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Amy 14: If You Pull My Hair, I'll Kill You by Amy Komori The original characters and plot of this story are the property of the author. No infringement of pre-existing copyright is intended. This story is copyright (c) 2012 Amy Komori. All rights reserved. Chapter One: Piece of Rhubarb Sarah, Gina, Lena and Michelle were happy enough to forget I'd ever worn the blue and white polyester/Lycra blend uniform of a Delacroix High School Blue Devil junior varsity cheerleader. We pinky-swore never to talk about it again and when the day came my eye was finally healed from the last smack Heidi gave it, it would no longer be part of my biography. Total bullshit, of course. Actually, Michelle Cho was the first person I asked to forget it. What a stupid mistake that was. I asked her to do me this one little slate- cleaning favor at the skatepark and because I didn't have my helmet on--which gave Michelle the perfect opening--she reached over and ruffled my hair with both hands. I closed my eyes, grimaced and kind of ducked my head down. When I opened my eyes again, Michelle was rolling away, smirking back at me over her shoulder. Right in front of everyone! Frowning and humiliated, I tried to push my hair back into some kind of shape, then pulled on my helmet. I felt like a complete dork. Despite my still having some bruising around my eye (which I thought was pretty sexy), Michelle got to be the coolest girl at the skatepark all day with everyone kissing her ass and--even more frustrating-- for the longest time nothing I tried to get back at her seemed to work. She was either too far away or else she'd see what I was doing and skate away quickly. Finally, she let her guard down, probably thinking she'd defeated me for the day. It was getting kind of late in the afternoon and everyone was pretty tired. Only a few kids were still skating and a lot of the softies had already hauled for home. Michelle and I were standing on the top of the vert looking like mirror images or twin sisters in our baggy black Dickies, pointy fringes of glossy black hair creeping out from under our helmets, both of us kind of shiny and tan. Except I had on a puka shell necklace and a black tank, plus beaded bracelets on both my wrists, while Michelle's neck and wrists were unadorned and her tank was olive. Without warning I whacked her with the side of my hand as hard as I could in the arm and while she was still in shock and taking these quick little pain breaths, I dropped in and started skating. I was smart enough not to get anywhere within arm's reach of her after that, too. But by then even we were too pooped to pop. When Mrs. Komori rolled up in her car to take me home for dinner a short time later, I fully considered myself top girl and if she was really sweet to me the next week, just maybe I'd let Michelle hang out with me. Then, a couple of days later when my other friends and I gathered in Gina's garage to practice for our band's live debut, I made my case to them--seal my stupid court records, please. And as soon as the words left my mouth, even though I'd been a lot more eloquent and forceful than before (lesson learned), I immediately found out I'd made another mistake. "Yeah," Gina said, oozing sarcasm as was her way from time to time. "I promise I'll totally avoid this topic from now on. We'll never, ever talk about how stupid you looked as the world's biggest dork on the free throw line at football games." "She means sideline," Lena said, which did nothing to cool the burning sensation on my cheeks. That I was dying from a crush on our wickedly evil drummer girl didn't help matters, either. "Stop telling people what I mean!" Gina snapped, her freckled face turning dark red. That made me smile, with my eyes narrow and evil- looking. But oh fuck oh fuck she was so cute when pissed. I went all squishy inside and the garage got kind of hot for a second, so I quickly looked back at Lena, and made my face as blank and innocent as possible. Teach me some music, Music Girl. Instead, Lena said, "She means she's going to use this cheerleading thingy against you every chance she gets," and patted her ringing ears. For her part, Lena really didn't care one way or the other about my having been a cheerleader. Things like that didn't register in her world, which was made up of treble clefs and whole notes instead of the atoms and neutrons that made up the rest of the universe. "I won't talk about it," Sarah said, looking at the other girls, then back at me. "Thank you," I said, closing my eyes. Then I opened them really wide and aimed them at Gina, who was still staring daggers at Lena. "At least someone loves me." I meant with all my heart I wanted her to love me for real, and I wouldn't have dared say it but I knew Gina would take it as a joke. Sometimes I considered myself pretty clever that way. Too clever. Sarah blushed and squealed, "I do!" Then she added in a tiny voice, "I totally love you. You're my best friend." "God!" Gina suddenly blurted at about the moment Sarah's adorableness became unbearable. Only this time she was trying desperately not to break into giggles. "This is the dyke-iest band ever!" After that everyone relaxed. Almost everyone. "Are we practicing or what?" Lena said, sounding pretty snappish. While Gina was just joking, Lena's exasperation was real so we instantly got back to work. While she was singing, Sarah kept stealing little glances at me. I knew this because I was stealing some of my own at Gina and Sarah was standing in my arc of vision each time I turned my head. My heart beat faster each time Gina and I made eye contact and I hoped it wasn't too noticeable that I was totally mooning over her. Suddenly Lena was right next to me. She glared at my busy fingers like she wanted to beat them flat with a mallet, then grabbed my hand and slid it up the neck of the bass. Apparently, I wasn't even close to playing the right notes. Lena smiled