No words to say

Today I took a break from languages. I walked out into my mother's brown New York garden. Snow trodden early bloomers were recouping in the sudden sun. This small world she had eked out for herself latent with all the wonders she anticipated each year from memory. She can see things that aren't yet there and she talks about them as if they are always in bloom.

But I was still with computers and the events of the previous day. Then a squirrel stood before me. His one blind eye, bulging and blue. Half of his sight was seeing and half believing he could see. His blind eye twice the size of his real eye. His blind eye knew I was there as much from memory as from fact.

He scattered up the false cherry tree that blooms twice each year and sat eating scraps from the birds pretending he was watching me.

My mother can't use her right arm, now. The movement is coming back, but it will be a long recovery. Someday she will lock me up in one of those great hugs I struggled against as a boy. I stood in the yard where three generations of my family has lived and peered towards the river. Thousands of years of humans and squirrels have lived in this spot and left arrowheads, gardens and seed shells to prove it.

Between me and the river stood a grove of trees and the house of Mrs. Saki, the widow of Mr. Saki the lone Japanese man on our street. His ghost looms over me sometimes in the memory of my grandfather's warnings. He told me that Mrs. Saki was a life-long friend and that when she married a Jap after the war he was the only one to go to their house for dinner. I could see them in my mind eating alone each night and it made me shy to say hello when she would waddle out with stale cookies and mild and clasp her hand and tell me what a beautiful young lady I was. He said to be careful who you marry because people can't trust a Jap, not after Pearl Harbor and the war. He said you lose friends over a thing like that and friends are the most important thing in the world.

I imagine Mrs. Saki, who fell in love with a Japanese man when she was just barely an adult, who changed her name and her allegiances in so doing, sitting on her sun porch, nearly ninety, the memory of this street, as I know she does to spend her days after her stroke last year, watching me watch a half blind squirrel and realizing my mother must be hurt bad for me to come home from Kansas to spend a week with her and care after her garden and groceries.

I imagine how her life changed after my grandfather died. He first knew he was sick when he to her house to install a smoke detector because her husband was dead and she was too old even back then to climb a ladder. He stopped halfway up the stairs to catch his breath and died a half of a year later.

I wonder if when she looks at me she sees my death, like so many other deaths that have come and left gleefully. The way I see the death of this half-blind squirrel oblivious to a hungry hawk, exuberant to find such an easy prey.

I called my uncle today for the first time in so many years I am embarrassed to say. My uncle the devout Catholic, the Eucharistic Minister a product of the 50's, called to tell him how much I admire him and how I adore the things he said to me as a child that have taken hold in my imagination and given me a new life to grow into.

He listened from the other end of the phone and told me about the projects he is working on, teaching children to learn in new ways. A genius in his own right, but like my mom a terrible reader, the kind of person who loves words from behind a barrier, the way a cripple loves an athlete because of a body that can say the things his heart feels.

I have trouble with words. They come out of my throat like a broken vase. A gift one must apologize for. It is the thought that counts, but the prize that speaks for itself.

I told my mom today I have trouble sharing my feelings and I would like to keep it that way. If I could just tell her how I felt I might stop feeling it so passionately. Then when my undying love for her came swelling out in the middle of a snow storm, uneven, unexpected, too early or too late it wouldn't be because it had to, and she might not realize it is always there, the hug her lame arm will always feel, like the crocus her mother planted before she died from a heart attack that one Christmas day in a snow storm worrying that my mother wouldn't find her back from taking pictures with her new camera. She doesn't have to tell me she takes pictures to show to her dead mother. I know this silently, blindly. That crocus we stopped to look at and admire as it was pushing its way up between cracks in the walk, reaching for its short stint in the sun, sheltered by a sea of concrete from the storm that will take us all.

Then I lamented that there is no place for me in this town that holds my heart hostage and my mind at bay.

Mr Perfect

The chatters
BILLY - played by me, the coach, who (as her girlfriend and several ticket-writing officers can attest to) does not have a flirtatious bone in her body. She identifies as gender queer.

INLOVEWITHMRPERFECT - a former player of Billy's who attempts to chat with her constantly even though I she is no longer the girl's coach. Billy has blocked her numerous screen names time and time again. She is age 13 and identifies as female.

