by Ariel Schrag
Casey looked at him. “The popsicle.”
Adam quickly rubbed at his mouth with his fist.
Inside, a bunch of other typical-looking lesbians lounged around on a couch and pillows on the floor. No one seemed to notice them walk in.
“You guys want some beers . . . whiskey . . . water?” asked Schuyler. “Roxanne’s not here yet.”
Adam saw Casey blush, embarrassed that apparently their only excuse for being there was Roxanne.
“I’ll have some whiskey,” said Casey.
“Me too,” said June.
“Me too,” said Adam.
Casey gave them an annoyed look.
“Hey, Casey,” Schuyler shouted to a super-butch lesbian talking with people in the kitchen. “Hook these guys up with some Jack.”
Adam watched his sister stare at the other Casey, panic, then check her cell phone for no reason. June looked down at her own body as if she wished she’d left it at home.
“Have a seat wherever you can find one,” continued Schuyler, then abruptly turned around. “Bitch, I know you did not take my spot! No one fucks with my L Word.”
Casey and June sat on the floor, leaning up against the couch, and Adam huddled by the ficus tree in the corner. He tried to catch a glimpse of himself in the window reflection to see if his lipstick was still there. Not that there was any girl here for him to impress. Every single one looked gay—like manly lesbian gay. It might be fun to talk with a girly lesbian, just for the night, even if it went nowhere, but none of these girls were even remotely hot. Why would you want to make yourself look so unattractive? And why was Casey—who was hot—so batshit for these girls?
Adam looked over at Casey and June, who were talking to Butch Casey. Casey was doing all her flirty stuff she used to do when Sam first started coming around. Constantly brushing her hair behind her ear. Talking really fast and using lots of hand gestures. She was also downing her drink as if it were on the verge of evaporation. June was doing likewise. Casey turned toward Adam and started waving for him to come over. Great. She’d probably run out of things to say and was now going to “introduce her brother” as a new conversation topic. Awkward. Adam made his way over, almost tripping over a lesbian in a baseball cap sitting on a skateboard. He hunkered down next to the group.
“Adam’s in high school hell right now, so I’m letting him live with us for the summer,” said Casey.
Adam didn’t like the word letting. Even if it was true.
“Yeah, high school’s a cunt,” said Butch Casey. Adam stared at her. He’d seen lesbians with faint mustaches before, but this was out of control—this girl had a straight-up beard. What the fuck was Casey thinking? This girl was disgusting!
“Casey works at MoMA. He gets to go to any museum in New York for free.”
He? Oh. This person was a guy.
“I thought you were gay?” Adam blurted out to his sister. Boy Casey laughed. June made a quiet, strange little noise.
“Uh, OK, weirdo,” said Casey. “Anyway, I’m queer, or whatever.” She was trying to play it off like it was nothing but still let Adam know she was mad at him for saying it. How could she not expect him to be surprised? His entire life all she’d ever done was go on and on about how much she loves girls and has zero interest in guys.
Adam looked back at Boy Casey—it was insane. Right before his eyes, a butt-ugly girl transformed into an actually not-bad-looking guy. It was like that optical illusion when you look at the black vase that then turns into two white profiles facing each other. Ugly girl. Attractive guy. Same face. He could tell he was staring, so he quickly took a gulp of whiskey. He was getting drunk.
“It’s starting! It’s starting,” someone shouted. “Shhh! Shhh!” The TV was on and the lights went out.
The show began with a woman running out of another woman’s house, both of them crying. The woman got into a car with a different woman waiting outside.
Adam had only seen the show a couple of times and didn’t know who anybody was.
“Oh, Alice! I can’t believe Dana dumped her for Lara!” someone said.
“You’re telling me you’d rather have sex with Alice than Lara?”
“Well, maybe not, but . . .”
Everyone laughed.
“This is why Dana got cancer,” said someone else. “Karma.”
This time no one laughed. There was an awkward silence and then the opening credits blasted on the screen, and everyone started singing along to the theme song.
Adam was the only one not singing. He shifted uncomfortably.
A title card read, SEVEN MONTHS LATER, as two women, one with a giant headscarf, strolled down the street.
