hidden (16 page)

“I bet none came close to Anita Fixx.”

I nod. She’s got a point. Anita’s living as a woman in an underground safe house. Girl. Works. It. Out.

“Most queens, they’ll read your outfit. Me? I’m Gen Next. Coming to a salon near you, Anita Fixx, the Psychic Hairstylist.”

“In the hospital, I forget. What do they call it?”

“
G.I.D.
Gender Identity Disorder. Some bullshit trip they lay on you if you’re a woman, but you were born a man. Of course, the counselor’s always got it wrong. There’s Joey who wanted to
dress
like a girl, and Josephine who wanted a mastectomy and a penis. Blue jeans, flannel shirt and combat boots being beside the point. Personally, I’m looking forward to getting mine cut off. Sweetheart, did they use that on you? For your diagnosis?”

“I don’t know.” I feel really dumb. GID sounds way more scientific than, “I like boys.” “My parents said it was coz I had a concussion. Said I was, ‘Noticeably different.’”

“Different being how you stopped pretending you wasn’t staring at boys?”

“Pretty much.”

“Darling.” She laughs. “Could you scootch ya’self forward? The tinfoil …”

Tinfoil makes me think, baked potato with sour cream and chives. Anita’s hands get busy all over my head. She picks up the paintbrush, dips it in the beige goop and glops it over my scalp.

“What’s that color?”

“Black. Gonna make you darker than shoe leather.” She steps back and studies the back of my head. “Serious. You got any preferences? Besides the obvious?”

“Blond. A really
good
blond.”

“Like Hammer? If he let his stubble grow out? Then you can cam ho’ and sell it, two fer one. Don’t lie! Mama got your number.”

I doubt it since I don’t even have a cellie but whatev. More silent paintbrush / gloop activity follows. Even if she gets the sex change, what will she ever do about those hands? They’re huge.
Breasts, makeup, long hair and hormones will fool a dude (at night), but there’s nothing she can do about those hands. Then again, maybe she’ll meet a dude who doesn’t care. Or, she’s a pre-op
lesbian
trans girl. She’s gentle. Maybe, with a gift like hers, nobody will notice.

Meanwhile, I fantasize about how I’ll look: blond, angel-fairy-boy.

“Strawberry blond is not just a color,” she says, folding tinfoil and bobby pinning them onto my head. I worry she’s building a satellite dish.

“It’s not?”

“No. Strawberry’s a street ho who’ll do it for a hit of crack.”

Anita brushes on more beige glop and folds more aluminum foil triangles. The bathroom functions much like a regular beauty salon. Spurts of conversation. Silence. Physical transformation in-between the two. I wonder, is “the unexamined life” just another version of “ignorance is bliss” but without the blond hair color?

“I must say, you don’t really look like the type.” She steps back and examines her work.

“Type of what?”

She fusses with the tinfoil. “That hurt?”

“Stings. My scalp.”

“Good. Means the glop’s doing its thing.”

“I better not end up looking like my stepmother.”

“No, Cinderella, your black Arab coif’s gonna look Uni-porny.”

“‘Cause my stepmother’s never fooled anyone. She thinks gypsy bitch orange is blond. You should hear her friends’ ‘compliments.’ ‘Oh, Haifa! Your hair looks really, so, different!’”

“If someone named Anita Fixx don’t know the secrets of beauty, then who the fuck does?”

“True.” I nod. “What type am I?”

“Well …” She washes out the paintbrush in the sink and glances at me over her shoulder. “You look like the type with a hard-on for Hammer who will break J.D.’s heart.”

I thought my face was unreadable. A mask. Anita saw right through me. Same as I noticed her boozy breath. Habits or glances, we all give ourselves away.

“
Knew
. It.” She slips a plastic cap over my head and sets an egg timer. She removes the plastic gloves.
Snap!
“Now we wait for the miracle of color to do its magic.”

In the world of hair color, I guess miracles and magic are like tricks are for kids. She pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights up.

“How’s it we’re all drug free but everyone here smokes? Last time I checked, nicotine’s a habit.”

“Yes, it is,” she exhales, smoke drifting out her nostrils. “Smoking’s a way to pass the time. Sad cliché, but you’ll learn, it’s true. In here, minutes can turn into days.”

“Are you drunk?”

Without a word, she leans over, her right leg reaches out and a big fluffy toe shuts the door.
Click.
Oops. My bad. Edit. My
real
bad. If the safe house is anything like Serenity Ridge, there are The Rules. And then there are The
Unspoken
Rules.

