Miss Tricia and Punkin Judy arrive at the worksite. The two clowns make out a bit, which sends P.J. to dizzying heights of love struck bliss. Over a series of vaguely surreal encounters, the imitation girlclown discovers s/he is passing as female without hardly trying, and that there is something quite nice about it. Which leads to a reaquaintance with someone dwelling deep inside...

======== HUMOR ME
======== by LAIKA PUPKINO
======== Part Three: AFTERNOON DELETE

"She's calling from inside, trying to get to you. All that woman really wants is you give her something too..."
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ~~~ Bowie/Ziggy Stardust

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#.8)===[ KOOTIE KISSES ]=====>

And here we are. A mother and two small children carrying shiny wrapped parcels are headed up a driveway crowded with cars toward the sprawling one-story ranch house. There is a spot on the street right in front, which Miss Tricia zips into ahead of someone who was clearly about to park here.

She hollars out the window, "Suck eggs, Buddy! I'll let you in twice next time!"

Seeing my shocked reaction, she shrugs. "Hey, he'll live! We've got stuff to unload..."

The guy parks a few houses down and climbs out of his truck, shooting us a hateful look. I am relieved when he goes stomping off toward a house across the street instead of turning out to be one of the party guests,
a member of our audience.

Miss Tricia leans toward me---the invitation clear---and we start to kiss, our tongues like two horny little critters getting aquainted. It's good that we both don't have these big fake noses on or this might be difficult. She disengages her mouth from mine, kisses the pink heart on my forehead. Whispers, "My last Punkin' Judy didn’t have one of these. Do you know what this is?"

"Well sure, it's-"

And then I get it. To the rest of the world it is just a stock clown decoration, but between us it’s a coded message. A Valentine.

While this had cost Miss Tricia next to nothing, it means more to me than seems big expensive gift would. How personal it feels, the favored status it seems to confer ......... Suddenly compelled, I throw my arms around her!

She squeezes back, rocking me, and sighs huskily, "MY GOD you’re beautiful! I just hope you have a sense of humor about all this."

"Mmmmm ...... 'bout what?"

She slides and flickers her tongue across slick rubber surface of my nose, which is still slightly sore from when she had crushed it. I gasp as she takes it in her mouth and sucks on it, thinking: Okay, she's kind of kinky here, but this feels INCREDIBLE!!

And then I think: Wait a minute! I shouldn't be able to feel this like this!

And then I am no longer thinking with the verbal parts of my brain at all as her lips return hungrily to mine. But all at once I am forced to break free of the hands clamped onto my ears and turn away-

"Hold on," I grimace, and clear my throat, hawking guckily. Spit out the window, a spiralling viscid mass.

"Well that was pleasant."

"Sorry, was just tryin' to....... Oh dammit, naw agim! WRRAAAGCHK-K-K-- Fthooey!! Sorry..."

My throat has felt weird and sore since about the time we left my place. It's like I had a pine cone in there recently. My voice is hoarse, coming out in an odd fluty pitch.

She pats the top of my head, "I think romance had better wait until we get you fixed- uh, fix whatever this throat thing is."

"It might be wise," I nod, not wanting to give her strep or something.

And yet despite this little setback I am happy. Gone are my fears of an hour ago, that this affection we obviously share would settle into some cozy friendship that only I wished could be something more...

We get out and she hands me a key. There is a ladder running up the rear of the van, she has me climb up it and undo the padlock on the steel cable holding down a zebra-striped tarp that covers something large and boxy on the roof. Between the belly prosthesis and the hoop skirt, this is kind of awkard. The wind is picking up a bit, I feel it not just on my legs but---with how this skirt bowls out---on my ass. I yank the cable out through the eyelets in the tarp and push it back.

There are four compact stacks of flattened chairs on a rack up here. "How many?"

"You'd better get all thirty of them."

"Okay. OOOF! There's one..."

Damn, these feel heavy! They're made of wood, a good deal stouter than most folding chairs, but I can tell it's partly me too. Have I really been that sedentary since last fall at sea? I'm really going to have to get back in shape before next season starts! Whatever else my Brave Ulysses crewmates might say about me I've always been able to pull my weight out there, and have made a point of giving a little extra. If I can't manage to do that I might be in trouble. Especially after last year...

[====> You probably have already figured out what is happening to me ......... But I don't think it was too terribly dense of me to not suspect her of using a technology whose microscopic tinkertoys still seemed a long way from deserving to be called "nano-robots". And besides, what kind of sociopathic monster could do that to someone without her consent? The Joker maybe, or Star City's own lamely derivative The Damned Fool, but not dear little cute little sweet little innocent Miss Tricia the Clown! She's too NICE to be a whiteface slaver!!]

