Punkzilla

by Adam Rapp

  Then she said “Why do you dye your hair are you tryin to change your identity or something?” and I told her I liked it black and she was like “You’re obviously SO blond. You should get your roots touched up” and then I said “I’m not a fucking girl okay?” and she said “For a minute there I wasn’t exactly sure so thanks for clearing that up.”

  Man I had a desperate urge for a cigarette right then. A desperate desperate urge P. I asked her if she really was confused about my gender and she said she thought I might be “some little dyke-job from Gillette looking to hook up.”

  Then I said this P I said “Do you wanna see it?” meaning my dick and she KNEW I meant my dick because you could see it on her face. I don’t mean you could see my DICK on her face I mean you could see how she knew what I was talking about on her face. I swear I said that P and it made me feel so much better.

  She stared at me for a second and said “Look I don’t care if you stay here but my mom is coming back in like an hour and she won’t be cool with some homeless kid or whatever you are just like setting up camp in the office. This is around the time we start to get customers. In fact in about twenty minutes a bunch of those truckers down the road are gonna start getting rooms.”

  She was pretty mean when she said all of that but then she sort of went soft and said that I should go hang out behind unit seven because her mom never went back there. I asked her why her mom never went back there and she said it was because last year some trucker from Fort Collins Colorado hung himself from the copper birch which is the tree I’m sitting under as I write this P the one with the maroon leaves and the spiderweb! How spooky is that! I keep thinking I’ll look up and see the ghost of that trucker in the branches with a noose around his neck or like a fucking raven perched on his shoulder.

  Then Erin said she had to go restock the candy machine and left through the back of the office. I was seriously tempted to see if there was any cash behind the front desk like in a cigar box or just in some drawer but I didn’t want to push my luck.

  I was about to go find unit seven when this weird guy wearing a black silky on his head came in through the front door. He was dressed pretty normal with jeans and a plain white T-shirt and a pair of white Nike Air Force 1s. He was really skinny and his face was all pale and oily. He said “Is Erin around?” His voice was high and sort of gayish-seeming but I don’t mean that in a bad way P it’s more of a scientific observation. What I mean to say is that I’m pretty sure some homosexuals sound more like women than men wouldn’t you agree being one yourself? I’ve even heard some in Portland who sounded like they were from England.

  I told him that Erin just went to go restock the candy machine and he said “The Blakes get all over you if you’re late paying your bill.” I asked him who the Blakes were and he said they were the owners of the motel and that Erin was their daughter. He said he actually liked the dad whose name was Jerry but that Erin and her mom were ruthless little bitches and they would start sliding notes under your door if you were late paying your bill. Then he said “I’m Lewis by the way” and we did a normal handshake. I was expecting him to be all limp in the wrist but his grip was firm like almost as firm as the Major’s I shit you not P.

  Lewis told me he had lived at the motel for six months and that he kept expecting the Blakes to cut him a break with a cheaper month-to-month plan but that it never happened and then he asked me my name and I told him and he pulled out a pack of Marlboros and I didn’t even need to ask he just sensed my desperation and offered one and said “Yep that’s me. Supporting the youth of America. Guilty as charged.” And then he lit me with a cheap Bic.

  After we smoked for a minute he asked me if my dad was one of the truckers down the road and I said no and then he asked me if I was related to the Blakes and I said no again and then he said “Who are you like one of Fagan’s boys?” but I had no idea what he was talking about and he told me about some movie called Oliver and said it was one of the greatest movies ever made and that he learned more watching that movie than he did “moving up the glorious ranks of the Nevada public school system and matriculating to Colorado College” whatever that meant. The cigarette tasted so good I felt like I wouldn’t have to eat for a week.

  Then Lewis said “You’re not from Wyoming I gather?” and I almost told him I was from Cincinnati but I couldn’t because I was suddenly feeling racy like I really needed my medication to focus on what was right in front of me and I hadn’t felt that for weeks P I shit you not. He said “Don’t be nervous I’m just a harmless country boy from Effingham Illinois” and I told him I thought he already said he was from Nevada and he went “I was born in Tidewater Florida spent my youth in the middle of Illinois and my adolescence and early adulthood in Reno Nevada. It’s sounds complicated I’m the first one to admit it but fear not” and I said “Who said I was afraid of you?” and he was like “Ooh toughness I like toughness. Wish I had a little more of that myself” and then he made me feel guilty about him giving me a cigarette and said something about how the least I could do was engage in some small talk with my fellow man so I told him how I was in Portland and then we smoked some more and then I told him he was weird-looking and he said “Weird’s not always a bad thing.” Then I asked him why he wore the silky and he said it helped keep the bugs out of his hair and then I told him he looked weird again. I’m not sure why I had to say it twice. He was like “You’re from Portland and you’ve never seen a guy like me before? Where’d you live in the planetarium?” and then I told him how I wasn’t FROM Portland but how I just lived there for a while.

