Page 27 of Nearly Roadkill: Queer Love on the Run

I nodded. Of course I was okay. But I’m glad ze does that. I feel safe with Scratch. Ze took a deep breath and spoke to Winc.

“I’m not sure what I am or who I sleep with.

Not that I’m some fence-sitter, but right now, touching someone else’s body—no matter what sex—is equally scary to me.

I prefer the company of women, but sometimes it’s as a man, so what does that make me?

I have a mustache—I keep it in a jar—and an old fedora.

Sometimes I go to a bar as a guy and buy drinks for people.

Most times for women, sometimes for men.

Gay men, mostly, but the point is I do it silently like there’s a contract between me and the bartender that’s as old as men drinking in a bar.

It’s amazing what you don’t have to say if you look like a man.

Then I go home and take it all off and stare at my body and am shocked that I don’t look like James Dean or don’t have a tail.

It kills me sometimes that I don’t have a tail… .

“I can’t believe you asked that,” Scratch added. “I can’t tell you what I’m about sexually; I just arrived at being female. My kind of female,” ze muttered.

“It makes a difference to me, that’s all,” said Winc, and ze didn’t add anything else.

I’ve never heard that kind of thing matter to Winc before. Ze was being persistent in this way I’d never seen, like ze’d decided something.

Scratch looked at Winc, studying hir. “You’re worried about how we’ll do it?” ze said, kind of shaking hir head.

Winc stared out of the car window. “No! Yes! Look, this is getting too nailed down! Can’t we just go back online now?”

Scratch smiled. They looked at each other. I felt like I was reading somebody else’s mail and should get the hell out of there.

Right then, Scratch said to me, “I’m really glad you’re here, dude. You’re keeping me honest.”

“Yes, exactly,” said Winc, and they both looked at each other like everything was all figured out now. I was more confused than ever.

“I asked that stupid question,” Winc said, turning back to Scratch, “because of that little problem we’ve talked about: Who we are affects how we will be with each other. Can we just get it over with?”

I wanted to be funny because of all this tension, so I said, “Hey, I’m a guy, and I’m 15! That’s my story! Thanks for asking!” and they both laughed.

Winc took a deep breath and said, “I think what’s important is to figure how to keep Toobe safe right now.”

Well, sure that was important, but Scratch and I looked at each other, both knowing Winc was stalling. Scratch is cool; ze let Winc stall. Then ze said, “I think we just stick together.” I agreed, and we all went silent again.

I thought it was time for Winc to tell hir story, so I said, “Maybe you could start with how you know me, Winc?”

“Right. Okay,” Winc mumbled. Ze took another deep breath.

“Toobe’s father and I went to college together. Matter of fact, we were in the same dorm. Same dorm room.”

Scratch said, “Uh, huh.”

“Dorm rooms weren’t coed then, Scratch,” Winc added, eyes glued to the road.

“I’ve known Toobe since he was born. I taught him to skateboard.

We skateboarded all over the place. But I wasn’t happy, except maybe when I was with you, Toobe, because you never really cared what I was.

When Toobe came over one day, and I was dressed like…

like I always wanted to dress, he didn’t even notice; he just wanted to go skateboarding.

He’s always been like that. In some ways, he saved my life.

He didn’t care that I decided to become a woman.

I used to be a man, Scratch. Up until about a year ago. ”

Silence in the car.

Scratch didn’t explode or do anything like I guess Winc thought ze would.

“Wow,” ze finally said. “This is funny. I mean, so ironic!”

Winc said kind of weakly, “Yeah. So, here we are, the all-American family.”

Winc kind of touched hir own face like a girl, which I saw Scratch catch out of the corner of hir eye.

Scratch was smiling and trying to say something, but it came out in a whisper and just sounded like wait a minute, give me a minute .

Then all of a sudden, Winc goes, “Could you drive, please?” We were still sitting in the parked car.

For some reason, that set Scratch off, like a delayed reaction, maybe.

“Oh, right!” ze exploded. “Gonna really act like the girl, now?”

Everybody was stunned, especially me. But Winc was real careful.

“It’s not that, Scratch. I don’t have a driver’s license. Ever since my change, I’ve kept meaning to get a new one, but when you apply, they ask you for birth ID, and…” Ze shrugged.

Scratch seemed really embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I think I’m a little tripped out.” Ze finally pulled out into traffic. “So, you’re a woman.”

“Thank you for saying that. Thank you so much. But actually,” Winc said, kind of pulling hirself away from Scratch and closer to the door, “I don’t think I can really say that either.”

