Simply Enchanting! The Love There That's Sleeping by Andrea Lena DiMaggio   I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping While my guitar gently weeps I look at the floor and I see it need sweeping Still my guitar gently weeps

Jimmy Elia finds out that empathy is much more than feeling sorry for someone, as Billy Pellegrino teaches him how to feel sorry with someone.

Previously...Parsippany, New Jersey, Fall, 1969...

"I don't hear that shower, young man!" His mother called out.

He turned on the shower before turning back to the bathroom mirror. Taking a wash cloth from the towel rack, he ran it under the hot water and soaped it up with the bar of Ivory lying on the sink. As he removed the makeup an odd feeling overtook him. Not an hour ago he had been crying because he thought he was a girl. He began to cry as he realized with crystal clarity that he wasn't a girl after all. He just wanted to be one.....

Soon after…

I don't know why nobody told you
how to unfold you love
I don't know how someone controlled you
they bought and sold you

Next: Learning to Fly!

The Caddy pulled in the driveway at about ten after five. Johnny Elia got out of the car and walked to the front door, where Amelia met him with a kiss.

"How was your day?" She asked as he pecked her on the cheek.

"Sold a Bonneville and a GTO. Pillagi has got nothing on me, you can be sure of that." Johnny said as he plopped down on the couch. Amelia quickly retrieved a cold can Rheingold from the fridge and placed in on a coaster in front of him.

"Kids, your dad is home," Amelia called before returned to the kitchen to finish dinner. Billie walked into the living room and spotted Johnny on the couch. Wonder and surprise and confusion mixed quickly with fear and unfamiliar recognition as Johnny patted the cushion next to him.

"Come here, kitten, and tell me about your day."

He pulled the tab on the beer and smiled, but his look became way too familiar and frightening as new memories mingled with old as she sat down. He kissed her on the cheek, and while her first inclination was to pull away, something inside her told her that wouldn't bode well later on. She smiled and began.

"I got a 100 on the social studies test and Mrs. Chernienko gave me an A minus on the book report." She winced, as something told her that she shouldn't have been as detailed as that. She 'remembered' why a moment later as Johnny spoke up.

"See...I knew you could do it if you applied yourself...you're gonna make some guy a great wife someday ... of course he'll have to fight me to get you, you know."

His laugh literally scared her. He kissed her again on the cheek and she could smell the lingering remains of the sweetness of the rum and cokes he had on the way home from work. The smell brought back new memories, and it took all she could to keep the bile from rising.

"I gotta go, dad...I'll be right back," she said quickly before running down the hall to her bedroom. She quickly closed the door before running into the bathroom, where she barely made it to the toilet in time to vomit.

I don't know how you were diverted
you were perverted too
I don't know how you were inverted
no one alerted you

At the same time…

Jimmy stood inside his bedroom with the door closed as he started to shake. He looked down at the paper in his hand and swallowed hard.

"Sooner's better than later," he thought to himself. It was a cruel motto he coined as a response to his daily routine. Taking a deep breath as if he were diving into deep dirty pool, he opened the door at the same time as he heard...

"Jimmy, get out here now!" Johnny shook his head as if he were already disappointed before taking a long draft of his beer.

"H...ey...dad," Jimmy said, waving weakly as he walked up to his father. He stood quietly at the end of the couch, waiting for his father to respond.

"Well?" Johnny glared at him and used his glance to indicate he noticed the paper in Jimmy's hand.

"I did better, dad." Jimmy said, handing the paper to his father. Johnny quickly glanced at the red letter at the top of the page before tossing it on the coffee table.

"What do you call that?" He said sternly.

"It's better, dad...I tried...I really tried....Miss Brusschi says that I did better than anyone except for Cindy Cohen and Billie."

"You let a girl do better...two girls did better than you. You just don't want to do what you're told, do you? I just don't know what it will take...are you stupid or what?" Nothing Jimmy said after that would have made a difference. He had tried hard, but things didn't seem to add up right when he put things down on paper. Words and letters got mixed up and that took away from his grades. Either way, he looked with pleading eyes in his father's face and saw no reprieve.

"Get in there, and wait. And don't sit down. I'll be in when I finish my beer." Johnny said before getting up to turn on the TV. Jimmy walked to the hall bathroom and opened the door, breathing out a sigh.

"Wow...a break...he's gonna get it over before dinner." He muttered to himself as he closed the bathroom door behind him.

Meanwhile, only a few blocks away at the Bensonhurst foster home...

The family sat down for dinner. They didn't notice the missing child amongst their five other foster children. Oh well, more for all of them to feast on, if you consider extra helpings of boxed macaroni and cheese and powdered fruit punch special. Oh well, one less kid to molest for Chuck Willingham, Mrs. Bensonhurst's brother.

