The Kid (36 page)

I look at the print I got at the Whitney exhibit
To Repel Ghosts,
1986, but I seen the real thing. Can I live this fucking life? On the other wall I have
Undiscovered Genius,
1982–83: In the right-hand corner of the painting, a drawing of a slave ship, sickles, forks, axes.

 

Q:
are not princes kings? The Dark (then under The Dark,
is crossed out)
(crossed out) versus the devil

Who’s that? Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson? Modern genius, Jimi, Vernon Reid?

I looked at the painting, read My Lai’s Xeroxes, it’s not a lie. My Lai’s wrist? I stretch out on my silky sheets courtesy of Amy. Fuck her, she’s boring. I want My Lai. She gonna be my baby mama? Hah! Shut up, fool, don’t no bitches want you, you polluted by Roman and the fags at St Ailanthus? You shit. What you gonna do, rape her? She don’t want you. Maybe she don’t like black boys, a lot of them don’t. I look back at the painting and the blue wall above it. I see sky and a clothesline with one blue dress flapping in the wind on it and a teenage Toosie jumping up to snatch it.
That’s
la danse! I think, springing off the bed and jumping straight into the air. And
that’s
me. And
that’s
why I’m gonna make it, parents or no parents, school or no school, loft or no downtown funky chic. I put on some sounds,
Bird Meets Diz,
and read some more.

Heroin, that’s what he did; why don’t I? I don’t know, I don’t feel to do it, I never been around it; what made them do it, I know I would never get hooked, but what made them do it, what does it feel like, I don’t know nobody who does it. Snake said My Lai has; that bitch has done everything. Read some more from Greg Tate’s essay in
Flybook in the Buttermilk:

Why is it significant to me? I don’t know; I don’t have words like that inside me; when I think, it’s with a contraction of my torso, or a leap like a fucking savage. Savage! OOga BOOga. I’m gonna be like those paintings, like everything I ever loved. I’m gonna
be
that. And that means off your ass and PRACTICE till you drop.

I’m gonna get some fajitas, around six, four, I don’t know, lemme count my change, and some donuts, and then come back and work.

 

 

A COUPLE
of days later, I’m at Astor Place Starbucks with Snake, and he comes out with this “what’s your story” thing.

“Say what?”

“What’s your story?”

I never think of my life as a story. I think of myself as a kid trying to make it. What fucking story? It ain’t been written yet.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“You know, where are you coming from, gay, straight, uptown, downtown, out of town.”

I look at Snake. Shit, what do I know about him, what’s this all about? What, he’s the CIA now?

“I’m from Harlem, born raised. I’m straight. How about you?”

“Well, not so fast.”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘Not so fast’?”

“I wanted to ask you something else.”

“Like I exist to answer your questions, man?”

“Wow, don’t go hostile on me.”

“I’m not, man, but whas up with the Q&A?”

Who the fuck does he think he is? I feel like slapping him.

“So where are
you
coming from, up down gay straight?”

Why am I even doing this? I know where he’s coming from.

“I’m transgender,” he says.

Hmm, oh well, I thought I did.

“So what’s that? You going surgical?” I ask.

So why me, why is he telling this shit to me?

“It’s like a wrong body-assignment type thing, so it’s more spiritual than surgical.”

Getting your dick cut off. Does he really believe that?

“So what does that mean for
you,
you like to dress up or what?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“But you can ask me shit?”

“I don’t feel like a man; I feel like a woman.”

“So are you gay?”

“It has nothing to do with that, I guess.”

“You
guess
?”

“Well, if I get . . . get . . .
go forward,
with the transformation, then, you know, I guess I’ll be, like, straight. A man, I mean a woman loving a man.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Why is this making me sick? “Lemme ask you something, Snake.”

“Shoot.”

“You’re going to get your penis cut off?”

“It’s called sex reassignment—”

“Don’t you love your dick?”

“I want to fuck like a woman.”

“And what about kids?”

“Oh, I’ll adopt if I get, you know, married. But man, that’s way down the line. It’s not that I don’t love dick, it’s just that I don’t want to be one.” He laughs.

I can’t believe he thinks that’s funny.

“Who wants kids anyway?” he says.

“I do!”

Wow, I hadn’t even thought about it before, I just assumed no, I don’t, hell no, but I do, I want kids, a girl, maybe a boy, I don’t know about a boy.

Snake’s not as tall as me, but he is definitely as—no,
more
ripped than me, and his chest is wider—where they gonna throw the silicone? Who does he become? Snake with some shit pumped in him and his dick cut off?

“Have you thought about how this would affect your dancing, man?”

