Transition to Murder

by Renee James

  “Jeri,” says the waitress, her face all attitude.

  “Jeri,” repeats Cecelia. “I have a brother named Jerry. And we fought the Jerrys in World War Two. Nice name, Jeri. Now, Jeri, suppose you tell us what those specials are—in English, this time.”

  Jeri recites the specials, avoiding eye contact with either of us.

  “Thank you Jeri,” says Cecelia. “Now what you can do for us is go bring the manager.”

  Jeri pauses, gaping at Cecelia.

  “Now, Jeri,” Cecelia says. “Right now.” She makes a dismissive, walking gesture with two fingers on one hand.

  Jeri’s face becomes a mask of anger and she spins around and leaves. Moments later, the hostess comes to our booth.

  “I’m the night manager here,” she says. “Is there a problem?” She is pretending to be unaware of the waitress' enmity, but I can see tension on her face.

  “Yes,” says Cecelia. “Your waitress is hostile to us. I do not trust her to serve us uncontaminated food.” She pauses to pull a business card from her purse and offer it to the hostess. “I’m a member of the LGBT Advocates Committee. We inform management when company employees treat minorities badly and give them an opportunity to correct the situation.”

  Cecelia is surprisingly artful. She doesn’t say legal action will follow, but anyone would assume that’s the next step.

  “Okay,” says the hostess, uncertainly.

  “I have two requests of you tonight,” says Cecelia, all business. “First, I’d like you to serve our food yourself and make sure your waitress does not have access to it.” The hostess nods her assent. “Second, I would strongly encourage you to talk with the day boss and the owner about Jeri. We are in a new century in a great city and this is not the time or the place where a service business can afford to lose customers or incur lawsuits because of the petty bigotries of the hourly help.”

  The hostess nods again. She would like to take our order, but Cecelia is just getting warmed up. She reminds the hostess of several big harassment lawsuits that have been litigated in recent years, and points out what a difference adding or losing even five percent of your customers can have on the business and its employees. The hostess nods repeatedly.

  We finally order and the hostess departs. She sends the waitress on break.

  “The LGBT Advocates committee?” I say to Cecelia.

  She smiles. “It’s my own invention. It actually exists. I filed papers with the state. I’m the only member, though you are certainly welcome to join. So is anyone else. But I get to stay Chairwoman, and I get to use my position and the stature of the committee to file complaints when I feel they are warranted.”

  We laugh. The hostess brings us our drinks and a plate of appetizers. The appetizers are on the house, she says, an apology for the restaurant’s lapse in service. We thank her.

  “So, what’s the occasion?” Cecelia asks.

  “I want to know why you were so sure Strand killed Mandy,” I say. “And I want to know why you are so afraid of Strand.”

  Cecelia gets a very serious expression on her face and stares me in the eye. “Those two things are related, but I guess you understand that, right?”

  I answer yes.

  “Okay. I’ve already told you why I think he killed Mandy. He was seeing her and he’s known to be violent with women. At some point, the girl needs to get out. Mandy wasn’t that smart. She convinced herself that Strand was Mr. Right, and that she was going to be his princess.”

  “So you don't think Wayne Icott killed her, do you?”

  “No.” Cecelia raises a hand, signaling me to let her continue. “But that doesn't mean he might not be dangerous. You have to be careful, Bobbi.”

  “How do you know Strand’s violent?” I ask.

  “Years ago, he fired the attorney who managed my company’s account. It came out of nowhere. I asked her what happened and she gave me the old crap about going in new directions and all that. “Well, we were pretty good friends. She’d had our account for a good while, so there had been a lot of meetings and phone calls and dinners and lunches. No hanky panky, but friends based on mutual respect. She was very sharp.

  “Naturally she wanted to stay in touch and use me as a reference, and I was glad to do that. I had her out to dinner one night to see how things were going. She put on a brave front, but we ended up getting smashed. And she ends up telling me how Strand started out as her mentor, bringing her up the ladder. Then how one day he seduces her and they have this affair, but as time goes on he gets rougher and rougher. She thinks it’s the only way he can get it up. One night he hits her so hard he dislocates her jaw. He’s all apologies and pays for everything, but she feels like she saw the dragon.

