Something That May Shock and Discredit You Read online

  ’Twas also observed that he was troubled with apparitions of hobgoblins and evil spirits; for ever and anon he would intimate so much by words. Hopeful, therefore, here had much ado to keep his brother’s head above water; yea, sometimes he would be quite gone down, and then ere awhile he would rise up again half dead. Hopeful also would endeavour to comfort him, saying, “Brother, I see the gate, and men standing by it to receive us.”

  But Christian would answer, “ ’Tis you, ’tis you they wait for; you have been hopeful ever since I knew you.”

  “And so have you,” said he to Christian.

  “Ah, brother,” said he, “surely, if I was right, he would now arise to help me; but, for my sins, he hath brought me into the snare, and hath left me.”

  Then said Hopeful, “These troubles and distresses that you go through in these waters are no sign that God hath forsaken you; but are sent to try you, whether you will call to mind that which heretofore you have received of his goodness, and live upon him in your distresses.”

  Then I saw in my dream that Christian was as in a muse awhile, to whom also Hopeful added this word, “Be of good cheer, God maketh thee whole”; and with that Christian brake out with a loud voice,

  “Oh, I see him again! and he tells me, ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.’ ”

  Then they both took courage, and the enemy was after that as still as a stone, until they were gone over. Christian therefore presently found ground to stand upon; and so it followed that the rest of the river was but shallow. Thus they got over.

  You and Me and Our First Years on T

  You: in possession of a leonine grace and sun-warmed sexual fluidity reminiscent of every kind and unattainable straight-boy crush I had in high school, have developed a robust individual response to overfishing that still prioritizes communal action, definitely has cum gutters, could post a lot of pictures of yourself at the gym but don’t (but aren’t self-consciously opposed to the practice), presently living in total harmony with any number of online subcultures I both resent and long to participate in, only developed a (non-embarrassing) beard after achieving total facial masculinization, has two boyfriends (one cis, one trans, both six foot three), effortlessly made the switch from bravely disregarding female beauty standards to bravely disregarding male beauty standards at the two-month mark, ported your account from HER to Scruff the day before starting T, knows your size when ordering shirts from ASOS, has a consistent shirt size, owns and uses the correct number of skin-care products with tea tree oil in them, gendered correctly and casually by everyone but would react with disarming strength and grace if you ever happened to be misgendered over the phone—it won’t happen, but you would if it did—somehow developed more hair at the crown of your head, uterus acting normal, qualified for peri-areolar but somehow wound up not needing top surgery after all—“I don’t know what to say, I used to be a 34D or something but they just … disappeared after a while, go figure”—socially transitioned twelve years ago but still younger than me, passes 100 percent of the time but still gets the butch head nod on the street somehow, never uses judgmental language like “passing” even as a convenient shorthand, remembered to freeze his eggs, non-embarrassing relationship to transmasculine-resonant media properties like Mulan and A Separate Peace and The Lord of the Rings live-action movies, looks good in sweaters, comfortably five foot eight, friend to every living gender, never tiresome about astrology, has never written a single personal essay, perfect M-shaped hairline, total feminist trailblazer pre-transition and produces just the right amount of laid-back and supportive male energy post-, living life to the fullest, quietly jettisoned any personal habits that people would have found intriguing in a girl but super irritating in a guy, “best thing I ever did,” never does unsolicited favors for others in order to feel overlooked and aggrieved when they don’t reciprocate even though they never asked you to do them a favor in the first place, loveth at all times and born for a time of adversity; when some evildoers come to your household you call for a basin and begin to wash their feet such that they are filled with confusion and begin to do penance; some call you John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others one of the prophets, but I say you are the Son of Man—this was not revealed to me by flesh and blood but by my Father in heaven, actually looks your age.

  Me, on T for the exact same amount of time: regularly ma’amed by birds, simultaneously an embarrassment to feminism and transmasculinity, personally responsible for the failures of the body-positivity movement, forgot to have cheekbones, currently stuck inside an airport bathroom, forgot to develop upper-body strength or look into my reproductive options before filling my uterus with old needles, fell in a pothole, problematic hamstrings, constantly writing directionless personal essays about early transition milestones that I’ll regret in eight minutes, getting colds more frequently, both twelve and forty at the same time, reinforcing the binary but not in a cool subversive way, neck looking worse by the minute, forgot own pronouns; I baptize with water but there comes one after me whose sandals I am not fit to untie.

  Me, sitting in the middle of a river and insisting on drowning despite my companion’s numerous protestations that (1) I can touch the bottom, (2) help awaits us on the other side, and (3) they have just made it through that part of the river and will happily help me to safety: Other people are legitimately trans in a mysterious and inchoate way that I am not (but don’t ask me what legitimately trans means because that would require developing a coherent worldview); I, on the other hand, merely cannot stop thinking about transitioning, which is not the same thing, merely thinking about transitioning is distinct from wanting to transition, as long as I’m the one doing the thinking; which means that I am not trans, which means that I ought not to transition, which leaves me no option besides continuing to think endlessly about transition; if only I were trans, then I could transition—

  You, handsomely: Be of good cheer; God maketh thee whole.

