A Comedy of AR's

Chapter 12
Freaks of a Feather

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When we arrived back home, I had a lot more on my mind than just the aquarium … and I got right to it.

“Mom, can we talk?”

“Hmm,” she responded.  “Sounds serious.”

“Can we?

“Sure, let’s move over to the sofa.”

I shook my head and grumbled, “I know … assume the position.”  And up I went on her lap with legs splayed, facing her.  It just felt so childish.

“So what’s on your mind?” she inquired.

“Well, first I want to tell you that I am absolutely thrilled to be ten years old again.”

“Is that so?  You know when I first spilled my water bottle on you, you told me that you didn’t want to be ten.  You didn’t even want to call me ‘Mom’.

“Well at the time, I didn’t know what a great mom you would be.  But I think it’s time now that we should address the elephant in the room.”

Sammantha twisted her head in several directions.  “I’m sorry, sweety, but I just don’t see any elephants.”

“But you know what I’m referring to.”

“You want to go to school?”

“No, I still don’t.”

“You want to engage in rough sex?”

“I do, but not right now.”

Sammantha shook her head.  “Sweety, I still don’t see any elephants.”

“Mom, yesterday when I told you I was a freak, you said that you were a freak too.  And I thought you just said it to make me feel better.  I didn’t believe you.  And you said that you would explain it to me when I was older, when I was ten … So here I am.”

Sammantha nodded.  “I see … Where would you like me to start?”

“First of all, what’s a freak?”

“Sweety, in my line of work, it’s a person regarded as a curiosity or a monstrosity.”

“Well neither of us is a monster, and I know why I’m a curiosity, because of my water curse.  Mom, what makes you a curiosity?”

“Remember the other night when I told you that I dreamed that you and I were two boys playing football?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the truth is that every dream I’ve ever had at night involved me being a male … in every imaginable circumstance.  So yes, I’ve had dreams where I pee with a penis, jack off with a penis, have sex with a penis, shower with a penis.  And if that were the only issue, then it wouldn’t be a big deal.  But my brain is wired as a male.  You know how dreams seem real … so every morning I reached between my legs and discovered that my penis was gone.  No surprise, I cried a lot.  I’m a little more settled in my adult life as a female so it isn’t so shocking anymore, but growing up was sheer hell.”

I was struck by her story.  “I’m really sorry to hear that, Mom … I mean, did you want me to call you ‘Dad’?”

“Ha,” she said, grinning.  “No no no sweety.  This was a problem that dominated my life as a child and into my teenage years.  I’m not religious, but I’ve already made my peace, so to speak, to accept the body that God gave me … and if I get married and have kids someday, that will be fine.”

“Didn’t your parents try to help you?”

“Sure, but they split up when I was seven, so my Dad raised me, and he was my hero.  He always had my back, always rooted for me to succeed.  He never told me what to do with my life.  There were countless days where I ran to him crying, ‘Daddy, when is it going to be my turn to be the boy?’  He still lives here in Buffalo.  I’ll take you to meet him one day.  His name is Paul.”

“I’d like that very much.  So were you a tomboy when you were little?”

“Hmm, more like a ‘Thomas’ boy … I was much rougher, much tougher than any of the boys in my neighborhood.  I tried to play football with them in the park, but sometimes they said they didn’t want to play with a girl.”

“Well that’s not fair.”

“What’s ever fair, sweety?  They were just afraid of me because I tackled too hard. My crime was having ovaries instead of testicles.  Basically, I lost my childhood.  I lost my boyhood.  So now I’m trying to make up for it by living my life vicariously through the eyes of a little boy who at the moment, happens to be you.”

“Wow, that sounds like a great idea, and I’m officially volunteering for the job.   I would love to play tackle football, Mom.  My mother never let me play and just forced me to take piano lessons.”

“Well, the middle school has a team, sweety … It’s not totally out of the question.” 

“Um … I’ll get back to you later on that.  So what did you do when you got older?”

