Page 110 of Nearly Roadkill
Scratch looked around for the words again. “What about ‘sensitive guy,’ ‘great father,’ ‘loving husband.’ You know, those kinds of guys.”
“Scratch, I’m well aware of the options in that category.”
“So maybe you could make yourself over without… without ripping off women! Men can be great; it’s when they take from other people that they get so obnoxious!”
“Like time and power and physical space, uh-huh….” Winc was nodding hir head.
“Right!” Scratch shouted. “Women have redefined ‘woman.’ You can bet they got some shit for it too. Why can’t men do that?”
Winc sighed and nodded. “They should. Don’t you think I’ve been racking my brain about that? All my life? Here’s all I know. Can you hear this for a minute?”
“Of course.” Scratch turned to Winc, and hir voice was all quiet. “I don’t like feeling this way.”
“That’s a lot of why I love you,” Winc said simply. “And of course I love all of you.” Winc’s eyes were still sad. “Let me try this,” ze went on. “Maybe ‘better man’ was just too hard for me to define. Maybe the only solution was to join the other category, the one that’s got some hope.”
Scratch looked calmer than ze had for a while. “You mean abandon the category of man altogether? Like maybe it isn’t a category worth saving, the way it’s defined now?”
“Yes, maybe that’s it.”
“Because it’s such a fucked-up category and doesn’t even work that well for men themselves?” Scratch looked like a kid in my classroom.
“Exactly, dear,” Winc said. “I enjoy femme, Scratch. I enjoy just being in your butch company. I enjoy lots of things when you’re being lots of things.”
Scratch’s expression was this weird combination of wild-eyed and calm at the same time. “That’s really incredible,” ze said slowly, staring at thedashboard. I watched to make sure ze looked up at the road again. Ze did. Finally.
“That’s subversive!” Scratch said, and started muttering. “That really blows my mind, and I think I’m freaking out again.”
Winc shrugged. “I can’t imagine trying to work from inside ‘male’ again. I can’t imagine what it would take. I don’t think I could do it.”
But Scratch’s eyes were all lit up. “I always say when men get in my space that they’re invading. But maybe they really want to be women. Well, maybe not women, but not men either. Maybe we’re all not-women and not-men! Traction again!”
Winc smiled for the first time in a while, but ze still looked kind of distant. “So you’re saying there should be only one category or no categories at all?”
Scratch nodded.
“Yeah,” Winc said. “That’s a good one.”
Right then, the car started to sputter and cough. Out of gas. Unbelievable. Then something really funny happened… Scratch and Winc said to each other, at the exact same time:
“I can’t believe you let the gas run out. Just like a guy!”
They looked at each other and cracked up, then said, “Simulpost!”
Scratch pulled the car to the side of the road, and I chose that moment to say I was hungry—it seemed as good a time as any. All I’d been eating at Gywynth’s for five days was tofu!
There was a diner across the street. Winc realized we had to get back into drag if we were going into a restaurant. Scratch and I groaned, and I complained about having to put the fishnets back on. Thank gawd Winc said I didn’t have to.
Back went Winc’s mustache; I could see how ze used to look when I was growing up, but ze still looked like someone completely different and now I could also see how Scratch looked… funny… in that dress, something not quite right. I’m still not sure if it was cuz I knew ze was a woman who never wore that stuff, or if I was still getting used to seeing hir in the flesh after imagining hir online.
So we all trooped to a diner across the road, proper family that we were, walked in, sat at a table, and looked at our menus. The waitress came overand our jaws all went slack, and I swear we all just stared at her shirt. She was wearing an “I Like Scratch and Winc” sweatshirt! I had to think of something cuz it was zombie-town at our table, so I whined “I’m hungry” in a high voice.
It worked; they both looked up at the waitress’s face and flapped their menus around. Then the waitress turned to Winc and asked ‘him’ what we were having, ignoring me and Scratch, right? And Winc, I can’t believe this, Winc sat up straight, and cleared hir throat, and stroked hir mustache, and in this way deep, grown-up guy voice, said to Scratch, “Honey, what are you having?” I thought Scratch was gonna pee right there, but then Scratch ran with it. Ze got all sweet and smiley and said to Winc, “Oh, you order for me. You always pick something nice.”
Then Winc almost lost it. But ze went completely into “Dad-ordering-us-breakfast” mode, and the waitress walked away like nothing was strange.
Then it was silence again until our food came. All three of us tore into it.
“I want to get back to something you said, Scratch,” said Winc around a mouthful of waffles. “About sensory overload.”