Scratch looked totally confused. I could tell ze would have said something if Winc had said, “Yes, I’m a woman,” but now ze didn’t know where to go.

“So, um, what would you say you are, then? We came up with some cool theories, but you do have to choose something, don’t you? Well, I guess you don’t, if we’re really going to reject the two sexes—”

“Scratch? Can I keep talking? I wasn’t finished—”

“Oh jesus, I’m sorry. Yes.”

We rode on in silence while Winc regathered for a short moment, but it felt like forever.

“All I knew was I was not-boy,” Winc finally said. “Since kindergarten when they lined us all up.”

Scratch nodded.

“It was like gravity pulling me,” Winc continued. “To the other line. From then on, I just knew I wasn’t a boy. The more boy things thrown at me, the more weird I felt. So, with only two choices, I thought I must be girl.”

“That sounds so familiar,” Scratch said.

Winc turned in hir seat to look at Scratch for a minute. There was a question in hir eyes.

“I didn’t realize women went through it too.”

Scratch looked like ze was about to fire something off, but Winc held up hir hand.

“Please. So about a year ago, I had the surgery, and—”

“We’re kinda jumping the story a little, aren’t we?” Scratch interrupted again.

Winc sighed almost impatiently.

“I went through a whole lot of painful years crossdressing, feeling like a freak,” ze said in a hurry, trying to rush through that part.

“I met some transsexuals, I read everything I could get my hands on, I decided to become a woman. Snip snip. It was done. Then I went online, and realized I loved being everything. Including wolves and lions… and tigers and bears, oh my.”

“So…?” Scratch started slowly. Winc smiled a little.

“So now I’m saying I may be neither,” ze said. “Not a man. Probably not a woman. Seems like the most honest thing to say.”

“Whoa. Okay.” Scratch threw hir head back against the headrest. “So you were socialized as a man, you have no idea what it’s like to be a woman, except online you can come off as one when you want.

This is textbook; I know everything about this conversation.

But…” Ze shook hir head stubbornly, like ze had to go through with the thought, even if it wasn’t pretty.

“It’s not going down real well, this story of yours.

Because I’m making the wonderful discovery that I’m as bigoted and uptight as your average asshole. ”

“You’re not bigoted, Scratch,” Winc said. “This is hard.”

Winc was going someplace else, someplace just a little farther away. I don’t think Scratch saw it, but I did.

Scratch kept driving and shook hir head. “Look, it’s like all of a sudden you’re another species. Being female is its own thing; so is male. You say you’re not a boy, but I have to say, you’re not a girl either.”

“I know that, Scratch; that’s what I just said.” Real calm, real quiet.

“Right, you did. I’m having a hard time relating to no-gender right now.

I mean, in person. I mean, sitting here right next to you.

Also god, you’re beautiful, I’ve been thinking that, and I haven’t said it so now I have.

Fucking beautiful. But what the… no gender?

” Scratch sat very still then, eyes on the road.

Ze gathered up hir thoughts like fish, you could almost see the net.

Scratch continued, “If you’re a woman trapped in a man’s body then… then I don’t know what that means. I want to ask you a million questions to see if you match some kind of internal test I’ve got set up for people like you….”

Ze shook hir head again, as if trying to bodily throw out the half-formed thoughts.

Winc studied hir fingernails, turning them this way and that. Ze didn’t jump all over the “people like you” remark—ze sure could have.

Scratch doubled down. “On the other hand, I’ve never met people like you—not that I know of, anyway.

” Ze looked lost again. “All the thoughts inside me, like that you’re not a ‘real’ woman, not like I am, all those thoughts are bigoted and ignorant…

. As if I’m a ‘real woman,’ hah!” Ze trailed off.

Finally ze said, “I do NOT like what I’m thinking! How can I be thinking this?!”

“How can you be thinking what, exactly?” Winc said back softly. I thought ze was so brave, cuz even I didn’t want to hear how Scratch answered.

“Men can do any fucking thing they want to. Now they even want to be women, and sure enough, they’re doing that too! Why the fuck do they have to take every fucking thing in sight?”

Scratch looked shocked at what ze’d said. Even from the backseat, I could see hir cheeks were flushed. “No, that’s not what I mean. Let me try again. You’re not a woman or a man and…” Ze was muttering. “Talk about no traction…. How the fuck do I relate to you?”

“Like you always have,” Winc said in that tone that sounds so reasonable.