I just read Augusten Bouroughs’ Running with Scissors. Jesus, I thought my writing was edgy. Boroughs is a bestseller of memoirs about his crazy life. Color me inspired.
**Note: Names have been changed and locations omitted to protect identities (and myself).
This is a true story.
I got some wild news over the holidays. I can’t contain it. It’s just too good—the biggest of curveballs. One of those, “What!? You’re joking!” kind of situations. But first, some context…
So, I dated this lawyer, “the Gaff,” once upon a time. Actually, twice upon a time. The first time I was 19, half his age. I was drawn to him, with his baritone voice and command for attention. And respect. He could be in a biker clubhouse, a courtroom, or a roomful of little old ladies, and everyone would shut up. With stars in their eyes, no less. I was drawn to the reckless, the exciting, and the crazy, given that I too was reckless, exciting, and crazy. So was the Gaff. As a recovered alcoholic, he loved fast cars, a good fight, and women (simultaneous multiples of women, it turned out). He was tall and broad—Stone Cold Steve Austen in a double-breasted suit—and I was smitten.
We met through my ex, “Taz,” a tyrannical coke dealer with a knack for beating and humiliating women. I wasn’t the first, and I’m sure not the last. His ex, “Candy,” a cokehead stripper (imagine that? A cokehead dating a coke dealer?) took more beatings than I did. She was untamed, explosive, in his spiraling psychosis. I was calm and sober (albeit terrified). I locked my arms to my sides and put my head down. I knew better than to swing back, to goad him, to throw epithets and blow my own top. A better approach, apparently, was to bottle it up deep inside until it ate me and I had to write about it publicly.
Taz was an ex-bodybuilder, a self-obsessed prospect with crazy eyes. He obsessed over his looks—his teeth, his eyebrows, his skin, his hair. He whitened and waxed and tanned and moisturized. He’d sit on the bathroom sink naked, his face in the mirror, running his finger along his teeth and his eyebrows, over and over and over. He’d unravel if a lonely hair sprouted on his body. He’d then spin into a frantic fit of waxing and shaving until his skin was raw—stopping only briefly to slam the door if he noticed me looking. It wasn’t just his own looks that tortured him. I was a fat cow who needed to lose weight. I was disgusting, apparently. Why couldn’t I look like his exes? (and those he cheated with). “What am I even doing with you?” he’d say, until I starved myself and carved the path toward lifelong dysmorphia. To him, I was a “stupid fucking cunt,” and I began to believe him. Some relief would come after we were raided by the cops. He was thrown in jail (so was I, briefly) and I was left as the stand-in between the runners and the bikers. That’s another story altogether.
I visited Taz at the penitentiary once. I walked through the metal detector and was pulled aside. “Come with me,” the officer said. I followed to a small room where a funny-looking machine sat waiting for us. He picked up a wand with a swab at its end and ran it over my hands, my purse and pant buttons.
Beep, beep, beep, beep! The machine complained, analyzing the swab.
“What’s that mean?”
“You’ve tested positive for cocaine,” he said, smug.
Why is this guy smiling? I thought. When was the last time I weighed anything out? Two days ago? Three? How the fuck did it pick up on that?
My heart sped and I stiffened, bracing for a team of officers to come take me away. But none came.
“You can go in,” he said
I walked away on wobbly legs.
Taz looked proper fucked. I watched through stained plexiglass as his eyes darted around the room. I picked up the receiver. So did he. His tan had faded, his eyebrows grown-in. He was unshaven and fat. I got some satisfaction out of this, of course, and I basked in silent victory. He gave orders, told me what was what, and who owed the most money. It was a short visit. He scanned the room again before getting up. The other inmates eyeballed him hard, and he looked down and away. I walked out free, and he stayed to rot, at least until he ratted someone out and was bussed to minimum security.
Taz ran with some big players. “L” was a terrifying mountain of a man, with tattoo sleeves and jagged teeth that were rammed in tight. Another guy, “X,” was tall and lean, with a perfect smile and long hair. I learned a lot from these two after Taz was gone. As twisted as it sounds, there’s something to be said for that world’s ‘trust no one,’ ‘sink or swim’ lessons on street smarts—as long as you get out. I found out years later that L died of an overdose, and X was sentenced to life for double murder. **My curiosity just got the best of me. I looked him up. He was given a new trial, and the ruling overturned after 15 years in max. I guess he’s not an evil murderer after all. Wrong place, wrong time, but I guess it’s never right. Jail or dead is what they always said. Or crazy, but I’m getting to that.
