by Aimee Norin
* * *
“Fight attendant! Flight attendant!” one red haired transwoman called, on the airliner as it flew at altitude toward Las Vegas.
“Yes. How may I help you?” she asked.
“How high does this plane go,” the passenger asked, “inside here?”
“What difference does it make, Carla?” her blond friend in the next seat said. “It’s an airplane!”
The flight attendant smiled. “It’s pressurized to about eight thousand feet,” the flight attendant said. “Very comfortable.”
“Is that okay?” Carla asked her friend.
Her friend smiled noticeably to the poor, misunderstanding flight attendant. “She’s worried her breasts will over-expand. They’re new, and they’re plastic.”
“They will be fine,” assured the flight attendant. “You won’t even notice. I mean,” the flight attendant leaned more closely to them, “look at mine.” She smiled broadly.
“Gladly,” Carla said.
“Maybe bring us a couple of High Balls?” the friend asked, giggling.
“Sure. I’ll be right back,” said the flight attendant.
The friend in the next seat asked the first. “Very appropriate, don’t you think?”
* * *
The media spotted a roadie from Journey doing some final set-up on their stage, and they left Oceanna and Derie to talk with him.
“Thank God,” Oceanna said.
“Me, too,” Derie agreed.
A man ran up to Derie with more set-up questions than she had answers, but things were rushed, and she was the only one around at that time on the committee, so she did the best she could. “…those lights over there, those electrical cords over there—cover them so no one will trip—the toilets over there and there and there, the food court should be grouped over there, but some also over there and there—no, we block off Fairgrounds Ave. and Detroit Ave., but not until noon tomorrow …”
The man ran off to work.
“I see it’s busy, right now,” Oceanna’s mind was on a man near a food vendor booth.
“That Zane over there?” Derie asked.
Oceanna nodded, yet kept staring at Zane. “The cook from the café.”
Derie looked back and forth.
“You know,” Derie said, “I think I’ll go check on Mason, over there, directing traffic. I better stop him before he starts thinking he ought to get a truck for himself.”
“Sure,” Oceanna said.
Derie trundled off.
Oceanna thought about it then walked slowly toward Zane—
“Way to go, Oceanna!” a group of transpersons called out as they walked toward the carnival, being set up in the fair grounds.
Oceanna smiled and waved to them.
Zane stopped setting up kegs and stood to face Oceanna. He looked around and moved to the side of his vendor tent, out of direct line-of-sight of most others.
Oceanna strode slowly up to him, stopping about three feet away. “Zane. Hi. I’m Osh.”
Zane looked at her.
Oceanna studied him, then her feet, then him some more. “I thought maybe we should meet. I know we haven’t gotten off on a good foot.”
“Telling people I might spit in your food over at the diner didn’t help,” Zane said.
“No, it didn’t. I’m sorry.” Oceanna looked pained. “And it wasn’t a fear of you, personally. It was in general, ‘cause I don’t know you. But I’m a member of a very small minority with very little support system—usually,” she said, indicating the current turmoil, “—and it’s been known to happen.”
Zane stared at her the softened. “Yeah. I can see where it might. But we’re not that way here.”
“Okay.”
Oceanna looked at him, but he didn’t offer more. “Look, they’re selling snow cones over there already. Lets go get one and chat a bit?”
“No thank you. I got to work, here.”
“Okay—” Oceanna didn’t quite stammer. “Zane: What’s going on here?”
“What business is that of yours?” Zane asked.
“Why do I feel this tension between us? What did I do to you other than be myself? I mean before worrying about the spit? It seems there’s something.”
Zane touched the cross around his neck.
“You’re a Christian?” Oceanna asked.
“Yeah.” Zane rolled up his sleeve some more. “Even tattooed it to my arm, ‘cause I wanted it to be permanent.”
“Okay.”
Zane softened. “You come to town, and— It’s people like you who—”
Oceanna waited, unwilling to interrupt his effort.
“Look. Twenty-three years ago, when I was ten, my dad left us.”
“I’m sorry—”
“And you want to know why? Because my mom caught him in her panties one night. That’s what we’re told. I never told anyone that.”
Oceanna relaxed. That was it. “So you blame—”
“Not directly. It’s the whole crossdressing thing, the way people hate it, that broke up our family. You don’t do that around here. Mom had three kids to bring up on her own.”
“I see what you mean.”
Zane hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “But I don’t blame you.”
Oceanna looked at him—as neutral as she could, yet a little quizzically.
“I know you didn’t do it,” Zane said.
“Oceanna!” some more folks called out as they strolled through the park.
Oceanna waved at them.
“You know them?” Zane asked.
“No idea,” Oceanna said. “People coming to the show.”
“Jed did all this, didn’t he?” Zane asked.
Oceanna thought. She wondered if she’d contributed to Jed’s actions in some way, but she couldn’t see it. “I—think he did, yes.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Zane said. “I can tell you—” He looked at Oceanna. “No. I’m not going to spit in his food, either.”
“Banish him from the diner?” Oceanna asked.
