Tranny

by Laura Jane Grace

  I hated myself for getting drunk, not just because I was turning into my father, but because I was already failing at being a father myself. Since Heather stopped partying for the nine months of her pregnancy, giving up weed and alcohol, I wanted to match her sobriety to show her how committed I was. I tried to give it all up to be right there with her. I wanted to read all the baby books she’d read. But I couldn’t even get through the first few weeks. I also felt guilty for failing Heather by giving into my dysphoria. That made me get depressed and drink more. I was caught in a perpetual cycle of self-loathing.

  Before we took the stage on the last night of tour in Columbia, South Carolina, at the New Brookland Tavern, Warren asked if we could all talk. He told us that he thought we’d made the right decision. He said that he realized a lot of his actions over the last year, though unintentional, were indicative of his not being fully invested in the band.

  I fought back tears through the last half of our set that night. I kept looking over the drums and seeing the bearded face that had sat reliably behind me for almost a decade, keeping the beat, however imperfect. We closed with “We Laugh at Danger (And Break All the Rules),” a song Warren and I wrote for Reinventing Axl Rose back in 2001, a time when everything seemed so much simpler and easier. We played it together one last time, and I walked off stage, exited through the back of the building, and found a quiet alley where I could be alone. I dropped to my knees and cried. The tears weren’t just for Warren leaving; they were for how fucked up everything had gotten. For all of our problems as a band, I had honestly wanted the four of us to succeed together. I had believed in the dream.

  After pulling myself together, I went back into the bar, ordered a round of shots for the closest bodies to me, and proceeded to drink until I blacked out. I woke up on the back bench of the van just as we were pulling up to my house. I grabbed my bag and jumped out without saying goodbye.

  March 13, 2009—Saint Augustine, FL

  Heather and I had just sat down to breakfast when Andrew called to tell me the news. C.C. was dead. She had an argument with her drug-dealer boyfriend. He shot her in the back of the head, tried to hide her body in a closet. He showed up at a friend’s house covered in her blood. They had called the cops. He had been arrested and charged with her murder.

  At the funeral, C.C.’s mom approached me and asked if I still had the tattoo of her daughter’s name on the back of my leg. I was ashamed to tell the truth and say no, it had been covered. When she next asked if the song “Thrash Unreal” was about her daughter, I thought she wanted to hear me say yes, so I lied and said so. C.C.’s mom then told me how much the song had hurt and embarrassed her daughter. They had spoken about it a couple days before her death. She made me promise to make it up to her.

  It didn’t look like C.C. in the casket. It had been a couple years since we had last seen each other. Since the affair ended. Her hair was long, she had grown it out. The makeup made her look tan, which she most absolutely was not. She would have hated the dress they put on her.

  I felt guilt walking into the room. No one wanted me there. She was married with a kid and we once had a relationship. I didn’t know what to say when I saw her estranged husband. I have never known what to say to him.

  I’m sorry. I loved her, too.

  I’m not sure if I remember the past correctly. Maybe I’m romanticizing things or leaving out important details. I need to make good on my promise to C.C.’s mom.

  I can’t sleep since the funeral. I can’t stop thinking about C.C. and the way she was when she was alive. Her corpse was unreal to me. Her sunken eyes. Her sunken cheeks. The bullet hole in the back of her head.

  The tattoos on her arms were covered by the long sleeve dress. I’m not sure if she still had “Tom Tom the Atom Bomb” tattooed on her arm but I assume so.

  Heather reminded me of C.C. when we first met. That was one of the things that first attracted me to her.

  There are so many things that I regret about my relationship with C.C., so many reasons to feel guilt. Because of the shame I associate with vulnerability I am numbing myself completely. Can you hear me right now?

  Wrong time, wrong place. Maybe we can be together in the next life.

  March 21, 2009—Boston, MA—2:04 PM

  Somehow the ceiling of room 247 at the Howard Johnson is more stained than the carpet. None of the pictures hang straight on the walls and their placement is suspect, most likely covering holes.

