Chapter 10
In our recent regime change into formality, Jaime knocked. I opened the door and he was standing on the stoop, smiling and smirking, both with his eyes and mouth at once. Today’s gear: a black bomber jacket over a lemon yellow sari and black Capris pants. Rope sandals he carried in his hand – he entered my place barefoot.
“Looking especially you today,” I said.
“And that’s the greatest compliment of all!” He looked around. “Is your beautiful madam here?”
“She left early this morning. I went out to shoot hoops and she was doing something involving a friend’s dress fitting.”
“Ah yes. How’d you shoot?”
Terribly, I wanted to say. In fact had it been a normal day it would have been pretty excellent – my midrange was falling, threes from the top of the arc, and even my corner three. But I hadn’t gone out for a regular day of basketball; I’d gone out to train. I took along a tape measure. Mid court to baseline on an NBA court is forty-seven feet; baseline to basket is four. From the hoop I marked off forty-three feet. It was well behind what was mid court on the park courts. From this vantage the hoop was infinitesimal, a dot, so far away a car would be more appropriate to reach it than a basketball. A plastic bag near me caught a current of air and lifted, skidded back to the ground, cartwheeled again in the air and was carried along for several paces. It and the wind which bore it both quit before they’d made the top of the key.
The less said about my first thirty-one attempts, the better.
“Alright,” I told him. I’d sworn myself to telling nobody about the contest. The pressure would be unbelievable if anyone actually came that night to cheer me on; what’s more I believe that relating the potential of success leaks the helium from the ballon and diminishes any chance of that success coming to fruition. But the urge to tell everyone anyway was already proving hard to tamp down. “Want a bubbly water or anything?”
He did one of his patented gestures, a sweep of his small hand that looked like the signal a bartender gives when he’s cutting someone off. “Trying to quit.”
I eyed him for a second. “How bout you tell me what’s going on? You seem different.”
He smiled even broader, eyes twinkling. “Oh well, its not ghastly news or anything.”
“I’m disposed to think the worst when I sense anyone has information they’re hesitant to share.”
“Oh, me? I’m not nervous in the slightest.” Yes, he was. Just the slightest bit fluttery.
He sat on the arm of the couch, me on the arm of a leather chair opposite. I’ve noticed male friends have a thing where often they sit or lean as if its temporary and any second they have to leave to go someplace.
“The good news for you,” he said, laughter in his voice as ever, “is that my name will stay Jaime. So you don’t have to learn a new name. I imagine that would be tough for you after all these years.”
I stared at him for what was I think a very long time. He has a thing where he likes to extend bafflement, say less than is strictly necessary to gently gin confusion. He’s been cultivating this practice for a number of years now, maybe the entirety of his sentient life. My guess when it came though still felt fast, especially as I didn’t know where it came from.
“You’re becoming a woman.” I wasn’t joking.
Even he betrayed surprise, which he hates to do. “Well, give the man a prize. Yes, I am. I’m transitioning.”
Insert here some minutes of stumbling conversation that at first conveyed no pertinent information, just repeated queries about whether he was joking, whether I’d been joking in saying it and would only convey clarification and reassurances that . After hitting bullseye with that piece of intuition, my certitude had worn off at once and now I had obvious questions. Answers: yes, it was already underway – two weeks ago he’d begun receiving estrogen treatments. The entire process could take upwards of two years.Yes, he would be getting surgery. And yes, some part of him had always known.
“It isn’t,” Jaime said, “like, how should I say this, that every moment has been some dodge-and-duck, or I’ve been living this huge lie. My life as a man has been a good one, by and large. It’s just been a niggling sensation that I’m not quite where I’m supposed to be. And finally I understood that is because I am not who I’m supposed to be. You know that feeling when you’ve forgotten something but you can’t say what, and you try and rationalize that it’s nothing, you’ve forgotten nothing, and it’s just your brain playing a trick on you? Except it isn’t – it always proves true that if you’re nagged by the feeling you’ve forgotten something that’s because you have. Ok, so it’s kind of like that. This idea presented itself to me, and intuitively I knew it was right. Finally I was prepared to receive that information. That I wasn’t scared off by the possibility – I welcome it. A big decision? Sure. But it’s been thirty-three years in the making. Time to get on with it already.”