The setting
This scene takes place in cyberspace, a chat room. Your bodacious blogger buddy, me, Billy, hereafter referred to as Billy, is peacefully telecommuting while back in her home town in Binghamton, New York. This also happens to be the home town of Rod Serling, creator of . . .

The Twilight Zone

. . . She is helping her mother recover from spinal surgery. She is sitting in on the living room couch of the house she lived in while coaching division one soccer for Binghamton University and, simultaneously, coaching the most successful girls youth team in over a decade from New York West. Her former player, Inlovewithmrperfect, is at an unknown location. She was on that very successful youth team that was invited to join one of the most prestigious leagues in the country thanks, in part, to the coaching of yours truly. There is a snow storm. 1,000s of homes across the North East US are without power. It is mid April . . .

11:14 AM Today
inlovewithmrperfect: Hello?
Billy: yes?
inlovewithmrperfect: Do you remeber me?
Billy: depends on who this is
inlovewithmrperfect: This is [Kid's Name] from [Kid's Hometown], New York, You coached the [Kid's Team] ... I was on it!
Billy: yup i remember
inlovewithmrperfect: What happened to you?
Billy: long story, bud
inlovewithmrperfect: Why don't you coach us anymore?
Billy: you'll have to talk to your parents and jeff (club director)about that
inlovewithmrperfect: Were you fired?
Billy: nope
inlovewithmrperfect: Did you quit?
Billy: not exactly
inlovewithmrperfect: Oh, okay I wont ask anymore questions about that!
Billy: no prob, i just don't know where the discussion is at
inlovewithmrperfect: Do you still live in Binghamton?


11:20 AM
Billy: nope, i live in kansas city, but i am in binghamton sometimes to see my mom
inlovewithmrperfect: Why'd you move back?
Billy: because i needed a job and my old boss offered me a promotion
inlovewithmrperfect: Oh, cool
Billy: yup, it is a really neat job, actually
Billy: i design all kinds of neat stuff, virtual reality tours, television commercials, etc for [my place of employment]
Billy: anyhow, i have some lunch ready, hope school and soccer are going well
Billy: hope you are still writing
inlovewithmrperfect: Were not in Upstate Premier anymore
inlovewithmrperfect: Were in Region One. We are doing alright
Billy: nice job
inlovewithmrperfect: Yea
inlovewithmrperfect: One quick question
inlovewithmrperfect: Not to offend you or anything but why didnt you ever tell us?
Billy: tell you?

11:25 AM
Billy: that i was leaving?
inlovewithmrperfect: No. I dont want to be offencive to you
inlovewithmrperfect: So I dont know how to explain it
Billy: tell you what then?
inlovewithmrperfect: Dont take this offencivily
inlovewithmrperfect: Why didnt you tell us you were interested in the same sex?
Billy: i thought we talked about saying "no offense too much"
Billy: well i dont think who i date has anything to do with soccer, do you?
Billy: if you all asked jeff about who he dates, i am sure he would say it is none of your business
Billy: its not because he doesnt like you guys, it just is personal
inlovewithmrperfect: No, but I do think thats why most of the girls were shy towards you. If you would've come out and said listen ladies I am not hitting on you or trying to scare you but I have an interest in the same sex
Billy: same thing with danielle
inlovewithmrperfect: Danielle would talk about her boyfriend all the time (PS this is patently untrue, She made it up)
inlovewithmrperfect: We had a connection with her and she trusted us.
Billy: well, i think that expecting one person to act different because they date different people is unfair
inlovewithmrperfect: NOOO
Billy: and the reason most coaches dont talk about their relationships is because it has nothing to do with practice
inlovewithmrperfect: I am not saying that we were to act differently toward you but we would've felt more comfertable

