Effigy

Today is your thirteenth birthday and your father has picked you up from school in the purple minivan. Your friends are excited about your party tomorrow because you said something about having a pinata. A kid named Zack Duncan had a donkey pinata at his party a few months ago. It was a big hit. You were there. But you are still unsure about the whole pinata idea for fear of being labeled a copy cat. And you don't even have a pinata yet. But the pinata and name calling are the least of your worries.

Since turning thirteen you have noticed things as if for the first time. Like girls. This is most noticeable because you hardly ever looked at girls before your thirteenth birthday, and suddenly you can't help but stare. You haven't kissed a girl yet, but you are hoping at your party, in your room, away from the chatter of everybody outside. For this reason you invited Edie Carver, a popular girl in your class. She's not the most popular. Maybe in the Top 15, at least. You are hoping this scores you points by having her at your party, and you are hoping your class ranking improves if you can get to first base with her. Second seems like a long shot, though you've heard things. There are other noticeable things too. You have noticed the changes happening to your body, things you've learned in seventh hour Health. Descending testicles. Arm pit hair. Pubic hair. Broadening of shoulders. The dancing pitch of your voice when talking to girls. Morning wood. These things are important, though they are nothing in comparison to the changes happening to your father.

Your father has been through two divorces'"one from your mother and one from himself. The divorce from your mother happened in part because your father's personal divorce. You can remember that day in sixth grade so well, coming home from school and dropping your backpack inside the door. It was quiet, though. At that time you couldn't remember when it had been so quiet before. Maybe at night. But at night there were always crickets and sirens, and the rough sound of the wind grating itself against the window screen. Since then it has been the quietest day of your life. Coming home and entering the house was like being deaf for a moment. All sound seemed vacuumed from the carpet, the furniture, the appliances buzzing in the kitchen, the entire house. You could hear faint weeping drifting down the hallway from your parents' bedroom, and you thought for a moment maybe somebody in the family had died, maybe a great aunt far away in Michigan you had met one time as an infant. You crept down the hallway as if you had broken into the house and didn't want to be heard, stepping around every possible squeak in the floor. The door was partially open, enough for you to see inside. You could see your father sitting in a chair, and what you remember the most was the way he was sitting. He had his legs crossed, knee-over-knee, and his fingers were laced together, cupping the top kneecap. Your father wasn't crying. You watched and listened. "I don't see what the big deal is," your father said. "I was only trying it on." Hearing this made you notice what your father was wearing. He had on your mother's spring dress, the one with colorful splotches of yellow and orange. You weren't sure what was happening, but you knew you had seen it before in a movie with Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes. You stepped away from the partially cracked-open door and went to your room, confused about a lot of things. You were confused about your own body, as it had begun to change and develop. Most of all you were confused as to why your father was wearing your mother's clothes. But how your father dresses is the least of your worries.

Since coming home that quiet day in sixth grade your father has undergone several operations to become your mother. He no longer is a man in the cock-and-balls sense he always talked about. He throws back his head everyday and swallows handfuls of pills to accelerate his development. You are both becoming other people, you into a young adult male and your father into a middle-aged woman. The problem is the pills aren't working as properly as they should, leaving your father with a partial mustache and beard he still has to shave. It grows back fast, leaving his face looking gray and dirty hours after he shaves. Your father grows out his fingernails and paints them on a weekly basis. You wonder about this from the hallway, your father reclining in his leather Barcalounger, his fingers fanned on a thigh, dabbing each nail delicately with clear lacquer, pursing his lips to blow on them.

Though your father is becoming your mother your real unchanged mother is so so sorry, so goddamn sorry she left you with your father. That day you came home was the day your mother left and stayed in a hotel two towns away where she now lives. She gave you the choice of living with her, she begged you, but you couldn't bear to leave your friends and what little reputation you had at school. You were twelve going on thirteen at the time, and this was the first really big life decision you made. You stayed with your father because he was simply your father and you still had so much to learn.

