Winter came early to Northern New Jersey in 1966. There had been a squall of snow all day Thanksgiving Day, piling up at least eight inches on the ground of hard-packed white tundra. At least it seemed like tundra when I had to get up early the next morning and shovel our driveway clear so that Mom, Dad, and Connie could go shopping at The Bergen Mall in Paramus. Like mailmen, neither rain nor sleet nor snow can keep shoppers away from Black Friday bargains! It’s an unwritten law that a male child of sufficient age shall shovel snow from driveways and since I was a male…Wait a minute! Well, Dad still thinks of me as a boy, so I had to work up a good sweat before breakfast.

After I performed a set of songs for grandmother, wearing the silver lame dress I had worn onstage at The Brooklyn Fox, I looked out our living room window and noticed for the first time that another blanket of snow had fallen on the ground since that morning. Quickly, I ran to my bedroom and changed into my boy clothes, took off my wig, wiped off my makeup as well as I could, grabbed my duffle coat, and left the house. I found the shovel in the garage and set to work clearing the driveway only minutes before Dad drove up our street.

Fifteen minutes later, as Dad settled into his easy chair to watch the remainder of ABC-TV’s Day After Thanksgiving Cartoon Festival, he tousled my hair and remarked, “You’re a good son, Shuggie.” I shook my head, turned away and walked off toward Connie’s bedroom where she was displaying what she and Mom had bought, trying to smooth my hair back in place. “I’ll miss my boy,” he said with sad resignation. A moment later I heard him laughing at his favorite cartoon show, Beany and Cecil.

A dinner of leftover turkey that Mom adroitly turned into turkey casserole and turkey soup put Dad into a stupor on the living room couch. We all watched TV until around 9:30 when I decided to turn in early, leaving Mom and Connie to enjoy the rest of Barabbas, starring Anthony Quinn and the always lovely Jack Palance. I wheeled sobo to her bedroom and then climbed the stairs to my own mini fortress of solitude, where I threw myself onto the bed and tried to fall asleep posthaste.

I had just managed to close my eyelids when Connie knocked none too softly on my door.

“Hey squirt, are you asleep?”

“Not anymore. Is Barabbas finished already?” Connie stepped into my room as I raised myself up and leaned against the headboard. I turned my bedside lamp on. She deposited herself on my bed with a soft thud.

“Nah, Mom decided to turn in and I helped her drag Dad into their bedroom. Listen, I’ve been meaning to ask you, but I thought you’d tell me on your own. I had to wheedle it out of Mom this morning, but Dad didn’t want to talk about it, so I zipped my lips. Spill. You got suspended from school?”

“Technically, Dad pulled me out of school. It happened on Wednesday—”

“The day before Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah, Mom and Dad had to meet with Principal Sloan in his office. They called me in from home room. I wasn’t surprised. It’s been building up for weeks.”

“What’s been building up?”

“It’s Rachel Hanley.”

“Bobby’s ex?”

“Yeah, well, it started the first day of school, right after Labor Day. I’d gotten so used to using the Ladies’ Room over the summer that I kinda went into the girls’ bathroom by mistake—”

“You’re such a dolt—”

“Anyway, Rachel was in there fixing her makeup or something. Like that would ever make her look any better. She practically attacked me and started screaming that I was queer. Luckily, no one else came in while she was shouting at me.”

“So, no harm, no foul. You got a little embarrassed, that’s all.”

“I wish. She told everyone she could that I was a homo. Even some of the teachers we had in common. Mostly she was ignored or got confused looks. I mean I’m kinda well-liked in school, I think. I guess bottom-line, the other kids didn’t really care. Then she told Mrs. Rheingold, our home economics teacher, that I was a homo. In front of me, after class! Mrs. Rheingold shrieked with laughter and said, “Nonsense, Rachel. Shuggie’s one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever had in almost twenty years of classes here at BHS. Don’t be silly and don’t spread vicious rumors.” A couple of my other teachers said the same thing.”

“It must be the cafeteria food. How could they think you were a girl? I mean, they’ve seen you dressed like a boy for years.”

“Don’t be jealous, Connie. I got the better genes in the family.” I stuck my tongue out at her.

“So, what happened then if everybody thought you were a girl anyway?”

“She wouldn’t stop harassing me in school. Just a lot of nasty comments and evil looks. I tried my best to just ignore her. And that seemed to work…for a while. Then Mrs. Messina—you know, Bobby’s mom—”

“Duh, of course I know—”

“--told me that Rachel had written to Bobby, but Bobby never answered her letters. So, Rachel cornered Mrs. Messina in Shoprite one day and asked her point blank what’s with me and Bobby. Bobby’s mom told her all about how I had gone on the tour with Bobby over the summer and how she expected we’d eventually get married when Bobby finished his service time. Of course, Rachel exploded at Mrs. Messina, swearing that I was queer and that I had turned Bobby into a homo as well. Mrs. Messina laughed at her and said we would name our first child Rachel just to remind her how stupid she was to claim I was a boy.”