  “After that, he leaves her alone in the office. She hears rumors now and then, but nothing solid. Then one day word breaks that a girl who worked part time as a receptionist for the firm had been beaten to death. Her secretary knew the girl, knew she had met a sugar daddy a few months earlier, moved into a nice new apartment, started wearing nice clothes. “Wanna guess who she told the secretary her sugar daddy was?” Cecelia arches her eyebrows at me.

  I shake my head in amazement.

  “My friend was too smart to ever share that with anyone,” says Cecelia. “If she had, she would have lost her life as well as her job. Of that I am sure. Here’s the irony. A few years after I drop out of the banking world and start transitioning. Strand’s name comes up again. He beat a T-girl I knew to within an inch of her life. I didn’t know it was him. All I knew was she had nowhere to go when she got out of the hospital, so I put her up. One night we’re watching the news on television, and Strand’s photo comes on the screen. She starts hyperventilating and shaking and points to the screen and says, ‘that’s him, that’s the guy who tried to kill me.’”

  “Well, Vanessa was a hooker and a transwoman and no one was going to believe her if she brought charges against a suit like Strand, so she didn’t bother. But it ruined her. She got into drugs and ended up OD-ing. Since then, every time I hear about a T-girl getting beaten up by an anonymous john, I think of Strand.”

  I sip my water, thinking about what Cecelia said. It's not exactly a smoking gun, but it sounds like the Strand I know.

  “Did Mandy tell you specifically that it was Strand she was seeing?” I ask.

  “She did better than that,” says Cecelia. “She brought him over to me at a club one night and introduced him. I told you this, remember?”

  I nod yes. “I just want to make sure.”

  “Bobbi, please tell me you aren’t planning on doing anything dramatic,” says Cecelia.

  “A pansy like me?” I strike a campy drag queen pose. “What would I do?”

  I purposely evade Cecelia’s occasional questions about what I’m thinking. We enjoy an awful meal together, dominated mostly by her advice about steering far clear of Strand. I listen, but part of me is asking why I don’t share with Cecelia—or even my shrink—what I’m really thinking.

  But I know the answer. I’ve known it for a while.

  I don’t want any witnesses.

  ***

  WHAT I HATE MOST about this is lying to Marilee.

  We're in her office at home. It’s a meeting of friends, but one of the friends is a psychologist so it’s not like lunch with Cecelia or whatever. It’s more official. It’s like having a heart-to-heart with your mom, but your mom’s a shrink.

  “So,” she says, “how is your sex life?” She may not be my psychologist, but she has always been a surrogate mother who cut through the flotsam and got to the point.

  “What sex life?” I say, hoping to get off the subject.

  “Are you still celibate, Bobbi?” she asks, very directly. She must be reading my body language or something. She has a sixth sense about these things. It can be very unnerving.

  “No. I had a, a…” I struggle for the right word, “I had a lapse. It won’t happen again.”

  “Who was the man?” she
asks.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” There is no way I will ever tell Marilee that I ever got involved with Strand, let alone that I had sex with him. It would tear her up to know how far this has come. And I still don’t know where it’s going.

  “Why is that?” God I hate the circles shrinks take you in. No wonder half the population prefers to pour their hearts out to hairdressers. When you tell us you don’t want to talk about it, we go onto another subject.

  “It was stupid and it was awful,” I say.

  Marilee gestures with both hands—keep talking.

  “He picked me up in a bar,” I confess. “We fucked our brains out, then he dumped me on the curb at my apartment building. I’m stupid and I lack self-control. I spent a week feeling like a knothole in a fence that got violated by a pervert. Except I’m the perv. And I’m over it.”

  “How was the sex?” she asks. I knew she would.

  “It was fantastic. While it lasted.” The reality of my answer brings tears. I dab at them with a tissue. It comes away black from running mascara and eye shadow. The heavy eye makeup is part of the Goth mood I've been in since Strand had his way with me. That’s undoubtedly one of the clues Marilee reads.

