Excerpt
(a complete
story)
Never
acknowledge the fact that you’re a girl, and take pride when your guy friends
say, “You’re one of the guys.” Tell yourself, “I am one of the guys,” even though,
in the back of your mind, a little voice says, “But you’ve got girl parts.”
You are born on
a ranch in central Colorado or southern Wyoming or northern Montana and grow up
surrounded by cowboys. Or maybe not a ranch, maybe a farm, and you have five older
brothers. Your first memory is of sitting on the back of Big Cheese, an old
sorrel gelding with a sway back and—you find out later when you regularly ride
bareback—a backbone like a ridge line. Later, you won’t know if this first
memory is real or comes from one of the only photos of you as a baby. You study
that photo a lot. It must be spring or late fall because you’re wearing a
quilted yellow jacket with a blue-lined hood and your brother’s hands reach
from the side of the frame and support you in the saddle. You look half asleep
with your head tilted to the side against your shoulder, a little sack of
potatoes.
Your dad is a
kind man, a hard worker, who gives you respect when no one else will. When
you’re four, if he asks, “Birdie, do you think the price of hogs is going up?”
ponder this a while. Take into account how Rosie has just farrowed seven
piglets and how you’re bottle-raising the runt and how you’ve heard your
brothers complaining about pig shit on the boots they wear to town. Think about
how much Jewel—that’s what you’ve decided to name the pig—means to you and say,
“Yes, Daddy, pigs are worth a lot.” He’ll nod his head, but he won’t smile like
other people when they think what you say was cute or precocious.
Your mother is a
mouse of a woman who takes long walks in the gray sagebrushed hills beyond the
fields or lays in the cool back bedroom reading the Bible. When your brothers
ask “Where’s Mom?” you won’t know. You don’t think it odd when at five you
learn how to boil water in the big speckled enamelware pot and to shake in
three boxes of macaroni, to watch as it turn from off-yellow plasticity to soft
white noodles, to hold both handles with a towel and carefully pour it into the
colander in the sink while avoiding the steam, to measure the butter and the
milk—one of your brothers shows you how much—and then to mix in the powdered
cheese. You learn to dig a dollop of bacon grease from the Kerr jar in the
fridge into the hot cast iron skillet, wait for it to melt, and then lay in
half-frozen steaks, the wonderful smell of the fat and the popping of ice
crystals filling the kitchen. When your brothers come in from doing their
chores, they talk and laugh instead of opening the cupboards and slamming them
shut. And your dad doesn’t clench his jaw while washing his hands with Dawn
dishwashing liquid at the kitchen sink and then toss big hunks of Wonder Bread
into bowls filled with milk.
When you wear
hand-me-downs from your brothers, be proud. Covet the red plaid shirt of your
next older brother, and when you get it—a hot late summer afternoon when he
tosses three shirts on your bed—wear it until the holes in the elbows
decapitated the cuffs. If you go to town with your dad for parts, be proud of
your shitty boots and muddy jeans and torn-up shirts. It shows that you know an
honest day’s work. Work is more important than fancy things, and you are not
one of those ninnies who wear girlie dresses and couldn’t change a tire if
their lives depended on it.
Be prepared:
when you go to school, you won’t know quite where you fit. All the other kids
will seem to know something that you don’t, something they whisper to each
other behind their hands. They won’t ever whisper it to you. But they won’t
make fun of you either because—you’ll get this right away and take pride in
it—you are tough and also you have five older brothers and the Gunderson family
sticks together. Be proud of the fact that, in seventh grade social studies,
you sit elbows-on-the-table next to a boy about your size, and he says with a
note of admiration, “Look at them guns. You got arms bigger than me.” It’s
winter, and you’ve been throwing hay bales every morning to feed the livestock.
Your friends
will be boys. You understand boys. When you say something, they take it at face
value. If they don’t understand, hit them, and they’ll understand that. For a
couple of months—until your dad finds out about it—your second oldest brother
will give you a dime every time you get into a fist fight. The look on your
brother’s face as he hands you those dimes will make your insides puff to
bursting. Use the dimes to buy lemons at the corner grocery during lunch time.
Slice them up with your buck knife and hand them out to see which of the boys
can bite into it without making a face.
