the love boy

8/6/2019 The Love Boy

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-love-boy 1/29

THE LOVE BOY

THE FLOWERS WITHERED,

THEIR COLOUR FADED AWAY,WHILE MEANINGLESSLY I SPENT MY DAYS IN THE WORLD

AND THE LONG RAINS WERE FALLING.

---ONO NO KOMACHI---

Joey was not one with his own flesh. He tends bar in a homey place

where the regular patrons know nothing of his condition. To them Joey is just a

delicate, good-hearted young man with a capacity for exceptional compassion

and emotional self-discipline. They have no way of knowing that Joey is being

crushed internally by passions that cannot find form without rupturing and re-

arranging him. How can they know that where they see a delicate young man, he

sees a disfigured woman. What clue could they have that most of Joey’s life hasbeen lived with a feeling that any second his heart might burst like that of a

trapped bird.

The bar is called Ye Olde Snakes And Ladders. It's in the basement of a

rose-coloured stone building downtown. Joey tends bar six nights a week. To

regulars he is Sad Sweet Joe; inexhaustible with reassuring platitudes, eyes

forever verging on tears. Every so often, after Joey has defused someone’s

hopelessness and sent them back to their wife, husband or lover, Annabel the



tippling waitress will say something like, “Oh Sad Sweet Joe! You are all that

stands between us and despair.”

Joey always knows when a man needs the oblivion an extra ounce of

alcohol affords. He knows when a woman needs to be left quietly alone to hate

all men. Joey is less a person than a comforting presence. He is Sad Sweet Joe,

confessor and guardian angel of melodramatic dipsos. Joey is slowly becoming

Sad Sweet Joe and losing the will to be himself. He is retreating from from his

body, and from the world..

__________________________________________________ Tonight is a slow night in Ye Olde Snakes And Ladders. Misery is striking

elsewhere. Joey is leaning back on the cash register and watching a million

dollar game show on the TV above the bar. Jimmy Sommerville is singing the

disco blues over the sound system.

Advertising Arthur has his hat propped back on his head, which is resting

on the bar. He is not crying, just drunk. Joey has checked. Sitting at the far

corner of the bar is a girl no one has seen before. Each cigarette she smokes is

a different colour. Her hair is long and dirty and she has a pronounced harelip.

She conceals it by keeping her head down and letting her hair curtain her face.

Joey respect this by not making eye contact. She stubs out a bright purple

cigarette and says: “Yo, barkeep. Refill.”

Joey fishes out a bourbon bottle from the glass jungle and walks over to

the girl. He pours her a generous shot but receives no thanks. The correct



amount of money for the drink is already beside the glass. Leaving the money

where it is Joey replaces the bottle and repositions himself to watch TV. The girl

stares at him for a minute then pushes the money away until it falls on the floor

behind the bar.

The sound of change on the tiles distracts Joey from the sixty four

thousand dollar question. He walks over, picks the money up and replaces it

beside the girl’s drink.

“On the house”, Joey tells her. He often gives away drinks with the full

knowledge and consent of the bar’s owner. Joey’s freebies are an investment.“Take the money,” says the girl. She looks barely old enough to drink but

her eyes are tired and desperate.

“Please, take the drink. You missed happy hour by two minutes. You can

buy the next one.”

The girl slides the money off the bar and stares at Joey with half hearted

disgust. The regular drinkers watch the exchange silently. There is no bouncer.

There has never been a need for one. Advertising Arthur lifts his head and asks,

“You okay Joe?”

“Sure Arthur, why shouldn’t I be? How 'bout you ? Feeling better now?

Hadn’t you better be getting home ? Penelope's got to be worried ?”

Joey bends down to pick up the dimes and quarters that have rolled

around his feet. He is aware of the girl watching him and he is hoping that the



disgust on her features is just an illusion of her deformity. She finishes her drink

and says, “Barkeep. Hit me up again!"

Joey is putting the money into the till. The girl bangs her glass on the bar:

“You deaf ? Another drink here...”

Joey closes the till, collects the bourbon bottle and replenishes her glass.

He has hardly finished pouring the shot when she picks up the glass and flings

the liquor into his face.

Joey cries out and tries to rub the stinging liquid out of his eyes. He hears

screaming and struggle as Advertising Arthur, Anabel the Waitress, Two-eyedSuzie an other regulars converge on the girl and drag her outside. The patrons

begin to re-enter the bar just as Joey manages to flush his eyes out with water.

Although his vision is blurred he can see they are inflated with accomplishment.

