Charlie…11

Chapter 11

We get into Sable’s jeep and we head to my house and we’re careful not to wake everyone up while I quickly get changed and grab my board and take my meds. I smile at her having set the table and have put out the cereal boxes and everything to make toast and stuff as well as a bowl of fruit salad that she has in a Tupperware dish saying eat me and another with scrambled eggs saying cook me. She even loaded the coffee perk and it starts gurgling away as we leave.

That’ll get Dad up at least. He always says that fresh coffee and frying bacon are the best alarm clock smells.

We take off down to the beach and there are some nice five foot swells out there. I run with here out to the waves once we wax up and it’s there. That thing about surfing that just washes away all the gender bullshit in my life as I duck dive under the cool waters and feel the power of the ocean and that wave run over my body like it’s a deep massage getting the bullshit out.

It’s life, nature, it’s elemental and it absolutely doesn’t care that I’m male or female I’m just me.

Sable when I look at her has the same sort of look too. You really look at most people who surf. We’ve all got our damage and shit but even the hot-doggers out here get these moments of Zen. Of one with the wave, the ocean and even the planet where we are reduced to just that rise and fall of the waves and then the washing clear of our lives and even outracing the stuff.

It’s such a spiritual thing really.

Honestly I can get the why of why people love skiing and snowboarding and fresh powder and being at the top of the mountain. Or riding horses out in nature someplace whether working or for the love of it…or the early morning cyclist that is going thirty miles an hour in the pre-dawn communing with the world and the road before the sun rises and the rest of the planet begins to wake up.

I kind of want to do all those things and I get my Dad more in these times. He loves to go hiking and then fly-fishing. I’d love to feel that peace of fishing that I see them have. I like Hiking too and there’s supposed to be all sorts of places for both out here in California according to Dad.

We get through several great sets and I feel great and Sable and I head to my place where my Mom comes out from the kitchen to greet us with two cups of hot coffee and we gratefully take them and sip at them still shivering.

“Oh I wish really wish I was a GM. You really don’t see a lot of them shivering like this.”

It’s true, no matter the surgeries or hormones I’m not going to get a different circulatory system. And genetic guys always seem so warm.

Sable cuddles up to me as we’re drying off. “Better?”

“Okay, very much better I can deal with the shivers if it gets me closer to you.”

“Good answer Mr. Daniels, good answer.”

We kiss and sip coffee and kiss some more. It’s good, really nice kisses but not those trying to tongue each others tonsil type of kisses. Libby stares at us from the window of the house and she already looks like she’s working up to her daily mad on.

I sigh. “I have to shower and get changed for school.”

Sable sighs. “Me too I’ll see you there?”

“Okay…”

We share another kiss and I head inside and lean in the doorway with my coffee and watch her pull out and leave before heading inside. Libby passes me on the stairs. “Dyke.”

“Nope, I’m Het Libby, but if you did get all hot band bothered by watching us I can see you having your perfectly preppy panties in a twist.”

“Fuck you Charlie!”

“Hey!!!, you’re finally getting my name right.”

She storms into the kitchen and I hear her starting it up with mom again and freaking about still being grounded and left techless. Yeah, I’m so glad that I’m a guy. I mean some guys they have the addiction to toys and stuff and phones and texting and stuff but not really, really. You need that stuff for the girls now a days and I guess they’re useful for work.

But a girl, these days unable to talk on the phone, or conference call, text or check Facebook…Like Oh My Effing Gawd it’s like the end of the frikking world!

I shower and check my face, nothing yet…well acne starting but I use the face stuff I got for that and then get dressed, I’ve got these slate colored denim cargo pants I really dig and those go over my black boxer briefs and my jock buddy and I settle things and put on my compression vest/bra thing and a red t-shirt over it then a baggy black Godsmack concert t-shirt over that and my red keds and grab my books and my board and head down to eat breakfast.

………………………………It turns out to be the pretty usual school day. Pull into school get razzed at but a few of the haters who are there waiting to shout their two cents worth and yet too chicken to come to face me man to man.

Then it’s the cafeteria and the quad for a coffee before classes where I meet up with Sable and we kiss a bit, get stares and parted after a faculty member comes by and points out the No PDA signage.

Then off to the lockers where I camera flash the defacement and e-mail them to the office and my lawyer for my file and more than likely starting the principals ulcer to flare up or just to start up period.

It’s not until P.E. that things get interesting. The old coach is gone and there’s this other guy there a tall mid-thirties Hispanic guy. He kinda looks like Joe Montagna? The guy from Criminal Minds that TV show but like ripped.

Wow…he has no problem with me changing with the guys. He gives me this pen thingy. “Snap it, or press the button and it’ll set off an alarm. They use it in hospitals as panic buttons.”

That was it and then it was hell.

He ran us ragged, all sorts of exercises and drills and running then the last half of the class was this really hardcore game of dodge ball. I notice him watching and making lots and lots of notes.

The guys were all tired but the locker rooms and the showers were changed with all the showers having stalls built in there and stuff. The guys looked at me. I looked at them. “Shit.”

I’m kind of pissed but kind of not the whole thing could have been worse. “Sorry guys this is my fault.”

They actually just laugh and joke it off about finally not having to see too much of some peoples bodies while there’s some kids that actually look relieved to have some privacy.

Enough so that I decide not to make a stink over this. It’s just as much for some other people than for me. I’d be kind of a whiney “Girl” too as soon as I did throw some hypersensitive fit about it too.

I’m going to actually go with my idiot brother on this one. Not everything in the world has to do with being trans. And I’ll admit I do get sometimes caught up in my transition to where it’s a really too big a thing in my life. I need to find balance sometimes because if I’m in transition to actually have my life, be the person that I really am…I should live first right?

I head out of the locket rooms and there’s a basketball zooming at my head. I catch it and the new coach is looking at me. “Good hands.”

“Thanks…that’s kinda sort of assault Y’know that right?”

“Fine charge me but do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Shoot the ball from there.”

I look it’s a bit of a long throw and I shrug and toss a hook shot and it bounces off the rim.

Another ball zooms in. I catch this one and then drop my book bag. Look at the coach. “From the three point line this time.”

I get back board and a bounce off.

Another ball. “Same thing but try a jump shot.”

Another miss.

“Again but when you jump you use all of it, and point your toes down in the jump as you flick your fingers from the throw.”

“Flick my fingers?”

“You don’t play basketball do you.”

“Just some for fun and here.”

“You play pool?”

“Oh yeah.”

“You use the way the ball leaves your fingers as the way to put the “English” on the ball.”

Oh…well…you learn something new everyday. Wow he’s actually coaching me?

I do the jump shot again.

Closer…

Third time swish…

Fourth, fifth, sixth… swish, swish, swish…oh this feels good.

Lay ups are next then I’m in a game of best of five one on one with him and he knocks me on my ass twice fouling me hard. “Hurt? Done, You quit?”

“Hell no.”

He does beat me, he’s just better but he’s sweating and I need another shower. He uses his towel and wipes off. “You busy Friday after classes Daniels?”

“No plans why coach you asking me out?”

“Yeah, I want you to show up here and try out for the varsity basketball team.”

“Uhm you know the guys practice on Fridays right?”

“Yeah that’s why I’m asking you Mr. Daniels.”

“Okay…cool I be there.”

“Good, and practice between now and then. You’re good, but you need a shit-ton of skill improvement but you’ve got talent the team needs.”

“Needs?”

“Yeah, and I’m not going to let some stupid 1950’s mentality keep a great player off my team.”

“Cool, I’ll see you Friday.”

“Yeah get out of here go brag to your girlfriend.”

I grin and head out to do just that very thing.