The Zillion Tuesdays of the Unbreaking Crow and Pigeon

PILLARS OF ASH

175 000 000 AF

The scruffy pigeon turns its head, fixing a one-eyed stare on me.

“Go away,” I say.

“FEED ME,” it hoots.

“No.”

“f**k YOU. FEED ME,” It hoots again.

I swat my arm in its direction. It takes flight, cursing at me loudly.

“FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU.”

I am on the roof, my secret spot for cigarettes. Our campus is one big no smoking zone, the Clean Air Committee cunts saw to that. So all smokers are forced into their private nooks. I smoked my first at age twelve. It has been on and off since then, but it only developed into chain-smoking recently, at the start of first year. I know I need to cut down, but no deeper part of me truly wants to.

This part of the roof overlooks the pool. It slopes at such an angle that none of the swimmers can see me. Not that it matters. None of them ever look up anyway.

I am always looking up; searching the sky, trees, and cables for birds. A lifetime of being shat on will do that to you.

I attached reflective foil to the gutter on the upper floor’s roof. That mostly keeps the birds away. Pigeons are the worst.

I crouch with my back against the wall and take my cigarettes out of my inner pocket. My jacket is olive green and dirt coloured camouflage. It is way too big for me, but it was my dad’s, so I roll up the sleeves and wear it anyway.  His initial and surname are embroidered on a badge just above the breast pocket.

L. Shrike. He died stepping on a landmine. I was born two months later. My mother named me after him: Leslie Shrike. I am extremely careful where I step.

I go by Shrike. I do not respond to Leslie, on principle, but Shrike does not sit well with me either. A shrike is a carnivorous bird.  It hunts mice, grasshoppers, lizards and other smaller birds. A shrike kills its prey by cracking the skull with its beak. Before eating, it impales its catch on thorns, branches or barbed wire.  They have been known to kill when they are not even hungry. Sometimes they will come back and eat it later. But sometimes they do not. Sometimes they just kill because they feel like it. I have never met a shrike, and I do not want to.

I am underweight. I have been since I was a baby.  A doctor once told me I have bird bones. Maybe I do. I can eat more than my own body weight and have a strict workout routine. I was always tall, and I’m still growing. But a violent wind could still blow me over the rainbow. I have come to accept it, so long as it means I am light enough to climb the rickety fire escape ladder up to my smoking spot.

My lighter is getting old. It takes a few sparks before the feeble flame appears. It has been two hours since my last cigarette. Tensed muscles all over my body relax with the first drag. Just minutes ago I was sitting in a lecture on ancient marriage rituals, staring blankly at the lazy ceiling fan, itching for this moment.

All you really need is a jacket and a cigarette. My dad used to say that, according to Rosaline. She recites it like an ancient proverb. All I can think is with a motto like that; no wonder he died. Regardless, I plan to smoke the rest of this pack before my next class. When I close my eyes, I can see the smoke filling my lungs. Like storm clouds, rolling over a fleshy red Atlantic.

I am not addicted. I can stop whenever I want to. I just do not want to.

I open my eyes again. There are no clouds outside of my lungs. The sky is aggressively blue. The sun endeavors to burn. I hide in the shadow of the building.

I lower my eyes from the sky, and watch the assholes stroll by beneath me.

I kill my smoke on the wall beside me when ember reaches filter. The assholes do not even know they are being watched. If I were a real shrike, they would be in trouble. Lizards, scurrying for cover.

I light another smoke, feeling superior.

Suddenly, in the courtyard below, one lizard stops. The walkway traffic parts around him.  His abrupt halting earns him some annoyed frowns, but no one says anything. No one dares, not to this particular lizard. He carries a guitar case over his shoulder. I recognise him from Anthropology. He sits in the corner at the back. I sit in the opposite corner, by the window. I am by the window in every class, to escape through it, mentally and prospectively physically.

I lean forward on my haunches, engrossed by the lizard’s irregular behavior. Whatever shall he do next? Fascinating.

The lizard looks up. Even from this distance I feel his eyes fix on mine. I freeze. I have never been caught lizard-watching before. I lean back against the wall, retreating. Still he stares.

Finally, he looks away and keeps walking, back in step with the other lizards. I watch him until he disappears through a doorway. The light breeze picks up into a full-blown wind and suddenly I feel exposed. If one lizard saw me it means they all could. I kill my cigarette before it is finished and scuttle to the edge of the roof. I climb over the railing onto the metal grate balcony and down the ladder. I rush to the bathroom to lock myself in a cubicle, all plans of chain smoking forgotten.

