46-And in this Corner…

We moved for the third time because somebody stalked Tom, waited until we went to a movie, then broke into the van and stole his equipment.

I’d never experienced a robbery before. Such things didn’t happen during my lily-white suburban upbringing—that I knew of—and whenever a crisis did arise, my parents handled it efficiently, coldly, and outside of my presence. Sure, a guy once tried to steal my groceries as I walked to my Seventh-and-Berendo studio apartment in Los Angeles, but I yelled, “No!” and jerked my bag away, thus thwarting that could-be-crime. Ergo, my reaction to the van break-in was a first for me.

And it was hardly earth-shattering. All I did was run into the apartment, call the police and insurance company, then start calling everyone I could find in Tom’s address book who might be able to lend him a keyboard or amp so he could get on stage the next night.

Meanwhile, my husband threw himself down in the van and cried.

Now, let’s be real. My actions were not only reasonable, but normal for a boy/non-girl—just as his behavior woulda been perfectly understandable were he a girl/non-boy. But he looked like this,  

and I looked like this

and the identity/reaction mismatch confused the hell out of nearly everyone.

But what were we supposed to do with our ass-backwardness? What was the “proper” way for Tom to cope with me once again (according to FA) emasculating him by taking care of business? I’d already screwed up by non-holding him while he sobbed, non-providing wifely comfort and support until he pulled himself together. I manned up instead, non-playing the woman-behind-the-man role.

Honest to Murgatroyd, I didn’t know how (or why) I’d try to pull that off.

And what of Tom’s reaction? Was he supposed to get angry about my meddling? (Apparently.) Would it have been more socially acceptable if he’d wrested control out of my hands and misogynistically thrust me away to maintain a superior posture? (Indubitably.) Was there some sector of humanity wherein he could/should have fallen all over himself thanking me for doing what had to be done? (Hardly.)

On the other side of that multidimensional coin, was I now expected to lose respect for my husband for non-manning up? (That was the prevailing thought.) Should I have ripped him a new one for being overwhelmed and bewildered, for not immediately reining in his distress or knowing what the hell to think, do, or feel next? (Well, duh, obviously, right?) Was it necessary—nay, mandatory—to belittle him, deride his girlish emotionality in the face of my ostensibly unfeeling stoicism? (And run to couple’s counseling for help getting over his unseemly gender betrayal?)

Against all odds and advice, we mutually defulatednone of the above, because culture is man-made, social mores ebb and flow, but spirit/soul is a fundamental yet ever-evolving, constant. Sorry, that’s just reality, and unlike my daughter--who Fezzik still complained couldn’t differentiate between real and make believe—I was eminently grounded in reality. I had no space for third-party mythology.

In case it isn’t obvious, Tom and I both fielded the above and myriad other reactions from our supposed friends and concerned families when they heard about our role reversals. From whom? Uh… Tom. The man had a phone fetish and an unstoppable mouth. Yet while that particular rabbit hole might be fascinating to explore for pages, even volumes, the matter at hand—the one in which I had to craft a mosaical pattern that would allow me to continue putting food on the table while preserving Tom’s ego, reassuring our daughter, mollifying both our mothers, and getting his shattered career back on track—was all about the prevailing American (read White, read religious, read Christian) taboo against said role-reversal authenticity.

Sidebar, Your Honor? Notwithstanding modern religion’s control-based tenets, some people are and have always been two-spirited or dual-natured, born both masculine and feminine or, sometimes, non-either. That’s just the fact, Jack. Doesn’t matter if the powers-that-be don’t “believe” it any more than it matters if anti-science folk question gravity. Reality is not about belief, or comfort, or control, or even safety, rights, or freedom, for that matter. It’s just “what is.” We can argue whether a tree has sentience as our feeble human minds understand that concept, but no matter our opinion, trees have life, they have substance, and they emanate electromagnetic waves. That’s simple reality.