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#.9)===[THE GHOST OF NORBERT WEINER HAUNTS THE VIDEO ARCADE]==>

Miss Tricia has an ingenious hand truck with a wide squat chest of drawers at the base and a bracket for an upright helium tank above that, then a fiberglass clown's head. The nozzle in its mouth blows up balloons, and the drawers hold whatever props she will need for the party, so she can haul a lot of stuff in one trip. Draped in a gaudy chrysanthemum-pattern vinyl trenchcoat, it looks like some disturbing limbless clown. I've never had this "fear of clowns" that you hear so many young ironic hipsters confessing to these days (the Latest Fashion in Phobias, bespeaking of a savvy mistrust of traditions...) but this thing really does creep me out.

As we are easing it down its little home-made ramp to the sidewalk a tiny girl wanders up to us, scowling suspiciously. She points, "What's dat?"

"This is Dolly, one of my former assistants," smiles Miss Tricia sweetly. "She's finally making herself useful!"

The child blinks at her. "Oh. I have a hamster."

"Bethany Lynne Thompson," comes a stern female voice from the front porch, "You get in here this instant!"

The Mom. Tanned, a bit plump, with her auburn hair in a longish bob cut. Her smile is relaxed and friendly as she crosses the lawn toward us, "Good, you're here! Let me show you where Bruno's party will be..."

Her name is Janice and I like her. The festive embroidered borders on her denim shirt and the silver kachina necklace remind me of that aunt of mine I'd mentioned earlier; the one who used to pilot those launches that went out into the Antarctic Sea to harrass whaling ships, much to the dismay ("These 'greens' are nothing but a bunch of damn Reds!") of the rest of our family...

I remember when it was being decided what to do with me, how much I wished I could have gone to live with my aunt Apollina and her partner Skyy. And they really wanted this too, but at the time it was deemed unwise to award the care of a child to a lesbian couple, so I wound up with my Uncle Dimitri.

And he wasn't a terrible man---he did get me into motocross, and taught me the joys of Jagermeister---but I didn't have fun just TALKING with him like I did with Lina and Skyy. They were into art and books like me, and the weirdest, most interesting movies. Dining out with them meant trying a place that served food from some country I had never heard of---eating sitting on cushions while weird entrancing music played---instead of to Killigan & Killigan's steakhouse for the ("Why argue with success?") usual #7 combo with the same drink and dressing. Which does offer a nice slab of meat but by the thirtieth time in a row it starts to seem a bit compulsive .............. I always felt so relaxed and at home, and laughed more, over at my aunt's tidy little (it even smelled nice) stone cottage. A supportive environment, that in the recesses of my heart I had hoped might even support me in that one matter that I never dared to tell anyone, or even think about too clearly...

*Sigh*

Janice shoos her daughter inside and takes us around to the back, where we park Dolly next to the picnic table. I didn't expect the back yard to be so big, but it's huge- bracketted by a pair of enormous shady trees that must go clear back when our state was still just a part of the Oregon Territory.

"This is perfect Janice," enthuses Miss Tricia, "We can do indoor parties, but ours is more of an outdoor kind of act. Pie fights, seltzer bottles- kids love all that kind of stuff!"

"Well as long as they don't track it into the house," cautions Janice, and takes us in through the back door.

For as many kids as are supposed to be in here the house is surprisingly quiet. Down the hall someplace one boy keeps repeating, "Get 'im! Get 'im! Get 'im!" in a stacatto rhythm.

Video games I'm thinking; and as we pass a dim shrinelike room, that is what it turns out to be. A horseshoe of couches around a flatscreen as big as a billboard, on which two of the kids are playing ROOSEVELT VS. ROOSEVELT. With the exception of one boy who is off to the side reading a newspaper, all sixteen or twenty kids are watching the game like it was the deciding match at Wimbledon.

Teddy Roosevelt is a lumbering giant in his khakis and his Rough Rider's hat. He grins like an ogre, all his teeth huge square things, muttering "Bully!" under his breath and weilding a massive gnarled shillelagh, his famous motto depicted literally. He's trying to smash Franklin Roosevelt with it but tiny FDR is just too quick- zipping nimbly through the air in his jet powered wheelchair and firing his rocket launchers! An orange blast from his flame-thrower cigarette holder makes the 26th president jump into the air holding his ass: YOWEEE!!!

"Whomp that liberal gimp!" yells a skinny long-haired girl in a Mister Hanky t-shirt.

"It's good to see that the youth of today is learning about American history," quips Miss Tricia.