I legally changed my gender in my senior year of high school. Rosaline drove me to the city and we sat for hours and filled out forms and did all the bureaucratic bullshit. The college has no choice but to let me use the men’s toilets.

It’s a petty victory. The men’s room f*****g stinks. But I belong here, in this stink, with “TOBY SUCKS c**k” written on the dented TP holder.

* * *

My next lecture is Philosophy. Prof. Birch likes to spend the first five minutes of every lesson discussing current affairs. I do not read the news and stay off social media, so I never know what is going on in the world. This is by design.

“Yesterday a law was passed,” Birch says, standing tall in that ballerina stance, her little lump belly and bony shoulders jutting awkwardly out, her bob pristinely neat except for one stray hair in the middle of her parting, standing bolt upright, “Banning transgender people from serving in our military.”

I feel all eyes in the room swiveling to me. I continue staring out the window.

“Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue?”

The room holds its breath. Crater is tiny. The kids I’m in college with are the kids I was in kindergarten with. Everyone knows everyone’s business.

Someone puts their hand up and the class discussion continues without me. I try not to listen. Whenever anything LGBTQI+ related comes up, they discuss it the same way you might debate the existence of aliens.  Like it could never be any of them. Like the one transgender boy in their midst is an anomaly, never to be repeated. Statistically, a few of the bastards are in for a surprise.  I never join in on class discussions. Also by design.

Then I hear the infuriating honey milk voice across the room.

“Maybe Shrike would like to say his part. I know he’s shy but he must have an opinion on a topic so… personal to him.”

I look across the room at f*****g Alice. Looking at me with this f*****g smile. Like she wants a high five for getting my pronouns right.

Everyone is looking at me again. Looking at me with my military issue jacket on. Looking at me with my dead dad who didn’t watch where he walked. I stare across the room at Alice.

“I have no opinion,” I reply, deadpan.

I look out the window again and the harassment ends, along with the class discussion. Textbooks are taken out. It’s time for Aristotle.

My next lecture is on Anthropology. I hurry to class. I am second through the door and Prof. Klein looks confused, but asks no questions. I am normally second last through the door. There’s only one lizard who ever arrives after me. I reach my seat, drop my bag on the desk and freeze. The second student has arrived, and it’s not f*****g Alice who sits in the front row and is going to get carpel tunnel at nineteen with the amount of time she spends with her hand raised.

It’s the lizard with the guitar case over his shoulder and the spiders in his eyes. I feel the many legs crawling over my skin, even from across the room.

He grins, and now he’s a shark, and I’m reeling at his ability to shape shift. I avert my gaze to escape out the window.

For the rest of the lecture I sit in my corner and stare out for my dear life, feeling eyes on me from the opposite corner. I never once turn around. My gaze stays on the trees, shaking their fists at the birds that glide gracefully down on the violent wind to perch in them. I don’t hear a word Klein says. He and I have this tacit agreement where I get A’s on every paper, and he leaves me to stare out the window. When the bell rings I run to English Lit. for the first time in my life. He cannot follow me there. I sit staring out the window for the duration of this lecture too. By the end I’m much calmer. Watching the trees in the wind always mellows me out. The comfortable drone on my lecturer’s voice discussing Emily Bronte soothes me. And I get malicious pleasure from watching the invisible hands battle the birds in flight. I decide maybe it’s time for one last smoke before I head home.

I climb the ladder and haul myself over the railing. Once I’ve landed I freeze. I’m not alone. The lizard from Anthropology sits crouched in my spot, guitar case leaning against the wall beside him, grinning at me.

“Hello Shrike,” he says.

I stare at him. He is smoking what looks like a joint. But I catch a whiff and identify it as hand-rolled tobacco.

“I always wondered where you disappear to,” he continues the one sided conversation, “This is a nice little spot you’ve got.”

I am unnerved to discover that anyone was even paying attention to me at all.

I finally find my voice, “What are you doing here?”

Still he grins, “I’m having a smoke. Care to join?”

I stay just where I am, seriously considering climbing straight back down the ladder. But this is my spot. I walk over to the wall and crouch down, over an arm’s length away from him, for safety. I take out my cigarettes and put one between my lips. At the edge of my peripheral vision, I can still see him watching. My lighter sparks four times but refuses to make a flame. Fifth time lucky. I pull gratefully on my smoke.

