Out of the Closet

by Aimee Norin

  Harry continued explaining to the other four. “They’ll initially park us in what will look like four columns, but it’s really two columns of two, side-by-side. If we ride up there as a group of four, two ahead and two behind, they may see that we’re together and line us up that way. Or one might get put ahead, two abreast, and one behind? Who knows? It’s what we get for having friends. And when we get going, who’s-by-who kinda varies as we ride.”

  “You’ve ridden in it before?” Oceanna asked Hila.

  Hila shook her head. “I’ve seen it, though.”

  “And after—” Mason was asking.

  “No way to know,” Harry said. “It’s hundreds of bikes. They got to line us up, then we’ll have the parade, then we’ll park at the other end and go to the festivities at City Hall.”

  “It’s okay,” Simi said. “We’ll be together even if they line us up differently. We’re in the parade together, either way.”

  “Good attitude,” Harry said. “Helmets don’t need to be worn during the parade. Can put them in the helmet truck, if you like, but I just clamp mine onto the bike somewhere.”

  “I’ll put mine in the boot,” Mason said.

  “Same here,” Oceanna said. “But I don’t have a helmet for Hila—to ride from here the few blocks to Registration.”

  “You can use my secondary helmet I use to pick up girls,” Harry said with a smile at Simi. She pulled a little, black, plastic bowl out of her left leather saddlebag and handed it to Oceanna. “One way or another, we’ll meet up at the other end. Okay?”

  “Thanks,” Oceanna said.

  “’Kay,” Mason said.

  “Everyone ready?” Harry asked.

  “Check,” Simi said.

  Mason raised his voice as if to rally the troops: “The Fab Five Ride!” He held out his hand.

  Each of the other four stacked their hands on top of his.

  “Yea!” they cheered.

  The valet parkers for the hotel all jerked their head around to see.

  The Fab Five donned their helmets.

  The registration table was set up on Steuart St., one short block west of the Bay and immediately before the corner to Market St. It was 9:30 a.m., an hour before parade start.

  All registered and bare-headed, helmets stowed, they got back on their four bikes and started them up.

  On the back of Oceanna’s Ultra, Hila raised her hand asking for their attention, then—pointing forward for Oceanna to see—waved for the rest to follow.

  Slowly, at five miles per hour, they rounded the corner onto Market St. in view of the wide, open parade route to the southwest, made their way past the helmet truck on the right, a group of organizers on the left, toward the back of a long line of bikes in four columns—seeming two columns on the right beside two columns on the left.

  Mason was in the front left of their group of four.

  Oceanna and Hila were in the front right position.

  Simi was in the back left of their group.

  And Harry was in the back right.

  They kept position precisely, as they rode to the line-up, and by chance, the volunteer marshaller did park them in the right-side column, side-by-side, just as they’d approached the line-up area—except that Mason’s side was a little forward of Oceanna’s side.

  “Good! Good! Closer!” the marshaller waved Mason and Oceanna closer, to within a foot of the bike ahead. Then she moved quickly to Simi and Harry, motioning them closer to the back of Mason and Oceanna.

  “Good! There!” the marshaller said with a broad smile. “Welcome to Pride! Mind those trolley rails in the road. Don’t let your kickstand get in there.” She left to park the next bikes arriving behind them.

  The group of four bikes shut off their engines and rested the bikes on kickstands until told to start.

  Mason’s and Simi’s bikes cleared the trolley rails on their left just fine.

  They all stood around their bikes with silly grins.

  “Look at all this!” Mason said.

  They were parked on Market St., between Main St. and Drumm St. The parkers had already filled the slots to their left and behind them with other bikes who had arrived for the parade. Tall buildings framed the parade route ahead, with perfectly blue sky beyond.

  “Perfect morning,” Oceanna said to Simi.

  Ladies of every manner and color of dress—or the near lack thereof—got off their bikes all around them and stowed their helmet, asked questions about what to expect, yakked with each other, talked, chatted, yelled, even screamed sometimes.

  The excitement was palpable, electric.

  Mason reached into his upper back bag—the “boot”—and withdrew his cowboy hat, put it on with an ear-to-ear grin.