  This is my first time at the House of Blues in Boston, since they remodeled the building. This used to be the Avalon as well as many different clubs before that. We’ve played at the Avalon at least once a year for the past five. There’s not a trace of the old room left but it still feels familiar.

  You know what to expect when you’re playing a House Of Blues. They’re all decorated the same. The sound system is always good. Backstage is always comfortable. It’s consistent but also feels like you’re playing in a Ruby Tuesday restaurant.

  The set was okay. Opening solo for the Pogues. I was too nervous to have fun, overthinking every action made. None of the Pogues said so much as a “hello” to me. They aren’t a very friendly bunch. They don’t seem like they’re enjoying what they’re doing. Philip Chevron went so far as to try walking into a locked utility closet to avoid having to interact with me.

  Just off stage right is a small curtained off area. Behind the curtain there is a table and a chair. On the table is a tub of ice with a scooper, a stack of plastic cups, two shot glasses, an ashtray, three lighters, two bottles of gin, a bottle of white wine, a bottle of tequila, two bottles of whiskey, two bottles of tonic water, a bottle opener and two stacks of six towels; all for Shane MacGowan. At various points in the set he leaves the stage and goes behind the curtains. The band plays a couple songs without him and then he comes back out.

  I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in a band with him, what it must be like to watch someone fade so gradually over the years, especially someone so talented.

  March 30, 2009—Saint Augustine, FL

  Did I succumb to the inevitable or give in to the predictable? I have no self-control. I disgust myself.

  For the past week this house has been my entire world. It has been enough to exist as her behind these walls, curtains drawn closed. I sweep, mop, vacuum, dust, organize, reorganize. I’m terrified to go outside like this and I’m thankful for every second of it. The perpetual suck of life ceases to exist, a moment suspended. It’s like briefly existing in another dimension, a life that could have been, bittersweet.

  This has to stop after this weekend. Anything else is to be feared and fought.

  I cannot remember the last time I felt this free. I was ravenous, starved, crazed, desperate for it.

  April 13, 2009—Saint Augustine, FL

  Heather and I started the day off with a big breakfast of tofu scramble, fresh cut kale from our garden, soy sausage, toast, and coffee. We watched a VHS collection of Danzig music videos while eating. “She Rides” has to be one of the greatest music videos ever made.

  We washed the car, worked on the garden, cleaned up around the house and then headed in for a scheduled ultrasound. Everything looks fine. In the afternoon we went to the beach, sat in the sand, split a tomato sandwich.

  At 13 weeks, our child can make a fist and suck its thumb. Bones are solidifying. Soon it will have ribs, intestines in place, teeth ready to be grown, vocal cords ready to wail.

  I crawl into bed next to Heather and she sticks me with an elbow, mumbles “Dammit.”

  I love you, Heather.

  April 17, 2009—Asheville, NC

  I’m repulsed by the sight of my own body hair. It’s happened to me before. Comes and goes in waves. Have I lost my mind? Estranged. Deranged. Perverted.

  I’m trying not to drink on this tour, which isn’t easy. Weed helps when the dysphoria gets to be too much. I need a crutch.

  I need to find a 24-hour Walmart Super Store or a shopping mall. I nee
d something feminine to wear. It’s the only thing that’s going to keep me sane on this run.

  Andrew and Jordan are sitting up front, singing made-up songs about “butthole stimulation.” Andrew’s sense of humor is reliant on the human asshole, his or other people’s bowel movements, farts, anal sex, etc. It’s harmless but so fucking boring.

  Tour has been moving at a quick pace. Locked into a routine of wake up and drive, stop for gas, drive some more, sound-check, find something to eat, wait for the show to start, play, load out, drive to hotel, watch TV for an hour, shower, write, sleep, repeat.

  All I can think about lately when I see an attractive female is how much I wish I was them, how much I wish their body was mine.

