Page 49 of Nearly Roadkill: Queer Love on the Run

Right, so my dad is standing in the doorway.

“Hey D.I.”

“Hey… Toobe.”

He winces but gamely follows me into the living room.

“Okay, you got me,” he says. “But I have a great reason.”

Over the next hour, he tells all about the NDA the government made him sign in exchange for dropping all charges related to selling illegal bypasses.

According to the terms of the agreement, he was not allowed to speak about any of the events that led up to the Internet shutdown.

To anyone, not even any of the other players.

But, over the next thirty years, he was able to develop a tunneling technology so he could talk to Scratch and Winc and Jabba and Gwynyth without getting caught by government surveillance.

“Wait a minute. Winc?” I ask. “You said Winc? Winc’s alive?”

“Oh yeah,” says my dad casually. “Alive and kicking. And when you first told me you were gonna work on this story, I told the two of them.”

I sit down. Then I stand up. Then I sit down again. I don’t know whether to be mad at him or hug him.

“I seem to have that effect on people,” he says, looking down at his feet.

He tells me that all three of them were bound to silence by the NDAs.

“But we wanted you to get the whole story, so we, well, um…”

My antenna goes up. “You what? You what, Dad? Or should I call you Toobe?”

He sighs and summarizes:

Apparently, when I showed such interest in the story, he contacted Scratch and Winc so the three of them could find the best chat logs and journals, direct messages, and all the good stuff that painted the true saga of Scratch and Winc.

I feel all the air go out of me.

“So my super-sleuthing skills were bullshit? You fed me everything? What about the chatbots? The Jabba archives? I know for a fact my FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests netted some great stuff.”

“They did, they did,” he answers. “Seriously, D.I. Drew, it was your super-sleuthing skills that unlocked all the information; we couldn’t just hand it to you, or to anyone.

We’ve been wanting to tell this story for the last thirty years, and we couldn’t.

It would’ve meant prison. But you found this story, and you told it.

And now that it’s out in the open, we can be too.

So thank you, Detective Inspector. Your reporting set us free. ”

I’m only somewhat mollified and still so curious.

“But didn’t I out you, break your NDA? With this story?”

“No, that’s the beauty of it. I checked with my lawyer. Once it’s out in the open, there’s nothing to hide.”

“So Winc’s alive,” I finally manage to say, “and you’ve been in touch with both of them all this time.”

“Yep! As you’d expect, they’re cyber-activists, founding members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and both senior staff at Wikipedia. Winc has a job training large language models—she’s so good with that stuff. Scratch can’t stand the idea of AI. She spends her time tending goats.”

“Goats?” I stammer. “Scratch is a goatherd?? And they’re both ‘she’?

Shut the front door!” It’s all too much.

But before I can say another word, the doorbell goes ding-dong.

I open the front door to find a tall, slender person with long red hair, boho chic, and a faded waterfall tattoo falling from one eye.

“W-W-Winc?” I manage to croak.

“Hi-eeeeee,” she says with a smile.

“Hey,” I reply weakly.

In my head, I’m saying Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. And what comes out is “I love you guys!!!!! I mean hello! I’m Drew. I’m Toobe’s kid, and I just found that out, and I wanted to tell your story, I wanted to do you justice, you have become my heroes, I…”

Winc gently raises her hand.

“You did a great job with our story.”

I gape at her.

Winc continues, “We’ve been reading it out loud to each other as each installment comes out. Thank you by the way, They/Them magazine.”

“I have so many questions!”

“May I come in? I can’t come in ’til you invite me. Mwah-ha-ha!”

“But, but—is Scratch? Where? Are you still—”

“All in good time, m’dear,” says Winc. “Ooooh, I’ve always wanted to say that!”

I step back and do something like a bow, I think, and with a sweep of my arm, welcome her into my home. How corny! And there we are. Me, “Toobe,” and Winc.

And then it hits me. My chance to finally get some answers.

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You were shot, Winc! You were bleeding—a lot! How…?” My question trails off as Winc raises a well-manicured hand.

“Well, that’s a complex story, Drew,” she says, “I’ll wait to tell it until everyb… the right time,” she adds cryptically. “How about we get to know each other just a little bit first?”