“Yes, I’ve had a nip, or two,” she says, cool as a serial killer femme fetale. “Which is
my
business.”

“Yes, it is.” She’s been nothing but nice, and I act like a dick-head. A judgmental one. Kidd and me share a character defect. My head fries—in total silence. I count the minutes ticking off the timer. Nineteen and a half minutes. I must sound like a snotty little bitch.

Blond? I can just hear Anita say. No, Ben, I see you closer to your ethnic
roots
. How about gypsy bitch
orange?

“My parents are obsessed with grain content.”

“Here.” She offers me the sports “water” bottle.

“No, thanks,” I say, and shake my head. Tinfoil rustles.

“You don’t drink?” She poses her question in a neutral, shrink voice. The neutral voice is supposed to make troubled teens spill the beans. I learned quick to say as little as possible. They wrote everything down and used it all against me.

“I’m still trying to flush all that junk they slammed in me.”

“I thought it was coz you’re Muslim.”

“No,” I say, feeling my face flush. My honorary bin Laden-ness is that obvious? “More O.J.’s distant relation.”

“Huh.” Her fingertips test my hair. She’s too much of a pro to fuck up my color. People would see my gypsy bitch orange hair and blame
her
. “Would that be like Liz Taylor playing Cleopatra? Or that blond baby Jesus? The originals, you know they were
all
black.”

Anita parks the cigarette between her lips, leans forward and carefully lifts my cafeteria lady cap. Her big hands touch my head. I jump-flinch. Maybe her trans’ness makes me feel more uncomfortable than I care to admit. No matter, the tub water’s running. She must have sensed my discomfort (or seen it: How could she have missed it? I almost jumped off the toilet). She puts her fingers under the flow, testing the temperature. She yanks off the plastic cap and steps aside. “Rinse. Keep your eyes shut tight.”

I lean forward, head under the faucet.
Whoosh!
I love the feeling of the warm water flooding my head with Anita’s big fingers giving me a scalp massage.

“K, upsie!” She tilts me up, towel dries my head. She finishes me off, styling my new ’do with a blow dryer and shiny goop scooped out a metal tin. The attention makes me feel like the Prince of the Safe House.

“There,” she says, giving me one last dab. She steps back, admiring her work. “Take a look.”

I turn and face the mirror. See. Me. And …

“Well?”

“I … love him!”

“Beautiful,” she says, and slips out. “I’ll let you two get to know one another.”

Makeover madness! I don’t recognize my reflection. I’m so beautiful I’m …
someone else.
For sure, I’m
not
the snot-nosed seventh grader whose picture is plastered on a milk carton. I lean toward “him.” I’m the boy who I’ve always wanted to kiss. Too bad the closest I’ll ever get to him is my reflection in a dirty bathroom mirror. Anita has a point. I
am
good enough to sell.

A second face emerges in the dirty mirror. I know that face, but I can’t recall from where.

I rub my eyes. I open them. The other face is gone. Good thing, too, since seeing other people’s faces in the mirror—when you’re supposed to see your own—means you’re crazy, for reals.

I touch my head. I’ve seen this color before. But on another boy’s head. His eyes look back at me in the mirror. Face in the brushed, silver metal door—

It opens—

He—

Opens his mouth—

Creak—

He’s here—

Opens more—

And—

Screams—

I feel faint—

Open my eyes—

Same as—

The Dead Boy in the Bus Station Bathroom.

“H
ey, hey—”

I lie on the cold tile floor. I either was in a fight (and lost) or fainted. Left hand to tub, I push and try to stand.

“Here,” he says, grabs my hand and pulls me up.

“Embarrassing.” I laugh weakly and sit on the toilet seat.

“I walk in. You were up. And then, you weren’t.”

Instant replay. I was so caught up with admiring my trés sexy reflection in the mirror I don’t hear footsteps on the tile floor.

“‘Scuse me, I need to use the john.” I stand and walk toward the door. “Hey, I’m not kicking you out.”

He sits on the tank, reaches back and opens the tiny window.

“You gonna rinse off?” His voice sounds like bubble gum. Or that old, famous actor. What’s his name? Brando?

“Rinse?”

“Hands.” I look at my hands. “Unless you’re ready for surgery?”

“Yeah,” I say, desperate to avoid his gaze. He leans toward the open window. Thumb to match, he pops a flame, holds up the ciggie and inhales. The ciggie’s tip sizzles, red. I stare, mesmerized by how he works the cancer stick.

