Sweet Dreams I’ll Never Have Them…8

Chapter 8

I’m actually shaking by the time I get out of the Starbucks and through the other set of doors and into The Renaissance Center, it’s kind of this high end mall kind of place that’s been around forever. I even knew about this place living in my neighborhood. It kind of went through this slump when most of downtown did too but has come back into it’s own with that whole push to revitalize old Detroit.

I move through the mall until I get close to the bus stop and get on. It’s a survival thing in the city, that invaluable skill of mastering the transfer pass. I get on and keep to myself but still going over everything in my head while I’m looking out for anyone following me. After an hour and two buses later I’m sure it was just the two bozos hired to follow Alex.

I end up heading to The Secretary of State offices over on west grand and make my way inside and over to the reception area. There’s a already bored looking civil servant sitting behind the glass putting people through and sending on their way to whatever other place they need to be. I wait patiently until my turn and I ask for the forms to get a replacement social insurance card and birth certificate. She looks at me in that doesn’t really see me doesn’t really care kind of way. She gives me a stack of forms and tells me where to go.

I’m never working in a place like this unless I absolutely have to. These poor people huddled behind the plexi-glass just looked so…boxed in. Washed out by the shitty lighting and told how to dress, sit, take a shit more than likely. It kind of gives me the creeps. It just seems kind of soul crushing. I’m not getting out of my old hell of a life to do this for a living…I guess though if you have to, you have too. No offense to those who do it but not me.

Besides filling out the damned forms and waiting in the endless lines of what has to be the secret republican tax. I say republican because they’re not my favorite people, I’m not stupid, I watch the news, I can read a newspaper. Yeah it’s a republican plot, the designed inefficiency of any government offices all to tax us out of all those minutes we lose waiting in lines. Why else do those guys live so frigging long right?

Okay, yeah I’m weird, and I’m joking about all of that. Your mind goes to funny places when you’re standing in line for so long. Then to be told to fill this out and going to another line.

By the time I get to the right clerk with the right paperwork I’m kind of leaning to one side weight shifted on my right hip and my arms crossed. I’m not even putting it on either, I just look stupid trying to stand like a “dude” I’ve tried to be butch and to man up a lot during my life. The fact that I was/am this weird whatever the hell I am just seemed to push the steps hit Cliff’s skinhead anti-fag buttons sometimes. I honestly think that somewhere in my head something said if “He’s” what a guy is then no fucking way.

But I have learned a lot about scams of all kinds from him and mom and all their buddies. It’s close to lunch, and this guy will be wanting to get out of here. Civil Servants are if anything predictable.

I look at the clerk and give him my papers and he takes them and starts typing away at his computer. He stops, frowns and looks at me. I pop my gum. Hey, I look like a chick right? What’s going to be more annoying than a bored teenaged girl dressed with a bit of a goth punk look to a buero-twit.

“It says here you’re a home birth?”

“Yeah, Mom wasn’t big on hospitals with all the track marks and all. As it was she was stoned when she got me registered.” I pass him my old social security card and my birth certificate. He eyes them…then me, then them.

“So what should this actually be?”

“It’s backwards, My name’s actually Hunter Williams, not William Hunter.”

“I see, and the sex.”

“I’m assuming that the clerk who did it just filled it in automatically and heck I didn’t even know about it until I got out of there to move in with my boyfriend.”

“So you’re not a boy?”

Instead of freaking out I give him my best bitchy glare…cross my arms across my breasts like I’m hiding my obvious flatness and purse my lips in an…I am not amused pout. “No.” I say it with as much ice in the tone as I can manage.

He looks at me and sighs with a roll of his eyes. He wants me out of there as fast as he can at this point so he starts typing and asking me all the basic questions. I make myself a year older by saying my birthdate is actually is the eighth of February actually instead of the second of August. I give him my mother’s real maiden name, she’s always been a flake even when…when…dad was alive.

