Table of Contents
Title Page
THE RITZ
LAURA
CHERRY VANILLA
HAUTE CUISINE
COPACABANA
ROME
TENNESSEE
TINC
CANNES
TOKYO
HOLLYWOOD
GIRL BOY GIRL
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
The following story is told as best as I understood it. Any factual errors are unintentional. When details, names, events, or dates are blurry, I have tried to indicate my sense of confusion. But this is my experience, told to the best of my recollection.
THE RITZ
ASIA ARGENTO AND I were headed for her hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. As we left Chinatown, I thought about telling the cab driver to switch directions and take us instead to my place down in the flatlands. The taxi accelerated and bit down at each steep crest of hill, the glitter of downtown yawning into the black water of the bay. I doubt she would have approved of my ratty bed, or of my boyfriend, Jonathan, reading a book on the couch.
I’d met Asia in Italy the year before, and since then, I was obsessed. I combed, dressed, and prepared my meals with Asia in a secret chamber of my mind. When I selected music, I wondered whether she would like it. She had a way of snubbing things with such exacting disdain—a flip of her head, a gutteral sound of disgust deep in the throat from the same place that one cries or laughs. I’d abandoned a crocheted wallet and a white leather clutch on the street because once she’d glanced at them with scorn, saying, “You are like an old lady.” My face had flushed with embarrassment. But my crocheted wallet and white clutch had suited me, even if they didn’t suit her. There was nothing that I enjoyed more than catching sight of an old lady sitting primly on the bus, hands gloved, hat perched, wool suit lint-rolled, on her best foot to the post office or opera. And there were things that Asia wore that didn’t appeal to me: lacy, frilly things, not to mention a furry pink bag she always carried with her during those days we spent in Rome. This über-feminine style suited her. She flounced around in stiletto heels and skin-tight jeans scrawled with Bic pen. She could karate kick in those heels. Once I’d seen her hold an ice cream cone in one hand as she thrust her legs in the air, landing evenly back on her glistening crocodile toes. She had just done a voiceover for a schmaltzy action movie with Vin Diesel. After we had gone for a gelato, and I think the excitement of the movie overtook her.
This was the first time Asia and I had seen each other since our time in Rome a year ago, and she would only be in San Francisco until the next morning. I wanted to take her out to eat sushi, show her Dolores Park, and the ruined battlements at the mouth of the bay, with my favorite flight of stairs that fell off into the ocean. My stomach knotted. I hardly knew her, this woman I’d thought about every day for a year.
Without giving a hint of what she was thinking, she glanced at me with heavy eyes then took a drag on her cigarette. Her features seemed to change constantly, looking demure and feminine in one second, edgy and dissolute in the next. The city lights beyond the cab window pulsed against her messy cropped hair. The suspension of the car bounced. I didn’t say a word to the driver.
The cab jostled to a stop, and she rummaged in her bag, a Fendi that could have cost as much as my year’s rent. It seemed to have replaced her old pink furry thing. Though little known in the US, she was a huge celebrity in Italy. So much so that fashion houses paid her to wear their clothes. She looked at me and said, “JT, you got’ta some change?” Her voice was a growl—much deeper than mine, and I envied its resonance. I combed my pockets. At least I could give her one thing that really belonged to me.
The bellman opened the door. He wore a tailcoat and a turreted hat that made him look like a rook. We traipsed through the lobby. A crystal chandelier drooped from the ceiling, and a red and gold oriental brocade rug hung from the wall. I snatched a green apple from a crystal bowl and caught myself fantasizing about snatching the poor bellman’s hat to impress her. Would that impress her? If I were a real boy, I thought, maybe I would do that. But humiliating the doorman was ultimately not a very sexy thing to do. I plopped one, two, three apples into my bag. Not one of the staff even turned a head. My actions became bolder around her, as if I belonged beside her in this world where one never worried about losing socks at the laundromat or tallying the cost of coffee each week. The trick seemed to be to treat one’s privilege with indifference.
