My sister and I had been living in each other's bodies for about 19 hours. Our grandmother had done this to us, hoping we might learn to empathize with each other and put an end to our lifelong feuding. The body swap had been a strange experience, and downright horrible at times, but in my case at least it seemed as if the old witch's lesson was starting to work. I began to see why my sister was the way he was, and to regret our not being closer. Until for no apparent reason he tried to sabotage the best thing in my life...

PLAY . . NICE!
LAIKA PUPKINO ~ 2008
PART FIVE: OPENING SALVOS

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||| SATURDAY OCTOBER 4 (continued...)

Grandma, Joy and I made our way across the gummy asphalt of the parking lot, the sun beating down on us. After my harrowing encounter with Papa I couldn't remember where we had parked even in general terms, but Grandma Rosa led the way, and soon enough we saw my red F-350, poking up slightly from amid the surrounding cars.

"Here Teddi. I've had enough fun for one day," said Grandma, passing me my key on its shoelace necklace.

Joy suggested brightly, "I can drive!"

"We're running a bit low on groceries," Grandma said, "You kids want we should shop for food today or tomorrow?"

"I can drive," repeated Joy as he followed me to the driver's side door.

I sighed, "Are we going to go through this every time? They revoked your license..."

"Well technically, yeah. But I have yours to show them, and we're the only ones who know I'm not you."

"Sure. And then maybe I'll go on a 'ride along' with a kamikazi pilot."

Joey trudged sullenly around the front of the truck, muttering, "Fuck, it's not like I don't know how to drive! I'm totally sober, and you're both right here with me. Six miles to the restaurant is all I was asking. But you just have to be on a power trip..."

The driver's seat seemed to be situated impossibly close to the steering wheel, but when I clambered in I discovered that I only had to move it back in inch from where my grandmother had it.

"Wowie Zowie it's hot in here!" she exclaimed as she opened their door. Even with these heavy jeans on, my ass agreed with her. I turned the engine over, started the air conditioning. She said, "It's funny though, there aren't actually any laws about all this body swap stuff. It might make for some interesting court decisions. Help me up, Joey."

"That shouldn't take them long to sort out," I said, "It only makes sense that all of a person's rights, what they own, their citizen status would go along with them in the swap."

"You would think, but sometimes the courts just want to preserve the status quo. For all we know the swap itself might not be recognized. You'd still legally be her and you him."

Joy climbed in, slammed the door. "Cool, so then I own this truck!"

"In that case, there's a payment due this month. And insurance at the first of the year. Now for gas, try the White Star station in Grover's Mill. That couple of cents a gallon cheaper makes a difference if you're putting in more than $50."

Joy looked a bit queasy suddenly, "Naw, I was just messing with you. Of course it's your truck-" he stopped, looked at Grandma. "Did you just call me Joey?"

"I sure did," grinned Grandma, "If she's 'Teddi-with-an-I' now, then it only seems fitting that you get a guy name. And Joey, I figure it's only one letter off, so-"

"No way! Not 'Joey'. It's such a jerky name."

"Can you think of one you like, then? Something you feel right with? Or I'll keep calling you Joy if that's what you want."

"What I'd feel right with---what I want---is for you to just switch us back!"

The AC had brought the temperature in the truck down to where it was almost habitable. Time to go. I grabbed hold of the gearshift knob, "I don't know, Joey. I think the name Joey really suits you, Joey. You got this whole 'Joey' thing going on ......... Joey."

"Stop it!"

"Joey! ..... Joey-Joey-Joey! ..... Joey-Joey-Joey-Joey-Joey-Joey-J- OOWWWWWW!!!"

I rubbed the side of my head, "Jesus! That was a real punch."

Grandma inspected her knuckles, grinning smugly, "Hey, I was just getting into the spirit of things around here. Why should you two have all the fun?"

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Exiting the parking lot I stopped at the little glass walled hut and handed the old guy the ticket that she passed to me. Then three rumpled ones. She shouted across me to him, "Hi Larry. How you been?"

"Still waiting for an answer to my proposal," smiled the guard. He was ancient, liver-spotted, one hand tremoring slightly. He would have looked a lot better if he abandoned his attempt at a combover- a few forlorned strands limply traversing his bald dome.

Grandma offered him a toothy Katherine Hepburn grin, "But Darling, I gave you my answer."

"I meant the right answer."

"C'mon, Larry. You're only seventy-five. You don't want to marry an old broad like me ............ I'll tell you what though. It looks like I'll be here a lot these next couple of weeks, so if I run into you in the cafeteria again, it'll be my treat this time."

He was all smiles, "I usually get my lunch from two to three."

"It's a date then. All right Slick, I'll see you around," she said, which was my cue to hit the gas pedal and pull us out onto the boulevard.

"You should go out with him," Joey teased.

"Who, Larry? Naw, I've talked to him enough to know we wouldn't really fit together. He's lonely, we B.S. a little, and that's about it..."

I asked her, "So what's this story about you having been a guy? Is that for real?"

"Sure is. I was a man for a year. The same exact spell I used on you two. Heck, I wouldn't put you through anything I wasn't willing to go through myself."