My thirty-three years had not prepared me for this. I knew that from late teens Jaime’s sexuality had been fluid. Primarily I believe he slept with women but there’d been allusions to men in there as well. He experimented with polyamory, always where he was the third party. I’d never known him to have significant female partner for longer than a few months. At heart, I just thought of him more as a loner than anything. He went his own way, and that in fact seemed out of sort with the decision he was making now. I’d never suspected this was in the offing – fashion sense means nothing, dyed hair, painted nails. I took no suppositions from that. I’m not a Republican. My ignorance is in not discerning the demarcation between sexuality and gender; I don’t have the equipment to ascertain the difference. My only wisdom here is recognition of my shortcoming.
Me, fumbling a little more, came up with what seemed like a valid question. “When do I stop referring to you as ‘he’?”
His head cocked. “Do you already refer to me as ‘he’? I’ve never heard you say that.”
“You know what I mean. In reference to you with other people.”
“Whenever you like, I suppose. Or never change it. Entirely up to you.”
“I call you ‘man’ a lot. Like, ‘hey man, want to grab lunch,” or “‘hey man, how’s your sister.'”
“Oh yes. Huh, that is a pickle. That tricky ‘man’ word. Well I’m not one to get hung up on nomenclature. Think instead of how the dilemma of the first name is already solved. I stay Jaime, forever. It’s a dual gender name. That’s why both men and women who have it hate it.”
“You’re giving a lot of attention to the name thing. It seems to me the least important part of it. But it’s your rodeo – I’m just the clown.”
“And a first-class one you are.” He had slumped back on the couch now, lightened from the load of the news. But going back to identity, I don’t know whether I should even call him a he anymore. Or a him. This is thorny and the reflexive habits of my life, the givens, were going to need to transition too. In a much less significant way.
And just like that, I was overcome. “Jesus,” I said, sinking my face into my hands.
“What’s the matter, pappy?”
I exhaled. “Isn’t there anything in this life that can just stay as it was.”
“Nope. Not this anyway. Not anything else either, for that matter.”
“Yeah. Listen, I don’t know anything about this.” I looked at him – I don’t know if outside of Cassidy I’d ever felt a great rush of tenderness for another person. “Is your voice going to change?”
He smiled back at me, tenderness as well and all his normal sardonic sarcasm tabled, for just a moment. “It’s still me, Hud. And no, my voice stays the same. Estrogen doesn’t engineer any changes to the vocal cords.”
“Ok, ok. I can do this. If there’s just that constant, I’ll be alright.”
Jaime laughed. “I know this must be so hard for you.” And then threw his head back and let loose with more laughter, coming deep from his belly.
“Point taken,” I said. “Alright, come here.” And we got up and hugged, a bear hug that lasted forever, or at least several seconds.
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
On the drive to Allison’s and the execrable Marcus’s house we listened to The Cure’s Disintegration, which always lightens my mood. But a bulwark of charcoal clouds was moving over the hilltops, or mountaintops, and a few raindrops spattered the windshield. A tightening in my stomach as I knew the plan was to have much of the party be outdoors, barbecuing and what not. My innards coil when I think of other people’s best-laid plans getting spoiled. Whenever I see a restaurant shut down, or a yard sale with lots of merchandise but no one browsing it, I get catch a proxy heartache for the ones involved, their trustful attempts, their dashed expectations. I feel bereft on their behalf.
Then the raindrops disappeared and the cloud head sailed on to the East and shafts of sunlight poured onto the roadway. Jaime’s dirty, scuffed feet on the dashboard. Robert Smith’s woebegone voice. The possibility of winning four hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars (putting out of my mind the almost paralytic dread of taking a half court shot in front of twenty thousand plus people in the most famous arena in the nation), Cassidy, Illa, the chance of a higher salary, barking dogs and grill outs and lawn parties and normalcy, and even, in a small dose, fellowship. There is a peculiar ecstasy that can electrify your soul in surprise moments, tremors of well-being that feel like they contain the most incandescent of meanings, one that cannot and should not be articulated. Language has its powers and beauty but in graced moments such as this the field is best left to wonderment. So now we leave off for a bit …
Walking up to the house over a flagstone path. A Craftsman of whitewashed brick. It was not ornate, it was not especially large, did not have the chilly, distant aspect of showpiece homes. What it was instead was simply perfect, perfectly lived-in, perfectly inviting, appealing in every perfect degree. “Mind the petunias,” I said. “It’s like they grow wild around here.”
