Introduction by the Author: This is the second chapter of “Genesis of a Cosplayer”. Again I would like to express my most profound thanks to two well known Mississippian authors. The First one being William A. Percy who wrote Lanterns on the Levee. The second one is William W. Morris who wrote North Toward Home. You took me from beyond the realm of fiction and planted me firmly in the coffee colored soil of my native land. This chapter continues the story started in chapter one. Again writing this story took a lot of effort. I had to force my mind to remember things that have been locked away for so many years.
Autumn in Mississippi is a bag of mixed nuts. It can be freezing cold some mornings and later that day, normally around afternoon it would be hot as hell. That Friday morning was no different. I remember rising a few hours earlier than I would. I took a nice hot bath, shaved my legs, shaved my face, washed and conditioned my hair. I slipped on the dancing belt and the pair of french cut white panties. Then I slipped on my normal school trousers and white button down shirt.
I then swallowed two cups of strong Community Coffee, swallowed a runny egg, a piece of toast and some sausage and I was out the door. We lived on the cusp of Yazoo City, and the drive to school normally took fifteen or so minutes each morning. This morning, because traffic was light and a fog had settled in, I made it to school in ten minutes. Just as they were about to open the doors for the morning.
I remember having to pause for a moment before the gates of the school. U.S. Route 49 passes right by the school, and there is something mystic about that road. When you stand on it, you feel a pull deep within your heart. It was like standing in the middle of an invisible vortex. The further you went down the highway the more you felt that pull. What was that pull, to go to Jackson, the city of lights. To throw all your cares away for the day and do some retail theory at either the Metro Center or the North Park. To breath in the cultured air.
I pushed these thoughts far from my head. Another time maybe, and so gathering up my courage and my school threw open the doors of the old car my mom and dad had given me for a early birthday gift and of course, I gathered up the bags that housed my costume and change of shoes and all the other small bits and pieces that went along with it.
Somehow I balanced all of this in my two, twig like arms and with a fluttering heart I pushed open the doors of the school. Silents, you could have heard a pen drop in the hallway. The air smelled of floor wax hung in the air. I think they just stripped and waxed the floors last night. I mean it was homecoming and our football team was for once on a winning streak. Historical speaking this would be the only winning streak our team would have till they once more reclaimed the state championship in 2020. Thirteen years of broken dreams and defeats, there is something poetic about that.
Anyway, I quickly rushed off to the nearest bathroom. I then changed into the maid outfit. Did my face, did something with my hair. As in I took my time, brushed it out and put it in two pigtails and tied two matching red ribbons around the bundles of hair. And then I stepped out into the hallway. The hallway had quickly filled with people, all of the student body it seemed had dressed in colorful outfits and costumes. It was a bedlam of noises, a maelstrom of chatter, of music being played and whoops and yells. It was like a little anime convention. Cameras flashed and students with IDs that read Year Book/ Panther Printing Press rushed up and down the hallway taking pictures.
A moment later a girl around my age brushed into me, she wore a big smile on her face as she peered toward me.
“Oh darling!” Her southern accent was clearly heard through her words. It was good to hear the ring of a southern accent. It brought me home, home to my father's village, a place where I spent most of my childhood. My Father was born in Jackson but reared in a tiny little village of Scarborough's Landing. I myself was a Scarborough, and had spent many lazy, summer afternoons running up and down the vine and holly covered banks of the Sunflower River, or fishing for catfish in Silver Creek or watching the flatbed railroad cars laden heavy with square bales of cotton roll into the sunset.
“You looking adorable!” She said blushing. “You one of them girly boys, anyway mind if I get your picture for the yearbook sugar?” She said holding up her camera.
I nodded my head and struck a pose. I tried to pose like those anime girls. You know the ones that look modest, and coy all the time. Something that just screams Kawaii is the Japanese word for cute. And I think it worked because she gushed how adorable my pose was and how cute my pigtails were and she even admired my make-up. It felt good, in an oddball way.
I thought today would be perfect. My first foray into the world of costuming and crossdressing. A rite of passage if you will. I remember I had a dozen pictures taken before the bell rung and the school day started. Now most of the teachers were okay with my costume. The younger ones. Young as the ink on their degrees was still wet found my costume cute and a few even wanted to take a picture with me. I remember much to the amusement of my teachers I shouted “Ohayo Gozaimasu” At the top of my lungs when I entered their classrooms.
Everything was going well until I entered her classroom. Mrs. Finch was a steely eyed woman with short gray hair and stoop back. She hated everything modern and every time she opened her mouth drops of venom shot from her tongue. She had a crude and cruel sense of humor and proudly boasted that she belonged to the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She was a firm believer in the Lost Cause ideology and held fast to the belief of white supremacy. Nobody in the school liked her, and we all feared her. She passed on now, either to Heaven or to Hell, its not for me to judge. Her only redeeming virtue was she hated all equality.
I knew I was in trouble the moment she locked eyes with me. I took a deep breath and peered into her eyes, and for a brief moment I thought I was peering into the deepest pits of hell. There was something sinister about the way she was looking at me. I could tell she wanted to say something, something cruel and crude as was her style. But for once she kept her forked tongue in that cave she called a mouth. Not breaking character I offered her a curtsy and once more I greeted her with the same greeting I'd given all my teachers that morning.
