I glanced down at the fish, white with tiny grey veins running through its flesh. Then I looked up, “Thank you, Gus. It’s all real beautiful.”
Laura leaned over to me and said in a loud whisper, “Ask him if you can raid his minibar.”
I clenched my teeth and hissed, “Not right now.”
“Of course, you can raid my minibar, JT. After dinner,” Gus said.
I said with embarrassment, “Did you hear that?”
Pointing her long finger, glistening with chicken juice, Laura said, “You’re very indulgent, Uncle Gus.”
“That is one of my strengths,” he said in an assured tone.
The servers swept up our plates and deftly scratched all the crumbs from our white tablecloth. The head waiter, meanwhile, recited a long list of desserts. As I listened I felt as if a dam were bursting inside me. “The Grand Marnier souffle sounds yummy,” said Geoff. “I want the warm chocolate thing,” said Mike. “The pomegranate grapefruit sorbet,” said Gus. Suddenly Laura exclaimed, pointing to me, “It’s this young man’s birthday. Will you bring us a special taster of everything on the menu?”
“Madame?” inquired the head waiter.
“A taster,” Laura repeated, “Of everythin’ you got.”
“One moment, Madame, and allow me to consult with the pastry chef.”
“Oh,” she said, “And can I have a double mochachino?”
“Madame?”
“Or no, make it a ’ot chocolate and a pot of green tea with soy milk on the side.”
“We have no soya, Madame.”
“God damn, old-world milk then. Does the cocoa come with whipped cream?”
“Yes, madame.”
“Right on!” she exclaimed.
Gus ordered a grappa.
I was still a little tipsy from the wine, but I boldly announced, “I’ll have one, too.”
Gus smiled encouragingly.
It came in a tiny silver glass and smelled of rubbing alcohol, searing my throat as it went down, warming my stomach when I swallowed.
Then from behind I heard the rattle of a cart, and as I turned, Laura lost her cockney and moaned, “Hell yeah!”
Geoff and I laughed.
The waiters brought silver bowls with scoops of ginger, chocolate, and pear ice cream; slices of tart, brownies, chocolate cake, caramelized sugar spun into fans, souffles, and a three-tiered tower of petit fours with glazed kiwis and orange rinds. Each time they presented a dish, Laura yelped, “Hell yeah, this is the life, JT. You keep writin’ books.”
I snorted without meaning to.
Gus, his fingers loosely curled around the stem of his grappa glass, watched us descend on the desserts with our silver spoons.
I thought to myself as I scraped away at a piece of brandied chocolate cake that I would like a memento of this dinner, a spoon perhaps, something small. I stared across the table and Mike caught my eye. As if reading my mind, he shaved a little ice cream onto to his spoon with one hand, saying, “This is yummy.” With the other he snatched a silver pinecone decoration into the shadows of his lap. He winked at me.
The table was a battlefield, with the desserts decimated, the only survivors being a few petit fours. Everyone leaned back in their chairs, trying to breathe a little room into their waistlines. Gus requested the bill, and a distended silence fell over the table. I fixed my gaze on the mosaic mirrors decorating the candle-holder, wondering if I should offer to pony up for the tip—though even that would have been way out of my league.
From her old black bag, Laura retrieved a purple leather glove, which she stretched languidly over her long fingers. She opened and closed them a few times, grasping the air. The gesture seemed symbolic of so much in her—her desire, her strength, her struggle to be the person she knew was inside her that no one else would see. She raised her hand like a conductor and announced, “Let’s guess the amount of the bill.”
Gus was sitting a few feet back from the table. I wondered if he would be offended by this, but he didn’t seem to be. He crossed his legs and stacked his hands on his lap. I knew she wasn’t trying to offend him—she just couldn’t help herself. He tilted his head a little, and an inchoate grin crept into the corner of his lips. He said, “Go ahead.”
She squinted and said, “We ’ad the wine. See my problem is I don’t know anythin’ about wine.”
He said, “Those were two nice bottles of wine.”
Mike said, “Nice. We know what that translates to.”
Laura said, “Nothin’ but the best for you, JT.”
Mike shouted, “Six hundred and fifty-two dollars and some odd cents.”
