by T Cooper
Prince thumps in our ears, the sound rattling the liquid in my cup as I stand there, saying nothing, not sure if there is anything to be said. I take a gulp, the rum searing a bit less this time.
“I know what you mean,” I offer, finally.
“Pshhht,” Kris snorts. “Unlikely.”
“No. I’m serious.”
“You know what it’s like maybe wanting to be another gender than the one they tell you you are at birth?” Kris asks. “Bullshit.”
I let his question hang in the smoky air. Part of me wants to tell him that I more than know what that feels like; I LIVE what that feels like. That my whole high school life is one giant gender wheel of fortune. That in some ways he’s lucky to have the liberty to be able to choose who he does or doesn’t become, and when and how.
“I don’t know what it’s like wanting to be a different gender than the one I was born into,” I start, carefully selecting my words from the thicket of them cluttering my brain, “but I do know what it’s like feeling like you’re walking around in the wrong body.”
“I hate that oversimplified narrative,” Kris snaps.
“Oh, there’s nothing simple about it,” I snap right back.
We stand there, the unexpected hostility between us killing the joy of the music. Soon the song bleeds into a slow jam, and Destiny skips over to us, quickly sniffing out drama.
“What damage is happening here?” she asks, sucking in her cheeks and shaming us with her eyes.
“I’m being a jerk,” Kris says flatly. “Just something I don’t have figured out, so I’m taking it out on her.” Which softens me in an instant. I hook an arm around his neck, plant a wet kiss on his cheek. “Oh, and Kimmy wants to be a boy,” he adds suddenly, winking.
Destiny shoots me a look. “And what exactly would Kim know about being a boy?” she asks slyly.
“Girl, what would any of us?” Kris laughs.
Change 3–Day 19
This morning Dad woke me up with a big bucket of guilt dumped on my head. Apparently the stench of the Carousel had permeated my room, and when he came in to rouse me for breakfast, he smelled the smoke and sticky alcohol residue, and decided I needed a stern scared-straight talking to.
He was deep into addiction stats when I tried to interject that I’d had only one drink and zero cigarettes, but Dad wasn’t in a place to listen to reason. I’d lied, I’d let him down. What else was I lying about?
“Dad, I just wanted to blow off some steam,” I explained. “I knew you’d never let me go to a dance club.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t . . .”
“It’s harmless. Every kid does it.”
“I’m not every kid’s parent. I’m yours.”
“I’m not a chronic liar face. I’m not a raging drug addict.”
“Not yet.”
And so it went. Cuckoo lecturing. Zero listening.
Okay, okay, so I probably shouldn’t have lied. But there was no other way I would have gotten to go, and I guess that mattered more to me. I mean, what the hell? I’ve been entrusted with helping to evolve the human race, but I’m not allowed to go to a gay bar and dance with my friends?
“Nothing bad happened,” I insisted. “In fact, being there made me feel good in a way I never have before.”
“Well, booze will do that,” Dad said.
“It wasn’t because of the alcohol.”
“How would you know?” he asked. “Is this a frequent thing?”
“I could’ve lied about that,” I said, “but I’m telling you the truth. I had a drink. Destiny was completely sober because she was driving. If I was abusing or using, do you think I’d be admitting I had a freaking drink?”
He just shook his head at me. Seemingly seeing me in a completely unfamiliar, unflattering light.
“I’m serious. I felt at home there. Less alone. There wasn’t any pressure to be anything I didn’t want to be. Surely you remember feeling something like that during your Cycle,” I said. “For once, nobody was looking at me like I was the weird fat girl.”
I could see my father wince. “You aren’t either of those things.”
“Yes I am, actually. In the world where I spend the most time, I am the person no one wants to be. I am the short straw on every front, and if I’m not being teased or ridiculed, I’m being ignored. That’s how little who I am matters.”
“Kim, everything you’re saying is about the exterior,” he tried pointing out.
“What do you think counts in high school, Dad? Or the world, for that matter?”
He let out a labored sigh. “I think you’re beautiful,” he said, his eyes welling slightly.
“Great. You can be my escort to the prom.”
He laughed, and so did I.