to soften the blow but I was thoroughly embarrassed, almost as much as I would've been when I was a guy and someone caught me jacking it. Only this was even worse in a lot of ways because it dealt with emotions, the real me that I was starting learn about. Then Lena was bouncing away--in time with Gina's beat, of course--and I buckled down and put forth some real effort. Which I naturally assumed everyone appreciated, although no one ever said anything about it all through the rest of our practice. I went home a little disappointed. Chapter Two: Hiding in Your Backyard That night, Emily was actually home for a change and hanging out with me in my room while I was bragging to her about our Halloween show and how hard we were working to finish up enough songs not to make complete asses of ourselves. Somewhere in there, I told her about how I'd asked for records to be expunged on the cheerleading matter and that I expected her full and unhesitating cooperation. "Sorry, Charlie," she said, smiling. "As your big sister, this is something I'm going to have to hold over you for the rest of your life." "What?" I said, half laughing, gently touching my eye, the littlest cyclops. The swelling was completely gone, and now I had this brownish- yellow stain or smear just above my cheek that looked like I'd rubbed a couple of different kinds of mascara into my skin. "But why?" "That's my job. Whenever you get too big for your pants, I'm going to remind you about the time you were a fucking Delacroix High cheerleader." "Pretty sneaky, sis," I replied, a la that old Connect Four commercial. "Like you're gonna have time now that you're seeing Snowboard Boy." Emily only smiled mysteriously, her eyes closed, her chin up. We were both sitting on the floor, our backs against my bed. My homework was lying next to me, textbooks and ruled paper covered with pencil marks and numbers. It was still way too familiar junk, still coming way too easily for me. All it took for me to become a mega-brain in high school was to start over from the beginning. The main annoyance about it was hand fatigue. "Halloween show, huh?" Emily asked. "Yeah, it's just some all-ages thing but it'll be our first time in front of people." "That's cool. Maybe Snowboard Boy and I will come by and check it out." "Do." "Maybe," Emily insisted. She stared at me very intently for long enough I thought she was playing with me, trying to make me laugh. I made my face as serious as possible and met her stare with one of my own. Instead of breaking in to giggles or something, Emily said, "Speaking of Halloween, how are you holding up lately?" "What do you mean?" "I dunno..." Emily's voice got a little softer, but she didn't drop her eyes or look away. "The cheerleading thing was so fucked up. This show. School. And..." Her voice was practically a mouse squeak at this point and I had to strain at the ears just to hear her. "I was just thinking about... this time last year. You remember." Last year. It would've been better if I hadn't heard her. I was the one who had to look away. I turned my head, sucked in my breath, my heart palpitated and I shivered. Gooseflesh broke out all over my arms and I could see the fine hairs standing straight up. "Oh wow," Emily said softly. "I didn't--" "No, it's cool," I said. I made myself look at my sister and even forced a smile as I tried to fight off the cold with warm thoughts and another little body shake. The smile didn't last very long. Because... Yeah, remembered. I knew the order in my body altered and transitioned, staring with my hair, but I'd forgotten the exact day we'd first noticed the changes. And I wasn't sure when exactly my cells completed their re-working my physical self into that of a girl-child, so different from what I'd been before even if my thoughts had stayed strictly Martin's, it would have marked the birth of a new person from that seed material anyway. I knew for a fact at the internal changes continued for some time after the external ones stopped, but didn't have the faintest idea of when that moment came deep inside me and forever a secret. That it had was knowledge enough, and I was open for business down there, as proven by my red days each month. But what I did know, what I remembered, what I couldn't forget, what was stamped in my memory like an inscription on a gold bracelet was the day and hour and minute Emily and I had gone to that window and then the two of us running away and a fright that seemed too intense to be real. Remembered. Every detail of what we saw and felt together. "No," Emily said gently. "I'm sorry I mentioned it." "I'm okay..." "You don't look okay. You look kind of green..." "I guess," I said slowly as I tried to proceed with caution, my stomach turning flip flops. "I just... I knew the anniversary was coming, but I don't really like thinking about it. I mean thinking about me and what I'm learning and how I've changed, I don't mind that so much. But... her. I don't... I don't like thinking about her. Or... you know... that night." "God, Amy, I'm so sorry. I really didn't mean to upset you." "I'm not upset. I'm just kind of weirded out." "On our planet, we call that 'being upset.'" "Okay," I said and rolled my eyes, smiling despite myself. The sick feeling was passing. My tongue was loosening. "She took me like I was one glass of water and poured me into a different glass in a different shape and now I'm dealing with what that means. That means every single day I live with it. I pee sitting down, I bleed once a month, I'm in fucking high school again and a lot of the time I have very little impulse control. Sometimes I'm just doing these things like they're the most natural thing in the world, but sometimes I'm outside the situation and looking at me like I'm some kind of alien freak and I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Sometimes it scares me, too. Like this dumb thing that happened recently." "Recently?" "Okay, you're going to totally