Crimson and Clover

Many moons ago, I was "tagged" on myspace to compose one of those "Ten Things You May Not Know About Me" blog posts. One of the things I shared was a story from my past about passing as a boy when I was a wee queer. Recalling that story seems to have opened the proverbial flood gates for me, because since then, I have been working, off-and-on, on a writing project focusing on my life as a sentient little queer.

The story below is an expanded version of the one that first appeared on my myspace page. Out of all the personal stuff I have posted here, making this public leaves me feeling very fragile and exposed--treat me gently, but feel free to comment, criticize, or just shake your head at what a little freak I was.

Was?

Whatever.

Crimson and Clover

The days of my purposely trying to pass as a dude are far behind me, but, up until about 60 pounds ago, it happened quite often that I was seen and addressed as a guy. I guess I was about 10 or 11 years old the first time I successfully "passed." Up until then, when I was mistaken for a boy, my mother would quickly declare that I was a girl. In fact, I found out quite young that the people around me—family, friends, even strangers who recognized my inherent girliness—would "jump to my defense" when my sex was in question and quickly proclaim, all defensive-like, "She's a girl!" I always felt such a rush of emotions when that happened—pleased, of course, that someone had recognized the inescapable fact of my boyishness, and ashamed, of course, for failing so completely at being what I was supposed to be—a girl. It made me feel bad for my parents, too, when it happened in their presence, because it seemed to make everyone involved feel so incredibly uncomfortable—I hated, so much, being such a constant source of embarrassment.

So, anyway, I wasn't trying to pass on this particular day in 1978 or '79—when I was 10 or 11 and all skin-and-bones and (mostly) heavy-hearted because I knew I was queer, and I was pretty sure that it would someday crush me or get me killed. It was the weekend, it was sunny and hot, and my friend Shelly and I were at the elementary school on our skateboards, daring each other into more and more ridiculous stunts. Shelly lived in the house behind ours—in less than a minute I could walk out my back door, across our small backyard, hop the fence into her yard, and then be knocking at her door. Her house was pretty similar to ours in layout and size, except it had a basement with a pool table and, best of all, a full-sized, honest-to-goodness, genuine pinball machine. We just had a crawl space filled with bugs and mice.

Shelly lived with her mom and two brothers, who were the short, compact, amazingly-athletic kind of boys who seemed capable of any physical feat. They were track and field superstars at school and rode BMX bikes and skateboards the rest of the time—all the time. They built a half-pipe in their backyard, and Shelly and I would lay in the grass watching them and their friends kick, push, grind, fly … Whenever their energy took them out of the backyard and onto the sidewalks and streets, Shelly and I would immediately attack the half-pipe, mimicking their moves and earning bruises and scrapes that we wore like badges. Shelly was also compact and athletic like her brothers, and though I think I may have possessed more natural athleticism than she did, she made up for it with her total fearlessness. We pushed each other physically but got along effortlessly; Shelly had a peacefulness about her, and she was as kind and decent as she was courageous. We never talked about being queer, though I guess I thought somewhere inside that she was like me; we both wore our brothers’ old clothes, had short hair, played sports, didn’t have crushes on boys.

We spent our time together on skateboards or bikes, or playing some sort of sport or catch, or in Shelly’s basement listening to music and playing pinball or video games or with the racetrack or maybe just drawing. Once in a while another girl would join us—one of our cousins or the daughter of one of our mom’s friends or just someone from school, or from around the corner, or from wherever, and it would always be the most awkward scene: Shelly and I suggesting we play with the racetrack or ride skateboards or play spy or something, and the visitor looking totally dumbfounded and asking if we had Barbies or if we could play school or store…

