“You should be,” she says, leaning toward me. “Everyone should be scared of this sick, twisted...thing.”
“Ma’am,” I say. “Please.”
“A man in makeup,” she sneers. “Acting like a woman. You are going to burn in hell.”
I press my body even tighter against the car. My skin singes.
I wince. I certainly know what that will feel like.
Suddenly, the woman reaches into her purse.
The world becomes a slow blur.
I shove my hand inside my still-open pocketbook. I pull out a handful of candy and throw it as hard as I can at the woman. Hard butterscotch ricochets off her soft face. As she lifts her hands to cover it, I pull open the car door, jump inside and lock the doors. By the time she has recovered, I have started my car.
The woman reaches back into her purse and pulls out a Bible. She thumps it on my car, screaming, “I will ban you and your kind from this library, so help me God!”
I screech out of the parking lot. I do not even check traffic as I pull onto Baristo and then yank my car onto Sunrise.
When I finally slam on my brakes at a stoplight, I see myself in the rearview mirror.
My mascara is running. My lipstick is smeared. My hair is matted. My lace collar is askew.
I am an old man in a dress.
I glance over at the car next to me. A group of kids—shoving french fries down their throats—obviously on lunch break from the local high school barely react to my appearance.
So much has changed.
So much hasn’t.
My legs are shaking. My right foot is pressed so tightly on the brake pedal I feel my ankle might shatter. I look down. That’s when I realize I am barefoot. I literally ran out of my shoes.
I lean on the steering wheel and stare at my foot.
One step forward.
Two steps back.
I suddenly picture my grandfather’s foot. He lost toes to diabetes and yet he could still feel them, would swear he was wiggling them.
“The pain is excruciating,” he’d tell me when I would visit him.
My grandmother would sit on a footstool and pretend to massage them, even though they were not there.
“Ghost pain,” she would say.
For the first time, I begin to cry, my old wounds reopened.
No matter how much time has passed and scar tissue has built, it only takes a word, a look, a confrontation, hate to tear it wide open again.
The ghost pain never goes away.
Cars honk.
I head my car toward Dorian Gay to tell Teddy about what happened. I need a protector. As I drive, my cell begins to buzz.
Why didn’t I think to call the police?