But your father is pissing you off. He believes you should do this and that for your party. In the purple minivan, on the way home from school, your father says something about purple and pink bunting covering the snack tables, some balloons, maybe a clown. He knows a guy. How many kids have clowns at parties these days? Any? "It's a dying tradition," your father says. "Dad," you say, and your father says, "Carol. Call me Carol." You think it's ridiculous your father makes you call him Carol, but names are the least of your worries. You have things to say to your father, but you can't speak after noticing your father is dressed in a purple blouse and beige skirt and dark sunglasses that seem to wrap around his face. He looks like your grandmother. Everybody knows about your father's transition, and it embarrasses you at school. You are unsure anybody will even attend your party, but from asking around today you are sure there will be at least twenty or thirty kids there, give or take. You look at your father. You look at his thick hands hanging over the steering wheel like heavy drapes, the purple nail polish. You want to laugh at him. You want to clutch your stomach and bend into yourself like a folding chair and laugh. You want to tell him how ridiculous he's being and mock him. But you haven't laughed since that quiet day in sixth grade, laughing at the idea of your father in women's clothing. You stopped laughing after you knew your father was serious. Not being able to laugh is the least of your worries, though it's right up there.

Your father parks the purple minivan in the driveway. You get out and take the shortest route to the door, your backpack on your shoulder to conceal part of your face. Your father is wearing heals, maybe the second or third time he's ever worn heels because he's terrible at wearing them. You can hear the heels clicking against the pavement. You can feel the neighbors across the street scrutinizing the scene in the driveway. Your father is not a fit man and the blouse and skirt does nothing to help his figure. To people not knowing about your sex-changed father they might think your husky aunt from out of town now lives with you, has a mustache, and takes you to school every morning.

You finally get inside, feel sheltered and secure, safe, and drop your backpack by the door. You begin to pace frantically in the living room. There are things you want to tell your father but are unsure of how to say them. What was the vocabulary list for the week? Were there any words to describe this moment? You haven't been very good at expressing yourself since that quiet day in sixth grade. Third hour Art has been horrid. Not being able to express yourself is the least of your worries. You feel you are about to crack under the weight of the first day as a teenager. You calculated there are only 2,556 days left until you are twenty years old. You believe every day won't be this bad. But the pressure will always be there as long as your father is around, and as long as there are people to tell you how much you look like your father when he was your age. You want to tell your father to stay away from the party. After all you didn't actually invite him. Carol invited himself.

The front door opens and your father steps inside. He begins fanning his face with a hand. He says something about hot flashes and glistening. "Dad," you say, and your father says, "Carol. Call me Carol."

"Dad."

"Carol."

You realize you cannot have a conversation with your father. Having a conversation with your father is what you miss the most. You can no longer have the meaningful father and son relationship you feel you once had. You can remember evenings with your father in the backyard, tossing a baseball back and forth. You remember how it was just you and your father at football games and times on the lake. Your mother didn't condone violent sports activities. But your father was there, cheering, and he was there after every game. You remember when he had a good job, before the transition, when he could afford to pay for things your mother wouldn't allow. This is probably one of the reasons you stayed with your father. He bought you all the video game systems and nearly any game you wanted. You were somewhat popular because of this. Classmates always spent the night. Now you are unsure you even have a father anymore. Your father is now a microwave salesman, and he can't sell anything. You wonder why this could be. Either your father is a poor salesman or Carol is ruining sales. But your father's sales record is the least of your worries.

You look at your father. He's reaching for his head, grasping the black wig and pulling it off. He shaves his head to wear the wig correctly. You can see the beads of sweat leaking through the top of his head, sliding like avalanches down the sides of his face. The person in front of you looks nothing like the father you remember. Aren't father's supposed to be manly? Aren't fathers and sons supposed to take each other's sides in arguments with the mother? Your father looks more like a cancer patient. You wonder where it is your father has gone.

You step in front of your father and grab your backpack and head to your room. You have things to do before your party tomorrow. You still haven't decided if you want a piñata. You can make one if you have to. Most of all you haven't decided on what you will tell your father or how you will say it.

