by Ivan Coyote
“Tips?” I perked up. “I can wait tables. Did it all the way through high school.”
Sarah shook her head. “No offence, Ive, but my boss likes to hire, you know . . .” She held two imaginary melons up in front of her chest. “. . . girls.”
Now, although it is true that I technically fall into the biologically female category, I do lack most of the requirements for membership in the feminine realm. And though I do not personally believe this would directly affect my ability to pour coffee, I knew exactly what she meant.
Mere days later, my girlfriend got a call from a buddy of hers. It turned out Playboy magazine was in town, holding auditions for their Canadian Girls special issue, and did she want to come backstage and help her in/out of her G-string and bathrobe? I thought this would make a good story, and wanted to tag along. “I’m not sure you would be . . . appropriate backstage,” I was informed.
Now, my girlfriend does possess all the prerequisite femme characteristics, but she is at least, if not more, perverted than I am, and I really would be backstage just for the human interest angle of it all, as I don’t usually go in for the Playboy Bunny type. But she can go, you know, undercover, whereas I have never had the luxury.
My grandmother explained it best the day I tried to “come out” to her. I was nineteen.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said. We were drinking Earl Grey tea and eating scones with raspberry jam. “I think I might be gay,” I blurted out.
“Finally,” she laughed and went to get the photo album. “Look, here, there you are, queer as a three dollar bill on your first day of school.” (I was wearing double holster cap guns and a plaid shirt.) “And look, a little lesbian goes to hockey camp, and here, poor thing, the dyke in her grad dress. I was wondering when you would figure it out.”
Just once, I would like to be in the closet, just for the novelty of it all. I wonder what my life would have been like, if I had a girly bone in my body. Would I have made it through trade school at all, or would it have been easier? Would my father have taught me how to weld? Would my Uncle John have given me a perfect mini-tool kit for my ninth birthday?
Maybe I would have made more tips, and not dropped out of college. Think of it. Maybe those two guys who jumped me in the park in ’89 and punched me out for being a fag would have left me alone, or maybe they would have been after something else.
The sweetie and I went to Seattle a couple of weekends ago. Just before we arrived at the American border, I did my usual tidying up: turn off radio, take off cowboy hat, roll sleeves down to cover up tattoos, button up shirt, sit up straight, seat belt on. I looked over at her. She was slouched casually in the passenger seat, tattoos hanging out, nipples a twitter in the light breeze, not a nervous bone in her body.
“Sit up, for chrissakes, and put a long-sleeved shirt on.” I was shocked by her apparent lack of border angst. “You wanna get us pulled over?”
I forgot that she looked like a girl, and thus the rules were different for her. She had a better chance of crossing without incident if she didn’t put on the long-sleeved shirt. “Next time, let me drive,” she said calmly as we breezed through the border. “Sad, but true.”
One day, we stopped for gas at the Mohawk around the corner from my place. While I filled up, she went in to buy a snack. When I came inside to pay, the gas jockey, whom I have known for five years or so, was draped across the counter explaining the intricacies of Keno to my lovely companion. She was drinking a Slurpee. I had to drag him away to pay for my gas.
“That’ll be $22.50,” he tells me, still distracted by the fascinating world of lottery odds.
“I’ll get that too,” I added, motioning toward her Slurpee.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said, waving his hand like a magician, “that’s on me.”
Five years I buy gas from him and Slurpees never grew on trees until I bring the redhead in.
We talked about it in the car, and the whole time we were buying groceries: the pros and cons of girlery versus boydom. She gets free Slurpees, but deals with harassment twenty-four seven. I get free anal searches at border crossings, but have to change my own tires.
We are in Shopper’s Drug Mart in the makeup section when another pro on the girl side presents itself: sixty-seven names for the colour red: heat wave red, firecracker red, code red, forward, blazing and nuance red, really winey red, vain stain, maraschino, downtown, and plumage red, and my favourite, Vampire State Building red. Not to mention prep’s cool peach or country club coral. Who knew?
