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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781449076375 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 06/11/2012 |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.37(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Gender Games
A NovelBy Alfonso C. Hernandez
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Alfonso C. HernandezAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-7637-5
Chapter One
THE SHADOW
The shadow prenetrates me, in my sleep, when my mouth is open and I have abandoned myself to the dangers of the night. As I dream, I feel the sensation of a sexual penetration through my whole body followed by a tense sense of suffocation induced by a warm, soft, erect object being introduced into my mouth. The metaphpysical object feels made of soft cloth, full of pulsating membranes, pliable, elastic, but hard enough to cut my breath. My breath stops and I enter a numbing state of paralysis. Then, I open my eyes.
I gain my consciousness. I dare look and observe a shadow coming out of my mouth: a gigantic black shadow, formeless, which extends toward the wall. It's not human nor animal. I shout but no sound comes out. The shadow flies away and leaves the room through one of the small opened windows high in the wall. I tremble desperately. I wipe the perspiration out of my forehead with my hand and I loose consciousness. Fear immoblizes me. I wake up with an intense fever. My personality shows its fractures after these nocturnal, unexplained and unvoluntary visits.
Similar shadows are running wild in the night world crying with silent cries waiting for some human soul in a vulnerable condition, like mine. Even in the hottest valley days, a frozen shiver of fear shakes me when I remember such invasions. I only fall sleep when I am totally vanquished by fatigue and I always leave at least one light on at night nearby. I live with an extreme case of phobia of being alone at night. I live in a constant state of anxiety.
Chapter Two
THE OUTING
When I was born, I am told, I was a robust boy with all my genitals intact. I was registered and baptized with a boy's name and grew just like any ordinary, precocius boy speaking when I was one year old. Now, I am a woman who had no sex change operation and who is not a transvestite. In fact, I abhor the idea of wearing women's clothing or any soft garments. I wear one or two sizes larger because I dislike the tight look and most of my shirts and pants are made of masculine materials, colors and styles. No pinks or light blues for me. And of course, never purple, nor violet. Only gray, dark blue, black and brown. White shirts with ties of one single color with some lines and definitely no flowers. I wear a ring on my left wedding finger because I want to give the impression of being married, of being normal.
I am a woman in a man's body whose appearance changes at different times during the year following a very peculiar process of masculinization and feminization. I am very aware of my emotional interior changes because my inner self guides me to respond physically to the presences of male or female beings, if they are attractive and if they send a beam of sensuality in my direction. However, sometimes, I am unaware of my physical changes until an outsider makes me aware of being someone else as what happened one evening at dusk when I was standing watching the Opera House in Paris, at the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens when an adolescent pointed at me practically screaming: C'est une femme. He is a woman. I was wearing my jeans and my farm worker's jacket and still I was discovered, seen, outed by an unknown person I had not even noticed. I walked away from that corner as fast as I could.
I am still unable to understand and control the physical changes, the emotional transformations. There have been occasions when I have consciously willed such metamorphosis because such changes serve one purpose or another. When my work demands that I act and talk like a man, then I have to force one nature to go into hiding, at least during my workhours. When I must appear and behave like a man, I suppress and send back to my deepest self my feminine nature. But, when I do this, then my feminine self comes out stronger once I am not on guard. I can not deny that when my feminine self overpowers my masculine self I have wished to have some kind of surgery. But then, my common sense comes back just thinking of the extreme embarrassment I would have to endure if I actually considered to change my gender.
I know that there are individuals who are more sensitive to my changes because when I meet them, immediately they tell me that they are married or that the are looking for a girl friend completely different from me in age, race, color. The shame I feel at these moments when I am caught as if I had been in some way showing sexual interest disturbs me for various days after causing me to fall into a compulsive depressive state when I cry easily or I am prone to make mistakes in the kitchen, while driving, or at work. Then my anger overpowers me and forces me to control looking at men as if they were potential sex partners. When a woman thinks that I am interested in her romantically, all I have to do is to avoid her or simply I do not pursue the issue. Some women react like men by telling me that they have a husband or that they are happily married. The affair ends before it begins.
Belonging to the two genders, in spite of appearing as only one type is not the problem most think it is even though I have contemplated suicide multiple times. I have tried it at least two times, always unsuccessfully. I still love life more than I love death. Who knows? Perhaps one of these days, when I have no idea who I am and when I find my depression unbearable, then, I'll buy a bottle of valium, or prozac, a bottle of the best whisky and drink both entirely while listening to Callas sing J'ai perdu mon Eurydice. You might think that I am a coward or that I have not integrated the male and the female within me, which is probably true. But it is not a question of integration because then I would never be able to partner with a male or a female as occurs when I am in transition between the two and become a highly spiritual being without any physical desires.