"It's a godsend is what it is. I mean look at them, they're like vegetables! We could probably skip the party and they wouldn't even notice," chuckles Janice, then she realizes how this might sound, "I mean, not that I let my kids play on it all day, that's not good. But when you DO need them out of the way..."

And she does have a point. Having them out from underfoot like this is especially convenient right now, because it is vital to our plan that they not even see the cake until the latter part of the party. My boss asks her where we can hide it.

Janice tells us, and fetching it from the van we carry it into her bedroom and slide it onto this dresser with the big wooden framed mirror behind it...

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#.10)===[ DARKNESS AT NOON PT. 2 ]====>

And there's that girl again, helping to slide a cake towards us that's identical to ours. Mimicking my every move, and looking less like me than ever!

I purposefully look away from my reflection, once again thinking of that PBS special on that face-recognition disorder. I'm hoping that this distortion of perception will resolve itself once I am out of this costume and have wiped all this gunk off my face.

And if not, I reflect bitterly, I'm sure I can find someone who can badger me back to sanity...

When my mom first got sick, it had been my father's genius notion that he could shame and belittle her out of her helpless state: "You stink! Do you realise that Anne? I can actually smell you from here. It's sickening! I mean it's bad enough that the house is like it is, but can't you even take a fucking bath?"

It was a strategy that had always gotten him his way before, and I'm sure that if it were within her power it would have this time too. His utter blindness to her suffering (except for how this self-indulgent stunt of hers inconvenienced him) really opened my eyes; and finally gave me permission to hate him without conflict. Because while yes---as he was always reminding us---he was our family's breadwinner, making sure we never went without; this was not the incredible largesse, the unbelievable sacrifice he always made it sound like, but only the mimimum of what he was SUPPOSED to be doing!

So I was glad when he left. I knew how to do a whole lot of grown-up tasks, I could hold our household together. Or so I thought.

Those next seven weeks were the first time that I ever really knew hunger (and I guess the last time too). We lived with the shades drawn and with black trash bags taped across the t.v. screen. When the checks that I would have her sign for the electric and such began to bounce, I discovered that their joint account (bastard!!) had been cashed out. I learned to use only the glasses, bowls and plates from the non-evil side of the cupboard. I had a garage sale of expendible stuff and bought tuna and macaroni and cheese for us, and the few other things I knew how to cook. I killed "centipede things" for her that I couldn't see.

My performance at school began to suffer, and I was sent to the school counsellor. I did mention my folks fighting and a "seperation", knowing the sort of story that would satisfy the woman, but I kept my promise to Mom to not to let THEM know what was really going on. But conditions in our little indoor universe kept deteriorating, until finally---feeling very much like Judas---I made that grim, fateful phone call. Which brought the cops, her trip to the ER for dehydration, and that psychiatric evaluation from which she never returned.

After that, like I said, I only got to see her on Saturdays in that little institutional green day room. Mom would be all vague and taciturn until Aunt Lina left (in an attempt to give us some mother and son "alone time"), going outside and to the far corner of the grounds to puff a joint; When suddenly my mom became very talkative, very agitated! Saying how the hospital staffers were actually "Backwards Echoes", who could reverse time, rewrite events, steal your soul piece by piece...

Her grip on my arm would tighten painfully whenever one of them walked by, and I would hear the desperate, whispered entreaty, "Help me!"

"How?" I would whisper back.

And she would fix me with that lopsided, heartbreakingly-sad smile I had come to think of as hers,
"You know!"

But despite her assumption that there was some telepathic link between us I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. Help her to escape? To kill herself?

"No I don't know! HOW?!"

Finally I learned to just agree to help her, and then write down the lists of numbers she recited for me (which were too long to be a combination for the door locks, a bank account number, geographical coordinates, or anything else I could think of). Because if I persisted in expressing my bafflement she would take this as something faked, a cold-hearted refusal to help her in her hour of need. "I don't think I want to talk to you..."

It was a heavy fucking thing for a twelve year old kid to have to go through! Not long before this, a typical conversation with her would be about my day at school. Was it fun? Did I have a little girlfriend? Now the one time I mentioned school she frowned, "Oh school. Don't let them take you away."

"Who?"

"All of them. Teachers, systems, kids kids kids!"

"Take me where?"

"Not to where. From where!"

"From school? You mean like strangers?"

"From you! Like this..." She did something with her hands.

"I don't understand."

"God, no!! Then you're already lost," she groaned, doubling over and hugging herself. And then she was crying inconsolably, and the one nurse she trusted rushed over, her dark Toltec eyes accusing me of trying to upset her patient.

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#.11)=====[ MY TENURE ON "THE VIEW" ]====>

"What IS it with you and mirrors?" asks an amused voice, cutting into my reveries.

