Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex

And I was scared to death of being caught looking. Despite my suit, my haircut, and my height, every time I went into a men’s room a shout rang out in my head: “You’re in the men’s!” But the men’s was where I was supposed to be. Nobody said a word. Nobody objected to my presence. And so I searched for a stall that looked halfway clean. I had to sit to urinate. Still do.

At night, on the fungal carpets of motel rooms, I did exercises, push-ups and sit-ups. Wearing nothing but my new boxers, I examined my physique in the mirror. Not long ago I’d fretted over my failure to develop. That worry was gone now. I didn’t have to live up to that standard anymore. The impossible demands had been removed and I felt a vast relief. But there were also moments of dislocation, staring at my changing body. Sometimes it didn’t feel like my own. It was hard, white, bony. Beautiful in its own way, I supposed, but Spartan. Not receptive or pliant at all. Contents under pressure, rather.

It was in those motel rooms that I learned about my new body, its specific instructions and contraindications. The Object and I had worked in the dark. She had never really explored my apparatus much. The Clinic had medicalized my genitals. During my time there they were numb or slightly tender from the constant examinations. My body had shut down in order to get through the ordeal. But traveling woke it up. Alone, with the door locked and the chain on, I experimented with myself. I put pillows between my legs. I lay on top of them. Half paying attention, while I watched Johnny Carson, my hand prospected. The anxiety I’d always felt about how I was made had kept me from exploring the way most kids did. So it was only now, lost to the world and everyone I knew, that I had the courage to try it out. I can’t discount the importance of this. If I had doubts about my decision, if I sometimes thought about turning back, running back to my parents and the Clinic and giving in, what stopped me was this private ecstasy between my legs. I knew it would be taken from me. I don’t want to overestimate the sexual. But it was a powerful force for me, especially at fourteen, with my nerves bright and jangling, ready to launch into a symphony at the slightest provocation. That was how Cal discovered himself, in voluptuous, liquid, sterile culmination, couchant upon two or three deformed pillows, with the shades drawn and the drained swimming pool outside and the cars passing, endlessly, all night.

Outside Nebraska City, a silver Nova hatchback pulled over. I ran up with my suitcase and opened the passenger door. At the wheel was a good-looking man in his early thirties. He wore a tweed coat and yellow V-neck sweater. His plaid shirt was open at the collar, but the wings were crisp with starch. The formality of his clothes contrasted with his relaxed manner. “Hello deh,” he said, doing a Brooklyn accent.

“Thanks for stopping.”

He lit a cigarette and introduced himself, extending his hand. “Ben Scheer.”

“My name’s Cal.”

He didn’t ask the usual questions about my origin and destination. Instead, as we drove off, he asked, “Where did you get that suit?”

“Salvation Army.”

“Real nice.”

“Really?” I said. And then reconsidered. “You’re teasing.”

“No, I’m not,” said Scheer. “I like a suit somebody died in. It’s very existential.”

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“Existential?”

He gave me a direct look. “An existentialist is someone who lives for the moment.”

No one had ever talked to me like this before. I liked it. As we drove on through the yellow country, Scheer told me other interesting things. I learned about Ionesco and the Theater of the Absurd. Also about Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. It’s hard to express the excitement such phrases instilled in a kid like me from the cultural sticks. The Charm Bracelets wanted to pretend they were from the East, and I guess I had picked up that urge, too.

“Did you ever live in New York?” I asked.

“Used to.”

“I was just there. I want to live there someday.”

“I lived there ten years.”

“Why did you leave?”

Again the direct look. “I woke up one morning and realized, if I didn’t, I’d be dead in a year.”

This, too, seemed marvelous.

Scheer’s face was handsome, pale, with an Asiatic cast to his gray eyes. His light brown frizzy hair was scrupulously brushed, and parted by fiat. After a while I noticed other niceties of his dress, the monogrammed cuff links, the Italian loafers. I liked him immediately. Scheer was the kind of man I thought I would like to be myself.

Suddenly, from the rear of the car there erupted a magnificent, weary, soul-emptying sigh.

“How ya doin’, Franklin?” Scheer called.

On hearing his name, Franklin lifted his troubled, regal head from the recesses of the hatchback, and I saw the black-and-white markings of an English setter. Ancient, rheumy-eyed, he gave me the once-over and dropped back out of sight.

Scheer was meanwhile pulling off the highway. He had a breezy highway driving style, but when making any kind of maneuver he snapped into military action, pummeling the wheel with strong hands. He pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. “Back in a minute.”

Holding a cigarette at his hip like a riding crop, he walked with clipped steps into the store. While he was gone I looked around the car. It was immaculately clean, the floor mats freshly vacuumed. The glove box contained orderly maps and tapes of Mabel Mercer. Scheer reappeared with two full shopping bags.

“I think road drinks are in order,” he said.

He had a twelve-pack carton of beer, two bottles of Blue Nun, and a bottle of Lancers rosé, in a faux clay bottle. He set all of these on the backseat.

This was part of being sophisticated, too. You drank cheap Liebfraumilch in plastic cups, calling it cocktails, and carved off hunks of Cheddar cheese with a Swiss Army knife. Scheer had assembled a nice hors d’oeuvre platter from meager sources. There were also olives. We headed back out across the no-man’s-land, while Scheer directed me to open the wine and serve him snacks. I was now his page. He had me put in the Mabel Mercer tape and then enlightened me about her meticulous phrasing.

Suddenly he raised his voice. “Cops. Keep your glass down.”

I quickly lowered my Blue Nun and we drove on, acting cool as the state trooper passed on our left.

By now Scheer was doing the cop’s voice. “I know city slickers when I see ’em and them thar’s two of the slickest of ’em all. I’d wager they’re up to no good.”

To all this I responded with laughter, happy to be in league against the world of hypocrites and rulemongers.

When it began to grow dark, Scheer chose a steak house. I was worried it might be too expensive, but he told me, “Dinner’s on me tonight.”

Inside, it was busy, a popular place, the only table open a small one near the bar.

To the waitress Scheer said, “I’ll have a vodka martini, very dry, two olives, and my son here will have a beer.”

The waitress looked at me.

“He got any ID?”

“Not on me,” I said.

“Can’t serve you, then.”

“I was there at his birth. I can vouch for him,” said Scheer.

“Sorry, no ID, no alcohol.”

“Okay, then,” said Scheer. “Changed my mind. I’ll have a vodka martini, very dry, two olives, and a beer chaser.”

Through her tight lips the waitress said, “You gonna let your friend drink that beer I can’t serve it to you.”

“They’re both for me,” Scheer assured her. He deepened his voice a little, opened the tone a little, injecting it with an Eastern or Ivy League authority whose influence did not entirely dissipate even all the way out here in the steak house on the plains. The waitress, resentful, complied.