Jaime looked around. “Nice spread. Pray tell, what’s that,” pointing to the globe inexpertly wrapped with brown paper, tucked and unwieldy under one arm. It looked as though I were delivering tribute of a rival chieftain’s head.
“Parting gift. To Marcus. “I said.
“But, what is it?”
“Globe.”
“Ahh, excellent,” he said, meaning it. He thought it a capital gift. This is why we’re friends.
I pressed the button on the doorbell-cum-security camera, as disconcerted as ever to be in front of one of these things knowing that I was visible on some monitor inside. Makes me stand differently, attempting to project insouciance. The door opened. Cassidy. “Uncle Jaime!” All nine years and seventy pounds of her leapt into his arms.
“Woof,” he said. “Strapping girl o’mine, be careful. These bones are hollow as a bird’s. The lumbar and all.”
“Uncle,” I said, leaning a little closer to his ear. “That one’s not so synergistic, is it? Does she need to change the moniker now or later?”
“In this case,” he said, “we’re going to apply for a dispensation. ‘Uncle’ can stay. What’s cracking, my young friend,” he said to Cassie. Then Allison emerged from the shadows of the house, trailing a scent of vegetarian cooking, coriander, some sort of curry. She too caught Jaime in a big embrace. “Hello,” patting his shoulder. They’re about the same height. Jaime hugged her back, as always managing to convey diffidence and unalloyed pleasure at the same time. It is an aura I’ve been trying to duplicate since were were adolescents. I mostly fumble the effect; probably I should shelve it.
I cleared my throat. “Hello, forever-daughter and former wife. Good to see both of you are well.”
Allison sighed. “Yes, yes,” and gave me a one-armed hug for a couple of beats. Her face was flushed from working over the stove, and there was the sheen of sweat in the contours of her cheekbones. She really is exceptionally beautiful; it’s a fact that strikes me anew every time I see her. I wonder why it doesn’t consistently strike a pang in my chest. But it does so just often enough to confuse matters.
Inlaid bookshelves, tapestries and local artists on the walls, well-chosen rugs from consignment stores. “You want to see my room,” Cassie said to Jaime.
“Nothing could suit me more. Lead the way.”
They disappeared down the hallway. “Showing off her room,” Allison said. “I bet that era is about to end.”
“Too true,” I said, and felt the slightest graze of a chill.
“What is that thing,” she said.
“This?” Of course, this. “A gift for Marcus. Just, you know, a gesture.”
“But what is it?”
“Let’s wait for him to open it.”
“He doesn’t bowl.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so. It’s not a bowling ball.”
“Hmm. Ok. Interesting.”
There were friends gathered in the kitchen and breakfast room. Their friends. Four women and one modest looking guy with a chin beard that he didn’t quite have the force of personality to carry off. A husband, skinny as a car aerial. The women: other than being white and approximately congruent in age, they were distinct one from the other. There was a short stocky women with very bright eyes; a willowy woman with hair the color of shrimp scampi; two attractive brunettes, one of whom was aproned up to help Allison with the preparation, the other hanging back, diffident, probably a newcomer to this social circle. Allison was brilliant at friendships; they are very much her abiding passion and had been since we’d met. Used to be I was miffed at the attention her friends received from her, thinking of it as a neglect of me. But then that’s not right either – I made this up after the fact to rationalize that the dissolution of our relationship was in fact a two-way street, and that she had distanced herself from the marriage, before my malfeasance and affairs. Not the case actually, not really. At the time, I was glad she spent so much time away; it allowed me to stew in my solitude and avoid the give-and-take of partnership. Love-avoidant is the term. In any case, I’d met two and maybe three of these women before. But the only one who’s name I could recall – despite knowing at least one of the others for a number of years – was Gina, in the apron. She is a chef, a fairly renowned one. Just ask her.
