Gibberish
(Eclipse No. 1)

Eclipse, that charming active adult community in New Jersey—with a stress on the word active, is one of many such communities that have invaded the once pastoral farmlands of Middlesex County. As with such communities there is diversity and adversity— games to be played and games played. Like many such communities, it is not without issues.  What is so and so doing with pink flamingoes on her patio? There is too little shade here or too much shade there. This unit has more trees than another; trees are dying, trees are too small—others are obtrusive, those trees, over there are attracting Japanese Beetles.

And of course, as with such communities, it is not without gossip—every active adult’s most pleasurable past time. Indeed, everybody knows everybody’s business—if not at the moment then certainly in an hour or two. At Eclipse word gets around faster than a hummingbird’s wings. Let me give you this recent example that began with the woman on Walnut Ridge telling a personal incident to the gentleman who lives at 1425 Acorn Circle. The story as relayed to me is as follows…

The woman on Walnut Ridge told the Acorn Circle fellow that she and her husband became really good friends with their neighbors across the common grounds who live on Almond Way. The women shopped together, she said, had their manicures and hair done together and doubled up for tennis. The husbands also were close—golfed every Tuesday, bowled on Thursdays. As couples they did everything together: theater, parties, cruises, and at community events, they were always seated at the same table.

“So imagine my shock,” the woman-on-Walnut Ridge said to the fellow-on-Acorn, “when the husband-on-Almond Way, catches me in the clubhouse and says ‘We can’t be involved with you as a couple any longer. I’ve fallen in love with you.’ He went on to say he desperately needed to be alone with me. Desperately! Imagine!”

“And your response?” asked the fellow from Acorn Circle.

“Well, of course, I would have none of it. I told him he needed his head examined. I told him I loved my husband and would never, absolutely never, be interested in another man.” She paused. “You know who I’m speaking about, right—the guy on Almond Way?” she asked.

The Acorn Circle gentleman nodded his head.

“Well, he continued on, saying he did love his wife, but something was missing. Missing! Me! I was mortified of course and after I told my husband about this, we decided to just go cold-turkey and never see them again. Can you imagine? Please keep this to yourself. Please—”

The gentleman from Acorn Circle being a gentleman assured her that of course, he would keep this to himself and that evening, in bed, as he and his wife were watching TV, he shared the conversation with her. She was aghast.

 “My God, he’s so much older than his wife—who I must say, although she is pretty attractive, clearly has had help—perhaps too much help. By the way, dear,” she asked her husband, “why do you think that woman shared this information with you?” She decided then and there to avoid the woman on Walnut Ridge whom she knew was up to no good.

 “Damned if I know—but please keep it to yourself. Hon, do you hear me?” he asked, as she turned over and began to snore.

The following day at Bridge the woman from Acorn Circle felt compelled to give all the details to her best friend, a widow on Chestnut Way who thought it was all bullshit. She said she never even saw the couples dance with each other at any of the community gatherings and certainly did not hear either of them say anything inappropriate.

 “He’s one sicko! Everybody knows that,” said the woman to her right, who upon returning home, immediately told the divorcee she was dating that she felt sorry for the wife being married to such a weasel for so many years. They both agreed—lewd, licentious, indecent behavior—what else might you expect from men after all?

 The Republican who lives next to the couple on Almond Way wished the gossip would end and he made excuses for his neighbor. “Look, he said, “the woman who was hit upon has a nice figure—nice boobs and tush. Give the guy a break.”

The wife of the Republican felt sorry for the wronged woman—who, in this instance, she felt was the wife of the man on Almond Way and not the slut from Walnut Ridge. “For God’s sake, she recently lost her mother and she has to deal with the fact that everybody is talking about her screw-ball husband. He’s pathetic—but to be fair, if the husband of the other woman had any sense he would’ve kicked the guy’s butt.”

Her best friend on Nutmeg Road agreed. “And I question the motive of that one on Walnut Ridge—spreading the story in the first place. You see the way she struts her stuff at the pool; never gets her hair wet—God forbid!” ­

The wife of the man on Almond Way defended her husband to anyone who would listen, saying it was the woman on Walnut Ridge who made the pass at her husband. “He’s only human.” she was said to have said.

The new couple on Macadamia decided that they did not know the people involved, did not want to know the people involved and couldn’t care less about their predicament. But then again, as I said, they were new to the community.

The artsy loner on Pecan Lane decided to submit the story to The New Yorker magazine. It was accepted—under a pseudonym, of course.

“And it’s not over—” The mother of the woman who lives on Nutmeg Road, who lives in a neighboring community said to her aide. “My daughter said as word traveled, friends of both couples, who were at one time close, became remote, breaking social ties and in general not acting as friendly as usual.”

Lydia Benson at ReMax and Susan Mc Kinley of Century 21 were happy to list the two homes. They were the same model although I heard the woman on Walnut Ridge certainly had better decorating sense than the one on Almond Way.

________________________________________________________________________________________
About the author
Arlene Gralla Feldman is a retired New York City High School English teacher. She has a Masters of Fine Arts (Fiction Writing) from Brooklyn College. Feldman has been published in various venues; an excerpt from her novella, One God or Another was published in the anthology, Two Worlds Walking: Short Stories, Essays & Poetry by Writers with Mixed Heritages, Edited by Diane Glancy and C. W. Truesdale (New Rivers Press, 1994). During the COVID Pandemic Feldman developed a blog as a creative writing outlet in which she recorded her dreams. Her blog includes over three hundred entries with photos of her art work as well as that of acquaintances. About | Dreamz (arlron9.wixsite.com). Feldman lives in an active adult community in Monroe Township where she is an Associate Editor of her community newspaper. “Gibberish” is her fourth contribution to the Kelsey Review. 

