Other So Different of Me

There’s this girl at the ward. She is condemned to there… same as me.

She is… Nice. Kind. Clocky.

I talk to her when I’m there… when I’m open to interactions. Which isn’t always.

She lived with another tranny. Also from the ward… but a fancy kind. One who lives with her parents… a rich French family. Noble neighborhood. That type of shit.

But the French tranny got tired of her. Kicked her out. And now the poor thing is homeless.

She’s lived on the streets once. She’s worked as a prostitute once. The complete package of a Brazilian tranny… the kind they write cautionary tales about.

She could go back to that life. It’s not my problem…

Or is it?

I’m a good person wearing a monster’s mask? Or a monster wearing a saint’s mask? Or there are so many masks… overlapping and piled up… that I’ve already lost track of which face is mine?

This is me as always. Arrogant. Pedantic. Questioning whether I have a heart of gold… or just guilt… or just a need to feel like something other than a devil.

I offered her my house.

I have a spare room. A mattress lying around.

Why not?

Why not?

I don’t fucking care, I tell myself. Maybe we won’t even see each other’s eyes. Doors lock. I barely leave my room.

I’m good at being my own ghost. I can open that task to the public.

But what if… it’s not like that? What if we see each other every breakfast? What if we watch movies together? What if I cook for her and her pooner boyfriend?

The point is… culturally… we have nothing in common.

She identifies as travesti. And non-binary.

How can I tell her I don’t believe this nonsense? I know… just shut my fucking mouth. Not hard at all. I barely talk already.

She is also very proud of having this trans curse. I wouldn’t call myself a tranny even under torture. Not even at knifepoint. Not even on my knees.

She is very… sneed. Gock. Magic wand. All that shit.

Me… Well… I won’t sleep with her unless she pays me.

So…

I’m kind of doing this good deed. But I already know… over time… my tarnished image will become even more tarnished.

I don’t know. I feel… dumb.

But was I going to leave the damn thing on the street?

No fucking way.

So now she’ll be in my house. In my spare room. Under my leaky roof.

Two trannys… mind fucked… different worlds.

She will talk about her life, about her boyfriend, about the LGBTQetc movement. I will talk about… I will listen.

She will sneed. I will cringe. And we will share a bathroom.

This is what empathy looks like from the inside?

Not clean. Not heroic. Just… a spare room. A mattress. A girl who has nothing in common with me.

And the quiet, horrible suspicion that I am not helping her.

I am trying to help myself.

To prove that I am still good. That I am not the token I fear I’ve become. That I can still give something back to the community I was condemned to be a part of.

Not a saint. Just another performance… like all the others… but this one is just for me.

She will come. She will stay. I will learn to share space… or I will haunt this old apartment alone.

And maybe… just maybe… the girl in the spare room will teach me something about the parts of myself I have been trying to bury.

Or maybe I will corrupt her. Show her the monster mask… teach her how to put it on.

Or maybe we will just coexist. Two ghosts. One roof. Both pretending we don’t see the differences staring back.

I feel… dumb.

But I feel something else too. Something that doesn’t have a name yet. Something that isn’t charity… isn’t guilt… isn’t even kindness, really.

Something that just says: she needs a place. You have one.

And for now… even if, deep down in that embittered soul, it is pure malice and a desire to feel like a savior…

The girl has a roof over her head.

That is enough.

For now.

Maybe.

Who knows.

I don’t. I never do.