Could I masquerade as a real girl if I had to? My mom used to think so. Me, I’m not so sure. I think it somehow goes deeper than just a brushcut and baggy pants. Look at my graduation photo: me in the aqua blue number, looking about as comfortable as a dog with one of those cones on my head so I won’t chew on my own strapless. Maybe I could grow my hair and the real girls wouldn’t notice the intruder.
But that’s the real point here, is it not? Maybe then the real girls wouldn’t notice me.
Dear Dad
I have an old Sears studio-type black-and-white portrait on the wall in the hallway. It’s of you and your three brothers, all in matching plaid shirts, with the cowlicks in your hair plastered back, and creases in your jeans.
Mom gave the photo to me when you guys split up. My friends always laugh at your late fifties hairdos and how your ears stuck out, and then they say: “Look at that, you look just like him. Trippy. Spitting image, ’cept for those ears.”
It’s true. Back row, on the right, one slow eye, just like mine. We could be twins, except now I’ve got wrinkles and wouldn’t be caught dead in plaid, due to negative stereotyping.
Weird things, those genes. Did I inherit my penchant for power tools, or was it learned? You taught me how to drive a forklift and spot weld, the summer I turned nine. I used to stand inside a metal tanker, arms shaking, holding a rusty piece of steel against the tanker wall, with you on a ladder with a rivet gun on the outside. I liked this job a lot, even though it was dark and echoey inside the metal tanks; it was a job you couldn’t do alone. You needed someone on the other side to hold the metal plate so the rivet had something to make it bend into place. We had a code, a certain number of taps on the tanker wall with a hammer or the butt end of a screwdriver meant different things: one tap meant I had to pee, three taps was coffee break.
“I’m going to need you at work today,” you would say casually over your breakfast in the morning. I would look smugly over at my little sister, who was not so useful and even worse than that, seemed oblivious to the fact that she wasn’t pulling her weight like I was. She didn’t even know the difference between a Phillips and a Robertson screw, or what cross-threading a bolt meant, and she was already eight. At this rate, she was never going to learn how to weld.
I guess it all started to fall apart in high school. High school was my first and only attempt to be a real girl, and although no one else seemed to buy my charade, you stopped taking me to the shop, and I went to keg parties on the weekends like everyone else did, instead of fishing with my dad. We stopped doing old cool car identification when we were driving around, like we used to. “Sixty-seven Valiant, slant six, two-tone red,” you said, the last time we played. “Kim Dawson’s parents just bought her a brand new Corolla,” I retorted, not realizing what sacrilege I had just committed. You looked at me like I’d just slapped your grandmother, and we never talked of cars again for years.
Things got worse when you remarried. “Don’t take it too personal,” your brother Rob says gently. “It’s her, not him. He still asks me how you’re doing.”
I find out how you’re making out from Uncle Rob, who says you’re still drinking too much. I hear you’re almost totally grey now, but the new wife dyed your hair brown. I have trouble imagining you with hair dye in, and a towel around your neck, and will believe this when I see it.
Uncle Rob called me yesterday. “Hey, I’m coming to town. The doctor wants to take
a picture of my dick for the Guinness Book of World Records.” He clears his throat. “But seriously, I’m coming down to have my prostate checked out, plus I’ve got Eagles tickets. You still hanging out with Miss Universe? Good, bring her too, we’ll go out for dinner. I’ll see you Tuesday. And hey, your old man says to say hello. Told me to tell you he loves you.”
Jake Has a New Handle
It took me a couple of days to call her back. We pretty much had our usual mother-daughter update: my Uncle Dave is back in the hospital because his pacemaker is acting up; my cousin Robert is driving down the highway on Thursday; and his mom, my Aunt Nora, has to take the day off work because she is so choked up about him leaving home. My mom hired Frank the painter to do the trim on her new house and he slipped and almost fell off the roof.
