The Santa Hoax

by Francis Gideon

Julian sat in the center of his chair, his nerves on edge, as Mrs. Allison rambled on. He wanted to participate in the conversation by cracking some jokes, but he was too afraid to open his mouth. He knew all the sex stuff the girls were mentioning and talking about. He had even read an article about the scandal over Blue Valentine and how the movie rating system would take away sex before they took away violence. All of this was easy. But he still found it troubling that the gym teacher, who was in a position of authority, was the one person who seemed to forget all she knew in this situation. Mrs. Allison told them about safe straight sex, about how to avoid pregnancy (as if it would be their fault they got pregnant) and what to do in case of rape. There was no mention of pleasure or how to masturbate aside from the passing jokes. Even if these topics sometimes still made him blush, Julian knew they were important. They were in health class to be healthy—but health was more than the absence of illness. Health class should be about happiness too.

  When Mrs. Allison moved on from sex ed to mental illness, the same types of questions flooded Julian’s mind again. Mrs. Allison directed them to the guidance team if they ever felt “bad” or needed someone to talk to about their “future.” But she—or the guidance group—didn’t give actual advice, Julian realized. They told people how to make their misery manageable, instead of making sure they were safe and healthy.

  “What about bullying?” someone asked in the class. Not Maria, Julian noted, but a smaller girl who stuck close by Maria’s side all the time—her cousin Josie. The girl’s tiny frame, olive complexion, and small scars, barely hidden under a sweater, made her question take on a visceral need and reality.

  “What about it?” Mrs. Allison asked.

  “What should we do if we’re bullied?” Maria asked, indignant. “Or someone we care about?”

  Mrs. Allison grew sullen for a second. “Ignore it the best you can. It will get better and go away—all bullies really want is attention. The bully who makes fun of you probably has their own issues.”

  “So we’re supposed to feel sorry as they beat on us?” Maria asked. She flung her dark hair over her shoulders, stifling skeptical laughter. “Yeah, right.”

  “Sticks and stones…,” Mrs. Allison began but didn’t get too far in the rhyme before Maria picked it up.

  “Yeah, yeah. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will forever scar me.”

  The class erupted in laughter that was followed by a sigh of recognition. Mrs. Allison nodded solemnly.

  “I know. I understand that things are hard. But I can tell you that it really does get better.”

  “Horseshit. Things only get better for white, rich, pretty people. For everyone else? It only gets better if we make it better. If we live that long,” Maria added, deliberately taunting now.

  “Maria,” Mrs. Allison snapped. “One more profanity out of you and I’m sending you to the principal’s office.”

  “Like it will help,” Maria muttered. Before Mrs. Allison could raise her voice again, Maria softened. She pouted her red lips and then leaned forward quietly on her desk. “Help me out with something, Mrs. Allison? Imagine that you’re being harassed at work. Not here, in high school, but at your work. You’re your age in the real world, and someone is harassing you. Can you imagine that for me?”

  Mrs. Allison nodded, though her eyes were creased with derision. “Okay. Go on.”

  “So this person gets you daily. They follow you to your car. They follow you to your house. They make threatening phone calls. What do you do?”

  “Normally, I’d go to the police.”

  “Right,” Maria said, leaning back on her chair. “If you’re an adult, you call the adult cops. If you’re in high school, you call the teacher cops, and everyone tells you to ignore it. Why is it a crime in the real world but not a crime in school? The behavior is exactly the same.”

  “It is a crime here. People are suspended for their bad behavior.”

  “Yeah.” Maria rolled her eyes, laughing under her breath. “Sure they are.”

  “Maria. Don’t make me warn you again.”

  Maria smirked but didn’t say another word. Soon Mrs. Allison clapped her hands together and tore her eyes away from her student. “Well, okay, then. The guidance counselor is always there to help, girls. For now, though, we have to move on with our discussion. Next week we will be starting real gym class. You’ll be expected to bring clothing and run laps before we begin whatever sport we choose. Any problems?”