They are wringing imaginary dirt from their hands. Arthur asks: “You okay Joe?”

“Yes.”

“What a bitch”, exclaims Anabel.

“You should have left her alone”, Joey tells them as if to remind them that

none of them is without sin. They fall silent. They feel momentarily wretched in

the light of Joey’s virtuousness, then Two-Eyed Suzie says, “Oh Sad Sweet Joe,

you’re just too good for your own good.”

There is laughter. Rounds of drinks are ordered. Joey joylessly pours out

the libations. They drink to Joey’s love and mercy. They drink together to forget

that soon they must each return to their separate, inglorious worlds. The last to



leave is Anabel the Waitress. Every night before leaving the bar she gives Joes

a kiss and a pearl of wisdom. Tonight she tells him: “Joey, it is justice, not

charity, that is wanting in the world.”

The expression on Joey’s face allows Anabel to believe that her words

have changed his life. Joey is too polite to react any other way, but Anabel is so

absorbed in her borrowed insight to consider this. She is thrilled to bits so happy

that the aphorism, culled that morning from Bartlett’s, was so apropos. She

leaves Joey to clean up and meditate.

When she is gone Joey wipes down the bar and thinks of the hare lippedgirl. Perhaps, thinks Joey, bitterness and hate naturally take root where the grind

of life is faced without the lubrication even a little beauty can afford. Perhaps in

her world the small acts of generosity smack of pity and condescension. Joey

makes the effort to understand, it is his way.

Joey wipes down the bar mechanically considering how cruel nature can

be. Other times such thoughts have led to tears of guilty self-pity, but tonight

Joey’s hand strikes a cheap tin cigarette case to the floor. It opens on impact,

luxurious coloured cigarettes scatter an I Ching. A tiny music box inside tinkles:

“The Blue Tailed Fly”. Joey bends, gathers the cigarettes into the case and

pockets it. Then he leaves for the night.

He is locking the front door when footsteps approach. He turns and sees

the hare lipped girl. Her hands are buried in the pockets of dirty chino trousers

that don’t fit her. Her acid wash denim jacket is a decade out of fashion. Her



head is hung so that her hair shadows the wreckage of her mouth. A car passes.

She shifts the angle of her head slightly to prevent the headlights from

emphasizing her least winsome feature. She can be as deft with light as any

ancient actor with a mask. Despite the weariness in them, her eyes have depth

and beauty. She stops in front of Joey.

“I left something inside,” she says.

Joey pulls the cigarette case from his pocket and holds it out to her. She

takes it gingerly, as if it were an object of great value. Joey turns and starts

walking home.“Thank you,” she calls after him like a question. He continues to walk. He

knows she wants something but is uncertain of how he could help her. So he

resolves not to answer her. He resolves to just keep walking.

“I’m sorry,” she yells, following after him. The short walk to the rooming

house where he lives seems endless. When he gets there he hopes she is gone.

But as he is opening the front door he senses her behind him. He cannot shut the

door in her face, so he turns.

With a studied movement she tilts her head so that her hair falls between

her mouth and the light from the bulb above the door.

“I want you to know that I’m sorry,” she says. Then adds in a voice

calculated to arouse male magnanimity: "I want you to know how sorry I am."

"'No harm done,” he tells her, gently dismissive, smiling his sad smile. He

enters the house and is closing the door when she speaks again. Her voice has

lost all its artifice and is now like the sounds of a dog being lifted by its collar,



“Look Mister, maybe you’re too slow to take the hint but I’ve got no place to stay

tonight and I didn’t even have the money to pay for the whisky I threw in your

face. I know I ain’t much Mister but I’m all I got to give. Let me have a bath, turn

the lights out and you won’t know me from a hundred dollar whore. What do you

say Mister? You going to give me a break? It’s not like you have to kiss me. I

just need some sleep. Just tonight. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Joey opens the door a little. The hall light automatically comes on. The girl

angles her head slightly. She thinks he might let her in and because of this she

feels revolted. But she has nothing to exchange for the few hours of sleep thatshe needs but the few minutes of unconditional authority that she knows every

man desires over a woman who has wounded his pride.

Joey asks her in. He knows now the form of kindness she needs so she is

no longer a threat to him. He holds the door open for her. He leads her upstairs

to his room. He turns the light on and she is momentarily startled.

Joey sits on his bed. The girl walks to the window, looks through it, her

face close to the glass; a streetlamp shining through a maple; gentle dappled

light…

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Maya,” she answers listlessly; “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Turn right. It’s the last door at the end of the hall.”

“Can I borrow a towel?”