“He must be getting old,” I commented, remembering Frank and his love of moose meat and how he swore I wouldn’t be able to tell it from store-bought steak. I always could.
“He’s only fifty-nine, for chrissakes,” she said as she faked feeling indignant. Her birthday is next week. She’ll be fifty-three, and apparently plans to be crawling around on her roof for at least another decade.
We were just about to wrap it up when she cleared her throat. “I need to ask your advice on something,” she confessed.
“Go ahead.” I was intrigued. I could tell she was gearing up for something good. I know her. She has all kinds of relatives and girlfriends she can ask for advice on the day-to-day questions of life. When she comes to me, it’s always something juicy, something she can’t ask her sisters.
“There’s this guy who used to work here,” she said. “A few years back, he moved to New Mexico with his wife and kid. I always liked him a lot. His mom still lives here, so he comes up to see her quite a bit, plus he still does some contract work for us, so I see him once or twice a year.”
My mind was racing. Maybe she is attracted to him; maybe he is attracted to her. She feels guilty and needs to get his/her mental infidelity off her chest. That must be it.
“So, a couple of years ago, I notice he has braces,” she continued. “Then the next time he comes up he has lost his old glasses and is wearing contacts. Then the next time he’s coloured his hair, and has a new do.”
Okay. At this point, I thought she was going to tell me that she thought her friend might be gay. That’s why I was the one she had come to for advice. It was common knowledge that I was the family expert regarding All Things Homosexual or Otherwise Related. I leaned back in my chair, waiting to put my hard-earned knowledge to work.
“So, yesterday he comes into my office, and he has breasts. He has breasts and a purse. And he’s wearing a sweater set I would have died for.”
I sat up straight. “Were they nice?” I had to know.
“Who? Was who nice? It was just he and I there, and of course I was nice. When have I ever not been nice?”
“I was talking about his breasts,” I explained.
“Oh, those. Well, they were small. But his sweater set was gorgeous. So anyway, we always go out for lunch when he’s here, so we booked it and did our business, and he left. He’s staying with his mother. She’s always dressed to the nines, too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in pants.”
I wondered what advice she actually needed, or if she just wanted to talk about it all. I let her continue.
“The thing is, he has never mentioned any of this to me. He just acted like he has always had breasts. Though I did notice that when anyone else walked in, he crossed his arms. Do you think I should bring it up at all? Or just pretend nothing is going on?”
“How do you feel about it?” I asked, curious for more personal reasons now. I have never talked about my gender situation with her, I merely acted like I always had bound my breasts down and had a small bulge in my jeans, and she had never asked. I, too, had crossed my legs and hoped for the best.
“I don’t care either way,” she said. “I mean, I always liked him because he was smart and funny. It doesn’t change any of that for me.”
“Well, you should tell him that. He probably would love to hear it. Maybe he’s scared to bring it up.”
I know I am, I thought, but said nothing.
“Well, if he doesn’t give me a chance, then I’ll just leave it. Maybe he’s not ready to talk about it with me. He probably has his hands full explaining things to his mother and his daughter, not to mention his wife. But if he gives me the opportunity, I’ll tell him: Jake, this doesn’t change anything for me. You’re still smart and funny, and wherever did you find that sweater set?”
At this moment, I loved my mom so much that I felt a strange pain in my chest. “You should ask him if he would prefer that you switch pronouns for him, and ask him if he has another name he’s using, one that he might feel more comfortable with,” I explained to her.
“Well, of course I will,” she said, like her co-workers have sex changes everyday, like she’s an old hat at this. I began to realize that she was not asking me for advice at all. She had it all figured out already. What she was doing was giving me an opportunity.
“I’ve thought about hormones before,” I blurted out. “I mean, it has crossed my mind. I always wished I was a boy when I was little. I’ve always been, well, sort of. . . .”
She was silent, so I kept on.