  “So it was the being dumped part that bothers you?”

  I nod my head yes.

  “How was that different than other one-night stands?” she asks. This hurts a little. By gay lifestyle standards, I was never into indiscriminate sex. But let’s face it, if you go clubbing there are going to be times when your judgment gets impaired by a cute face or a hot bod or too much to drink. Yes, it happened to me, too. Not often, but more than once. It left me feeling hollow.

  “He had contempt for me. He hurt me.”

  “How did he hurt you, Bobbi?” Marilee asks.

  I tell her about him squeezing my breast. I confess that I cried. I cry again.

  “I’m so sorry, so very sorry Bobbi,” she says. Her face is etched in sympathy. She feels my pain. She hands me the box of tissues. It occurs to me I’m acting like a teenage girl who just got dumped by her boyfriend. Except this doesn’t have anything to do with a teenage boy. This is about a psychopathic bully.

  She puts her arms around me and lets me cry for a while. Her hug is like a wonderful warm womb where I am safe and loved.

  “Okay,” she says when my sobbing subsides. “So much for your sex life.” We both laugh softly. “Just so you know, Bobbi, I’m not super enthusiastic about your abstinence from sex. I’m not advocating that you go out and get laid every night either. It’s just that you’re a normal, healthy human being and you are combining the urges of a teenage girl with the mind of an experienced adult, so the pressures are extraordinary.”

  As she qualifies her statement some more, I’m thinking she might be right. I might think a little more clearly if I was getting it on with some nice guy every once in a while. Or lady.

  Marilee leads me through some of the other events of my week. We dwell on how slow my hair styling business is.

  “I’m really worried that the world isn’t ready for a transgender hairdresser,” I say. “At least, not one that looks like an ape in a mini dress.”

  “Stop that right now! That’s not what you look like and it’s not funny. You’re giving yourself an excuse to fail!”

  She stands again and grabs my hand, pulls me up and leads me to the bathroom where we both stand in front of the mirror. I tower over her.

  “Bobbi, look! You are an attractive human being. You should see this better than I do. I’ve heard you say it to your clients. You have great bone structure, beautiful hair, a slim body, nice boobs. Honey, you don’t look like a Barbie Doll and maybe some people don’t see you as a genetic woman, but, Bobbi, you are an attractive person. You are pretty in your own right. Now get all the appearance nonsense out of your mind and get on with your life. You are a sweet, warm, wonderful woman.” She pauses for a beat or two. “Yes, woman. Just accept it and move on.”

  I regard her image in the mirror in stunned amazement. It may not seem like much to you, but in all the months I’ve labored to understand whether I’m a transsexual woman or just a neurotic man, not one of my friends ever offered an opinion on it. I understand why. You take on a lot of responsibility if your word becomes the reason someone ends up growing breasts and castrating themselves.

  It’s even bigger for a shrink to say it, even though she’s my friend.

  November

  WINTER WINDS WHISTLE through the high rise caverns of the Chicago Loop, making my fingers numb and my head ache. I’m standing in front of a towering office building in a cute little mini-dress with black hose and high-heel boots and a very chic short trench coat that looks great but provides almost no shelter from the cold. Fortunately, I’m wearing makeup, otherwise my skin would be blue and my lips purple.

  It is five o’clock and office workers are pouring out of the place. I have been here for thirty minutes and I plan to stay another hour, if I can last that long. I’m handing out leaflets promoting my exquisite cosmetology services for a special introductory rate. I hand one to every person I can get to. Most of them try to avoid me. It’s not personal. That’s how we are in America. No one wants to get shaken down by a stranger passing out literature.

  Still, I have a feeling I’m doing okay. My weird appearance repels some people, certainly. But it also attracts the curiosity of others. For every rude rebuff I’m finding someone who establishes eye contact and smiles. Perhaps a dozen so far have actually paused to look at what I’m handing out.

  “Hi, I’m Bobbi and I’d love to be your new hairdresser,” I say when this happens. If they stop long enough, I tell them that I do great cuts and colors, updos, and even original styles. I try to personalize it. I told one lady I liked her color but I’d like to see her try something just a little younger and edgier. She liked that.