"But there's a big difference there. You were 'willing'. Him and I weren't. I understand you might have had good reasons for what you did, but I can't help seeing the way you sprung it on us as a serious lapse in ethics for someone I always looked up to when it came to moral matters. I sure didn't get my morality from Papa, with all his talk about 'grey areas' and his swag-dealing cumpari. It's like, I mean-"

I stopped, suddenly noticing a pair of small hands with painted nails hanging in the air in front of me. They were my hands. I had been gesturing frantically to articulate my point. I'd been back with the family one day and I was in full atsa-spicy-meatball mode. This always happened when I came here, a habit that only subsided after I got back to the staid Midwest, and started to notice how people were watching my hands---with a weird half-grin on their face---instead of listening to what I was saying...

"So who did you swap with," asked Joey, "And why for so long?"

"That was on the advice of our mentor, Sally. You can't learn much in a month. But a year, just the idea of it has a certain weight, emotionally you sort of decide to settle in. And the guy was a warlock named Cyrus McMahon. We were buddies. We were young, younger than you two are, and magic was our cause, or religion, practically our drug. It was so exciting, trying out every spell that came along. I even flew on a broomstick, which is about the stupidest thing any witch ever did. It hurts! But anyway, our swap was a one year arrangement, from Solstice to Solstice."

"And what did you do all that time?" I asked.

"I spent Cyrus's money. Or that's what it felt like to me, but when we swapped back he chided me for being so frugal. He was loaded. He went off to my little job, like it was gonna be some great adventure, but got tired of that pretty quick. Started playing the market with my money, parlaying it. Like those shares in the Haloid Mimeograph Company, back before they changed their name to Xerox. I learned a lot, had some great times as a man, but toward the end I was more than ready to going back to being female. And as it turns out we did swap back a bit early. The silly goose went and got herself pregnant!"

"Holy crap," said Joey. "So what did you do about that?"

"You're here, aren't you?"

We both cried, "Dad?!"

"Yep. And that's another thing you're never telling him! But the father---your Grandpa---turned out to be a wonderful man. He was quite smitten with Cerie, who for obvious reasons couldn't commit to a long-term relationship."

"What a bitch though, sticking you with that!"

"It wasn't her fault. She didn't even want to go on a date with a man. I was the one who said 'try it, and see what happens'-" Grandma threw her head back and laughed.

"So did Grandpa know about any of this?" I asked.

"None of it, at first. He didn't even know he was going to be a father. I wasn't about to saddle some stranger with responsibilities he didn't want, and marriage sure wasn't in my plans. I figured I could take care of a kid by myself. But he tracked me down, showed up at my door with flowers. And somehow as I was explaining him why I wasn't in love with him---because I didn't know him---and giving him enough of a magic show to convince him it was all true, we just hit it off. Started dating. He really knew how to make me feel like a woman again, which I needed at that point. We got married for good reasons, and not just to keep Josepho from being a bastard."

"Well that sure didn't work," snorted Joey.

Grandma sighed."I know, Honey."

"Actually, that's something I've kind of been wondering about. About Papa," I said hesitantly. When Grandma nodded for me to go ahead, I said, "Well to put it bluntly, how did a woman like you have a kid who turned out like him?"

"It's simple, really. I tried to raise a perfect human being," she said woefully. She did her yogic breathing thing---inhaling deep, exhaling slow---and said, "You two know most of my philosophies, right? And how I, uh, can tend to lecture?"

"You're not that bad," I said.

"Well I was then. I was out to save the world. To show people a better way to be. And I thought the best place to start was with this child, that I could teach, and who would go out and teach others. Everything I did was a growing experience for him, an instruction. When he was scared, when he was tired, and especially when he was angry or aggressive. He wanted a Davey Crockett popgun, he got a lecture about the Hopi Indians and their peaceable ways, and a nice Hopi beadworking kit. I wasn't letting him just be a kid, a boy. And by the time I realized what I was doing, it was too late. He had dug in like a mule!" She shook her head in remorse, "His rebellion took the form of becoming exactly the kind of people I used to point out to him. The greedy, the closed-minded, the arrogant. We weren't like them. But I couldn't see my own arrogance. I've grown up a lot since then, but for Jojo ........ well you don't get a second chance at being a good parent."

"Sure you do," said Joey. "Uncle Angelo and aunt Toni turned out kind of okay."

Grandma brightened, "Thank you, I guess they did at that. Josepho was nine when Angelo came along. By then I wasn't such a fanatic, so strident about everything."

"And you make a wonderful grandmother."

"Oh, stop!" barked Grandma Rosa, but we could tell she loved it.

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We stopped at a tiny booth in the parking lot of a strip mall, where Grandma had keys made for both me and Joey. One for the lock in the doorknob, a heavier one for the deadbolt. They worked for both front and back doors. The man working there---who could have been Larry's brother---asked her if she wanted to go to the dog races with him.

I thought about putting mine with my truck key, but three keys seemed like a lot of pokey metal to put down my bosom. I dumped them in my purse. Would snag that key chain I had seen in the kitchen junk drawer- a brass bat with BACARDI embossed on it.

