Page 34 of Nearly Roadkill: Queer Love on the Run
NARRATIVE ENTRY, JABBATHEHUT
The esteemed Undersecretary LaBouchere has summoned Lieutenant Wally Budge to her office for one overdue dressing down.
“MS. BUDGE?! Do you KNOW they’re laughing at us? Everyone! Did you KNOW that Letterman is intimating that you and I are LESBIANS?
“You don’t get it, do you?” the undersecretary continues. “Screw ‘procedure’; this has got nothing to do with that. It’s got nothing to do with Scratch or Winc either. There’s an epidemic out there, Lieutenant. Scratch and Winc are symbols.”
He has suspected the same thing but had no idea she’d pegged it too.
“They’re catalysts,” she tries again, searching in the air for something that will somehow get through to him.
“Everyone is falling into line; they’ve all begun to resist Registration.
Do you know what that means? Have you any idea why there’s a Registration?
We are letting down our end of the bargain, Lieutenant. ”
He is genuinely confused—what bargain is that?
“Let me spell it out for you, my friend. Registration is tied to advertising, advertising is tied to government. It’s all a partnership.
And,” she sputters, “Scratch and Winc are messing up the whole thing! Of course it’s ridiculous, but that’s not the point.
We need to get back to real police work. Whatever it takes.”
Lieutenant Budge shuffles back to his office, sits down, and leans way back in the creaky chair.
“Ooh, you don’t look good, Walls,” Shelly murmurs as she quietly steps in to join him. “She was pretty mad?”
“How dumb could I be?” he growls. “I should have known why they were going over my head. They made the ol’ proverbial deal with the devil.”
“Sure looks like it, Walls. I’m so sorry.”
END JABBA NARRATIVE ENTRY
TOOBE ENTRY
FUNNY OF THE DAY
Surgery happy USA
Don’t you think it’s kinda weird that you can just go pay a surgeon to break your nose, suck out fat from your hips, stretch your face tight over your skull, or add dangerous globs of saline to your breasts, but…
If you want to change your genitalia you have to live as the ‘opposite’ sex *before* the change (just a mite dangerous in this culture), go to therapy, and play the nice girl/boy and get *permission*?
I bet if I looked in Big Brother’s closet I’d find stacks of porno magazines… all of it Chicks With Dicks.
— Yer friendly, neighborhood Winc
Was just remembering what Winc told me about the beginning of hir transition.
Ze had to “live as a woman” while ze was starting hormones.
Ze really looked kind of “in between” for a while there.
That’s like going out in drag against your will.
Ze had to do that for an entire year before surgery.
They told hir to make up a whole childhood as a little girl, so no one would suspect ze was once a guy.
Ze said that being in therapy for being a transie (hir word for transsexual, not mine) was the only therapy where they encouraged you to lie.
END TOOBE ENTRY
To: Editor, They/Them magazine
From: D.I. Drew
Subject: Word choice
Hi Asa,
You’re right to ask—I too wondered if “transie” would be offensive, but turns out “transie” was coined by Sandy Stone, that great pioneer of transgender studies.
People in her circle on the West Coast used it, but it doesn’t seem to have made it across the country very far. I bet Winc was a friend of hers!
You’re also 1000% on point about the chilling similarities between Registration in 1995, and the algorithm/gatekeeping/data mining we have today.
Though the whole idea of Registration failed thanks to our heroes, it was replaced by something more insidious.
There’s no need to track people because we freakin provide all our data voluntarily!
Cheers,
Drew
PS: Our two heroes are so frustrating. Apparently, Gwynyth felt the same…
GWYNYTH DIARY ENTRY
Scratch is burying hirself online, having asked me to help hir lurk without being detected.
Winc lights from room to room, never staying long enough to have a real conversation.
I want to shake them both! I’m about to side with the child and tell them they’ve had enough time.
The boy does *not* like that I refer to him as “the child” and has taken to calling me “the old lady” in retaliation. Very well… henceforth, I shall call him “Toobe.” Though now that I think of it, he could call me “the old witch” and he’d be spot on.
Ah. I see a new chat room has popped up in my Safe area. I won’t eavesdrop, but at least they’re talking. Fingers crossed.
END GWYNYTH DIARY ENTRY
WINC JOURNAL ENTRY
*** You are in room “Questions” ***
Scratch: Okay, let’s say I’ve got the music right: I love you, I want to be with you somehow, but the lyrics are still fucked up, I have questions that are stupid but I have to ask them of *somebody*. It might as well be you since you’re the reason I’m asking them.