  Repeat as necessary.

  Thus, eventually, we get over.

  CHAPTER 3 Apollo and Hyacinthus Die Playing Ultimate Frisbee, and I Died Watching Teenage Boys Play Video Games

  His [Apollo’s] zither and his bow no longer fill his eager mind and now without a thought of dignity, he carried nets and held the dogs in leash, and did not hesitate to go with Hyacinthus on the rough, steep mountain ridges; and by all of such associations, his love was increased.

  Now Titan was about midway, betwixt the coming and the banished night, and stood at equal distance from those two extremes. Then, when the youth and Phoebus were well stripped, and gleaming with rich olive oil, they tried a friendly contest with the discus. First Phoebus, well-poised, sent it awhirl through air, and cleft the clouds beyond with its broad weight; from which at length it fell down to the earth, a certain evidence of strength and skill. Heedless of danger Hyacinthus rushed for eager glory of the game, resolved to get the discus. But it bounded back from off the hard earth, and struck full against your face, O Hyacinthus! Deadly pale the God’s face went—as pallid as the boy’s. With care he lifted the sad huddled form.

  The kind god tries to warm you back to life, and next endeavors to attend your wound, and stay your parting soul with healing herbs. His skill is no advantage, for the wound is past all art of cure. As if someone, when in a garden, breaks off violets, poppies, or lilies hung from golden stems, then drooping they must hang their withered heads, and gaze down towards the earth beneath them; so, the dying boy’s face droops, and his bent neck, a burden to itself, falls back upon his shoulder: “You are fallen in your prime, defrauded of your youth, O Hyacinthus!” cries Apollo. “I can see in your sad wound my own guilt, and you are my cause of grief and self-reproach. My own hand gave you death unmerited—I only can be charged with your destruction.—What have I done wrong? Can it
be called a fault to play with you? Should loving you be called a fault? And oh, that I might now give up my life for you! Or die with you! But since our destinies prevent us you shall always be with me, and you shall dwell upon my care-filled lips. The lyre struck by my hand, and my true songs will always celebrate you. A new flower you shall arise, with markings on your petals, close imitation of my constant moans: and there shall come another to be linked with this new flower, a valiant hero shall be known by the same marks upon its petals.

  —Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 10, translated by Brookes More

  I saw you noticed me taking my shirt off. You probably recognize me—you know, from statues? Or the sun. Guilty! It’s me. How would you like to have a flower named after you?

  —Apollo to Hyacinthus, author’s imagination

  are you up

  if so do you want to play frisbee and die for each other

  —Hyacinthus to Apollo, ibid.

  In the ninth grade I was very much in love with a boy who wanted to run for class president, so I said that I would help him plan his campaign. We spent an entire Saturday together—almost ten hours—and it was like trying to get the sun’s attention. He just kept rotating away while still keeping me warm. First he was hungry, so I offered to make him Eggo waffles, in the hopes that it would make him love me; then he wanted to ride bikes back to his house so he could get the poster boards that he’d forgotten; then there was a Subway sandwich shop we passed on the way back and he was hungry again.

  So the day unspooled itself out and made me dizzy; I cooked him waffles and then I pedaled as fast as I could to keep up with him—because he could bike faster than me and did not pay attention when I struggled—then I watched him eat a sandwich, and then I made a poster for him; then we rode our bikes again, and I made him more waffles and more posters, and none of it ever turned into kissing, no matter how many waffles I toasted or blisters I ignored or Subway sandwich bags I carefully wrapped around my handlebars, and he never became student body president, either. Nobody can relax completely while simultaneously demanding someone else’s full attention quite like a clear-skinned ninth-grade boy who doesn’t know he’s going to lose the campaign for student body president yet; nobody is less relaxed than a future trans man toasting every waffle in the house, trying to alchemize Eggos into a kiss. “Chary observation” and “romantic agitation” were the watchwords of that day, and every other day I spent in the kitchen trying to slow a boy down long enough to give him time to kiss me.

  The following Sunday I was forced to buy a new box of Eggos for the family out of my allowance, as Eggos were dear and carefully parceled out in our home. I was careful, too, with my attention, my approval, my company, for it was obvious even as a lovestruck fourteen-year-old that boys were too careless of others not to be careful with, but every so often I could not contain my longing to be generous as only a lover is generous, and offer a bridal feast for bewildered Midwestern teenage boys. This meant that I spent a fair portion of my youth watching boys play video games; an invitation from a boy to come over and watch him play video games was considered at the very least to be a real overture toward friendship, and possibly something more. Often, unless one worked very hard to resist it, afternoons spent doing something else entirely sometimes spontaneously turned into afternoons watching boys play video games simply by accident. I’d be at the mall, or trying to get my driver’s license, and turn around to find myself on someone else’s couch in someone else’s basement watching boys watch little representations of themselves on a screen.