“Never took you for a smoker, Shrike.”

I shrug.

“When did you start?”

“Twelve,” I mumble, unsure why I am replying to him.

He nods like that means something.

“You ever tried rolling? Buying tobacco, papers and filters is pretty pricey, but it works out way cheaper in the long term.”

“It’s too much effort,” I reply immediately.

But honestly I have never even tried.  I roll joints for Rosaline, it cannot be that different.

He shrugs, “It’s fine once you get the hang of it.”

We smoke in silence for a bit. I am trying to figure out a way to politely tell him to leave and never return when he suddenly stands up straight. I glance his way and find he is staring down into the courtyard below, watching the lizards scurry past.

“No one’s ever seen you up here?” he asks.

“Not until today,” I shoot back.

He looks over his shoulder at me and grins. I avert my gaze.

“I felt eyes on me. Looked up and they were yours. You do that a lot? Sit up here and watch people go by? That’s kinda creepy.”

You’re kinda creepy.

He really is. He’s tall, only slightly taller than me, but much heavier. He has muscle and a little fat where I am all sinew and bone. His teeth are big, like a horses’, and there is a gap between his front two. His skin is dark olive and his hair is black. It reaches just past his shoulders. His eyes are round and beady, shark-like.  The bones of his face are sharp, making him look aged and world-worn beyond your average college student. I wonder if he is actually world-worn, or maybe just a junkie. He’s new in town, one of the few that actually came to Crater to study. Why anyone would bother is beyond me. I consider the possibility that our meager college was the only tertiary institute willing to accept him. He might have a criminal record to go with that drug-dealing career.

“I don’t watch people,” I lie, “I come here to get away from them.”

I feel rather than see his grin widening even further, “Then, I’m special.”

I stare straight ahead, refusing to look. I do not grace that with a reply.

“What’s the tinfoil for?” he asks, pointing at the gutter above us.

“To keep the pigeons away,” I reply without consciously deciding to.

“How does that work?”

“It reflects the sunlight. Spooks them.”

He nods his understanding, “That’s a little cruel, don’t you think? They’ve just as much right to be up here as you.”

“I don’t like pigeons,” this conversation is boring me.

I puff hard on my cigarette, willing him to fall off the edge.

“Why not?”

“They’re rude,” I reply automatically.

He turns to face me. I realise what I just said, and it is okay. Maybe if he thinks I’m insane he will get off my roof and leave me the f**k alone.

“How?” he is not done, but I am.

I shrug. We continue smoking. I manage to finish my cigarette before him, because hand rolled smokes burn slower than box cigarettes, and I smoke at a speed that is going to end in lung cancer. I stand up.

“Bye,” I mumble, scurrying for the railing.

“Wanna buy some pot?” he calls after me.

“No.”

“Your loss. See you tomorrow.”

I can only hope not.

* * *

I get shat on three times on the way home from school. Courtesy of a flock of doves, following me like a storm cloud, raining crap and trite questions.

Birds hate me. I know this because a bird shits on me every day I step outside, and because they tell me so. Birds speak to me, and I can speak back.

I got away with it for a few years. I just assumed it was normal. Talking to animals is cute when you are little, but the charm wears well off by the time you hit double digits. The warm, patronising smiles of onlookers gradually became concerned frowns. I quickly realised my communicating with birds was like my being a boy: other people could not understand it.

I tried to keep them both secret. I found I could ignore the birds with ease. The boy trapped in my head, however, did not shut up just because I told him to.

I walk into the kitchen and see Rosaline got half way through cleaning her bong before giving up.  I sling down my backpack, wipe myself clean and then finish up where she left off. I put it on the windowsill to dry and move on to the lounge. I find her in her usual spot; draped across the couch. There is a Dire Straights record on the turntable. She plays her dead husband’s vinyl collection in constant rotation. Luckily for me he had hundreds, so I do not have to deal with too much repetition. Rosaline has not been the same since Leslie died. Everyone says that. Leslie died before I was born, so she has always been the same for me.

“Don’t leave your bong soaking in the sink, Rosaline,” I chide, sitting down at her feet, “It makes the whole kitchen stink.”

She opens her eyes. I was not even sure she was awake.