Cypress Tunnel

____________________________________________________________________
About the artist
Lauren Fedorko, M.Ed., is an Adjunct Professor of writing at Rutgers University, teaches AP and Honors high school English, and advises a creative writing club for her students. Her passion for writing is longstanding and ongoing, composed mostly of poetry and creative non-fiction. She enjoys exploring, good company, and traveling the world every chance she gets. Her work has previously been published in the Kelsey Review and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Requiem Avus

I wake up confused. Blink, stretch my neck, arch my back into the mattress. There’s no light except from the candle-shaped lamp in the window, tucked behind the closed blinds. I hear ringing, but I soon realize it’s not my alarm; it’s in my head. My tinnitus worsens when I’m grinding my teeth in my sleep, and right now, it’s screeching like a siren. I roll over to check my phone and see it’s after 1:00am. I do the math in my head: I’ve slept for an hour or so, probably tangled in a knot, if the soreness in my back and right hamstring are any clue. I wobble to my feet, use the bathroom, reorient myself. The ringing in my head lessens as I massage my jaw. I refill my water glass, drink deeply until I can feel my stomach expanding, aching. I pad back to bed, avoiding the creaky spots in the floor so I don’t wake my partner, snoring in the next room; Michael could sleep through a firebombing, but I zig-zag across the carpet anyway. I lie back down, knowing I won’t fall asleep again anytime soon but forcing myself to try. My eyelids flutter, protesting my forcing them closed. Eventually, I settle for staring at the shapes the blinds make in the moonlight on the ceiling.

My phone rings on the bed next to me. A photo of my mom flashes across the screen. Immediately, I realize this is the call that my body has somehow expected. The tangle of my own limbs, the shriek of my teeth in my skull… my muscles, my bones, my blood have felt him leave this plane. The weight of my world shifted while I slept, but my body knew. Our bodies always do.

I pick up, voice shaky, expecting the words as they come: “He’s gone. He died a few minutes ago.”

I hear her crying. I hear my father, his oldest son, muttering in the background as he leaves a message for the funeral home. I make a plan to meet them in mere hours to discuss disposition of the body, cremation, and other arrangements. I hang up, inhale deeply, and cry. Despite being wide awake moments ago, I fall into sleep mid-grieving.

***

We have been in this position before. A few years ago, we all rushed to Penn Medicine in Princeton to say our goodbyes as he trembled and wailed uncontrollably. No one knew what was wrong, and he wasn’t speaking, just moaning. Two days later, it was as if nothing happened.

This time, though, we knew it was the end.

Because this time, we visited him in hospice, where he was unconscious, shrunken to the size of a slumbering child. He had pneumonia, the bi-product of a weeks-old COVID infection, and his nearly-century-old body seemed to have finally given up. We peered at him through a window, watching his body shake with the effort it took to breathe. We whispered to each other in the hallway, as if we were in church or a mortuary (or both). Finally, after several protocol reviews, we were allowed inside his room. I was in shock at the tiny person lying before me. I forgot until that moment that he had a fall at the assisted living facility, but I saw that a purple-yellow bruise above his eye had bloomed across one entire side of his face.

He was so thin, so frail, so alien. His body was skeletal, with skin transparent as cheesecloth, like he was already draped in a papery shroud. I could almost hear his bones knocking together as his body jerked with the gasping, labored breathing that is a sign of imminence.

We muttered our goodbyes, lent reassuring touches to his blanketed hands and feet, and thanked him for a long life well-lived. In the movies, this is the part where the heart monitor would spike or a final, belabored sigh would escape his lips. But there was just the stuttered inhale, the same slow, steady beeping. We knew it was just a matter of time.

***

It’s been less than twelve hours since time of death. How we are expected to sign contracts, to make informed, finite decisions, when we haven’t even fully absorbed that George, Dad, Pop Pop is just… gone? How are we expected to grasp that one of the urns in this pamphlet will be where our family’s patriarch will rest for eternity? How are we to even understand what this all means?

But we are, and we do. Right now, death is a business. Who has time for emotion when there is money to be made? I swallow sour saliva as we discuss how many death certificates to order. The banks will each need one. As will the University, so my grandmother can continue receiving benefits. The VA will need one when we eventually bury him. And we should probably have a few on hand, just in case. They’re only a few bucks a piece, after all. Do we need a dozen?

My mother flips through a catalog of caskets. I pick up another full of mementos; apparently they are going to take and keep my grandfather’s fingerprint, and we can call back to order rings, money clips, dog tags, paperweights, and a whole host of other tchotchkes with it embedded in gold, silver, or glass. I can’t decide if this idea is creepy or transcendently beautiful.

Moments later, we send him to the crematorium in a wooden box with a golden oak tint. We do not pick an urn; that can wait. We fill out a page in the growing stack of papers for an obituary but decide we should write our own. After all, how do you distill ninety-six years into what looks like an elementary school worksheet? How do you boil down multiple World War II deployments, two lifetimes worth of employment, three sons and two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren and a dozen nieces and nephews and all the memories that come with them into one fill-in-the-blanks form, as if this trove of love and pain and wonder is a Mad Lib?