  I’m doing this because my bookings are still shockingly low, especially for this time of year. Roger paid for the handouts, I put in the time. I want to distribute a thousand of them myself. I want the people who take them to know that I’m the hairdresser they’ll be seeing. Me. Bobbi. The queen. That way there won’t be any histrionics and if I give them a good service I figure I have a good chance of getting them back.

  I also use the new business cards Roger ordered with my transwoman picture on them. They cost a small fortune compared to regular cards, but it’s the same idea: let’s focus on reaching people who don’t have a problem with a transgender hairdresser. Roger thinks some of my customers will pass my card around as part of their war story about hobnobbing with a transsexual. I think he’s right, and it might bring in another client or two. Either way, Roger is going the extra mile to help. It means a lot to me. Not just because he’s my boss, but because he’s on my side. When I started to transition, the most I hoped for was that some people would be indifferent to me because so many others were antagonistic. Someone actually wanting to see me succeed? Wow.

  Before I’m done, I’ll cover all the office buildings within walking distance of the salon. I do one in the morning and another in the afternoon if I don’t have appointments slated. For evenings when I can’t make the office rush hour, I’m going to stake out apartment buildings when I get off. I won’t hand out as many leaflets, but I might make better contacts. We’ll see.

  Whatever, when this night ends, a hot bath is going to feel fantastic. That thought keeps me going.

  ***

  SO MUCH FOR THE HOT BATH. As I climb the stairs to my apartment I see Cecelia and a young man standing at my door. Cecelia waves. “It’s about time you got here,” she calls.

  Cecelia’s idea of humor. I try to smile but my face is frozen from the cold and I really don’t have the energy anyway.

  As I reach the top of the stairs, Cecelia does the introductions. “Bobbi, this is Jo-Jo. Jo-Jo, Bobbi. Can we come in for a minute?”

  As if anyone could refuse Cecelia. Certainly not me.

  As I unlock my apar
tment door I take a closer look at Jo-Jo. His name is obviously derived from the name Joe, and he looks a lot more like a Joe than a Jo-Jo. He looks like a young male, mid-twenties, about 5-10, medium build. He has pleasant features, masculine but with soft, smooth skin and a sort of roundness to his face rather than sharply defined bone structure. His hair falls just below the jaw, thick, medium-blonde with a nice natural wave.

  When we get in the apartment and take off our coats, I note that Jo-Jo has long, pointy nipples poking from his long-sleeve T-shirt. Estrogen. I mentally switch from thinking of Jo-Jo as a man to thinking of her as a transwoman. Her skin and breast development indicate she’s on hormones. The large nipples combined with relatively undeveloped breasts make me think she hasn’t been on hormones very long. I’ve heard some transsexuals say their initial reaction to estrogen was the formation of enormous nipples, with the fuller breast development coming later. The smoothness of her skin seems more like a long-term hormone program.

  The answers come fast.

  “Jo-Jo has been doing her own transition and has just come to us for help,” Cecelia explains. “I’ve got her scheduled with Doctor McBride to get her hormone regimen straightened out. Her internist has no idea how to get breasts to go with those nipples, but McBride will take care of her.”

  Cecelia pauses in mid-thought and reaches over to pull my blouse taut against my breasts. “Jo-Jo, McBride got Bobbi to a B-cup in what, six or seven months?” She looks at me, eyebrows raised in question. I nod, yes, wondering if she’s going to feel me up. She releases my blouse and sits back down.

  “We’re also going to help Jo-Jo find a counselor and we’ll help her with her wardrobe,” Cecelia continues. “We’re here now because she needs a cut and style, and I told her that you’re the greatest hairdresser in the city.”

  I smile. Cecelia could sell refrigerators to Eskimos if she thought it would be interesting.

  “What kind of style are you thinking about, Jo-Jo?” I ask.

  Jo-Jo maintains an almost bovine calmness throughout all this and answers me serenely, “I don’t know. I want to grow it longer.” That’s it. She shrugs.