“I wish you’d call me mom,” she mumbles, stifling a yawn.

“I wish you’d act like a mom,” I shoot back.

She sighs, “How was college?”

She asks the same question everyday, I give the same answer everyday.

“Bullshit. How was lounging around the house?”

“Bullshit. Wanna go out for dinner?”

“No. But you do. So I’ll come with.”

She finally sits up and wraps her arms around me. Rosaline sucks at everything, but she gives the best hugs.

“What did I do to deserve such a sweet boy?”

“I don’t know either.”

She laughs and I hide my smile. I love making Rosaline laugh. On paper she is an awful parent. But paper has nothing to do with it. I love her, and I look after her as much as I can. And I know she does the same for me. That is really all I can ask for.

Once the hug breaks off I take out a smoke and hear her groan over my shoulder.

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke so many cigarettes.”

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke so much weed,” I shoot back.

She just sighs. Our arguments never go anywhere, we always give up half way.

“How’s your appetite? Wanna share a pipe before dinner?”

“I’ve got some work,” I lie, getting to my feet, “But I’ll join you after.”

Rosaline just nods. She has her head bent over her work, focused on her hands. She takes out seeds and stems, dropping the smokeable pieces into her grinder. I fetch my backpack and head upstairs.

She loved my father. When he stepped on that landmine, somewhere across the ocean, Rosaline blew up too. All I get is the pieces. But scattered pieces of a mother are better than none at all. We survive off of government grants and money from Leslie’s mother and Rosaline’s father. Neither has been by to visit since I began my transition. Rosaline says they can go f**k themselves, and I share her sentiment. We used their money to pay for my double mastectomy and my hormone therapy. I got my surgery during my last summer break after high school graduation. Recovery passed by alarmingly quickly.  I am fully healed now, supposedly. There are moments where my scars ache. Rosaline says it is just psychological. I do not doubt it, but the pain still feels very real.

I go up to my room and open the windows. It is getting colder every day. Everything is creeping towards winter. It takes just a little more effort for the sun to rise each morning. I light incense and continue to smoke as I make my bed and gather the discarded socks and shorts I slept in. I then put on an album of Bach violin solos performed by this insane Russian woman. I sit on my windowsill with a cigarette and a dog-eared copy of my favorite book. This will be my seventh time reading it.

When I notice the light through my window changing I check the time. According to my phone, it is six P.M. I put the book aside and head downstairs to find Rosaline asleep on the couch where I left her. I stack a pipe, then gently nudge her awake.

“When did I fall asleep?” she asks through a yawn.

“Dunno.”

“What time is it?”

“Just after six.”

I pass her the pipe.

“Thank you, cherub.”

I used to fight Rosaline when she called me cherub. But I could never get her to stop. It does not really bother me anymore. She lights the pipe and we pass it back and forth, debating where we should go for dinner. We ultimately decide on all you can eat sushi. There is a small family run Chinese restaurant just a few blocks from our house. It is the only place in Crater you can get decent sushi. I stand by this statement, knowing full well that sushi is traditionally Japanese.

I clean out the pipe before we leave, because I know we will both be in food-induced coma later.

We stroll arm in arm to the restaurant, talking s**t. Rosaline and I both hate driving. We walk most places. I do not get shat on along the way; do not even see a single bird. They always leave me alone when Rosaline is at my side. There is a gap in our conversation. Rosaline looks up at me and smiles in that sad way I hate.  She is looking at me, but I know it is not me she sees.

“You look so much like him,” she says wistfully.

I stare straight ahead. There are pictures all over our house. It is f*****g uncanny; I look exactly like my father did at my age. My face is his, propped atop a much scrawnier skeleton. Even my hair curls just like his did. So I keep it shaved down to a one at all times. I also got medusa and septum piercings, to discourage the comparison.  It did not really make much of a difference.

“When did you get so tall?” she carries on in that dreamy tone.

“First year of high school,” I reply curtly.

I was always average height until the summer just before freshman year. I grew like someone was feeding me magic beans.

It is a ten-minute walk to the restaurant. Our lethargic pace makes it nearly twenty. We take the table closest to the conveyer belt buffet. We inhale three full plates. Rosaline orders a glass of wine and I go outside for a smoke.

Three pigeons sit huddled on the electric cables across the road from me. I try not to make eye contact. I look at the moon. It is not much to look at tonight, only a feeble sliver.  There is a rustle of feathers and then I am surrounded.