I swallow the lump in my throat and look over everything, double checking with my father that we haven’t missed any signature lines or forgotten any questions we had prepared on the way over.

I pat my pocket for the hundredth time that morning to make sure my car key is still there. I know it is, but I have to be sure. I have to know it is there when I reach for it, even if I don’t need it.

***

It has been a few weeks. The urn has arrived, and what is left of my grandfather is inside; it sits in the center of the table next to a lovely bouquet of flowers that my boss has sent. A tri-fold poster board with almost every picture of him we could find (he always hated the attention of the camera) is propped up on a chair. We sit around the table like we’re waiting for a toast to be given. I’ve chosen the readings, the psalm, the prayers. Sandwiches have been ordered. My grandmother is on her way to the private room we’ve reserved just outside the memory care unit where she now lives alone. I feel anxiety crawling up my spine. I’m worried my grandmother won’t understand why we’re all here (or who we all are), or my niece and nephew will ask questions we aren’t fully prepared to answer. The top of my head is hot.

But then Michael begins the memorial, and I suddenly feel an overwhelming sense of satiation, of calm and stillness. I exhale deeply and look around. Almost everyone is smiling, and I wonder if they feel it too: the awe that has come with realizing we are four generations gathered to love and honor and remember the kindest, gentlest, and quietest amongst us.

The passage I choose for myself mentions how, if we are lucky, we are given, at most, seventy years. I laugh through the verse; my sister joins me; my mother nods; my uncle looks up at the ceiling. When seventy years seemed impossible, we got ninety-six. My grandfather survived emigration, the Great Depression, the warfront, a handful of heart attacks, a stroke, a pandemic. When he wasn’t supposed to live to see his grandchildren be born, he got to see them both graduate from college; he got to hold his great-grandchildren.

There is an understanding that sweeps through the room. We have little to be sad about and everything to be grateful for. The air conditioning kicks on. A car horn sounds out on the street.

And when the short service is over, we eat. We talk, we reminisce, and we fill ourselves.

________________________________________________________________
About the author
John Boccanfuso received BA and MA degrees in English from The College of New Jersey and has been a writing professor at Mercer County Community College for nearly a decade. He was previously a staff writer for Out in Jersey magazine, with poems published in Glitterwolf (Issue 6, 2014) and Love is Proud (JMS Books, 2016).

An Unexpected Guest

As dawn was seeping through the windows
I woke from surgery and saw
my right arm hooked to an inverted bottle
my left attached to an automatic dispenser that beeped
each time it dripped morphine.
Then, I heard a voice said, Knock, knock.

The curtains parted as an ancient monk
enveloped in a maroon cloth shuffled in.
People call me Bhante, he said.
I’m one hundred and three, where is your wound?
I pointed with my chin and mumbled,
Somewhere under the linens, I have not seen it myself.

Bhante lifted the sheet and the bloodstained gauze.
Our eyes converged on the gaping nine-inch long incision
that began above the belly button
side-stepping it and continued down.
I looked away as he dropped the dressing
and pressed his heavy forearm across the wound.

I wanted to shout, Wait a minute.
Someone made a mistake. I am not even a Buddhist,
but no sound came out.
The monk stood with his eyes closed as if asleep
as drops from the bottle marked time
like a water clock.

I puckered my lips and sucked in air
I wanted to blow at his face and wake him
when Bhante’s eyes opened.
You will be better, he announced
and staggered out, unsteady
as a prisoner in leg-irons.

_________________________________________________
About the author
Vida Chu grew up in Hong Kong, came to America to attend college, and stayed. Her poems have been published by Kelsey Review, US 1 Worksheets, Paterson Review, and other journals. She has two books of poems, “The Fragrant Harbor” and “The Thirteenth Lake,” published by Kelsay Press.

Dirge Under the Stars

Morning’s drunk with the sound
of birdsong outside my house—
scent of goose-grass, mint and poplar
from the open window. Sunlight
silvers the pond where swans sail
below a willow’s sagging branches, 
while I, alone, string each passing day
without you, bead to bead—
no comfort in words not spoken.
No sound of lute at twilight—
nights worse below a ceiling of stars. 

And what, when winter invades,
lays siege, kills the living—
when snowflakes fall, cloak with
immaculate cover—you with me
such a short time ago. No starlight,
I still alone, only the faint glow
of window candlelight as I grieve
for our song I can no longer sing.
I hear only the moan of a cello.
Yuletide fires, like roses under snow,
wane, die—I drown in snowdrifts.

________________________________________________
About the author
Wanda Praisner, one of the 9 NJ poets to read in 2021 (NJ Digest), is the recipient of the Kudzu Award, Princemere Prize, First Prize in Poetry at the College of NJ Writers’ Conference, and the 2017 NJ Poets Prize. She’s appeared in Atlanta Review, Lullwater Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her 6th book: To Illuminate the Way (2018).

Steep Ravine

________________________________________________________________________________________
About the artist
Lauren Fedorko, M.Ed., is an Adjunct Professor of writing at Rutgers University, teaches AP and Honors high school English, and advises a creative writing club for her students. Her passion for writing is longstanding and ongoing, composed mostly of poetry and creative non-fiction. She enjoys exploring, good company, and traveling the world every chance she gets. Her work has previously been published in the Kelsey Review and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

One Fine Evening

The past comes upon you like smoke on the air, you can smell it and find yourself gone,
To a place that you lived without worry or care, isn’t that where we all once came from?