11:30 AM
Billy: and especially for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer people - they can be discrimminated against if they do say things about their personal lives
Billy: especially to young people
inlovewithmrperfect: We were all afarid to talk to you or get near you becase we had all come up with the asumption that you did like the same sex and we were all SCARED, because you didnt talk to us about it.
inlovewithmrperfect: Remeber the night in the Hotel you had asked for a meeting in your room with no parents allowed? We were all afarid to come in without a parent.
Billy: because?
Billy: because you thought i was gay you were scared to be alone with me?
inlovewithmrperfect: Yes.
Billy: why?
inlovewithmrperfect: I dont know. We were just scared because we did not feel comfertable with you because you had never told us the truth.
Billy: well, kell, i guess my point is that it didn't matter to me who you guys dated, what religion you followed, whether you liked blue better than red, you were my team and i cared about you

11:35 AM
Billy: you are going to have a lot of coaches who are different from you and your parents, that doesnt mean they arent good coaches
Billy: and you can learn a lot by knowing them
inlovewithmrperfect: We cared about you too its just we could never get close to you or interact with you because none of us felt comfertable around you
Billy: but that wasn't my fault, that was just your own ideas and fears
Billy: unfortunately you have to work those things out for yourselves
inlovewithmrperfect: Wait a minute, I am not saying your a bad person. NOT AT ALL am I saying that its just that we would have felt more comfertable with knowing that our coach was interested in the same sex
Billy: do you know whether jeff likes girls or boys

11:40 AM
Billy: i have a feeling, what made things hard you guys is that the parents were talking about it and maybe even that someone might have told you guys some untrue things at one time or another, like that gay people like to date kids, which is a horrible lie, and that you weren't sure what to think. there are some parents who told me point blank that they didnt approve of my lifestyle. there are some parents who would have pulled their players from that team if I had said one word about being gay. and that would have hurt everyone. and i didnt want to make your season about me. but i will tell you that there are a lot of gay players and a lot of gay coaches and i am willing to bet that it is okay to be close to all of them, no one is trying to hurt you or convince you to think or feel anything that isnt right for you as a person.
Billy: does that help?

11:45 AM
inlovewithmrperfect: Not really
Billy: hehe, it is a tricky thing
inlovewithmrperfect: No but why couldnt you have said that to us durring the season?
Billy: i wasnt allowed to, buddy
Billy: i also wasnt allowed to have a team meeting with you after the season
Billy: and i have been coaching soccer for over 10 years, it was never an issue before
Billy: most of the parents I coached in Kansas had no issue with it
Billy: they had no issue with my haircut
inlovewithmrperfect: And the whole new strech thing where you grabbed Jill and told her to lay on her back and give you her leg and you started rubbing it, that was deffinatly creepy to most of the girls, and none of the parents had an effect on what you didnt feel comfertable saying to us. Why didnt you say it? It seems like you felt uncomfertable being that was as we were as uncomfertable of knowing that you were that way.

11:50 AM
Billy: hun, it was a stretch
Billy: it isnt a gay stetch
Billy: it is a real stretch all kinds of people do
inlovewithmrperfect: It was one of the things that made us come up with the conclusion we did
Billy: if i said "im gay and i want you to do this stretch, do you think it would make it any different"
Billy: well, you know, you could have just asked, if you really wanted to know
inlovewithmrperfect: We didnt want to offend you. But we sorta did. Did you feel that we were talking about you behind your back about you being gay?
Billy: well i remember being 13 and 14 and not really understanding gay stuff and feeling very confused and awkward, and I knew it was something you guys were struggling with, but I didnt want to tell you what to think or how to feel

11:55 AM
inlovewithmrperfect: Well we did do alot of talking behind your back and I feel bad for it but we couldnt just talk about our coach being gay out loud
Billy: sure you could
Billy: there is nothing wrong with talking about gay stuff
inlovewithmrperfect: But there is if your not gay
Billy: why?
Billy: hetero people talk about gay stuff all the time, gay people talk about hetero stuff, it is okay to talk about, it is better to talk about it then to worry about it
Billy: that is why i strongly suggested you talk to your parents
Billy: because they will be able to give you good information
Billy: and they wont assume that you are gay just because you ask
inlovewithmrperfect: Well no offence but I am a VERY big homaphobe and I have nothing against what you believe in or what you do just leave me out of it. Thats how I feel

