Chapter 3 — Molto Agitato
By Jillian
Detective Johnson was at my house in less than 15 minutes and once there didn’t waste any time in listening to the phone message. “What did he mean, ‘my message’?”
I took a deep breath and said, “He vandalized my car and spray painted ‘You talk, you die’ on the trunk lid. Truth is that threat’s why I didn’t report it in the first place.”
“Where’s this car?”
“It’s out at my cousin’s place. He was looking at it to see how much it would cost to repair, but told me it was a total loss.”
“I’d like to see it,” he said.
I rode with him, directing him to Tim’s place where he took pictures of the damaged vehicle while he asked more questions. “Any idea why you’re being targeted?”
“Just that he suspects I saw him running away from the body,” I answered.
“And did you?”
“I couldn’t tell for sure. I saw someone and thought it looked kinda like someone I recognized, but…” my answer slowly ground to a halt as I wasn’t sure what to say to complete the thought.
Gesturing toward the car he asked, “So this happened at the club?”
“No, I got up the next day and found it like this in the parking lot at home. What am I going to do?”
The officer stood there for a moment before saying, “First things first, if anything else happens, whether it be another phone message or vandalism or what, report it directly to me immediately. Don’t touch anything you suspect has been tampered with and again, call me immediately. Call me if you think of anything that might possibly be helpful. And last but certainly not least, be careful. Don’t take any chances.”
He left to return to the station, while I stayed at my cousin’s to retrieve a few things from the car. Once that was done, Tim’s wife Beth gave me a ride back into town so I could pick up my truck and get to my appointment with Dr. Tucker.
As we drove, I guess her curiosity got the better of her, “So, why are you dressed like that?”
“Umm,” I replied so eloquently.
“Come on, Harry. Everybody in the family knows you’re not exactly the poster boy for macho,” she laughed as she said it, but not trying to be cruel. “How serious is this?”
I gradually allowed myself to respond, “Pretty serious.”
“Like permanent kind of serious?”
“Someday,” I said before even realizing I’d done it.
“Really?” she queried. “What’s your name?”
“Hannah,” I said quietly.
“Hannah, huh?” she repeated me. “It suits you. I think I may like Hannah, but you may want to keep it quiet in some corners of the family until you absolutely have to make the change.”
“No kidding,” I said dryly. Then as I breathed a sigh of relief, “Wow! I hope you know I was terrified what might happen when you noticed. All sorts of things were running through my head. Maybe even throwing me out of the car or something.”
She looked hurt, “How could I do something like that? We’re family, you know that.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to accept me, or even treat me fairly.”
“It does to me,” she said with great conviction. “I knew you had had lot’s of problems with your folks growing up. Is this why?”
“You could say that.”
Gesturing toward my bosom she asked, “Are those real?”
“All me,” I said while trying and failing to suppress a grin. “Wonders of modern chemistry.”
“So you’ve been on hormones for quite a while then,” she stated.
“A few months,” I responded. “Really the only thing holding me back at this point is fear.”
“Of what?”
“My folks, mostly, but lots of other things as well. There’s part of me that’s still trying to get back in touch with Holly about Jessica, but that’s not going well at all.”
“That’s gotta be rough,” she said as we turned into my building’s parking area. Changing direction slightly she added, “We ought to hang out more.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “I haven’t really had much chance to do that sort of thing.”
“Anything going on tomorrow?” she asked as we parked.
“Not really,” I replied.
“Why don’t I come by in the morning? Maybe we’ll do a little shopping or something?”
“Cool,” I said. “Listen Beth, thanks for the lift. And everything else,” I said as I opened the passenger door to climb out.
“Be careful. I heard what you were talking about with that cop.”
As I got out, I waved bye to her and watched her pull away. Then I headed for my truck, practically skipping. When I started the engine I noticed the time and saw I’d have to hurry to make it.
Truth is I was a few minutes late in arriving at Sarah’s office, but fortunately she was running a little behind herself. That meant I had time for some coffee before my appointment.
“How goes it?” Jen startled me with the question, having come up behind me as I was fixing my drink.
Once my heart returned to it’s normal location I said, “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Oh come on,” she continued. “Where else am I going to get the local music scene gossip?”
“I’ve spent all my time recently steppin’ in cow poo, so I’m not really up on the local rock gossip.”
“Ah,” she said. “Too bad. Most of the time the only thing I miss about playing is the gossip.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t help ya there.”