Good morning. It is the day of your party. You wake up and feel twice as old. Being a teenager is exhausting. Or it is because you had a late night covering clothes hanger skeletons with paper-mâché. The pieces are dry now and ready to be painted and assembled. It's probably the best thing you have ever created. It is sitting in the corner, half your size, staring at you. It has a humanoid shape, modeled after you. You stare at it for a while, wondering what colors to use, what candy to fill it with.

Your father is in the kitchen making breakfast. You smell it. There is music playing. It sounds like Gloria Estefan. You get out of bed but stop. You notice your room is more girly than you last remember. There are sports posters of your favorite baseball players on the walls. The shelves that line the wall opposite your bed hold up valuable baseball cards, memorabilia cards with pieces of bats and jerseys, things you have collected. But you look beneath all this to the bottom shelf. There are two stuffed animals leaning against each other. One is a pink bear, the other a purple giraffe. How did you miss these? You kneel in front of the shelf and pluck both toys from their spot. You look at them, examine them in your hands.

Then your door opens and closes. It opens again and in comes your father, backing his way into your room, into your space. He is carrying a cookie sheet with a plate of toast and scrambled eggs and bacon. There is a glass of orange juice and milk and a bowl of cereal. Then there is a tall vase with a couple of red roses stuck inside. You don't mind the food, but what the hell? Your father turns to you.

"You're already awake," Carol says. "This bacon smells horrible." He sets the tray on your desk near the door. "Oh, I see you're playing with the toys. You're not too old for those things yet."

You don't know what to say. Since becoming a teenager you are noticing so many things it drives you crazy. Like your father's stuck-on eyelashes. You look at them. They are enormous and black, big as fanned peacock feathers. You're afraid they may fall off into the cereal and choke you. You want to laugh, but you can't. Why can't you laugh? You also notice your father's head and the red towel wrapped around it. He's wearing a woman's robe that is too short for him, stopping mid-thigh. If there were any fruit stuck in that towel your father would look like Lucille Ball being Carmen Miranda.

"Oh, you've made your piñata," Carol says.

You still don't know what to say. You stand there, holding the stuff animals as if you are looking at some new creature. You can't remember ever seeing your father like this, even though you've lived with him ever since the transition. You're either afraid or shocked this person backed into your room, into your space, and is now creeping around, admiring the pale pieces of your piñata.

"Don't," you manage to say, rushing to shield your father from viewing the piñata. You do this as if your father is some art critic preparing to dissect every technique, every strip of paper used to create the piñata.

"What is it?" Carol says, peeking around you.

"It's going to be a donkey," you say, but you are lying. Even you have no idea of what those pieces will become. For all you know you might assembled them they way Picasso paints, an arm attached to the head, and nobody will have any idea what it is. You haven't created it yet. Right now it looks like you, and you might as well create yourself and hang it from a tree and bash it.

You father shrugs, turns and leaves. He has a swagger as he leaves. A swagger of all things. He walks one foot directly in front of the other, the way models walk. You aren't sure where you father is, but you know that you never want to go there.

So you sit down on the floor and begin assembling the pieces of the piñata. It's a delicate process. You don't want to dent or destroy the torso and limbs. The torso is the biggest part, hollow, ready to be filled with candy. The arms and legs dangle from their sockets. The head is large and leans to one side as if the neck is broken. You finish connecting every appendage and set to work painting it.