The only time Shelly and I ever fought, it was when smoky-voiced Samantha came home after school with us. Samantha had dark, shoulder-length hair and possibly the first really green eyes I had ever seen, and she had that voice. I couldn’t have been more than 10 or 11, but even then I recognized that her voice was sexy. I loved to hear her talk, god. I think Shelly felt all the same things that I felt, because at some point, a pool game devolved into an actual, physical fight between the two of us. We had already had a strange three-way tussle, borne of some sort of cop/chase game that Samantha had actually suggested we play, though she was the first to disengage herself from the tangle, and she certainly seemed edgy afterwards. It was then that we tried to play a game of pool, but Samantha just sort of coolly watched while Shelly and I played, and I guess we just could not handle the tension of it all, because soon, Shelly and I were brawling. Samantha left while we were rolling around on the pool table, flushed and angry with each other in a way that we never had been before. Once we heard the door slam and came to our senses, we were both pretty embarrassed and ashamed. We made up and bonded over finding ways to blame Samantha for what had happened, though we never talked about any of it again.

At school, Samantha did a strange thing—she called me weird and giggled with her friends whenever I was around, but she asked the boy who sat across from me to swap seats with her, and he did. Shelly and I never fought or argued again, though we spent nearly every waking minute together, and though we encountered more girls together.

So, one impossibly sunny Saturday afternoon, Shelly and I were using the elementary school’s entrance ramp and its steel guard-rails to practice ollies and grinds. As usual, Shelly was quietly and determinedly pushing herself harder and faster and higher, though I’m the one who still has a quarter-sized scar on the outside of my left knee from spilling onto the ramp that day and dragging my knee along the cement for a few feet. I remember being pleased with the way the blood streaked down my leg and turned the top of my sock crimson. After crashing, I rode a little harder, emboldened by having crashed badly and lived, enjoying the way the wind stung my torn skin.

After a while, some girls rode their bikes into the schoolyard and spotted us. At first they just straddled their bikes and watched and talked amongst themselves, but soon enough they were sitting on the ground laughing and eating snacks from the nearby party store. There were three of them, all long-haired and honey-skinned from the sun.

Foxes.

Stone foxes.

Shelly and I didn’t say a word, but we each upped our games, flying higher and higher and slapping palms and laughing as we landed crazier and crazier tricks. Soon, the unimaginable happened, and the girls were flirting with us—hooting and hollering as we rode, calling out their names and asking ours (Shelly answered “Shane” and I went with "Mac," though, thankfully, it was misheard as "Max"), doing little cheers as we performed.

I still remember the look that passed between Shelly and me as we realized what was happening, and I still remember how it felt to catch air that day, the sun hot on my back, my board impossibly light, landing everything. I remember, too, walking toward these stone foxes once Shelly and I had completely exhausted ourselves. How my heart lodged in my throat. How the sun shone. How my legs shook. I had just pulled off some pretty sweet tricks on my board, but rolling across those ten feet of flat concrete seemed too risky on legs that suddenly felt like silly string, and so I picked up my board and walked, carefully.

Shelly, normally so quiet, was bold and talkative, and she let one of the girls try to stand on her board. They laughed together as the girl wobbled and Shelly steadied her. I absolutely could not believe what was happening. I stared at the clover-covered patch of earth, feeling light-as-a-feather, and then the girl with the darkest eyes and softest laugh offered me a pull off her bottle of Coke. Sharonda. Our fingers brushed and then held for a few beats longer than necessary, and when she smiled at me, I got dizzy and stared at my feet. She dropped down onto the ground and gently traced a circle around my wound, asking, “Why don’t you sit down?” I really had no choice, since her touch had taken the last bit of strength out of my ridiculous legs. I sat. She crossed her legs Indian-style, allowing her knee to rest against my thigh. It was one of the first moments in my life that I never wanted to end. I kept stealing glances at her knee on my thigh, her skin against mine, the clover beneath us. Too soon, one of the other girls said it was time for them to go, and so Shelly and I skated away, pumping hard, not saying a word, but in my head: Sha-ron-da, Sha-ron-da, Sha-ron-da...