Laura countered, “I think that’s too low.”
Geoff said, “Eight hundred and thirty-three dollars.”
Gus said quietly, “I won’t give you any more hints. I am going to let you guess until you’re satisfied. Then we will look. This is without the tip, mind you.”
Laura and I glanced at each other.
I said in a timorous voice, “Sixteen hundred and nineteen dollars.”
She mimicked me perfectly, “Sixteen hundred and nineteen. See, JT knows the price o’ things. I say, sixteen hundred and fifty.”
I could hear everyone in the dining room listening to us. The doors to the kitchen ceased their squeaky swinging.
Gus said, “I guess seventeen hundred.”
“You could buy a real fancy cardboard box for that,” I murmured.
Gus slid the black leather check folder toward the center of the table, then lifted its top slightly as if demons might fly out of it. He squinted dramatically and announced, “Sixteen hundred and—it’s a toss up. Should I say who was closest? Sixteen hundred and forty. I believe you are the winner, Speedie.”
She puffed up with pride and said, “Mum would be proud. Yeah!”
Gus tucked a golden credit card into the folder, and the head waiter swooped down on it, saying, “Thank you, Monsieur Van Sant.”
We all chimed in, “Thank you, Gus.”
He beamed back at me, “I’m glad I paid you a visit.”
COPACABANA
AFTER A SPRING SEASON OF JT EVENTS, I felt like it was consuming my life. I had skipped out of so many of my own commitments that I had run out of excuses. There were book signings, interviews, and two important photo shoots, one with Mary Ellen Mark for Vanity Fair, and the other with Steven Klein for the Icon issue of Pop Magazine. Wanting to experience something on my own, I decided to go to Rio de Janeiro, to participate in the Abada Capoeira International Games and workshops. The thought crossed my mind that if I liked Brazil I would never return home; Laura would have to figure out how to make JT work all by herself. And I would have my life back.
About halfway over the Caribbean, I realized that I had forgotten my address book, in which I’d written all my Capoeira contacts. With my Portuguese consisting of little more than “hello” and “where’s the beach?” it would be difficult to find Marcia, my teacher, in a city of millions. I suddenly despaired. What was wrong with me? A crescendo of voices echoed in my head, of people in my life that I had disappointed. I began to make a list of things that I would change about myself: I would stop eating, I would meditate, I would be in control. I would get my fucking life together. I would be good at something, and it would have nothing to do with JT LeRoy.
All of these thoughts, however, didn’t change the fact that I would soon be landing in a foreign city with no place to go. As we began our descent I scanned through my guidebook and picked out the cheapest hotel in Copacabana. I practiced saying to the taxi driver, “Copacabana Fazendina, por favor.” Suddenly a burst of bossa nova riffs and girls in ’60s bathing suits and high heels on the beach danced in my head.
I checked into the hotel and slept for a day and a half. When I awoke, I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. I threw off the polyester pink-and-blue coverlet and walked over to the window. Outside stood a mountainous heap of rubble, a construction project appearing as if it had no compl
etion date. Was this a sign about my own life? What would I do with myself if I couldn’t find my Capoeira group? Why did I always plan so badly?
I hadn’t eaten for almost two days, but I didn’t like to eat in restaurants alone. I decided to fill my time by going to the beach. When I went down to the lobby, the woman working at the front desk informed me that the hotel offered a complimentary continental breakfast. In the center of the dining room stood a banquet table arranged with plastic trays of cold cuts and slices of white cheese rolled tightly with tooth-picks, glistening sesame buns and mini croissants, slices of papayas, oranges, pineapples, and bunches of tiny purple grapes. I drank three cups of black coffee and rolled a cigarette. I enjoyed it with the zeal of one who is never allowed to smoke indoors. I thought, if Laura had been here I wouldn’t have been able to smoke. We would have eaten and eaten, and then been too torpid to go to the beach.
