You have searched this city for hours with this lanky sexy prostitute by your side. Together you visited places where Kevin has been seen. Inquiries here, there, his identity verified by photo, all painting a fresh trail, or so your companion assures you. “Listen, Fran,” Didi said at the last transvestite bookstore, your name on his crimson lips sounding far too intimate, “we’ll find him. There are only so many places a broken boy can hide.” That was many hours ago. Between then and now: dozens of taxi rides taken, club entrance fees paid, drinks bought in bars, seedy hotel clerks questioned, meals eaten and coffees drunk in greasy-spoons and diners frequented by she-males as Kevin likes to identify himself. You are not naive; this world is not the one you glide through ordinarily, yet it is not entirely alien. So many personas, each in its own way demanding love and acceptance. How you envy their seduction techniques; how they terrify you.
The last club was in the middle of a ghetto and as you left it, once again, you congratulated yourself that you only paid this pretty hustler a fraction of the promised money—he will make efforts to keep you unharmed to get the rest. “Listen, sweetie, taxis won’t answer calls to this neighborhood we’re going,” Didi assured you. “We’ll hike it. Just you and me, romping through the snow!” Said with a Madonna toss-ofthe-head and a devilish sparkle to almond-eyes. That he plays with you, laughs at your expense does not bother you. Since long before Kevin’s treatments began, before his breasts swelled and his voice rose an octave and his body hair thinned, all of it leading to “the change” as he calls it, you have been to hell and back many times. Nothing bothers you anymore. Except for one thing. The nightmare.
This northern city’s mean winter streets leave you hopeless. Life does not exist here in the dead of a cold night. No one sane walks around at 3 a.m. The last vehicle to pass inspired a fantasy of jumping in front of the bumper and pleading with the driver, “Take me home! I just want to go home!” But there is no home, not anymore. Mother is gone. Father was too often there. Kevin is all you have. You do not even care that your baby brother is becoming your baby sister. You just want to find him before, as the nightmare leaves you feeling, things have gone too far.
Hands and feet half frozen, you finally reach a wide street, but you are so far from downtown that here it is deserted, of people, vehicles, shops. Life has ended, or so it seems. What must it be like in daylight? You shudder to think about the corruption that will be exposed when the ice melts. Now, a ridge of danger lingers, danger and desolation, two emotions that, combined, combust and leave a raw scar from a wound that runs deep to the marrow. A wound you have suffered. A scar you still possess. You know it is the same with Kevin.
Your companion points ahead gleefully. “See! I told you!” he cries, as if you did not believe he would find this place, and in truth you had doubts. The building resembles a burnt out factory: windows not boarded up are blacked out; bricks smoked and charred; aluminum siding covered by graffiti in various languages. It amuses you to think that tagging might bridge linguistic solitudes.
There appears to be no door, no sign. “It’s here somewhere,” Didi insists, voice reeking with false confidence which relaxes into real confidence the moment a cab pulls up and two persons of indistinguishable gender emerge. They know right where the door is, a crack in the aluminum wall, a spike for a handle. “This is the place, Fran,” Didi says, as if you are dim, unable to see the world for what it is.
This door would go unconsidered if you had not seen for yourself that it could be opened. Apparently no secret code is needed to enter. You open it now. Heat rushes out at you, and sound, loud, a cacophony of panting tongues and beating hearts and angry fists pounding flesh. Once you step inside, the sound swallows you.
You fight hard to hold onto yourself, caught in an audio intensity that forces you beyond your normal rhythm and into a power-drill mode of being. Remember why you’re here, you remind yourself. Kevin is more lost than you are. He needs you more than ever. The bad dream told you this, and more.
A man, or a large woman skimpily dressed glares at you as if you are an insect to be crushed, definitely not worthy of admittance. You know the look is real, but the true function is other. The function involves money. Didi whispers “Fifty. Each,” in your ear. Reluctantly you pull large bills from your nearly depleted wallet and slap them into the hot hand this monolith shoves inches from your chest. A smile erupts on the heavily made-up face, one more sinister than sweet. The cash is theatrically slipped down between the breasts encased in black latex, down further past the exposed stomach, down into the leather pants, up under the crotch. All the while dark eyes mock you, patiently awaiting a reaction, but you show none. Life holds few surprises. A flicker of disappointment accompanies the thumb pointing behind.
Didi removes his fur, and his dress, leaving his body clad only in a white lace bra, g-string panties and garter belt of the same fabric, the last holding up white hose. He hands everything else over the counter with a No Drugs! sign attached to the wall that almost brings a cynical smile to your lips. A muscular tattooed arm reaches out of the darkness towards you, waiting. Didi turns. You shake your head. You have no intention of leaving your coat, let alone undressing. Fabric is the only protection you might have here, and fifty dollars should pay for your eccentricity. “Whatever,” Didi says, obviously disappointed by not seeing you near naked. “Still gotta tip, sweetie,” he/she smiles, and you hand over five dollars and do not receive change.
A dark plastic barrier is held open, like a vulva, or the entrance to a womb. You follow Didi in, the Amazon making sure you brush against him or her, but your coat protects you from contact.
Sound slams into you, rasping, raping your body through every orifice, beating your pulse into submission, racing towards the target, your heart. You gulp in oxygen to ensure you are still alive. The air is clotted with smoke that chokes you, and you cough uncontrollably. Your eyes tear then blur and you realize you cannot distinguish anything here, objects, people; although the room is lit with red and blue lights, the colors do not make things discernible.
You have come this far, and you know Didi has no more ides. To retreat is unthinkable. You must find Kevin. For once in your life, you need to act on his behalf, and on your own.
You step further into the room. Suddenly the floor shifts down a level, half as deep as a step, and you fall forward. Your knee buckles and you struggle for balance. You have always been sharp on your feet, thank God! and manage to right yourself, feeling not so much foolish as vulnerable—what you cannot see can hurt you, Mother! But she never would hear you, or Kevin, and now cannot.
The throbbing techno drives you to the edge of insanity. It makes you angry. At life, for inflicting all this craziness from birth onward. At your parents for solidifying the madness. At Kevin for being weak, for leaving you to struggle alone. You are furious at yourself and your misguided hands-off philosophy that gave your brother carte blanche, immersing him in unconditional love, extending extreme unction for his soul to pass into other worlds. You destroyed the power of conditions that led to self-responsibility. The degree to which you rein yourself in is the same extreme of permission he enjoys.
Your senses cringe in terror. You argue with your optic nerve, willing it to clear your vision. When it does, shapes become apparent. Bodies dot the walls like giant cockroaches. One nearby drags on a cigarette, the yellow glow of fire casting hellish illumination onto harshly-angled features. Not a friendly face, but the eyes look too distant for this to be an enemy.
You inch forward, now feeling with your feet for dips in the floor level that seem to be everywhere. The mallet-sound changes, like a hammer passed from one hand to the other of an ambidextrous person. The beat is the same. It punches through your nervous system, producing more fury that you battle, and throbbing at your genitals. Most of these patrons must be high on ecstasy. This music would stimulate them in a different way, or so you have read about E.