“I’m not the boss, but I think not,” Zane smiled. “Actually, I was just going to say that violence is not the way of peace. He’ll get his, in his own time.”
CHAPTER
27
The diner was packed with a hundred more people than fire regulations would allow, and a considerably greater variety than ever expected: gays; trans-everything; farmers; truck drivers … Six people would sit at a four-person table; eight would cram into a six-person booth. Some people stood at the ends, eating by holding their plates in hands.
A ball game was on the T.V. monitor in the corner, and it was the seventh inning stretch, and everyone in the diner sang together as if they were there:
“Take me out to the ball game.
Take me out with the crowd—”
Oceanna and Mason, and his family, walked through the crowded parking lot to the door.
“Hey! Oceanna!” some people called out. Oceanna waved back.
They could all hear the singing before they got there:
“—Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks.
I don’t care if I never get back—“
“I don’t think there’s going to be any room for us,” Oceanna said.
“Never seen the parking lot so packed,” Derie said.
“—Let me root, root, root
for the (home team)—”
The last two syllables were garbled. Twenty different baseball names were shouted and slammed in good-natured laughter.
“I want a hamburger,” little Jason said.
“Me, too, son,” Mason said, opening the door for someone to enter ahead of them—
“OCEANNA!” someone inside screamed.
Everyone turned at once.
“Oscar is cooking,” Mason said into Oceanna’s ear. “Zane is over there.” He pointed to the soda can area.
The noise was so loud in there that Oceanna had to lean into Mason’s ear as well, for him to h
ear. “It’s okay. It may not be as big a deal in here as I feared.”
“Oceanna! Sit here!” a group yelled. “We’re done here. Take our booth!”
Even though the place was crowded, the people cleared for the four of them. It was the same booth they were in the night before their trip to San Francisco.
Oceanna couldn’t help but be touched. While Mason, Derie and Jason crawled into the booth, and a buss-boy cleared away the previous customers’ dishes, Oceanna stood by the booth and addressed the restaurant. “You’re all crazy, you know that?”
General laughter.
Oceanna’s eyes teared quickly, as she looked at everyone. The place went quiet.
“It’s been so bleak here, by myself—maybe just in my heart. I don’t think I knew how much I’d been hurting.”
Someone near reached out to hug her, which she gratefully accepted.
Wiping her eyes, she continued. “This, by the way, is Mason—”
A cheer went through the place.
“Mason!”
“The Mason?”
Oceanna continued, “…and this is Derie, his wife—”
“Hi Derie!”
“Good to meet you!”
Oceanna continued, “They own a feed store here in town—”
“I know! I been there! See?” The lady had one of their feed store ball caps on her head.
“Yeah! I got me some manure and a hoe—!”
“You all are just kidding around,” Mason teased them.
“Their dinner’s on me!” one transwoman said waving a hundred dollar bill in the air to the server.
People joked.
“No need—” Oceanna said.
“Yes there is!” people argued in general. “You know how many times I’ve been dumped on in my trans life!?”
Another agreed. “And you know how many people have stood up for me? None! That’s how many. Not a blessed one!”
“Some have, surely!” another said.
“Some act accepting, but it’s fake,” she said back.
“So I’m buying their dinner, and that’s the way it is!” said the first.
A server asked them what they’d like.
“Four gold-plated burgers—hers vegetarian,” Mason said, indicating his wife.
The place laughed and joked with them.
“—four platinum orders of fries, four diamond-encrusted chocolate shakes—”
“My figure!” Oceanna said.
“Noooooooo!” People jibed.
“Everything’s dietetic in here tonight!” someone yelled.
“Speaking of which,” another transperson asked. “Where’s Jed? The guy! You know: The guy?”
CHAPTER
28
Friday, the 4th of July, late afternoon. Kingman was overwhelmed with visitors.
Streets were as packed as the restaurants. Traffic was jammed along Interstate 40 in both directions, and the airport had planes chocked beyond tie-downs in all directions.
But it was all orderly. There was a feeling of cooperation in the air, a large family reunion, as it were: People of every walk of life gathered together in a celebration of Humanity.
“No, that’s alright,” a transwoman at the gas station said out the window of her car to another car that had squeezed in ahead of her for the pump. “Where’d you come from?”
“Denver!” the other driver called back. “Just south of town. About out of gas!”
“Bring any weed with you?” the first called back. Colorado had legalized marijuana.
People around them laughed.
The woman got out of her car and approached the driver from Denver. “Just kidding,” she said.
“You don’t smoke it?” The Coloradoan asked.
“Not that: I brought my own!” she jested, then looked around for potentially concerned police. “Aaaaaahh!”
“The war on drugs is so bogus, anyway!” another driver said. “Instead of spending money to fight it, legalize it and tax it!”
“Did you bring enough for everybody?” a gay person asked, approaching the two.
“Aaaaah!” she said. “Oh, no! I’m in trouble now!”
There was a group hug among the three.
* * *
People roamed the aisles at Walmart looking for supplies.