At just that moment, the front door goes ding-dong.

“Saved by the bell!” Winc says brightly.

I open the door wide and there stands a short, solid blonde with the best short haircut I’ve seen in a long time.

“S-S-Scratch?” I stammer yet again.

“Come on in, babe!” Winc shouts from the sofa. They stand with their arms around each other, looking for all the world like a genderqueer Penn and Teller, except good-looking in a way that only queers can look no matter their age. They’re hot, and they’re in my living room. I’m stunned.

And then I smell it. I look around surreptitiously, wondering what’s died in or under the house. Or whether my dad hasn’t showered in a while. Winc notices.

“Ah, don’t mind her, she’s been tending her goats,” she says. “Judging by the smell, it was Carter today. They’re all named after Democrats.”

“Oh no, it’s fine!” I’m so embarrassed—I must have wrinkled my nose.

“Seriously, not a problem, I’m not offended,” laughs Scratch. “I was just so excited when I got the text from Toober here.”

“Toober.” Ah, right. My dear ol’ dad. Scratch has this grin; it’s… infectious, and I find myself grinning back at her. Sigh.

But then I’m not fangirling anymore, and I’m back to D.I.

Drew, journalist detective of truth and justice and matters of the heart.

And Scratch and Winc are right here in my living room!

“I have to ask…. In my piece, I got as far as your getaway and you limping off together into the sunset. THEN what happened?”

“We might as well tell, Scratch,” Winc says, looking lovingly at Scratch.

“I’ll start,” says Scratch, sitting down right there on my carpet. “I live with Winc about half the time; the rest of the time I raise goats and get my sanity back.”

“Hey!” says Winc. “I make you insane?!”

“Where you live makes me insane!”

“Well, your goats make me insane!”

“My goats are my sanity!”

“Well, then they’re not helping!”

The two of them crack up—they’ve had this “argument” before.

My cat’s sniffing Scratch. I don’t think she’s ever sniffed goat before. Scratch dangles a sly hand on the floor in front of her and picks up talking to me.

“I still use computers a little. I have no electronic connection to the Internet most of the time, and I upload my work to a file transfer system.”

“It’s not called that anymore, Scratch,” says my helpful dad.

“Whatever. Anyway, I just edit stuff and send it back to people who pay me. ‘Life’ is Winc and my goats. Wanna see some pictures?”

“As for me,” Winc interrupts quickly, “I still love tech, what can I say. But don’t let Scratch fool you. She’s still active in the Electronic Frontier Foundation.”

Scratch is active on my carpet, rolling around with my cat who has really taken a liking to her.

“And I’m working with the most amazing AI,” says Winc. “I can actually train it to search out social media algorithms that are designed to hook kids into this or that terrible thing.”

“Right!” says Scratch, rubbing the cat’s belly. “And then we expose them as bad guys!”

Chicken doesn’t let anyone touch her belly.

Scratch continues more seriously. “If you ever wonder if greedy bastards know what they’re doing, they do. They totally and completely do. Same old greed, new tools.”

“She’s right,” said Winc glumly. “You know the book The Chaos Machine ?”

“I love that book,” I add. “But, Winc, you have to tell me: how did you not die?! I mean, please tell me?” I am a dog with a bone. But she waves me off.

“Oh, that’s a long story,” she says. “I wanna talk about you . Look at you, you’re all grown up and out loud genderqueer!”

“Nonbinary,” I correct reflexively. (Fuck, I can’t believe I’m correcting the real live Winc about gender!)

Winc catches my eye, and her eyes are smiling.

“My apologies,” she says. “We never had a word for what we were being back then, and now there’s so many words! So you’re nonbinary.”

“You’re defining yourself by what you’re not,” laughs Scratch, still down on the floor with the cat. “I love that.”

I give Scratch a thumbs-up and continue, determined to be the journalist here, not the subject. “You two were pioneers in virtual fluid embodiment of postmodern gender theory. Where do you stand on that now?”

A moment’s silence.

“Words, Drew,” says my dad. He’s always good at pulling me back from the edge of academia. I start over.