I was curious to try on the ease that came from money and celebrity, though I didn’t think stealing apples from the lobby of a hotel quite qualified. But filching the apples was definitely in JT’s character. He was a scavenger, but what was I? Asia bent toward the elevator button console, wrestling her plastic key into the slot. “Got a room on the umpteenth floor,” she said playfully.
We shuffled down a long corridor, and I watched her swagger. I was enchanted by her contradictions. She was graceful and almost aristocratic, and yet she could be tough and vulgar. I’d seen her spit on people, throw chairs, and say “Fuck you” with impeccable nonchalance. My attraction to her was a muddle of wanting her and wanting to learn how to be like her. I looked back at the trail of lavender carpet turned against its nap and poked her with a static finger. She tossed me a mischievous grin. I stared at the brass door-knocker, feeling both anticipation and dread. I’d waited for this moment since we’d first met over a year ago—during what was ostensibly my book tour. She’d given me her grandfather’s sweater and a vintage Gucci belt. I’d given her a pair of jodphurs, one of my first sewing endeavors. They had brass buttons emblazoned with crowns. And they were too tight in the ankles so they sagged at the butt and constrained that sensitive part behind the thigh. I hoped she would like them, because in truth I had no other gifts to give her. The books were not from me, I hadn’t written them. That was what she really wanted: an option for the movie rights to my book, or what she thought was my book, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.
Too renegade to spend her life kissing the likes of Vin Diesel, she was living up to the legacy of her father, Dario, the renowned Italian horror movie director. She treated me to extravagant feasts—platters of oysters, scallops, and speckled crab claws suspended on islands of kelp. She taught me never to toast without looking company directly in the eye, an ancient Italian tradition meant to detect betrayal. I cringed each time I raised my glass and said, “Salud.” She also taught me that when you saw sheep—and we passed a lot of sheep on that trip—you were supposed to flick your finger like there was something sticky on it, to bring money. And when wine spilled you dabbed it behind your ears like perfume. Now, I can’t remember why. I had done all of it at her beckoning.
On my last night in Rome, Asia lay down on our rose printed comforter and I began to rub her back, pushing my stubby fingers into her sinewy muscles. I’d inherited my father’s hands, short and thick, like an ogre’s. Creeper vines on the windows obscured the streetlight from the hotel room, redolent of mildew and frying garlic. The horns and buzz of traffic echoed, making the silence between us more obtuse. She grunted as I pressed into a knot in her muscles.
My sister-in-law, Laura, had been there. She’d watched us sideways as she flung clothes and magazines from one pile to another, preparing to pack. She was the author of JT’s books. The process involved re-piling everything while reciting soliloquies. She began packing gifts for her son “Thor,” as he was known in JT land. Laura was known as Speedie.
“We got Italian trucks for my little man Thor. My little babyhead. He can make Italian traffic jams. Maybe we can send them tomorrow before we leave. Maybe the concierge can do it. No, I’ll probably have to call Simone. Do you have Simone’s number, Asia?�
� Asia groaned.
Although Laura wasn’t really talking to us, I was grateful for her ranting. I wasn’t quite comfortable with silence. I worried it denoted that Asia and I really had nothing to talk about.
Laura was pale, with knowing eyes, a pointing nose and chin, and wide curls around her face. As Asia groaned, Laura held onto her stomach through her printed house-dress, murmuring, “Oh, you guys are so cute!” Laura had lost a lot of weight since the beginning of our trip, but she was still wearing the same two dresses that I had always seen her in. They hung on her frame loosely like they were someone else’s clothes.
I felt Asia’s body bristle as Laura said this. As soon as they met, Asia dismissed Laura as the hang-on, the hired help. Every time Laura spoke, Asia had some excluding comment. This time she said, “It’s not for your entertainment.”
“Are you sure it’s not?” Laura said. I felt annoyed, recalling past experiences of friends overshadowing me. Now Laura was acting like she was trying to convince Asia who the real talent around here was. Suddenly I invited Asia to go outside with me.
Laura had insinuated that she wrote JT’s books many times. There was even a point in the trip when Laura and I were sure that Asia knew, because after going to Milan together, she offered to put us up in a suite at the “Hotel Laura.” In retrospect, it must have been a coincidence.