Feeling adequately caffeinated, I stepped out onto the street. The air felt warm and slightly humid. I gazed down the long avenue between the high rises and could see the blue horizon of the Atlantic. If I was going to the beach, I needed to get a Brazilian wax. I had heard about how the Brazilians scoffed at spidery gringos. Strolling down the street lined with knotty balboas, I thought about how Laura would have hated it here. It was too hot. She always wore a wig and a hat, tights and long shirts that covered her arms. She lived in fear of contracting skin cancer, smearing her nose and cheeks with thick grainy sun-block. Buses caterwauled through the lanes, and thick brown smoke chugged from their exhaust pipes. As I walked by a man popping corn at his painted stall, my stomach groaned violently from the smell of caramelized sugar and margarine. People walked quickly past me. The women, regardless of their age, wore their hair long and dressed in tight clothes. They wore bold colors: fire-engine red and lime green. I had once dressed more like this. My teenage years had been spent trying to make myself fit conventional expectations of how a woman should look. I’d had a bottle-blond bob. I’d worn high-heeled platform shoes, wraparound dresses, and tight jeans. But I had never really felt comfortable. The few boys I dated made me feel socially inept. And the experience of losing my virginity with a Thai man named Beer still makes me cringe. During my senior year of high school, my best friend cut my hair short, and I vowed never to have long hair again. It put me out of a certain kind of circulation, and that was fine by me.
As I strolled, I realized that I hadn’t seen a woman with short hair yet. I wondered what the Brazilians thought of me. Back home, I got the sense that some people (especially older ones) dismissed me as peculiar. A few weeks before my trip, I had been waiting for an elevator and an elderly man, also waiting, turned to me and asked, “Do you use the little girl’s room or the little boy’s?” “The little girl’s,” I replied as the elevator doors swung open. I stepped in. He stood staring at me, and I reached to hold the door for him. “That’s alright,” he said, “I’ll take the next one.”
Not everyone was confused by my gender. And not everyone was fooled by JT. When I met Mary Ellen Mark, she knew right away that I was a girl. And the interesting thing was that I had taken great pains to cover up my gender with her. For every outfit on that photo shoot, Laura and I had stuffed my tights with a sock. In his billowing full-length tutu, JT was not only girly, he was very well-endowed.
When we had our final meal together, Laura, Mary Ellen, and I had all sat close, sharing entrees and drinking wine. Mary Ellen squinted and flipped a braid over her back saying to us, “You know, I have hung out with many transgendered people over the years. But you don’t feel like a boy to me. And you don’t seem to me like you’ve come from the street.”
Laura rushed in with a response. “I know! I know! I agree. That’s the amazing thing about JT. He really is unusual in that way. His spirit is not like a boy. He is a different kind of being.” I watched Laura play with the stem of her wine glass.
Mary Ellen gave her a knowing look.
“But I don’t feel even the residue of a boy. JT, you just don’t feel like a boy to me.”
What should I say to this? It seemed pointless to lie. “I am, and I am not.” I said hesitantly.
Laura roared, “Soon he’s going to get his holy fucking period!”
I walked up to a salon that was packed with honey-skinned women laughing and gesticulating to one another, and decided that it was as good a place as any for my purpose. As I opened the door, bells rang.
“De sculpe. Voce tem . . . ?” I said, making the gesture of ripping cheesecloth mid-air.
The woman at the desk stared at me as if I were an idiot and bellowed, “Mariela!”
Mariela came out, her candy-floss heels with rhinestones lightly tapping across the granite tiles. Again, I went through the motions to explain myself. She was very tan with sprinklings of freckles on her face and shoulders.
At first she stared quizzically, then exclaimed, “Ah, depilação, minha filha.”
She ushered me into a little room with fake wooden panels and fluorescent lighting. I had a sour stomach from the coffee. There was a piece of waxy paper laid out on a recliner. I kept my eyes on the ceiling, which looked as if it had been sprayed with cottage cheese, and we struggled through some small talk—where I was from, my name, how long I would be in Brazil. I felt awkward as I tried to communicate, laughing a little too loudly. She coyly clucked at my baggy panties. I shucked them with a kind of resignation. Maybe, after my wax, I’d get myself a thong. All the Capoeiristas wore them to practice. And I could see the lines of Mariela’s beneath the nylon fabric of her pants.