  Ladies nearby looked at him and smiled.

  “Yup,” he said to them. “This is comin’, too.”

  One lady, everyone noticed, who came in on the back of a Honda at their eight o’clock, was almost totally nude with a perfect figure—

  “Close your mouth, Mason,” Harry said to him, laughing out loud. Then to the nearly naked lady, she explained. “He’s from out of town where they don’t get to have much fun.”

  “Oh, you kidnapped him?” the lady biker with the nearly nude passenger said. “I wondered.”

  “No, Ma’am,” Mason explained, tipping his hat. “I’m a friend, and it’s a pleasure to be here.”

  The nearly nude lady said nothing, but looked at Mason and hugged her girlfriend ahead of her on the bike.

  “Yup,” Harry said, pulling Mason away by his sleeve.

  “I’m married, anyway,” Mason told Harry quietly. “But this is gonna be fun.”

  “I know you’re cool,” Harry said back quietly. “I just kind of enjoyed man-handling you away from her. Makes me feel butch.”

  “No problem.”

  Simi walked out into the middle of the street by the columns of bikes and looked around. The air was vibrating with the sound of bikes moving into position, echoing off glass and concrete buildings. The sun was out, warming everything. There was hardly any breeze. People were happy! People were having a good day without regard to their sexuality.

  Oceanna stood by Simi and looked up the parade route. “Long way.”

  “Not long enough,” Simi said. “I’ve been looking for this since forever—I dreamed about this one thing—and now I’m here. Thank you for being here with me.”

  They hugged.

  “Pick me up?” Simi asked Oceanna.

  “I don’t know if I can,” Oceanna said. “Hila?”

  Hila swooped Simi into her arms and held her like a bride about to be hauled over a threshold.

  Someone nearby cheered them.

  “Ladies and,” Hila looked at Mason, “Gentlemen! Welcome to the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade!”

  Hands flew up with the crowd in cheers.

  The atmosphere was a party.

  The crowd was filling in the sidewalks along the parade route, getting more difficult to control.

  One of the men was totally nude—completely, not a stitch, and shaven.

  Some people squeezed past the barriers onto Market to cross to the other side. Staff checked to make sure their way was clear, but cautioned them not to break the barriers.

  “Sorry folks! Too many bikes coming through here right now!”

  Harry walked up to Hila and guided Simi down. Simi put her arms around Harry’s waist, kissing her softly on the neck.

  “Excuse me,” Mason said, flagging down someone who appeared to be involved. “I’m new here, first time. What are we going to do?”

  “I’d kinda like to know, too,” Oceanna said with him.

  Hila stood beside and behind Oceanna, waiting quietly with her.

  The staffer smiled at them and did her best to explain. “Well, for right now, hang around, because in another forty-five minutes or so, we’ll likely get rolling. Then what we do, those far two columns of twos will begin rolling forward at about five
miles per hour, maybe? Just follow the bikes in front of you. When those columns get all gone, the two columns to their left will trail after them. We lead the parade, so look sharp! Watch out for the trolley tracks in the street, or concrete islands. Hate to spill in front all those people.”

  Mason and Oceanna couldn’t help but smile.

  “So we roll nice and dignified right on down Market to Eighth, I think it is. I’m not in charge. Then make a left on Eighth. End of parade for us there. We make another left on Mission, another left on seventh, then wait at Market, because behind us there’s this huge parade I’ve never even seen because I’m so busy being in the parade.”

  The lady laughed at herself.

  “Then when they find a gap in the parade, they let us through, and we cross northwest over Market, jig a couple short blocks and we can park together, en masse, right around there.”

  “So that’s right near the Civic Center Plaza? Where all the festivities are?” Mason asked. “I’m getting to know the area.”

  “Right,” the lady said. “I think that’s right.”

  “In the mean time, just ride safe. God forbid, don’t fall over.”

  Mason laughed at the lady.

  “Okay,” Oceanna agreed with her. “If you hold still,” Oceanna said to Hila.

  “I will,” Hila agreed.

  They walked away.