– Mary Chapin Carpenter from The Age of Miracles (2010)

This was back in the day, way back, a half century ago, a memory that seems at once both distant and fresh. It is the kind of memory that teases, a snapshot with faded colors and creased edges, making you feel for just a moment that you can somehow really get back there before the mortgage payments, the back pain and the sleepwalking trips to the bathroom. Before all the mistakes you and everyone else you know are going to make. Before time slips away because that is all time has ever done.

Before you learn that everything will be alright anyway but only if you let it be.

This was a Tuesday evening high school basketball game in March of 1972, a day after I turned 17 years old. It was the Nassau County semi-finals, played at Hofstra in front of more than four thousand, mostly partisan teenagers like me, the largest crowd in New York State schoolboy history. This was Arnold Stone and his underdog Lawrence Golden Tornadoes taking on William “Beaver” Smith and the prior year’s champion South Side Cyclones of Rockville Centre.

I was in 11^th grade at Lawrence and had no idea what a golden tornado was or that Georgia Tech football had the nickname for a couple of decades in the early 20^th century. Tornadoes. Cyclones. Didn’t give these stormy names a second thought because climate change was just another name for spring break. I knew we were the blue and gold and that was about it. There was of course that Golden Tornado restaurant on the corner of Branch Boulevard and Peninsula Boulevard across the street from Public School No. 6. A lunch hour fried egg sub sandwich with the hash brown potatoes thrown right in. An always welcoming owner named Joe whose alleged penchant for bookmaking reportedly earned some time out from behind the counter. The best pinball machine with real three-dimensional silver metal balls and genuine tilt pronouncements. Most of all, the time to eat and play with friends willing to just stand by the side of the glass and wait their turn.

They’re all gone now, the restaurant, the public elementary school, and yes, Arnold and Beaver.

I had tried out for the team the previous summer of 1971 but needed more inches, more pounds and more talent. The coach was Fred Seger, a basketball and baseball star at Nebraska in the 1950s, ahead of his time in terms of physical conditioning. An intimidating man to anyone who had some growing and growing up to do. When I found out I could walk off as easily as I had walked on, with no one noticing either, I turned to writing about the season for the school paper. This had allowed me to witness an exhibition debacle the prior fall against Suffolk County Brentwood’s Mitch Kupchak of LA Lakers fame that made me glad I was sitting safely above court level with a pen and pad. But somehow, the boys from the Five Towns were here just a few months later playing to the hopes of their mere mortal classmates, some carrying signs that read THE ONLY WAY TO BEAT A BEAVER IS WITH A STONE.

This was years before ESPN, years before its Top Plays, years before Michael Jordan and sneaker deals offered adolescents still in algebra class. Before ticket prices climbed out of reach and before someone had the not great idea to insert radio commercials between baseball pitches. Before one of my favorite movies, Hoosiers, and two of my least favorites, Space Jam and Space Jam: A New Legacy. Long before videogame NBA 2K kept too many people inside. No smartphones, no Snapchatting, no Twitter or TikTok pics. All eyes fixed on a basketball court and a scoreboard.

You can Google South Side 70 Lawrence 68 for the next month and all you will find are real estate listings, temperature readings and restaurant prices. A black and white photo shows the center jump, Arnold wearing number 33 and Beaver 34, bodies fully extended and rising, fingertips stretched towards the heavens, the basketball balanced atop their meeting left hands. Today the commentators would describe this brilliant battle as a shame someone had to lose. The game is gone, long gone, no matter how many jump shots Stone made that day in a valiant effort to take down the champion. Tony Kornheiser for Newsday—yes, that Tony Kornheiser, a few years out of nearby Hewlett High School and a few decades ahead of Monday Night Football and Pardon the Interruption—would take up most of a full sports page to pen a piece entitled South Side Wins a Tough One – But Stone Is a Winner in Losers’ Locker Room.

Beaver Smith would have a fabulous 4-year career at St. John’s, mostly for coaching legend Lou Carnesecca, be drafted in the 5^th round by the Knicks in 1976, and play in Europe. Arnold would never quite live up to his own athletic promise in a few years of college ball at Skagit Valley College, Nassau Community College and Jacksonville University. By all accounts both would live rich lives of family and friendships, surely enjoying their past success and attention but never resting or relying on it. Beaver passed away in 2018 and Arnold just last year, both in their 60s, both long before their time.

It is now more than fifty years since that game. The favorite won, the underdog lost. That’s more often than not how it goes. I have always identified with underdogs. I rooted for the Mets, not the Yankees. My father was born into abject poverty and my mother was imprisoned in Europe as a child. I wrote a novel, The Other Side of Losing, celebrating the baseball fans of Chicago who spent a century waiting for a World Series championship, not realizing it was the friendships made along the way that made them winners long before the fickle bouncing balls finally behaved.

The history of competitive sports organization shows an early concern for not tipping the balance from participation towards partisanship too dramatically. The same can be said for society at large. We make too much of teams, of tribes, of races, religions. Of winners. We are all underdogs, all winners and all losers, all in this together, in this beautiful but all too brief game of life.