“Anything interesting going on in your life?” she asked.
I took a deep breath and sighed before saying, “Well, I witnessed a killing the other night.” She gasped in shock, causing me to pause momentarily before continuing, “Yeah, and then my car was vandalized beyond the point of repair.”
“Wow!” was all she could say.
Just then Sarah poked her head out of her office and asked, “Hannah? Are you ready?”
I turned my attention back to Jen and offered, “Maybe we’ll get a chance to chat later?”
“Maybe,” she replied. I then followed Sarah into her office and took my usual spot on the sofa.
“Anything interesting happen this week?” she asked once we were settled.
“I guess you could say that,” I responded dryly. “Where shall I start? The murder at the club, my car being vandalized, or the multiple threats on my life?”
“Sounds like you’ve been busy,” she said while pleading with her eyes for me to offer some details.
“Well, last Saturday I was out on break when I saw someone running away from the dumpster out behind the club. I thought it odd, but didn’t really think all that much of it. After the last set of the night, I was carrying my bass out to the car when I thought I heard someone moaning in pain.
“I followed the sound out to the dumpster and found one of the club’s regulars lying there on death’s door.”
“Yes?”
“I ran inside and told the manager to call the police. They took statements, then I went home.”
“Sounds harrowing,” she commented.
“You could say that,” I responded. “The next morning I found that my car had been vandalized, including a message spray painted on the trunk. It said, ‘U Talk, U Die”.
“Oh my,” Sarah gasped.
“Precisely what I thought,” I offered. “Not wanting to test the validity of the statement, I just called my cousin the mechanic and had him come get the car so he could let me know how much fixing it was going to cost.”
“You mean you haven’t reported it?”
“I have, just not when it happened.”
She looked at me with concern as she asked, “What prompted the change in position?”
“Threatening phone calls.”
Eventually our conversation drifted to more familiar subject matter, like my hormone treatment and my eventual transition. When our time was up I made my way out of Sarah’s office and after exchanging goodbyes with Jen I was on my way home.
All the way home I had the strangest feeling distracting me. Not only couldn’t I seem to shake it, it seemed to grow stronger the closer I got to my apartment. Even though it was almost bad enough to make me consider not going home, I did so, against my better judgment.
I made my way inside the building once I’d parked and after nervously fumbling with my keys managed to open the door. Once inside my apartment, I checked for messages on my machine. There was only one, but it was rather scary.
“I thought I told you not to talk to the cops!” the now familiar voice shouted from the answering machine. “You must have a death wish, girly boy!” then the line went dead, leaving me devastated.
Again I called Detective Johnson to tell him that there was another threatening message on my machine, but the best I could do was leave him a message.
I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind without success. I even tried practicing, but found myself unable to focus, so I settled into an easy chair and waited for the detective to come back by to pick up another tape. At this rate, I was going to need to stock up on those old style mini-cassettes.
It wasn’t long before he arrived, leaving with cassette in hand. I tried listening to music but couldn’t concentrate. The same could be said for the book I tried reading. I even tried napping but couldn’t relax, so I wound up just letting my mind wander.
Thoughts raced through my mind as I tried to come up with a way out of this mess. I played through quite a few scenarios in my head, none of which ended with me safe and Joey behind bars, before I finally came to the realization that whatever the solution I came up with might be, I wasn’t going to come up with it that easily.
In an effort to clear my head I switched on the television and sat through some mindless movie the title of which I couldn’t identify, then fixed myself a salad which I nibbled on as another movie blared from the TV. As I spaced out, memories again came flooding into my consciousness…
…I sat nervously next to Holly on a park bench, staring at her face as it was lit up by the moonlight. Eventually I said, “I have something I need to tell you.”
She looked me in the eye and said, “It can’t be that important.”
“I hope you feel that way after I tell you,” I said. I took a deep breath and proceeded, “There are things about me that could have an impact on any relationship we might have.”
“God, you make it sound like it’s something horrible,” she said, a look of concern etched on her face.
“It might be,” I tentatively said. “I don’t suppose there’s an easy way to do this, so here goes. I’m not really like other guys.”
“Oh, God. You’re gay,” she said.
“No, no,” I quickly countered. “But you’re not far off.”
She looked absolutely terrified as she asked, “Then what is it?”
I took another couple of deep breaths to try to settle the thoughts running through my head before saying, “Have you ever heard of Gender Dysphoria?”