The intersection of Einstein Blvd. and Hudson was known for its ridiculous number of fast food places. I wanted to stop, but with so many choices we were past them before I could decide. Jeez, I was hungry...

In a somewhat seedy neighborhood a mile from our house, I dropped Joey and Grandma off in front of the family business. Il Vesuvio was a mostly unremarkable structure, except for the big kitschy fake volcano above the entrance. I waited to make sure they got the Lincoln started, but then Joey hopped out and went into the restaurant, so I took off. I arrived home ahead of them, leaving the driveway for them to use. Somehow I found a spot on the street only six houses down from ours. I hoofed it up the sidewalk- past the Di Giacomo's house, the Feingold's house- designations I recalled from childhood but who could say who lived in them now?

It was good to see that see Mrs. Pirelli was still around, as fat as ever, out watering her marigolds. I waved and bid her boun pomeriggio, good afternoon, but I guessed Joy wasn't yet forgiven for that long ago Christmas when she and her faux-satanist headbanger friends put the firecrackers in the Pirelli's Nativity scene...

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I went in, opened all the windows, turned on fans, used the bathroom, took another shower. When I got out I discovered that Joy's clothes stunk pretty bad. I decided that her jeans passed the sniff test (barely) but nothing else I'd had on did. I changed into her other pair of panties, and her other bra- a red lacy thing that I'll have to admit felt pretty good. A certain sense of security or something to how it fit. When I pulled her clean tank top on I was startled to see myself looking like I'd gained a cup size.

Joey and Grandma got home about a half hour after me. Joey had a large styrofoam carryout that even with the lid closed smelled so good my mouth watered. He sat, popped it open, revealing the last third of what had been a huge sandwhich, fried italian sausage, bell pepper and onion on a sourdough hoagie roll. He hefted it and tore off a huge bite.

"Where'd you get that?" I asked, even as the answer came to me. That roll was obviously from Cosimo's, our supplier, and maybe the best damn bakery on the planet.

"Eddie Juarez made it for me right there in the kitchen, while he told me about all the broads he was bangin' and how much they all love his big twelve inch dick. Interesting conversations you guys have..."

"Eddie's an extreme case," I laughed, thinking of what an earful my sister must have got. Our opening cook was ridiculously sex-crazed & raunchy around men---to a point where my father had to just tell him to shut up---while he favored women with a droopy-eyed courtliness and creepy insincere charm, like a badly degraded twelfth generation Ricardo Montalban clone. I shrugged, "But you got to admit he makes a great eye-tie sausage sandwich. Could I have a bite?"

He slid the styrofoam box on the table away from me, "Maybe you should get in your truck and go get one. But oh, gee, that's right ........ You're not really welcome in there."

"I wouldn't be bragging about that if I was you."

He poked the last huge chunk of the sandwich into his mouth with his fingers, as if this proved something. It affected my gag reflex to see "my" mouth being stuffed with that much food, and I worried about him doing a Mama Cass right here in front of us while he was in my body, but he managed to chew and swallow it, his eyes bulging.

"We got anything to drink in here?" he asked as he opened the old fridge and looked around. He closed it, opened the freezer compartment above it, "Or maybe some frozen juice- Ugh, gross!"

"What?" asked Grandma.

"The top of this 'frigerator. It's disgusting!"

"Well then clean it," said Grandma testily. I think she too was kind of mad that Joey hadn't gotten us anything. It wouldn't have cost him anything, and with the lunch rush about over Eddie would have been happy to make sandwiches for the three of us. All he'd had to do was ask.

He startled. "Oh. Of course."

"And please be careful with Bruno there..."

Bruno? I didn't know the thing had a name. I always thought of the large porcelain cookie jar as "the scary rabbit". It's the source of my earliest remembered nightmares. I wasn't sure how our family had aquired it, but it had been made in the 1930's in Dresden Germany, and according to my father was extremely valuable, thanks to the factory that made it having being bombed into rubble along with the rest of the city toward the end of World War II ............ In one of our phone conversations Papa had bragged of he was going to "clean up" with it when the t.v. program The Antiques Roadshow came to Princeton, but he had returned home with it, and all he'd say about the matter afterward was: "They were a bunch of assholes". So I didn't know if it was in fact worth anything. But I did know this was one sinister cookie jar!

Vaguely spherical, with a removeable top section, Bruno wore a cute little argyle vest and a cute little misshapen hat between his ears, and a pitiless stare that said he would just as soon kill you as look at you. It didn't scare me as much as it did when I was a kid, but this unholy offspring of Disney's White Rabbit and the Terminator still creeped me out.

"He's kind of greasy. I'll clean him, too," Joey said as he set Bruno carefully down on the drainboard. He grabbed a spray bottle of Orange Kleenzit and pulled the trigger until he had saturated the top of the refrigerator. He mopped it all up with an immense wad of paper towels, turning and refolding it whenever it turned nasty, then lobbed it in a high arc into the wastebasket, pumping his fist when it went in.

"Thank you nipote," smiled Grandma, and shot me a glance. I'd seen it too, and grinned back at her.

He had missed the dozen or so brown streaks that all his spritzing had sent running down the side. Rather than burst Joey's bubble one of us would get it later. He was beaming with the same air of profound self-congratulation that Dad displayed whenever he did the smallest amount of housework.