We have social media now and we see the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, the anniversaries, the passings. I shake my head and wonder how all those days disappeared so quickly. I don’t really recognize the face in the mirror looking back at me. Every heartburn might be heart failure, tanning freckles the dawn of melanoma, headaches and bellyaches all the possible arrival of that dreaded thing our parents whispered about as the C-word. My friends and I still spend too much time worrying and wondering why the world at large seems as broken as it was when we came into it.  I’ve said goodbye to both parents and to many good friends and family members. And to Beaver and Arnold, two men to whom I owe one very fine evening, that kind of moment that helps add to a good life. After all, if time is going to remain undefeated, it still feels damn good to get your shots up, wherever you are.

_____________________________________________________________________________
About the author
Peter Brav isthe author of the novels Zappy I’m Not, The Other Side of Losing, Sneaking In, and 331 Innings. His shorter work has appeared in Black Fork Review, Kelsey Review, Monarch Review, Echo Magazine, US1 Magazine, Mortal Mag, GreenPrints Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, and other publications. He lives on a Central New Jersey farm.

The Professor Is Still Talking

“Consider the difference
between the words naked and nude,
or rock and stone,” the professor says.
“Or, for that matter, hug and embrace.”

Pens and pencils move,
but not all of them writing.
Minds are moving, too,
not all of them considering.

My mind moves to you, naked and nude,
and then I remember the rock
         (Or was it a stone?)
that cleaved my head when I was 10.

The solid crack of pain,
the blood in my eyes…

A boy whose name I forget
threw that rock like a deadly Frisbee
and his teasing stopped once he saw my blood.

All his stuttered apologies
lost within my mother’s stony embrace.

My mind moves to you. I think of your hug,
as I think of you nude, not naked.
An ache, not a pain.

I embrace you after I hug you,
after I am made naked before you.

“Embarrassed or ashamed?”

The professor is still talking.

_________________________________________________________________
About the author
Michael Griffith began writing poetry in 2016 while recovering from a disability-causing injury. Since then, he’s been published in dozens of online and print venues. Three books of poetry in print: New Paths to Eden, Bloodline, and Exposed. Mike teaches at Mercer County and Raritan Valley Community Colleges.

are you there, mom?

her voice reaches me
an other-worldly echo
my daughter is masked
her eyelids flutter
her fingernails dig into the recliner
bags of fluid hang from an IV pole
a ticking machine will titrate the drips

her veins swabbed and exposed
a cancer junkie waiting
for the needle puncture
that will send lethal drugs coursing
through her surgically-insulted body

I am helpless
sliding into a black hole
the only warning – yield

______________________________________________
About the author
Jo Sutera is published in U.S.1, Kelsey Review, Paterson Literary Review and US1 Worksheets, where her poem, “What Do I Want” had been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Lawrence, NJ.

Pas de Deux

She—no, they slam the apartment door. They’ve left each night this week. At first, Xavier tried inviting me. “Come on,” they said. “We haven’t had date night in weeks.” It hasn’t been that long, I think. We haven’t gone out in only one, two, three…okay, it’s been two weeks. Working two jobs each made our schedules sporadic, but we had always found time for each other. Even after the alienation of work, we had managed to rejuvenate one another. But I feel none of that now. Coming back to the apartment after finishing a shift at The New Erding Market and Empire Clothes Factory Outlet remained draining. Xavier tried to kiss and hold me to make it better. But I just stand there, being kissed and held but neither kissing nor holding. No electricity sparked; no desire or lust made the hair on the back of my neck stand up like a porcupine’s quills. I’m just tired, I say to myself. Missing a few date nights shouldn’t matter as long as we still love each other, right?

But tonight, Xavier left angry. They had stopped inviting me the last couple nights. I think they expected me to ask about it; to beg for an invite. But I figured it was fine to stay in another night. “Theresa,” Xavier had called from the bedroom. When I entered, they asked, “do you still love me?” I couldn’t pin down the tone. It sounded tongue-in-cheek, but—I asked what they meant. “Do you”—the playful paint peeled from their tone—“still love me?”

“Of course,” I told them.

“Then what did I do wrong?” They asked.

“You haven’t done anything wrong, Jul—”

“It’s not Julia.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to. I’m still getting used to—”

“Save the excuses,” they said. “You told me how much you hated those when you transitioned.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“So why won’t you go out with me tonight?”

“I’m exhausted. Working two shifts between two different jobs really kills you.”

“I know. I do the same thing.” They walked out and slammed the apartment door. How can this be happening to me? I think. Why is this happening? Everything was fine until tonight. What’s their problem? Not going out for two weeks isn’t so bad. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes you’re too busy or too tired. Sometimes nothing’s wrong. The only that happened two weeks ago was Xavier started to transition.

#

“How does Xavier sound?” they asked me a few weeks ago.

“For  what? Like a pet or DnD character?” I said.

“No, for my name,” they said. Now I feel like an asshole, I replied. “I didn’t frame the question right, sorry,” they said.

“It sounds fine, but it’s very—how do I put this—stereotypical trans masculine?” I said.

“How?”

I said, “there’s this joke how trans femmes always name themselves after a flower or their mom’s maiden name, and trans mascs name themselves Stone Brody or Heraclitus or Rad Heroman.”

“Those are great ideas,” they said to themself. “But why did you pick your name?”

“Theresa sounded pretty” I said.

“Well, Xavier sounds handsome,” they said.

“Xavier it is, then,” I smiled at them lying against my shoulder.

As abrupt as that conversation appeared to me, Xavier started to transition socially and medically. Of course, something’s appearance and essence tend to be contradictory. The foam of a river masks the current below. Yet, the foam was the result of that current, that essence. I imagine their question had been bubbling up like foam on a river.