  “So don’t fall over,” Oceanna told Mason.

  “You neither,” Mason said. “I’m not going to spill my new Rushmore Hog. Not if I can help it.”

  Mason took out his phone and began taking photos of the parade route, or what they could see of Market St. from their location. It was a broad street, maybe four lanes or so over a six-lane width, making room for the occasional island or bus pull-over or taxi lane.

  “You all want a photo? I’ll take it right here with all those bikes behind you?” Mason began backing up for a good shot.

  Oceanna, Hila, Simi, and Harry stood in front of someone’s crotch rocket and smiled.

  Mason took a few photos.

  “Why don’t you get into the shot?” a staffer asked. “I’ll get yours, too?”

  “Thanks.” Mason went over to join the ladies, stood in the center of them: Hila was on his right, Simi on his left.

  “Say ‘vagina,’” the staffer called out to them.

  The group shot of them laughing together in front of the bikes was the one Mason emailed back to his wife.

  Harry happened to see some friends and ran to chat with them for a bit.

  Simi walked over to the center of Market St. and stood there for a long time, looking down it to the southwest, deep into the heart of San Francisco. The sun was warm on her arms. The gentlest breeze wafted her hair.

  Oceanna walked over and stood quietly beside her.

  Hila looked at them. “Maybe they’d like to be alone—”

  Lets go look at that trike-bike over there, Mason. Okay?” Harry asked.

  “Sure,” Mason agreed.

  Simi looked up at Oceanna and took stock of herself again, where she was. “When I was a little girl—” Simi stopped herself. “That wasn’t true. I wasn’t a girl.”

  “I think maybe you were,” Oceanna said. “Inside.”

  “In a way, but if I claim it, it kind of makes people think it’s not true, and then I look more fake than I did a second before. I fear.”

  “It might,” Oceanna said. “It’s a hard life, to be trans-anything. But for the part inside, was it true?”

  Simi teared a little. “Yes. It was. I feel it. I know it. Even if it didn’t fit.”

  “Well, then say it. If you can’t be yourself, then what the hell are you doing?”

  Simi chuckled through her tears at Oceanna.

  “I remember this one time when I was a little girl, maybe twelve. It was night, a full moon—our house was out in the country at the time. The landscape glowed a little silver, and my bedroom faced to the north. And when it wasn’t cloudy, I swear, I felt I could see all the way to Santa Claus’ house.”

  Simi inched closer to Oceanna.

  “I know there’s no Santa Claus, but it was a magical feeling to think of it. Because I would also dream of something magical, begging God to change me. I dreamt of my disgusting body changing, right there, into a real girl, and what I would do if it happened.”

  She smiled at Oceanna, who still said nothing.

  “I’d be there, you know, in my bedroom. Parents in their room, evil little brother in the next room. And there was no way I could tell them. I just knew it. No way would they accept me—

  “But in my fantasy, with the magical energy that had to exist, I’d be changed into a girl and find myself for real in my house, facing the problem. How do I convince anyone I’m even still me? I’d look different, speak different. They might claim I am not me, or they might claim I’m a pervert for liking it.”

  A Harley drove down Market southwest, from the northeast end, with two other bikes in tow. One of them was very loud, and the biker gunned the engine, shaking buildings on both sides of the street. The crowd screamed pleasure.

  “So what would I do? I honestly didn’t know. I’d have no identity, no way to prove it. But I knew I had a friend, a girl in a house not far, who I knew from school, so I dreamt that I’d have to crawl out my window and sneak into her back yard, and tap on her bedroom window to get her attention, and then miraculously convince her I’m me because I knew things that she’d know I knew.”

  Simi’s tears fell readily down her cheeks.

  “You’ve had to much in you for so long. I’m surprised you’re sane.” Oceanna hugged Simi. “You’ll be years crying it all out.”

  Simi nodded. “I’m sure. But at that point my fantasy would break down, because I knew my folks would never accept me back home. And my brother would only make fun of me, like he had for years. Do you know how hard it is to pretend to be a boy when you’re a girl? You have to pretend to like things you don’t like, to act like a boy, don’t even eat your supper like you want to, watch movies that boys like, pretend to ignore things you really need to have? Every minute of every day?