“Ohayo Gozaimasu.” I said much to the amusement to my peers.
I would never forget the changes that came over her. Her face turned scarlet and her eyes became wide as dinner plates. Her breathing increased and a hushed silence fell over the room. She held out her hands and made a notion with them a vague notion that she wanted to wrap those tiny fingers around my neck and wrangle the life out of me. I could hear her brain starting to freeze up. And if this was a popular Saturday morning cartoon. Clouds of black smoke would be pillowing out from her ears. I had poked the bull it seemed.
“Get out!” She shouted as she pointed toward the door of the classroom.
“Doushite?” I said once more using my limited knowledge and understanding of Japanese to play the part of a humble, and confused maid.
“My grandfather fought the Japanese! They blew off his shins!” She bellowed at the top of her lungs. “They bombed our ships! They sank our ships! And they did horrible things! Get out!” She shouted again. She was shaking with fury now. “Go stand in the hallway!” A stun silence had fallen over the classroom.
I gotta say I stood there, rooted in place. I was confused, amused and concerned at her sudden outburst. But after a minute it dawned on me, and once more I dropped a quick curtsy and once more drew on my limited understanding of Japanese I said.
“Hai Sensei!” And with that I turned toward the hallway. But then an idea dropped into my head. And I had an idea, I should have discarded that idea the moment it popped into my head. I really should have, because there was no way it could have helped anything. In fact, with the advantage of more than a dozen years hindsight that little smart ass remark might have been what pushed me over the edge. I was already standing close to it. But there was a good chance I could have pulled myself away from the cliff if I'd just kept my mouth shut.
“Oh Sensei?” I said turning around and folding my hands in the center of my lap.
Mrs. Flinch looked up and shot daggers toward me. Again I had this feeling, a very uneasy feeling that she wanted to reach out with those sickly fingers of hers and wrap them around my neck and squeeze till my face turned blue and then purple and finally sweet death took me. Instead she arched an eyebrow and in a sharp, almost yelling tone of voice said.
“Yes?”
“Can I please have two buckets to hold?” I asked. I was feeling cheeky and then I decided to add. “Because in Japan. When somebody is sent into the hallway, they are normally given like two buckets of water to hold. It's a classic anime gag.”
“Get out!” She roared! And her voice filled the room and shook the window panes. I flinched at the roar of her voice and without thinking I bolted to the door and slammed the door shut. I had this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that my day had gone from skipping among to the clouds to crawling on the earth. A deep blush colored my cheeks as I waited outside the door. I say I waited all of seven minutes before out of the corner of my eye I spotted the outline of one of the coaches. My dad, overly cynical, called Yazoo County High School a “Coach school” because everybody seemed to be a coach of some kind.
I'll give you a quick example, our Spanish teacher was a coach, he coached track and softball. The math teacher, he coached basketball. Our P.E teacher coached we'll P.E. Our principal was a former coach. And still wanted to be called such. Every time I called him “Sir” he always frowned and barked at me. The History teacher was of course a coach. Our Science teacher was the coach, and you get the point. The coach that was looming toward me, was a huge fellow.
He stood six foot tall, had the neck as big a Boston butt and had a square shaped head. His blonde hair was also cut back in a crew cut. He always smelt of Old Spice, a popular brand of men’s aftershave. His hands I remember were the size of hams, his arms the size of barrels, his fingers the size of sausages. His voice sounded more like a bull horn. And he hated me, he really did. He was always ragging me about something. My hair, my looks, heck even he thought my asthma was nothing more than me being lazy.
“Scarborough.” He said as he peered toward me. His voice was hard as a knife. “What in the name of God are you wearing?!” He said, shaking his head. “Christ Almighty. I knew you were odd. But, damn boy, you look like something from the cover of one of those Japanese comic books you're always reading. Jesus Christ.”
I said nothing. I did not trust myself.
“What in the name of God..” He paused. “Do you read the Bible boy? Don't you know what the Bible says about crossdressing?” He asked. “Deuteronomy 22.5 clearly says. 'A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.' Now I don't know what that Catholic Church of yours teaches. But I hold to the true teaching of God as taught by Brother Holmes at Center Ridge Baptist Church.” He said, shaking his head.
I wanted to say something. I wanted to bring up the fact that the whole school knew he was cheating on his wife who was lying at home, dying of breast cancer. More than once we've walked by his classroom and heard him grunting and swearing as he banged the every living daylights of the Guidance Counselor who also went to Center Ridge Baptist Church. But I thought better of it. I was in enough trouble. But then I had a change of mind. And I was not Catholic, I was a mixture of Methodist and Episcopal and at best a tepid Christian. I was more a pagan than anything.
“Cat got your tongue?” He said, peering toward me.
Once more I was silent as the grave.
“Fine, you and I are going to have a little one on one talk in my office. Mrs. Finch said you were cursing her in Japanese or something.” And with that he reached up and took me by the ear. My eyes flashed open as I felt his strong fingers pinch my earlobe. And before I could catch myself, I found myself being dragged down the hallway toward the side office.