  The last time I had dressed in women’s clothes was 2005. The urge came back and I could not control it. I wish I had been born a girl. I always have. I don’t know how to make sense of all this, being married, having a baby in October, being in this band. How do I reconcile these feelings?

  I can’t consciously choose an impossible dream sure to provide only isolation and embarrassment over the life I currently have. But goddamn I would like to.

  I daydream of disappearing, dropping off the face of the earth. Take some money out of the bank, get on a plane to some place I won’t be found, change my name, grow my hair long, change my appearance, lose weight, shape my body as close as I can to a woman’s, cover up my tattoos, start taking hormones, get plastic surgery, my lips, my nose, breasts. Start a new life. Hope for the best. None of it would be easy. Would I be happy? Or would I find myself feeling just as unfulfilled as I do now?

  May 16, 2009—Adelaide, Australia

  Some nights it doesn’t feel good to be touched by strangers; to be standing, eyes closed, singing and have someone drunkenly throw their arm around your neck and start screaming into your face, the repugnant stench of their rancid beer breath filling your nostrils. If I were to say this to anyone, people would think I was an ungrateful asshole, don’t bite the hand that feeds. Don’t put yourself on a pedestal. Tonight was one of those nights I didn’t want to be touched. Sorry.

  Chuck Ragan has convinced me to switch set times with him and close the show each night. He seems to think this makes sense. I disagree. He’s infinitely more talented of a solo performer than me. If there’s one thing I hope to learn from this tour it’s how to be gracious.

  My alarm is set for 9 AM. I’m going to wake up, work out, and start the day. I need to reexamine everything, rethink every thought, go deep, as deep as it takes to find the songs I need. I know they’re there. I just need to figure out how to pull them out. I want a spiritual journey, clean out the trash from the corners of my brain, drop all dead psychic weight. I need transformation, to absorb, transcend, to feel alive. Forget about the past and move forward completely. I need to kill Tom Gabel, destroy his ego.

  I’m not gonna do the claps,” George Rebelo informed us bluntly at our first practice with him.

  George was a veteran drummer, recording and touring professionally longer than any of us. His band, Hot Water Music, was legendary in the punk scene and, being from Gainesville, the local band we looked up to as the shining example of how to make a living playing music. Since things with Hot Water Music had cooled down over the years, George had free time, mostly picking up bar shifts to get by. The three of us all agreed he was clearly the best, easiest, quickest, most local option to fill our newly vacant drum seat.

  In the middle of our song “Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious,” there is a bridge where we stop playing and sing over our clapping beat into the next verse. “And we rock, because it’s us against them / We found our own reasons to sing / And it’s so much less confusing when lines are drawn like that.” This was always a part of the set when Warren would shine. He’d stand up on his drum stool, grinning ear to ear, clapping his hands above his head, making sure everyone in the audience joined in. But George let us know right away that he had no intention of doing this. At no point would he be standing up and clapping, he told us.

  George was a great drummer, but once again, a drummer with a completely different feel than the last. Instead of being unable to emulate Warren’s style, he was often just stubbornly unwilling to. We liked and respected him, but it was immediately obvious that he viewed playing with us as a good career opportunity—there was money in the gig and the chance to work with a legendary producer. He wasn’t planning on being an invested member of the band. Why would he? We were being sued, after all.

  He would take a smoke break between every three songs during practice. Andrew and I convinced him to attend Crossfit endurance training with us five days a week before practice every morning. We said we wanted to go, and we did, but really, we wanted him to go. Hit a tractor tire with a sledgehammer five times in a row, then drop and do five push-ups, hit the tire 10 times, then 10 push-ups, and so on. Try doing that shit after a long night of binge drinking and weed smoking. I’ve never thrown up harder.

  Our practice studio in Gainesville was a 90-minute drive from my home in Saint Augustine. I started sleeping there during the week, curled up in a sleeping bag on the floor of the gear closet among the amps and guitar cases. When the lights went out, it was a pitch-black tomb. Opening the door every morning to be greeted by the Florida sunshine and humidity was a daily act of violence against myself.