“FEED ME.”

“f**k YOU.”

“FEED ME.”

I stare straight ahead. The pigeons bob around my feet.

“Oh there it is! King of the pigeons!”

My eyes are drawn back to the wire. A lone starling now occupies the spot the pigeons did.

“Just f**k off,” I mumble, lowering my gaze to the concrete again.

“f**k YOU.”

“FEED ME.”

“f**k YOU.”

I hear the starling’s tittering laugh.

“Oh so eloquent! You really are just one more pigeon.”

He tries to goad me into an argument. I channel his voice out and keep my eyes fixed down, planning what I will eat next. Like true King of the Pigeons. When the starling realises he will not get a rise out of me he takes flight and drops a load on my left shoulder. I do not flinch as it hits me. The pigeons laugh. Vulgar humor appeals to them. I finish my cigarette and flick the butt at my harassers. They try to eat it. With any luck, at least one of them chokes and dies.

I go clean myself off in the bathroom with one ply toilet paper and the provided neon pink hand soap before returning to the table. Rosaline orders me a beer. I hate beer but I drink it anyway. Because my father always drank beer and I don’t have the heart to turn her down. It probably isn’t healthy, allowing his ghost to live vicariously through me. But I keep my mouth closed and drink it anyway.

Rosaline and I polish off two more plates. We make the owners nervous. They’re a middle-aged husband and wife. They stand in the kitchen doorway and titter away in their language that I can’t follow, throwing us sideways glances. We come here a lot, so they’re always polite. To be fair, the amount Rosaline and I eat would disturb most people. The fact that I looked like a girl when I started coming here and gradually became what I am now might also have something to do with the way they look at us. But the mayo is excellent.

Rosaline has two more glasses of wine in the time that I drink my one beer. She's a little tipsy on the way home. I have to keep my guard up because she almost makes me laugh out loud more than once. When we get home I have to use my key because Rosaline forgot hers. I lock the door behind us. I turn around and she pounces on me. She wraps her arms around my neck and gives me a raspberry on my cheek.

I jump back, "Jesus Rosaline!"

But I can feel myself smiling. I have slipped. She laughs and claps her hands once. Punctuating her delight. 

"There is it! That's my beautiful boy's smile!"

She yawns and stretches.

"Looks like my work here is done. Goodnight, my love."

I watch her pad away down the hall. I feel my smile fading as she goes. I have a cigarette on our back porch before going up to my room. I do my work out routine. Push ups, sit ups, some other bullshit. Then I take a shower. I put on some boxers and a hoodie then have another cigarette out my window. It is almost two A.M. I get into bed and force my eyes shut. I don't think about tomorrow. I pretend that I will never wake up.

* * *

Everything is blue. Like I'm in the sky. I look around and yes, I'm surrounded by clouds. I look down and yes, I'm on a cloud. And I'm still in boxers and a hoodie. 

"You should really start rolling."

My eyes snap up. I am sitting at the head of a long, long table. It is covered in sushi. All you can eat. Except you cannot eat it. Because the crows got to it first. All down the table, big black birds are feasting. They craw and scratch and fight amongst themselves; making a mess, devouring. And at the opposite head of the table sits that fucker.

"It's way cheaper in the long term," he continues.

He licks the end of the paper and seals the cigarette, he lights it with a silver Zippo.

"Wanna try rolling one?"

I stare blankly down the dining table at him. He does not look so world-worn in this light. He looks like maybe he is my age. There are no shadows to catch in his hollow cheeks and deep eye sockets. It still does not inspire any kind of desire to interact with him.

"No."

He sighs, "Too bad."

He blows smoke in my direction. It shoots in a cloudy arrow across the table and blows me over in a powerful gust. I feel my chair tip back beyond the point of recovery and I fall. Through the cloud and down, down, down.

* * *

I sit up in bed. My hands are shaking and I am cold. I put on sweat pants and thick socks, then stand for a little while with my hands over the air vent, letting them thaw out. I wrap myself in an extra blanket and flop back into bed. I check the time; five past three. I barely even slept. I blink and then the sun is up; elbowing rudely through the gap in my curtains.

I groan and hide my face. My alarm goes off almost immediately after. I stick my hand out into the abyss to switch it off. But I cannot find it by touch. So I am forced to leave my cocoon. 