As you are painting you realize how hands-on you've become. You're a whiz at paper-mâché. You try to remember the last time your father was hands-on. Before Carol, your father had the ability to fix anything. He could make things out of wood. If an appliance blew a coil, your father could be counted on to fix it. It saved having to buy new things. Your father made tables and chairs. He could upholster. But since becoming Carol, your father can no longer fix anything. The skills he had seemed to have died with the removal of his penis. Now, whenever something breaks, he will call a friend to come over or an actual repairman, something he would have never done before. He hated hearing "repairman." You can tell if something breaks. You will hear Carol let out several frustrated sighs then begin to whine and ask herself, "Why isn't this working?" Carol will call you into the kitchen or living room, wherever the broken item, and ask you to get it working. But you're not hands-on when it comes to electrical things like televisions and blenders. Your father never taught you anything like that. You remember the one time you did learn something, though you quickly forgot it because you did not understand circuits. Your father had taken apart a radio because the speaker wasn't working. There was a soldering gun and solder on the kitchen table and your father with the cracked open radio on his lap, picking at the circuit board with a screwdriver. You stood next to him, watching his hands. His hands were dark and hairy. They worked like a surgeon's, picking at green and yellow wires, positioning things just right. He was scraping solder off the green plastic circuit board, positioning the splayed wire into the connection. "Here," he said, "hold the solder right here," and you held the spool of solder so it was touching the wire. Your father took the solder gun and clicked it, held the hot tip against the solder and made it drip onto the wire and seal the connection. You and your father were working together. You and your father were fixing this radio just so the both of you could listen to a baseball game because it wasn't on TV that night. He explained things to you while he soldered. He said the speaker has a magnet and coil of wire and electricity causes vibrations, creating sound. Your father was a man, and he was teaching you to be a man. But you forgot everything. You forgot what he said about circuits and the power of electricity.

The piñata is coming along great. Your painting abilities have improved since taking art classes. You have painted the limbs the color of skin. You are working on the face, the eyes and mouth. The piñata looks almost cartoony. It's probably not a piñata anymore, you think. You paint on a dress, one like Edie Carver wore to a dance last fall, with orange and red splotches. You paint red lips and short eyelashes. It looks like Edie Carver the more you work on it. Then you take black paint and ruin it. You paint a mustache and beard, and the piñata no longer looks like a piñata but more like an effigy of your father.

A couple hours before the party, your father takes you to Dollar Tree to buy candy. Your father is wearing a knee-length maroon skirt and ivory blouse and a five o'clock shadow just after noon. He said something about being balmy outside and put on something cooler. His purse is hanging off his arm. You head for the candy aisle while your father browses a rack of plastic jewelry.

You and your father come to Dollar Tree often. Your father buys groceries here, bath products, and plastic jewelry. Since microwave sales have slipped things have become tight. You no longer get stacks of video games each week. Around the time of Carol's birth you noticed the quality of lunches and dinners dropped off a cliff. You and your father ate vast amounts of meat, packages of steaks stacked in the freezer. You enjoyed it, sitting across the table from your father, both of you with a knife and fork in hand, sawing away at a slab of muscle. Now you eat canned meat and boxes of macaroni and cheese because everything is a dollar at Dollar Tree.

In the candy aisle you grab one package each of the popular candy, like Snickers and Reese's and Butterfinger. Kids at your school don't go for the off-brand, imitation candy. When your father finds you in the aisle you have an armful of candy. Your father has an armful of blue and pink plastic earrings.

"That will melt," Carol says. "You can't put chocolate inside a piñata and hang it in the sun. Put that back and get this." Carol holds up a 50% More bag of candy corn.

You are so pissed.

"This is what I want," you say.

"It's going to melt," Carol says, and takes the Snickers and Butterfingers from your arms. You could throw a fit, stomp and scream that you should have what you want because it's your party. But you risk becoming your own version of Carol, and this is what frightens you more than anything.

You give in, let Carol take the candy from your hands and replace it with candy corn and Yum Yuppers and bubble gum hard as concrete.

"These don't melt," Carol says.

You realize your father is beyond repair. There's no coming back. Before the operation he would have let you have anything you want. Carol won't let you have a thing. The piñata will suck now. Edie Carver won't even let you into the batter's box. Your party will probably be a disaster.

Later in the afternoon, just before people are to start arriving, you're in your room, cleaning. You make sure everything it stacked just right on your shelves and all your clothes are put away, out of sight. Carol is in the kitchen putting together party favors. You don't care what Carol does. You realize now how much things matter when you're a teenager. You didn't think it was a big deal you had to fill the piñata with cheap candy. But it got into your skin, made the back of your neck itch, made your eyelids twitch. You have seven years to go.

