A Tapless Shoulder (27 page)

“
You know, we
really should sit and talk. I think we should probably clear up a
few things. You seem far too tense to just skirt around this
anymore, and I don’t care what your father says. Come, come, have a
drink with me, honey, I’m pretty sure there’s some beer in the
fridge.”

I THINK SHE
JUST SAID ‘COME DRINK MY HONEY!’
She was blinking, or no, maybe I was blinking; something
was coming and going, along with reason. My entire mind and face
blinked,
maybe even
blanked
. My ‘inside my head’
voice was shouting faster than I could understand, and then began
to scream. My heart felt like it kept being jerked like a ball
tethered to a paddle. Had I sneezed at that same moment, it would
have been the end of me.

“
Um, so… will
you have a beer with me?” she asked patiently.

“
Oh, a beer,
uh, yes, sure honey,” I said back accidentally. She turned toward
the kitchen with a giggle. I took off my shoes and picked up my
keys. I made like I was about to throw them through the window, but
of course didn’t. I collected myself and tried to hold it together
by cradling my head in my arms. I put the keys into my pocket, took
a deep breath and began the short trek toward the kitchen. Four
short steps later seemed a perfect spot to stop. I wanted to set up
camp right there in the middle of the room; I’d make the rest of
the trip to the kitchen tomorrow. Candy’s face popped out of the
kitchen and I didn’t even scream; instead I began to walk like I
hadn’t stopped. I even made a face I hadn’t made since I was a
child, one that said I was excited about getting where I was
going.

Candy sat
down beside me, looking apologetic. “You okay, honey?” she asked
and patted my hand.

“
Uh yeah, I’m probably fine. Do you call everyone
honey
?”

She giggled
and swiped at me, I believed as if to say,
oh you
, but who
knew, it might have meant,
fuck you.
I just knew
I didn’t know.

I twisted the
cap off both beer bottles she had set on the table and then drained
a fair bit from one. I looked at Candy; she was drinking like she
had better catch up. I set the bottle down. She did the same and
smiled like we were much younger than we were, and under very
different circumstances. There was a part of me taking in more air
than the rest, eating or
something
, with its
back to me, getting bigger and braver, until I finally exhaled like
I’d had enough.

“
I have to
ask you something.” She smiled excitedly back; probably happy I had
managed to say the entire sentence in the first try. “But,” I
continued, “I don’t think I even know exactly what that question is
yet.” I looked at our bottles on the table. I thought if we were
carpenters we could simply talk about the table we were sitting at.
I wondered if my mind really had to explore every nook it came
across like that. It was getting way too close to being ridiculous.
It was like a child I constantly had to chase after, and I was
tiring of it more and more. What would happen when I gave up? How
much of a mess would I be in then?

Candy was
still smiling at me. It was as if she could see the little dance in
my head I was subjecting myself to. “Please, understand,” I said
cautiously, “it’s just a fear of the unknown: my fear, your
unknown. I – like,” I didn’t know where to go from there. She kept
smiling and then,
maybe
, dusted off her
cleavage. Everything in my head stopped… and then started.
What the hell was that? Were there
crumbs on your breasts?
Fine,
I thought, you’re a lady, I get it, but why one that’s high
maintenance? Plenty of women enjoy being comfortable practically
all the time, yet here Candy was – with her boobs right big and
right there. “Okay,” I announced, “look – I’m usually not a
prude
or whatever
because I am a guy, but,” I paused;
neither of us knew where these words were taking either of us,
“Okay, look, I feel like I should get you another bra
to go right above the bra you’re
wearing
.” My hands went up as
if even they were saying, there you have it. I shook my head. “It’s
crazy and doesn’t make sense. I mean, you haven’t had, like, I’m
sure there are trials to becoming a strong, strong woman – I don’t
mean
extra
strong, I’m just repeating myself,
it’s a thing I do. I get, when, uncomfortable in awkward, and
things with stuff, so, um, yeah. What was I saying? I don’t think I
know what – how on earth are you keeping those things in, like,
from not coming out,
in
, not
out
? They’re just almost out, but they’re not, and that, I
guess, confuses me and apparently we need to get past them if we’re
going to get on anything else – MOVE ON TO anything else, holy
hell.” I nodded down and widened my eyes.

“
What, you
mean my boobs?” she said eagerly, sounding much too loud and much
too excited about it, which was the complete opposite of what I
wanted her reaction to be.

I shut my
eyes and squished them with my fingers, “Oh, in the fragile name of
baby Jesus,” I said. I stopped and looked at her, “It’s just, even
now, again they seem… impossible. I mean, what they do or what they
don’t do, that’s a lot of… just forget it. Yeah, we’ll forget I
said anything, I think that’s a good idea, the best idea. Just let
me go back to stuttering about you and my dad.” There was so much
room for backpedalling; I thought it best to just abandon the line
of thinking altogether.

I put my hand
on the table, weakly, like I was being very casual about pressing
an imaginary eject button.
Excuse me
, I
thought,
I’m just going to be
shot through the ceiling rather than continue on with
this
. I was nearly panicking.
Why did I have to ask about her breasts? What was I
thinking?
Did I mean your
boobs?
NO, I yelled with my
‘inside my head’ voice. That’s crazy,
your boobs?
What
kind of a word is that anyway? Boobs, it was warping into something
strange in my head. Booooouurrrbs. No, no, I meant your… your… I
was nodding to your… how were you keeping those… where else could I
go with that? What else could I be talking about: feet,
testicles?

