“Yes ma’am,” he shot back with a quiver in his voice. “I mean sir, I mean.” “You mean you were just leaving,” I told him as I pointed to the door. Becoming Antonia Part 18. By; She who loves telling lawyer jokes, & Zomba.

It was pretty much like I expected it to be, when Sarah and I arrived at the hospital in Syracuse. Have I mentioned that I hate perky people? Not really the people, as much as the attitude that no matter what you’ve got wrong with you, you’re going to be fine. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the ones who try to make things easier. It’s just the ones who remind you of a highschool cheerleader on crack that piss me off.

Take for example Tracy. She was my nurse when I first checked in. She went over everything and answered every question Sarah and I threw at her. She wasn’t too bad, except she kept wanting to call me Mr. Trepasso. I had to keep reminding her that Mr. Trepasso is my father and to call me Pat. She finally picked it up around the end of her shift. That was when I got to meet Ellen.

Picture a short Barbie doll with black hair, and you’ll get Ellen. I won’t argue to the fact that she was pretty, but if I hear the word ‘super’ ever again, I’m going to shoot who said it. OH MY GOD! How can one person be so fucking perky? I want to sell whatever she’s on. I guarantee, if I can bottle the shit, I’ll make a million overnight. When she got on shift, she first took my vital signs, like they all have, but she did it with a smile on her face, like she actually enjoyed taking my blood pressure. Then, when she asked me how I was feeling, and I told her of the itch in my chest and the slight dull pain in my groin, she looked at my chart and told me, “We’ll have you super in no time.”

It took every ounce of will power for me not to go off on her right there. Ok, perhaps I’m being a bit too hard on the girl. I mean, all she wanted to do was help me feel better, but COME ON! I’ll bet I could have told her I was having chest pains right then and she would have said it was super too. But I digress.

Sarah went home for the first time in a couple of weeks, and she needed it too. I could tell that just sitting around all day in the hospital was taking it’s toll on her. It’s one thing when you’re the patient, but, when you’re visiting the patient, and are still there all day, everyday, it can start to wear on you. So it was good to see her finally get a chance to go home and sleep in her own bed, rather than have to share a cramped, hard hospital bed with me, but it did make my getting to sleep a bit harder that night.

I awoke the following morning when Tracy came in and had me sit up so she could take a blood draw. I’ve never been so happy to see that cherubic face of her’s in my life. I knew Tracy from high school, and it was good to have someone who I at least knew, taking care of me.

Tracy is an average height woman who, if you asked anyone to describe her, they’d probably tell you she’s a cute red head. That fits. I mean it’s not that she’s a raving beauty, but then again neither am I. It’s that her face really doesn’t fit the mold of what most people would call beautiful. Cute, yes. In fact I remember our senior year, she got voted cutest girl, in our senior polls. What made it a bit more bearable, was that she already knew me, and had an idea that Ellen would wear on me. We both had a good laugh over that, but after meeting my physical therapist, I’d have been glad to be locked in a room with Ellen over Brenda any day.

The only reason they sent me to PT, as they call it in the hospital, was to try to help me adjust my mannerisms. Having had thirty years of male to work with, those weren't easy to change. The doctors and my psychologist thought it would be best if I learned to walk and speak more like a lady. Like that’s ever fucking going to happen. Oh, I didn’t tell you about my shrink, Doctor Smith? We’ll get to her in a moment.

Brenda, my PT, acted like she was a drill instructor in the marines. I mean come on, I’m here to learn how to not look and act like a man anymore, and here she is screaming at me when I do something wrong. Like my grandmother always told me, you catch more flies with honey then you do with a hammer. Ok, so grandma was a bit touched in the head before she passed, but Brenda, I swear she went to school at the Adolph Hitler School of Compassion. And she looked like you’d expect a drill instructor to look like too. Short dark hair, cut in a bob, and her face looked like she’d played football her whole life without a helmet. And, once you got away from the face, you didn’t want to fuck with this woman. She was built like a tank. Granted, she had a bit of a pooch on her, but her arm’s looked bigger then mine used to, so I didn’t purposely step out of line. The ironic part to the whole thing was that this woman was going to teach me how to be a lady, when she’s more butch then I ever was.