“I’m sorry I lied,” I said, and I meant it. “But it really felt good being me last night.”
“Just don’t pull that crap again.”
“Promise.”
“Well, breakfast is ready. Maybe shower before you come to the kitchen. You smell like a truck stop.” Dad got up, paused at my door. “Oh, I forgot. At the mixer next week, the Council wants you to talk about what happened to you.”
“Sorry?”
“You know, as a cautionary tale to all the Y-1 Changers. What to avoid, how to keep yourself off Abiders radar, et cetera.”
It felt like I’d just been slapped in the face. Twice.
“What happened to me wasn’t my fault,” I whispered, my voice thick with spite.
“Your experiences can help other Changers. Don’t you want to be of service?”
“It wasn’t my fault, Dad,” I tried again, dead serious. “I need to know you know that.”
But he didn’t answer. We sat like that for what felt like a full minute. Which doesn’t sound long, but when you’re in an eye-lock throw-down with your angry father, it’s an eternity.
“I’ll see you downstairs,” he announced finally, yanking the door shut behind him.
Change 3–Day 28
The curtain billowed and then delicately slipped off the statue beneath it, uncloaking an odd Mr. Olympia–meets–G.I. Joe figure, cupping the world in his hands.
Hmm, I wonder what the sculptor was trying to convey with this particular imagery?
Needless to say, the “tribute” statue to the fallen Chase looked NOTHING like Chase, neither Chase V-1 nor Chase V-2. (Was it supposed to be an amalgamation of the two? Or was the artist the Council hired to memorialize Chase just entirely ungifted?) Nevertheless, there we all were at the mixer this afternoon, clapping away at the big reveal, as though it were actually “breathtaking” and “uncanny how it captures his spirit,” as many fellow Changers uttered around me, loud enough to be certain Chase’s mom and dad could hear, and what, feel better? Like the paltry gesture to honor Chase’s “ultimate sacrifice” did anything to make it okay that he’s gone, or did anything to even remotely replace his energy and larger contributions to this world? Did anything, period, besides become a clunky, embarrassing reminder of loss?
While all this was going down, Destiny and I basically just stood there next to our respective parents, lazily clapping along, catching each other’s eye, realizing we were thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time. Which was: it’s basically our fault Chase is gone, and almost everybody here knows it, and if Chase didn’t risk his life to find us, we would be the ones replicated in the cheesy statues right now (probably in some stupid cross-legged position facing each other and tossing a ball of the world between us) and he’d be standing here being forced to clap for us. (Though he never would; he was less of a suck-up than we are.)
After the big reveal, my back started aching from standing for the three-minute ovation. During the applause, Chase’s parents kept looking my way. And I kept looking away. It was too much to bear, his mother an absolute mess, his father trying to hold her together beside him.
I couldn’t take it anymore and excused myself before anybody could stop me, and ran to the
bathroom, where—thank God—Destiny soon joined me. She threw the bolt on the door behind her, and hopped up on the sink, swinging her legs below. I kicked the seat down and sat on the toilet.
“This is absurd,” Destiny said, whipping out an e-cig and pushing the button a couple times until it turned on.
“You vape?” I asked, completely off-guard after initially thinking the doohickey was a G.D. Changers emblem brand, but then recognizing what it really was from the few kids who blatantly vape on the steps before and after school.
“Just started,” she said, sucking on the little stick and then blowing a giant cloud of vapor out her nose, then mouth.
“You look ridiculous,” I said.
“I don’t care. And, I don’t.”
“Yes you do,” I said. “Let me try.”
“You sure?” When I nodded, she handed it over.
“How do you do it?” I asked, feeling the weight of the thing and trying to figure out which end to suck.
“Just put your lips around it and sort of inhale with your mouth, not your lungs.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, bring it in enough to puff out your cheeks, but not down in your chest.”
I did just as she said. It tasted bitter. Burnt. And strawberry-y. My tongue immediately felt hairy and swollen, as if wrapped in a fruit roll-up. I coughed out the vapor, and Destiny laughed.
“What?”
“I don’t think you did it right,” she chuckled, reaching for it and taking another deep inhale, all the way into her lungs the way she told me not to.