  It wasn’t all sexism, either; often I’d be invited to take a turn and decline, unwilling to let them see my incompetence after their success. I never wanted to play with boys unless I’d already figured out a guaranteed way never to lose, which meant I never played. It was unbearable that they should be so beautiful and allowed to see me at the same time; whenever I became conscious of my own unbearableness I would retreat to the kitchen and talk to whomever I found in there, usually their mothers but sometimes their younger siblings and sometimes no one at all. Either the boys would notice and emerge in search of their audience or they wouldn’t and I’d just keep retreating out the front door until I ended up all the way back home. And it was endlessly inane, and frustrating, and the invitations just kept coming, and sometimes the video games were outside and called soccer or Ultimate Frisbee, but it couldn’t have really been Ultimate Frisbee because there was always more Frisbee left at the end of it, and I wanted to die, but I was never lucky enough to take a discus to the face and fall into a beautiful boy’s arms, so I just kept going home and waiting for something else to happen.

  INTERLUDE III Lord Byron Has a Birthday and Takes His Leave

  Oh, well! Fuck you, then,

  And I don’t have anything else to say about it.

  I honestly don’t.

  I just think it’s really, mm, funny how—

  No, you know what, I honestly don’t have anything else to say about it.

  I really just don’t.

  Even if you do, I’m just, you know, ZIP, mouth closed, high road.

  (By the way, there is a quote from Coleridge that just, mff,

  PERFECTLY describes the situation between us and actually just your whole deal,

  but why bother with it! Why bother, if you’re not going to listen to me

  you’re certainly not going to listen to Coleridge.

  Which is so funny because it seems like you LOVE listening to other people

  and all the shit they have to say about me.

  But whatever! It’s not important, it’s really not important to try

  to get you to listen to either me or Coleridge about it. Why start listening now, right??)

  I JUST THINK IT’S REALLY FUNNY!

  How someone who’s spent so much cumulative time

  resting their head against my chest

  could end up caring so little about the heart beating just underneath it!

  It’s kind of funny, if you think about it, and I do,

  pretty much all the time!

  I mean it’s fine, obviously,

  you don’t have to treat me well,

  no one is going to come and arrest you over it.

  You might find a time when life stops being so EASY for you

  and you kind of wish you’d stopped being a heartless bitch sooner

  (or whenever! I don’t know your life).

  I don’t know, maybe someday you’ll get sick of being

  so FOCUSED and HARD TO PLEASE and IMPOSSIBLE TO READ

  and you’ll think to yourself, oh my God, you know who had

  amazing arms, was Lord Byron. That would be a shame,

  if that happened, is all that I’m saying.

  I’m not saying that it’s going to happen.

  By the way, I’m moving, so in case anything

  gets delivered to the house for me, if I’m not there,

  that’s why. I’m just telling you this in case some of my mail

  shows up and you need to know what to do with it.

  I don’t know where I’m going to be staying yet.

  Probably—honestly, I don’t even know, it’s impossible to guess.

  If you need to forward me my mail, just know that I’m super far away

  and you should probably ask one of my friends

  one of my many friends—

  one of my very many, super loyal friends, many of whom live nearby,

  because I’m a VERY good friend and they all know what’s going on with me—

  anyhow you can just ask one of them where to forward my mail,

  if I get any mail at your house,

  which used to be our house but isn’t now,

  because I’m sure I’ll know where I’m staying by then and I’ll

  definitely be sure to have told one of them by then.

  So just ask around.

  By the way, and as long as we’re on the subject,

  you should kn
ow that I’m not still mad at you,

  even after all the shit you’ve done to me that I’m not going to bother to go into detail over right now because you know it and I know it and we are both super clear on the specifics of the shit you pulled, so I don’t even have to mention it.

  I honestly don’t have time to go into it all right now.

  But you should just know, like for the record,

  that I actually still love you,

  like a lot, like a really incredible amount,

  in a way that says more about the kind of person I am

  than the kind of person you are

  if you know what I mean.

  Ugh, this is already way more than I had time to talk about in the first place.

  I’m leaving in what is basically the MORNING, tomorrow,

  and it’s crazy late already, so I’m basically

  just wasting time I should be spending packing for my amazing new life

  in Greece

  or, like, wherever I happen to end up

  who’s to say

  whether it’s Greece or some other country

  (also I just hope you KNOW that if I end up dating a guy after this

  it has NOTHING to do with you?? like it is not a STATEMENT on you,

  please do not read anything into what I do with my life after this as a comment on you,

  if you happen to see a full-length oil portrait of me and I’m still wearing the earrings I stole from you it’s not because I’m trying to SAY anything so don’t overthink this, okay.)

  Please feel free to consider us pretty much divorced.