“But I have decided that, for right now, anyway, that isn’t the answer for me. Hormones, I mean. I’m okay where I’m at, you know, somewhere in the middle.”
“You were made special.” She was two thousand clicks north, in a small town, but I could see her on the couch, her toes tucked under the cushion to keep them warm, the living room immaculate, a cup of tea beside her on the end table.
“I’ll let Jake know I’ll still be his friend, no matter what,” she whispered, and I knew that her boyfriend was now in the room with her. Our opportunity was over.
“Hey, Mom? You tell your friend Jake she is one lucky lady.”
“I’ll tell her,” she promised. As she hung up I heard her telling her boyfriend that I said to say hello.
The Femme Test
She’s almost two, and already showing symptoms. She took her first steps in little miniature work boots and tiny baby Levi’s, but it didn’t help.
I have only myself to blame, really. I never found that mini-hockey stick I was meaning to get her. I have been busy and missed out on her most formative years. I hear from her mother that they gave her the test, in the shoe store, and she passed over the shiny black boots and pulled down the sequined pumps.
Like I said, I have no one to blame but myself. I have neglected my role model duties, and Sailor Moon or someone else stepped up in my place. I can’t blame her mother; she can’t be expected to pass on skills she doesn’t possess. Her girlfriend explained to me that she even baited her own black boots with little chocolates one day, but the kid still went for the open-toed mules.
Who can blame her? I mean, girly things are sparkly. Girls smell better; they are more likely to wear flowy things that catch the eye. Their voices are more melodious and soothing. Plus, to a breastfeeding kid, women have the obvious advantage of owning breasts. It’s easy to see why women seem more interesting, and their accoutrements more intriguing.
It’s just that I really was looking forward to a little friend that I could teach my ways. I would start off with the basics, making her a little teeny leather belt. We would progress to street hockey and basic mechanics. She would sit next to me with a long blade of grass in her mouth and pass me the tools. I would teach her to identify wrench size by eye and explain the finer points of bolt recognition. I would get her a little red toolbox with a miniature saw and hammer and such. I would buy her a book of knots and teach her how to tie a hook to her fishing line.
Now, don’t think for a minute that I will love the little gaffer any less for all her femmery; it’s just that little girls leave me feeling vaguely inadequate. I find them confusing. I will have to have the difference betw
een a slip and a camisole explained to me again, I will falter while improvising believable princess stories – I know I will – and I have always sucked at French braiding hair.
She will never say she wants to grow up and be just like me. I will embarrass her in some way she will not be able to put her eight-year-old finger on. She won’t want to wear the outfits I pick out for her. I will require assistance to properly shop for gifts for her.
I know all this because I am the eldest of thirty-six cousins and have lived through it before. My youngest female cousin has just entered high school. Last summer, she introduced me to her boyfriend and I could tell by the way she said, “And this is my cousin Ivan,” that I had required some previous explaining, like an uncle with a facial tic, or an aunt who drinks too many glasses of white wine and gets lecherous.
“Oh, you’re Cousin Ivan . . . ” her boyfriend said as she shook my hand and they exchanged looks. She won’t call me for relationship advice, and later, she will be secretly relieved that I can’t make it to her baby shower.
According to statistics, I should have 3.6 queer cousins to bond with, but other than a few curious blowjobs during college and sporadic bouts of crossdressing while intoxicated, all of them have turned out – quite disappointingly – heterosexual. I am forced to turn to the children of my friends to find a place to pass down my hard-earned tomboy knowledge.
There is still Francis, my friend Chris’s eight-year-old, who has nurtured his very own Yukon-grown version of drag; developing cutting-edge ensembles such as the old-sweater-sleeve-as-tube-top, and the sundress-under-snowsuit look. Chris tells me her son got both ears pierced last week, then climbed into the truck and informed her that he would now need to change schools, because he needed a bit more of a downtown environment. The French immersion school up on the hill wasn’t quite ready for the new him, he feared, and a change of venue was in order.