God, I thought, he's such a guy! Maybe he actually is transgender.

Then it occurred to me that "he's such a guy"---viewing stereotypical male behavior as if it belonged to some other species---was pretty damn transgendered in itself. And when did I start sitting with my legs together and angled sideways like this?

Grandma had compared this month I would be spending as a female to living in Japan for a while, adopting the local customs but with no real changes to my core self. Did she even know what she was doing? An old top 40 song from the early 80's popped into my mind: Oh I'm turning yes I'm turning 'cuz I'm turning yes I'm turning- Turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so. Turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so. Turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese-

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Grandma Rosa dug a little white tube out of her purse, uncapped it and ran it over her lips. It was Chapstick, but it reminded me. I asked her (turning Japanese I think I'm-) if she could teach me to use makeup.

"Sure," she said. "Bring me what you've got."

Joey laughed, "This I have to see!"

"No you don't have to. Go watch t.v. or something," said Grandma. She turned, glanced up at the clock on the wall, and jumped up, "Oh, the t.v.! And it's almost on, too."

She squeezed my shoulder, "Sorry Darlin', I swear we'll do this right after my show. You kids want to watch the idiot box with me?"

The kitchen's old rotary phone must have finally given up the ghost. It had been replaced with a cordless model. I grabbed the handset, took it and the phone book with me as we all headed for the living room.

Joey took Dad's chair. Fine, let him have it. Me and Grandma sat on the couch. I asked, "You feel like pizza Grandma?"

"That sounds good. I don't feel like turning on the oven. Zito's makes a decent pie, they deliver."

I made the call. The commercials ended, replaced by the thunder of rocking guitars, a rapid montage of Las Vegas sights. I turned to Grandma, "CSI?"

She grinned a bit sheepishly, "I know. It doesn't seem like me, does it? My friend Birda got me hooked on it. But hey, I like it."

I smiled and nodded noncommittally. My problem with CSI was that while I would start out fairly interested the closer the CSI team got to solving the mystery, the less I seemed to care. They were all just so grim and earnest. But the program itself hadn't been my reason for wanting to watch t.v. with Grandma. Seeing my father looking so awful today had got me thinking about mortality. Not mine so much as his, and Grandma's. She was eighty-something, and I lived five states away. How many more opportunities would I have to just hang out with her?

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A casino bigshot was found murdered in his mansion, sprawled on the marble floor after he took a gainer off an inside balcony. There were some irregularities at the crime scene. A whole lot of talcum powder, and the fact that this obese, middle aged man was wearing only a very large diaper. Not adult incontinence pants, but a larger version of a cotton baby diaper, secured by an oversized safety pin, its clasp a cute little yellow plastic ducky. As they broke for the first batch of commercials the camera zoomed in on the plastic ducky and the music swelled ominously.

"What is going on here?" laughed Joey.

"Looks to me like a case of adult infantilism," said Grandma.

"He was turning into a baby? God, I hope I don't get that."

"Did you just really say that?" I asked incredulously, wondering if this body swap could have damaged his mind somehow. And if his, then what about mine?

A little farther into the episode a secret door in the wall was found, beyond which lie an elaborate nursery with giant baby bottles, a giant talcum powder shaker, a giant crib with a giant Mother Goose mobile hanging over it, all clearly intended for the casino executive.

When my sister accused the show's writers of being on LSD or something, Grandma briefly explained the whole 'adult baby' fixation to him. He was flabbergasted. There was a hoarseness in his voice, an almost hysterical quality, as he tried to wrap his head around the most mind-blowingly strange thing he'd ever heard of- "That is just sick! You're kidding me, right?"

"No, I've heard of it too. With some of them it's a sexual fetish, but for others it's just a thing they do. They say there's a part of them that just feels like they're really an infant."

"That's called being stone fucking crazy! Why not say you're a purple-spotted goony bird while you're at it?!"

"People are funny about age," said Grandma, "Just about everyone over forty wishes they were twenty-two again. And hell, I wouldn't mind being fifty-"

"That's just wanting to look better! It's not rattles and pacifiers a-a-and ........ HE WAS WEARING A FUCKING DIAPER, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! I'm sorry, that is just weird! That is just so ....... god damn....... weird! Are you trying to tell me that isn't weird?"

Having personally felt the sting of the righteous opprobrium of bigots, I didn't want to flog anyone else with that---or at least anyone harmless---simply because I didn't understand why they liked what they did. I said, "Not as weird as you're making it. Now let's let Grandma watch her show."

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Our dinner came, and Grandma and I scarfed down. Zito's pizza really was excellent. Unlike the chain places, they weren't afraid to use a little oregano. I had been wondering if a medium one was going to be enough, but halfway through my third slice I realized it was going to be my last.

"Ewwwww gross," hooted Joey as the CSI guys questioned the soft-spoken motherly owner of a shop called Forever Baby, "They got a whole store for baby weirdos!"

Sated and sleepy, I grabbed a large throw pillow off the couch and watched the rest of the show lying on the carpet on my stomach, like I used to as a kid, watching Hunter after school. I had to shift slightly on the pillow I had under me, but all my other thoughts were no longer coming to such a halt every time I noticed my tits.