From a steamer trunk that doubles as a table Joey retrieves a towel and a

terry bathrobe which he gives Maya. She leaves the room.

From the same trunk Joey takes blankets and makes himself a bed on the

floor. He undresses and lies down. He is asleep nearly instantly. He dreams of

running along a bone white beach and diving into a tropic lagoon, swimming on

his back, the sunlight on his naked chest, the water swirling between long lithe

legs …

Behind the door, at the end of the hall, Maya is sitting in a hot bath

washing the sourness from her skin. She scrubs so that the man’s desires willhave less to chafe against. Perhaps she will be able to exhort a little kindness

from this one and won’t have to rob him at the first opportunity. She washes her

hair with the best looking shampoo she finds. The bathroom is obviously shared

by several people and the wealth of toilet products is a small joy to Maya. She is

used to washing in public lavatories with runny liquid soap. She conditions her

hair with an opaque blue cream. Then brushes a few drops of patchouli oil

through as she carefully blow dries it. She catches herself hoping he will be

kind to her, but immediately despises herself for her weakness. He’s just like

every other man...

She switches off the light. She makes her way down the hall barefoot in

the cool splendor of the cotton bathrobe. She pauses in front of the door to his

room. She adjusts her hair about her face. She enters the room. Joey is asleep

on the floor. The covers on the bed are turned back in an unconditional invitation



to her. Maya switches off the light and gets into the bed. When her eyes have

adjusted she looks down at Joey sleeping. It occurs to her that now may be her

last opportunity to steal something from him and flee with her dignity. But she is

too tired. She has a dream about cutting Joey open with a knife and finding

hundreds of gold coins inside of him.

______________________________________________________

Maya wakes to the crackle and smell of cooking bacon. Before she is

completely conscious these are sensations of luxury, but her first conscious

thought is that every meal has its price.“Good morning,” Joey says upon noticing she is awake, “How do you like

your eggs?”

Morning light is streaming through the window filtered through the leaves

of the maple outside. Maya, childlike, pulls the sheet up to cover her mouth. A

moment later she realizes what is betrayed in the gesture and throws the covers

away completely. She get out of bed and pulls on her dirty trousers. Joey looks

away, envious at her breasts, and asks her again how she likes her eggs. She

stares hard at Joey, who is holding a greasy spatula. Her hair is disarrayed and

there is too much light in the room. She wants to be on her way but she’s

hungry.

“Over easy.” She hesitates: “Runny on the inside. Please.”

“Big decision,” Joey jokes and returns his attention to the crackling skillet

on the two-element stove. Maya finishes dressing and sits on the edge of the



bed pulling a black plastic comb through her hair. Joey hears a few notes of The

Blue Tailed Fly then smells phosphorous and the intimate poison smell of fine

tobacco burning. He slides the eggs onto plates that have bacon neatly arranged

on one side. He places a knife and fork on the edge of one of the plates and

passes it to Maya. She rests it on her knees while she finishes smoking the lime

green cigarette.

“Don’t let it get cold,” Joey tells her and she stubs out the cigarette on the

edge of her plate. She eats all of the bacon, then the eggs. Joey asks her if she

would like some more. ”No thanks,” she answers. Leaving her plate on the floor she goes barefoot down the hall to the bathroom. She returns in less than a

minute and informs him that the bathroom is occupied.

Joey, slightly embarrassed, makes a tisk sound and says, “That’s the

problem with sharing.”

“You have a job. Why do you live in a rooming house?”

“It’s cheaper here. I’m saving my money.”

“Yeah? What for?”

“I need to go somewhere.”

“Oh yeah? Where?”

“Morocco or Mexico. I haven’t decided yet.”

“You just like places that start with M, or are you going somewhere for

some reason ?”



“ A new life,” Joey answers, surprising himself. Outside of his

correspondence with certain doctors, he has never discussed his situation with

anyone. He wonders what has come over him. Perhaps because he is so close,

or perhaps because she is a total stranger…he doesn’t know why he opened

himself up to this line of enquiry. He almost wants to talk about it. He half hopes

she will not question him further, but he knows that she will. He knows how hard

it is to resist being someone’s confessor.

She asks,” Are you going to live in Mexico or Morocco?”

“No.”“You’re going to come back?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to start a new life when you get back?”

“Yes.”

“What will be new?”

“Me.”

“What’s wrong with you now?”

“I’m wrong.”

“How will you be different?”

Joey falls silent. He has never confided in any non professional person

about the error nature has make in his case and realizes he knows nothing of

how they might react. He is suddenly afraid that her reaction might reduce the

enigma of his being something pitiable.