  “So I had to hope in my fantasy that her family would take me in and adopt me as their girl—which is fake, so my fantasy would change to me just being a girl with no family or need of one.”

  Oceanna moved to stand in front of Simi, looked at her. “You’ve never shared anything with me about your family,” she said.

  Simi’s face held a look of fear. “I can’t have one,” she said.

  “Your eyes tell me you do.”

  Simi backed away from Oceanna a step.

  “Why does this parade bring up such images of your family?” Oceanna asked.

  “Everybody back to your bikes!” someone shouted. “Ten minutes!”

  Hundreds of (mostly) women broke off conversations and meandered back toward their motorcycles.

  “Don’t start them, yet. Just be there and get ready!” the lady called out.

  Hila patted Simi on the shoulder. “You’re crying again?”

  “These days, she’d cry if a leaf fell on a flower,” Oceanna said. “And I hope she does for years and years.”

  “You cry any time you want to, honey. You hear me?” Hila said.

  Simi nodded, accepting a hug from Hila.

  “You got to get past the foo-foo stuff, for now,” Harry said. “We got a parade to ride, and it’s happenin’ in just a couple minutes.”

  “You’ll be fine, right Simi?” Mason asked her.

  “Yeah, sure,” Simi said, wiping her tears and getting her motorcycle-riding act together. “No way am I going to mess this ride up. This is the San Francisco Pride Parade,” Simi yelled to everyone within a mile.

  Ladies whooped and pumped the air with enthusiastic arms.

  “And we’re gonna lead it off!” Simi yelled to them with a broad smile.

  “Yeah!” they answered.

  “Ride ‘em cowgirl!” Laughing and pointing at
Mason’s hat.

  “You bet your—”

  “Women!” another yelled.

  One of the women was a skinny, little bitty thing, all of about five feet high on a low Harley eighty-eight Dyna.

  Mason stood by his bike and laughed to himself. “Everybody ride and don’t fall over—”

  It was playful the way he said it, and ladies all around responded with playful jibes of their own.

  Oceanna took Mason’s hat off and began to beat him with it, playfully.

  Mason pretended to cower, which brought in more than a few laughs.

  “Now, ladies! I’m just— I give up! I know everybody will ride beautifully!” Mason glanced at the nearly nude woman on the back of the Honda, which caused another round of playful jibes and more poundings from Oceanna with his hat.

  “Hey,” Mason said, taking his hat back. “This is a Resistol. Wyat Earp, himself, woulda had one of these if he could. I swear. I’m not going to ask her if she can actually hold on. She got here.”

  “I heard that,” the lady said.

  “You think you can ride better ‘cause you’re a man?” another lady asked.

  “Oooooh,” Mason said. “My bad. Didn’t mean that.”

  “And I hope you’re not here to pick up girls,” another lady said, reaching over to kiss her girlfriend.

  Mason’s smile was congenial. “No, ladies. I’m here with some friends of mine,” he indicated his friends who smiled with him, “to ride in this here parade and have one of the best vacations of my life!”

  The ladies whooped and hollered on that one.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Mason said to them all, giving them a smart salute off the brim of his hat.

  “Mount up!” a staffer called out.

  Every one did.

  “Everybody set?” the staffer asked.

  A few hundred bikers shouted the affirmative.

  Mason turned around to look at his crew. Oceanna seemed ready on her blue Ultra Limited, his old bike. Simi and Harry looked great on their black Heritages. He was firm on his black and amber-whiskey Ultra Limited.

  “Ready, Simi?” He asked her.

  Simi cried some more and blew him a kiss.

  “Don’t get distracted, Simi,” Harry helped.

  “Start ‘em up!” the staffer called.

  Three or four hundred bikes started at about the same time: Honda Goldwings, Kawasakis, BMWs large and small, Yamahas, touring bikes, cruisers, little scooters that could fit in the back of a car, crotch rockets, and one trike.

  There were four columns of bikes on the right side of the street, with periodic Road Captains staged on the left side of the street, about one for every twenty rows or so.