Leave the girls
alone, and they will leave you alone. When you have to be together, like in gym
class, they’ll ignore you, which will be fine with you. Always take the locker
by the door so you can jet in and out as fast as you can. You’ll be mortified
that they’ll see your body, how gross and deformed it is. Be proud of the
muscles, but the buds of breast and the peaking pubic hair will be beyond
embarrassing. Still, you’ll be fascinated with their bodies, not in a sexual
way, but in that they seem to be so comfortable with them, even—to your
disgust—proud. They’ll compare boobs in the mirror, holding their arms up
against their ribs so that their breasts push forward. One girl, Bobbie Joe
Blanchard, won’t stand at the mirror though because she’ll get breasts early,
big round ones. She’ll quickly go from a slip of a girl who never says anything
to the most popular because the boys pay attention, and the attention of the
boys is worth much more than any giggling camaraderie of the girls. You’ll
agree with this, but you’ll also be mystified as to the boys’ motivations. Ask
your best friend Jimmy Mockler, “What’s up with that?” He’ll just shrug and
smile, sheepishly but with pride too.
In middle
school, don’t be surprised if the guys who used to be your friends forget about
you. They’ll still be nice, but they’ll spend their time playing rough games of
basketball and daring each other to talk to this girl or that. You won’t be
good at basketball—you’re tough, but you don’t have the height or the
competitiveness. Plus, they don’t really want you to play—you can tell. Think
about this a lot, how to regain their respect. Go so far as to ask the coach
about trying out for football. He’ll look at you like you’re a two-headed calf
and say, “Darlin’, girls don’t play football.” You’ll want to scream, “I’m not
a girl!” but you won’t. Instead, never tell anyone, especially the boys, and
hope to God that the coach never mentions it in gym class, which he teaches. He
won’t. He’ll agree with you that it’s embarrassing.
One day at lunch
time, Jimmy Mockler will tell a story to the other guys about Bobbie Joe
Blanchard and how he’s asked her to meet him under the bleachers in the gym
during fifth period study hall. There is no gym during fifth period. He and
Bobbie Joe are going to get passes to go to the bathroom and sneak in when no
one’s looking. “I bet she lets me kiss her!” he says and laughs and the other
boys laugh. Then he says, “Maybe she’ll even give me a hand job.” He’ll glance
at you and this look of horror will come over his face. They’ll all look at
you. Right then you’ll know you’ve lost them. At home that night, cry in your
room without making a sound in case your brothers walk by.
Realize at this
point that you have two choices: either you have to win back the boys or you
have to throw in with the girls. But you don’t understand the girls at all. You
wouldn’t know the first thing about it. How do you talk to girls, anyway? Don’t
lose heart. Maybe there is a way to make it through to the boys. If pretty
girls are what gets their attention, maybe you’ll have to learn to look like a
girl, even if you aren’t really one. You can learn. Didn’t you teach yourself
how to make peach pies from scratch? How to braid horsehair into hat bands? How
to pick the lock on the second oldest brother’s bottom drawer, only to be
disgusted with the magazines you found there? You can do this.
Imagine the
looks on the boys’ faces. The admiration filling their eyes. Respect, even. And
the jealousy in the girls’ eyes. Jimmy will walk up to you and put his arm
around you and say, “Where you been?” There’ll be no more awkward silences, no
more conversations that switch when you walk up. It’ll be the same as before,
once they notice you. All you have to do is get their attention.
Raid your mom’s
closet for a dress. Smuggle it into your room. It’s the one you’ve seen her
wear to church—knee-length, sky blue with a white scalloped collar. You are her
height now, and it’ll fit you. To your surprise, you’ll even fill it out in the
bust. Surreptitiously steal a copy of a girls’ magazine from the library and
study it—the way the girls’ hair is curled, the way their lips shine, how clean
their hands are. Decide to try it the following Monday. Sunday night, take a
long bath and try to soak off all the dirt and scrub the elephant hide off your
feet. The leg bruises from working in the barn won’t come off, but sacrifice
your toothbrush to scrub your fingernails. Tie up your wet hair in rags like
you’ve seen your mother do on Saturday nights before Sunday church services.
The next morning, get ready in your room so no one will see you. Climb into the
dress. You will feel naked and drafty around the legs. This is normal. Brush
out your hair. Instead of nice wavy curls, it will stuck out all over the
place. Wet it down just a little, which will help, but it will still look like
an alfalfa windrow. You don’t have any lip gloss, so use bag balm, the sticky
yellow substance you put on cow teats when they chap. This won’t really be new
because when your lips crack from sun or wind burn, that’s what you use. It
will feel different though.