And at the bungalow at Indian Lake…

Carla Brusschi sat down at her kitchen table and said a quick prayer before digging into her leftover baked ziti. Carla didn't notice that there was one less picture on her bookshelf. She looked at her marking book. Something odd settled in the back of her mind even as she failed to notice that there was one less boy and one more girl in her class. Nevertheless, she settled her eyes on the two names on the page; Billie and Jimmy Elia.

The twins were nearly identical in very fashion save for their sex. Their grades, their attendance, even their scores on the state reading exams were only points apart. But they always seemed distracted. Jimmy seemed sullen and unhappy nearly all the time. Despite their performance in class, they had few friends, and they usually sad at the end of a sparsely filled table or by themselves at lunch. Neither seemed to have much of an appetite most of the time, and Billie especially seemed skittish; almost scared of her own shadow. It really was incredible that both did as well as they did considering their behavior. Carla sighed and stared at the page, wondering what it would take to draw them out of themselves.

I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

That night at the Elia home…

Jimmy lay awake in his bed; the relief of his pain was thwarted by a rising sense of uneasy fear, and not for himself. He thought of his sister…his twin. Something seemed very special and new about their relationship even as it ate at him in a peculiar way. He looked at the ceiling, noticing a model airplane he vaguely remembered getting for his twelvth birthday from Billie…B-17…He gave her a silk scarf his mother picked out.

And the beating wasn’t nearly as bad as usual that year; sort of a macabre gift of mercy from his dad. He remembered Billie screaming outside the bathroom door. And something else. She cried late into the night and he felt helpless with her door locked. He wanted to help her.

Something kept eating at him even as he lay in bed. He picked up the alarm clock on his nightstand. Two-thirty-seven. He heard her sobbing. Slowly, he swung his legs onto the floor and found his slippers. Walking to the door, he opened it and looked down the hall. The TV was on and he could hear the hiss of the static; nothing on that late. He tiptoed down the hall and saw that his father was laying asleep in the Lay-z-boy, snoring. His beer can had fallen to the floor and the beer had pooled on the carpet.

Walking down the hall, he noticed his mother’s bedroom door closed. No light peeked under the doorway; she probably gave up after the late news and went to bed alone once again. Finally he reached Billie’s doorway. He could hear her sobs; they were quieter, almost as if she were crying her self to sleep.

“Billie?” He called in a loud whisper, his head against the door.

“Go away,” she said.

“Are you okay?” He tapped on the door with his finger nails.

“Jimmy…Go away.” She sobbed this time, and her crying was muffled, as she covered herself with the comforter.

“Not until you tell me what’s goin’ on. This is the fourth time this week. Bil…What’s goin’ on?”

“No…go away!”

“Billie…let me in…please.” Jimmy heard the thud of her feet hitting the floor as Billie walked to the door and unlocked it.

“You can’t be here. Go back to bed!” She looked into his eyes and her own seem to flash a warning, like a signal flare after a car accident. A collision had occurred, but it was between evil and innocence.

“Billie…what did daddy do?” She turned away and went to run to the bathroom. He grabbed her arm and she winced. He pulled her close and pushed up her sleeve, revealing bruising at her elbows.

“Oh, fuck…no!”

“Shhhh…you’ll wake….them.” Billie shook her head, sending tears in all directions in a spray.

“He’s passed out…I hate him!” Jimmy grew red and he balled his fists. “We have to tell mom…we have to get help.”

Billie put her knuckles in her mouth and started to cry before saying one last thing while pointing to the bed.

“She already knows, Jimmy…she already knows.”

He walked over to the bed and pulled back the blanket, revealing a large dark red stain in the middle of the sheets. He turned back to Billie only to barely catch her before she hit the floor. Cradling her in his arms, he pulled her tight, as tears cascaded down his cheeks. He wanted to…what?

He knew that the uncomfortable sensations about himself were being adjusted somehow. It didn’t feel right to want to be a girl and yet he did. And if this was what being a girl was all about then he wanted nothing to do with it; but he did. New and old feelings mixed together as their pain melded into one horror. He did the only thing he knew to do. He cried. For the first time in his life he cried for someone beside himself; and not out of anger although he was filled with a sibling’s protective rage. He wept for his sister, and somehow it began his transformation; he was being changed from the inside out.

Jamie Elia was born that day; her life had just begun and she feared for it already.

“No…no…no…no…” she wept; over and over as she gently rocked her twin. And they fell asleep in each other’s arms…like Hansel…no…Gretel and Gretel in a way, but it was no witch that threatened to kill them; it was their own father.

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at you all
Still my guitar gently weeps

While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Words and music by
George Harrison
As performed by The Beatles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3RYvO2X0Oo