Yeah. Anyway.

What else is there to say when you find yourself changing your life, really doing it, hopping into a small ravine where the floor gives way until there’s nothing but air and velocity and electrical current, and suddenly you’re in a different world? Was this all too big to think about? It was, but being trans had always been too big to think about. It really had been a trick of the mind—that easygoing, let-life-go-by David was somehow now living on a distant friend’s New York couch and eating estrogen. It was a mental sleight of hand, an escape through a wall; the bovine stasis that had characterized his adult life suddenly transfigured into bovine momentum.

He was drinking less, too, even with bar life. Funny that. He liked his staff beer after a shift, and he’d have wine with his roomies, but no longer did he have more than two or three drinks. Well, cool. Drunk David could stay on the West Coast; that was fine.

One day, he pulled on a T-shirt and, as he was yawning and loading the coffee maker, a roommate said, “I don’t mean this in a body-shamey way, but I’m just going to assume from what I know about you that this is helpful for the outside world, and I’m sorry if it’s not: You might want to get a bra?”

It was helpful.

Iris gave David a ton of old clothes, and his roommates did, too, and Ridwan knew a tall trans guy doing a purge of lady costume bits; thus, David became awash in plaid tops, shiny skirts, polyester dresses that on him were like shirts, but he made it work. He was so, so grateful.

For once, too, David had a plan. He wanted to be a teacher. He thought he’d be good at it. He figured after a couple years, he’d be enough of a girl to move on, apply for a teaching certificate, and get a job at some hippie-dippie school. Or maybe even a public school, who knew? Some places there were laws that protected them now! Sure, the internet and his friends were full of stories about how those laws were effective as dust, still. Point was. Who the hell knew about the future? Maybe David would even pass okay, who knew! A guy at Walgreens had called him ma’am the other day. There had always been guardian angels to help David like this. He did not know why he was so blessed with them.

And best of all: He’d at first figured he had to be closeted at work, right? Serving the public and all that. So he’d just need to find another job once that stopped being possible (he’d begun, in fact, to switch his bra for one of Ridwan’s old binders in the subway bathroom before shifts. Weird life). But one day after New Year’s, he overheard his boss talking to a regular: “Holy shit, I told you about my nephew, right? He’s always been gay, and that’s fine; I don’t judge. But he came around for Christmas and he’s a fucking woman now! And let me tell you, he’s hot! Like. Shit! This fucking world’s crazy. I guess it’s called transgender? Fucking crazy, man. I’m proud of him. Her. Her! She’s a woman! She’s got boobs and everything! I’m proud of her, you know? Fuck, get your life!”