“It’s gross.”
“And?” she said, exhaling with her eyes half-closed.
“Anyway,” I said.
“Anyway,” she repeated, then fell silent for a beat. “Chase was a good dude, huh?”
“He was a self-righteous prick. I loved him so much.”
“This feels wrong. Let’s bail.”
“We can’t. Well, I can’t. My dad is on a mission to impress the board,” I said, “so I have to talk, or he’ll basically disown me.”
“Yeah, I can’t drop out either,” she said. “I promised my parents I’d honor my commitment.”
“What’s worse than commitments?”
“That statue out there.”
We both laughed, vapor leaking out of Destiny’s mouth.
* * *
Luckily, Turner’s sermon on the mount about Chase was just wrapping up by the time Destiny and I inconspicuously rejoined the huddle. “. . . And that is why this beautiful and powerful figure is meant to honor not only Chase, but all of our fellow fallen Changers across the world—and the millennia. In the many we are one.”
“In the many we are one,” repeated the crowd solemnly, as Destiny and I shook our heads at each other. I didn’t care who saw.
“Please, everybody, enjoy some fresh apple cider and Stevia cookies, and then join us in the main auditorium in thirty minutes,” Turner added, “for a special multiformat presentation about the State of the Changers Nation.”
Great. Showtime. The moment when Destiny and I got to testify, to play our part as Abiders witnesses, the walking, talking, surviving cautionary tales. I took a few steps backward, fought yet another instinct to run, and it was then that I heard murmuring as a rift in the crowd widened, and I spotted Benedict and a few raggedy compatriots whom I assumed were also RaChas making their way from the rear of the group. They were actually inside Changers Central (as opposed to being relegated to their usual spot outside the fence protesting). I guess it would’ve been a bad look to lock out the RaChas when Chase (as a card-carrying RaCha himself) was the reason three Changers were alive, and a potential Abiders nest was exposed and neutralized.
“Well, what do you know?” Destiny whispered. “Evolution.”
“More like PR,” I snapped back. There’s no way Turner voluntarily chose this joining of forces. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” I theorized. “He had to let them into the tent.”
“Whatever works,” Destiny smirked, pushing on toward the auditorium.
I was about to head over to introduce myself to Benedict for the first time as Kim, when I felt a hand on the inside of my elbow, tugging me in the opposite direction. I knew instantly from the girly perfume that it was Tracy yanking me toward a quiet corner, eager to run down one last time what to say, what not to say, how to say, how not to say, et cetera et cetera, about my experiences during the Tribulations.
“You got this,” Tracy pronounced for the fiftieth time, squeezing my hands between hers.
“I-I,” I stuttered.
“Do you want some ice water?” Tracy asked, and when I shook my head, she quietly minced over to the curtains that opened onto the stage and pulled them aside to check on things. One of Turner’s minions was adjusting three chairs on a plush Persian rug just so. All the new Y-1 Changers and their Touchstones, in addition to a few older Changers, were milling about the auditorium, nervously high talking, finding seats.
Over Tracy’s shoulder, I spotted Dad on the other side of the stage speaking with some Changer parents, all of their brows stitched into an expression of general severity and concern. When Dad saw Tracy peeking through the curtains, he looked past her for me, made eye contact, and gave an inordinately energetic DOUBLE THUMBS-UP in my direction.
To which all I could think was: 1) I’m going to puke, and 2) Why does everybody keep telling me I “got” this?
The only thing I “got” was my best friend/old bandmate killed. How about I go up there and tell all the baby Changers THAT when I get onstage? I was seriously considering doing just such a thing when I felt a tap on my shoulder, kind of hard.
“Hey, man.”
I turned around to see a compact, yet ridiculously good-looking white dude with dark hair and a cool haircut.
“Hey?” I said, a little nervous because he was the kind of handsome that freaks you out a little, regardless of attraction or sexuality or whatever.
“It’s Alex!” he announced enthusiastically, pointing at his face and laughing in an insecure way that didn’t match what his new looks were projecting. “Well, Theo now.”