“Um, can we talk about Dana’s outfit?” someone said.
“Just because you’re bald and wear a headscarf doesn’t mean your entire wardrobe has to become Africanized,” said someone else.
This one got a couple chuckles.
The screen cut to a girl pinning up a flyer that read: ’80S TRANS PROM—TOP SURGERY BENEFIT PARTY.
The entire room exploded.
“What the fuck?! What the fuck?!” said one girl. She stood up from her seat on the floor. “My benefit was a prom theme! They totally stole that!” The girl whipped out her cell phone. “Get me Ilene Chaiken’s phone number.”
Everyone laughed more and the girl sat down. Adam looked back at the TV, totally confused. Now a guy and a girl were pinning up flyers together. Apparently this was not a show you could just jump into midway.
“OK, I’m sorry,” said someone on the couch. “But we need to talk about Max’s facial hair.”
“You mean the Brillo Pad glued to his chin?”
More laughter.
“I mean, what the fuck, I’ve been on T for six months, and I’ve got, like, seven hairs! Max has been on it for, eh, a week and a half—full-grown beard.”
“That shit wouldn’t look normal on a bio guy.”
“Cis guy.”
Adam peered through the dark at all the lesbians, their faces flickering in and out of the TV light. Now that he was really looking, he saw that a bunch of them had facial hair. What was going on? Was everyone here some kind of hermaphrodite? Wasn’t that supposed to be really rare?
“I still think Shane is hot,” someone said. “I don’t care if it’s not cool.”
“Carmen is hot. Look at her.”
The girl on the screen was hot. She had huge tits and was wearing a really low V-neck, and you could see her bra strap. When were they going to get to the sex already? The screen cut back to a hospital.
Adam heard his sister’s voice calling out next to him. “So Max wants to get his breasts removed, but Dana has to get her breasts removed. Symmmmmbolism.”
Everyone laughed and through the dark Adam saw Casey beam. She was leaning against Boy Casey, who had draped his arm over the couch behind her. June was separated from them by one person.
Adam turned back to the TV. A woman and man floating in a swimming pool, each holding babies, were talking.
“Fucking Tina, I always knew she’d turn straight,” said someone.
“At least that means she’ll be off the show next season.”
“Seriously, no one wants to watch Tina trolling for dick.”
Adam wrapped his arms around his knees, hunching into himself.
The screen cut to a party, and there was another full-room attack of laughter. A woman wearing a white tank top with TRANNY PROM on it was dancing on a table.
“Lord have mercy,” said Schuyler.
The cancer woman was talking to a guy about how much she used to love her breasts.
The girl sitting next to June sighed loudly. “I told my aunt I was getting top surgery, and she was like, ‘Why? I love my breasts!’ I was like, ‘Well, I don’t. I’m a guy.’”
On the screen, the guy with the Brillo Pad facial hair butted into a girl and a guy dancing and yanked the girl away, shouting at her.
“Oh, that’s fucked up,” Boy Casey’s voice called
out. “I bet they’re trying to say that taking T is making Max all aggro. That is seriously fucked.”
“Yeah, like you become a guy, so of course you’re suddenly an asshole.”
Everyone kept talking, and all of a sudden it hit Adam. He got it. The lesbians here weren’t hermaphrodites—they were girls who wanted to be guys. And somehow this was possible. He looked back over at Boy Casey, whose arm was now wrapped around Casey’s shoulder. Boy Casey wasn’t a boy; he was a girl who became a boy. But how much of a boy? Did he have a penis? And why the fuck didn’t Casey just tell him all this from the beginning? It was so like her: she just loved having something cool and different that she could think Adam wouldn’t understand. Fuck that. He was going to pretend as if he knew all along. He’d bring it up all casual, like, “So, since Boy Casey used to be a girl . . .” No big deal. Fuck her. He would not give her the satisfaction of thinking she was revealing something special and shocking to him.