  No one moved.

  “Any questions?” Mrs. Allison asked again. “This will probably be the last class in a classroom until the new year. We’re doing everything else outside until then. So if you have any issues, please let me know.”

  Julian wanted to raise his hand and ask about gender. Earlier in the day, he had written it down on a piece of paper to slip to Mrs. Allison, hoping to pass it off as someone else’s writing, someone else’s thought. He considered asking Mrs. Allison in private about transgender issues “for a friend” or for a story he was writing in English class. But he did not know how to make the words pass his lips, so he had crumpled up the piece of paper and remained mute at his desk. His blood went cold as the bell rang and everyone else filed out of the room.

  On Monday they would start gym.

  Aiden hadn’t talked to him in over a month.

  There was, for all intents and purposes, absolutely nothing good for Julian to look forward to anymore.

  WHEN GYM class started officially, Julian changed in the bathroom, rather than witness the other bodies of the girls in the class. He already knew what he would see from his years in middle school, and he didn’t want to tempt fate again. It’s not that he was attracted to anyone there, not really. He just figured it would be easier for him to change away from the girls, since everyone thought he liked women anyway. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t quite true—he knew he wasn’t a lesbian—but he wasn’t going to squabble over semantics. Changing in the bathroom made the girls in the class feel less observed and scrutinized until they got out onto the field.

  “Stop watching my breasts, Julia!” Maria yelled at him. Her bright red lips twisted into a smile as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  Julian felt his face flush with worry that he had actually been looking at her, instead of at the ball in her hand. His gaze dropped to the ground, and as badly as he wanted to leave the baseball diamond, he couldn’t. They were playing softball today, and it was his turn to hit. Maybe I’ll just strike out, he thought. Who even cares anymore?

  “She’s kidding,” Josie whispered to him. She had taken the position of umpire and crouched back down to wait for the ball. “She says that to everyone. Really, it means she likes you.”

  “But I’m not—”

  Maria whipped the ball past him before Julian could finish his remark. The bat remained limp in his palm as Josie caught the ball and called it out.

  “You know, for a dyke, you kind of suck at this game,” Maria quipped, smile flashing at Julian again.

  Mrs. Allison clapped her hands together at the side. This seemed to be a standard gesture for her now anytime she was uncomfortable. “Come on now, Maria. Play the game and leave the insults at home.”

  “Dyke isn’t an insult!” Maria said. “We love who we love!”

  “Let’s just play the game,” Mrs. Allison warned.

  “It’s hard to play, teacher,” Maria said, turning toward Julian again, “when I’m the object of affection.”

  “You’re not,” Julian argued. “I’m not a lesbian.”

  “You could be bisexual, though. This isn’t TV—we can say the word out loud.”

  Maria threw the ball and tripped up Julian again before he swung. Mrs. Allison clapped her hands together again.

  “Okay, come on. Stay focused. We can’t play games in the principal’s office, now can we?”

  Maria said something under her breath that even Julian couldn’t hear. He shook his head, his mouth suddenly dry. Most of
the other people on their team snickered in their positions. Maria winked as soon as Julian’s eyes met hers.

  “Julia,” Josie said, whispering by him again. “Don’t pay attention. She’s doing it to psych you out. Trust me. She doesn’t care if you’re gay.”

  “I’m not…,” Julian said, and his face went warm. He wasn’t having this conversation anymore. Bisexual or not, whether it was true or not, his sexuality just didn’t matter. Not right now. Because even if he could acknowledge that, yeah, Maria was hot—and so was Aiden, and so was that guy who sat in front of him during math—none of it would ever mean something because Julian would always be a woman to them. They would be dating Julia. And Julian did not want to be turned into someone’s girlfriend. No way.

  “It really doesn’t matter,” Josie said. “She jokes about it all the time, but Maria’s actually bi. And like, I don’t even care either. Just watch the ball and not her.”