In front of groups of acquaintances, Allison’s friends at least, I am as awkward as if I was standing back on the front stoop in front of the RING doorbell -cum- camera. I’m much better with total strangers. In front of these familiars, a scarlet A may as well be emblazoned on my forehead, another on a sign I wear on tacked to my back.
“Hey Hud,” said a couple of them. Actually they’re all very pleasant to me. And it’s my fault that this doesn’t help.
“Hi there. How is everybody?”
They were all good too great. Mercifully Jaime entered at that moment. “Wow. Your kid loves that Taylor Swift. She knows every lyric.”
“Tell me about it,” Allison and I said at the exact same time.
“Ladies,” he said, turning to the group. He knows at least Gina.
“Good to see you, Jaime.”
“You as well! It’s always so nice to see and be seen. I should do more of it.”
“Where have you been lately,” said Allison, adding red pepper flakes to some sort of stew or sauce or spread.
“Yeah,” I said. “Where have you been actually?” It’d been a couple of months since I’d last seen him.
“Khmer Rouge. No, I jest. I was in Montreal.”
“What were you doing there,” asked Allison.
He looked at her cockeyed. “Hanging out. It’s all I know how to do.”
“Of course. Silly of me.”
“Where’s Marcus?” This was me talking.
“Outside. Grilling. You guys want a beer, wine, anything.”
Jaime said, “Do you have any absinthe?”
“Fresh out,” said Allison, rolling her eyes she hoisted up a platter of lentils beans, caramelized onions, and some leafy green I could not name.
“I”m good,” I said. “Just water if you have it.”
“Christ. We have water, Hud.”
This was going about like I anticipated. Low expectations are a habit with me, though they all at once will spike into wild dashes of hopeless, idealistic positivism. The middle ground I’ve always found squishy, a difficult terrain to maintain footing. It is either a malfunctioning coping mechanism, mania, or both, though there may be another diagnosis I have missed. Let’s hope so. Hope springs eternal, until of course it doesn’t.
A picture of assured, steady manhood, Marcus jabbed at some chicken breast with a spatula, sipped a Stella Artois, dodged the charcoal smoke and yucked it up with the other husbands. “Hud,” he said, as I walked up.
“Marcus.”
“Want a beer?”
“Thanks. I have my water.”
“So you do. Hey, Jaime.”
“Hello, fine sir. I hear you’re stratosphere bound. And beyond.”
“Monday, yes.”
“I’d have thought there was more prep-time needed for something like that.”
He skewered one of the chicken with a grilling fork. He is about my height and not much bigger than my build. His hair is a burred chestnuts and his face has a weathered cragginess that makes him more handsome, more trustworthy. He’s seen things. He’s seen stardust and the moon in orbit. He’s seen the whole of Australia looking no larger than the head of a pin. Thrust, variable mass, linear momentum and the mathematics of such – Marcus Newman knows about such things.
“We do prep. We prep all the time. That’s the job. By this stage, if you aren’t ready, it’s already too late. I fly down tonight for departure check-in.”
Allison, Gina and the ones I wasn’t sure I knew came down the steps and into the yard. Most had white wine glasses in their hands. Cassie followed behind. I waved her way and blew an air kiss; she caught it with her hand and planted it on her cheek. Her eyes were deadpan during the delivery though, this being a practice between us two that she used to revel in but has since outgrown.
“They about ready, babe?” said Allison, setting down her platter on one of a pair of picnic tables.
“Let me see, babe.” He produced a meat thermometer – even his grill outs have an easy-going exactitude. He skewered each chicken breast, inspecting the mercury line after each plunge and retract. “Yep, good to go.”
Not wanting to look uncultured and uncouth, I was careful to dish more of the lentils and stop eyeing the tortilla chips. It was a warm day the first week of March; all of February too has been warm, as a matter of fact. They still call it “unseasonably” warm, but they’re going to have to stop that soon. A couple more years and even the cliche-hawkers will have to account for the new normal. Good for barbecues, not so good for much else.
Jaime munched on the mysterious green leafs. He popped two cherry tomatoes in his mouth. He salted a handful of blueberries, then looked hurt when no one inquired about what the hell he was doing.
Cassie said, “Justine asked me to sleepover next weekend. Saturday night.”