Apparently Miss Tricia was halfway down the hall when she discovered she had lost me.

"Oh sorry ........ What did you need?"

"Nothing, really. I just wondered where you'd got off to. You feeling okay?"

"Yeah sure. It's just been a weird day."

"Stick with me, kid. It's gonna get a lot weirder!"

Back in the hallway she eases the bedroom door shut. She sets her hands on my clavicles, kneading the flesh around them with the deft grip of a masseuse. She decides to risk kissing me again, throat-cooties (which does seem to be getting a bit better now) or not.

It starts out slow and sweet, but then sensing my response she gets more and more aggressive, her tongue a presence to be dealt with, which I am eager for. My toes flex inside my purple Keds and a glorious weakness tries to drag me floorward. As she pulls away she is smiling knowingly, and I'm smiling in moony bliss.

"Go park you pretty ass someplace, Liebchen. I've got all the rest of this! I can do it quicker than I could probably show you."

"But what about all those folding chairs?"

"I got 'em! Rest! I need you sharp and energetic in a half hour. I'll come find you when we're about ready to start." She says and swats my ass, impelling me down the hall.

"Oh......... Chief!" I trill campily as I rub my rear through the taut plaid fabric of my hoop skirt. Kidding around, but at the same time definitely meaning it.

The entertainment room is still full of children, a half dozen more having shown up. A few of these kids look to be around nine, but most of them seem far younger. It doesn't seem like the Birthday Boy himself had much say in the guest list. I would hate to think that these kindergartners are here because Bruno doesn't have any friends at school, but he might not. He is the one I had seen reading the Christian Science Monitor earlier, and there is something depressingly adult-like about him. Oddly subdued, like he is happy to go along with all this birthday party guff if it makes everyone else happy, but he'll be glad when this is over (he reminds me of the suit-wearing boy from that offbeat old black + white comedy A THOUSAND CLOWNS, if this means anything to you.)

He waves me into the room. A wry, lackadaisical gesture. Although I am curious to know what his story is, I don't go in. It seems like it could ruin whatever mystique I have as a clown if I just sat in there among them like a regular person on his break.

I continue down the hall, ending up in the kitchen. Janice is at the drainboard constructing an intriguing dish in a big heavy baking dish, some sort of Mexican lasagna with peppers and queso fresco and carnitas. As she works she is chatting with these four other moms, who are seated around the kitchen table drinking wine. They all turn and look at me.

Rattled by their stares, I say the first thing that pops into my head, "Um, can I give you a hand with anything?"

"Well aren't you a sweetie?" declares Janice. She has me wash my hands, then sets me up at a breadboard with a plate, a big bunch of celery, a knife and a spoon, a tub of low fat creme cheese, a jar of capers.

A woman---I'll call her Linda---continues her story about a neighbor of hers who refuses to see what her husband is up to with that slut he works with at the Saturn dealership.

"But what's she going to do?” wonders the Italian-looking Carla, "Patty's never even had real a job, and those kids of theirs are all so young! Any job she could get would only just cover the cost of day care..."

This is met with scorn from the others: "Do SOMETHING! At the very least say something! I mean sure she's in a bad position to leave him right now, but she shouldn't make it so comfortable for him to carry on like that. The way it is, it's like he's just throwing it in her face!"

"Let him know that you know everything he's up to," nods Gretchen, the only African American here. To the race-conscious titters of her friends, she affects a sassy ghettofied accent that she had not been using before, "Make 'im feel like th' lowdown rat he ee-yuz!"

I make little designs with the capers in the cream cheese after I've trowelled it into the celery sticks ............. It's comfortable here. The smells, their conversation; like holidays in my childhood, my Mom and Aunts in the kitchen preparing the feast while I drew pictures in the one corner of the kitchen table not taken up by food, just listening mostly.

"Yeah, I don't buy it. It's baloney to say she doesn't have choices," opines Betty, a heavy set blonde somewhat older than the others, "I divorced Mike when it wasn't exactly an ideal time---whenever that would be---and raised Matt by myself. Or at least until I met Sonny. Matt was nine then, Bruno's age. Wow, did him and Sonny ever hit it off! It sure was great to see ........ That's an age when a boy really needs a male influence. One who won't teach him that it's okay to hit women!"

A sudden jolt of anger makes me blurt out, "He DID?"

"Twice. The first time, I told him he got that one free. But the next time he did it me and Matt were out of there. I guess he didn't believe me."

Fuck, I hate guys like that! I tell her, "Good for you."

"But Sonny's a good dad," nods Janice, as she goes around the table with a bottle of Celebrity Vineyards Chenin Blanc, topping off their glasses.