In efforts to engage Asia, Laura dropped names. In time, she would include Bono, who loved the work. Michael Stipe, who told JT that at a certain point you just had to cut all the fan mail off. Madonna, who spoke with JT over the phone. Shirley Manson, who had written a song for the JT books called “Cherry Lips” and thought that Laura should write her own lyrics for her music instead of JT because it would empower her. The list of JT’s admirers was long and impressive. But Asia was not impressed. They were too mainstream for her. While Laura searched for what would grab Asia’s attention, Asia would try to pry me from Laura’s company. And I would sit in the middle like Switzerland. Back then, I didn’t understand Laura; I liked her but I didn’t really want to. Obviously I was in collaboration with her so it was better to stay loyal, but I liked the feeling of Asia always beseeching me to come with her alone. Laura didn’t drink and couldn’t stand the smell of smoke, so Asia would take us to bars. It wasn’t hard to convince Laura to go back to the hotel. Laura would take off in a taxi, and Asia and I would hang out and smoke and drink without her.
To a certain degree I could tell that it pleased Laura that Asia and I were courting each other. But there was also a glint in her eye that implied that she hated how I left her out. And it was true. I would remain silently ambivalent when publishers implied that Laura should buy her own ticket to travel with JT. They would put up a slight fuss when we had to stop for her to use the bathroom, or about buying both of us chewing gum. It was easy enough to take their cue and resent her. I was definitely starting to resent that I was pretending to be someone who had nothing to do with me, representing something I hadn’t created.
Laura continued with her soliloquy.
“And here is something for Astor. I wish Astor could have come along with us on the trip.”
“Yeah,” I responded tightly. “That would have been great.”
“Astor” was her husband and my brother, Geoff. He made the music for their band. Laura called herself Speedie, a nickname for her alter ego, Emily Frasier, a Cockney Jew, who had befriended JT on the streets as a teenager and was singing for the band JT had written lyrics for.
Asia’s head was down on the bed. I noticed that Laura silently threw an Italian soccer uniform, which Asia had bought for Thor, into the pile to send back home. We had all gone into a soccer shop, and Asia and I had picked out matching maroon and white striped soccer socks. Normally Laura would have thanked her again as she packed up the little uniform. She was always very gracious about receiving gifts. But she didn’t say anything.
The familiar impatient feeling of wanting to drop Laura came over me. I felt like Asia and I were always being chaperoned and it embarrassed me. Laura was always censoring my words, vigilantly guarding my true desires and voice.
I told Laura again we were going to go outside.
“You’re going to leave me all alone, are you? But don’t be gone too long because we still have a shit load of stuff to pack, okay?”
We left the room and had crossed the street into a park with rows of sycamores, pruned so rigorously their branches ended in knuckles.
Once we were alone, I’d wanted to tell Asia that I was not really a transgender ex-prostitute turned writer named JT LeRoy. She must have known. Still, I couldn’t sabotage Laura; I held that much allegiance. And there had been something else holding me back, too. I had no idea if Asia was attracted to me—my eyes, the things I said, my preferences and passions—or only to the boy wunderkind I pretended to be.
We ambled slowly through the park. The air was hot and muggy. Asia explained, “You see, these are very old buildings.” A few buzzing lamps with gilded poles hedged the cement paths along what looked like a green house, its glass opaque and whitish blue, faintly glowing like larvae. There were bulbs sprouting, what looked dimly like daffodils in flat manicured beds. “And then as you go along the park here there are many ruins. As you pass through you will find hustlers like we saw yesterday.” The night before, after dinner, Laura, Asia, and I had driven the long way back to our hotel in her black convertible. As we stopped at the entrance to the park, a few boys and trannys emerged from the dark, some of them leaning on the cobbled stone wall. One of them of fragile build had an earring and razored hair, and a vulnerable way of moving; he was like someone I was supposed to be. I could feel that we all noticed him, though no one said anything about it. He seemed removed from the other boys, as if in pain. Though I would never wish that on anyone, I have to say I felt envious of the way that we all sucked him in. And I thought how strange it can be when you meet some people, you want to devour that person, to consume their story, which seems larger and more profound than your own. At certain points in my life I’ve wished I were more neurotic, less passive, and emotionally hesitant. I’ve wished that something extreme had happened to me, which would have made me more extreme. I felt empty and boring. Laura and Asia both had a story.