  Julian swallowed hard and tried to nod. This time he focused on the ball instead of breasts or bright red lips—and finally managed to hit something. As the ball soared above her head, Maria lifted her hand to block the sun and watch the ball as it landed. One of the people in the outfield chased it down as Julian ran to the base. The entire time he ran, Maria watched Julian with a low, impressed whistle coming from her red lips.

  “Nice job, Julia,” Maria commented. “Too bad I can’t get to first base with you.”

  WHEN JULIAN walked out of the bathroom after gym class, Maria was there waiting for him. She leaned against the water fountain outside the locker room doors, her dark hair combed to perfection again and her small leather jacket over her arm. She was out of her gym clothes and back into her short-shorts (which regularly got her called into the office for dress code violations) and a tight white T-shirt with a V-neck. His eyes moved to her breasts, briefly, before he looked at the ground.

  “Hey, you,” Maria greeted. Even without seeing her face, Julian could still hear the smile in her voice. He blushed.

  “Hi.”

  Julian turned away from Maria and toward the front foyer. Gym was his last class of the day, and he had planned to walk home. Now, as Maria’s footsteps sounded in his ear, he wished he had gotten a ride.

  “Where are you going so fast?” Maria asked, jogging to his side.

  “Nowhere.”

  “You have a boyfriend you’re going home to?”

  “Maybe. What does it matter?”

  Maria ran around in front of him and folded her arms across her chest. Her breasts squeezed together in her top, creating more cleavage. She smiled when Julian kept looking, even as she swung her jacket around her shoulders. She didn’t do up the zipper, just to keep her chest as the main focus.

  “So where’s that kid you usually hang around with?” she asked. “Andy or something?”

  “Aiden.”

  “Yeah. He your boyfriend?”

  Julian laughed and then felt a sadness echo through him. “No, not quite.”

  “You going home to him?”

  “No, I’m just going home.”

  Maria nodded, smiling again. She stood in front of the foyer doors now, crossing her arms even tighter across her chest until Julian finally stepped away.

  “Well, it was nice talking to you,” Maria stated. “Don’t be afraid to say something more next time.”

  Julian walked quickly out the door, relieved she didn’t follow. It took him until he was about halfway home to realize that Maria was trying to pick him up. He didn’t know how to feel about that, since she was another year older than him. She had been held back and hadn’t gone to summer school to make up for her courses. Her cousin Josie was his age, however. Julian tried to think about Josie instead, so he could hopefully forget about Maria’s breasts and her taunts for some time.

  When Julian arrived at home, his father was already there. He normally didn’t come back until almost eight at night now, especially when he had meetings. Julian looked at him quickly, trying to assess if this was anything he should be concerned about.

  “You okay, Dad?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” Damien sighed as he ran his hands through his hair. “This is technically my lunch hour. I’ve got to go back in a bit.”

  Julian nodded. “Sucks.”

  Damien shrugged. “How was school, Julia?”

  Over the last few months, Damien had started to call Julian by his birth name again and not by the nickname J, for some unknown reason. Probably because of high school, Julian thought. He’s probably trying to get used to having a grown-up daughter in the house and not a young kid to geek out over books with. In spite of how developed some of the girls around him were, Julian had been lucky. He had to wear the tightest sports bra he owned some days, but that was pretty much the only marker of puberty that still signified womanhood. Sometimes, late at night, he even believed he could will the rest of puberty away. He would read The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter, over and over again to be convinced of this fact. This was the age of technology. It was only going to take another few years to have global warming really kick in and everything become a sci-fi dystopian novel where he could slip away and truly become Mad Max.

  “Fine,” Julian said. “School was fine.”

  His father stared at him from the kitchen. He nodded a few times, clutching a dish towel and running more water in the sink. He wanted to say more, Julian knew. But Damien seemed to have a hard time forming the words.