"You trying to get us drunk?" giggles Carla hopefully. Of the five of them, she's the only one who seems at all tipsy.

"Sonny's a GREAT dad," raves Betty. "Great husband, great everything. And if I'd stuck with Mike we never would have met him!"

Janice is suddenly at my side, and standing very close. She holds out a glass of wine, "I suppose I should ask you if you're old enough for this."

"I'm twenty-one."

She leans in even closer. "What was that, Honey?"

I take a sip of wine and clear my throat, trying not to make too gross of a sound as I do. "Twenty-one."

"Oh, to be twenty-one again!" moans Linda, like she's an eighty year old with a walker instead of a shapely and fit thirty-five.

Janice looks down and sees my plate of gussied up celery sticks, and the small bundle of slim shoot remaining. "I think that should be plenty."

"Probably. I don't think they're really going to want these anyway."

"Who, the kids? Oh, of course not," she laughs as she picks up the plate and sets it on the kitchen table. "These are for us."

Betty jabs the air with a celery stick, "Maybe when you're twenty-one you can scarf down pizza and birthday cake without it going right to your ass, but someday these are going to be your best friend!"

And with this, a number of things that had been vaguely puzzling me in the past few minutes suddenly add up in my brain:

HOW CLOSE Janice had been standing to me, calling me "honey" in that affectionate and vaguely protective tone...

PLUS the heartfelt dietary advice Linda had given me, with its emphasis on maintaining one's figure...

PLUS the casual familiarity they are all showing me, which is subtly different---somehow qualitatively different---than anything I have ever experienced from a group of women before, no matter how friendly and accepting they'd been...

EQUALS: They think I'm a girl!

So what do I do about this? Casually mention my penis?

Then again, it might be less embarrassing to just play along with their misperceptions. I don't see how I would be obligated to tell them that I'm a guy, unless maybe one of them decided she could just casually change her top, here in the presumed absence of men-folk. Which I don't think is too likely to happen out here in the kitchen.

And actually this could be very interesting. Undercover anthropology. Like that English explorer Richard Burton, when he dressed up like an Arab in order to check out the grand mosque at Mecca.

Janice brings out a clever little stepladder, which becomes a backless stool when you fold the top half down. The others are all smiling at me as they scoot their chairs over and she slides it up to the table, saying, "Come sit with us, Judy!"

I'm starting to realize that---with whatever this problem is with my throat---my voice seems to sound more naturally female if I don't force it. "Thank you."

I sit, my satin undies on the oval seat, my hoop skirt warping to encircle my knees and the stool's legs, a proper young Bozoette.

"Isn't she the best?" whisper Gretchen.

"I know, like our very own little Himmel figurine," answers Carla in a way that disturbs me somehow. I imagine myself on a giant alchoholic housewive's nicknack shelf, spinning endlessly on top of a music box to the theme from DR. ZHIVAGO...

"Ugggh- not even! I hate those things," puffs Gretchen.

Carla is stunned, "How can anyone hate porceline clowns?"

Janice asks Betty, "So how is Matt doing, anyway?"

"He's back! Safe and sound, thank God! They've got him at Camp Archimedes for the rest of his hitch. Sonny and I raised him to make his own decisions in life, but I'm really hoping he won't re-enlist in April. He's already done his thing for 'king and country'!"

"I know," says Carla. "My Joey's only eight, but I keep wondering what the world's going to be like in ten years."

"I really can't see things being any better," sighs Janice. "I hate to say it, and I sure hope I'm wrong..."

Betty clinks glasses with her and Carla, intoning solemnly, "Here's to being pleasantly surprised!"

I sip my wine, wondering what the heck is keeping Miss Tricia. Even when these womens' attention isn't on me, it is. Like I am some puppy they are taken with. Or some reminder of their younger selves. An assumption of shared experience. This open affection---unmoderated by the ritual sarcasm of male bonding---feels good, but strange.

Gretchen tries to bring me into the conversation, "You seem like you're in an interesting line of work. How did you get started in it?"

"Well actually this is my first time doing this."

With my own voice sounding lilting and strange in my ears, I give them a feminized version of my story. The Party Zone Job, but nothing about my my job at sea. The birthday clown coming in with her offer, and that I like her, but not that I'm in love with her. Although Janice's little inward smile as I go on about how funny-and-smart-and-artistic-and-sweet-and-wonderful-to-work-with Miss Tricia is tells me that I haven't been too successful in disguising my feelings toward her. But if our hostess does know she doesn't seem upset...

A nagging pressure in my GI tract tells me that I need to poop. I ask to use the bathroom, and excuse myself. I am half afraid that they will all decide to come traipsing along with me, but I guess it's only out in public places that girls do that.

