Fluidity

   I was sitting at my desk wearing a pink plug-in cap that operates like a heating pad. Twenty years ago I bought it at a rummage sale held in a church basement. The old black woman who sold it to me asked, “Are you buying this as a gift?”  I said, “No, it’s for me.” Smiling, she nodded, “It’s gonna change your life.”  Officially, it’s considered a “professional hair conditioning heat cap.”  I’ve used it mainly to quiet now-and-then pain I attribute to sinusitis.    

   My daughter Emily walked in and said, “You look like an old black church lady.”

   ”I am an old black church lady,” I laughed.

   ”Dad, how’d you fool Mom all this time?”

   I said, “Hush, child. Your mother still thinks I’m white. Don’t mess with her head.”

***

   Once we embrace the concept of non-binariness, is there any reason to assume its application is limited to gender identity?  Is it such a stretch, once we dispense with the binaries, to think of nearly everything as potentially being non-binary? 

   Who’ll deny that, while the world viewed me as a white man, inside I was also a black woman beating down the door to find her way out?
***

   Days later, I was soaking in the sauna with Bem, an old Nigerian man with a big Buddha belly. I said, “I may look like an old white man, but I’m actually an old black woman.”

   “You didn’t have to tell me that,” Bem said.  “I knew it the first day I met you, my first time here.”

   “You saw me.”

   “The cracks in my diabetic feet had opened and I was sitting in a pool of blood, my own. I couldn’t move. How’d you respond? Did you lecture me about tracking blood across the floor? Did you say ‘I don’t know you’ and I was someone else’s problem? No. You saw I needed help. Your heart went out. You fetched gauze, tape and scissors. There was no alcohol, no gloves. Without thought for yourself, you bandaged me so I could go home. Would an old white man do that?”

   “Would he?”

   “Hell no. I knew from the beginning that, deep inside, you were an old black woman. Sister, I thank you. I could’ve bled out. You saved me.”

   “It’s true,” I said.  “I’ve known hundreds of blacks who passed for white.  Darker family members often called them ‘yaller.’  I’ve known a few whites who opportunistically passed as black. And many blacks who had situational racial fluidity, black at home with family, white at parties and work. I’ve known plenty of folks whose gender attractions were fluid. And, bunches of two spirit people, more every day.”

   “You think everyone who experiences fluidity is two-spirited?” Bem asked.

   “Could be. Have I told you about long ago when a friend invited me to a Halloween party held by the Order of the Eastern Star?”

   “The oldest sorority for black women, mostly older ones. I know of it, but I’ve never partied with them,” Bem answered. “And you have?”

   “I have. As a younger white man, I was invited to a costume party. I put on sleeveless white leotards and white tights. I smeared white greasepaint on my arms, neck, face, hands—every bit of me anybody could smack their eyes on. When we arrived, the Grand Matron looked up from her registration table and said, “I can tell you want to win the prize.”

   A black man in scarlet tux with a shiny gold front tooth that the light turned into a prism asked, “What’re you disguised as?”

   I said, “A white man.”

   He laughed, threw his head back, and said, “You look just like a Caucasian!”

   “You wear some clever disguises to maintain cover,” Bem chuckled.

   “Later, we danced up a storm and of course I did win the prize for best male costume. A black woman costumed as a harem dancer won best female.  They had us prance around the room arm in arm, cameras flashing, as they chanted, ‘black and white, black and white.’”

   “See, those old black ladies knew you were one of them all along,” Bem laughed. “As I keep sayin’, ‘Always keep ‘em guessing!’”   

.

The Resistance

   Before I find a seat, the bus jolts. After grabbing a pole, I launch into a spin. I fully extend my right to cushion a fall. Instead, my hand takes hold of a stable, curved object. I find safety in an empty seat.

   The curved object is the shoulder of the woman in the seat catty corner to mine. 

   “I’m really sorry,” I say, appalled that I’ve struck the stranger.

   “That’s fine,” she shrugs. “It was kind of entertaining.” 

   “It’s the only way I get to dance anymore,” I say, relieved.

   “You feel a little chilly?” she asks.

   “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

            “You see those little windows across the aisle at the top?” she asks, pointing.  “They’ve replaced the last of them on the 24s.  Now none of them have windows that can open.”

   “I like windows,” I say.  I think about adding, in jest I think, “What else could you jump out of if you got desperate?” but repress the thought. After all, we just met.

            “Same here,” she says, “but they had to replace them so they could air condition the 24s.”

            “I’m not a fan of air conditioning.”