“
Boobs,” I said loudly, having startled myself back into the
conversation. “Exactly, yes, I was nodding at your boobs.” I was
practically proud of it now. “They are awesome,” I said, “and I
love them,” immediately feeling I’d just gone too far.
Why
, I thought,
why
couldn’t I have a middle ground
, a middle something, everyone else seemed to have
something normal, but, no, I’m either nowhere with it or way, way
out there past it; just nothing at all or so extreme and intense it
hurts one of my eyes like a spear, a spear
I threw,
and
then ran out to catch
with my
eye
.

She couldn’t
hear me over her excitement. She opened her top completely like it
just couldn’t be hinted at with what the rest of the world would
call ‘an explanation.’ And, of course, she could not be subtle
about the fine art of overexposure. She took her shirt off and
showed me how loops of tape were holding her breasts in just shy of
popping out. “Tape,” I exclaimed, “I knew it, well, of course I
didn’t know it, but I knew something was up.” I smiled and nodded
my head proudly, as though I’d been smart about something and that
settled that, which meant the shirt could go back on. I had a joke
for that ‘something was up’ statement but caught it before it was
let out of my mouth. What was going on in my head? My inner voice
obviously had to swallow its own tongue and set its mental little
face on fire, an example needed to be made.

As she balled
up the tape, I realized I was just sitting there staring at her
bare chest. “Put, um, you shit,
your shirt
, you
should, hmm, thanks, um, you know what I mean, that’s… you
shouldn’t just show, ah crap,” I looked around the room. Why was I
alone at everything I did? Why was no one covering my eyes or
throwing a blanket over her? I’d slap her face like it was on fire,
I thought, quite suddenly and for no reason at all. Realizing the
strange effects breasts had on me, or maybe on men in general, I no
longer did thoughts or knowledge knowing. I stupidly smiled, so
awkwardly I thought she really should have laughed rather than
smile back. I cleared my throat but didn’t know how to ask her to
cover herself. I thought I might actually offend her. When does a
man say to a woman?
Can you
put those away
? I thought I
should just nod my head and say,
yeah, that’s what I’m talking about
, and just ride it out like that until she got tired
of it. But she wouldn’t get tired of it, and we’d have to start
making out, wouldn’t we?
OH
GOD!

My stupid
head wasn’t my friend anymore, especially when I heard these words
leave my mouth: “I’ve no idea where the lines are drawn in a
situation like this, so I’m just going to go ahead and ask anyway…
are those
your
nipples… or are they new
too?”

She burst
into a deep and loud fit of laughter that made me jump; it was
manlier than punching a shark in the face with a whole
cowboy,
it
was
.

“
Oh honey,” she said, trying hard to return to her delicate
self, the feminine form she was just a brief moment ago, “You can’t
make me laugh so hard, I’m still sort of working on
that
.”

The hair on
my arms was standing on end. I felt like I had come undone, though
I was glad for the shock; as that had numbed my senses and voided a
reaction. Otherwise… I was pretty sure I’d have been crying. I
would never have thought it possible that anyone could laugh like
that, let alone the transsexual sitting next to me. As if
that
alone
wasn’t surreal
enough, there had to be a horrific laugh thrown into it all, too.
Honestly, as I thought about it, I never would have imagined what
would freak me out most about being seated next to a half-naked
transsexual would have been
how she laughed
.

“
So that’s, like, they’re big, why, with… um, what? Whoa,
hey, keep your shirt
back
on
,” I said. I thought she
may hold me up to the light to look for the watermark of a smile
I’d just hinted at.

“
Hormones
then, finally, the augmentation,” she said, wincing, “Yeah, oh, it
felt like my chest was on fire for such a long, long time after, it
was just awful.”

“
Augmentation
,” I
repeated, unsure of what that meant exactly, or if I wanted to
know.

She looked at
me smiling, as if to say,
you’ll be okay
, and
then said, “Boob job, honey,” and giggled.

“
Right, yeah,
I knew
that
, I just, I like that
word, that’s why I said it.”

It could not
have been any weirder, something that scared me quite a bit. How
was my simple life so this or that… and now
those
?
Smooth and slow sailing from here on out, I thought certainly, blue
skies with a chance of showers. Slight showers, my ass, look at
this, but the weather will again clear, it has to and life will be
as it should.
What was I
doing? Praying?
I shook my
head. Had jolly old Saint Nick himself walked in and sat on Candy’s
lap and made out with her face, while Moses cheered sucking on a
candy cane from atop a pile of manure heaped up on the table,
well…
it certainly wouldn’t
have made it any worse.

Candy was now
talking on her phone, while daintily drinking her beer,
very much like the woman she
was
, I thought, minus the
naked parts. I was swallowing mine like it being empty meant I
could get up and leave. She sprung up and got me another, and just
as I set the empty bottle down, there was the next one, open and in
front of me. It struck me how her smile was so friendly and
honest,
the smile of a bare
soul
, I thought, and laughed
nervously to myself.

It felt like
everything could almost be normal between us, had she only put her
shirt back on. The longer I looked at her, the more comfortable she
seemed to be. I shut my eyes for a moment. The day was beginning to
sit down on me, and was getting closer to lying out
flat.

She was
talking away, to a good friend it seemed. I don’t really know why I
thought that. I sat looking at her and became impressed, then a
little uncomfortable, and then impressed again. There was no way
around it: she seemed enduringly brave. She didn’t care, and never
had; up to this point I had been frantic with fright when I was
just in the same room with her. She could have been hostile toward
me for my simply regarding her as being different from me. But she
never was, and still wasn’t. Hell, she’d gotten half naked because
I said, ‘Hey, what up with
those
?’ I found
myself actually laughing because of that, and she caught me, and
smiled curiously.