“Sure, I said. Which one is Justine.”
“The one that’s my best friend.”
I took three tortilla chips, looked around for non-existent salsa. “I thought Maggie was your best friend.”
Her forkful of navy beans hung suspended between plate and mouth. “Who’s Maggie?”
“Miranda?” I proffered.
“Oh. She’s not my best friend. She’s probably fourth.”
“Very hierarchical. I remember Justine now.”
“Is it ok if we go to the movies?”
“You and Justine, or you and me?”
“You and me. On Sunday.”
“Yeah, I’m down. Got one in mind?”
“Yes. But it’s PG-13. Is that cool?”
“PG-13, PG-10, ketchup, catsup. Guns, profanity or adult situations?”
“The last two, I think.”
“Then we’re golden.”
Down at the opposite end of the table, Gina was talking about strudel. Hers was hands-down the best but the local zine for two years running had voted a place called Crust to have the best pastries. “Those things,” she was saying, “belong in the frozen food aisle. And don’t get me started on their scones. It’s like eating couch lint.”
“Agreed,” said one of the other women I maybe knew. “Inedible.”
The husbands talked mainly real estate and videos that had gone viral.
Oh, hang on. There were other children there. Two babies anyway. Twins. Twins disturb me. Especially the identical kind, which these were. The two of them belonged to the spindliest husband and the third woman whose name was very likely Julianne or Johanna. Currently they dozed identically in a twin bassinet beneath one temperate sun, a cloth awning blocking their doughty faces from the bulk of the rays. Cassie has no friends near her age among this particular salon, due to Allison and I having her so young. Most of the network were only just now getting primed to start a family, having gotten their finances and emotional houses in order. Their twenties and early thirties are markedly different from how ours were – we had young adult times, of course, late nights and hangovers and concerts too numerous to remember, but always with a weight of consequences and import on the other side of the scales. That being said, I wouldn’t have traded with any of these people. In this I feel the lucky one, getting the jump on childbearing and childrearing, and if average life-expectancy holds true in my case, I’ll have more Cassidy in my life for longer. House parties and bar hopping are no substitute.
“Jasmine, have you ever thought about opening your own place?”
Jasmine! Dammit, shit. Had I referred to her by name since arriving. I didn’t think so, but could not be sure.
In any case, she did think about opening her own restaurant, or pastry shop, or bakery. She thought about it all the time.
After lunch, Jaime went over to crouch beneath a beech tree and meditate. In what felt archaic and perhaps offensive, the women went back to the house and the men retired to a place near the rear fence line. There were cigars and all of them know quite a lot about cigars. I puffed at something called a Fuente Opus X. My understanding is that it’s top of the line. I have a problem with cigars: years ago, I smoked cigarettes. Mostly when drinking but for a couple of years at least you would have called me a smoker. I smoked my last at the age of twenty-five but muscle memory remains. So it is not accurate that I was puffing – I was in fact inhaling, at least every third or fourth drag. It tasted earthen, peppery and bitter like dark chocolate. I liked it and even joined in some banter about basketball. I’m on firm footing there. I can tell you about the glory days of the Knicks (in another time and era, when giants like Willis Reed and Walt Frazier strode the land). I can talk about Jordan vs Lebron (a stupid argument – Lebron James is to Michael Jordan what Tony Kushner is to Shakespeare). I know the Western Conference standings and how the Lakers and Rockets better make their grab for the ring now, because Golden State was reloading and would be back next year, phasers set to dominate. And I still was bursting to tell someone, everyone about winning the contest, and the upcoming halftime, mid-court shot at the Garden. I could do it laconically, blithely interleaving it into the conversation of these men who had not won a contest and would not be taking a halftime, mid-court shot at the Garden.
The cigar had me buzzing a little. And flat water tastes wretched with cigars. Making my muttered getaway, I headed inside to retrieve something, anything, else to drink. I’d made the back door before I felt the true magnitude of the mistake I’d been making. Mackerel spawned and started to swim in and out of my guts, and by some second sight I could tell that my own skin was going green. Picking up the pace I verily charged from doorway into sunroom into breakfast room, and crashed straight into Jasmine, sending her and the tray of lemon tarts she carried flying.