  “You ever read O Pioneers!?” Julian asked him. “We’re studying it in English class.”

  Damien shook his head and went back to the sink. “No, I haven’t. Doesn’t sound like it’s up my alley. Unless it’s about Mars?”

  “Sadly, it is not. We should trade books again, though. Maybe we could learn something from my books.”

  Damien nodded, but there was a frown on his face that Julian couldn’t ignore.

  “I have a lot of meetings to get through his week. And your mother needs our help in the kitchen.”

  “Why?”

  “You know. She’s taking her tests soon for her degree.”

  Right, Julian thought. He had watched his mother bury herself in books almost as much as he did. Only she was going to get something out of it in about three months, when she would have to sit down to a four-hour exam. Julian ached at the thought of their father-son book club dissolving.

  “Do you have homework?” Damien asked.

  “Yes,” Julian lied. “Lots.”

  “Good. Go and do that, and we’ll have dinner soon. Then I’ve gotta go back to work.”

  INSIDE JULIAN’S room that night, he read a book he’d stolen from his mother, one of the ones for her exams about biology and the human body. He was already aware of what most of the book told him from his past study and even some of the sci-fi books. Testosterone was the hormone that made vocal cords thicker and made hair spring up all over the body. Estrogen was what made fat collect on his chest to form breasts and what would eventually make his uterus act up and shed every month.

  But not yet, he told himself. He hadn’t had that happen to him yet. And estrogen, he reminded himself, could be stopped, most of its changes relatively reversible. Testosterone was the true hormone that would make things happen and change for Julian—if he could only get his hands on some. But that would require a doctor’s visit and a therapist in order to even consider getting a prescription. It would involve coming out and admitting what he really was. So instead, Julian read the biology behind hormones, since it made him feel like things were possible.

  Soon Julian’s reading was interrupted by his mother and father’s low whispers. He folded the book in half and then waited, just outside his bedroom wall, to hear what was going on.

  “She doesn’t do anything anymore. I’m worried about her.” He recognized his mother’s voice right away.

  “She’s fine. Just reading. Aiden was a hard thing for her to handle.” Now Damien, his voice sounding even more ti
red than before. He must have just gotten back home, only to be flung into a battle with his wife. Julian sighed, already sensing the way the argument was going to go and the words his mother often defaulted to next.

  “Reading is all well and good, but it’s not the real world. What happened with Aiden? Why don’t they hang out anymore?”

  “He was having a hard time at school.”

  “Gay?”

  “Maybe. I mean, kids were getting pretty vicious, calling him a fag online… and Sarah, these kids are mean. Being online makes it so much worse. They say things they would never say in person, that I have a hard time saying in person. But just because they call him gay doesn’t mean he is.”

  “And Julia?”

  “She tried to help him. Maybe the two of them had an issue afterward. I don’t know.”

  “She’s not gay. I know she’s not.”

  “That shouldn’t matter, Sarah. We have to support her either way. It just doesn’t matter.”

  “I know. I wasn’t saying that. I just… want her to read different books. I know the sci-fi stuff is wonderful, but I think it’s screwed with her head. Now she can’t handle reality. She just wants books.”

  Julian sighed in his bed. This was not the first conversation he had heard through the thin walls. But it was the first time he had heard his name repeated so often and books implicated in his demise. Isn’t this what parents always do when children act out? Even if their kids were fourteen—almost fifteen—years old and in high school now. They blamed the kid’s violence on the video games and their sexuality on the Internet. Now Julian’s weird depression was going to be blamed on sci-fi books. No matter what he read, Julian felt as if it would never amount to what he wanted. He folded away the biology textbook and hid it under his bed.

  “It’s biology,” his mother said again later in the night. “These things just happen. Hormones, puberty, whatever. It’s a rough patch, but like anything at this age, she’ll get over it. Just give it some time, right?”

  “Right,” Damien said. “Just some time. That’s all.”