Something was itching that I didn't want to scratch in front of Gram, and especially in front of Joey. Right on the flap, a spot where if I moved my finger a few millimeters to the right it would go right in. In me ......... Odd that I hadn't even tried it. What would that be like? Or what if it was Ricky's finger? Suddenly I really wanted Ricky's finger there. My thighs parted (Turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese-) and I pressed my crotch hard against the floor. Against a nice little protruding seam in the fabric of my jeans...

Oh damn it, though ....... I HAD to get in touch with Ricky! Monday was just too far away. It looked like I would have to call him on the phone. But what would I say?

"Hey Ricky! Guess who this is. No! Come on, dude. Guess!"

Okay, not that. That was dumb. Then how about...

"Hello Mr. Silverman? You don't know me, or at least you don't think you do, but do you remember that old Avengers episode you and your partner Teddy watched last week? The one with the mind-swapping machine?"

That had potential. Unless there was a way to do this without even mentioning my transformation, as Grandma had so strenuously advised...

"Hi Ricky? This is Joy, Teddy's sister. Yes he's sitting right here, but what happened is, he has laryngitis really bad. Here: *Hhhhhhrrraaaaagggghhuh*. Yes, that was him, trying to say hello. I know, it's awful! But he can hear you, and we have a pad of paper here, and I'll tell you what he's writing..."

Could I do all that, that whole elaborate deception? I despised dishonesty, and wasn't a very good liar. Especially with Ricky. Our whole partnership was supposed to be built on trust, and my guilt over violating that trust usually gave me away...

But maybe I could enlist the help of someone who was adept at lying. It would be risky, but I thought I saw a way. I would offer Joey payment so disproportionate to the simple thing I wanted him to do that he would have to be nuts not to do it for me.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

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In the kitchen I found a canister of some sort of generic iced tea mix. Threw a spoonful into a half a glass of cold water. Stirred it, filled the glass with ice cubes. Let it sit until it cooled down.

"God, that show was weird," muttered Joey as he walked in, and looked in the fridge as if he expected something to be in there that hadn't been there before.

When we were eating, Grandma and I had apparently been on the same wavelength about offering Joey any pizza. But if it helped to sweeten the coming deal...

"You want a slice?"

He grinned---Oh hell yeah!---and as he dug in I said, "I have a proposal for you. I know what a bitch it can be to not have transportation. Well I won't loan you my truck, but what I will do is take you anywhere you need to go, within a fifty mile radius, whenever you need to go there. Not once, but ten times."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. All you have to do is talk to my boyfriend for on the phone for like a minute, and pretend you're me. Say 'Hi', tell him things have been just totally crazy around here with Dad in the hospital, so you couldn't call before, but you're fine. Tell him you love him, or if you can't do that, when he says he loves you say: 'You back times a million, Pookie'."

He shrugged, "I can tell him 'I love you'. I'm just passing it along."

"Cool! He'll want to talk, so tell him we're leaving for the hospital again right now, but you'll call him or e-mail him as soon as you can. You might want to emphasize e-mail. When he says 'kiss kiss', you tell him 'kiss kiss kiss'---that's three times---and hang up. Can you do all that?"

He paraphrased what I had said, quite convincingly, adding Grandma's doing fine and sends you her love, which was a nice touch. He said, "And you'll really take me anywhere I want to go, any time?"

"Well, not to some club in Manhattan at midnight."

"Not to Manhattan?"

"Not at midnight, and nowhere if I'm sleeping, but sure. I'll get you through the Holland Tunnel and onto a subway."

"Twelve rides," he demanded suddenly.

"Come on, don't be ........ Well okay, twelve rides."

He smiled nastily, and after a pause demanded, "Fifteen!"

That heavy skillet on the drainboard, the element of surprise.

No, better not; that's my head I'd be cracking. Fucking asshole! I should've known better. I got up and started to walk from the room.

"Hey, come on. I was just teasing. Ten rides is fine."

"I'm not in a teasing mood," I warned him, "I really, really need to contact Ricky."

"I hear you. And I really need to be able to get around. So seriously, it's a great deal for me. Thanks!"

I punched in the number and handed him the phone's handset. A moment later he said, "Hi, Ricky?"

I could hear my boyfriend practically shout my name, sounding very happy. Weather was discussed, Ricky had heard about New Jersey's unseasonable heat wave, the news reports back there making it sound like we were dropping dead left and right out here. Joey was standing differently, more upright- like I did, I suppose. He was even tugging at his beard from time to time, right where I did, toward the back of his jawline. Wow he's good, I thought.

I was smiling, participating vicariously at their conversation: So wonderful to hear your voice, you sound great ....... I know ...... I know ....... I miss you so much, too-

-until he radically deviated from the agreed upon script. "Can you come out here maybe? No, I mean tonight. Just drop everything and drive. Or catch the next flight into Newark, and I'll come get you in my truck. I just really need to see you..."

"NO!" I gasped, shaking my head furiously. What the hell was he saying?! Sure I would have loved to have seen Ricky, but how could I when were body-swapped?