bust my balls--" "Ironic choice of words considering the topic." "Shut the fuck up. Don't interrupt, because I'm about to tell you something incredibly embarrassing." "Shoot, Pottymouth." "Well, the cool story you already know. The cool story is, I got my black eye from a fight with Heidi." "If you say so." "I do. Well, the not-so-cool part is..." I had to stop because I felt like such a little dumbass and wished I'd never started this confession. "You know I was coming back from Gina's, but what you don't know is, I wasn't walking." "Running?" "Hopping." "Hopping? What the fuck? You were hopping home?" "Not all the way home. But it was like a bunny." "Why would you... what? I can't get my mind to accept this." "I was hopping like a little bunny, okay? I felt bunny-like. Because I was happy about something." "What were you so happy about that it made you feel like a bunny?" "I don't want to tell you that yet. The point isn't that I was happy, it's that I was hopping like a bunny because I was happy." "And that's something you never would have done before." "Yeah, maybe when I was five. Why do I have impulses like this now? It's because of what happened to me and what I am now. I mean, I'm not sure if I'm a girl now or going to be one later or what's going to happen. I'm not even against being one anymore. But whatever else I am, I'm definitely 13, I'm in puberty, and it just so happens to be girl puberty, and as a result I'm now the kind of person who hops when she's happy. I mean, holy Jesus, Emily. I hopped. I didn't think about it, I just did it. It made me feel good. At least, it did until Heidi showed up." "Well, I think..." Emily paused, her face changing from hilarity to sincerity. She thought for a little bit. "We probably won't ever know what really goes on in your head. Has anybody else ever gone through this, I wonder? I know there's this Greek myth about this Tiresias guy--" "I know that one, too. They just don't say if he hopped when he was happy. When he was a she." "Yeah. But whatever, it's just an old story. I mean, considering what happened to you, maybe there's some basis in fact. But people just consider it this myth. What about like in real history, though? I've looked and looked, dude, and I haven't found anything like what happened to you. Not spelled out in as many words. Maybe in the books she read. Maybe in stuff she knew about." "You looked into it, though." "Not to that extent. God, Amy, just seeing her at that window was chilly enough. You can't go too far into it if you're... you know..." "Like you, instead of her." "She had no idea, I think. Not what she was getting into. I got scared and stopped looking. For a while I felt shitty about that, like I'd let you down. But... I couldn't follow after her." Now Emily looked pale and despite being such a tall girl, kind of smallish in my room, even compared to me. And I was fucking tiny. It made me hurt for her instead of for me. Then she was looking at me again with that piercing dark eyed Emily gaze no one could withstand for long. The one that usually preceded something something smart-ass and stinging. Or something just smart. "I wanted to help you change back, but then I thought the best thing was to help you adjust and become what you are now. Or something you could live with. I know it's beyond weird to change like you did, and I know guys are pretty paranoid about losing their junk, but from my perspective turning into a girl isn't a bad thing. Is it so terrible to be like me? Or Sarah? Or Michelle? Or Gina?" "Or Heidi." "Fuck her. You're going to meet assholes everywhere you go. But if you think about it, you gained a lot from it, even if it doesn't seem that way a lot of the time. That's you carrying baggage from your old life, I think. Although obviously being a girl in itself is pretty tricky. But she left you me and Mom. And she... she didn't vanish you like... you know." I nodded. I did know. I was way luckier than that guy, that's for sure. Being like Emily was pretty rad a lot of the time. And Michelle was my idol, although I'd never tell her that. "You know what it reminds me of a lot? 'Willy/Milly,' that movie. You're kind of like a reverse Milly in that 'Willy/Milly' movie," Emily said. "Or, to a much lesser extent, that guy Tiresias from the myth. Only I don't think you're going back like they did at the end of their stories. I think you're going forward. To wherever your story leads." I nodded again, sucking on my lower lip. Yeah. "Willy/Milly." I kind of halfway knew the movie Emily was talking about. Something about a girl who made a wish to be a boy and it came true. And Tiresias killed a girl snake while it was fucking and turned into a woman, fucked a bunch of people like that, then killed a boy snake while it was fucking and changed back. But those were fictional stories, and in the case of Tiresias, fucktional. But maybe there was a grain of truth inside that gender change stuff, too? Inside ever kernel of corn, there's an Amy Komori cornflake waiting to be born. We had to drop the subject. Too many awkward silences. Instead, Emily and I talked about a lot of other stuff after that, mostly music. But I didn't really hold up my end of the conversation or respond to her little jabs the way I usually did. Emily didn't give any sign of noticing how far away I acted, but if she did notice, she knew it was her fault and kept it to herself. It was this--I kept thinking about this journey that started over a year ago and the night we both learned I was stuck on the girl bus or train or whatever we were all riding on--all my sisters everywhere-- and had to go all the way to the final stop. The stupid hopping thing was part of it and from being full of hormones and twitchy and confused about love and all that crazy crap I'd already fucking gone through once before. I hadn't been the most mature guy in the world even before this happened, but obviously I'd regressed--which was not something I really