She looked at me confused, saying, “Can’t say that I have.”
“Well,” I continued as I reached over and took her hands in mine. “It’s a condition where the afflicted person experiences some level of confusion or discomfort with their birth gender.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that there’s a part of me that is really uncomfortable with being male.”
She continued to look at me, even more confused than before. As what I’d said started to sink in she first looked hurt, then mad before finally getting an incredibly sad look on her face as tears began falling. I reached over and held her in a gentle hug, trying to comfort her.
As I did that, she turned her face to my ear and whispered, “We’ll get through this. Together.”…
…I paused at a store window to look at a beautiful pair of boots with stiletto heels. Holly looked as well and commented, “They are quite striking. Want me to try them?”
“Sure,” I said, probably a bit more enthusiastically than a boyfriend normally would.
We went in the store and Holly tried them on. They looked marvelous and I must admit that I couldn’t take either my mind or my eyes off of them for the rest of the evening.
Later that night Holly found me sitting on the edge of the bed holding one of those boots, staring intently at it. She came over to me and took it out of my hand, angrily saying, “Don’t. Don’t even think about it!”
“What?”
“I knew it was something like this. You can’t even go a day without thinking about it, can you?”
I dropped my eyes to my lap but didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure what to say. While I tried not to admit it openly, she was right. My obsession with all things feminine was beginning to interfere with ‘real’ life and Holly wasn’t happy about it in the least.
“This needs to stop,” she said as she put away the boots.
“I know,” I replied, unsure how to make that happen…
…I typed away furiously, unaware that Holly was standing behind me. When she finally cleared her throat I nearly jumped out of my seat. “You startled me,” I said once my heart was again a resident of my chest.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I quickly minimized the window I was working in before saying, “Oh, nothing.”
She came closer and said, “Didn’t look like nothing. Let me see.” She took the laptop from me and looked at the web page I had left open as a decoy. She looked down at the bottom of the screen and clicked on the minimized Word document.
She read a few sentences before saying, “You promised you wouldn’t write this stuff anymore!”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “It just a little story. It helps me to write them.”
“Helps you with what?” she asked, the disgust clearly evident in her voice.
“Deal with things,” I replied timidly. “Writing them helps me feel better.”
“But you promised!”
“I know,” I said. “But…”
Cutting me off she said, “But nothing! You promised. If you can’t even keep a promise about something as simple as this, how can I trust you about anything?”
She was right and I knew it, but that did nothing to assuage my desire to write stories about my life that wasn’t. There was nothing I could really say in response to her question, so I stood there looking at her as tears began rolling down my cheeks.
Seeing that I didn’t have an answer for her, she turned and left in a huff. I sat back down and tried to write some more, but found I couldn’t. After saving what I had done already I turned my attention to my email messages from my online friends…
…At some point I must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was very dark out and I was feeling refreshed but hungry. I had just begun making myself something to eat when the phone rang.
“Hello?” I fearfully said into the handset.
“Miss Dawson? This is Detective Johnson.” He called me miss! I couldn’t believe it.
“Yes,” I replied as calmly as I could.
“Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, but with the shift change and everything I just got your message. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”
It took me a moment to remember that I had called him about the latest phone message and to realize that was why he was coming over. However, that didn’t stop me from running to the bathroom and touching up my makeup.
I’d just about finished when the doorbell rang. I ran to it, peeking through the hole to make sure it was him before opening it.
He greeted me, “You said there was another message?”
“Yes,” I said, showing him in. I led him to my answering machine where I played the message for him before popping the tape out to hand him.
“Right,” he said as he stared into space, presumable thinking. “We know that he knows not only your telephone number, but where you live and is in fact keeping an eye on you. I think it’s time to consider moving you to a safer location.”
I looked at him and asked, “And where might that be?”
He returned my look, but no response was forthcoming. He then grabbed his cell phone and placed a call, “This is Detective Johnson out of the fourth precinct. I need to secure a safe house for a witness to an open homicide investigation.”
Comments
My heart skipped a beat...
When in the dream, Holly said that they could get through it together. Sigh. I'm afraid her eventual reaction is all to common and all too familiar...
By the by, I don't think I've told you how much I like your "music themed" stories.
Janice
Rhapsody 3
A very well written chapter. Reminds me of your story about Jillian Tucker in many ways. I look forward to future chapters.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine