She walked off and Scheer leaned toward me. He did his hick voice again. “Nothing wrong with that gal that a good poke in the hay barn wouldn’t fix. And you’re just the stud for the job.” He didn’t seem drunk, but this crudeness was new; he was a little less precise in his movements now, his voice louder. “Yeah,” said Scheer, “I think she’s sweet on you. You and Mayella could be happy together.” I was feeling the wine strongly, too, my head like a mirrored ball, flashing lights.
The waitress brought the drinks, setting them demonstratively on Scheer’s side of the table. As soon as she disappeared, he pushed the beer toward me and said, “There you go.”
“Thanks.” I drank the beer in gulps, pushing it back across the table whenever the waitress passed by. It was fun to be sneaking it like this.
But I was not unobserved. A man at the bar was watching me. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, he looked as though he disapproved. But then his face broke into a big, knowing smile. The smile made me uncomfortable and I looked away.
When we came out again, the sky was completely dark. Before leaving, Scheer opened the hatch of the Nova to get Franklin out. The old dog could no longer walk, and Scheer had to lift him bodily out of the car. “Let’s go, Franks,” Scheer said, gruffly affectionate, and with a lit cigarette between his teeth, angled up in a patrician manner not unlike that of Franklin Roosevelt himself, in Gucci loafers and side-vented, gold-hued tweed jacket, his strong polo player’s legs braced under the weight, he carried the aged beast into the weeds.
Before going back to the highway, he stopped at a convenience store to get more beer.
We drove for another hour or so. Scheer consumed many beers; I worked my way through one or two. I was not at all sober and feeling sleepy. I leaned against my door, blearily looking out. A long white car came alongside us. The driver looked at me, smiling, but I was already falling asleep.
Sometime later, Scheer shook me awake. “I’m too wrecked to drive. I’m pulling over.”
I said nothing to this.
“I’m going to find a motel. I’ll get you a room, too. On me.”
I didn’t object. Soon I saw hazy motel lights. Scheer left the car and returned with my room key. He led me to my room, carrying my suitcase, and opened the door for me. I went to the bed and collapsed.
My head was spinning. I managed to pull down the bedspread and get at the pillows.
“You gonna sleep in your clothes?” Scheer asked as if amused.
I felt his hand on my back, rubbing it. “You shouldn’t sleep in your clothes,” he said. He started to undress me, but I roused myself. “Just let me sleep,” I said.
Scheer bent closer. In a thick voice he said, “Your parents kick you out, Cal? Is that it?” He sounded suddenly very drunk, as if all the day’s and night’s drinking had finally hit him.
“I’m going to sleep,” I said.
“Come on,” whispered Scheer. “Let me take care of you.”
I curled up protectively, keeping my eyes closed. Scheer nuzzled me, but when I didn’t respond, he stopped. I heard him open the door and then close it behind him.
When I awoke again, it was early in the morning. Light was coming in the windows. And Scheer was right next to me. He was hugging me clumsily, his eyes squeezed shut. “Just wanna sleep here,” he said, slurring. “Just wanna sleep.” My shirt had been unbuttoned. Scheer was wearing only his underwear. The television was on, and there were empty beers on it.
Scheer clutched me, pressing his face into mine, making sounds. I tolerated this, feeling obliged for some reason. But when his drunken attentions became more avid, more targeted, I pushed him off me. He didn’t protest. He crumpled into a ball and quickly passed out.
I got up and went into the bathroom. For a long while I sat on the toilet lid, hugging my knees. When I peeked out again, Scheer was still sound asleep. There was no lock on the door, but I was desperate for a shower. I took a quick one, keeping the curtain open and my eyes on the door. Then I changed into a new shirt, put my suit back on, and let myself out of the room.
It was very early. No traffic was passing along the road. I walked away from the motel and sat on my Samsonite, waiting. Big open sky. A few birds in it. I was hungry again. My head hurt. I got out my wallet and counted my dwindling money. I contemplated calling home for the hundredth time. I started to cry but stopped myself. Then I heard a car coming. From the motel parking lot a white Lincoln Continental emerged. I put out my thumb. The car stopped alongside me and the power window slowly went down. At the wheel was the man from the restaurant the day before.
