Tranny

by Laura Jane Grace

  Being courted was a sweet feeling, and we milked it for everything it was worth. Label execs would fly us around the country, bring us through their offices, give us stacks of free CDs, and blow tons of smoke up our asses. Their label-speak was something else. They’d compare the four of us to the 1996 Chicago Bulls, which I didn’t have the heart to tell them meant nothing to me, since I’ve never cared about sports.

  After years of punk rock asceticism, it was like we had been given the keys to the candy store. They’d buy us drugs, take us out to pricey dinners and strip clubs, and expense everything on the corporate card. We would get lap dances and come over to the A&R people afterward with our hands out. “More. More money, please,” we’d tell them, like kids asking for their allowance. We did this until they had to explain that they’d run out of money, at which point we’d get up and leave.

  We found the idea of these suits trying to win over a bunch of broke Florida punk kids so absurd and hilarious that we filmed a tour documentary capturing the mockery we made of the experience called We’re Never Going Home, our very own Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. We had a friend named Brig from Austin who would always get on stage and cause hilarious, drunken mayhem when we played there, dumping beers on our heads or lifting us up on his shoulders. We flew him out for the tour for the specific purpose of fucking with the label execs whenever they came to our shows. He made sure they were kept neither dry nor comfortable the entire time. For a month, we filmed these poor people being pranked, mocked, and put through hell. Even in the editing, we messed with them, putting flashing dollar signs in their eyes. But I have to give it to them, they hung in there.

  Even though it all was a running joke among the band members, it seemed like the numbers we were being sent were going up by the day. Eventually the top bid got up to around $950,000. Meanwhile, Fat Mike had offered us $250,000 to stay with Fat Wreck Chords. After we’d taken this ride as far as we could and there were no more free lap dances to be gotten, the manager told us an answer was needed and whatever our decision was, he would stand behind it.

  Something didn’t feel right about major labels. The idea of signing to one riddled me with punk guilt. None of us wanted to let money ruin the good thing we had going. All we needed was a van and enough cash to pay rent, anyway. So we unanimously made the decision to stay with Fat for our third album, effectively turning away over half a million dollars.

  While I’m sure the major labels were baffled by this from a business standpoint, it felt good to have something in my life I could exert control over. Because with all the action happening around me, deep down, there was something inside that made me feel utterly helpless.

  May 18, 2004—Gainesville, FL

  I am completely lost. What voice do I listen to? What urge do I follow? I woke up this morning and turned on the TV to a Learning Channel documentary on transgender people. The documentary talked about how one in 30,000 has the “disorder.” They dissected brains, they found results.

  Wide awake now at 4:15 AM. As I sober up, my mind fixates on the same hopelessness that it always does. I feel anger towards everyone and everything. I seethe venom. All I can see is a hard landing after a fall. My soul is drifting. Gainesville stays the same.

  How many years am I going to spend staring at dresses in store windows wishing they were mine? I pray for something or someone to save me.

  June 11, 2004—Milan, Italy

  The band and crew were all hungry after the show tonight. The promoter took us to a roadside food truck. As we were ordering, three gorgeous women came walking up. There was the tall leggy blonde in blue jeans and a white tube top over a leopard print bra. There was the short brunette with glasses, a sequined backless top and matching mini-skirt. There was the gaunt brunette with a ponytail wearing a tight white tank top with a Playboy bunny printed on it and a super tiny pleated black mini-skirt.

  “Holy shit!” said Andrew under his breath before beginning to laugh.

  When I looked again, I realized that the three women were transsexuals. I saw they had no hips and that the brunette with her hair down was balding. I heard their voices as they ordered food. Their tits were real though.

  We all gawked and joked amongst ourselves, not very discreetly at all. Regardless of whether or not they spoke English, they knew that we were talking about them. Our roadie Black Arm John was so freaked out, he went and stood on the other side of the road until we were ready to go.

  “I think the brunette in the black skirt is actually a girl.”