“Well? How’s a trip to Morocco going to change you so you can start a

new life? Tell me. I really want to know. Maybe I should go there too.”

In a whisper Joey says, “I’m going to be a woman.”

“What?”

“I’m coming back as a woman."

Maya locks her eyes with Joey’s in a penetrating stare. She is unsure

that this isn’t some joke at her expense. She pre-empts any intended offence

with the weapon she knows men fear most. She laughs. She laughs and

doesn’t know when to stop laughing because she has never been allowed tolaugh this long. No slap or vicious kiss is forthcoming. Joey is perfectly still. He

makes no move toward her.

Hurt, Joey finally whispers: “It’s not funny.”

“You want to be a woman?” Maya asks incredulously.

“I am a woman. My body is wrong.”

Maya feels something touch her heart She is confused. Sympathy is a

sentiment alien to her in the context of men.

“Listen…uh…”

“Joey.”

“Listen Joey, I’m sorry I laughed at you. It’s just that the idea of anyone

wanting to be a woman is funny, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“Well, first of all, because being a woman is just one pain after another...”



“Perhaps, but being a woman trapped in a man’s body is one pain after

another without the possibility of love, or joy, or happiness….”

Maya restrains the impulse to laugh: “Listen Joey being a woman trapped

inside of the body of a woman is no picnic either. You don’t get love or joy or

whatever just because you’ve got tits.”

But it’s a possibility.”

Maya smiles at Joey. She is starting to like him. She is going to give him

the benefit of her experience. She says, “Look, I’m sorry I laughed at you. I

promise I won’t laugh at you again. But you’re crazy. I just hope you find outhow crazy you are before you do something crazy. Just because you get your

dick lopped off and take titty pills doesn’t mean you get a house, a husband and

love. Just go queer or something and get yourself an apartment with a bathroom.

You’ll feel better.”

“I’m not queer…”

“You’re not queer. Okay then Joey, take a shot at me. Pull the blinds if

it’ll help.”

“I’m not a lesbian either,” Joey says.

Maya stands. She starts to undress. Joey watches her, entranced. When

she is naked she stands before him like a challenge. Joey cannot look away. He

is desirous of her body. He feels his penis. He feels it move. Maya kneels in

front of him and caresses his crotch. She warms it with her breath. Discovering

his tumescence she says, “There, there now, no more of this nonsense about



being a woman,” and undoes his belt. He pulls back abruptly. She has caused

him to betray himself. He wants to hit her. She senses this: “Go ahead, baby, do

it. Don’t stop yourself. I’m your girl. Go ahead. Do whatever you want with

me...”

Joey is dazed. Maya undoes his pants and pulls them down. She tries to

take his rigid cock in her mouth. She wants to do him a favour. She knows he

doesn’t have what it takes to make it as a woman and she wants to show him the

advantages of being a man. He tries to pull away.

“Come on Joey.” She implores. “Do it to me. Do it to me any way youwant. I know you want to do it to me Joey. Hard-ons never lie.”

She kisses his belly and unbuttons his shirt from the bottom up. She

knows that men like their sex in the context of a simple story, the hands down

favourite being a woman reveling in her own subjugation.

“Do it to me,” she taunts freely, knowing he is not man enough to do any

real harm. When he falls to his knees and kisses her mouth, she is shocked.

Never has she been kissed this way. It is a passionate unpracticed kiss. Maya

leans back pulling Joey on top of her. He is trying to lose himself in the kiss.

Maya is shocked to feel what she is feeling. She digs her fingers into his

haunches and pulls him down onto her. She puts his cock inside her and pushes

her hips against him. He kisses her deeper, reluctantly penetrating her, losing

himself in the sensations of heat, moisture, unity. He comes and she holds him

hard against her. She grinds against him until she too has come. The orgasm



washes through her and leaves her feeling strange and light. When she

becomes aware of Joey again she notices that he is perfectly still and nearly

weightless upon her. “You okay?” She asks him, surprised at her own concern.

He doesn’t answer. He is trying to believe something. He is trying as

hard as he can to believe something into truth. He is thinking: It was only an act

of kindness, that’s all it was.

_______________________________________________________

Joey is at work. Because of freak weather conditions the bar is nearly

deserted tonight. It is Anabel’s night off and the only regular in the place is Two-Eyed Suzie, who is trying to get picked up by a stranger in a three-piece suit.