“Hoo, boy, this is crazy.”

“Rachel was so mad she told her parents all about it and they filed a formal complaint about me with Principal Sloan. They said I was some kind of deviant who should be thrown out of school. That’s how we ended up in the Principal’s office on Wednesday morning.”
“They didn’t even have the decency to have your accusers face you?”

“Well, that turned out to be fortunate. Otherwise, Dad would be spending time in the county lock-up.”

“He didn’t take it well, I assume.”

“No, no he didn’t. Anyway, Principal Sloan told us I’d been suspended pending a complete investigation of my gender status. He did tell us that the teachers he interviewed swore I was a girl. The problem was I’m officially registered as a boy. So, either my parents have been committing a heinous fraud on the school system or I’m a sick deviant who’s turning other students into homosexuals.”

“There’s logic in what he’s saying—”

“Thanks for your support, Connie.”

“I guess Dad wasn’t too happy with Sloan?”

“I’ve never seen Dad so angry. He stood up and leaned into Principal Sloan, telling him the whole affair was ridiculous and that he’d be seeing a lawyer about suing the Bergenfield Board of Education. “My daughter’s not queer! How dare that Hanley girl spread lies like that and you people oughta know better than to believe irresponsible gossip from someone with an axe to grind. I’ll save you the money and time, Sloan, I’m pulling Shuggie from this sad excuse for a school and enroll her in a private school. I’ve told Eriko for years we should’ve sent Shuggie to a Catholic girls’ school. A nun would have better sense than you, Sloan.” So, I’m technically not suspended. I quit.”

“Dad’s really going to send you to a Catholic girls’ school?”

“No, of course not.” Then I thought about it and revised my answer. “Well, it’s too late in the school year to be admitted, isn’t it?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t care if Dad doesn’t like it but if I’m not going to school, I’m going to wear girls’ clothes all day, seven days a week. And this frees me up to do more recording for Billy. I mean we need another half a dozen tracks if the label opts to release an LP. Billy thinks my first single will shoot up the charts and trigger the option in my contract.”

“What contract, koneko?” Connie and I turned to the doorway where our grandmother was standing, having just asked that question.

“Sobo! How did you get upstairs? You can’t walk!”

“Obviously I can.” She shambled into the room and slowly lay down on my bed, on the opposite side from Connie. So, there we were. All three of us lying on my bed. From left to right: Connie, me, and grandmother.

“But how, sobo?”

“I’m a little slower than normal but I can walk. I just like being pushed around in the wheelchair. Your father has been much nicer to me since I came back this week. Don’t tell them, okay?”

“You are something else, sobo,” Connie said.

“What does she mean, something else, Itsuki?”

“Never mind, sobo. You wanted to know about my contract? Well, it’s like this…”

Billy Schechter had promised my father two things: to find therapy and medical care for my desired transition to the female gender, which would be paid for by the second thing, securing a recording contract for me under the stage name, Sugar Pie. My father was pleasantly surprised when Billy followed through on both promises. In fact, he accompanied me and Mom to our first meeting with Dr. Benjamin Harrison, an endocrinologist affiliated with Manhattan University, who was a leading practitioner in the emergent field of transgender treatment. He was a tall, thin bespectacled man in his early sixties with a genial manner and a firm handshake. I think Dad took an immediate liking to him. And he made points with me when he asked why a pretty girl like me would want to become a boy. It’s true my parents had insisted I dress androgynously to my first meeting (I’d joked about wearing my silver lame dress) so Dr. Harrison making with the sly humor showed me he was on my side.

It was a busy day. Dr. Harrison interviewed me for almost an hour and made it seem like a chat between newly introduced friends. My parents went for a walk in Central Park to pass the time before returning to Dr. Harrison’s office. When they returned, Dr. Harrison had a nurse take some blood samples and then gathered us all back in his office to give us a prospectus on what my treatment might be, pending the results of the blood analysis.

He talked to us about feminizing hormone therapy and threw out such unpronounceable names for drugs such as estradiol valerate, estradiol cypionate, bicalutamide, and others. Mom and Dad were shocked to learn I’d been taking birth control pills (Connie’s and Mrs. Messina’s) and Dr. Harrison told me to stop taking them immediately. An appointment was made for the following week to see if and how we would proceed.

