Charlie...2

Charlie…

Chapter 2

The secretary looks long and hard at me and the letter I gave her from my dad and our lawyers and my doctors saying basically my needs and stuff. I stare back at her from behind my hair and sunglasses. I can almost feel that you’re a freak stare coming off from her.

Dad was worried about this being an issue, about people finding out about me but y’know that’s the way things happen. If I tried to come in all stealth and stuff I’d just get found out. I honestly don’t see Libby not being a self serving or vindictive little so and so if I ticked her off in the least.

This way I at least control when I’m coming out. And it’s right now. She’s looking at me until I say. “Excuse me; I think that has to go to the guidance office.”

“I know where it has to go to young lady.”

“What did you just call me?”

“I called you young lady, there’s nothing wrong with that it’s what you are. It’s the way god made you.”

I give her a nasty smile but keep my finger on the recording button on my phone. I walk over to one of the phones on the counter. “555-0999 that’s the number for the district school board right?” She grabs at the phone saying “Give me that over and over in her nasally pitched voice. Some guy comes out and she stops.

“Is there a problem Mrs. Sullivan?” He asks dress shirt, tie, slacks but a real big sic foot four black guy with salt and pepper hair.

“Yes this young lady here is causing a disturbance; I was just trying to keep her from causing anymore trouble than she already is.” She gives me this so there look.

He looks at me. I stare back at him. “I was calling the school board. This woman’s seen fit to walk all over my civil rights.”

“And you are?”

“You first.” He gives me this long look.

“So I take it your name is Charlie then?”

“That’s right and I had a letter for the principal but she’s impeding him getting it and insulting me and breaking the law.”
“I’m Principal West, and how was she breaking the law?”

I play back what she said to me on speaker as I take the phone out of my pocket. I look at him squarely but I talk just loud enough for everyone in the office to hear me.

“I’m a transgendered male; I’ve a letter saying that I’m male and that I’m in transition into becoming my right gender. She’s read this letter that she’s still holding and coming at me with her religious views that don’t have a place in the public school system.”

He looks at me then he looks at her and she’s gone pale and yet still giving me the evil eye. Which he notices and squashes with a very pointed cough. He takes the letter from her and picks of the phone. “Mrs. Kennedy your nine o clock is here to see you.” Then he looks at me. “I’ll have a world with the secretary; will you be filing some kind of formal complaint?”

“No, believe me sir the last thing I really wanted was all this drama but as long as she doesn’t do anything like this again I’m willing to forget that this ever happened.”

“And the recording on your cell phone?”

“Just a prudent reminder, I guess that maybe policy and a students rights would be respected.”

“So you’re not willing to erase it?”

“Sir, if this was something done to you would you?”

“Alright then but I’ll have to talk this over with our legal representative.”

I shrug. “If you have to, you have to.” I see a really nice looking blonde woman in her thirties with glasses come in and look around. “Is there a Charlie here?” I say. “Right here ma’am.” She smiles and gives me a wave to follow. “Come with me young man and we’ll see about getting your classes sorted.”

***

Getting my class schedule was pretty easy, Honors Math and English, Chemistry and Physics, Auto shop, Metal working, and Gym.

Gym was a bit of a hassle as she was really trying to dissuade me from taking it with the other guy. “Look Charlie if you’re sure I can’t stop you but you’re still in transition and you’re going to be an open target for these guys who’ll want to put you into whatever place they think you belong in.”

“I’m going to get that anyway Mrs. Kennedy, if it’s all out now then the sooner that everyone gets used to me and I become old news.”

“I’m just worried about you like all my students. I’m just trying to head off what I see coming. That and save myself a whole lot of work.”

I can’t help but give a wry smile at that. She actually makes us both a coffee while we talk about what happened out in the office and how it’s be all over school. I get a call from out lawyer and end up sending him the sound file.

***
It’s lunch by the time I’m done everything and I’m getting stared at as I walk through the halls. There’s this wave of semi quiet that forms ahead of me as people see me and notice me and they stare and there’s the looks of just staring, some finding me funny, and being as much a freak something to laugh at. Other give me looks of disgust whether from their actual thoughts or peer pressure beliefs. And others shoot me looks of hate. The one’s almost as bad are the distain from the gay guys like I’m some plague and the mixed looks of interest and/or hate from the lesbian crowds.

As I pass the whispers start and go into conversation about me as I get further away from them. My brother nods at me from a distance with a bunch of guys he’s talking with no doubt making fun of his stupid little sister who thinks she can be a guy. He never says it at home but he’s dismissive of the whole thing I’m feeling because you can’t…I can’t ever really be a guy. He’s laughing and so are they, he gets pats on the shoulder from them as they take off somewhere.

Libby passes me in the halls and she’s got a bit of red around her eyes like she’s been crying but fixed her make up. I almost go to see if everything’s okay but the look she just gives me is making me think I’ll lock my room door tonight.

I get mutters, murmurs and even a few outright comments of dyke, fag, freak and other stuff. The teachers have been told and I’m getting watched like a hawk in the cafeteria in case of trouble. There’s a lot of stares and avoiding me and I get a plate of fries and what passes for a burger here and end up getting one of the further away tables and sit alone. Even the freaks and geeks look unsure of me.

I just started trying to gnaw through my burger when a bunch of students are getting up to come over to me. They’re too fake cool and punk and trendy to fit together but they fit together. I know this bunch, it’s the student LGBT group looking for their latest poster child or cause. It’d either be them or the holt rollers. I give them this look of contempt that I usually reserve for useless people like PETA. I stare at them hard, their spokes people are a pseudo-gothling and a sweater vest over preppy flamer. I don’t see anyone real in the whole group of them, and they act like being the way we are’s a fashion statement. Your favorite cause to be the accessory to your look.

I hate California, I hate fake people.

This is going to be a long day.



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