playing a solo game of hide and seek. Dad with his large feet would stomp about the house with a “FEE-FI-FO-FUM” in search of his hidden sprogget. My little eyes would watch from whichever spot I had nuzzled into that afternoon. He’d come around a corner in his favourite knitted sweater. Compared to my tiny body he looked so large, but after a time I came to realise he was actually a very small man. With the same gentle features that I had, light-blue eyes, a beautiful head of short, brown, curly hair, which seemed to have planted seedlings across his entire body, sprouting chest hair that poked up over his sweater. His face home to a beard that was short enough to look well groomed, yet long enough to remain soft.
When he eventually found me he’d pick me up in one swift movement and spin me around yelling, “I’ve caught the intruder!” I’d scream and giggle as he lowered me back down and covered my face with a blanket. He’d say, “I won’t reveal your spot to anyone as long as you’re quiet, agent.” I’d nod and press my index finger, about the size of his pinkie, to my lips.
Whenever we moved homes, the first thing I looked for was a hiding space, a nook, somewhere I could be alone with the darkness. I slept pushed u
p against the wall wrapped in my blanket, creating a tight cocoon for myself, like a big bed burrito, which my parents worried would affect my breathing. It made me feel safe, tightly bound, so nothing could get in and hurt me.
When I was four, my parents ordered a new television and the box it came in was so large that I grabbed my pillow and blanket and demanded to sleep in there for about a week. Inside, it felt like a long Mum-hug. I treasured that space until my dad broke it down and put it in the recycling. I cried for a whole hour. He tried to offer me toys and bright shiny things I could play with, but all I wanted was the box.
My mum always slept with the door slightly ajar. I thought it was so that I could come and climb into bed with her and Dad in the middle of the night. I learned later in life it was because she was afraid of the dark, a childhood fear she never quite grew out of. It followed her around her whole life, haunting her. My dad accumulated a collection of face masks to keep him sleeping despite the hallway light seeping into the room. He loved the quirky ones that said “don’t wake the beast” or “the princess is sleeping”. He sometimes showed them off at dinner parties as a conversation starter. He thought it was endearing that his outspoken wife was afraid of the dark. She didn’t like to talk about it and would often scold him for embarrassing her after the guests had left.
Mum liked wide spaces, lots of room to breathe. She didn’t like our hugs to be too tight or the sheets to be tucked in. She needed to “spread her toes”, she’d tell me, though I wasn’t sure why toes needed to be spread; they seemed designed to be together.
Unlike my mum, it’s not the dark I find scary. It’s the light. In the light, you can see everything. Even the things you don’t want to.
ON.
A spider hangs from thread on its web in the top-right corner of the room. It eases towards its prey, entangled in a woven net, desperate to grab on and dine on the insect’s squirming corpse as the light bulb gently reapproaches its light.