I was confident my long hoped-for journey to womanhood would officially begin after our next meeting and dressed as en femme as possible given my sparse wardrobe as Mom accompanied me to Dr. Harrison’s office. Although my hair had grown some during the summer, it was still rather short for any kind of truly feminine hairdo. So, I sported an Audrey Hepburn headscarf look. Complete with sunglasses on a breezy September morning!

Dr. Harrison was suitably impressed by my appearance and joked that I didn’t need to take any hormones. I think I shrieked, and he calmed me down, saying I needed to get used to his droll sense of humor. I asked my mother what droll meant. She just shrugged. Ultimately, after telling us that my blood analysis showed low testosterone levels but nothing alarming, we walked out of his office with prescriptions for a three-month supply of hormone pills. Mom treated me to some ice cream and then we went shopping at Bloomingdales. What a day!

One day in late September, Billy swung by our house in his baby blue Pontiac GTO convertible and drove my parents and me to the offices of Hudson Records, where we would sign my first recording contract. On the 40-minute ride to midtown Manhattan, Billy explained that my Dad and I would be signing a contract for two 45 singles with an option for an LP if either single achieves a certain level of sales. When Dad reminded Billy that he had trumpeted a 3 album deal just three weeks ago, Billy swore this was the best deal he could negotiate.

“I have some pull in the business but not enough to get that kind of deal for a new artist with essentially 8 weeks experience. Believe me, there’s enough shekels in this contract to pay for Shuggie’s doctors and a little nest egg for her future.”

“I was hoping we could pay off the mortgage with the proceeds—”

“Hey, there’s no such thing as a free lunch but, there is that option for an LP. If Shuggie sells as well as I think she can, they’ll be talking an extension at multiples of the figures in that deal.”

“Dad, it’s not nice to profit off child labor.” Dad shot me a withering glance but let the matter drop. We rode the rest of the way in pleasant silence.

Due to Billy’s busy schedule (he commuted back and forth to the West Coast to produce recording sessions for a number of different bands on several labels), I recorded with him just once in October and again in November. I was able to synchronize these recording sessions with my bi-weekly appointments with Dr. Harrison and his staff. Mom and I would make a full day of it in Manhattan: recording with Billy in the morning, lunch at Howard Johnson’s, doctor’s appointment in the afternoon and clothes shopping just before driving back home to help Mom make dinner.

In October, Billy was ebullient about the latest record he’d produced for Hank and Honey (yes, they were still together! Who da thunk it?). In the control room of Bell Sound’s Studio B, he threaded the ½ inch 4-track tape into the playback machine and pressed play. We sat back and listened to “Hello Stranger.”

“Whaddya think?” Billy asked.

“Another Billy Schechter masterpiece. #1 with a bullet for sure.”

“Yeah, Hank and Honey are really good together. But we’re not here to talk about them. I’ve got a surefire hit for you all lined up. I already had The Wrecking Crew in L.A. lay down the basic track. We just need to hit your vocal out of the park today. I’m sure you can.”

We spent the next 2 and a half hours doing take after take until Billy finally got the one he wanted. Between takes, Billy would turn off the mike in the control room and, more often than not, have animated conversations with Mom. Once, she came into the studio and handed me a tall glass of water.

“Your throat’s getting a little hoarse, dear. Drink some water.”

“Mom, what are you and Billy so busy talking about while I’m getting ready for the next take?”

“Oh, Shuggie, just small talk. The weather, why The Mets are so bad, how your grandmother’s doing…stuff like that.”

“I don’t know. You guys are laughing too much. I can’t hear you, but I see your mouths gaping and one time you bent over like Billy had just told you the funniest joke.”

“Billy’s quite a witty fellow. Would make a perfect match for some lucky gal.”

“Okay, Mom, back in your cage. I think Billy wants to move on to the next take.”

Just in time for lunch, Billy called an end to the session, satisfied with 2 or 3 of the takes. He’d listen to them carefully, probably in L.A., before selecting the take he’d use in the final mix. We sat in the control room as Billy and our engineer tried a first pass at a mix. It was a re-make of Sylvia Tyson’s song, “You Were On My Mind.”

Almost four weeks later to the day, Mom and I showed up at Bell Sound Studios to record another track with Billy. This time I convinced her to not waste her time hanging around while we went through the tedious process of trying to satisfy Billy’s perfectionist standards. So, she decided to go see the new Japanese Painting and Sculpture Exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art that had just opened in October. It was conveniently only a block away from the studio on West 53rd Street. I breathed a sigh of relief. At last, I could just concentrate on singing.