“Alex. Alex?” Alex, as in Alex with whom Elyse/Destiny and I endured the Tribulations? Alex the terrified little nerd who used to be a girl who liked freaking PONIES? Alex who pissed his pants a little every time the goons would come into the basement and throw us sandwiches and water? Alex who somehow ended up in a coma after we got sprung, but who has now, obviously, settled nicely into his brand-new, perfectly healthy V and (not unlike Destiny) won the freaking Changers lottery?
“You’re on!” I heard Tracy call over my shoulder, as Destiny blew in at the very last second with a can of Coke in one hand while stuffing her e-cig into her back pocket with the other.
“This is Alex,” I spat out, trying to contain my stupefaction, as the three of us were ushered onto the stage to raucous, overly supportive applause, led by Turner in his stupid robes and beads, as he pressed his hands together and bowed theatrically to each one of us while we found our seats: Alex-now-Theo stage left, me dead center, and then Destiny stage right.
It had to be some sort of sad, sad joke (on me): my wide, resentful, Mohawked butt flanked by these two perfect specimens. Really, Changers Council? You put all three of us through the same Tribulations, and these two get rewarded with modeling contracts, while I get . . . Wait, what do I get? Oh yeah, lower back pain and rashes on my inner thighs.
FRACK THAT CRAP, I decided right then and there.
* * *
Since it was video-recorded like all events at Changers Central, I suppose I don’t need to go into too much detail about my monosyllabic “share” re: being kidnapped by Abiders. Some shiny-forehead dude came up first and introduced the three of us, telling the crowd that the Council believes the incident was the first phyiscal Abiders-related (or “possibly Abiders-related”) attack on Changers in the region, and that they are working their hardest, having formed a special Ab
iders Task Force (of which my father is the chair) to fully investigate the situation and take appropriate action. Like, whether Static law enforcement will be brought in, how the RaChas and the Council might work together (that sure was a change of tune from our Y-1 experience of “ignore those crazy hooligans you saw protesting on your way in here today”), and how to anticipate and deter more attacks in the future.
Then he went on to the audio/visual portion of the intro, briefly delineating new, tighter rules for Changers, which honestly just sounded like the old rules, but written in BOLD TYPE instead of the usual italics you’d find in The Changers Bible.
Don’t reveal yourself as a Changer to Statics; don’t bring Statics home; don’t hook up with other Changers, blah blah blah.
When it came time for me to share, I detached as much as possible, almost going into a trance, keeping to the facts: I was out walking my dog, I got hit on the head, thrown in the back of a truck, woke up in a dark basement. Didn’t know how long I was in there. They threw my friend (the now-statue) Chase in with us, he croaked, or was about to, and then there was a bunch of smoke and noise and the next thing I knew, I woke up in the Changer clinic with my horrified parents staring at me.
I honestly don’t remember much from my talk besides barely managing to eke out those bullet points, and the complete and utter stillness in the audience while I was talking. (Needless to say, this latter aspect was the most unnerving part. I mean, crickets.) I recall Destiny getting a few laughs when it was her turn—and her seeming to really try to communicate in a way I couldn’t muster. Alex-now-Theo got no laughs when it was his turn, but he wasn’t trying to. I could see the baby Changers struggling to do the math of the pitiful boy he described in the basement versus the hot stud-muffin sitting before them now. They were probably thinking about who they were a mere month ago, trying to determine if they got an upgrade or a downgrade. As you do.
To be frank, I mostly just spaced out and shut down while my fellow Tribulations-survivors took their turns. It was like my brain made me, to keep the rest of my body from exploding all over the Persian rug. I distracted myself by considering how in our new V’s, I could still see the same core in the three of us onstage, only I could also see how each of us had already adapted to living in our new forms after just a month. We were changing inside whether we wanted to or not. My adaptation being confrontational and pissed off 90 percent of the time. Whereas the two perfect Changers on either side of me (What the hell, Destiny?) seemed more than happy to accommodate and answer the many ridiculous questions from the Y-1s in the audience who were all now sufficiently paranoid and terrified into following the Council’s rules to the letter, so as to avoid an Abiders encounter like ours.