The show chugged on as Adam tuned in and out, returning to the fantasy of Brad’s potential visit. Brad would knock on the apartment door, and Adam would be in the middle of having sex with his hot redheaded girlfriend. “Oh, shit! Brad’s here!” he’d say, and Redhead would exclaim, “Where are my clothes?!” They’d open the door all flustered and half-dressed, and Brad would totally know what was up. He’d give Adam a “you asshole” grin, and Adam would give a cocky grin back.
Everyone in the room was getting riled up again. On the screen, the woman and man from the pool scene were now alone in a bedroom, making out. The man took off his shirt.
“Ewwwwww!!!” everyone shouted.
The woman caressed the man’s chest. Everyone was making gagging noises. Adam could feel himself getting hard.
The woman and man fell onto the bed, and the man pulled the woman’s underwear off. It looked like he was about to go down on her.
“N-n-n-n-n-n-no,” the woman said. “That’s not what I want.”
A girl next to Adam snorted.
The woman and the man stood up and stared into each other’s eyes. She reached down into his underwear.
The room was surprisingly quiet. Adam was definitely hard now.
The man lifted the woman up and started fucking her against the wall. She was moaning and gasping as the guy thrust himself inside her.
This was amazing. Adam had thought he’d see lesbians having sex, but this was a million times better.
Someone made a faint repulsed sound.
“‘Do-me, red-faced man!’” said June.
And everyone laughed.
***
On the walk home, all Casey could talk about was Boy Casey and the date they’d planned to go see Donnie Darko, which played every Saturday at midnight at some theater. June was overly enthusiastic, telling Casey, “Don’t worry, he’s obviously into you.”
“He is, isn’t he? Oh my god.”
When they got back to their building, Adam realized he was starving again.
“Hey, do you think that sandwich place is still open?” he asked. Another liverwurst sandwich sounded perfect.
“Everything’s still open in New York,” said Casey.
“I’m gonna go hit it again,” said Adam.
“What are you getting?”
“Turkey sandwich.”
For some reason, he didn’t think he should tell them he was eating liverwurst.
“Pick up some toilet paper and paper towels while you’re there,” said Casey.
Adam did not want to pick up toilet paper. What if he ran into those girls again?
“Hey, you got a light?”
“No, but I’ve got some toilet paper.”
“Fine,” he said.
Casey and June went into the building, and Adam was alone on the street. It was after 11:00 P.M. but the air was still sweet and warm. It made his limbs feel antsy, keyed up. Adam had a sudden, crazy idea. He would text Casey that he was “going out for a while” and just fucking go anywhere he wanted. He really could go anywhere he wanted! It was a rapidly intensifying, reckless feeling he’d never had before. No one knew him here. He could go anywhere, talk to anyone, do anything. It was as if instead of life being this confusing, awkward thing he had to bumble his way through, it was a brand-new video game, fresh from the shrink-wrap, where he was the hero and every single thing was possible. The most fantastic game ever invented. On a sudden impulse, Adam bolted—sprinted down to the end of the block as fast as he could run. He stood on the corner, gulping in breath, the pavement stinging his feet, looking around. He really could do anything he wanted.
A gang of thug-looking guys rounded the corner and came toward Adam. His body tensed. But he knew if they attacked him, he’d fight with everything he had. If he died, he died, but he’d give it every fucking thing he had. The gang passed by him without notice. He could do whatever he wanted, but right now he mainly just wanted to eat. He crossed the street to get his sandwich.
***
Back in the apartment, Casey and June were in Casey’s room, lying side by side on the mattress, watching But I’m a Cheerleader on Casey’s laptop. Casey apparently never felt the need to watch any other movie. Ethan’s door was closed, but light snuck out of the crack, along with the faint secret-code sounds of synth music. Adam went into his room to eat his sandwich. He splayed out on the bare mattress and turned on his laptop.
*Knock*
“What?”
“Mom on the phone,” said Casey through the door.
Not in the mood.
“Tell her I have diarrhea.”
“Gross!”
Adam heard Casey, muffled, to their mom, “Uh, he’s gonna call you back later.” Then to Adam, louder, “Just text her or something, OK?”
“Fine.”