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#.12)===[VOICES IN THE HEAD...]=====>

Okay, how the hell do I do this? Not wanting to wrestle with this cage of hoops encircling my pelvis I decide to just take the whole dress-thing off and hang it on the hook here. I still have this unflattering torso form stuck to my front, like a giant leech from some 1950's horror film. With the way these straps all buckle together in the middle of my back, there is really no way to take it off. I drop my polka-dot knickers down to around my ankles, and sit...

I guess everywhere I go there's going to be mirrors. This one is a big floor-to-ceiling thing, directly in front of me. And by now it seems kind of pointless to wig out every time I see my reflection. It is what it is.

Looking at myself straight on like, this I'm having a harder time shrugging off the changes I see as just some subjective hallucination. And as close as we were all sitting, none of the women in the kitchen had given any sign that they suspected I wasn't a girl. While it seems like it should take more than a bit of blusher and a lace collar to turn me into a credible female, I am forced to admit that---aside from the silly makeup, this third trimester belly and these impossibly horizontal tits---I make a pretty okay looking chick.

AND YOU LOVE IT DON'T YOU?

I jump. "What?!"

YOU HEARD ME.

"Who is this?"

YOU KNOW! REMEMBER WHEN WE USED TO DO THIS? DRESSING UP AND GETTING ALL FEMMY IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR?

"That was a long time ago!"

TOO LONG. DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN MOM AND DAD WOULD GO OUT, YOU'D GO INTO THEIR ROOM, RIGHT TO THAT LITTLE BACKLESS NUMBER OF HERS AND WRIGGLE INTO IT? YOU HAD GOOD TASTE EVEN THEN, BEVERLY...

"That was just a phase! like I say I was ....... I was confused!"

SEEMS TO ME THAT WAS ABOUT THE ONLY TIME YOU WEREN'T CONFUSED. OR SCARED. THE WAY YOU FELT ......... LIKE AT SCHOOL, PRETENDING TO READ THE DATES ON THE COINS FROM YOUR POCKET, SO YOU WOULDN'T HAVE TO LOOK OTHER KIDS IN THE EYE. IT WAS LIKE EVERYONE ELSE HAD BEEN GIVEN A COPY OF THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL---HOW TO BE, HOW TO FEEL---EXCEPT YOU...

"A lot of kids feel that way! It doesn't mean they're ........ what you're saying."

I COULDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT THEM. ALL I KNOW IS YOU, AND HOW WHEN YOU LET ME OUT EVERYTHING JUST SORT OF CLICKED INTO PLACE. YOU KNEW WHO YOU WERE THEN. WHAT YOU WANTED. HOW YOU WANTED TO BE REGARDED BY OTHERS.

"I was going through a lot. My mom went psycho! I was experimenting. I got over all that!"

YEAH, WHEN UNCLE DIMITRI CAUGHT US AND CALLED US ALL THAT HORRIBLE STUFF. WHICH IS WHEN YOU DUMPED ABOUT THREE CEMENT TRUCKS WORTH OF INSTANT MARBLE ON ME. GEE, THANKS A LOT! WHICH SHELLY ........ FOR ALL HER BAD INTENTIONS, AT LEAST SHE STARTED KNOCKING SOME CHUNKS OUT OF THAT! YOU KNOW, YOU CAN BULLSHIT EVERYONE ELSE, AND YOU DO A GREAT JOB OF BULLSHITTING YOURSELF. BUT YOU CAN'T BULLSHIT ME, BEVERLY...

"Stop calling me that!"

HEY YOU PICKED IT! AND IT FIT, DIDN'T IT? FELT SO MUCH REALER THAN "WILLIAM". CAN YOU HONESTLY SIT THERE WITH A STRAIGHT FACE AND TELL ME YOU'RE NOT A GIRL?

"Okay fine! Yes I've wanted to be a girl, yes I feel like a girl sometimes."

SOMETIMES? LIKE ONLY WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT. WHICH YOU DESPERATELY AVOID DOING. THAT HURTS ME, YOU KNOW...

"If something isn't possible, then it doesn't matter what I feel. It's pointless to-"

HEE HEE! YOU'RE SO DISSASSOCIATED FROM YOUR OWN TRUTH THAT YOU'RE SITTING ON THE CRAPPER TALKING TO VOICES IN YOUR HEAD, AND YOU TELL IT DOESN'T MATTER? NOW PULL MY OTHER LEG!

"There's such a thing as physical reality!"

THAT CAN BE REMEDIED. WHAT WOULD BE SO TERRIBLE ABOUT BEING WHO YOU REALLY ARE?