  He made smoke rings and I thought it was weird how he might be gay but was doing such a macho thing. Remember how the Major used to make smoke rings before Mom got him to quit smoking the Lucky Strikes? How he would do three of them and then blow out the third one and how Mom would wave them away but it would be like she was sort of flirting with him? That was probably the only time they seemed like they actually liked each other.

  Lewis leaned toward me all concerned and said “What happened to your eye anyway?” and I told him how I got jumped by those punks in Idaho and he made a concerned face and asked if they took my money and I said they got most of it and how I had to hitch a ride and got dropped off at the motel. It sucked having to tell that whole story AGAIN. Then he asked me if I had a place to stay and I said I didn’t and he said I was more than welcome to stay with him and how he had two twin beds that were pushed together but that it would be no trouble for him to pull them apart.

  P I looked hard at Lewis. I had to because I’m at the point now where I don’t trust anyone. I felt pretty sorry for him with his skinny arms and his oily face and his weird voice. He seemed really lonely but not in some perverted Alan Skymer way. At Washington House there was this old gay man who Branson called Sweet Larry and he would always try and get one of us to go up to his room with him by offering us free long-distance use on his phone and microwave dinners. Sweet Larry was fifty-something and had dyed hair and wore yellow aviator sunglasses and the same blue tank top every day. Sometimes he would point a finger gun at you and shoot it at you like he was hunting. He did it to Branson all the time but Branson would say “Yeah you wish Sweet Larry.” One time this kid named Diesel agreed to go up in his room because he thought he could steal Sweet Larry’s Tivo. Sweet Larry gave him a turkey sandwich and some French wine and Diesel wound up falling asleep on his sofa and when he woke up Sweet Larry was standing over him and jerking off and whimpering. When I looked hard at Lewis I had a gut feeling he wasn’t like that. Even though he looked a little weird he seemed like a decent person.

  I said “You aren’t some pervert are you?” and he looked me square in the face and said “I promise you I’m no pervert.”

  His room was more like an apartment than a motel room with a mini-refrigerator and a microwave oven and this little stove-top thing and pictures on the walls and plants on the air-conditioner thing and a pretty nice sound system.

  Over his
bed was a poster of that actress Scarlett Johansson. Do you know her P? She was in The Prestige if you ever saw that weird-ass movie. Anyway Lewis had a big poster of her above his bed so my theory about him being gay was definitely up in the air. If he was really gay he would have had a poster of Usher or Johnny Depp or some pretty dude with big eyelashes.

  After Lewis pulled the beds apart he put new sheets on the one I was going to sleep in and then he asked me if I was hungry and I said I was starving so he cooked two Swanson Salisbury steak dinners in the microwave and gave me a can of cream soda.

  Before he started to eat he took this little machine out of a black bag and pricked his finger and squeezed some blood on a tab thing and inserted the tab thing in the machine. Then he pulled out what looked like a big white pen and stuck himself in the side with it like right through his shirt and pressed this button thing at the top of the pen.

  I asked him if he was a junkie and he told me he was a diabetic and that he was shooting insulin into his side and that the machine thing was a device called a glucometer that measured the sugar in his blood so he would know how much insulin he would need. When we started eating I asked him how many times a day he had to shoot that stuff into his side and he said four or five and I asked him if it hurt and he said you get used to it like anything else. I was impressed because he didn’t even wince when he stuck himself P. I can’t stand needles. Just the thought of them makes me feel tense. Lewis was way tougher than he looked.

  P the microwave dinner was the best thing I ever tasted. I think it was probably because it was the first thing I’d eaten since Dale or Dave or Dan bought me those waffles and my taste buds were mad amped for some flavor. Lewis could’ve served me some dog food and I would have probably loved it.

  After I was almost finished Lewis said he had two more microwave dinners and that I could have another one so I nodded and he nuked one. He was turning out to be really cool.

  While eating the second microwave dinner I asked him why he lived in the motel and he said it was where he felt comfortable and then I asked him if he had family somewhere and he said his mom lived in Topeka Kansas and that his dad was “roaming around somewhere out there” and that they didn’t speak. And then I asked him if he had any kids and he said he didn’t and that the motel was a “transitional place” and I was like “From what to what?” and then he put his fork down and took a deep breath and blew it out all serious and said that he barely knew me and that I might want to run out of his room screaming but that it wouldn’t be the first time it freaked someone out and he pointed to the door and told me if I needed to leave that it wasn’t locked but to be careful with the screen door on the other side of the regular door because it tended to get stuck. I thought he was going to tell me he had just gotten out of prison for murder or rape or armed robbery or something.

  But this is what he said P he said “I had top surgery a few months ago” and I was totally confused I was like “What’s top surgery?” and he said he’d had his breasts removed and had had some reconstructive work done to help form his new chest and I said “You mean you had titties?” and he said yes he did but that he preferred to call them breasts.

  P as you can see this was turning out to be one of the weirdest conversations I’ve ever had. I said “So you were like BORN with boobs?” and he said that he was born a woman and I said “So you’re like a drag queen?” and he said “Not even remotely” and that he was someone who came into the world a woman and is transitioning to becoming a man. He said a drag queen is a man who likes to dress up in women’s clothes and a drag KING is a woman who likes to dress up in MEN’S clothes and wear fake mustaches and put cowboy boots on and perform a lot of karaoke. I said “So you’re not a drag ANYTHING?” and he said “There isn’t a cell of drag to be found where Lewis Williams is concerned.”