12:00 PM
Billy: well, that much has been obvious for most of this conversation, bud
inlovewithmrperfect: Now that we have Rich as a coach we talk about how stupid the I believe in you thing was and we dont do it we believe in each other and we show it by trusting in ones ability to handle the ball
inlovewithmrperfect: Sorry
Billy: and I tried very hard to keep it from being an issue, but you really wanted to know, and changed your screen name in order to ask, so now you know
Billy: well, you dont have to like everything a coach asks you to do, the important thing is to try it
Billy: some people did like it, and needed to hear it
inlovewithmrperfect: No I changed my screen name because I found this guy that I love with all my heart and he loves me too so thats what my screen name says. In Love W/ Mr.Perfect!!
Billy: well, rich is a good coach, i'm sure you'll do great with him
inlovewithmrperfect: Hes AWESOME and we all love him hes like another father to us all

12:05 PM
Billy: kell, what i want to know is why, if you are suck a homophobe, it was important to talk to me about coming out to the team? i am way older than you guys, i never flirted with any of you, i am really disgusted by the idea that you think i enjoyed touching someone's legs . . . why are you writing to me? have you asked yourself?
inlovewithmrperfect: if you are suck a homophobe???
Billy: such
Billy: typo
Billy: like, do you hate gay people that much that you just have to know what everyone you meet is doing when they arent at soccer
Billy: because that is just sad
inlovewithmrperfect: I have. I am really disgusted that you wouldnt tell us the truth.
Billy: i feel bad for you
Billy: do you know that 1/10 people are gay?
Billy: that means some of your teachers are gay
inlovewithmrperfect: I am also disgusted that you think that I am trying to target you and be mean to you. I dont have any bad thought about you. I understand that it was your choice
Billy: someone in your family is probably gay
inlovewithmrperfect: NONE of my teachers are gay you can tell if someones gay.
Billy: 1/10 people you pass on the street are gay
Billy: no, you cant
inlovewithmrperfect: Yes you can.
Billy: you can tell that i am gender-nonconforming, that is different from gay
Billy: many famous women's soccer players are gay
inlovewithmrperfect: i am gender-nonconforming?? You are??
Billy: including abby waumbach, one of the premier athletes in the world
Billy: well i have a shaved head

12:10 PM
inlovewithmrperfect: You can tell your gay just by the way you acted towards us. By the way you took it when Laura told you this BULLSHIT story that I called her gay.
Billy: listen, you just told me you are a homophobe, that you think it is disgusting, but you arent being mean to me, you have repeated every silly stereotype out there about gay people, you really need to talk to a teacher or your parents because, truthfully a lot of the things you just said are sexist
inlovewithmrperfect: I would NEVER disriminate a gay, lesbian, by-sexual, etc thats wrong and I was raised better its just sad that you dont realize that not everyones out to get you. Not everyone thinks gays a bad and they should all die. I am one of the few that dont think you should die because everyone has a reason to live no matter what they do differently
inlovewithmrperfect: What did I say thats sexist?

12:15 PM
inlovewithmrperfect: Thats sad that you think that everyones out to get you and that I am being more mature than you about this situation
Billy: kelli, i sat in an office with jeff and paul and listened to them say that they were thinking of dismissing me because your parents had issues with the fact that i identify as a gender-noncomforming (which, btw is illegal and i have reported this to their bosses), i get stopped by security guards when i walk out of women's bathrooms, people dont let their kids play with me, people say horrible things to me as i walk down the street, i hear people make fun of 'fags, homos, queers" etc all day long, some of my friends have been beat up, many many people have been killed in this country, this year for being gay, people dont hire me because i dont look like a sexy girl
Billy: i challenge you to go through a day with a note book and write down how many times you hear people say bad things about gays or how many times they use the word gay to mean something bad
inlovewithmrperfect: I do EVERYDAY. But that mam is not directed towards you at all
Billy: well, kell, it is
Billy: it is directed at straight people too