Adam wondered if Casey was going to turn bossy this summer, acting like she was Mom. She might . . . but he wasn’t too worried. She could act like the boss all she wanted, but he’d never actually have to do what she said. There were too many secrets between them. More that he kept for her. Like if she got all huffy about him staying out late, he could say, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m gonna call Mom and tell her your new boyfriend she’s so thrilled about used to be a girl, so, as long as that’s cool . . .” Not that he would ever really do that. But the fact that he could was still there. He sometimes thought about how Casey and his relationship would be different if she weren’t gay or if their parents knew and were OK with it. If he didn’t have that power. Or what if he was the one who were gay, and she kept the secret for him. The troubled younger brother who, on top of everything else, was gay. Thank god it wasn’t that.
Adam tried to check his e-mail, but there was no signal. He went out into the living room.
“Casey? What’s up with the Internet? It’s not working.”
“It’s not set up yet, dork,” she said, not taking her eyes off the movie.
“You can try to steal someone else’s signal,” said June. “Ethan said it was working this afternoon.”
June was wearing plaid pajama pants and a baggy tank top that her large breasts spilled out of. Ugh, don’t look. Don’t look.
Adam went back to his room and scrolled through the wireless networks: 59AC. kozyshack. Jordan. DressedforSuccess. They were all locked. Fuck it. He was really tired anyway.
He spread his sleeping bag out on the mattress, pulled off his jeans and T-shirt, turned off the office lamp he’d borrowed from Casey, and climbed into bed. Because there were no windows, the room was solid black. Like if he didn’t have a memory of what the room had just looked like, he would have no idea where he was. He could wake up in the middle of the night and think he’d been buried alive. Adam shivered at the thought. A siren and honking cars blared outside. The sounds that had been thrilling and fun when they walked to the L Word party now seemed scary. But Ethan was here. Adam wasn’t the only boy. If someone busted in and tried to rob them, he and Ethan could totally take the guy.
Adam stared into the dimensionless black as
a thought morphed into focus in his brain: What if Ethan was like those guys at the party? A girl. It seemed impossible, but how could he even tell? Ethan was taller than Boy Casey, taller than Adam. And, besides, Ethan just seemed like a guy. For some reason, the thought that Ethan was a girl . . . scared him. Adam tried to blink his eyes and have them adjust to the room, but nothing. It was as if there were bandages wrapped around his eyes. He remembered a book his class had read at the beginning of the school year, Johnny Got His Gun. It was about a guy who’d lost his sight, hearing, and all of his limbs in World War I. The book was just the guy’s thoughts racing through his head as he lay in the hospital, imagining rats chewing on his fingers—his fingers that didn’t exist. Adam shivered again and burrowed deeper in his sleeping bag. He thought about his mom taking his picture in his bedroom before they left for the airport. He couldn’t believe that had been this morning. It was a million years away. He remembered how when she took the photo, she was smiling really big, but her eyes were red and she was crying a little, trying to hide it. Adam banished the thought from his brain. It hurt too much. He couldn’t even think about it. He leaned over the side of his bed and fumbled in the dark for his jeans on the floor. He found them and pulled his cell phone out of the pocket. The tiny little light flipped open, and with just that small green glow he felt better. He scrolled down to Mom and texted: NY is great! love it here. talk tmrw. He put the phone down by the mattress and slid back into the sleeping bag. He imagined that his redhead was with him. He’d have his arm around her, and she’d be curled up into his chest. Her hair would be in his face, and it would tickle but feel kind of nice. He’d fall asleep breathing her in.
Chapter 5
THREE WEEKS LATER and everything had changed. First of all, it was fucking hot. As in, Adam’s laptop broke because the sweat dripping off his hands had messed up the keyboard. Ethan had gotten an air conditioner installed in the window of his room right away, but Casey and June insisted they didn’t need one for the living room. Casey liked to sprawl out on the futon in her underwear and “pretend it’s a shaman’s sweat lodge and I’m getting cleansed.” June liked to watch her sprawl out. Every day Adam witnessed June veer between the sheer joy of being around the object of her obsession and the horror of getting to do that without getting to have her. The whole thing was sort of fascinating, if not totally depressing.