Joey smiled crazily as he got up and walked across the room, the phone to his ear. "I know it's tough to get away, but I really need you here. I need my Daddy ........... No not my father, he's all sick and icky. I need my Daddy. You're my Daddy. My Pookie Daddy. And I'm a little baby!"

When I jumped up and tried to grab the phone I found myself at a greater disadvantage than I would have imagined possible. He was so much taller and stronger---and with a longer reach---that he kept it away from me easily. I thought speed might be on my side, but he kept managing to dodge me. And when I finally did latch onto it he just yanked it straight up out of my grip!

"Hold on a second," he laughed, "My stupid sister is trying to grab the phone. No, I have no idea why. Maybe 'cuz girls are stupid! Well, aren't they? Well then you're stupid! I'm soooooo glad we're faggots and got dicks an' stuff! And that I'm a baby ........... No, I mean a baby! A little bitty baby-baby, all helpless and everything goin' goo goo, gah gah..."

"God damn you!" I hissed.

Joey shook his head at me. In a swift move he put his foot against my stomach, and---before I could grab onto it---shoved hard. It was only sheer luck that I didn't fall!

He laughed at my awkward flight across the room, "What do you mean stop kidding around? I'm a baaaaaaaby! Since like forever, that's since when! I'm wearing a diaper right now. I just LOVE to poop my diapers, and have poop on my butt-"

I was about to launch myself at him, kicking and clawing, when I saw a far easier solution.

"So come down here. Pweeeeeez, Daddies?! Babykins need Daddykins in him butty-kins. To fuck my poopy baby butt! 'Cuz if you don't, well then hey ......... There's a lot of cute sailors who could really go for a big sissy homo in a diaper!" he threatened, and began to sing, "In the Naaaavy! You can sail the seven seas; In the Naaaaavy! You can catch a gay disease- Hello?! HEY!"

I had unplugged the phone base from the wall. I shouted, "You stupid bastard! What the hell was that?"

Joey couldn't stop laughing, "Oh God, oh God, oh God! You shoulda seen the look on your face! And your boyfriend ............ he was just freaking out!"

I felt sick to my stomach. The sheer random spitefulness of it! It had been an outrageously good deal I had offered him, but like an idiot trading a hundred dollar bill for a piece of candy, the chance to do something cruel and fucked right there and then had overridden all other considerations...

I stared at Joey. "What is wrong with you?"

"You mean you didn't like that," he sniggered.

I sat down heavily. Slammed my fist down on the table. The little bones in the side of my hand flared with a pain that was oddly gratifying and calming. I said wearily, "Grandma tells me to try to understand you. She talks about how understanding leads to compassion, which opens the way for communication, which brings even greater understanding. Respect and love. Well that's just wonderful, but it assumes both sides want the same thing. And when you do shit like this it's obvious that you don't. So fuck it! It would be nice if Grandma's plan could work, but you're a total lost cause. And you can forget about getting any rides from me!"

"Oh no, terrible! Like I'd have to come to you when I want to go anyplace, and you'd be all in my business about where I'm going and why! You think I need you for that? That I can't take care of myself? I don't need your stupid rides. I can take the bus and the MetRail. That truck should be mine to use, anyway. But you make this big fucking drama out of it, how much better you are than me, hiding the key between your titties like I'm some thief!"

"Is that what this is about? That you can't drive? You put yourself in that situation, when over and over you risked not just your own useless ass, but the lives of everyone else on the road. But by some logic straight out of hell, you blame everybody else. You blame the State, or maybe those party poopers who came and pried you out of your Toyota with the Jaws of Life. And then you get mad at me, so you try to undermine my relationship, the man I've been with for three years now and hope to marry! You're fucked, you know that? You are just plain fucked!"

"Wasn't much of a relationship if it can't handle one joke. Don't be such a damn baby!" he scoffed, and then his hand flew up to cover his mouth---OOPS!---an insufferably cutesy gesture.

"You know all about relationships, huh? Id love to be able to mess with your relationship like that, and tell your boyfriend you're gonna go fuck a bunch of sailors ............. But that's right, I can't. Because you don't have one. This last guy couldn't stand your weird bullshit any better than the rest of them, could he? How long did it take him to figure out that he was better off using his goddamn hand than having you for a girlfriend?"

"You fucking cunt!" he shouted, and stomped out, and up the stairs.

My elation over my victory lasted about ten seconds. Because it was actually a pyrrhic victory. I had proven I could be more vicious than him, but what horrible kinds of things did that prove?

It was all so fucked up. Joy and me .......... Papa in the hospital, dying with hate in his heart .......... And now Ricky---the most wonderful and probably the sanest thing in my life---was sitting in a condo 900 miles away, thinking God knows what about me. I slumped over onto the table and started to cry...

.
~ || ~~ || ~~~ || ~~~~ || ~~~~~ || ~~~~ || ~~~ || ~~ || ~
.

Joey and I avoided each other the rest of the day. Grandma was in her room, a piece of notebook paper with DO NOT DISTURB scrawled on it taped to her door. I felt totally drained. It was an early night for me.