“Where you headed?”
“California.”
That smile again. Like something bursting. “Well then, this is your lucky day. That’s where I’m headed, too.”
I hesitated only a moment. Then I opened the back door of the big car and slid my suitcase in. I didn’t have, at that point, much choice in the matter.
GENDER DYSPHORIA IN SAN FRANCISCO
His name was Bob Presto. He had soft, white, fat hands and a plump face and wore a white guayabera shot with gold threads. He was vain of his voice, had been a radio announcer for many years before getting into his present line of business. What that was he didn’t specify. But its lucrative nature was evident in the white Continental with red leather seats and in Presto’s gold watch and jeweled rings, his newscaster’s hair. Despite these grown-man touches, there was much of the mama’s boy to Presto. He had the body of a little fatty, though he was big, close to two hundred pounds. He reminded me of the Big Boy at the Elias Brothers’ chain of restaurants, only older, coarsened and bloated by adult vices.
Our conversation began the usual way, Presto asking me about myself and I giving the standard lies.
“Where you off to in California?”
“College.”
“What school?”
“Stanford.”
“I’m impressed. I’ve got a brother-in-law went to Stanford. Big muckety-muck. Where is that again?”
“Stanford?”
“Yeah, what city?”
“I forget.”
“You forget? I thought Stanford students were supposed to be smart. How are you going to get there if you don’t know where it is?”
“I’m meeting my friend. He’s got all the details and stuff.”
“It’s nice to have friends,” Presto said. He turned and winked at me. I didn’t know how to interpret this wink. I kept quiet, staring forward at the road ahead.
On the buffet-like front seat between us were many supplies, soft drink bottles and bags of chips and cookies. Presto offered me whatever I wanted. I was too hungry to refuse, and took a few cookies, trying not to wolf them down.
“I’ll tell you,” Presto said, “the older I get, the younger college kids look. If you asked me, I’d say you were still in high school. What year you in?”
“Freshman.”
Again Presto’s face broke into the candy-apple grin. “I wish I were in your shoes. College is the best time of life. I hope you’re ready for all the girls.”
A chuckle accompanied this, to which I was obliged to add one of my own. “I had a lot of girlfriends in college, Cal,” Presto said. “I worked for the college radio station. I used to get all kinds of free records. And if I liked a girl, I used to dedicate songs to her.” He gave me a sample of his style, crooning low: “This one goes out to Jennifer, queen of Anthro 101. I’d love to study your culture, baby.”
Presto’s jowly head bowed and his eyebrows rose in modest recognition of his vocal gifts. “Let me give you a little advice about women, Cal. Voice. Voice is a big turn-on for women. Never discount voice.” Presto’s was indeed deep, dimorphically masculine. The fat of his throat increased its resonance as he explained, “Take my ex-wife, for example. When we first met, I could say anything to her and she’d go bananas. We’d be fucking and I’d say ‘English muffin’—and she’d come.”
When I didn’t reply, Presto said, “I’m n
ot offending you, am I? You’re not one of those Mormon kids on your mission, are you? In that suit of yours?”
“No.”
“Good. You had me worried for a minute. Let’s hear your voice again,” Presto said. “Come on, give me your best shot.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Say ‘English muffin.’ ”
“English muffin.”
“I don’t work in radio anymore, Cal. I am not a professional broadcaster. But my humble opinion is that you are not DJ material. What you’ve got is a thin tenor. If you want to get laid, you’d better learn to sing.” He laughed, grinning at me. His eyes showed no merriment, however, but were hard, examining me closely. He drove one-handed, eating potato chips with the other.
“Your voice has an unusual quality, actually. It’s hard to place.”
It seemed best to keep quiet.
“How old are you, Cal?”
“I just told you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I just turned eighteen.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“I don’t know. Sixty?”
“Okay, you can get out now. Sixty! I’m fifty-two, for Christ’s sake.”
“I was going to say fifty.”
“It’s all this weight.” He was shaking his head. “I didn’t look old until I gained all this weight. Skinny kid like you wouldn’t know about that, would you? I thought you were a chick at first, when I saw you standing by the road. I didn’t register the suit. I just saw your outline. And I thought, Jesus, what’s a young chick like that doing hitchhiking?”
I was unable to meet Presto’s gaze now. I was beginning to feel scared again and very uncomfortable.
“That’s when I recognized you. I saw you before. At that steak house. You were with that queer.” There was a pause. “I had him for a chicken hawk. Are you gay, Cal?”
“What?”
“You can tell me if you want. I’m not gay but I’ve got nothing against it.”
“I’d like to get out now. Could you let me out?”
Presto let go of the wheel and held his palms up in the air. “I’m sorry. I apologize. No more third degree. I won’t say another word.”
“Just let me out.”
“If that’s what you want, okay. But it doesn’t make sense. We’re going the same way, Cal. I’ll take you to San Francisco.” He didn’t slow down and I didn’t ask him to. He was true to his word and from then on remained mostly quiet, humming along to the radio. Every hour he made a pit stop to relieve himself and to buy more economy-sized bottles of Pepsi, more chocolate chip cookies, more red licorice and corn chips. Back on the road, he tanked up. He tilted his head back while he chewed, wary about getting crumbs on his shirtfront. Soft drinks glugged down his throat. Our conversation remained general. We drove up through the Sierra, out of Nevada and into California. We got lunch at a drive-thru. Presto paid for the hamburgers and milk shakes and I decided he was all right, friendly enough, and not after anything physical from me.
“Time for my pills,” he said after we had eaten. “Cal, can you hand me my pill bottles? They’re in the glove compartment.”
There were five or six different bottles. I handed them to Presto and he tried to read their labels, slanting his eyes. “Here,” he said, “steer for a minute.” I leaned over to take hold of the wheel, closer to Bob Presto than I wanted to be, while he struggled with the caps and shook out pills. “My liver’s all fucked up. Because of this hepatitis I picked up in Thailand. Fucking country almost killed me.” He held up a blue pill. “This is the one for the liver. I’ve got a blood thinner, too. And one for blood pressure. My blood’s all fucked up. I’m not supposed to eat so much.”
In this way we drove all day, reaching San Francisco in the evening. When I saw the city, pink and white, a wedding cake arrayed on hills, a new anxiety took hold of me. All the way across the country I had absorbed myself in reaching my destination. Now I was there and I didn’t know what I would do or how I would survive.
“I’ll drop you wherever you want,” Presto said. “You got an address where you’re staying, Cal? Your friend’s place?”
“Anywhere’s fine.”
“I’ll take you up to the Haight. That’ll be a good place for you to get your bearings.” We drove into the city and finally Bob Presto pulled his car over and I opened my door.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said.
“Sure, sure,” said Presto. He held out his hand. “And by the way, it’s Palo Alto.”
“What?”
“Stanford’s in Palo Alto. You should get that straight if you want anyone to believe you’re in college.” He waited for me to speak. Then in a surprisingly tender voice, a professional trick, too, no doubt, but not without effect, Presto asked, “Listen, guy, you got any place to stay?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Can I ask you something, Cal? What are you, anyway?”
Without answering I got out of the car and opened the back door to get my suitcase. Presto turned around in his seat, a difficult maneuver for him. His voice remained soft, deep, fatherly. “Come on. I’m in the business. I might be able to help you out. You a tranny?”
“I’m going now.”
“Don’t get offended. I know all about pre-op and post-op and all that stuff.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pulled my suitcase off the seat.
“Hey, not so fast. Here. At least take my number. I could use a kid like you. Whatever you are. You need some money, don’t you? You need an easy way to make some good money, you give your old friend Bob Presto a call.”
I took the number to get rid of him. Then I turned and walked off as though I knew where I was going.
“Watch out in the park at night,” Presto called after me in his booming voice. “Lot of lowlifes in there.”