Any way, Doctor Smith, or Helen as she told me to call her. Nice lady, a bit older woman, who kind of reminded me of Sally Kellerman. You know, she’s the one who played ‘Hotlips’ in MASH the movie. She also was the English teacher in ‘Back to School’ with Rodney Dangerfield. Helen had that voice that could melt butter. After a minute of speaking with her, I couldn’t help but feel at ease and free to open up. We would talk for hours about my past, and my view on women in general. What I found shocked me a bit.

I didn’t realize it, but growing up with my parents, I’d picked up that women run things. At least, that was the general view of the world I had. Don’t get me wrong, dad had a major say in what went on around our house, but mom was the one who really ran the show. She was the one who got me up for school and made sure I did my homework. She was the one who did the bills and most of the cooking. Dad did the laundry, some of the cooking and the dishes, but mom did A LOT more. That led me to feel that women are in charge of the family. Which isn’t a bad thing, considering that many men out there feel intimidated when a woman shows strength and free will. It usually leads to violence in the home, and that just messes up the kids. So, I guess my view that women should be in charge, is a good thing. Right?

It wasn’t until Helen started digging into how I was feeling about this change that I started to get emotional. It was really the first time I had to think about it and face my feelings. It didn’t end well. Tracy told me when I woke up in my room, strapped to my bed, that they had to sedate me when I flipped the table over and threw a chair out the window. All I remembered was rage. It was the most intense thing I’d ever felt.

I’ve been mad before, but this was a hatred. I was mad at the people who dumped that shit I fell in. I was mad at Tugger for ‘cup checking’ me when I’d just lost my footing. But most of all I was mad at myself for not listening to that inner voice that was screaming at me to not go to Hell Night.

I told Helen this at our next session, and I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. It felt good to be able to open up and talk about how I was feeling for once. I’m usually the one everyone of my friends and many of my family come to when they are having problems, but this was my chance to open up and share my feelings with someone else. For her part, she listened to me rant and express myself without looking down on me. I’ve always kind of been scared that, if I ever did this, people would look at me as weak and a pussy, but ,truth be told, it felt good.

Come to find out, I was carrying around a lot of baggage too. I’d never really talked to anyone about when I got academically dismissed from college after my first semester, or how I felt when I caught the girl I’d been dating back then banging another guy. I’d never told anyone that I’d spent the next month in a bottle, trying to drink her off my mind, or that I did in fact think of ending it all then. I just pushed those thoughts down into the bowels of my mind and let them just sit there festering, while I went back to Alfred and got my degree.

For the first time since I’d first left for college, I felt free. Free from all the memories that had haunted me. Free from the thoughts that I carried around and just allowed to stress me out. I felt free and happy. Even my time with Brenda seemed better. I even got her to laugh when I started cracking jokes one day. Of course, she told me if I ever told anyone that, she’d hunt me down and kill me, but I hope she was kidding. I was looking, sounding, and feeling more like a woman with every passing day. But it wasn’t until a man in a suit came to see me that it hit home at just how much I’d changed.

“Excuse me miss, I’m looking for Patrick,” he told me as I sat there in my room, just finishing dinner.

“Who are you?”

“I’m James Kenfield. Is Patrick around?”

“My grand mother is the only one who calls me Patrick,” I told him, as I started to get angry.

“Are you the young man who had the accident down in Alfred?” he asked as he opened the file folder he had with him.

“What’s it to you?” I shot back trying to read his face, wondering why he was here.

“Well I represent the university, and if you’ll sign these release forms,” he told me as he stuffed the papers onto my tray. “I’ll be out of your hair.”

“I ain’t signing shit buddy,” I spat back at him. “You want to talk any more to me, you can take it up with my lawyer.”

“We weren’t aware you had representation.”

“I do, and like I said, you talk to him now. And if I hear you spoke to any member of my family, I’ll make sure you’re disbarred. You got me, lawyer boy?”

“Yes ma’am,” he shot back with a quiver in his voice. “I mean sir, I mean.”

“You mean you were just leaving,” I told him as I pointed to the door. “Oh, and leave the papers, I’ll give them to my team.”

He left me the papers and apologized as he left my room. Come to find out, he was just a kid, serving an internship with a law firm down state, and this was his first case. I called dad and told him what happened and I told him to bring Sal with him tomorrow. When I hung up, I started to read the papers and was shocked at the gross show of apathy the college was showing me.