Anyway she’s got a record of heavy drug abuse and two strikes already and toss the steps hit in and at a glance everything makes sense. I even give him my dad’s name too. It doesn’t have to last forever, not even that long really just long enough that I can turn actually sixteen and then get emancipated and actually be on my own and legally change my name.

He doesn’t even question it as he just types it all in. He even gets faster as I pop and snap my gum. And just like that, I’m legal aged. He prints off a sheet for my birth certificate and it’s got a tear out sheet that I can get laminated to actually be my birth certificate card. As that’s printing out there’s a temporary card clacking out for my new social security card on a plastic blank.

He gets me to sign a few things and then passes me my things. “That’s just a temporary card your other card should arrive in the mail at the end of the week or the first of next week, just mail back the temporary card in the enclosed envelope. Your number’s still the same, I just changed all the stuff that was wrong. There’s a laminator down in the lobby at the news stand. That’ll be twenty-five dollars.”

I go to pay him. And he gets irate with me telling me to take one of the papers he’s given me and what counter to pay it at. I try to say sorry that I didn’t know that you didn’t pay here but he cuts me off with a loud. “Next!”

A quick trip to the accounting desk and that news stand then I’m Hunter Williams, a sixteen year old teenaged girl from Detroit Michigan. It’s actually kind of scary I was able to do this so easily.

But people only ever see what they think and what they want to see. I’m just another face in the crowd here where the place is filled with other people here for other things and right now the way things are it’s full of people here for their unemployment claims and there is a feeling of desperation in those lines and depression too. They’re not too concerned about a way too skinny sixteen year old “girl” who was just in to get her ID fixed. The notes in my voice when saying the few things about my mom were real, mom could have easily done what I said she did.

I feel lighter actually better as I leave the place and get on the bus and head over to meet and find Alex at Western International High School. I get there about quarter to one and go to the office. It’s a nice school and clean and well taken care of and very white. I mean it’s a public school in Detroit and there is a lot of school including my old one where white is the minority. I found myself in the inner city the step-kid of a skinhead and a hooker where nearly all the white kids were criminals of one kind or another. Seeing a school like this is a kind of a shock to my reality.

There’s professional looking bunch of women in the office center as well as what I’m going to assume are a few students. I wait until one of them looks my way.

“Uhm Hello?”

“Yes miss can I help you?”

“I’m here, to see Alex…” Shit..shit, shit, shit I don’t even know his last name. Wait the name on his jersey said…

“Oh you’re here to see Alex Donovan? You must be Hunter?” this is coming from one of the student girls. She’s looking at me with the intense interest of a school busybody, in my neighborhood we’d have called her a rat. But here she’s just some preppy girl kissing up to the office people and stuff, heck her name tag even says Mindy.

I give her a half smile. “Uhn-huh, that’s me. I was looking to have lunch with Alex but I don’t know his schedule yet.”

“Oh, that’s no problem let me look it up for you and get you a copy.”

She sits down and starts typing away and I’m catching looks from the other girls and even the women. Yeah I know I don’t exactly fit in here like the other “girls” that are here, but I kind of like not quite fitting in. Besides being weird is a good way for them not to notice I’m not a real girl. Like today, blue lipstick, frosted blue tips on my hair, his Jersey, skinny jeans and a leather jacket and kickass leather boots and fingerless gloves. Skater, biker, sporty, goth? There’s a bit of whispers that I can’t hear but I’m sure they’re about me.

Mindy prints off a sheet or two and hands them to me along with a visitors pass. “Alex will be eating lunch in a few minutes or so. His lunch break’s at one o’clock. So are you like goin g to be like auditing classes here?”

“Actually yes, I’d love to go to school here. But it might take me awhile to get my school transcripts and stuff so I can transfer here.”

“Rilly?, like that be so kinda cool Hunter.” she lowers her voice and leans in to me. “Any one who put that bitch Jennifer in her place is like pretty cool with like some of us.”

“Uhm, Mindy..? Please don’t take this the wrong way but you kinda seem like the valley girl type who’d be part of her crowd?”