“Anything else I should know?” I asked Xavier.

“What do you mean?” they said.

“You want me to call you Xavier now, so what pronouns are you going by now?”

“He/him,” they said. “Though, I guess they/them can apply to everyone, can’t they?”

“Unless someone says specifically not to, yeah.”

Xavier started wearing men’s clothing. They threw out their pleated skirts, skinny jeans, cotton blouses, and lowcut tops. No matter the gender expression you want when transitioning, you have to be an extremist first. The cis public takes your identity as something in contention. We have to be seen as a girl or boy or neither first before you can be seen as a feminine man or masculine woman or non-binary with any expression other than pure androgyny. Time and patience will then let you express yourself however you please. One of these days, I’ll start being butch, just not yet. As conflated as they are, there isn’t much similarity between trans men and butch lesbians, even early in the former’s transition. They wear their masculinity differently, in ways that can only be seen rather than told.

Yet, Xavier had never been happier. Again, on the surface that seems contradictory. They were even more anxious about the cis public trying to pass. Their growing gender dissonance meant they spent even more time in front of the reflection of shop windows trying to get the most perfectly unassuming man look; trying to lower their voice before speaking to the barista or cashier to get that perfect pitch. But that was like cleaning your room or doing laundry: it was the messiest right before it becomes its cleanest. Jeans and shirts must be thrown across the room and on the bed before they can get in the dresser and closet. Change is messy. Xavier was closer to their self than ever before.

#

Is that what Xavier thinks this is all about? I think. Because they transitioned? The timelines do match up, but that’s preposterous! I’m trans too! Why would I be avoiding them just because they transitioned. Before they transitioned, we both identified as lesbians, and we both only ever dated girls and non-men. I’ve never considered dating a man. I don’t think I’ve ever found one attractive. But that can change, right? What does it matter that Xavier is a man now? I loved them for them, right? They’re my soulmate, right? So, their body is changing, all of ours do in one way or another. It’s what’s on the inside that matters, right? Cause inside, they’ve always been a boy. They had a boy’s soul or whatever. We’re soulmates. And Xavier knows my last relationship ended because I transitioned. How could she think I’d do the same to them?

I get up and change into my cutest outfit then grab my apartment keys and coat.

#

Natali had left me when I told her—that’s not true—it wasn’t telling her that made her leave; it was following through that made her go. You always word it weird when you start telling people. You say dumb things like, ‘I wanna be a girl.’ It’s the kind of stuff that makes it sound negotiable or temporary. For some people it is, I guess. But not many. Not enough. But a lot of people don’t even give themselves the chance to re-forge themselves with such certainty. I said ‘I wanna be a girl,’ and Natali just looks at me like ‘yeah okay sure whatever you say’. Then I started ‘being’ a girl, and Natali wondered where she went wrong. She never took me seriously, I suppose. Then you start saying how things really were, like ‘I’ve always been a girl,’ and they rightfully point out that wasn’t what you said before. But you were stupid. You barely understood what you meant. But Natali, she acted like she understood better. And as infuriating as that was, I started to think maybe she did because I was up shit creek without either a paddle or map, so any degree of confidence came off as truth. Now, of course, I know she knew less than me.

You think everything will be alright, anyway. What does it matter that she finally knows you’re a girl now? She loved you for you, right? She was your soulmate, right? So, my body is changing, all of ours do in one way or another. It was what was on the inside that mattered, right? Cause inside, I was always a girl. I had a girl’s soul or whatever. We were soulmates.

“I can’t do it,” Natali said as she started packing. “I’m not into girls. I’m not a lesbian.” She held back from yelling. Or bi or pan or whatever, she said so softly it was almost a whisper.

“You’re really just gonna leave?” I said. “We can talk about this, Nat. I promise we can compromise, work this out. It’s not gonna be that big of a change for you, I promise.”

“You already made your decision, Br—Theresa,” she said as she continued to throw everything her burgundy duffel bag as if it where bottomless despite looking as though it was begging to burst.

“What do you want me to do, Nat?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she yelled. Then she stopped. She felt the blouse in her hand in silence before finally saying, “stop.”

“What?”

“Stop. What do I want you to do? Stop.”

“I can’t, I won’t do that,” I said as my sadness turned to anger.

Natali started packing again “then there’s nothing stopping me from leaving.”

The only sounds I could pull out of my mouth were incomplete and incoherent: just a bunch of stammering of “well’s” and “I’s” and “if’s”. But she continued to pack. I made excuses. I told her I wasn’t thinking about bottom surgery and that she didn’t have to call me Theresa if she really didn’t want to and that we could still get married and gave kids and a house like she always wanted. After a while, I just sat on the floor, a spectator to my own life. My anger was temporary. When she finally grabbed her duffel bag and slammed the apartment door behind her, an emptiness crawled its way through my stomach and guts again. She was gone. And even if I did ever see her again, would either of us want that? There was a finality to her door slam, at least, even if she did make her friends come around a couple days later to pick up leftover property she forgot in her torrent. Literal closure. I watched these familiar faces take things that felt so essential to the apartment that it was as if they came with it. Within a week, there was an emptiness to the place that I couldn’t stand; an agonizing kind of emptiness that wasn’t like the absence of something like how darkness is the absence of light. No, this emptiness manifested itself into a physical object: an antimatter or black hole that annihilated or pulled out the habitability and bearableness of certain rooms and corners.