If I had signed the release, the college would have picked up my hospital bills in Alfred, and they would have paid to replace my clothes. However, I’d have to give up the right to seek any reparations, for pain, suffering, or for any bills accrued for any additional stays in the hospital due to the accident. BULL SHIT! They’re the cock suckers who dumped the shit illegally. All I did was fall into it. “Oh, it’s on now, mother fuckers,” I said to myself.

I didn’t sleep a wink that night I was so mad at what they were trying to do to me. I met with Helen in the morning for our session and showed her what the university was trying to pull. She was appalled at everything. She even gave me the name and number of the lawyer she was using to get my identification changed to female.

“Terry is a good guy. He really fights for his clients and is used to all the bullshit big corporations try to pull to screw the little guy,” she said handing me the card, and I saw it was the same firm my dad uses.

“Well, my dad’s bringing Terry’s partner with him today. So, I’ll see what he says, and we’ll go from there.”

“Ok, just keep Terry’s card and call him if you have any questions.”

I thanked Helen and went back to my room. Dad and Sal were already there, and I got right to it, showing Sal the papers the kid had left yesterday. It took me about an hour to tell Sal everything that went on. When I was done, he only asked me one question.

“Are you happy with changing into a woman?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Are you happy being a woman now?” he asked again.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Fair enough, but do you want to have children?”

“Um, I already am. My fiancé is carrying our first child.”

“Ok, so how do you plan to get married?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“New York doesn’t recognize same sex marriage. So, how do you plan to do it?”

“Well I mean...” I was stumped I didn’t know what to do.

“If you’re going to get married, the options are becoming a resident of Massachusetts, which has recognized same-sex marriage since 2004. Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, California, and New Hampshire have created legal unions that, while not called marriages, are explicitly defined as offering all the rights and responsibilities of marriage under state law to same-sex couples. Maine, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, Oregon and Washington have created legal unions for same-sex couples that offer varying subsets of the rights and responsibilities of marriage under the laws of those jurisdictions. Either that, or move to Canada. That’s it, on this continent that is,” Sal told me. “Now, whatever you landed in, has caused your plans for marriage to change, and the university should be held accountable. Here’s what we’ll do.”

He went on to explain that he was going to file a suit on my behalf for $26 million dollars. He got that number for the hospital bills, pain and suffering, mental stress, and the rest for punitive damages. He told me that would include not being able to father another child with my fiancé, soon to be wife, having to move so we could be together and for loss of wages from being in the hospital. I thanked Sal, but didn’t get my hopes up that anything would come of the suit. I just readied myself for another afternoon of hell with Brenda.

It wasn’t that bad. I mean here we were about a month into PT, and I could feel my hips giving a slight sway as I walked. I was speaking in everyday conversations more lady-like, and was laughing less when I passed gas. The only part I hated was learning to walk in heels. OH MY GOD! What sadomasochistic asshole came up with the idea to make a woman walk on her toes with only a narrow spike to hold her heel up. This has to be the worst idea in history. I didn’t even like the looks of them on women when I was a man, let alone want to actually wear a pair as a woman. I think it’s time we take down the fashion industry, and give them all the bird telling them ‘NO MORE!’ Besides, at 5'10" it’s not like I can pull off a pair of four inch spikes like someone 5'5" can.

I’m just lucky I didn’t turn my ankle. That would have just made my hospital stat that much longer. The doctors came in later that afternoon and told me I could go home if I wanted. My body was done changing, and they couldn’t think of any reason to keep me here as an inpatient. I could do the same things as an outpatient.

I called Sarah and had her pick me up. She got there, and, since she’d been busy with her mom who had been visiting from Philly, she hadn’t really had a chance to see me. We’d talked every night on the phone, but it had been about two weeks since she’s seen me, and that wasn’t for that long. So, it came as a shock to her when she walked into my room to see me dressed in the t-shirt she bought me with ‘I see you’ve met the twins,’ stretched over the pair of D cups I was now sporting on my chest. Once I was able to get her to close her mouth and come back to earth, she took me home and introduced her mom to her fiancé. That is to say, her mom got to see the new me.

THERE’S SOME GOOD NEWS...”

To Be Continued.