“Oh…Oh well, uhm kinda. I’m on the cheer squad but not from like the same school as she came from. We never really got into this whole holier than other people stuff yanno. There’s a whole bunch of us just in it because it’s fun and good for like college and stuff but her and her clique’s kinda like not made it worth it yanno.”

“Shit, okay yeah I get where you’re coming from. For what it’s worth Mindy I think you and your friends sound like the kind of people I’d have loved to have gone to school with.”

I swear her face beamed like I gave her a hundred bucks or something. Yeah she’s a preppy type but not like the image she was giving off. I’ll admit not the sharpest knife in the drawer but she seems okay. A definite case of don’t judge the book by it’s cover. I offer her a handshake over the counter. She takes my hand a grins like it’s a novelty. I know “Girls” hug and stuff but don’t they shake hands too?

I’m going to have to learn these things about being a girl if I’m goin g to actually start over disguised as one. I mean before people just kind of assumed or just didn’t know.

“Hey, I’ll see you later. I’d better get going if I’m going to catch up with Alex.”

“Oh yeah like cool. Hey I’ll get Todd to take you to the cafeteria.” Mindy calls over a kid with acne about my age with a vest on. Like he’s a school messenger or runner or something.

“Hi Todd?” He nods very quietly, shy a bit of a nerd really. If I grew up around here I might have ended up like him. As much as he’s kind of non-descript and kind of lethally shy, his life would have likely been a blessing compared to mine.

No scratch that. Alex’s life’s no picnic and Mindy wasn’t at all like the way she looked.

I extend my hand to him too. “Hi I’m Hunter, thanks for showing me to the cafeteria.” He takes my hand nervously and shakes it. Kind of mumbling out a shy, quiet. “Uhm, yeah n..nn..no problem.”

I’m actually really glad for the guide and it takes a few minutes to get there but there was enough twists and turns that yeah, I’d have gotten turned around. We’re just about there when the bell rings and the hall fill with kids heading to their lunch break. Todd takes me into the cafeteria and I look around and see Alex coming in with his lunch bag and some of his friends, fellow football jocks. There’s a bunch of cheerleader types with them and Jennifer too. Todd mumbles something and books away from them and the way he’s moving I can practically hear the “danger Will Robinson!” going off in his head for the football jocks. I don’t blame him a bit. These guys often deserve the rep they get for being bulling asshats. I’m trying not to judge but I think Todd took off for a reason.

Alex see’s me and comes over and gives me a kiss. It was kinda cool because Jennifer was starting to stalk over my way and Alex walked passed her then swerved in front of her cutting her off.

My world goes through this kind of pleasant shift as Alex kisses me. I’ve been enjoying this more than I should. There’s a part of me still that is not good with me kissing some other guy like some fag. But lately it’s been…different, really different. Alex knows exactly who or what I am, well sort of. I mean I’m just saying he knows, but as to what I really am? I don’t even know.

But I am kind of able to enjoy this because right now. I’m Hunter, not Billy and Hunter is a whole new and different person and Hunter…

I’m the girl in the picture, or I can be, I’m going to be.

I let myself be kissed, held in Alex’s hands. I kiss back. We break the kiss and I wrap my arms around the small of his back.

Jennifer is glaring at me. She looks like she wants to do something and can’t because she’s in public. Then I kind of notice the lull in things and the looks being sent our way. Oh me ousting Jennifer is something here…there’s a lot of people taking notice.

I break the kiss. “Hey you…I got my stuff done, want some company for dinner?”

Alex smiles at me. “Yeah that’d be good Let’s get a table.” We walk over to a table and we’re kind of being followed by a small pack of the football, cheer prep-squad. They join us and there’s this cut-throat thing going on with the girls and the seating like they’re trying to keep Jennifer from sitting with what’s obviously her social group. I can see her eyes looking for a place to sit here, and a way to not lose anymore status with her group.

Oh God, It’d be so easy to be a bitch right now.

I can’t believe I’m going to do this.