Winc: What do you mean, “I love you”? *Heck* of a thing to open with, but beautiful music yeah. I guess I’ve got nothing to lose by answering as honestly as I can, and maybe even something to gain.
Your questions prolly won’t be stupid. Questions are brave.
And I love you too.
Scratch: Why do so many transsexuals wear too much makeup and look like they’re about twenty years behind the time fashion-wise?
Winc: Answer: Not that I can answer for EVERY transsexual, but a lot of us have fantasized about our transition for a very long time.
When we finally get a chance, we often pick the clothes that were popular at the time we really started our journey.
Teenage years. So when I started, I kind of looked like Anjelica Huston in the ’70s.
Scratch: Do you still have facial hair?
Winc: ::groaning:: Yeah, I do. I have to scrape my face every day.
It’s a sore spot with me (literally!). But electrolysis is *so* expensive: $40–$80 an hour.
And the average number of hours needed is around 200–300.
I’m lucky, my estrogen stuff seems to slow down the growth-rate of my face hair.
::wincing:: Should talk with Gwyn about how she can just let hers grow and grow!
Anyway, I can go for a little over 24 hours with a passably smooth face.
Scratch: If you were het before, are you lesbian now? Or did your sexuality change too and now you’re a straight woman?
Winc: ::slow smile:: Who wants to know?
Are you flirting with me again? ::laughing lightly::
I’ve always been attracted to women romantically and sexually, and those are two different attractions. I’ve always been attracted to men sexually, but never romantically. What does all *that* make me?
When I was being Man, I figured I couldn’t *really* be a real woman because I was *attracted* to women, and real women are all attracted to men. (So, lesbian types weren’t real women either) I didn’t have that heart-zing for men (like I did for you).
But I *tried* getting involved with men.
Spent a whole period of my life picking up guys, and I was a guy, right?
I’d pick up these men, well, I’d let them pick *me* up, and they’d take me to their homes, late at night, and we’d lie down on their living room floors, and I’d suck them off.
I liked doing that. A lot. But we always had to be quiet, because their wives were sleeping in the next room or upstairs. You know I’m not making this up.
Am I a straight woman now? No way! I’d still like to have sex with a guy, using this new equipment I have (You do know I had genital surgery, right?), but it’s scary. Guys scare me. So, no, all that said, I guess I’m not straight.
Scratch: Do you tell people you used to be a boy even though you weren’t really, in your mind?
Winc: ::gently:: Scratch, I *was* a boy.
No in-the-mind about it. I was a boy, and later I was a man.
I think that mind-body-spirit is so tightly woven that you can’t say anything like “I wasn’t really a boy, in my mind.
” At least *I* can’t—it’s just not my story.
I was a boy, and I hated it. I was a man, and I hated it.
I changed my body, and I changed my mind, and now my spirit feels so much more free!
Yes, I come out to people I want to be close to.
And now you’re going to ask why didn’t I tell you from the start.
Because we agreed not to say anything, and whatever you were being online, you kept bringing out the girl in me, the femme in me, even when I was trying to be boy or man, and I loved that so much, and then I got scared again that you would freak if you knew.
But I did tell you as soon as we agreed to tell each other.
Scratch: Did you wear your mother’s clothes when you were little?
Winc: ::smiling:: What kind of transsexual textbooks have you been reading, hon?
Only one time when I was about five or six.
It felt really taboo to me, very wrong. I mean, that was Mom, not Woman.
That was wearing Mom’s clothes, not women’s clothes.
I made my own clothes to wear, though, from towels, old blankets, drapes, whatever, when I was a little kid.
Scratch: Did you have to learn how to “be a woman” in terms of mannerisms and attitude, or was it already there?
Winc: Had to learn. It’s all learned, isn’t it?
Look at how uncomfortable you were in being Mom at Coney Island, darling.
That’s how I spotted you from across the park.
You never learned that girl stuff, and I’m so glad you didn’t.
But wait, maybe you did learn and you rejected it?
That’s a question for you. I’ll add it to my list.
Scratch: Do you miss your dick?
Winc: ::hands on hips, tossing my head back defiantly:: Let me tell you a thing or two about what happened to my dick, darling.
First, the docs cut it open like they were filleting a fish. Then they scraped out all the spongy stuff, they turned it inside-out, and they poked it up inside me—like when you turn a sock inside-out.