The Gaff was Taz’s lawyer. He swooped in, scooped me up, and carried me away to another city. He convinced me that I was in grave danger from the bikers. He would know, right? They were his clients. He tucked me away, out of sight, and hired me as his new legal assistant (and side chick). I was mostly alone, wandering cold streets—a far cry from the excitement I once knew. I fell into my first real depression there. I obsessed over my body. It seemed to be the only thing I could control. People would like me more if I was perfect. I was sure of it. Things with the Gaff ended when I learned he had a girlfriend, and I was sucked back to the underworld.
It was Taz who sucked me in. He was out. He said he was a changed man and that he was sorry. He loved me! He couldn’t live without me! He’d been stressed, he said, and should never have taken it out on me. It was wrong. He promised things would be different. He’d take care of me, we’d be happy, and I’d be safe. I believed him.
He rented a U-Haul and made the long drive to come get me. I paced my apartment. Waiting. Nervous. Hopeful. Taz showed up with one of his guys, and they went up and down twenty floors with my things. The furniture was last. It wasn’t much—just some Ikea shit and a chair I’d reupholstered myself. But it was mine and I loved it.
“What is this cheap crap?” Taz said, walking out with it.
“I like it.”
“It’s garbage. I’m not putting this in my house,” he said and threw my chair toward the dumpster. It cracked on the pavement, and skidded on its side. He did the same with the dresser, the mirror, and the table. “The fuck did I need to rent a U-Haul for?” He rounded the truck to the driver’s side. “Get in,” he growled. I took one last look at my broken things and did what I was told.
His lackey rolled the back door shut, and we were off. It was only an hour before he started in on me.
“You enjoy sucking his dick, you slut?" How could you leave me, huh?” He looked back and forth from me to the road. “You’re an ungrateful bitch.”
The tears fell. “You said things would be better.”
“Are you talking back?!” His eyes were fire and I knew better not to stoke them. He grilled me the rest of the drive, then beat me up later that night. He got me on the ground and dragged me by my hair to the kitchen. He fished out a pair of scissors, then cut my shirt, navel to neck. The pants were next, then the bra and underwear. He told me to get up, to stand in front of him. I did what I was told, makeup stinging my eyes from crying. He liked it when I cried. It was fuel for his fire. But I couldn’t stop. He stepped back, studying my naked body. He laughed, “you need your tits done and your lips snipped,” he said and left me there.
He eventually wound up in jail again, and I never went back. The last time I heard from him was years later, after I posted pictures from my latest fitness competition. I had him blocked, but he took to his girlfriend’s account. He said I looked like a man, and that despite my efforts, I still had cankles. I blocked her account, too.
A decade passed and I received a text from the Gaff. “I have it on good authority that Taz is dead.” It turned out he was wrong—it was his brother, another one you’d be best to steer clear of. More years later, the gaps in Taz’s story were painted in. I found myself sitting next to his mother on a tiny plane—a flying school bus that threatened to fall out of the sky (part of me wished it would). She was on her way home from an affair with a younger married man. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said. “I don’t want my husband to find out.” Who was I going to tell? I’d been out of that life for years, flying home from a month in Thailand where I worked on my tan and dissertation. “He refuses kiss me,” she said about her young lover. “What do you think that means?” I didn’t want to tell her what I thought it meant. She changed the subject. “Taz has gone crazy,” she told me. “He won’t leave his apartment. Fuckin’ paranoid people are after him.” Of course people were after him. From what I knew, he’d put enough people behind bars to warrant the fear. “He’s on antipsychotics,” she went on… I could hear his voice: “You stupid fucking cunt!” ricocheted back and forth through my mind. So did “fat cow,” and the time he threatened to burn down my parents’ house with all of us in it. I looked down at my thighs. They looked fat. Maybe I shouldn’t have spent a month eating mango sticky rice.
My dad called last week to wish me a happy holiday. We caught up for a while before he said, “I have some crazy news. I’ll share it when I see you.”
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“You want to know now?”
“I won’t know that until you tell me.”
“Okay.”
Pause.
“I ran into the Gaff the other day.”
“Oh?” We haven’t spoken in years.
“Same old Gaff. Saw me and B-lined. We had a good chat. Asked how you’re doing. I told him you’re good, that you finished your PhD and you’re writing now. He looks good. Sounds like [so and so] is doing well and [so and so] is, too. You know he moved?”
“Okay, enough pussy-footing! I’m on the edge of my seat over here.”
“Well, he told me something about Taz.”
“And?”
Another pause…
“He’s transitioning,” he could barely say.
“Like, to a woman?!”
“Yeah.” Giggle.
“Huh.” I sat back in my chair and put my feet up on my desk. “How about that.”
Thanks for reading. If you liked this post, please tap the heart button and tell me what you think in the comments. x
Also: I’ve gone ahead and comped (gifted) everyone paid subscriptions for the next three months. Thank you again for your support.
Happy New Year!