“Well, seventh grade was the worst.  That’s when I got my first period when I was twelve. I hated it.  I hated boys.  How would you like to have blood coming out of your penis for five days every month?”

I cringed again and I said, “The ‘yuck’ factor on that would be extreme.”

“Boys were so arrogant and condescending.  The same boys I was playing football with at age eleven started ripping my ego to shreds.  They were saying things like ‘she’s got PMS today, she’s on the rag’ … or they would say ‘ignore her whining, she’s got mad cow disease, she’s having the painters in, she’s checking into the Red Roof inn, she’s got girl flu, she’s flying with the red baron, or it’s shark week.”

“Mom, those boys were really mean.  That’s awful.”

“During the school year, they used to give us written questionnaires.  One was ‘What is your ultimate goad in life?’  For that one, I answered, ‘My ultimate goal in life is to go up to every boy in my class, give him a big smile, and cut off his penis.’” 

“Ouch!  You’re not going to cut off my penis, are you, Mom?”

“Of course not, sweety.  I’m over those urges.  But I got sent to the principal’s office for that one, and they decided to send me to a child psychologist, who at the time, was Dr. Frumpy.”

My jaw dropped.  “Seriously?!  No shit?!”

“No shit, Derrek.  Frumpy told me that my evil thoughts were caused by my masturbation fantasies.”

“That’s the same thing she told me.  Frumpy must be really old now.”

“The next questionnaire they gave us asked, ‘What is your greatest fear?  So most of the girls would answer something like nuclear war, or not having enough money to pay for college.  But most of the boys wrote, ‘The thing I most fear in life is pissing off Sammantha Adams.’”

“Wow, Mom, it sounds like the boys knew you were serious.”

“Oh, I was pretty serious … I did not like being the only boy in my school with a vagina.  That’s why I got involved in the field of psychology because, at the time, I could have used a person to talk to who was like me … a fellow freak.”

“But Mom, did you ever consider gender re-assignment surgery?”

“You mean an ‘adadictomy’?”

I was confused.  “A what?”

“Sweety, when I tell you a joke, you’re going to have to laugh a little faster.  I haven’t got all night.”

So I thought about it.  “Ohhh … I get it now … ‘Add a dick to me.’”

“Okay, back to seriousness.  I was afraid to get cut up … sliced and diced.  I didn’t want to become a Frankenstein’s monster and turn into an even bigger freak than I was already.  If others like me want to do it, that’s their choice.  But after several more years, I became proud to be a freak and wrote a book about it.”

“You wrote a book, Mom?  Really?  I want to read it.”

Sammantha guided me to the desk in the master bedroom and showed me a copy.

Here it is … Freak: A Journey Of Self Evolution (note to readers, this is not a real book title).

I looked up at her.  “Wow, you have so many talents, you’re like a supermom.

Not really, sweety.  I just decided to make my peace and live with the body I was born with.  And fortunately, I lucked out in the boob department.  I was afraid I’d get these humongous pendulums or be carrying around two bowling balls that would give me a backache. Thankfully, I ended up with slightly below average 34B’s that stay firm from exercising and pass the pencil test with flying colors.

“What’s the pencil test?

Sammantha stood up and removed her sports bra.  I wasn’t expecting her to do that, but I was always pleased to have an up-close view of what I considered, the ‘Pillars of Hercules’.

“Well don’t just stand there ogling, sweety.  Go find a pencil.”

In a minute, I returned from the kitchen with said item.

“Okay, Mom, where would you like me to stab the pencil?”

“How about in your scrotum, smartass?”

“Sorry … So what should I really do?”

“Take the pencil in a horizontal position and see if you can tuck it under the bottom of one of my boobs so that it stays in place.  And try to handle my boobs gently enough this time, so that I won’t need stitches.”

I tried the trick several times with each breast.  “No luck, Mom, the pencil keeps falling to the floor.”

“So would you consider my boobs perky or sagging?”