“Hey Jen?, Here’s a place.” I get up and move from my place on the bench. My place right next to Alex. We lock eyes and she really doesn’t trust me anymore then I trust her but I’m not going to be that kind of person. My mom would’ve let her twist in the wind, If I’m going to be living as a girl being one like I’m not going to be like her. There must have been something there that convinced her I wasn’t trying to screw her over. Alex looks at me. “Hey, you sit here I’ll be right back.” He gets up and motions for me to take his place on the bench. I sit and he leaves heading some place. I’m looking at Jennifer then she’s looking at me and nobody’s really saying stuff at the table. The guys just evade the whole awkwardness by stuffing their faces…ugh...I get I’m not much of a guy because watching them, well some of them is grossing me out.

“You know one of them is going to choke if they keep that up.” I say mildly.

“I know we’ve got a forty five minute lunch break and they inhale everything as fast as they can.”

Jennifer says as she opens one of those salads I seen they had made at the grocery place the other day. It just kinda leaves me shaking my head on the inside at least as I see only a few of the girls eating too and most of them are eating stuff like Jennifer is.

The conversation kind of picks up onto the topic of how guys eat and how girls eat and there’s actually introductions being made for me to everyone by Jennifer and we, well mostly they talk about school stuff as Alex comes back with a folding chair.

He grins at us and his face changes from some of that broodiness he usually carries around and he sits at the end or the head of the table actually. He unpacks his lunch and starts to eat. He still eats like a guy but just not like some of those other guys. He actually doesn’t talk as he eats and chews with his mouth closed.

Jennifer looks at his food. “Not your usual Alex.”

He swallows. “No, Hunter made me lunch and breakfast too.”

She looks angry, lips pursing a moment. “That was nice.” she says a little too blandly. “Breakfast huh?”

Alex nods before swallowing. “Yeah it was great, I had time for a full on training run and a work out before classes.”

I’m getting a bunch of mixed looks from the group. Really speculative ones from the guys there even as far as to eye me like a pork chop. The girls with looks ranging from impressed or ticked off to like they couldn’t figure out why I’d even bother.

Cynthia who seems to be Jennifer’s calmer friend looks to her like for permission and then at me. “So you cook?”

I nod and smile. “Yeah, I kind of had to learn to fend for myself a long time ago.” I shrug the rest of it off and sneak a piece of lettuce off of his tray and munch on it. I’m trying not to go there but it hurts, even letting this much out hurts.

Alex finishes eating and takes his tray and kisses my cheek. “Hey C’mon I’ll show you around so you won’t get too turned around here.”

“Okay, just let me go and freshen up.”

I get up and head to the bathroom and I can almost time some of the girls coming in with me. I go into the stall and close the door and sit to pee. I hear someone in the next stall. I hear her doing the same, at least the sound isn’t really that different. I get some tissue to wipe when I hear Jennifer softly talk to me.

“Why’d you let me sit down with you guys?”

“Because I saw the others in your group looking like they were just waiting to get the chance to take you totally out of the group, or to use it to pump themselves up or something Jen. You don’t deserve that. Nobody needs that kind of bullshit.”

“Thanks?”

“You’re a bitch Jennifer, a total cunt and people don’t like you.”

“Wh…What..?”

“Look just because, I wasn’t being a little bitch like that in the caf doesn’t mean I’m looking at you with rose colored glasses. Like I just said, people don’t like you. I’m new here even new to being with Alex and so far all I’ve seen is you being with your crew being the biggest bitch of campus. The same crew that was literally sharpening their claws to tear you down out there. I didn’t do it for you as so much as to stop them from doing it to you.”

“But why? I wouldn’t have done that for you. Hell I’m not sure if I still don’t hate you for taking Alex from me.”

I sigh. “Alex was never yours to begin with Jennifer, you don’t get to own people. Nobody gets to own people. It’s that attitude and thinking that you’re better because you’re family has money and you’re good looking that has people really hating on you.”

“But..I thought they liked me…”

“No you didn’t, you’re not that naíve. You actually think after high school any of this will matter? You might be able to pull it off in college but out in the real world, in real life?”