.
~ || ~~ || ~~~ || ~~~~ || ~~~~~ || ~~~~ || ~~~ || ~~ || ~
.

.
when i was 14 yr old i decided i was going to be a poet

i hd seen the film
Beat Hotel about young
american misfits
livin in paris in the mid-1950's
a life or freedom
intellectual passion
creation
+ krazy gone fun.

i was impressed mostofall
w/ the allen ginsberg character-
this brilliant poet + revolutionary mystic loonybeard
YES
an openly gay man who spoke unashamedly of the virtues of
love
tenderness
a gentle heart
and yet who was in no sense
one of them embarrassing swishy kinda queer

who spoke of a no-bull lineage
of saints / visionaries / mad artists
that he was
YES
plugged into
& was totally fearless & honest in his dealings w/ narrow minded squares.
and with god on his side
(a god who said that sexuality too
in all its myriafold humanifestations
was in the image of god)
he was in all this
what I wanted to be
here in radiant cool
crazy nightmare
zen new jersey nowhere

.
This was my "bohemian" phase, and it lasted through the spring and summer of '89; until I realized what crap my poetry was; and also found that I wasn't actually brave enough to live totally openly gay in the neighboorhood, at my school, or especially within our family. Not that I ever again denied it, this would've been pointless since I'd confessed the matter rather publically, but I was not the fearless crusader I had imagined I would be; an in-your-face Superfag calmly refuting ignorance with my Truth and Wisdom. Other gay and lesbian students (ones without a head full of shit-mystic intellectual flapdoodle...) totally showed me up in this department.

But for that one summer, as I planned my emergence as this glorious Dharma Bum, I discovered that I had a new best friend living in the same house. We had battled each other all through early childhood; kid's stuff about toys destroyed and who tattled on who, that all suddenly seemed pointless to us. Because now, at 12 and 14, we were sophisticated.

Joy thought I was a genius and a great soul. She listened adoringly to my stinking free verse and was my confidant about my homosexuality, thinking this was a most exotic and rebellious thing for me to do. For once in our lives, we were close. We looked into each others eyes, open and unafraid, seeing the goodness there. We wrote poems and stories together, none of which came out so hot, and did drawings together, which sometimes did...

But our favorite thing to collaborate on was collage. At first they were the usual gridlike arrays of images that all kids slap together, following some theme we had agreed on. But then we stumbled into the notion of photorealism in our collages- cutting everything out as carefully as possible; making sure that angles and perspectives lined up so that these objects and people actually seemed to belong together in space and not like they were clipped from separate sources.

Even after our partnership dissolved, we each did well in our art classes using this difficult gimmick; but none seemed quite as inspired as those we'd done together during that ten weeks. The one I have hanging in a frame at home gets commented on a lot, a gallery owner asking me if the artist might want to sell his stuff at her place. He's dead, I had told her...

All that summer we talked, baring our adolescent souls. Complaining about our hard-ass jerk of a father, and wondering what his problem was with Joy all of a sudden. Discussing our likes and dislikes in music, and what actors and/or actresses we thought were sexy. And though there wasn't a lot of overlap with our being in different schools, about all our friends and enemies.

My archnemesis at the time was a half-crazy juvenile delinquent named Gordy. I knew that if he and his cronies had harrassed me in Eighth grade, just for helping Coach Daniels pull them off of that little foreign exchange student, they were going to declare total jihad against me in ninth, after I came out to all and sundry. And I knew I would probably lose a few friends and gain some enemies in the process. But there was one enemy I never expected I would have...

Entering seventh grade at my Junior High, Joy fell in with a bunch of druggies. Little low-class druggies from low-class druggie families. They actually looked up to Gordy Thompson, and some of them bragged about their gang connections. And they convinced her that there was absolutely nothing cool about me being a faggot. And when she realized that if she fraternized with me at all she was going to be taunted as well---for being the sister of that fucking homo---she did what she had to to salvage her social standing, by turning around and becoming the loudest and the most mocking of my detractors.

Oh Joy, you Judas.

.
||| SUNDAY OCTOBER 5 ~~~

.
The little digital alarm clock in here said 4:19 a.m. Well that's what happens when you go to bed before eight. I got up up.

I wandered down the hall to the bathroom. The DO NOT DISTURB sign was still on Grandma's door, and she was talking in there. Or no- she was chanting something, in what sounded like a mixture of Greek and Latin. She would chant a while, stop and swear, then back up- repeating the passage that she had flubbed. It sounded like serious business whatever it was.

Downstairs, I looked in the video cabinet for something to watch. It looked like Papa had really gone on a movie buying spree.There were twice as many DVD's in here as I remembered from six years ago. One of them had fallen out as I opened the door- a police comedy starring Tom Hanks and a huge slobbering dog. It seemed like as good a way as any to quietly kill an hour and a half...

.
~ || ~~ || ~~~ || ~~~~ || ~~~~~ || ~~~~ || ~~~ || ~~ || ~
.

I was was having coffee in the kitchen when I heard the shower being turned on upstairs. Grandma swore by Japanese style super-hot baths, so that would be Joey.

Joey took longer than I thought he would. I had sort of forgotten about him, when he came in whistling. I bolted upright in my chair. "What the hell did you do?!"