  “Why don’t you suck her dick and find out?”

  “You guys want to get a brostitute?”

  “Prostidudes!”

  I laughed at them along with everyone else, the whole time knowing the truth about myself, that I wished I were so brave.

  Not knowing who you are is a terrible feeling.

  I’ve been called a “sellout” many times in life for the choices I’ve made in my musical career. But this experience, that moment—that’s what it feels like to truly sell out.

  June 26, 2004—Rechlin-Lärz Airfield

  I was in a bad mood as we headed to the festival show but I couldn’t have been more wrong about how the night was going to go. It was exactly what we all needed to push us through the last couple days of this tour.

  The Fusion Festival was held on the Rechlin-Lärz Airfield, a now-abandoned air base where German jet fighters once took flight from. Our set was before Nomeansno, who were then followed by Chumbawamba. So amazing to have the chance to see Chumbawamba play despite the fact that their set was plagued with technical difficulties. They are one of my favorite bands.

  I bought six hits of ecstasy off my friend Gunnar and passed each one out to everyone in the band and crew, saying that we all had to take them, and making sure everyone knew that under no circumstances could we let Martin “the Metal Angel” know we were high on ecstasy because while Martin was fine with drinking and smoking weed, he was absolutely NOT cool with a considerably harder drug like MDMA.

  Neither Andrew, Jordan, nor John had ever taken ecstasy before. We dosed while still wet with stage sweat. After packing up our gear, we headed out onto the festival grounds to watch bands. James and I got somehow separated from everyone in the crowds of people. An hour passes and we start to get worried that I’d been ripped off with fake drugs but then the pill kicks in with a vengeance. Everything became absolutely fucking hilarious, the two of us laughing wildly, wandering around the festival while looking for the rest of the gang.

  We eventually found Jordan, Warren, and John, but still no Andrew. All of a sudden, Andrew comes flying through the crowd, pupils the size of dinner plates, covered head to toe in some kind of white powder yelling wildly about the new group of German friends he’s made and how we should all relocate to Germany.

  Flash Gordon was playing on large movie screens. Raves of people dancing, fire shooting into the sky, the beat thumping in your chest. We were all fuuuuuuucked uuuuuuup. Everything was so right. Everything made sense in the world. I didn’t want to ever come down. I wanted to stay that high, stay that young and free forever.

  We didn’t head back to the hostel until after the sun was up. It was just time to go. I had smoked four final joints, drank two whole bottles of champagne, and just couldn’t get any more fucked up. I switched through songs on the van’s stereo, anxiously looking for the right one to compliment the moment, eventually landing on the Leatherface song “Plastic Surgery.” A perfect moment. The best of times with my best of friends.

  When the band’s success couldn’t keep the dysphoria at bay, I relied on cocaine and sex to do the trick. I was fucking C.C., I was fucking the booking agent, I was still fucking my estranged wife, I was fucking anyone who would fuck me back. Then it all caught up with me at once.

  I was supposed to get on a plane and fly west to California for a high-profile magazine photo shoot, but had stayed awake all night getting high. I was not a great flyer, and the feeling of dread at the th
ought of getting on a plane grew stronger and stronger with each line I snorted and each hour that passed.

  By sunrise, I had convinced myself that the plane was going to crash. But I knew I couldn’t talk my way out of the obligation, so I skipped town, turned off my cell phone, and didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I drove to Cedar Key, a fishing village on the Gulf Coast just west of Gainesville. I checked into a motel, walked to the closest bar, and sat down for a drink.

  Tacked to the wall across from where I sat at the bar was a newspaper article detailing the 1977 plane crash deaths of Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd. I interpreted this as cosmic affirmation that my premonition had indeed been correct and that had I gotten on that plane, it would have most assuredly gone down.

  Drunk and alone, lying in the dark of my hotel room later that night, I reached into my pants to jerk off and stopped after feeling something out of the ordinary. I turned on the light to find bumps covering my legs and groin.