“Godammit! What the fuck. Hud!”
“I’m sorry,” I choked out, holding back an ominous liquid that sloshed in my throat.
Others came running. “Oh no,” they said more or less in unison. The silver tray spun and spun on the floor, coming to a stop with the double-time rattle that was especially shrill and always concomitant with calamity.
Viscous yellow filling was sprayed across the hardwoods. It had splashed itself across the linen curtains; The window panes and walls were flecked with bright yellow. and window. Overhead, dollops of whip cream clung to the blades of the ceiling fan, molting like hornets’ nests. My shirt was not spared and neither was Jasmine’s ivory-white pullover. The two of us looked like we’d teamed up to tear an ostrich egg in half.
“I’m so, so sorry.” I became cognizant that I was repeating this over and over. I went for a broom or towel or mop, quickly became aware I didn’t know where when of the above were located, and managed to step into a particularly glommed mound of the filling. Custardy footprints tracked me everywhere – there was no escape. Also, I still needed to vomit.
“Christ,” said Allison. “Will you stop? You track any of that onto the dining room rug and I will seriously slit it.”
There was no choice but to obey. Remaining stationary, I watched like Patience on a monument while around me efficient women orbited, grabbing the requisite cleaning agents, dispatching the appropriate remedies. They were honed and fluid like a pit crew at a race car track. A useless man in the stocks bore witness, watching women forced to do hat they should not be forced to do, unable to clean up his own mess. The other men outside continued to puff at self-satisfied cigars, bantering, devoid of duties. At some point the flak of these thoughts would cohere and be food for speculation, likely not before I paid to have the drapery dry-cleaned.
Jaime returned at that moment, with Cassie’s earbuds in. “Have you all heard this “You Need To Calm Down” song? This thing is fire! Oh my, what’s happened in here. How I adored that he entered here, a buoy to abstractedly hold onto while the seething cleanup went on around him. She, her, us, I mean to say.
A blob of whip cream let go of fan blade and spattered onto Jasmine’s scalp.
Then I was yanking off my shoes. I raced by Cassidy’s room, her head whipping around in my peripheral vision as I flew past. I hit the hallway powder room and wasn’t shy about slamming shut the door. There I disgorged at last – the sight of it I’d as soon forget but let’s just say it was lentil-heavy. I know everyone in the house had to hear the thundering. Shame and humiliation waited on the other side of the door, but for just a moment I felt tremendous.
Around the living room, I believed the others were side-eyeing me, and that’s because they were. We sat in an uneasy circle, for toasts and well-wishes. Jasmine’s hair was damp from hand soap and a washcloth. Allison’s jaw had a knot rippling beneath it, her exceptionally fine teeth gritted together. Marcus had laughed and laughed at the story, really yucking it up. “I apologize man, I thought you’d smoked a few stogies in your day. You have to be moderate with them.”
“There’s the problem,” I said.
Others indeed had brought gifts. And everyone of them was a form of liquor: Johnny Walker Blue, Casa Dragones Tequila, a bottle of Chianti and another of Sangiovese (Allison and Marcus had honeymooned in Tuscany, there developing an unquenchable thirst for Italian reds). Anything of this ilk would have been a perfect present for me to bring. The present I brought instead was saved for last. Naturally.
“What’s this now,” said Marcus.
“All I know is it’s not a bowling ball,” said Allison.
He ripped off the wrapping paper. A true quiet followed the unveiling. Like that found in a monastery, or a crypt.
“Well,” Marcus said, after a considerable time,”it’s cool. I have a globe already, in the study. It’s this enormous thing I got as an award from the Department of Aviation. But this, this is nice.” Turning to Allison: “Do we know a good place to put it? A bookcase or something.”
“Or something,” she said.
Jasmine leaned over a bit, and made a fake show of lowering her voice, so that actually it came off more as a hiss. “Interesting choice, giving a man a representation of the planet when in a few days he gets to see the real thing.”
I had never liked Gina, and that her name was Jasmine did not improve my opinion.
Cassidy sat on my left, eating a salvaged wedge of lemon tart. She authentically whispered. “I love you, Dad.”
“Thanks. But if you need to get off the train here, kiddo, I’ll understand.”