I began spending less time at home. No, home wasn’t the right word. The apartment I was leasing. I had no ownership of it. It was disposable. Or, I was disposable. I first knew that when the real estate agent started showing the apartment to potential renters. I felt like a zoo animal that the agent and potential renter simply walked and talked around, the first thing to be cleaned out by the end of the month like the old keys or garbage.

I hadn’t been a part of the gay bar scene before. The unfortunate part of new millennia gay bars is that they aren’t seen as hives of scum and villainy anymore, so voyeurs and tourists frequent them more and more often. So, the regulars—the real gay regulars—are suspicious of newcomers, and the new gay patron themself is suspicious of anyone. Another problem is that some bars are more focused on one kind of patron than others. Some bars truly represent the diverse coalition of queers. But most are simply gay men bars, lesbian bars, ‘gay’ bars that have a drag show once in a while but mostly appeal to straight women who will threaten to call the cops if another woman hits on them. And if you have one gay bar in a 20-mile radius of your town, you just have to accept it. The only reasonably gay bar near me was just a few blocks away but most prominently housed gay men. They make fine company. But I needed a place to be with other queer women, not even just for lust or love. I needed somewhere I could be confident in sisterhood, because gay women are already seen as predatory enough, but add being a trans gay woman and they’ll kill you in the streets. It was a lot of luck that Xavier came one night. They had been a newcomer like me, with no knowledge of how Guillaume’s normally functioned.

#

Outside the apartment, the autumn New Jersey wind funnels the flaming leaves like embers between the brick buildings. New Erding feels like a huge, colonial college campus in its uniformity. I walk in a galloping speed toward downtown. The area glows like the Seaside Heights or Ocean City boardwalks of my childhood. People walk up and down the sidewalks and crossed the street as they pleased without much attention for cars. But if you lived here long enough, you know how stupid it is to drive down Main Street most nights.

I window shop the restaurants trying to spot Xavier in the dimly lit rooms. I even check restaurants we have never been to together out of desperation. But I can’t recognize a single face through the tinted glass lining the east side of Main Street. I check harder on the west side, even stopping in my tracks to press my face in the window. I scan the outside seating areas like a parent looking into a crowd for their lost child before moving on. It’s funny; no matter how many lights downtown tries to illuminate the darkness with, you can still always tell it’s getting darker, it’s getting harder to see. Yet, if you ever end up in downtown when there are no lights at night, the darkness is almost invisible, as if our eyes alone can cut through it. Finally, I walk back to Guillaume’s as though it’s some point of origin.

#

Xavier sits with a group of friends, some mutual, some acquaintances, some I haven’t talked to much. Xavier looks like a stranger to me to the point where I feel like I got the wrong person. Despite how physically close they are to me right now, it seems like I’m staring into a different world and different life. I have to look down at my own two feet in order to feel grounded again. This is Guillaume’s, my usual bar. And that is Xavier—my partner—sitting in front of me.

“Come home with me,” I say.

The entire table looks up at me. All their faces have different expressions like a collage of drama masks. But Xavier looks the most dumbfounded; a mix of complete surprise, confusion, anger, and happiness. The table is silent. Then, like a scratched disc finally moving on to the next song, Xavier says, “Theresa.” They still sound in disbelief as though I’m a ghost levitating in front of them.

“Xavier, please come home with me,” I reiterate. My voice cracks. I feel my eyelids try to clean away the tears beginning to pour from my eyes like windshield wipers as a drizzle turns to a storm.

Xavier looks at me in silence for a few long seconds before looking back at their friends. They all look back at Xavier with a variety of non-verbal nods and hand motions displaying a variety of advice and opinions. Xavier looks back and forth between their friends and myself before grabbing their own stuff and coming towards me. I grab their hand as soon as they are in arm’s reach. Once we exit the bar and entered the outside night, I pull them close and kiss them more passionately I’ve done in weeks.

#

As we enter the apartment, we’re kissing each other. Xavier’s eyes are closed the entire time. But we’ve been together in this place so long, we can navigate it blind. I lead them to the bedroom. I wanted them in the bedroom, our clothes off, as if then we will connect brain to brain as though it will strip away all that has been different these last few weeks. But as we continue to kiss, as I place my run my fingers through their hair, as I place my hands on their back and thigh, I feel myself become drained. Xavier kept a rough grip on my butt and thighs. The more I kiss them, the more it changes. At first, I thought it feels like kissing a stranger, but that isn’t it. No, it began to more and more feel like I’m kissing a friend; purely platonic. It’s as if Xavier is pecking my cheek or forehead even though they are pushing their tongue down my throat. But I keep taking Xavier’s clothes off and they start to take off mine. I push Xavier onto the bed.

We are against each other. I feel Xavier trembling beneath me and my hold is tight enough to crack. “Oh my God, yes,” Xavier keeps moaning over and over. But my head feels broken off from my body and thrown away. My eyes look straight forward at the shaking headboard as I count in my head. And then this is the way.

This is how it is.