As for my reality: regardless of cultural acceptability, my soul is primarily masculine with a feminine overlay endowed by the corporeality in which I live. Tom was my natural opposite; hence our serial re-carnate matings. And no, I didn’t acquire this knowledge from a book or on TikTok or at a university lecture; I spent a lifetime paying attention to the slow revealings of my own existence, to my observations, to the deconstructive abilities I was gifted with at birth for the purposes of exercising them throughout this materialization. That’s my/our reality. And since we could not possibly be the only humans to have such experiences, logic dictates the campaign to snuff out such reality wonders is one hundred percent human-devised.

Perfectly reasonable, right? I mean, the abstract is always suspect by the controlled; power being finite, the very nature of containment/‌command hinges on eliminating otherness, any source of challenge or deviation from the self-proscribed norm, and any sense of ineffability—

… oops. Sorry. Rabbit hole. Getting back to it…

Tom and I had no choice but to either squarely face our mutual non-genderosity—or not. We chose to not. As soon as our auto-insurance agent confirmed we were covered and a few non-FA friends said they’d be glad to help, my husband’s steel core reasserted itself and he took over the phones. Despite FA’s “suggestion” that he “take whatever time necessary” to regroup, Tom was onstage the following night with unruffled showmanship. When the insurance money came through—not much, but enough—he doubled-down by buying two of the same synths, the better to keep at least one in the pink. Fortunately, the thieves hadn’t been able to swipe his 250-pound Fender Rhodes, 150-pound Fender keybass, or the rugged, three-space Anvil case holding his sound system, so he was never actually out of business. In fact, he came roaring back after the catastrophe with such ferocity that his reputation rose perceptively in the club-musician community. FA’s… did not.

Considering what happened a few years later, did I suspect Mr. Slimy Misogynist FA Drummer had somehow been behind the theft?

Of course not! How could anyone even think such a thing?! Why, it would take a cynical, hard-hearted, bitch-of-a-bastard to even entertain an idea like that.

Let me be clear: I didn’t hate FA due to how he treated me. I hated him because I sensed he’d betray Tom in an eye-blink. Cassandra intuition? I don’t think so. I suspect my thirty-some-odd years observing life as an other gave me insights I instinctively knew better than to explain. Either way, I purposely hid my real motivation (to ease Tom’s now-constant security fears) and lied about why we had to move yet again, claiming our daughter needed to go to a better school.

She didn’t need a better school. She was perfectly happy where she was, outshining everyone in her class. Granted, she wasn’t being challenged, but she was comfortable, a fact that, had I a semblance of momosity, would have taken precedence over all else. But I was deep in protect-and-provide mode, Tom was my savior and champion, so I confess: yes, I did put him and his needs first. No momosity, but still an unbreakable spiritual connection. No doubt I made the wrong choice. Then again, who knows? Maybe it was for the best. Maybe it was meant to be, a destiny beyond anyone’s control.

Betcha not.

In any event, done is so-long-ago-done it’s too late even to castigate myself about all the motherhood mistakes I made thereafter. My one focus with Baby was to make sure she always felt loved and lovable. I’m pretty sure I pulled that part off, because my kid turned out too wonderful to be stopped by anyone or anything.

Meanwhile, I found a duplex with a lockable garage snuggled around a mostly hidden corner in a safer, i.e., less diverse, neighborhood on a cul-de-sac within a cul-de-sac—a nice home with a wonderful fireplace, a bird’s-eye-view of OJ Simpson’s Ford Bronco being slow-chased by the cops, and a nightmare landlord. Who knew? He seemed a reasonable-enough guy.

The landlord, that is. OJ was another matter.

Retrospectively, the fact that our new rental’s owner got along so well with my mother when she went to see the place (without my knowledge) shoulda tipped me off that all would not end well with the old bird, although his wife was a sweetheart-and-a-half. But when all is said and done, ya gotta remember: I was still dumbasfuck, still getting through life by the seat of my increasingly tight pants and dragging my reluctant but yielding family in my wake.

Disclaimer: no animals died during any of these various moves. No mother-of-all-monsters came to an untimely end because I did what seemed best for my family. Fezzik did not lose his shit over this next interlude, and no one incurred irreversible (physical) harm from any of its unexpected or unconventional events, circumstances, or Halloween candy. So breathe. It’ll all work out.

Right up until it doesn’t.