I brush my teeth and take a piss. I get dressed at snail’s pace. I make cinnamon oats for breakfast and leave some in the pot for Rosaline. She is definitely still asleep. I shovel it joylessly down. It is a twenty minute walk from my house to campus. I arrive ten minutes before my first lecture and go straight for my spot. The ladder moans and creaks with my meagre weight. I hoist myself up and freeze.

"Good morning." 

And there he f*****g is. Exactly where I left him yesterday. Like he stood there all night waiting for me to come back. I stare at him for a long moment of silent anger.

"Why are you here?" I snarl.

He laughs.

"Because I like the view."

I feel my teeth clenching. In my brain I see myself charging and bowling him off the edge of the roof. I feel my jaw relaxing. I know I do not actually posess the physical strength to muscle him over the edge. I turn around and climb back down. I hear him laughing all the way to the ground.

I have a dejected cigarette by the dumpsters and almost get caught by the janitor. Afterwards I go to my lectures in a foul move. Wanting to pull my hair out. Between classes I go stand in the middle of the walkway where the lizard first spotted me and I look up, to the roof overlooking the pool. And there he f*****g is. In the same spot. And the bastard waves at me. I turn away and keep walking. The close call at the dumpsters this morning was too close. So I'm forced to have a cigarette with the rest of the smoking lizards.

The smokers hang out behind the theatre. There is a little alley below ground level. You go back stage, out the fire exit, down some stairs and there you are. It's mostly drama kids, art students and stoners. Some juvenile delinquents are mixed in there, but it's a mostly harmless crowd. I push open the fire escape. The pod is pretty small today. It is getting cold; those who have cars are smoking in them. No one pays me any mind. I move as far away from everyone else as possible, to the furthest corner of the alley. I lean against the wall and light a cigarette. The smoke inhales me more than I inhale it. I close my eyes. And not for the first time today I remember my dream. 

"You really shouldn't smoke."

I exhale slowly and keep my eyes closed. If I do not acknowledge her, maybe she will go away.

"You're on testosterone. Smoking increases your chances of severe hypertension and heart disease. It's extremely irresponsible."

I open my eyes.

"Thank you for telling me, Alice. I had no idea."

Fucking Alice scowls. 

"I'm not joking."

"Neither am I."

Alice should not be here. She is the chairperson of the Clean Air Committee. It is her goddamn fault that we smokers are banished to this shady alley.

 “Is everything okay over here?”

Enter Toby. The reason Alice is in the smoking section. Everyone digs Toby, because he is handsome and can recite long monologues and fake cry on stage really well. Which is shitty criteria for liking someone, in my opinion.

“It’s fine,” Alice says, smiling tightly at me in her martyr way.

A smile that says: you’re mean to me but I’m just going to keep being kind to you, because I’m a saint.

Toby puts his arm around Alice. He get’s stupid touchy as a display of ownership, because he knows the first person Alice ever kissed was me. At fifteen I thought maybe I could play off my being a boy inside as being a butch lesbian. Needless to say: it did not work out. I discovered that the problem was not who looked at me, but what it was they were looking at. It’s been five years since I broke Alice’s heart into little splintery pieces. And in turn, she still treats me like the sun shines out my asshole. I still cannot understand what she ever saw in me.

She is gorgeous, smart and kind. She has eyes like onyx stones, her body curves and dips in all the perfect places, her skin smooth, her mouth is a rose. Her hair stands off her scalp in perfect black ringlets that bounce and dance as she moves. I am a stick insect in boots. I want to apologise every time I look at her, but all that ever comes out of my mouth in her presence is abuse.

“Yeah we’re swell, Toby. Alice was just leaving,” I reply, blowing smoke out of my nose.

Toby has that slight smile and frown on his face that a lot of people get when dealing with me.

“You know Shrike, no offence but you’re being a really bad representative for the transgender community.”

I was letting my eyes wander up in search of birds, but now they snap back to him.

“Actually, I’m just an asshole, Toby. Which has absolutely nothing to do with any other transgender person, because we’re all individuals, Toby.”

His pitying smile widens. Standing next to Alice, the Goddess of milk and honey, he looks like the most boring slice of prince charming white toast I have ever seen.

Toby puts on his genuinely concerned smile, “But don’t you think it’s sad to separate yourself from your own community?”

