In The Last Breath I Take Before I Tell Him

In the last breath I take before I break the rules—I am a rule-follower—It is not something we have in common, but he has perhaps come to expect it from me—the rule of the Irish, the rule of the straight, the rule of men—his rules—one of the Catholic rules, the only one he kept—the rule that you do not tell your father things about yourself—

Before the emerald, velveteen couch in the bar swallows me whole, before the stunning, sweet, enviably elegant waitress hands me another five-pound free-weight in a rocks glass to swallow, before I turn into a swallow, disappear out of my shirt in a blinding chevron, burst from the bar an old navy bullet from a naval officer’s gun, before I finish the fourth? Fifth? murky brown glass divided over my tolerance of two, before I tell him that my tolerance will get worse—alcohol competes with estrogen in the liver—before I tell him that I will never match him drink for drink, I will never match or exceed him in height, or bench press weight, I will never out-man my father by physical metrics or even come close and I am so, so happy to know that, before I declare that I will never use Irish Spring again, before I explain that I will not under any circumstances be shipping out to Boston—

Before a woman who sounds so much like Lauryn Hill finishes singing her song about a song, before he finishes his song, which is killing me, quite violently, battering me into the cushions beneath his notice like two bigger boys did once at a playdate, the biggest issue I had about it being that it wasn’t two girls, before he can say another thing about John McCain, before he compares living with a transgender child to John McCain’s torture by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam—

Before I tell him that my mother is wrong about which one of us is having laser done, before I tell him my mother is wrong about which one of us is gay, before I tell him that the new Starbuck in the Battlestar Galactica reboot is, contrary to prior shared opinions, very hot, at least to lesbians, before I tell him that his oldest son is a lesbian, before I tell him my teenage crush on Alyson Hannigan was a little more complicated than I let on to him, before I tell him that all of my relationships have been a little more complicated than I let on to him—he asked me once if I had a shot with a friend of mine, and I said she was a lesbian, and he asked if she was a “fantasy lesbian,” and I responded no, she is a historical fiction lesbian—before I tell him that I was the fantasy lesbian, before I tell him, in so many words, that I love him, but I refuse to look like him—

Before I tell him that my name is Agatha, before I consider that St. Agatha carries her breasts on a plate, before I consider that I will be spending my life presenting my breasts on a plate to everyone I meet as if to say, “See? I told you,” before I become a martyr against normalcy, before I start giving burnable-by-mob realness, before I make his parents wish they saved room to be shocked after learning he would marry a Jew, before I do something very un-Catholic, and yet, somehow extremely Catholic, just like him—*Youth pastor voice:* “You know who else got bottom surgery? You know who else was friends with a bunch of guys who kissed each other? You know who else got fucked by the world?”—

Before he asks, “What the hell am I gonna tell my dad?” before he asks me if I know what his dad said when he casually mentioned a pride parade—

Before he says that he loves me….which I will believe…

Before he name-drops a surgeon he knows, before he name-drops Laverne Cox, whom he says he met once (he is wrong), before he name-drops a drag queen he met at a friend’s birthday party, before he tells me that they are basically the same thing—

And as he finishes telling me about someone he knows, as he recounts telling strangers in public things he should not know in private, as I explain, tears gathering behind my eyes, that he can’t just say that about someone, he can’t just take that away, he can’t just always be leaving women vulnerable with his cavalier language and life choices, thinking to myself that he doesn’t understand what it is like to walk a tightrope in your heels while lookers-on, oblivious to the precarity, pull on your hair to see if it is a wig, before I am compelled to come out to my father too early, earlier than my mother, who would resent the decision until she dies, in front of the woman who is not Lauryn Hill and not-Lauryn Hill’s saxophonist husband and their guitarist and their drummer and the elegant waitress and the velvet couch and the professionals in their striped shirts, and as I tell him that it is up to the girl to give that information out, because there is power in getting to decide when you give it,

He tells me that I am right. He tells me that I am brilliant, but, more importantly, kind. He gives the point I made back to me in his own words. I see a man learn better in real time. It’s like watching a dog open a door. 

He tells me he knows that I am good and smart and kind because I can understand past difference. I can consider this girl, this stranger, this peculiarity of person and purpose, this vessel of premature bravery, and do the hard, brutal work of mentally putting myself in her shiny pink ballet flats, shoes I couldn’t possibly want for myself. My goodness, he explains, comes from my sympathy for someone I have, truly, nothing in common with, and never will—after all, she is a girl, and even if someone transitioned at my age, she would never be like her: real, untainted, unmarred, but would end up broad-shouldered, wide-faced, hormonally stapled together, broken and half-made and wrong—although that’s not something I would ever have to worry about because I have nothing in common with either this hypothetical individual or her real, young, pretty counterpart, like, what could I possibly have in common with a transgender woman?

I tell him nothing.