  I told Heather I was staying at the studio because I needed the time to work on the album, which was true, but really, it was because I knew it was my last chance to be her. I kept a bag of women’s clothes in a locked file cabinet in the studio’s loft space. After the band left for the night, I would smoke weed and drink wine and make the space mine, as if the outside world didn’t exist. With a baby coming in just a few months, I knew this behavior would have to end before it was born. I’d have to put it behind me forever once I became a father—the wigs, the dresses, the makeup—but if I didn’t have this one last chance to be her, I would suffocate.

  After a few weeks of rehearsals and demoing with George, it was time for me to head out alone to Los Angeles for preproduction with Butch. The two of us had agreed that I would finish writing the album out there with him, working one-on-one on song structures and vocal melodies before the rest of the band came out. I was looking forward to the time with Butch, and wanted to learn anything and everything he was willing to teach me. Heather agreed to come to Los Angeles when the rest of the band did. We would have the baby there.

  I gave myself a full week to make the drive from Florida and loaded up the car with an ounce of weed, two eightballs of cocaine, a cornucopia of assorted pills, and my bag of dresses. No map, just driving west. I had the car windows tinted before leaving, so that I could be her for the whole drive. This was my last hurrah.

  I didn’t even make it out of Gainesville before I was nose-deep in blow. I stopped at the Gainesville Mall to buy underwear at Victoria’s Secret. I checked into the first hotel across the Georgia state line, desperate to get out of men’s clothes. Each day I would check out of my hotel a woman and, before checking into the next one, change outfits in the parking lot, wearing sunglasses to hide the makeup and putting on male attire.

  Somewhere around Tucumcari, New Mexico, I got a call from Heather saying she didn’t feel well and was going to check herself into the emergency room. I was too fucked up to register what to do. I should have manned up, sobered up, and booked a flight back to Florida. But instead I sat paralyzed in my hotel room until she called back to tell me she and the baby were fine. The doctor said she had just eaten too many avocados.

  I rode white lines through a thick cloud of smoke the whole way to California, holding the drugs in my bra. When I hit Barstow, 100 miles outside L.A., I pulled over and threw everything out—$800 worth of clothes I’d bought on the drive west and the empty plastic bags that were once filled with drugs. Goodbye, narcotic breasts. It all went in the dumpster. I prayed that everything else went with it—all of the urges and impulses, all of the shame of a life sn
eaking around to hide my secret. This was it. I was going to be a man, I told myself; a husband to a wife, a father to a child, a frontman to a band with a hit record. A man.

  El Dorado Studio didn’t feel as good as Paramount, where we had recorded New Wave three years prior. It felt colder and darker. The ceilings were too high, and we felt small and insignificant under them. The studio intern would light incense and we’d put it out. Then he’d come back and light it again. We’d raise the lights and he’d dim them.

  Shortly into the recording process, we also learned that our personalities were not meshing with George’s. He came into the studio one day and told us he had some notes on our vocal harmonies. A drummer with notes on harmonies. Fuck me. I realized we had rushed the decision to commit to him, and should have explored more options. Still, when Warren’s girlfriend, acting as his lawyer, continued to email us about negotiating the terms of our parting agreement, claiming that her client should no longer be held responsible in the lawsuit, I had no regrets about kicking him out.

  George wasn’t the only one with suggestions. The label A&R visited the studio one day to hear the new songs and brought with him a long list of terrible ideas, including changes to lyrics, drum beats, and not-so-subtle hints at our physical appearance.

  “You know what I fucking hate? Fat people in bands. It’s like, lose fucking fifteen pounds before you get your ass up on stage. No one wants to see that shit. Right?”

  We got the point. He was telling us to lose weight. Everyone in the studio just sat silently and took it. None of us told him to go fuck himself. I felt like a coward for not kicking him out.