Joey is watching the news on television. Famine kills innocent children,

terrorist bombs kill innocent shoppers, an industrial robot kills an innocent

repairman in unrelated incidents. Joey quietly despairs of all the cruelty in the

world. Two-Eyed Suzie approaches the bar for two more gin fizzes. She notices

that Joey appears sadder than usual and ask, “Why the long face Joe?”

Joey smiles a sad sweet smile and mixes her drinks. He considers

Suzie’s question rhetorical.

“Really Joe, what’s the matter?” You can tell old Suzie. I can see with my

own two eyes that you haven’t been yourself lately.”

Without saying anything Joey puts two fresh drinks in front on her. His

enigmatic smile is the only answer to Suzie’s enquiries. It is usually enough.

Two-Eyed Suzie collects the gin fizzes and says: “Oh Sad Sweet Joe,



you’re such a strange bird,” before returning to her table. The three-piece-suit

man is getting incredibly drunk. Soon he will be drunk enough to proposition

Suzie. He is already drunk enough, observes Joey, to have removed his

wedding band beneath the table.

Joey returns his attention to the news. Millions cannot find work and

technology has improved the quality of life. The fog that has sealed in the city

won’t dissipate for a few days yet, but no more hailstorms are foreseen. Joey

contemplates suicide and wipes an unborn tear from his eye. Two-Eyed Suzie

who is starting to give up on the Three-Piece sees this action. She knows thepoint at which a good man becomes a slobbering flaccid drunk and she suspects

that Three-Piece passed it an hour ago. Having lost hope for the evening she

decides to see what can be done for Joey. She turns to Three-Piece and says,

“Put the ring back on cause that’s the only way you’re going to be upstanding

tonight,” before leaving him mystified and along at the table.

She sits on the barstool closes to Joey and demands to be told what is

wrong. Joey can no longer see the weatherman. One eye then the other spills

tears.

“Oh Joe. For Christ’s sake Joe. Joe. Tell Suzie what’s wrong. Come

on.”

Joey does not answer her. He is sobbing and cannot hear her. Suzie

leans over the bar and holds him. Feeling cheated, Three-Piece stumbles out of

the bar without paying his tab.



Suzie quietly waits out Joey’s outburst before gently uttering one of his

own lines; “You want to tell me about it?”

Joey, being as candid as is possible for his barroom identity, responds:

“I’m nothing. I’m nobody.”, and begins to sob again.

Suzie comforts him and resolves to ask no more questions. She isn’t that

curious about what has brought on this attack of desolation. She too often feels

that she is nothing. And she is just slightly surprised that the legendary Sad

Sweet Joe should fall victim to the condition. He is only human, after all.

“There, there, there.” Suzie coos, “Everybody feels that way sometimes.You just let old Suzie hold you ‘til you feel better. There, there, baby. Suzie

loves you. Suzie’s love gonna make you feel good.”

Joey breaks away from her suddenly to pick up a rag and wipe down the

bar. Two-Eyed Suzie can’t understand the abrupt change in his disposition.

Such mood swings are completely out of character to the Sad Sweet Joe she

knows. Suzie tries to remember what could have happened to transmute Joe in

such a way. She recalls the hare lipped slut throwing a drink in his face but

surely that wouldn’t still be upsetting Joe like this.

“It’s dead. I’m closing early tonight,” Joey tells Suzie. His voice is cold and

the sound of it darkens with sadness the heart of Two-Eyed Suzie.

_______________________________________________



Joey is home early tonight, as promised. The smell of food draws him

upstairs to his room. Just before he enters he adjusts himself into a more

masculine posture.

Maya has laid out a special dinner on the folding card table they have

bought to share meals upon. Actually, Joey bought the table. Maya rarely goes

out anywhere. She cooks for Joey, launders his clothes, irons his shirts, and

cleans the room from top to bottom everyday. There is not enough she can do

for Joey. At night, in bed, she weaves complex and hypnotic fantasies to which

Joey can lover her. In the dark she can arouse his imagination so powerfully thathis body cannot but respond. She has created a mythology to give them context,

and like Scheherezade she lives in fear of the night that her imagination fails her.

But she hopes to have changed her beloved before that happens.

Every night before Joey returns she brushes her hair a thousand strokes

with the tortoise shell brush that Joey bought her. Then she cooks as intricate a

meal as is possible with the groceries Joey provides. All the while she is

imagining a story that will further define her lover as woman and man. She takes

great care with every detail for much is at stake. She has opened herself up to

him because she sensed that he could not harm her. She has fallen in love with

him because she sensed that he would not use her. Now she must deal with the

fear of loss. She is afraid of losing Joey to the woman he wishes to become.