This is not a confession. I write about my triple nature because I believe that most human beings actually have at least a double nature. This is not a confession because I have not the slightest feeling of guilt in my bones, in my heart, in my brain. I do believe that the pure heterosexual, male or female exists, rarely, but does exist and since the majority of the human race is either bisexual or trisexual, or more, the sooner we accept this reality, the fewer individuals will depend on alcohol, drugs, the fewer will commit crimes, as those I have done, all unpunished. Confession stinks to catholicism and such a state is so repellent to me that I prefer to call this narration and effort to tell you the truth to see if you can absolve me without judgement. But if you judge me, it does not matter. I am not searching your forgiveness nor your understanding. Facts are facts and they must remain unpunished. At least until now.
Chapter Three
WHITE LIGHT
One afternoon, after the wheat harvest has ended, the farm hands fill the oxen driven cart with wheat bushels which must be transported to the mill. My mother and the driver of the cart seat on an improvised, impoverished bench at the front edge of the cart and I climb on top of the straw pyramide. We leave the ranch and start our trip on the dusty, narrow road. I sing happy songs of childhood I learned from my grandmother, the French one, the blond one, the one with turquoise eyes, accompanied by the song of the running water of the creek on the side of the road. The birds sing also their farewell songs to the light of day and the giant eucalyptus harmonize with their aroma distilled into the air by the soft afternoon breeze.
Suddenly, a speeding truck, full of drunk farm hands who have spent their hard earned money in the bars, the brothels, the stores in the town, is coming to meet us. The drunk truck crashes against the side of the cart where I am. I hear the cracking of the wood, the rustling sound of the straw being dragged on the dusty road, the loud swearing of drunkards and the painful cry of a woman with the mute sound of flesh sweeping the straw and the soil.
I see a tunnel of pure white light coming from an immense source of brilliant, radiating light and I see myself walking toward it. I feel an overwhelming sense of peace, happiness and I am totally oblivious of any sense of time, space, memory, pain. As I approach the source, the light becomes unbearably bright. I close my eyes and continue walking toward the end of the black tunnel and the beginning of the light. I see my short life as frames of an unfinished film. I realize that there are things I still have to do. I have to go back to continue my story. I can not join the appealing source of light.
Slowly, I begin to retrocede away from the light, walking backwards with my eyes semiopened and fixed in the hypnotizing, tranquil, shinning light. As I increase the distance between me and the light, the tunnel becomes smaller and darker. I become claustrophobic and suffer the sensation of axfixia. I can't breathe. Now, I can only see a small dot of white light in the distance and the darkness of the tunnel becomes more intense, seems to be all around me, a part of me. I am in a whirling darkness. I begin to hear in the distance very faint cries and shouts of people. I don't understand what is being said, but I do realize that the voices are approaching. A thin voice shouts that I am dead.
– They have killed my son!
I was dead! I hear the voices reverberate in my ears. I open my eyes. A woman shouts:
– My son! My son!
Who is his woman? I ask myself as I open my eyes. She embraces me. She is crying aloud calling me her son. I look at her with disbelief. I don't recognize her, nor anyone else there. The people surrounding me are strangers I have never seen before. A sharp pain invades me and I faint.
Chapter Four
HOSPITAL
I wake up in an unknown bed in a strange room. I shiver even though I am covered with sheets and blankets. I notice the room – immaculately clean, white walls, light yellow brick on the floor, a dark green small carpet, and a nun reading a bible seated on a chair by my bed. I must be dying, I think. But, that's impossible. Although, I feel very cold, I have the sensation of being free. The nun catches me observing her.
– Well! Finally! You have been barely breathing for two days now. She stands up and talks softly near my face.
– Your mother is going to be delighted knowing you are awake. I'll call her.
I don't utter a word. I hear what she says but I don't understand the meaning of her speech. Mother? What mother? What is a mother? Who is my mother? I hear some feminine voices in the distance accompanied by footsteps. I can't overcome the desire to sleep.
I wake up again. This time, I see another woman seating by my bed. She seems tired and fixes her eyes on my eyes as if waiting for me to say something. My mind is as blank as the walls of the room. The woman looks at me with tears in her eyes. She touches my arm.
– Son! Son! How do you feel?
I don't answer. I don't have any desire to talk and I don't feel any affection for that woman. She leaves the room.
– I'll be back soon.
She comes back in the company of a man dressed in white and the nun I have already seen.
– You see, doctor? He is awake now.
– Very good. I'll examine him again and if he doesn't have anything broken, you can take him home tomorrow.
He looks into my eyes and ears with a small lamp. I feel invaded. He forces me to open my mouth and he scrutinizes my larynx and my throat. He places his stethoscope close to my heart, and he asks me to breathe deeply. I do so. He touches ruggedly my arms, my legs and my thorax.
– Anything hurts?
I move my head to indicate to him no. When he touches my left foot, I move my leg away. He examines my foot, but he only finds a scratch.
– He should be ready to go home tomorrow.
Home? Which home? I ask myself. I don't remember anything nor anybody. I don't tell them how I feel, and how I don't have any memory nor any emotions. I have lost all possible connections.
Another nun comes in with a tray with a bowl of hot chicken soup and crackers. The lady who calls herself my mother wants to feed me. The nun gives her the tray and she sits by my bed. She gives me the soup spoon by spoon. Since I am very hungry, I eat everything. But I don't utter a word.