“Miss!” a drag queen called, rounding the checkout area.
Gail was pointing quickly across the store, directing yet another group of people to products. She turned at the call. “Yes?”
“Are these heels too spikey to walk on the grass with?” she asked the G.G., the “genetic gal.”
“Four inch heels? You kidding?” Gail answered.
“How would I know? I’m from New York. What do we know from parks— Well, there’s—”
“Central Park,” Gail offered.
“Yes. But I don’t work there. I perform on stage! I’m Chana of the East!” She turned to show the clerk how her dazzling butt pad filled out the miniskirt.
“Of course!” Gail said, enthusiastically. “Right: No way could you walk in the park with those. Better get some flats, honey, or at least ‘Granny Shoes.’ A shorter, wider heel.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead!” the drag queen said.
“Well, you will be caught in the hospital with a broken ankle if you use those—or sink up to your eyeballs in the soil. Get stuck like Doris Day in that grate in ‘Glass Bottom Boat.’”
“Thank you, precious!” The queen hugged the clerk. “I love Doris Day!”
“Lady!” another group of visitors said, entering Walmart. “Where’s camping supplies?”
Gail smiled and pointed for the hundredth time to the back.
“Gail!” a co-worker called, rounding cosmetics with a customer in tow. “This person says she bought a charger for her phone that’s the wrong one!”
“Customer Service at the front counter,” Gail said over her shoulder, leading her charge to the shoe department.
* * *
Cars lined up on several streets working their way into the fairgrounds area.
“Hey mister! You want some lemonade?” An enterprising young man in his front yard pedaled his product.
“Sure,” the driver said.
The boy handed him a drink and collected a quarter.
* * *
“Park in there,” Kim said to the next car in line, “keep your keys, and if you’re camping, you can pitch your tent over in that area there. Other side of the carnival.”
Evans walked toward his wife from the stock pens in the south. “How’s it goin’?”
“Uh!” Kim gave her spiel to the next car in line, then to Evans, “It’s a mess! No way can we fill all these people in here. We’re not going to have enough room.”
“’At’s what I thought,” Evans said. “We’re gonna have ta open up those areas down there.” He indicate the stock pens.
“Not appetizing,” Kim said.
“I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout the pens, themselves,” he told his wife as if he were talking to a dunce. Most of the area’s open land, like anywhere else.”
Kim gave her spiel to the next car in line, then to Evens. “Okay.”
“I’ve got the area in my head,” Evans said. “When you get near to filled up, up here, let me know, and start sending ‘em back.”
* * *
Gary supervised the fireworks firing area. “All setsky?” he asked the experts.
“Lookin’ good,” George said. “Been set since early this morning. I’m just checking things.”
The entire area was roped off, and security guards stood by on the edges to make sure no one strayed in.
No one, not even security guards, were allowed into the firing area—except George, himself. His rule, and one he’d to go his grave with, if necessary.
“Good. Good,” Gary said. He looked at the man’s pallets of fireworks and miles of wires leading to a simple laptop that handled pre-programmed firing sequences.
“G
ot it all here,” George said. “It should be dark enough by nine, or so, tonight. All goes well, I’ll wait for you to give me the command, and then begin. This is the same set-up I’ve been using, so it should go nicely.”
“Journey may still be playing,” Gary said.
“Yeah. It’d be nice to time this display to my own music, but you didn’t pay for that, so it works well that they’re here— Hey! I know what we got here. I set up the firing sequence. If you can talk to Journey and get me the songs they plan to play, like between nine and nine thirty, and maybe their expected timing, I may be able to tweak this to use some of that—like Disneyland does? I can put in some stops to wait on me to press ‘enter,’ and hit it when the next song starts. I can do that—” George started thinking harder. Smoke began to drift out of his ears.
“Yeah, I’m sure I can,” Gary said.
“No problem!”
“You won’t mess it up, changing it at the last minute that way?” Gary asked.
George looked at Gary like he was a moron. “I wrote the code myself so I can adjust it as needed.”
* * *
Mason strode through the carnival area making last minute preparations. He had the lead carny with him.
“You guys know what you’re doing,” he said.
“Hundred times before,” Quincy said.
“Great.” Mason looked around at people enjoying themselves. “You need anything further, ask that lady over there parking cars, or her husband. They’re working through the evening.”
Quincy looked at Mason. “You want to try your hand in a game of skill?”
Mason gave him a half smile. “Can’t afford it,” he said. “I stick to gambling. But this is—without a doubt—the best 4th of July festival we’ve ever had here.”
A group of crossdressers bought a load of fake feather boas and played with them as they walked by.
“I love queens,” Quincy said with a chuckle.
* * *
Oceanna drove through the traffic to her mother’s facility. She parked in their parking lot and made her way inside.
Sarah met her at the door. “Oceanna, I am sooooo sorry for what Jed did!”
Oceanna made her way into the lobby, scanning for her mother, letting her eyes rest on Sarah. “Okay.” She wasn’t convinced. “You find my medical P.O.A. yet?”