Even if we wanted to go home, we couldn't. The house was still there, but it wouldn't be homeanymore.
At this distance, it didn't seem real anyway. I could look north into the sky and see the fattening Earth riding along the Lunar horizon like a big blue bubble, and it didn't have any relation at all to the words and pictures pouring out of the video. From here, it still looked beautiful.
And very soon, we would be leaving it behind forever. Maybe.
Finally, I levered myself out of my seat, climbed over Samm and Janos, and went to the observation deck at the end of the last car–not because I wanted to look at any more scenery–I'd already seen enough Lunar rocks to last a couple of lifetimes–but because there was no one else back there, and I wanted to be alone again. Maybe I could try to figure things out. Maybe I would just play pattycake with the same old crap one more time, making little mud pies of my thoughts.
After a while, Janos came back and stood silently next to me. He was carrying two mugs of hot tea. He handed one to me and we stared silently out the window at the broken jumble so far below us.
I felt confused. He looked like Janos, but now he felt like Mickey again. One minute I liked him, the next minute I didn't. I couldn't figure out why. And I hated the confusion. Maybe it was because he was a lot like Alexei–telling us where we should go and what we should do. As if he knew more about everything than we did. As if our opinions didn't count. As if he knew better what was good for us. Just like Mom. Or Dad. Or the judge. Or any other grown‑up with authority.
And nobody ever bothered to say, "Here's why you should trust me." They just assumed that "trust me" was sufficient. And it never was.
"This is very hard on you, isn't it?" Mickey said.
"What? This?"
"No, everything. Leaving home. Me and Douglas. Leaving your parents. Bouncing across the moon. Everything."
I shook my head. "No. That's the funny thing. I can handle all that. It's the otherstuff that doesn't make sense."
"What other stuff?"
I held out the front of my dress for a moment. "This."
"The disguise?"
"No. I can even handle that." For a moment, I couldn't find the words. "I mean, all the stuff about men and women and the space in between. That stuff. Does anybody understand it? Do you?"
He laughed. "No. And anyone who says they do–well, they're lying." He added, with a grin, "Or they're really arrogant."
"I don't get it," I said. "Why are we divided into males and females? I mean, I understand the biology of it, but I don't understand whyit's such a good idea to split a species into two opposite halves, perpetually at war with each other."
"Like your mom and your dad."
"And everybody else too."
"I can see why it looks that way to you."
"But this is the part that's gets confusing. When we're all the same, like me and Douglas and Stinky, we fight all the time. And then Bobby and I put on dresses and we pretend to be girls and all of a sudden, we're all getting along like one big happy family. Boys and girls together. So it doesn't make sense. How come we get along now?"
"Maybe because you're feeling different about each other–and about yourselves." Mickey put his hand on my shoulder. "How do you feel about being a girl?"
I shrugged. "It's okay. I mean, it doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. It's like being someone else for a while–like thinking a different way. It's kind of like there's a different part of me, the part that would have been me if I had been born a girl. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah, sort of."
"She probably would have been a lot nicer than I am."
"Why do you say that?"
"'Cause it's true."
"You're selling yourself short, Chigger. You're a lot nicer than you know. And smarter too." He patted my shoulder. "Most people are very nice–when they let go of their fear and anger."
I wanted to believe him, so I did, and maybe it was true. "So why do we have to pretend to be something else just to get along with each other?"
"You want to know what I think?"
"Yeah, I do."
"I think the whole gender thing is an excuse."
"For what?"
"For not being who you really are."
"Huh? You're going to have to explain that to me."
"All right … " He took a deep breath. "The way it looks to me, from where I stand, is that most folks get locked into some idea of what they think gender is supposed to be about, so they put on gender‑performances for each other. They act out who they think they have to be. And most of the time, they end up not knowing the difference between the mask they're wearing and who they really are. Charles, a real man doesn't worry what kind of underwear he's wearing, what color it is, or if it there's a little lace on the bottom, because he knows he's not his underwear. It doesn't mean anything.
"What you're finding out is that you are not the mask. Because when you can put on one gender‑performance, and then take it off and put on another, and then take that one off too, that's when you start to realize how much of what you think is really you is just a performance. And when you can recognize it as a performance, it loses all of its power. That's when you can see the difference clearly between roleand real–in yourself and everyone else. Does that make sense to you?" he asked.
I nodded, but I was still frowning. "But youcan see it that way because you've already done it."
"I had to. I didn't have any choice. It's that way for anyone who's different in some way. But if you don't feel different, then you don't haveto do it, so you don't, and you never learn better about who you are. Do you see that?"
I nodded.
"So, it's your job to find out who you are and let the rest of us know. Because nobody else can tell you. And the only way you can find out is you try on possibilities. Like clothes. And you keep trying on possibilities until you find the ones that fit best. That's how you discover what's really you and what's just noise. And when you find out who you really are, then nobody can take that away from you."
I heard the words, but I didn't know what they meant, because I knew I hadn't experienced what he was talking about.
Mickey saw it in my face. "Charles, you have to get down into your own heart and soul and sort things out for yourself. Piece by piece by piece. Nobody else can do it for you. It's hard work. And most people don't want to do it, or don't know how. Because it's uncomfortable.And most people aren't willing to be uncomfortable. So they'll never do the work, and they'll drift along through life, unconscious, never knowing who they really are, because they've never questioned it, never examined it, never taken it out and held it up to the light to look. Do you want to know the dreadful truth about human beings?"
I nodded.
"Remember what I said about belief? You have to believe in yourself first. If you do, then other people will too. Only most people don'tbelieve in themselves. They point to their Bible or their flag or their whatnots, but that's not believing in yourself. That's believing in things–things outsideof yourself. Most people don't know who they really are, so they can'tbelieve in themselves."