I stare at him for a long moment, trying to figure out the process by which he chooses the things he says. I imagine it is like a bowel movement. No actual thought goes into this process; he just regurgitates s**t he ingested earlier. I switch my gaze to f*****g Alice.

“Please get him away from me.”

Toby starts to speak again, but she cuts him off, murmuring something into his ear. Couple of the year finally moves away. At last, I can breathe.

Until the visual art kids roll up. I try to shrink, but Rowan spots me immediately. The gaggle scurries over. I groan.

“Shrike! I didn’t know you smoked!” Rowan has more facial piercings than anyone else in Crater, which really is not saying much, since I have the second most, “And what are the odds? We were just talking about you! It must be fate.”

“No.”

Rowan falters for a moment, then surges on with his pitch, pretending not to understand what ‘no’ means.

“Our class needs a new subject for figure drawing. And we’re all–”

“–Fascinated with the ambiguity of the transgender form?”

He falters for another moment, but only a moment, “Precisely, Shrike! Couldn’t have said it better myself!”

“Though you did say it yourself. Last week. And the week before that.”

His face does the little twitch thing again, his internal matrix glitching in the wake of rejection. Aside from being an artist scarily talented for his age, he has eyes like polar ice, and underneath all the rings and studs: an uncannily symmetrical face. He is accustomed to girls (and some guys) throwing themselves at the opportunity to get naked in front of him.

 “So how about it, Shrike? Wanna sit for us?”

 “Rowan, I know you’re always stoned, but you must have at least a vague memory of me telling you never to approach me about it ever again?”

He groans theatrically, like as if he is the one being harassed, “Shrike! Do you understand the artistic avenues you are cutting off right now? Not only for me, but for an entire class? How do you expect to normalise the transgender experience if you refuse to share the beautiful ambiguity of your body with the world?”

I take a final puff of my smoke.

“I don’t have a d**k, and there’re scars under my n*****s where my titties used to be. It’s really not that ambiguous, Rowan.”

I snuff out my half-finished cigarette then head straight for the stairs. Rowan talks at the back of my head but I do not hear it.

This is unacceptable. I need my spot back.

* * *

The next day I arrive twenty minutes earlier than necessary. I head straight to my spot. Standing at the bottom of the ladder I hear guitar, wafting down over the edge of the roof. The melody makes me freeze. It sounds so familiar; I know that I know it. Lyrics hover at the edge of my mind, the name is on the tip of my tongue, but memory fails me. He carries that guitar case around everywhere, but I have never once seen him play it. There is an urge to climb the ladder and witness it, see his long fingers gliding up and down the strings. I need to see it with my own eyes to accept that jerk is capable of making such beautiful music. I stomp away to smoke by the bins, then stomp through the rest of my day.

I swear to god he has camped out on that roof for days in a row now. He only leaves to come to Anthropology. To sit in the opposite corner of the class and stare at me.

He arrived in Crater at the beginning of the year. Due to my ignoring everyone, I know nothing about him.

So I move into phase one of getting to know someone: I follow him home.

He walks at an infuriating pace. Not a care in the world, a snail in leather and denim. I tail him to Upper Crater, the more affluent side of town. Disturbingly, I’m not the only one tailing him. A trio of massive black crows circle in the sky far over his head. I don’t f**k with crows.

I lurk behind some shrubbery and watch him turn up the drive of a beautiful double story, brick house. Ivy covers the walls, parting like gnarled fingers around the window eyes. I’m surprised and quietly ashamed of my surprise.  I suppose a rich kid moonlighting as a drug dealer is not a new or unique tale. He stops on the top step just before the porch, and tilts his head back to look up at the crows circling him. My heart hiccups as the three of them divebomb him in rapid succession. He doesn’t share my fear, he laughs. They do not attack him again, instead they perch on the roof of the mansion. He adjusts his jacket and hair, then continues up onto the porch.

He knocks. After a short wait, a woman comes to the door. They exchange a few words and then while going in for a hug something passes between their hands. He turns and leaves, and she closes the door. He was making a delivery.

The next house is four blocks away. The crows follow us here too. With a wild garden and a diseased paintjob, it looks abandoned. But a man comes to the door. This time he goes inside, the crows don’t attack him at the front door, instead they disappear behind the roof. This is more what I expected his home to look like. But I wait outside for a little while, for good measure. And sure enough he comes out about three minutes later. The crows appear again shortly after he does.