“Definitely perky, Mom … seriously perky.  So why would you ever need to wear a bra?  There’s nothing that needs supporting.  They support themselves.”

“Sweety, it’s rare to find any female bigger than an ‘A’ cup who can pass the pencil test.  The only reason I wear any kind of top at all is because the males who write the laws say that they’ll arrest me if I don’t.”

“So there’s a double standard.  Women are treated like second class citizens.”

“No fucking shit, sweety.”

“But did you play any sports in school?”

“Yes, I played girls basketball.  The black girls on the team called me their ‘home girl’.”

“What position did you play?”

“Enforcer.”

“Huh?”

“I was only five foot eight, but I played like a beast … and having a vagina allowed me to play against girls.  Whenever a teammate got roughed up by an opposing player, I made sure that the other girl got an ‘accidental’ elbow in her face.  My teammates knew I had their backs.”

“Didn’t the ref call a foul on you?”

“I only did it when the refs weren’t looking.  Sorry to admit, but your mom viewed rules only as suggestions.”

“No, Mom, I think that’s really exciting the way you stand up for yourself.”

“And I loved to watch tapes of Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn on the Pistons.  They were known in some circles as McFilthy and McNasty. I tried to copy their style of play, but I would never do that kind of stuff today in our pickup women’s league.”

“Ohhhh, I’m starting to get an understanding of why you like it rough.”

“I was also on the wrestling team.”

“Your school had a girls wrestling team?”

“No I was on the boys team at 126 pounds.  I beat out the 126 boy, so it was ‘tough noogies’ for him.”

“Did you actually win some matches against boys?”

“Oh yes … I was 9 – 2  plus five forfeits.”

“Why so many forfeits?”

“A morality thing …The leaders of the Catholic schools said that boys and girls should never touch each other until they were married.  So my final record was  14 – 2.”

“That’s amazing, Mom.  How did you manage to beat so many boys?”

“Well, at least half of it was the ‘fear factor’.  My classmates introduced me over the loudspeaker as ‘Sammantha Ballcrusher Adams’ … and there was an ounce of truth to that.”

“Did you really crush their balls?”

“No, but when I had a chance, I’d squish their testicles as hard as I could.  In a high crotch takedown, your arm goes between your opponent’s legs, then you lift him by his inner thigh.  I would always lift a boy by his groin and bounce him around a little.”

“They never wore a cup?”

“Nah, they thought it would restrict free movement.  But they were also so macho, that they wanted to make sure that the outline of their ‘package’ was visible through their singlet uniform.  It gave me a perfect target.  I hated boys so much, that I was always happy when I made them cry.  Here and there I would give them a purple nurple, some pinching, some scratching.  High school wrestling is nothing more than a public mugging.”

“Against you, I can see why.”

“And I usually finished with a crossface … putting my arm across the opponents lower face and then stretching his neck back farther than it was meant to go.”

“And that was legal?”

“As I mentioned, sweety, to me, rules were just suggestions … but then there was #@&%.”

“What was that, Mom?  I didn’t catch your last words.”

“Never mind.”

“What?  It sounded like you said ‘gort canker’.  What’s that, some kind of disease?”

“This discussion is over.”

“But Mom, you can’t just leave me hanging … What’s a gort canker?”

“Derrek, we’re done here.  Leave my room, and shut the door on your way out.”

“But I need to know.”

“GET OUT!!” she shouted.

Sammantha grabbed my arm, shoved me out her door, and shut it herself.  “Go to bed.”

“But Mom, don’t you want to watch me pour the teaspoon of water on my wrist?”

“Do it yourself!  Just leave me alone!”

I was so confused.  Obviously, I had opened up an old wound that Sammantha did not want to revisit.  But I still had to know what it was, so I could support her.  Through the door, I could hear her weeping into her pillow.  That was a first. I knew that a canker sore was a sore on the mouth, but the internet provided no clues to a gort canker.