In One Person

else.”
    “Okay,” I said.
    “I came to this school because
you
went here,” the boy told me.
    “Gee was in school in California,” Richard started to explain.
    “I thought there might be other transgender kids here,” Gee told me, “but there aren’t—nobody who’s out, anyway.”
    “His parents—” Mrs. Hadley tried to tell me.
    “
Her
parents,” Gee corrected Martha.
    “Gee’s parents are very
liberal
,” Martha said to me. “They
support
you, don’t they?” Mrs. Hadley asked the boy—or the girl-in-progress, if that’s who he or she was.
    “My parents
are
liberal, and they
do
support me,” Gee said, “but my parents are also afraid of me—they say ‘yes’ to everything, like my coming all the way to Vermont.”
    “I see,” I said.
    “I’ve read all your books,” Gee told me. “You’re pretty angry, aren’t you? You’re pretty pessimistic, anyway. You don’t see all the sexual intolerance ending anytime soon, do you?” the boy asked me.
    “I write
fiction
,” I cautioned him. “I’m not necessarily as pessimistic about real life as I am when I make up a story.”
    “You seem pretty angry,” the boy insisted.
    “We should leave these two alone, Richard,” Mrs. Hadley said.
    “Yes, yes—you’re on your own, Bill,” Richard said, patting me on the back. “Ask Bill to tell you about a transsexual he knew, Gee,” Richard said to the girl-in-progress, as he was leaving.
    “
Transgender
,” Gee corrected Richard.
    “Not to me,” I told the kid. “I know the language changes; I know I’m an old man, and out of date. But the person I knew was a transsexual to me. At that time, that’s who she was. I say ‘transsexual.’ If you want to hear the story, you’ll just have to get used to that. Don’t correct
my
language,” I told the kid. He just sat there on that smelly couch, staring at me. “I’m a liberal, too,” I told him, “but I don’t say ‘yes’ to everything.”
    “We’re reading
The Tempest
in Richard’s class,” Gee said—apropos of nothing, or so I thought. “It’s too bad we can’t put it onstage,” the boy added, “but Richard has assigned us parts to read in class. I’m Caliban—I’m the monster, naturally.”
    “I was Ariel once,” I told him. “I saw my grandfather do Caliban onstage; he played Caliban
as a woman
,” I said to the girl-in-progress.
    “Really?” the kid asked me; he smiled for the first time, and I could suddenly see it. He had a pretty girl’s smile; it was hidden in the boy’s unformed face, and further concealed by his sloppy boy’s body, but I could see the
her
in him. “Tell me about the transgender you knew,” the kid told me.
    “
Transsexual
,” I said.
    “Okay—please tell me about her,” Gee asked me.
    “It’s a long story, Gee—I was in love with her,” I told him—I told
her
, I should say.
    “Okay,” she repeated.
    Later that day, we went together to the dining hall. The kid was only fourteen, and she was famished. “You see that jock over there?” Gee asked me; I couldn’t see which jock Gee meant, because there was a whole table of them—football players, from the look of them. I just nodded.
    “He calls me Tampon, or sometimes just George—not Gee. Needless to say, never Georgia,” the kid said, smiling.
    “Tampon is pretty terrible,” I told the girl.
    “Actually, I prefer it to George,” Gee told me. “You know, Mr. A.,
you
could probably direct
The Tempest
, couldn’t you—if you wanted to? That way, we could put Shakespeare onstage.”
    No one had ever called me Mr. A.; I must have liked it. I’d already decided that if Gee wanted to be a girl this badly, she had to be one. I wanted to direct
The Tempest
, too.
    “Hey, Tampon!” someone called.
    “Let’s have a word with the football players,” I told Gee. We went over to their table; they instantly stopped eating. They saw the tragic-looking mess of a boy—the transgender wannabe, as they probably thought of him—and they saw me, a sixty-five-year-old man, whom they might have mistaken for a faculty member (I soon would be). After all, I looked way too old to be Gee’s father.
    “This is Gee—that’s her name. Remember it,” I said to them. They didn’t respond. “Which of you called Gee ‘Tampon’?” I asked them; there was no response to my question, either. (Fucking bullies; most of them are cowards.)
    “If someone mistakes you for a tampon, Gee—whose fault is it, if you