"People would hate me! My family, they'd burn my baby pictures!"

YES, THERE'S THAT. I KNOW OUR FAMILY. I'M NOT SAYING IT'LL BE EASY. BUT IF SUPPRESSING ME WAS GOING TO MAKE ME GO AWAY DON'T YOU THINK IT WOULD HAVE BY NOW? ALL YOU'VE REALLY ACCOMPLISHED IS TO MAKE YOURSELF FEEL SHITTY AND ASHAMED. LIKE THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG ABOUT YOU. THERE ISN'T, YOU KNOW...

At this point I lose it, crying and gulping.

NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU, BEVERLY...

Not fair! Saying that, what I've always wanted to hear. To feel ....... I grab a bunch of toilet paper and blow my big red nose. It honks like a toy horn.

I say faintly,"Thank you."

AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THOSE TEARS EITHER. YOU'VE EARNED THEM. THIS IS YOUR CHANCE .......... YOU HAVE SOMEONE WHO LOVES YOU. DON'T BE AN IDIOT!

"S-she said I was b-beautiful..."

AND DO YOU REALLY WANT TO GIVE THAT UP? WHY SHOULD YOU? YOU KNOW AFTER HOW THINGS GOT THAT LAST WEEK OUT YOU CAN'T GO BACK TO THE ULYSSES. THIS IS IT. THE CROSSROADS OF DESTINY! HOO-AHH!

"It's just, (sniff-f!!) ....... It scares the shit out of me, okay?! I'm not one of these brave people who just gets out there and goes for it! Maybe all I really am is just a pussy!"

IF YOU HAVE THAT LITTLE UNDERSTANDING OF HOW STRONG A WOMAN CAN BE, YOU'RE PROBABLY RIGHT ......... LISTEN, I'LL GO AWAY IF YOU WANT. BUT THE NEXT TIME I COME BACK MIGHT BE WHEN YOU'RE PAST FIFTY. YOU'RE REEEEALLY GONNA HATE YOURSELF IF YOU DO THAT. COME ON BABY GIRL, DON'T BLOW IT!

"Well gee, I..."

.
[======> And that's what you call literary license. What actually happened was a lot more jumbled and fragmentary than this point for point debate with my female self. But in essence and in outcome this was EXACTLY what happened. And it had this same effect. An influx of self-honesty and courage, of feeling okay with the idea of being ........ transgendered.

The idea that I should be worried or indignant over the prospects of emasculation is swiftly losing its grip on me. WHY should I be indignant? For who? A bunch of assholes on a boat?! What has the society of men ever given me besides a few laughs? What fealty do I really owe my my uncle, my cousins?

To never be a burden on them, I owe them this. To take one of them in for a while if he falls upon hard times. To fork over a kidney or whatever if it got down to that. But to demand that I BE them, at the expense of my own happiness? I can't. Not anymore.

I am moving into a space where my already tenuous link to them will most likely be severed completely. And that will be sad, but did they ever do much to make it inviting? They sneer at the whole concept of being there for someone emotionally, what they call "all that happy horse shit". For that I've always had to go to the freak of the family, that muff diver, who I don't think would have any major problem with Beverly...

And what do I owe my father? His despicable, craven abandonment nullified any contract between us. I LIKE the idea of disappointing and even disgusting him! Of letting him get a good look at what I've become, a pole dance and a curtsey before I kick him in the teeth with my pink stormtrooper boots-

"How do you like me now, DADDEEEEEEE?!!"

Or maybe not. It's been quite satisfactory not seeing him these past nine years. But I do like the idea that I seem to be turning out about as different as from him as a son can get...

"And those were some cool boots," I mutter.

YES THEY WERE.

"And I wish they HAD fit! What's wrong with that?"

HEY, YOU'RE PREACHING TO THE GREEK CHORUS HERE. I'LL BET MISS TRICIA WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU IN THEM!

"You think so?"

But even as I ask this I know it's true. She does have that clown thing, and it is something more than a job or even an artform to her. And I guess that's okay. We do make a cute, whimsical couple...
.

Tricia.....

Miss Tricia.....

Mrs. & Mrs. Miss Tricia The Clown.....

.
I touch the private benediction that she had painted on my brow, then address my mirror self (and my legions of imaginary suitors) batting my rainbow eyelashes and drawling like some dingbat coquette out of Tennessee Williams: "Sorry fellahs! Ah'm spoken for!"

The cackling laughter that erupts from me feels good at first, but then it frightens me as it takes on a life of its own and is soon raging out of control. When it finally resides I am drained and sligthly nauseous.

I finish up, and wriggle back into my clown dress.