My mother used to say that the umbilical cord attaching her to her children had never been completely cut. As soon as Dr. Philobosian had severed the cord of flesh, another, spiritual connection had grown up in its place. After I went missing, Tessie felt that this fanciful idea was truer than ever. In the nights, while she lay in bed waiting for the tranquilizers to take effect, she often put her hand to her navel, like a fisherman checking his line. It seemed to Tessie that she felt something. Faint vibrations reached her. From these she could tell that I was still alive, though far away, hungry, and possibly unwell. All this came in a kind of singing along the invisible cord, a singing such as whales do, crying out to one another in the deep.
For almost a week after I disappeared, my parents had remained at the Lochmoor Hotel, hoping I might return. Finally, the NYPD detective assigned to the case told them that the best thing to do was return home. “Your daughter might call. Or turn up there. Kids usually do. If we find her, we’ll let you know. Believe me. The best thing to do is go home and stay by the phone.” Reluctantly, my parents took this advice.
Before leaving, however, they had made an appointment with Dr. Luce. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” Dr. Luce told them, offering an explanation for my disappearance. “Callie may have stolen a look at her file while I was out of my office. But she didn’t understand what she was reading.”
“But what would make her run away?” Tessie asked. Her eyes were wide, imploring.
“She misconstrued the facts,” Luce answered. “She oversimplified them.”
“I’ll be honest with you, Dr. Luce,” said Milton. “Our daughter called you a liar in that note she left. I’d like an explanation why she might say something like that.”
Luce smiled tolerantly. “She’s fourteen. Distrustful of adults.”
“Can we take a look at that file?”
“It won’t help you to see the file. Gender identity is very complex. It’s not a matter of sheer genetics. Neither is it a matter of purely environmental factors. Genes and environment come together at a critical moment. It’s not di-factorial. It’s tri-fac
torial.”
“Let me get one thing straight,” Milton interrupted. “Is it, or is it not, still your medical opinion that Callie should stay the way she is?”
“From the psychological assessment I was able to make during the brief time I treated Callie, I would say yes, my opinion is that she has a female gender identity.”
Tessie’s composure broke and she sounded frantic. “Why does she say she’s a boy, then?”
“She never said that to me,” said Luce. “That’s a new piece of the puzzle.”
“I want to see that file,” demanded Milton
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. The file is for my own private research purposes. You’re free to see Callie’s blood work and the other test results.”
Milton exploded then. Shouting, swearing at Dr. Luce. “I hold you responsible. You hear me? Our daughter isn’t the kind to just run off like that. You must have done something to her. Scared her.”
“Her situation scared her, Mr. Stephanides,” said Luce. “And let me emphasize something to you.” He rapped his knuckles against his desk. “It is of tantamount importance that you find her as soon as possible. The repercussions could be severe.”
“What are you saying?”
“Depression. Dysphoria. She’s in a very delicate psychological state.”
“Tessie,” Milton looked at his wife, “you want to see the file or should we get out of here and let this bastard go screw himself.”
“I want to see the file.” She was sniffling now. “And watch your language, please. Let’s try to be cordial.”
Finally, Luce had given in and let them see it. After they had read the file, he offered to reevaluate my case at a future time, and expressed hope that I would soon be found.
“I’d never take Callie back to him in a million years,” my mother said as they left.
“I don’t know what he did to upset Callie,” said my father, “but he did something.”
They returned to Middlesex in late September. The leaves were falling from the elms, robbing the street of shelter. The weather began to turn colder, and from her bed at night Tessie listened to the wind and the rustling leaves, wondering where I was sleeping and if I was safe. The tranquilizers didn’t subdue her panic so much as displace it. Under their sedation Tessie withdrew into an inner core of herself, a kind of viewing platform from which she could observe her anxiety. The fear was a little less with her at those times. The pills made her mouth dry. They made her head feel as though it were wrapped in cotton, and turned the periphery of her vision starry. She was supposed to take only one pill at a time, but she often took two.