ruidoso Pt II
Ruidoso pt ii
Sometime before we get to our hotel in Big Spring, TX—which is comically springless and full of people who chew their cheeks between words—we stop at a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint.
The hostess points at a booth and asks if we mind sitting there, but Brendan, strangely, asks to sit on the opposite side of the room. I think to myself, That’s odd, and insist the booth is fine. Maybe he’s tired. We’ve been driving all day, after all, and Brendan gets prickly when he’s hungry. Then he motions me to walk a long way around the table and sit, inconveniently, on the other side. Annoyed by the impractical suggestion, I shake my head and sit in the chair right in front of me.
He shrugs and says, I’ll tell you later.
The food is surprisingly good. It’s such a relief after the long day of driving and I am glad to finally see everyone laughing, throwing little bits of napkin into goals they’ve fashioned out of silverware.
About halfway through our meal, I get nervous I forgot to lock the car. When I get up to check, I turn around to face the room, and it clicks: everyone in the restaurant is leering. At me. I’m dressed pretty plain, a white shirt, black jeans, tennis shoes, a bomber, a little eyeliner; but it doesn’t matter. A casually-dressed clown walks into the old-timey western saloon and the room goes silent.
Walking to my car, I realize how much Brendan cares about me, to think about me like that, to consider where I sit and how, to avoid telling me out loud, but to, instead, suggest this or that with subtlety, with the point of a finger, with a shrug.
I am so lucky to have what I do.
It’s a weird feeling, fitting in and then all of a sudden not. I took it for granted, all the things I was allowed: the unawareness, the nonchalance, the average acceptable decibel volume of my speech. The way I look now carries with it a whole lot of baggage, and I can’t seem to make myself small enough.
I sit in the front seat of my car for a minute before disrupting everyone’s dinner again. A man with sores on his face passes and I find myself locking my door. That’s a new thing I do, I guess. I check my phone.
208,224 notifications on Instagram; 18,452 on Facebook. Most of the comments are kind, but the preview of the one at the top says this: “Not a woman. Stop. There is nothing brave…”
I wake up in the hotel bed with a dead laptop on my chest. They’re knocking on the door. It’s past checkout. I try to get my bearings as quick as possible, but I keep thinking about my dream. I was walking through the West-Texas desert, where I found a dead black cow. It was covered in flies, and, when I saw them they saw me back and rose up from the carcass all biblically. They swarmed. I ran, but they followed, closing the gap, landing on my skin, crawling, buzzing, rubbing their little hands together like the mustachioed villains that tie women to train tracks in old-timey movies.
We pack up the car while three maintenance workers watch us from a cherry picker. They are cleaning a pigeon infestation in the alcoves above the motel’s shit-covered walkway. They seem to be friendly, but they’re staring with a certain kind hyena-like intensity, half-humorous but a little malicious, too. One of them mentions he’d looked us up from my Under The Rug bumper sticker and found pictures.
I ask them what kind of music they like and they say some bands that sound like us, so I tell them to give the songs a listen. They smile and nod. We wave goodbye as we pull away and Sean says, “That was weird.”
We turn down the road, and hit a roadkill possum that tears the protective cover beneath my car. It scrapes unpleasantly on the cracked asphalt. We call some tire shops, and one offers to help us out if we can scrape over there immediately.
Casey – I am sorry to read about your restaurant experience. When I first started transitioning, a dear friend and mentor warned me about how it can sometime be a lonely, uncertain and frightening experience. Even after years of living and passing as my authentic self I still occasionally get the stink-eye. But the beautiful part in this journey is seeing how many more people love and accept me for who I am. If you focus on those people the few that can’t appreciate you will fade into the background. Hugs, hermana!
Brendan – you are so awesome! Every LGBTQ person should have someone like you in their life. Way to look out for a friend.
❤️