Under the fluorescent lights, my skin appeared sallow and white. On my forearm, black hair sprouted out of a mole and a pinkish purple scar. Mariela gummed a glob of wax out of a small silver pot with a flat stick. She hummed under her breath. Then she smoothed the sterile pale violet goop over my upper thigh as if she were icing a cake. Unlike the aestheticians in San Francisco, Mariela used no cheesecloth. My stomach growled.
One of the hardest things about being JT was that I had to relinquish control over how I represented myself and allow Laura to create me. My bleached eyebrows had finally grown in brown. Frosty highlights remained on some of them. No one ever even saw JT’s peroxided eyebrows because I always wore long bangs and dark sunglasses that swallowed up my face.
I had recently done a big photoshoot with Steven Klein, who had asked, “And the sunglasses? Do you think they could come off?”
“Absolutely not,” Laura said.
I shook my head rapidly from side to side.
“Before we left, JT said, ‘Speedie, remember something for me. Don’t let me take them glasses off!’ And I said I would do the mate the favor, aye.”
Mike Potter, the makeup artist, had crooned through his little sharp teeth, “You tell them, Speedie.” He flipped his hair out of his eyes for a second. I stood passively behind Laura like a kid at her parent’s knees. As Potter motioned to me to sit in a chair so that he could apply the finishing touches to my foundation, he announced, “Speedie, you’re as diva as Madonna. I am going to nickname you . . . Matuna! JT, you sit down. You, Matuna, cool it. I’ll do your eyelashes later.”
Through a cloud of face powder, I had glimpsed Steven, who was warmly tanned, his blond hair naturally falling behind his ears. He studiously watched Potter make me up as Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver. The stylist, Ariana Philips, had chosen butterfly glasses, tinsel tights, and hot shorts, which made me worry about my hips. That was where one could tell, wasn’t it? One of Steven’s hands was propped against his other resting halfway over his mouth. He’d asked again, “But why the glasses, JT?”
“It makes me feel uncomfortable. Takin’ pictures is hard as it is,” I’d stammered.
Laura jumped in, “Let alone ’avin’ someone capture his eyes. Without the glasses there’s no protection. Nothin’ in between ’im and the world, and ’e feels like ’e’s put so much out in the books, ’e can’t give his whole self. Also ’e wants to ’ave the freedom to be
fluid with his gender. Sometimes ’e goes out as a boy, and other days he goes out as a girl. ’E takes that freedom. It’s not a game.” Laura had said. “’E will not take them off.”
I could understand why Steven wanted me to lose the glasses. I was stiff and deadpan as it was, and the glasses added to the formulaic quality of my poses. On the ride back from the airport, Steven had commented how difficult it had been to tease any emotion out of his underwear model. The boy had refused to look him in the eyes. Steven told me, “You want to know if the model is shy or confident or sweet or jaded. You want his outside appearance to resonate with an emotion coming from his eyes. But if he can’t look you in the face, you’re left with a blank slate.” I nodded in agreement.
At Laura’s request, Mike Potter and Holli Pops, the hair stylist, had created JT a “scab and laceration” wig. It was a scruffy ashen blond cut jaggedly with razors. Tiny ruby droplets of fake blood and sutures peeked out from bald spots. Holli was from San Francisco, too. I had met her once briefly, about a year and a half before, but she didn’t seem to remember me, which was lucky, I guess. But I definitely remembered her.
Holli trimmed a fake moustache for JT. “I’m going to put this on you.”
“No, no. Please,” I whispered in protest, feeling flushed.
“Then I’ll leave it here and let you put it on.” She had set it down on the dresser indulgently.
I sneaked a few glances at her. Her eyes were glacier blue, which offset the bright fuchsia lipstick she wore.
Potter came in. “Okay, JT, go and put on your facial hair.”
“Okay,” I tried to say airily.
I went into the bathroom and caked the glue onto my upper lip, which reminded me of dying my own moustache when I was younger. The thought of putting it on with Holli Pops in the room made me feel self-conscious. JT was supposedly impossibly shy, and I felt as if his shyness were seeping into me, giving me permission to cave into my fears. Emerging from the bathroom, I grabbed Laura by the shoulder and whispered, “I think I like Holli.”
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