He rubbed his smoothly shaven cheek, "It was really bugging me!"

"How could you just cut my beard off?"

"Well first I took a scizzors and trimmed it as much as I could-"

"Goddamn it, that's not funny."

"What can I say? It was itching."

"My beard doesn't itch."

"Are you telling me what I felt and what I didn't? That is so like you. You completely deny my reality."

"You didn't even ask me!"

"Calm the fuck down, wouldja? It'll grow back in a couple of months."

"Try about a year, to get it like I had it. It doesn't fill in evenly..."

"Gee. I didn't know that," he grinned, happy to learn that he had screwed me over even better than he'd planned.

"Thank you," I smiled calmly.

He sounded apprehensive; "For what?"

I got up, rummage through the kitchen junk drawer. Found a big shiny pair of sewing scizzors. "For having absolutely no regard for my wishes. It gives me permission to do this..."

I layed my hand flat on the table top and clipped the nail off of my left pinky!

"Come on!" yelped Joy, "Those aren't EVEN long!"

I finished my left hand, started on my right. "Yes they are. Besides, what's the big deal? They'll grow back. Unlike my beard, unless I wanted to wear some stupid thing out of a costume shop, you at least have the option of buying fingernails-"

"I hate acrylic fingernails. They're so phony! Those there are mine, I grew them. They're part of me..."

"Not anymore they're not," I smiled, snipping off the last one, "You know, you're right. We're going to be in each other's bodies for a whole month. We might as well get comfortable."

"You're such an asshole!"

"Hey, I learned from the best. Now that was for that bullshit on the phone last night," I said, holding up my hand for inspection. "But you know what else drives me nuts? These stupid bangs!"

I turned the old chrome toaster sitting on the table, and using it for a mirror, raised the scizzors to my forehead.

"Okay, stop!" he whined, "I'm sorry!"

"A little late for that," I smile as I start to cut. I knew I should have a professional do this, but this was just too much fun. I started snipping, "And they really do bug me. Always getting in my eyes."

"That hair is nowhere near your eyes!"

"Are you denying my reality?"

Suddenly issuing a loud and terrifying insane roar, he jumped me!

I got my other hand around the scizzors' pointy end the instant before he grabbed them. He pulled, lifting me out of the chair! Joey tried to shake me loose, swinging me in a wide arc. My ass hit something, a chair fell over loudly. He put his other hand against my face and pushed!

I was about to bite the hand that was smooshing my face when I heard: "Please you two, I was up until almost five, and I really needed more sleep. Could you for God's sake keep it down a little-"

When Grandma stepped through the entry and saw us locked in what looked like a fight to the death with these scizzors, she screamed!

I let go. I don't know what Joey did, but they went flying in the direction of the kitchen sink. Bruno the Nazi Rabbit was still sitting on the drainboard where Joey had left him yesterday. The scizzors hit him right in the polka-dot bow tie, knocking his top part off its base. It was a fall of only about fourteen inches into the empty sink, but from the way he shattered when he landed in there ears first, it might as well have been fourteen stories.

Joey and I looked at each other, our jaws hanging slack and eyes bugged out, and then turned toward Grandma.

She started to say something but then didn't. Walked out. This was not good.

.
~ || ~~ || ~~~ || ~~~~ || ~~~~~ || ~~~~ || ~~~ || ~~ || ~
.

"Oh shit, what did you do?"

"Me? You're the one who let go of them!"

Joey went over to the sink, "Maybe we can glue .............. Yeeeeesh! Nevermind..."

We heard Grandma coming slowly down the stairs. Clump-CLUMP! Clump-CLUMP! Clump-CLUMP!

She paused in the doorway, pulling a suitcase on wheels. "That's it, I'm out of here!"

"Where are you going?"

"I was up all night trying to come up with a healing spell for your father. It's some tough magic, they have to be custom fit, and I found out there's no way I can do it by myself. I'm going to stay with my coven sister Birda. Sister Vivian's going to stay there too. It's blissfully uncomplicated being with them. Very little drama..."

"Aw Grandma, don't be sore."

"I hurt all over. But believe me, you two are the least of my problems. Your negativity and bitchiness makes this spell impossible to perform here, but I would've had to do this anyway. The three of us will need to chant this around the clock. From now until ........ well however this turns out."

"How did you get packed so fast?" asked Joey.

"I've had this packed since I phoned you. I knew it might turn out like this." Grandma sighed. She dug into her handbag, "Here Joey. Here's a hundred for groceries. And I guess I'd better make this fair..."

"I don't need it," I said as she shoved the crisp Benjamin toward me.

"Then give it to charity. Or maybe you can find a replacement for Bruno there. Something friendlier would be nice, I'll leave that up to your artistic sensibilities. I just wish ........... Enrico brought that ugly thing back from the war with him."

"Oh no!" I gasped, "I'm so sorry..."

She shrugged, "It's good to have a little reminder of amitya now and then. Nothing material lasts, you have to let go of all of it eventually. I'll be in touch. Try not to kill each other. I love you kids dearly, but .............................................................. sheesh!"

And then she was gone.
.

.

.
To be continued...
.