cared to examine at all. Biology is the most difficult thing in the world to fight and I was the product of the most fucked-up experiment in biology the world had ever known. Before I fell asleep in the dark, I thought about how one year had almost passed, and I almost felt her in the room with me. That person. What had happened to her in the end? I trembled a little and pulled the covers up over my nose, inhaling my own minty toothpaste breath. The last thing I thought about was how I was still transforming, only it wasn't from magic this time. I was growing up. But into who? Into what? And how could I even be this person if I'd been someone else before? What the fuck was I doing? Chapter Three: Stepping on Sweet Flowers I woke up tired the next morning after all kinds of dreams about Gina and me that had my eyes popping open at odd hours and then later with pale early light coming through my curtains some about my old self. The self that had been tall and hairy and so proud of his thingy and the tricks it could do like getting all stiff and maybe shooting seeds into someone. It icked me out. I sat up blinking in bed with a phantom erection and clutched at my chest. There was no point in feeling down south because I knew what I'd find instead of a dick and already the feeling was fading away with the dream. Self-conscious, totally aware of my body and what I did have down there with its folds and warmth. A something that wanted more deeply than the superficial old way I'd awakened to. And I lay there thinking about it, sensing it, sensing how its presence fundamentally altered who I was and what I was capable of, how my dreams were changing and not just the ones from the night before, somehow I summoned up the worst aching feelings for Gina. They squirmed in my belly and lower than that even. Before I thought about it, I rolled onto my side and wrapped myself around my other pillow, knees up, rubbing myself into it. My first time trying something like this, no idea how it came to me to even start. I really had no idea how to do anything with it. I felt the friction warming me down there through my pajamas and undies, but nothing else happened until I accidentally made a little peeping noise then clamped my hands over my mouth to keep from making any more. Emily was asleep just on the other side of the wall and I didn't want her to hear me. Big sister! She was still here. She was staying the night because she missed us, Mrs. Komori and me. Then I was out of bed, shaking my pj bottoms out of my crotch and the longing was subsiding. My biggest disappointment, oddly enough, was not having been able to generate any feeling down there with the pillow. Jacking off as a guy had been the easiest thing in the world. Fuck, after I turned 13 it was almost harder to stop doing it. What was I supposed to do about it now, ask Emily for techniques? Or my school guidance counselor? How about Gina? That cheerful thought left me kind of vaguely defeated, made me feel like a tiny ghost fluttering around in my own life, haunting it. Ghost or not, I had no choice but to throw myself back into the crucible of hot melty shit we called Delacroix High. Where I was Freak Girl the Cheerleading Quitter. Tired, just so fatigued I could barely think, I stumbled through the worst, most troubling day at school where everyone made me nervous as fuck. It was like nothing I said made any sense, plus I couldn't stop yawning and even our teachers noticed and gave me the stink-eye. Sarah was all over me watching and fretting. My eyes hurt from fatigue and I felt nauseated a lot. Every time I saw Gina, my heart went completely berserk and I was afraid I was going to have to visit the school nurse and tell her I had a severe case of baby-dyke-itis. But something really cool happened when I got home. The phone rang and Emily was too engrossed in her studies at the kitchen table to answer it, so I did. It was Michelle and she didn't seem too upset about my having marked her good with that little smack the day before. We laughed about it and she told me the whole show thing had grown beyond our control and was going to happen whether we wanted it or not. "But we do want it," I told her. "I know you do, Claudia. I just mean it's on," Michelle said, using the dumbest of my many dumb nicknames, by way of punishing me for the bruise on her arm. We were bruise-sisters. Her voice went down in pitch and took on this creepy continental accent that wasn't German but not quite Russian either and she added, "Unless you like have an accident or something... down... at the skatepark..." Then she added this sinister laugh. "Oh, fuck you," I said. "Like you're really gonna do anything." "You're right. You're right. Maybe. Anyways, Bob's gonna be at Gina's tomorrow to listen to your shitty band and all just to make sure you suck as much ass as I told him you do. I just thought you should know." "Thanks." "Love you, Lady. Bye-bye!" Michelle chirped then hung up on me before I could say anything. She was telling the truth. Bob and his drummer Bill-- this pale chubby guy with thinning red hair and a moon face plus absolutely no fucking personality whatsoever-- came to Gina's garage to watch us play the next day. But how was I feeling, the Princess of Mean? I was practically a zombie from a second night of Halloween-inspired nightmares and Gina-Want. My hair was sticking out in all directions and my eyes were puffy and my clothes felt like they were strangling my entire body. But I showed up for practice anyway when I really wanted to be lying with my head on a soft, cool pillow somewhere just listening to "Exile in Guyville" or Frente. Accidentally Kelly Street where Amy and Heidi sometimes meet... That's how the words formed in my head, but of course I meant Gina. Amy and Gina sometimes meet. Unless I was secretly singing about wanting to get punched again. Everyone else talked business (mostly Lena) or else just babbled excited, far-fetched stuff (Sarah and Gina) about signing with a label or renting a beach house and writing an album. Usually I was down with that kind of crazy scheming but I just listened and smiled when appropriate, then Bob and Bill told us the details of what was actually going to happen. My idea that we'd be playing at the same place we'd first met him was way off. It turned out their band, Cream Corn Superstar, had a show at El Banditos, a Mexican restaurant that pretty much let anyone play who wanted to. The reason it was all-ages was they had this new guitarist who was only 18. Supposedly--as I'd heard a couple of times from Michelle--he was this incredible genius they'd recently stolen from another band. Also, Genius Guitar Boy worked at El Banditos where he bussed tables, washed dishes and generally fucked around with all the other employees, who were all well-known pot heads-- background info according to Michelle, because Bob didn't get into that part of it since it was pretty irrelevant anyways. Bob let us know to be there around 5pm and we'd get to do a sound check and go on around 7pm and they'd play thirty or forty-five minutes later. "That sounds cool," Lena said, kind of looking back over her shoulder at us. "We don't even have that many songs anyways." Beside her, Sarah nodded then looked at me like she expected my input. She'd picked up on my inner weirdness and was watching me all the time now. But what was I going to say to her? Even after putting in all that effort we still only had about six songs (Lena's personal song list was approximately infinite, by the way) we could all sort of play together. And I was only relatively competent on three of them. I just hoped Lena and Sarah would distract everyone away from my musical suckitude, which was bound to be even worse than usual. "Let's hear what you've got," Bob said in this good-natured way. Bill just kind of smirked. But they listened to us play my three best songs through from beginning to end (Sarah was ultra-nervous, but came through like a pro) and pronounced us "show-worthy." Bob really liked the bass Lena was letting me use, its blonde maple fretboard. "That's sweet, dude," he told me, fingering my bass strap. "Yeah, well only the strap's mine," I said, looking away as if bored. But I wasn't bored at all. Thanks to my frazzled state, I was suddenly freaked out by having Bob and his guy junk, his fucking penis and testicles-- just like the ones I'd lost and didn't even fucking understand anymore-- in my personal space, crowding me like that and just freely touching my strap. Touching my strap! Without asking! I knew he didn't mean anything by it. He wasn't trying to harm me or anything and he probably would have felt like total shit if he'd known how I felt at that moment, but my heart, treacherous for two days now, took off galloping along so fast and loudly I was surprised everyone couldn't hear it blaring out of my ears like a car with a thump bass system and the nerves everywhere in my body were sending me electric danger signals. I didn't like it. But who ever liked danger signals anyways? Fuck! I was around dudes all the time at the skatepark, noisy, stupid dudes who said crude shit to me all the time and Michelle and I knocked them down, slung wicked smart-ass comments like we were shooting up a china shop with machine guns. Why was this happening to me all of a sudden? Then Bob asked, "Can I try it?" I took off the bass without saying a word--thinking something about how he'd just usurped me-- and just kind of retreated from him and slumped against the garage wall to compose myself and look all cool and nonchalant. Half-lidded eyes and all, my arms across my chest and my hands tucked under to hide my trembling . I'd managed some kind of narrow escape but secretly called myself stupid for feeling that way. My nerve endings were calming down but still barking at my brain a little, but my brain was telling them to settle their stupid asses down. Sarah was staring at me with this concerned look on her face. She asked, "Are you all right?" "It's..." I said in a small voice. Then I managed a smile and a half-lie. "I just didn't sleep much last couple of nights and it's kind of catching up with me." "Poor baby," Sarah said, with complete sincerity. Then I was starting to come around. It was okay. I was a girl, among girls, and Bob was just some nice guy, not a threat or a challenge or some shocking reminder of my penis-laden past that was now lost and gone forever. And if it is gone, then fuck it, I thought. That made me feel even better. Fuck penises, I thought. Then the total ridiculousness of that statement made me crack up. I put my hands in front of my mouth to try and stop myself. Holy shit, I'm losing my fucking mind, I silently screamed. Bob and Bill were sharing a glance. Probably thinking what a weird kid I was. Sarah goggled. Everyone else looked at me like I'd set myself on fire. Embarrassed, I stop laughing and frowned. Almost stopped. I coughed out a few more before I finally settled down. "Are you going to play or what?" Lena asked Bob impatiently, but she was staring right at me and the message in her eyes was kind of "What the fuck?" "I'm sorry," Bob said, tuning the guitar. "I was waiting for your bass player to either get over her heart attack or drop dead from it." "No such luck," I said sullenly. Inwardly, I went icy and took back the nice guy remark. Smart ass fucker. Bob blew us all away by playing and singing John Entwistle's bass lines for the Who's "Pinball Wizard", then Kim Deal's for "Here Comes Your Man" by the Pixies (Frank Black is god) and finally, his big finish, he took Lena's guitar and rocked that Dick Dale song from "Pulp Fiction". He was better than Lena even and she was pretty fucking good as far as I was concerned. But there was a huge difference between a high school kid prodigy and some college-age guy who was practically a pro. I could see Lena staring at him with this strange intensity, her eyes