“But…”

“But nothing Jennifer, you’re a social climber. If you climb a pile of shit it’s still a pile of shit Jen. You want to see life from a different angle, build it, build relationships with people.”

I get up and pull my jeans on and get tucked away comfortably and everything and head over to the sinks. The other few girls are there and Jennifer soon joins me. We was our hands then I retouch my make up from my pockets instead of my purse, I don’t carry a purse. Fix my hair and smile at them all. “Hey it was nice meeting all of you. I’ll see you later Jennifer, you got Alex’s number, call me tonight ‘Kay.”

She looks at me, then nods but passes me her number. “I will or you can call me.”

“I will we really do need to talk.” With that I leave the bathroom to go and meet up with Alex. He takes my hand in his and he starts to give me the grand tour of the place. I’m kind of jealous, this is a really nice school. Mine was a real shithole. He looks at me as we walk around checking things out. “So what happened after I dropped you off? I was worried.”

“Not too much, they were likely ex-cops. They were kind of lazy and thought they were better than they were.”

“So you lost them?”

“No, I confronted them and biffed a coffee at their car and took their pictures.”

“Bet that pissed them off? They try anything?”

“Yeah they were going to but I had them dead to rights, I told them to piss off or they’d be all over You-Tube.”

“They took off?”

“Yeah, but they’re going to tell Adam about this.”

“Fuck…who knows what he’ll do.”

“Nothing yet…I know guys like him. He wants you to crack more than me but he’s not going to let things go. I think he’ll try to get as much dirt on me as he can before he does anything.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Nothing, if we react to much he’ll know he’s getting under our skins.”

“But you said he’s going to look into you?”

“Let him, Alex I’m a ghost. Even with my new ID and stuff he’s going to get at the most stuff about my mom and Cliff. I never had that much down on paper to begin with and that’s a dead end because my name’s changed and even my birthdate. If he finds anything it’ll be a mass of confusion.”

“What if he finds your parents?”

“He won’t, they’re on the run from the law. Cliff’ll go down hard before he lets anyone find him now. Mom’s not on the grid unless she applies for welfare someplace. It’s not likely though, she’s probably turning a trick or stoned out of her head as we speak.”

“So…?”

“So we wait and we keep our eyes and ears open.”

“For what?”

“Evidence, Adam won’t really back off unless we make him or he thinks he can’t control you and then he’ll punish you by wrecking your life as much as he can.”

“You sound like you know the kind of world he lives in.”

“Control’s control Alex, Cliff used to teach me not to cry by putting out smokes on my skin or holding me and shoving stick pins into me until he pretty much trained me to not cry out. Your dad’s not any different just has more money is all. He’d be just another piece of shit running a crew and hurting people back home.”

“I’m sorry Hunter, I never meant to get you into this.”

I wrap my arms around his waist and stick my thumbs into his belt loops and my fingers into his back pockets. I look up into those shimmery coffee/amber eyes of his.

“Alex, whatever is going on you didn’t get me into this. We collided, we happened and we have things in common in the way that we’ve been raised. I care about you. I think that you and me are together because we need each other. The world’s a hard fucking place that’ll eat you alive if you let it. It’s why people get together since the dawn of time Alex. Sometimes you need help, to get out of life alive.”

He takes my face in his hands like in all those movies and soaps you see. It’s hard not to flinch or to flashback on getting my head slammed into a wall. His eyes stare into mine. Searching, gentle, so, so deeply.

“Hunter, I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve never met anyone who just isn’t…so full of shit, all that fucking bullshit…whatever is going to happen, why we even happened I don’t care. I think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Then he kissed me. Not like some of the other ones but this real kiss that makes everything feel like the world is turning around us like one of those three hundred and sixty degree camera shots. I don’t fight it either, There’s part of me that is but it’s like it’s getting further and further away.

I’m someone different now, I’m Hunter Williams, I’m the girl in the picture. I get to be brave, I get to take a chance to maybe be happy.

I kiss him back even as the bells ring again and the halls fill with other kids. We’re an island of just us even in the hundreds.

Part of me is just saying…Yes.