12:20 PM
Billy: it is a warning that you better fit in, or else
Billy: and it is wrong
Billy: it is just like when white people use the n-word
inlovewithmrperfect: You better sit there and listen to this miss.
inlovewithmrperfect: I dont give a damn about what people think about me. It makes me very angry when people think I do care.
inlovewithmrperfect: I DONT
Billy: that is fine, and trust me i know that not everyone is out to get me, that doesnt mean that the things you said werent sexist, and it also doesnt mean that it is untrue when I say some people are out to get me
inlovewithmrperfect: If you care what people think your screwed up because you know what, there just thought and no one is perfect everyone has flaws your gay I cant read well my boyfriend cant say his L's my uncle has a lisp some of my friends have mental issues and cut. THATS WHO THEY ARE. Dont change something thats not broken.
inlovewithmrperfect: NO wait please tell me some of the things I have said that are sexist?
Billy: i have to care what people think about me, kelli, i need a job, i like to coach soccer, which means parents have to trust me, etc
Billy: ex: i didnt want to get close to you because i thought you were gay, we didnt want to be in your hotel room, etc
inlovewithmrperfect: If they dont like you screw them, you need to accecpt the fact that you are who you are and, no one should change you.
Billy: no duh, kiddo
Billy: i have totally done that
inlovewithmrperfect: Thats not being sexist its being scared because you dont have the courage to come out and say that you are infact a lesbian

12:25 PM
Billy: first, i am not a lesbian
Billy: second, i have all the courage in the world, i am a gay activist for chrissakes
inlovewithmrperfect: someotherchatter: lol yeah there are way to many queers and lesbos here (thats someones view)
inlovewithmrperfect: you cant change how people think
Billy: that means my name and my face are in the gay world
Billy: i know that, and all i was trying to do was coach soccer
Billy: i wasnt trying to change what you guys thought
inlovewithmrperfect: If you have courage then why didnt you tell us? Did you not have pride in what you are?
Billy: again, i wasnt trying to change what you guys thought
Billy: i was just trying to coach soccer
Billy: i only talked to you about gay stuff when things were out of line or you asked me a direct question
Billy: and honestly, my personal life is none of your business
Billy: it shouldnt matter who i date
inlovewithmrperfect: Coach soccer in the closet? No pun intended
Billy: i was never in the closet, it isnt my job to tell you what to think
inlovewithmrperfect: It doesnt but it did have a great effect on the girls you coach...
Billy: why? does it matter to you who rich sleeps with?
inlovewithmrperfect: He has a WIFE

12:30 PM
Billy: i think it bothered you guys that i didnt look like a girl, or your idea of what a girl should look like
Billy: how do you know i dont have a wife
inlovewithmrperfect: You prolly do...
Billy: so, what is the real issue
inlovewithmrperfect: no one cares tho, thats your lifestyle and no one is asking you to change your lifestyle
inlovewithmrperfect: Do you?
Billy: it obviously matters to you, it affects the way you think about me, which affects the way you felt about me being your coach, which is why i do have to care what people think
Billy: it is none of your business
Billy: and it has nothing to do with how well i coach
inlovewithmrperfect: You did flirt with us.. sorry to state the facts but it is true (Patently untrue as well)
Billy: no, i didnt flirt with you
inlovewithmrperfect: Not with ME, but some girls on the team
Billy: no, i didnt flirt with any of the girls on the team
inlovewithmrperfect: Yes
Billy: see, this is what i mean by sexist, kiddo

12:35 PM
inlovewithmrperfect: I may be but the question I ask you is WHY? Why didnt you tell us?
Billy: I already told you that. Some day you might understand. Save this conversation and reread it. But, we're done, I don't need to repeat myself constantly. You obviously just want to say inflammatory things, good luck to you, i hope the team does well, but i don't ever want to talk to you again
inlovewithmrperfect: Are you serious?
inlovewithmrperfect: How much more immature could you get? Your how old 33 and you act 3 (she was way off on my age, btw)
Billy: Well, game knows game, grandpa.
inlovewithmrperfect: Well Billy I didnt mean to say offending things but remeber you told me Billy: i thought we talked about saying "no offense too much"

---------

Key Questions for parents or educators:

Q:What do you think the player's motives are for asking questions? Is it possible she, herself, is worried she is gay?

Q:What are some of the indicators that the player was not alone and was fielding questions from others?

Q:Has this player's parents done a good job in talking to her about gender and sexuality?

Q:Does the coach ever reveal her own sexual preferences? Practices? Beliefs?

Q:At what point does the coach get to stop following the general rules of thumb about coaching and start stating her beliefs?

Q:How would you handle the immediate phone call, as a parent, that went to this player's mom after the chat session?