  My mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was some horrible STD and that God was punishing me. In my cocaine-fueled paranoia, I convinced myself that I had contracted HIV. I began to prepare for death.

  I soon started attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings in secret. I became diligent about making doctor appointments to have my blood screened for disease, although none was ever found. I was sure they were all lying.

  I had been reckless in my sexual endeavors, sleeping with strangers or with women I knew to be loose, sleeping with an intravenous drug user, never using proper protection. I was out of control, and this was a reality check. As part of the forgiveness stage of my Narcotics Anonymous redemptive process, I contacted my most recent sexual partners to apologize for what an asshole I’d been. I told them about the infection and asked if they’d also experienced any symptoms, but none had.

  September 26, 2004—Gainesville, FL

  The last person I had sex with was C.C. We were both drunk. That was almost a year ago. I haven’t been with anyone since.

  That first time in the examination room, waiting for a doctor to come say what’s wrong with me, I swore off all vices, no more sex, no more drinking, no more drugs, no more pornography, eat all my vegetables, anything, God, please. Please just make this go away.

  A week later the test results come back and I’m told that I don’t have Hepatitis. I don’t have Syphilis. I don’t have herpes. There’s something in my head that won’t let me believe though. None of them can see the real disease.

  I go to another clinic and I’m tested for Chlamydia and Gonorrhea.

  A young blonde nurse tells me that just by looking at my cock she can see that I don’t have either of the diseases.

  “There’s no discharge,” she says.

  I ask her to test anyway. She obliges by shoving a wooden Q-tip into my dickhole.

  For a second I think I feel empathy coming from her, which endears her to me. Fate has linked us. There is a bond. We will always have shared this moment, an STD test, a Q-tip, my dick in your hands. I almost ask her out on a date.

  She tells me to make an appointment with a dermatologist. The bruising on the inside of my leg keeps growing. I’m thinking they’re going to have to amputate my leg. It looks like there’s a parasite inside of me eating away.

  I spend night after night sitting naked on my bathroom floor in total self-disgust. The dermatologist prescribed a steroid cream for the bruising.

  I go to another walk-in clinic, and am able to talk the doctor into giving me a full physical, a tetanus shot, the first of three shots for Hepatitis B, just in case.

  I also get blood drawn for HIV testing again.

  This is the fourth time I’ve been tested in the last six weeks.

  Results always come back in the clear, the doctor always tells me that there’s nothing wrong with me, that it’s all in my head.

  “What about this line on my cock?” I ask while quickly taking my dick out of my pants to turn over and show him. I speak as if I’m talking with a mechanic about something being wrong with my car.

  “I wouldn’t be worried about that if I were you,” he diagnoses.

  “What about the molluscum?”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it. The sooner you get healthy, the sooner it will go away. I tell you that every time, Tom. Quit using drugs. Get clean.”

  Though my neuroses got the best of me, in reality, I’d find out that my condition was not sexually transmitted at all. It was molluscum contagiosum, a viral bacterial skin infection common among children. Years of living in filth and wearing clothes out of dumpsters had finally caught up to me. I was so fucked up on drugs and alcohol that my immune system wasn’t able to fight it.

  On tour, I had been crashing in dingy, mice-infested European squats and wearing sweaty show pants for months at a time, going weeks without taking a shower. I’d already dealt with scabies multiple times, as well as impetigo, but I didn’t see the connection. I obsessed over my condition. Both the paranoia and physical symptoms only worsened with constant substance abuse.

  While I was really just in desperate need of a long, salicylic acid bath, more than anything, my soul felt dirty. I wasn’t getting drunk or high for fun or escape anymore; it was out of habit and dependency. It suddenly hit me that I was not simply a casual user of drugs and alcohol; I was a full-on addict. I was closing out the Top every night, drowning myself in gin and tonics, two grams of coke, half a pack of cigarettes, and the occasional bag of mushrooms. This was my daily routine.