The piñata is covered with a white sheet. You don't want anybody seeing it yet. Especially Carol. You wonder what people will think. But you're done caring. Today feels like the worst day of your life, like that quiet day in sixth grade.

You try remembering more about that day. You think hard, make your brain hurt trying. You can remember the way your father was sitting, your mother on the edge of the bed with her face in her hands. Your father's face had no expression. You couldn't tell if he was upset or happy. But his eyes gave him away. You squinted, trying to see them better, but you were too far away. Still, it was like he had no eyes. He didn't blink, his eyes didn't move. He must have been looking at darkness. Your father was somewhere else, his eyes distant and void. After all, he was only trying it on, and maybe he was looking through somebody else's eyes, like you, seeing everything old like it was new. You think about what power that has, to look at everything differently, the way everything has changed, how everything will continue to change.

Carol knocks on your door. You've been standing in the middle of your room. Carol says some kids have arrived. How long have you been standing there? You walk past Carol to the front door. The kids that have arrived are nobody special. Some chubby blond kid and a girl who isn't Edie Carver. You can't remember their names. There's too much going on. You tell them to go through the house to the backyard. Carol ambushes them from the kitchen with two purple party favor sacks decorated with glitter. They're not sure what to do. Carol has a visible beard. They've never met her, so it's like taking candy from a stranger.

In the backyard Carol has managed to borrow a few picnic tables and decorated them with purple bunting. It's sunny outside. There's a small card table with a punch bowl and plastic cups. There is a small stereo for music and dancing, though you have no desire to dance. There's a separate table for gifts. The chubby kid and girl didn't bring anything. Your party is off to a great start.

Carol steps onto the patio behind you and says, "Your mother is here."
You go inside. Carol disappears to the kitchen. Your mother is standing in the living room, holding boxes of presents wrapped in blue paper. God, did she bring presents, enough to fill the table alone. She sets them on the floor and hugs you. "You've gotten so big," she says. "You're growing up." She keeps hugging, squeezing you like a stuffed toy. You know she's trying to make up for the past year, leaving you, trying to be a part of your life more than ever. But you don't care anymore than you will tomorrow. You think living with your mother will probably be like living with Carol.

Soon, other kids start arriving with their parents and the present table begins to have more than just your mother's gifts on it. Carol is handing out party favors as the kids file through the kitchen to the backyard. Each kid takes a sack in their fingertips, unsure of what to do with it.

Outside, the chubby kid is just now opening his sack. He takes out a small square of something, unwraps it, takes a bite, and spits it out. "It tastes like soap," he says. He removes other things from the sack'"bottles of hand lotion and shampoo and creams. "No candy?" the kid says and crumples the sack on the ground.

You feel yourself wanting to vomit, as if your stomach is doing jumping-jacks inside you. There's maybe ten kids here, nobody popular enough to win you any points when Monday gets here. Where's Edie Carver? She's supposed to be here. You're sure of it. You've been planning for it, planning to ask Edie Carver to your room, tell her you like her so much, that you like like her. You know this will be a shock to her because you haven't spoken to Edie Carver for more than two sentences.

Carol baked a cake this morning with your name on it in purple icing. What's with purple? It's not your favorite color. But you're unsure if Carol knows your favorite color. She's finishing it in the kitchen, carefully lathering it in light purple icing. Carol calls it lavender. You know you don't want to eat any cake for fear of turning into Carol. You have your reasons'"you're thirteen now. You've already seen so many things.

Happy Birthday. Now your party can really begin. Edie Carver is here. She arrived while you were greeting guests in the backyard. Everybody was wishing you Happy Birthday. You notice Edie Carver opening the door to the patio. She looks elegant, you think. She's wearing a dress to your party, a light dress because it's so hot out. You like how it looks on her, the way the dress stops just above her knees, how the color yellow makes her glow.

Edie has a present for you. She's holding a light blue bag with white tissue paper sticking from the top. She moves toward you, and the way her dress swings makes your stomach trip over itself and tumble down a hillside.

