Femme by marshall thornton

awful man calling you names and then Bob fires you. Shameful.”
    “You don’t have to worry about me, I’ve climbed out of the gutter more than once. I can do it again.”
    “Spoken like a true queen. People never understand how strong you have to be if you’re a girly-boy.”
    That embarrassed me. Yes, sometimes my life was hard, but things were better than they used to be. Life had to have been much harder for Larry. I mean, he was wearing a muumuu and fruit on his head back in the days when you could get arrested for it.
    “But I’m no activist. All I’ve ever done is wear silly hats and sing silly songs. Bill is much more the activist. He was in a bar riot over in Wilmington years before Stonewall. Isn’t that right, Bill?”
    Bill hadn’t heard a word Larry said, “What?”
    “I SAID YOU HAVE A BIG COCK!”
    Bill gave us a thumbs up.
    “When I was young, I worried for awhile whether or not I was masculine enough, but then I thought, I’m gay; there isn’t any way I’m going to fit into the straight world so why even try? Yes, I wear caftans; yes I wear silly hats. Who really cares?”
    “People care.”
    “Oh I know. But none of the ones who matter to me.” He sipped his drink and then said, “It amazes me that we’re not all kinder. And when I say we, I don’t just mean gay men, I mean the whole big we. Humanity. If you think about it, there really isn’t anyone, anywhere who isn’t on the outside looking in at some point in their lives; at some point everyone is the wrong color, the wrong religion, the wrong weight, the wrong age, the wrong sexuality, the wrong gender, the wrong something . We have so many ways of judging each other that it’s hard to imagine anyone getting through life without being some kind of wrong at least some of the time.”
    Since I’d just lost my job I was having a little trouble caring about the whole of humanity, which must have shown on my face since Larry said, “You’re not drunk enough for this kind of conversation, are you?”
    I shook my head. He was right, of course. He was being sort of profound. Profound should never happen before three martinis.
    “Let me get you another drink, then,” he said, waving down Lance. “Give us another round, dear.” Lance nodded and started our drinks. Larry continued, “I’m not surprised at Chuckie Cooper, though. I’ve heard plenty of stories about him. But the whole team. That does surprise me.”
    “The whole team?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
    “It was the whole team that wanted you fired. They all sent emails to Bob.”
    “The team. All of them?”
    “That’s what I heard.”
     
    ###
     
    I was sleeping when my cell phone rang. It was still in my jeans pocket and my jeans were somewhere on the floor. I crawled off the bed and sorted through the clothes on the floor until I found my jeans. Glancing at the screen before I picked up the call I saw two things: My mom was calling and my battery was nearly dead.
    “Hey,” I said, accepting the call.
    “Douglas?” Crap, full name. I was in trouble. “I spoke to your sister.”
    I left a long pause, hoping my battery would die and the conversation would be over. When it didn’t I said, “Okay.” I knew what they’d spoken about. It had taken Maddy less than seventy-two hours to spill the beans.
    “This is some kind of prank isn’t it? You’re playing a joke on your sister and it just got out of hand.”
    “Um, okay, sure. It’s a prank. Nothing to worry about.” Hey, she’d thrown me a life preserver; I grabbed it.
    “Good. Call your sister and explain that to her.”
    That wasn’t going to work. Maddy knew I was gay and there wasn’t a way she could un-know that. If I called her and said, “Hey it was all a joke, gotcha!” she wouldn’t believe it.
    “You know Maddy, Mom, she’s going to believe what she wants to believe.”
    “It doesn’t matter what she believes. Call her and tell her the truth. Tell her you’re not