Joey eats his dinner sadly tonight. Maya notices that the quality of Joey’s

sadness is changing. It is becoming a flat and even sadness that Maya hope is a



masculine sadness. Joey doesn’t cry in front of her anymore. A few nights back

she made up a story about a boy who cried until a woman let him love her, then

didn’t cry anymore. Now Joey doesn’t cry anymore.

After dinner Joey takes a shower. When he returns to the room the dishes

and table are gone. The lights are out but several candles are lit. Incense is

burning and the room is smoky with the smell of musk and lavender. The sheets

are turned back on the bed and Maya is naked stop them. Her legs are crossed

at the ankles. Her hair falls across the left side of her face onto her breasts. The

candles and her hair are positioned perfectly so that a shadow cuts diagonallyfrom under her left eye, across her mouth, joining the jaw line on the right side of

her face. Her hands lie beside her, palms upward. Joey is dumbfounded by how

beautiful she can be. He wants to share in such beauty. He wants to live in it but

cannot. And because of this, tonight, for an almost insignificant fraction of a

second, he feels like he might want to destroy it.

Maya sees something pass in his eyes and as he drops his bathrobe she

begins her story, already altered by what she has seen, “Joseph, you are

thunderbolts and I am an ocean…”

___________________________________________________

Joey goes to the bank today and withdraws all his money in travelers’

cheques. He purchases an ambiguous outfit of clothing and an airline ticket.

Joey knows exactly where is going. Everybody in Joey’s predicament knows the

name of a city and a clinic and a doctor. The serious ones even know the fee



schedule and the currency exchange rate. Joey is serious. He has been

corresponding with Dr. Habibi for the past seven years. Joey has contacted

other doctors; doctors who took greater care in their prescription of pre-operative

treatment and observation in order to avoid ‘tragic mistakes’, but Joey has

decided to entrust himself to Dr. Habibi. He was the only doctor who took for

granted that the mistake had been nature’s. And he seemed a gentleman.

Joey sends a telegram announcing his imminent arrival.

__________________________________________________

Maya is having her hair done. Her eyes are closed and she is imagining a

fable. A woman in a pale blue smock is combing hot scented oil through Maya’s

hair. The fable is taking the form of a creation myth. Maya is considering the

creation of man from the viewpoint of the Original Being. Maya does not believe

in God but He is a useful component in the mythology she is creating for Joey.

She must convince him that he is not a mistake and God is the only infallible

phenomenon she knows of. The hairstylist arranges heat lamps around Maya’s

head and switches them on. The heat will work the oil into each strand of hair.

Without opening her eyes, Maya takes a cigarette from her case and lights

it. She leaves the case open to listen to the tune it plays. It reminds her of Joey.

She loves Joey. She thinks of all the reasons she has for loving Joey. He picked

me up from the gutter. He didn’t care about what I had been. He protected me.



He showed me love. She might have gone on but the spring unwinds and the

music stops. She closes the cigarette case and returns her thoughts to tonight’s

story. She cannot concentrate. The smell of hot perfume has intoxicated her.

The fantasy she is preparing for Joey becomes her own. She imagines that

tonight will be the night that Joey changes forever. Tonight, after love, he will

say, “Maya, you have shown me what a silly boy I have been. You have shown

me that I am not a woman, but have simply waited too long to become a man,

But Peter Pan has grown up now Maya, and he love you. Be my wife. I want to

love forever…”Perhaps this is the night, yes. She can think of no other reason for his

having sent her out to get a hairstyle, a summer dress, and a manicure.

______________________________________________________

Joey flies to London. There he boards a plane to Casablanca. He sleeps

through both flights. He takes neither food nor drink. At his destination he

sleepwalks to the taxi stand and is driven to a hotel. From his room he makes a

telephone call before falling asleep fully dressed. He does not dream. No part of

his mind wants to consider what he is doing. It must happen naturally.

The telephone wakes him a few hours later. Dr. Habibi is waiting in the

lobby. Joey wishes he had taken the time to shower before sleeping. He should



be clean. On his way out of the room he splashes water on his face and rinses

out his mouth.

Joey is checking out at the reception desk when a small man approaches

him. The man is dark, plump, and painfully well groomed. He is wearing a

cream silk suit and his hennaed hair is brilliantined into place. He proffers a hand

to Joey and says without uncertainty, “You are Joey. I am Dr. Habibi.”