  P I had to stop eating because I was so stunned.

  Then I asked him when he decided he wanted to be a man and he said he made the decision after he got back from Iraq meaning the war meaning the first one back in the early nineties. He said back then he was known as Private First Class Louise Mills. This was a seriously crazy mind fuck P. I had met a lot of freaky people in Portland but no one like this. Then I asked him if he killed anyone in the war and he said no that he trained for it but mostly did administrative work in an office far away from the action.

  What was weird P and I mean REALLY FUCKING WEIRD was that even though Lewis just told me he used to be a woman and had his titties removed I really believed he was a man. And the more I talked to him the more it seemed that way.

  I asked him when he had the top surgery and he said three years ago and then I asked him if it was expensive and he said it was and he wouldn’t tell me the amount and he talked about how hard it is to find a doctor who will even do it and how insurance companies won’t cover the operation and how it totally wiped him out financially and how he put his life’s savings toward it and even had to sell his car and that’s why he lives in a cheap motel.

  Then I was like “Do your parents know?” and he said his mom knew and that she was doing the best she could with it and how he was raised Roman Catholic like us P and how the church isn’t too supportive of “gender transitional people.” He said he and his mom talk a few times a month and that she’s really trying. Then I asked him about his dad and he said that they haven’t spoken in over fifteen years and it made me think of you and the Major and how that’s what’s happening to me and the Major too and how maybe that’s what happens to all dads and sons except for maybe E and the Major.

  We were quiet for a minute and you could hear some of those truckers Erin was talking about walking around outside and playing radios. Then Lewis said how he really wanted to start taking T but how his blood was already too messed up from the diabetes and how he couldn’t quit smoking to save his life which was the worst thing a type A diabetic could do. I asked him what T was and he said it was testosterone as in the male hormone. I said “You take it so you can like grow a dick or something?” and he said T won’t grow you a dick but it does other things like changes your body in subtler ways like you start to get facial hair and your voice gets deeper and you get more aggressive.

  Then I asked him if he wanted a dick and he said that it would be the ultimate goal and that there was an operation but that you could only afford it if you won “the flipping lottery” and he really said flipping instead of fucking and that reminded me of something Mom would do like when she wants to say shit but she says sugar foot instead.

  Lewis took out his pack of Marlboros and gave me one and lit us and we both smoked. I have to admit I was eyeing his Salisbury steak dinner P because he hadn’t finished it and I was still starving even after eating two of them but instead of asking for the steak I asked him why he wanted to be a man and he said “Because that’s how I see myself. That’s how I’ve always felt on the inside.” Then I asked him if he thought I looked like a girl and he said that I have “softer features than your average bear” but that I definitely ACTED like a boy.

  Man that was a relief to hear P. I mean Lewis probably has like superpowers when it comes to figuring these things out right? It was definitely a relief.

  Then I asked him a totally crazy question P but it just came out and I was genuinely curious about it like in a totally scientific way and this is what I said I was like “When you were a woman did you slay lots of men?” and he said “Slay?” and I said “Fuck” and he was cool about it. He said he was with some men but that he found that he actually preferred women. I said “So you’re like a lesbian” and he said “At the time I guess I was technically a lesbian yes.”

  I asked him if he had a girlfriend and he said that he did for a while but that she left him after his top surgery and how it took him by surprise but that it happens. He said her name was Anne and that she lived in Canada with another woman.

  I said “So she really must have missed your titties” which was a rude thing to say P I realize it now. Le
wis even got mad and said “please call them breasts” and I said “Breasts. Sorry.”

  Then Lewis told me about when he and Anne spoke about him becoming a man and how she was so supportive and how they had made all sorts of plans for the future like they were even talking about getting married with a traditional wedding in a church with a priest and a big white cake and everything but how the grossness of the top surgery really freaked her out. He said the early recovery is mad brutal and how his flesh was inflamed for a long time and how he had to fight off an infection. Then one day he came home and she was gone.

  I asked him if he thought she would come back and he said no and that he’s moving on and that that’s life. Then I pointed to that actress in the poster that Scarlett Johansson skeezer and I went “You like her?” and this is what Lewis said P I shit you not he said “If I had a dick I would fuck her six ways to Sunday” and then we both started laughing like crazy. Lewis sort of honked when he laughed like he was part duck or something. I had never heard a laugh like that.

  He finished his cigarette before me and put it out in an ashtray. I asked him if he had a job and he said how he was living off his veteran’s pension and how the top surgery set him back a bit with the healing process and losing Anne. Then I asked him what he wanted to do and he said that he had a degree in history and that he wanted to get back into teaching. It turns out that when he was a woman he used to teach high school after he got back from Iraq. He was Ms. Mills and he taught history at some Catholic school in Illinois.