So I follow him to the next house, and the next house, and the one after that. All the way with the crows circling vigilantly overhead. Until I have been tailing him for three hours and I just want to go home now.  He does deliveries all f*****g afternoon. The evening sky starts to go pink with the sunset and he shows no signs of calling it a day. My legs ache. Four different pigeons and one starling have shat on me. I carry wet wipes everywhere with me but it is not enough. I want to shower. He is gradually making his way to the edge of town, doing his deliveries road by road. We have walked the distance of the entire circumference of town, twice. I have got one cigarette left. This is horrible. I f*****g hate this guy. He is ruining my life.

Finally the stops stop. He is just walking down the main road now. I am forced to tail him at a bit more of a distance, to avoid detection.

He passes the old gas station, the final marker of the edge of town. And he just keeps going: up the hill, over the top and out of my line of sight. I come to a halt at the foot of the hill. Not just because I am so f*****g exhausted that I am unsure if I can even make it up. I stop because I know what is on the other side. I feel my hands tighten into fists and then my legs move on their own, carrying me up the hill. I get to the top and freeze. He is nowhere to be seen. There is only the tree. He cannot be hidden behind it; it is much too far away for him to have reached in the time it took me to follow over the hill. He just disappeared off the face of the earth. That is the last straw. I give up for today.

I go home.

***

I buy an extra pack of cigarettes and spend another afternoon following him around town. He heads for the tree again, much earlier than yesterday. I still have half a pack left.  This time I do not hesitate, I run up the hill the second he disappears over the grassy mound. I reach the top and my eyes scan the horizon. He is gone. Again. I shout at all the nothing and kick a clod out of the grass. When I am all done with my tantrum I storm home under the thunderclouds of my own mind.

I get home to Rosaline and two pizzas. My brainstorm abates at the smell, realising with spams from my belly that I have not eaten since eight A.M.

I throw down my backpack and flop wordlessly onto the couch beside her.

“Bad day?” she asks, smoothing her hand over my bristle brush hair.

I can feel through her palms that she wishes I would stop shaving it. I grunt by way of reply.

“It’s okay,” she croons, “We don’t have to talk about it. Let’s just eat, it’s getting cold.”

I do not have to be told twice. She smokes a bong and then puts on West Side Story.

Rosaline loves tragic romances. Brokeback Mountain. Titanic. Moulin Rouge. Any film where one or both of the lovers die at the end.

“Because that’s what happens, when you find love,” she tells me, after six hours of movies and four bottles of red between the two of us, “It’s taken from you. Taken. Did you know: when the world was young, humans had two heads, two hearts, two souls?”

“That’s sure what we learned in Bio,” I mumble into my glass.

She tells this story at least once a month.  I keep my trap shut and listen, at least once a month.

“We were all born as one with our soul mates,” she is slurring a little, “But humans were too happy. It made the gods jealous. So they tore us all apart and scattered us across the world. Left us to spend our little lives, searching for our missing pieces. And when we find them…”

She trails off. A few seconds later, I hear her gentle whistling snores. The credits of The Great Gatsby are rolling. I finish the story for her, the same way it ends every time.

“The gods just tear us apart over and over again. Forever.”

***

I dream I am chasing a massive black bird, all around Crater. The streets are strange. Everything has a vague familiarity to it but I do not know where I am; every turn I take eventually ends in a cul-de-sac. When I wake up, I am sweating again. My legs ache, and there are blisters where my boots have chaffed my feet.  I walk around like a B-rate horror zombie all day, sleeping in every class.

When my final lecture ends, I follow him all the same.

Today he does not stop at any houses. He goes straight from school to the tree.  And once he is over the hill; he is gone.

I have followed him for three days now, and I still do not know where the f**k he lives. I cannot follow him home from school tomorrow, because tomorrow is Saturday. So I make a new plan.

I message Rosaline and I tell her I will be home late. Then I sit cross-legged on top of the hill and I wait. Wherever he went, he has to come back eventually. I smoke the rest of my cigarettes.

The sun is creeping towards its bed already. The days just keep getting shorter. The wind just keeps getting meaner.

The sun is almost down and my smokes are gone. I tear out the grass around me. I find little pebbles and throw them down the hill. I play a mindless game on my phone until the battery dies. This is bullshit.

I get up and solider down the hill. I am not waiting a second longer.

I will find this motherfucker.