Apr. 20, 1998

Mocha Daze was empty and so was I, standing at the cash register and thinking about Hillary, pondering what makes a person driven to alter herself so drastically and violently? I had seen TV shows and read a mess of articles about the endless possibilities: you’re just born with the wrong sex organs or your parents put dresses on you or the there’s a slit in your brain. But what about your heart and soul? The person you are born to be, whatever the advantages or disadvantages may be, is just as important.

I was born a gay painter. Not an easy life, but one to be embraced. Rejection of oneself has got to be wrong and that’s what Hillary was doing. What would it result in? Will she still reject who she is after the operation? How do you change your way of thinking based on an operation? Besides, I can’t imagine her not missing her penis.

I called Paul again. He had not returned any of my fourteen calls. Anita, Paul’s little sister, answered. I had spoken to her on the sixth, tenth, eleventh, and thirteenth call. She was fourteen, a freshman in high school, and had a boyfriend named Ralph, “Anita, it’s Greg.”

“Hey, I was just thinking of you,” she said gladly.

“You were?”

“I wondered if you would call again and then I figured you would.”

“I’m that pathetic, huh?”

“No, but I can tell you really want to date my brother.”

“We’re just friends, I told you.”

“And I told you, I know he’s a homosexual. I don’t care. I love him.”

“How do I get him to call me, Anita?”

“Well, first thing you’ve got to do stop calling. It just makes him shake his head when I tell him you called again.”

Anita went on to explain to me the nuances of winning the heart of a man like Paul, “He’s sensitive,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean he wants someone hanging off him.”

When I hung up, Anita promised me she wouldn’t tell Paul I called again and would let me know at a later time what my next move should be. I gave her my number at Fran’s and at Mocha Daze.

Strange, but I felt confident leaving my love life in the hands of a fourteen year old. Surprisingly, more confident than leaving it in my own.

Again, alone in the empty cafe I turned my attention to the dull walls and images of Hillary. Color, I thought, figures in all different colors. What figures I wasn’t sure of yet, but I locked the front door and headed to the back to look for some paint. I decided it would be a homage to Hillary and hoped she’d adore me for it when she came back.

After a few trips to the paint store I found the right essence of what I wanted--- shades of purple, highlighted with lines of dark blue. I pulled all the tables back from the far wall that faced the front door, did a light washing, and began painting.

At first I thought I was painting men, but soon my hands had a different idea. They were abstract animals with streams of water pouring from their mouths, creating a pond of deep purple water. However, in the vivid water were not animals, but specks of human beings in effort learning to swim. Many, that is most, drowned, but a select few kept afloat taking arduous breaths of relief.

I stood back when I finished. It was early afternoon and a strong ray of sun lit the drying mural well. There was something else it needed, but I hadn’t a clue as to what. Perhaps it would come to me someday, but also, I had to remember, perhaps it would not.