.
#.13)====[ BRUNO'S BIG BREAK ]====>

Returning to the kitchen, I pause at the threshhold. The conversation out here has moved on to the big SuperUber-Mart they plan to build out on Abraxis Boulevard, what can be done to stop it, and: "Why the hell would you want to do that, Linda? New business is good for Oceana!"

Carla is the first one to see me. "Wow, look at her smiling! That must have been one hell of a shit!"

Then she bursts into shrieking laughter, slapping her knees in a rapidfire rhythm.

Betty shakes her head, "Carla Dear, I think you've had enough!"

Janice turns my way, "What do you need, Pumpkin?"

I'm about to say that I don't need anything, when I realize she is talking to a different Pumpkin. Bruno is standing in the entry beside me. He announces, "Miss Tricia says to tell you that we're ready to start now."

Janice looks at her watch, "Holy Cow! What took her so long?"

He fidgits, straightening his bow tie, "I'm not sure. She had our ladder out, and the tree saw."

"She what?!"

Just then there is a chorus of juvenile groans from the entertainment room. Miss Tricia has turned off their computer games.

Her voice rises above the clamor, "ALL RIGHT, LOOK ALIVE YOU ZOMBIES!"

We all grab our glasses and crowd into the hallway behind her as she corrals the pack of kids out the back door. Slapping red or blue star-shaped stickers onto each child as they pass by, "Okay now, don't lose these."

She's excellent at the crowd control part of this, cheerful but absolutely inflexible, moving them along like a sheep dog, "Take a seat everyone! You too Bethany, right there..."

She comes back in and then marshals the moms out, "Come on ladies, plenty of seats for everyone!"

As we start to file out a finger hooks itself throught the neck of my collar. "Not you, Jude! You stay here."

Five rows of six seats each face the picnic table. Everyone is settling in, but they keep looking back here.

Balloons hang from the trees like giant berries, transforming the backyard into a cut-rate magic forest. A string of major league baseball penants crosses the yard ten feet up. She really should've let me help with all this!

She sees the glass of wine I am holding. Grabs it out of my hand, drinks it down in one gulp, sets it down on the washing machine. "So how you feeling, Babe?"

I grab her, drag her away from the window, hug her, "Wonderful!"

"I guess so," she laughs. She backs up far enough to inspect my face. Sees the well-being radiating from it. "This isn't the wine, is it?"

"I'm in love!"

"Yeah," she says softly, her eyes saying all the rest of it.

"And also there's some stuff, issues, things I've been working out."

A balloon pops outside and a very young child starts screaming his head off.

She pulls away, jerks her head toward the start of the commotion, "We did start a bit late. We'll give 'em an hour and twenty of our best stuff, then see how the moms look. Once the moms look ready to go, it's safe to wrap it up at any time. You ready to go be a clown?"

I nod, swinging my arms as I march in place, pantomiming pure gusto!

"That's the idea. I've got to warn you though, things might get a little rough out there."

I point at the large, very fake plastic daisy pinned to her lapel, which she hadn't been wearing before. "What? You mean you're gonna squirt me with your flower? I can't believe we're doing that dumb old gag!"

"Wait until you hear them laughing over that 'old gag'. It'll be a revelation! Just how low the humor is that we're aiming for..."

Bruno is standing behind a little cd player on the picnic table, looking very serious and important. I smile, "I see you brought in more help."

"Look at him! Isn't he great? He's calling himself my sound engineer," she giggles Miss Tricia. I'm glad that she likes the little misfit as much as I do.

"I think this will turn out to be the highlight of the party for him."

"You might be right," she says, studying him, then turns to me, "Isn't this great?! Miss Tricia and Punkin' Judy: Back in Action!! Just like old times, isn't it Dollink?"

"Old times?"

She grips my arm, her eyes boring into mine, "No, I mean it! I am SO GLAD you worked out your issues and came back to me, Judy! Promise me you'll never do that again!"

Okay, this is weird. She's acting like I was gone for weeks. "Jeez, I just went to the bathroom. What do you mean?"

"You know," she says with a strange, melancholy smile that seems unnervingly familiar somehow.

But then before I can say anything more she has given Bruno a curt professional nod; and---returning it in kind---he presses the play button.

She gives me a quick peck on the lips and growls, "It's SHOWTIME!"

.

<====[ END OF PART THREE ]====>

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====> NOTE: This story takes place in the Great State of Westlandia, that little funny shaped one (which some people say resembles the ass-end of an animal cracker) that you see on the map, nestled between California and the Oregon panhandle...

====> WARNING: The next installment (PART FOUR: The Old Ultra-Slapstick) will show a whole other side of Miss Tricia the Clown...