Tootsie
by Andrea Lena DiMaggio

Repeat to fade...
 
The boy sat in the darkened living room by himself. His parents had left for their weekend retreat and his sister was at her girlfriend’s house. The movie had just ended, leaving the room filled with the hiss and crackle of the end of the tape, bathing the room in an eerie grayish glow.

“Why…?” He felt so awkward and alone, and his voice stuck in his throat even at his own lonely lament.

The strains of the song at the end stuck in his head, leaving him feeling ashamed and even scared about himself; was he really ‘like that?’ The movie wasn’t even ‘like that….’ Oh, it was; sort of, with the girl not realizing she was maybe attracted to the man in the dress, but really it was a comedy and no one really felt ‘that way.’ But he did. Wondering how God could have messed things up so bad.

“Oops, dropped the ball on that one!”

“Gee, Big Guy, do you think his parents will get pissed off when they find out?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it seems we made a delivery to the wrong address. And sorry, no refunds or exchanges; you’re stuck with him.”

He put his head against the hard wood wing of the chair and wept until he fell into a fitful sleep. Dreams of romance and surprise and discovery and acceptance began his night, but they quickly gave way to the nightmares of sudden revulsion and disgust over accidental discovery and guilt and shame.

He awoke, his clothes drenched with sweat and his underwear once again stained and tainted with the nightly reminder that he indeed was strange and unworthy of love. It was one thing to go to bed crying; lots of folks did that, didn’t they? But to wake to a new morning of shame and weeping as well was almost too much. Why was he made this way? What did he do in a past life or whom did his parents offend for this affliction to surround his being?

A trip to the bathroom at three in the morning was always too much to handle; he even thought of covering the mirror so he wouldn’t have to look at himself. The longing to be pretty…not just made up like the character in the movie, but really pretty like the girl the man had fallen in love with. Two pretty women falling in love instead of some guy trying to stay alive by pretending to be a woman. Two souls prepared from the beginning of time to dance together?

Experiments courtesy of his mother or his sister always seemed to be dismal failures; the approximation instead of the real; inauthentic and cartoonish, which left him frustrated and even more alone and ashamed that before. Accusations from deep within and without came almost daily. You’ll never, or why bother, or what a joke, or it’s no use assaulted him.

“I’m thinking that it must be you?”

Really? He might as well have wished for the moon or the stars. Calculating the dismal future …. Seventy-five years isn’t too long, is it? Maybe there’s another chance…another shot? That’s only 657,450 hours…not long at all. Tears to be shed in that time-frame? Countless? A myriad? A lifetime of regret.

“All of my life?”

The hiss of the tape droned on, continuing to bathe him in a ghastly hopeless pall.

“Mike? Are you okay?” The voice called from the doorway.

“Honey, please come to bed? I’m sorry. I know it was so hard to share that. I shouldn’t have laughed.”

She walked over to the recliner and leaned down, kissing him on the cheek. Her lips tasted the tears that stained his cheeks.

“Come to bed, honey. I love you, and we can talk about this some more tomorrow, okay?” He looked up at her.
 
Something's telling me it might be you

All of my life...
 

Words and Music by
Marilyn Bergman, Alan Bergman, and Dave Grusin
As Performed by
Stephen Bishop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rYsXuja5M8