Page 48 of Nearly Roadkill: Queer Love on the Run
Scratch is sitting in an ugly green hospital waiting room. The clock on the wall measures the seconds, going tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Down the hallway, through the swinging doors of an operating room, one harried ER surgeon, her nurse, and an altogether too tired anesthesiologist huddle over a patient.
“Damnit, we have to crack her open.”
In the waiting room, Toobe is seated next to Scratch. Toobe is back in his regular clothes but has kept the eyeliner.
Tick tick tick tick tick.
“Scalpel.”
“Scalpel.”
“Sponge.”
“Sponge.”
“Sternal retractor.”
“Scratch,” Toobe is saying, “I’m scared for Winc.”
“Me too, little buddy. Me too.”
Tick tick tick tick, for about an hour. Open heart massage—for twenty-five minutes. Then comes that sound, that terrible sound we all know when a patient has flatlined.
“Time of death, 12:39.”
A nurse walks slowly down the hallway from the OR to the waiting room.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Scratch,” she says. “The doctors did everything they could, but it wasn’t enough to save her. Winc’s gone. Oh god, I’m sorry, is that Ms. Scratch?”
Long, awkward, heartbroken silence.
Scratch and Toobe sit, slack-jawed.
And that’s that.
Winc, the peoples’ hero, cyber rebel, gorgeous queer, died.
I’m so sorry, but you read that correctly.
I really wanted this to be a happy ending, romantic that I am.
But I’ve got hospital records saying a “Jane Doe of transgender experience” checked in in critical condition with gunshot wounds on March 15, 1995.
No other records found, which is still typical today.
So…
Did the feds kill Winc?
Did Scratch ever recover? Is Scratch alive today?
I went round and round on this until I realized: Toobe!
He would know! It’s been thirty years since this all went down.
Scratch would be sixty-eight today. Winc would have been seventy-five.
But Toobe was just a kid back then. What happened to him?
It all comes down to Toobe. If he hadn’t been so diligent about documenting every detail—if he hadn’t pulled everyone together the way he did—no one would have had a clue about Scratch and Winc, or their great love story.
Find Toobe, find answers. But I could find nothing current—no trace of him in all my searches. No social media presence at all.
My dad works in tech, and he has connections.
I know a lot of his pals, so I asked around, and a friend of a friend of a friend agreed to trace back the IP address of Toobe’s last posts from all those years ago.
I ran it, and something went wonky because it came up as my dad’s address.
Ha! I got punked. Well, screw that. I asked the guy to be more careful and to run it again.
And guess what? Toobe’s IP traced back to… My. Father’s. House.
What the everloving f—?!?!
“Hey, Siri.”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“Call my dad.”
“Calling Tobias Sparrow.”
Well that set off all kinds of bells and whistles in my brain. My dad’s name is Tobias. Tobias. Toobe .
Ring.
Ring.
“Hello?”
“Dad.”
“Hey! My favorite detective inspector!”
“I love you too. But this is really important.”
“Sure thing, punkin’. Shoot.”
“Y’know that Scratch and Winc story I’m working on for Them ?”
“Ummm, you mean the story you’ve been working on for what, a year now? That story? Sure, kiddo, what’s up?”
“I’ll get right to the point. Why does Toobe’s old IP address lead me to your door?”
Dead. Fucking. Silence. And then…
“Oh man, listen… I can’t talk right now. Hang tight. Give me an hour, and I’ll get back to you.”
And he hung up.
I called him back, but it went to voicemail.
Six times, it went to voicemail.
But in exactly one hour, the doorbell went ding-dong.