– The accident must have affected him very deeply. That's why he doesn't talk yet, but little by little he will return to normal.
Back to normal? I wonder what she means by normal, I think. My vocal chords don't seem to obey me, therefore, even if I want to explain to this lady that I don't know who she is, I decide to listen and wait. I do hear and I can understand. I sleep again.
Chapter Five
HOME
The lady who calls herself my mother leads me to her house the day after. We walk in cobblestone streets, early in the morning, the sun shinning on the side of the narrow street. The houses look vaguely familiar, with a sense of déjà vu, but still strange and unrecognizable. I seem to see everything through sepia color glasses. This lady holds me by the hand as if she were afraid of losing me. I hold fast to that soft, nervous hand because of the sensation of strangeness. I start to discover the streets we walk on.
I have forgotten how to speak. The lady asks:
– Did they eat your tongue? You used to be a talker, always asking questions. Now, your silence worries me.
I do not answer. We arrive at a burnt brick house and we enter the corridor. A boy and a girl run towards us shouting:
– Mother! Mother! You are here! How is he!
They stop when they notice me. Their intuition tells them that someone else has returned home. I am not the same being they have known.
– He can't talk.
– Did he lose his tongue?
– He is mute.
– Can he hear?
– Yes, he can hear.
Fear enters my body and I approach the lady who calls herself my mother. I intuitively know she will protect me from these children who observe me with curiosity. She puts her arm around my left shoulder and leads me into the living room. The children remain astonished that I don't talk and run out to play their games. I sleep soundly again in a strange bed. In the morning, I rise very late, after everyone. I don't remember having heard any noise. I dare walk to the window of the room from where I see a mountain waterfall in the distance. In the patio, there is a basin with a fountain. I feel very sad, distant, disconnected. I am certain I don't belong here. My soul doesn't belong to my body. Yet, I have a premonition of hopelessness, of being unnable to discontinue my existence.
Chapter Six
TONGUE OF ANGEL
For weeks, I don't say a word. Later, I answer only with monosyllables when it is absolutely necessary to speak aloud. Usually, I just gesture with my head or with my hands. I need time to acquire the habits of the people who surround me and who try to be so kind to me. Every activity, every game, every speech seems strangely new to me. The moment of awakening, the strange noises of people in the process of getting up, the smell of coffee and fried eggs from the kitchen, the noise of the making of tortillas, the eating, the tasting of all the different dishes the lady who calls herself my mother makes, the swallowing. My favorite becomes a stew made with beef and vegetables, carrots, garbanzo peas, string beans, corn on the cob, celery, potatoes, tomatoes, herbs and cacti that gives the soup a peculiar acid taste. Once, a big black fly flies into my wonderful stew and I cry. I run to my room and I don't eat for the rest of the day.
The days change in color. Now, the mornings and the afternoons become yellow. I begin to change color also and instead of being copper brown, I become pale and yellowish, imitating the light of day. I start to suffer horrible pains in all my body, particularly in my legs. I wake up in the middle of the night with pains I am unnable to control. I cry softly first in order not to awake anybody, then, as the pain increases, I cry aloud. The lady who calls herself my mother comes to my room and massages me. She asks what is wrong, but I can't answer because I don't know what's happening to me in this foreign environment. She massages my legs with a liquid which is cold at first and then very hot in contact with my legs. Then, the pain diminishes enough so that I am able to sleep.
I spend the days in bed after these nights of suffering. I am put on a diet of soups and crackers. No meat, no vegetables, no bread, no butter. I become very hungry. I am starving. I look at myself on a mirror and I see only an emaciated child. The pains increase in my stomach and in my legs. I cry aloud. I shout. The lady wants to rub my legs and my stomach with the icehot cream, but I permit her to cure me only if she gives me peanuts. I crave for peanuts. She gives me five. As I eat them slowly, she massages my legs, my chest, and my stomach until the pains grow bearable.
– I am hungry.
I say one day. Everyone seems startled when I talk. My voice sounds cavernous, coarse, dark; the words mispronounced, unintelligible.
– I am hungry.
I repeat in a louder voice. I am observed carefully, scrutinized.
– I need to eat meat.
– There is no meat. Today is Friday and we are fasting. We don't eat meat today, Besides, the meat markets are closed.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Gender Games by Alfonso C. Hernandez Copyright © 2012 by Alfonso C. Hernandez. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
I. The Shadow....................1II. The Outing....................5
III. White Light....................11
IV. Hospital....................15
V. Home....................19
VI. Tongue Of Angel....................23
VII. School....................29
VIII. Narcissus....................33
IX. Manwoman....................39
X. Le Jardin Du Luxembourg....................47
XI. Double Nature....................55
XII. Autodidact....................59
XIII. First Crime....................65
XIV. Second Crime....................71
XV. Brute Clay....................75
XVI. The Shout....................83
XVII. Nausea....................87
XVIII. Third Crime....................95
XIX. Self Portrait....................99
XX. Armageddon....................103
XXI. Gender games....................109
XXII. Breeders....................127
XXIII. Joy....................147