Look at yourself
in the mirror. You won’t recognize yourself. It will be a weird double
consciousness—this person in the mirror is you, you’ll know it, but you’ll have
to glance down anyway just to match the image in the mirror with the one
attached to your body. Beware. It will creep you out. It looks like a girl in
the mirror, but it can’t be because you aren’t one of them.
Whatever
happens, keep telling yourself: it’ll be worth it if it works.
Don’t go downstairs
until just before your brothers are ready to drive to school. When you come
down, your brothers will stop talking. The brother just older than you will
laugh, but then your dad will whistle and say, “My, don’t you look pretty
today.” This will make you feel a little better and stop the boys’ wolf
whistles, though they’ll keep glancing sideways at you in the car. If the
brother just older than you whispers, “Look who’s a ger-rel,” the oldest one
will tap him upside the head to shut him up.
Make your oldest
brother drop you off two blocks from school and hide behind a tree until you’re
sure school has started. You won’t want anyone to see you ahead of time. In
fact, you’ll be having second thoughts about the whole project. Be brave.
You’ll think of Jimmy Mockler and the embarrassed way he looks at you, maybe
even avoids you when you come down the hall, and that’ll help. Creep in a side
door, scoot to your locker, get your books, and go to homeroom. If you feel
like you might let loose in your pants as you peek into the classroom through
the wire-latticed window, wait—this will pass. Mrs. Garcia will probably have
everyone working in groups, and desks will be pushed together in four messy
circles. The guys in the back will be in one group, including Jimmy. Rest your
hand on the door knob for a long time, take a deep breath, and then push
through the door.
The noise of
everyone talking at once will hit you as the door opens. That and the smell of
the fish tank and Mrs. Garcia’s sickeningly sweet perfume. Stutter-breathe and
make a beeline toward the boy’s circle. Talking will begin to peter out as you
enter the room, and you’ll make it halfway along the wall toward the back
before there’s dead silence. Everyone will be looking at you, but keep your
eyes on the boys’ circle. The looks on the boys’ faces will be wonderful. All
their eyes fastened on you, looking admiringly, small smiles in the corners of
their mouths. They will be looking at you, noticing you. Jimmy, particularly,
will have a wide-eyed slack-jawed grin on his face.
Celebrate.
You’ve done it. You’ve regained their attention. You are once more an honorary
boy, respected and included.
But then it’ll
be like a slow-motion horror movie. From behind you, Mrs. Garcia will say,
“Why, Birdie Gunderson, I almost didn’t recognize you.” Watch these words
register on the boys’ faces. Some of them will give a little shrug and turn
back toward the others, but it’s Jimmy’s reaction that will bruise you to the
core. You’ll see the time delay of the words entering his ears and then his
brain and then the look on his face fix as his brain processes the words and
then his eyes widen as he finally understands. Then, it’ll be as if someone
grabs the center of his face and twists. The look will be so awful your body will
wander to a stop, and you’ll stand, unbelieving, still caught in the adrenalin
of the moment before. You’re going to cry, so flip around and push back out
through the door and run down the hall and out the big double doors by the
principal’s office. Run until you can’t breathe and then walk, taking in big
hiccupping breaths of air, all the way to the high school. Make your oldest
brother take you home.
Accept your
fate. You’ll never regain that special place with the boys, and you become a
second-hand friend. Every once in a while your brothers will say, “Remember the
time Birdie tried to be a girl?” and they’ll laugh. Laugh with them. You know
how ridiculous it was.
High school will
be a long lonely blur, but take it like a man. Never go on a date, never kiss a
boy. Instead, watch football and memorize the stats and, if anyone tries to
strike up a conversation, bring up the Dallas Cowboys. Take your one stab at
getting outside your life—after high school, go to community college for a
semester, but when your mom dies of some unnamable female ailment, your dad
will need you on the farm. You’ll tell yourself that you can always go back and
get that degree, but you won’t. Fill your days with the routine of agriculture.
The animals won’t care if you’re a boy or a girl—they just need to be fed and
watered. Same with your dad and brothers. Don’t think about being a man. Or
being a woman. You are an efficient cog in the machinery of the farm.
“Sis, you’re the
best,” they’ll all say. “Birdie is as faithful as a hound dog.”
