than being excluded, like Stuart Peel. The year I turned sixteen I felt different from the rest, tormented, rebellious, and furious at the world. It was no longer a matter of losing myself in the flock but of standing out; I didn’t want to be accepted, just feared. I distanced myself from my old friends, or they distanced themselves from me. I formed a triangular friendship with Sarah and Debbie, the girls with the worst reputations in school, which is saying a lot, because at Berkeley High there were some pathological cases. We formed an exclusive club; we were closer than sisters, telling each other everything, even our dreams. We were always together or connected by phone, talking, sharing clothes, makeup, money, food, drugs. We could not conceive of separate existences. Our friendship would last for the rest of our lives, and no one and nothing would ever come between us.
I transformed myself inside and out. I felt like I was going to explode; I had too much flesh, not enough skin and bones, my blood boiled, I couldn’t stand myself. I feared I was going to wake up in a Kafkaesque nightmare, turned into a cockroach. I examined my defects, my big teeth, muscular legs, protruding ears, straight hair, short nose, five zits, chewed fingernails, bad posture, too white, too tall and clumsy. I felt ugly, but there were moments when I could sense the power of my new feminine body, a power I didn’t know how to wield. I got irritated if men looked at me or offered me a ride in the street, if any guy in my class touched me or if a teacher took too much interest in my behavior or my grades, except for the irreproachable Mr. Harper.
The school didn’t have a girls’ soccer team. I played at a club, where the coach once had me doing extra stretches on the field until the other girls left and then followed me into the shower, where he felt me up and groped me all over and, since I didn’t react, thought I liked it. Embarrassed, I only told Sarah and Debbie, swearing them to secrecy first. I stopped playing and never set foot in the club again.
The changes in my body and personality were as sudden as slipping on ice, and I didn’t have time to notice I was going to crack my head open. I started testing danger with the determination of someone hypnotized; soon I was leading a double life, lying with astonishing aptitude, slamming doors and shouting at my grandmother, the only authority in the household since Susan was away in the war. For all practical purposes, my father had disappeared; I imagine he doubled his flying hours to avoid fights with me.
Sarah, Debbie, and I discovered Internet porn, like the rest of the kids at school, and we practiced the gestures and postures of the women on the screen, with dubious results in my case, because I felt ridiculous. My grandma began to suspect and launched a head-on campaign against the sex industry, which degraded and exploited women; nothing new there, because she and Mike O’Kelly had taken me to a demonstration against Playboy magazine when Hugh Hefner had the preposterous idea of visiting Berkeley. Iwas nine years old, as far as I remember.
My friends were my whole world. Only with them could I share my ideas and feelings; only they saw things from my point of view and understood me; no one else got our humor or our tastes. Berkeley High kids were snotty-nosed brats, losers. We were convinced that nobody had lives as complicated as ours. With the pretext of supposed rapes and beatings from her stepfather, Sarah was a compulsive shoplifter, while Debbie and I were always on the lookout, covering for her and protecting her. The truth is that Sarah lived with her single mom and had never had a stepfather, but that imaginary psychopath was as present in our conversations as if he’d been flesh and blood. My friend looked like a grasshopper, all elbows, knees, ribs, and other protruding bones, and she always had bags of candy, which she devoured in one go and then ran to the
I transformed myself inside and out. I felt like I was going to explode; I had too much flesh, not enough skin and bones, my blood boiled, I couldn’t stand myself. I feared I was going to wake up in a Kafkaesque nightmare, turned into a cockroach. I examined my defects, my big teeth, muscular legs, protruding ears, straight hair, short nose, five zits, chewed fingernails, bad posture, too white, too tall and clumsy. I felt ugly, but there were moments when I could sense the power of my new feminine body, a power I didn’t know how to wield. I got irritated if men looked at me or offered me a ride in the street, if any guy in my class touched me or if a teacher took too much interest in my behavior or my grades, except for the irreproachable Mr. Harper.
The school didn’t have a girls’ soccer team. I played at a club, where the coach once had me doing extra stretches on the field until the other girls left and then followed me into the shower, where he felt me up and groped me all over and, since I didn’t react, thought I liked it. Embarrassed, I only told Sarah and Debbie, swearing them to secrecy first. I stopped playing and never set foot in the club again.
The changes in my body and personality were as sudden as slipping on ice, and I didn’t have time to notice I was going to crack my head open. I started testing danger with the determination of someone hypnotized; soon I was leading a double life, lying with astonishing aptitude, slamming doors and shouting at my grandmother, the only authority in the household since Susan was away in the war. For all practical purposes, my father had disappeared; I imagine he doubled his flying hours to avoid fights with me.
Sarah, Debbie, and I discovered Internet porn, like the rest of the kids at school, and we practiced the gestures and postures of the women on the screen, with dubious results in my case, because I felt ridiculous. My grandma began to suspect and launched a head-on campaign against the sex industry, which degraded and exploited women; nothing new there, because she and Mike O’Kelly had taken me to a demonstration against Playboy magazine when Hugh Hefner had the preposterous idea of visiting Berkeley. Iwas nine years old, as far as I remember.
My friends were my whole world. Only with them could I share my ideas and feelings; only they saw things from my point of view and understood me; no one else got our humor or our tastes. Berkeley High kids were snotty-nosed brats, losers. We were convinced that nobody had lives as complicated as ours. With the pretext of supposed rapes and beatings from her stepfather, Sarah was a compulsive shoplifter, while Debbie and I were always on the lookout, covering for her and protecting her. The truth is that Sarah lived with her single mom and had never had a stepfather, but that imaginary psychopath was as present in our conversations as if he’d been flesh and blood. My friend looked like a grasshopper, all elbows, knees, ribs, and other protruding bones, and she always had bags of candy, which she devoured in one go and then ran to the