When I strolled into Studio B, I saw two familiar faces: Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson. They had played behind me at The Brooklyn Fox. They smiled and waved. This time, Garth was going to play accordion. And this time, he was comfortably seated. Robbie was tuning an acoustic guitar. I dropped my bag onto one of the chairs and took off my coat. Turning toward the control room, I saw Billy and a tall, attractive woman who appeared to be around 35, embracing. I asked Robbie who the woman with Billy was. He shook his head. “Search me. Billy didn’t introduce her to us.” I knocked on the door to the control room and Billy looked over to me.

“Shuggie! Great! You’re here. I need a few minutes with the session guys before we begin. Come in. Say hello to my sister, Gwen.” I openly stared at this tall, very pretty woman as she came forward, offering her hand to shake.

“Hello, Shuggie. Billy has told me so much about you. You’re even prettier than he described you.”

Shaking her hand, I gawked at her a long second before I was able to speak. “Thank you. And you’re very pretty yourself.”

“I’m not how you imagined me, right?”

“Well…” Billy slipped out of the control room and started going over the charts with the musicians in the studio. “Well, I’m not sure what I imagined. Except that I expected there’d be a strong family resemblance. And there is.” We sat down facing each other and away from the studio.

“It’s the Schechter curse. We do look alike.” She laughed. It took me a second to react and then I laughed as well.

“Unfortunately, the Brennan clan has the same curse. My sister and I look alike too. Maybe as we grow older, I’ll look more like my mother. I’ve got my fingers crossed.”

“Billy played some tapes of you singing before you came in. Very impressive. You have a classic contralto voice. He thinks you’re going to be a big star.”

“That remains to be seen but what brings you to New York? Billy told me you live in Germany now.”

“My husband Dieter has a sister who lives in Chicago, and it’s been years since they’ve seen each other so they agreed to spend Thanksgiving together this year. We’re staying in Billy’s apartment for a couple of days and then moving on to Chicago. He and the kids are there right now. They’d love to meet you. The kids are crazy about American music.”

“I’ve got some plans for the afternoon and my Mom and I have to get back home by five or six. Otherwise, I’d love to meet your family too.”

She took my hand in hers and lowered her voice. “Don’t let anyone or anything keep you from realizing your dreams, Shuggie. You’ve started your journey a lot younger than I did. And Billy is a good man. The best. He’ll help you any way he can. Trust me. I know.”

“Shuggie? We’re ready for you.” Billy was in the doorway of the control room, charts in hand. Gwen stood up and pressed her cheek against mine.

“So nice to meet you, Shuggie. Maybe when Billy has you touring Europe in the near future you can visit Dieter and me in Munich. Dieter makes a sauerbraten to die for. See you later, Billy.” She kissed his forehead and walked out.

“Let’s do it!” Billy clapped his hands and we stepped into the studio.

We played the best take for Mom when she came to pick me up for lunch. I suppose she doesn’t have the most critical ear when listening to me sing but this version of Burt Bacharach’s “I Say a Little Prayer” was a bit of a nice change of pace for me, with Garth on accordion and Robbie on acoustic guitar. Billy said my voice dominated the track rather than the instrumentation. It was, he said, a good showcase for my versatility. I nodded as the tape played.

All in all, as November turned to December, I was in a good place in my life. My hormone therapy was already starting to bear results: my skin was smoother, my body shape was becoming more feminine, my hair seemed more lustrous, and my breasts appeared to be growing (although I still needed padding in my bra). My singing career was about to enter its second stage as Billy planned to release my first single, “You Were On My Mind,” in early 1967. I would have preferred to release “Natural Woman” as my maiden voyage, but Carole had promised it to Aretha first.

Of course, I was no longer in school and there was no solution to that situation in sight. Dad wasn’t about to pay for an expensive private school. Connie thinks I could get into a Catholic girls’ school if I declare my intention to become a nun. I frowned, Mom shook her head and, I’m not sure, but it looked like Dad was about to burst into tears. Grandmother just looked confused.

Cryptically, Billy called on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and said he had an idea about school. He wouldn’t go into detail until he made all the arrangements. Of course, he didn’t say what the arrangements were either. But I wasn’t preoccupied by the possibility of being a drop-out. After all, on Thursday, the first day of December, Bobby was coming home. Only for a month before he would be shipped off overseas on New Year’s Day 1967. We would have a month together. Maybe the last month we will ever have. It’s hard to keep dark thoughts out of your mind when faced with the specter of war looming before us all.

One o’clock in the afternoon. The corner of Washington Avenue and West Church Street. It was a brisk day, and I was tempted to pull my hood up over my head but I wanted Bobby to see my face clearly as I stood by the bus stop sign. I saw the NJ Transit bus appear on the horizon, moving deliberately downhill toward me. I waved and almost jumped out of my shoes. The bus stopped five feet from me, and its doors opened. Bobby’s smiling face emerged into the sunshine. He was home. To me.