Xavier lies next to me, asleep. I try hard to separate my brain from my body, but a red string keeps them connected like a nerve. It’s just one bad lay, I tell myself. It doesn’t mean anything. We haven’t had sex in weeks, maybe we’re just out of practice. That’s right, we haven’t had sex in weeks, not since Xavier transitioned. Maybe we are out of practice, but Xavier looked so content lying next to me. I could tell he was satisfied. I don’t love Xavier anymore. Is it because Xavier’s a man now? Is it because I’m only attracted to girls and non-men? Is that okay to think? I tell myself that it isn’t. If it is, then I’d be no better than Natali. If it is, then that means what Natali did was okay, right? That she had every right to treat me like she did, to make it harder and more dangerous and less acceptable for the people like me who needed to cross gender boundaries to be able to do so? I can’t be like her. She did everything wrong. There has to be a way to fix everything, to get Xavier and I to work out. My brain has to make my body understand this. But it can’t. Looking at Xavier, rubbing his forehead, my body sent a message to my brain. I thought of myself as a brain or soul crammed inside a body or shell. I fooled myself into accepting that whatever my brain or soul or mind was stored in was not important, not a part of my consciousness, that I am trapped inside here, and I use it only as a vehicle or form of travel for my soul or whatever. But I can’t just separate my mind and body, because it was never separate. It’s a totality. Whenever I thirst or hunger or feel pain enough, it becomes the only think I can think of. And stress and grief never stay in my head as they ache and exhaust me. Feeling ill or well, my body feelings make a vital and substantial contribution to myself.

I thought there was conflict between my brain and my body. I thought my brain was in the right place and my body was misbehaving like a child. Or maybe it was vice versa? But perhaps there had been some miscommunication, not just between my brain and my body but in my understanding of this conflict. Maybe my body was trying to say something to my brain. Maybe I was shooting the messenger. The totality of my being needed a change, and I was too busy focusing on the individual components of it, reducing myself to parts as though I can separate myself from my body or my brain. If your dashboard tells you that you need to fix your breaks, you do not replace the dashboard.

I get out of bed so not to wake Xavier. I feel sick to my stomach. Natali was right, I think. I put my clothes back on. My duffle bag rested on the shelf at the top of the closet. I took it down and began packing some of my tops. A few of the blouses were ones Xavier gave to me when he started transitioning. I didn’t know if I should take them or not, so I put them to the side on the beige carpet. I can’t fit all my tops in the bag; I move on to the pants and underwear from the fake wood dresser. Again, there are a few items of Xavier that he gave me. I put them with his former tops. My bag is almost full, and I still have so much to pack. I stand up and walk through the apartment. There’s no way I can take everything of mine in one trip let alone one bag. I wonder if I’ll need to get a few friends to come by later and pick up the rest. Natali was right, I think. But I still hate her. Nothing about this is right. I returned to the bedroom and flipped the duffel bag over to let all the clothes fall into the floor. If Natali was right then why do I hate her still? I think. If she was right, why does this feel so wrong. I have come to turns that I don’t love Xavier anymore, not like a lover. I know how Natali felt when I transitioned now. I understand her better than before. But don’t—no, I can’t understand how she handled it. I understand her, but that doesn’t make her right. Instead, I’m not sure if understanding her makes me want to forgive her or hate her more. Even if I no longer loved Xavier like that, there has to be way to make something work out; to make it easier and safer and more acceptable for the people like me who needed to cross gender boundaries to be able to do so. I sit back on the bed next to Xavier but don’t fall asleep.

#

I lie in bed till Xavier wakes up. His eyes open tenderly like he’s only been resting them but he’s been snoring for the last couple hours. He pushes his head closer to mine. He looks like a little brother to me. “Xavier,” I say.

“Yes, Theresa?” He says.

“We’re not gonna work out,” I say.

“What?” He’s fully awake now. Nothing is a better alarm clock than a jolt of anxiety. “Theresa, what are you talking about?” I hear him start to whimper.

“I’m talking about us, Xavier,” I say.

“What’s wrong with us?” He asks. I don’t say anything. As true as the cliché, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ has become, it will have been worse to say than nothing at all. “It’s because I transitioned, isn’t it? I know, I know that’s the reason. I’m not stupid, Theresa. It doesn’t take a scientist to notice that you’ve become so distant ever since I started. But that’s so hard, so fucking hard to admit to yourself. I could hear myself screaming about it. But I still believed you when you just said work had gotten hard and that you were exhausted. Even when I stormed out, I blamed myself,” Xavier says.

“You’re right,” I say. The look at Xavier’s face is crushing, so I can only imagine how crushed he is. He puts both hands on my face. In the past, my face always turned warm and red at the prospect, but now it’s as sterile as a friend’s touch.

“Theresa, I love you. I love you so much that I’ve never felt more comfortable with anyone else. And I thought, and I thought that meant I could finally be me. I could be me with you! You know what that means because you’ve been through the same! I finally found someone with a commonness, a sort of bridge between souls unique like ours,” Xavier got better at holding back tears. I was good at that too when everyone thought I was a man including myself. Now, I cry every time we’re out of coffee in the morning.

“Yeah, but I’m finally being honest for once,” I say. “At first, I thought I didn’t love you anymore. But I felt it so hard to see you suffer. Maybe it was guilt. I’m sorry, but it’s complicated.” Xavier still lays in bed, his gaze not leaving me. “I’m not leaving,” I say. To make it easier and safer and more acceptable for the people like me who needed to cross gender boundaries to be able to do so, that’s the point. “Let’s be friends,” I said. “Best friends.”

__________________________________________________________________
About the author:
Nico Bailey was born and raised in Pennington, NJ and has an MFA in Writing from the University of New Hampshire. This is her debut publication.