   “Me neither.”

.           The scarf she’s wearing around her hair is predominantly blue, but what draws my eye are the dozens of little red skull-and-cross-bones. She looks like a pirate.   

            “You from here?” I ask.

   “I’m from Manotick, south of Ottawa. I came to Montreal for college, stuck around, had three boys here, moved back home for a long haul.  Now I’ve been back for seven years. It suits me.  I get a meetup email every day suggesting five things to do for five dollars or less.”

   “I get those emails too.  Lately, they’ve all said, ‘resist.’”

   “The resistance—it’s gotten pervasive.” 

            “What’d you study?” I ask.

   “Psychology with an emphasis on neuroscience and gender.”

            A three-year-old standing in the aisle starts tugging away from his mother’s sure grip.  My conversationalist encourages the child, “Jump, jump, jump.”  The child retreats to his mother’s side. 

   “I’ve got an almost-three-year-old grandson who does standing broad jumps over three feet.  And he does deep knee bends while flexing his arms and saying ‘flex’ every time.”

   “He probably saw it on TV,” she says. “When he gets older, they’ve got great programs in circus arts at the university. I did all of that.  Seven years of ballet too.  I don’t do any of it now that I’m older.” 

   In her extra-large t-shirt, she doesn’t look like the typical trapeze artist or ballet dancer, but it’s hard to tell what lies beneath, and bodies change over time—I should know!   

   “You’re not older,” I counter.

   “I sure am. I’m 43.” 

   “Like I said, you’re not older.  What’s your art now?”

   She half-turns her body to me.  “I do sculptures, mostly heads.”

            “What’s your medium, stone, clay, or what?”

            “Clay is too finicky,” she says, demonstrating chaos by sending her hands out in every direction. “I mostly use polymers. Easier to work with.”

   “I once watched a nun carving a stone head for several hours.  The stone was really patient with her.  I’ll sculpt stone in my next lifetime.”

            “Stone is beyond me,” she says. “Never really gave it a try.”

   My eye keeps returning to her skull-and-crossbones scarf. 

   “You really a pirate?” I ask.

   “My boys call me ‘the pirate lesbian.’  I’m not really a lesbian, though. I’m bi.  I have to wear this because my hair’s gotten awful.”  She spreads her fingers from her head in a Medusa gesture.

   “I haven’t had a good hair day in 20 years,” I say.

            “But my hair truly has gotten awful,” she says, almost yelling the word “awful.”

   “Be happy you’ve got hair. Look what’s left of mine,” I say, lifting my skull cap. 

   She throws her head back in a laugh, then nods.  “I’ve still got awful hair.”

            “Getting back to the pirate lesbian, but really the pirate bi,” I say, “it’s incredible the transformations that have occurred in public attitudes and perceptions about sexual orientation but even more so about gender identity.”

   “They taught us decades ago in gender studies that gender identity is fluid. It’s not new.  They’ve known that.”

   “But it’s only in recent years entered the public domain,” I say.

   “Still, all along, people have been having the experience of identifying with another gender or of shuttling between genders,” she says. 

   “But they weren’t enabled to be conscious of it,” I say.

            “Exactly, they weren’t allowed to become conscious of being cross-gendered or gender fluid.  They were told their experience was invalid and to tuck it under and deny it.”

   “And now lots of college students take it for granted, that gender is fluid,” I say. “The equation has changed.”

   “I knew the equation.  I could’ve told them,” she says. “Back to your grandson, they have really great programs at the Y in gymnastics and tumbling for kids his age.  It would be a shame if he didn’t have experiences that allow him to become who he naturally is.”

   “I love the Y,” I say. “I’ll look into that.”

            “I’m Stacey, by the way.  Here, Stacey can be a man’s name too.”  

            “Like Lynn, or Sam, or Val,” I say.

            “Exactly. You get the feeling we’ve met before?”

.

Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after rewarding research career. With a graduate degree from Howard University, in eight years he’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, photography, plays, hybrid, and interviews in nearly 200 journals on five continents. Writing publications include Columbia Journal, Hippocampus, Lunch Ticket, Manchester Review, Newfound, Ocotillo Review, The Atlantic, Typehouse, and Wordpeace. Photo essays include: Amsterdam Quarterly, Barren, DASH, Kestrel, Ilanot Review, Litro, NWW, Pilgrimage, Sweet, Typehouse. A Best of the Net nominee, Jim recently wrote/acted in a one-act play and appeared in a documentary limited series broadcast internationally. Jim’s family splits time between city and mountains.