Long shadows from the trees stretched over the shorn grass. There was an overpowering sweet fragrance in the air. We’d found a marble fountain, and I followed Asia’s lead. Sticking my mouth under the lion’s head and drinking in the illuminated cold water, I could feel it traveling down my throat. I looked up to the night sky, and counted the few stars muted by the city’s lights. And then, as effortlessly as magnetic snaps, we were face to face. Her features blurred as I fluttered my eyes. We kissed. I could hear the fountain’s light trickle and an animal moving in the bushes. I felt cold pockets of air above our heads. She had cinnamon gum in her mouth.
Laura came out of her room and called for us, her voice shrill and almost comical: “JT! JT?” We pulled away from each other. I still hadn’t packed yet. Asia said in her gravelly voice, “Well, I guess I will see you soon.”
I said, “I’ll call ya.” Thinking in my head, I hope I will call you, but also thinking, someone will call you, and it will probably be Laura.
Asia began to walk away, no maudlin adieus about her.
“Hey, Asia?”
She turned around once more, lightly on her heels.
I continued, “I am really glad I got to meet you.”
“Me, too.”
Now, a year later, at the Ritz-Carlton, I sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed and yanked at my shoelaces. I kept telling myself that this was my last and best opportunity to tell her about my other life, where I wasn’t pretending to be an acclaimed writer. I wanted to tell her, I am Savannah, a twenty-two-year-old community college drop-out. I didn’t have any writing to offer her—other than some corny poems. This seemed like the right time. She had her option to JT’s novel, The Heart. She was going to start writing the script for t
he movie soon.
I stood up and looked her in the eye. What would she think if I confessed? If she found out how ordinary I was—a girl who cringed at the sound of her own voice, who hated the way she looked—would she still want me?
I loosened my West Virginia accent and said, “Uh . . . I’ve, uh, been taking hormones for years.”
She shrugged and said, “So . . .” Her Italian accent made the word less of a question and more of an opener. I don’t think she believed me, but keeping up the lie served our purpose, both hers and mine, and that somehow lessened the absurdity of it all.
“I . . . Uh . . . Well, my sex change is all healed up now . . . It was a . . . a full job.”
She gave me a sly smile. I looked down at my feet, my big toe pushing its way out of a hole in my sock.
Then she twisted off her form-fitting shirt and flung it on a chair. She bounced onto the bed and wiggled out of her jeans. She had an abrupt way about her, a very let’s-get-to-it attitude. I slowly and self-consciously peeled off my own shirt. I looked down at the ace bandage binding my breasts and suddenly felt very stupid. At least, I thought to myself, I hadn’t gotten my period that morning. “See, I got the whole job, but I don’t want ever’ee one to know. So I bind ’cause its personal. It’s none of anybody’s business.”
She shrugged again, as if that was fine by her.
I was always amazed at what people would accept from JT—his odd behavior, his passivity, his idiosyncracies. Something told me Asia wouldn’t have been so generous with Savannah; she hadn’t been with Laura.
Asia helped me out of my ace bandage. It didn’t feel seductive. I saw JT’s onyx reflection in the sliding door of the hotel room, with the bed stand lights shining behind his hunched shoulders.
We both sat on the edge of her bed in our undies: me in my white cotton, she in teasing pale blue lace. A tattoo of an angel spilled across the lower half of her belly, stretching its sepia wings over her hip bones. She patted the cover a little, beckoning me nearer. I looked down at my thighs, which flattened a little as I sat down. They looked huge compared to hers. I brusquely went to the window and swung the curtains shut, catching a last glimpse of us. She was looking at me. She leaned on her palms, one knee bent with her heel digging under her other leg, which hung off the bed. I saw that my pompadour, which I had twisted up so carefully, had collapsed on the short hair around it.
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