“I would’ve thought for sure you two would be in the middle of all the conversations going on now,” I say. “I’ve searched for you in all the gender discussion corners of Instagram, TikTok, Twitch….”

Scratch sighs. “Yeah, no.”

I look to Winc, but her smile says I’m sorry .

“What?” I ask, officially confused now.

“We just don’t talk that much about gender,” says Scratch with a shrug.

At the same time, Winc says, “Gender isn’t our favorite thing to talk about.”

And yeah, they look at each other and say, “Simul-talk,” and laugh.

“Well, I mean of course we talk about gender,” says Scratch. “Just not publicly. Or rather, just like we used to, in small, private chat rooms.”

“And safe!” Winc chimes in. “People are still so mean to each other. Sometimes it’s just silly, like who’s a man, what’s a woman, and why you hafta be one or the other.”

“Or both, or neither,” adds Scratch.

“Or any, or all of ’em all at once,” agrees Winc.

It’s not like they finish each other’s sentences exactly. It’s more like they build a conversation together. Just like in those chat rooms. So cool. But I want to push them on this.

“You’re saying gender policing is crueler today than it was thirty years ago?

” I ask, my mind racing with examples to the contrary: Today, trans kids have role models, books to read and movies to watch, Internet and IRL support groups.

We have language for every aspect of who we are.

Isn’t that progress? As if she heard my thoughts, Scratch continues.

“Ah, yes, no, you’re right,” Scratch ventures. “I don’t know what to call anyone without having a conversation first. Which is actually just what we dreamed about! That’s kind of cool; you have to actually talk to someone. To learn who they are.”

“ Exactly what we were hoping,” adds Winc.

“But we thought the meanness would go away. Naive, I know. There’s such a huge, strong, queer army out there now.

Really fabulous when you think about it.

They have to fight against book bans, anti-drag queen campaigns, legislation against healthcare for trans children, all that crap. Fierce!”

I can feel my chest kind of puffing up at being a member of the strong queer army.

“I love your cat,” Scratch says.

“Mmm-rowww,” says the cat, right on cue.

“Chicken,” I say.

“No! She’s a cat!”

“Her name is Chicken.”

“Oh! Sure!”

Winc turns to me.

“For years, all of us outlaws seemed to be all knitted together into more or less a loving family. But now?” Winc looks pensive. “Nobody’s giving anyone the benefit of the doubt.”

“But we still have fun with identity,” says Scratch.

“Only it’s a lot more subtle,” says Winc.

“We got into studying mindfulness together. The dharma path. Loving kindness and all that. You know, Zen,” says Scratch.

“Yeah,” Winc agrees, “but that was Zen, and this is Tao.”

We all groan, and then the room gets quiet.

“I guess what we’re saying is,” Winc adds, “is we’ve kind of retired from being at the forefront of that particular struggle. But so glad other people are taking it on.”

Winc turns to me. “So, who are you, Drew? How was it, being raised by Toobe?” Pointing to my dad.

And I guess that was it for gender. But then it hits me again… I’m talking with Scratch and Winc! And WINC’s alive!

“Wait a minute! How did you not just bleed out and die? I checked hospital records; assuming you were their Jane Doe, you were in really bad shape…. So how—?”

Winc opens her mouth to answer, and yet again my goddamn front doorbell goes ding-dong.

“Well, this might be your answer,” laughs Scratch slyly. Chicken jumps up, poised to run under the couch just in case it’s a pack of snarling dogs out there. Scratch gets up in solidarity.

I walk to the door, all dazed and confused, open it, and standing there is a gorgeous silver-haired woman and a craggily handsome older man. And even before they speak, I know.

“Hi, I’m Shel. I think you know my guy, Wally.”

So there I am, face-to-face with Wally fucking Budge. After all those months of trying to find them.

Of course I ask them in.

“That’s a terrific series you’re writing for Them ,” says Shel.

“Yeah, you’ve got good facts,” adds Budge.

“Here’s a fact I wanna know: how did Winc make it out alive?” I ask yet again.

“Oh, has no one told you, hon? For god’s sake, they shouldn’t keep you in suspense.” Shel takes a breath, and out spins….