almost lit from within. She's seeing something there the rest of us aren't, I thought. She's learning from him. After a while, Bob got sick of showing off, so he and Bill said their good-byes and Lena made us go through our set twice before she declared herself satisfied with our progress. "Hey, Amy," she said as I struggled to stand the bass case against the garage wall. "What?" "I was just gonna say that sounded pretty good. Better than usual." "Oh. Thanks." "I know you're kinda struggling with it. I just want you to know the times when you sound good. You're making progress." "Cool. I'm Progress Girl." She looked at me funny. Again. For a moment I was afraid Lena was going to jump on the Ruffle Amy's Hair Train, too, but instead she just turned and started putting her guitar away, spouting all this musical stuff I didn't understand. She and Gina got into a discussion and while I would have loved to have stayed and listened, I really needed to go. I had to pee, I was starving and I was feeling kind of weak in the knees. Sarah and I took off together and I was finally able to totally turn off my brain and just listened to her go on and on about the day's classes. When I got home, I got the best surprise. Emily was still there, planned to spend another night with us and was actually in the kitchen helping Mrs. Komori by putting some rolls in the oven. She was in a question asking mood. So while we ate, I somehow found the energy to answer a lot of questions about El Banditos and Cream Corn Superstar. "Pretty exciting," Mrs. Komori said during a lull in the info-stream. "What time does it start?" "We're supposed to do sound check at 5pm," I said, sounding like a jaded music pro. Mrs. Komori nodded. And being the world's best substitute mom, she totally understood when I begged her not to come, but Emily said she'd definitely bring a bunch of people from the art school. "It'll be a real rah-rah-rocking time," she cracked, emphasis on "rah- rah." I made a sour face at her. "Emily," Mrs Komori said. She shook her head. "That's how I know she loves me," I told her. After that I skipped doing my homework and just watched my beautiful big sister doing hers. I want to grow up to be you, I told her in my mind. Of course she had no idea. She wasn't telepathic or anything. I fell asleep with my head on her thigh later while we watched TV and that was the last thing I knew until I woke up in my own bed the next morning. Chapter Four: Little Miss Knowledge Sleeping through the night really helped a lot. In school that day I didn't feel so weirded out around guys and had more energy like my usual self, and I was starting to think more and more about the show. Even though most people just ignored us as usual, I was actually getting this slowly growing feeling we were like Josie and the Pussycats, with me as Josie, of course. I mentioned it at lunch and ignited a minor argument in the cafeteria. "Sarah and Lena have to share being Melanie, though," I explained smugly. It felt good to be able to achieve smugness. It really did. "It's not Melanie, dumb ass," Gina said. "This is the girl who hates to be corrected," I told Sarah, rolling my eyes at Gina. "It's Melody," Gina said, ignoring me. "Whatever, dude," I said. "You're the black chick." "Cool by me. The black chick is always the coolest one." I thought it over. That was unacceptable. "Then I wanna be the black chick," I said. "No way. You're already Josie," Gina said, putting this sarcastic emphasis on "Josie." "You be Josie. I wanna be the black chick." "Uh uh. You're not cool enough. I'm the cool one, so I'm the black chick." "Do you even remember the black chick's name?" "No. When we used to play 'Josie' as kids, no one ever wanted to be her. I was always Josie." "That's the most racist thing I've ever heard." "You obviously have sheltered ears, then. But it's true." "Sheltered ears? What the fuck?" Gina blew on her own bangs, pushed my forehead and I almost died. I felt her handprint there, burning like a love bite, all through my next class. I squirmed and fidgeted, all fluttering butterflies and sparkling pixie dust inside. She touched me! I wanted to find excuses to touch her back! Then it hit me what my problem was. I missed sleep, I felt anxious and full of all these unfulfilled longings because I was horny! This is what it was like to be horny as an Amy. Did Sarah and the others go through similar things? Horny. And now possessing self-awareness. I'd re-developed a sexuality. I wasn't just crushing on Gina, I wanted her to fuck me. I wanted her to make me have a million orgasms. In a way it was a relief to find out what I needed was... Relief! It made me feel strangely normal for a change. I walked down the hall through all the other idiot kids who were probably surging with the same natural urges they felt shame about or whatever. I started biting my lower lip, smiling at their faces like I finally knew what everyone was thinking. Zits and oily faces the visible signage. We're all growing up and we're all going to get married to each other and make the next clueless generation. When I saw Heidi and Superboy standing close together at her locker, I glanced down at his zipper and yeah, there was the tell-tale bulge that meant he was nursing a boner. I knew what that was all about, dude. Heidi probably had the female equivalent, and now I knew a lot about that, too. They didn't see me because that was something I preferred not to include in my new wisdom. Later that afternoon, in the afterglow of this major self-discovery (I was starting to consider myself the Marie Curie of Amy-physics), I sat next Dallas in art class. There were guys in the class, but Dallas and I had our own table and had created a kind of penis no-fly zone, completely menstrual and vaginal in the way that times spent alone--or almost alone--with Dallas tended to be because she was that kind of girl. Dallas kind of amazed me sometimes. Most of the time she was darkly annoying in a poseur sort of way but now she was drawing the posters for our show with me practically leaning on her shoulder just gawking like a little dumbass, deeply impressed: she'd invented these evil-looking caricatures of our band for one, then this manga-style one with us as giant-eyed cyber-girls with these wired, bionic arms and legs. Our band name? Dallas had left that area conspicuously blank because we were still conspicuously nameless. "I'm assuming one of you can do the typography when you come up with a name," Dallas said. She was still drawing, her hand moving fluidly across the paper, adding the outside contours of manga-Sarah's leg. "Typography?" I asked. "Just the words. You know, draw some pretty letters making up your band name, silly." Silly? For some reason, I thought, Silly monkey, Trix are for kids. But it wasn't a Trix monkey, it was a Trix rabbit. Why did I turn him into a monkey? And then my brain made a connection. When Emily and I first started dating, she constantly played this CD by a band called Happy Monkey Do, a Japanese all-girl punk band that was kind of like a harder Shonen Knife, like really noisy and aggressive and almost tuneless at times. Their lead singer was this woman named Mitsuyo, who was practically legendary and had been practically worshipped by none other than Kurt Cobain. Other than that, I didn't know that much about her, but I wasn't about to let on to Dally-doll just how ignorant I was. Although she was even more ignorant, because she didn't know Happy Monkey Do at all. Anyways, how I learned that much was Emily had been obsessed with Happy Monkey Do for about a month and had paid something like 30 bucks for the CD, a major investment for her at the time. I'd pretended to like them--really, I was only mildly interested--but I'd listened to them a few more times since without Emily's knowledge and they'd really started growing on me. I was itching to learn more about them. In fact, as I stood there watching Dallas draw, I felt this warmth come over me and I knew it was right. Happy Monkey Do just clicked with me. I felt I understood them at last. It was like being born! For the second time that day, lights came on, angels wet their pants and all my anxieties just popped like a balloon. All that good shit. Two epiphanies! In one day! Wow! Feeling like the smarter girl tiger ever, I said, "Put Silly Monkey as our name." "Silly What? Fuck, dude, that's a terrible name," Dallas said, dropping her voice to a whisper so she could curse. "No! It's awesome! Do it!" I ordered. "Gina's totally going to hate that." "No she won't. Not after I explain it to her." "Silly Monkey? You really want to call your band Silly Monkey?" "What do you care? You're not in it!" I physically started to push Dallas out of her seat, saying, "Move over, bitch, and I'll do it!" "Ms. Komori, could I see you for a second?" our teacher said in a sharp tone that got some oohs and ahhs out of the other kids. If only I'd learned from Dallas and kept my voice down. I had to go have a quiet conference with the teacher about how if I wasn't going to do any artwork of my own, the least I could do is sit there and let real artists like Dallas do theirs. Also to mind my language. But I was starting to tremble with the need to move, to shake my body all over. To growl or hop or dance or some other ridiculous thing. Because Gina. Because Silly Monkey! By the time I got back to Dallas's art table, she'd already filled in Silly Monkey with lettering that went perfectly with the rest of the drawing. And our band had a name. I made a mental note to listen to Happy Monkey Do once more when I got home to make sure they were really as incredible as I was thinking they were. I was so excited about our new name and the great day I was having I felt like I was on a sugar high. What I needed, I decided, was action, action and more action. And Dallas. When the last bell rang, I pulled a Michelle Cho and accosted Dallas in front of her locker. "Dude," I pleaded, "You have to come with me." Dallas looked kind of shocked and maybe even a little pleased. She was more Michelle's friend than mine, and outside of art class, we didn't hang out or even talk that much. "Why do I have to come with you?" "We're putting up those flyers you made." "Why don't you and your band of monkeys do it?" "No! You made them. You get to help me put them up." "Why me?" "I just told you why you. Come on. We hardly ever get any alone time." I was just joking around. Before that popped out, having alone time with Dallas was on my list of fun things to do in front of getting my ass kicked by Heidi Fleegleman, but behind having my teeth cleaned. I didn't dislike her; I just didn't know her and she seemed kind of a downer most of the time I talked to her. But that didn't stop me from dragging her downtown to Kinko's where I talked her into paying to run off about a hundred of each poster. Then we went out and slapped them everywhere, on ever surface we could find. On the info kiosks downtown and in store windows (but only where allowed, because Josie and the Pussycats never broke the law). Surprisingly, it wasn't all that bad hanging out with Dallas. She kind of lightened up as we talked. I found out a few things about her family, about her older brother who was gay and involved in the LGBT organization at the university. Apparently, he'd just started seeing this really awesome guy and had never been happier. After she told me that I was able to kind of reflect on my own situation. Maybe one day, I'd be out or whatever. That was apparently the way I was headed. By then I'd know how to use my stuff to get off and all that. I'd know what to do with my clitoris, for example, and if I really did have a G-spot or if it even existed, for that matter. I no longer trusted the beyond-idiotic notions I'd picked up from my past life and what I knew of doing it as a guy. I really needed to start experimenting whenever the feeling came over