Q:At what point would you have blocked this player for the tenth or so time?

After Life

I awoke this morning and stole silently out of the house. I left no note or kisses on the cheeks of dogs or you, lover. I left no warm coffee congealing in pot's bottom, no cup with dark ring in the clean sink. TV wasn't set to favorite channel, computer was empty of tabbed windows. Public radio was off. There is no tooth brush spittle on mirror. Towels are perfectly folded and dry. And sleeping dogs still lie.

I worried as I left that you might think I didn't love you, that I was ghost-like, ether-bound, a figment of your imagination - a Sabrina.

I wanted you to awake to a world that was fully your own with no opinionated weight pushing you to do this or do that. For that I burdened you with the feeding of the dogs and the making of dirty dishes.

I sped off to the hum drum half life I have created for my daytime self. The world is full of a sitting gray. It is a small window showing-off over cast skies under a flickering yellow hum and a bleating electric whine. Everyone answers their ringing, blinking boxes the same way, settling into the day seat.

I said I chose this daytime life, but that was a half truth. I was broken into it. I once saw freedom in an open field, full of childhood and yelling, of girls running and spitting into the eye of the sun - of youth. That dream was dashed by two people, men by chance, real men who decided that I had no rights to youth because my face didn't match my vagina. For that offense I have been taught to fear children.

Never-mind that you have told me, repeatedly, that I was built to be a gay man.

I am sure these unappointed arbiters of social graces could think of nothing worse than you fucking me in the ass. Though perhaps had they known that I would have been allowed to keep teaching girls how to kick a ball with their shoelaces instead of their toes. At this my heart leaps and sinks like when I watch the men at the gym pinch their own mass into efficacy as if rolling the world into a ball.

Then again, I have heard people say, accusingly, that gay women have more rights than gay men, I have heard straight men complain that gay women have more rights than them, I have heard gay women complain transgender women have more right than them as if we had stolen something from each other.

And here we all meet at the gym, sculpting ourselves into each other's fantasies.

And I think: They must not know that I have listened to parents say, indignantly, that I am not to talk to their daughters, though having passed background check after tedious background check, though having passed test after test, after proven myself in practice and winning ribbon and trophy after ribbon and trophy. I have listened to men and women in power list reasons, baseless and banal, why the way I look disqualifies me from working with youth, the public, the media, the right, the left, the middle, the happy, the disturbed, the impressionable, the hard-headed. And it has at times made me greedy for the indisputable proof of worth I can never possess. I grew up listening to nuns who claimed to be the wives of Jesus Christ tell me for 14 years that I have no right to love or to be loved in the only way I can. I have sat and listen to lesbians tell me that they are normal and fighting for a natural love, not like those drag queen freaks. I have listened to gay men violently attack women's bodies with their words, I have heard transgender folks call for the expulsion of undocumented workers because they had no natural right to these lands, that they feel they own, unquestionably as second class citizens who have to sell their bodies or their souls to put food on the table. I have heard a whole host of people, bound together by the same injustices rip one another a part like rabid dogs for the pleasure of their masters.

Then again, I have sat with people, gay and straight, of all colors and creeds and enjoyed a meal or a drink and felt alive, though I can count those times on the tips of my pleading fingers - let us give thanks and make it through this meal without destroying each other.

Perhaps, they thought I might agree, all of them, that a master's intoxicating approval is the only meaning in life. Perhaps they thought I would feel some sort of resounding shame, or resentment and find myself reborn, straighter, blonder, tanner, thinner, straighter, happier, straighter, better.

Never-mind what I have told you. It was of a nightmare rooted in traumas I am not allowed to speak of, after-all the two of us have learned decorum demands victimhood be silent to be palatable and I don't think we are the only ones.

Never-mind that you cried last night. Your beautiful face leaking into my bed. Go and forget this half life of fluorescent fear: seeing your dream and then seeing it taken away, trading dreams for Johns for cubicles, a modern revolution.

We feel the unending need to find lines in the shifting sand to stand behind, until we are boxed in, alone, standing on enough cracks to break all our fore-mother's backs.

Go and be freer than I am, please. Know that I love you, all of you, every bit.