“I’ll keep on dancing.”

“As a . . . as what?”

“As a dancer.”

“Ha! I like that, man!”

“So, like, Abdul, I ain’t trying to bend you over or no shit. So whas up with you, can’t nobody be your motherfucking friend, mystery man?”

“No, it’s not like that.”

“I need a cigarette break, let’s go outside.”

So talk to me, he says, and squats down like you see kids and sometimes old Chinese on the subway platform. Sucking on his cigarette, he waits, and I sit down on the sidewalk, cross my legs in lotus position in front of Starbucks, and tell him how hard it was when my mother died of cancer, then my father right after that in the Gulf War, but my grandmother used to dance at the Cotton Club way way back in the day, and she was into me getting lessons and that’s how I got in City Kids and Imena’s class at 135 City-Rec, and I kept studying and studying, and then you know I came downtown and got with you guys and shit. I don’t know why, but I decided not to open up to him, what did he really tell me about hisself, except he’s going to no-man’s-land? And I don’t understand that world, my dick is my friend; shit, sometimes I think it’s my only friend. He ain’t trying to bend me over—like fuck he ain’t. Well, I’m curious too. And since he’s trying to heist me, I just go ahead and ask him, is he hitting Scott, and what about My Lai, has Scott ever been down with her?

“No, he ain’t really gay, but I have fucked him, too much cognac and Ecstasy one night, but it’s always a cool bonding experience for me with these straight guys, you know. He used to go with this black Dominican chick, but his sister’s shit messed that up.”

“I so don’t get what you’re talking about.”

“Well, you know he’s a PC machine, parents gave him all this training and shit, and he wanted to choreograph and I guess, you know, be like the next Bill T. Jones. So that’s where he and Ricky and a whole lot of them got together with this deep abstract shit that didn’t really mean shit, and My Lai was throwing down with him as far as the money too, and it was cool. Well, you know, you came on in.”

“But what’s this big mystery with his sister?”

“Nothing, if he hadn’t been so square, he would have got in there with her, but, you know, his parents lied to him, and then he lied to himself, and then he stopped lying to himself, but he didn’t know what to do except be who he was, which was square. But what the hell! We are dancing and getting work—”

“And you still haven’t told me what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“The money, his sister wrote a book and made a movie called
Traders.
Underneath all their New England shipping-scion shit, they were really slave traders. That’s how they made their money. And she challenged them, the siblings, to walk from the ducats. And none of them did. His thing was he was going to change the world with his art and he was going to use the money to right wrongs, yadda-yadda, you know how people trip. Don’t be so hard on
un
-homeboy. He’s trying to do right, but this has all been in the past year or so since the bitch went off on the family.”

“Let’s go, man, my ass is going to sleep sitting on this hard pavement.” I laugh.
Wow,
I think,
that’s some totally bizarre shit
, but I don’t care, I wanna dance with Herd, get a job, get in a college dance program....

I read in Stride’s newsletter that Roman is getting some kind of lifetime-achievement award from some American dance foundation.

 

 

“WELL, GOOD NEWS,
we got a commission and we’re going to get paid to do My Lai’s piece at Dance Theater Studio,” Amy announces, hugging a clipboard to her chest.

It all sounds good to me, especially the money. Starbucks wanted a NY State ID or school ID, which I didn’t have.

“It’s not that hard, Abdul,” Snake said.

“Look, go down to 125 Worth Street between Centre and Lafayette. Tell them you lost your birth certificate. I did it. They’ll ask you to fill out a form with, you know, your mother’s name, mother’s place of birth, father’s name, et cetera,” Scott says.

She said she didn’t know who my father was. He was gone and didn’t ever want us, and that’s the end of that, don’t ask me again, ever. I hated her for that.

“I did it,” Snake says.

“You got a valid photo ID?” Scott asks.

“No, I got a birth certificate. That’s what he needs so he can get a valid photo ID.” Snake.

“OK, My Lai did it—” Scott again.

“I think she did it in Connecticut.” Snake.

“No, she did it here. He can too. You need two utility bills or letters from government agencies,” Scott rattles off.

“What the fuck?” I say.

“No, listen, it’s not that hard,” Scott insists. “We switch the landline in here to your name. There’s electric and gas; we can get it switched to your name or add your name to the bill.”

“Do you have a Social Security card?” Snake asks.

“I know the number.”

“OK, so it’s all good,” Scott says.

“Shit, people come over here from Russia and shit and have documents. . . .” First thing from Amy.

“Probably with your name on it.” Snake laughs.

“Stop, Snake.” Scott.