I give him a *subtle* boutique once-over. He’s got The Look: black skull cap (overlapping, white letters, “N—Y” on the
front), oversized white tee and baggy jeans cinched tight on a wasp waist. Hot, J.D.’s a Real Live Gay Gang Banger.

“Wass’up?” he says, reaches down and, looking me in the eye, adjusts his package. Yeah, Holmes, I know, your cajones are
That Big
. “You strictly dickly?”

“Am I what?”

“Do. You. Suck. Cock? Or swing both ways? I’d ask, are you trans, but you’re not giving that.”

Giving? Trans? IDK, I flash my Ferrari, a closed-mouthed smile. In my head, I summon a fashion police lineup. J.D., Kidd and Hammer. They’re
all
sexy but hella different. I rate them, one, two, three. Fire, Ice, Airhead.

He picks the paper (the one that fell out Kidd’s backpack) and holds it up.

“Thanks,” I say, and reach to take it. “Marci’s Rules.”

He rolls his eyes and holds on to the paper. “Yeah, her ‘rules,’” he says, leans back and takes a drag. “That’s her trying to be ‘straight edge.’ She ‘claims’ she’s all stepping it.”

“Stepping?” I use the neutral shrink voice. J.D. holds the paper. How do I get it back? “Like stairs?”

“Sober,” he says. “No drugs or Anita’s Jesus juice.”

“Like Evergreen.” He shoots me the WTF look. “You
know
—
Twelve Steps to Overcoming Homosexuality
.”

“Oh, yeah.” He bluffs. I don’t care. I vibe him: “Give me the list … Give me the list … Give me the list …”

“They never tried that shit on you?”

He leans back and rests his skull on the ledge. A thin stream of white smoke escapes his lips. It curls up and out the tiny window. If a stranger sees the smoke, will they think, S.O.S.?

“For reals.” He nods. I don’t believe him. “Last time we got raided—”

“
Raided?
Like, Raid, a roach bomb or—”

“No, raided cops and dogs. But cops and roaches, hah hah, there’s not much difference. This one kid, Kevin, he was so stoopid from smoking a blunt, he ran out the
front
door.”

“
Damn
.” I whistle. I act like I’m caught up. In his story and faux—F-A-K-E—ghetto speak, that’s straight outta Compton. No, wait, MTV! Well, we do live in a roach-infested walk-up. Some would count that as “ghetto.”

His hand—the one holding the cigarette—hangs out the window, in the air shaft. He takes a drag. His Adam’s apple bobs. Maybe I can distract him. Lick his neck and steal the paper. His head snaps up. Our eyes meet. Somewhere, in the electrified air between us, if I’m feeling this, then he must be, too?

“
Damn
ain’t the half of it. Last I heard, Kevin got sent down to solitary. I heard he’s all droolin’ ’n shit from the ’tropes ’n the EST. So. You
do not
want to get your ass caught. Not now. Cuz, they’d feel
obliged
to
learn
you, like some ax murderer. Or pedophile.”

Arms overhead, he stretches. The deep yoga breath forces the nicotine in real deep. His body’s limber, like taffy. Or, a cat’s. He folds himself over, head on knees, arms alongside his legs. Show off.

I turn to the mirror and stare at my new look. I don’t care if he sees.

“Why didn’t you use the fire escape?”

“Occupado and, besides, it’s hella cold out there.”

He offers the pack.

“No.” I shake my head. “But that just means there’s more for you!”

“You and Anita been hanging out.”

“She says that to everyone.”

“Basically but—” He takes another deep yoga drag. “That’ll change.”

“I made up my own No Smoking policy.”

He hops off the toilet, stands behind me and rests his head on my shoulder.

“Why does that color look
so
lame on me and
so
damn good on you?”

Flattered, I admire my reflection. No shame!

“There should be laws against people like me looking this young and this cute. It’s sick, though, huh.”

“What?”

“What what?”

“Sick?” He lifts the toilet seat. “You need to?”

“No, fool.” I laugh. “
Kewl
. You been in here that long?”

“Guess.” He tilts his head and shrugs, Don’t Know / Don’t Care. “I’ve lived here almost eight months.”

He reaches out and runs his hand through my new hair. Spine chills. He may not know today’s teen lingo, but he’s got the touch.

“Feels like mink,” he says, steps back, sits on the tank and takes a drag. Slow and sexy. He gives me a
look
, fucking me with his eyes. His head drops back, Marie Antoinette style. Say the window drops, there goes his neck, chop!, guillotine style.