me. And I'd learn to do it as girls did it. First alone. And then with Gina, for example. No reason why she should come to mind, of course. No reason at all, replied my poor pillow. Then Dallas said, "Look!" "What?" She was pointing. There was Bob, doing the same thing we were doing. He saw us approaching and smiled, squinting a little against the sun. Everything good just seemed to drain out of me and into the anxiety balloon I thought I'd popped earlier. It grew fat and bright red like my face and floated just above my head, casting a vaguely translucent pinkish shadow over everything. And then Bob was walking right up to us. I kept my eyes above his waist, but that meant looking up at his face, which guaranteed contact and communication. "What's up, Amy?" he asked. I shrugged. Since my tongue felt glued down inside my mouth, shrugging seemed like the thing to do. It was noncommittal and Dallas could interpret it however she wanted. But mostly it was easy. Inside, my heart was attempting an escape. I had slightly more control of myself this time, but holy fucking Jesus, he made me totally nervous. A year ago, fucker, and we would've had a totally different way of relating! But now I knew a thing or two you never would! "What have you got there?" Bob asked Dallas, and she let him take our flyers. It was like my bass being taken away from me all over again. I balled my fists and squeezed. Bob looked at our flyers with his eyebrows raised while I tried to think of a way to run away without sacrificing my dignity. "They're flyers," I said. My voice came out squeaky and I could almost sense Dallas scrutinizing me. "Whoa! These are pretty awesome, dude. Did you do these?" "She did." I tipped my head at Dallas. "Silly Monkey?" "Yeah..." "Okay, cool. We... uh... we didn't have a name for you guys, so we just..." Bob let his voice trail off and he handed me one of his flyers. Theirs were a lot cruder than ours. Okay, they were terrible. You'd think that out of a group of guys who were such hotshot musicians or whatever they'd have at least one person who had some other skill set. But whoever drew them hadn't advanced past stick figures. Cream Corn Superstar and Guests. Something started to coalesce in front of me. "We're... the guests?" I said, kind of stupidly I thought. I peered up at Bob from under my bangs. "Yeah, well..." Then Bob said, "I'm really looking forward to it, man. This show's going to fucking rock. Lena can play the fuck out of guitar, and your singer's pretty good, too. Shit, next time we play, we'll have Dallas do our flyers for us. I mean, if you want to." Dallas nodded, kind of like she didn't care one way or the other and said, "Sure." "We'll pay you, or whatever. Silly Monkey. Fuckin' A, dude." I smiled. And there it was. My third epiphany of the day. I was a motherfucking epiphany making machine. I actually started to feel sorry for Bob and his dumb little flyers! They made him seem diminished, human scale. Just a person, not a giant walking dick and balls or a challenge or symbol or whatever. Of course our flyers were better than Bob's. Why wouldn't they be? Dallas was awesome at art. I had capable friends. I was capable, too. I couldn't play bass for shit but I'd done that flatspin down at the vert, hadn't I? I'd gotten back at Michelle Cho, hadn't I? I'd even beaten Heidi Fleegleman at her stupid school politics game. Bob handed me back our flyers and I thanked him in a fake British accent with an exaggerated smile and nod. No more balloon shadow. It felt good to know I didn't have to feel shitty or quite so nervous around him anymore. I didn't know if he really believed in us or not, and of course he hadn't included me in the compliments. But I wasn't about to kid myself, even if Lena had decided to do it for me. Lena and Sarah were our real strength, and Gina could keep up with them. All I had to do was ride along and keep my suckage to a minimum and whatever resulted would be interesting, to say the least. So a year later and I wasn't doing anything wrong. I had nothing to be ashamed of. It really wasn't terrible being like Emily, Michelle, Sarah or even Dallas. It didn't matter if I was growing out my hair, shaving my legs, wearing my power beads, yearning for Gina like the queer chick I was becoming and trying to figure out how to masturbate. I was just being me. Someone I could live with, the way Emily wanted. I wasn't exactly a total fucking winner. I was now officially a dumb teenager after all, smart and clever but capable of any number of completely stupid acts. I could deal with that, too. Because people loved me and wanted nothing but the best for me. But as positive as I felt at the moment about my situation, I didn't feel like I'd completed the trip. I still had a long way to go and I could still end up any number of ways, maybe even some kind of guy again even if I was a guy with a vagina. Life is like that. You make progress, then you shit and fall back in it, you clean yourself off, start out again, make left and right turns. Each turn was treacherous and led through places dangerous, rocky and sharp with a lot of bad endings in store. But sometimes you got epiphanies. Tiresias didn't have jack on me in that department. All he had were two dead snakes and a date with Oedipus. I understood now ancient Greek or Delacroix Blue Devil, we were all made to swing between extreme feelings like warm, squirmy pendulums made of hormones and fuck knew what else. But for now I was going to enjoy hanging out with amazing people who actually liked me for who I was, on a beautiful fall day with my first live show just a few days away. Silly Monkey, opening for Cream Corn Superstar at El Banditos. No cover. All Ages. No alcohol will be served. I'd put my shameful cheerleading past behind me completely, or so I thought. Now I only had to convince my friends that Silly Monkey was the perfect name. Not that they could do anything about it now. Halloween was waiting for us all.