  The innocence of youth was gone, replaced by something more sinful and perverse. All the noise around me about what it meant to sell out, all the people asking for something from me or telling me they wanted to do something for me, all the chaos and confusion in the face of mortality. It was overwhelming. I wanted that sense of clarity back. I wanted to be healthy again. This psychosis, fueled by dysphoria, addiction, and disease, became the inspiration for the songs I would write for our third album, Searching for a Former Clarity.

  August 21, 2004—Arizona

  Our hotel room smells like kitty litter and costs too much money.

  Was offered some blow after the show tonight. A cold sweat washed over my body. My mouth started to salivate. I could already taste it running down the back of my throat before the dollar bill was even rolled.

  How much is too much?

  I lay awake in bed past sunrise, praying that my heart doesn’t explode.

  Line after line after line.

  I do a line off the toilet before I take a shower. I do a line before I take a pill. I do a line before I get in bed. I do a line before I do another line until I’m dead.

  If it weren’t for pills and alcohol I would never sleep.

  This fucking rotten disease, it’s not going away unless I get healthy. Six days ago my face started breaking out. Molluscum bumps around my temples, across my forehead, and on my nose.

  I’ve started carrying a bottle of hand sanitizer in my pocket. Regularly taking a multi-vitamin and a vitamin E supplement. I’ve been changing my boxer shorts at least twice a day. I look at myself and see a drug addict, alcoholic, STD-ridden, self-obsessed asshole.

  I want to be so much more than this. For two nights in a row now I’ve fantasized about a waitress who served me coffee in Bend, OR. Something about her beauty has stuck with me for days. I wish I was her.

  It doesn’t look like it feels on the inside.

  September 11, 2004—Sydney, Australia

  Two sold-out shows back to back at the Annandale Hotel. Tonight was the best of the two. Blinding white light everywhere, sweat dripping, my eardrums all but bleeding. Every move ballet. The experience was reason for which I still have faith. We celebrate by drinking all night at the bar.

  “I bet her mouth is really warm,” says James; and then he quickly slaps a hand over his mouth.

  The bartenders fucking hate us. We are anything but discreet as we gawk at their tits and asses. A bunc
h of dudes being dudes, practically jerking themselves off in public.

  This is a tough front to wear.

  I lick the salt off my hand, down the shot and bite into the lemon. I feel my stomach turn. I know I’m about to throw up. I race to the bathroom. I make it to the toilet just barely before throwing up five times. Pieces of half-digested salad and kebab fill my nose and then get sucked back down into my throat as I gasp for air.

  November 20, 2004—Somewhere in Virginia

  Cocaine-fueled insomnia.

  Sudden mood swings and depression.

  Binge drinking, binge eating, binge masturbation.

  Is this any way to live?

  I pretend to feel because I’m so tired of feeling nothing.

  Who am I if I am not who I pretend to be?

  If I were to say how I really feel,

  What I really think,

  People would think I was mentally ill.

  Cross-dressing feels like self-mutilation.

  I can never be anything more than a pervert dressed up in women’s clothes.

  So sick, sick, sick.

  I want to black it all out.

  I do not care if I am alive or dead.

  It takes time to decompress after coming home from a tour. You feel like your body is still moving. You grow to crave the constant stimulation that comes from being on the road, always going to a new place every day, meeting new people, having new experiences. You have a purpose each day: to play a show. Good or bad, it’s a daily accomplishment. I would return home from tour and instantly realize how alone and aimless I was.

  Being locked in a van with the same people for 100 hours a week makes you feel like you’re living in your own little world. Subjects that comprise your daily conversations become so weird and esoteric that to outsiders, you have nothing of relatable interest to say. All of your jokes are inside jokes, all of your stories are about the road. I was quickly growing disconnected with friends in the Gainesville scene. Gainesville is small and gossipy, and all the rampant cocaine use made me paranoid about everything—major label attention and the fallout from punks, convinced I was dying of undiagnosed diseases, believing I was schizophrenic and losing my mind, lost in dysphoria.