Joey places his hand in the doctor’s and allows it to be shaken. The

doctor then takes Joey’s suitcase and led him to a car in which a woman is

waiting. Joey enters the car while the doctor puts the suitcase into the trunk.The woman in the driver’s seat says, “You are Joey. I am Nyssa, your nurse.”

The doctor sits in the back of the car and Nyssa drives it away. The clinic

is in the basement of a building that houses several African consulates and a

wife recruitment agency for Muslims abroad. Joey is left alone to undress in a

white tiled room. It is a clean and cold room. It smells like an old refrigerator

Joey was trapped in as a boy. In the center of the room there is a table covered

in a white sheet with a stainless steel sink built into its side. Joey undresses and

lies upon it. His folded clothing is his pillow. He tries to sleep. He is cold.

Nyssa and a younger nurse enter pushing a stainless steel trolley. They

are laughing and chattering in Arabic. They wash Joey with cold water and

antiseptic. The younger nurse then shaves him from his belly to his knees. He

tries not to shiver.



“Do you want breasts?” Nyssa asks him as she prepares an injection. He

blushes and she gives him the needle in the thigh. She tells him coyly that with

six or seven more such injections he will have a chest as tender as lamb. Joey is

given a release document and his own travelers’ cheques to sign. Nyssa tells

him rapidly that the unused portion of his money will be returned to him when he

leaves. The younger nurse injects something into a vein on the back of Joey’s

right hand. Nyssa tells him to count backwards from one hundred. Dr. Habibi

enters in a blue smock. Ninety-five, ninety-four, ninety…

_____________________________________________________

Maya is awake in a bus driver’s bed. He is asleep on his stomach with

one of his arms hanging over her. She prods him with a shaped and polished

fingernail but he does not stir. She moves his arm and quietly gets out of bed,

puts on what yesterday was a new dress, and pauses to check that the bus

driver still sleeps soundly. Reassured, she lifts the man’s wallet and leaves the

apartment carrying her new shoes.

Outside she empties the wallet of its cash before dropping in into a sewer.

She puts her shows on and starts walking with the money tight in her fist.

She is not thinking about Joey as she wanders toward the city center, she

is thinking about men. The only things stupider than men are women. She

remembers the story she was going to tell Joey last night. She laughs at herself

for having believed her own bedtime stories. She walks for hours, sometimes



laughing reflexively. A cold night rain starts falling. She passes two prostitutes

huddled in a doorway and hears them whisper. Men slow their cars to observe

her, and then speed away. A car full of teenage boys passes her and one of

them yells, “You call yourself a ‘ho? You should pay me for it !” She waves the

bus driver’s money at them and the car stops. She tears the money in half then

tears it again. She is tearing it a third time when one of the boys runs up and

punches her in the mouth. On the sidewalk, soaked with rain, winded, pasted

with fragments of torn legal tender, she makes soundless laughter. A car

screeches away. Footsteps run toward her. She laughs and when her breathcomes back she can hear herself laugh. A bearded man kneels beside her and

covers her with his jacket.

“God loves you child,” he tells Maya.

“Okay”, she says then cries.

________________________________________________________

Joey wakes up in the dark with her hands and feet strapped down. She

wonders if she is dead. She tries to move. The pain rules out death but she

remains unenlightened as to the state of her being. She tries to yell for a nurse

but the only sounds she can produce is a high-pitched croak. She relaxes for a

minute then vainly tries to wrest one of her hands free. She must know what she

is. She must touch it.



A door is opened. Blinds are thrown. The room is inundated with light.

Joey feels someone enter the room. She can sense it is a woman. Joey’s eyes

don’t adjust to the light she is afraid. Whoever is in the room with her is doing

something to her. Down there.

Something is pulled and Joey croaks a scream. Whoever is handling her

is incredibly callous. A primal fear takes hold of Joey as one tube is pulled from

her and another is inserted. She hears a bag of liquid hitting the floor followed by

a woman uttering a rapid string of Arabic obscenity. The woman swabs Joey

with something cool and soothing. But then it is freezing. Joey starts to shiver.She tries to plead with the woman but manages only to croak. Something rough

is pulled out of her and Joey nearly blacks out. Something cold like steel is

pushed into her, expanded, then removed. A finger unceremoniously pushes a

wad of cotton into Joey’s body, and finally the pain is too much.

“What are you doing to me, you fucking bitch?” Joey screams.

The answering voice is Nyssa’s. It is cool, and equal, and unmerciful:

“You mustn’t speak to me that way sister. And you must have courage.”