You are, you
know? You’re a good cook, you know a lot about football, and you work hard. It
doesn’t matter that you don’t have any friends, men or women. It doesn’t matter
that you don’t get out much and you’ll never be kissed, much less married. When
you have needs, take care of them yourself. Don’t think about becoming a skinny
whiskery-chinned old batty with too many dogs. You’re happy. Or at least you’re
not sad. You’re comfortable. You have a full life taking care of your dad and
your brothers. You do. You really do.
Or, maybe this
isn’t the way it goes.
Maybe, when
you’re in your early thirties, your fourth oldest brother will bring home an
old college buddy for two weeks one summer. Conrad Patel. You’ll resent the
hell out of it, this change in routine. This guy will make you uncomfortable.
At first you’ll think he’s gay because he’s thin and has a loose-limbed way of
walking. This will make you wonder about your brother. Then you’ll understand
by the way they talk about women that they’re just comfortable with each other.
They understand each other. It’ll remind you of how it used to be with you and
Jimmy Mockler—you’ll be sad at first and then angry. Go out of your way to
avoid this Conrad Patel. You might even do little things to make yourself feel
better, like flushing the downstairs toilet when he’s in the upstairs shower.
Every time you get the chance.
A lot of your
energy during the summer goes into growing the garden, and after your dad and
the boys leave for the fields, spend your mornings watering and weeding. In the
evening after the supper dishes are done, walk through the garden and inspect
things—pollinate the tomatoes, check for potato bugs, and shut the hothouse
boxes. You will love this time of cool breeze and setting sun. But it will
annoy the hell out of you when Conrad Patel breaks away from the card game or
the sitcom TV to follow you out the back door and down the porch steps. He
won’t seem to understand the very strong hints you drop. Start sneaking out the
front door, but don’t be surprised if you find him already there in the garden.
“But you don’t
grow coriander?” Conrad Patel will say. “You don’t grow fennel? Not even
tarragon?” He will say this with wonder, as if these things are essential to
life.
Say, “If you
don’t like what I cook, don’t eat it,” and turn your back.
If he says, “Oh
no—your cooking is a marvel. So very different from my mother’s,” you won’t be
sure how to take this, just like you’re never quite sure how to take anything
he says. Say, “You’re comparing me to your mother?” It will irritate you.
Really irritate you. You’ll wish you were ten again so you could sock him.
“Yes, of
course,” he’ll say, once again as if this were a given.
Realize that he
doesn’t understand you any more than you understand him. You won’t know what to
say so don’t say anything and hope that’s the end of it.
But it won’t be.
He’ll say, “You would drive across this country to eat her mashed potatoes. The
key is browning the mustard seeds, with just enough chilies to make your lips
burn. This makes me want to drop everything and go for a visit.” His voice will
be both intense and wistful.
As you finish up
in the garden, he’ll talk about cooking but then about his family. He’ll tell
you about his mother and his aunts and grandmother. Also about his brothers and
his dad, who has passed away. It’s not what he says so much as how he says it.
Women to him are a mystery, much like they are to you, but not in a
contemptuous way. He talks about them with such respect and such admiration, like
they are men and men are women. To him, women are the source of all goodness
and men are the source of all evil. Women are the ones who get things done, the
practical ones, and men spend their time being frivolous with money.
It will all be
so foreign to you that when he stops talking it’ll be as if you walked out of a
movie theater. Remind yourself of where you are. And who you are. Your body and
your approach to the world will have traveled to another place where what you
were supposed to be doesn’t seem so far from what you are. You’ll want to
reject it whole cloth, but there’s a part of you that will want to break into
tears.
Shut the last
hothouse lid and turn to leave.
Conrad Patel
will say, “I have said something wrong.” He will step in front of you. “What I
meant was that your potatoes are the same. Not the same—they don’t contain
mustard seeds. But the same in that they are wonderful. And your beef stew is
wonderful. You are a wonderful woman.”
Are you? Do
those words go together?
It’s dark enough
that you won’t be able to see his face, but if he steps closer to you, don’t
step away. He’ll stand in front of you and you’ll feel the heat of his body
through the cool of the evening. You’ll like this feeling. You might wonder
what’s coming, if he’s leaning toward you ever so slightly—it will be hard to
tell in the fading light. Don’t let this frighten you. Don’t run away. Face
your fears. Be a man.