You like like her, and you want to tell her. So you ask her to your room. You've got something really cool to show her, you say, and she goes with you.

You walk her past Carol sticking candles in the cake. She's humming to herself. You turn down the hall and you feel your eyelid twitch. It feels almost like that day in sixth grade, down the hallway to find your father in your mother's clothes. You shut your bedroom door behind you, and Edie Carver wants to know what it is you have to show her. She's smiling. Her smile, you think, stretches from one end of the horizon to the other like the arc of a rainbow. It's so big and bright you could die now and forget your thirteenth birthday.

"What's that?" Edie Carver says, looking at the piñata covered with the sheet.

You're afraid to show her. The piñata is nothing like Zack Duncan's donkey piñata, which she probably liked more than she will like your piñata. But you so her anyway because you're thirteen now, and you need to feel things out for yourself. You pull the sheet off.

"Cool," she says. "What is it?"

You tell her it's a piñata for your party, but stop there. You don't tell her you think it looks like your father, and like you at the same time.

"I love you," you say, and reach for Edie Carver's round face. You feel her face in your hands, the way they fit her face you think you were meant for each other, and you kiss her. It's awkward because you've never done this. You're trying things out. Your lips move like a horse's, flopping against hers.

Edie Carver pushes you away, but it feels like she's pulling into you, and you believe more than ever you're scoring points, that on Monday morning everybody will be looking at your differently. You believe you're a man now.

"Gross," Edie Carver says. She almost screams it. She pushes you again and you fall against the wall. She runs from your room, probably to tell everybody how much you suck at kissing.

If you could see yourself right now, if you could look into the cracked open door the way you looked in on your parents, you would think you look like your father because you do. You have no expression and your eyes are void and distant, staring off at something. And Edie Carver just ran from you the way your mother ran from your father, as if she just caught you trying on her dress. You feel yourself becoming more like your father everyday. In a way, you think, you're just like your father, but you're more like an effigy, just a crude cartoon drawing of the man you're most likely to become.

Happy Birthday.

Carol yells from the kitchen. She says the party can't start without you. You wish it would. You want everybody to leave, but you think you can salvage this day.

You grab the sheet-wrapped piñata by the throat, carrying it over your shoulder like a dead ghost. You walk down the hallway. It feels like a death march, like the walk before an execution. You stop at the closet, take an old jump rope and broom from the closet. You break the broom handle in half. You're sure Edie Carver is outside telling everybody what happened. She'll probably never speak to you again. Monday will be so awkward.
You're standing at the door to the patio, the weight of the paper mâché and paint weighing on your shoulder. Everybody is lined up outside like a gauntlet. Edie Carver is wiping her lips. Your mother is holding a camera in front of her face. Carol is holding your cake, your name in purple cursive. The chubby kid is eying the cake.

Everybody is looking at you.

You step onto the patio like stepping onto the moon for the first time. Your first real steps as a man are important, enormous. You walk through everybody and they start singing. Carol lights the candles. You're looking at the tree in the backyard, the low branch to hang the piñata from. You yank the sheet off and tie the piñata to the branch and stand next to it, holding half the broom in your hand. Carol goes from smiling to a flatline.

You don't say anything. Since living with Carol the past year you have lost your voice. You haven't had a say in anything. This is the moment where you can finally tell your father, and Carol, how you really feel because today revolves around you. You take a washcloth from your pocket and tie it around your head, covering your eyes.

"Not yet," some kid yells, but you take up the stick and swing.

You miss.

You begin to laugh. For the first time since that quiet day in sixth grade you're laughing. It's dark behind the blindfold and you're laughing. You're laughing at how ridiculous it is your father is a woman. You're laughing at yourself for missing the piñata, laughing with everybody else now. It's a relief to laugh, as if all the weight of the world has rolled off your shoulders and splashed into water. You're yourself now, and at the same time you've become somebody else. You aren't sure who, but you know it's not your father because you no longer have a father. Wherever he is you miss him. But his absence gives you the opportunity to create yourself because any clues as to the man you might have become are lost with your father, lost to Carol, lost as you begin another swing.