_______________________________________________________

The rain catches her in the open between the terminal building and the

aircraft. The other passengers run but Joey does not alter the cadence of her

step. She is wearing a cotton dress that is becoming transparent in the rain. Hot



vapour is rising from the hot asphalt, suppressed only by the downpour. Joey

closes her eyes and lifts her face to the warm rain. Intuition guides Joey toward

the airplane. She walks toward it in a straight line with the surface of the planet

as her only landmark.

Joey’s chest feels like two exquisite bruises, and Joey feels like she is in

love. She wonders if the latter sensation is a side effect of the pills and

injections. As Joey puts her foot on the first step leading up the aircraft a

cascade of wet heat spills from beneath her skirt and washes down her legs.

She closes her eyes and waits for it to finish then waits a little longer in the rain.It is a delicious rain.

When she finally ascends the stairs it is at the behest of a stewardess.

She is the last passenger to board the jet. She is soaking wet. But she will

change her clothes during the flight only to cross the borders using the passport

of her previous life.

_______________________________________________________

Two seasons post-metamorphosis, Joey is again mixing drinks in Ye Old

Snakes and Ladders. The owner gave Joey her job back despite the

unrequested leave absence. Joey is good for business and probably won’t

require another sabbatical.

The atmosphere in the bar has changed. Few of the old regulars ever turn

up anymore. The new clientele consists of young men and women who look on



Joey as a harbinger of the possibilities in their lives. Theirs is a sad, close

community that is no stranger to one of their number murdering or mutilating

themself. Joey is their heroine, saint, and savioiur.

Joey is watching a National Geographic Special on the television above

the bar. Her back is deliberately turned to the corner where a young man is

alone, drinking himself into a stupor. The young man is Joey’s lover. He is

jealously possessive of Joey yet on the occasions that he avails himself of her

flesh, it almost seems to pain him.

A strange couple enters the bar. Joey glances quickly away from thetelevision and makes them for lost tourists who will leave quickly. The man is

bearded and has eyes that display implacable beliefs about this sort of place.

The woman has short hair and is obviously pregnant. The man sits at a table

near the entrance. The woman approaches the bar.

The program Joey is watching shows the women of a primitive tribe

hanging heavy weights from their earlobes so as to stretch them. Some of the

women have earlobes down to their shoulders and these are the most desired by

the men.

Joey hears a music box version of “The Blue Tailed Fly” and turns

suddenly towards the music. Two women stare at each other for a few seconds,

and then the one holding the empty cigarette case says: “I wasn’t sure it was

you.”

“Your hair…” says the other.

“I don’t need to… hide anymore. I am…beautiful to God.”



Silence.

“I just came to tell you that you needn’t be sorry for what you did.”

Silently Joey thinks: I’m not.

“I was a fool to think I could change your mind with stories. You were

tempted by something stronger than I could ever hope to overcome. I came here

to forgive you. You were just part of His plan for me.”

“Whose plan?” Joey asks, to move the conversation along.

“God’s plan Joey. He sees our true faces, knows our souls, guides our

steps. When I think of everything I had to go through to find Him, I…I just want tofall to my knees and pray. I had to hit bottom to truly know His love and He knew.

You were a signpost Joey. I just came to tell you that I’m all right and I forgive

you. I’m married now. Judd and I are going to travel and minister to lost souls.”

Joey remains silent in the face of Maya’s righteousness. What words can

penetrate rapture? Maya has the effulgent complexion of a woman happily

bearing child. Maya’s husband, however, is looking pale and uncomfortable.

Two men, dressed and made up as women, are on the dance floor slowly melting

into each other to the great Frankie love song.

“Okay, “ Joey says in hope of expediting the exchange.

“Anyways. I forgive you. I just hope that He can forgive you. Repent Joey.

It’s never too late. Good bye.”

She walks quickly to her husband, takes his hand and together they leave

the bar. This is not a place for them to be.



Anabel The Waitress, who has been listening, says: “Forget it, Joey.

She’s too fat and ugly to know squat.”

Joey smiles at Anabel, and takes her advice, although for different

reasons than the one she’s given. Joey returns her attention to the television. A

tribeswoman is having designs scarred into her skin with a sharp stone. During a

commercial Joey looks over at her lover. The sight of his tortured beauty brings

the bittersweet taste of bad love to her mouth. Joey doesn’t know it yet, but it is

the taste of bad love -- the taste of heartbreak.

But love is love is love. And Joey will get used to her heart being broken.It won’t always be as bad as all that. She will survive. Joey watches TV and

pours a few more drinks before it’s closing time. Then she summons a taxi and

takes her man home.

the love boy

Documents