BACK TO HOME PAGE SITE NAVIGATION CONTACT POETRY FORUM GENERAL FORUM   Horoscope  Radio  Gallery  FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   PM's   
Log in 

Story Forum Index -> General Fiction

Affirmations

Ladies Lifestyle and Living Store
  Author    Thread Post new topic Reply to topic
lostsoul



Joined: 28 Mar 2005
Posts: 372
Affirmations

It was her silent affirmations that kept her from going completely insane.

Samantha Anne Gaudin extended both hands and braced herself against the far wall of the shower. As the hot spray hit her back she mentally repeated “You’ve done this before a hundred times”.

That phrase became a mantra as Sam turned of the water and reached for a towel.

You’ve done this before, You’ve done this before, You’ve done this before,

Sam dried off and, leaning back over the tub, shook her head in her best wet dog imitation. As she stood back up her short spiky black hair looked almost dry.

As Sam attempted to tame her hair, a memory of her grandmother, dead some nine years now, joined the chanting in her mind. Grandmere Eileen looked on as Sam, six years old, fought with her curly hair in the old silver rimmed mirror that hung in the washroom of her childhood home. Sam was scared to leave home for her first day of school.

School was a small three room building two miles away set slightly off a muddy road that led into the center of town That school building wasn’t the only in town; nor was it the biggest; but it had running water and indoor plumbing—facts which both intrigued and frightened Sam.

“Petite, you just go to that school and just be you and don’t worry none bout nobody else” Grandmere said as she smoothed the collar of Sam’s sailor style dress.

“Why can’t I stay here with you and Pappa? You can teach me.”

“Gar ici, you going to learn to read and to write your name. You going to learn more than fish and nets and bait. Maybe one day you get so smart and rich you buy your ol’ Grandmere and Pappa a big fancy house en Ville.”

Grandmere smoothed a stray curl and whispered in Sam’s ear, “Tu 'oir pas ton vrai-meme dans le miroir – jus go be you”, and hustled Sam out the door.

You don’t see your true self in the mirror…just be you.

Sam went out into the bedroom and began getting dressed. Her uniform lay in a dry cleaners bag at the foot of the bed. As she fought off the butterflies forming in her stomach, it was again her silent affirmations that kept her from going completely insane.

You’ve done this before. Just be you. You’ve done this before. Just be you.

In reality, it was always easy for Sam to just be herself there as a child in the seventies. She lived with her grandparent in a little more than a fishing shack on The Platain of Grand Isle. Her father, Renee Bessin, shrimped and passed in and out of Sam’s life as the seasons changed, but Grandmere and Pappa were always there. And they loved Sam for who she was.

Her grandparents found it cute, she imagined that she was such a tomboy. That first day of school was the last day Sam had ever worn a dress.

“You told me to be myself, and I can’t be myself in this stupid dress”, Sam had argued with Grandmere after returning home the first day. “I wanted to play ball at recess, and the boys told me I couldn’t run in a dress!”

Grandmere just shrugged and the rest of Sam’s school days were spent in jeans or camouflage pants and t-shirts. Within a year her hair was cut short in a bowl cut and never got far below her collar again.

Life on Grand Isle was hard. The four or five hundred families who called this small barrier island of the coast of Louisiana home were used to working hard and getting few breaks. The only reason most were not living in complete poverty was that they could all catch their meals. It was a group of Cajuns used to starting over, and starting over again. There was a communal pride in weathering the hurricanes that hit the island every two or three years. The people just cleaned up, rebuilt, and talked about how the storm had brought good fishing.

The storm of 1969, Hurricane Camille, had killed Sam’s mother. Camille hit on August 17th with a storm surge of seventeen feet. Grandmere and Pappa and Sam had left late on the sixteenth and headed across the spillway to a relative’s house. Angelia Gaudin had given birth to Sam that February. Unwed and scared she lived with her parents and tried to do her best to support Samantha by working at the doughnut store in town. She was afraid to leave Grand Isle because she didn’t want to miss a shift of work. The island was completely destroyed. Nearly eighty people were declared dead. Most were never found; including Angelia.


It was 1971 before Renee showed up to claim fatherhood of the child. His story was that he had never known that Angelia was pregnant. That she had never told him, and only through the town talk had he come to believe Sam was his. As Sam grew there was little doubt that Renee was her father. They shared the same amber eyes flecked with gold that sparked when they laughed.

Despite the constant weather concerns, Grand Isle was a kid’s paradise. Town was six miles of stores and houses, surrounded by a few more miles of beach and water. Fishing, water skiing, hiking, beach parties – there was always something to do after school and on weekends.

Sam could fish and shrimp with the best of the boys. At twelve she’d won the shoreline division prize in the annual Tarpon rodeo, beating the local men, and earned herself a legendary reputation. The 113 pound amberjack had made Renee so proud he had bought her a small used boat and outboard of her own.

Sam took great pride in that boat. The boys in town respected and liked Sam for knowing the best fishing spots. The boat was an easy way to hang out with the guys, and a way to escape into the tide when she needed solitude. The other girls envied Sam’s ease with the young men and incessantly teased her about really being a boy instead of a girl. In truth, nothing would have pleased Sam more.

Sam played baseball for the local team as well—not softball but baseball, with the boys, and was the starting shortstop. Summers were spent on the sandlot field behind the high school playing pick up games. Even as an adult Samantha could easily close her eyes and breathe in the taste and smell of that field. The smell of brine and sand mixed with the tang of leather and resin. That game of tricking her senses was how Sam still calmed herself. It was that feeling of being twelve and carefree. Of being close enough to adulthood to be fairly independent, but close enough to childhood to believe everything was possible still. The happy place she went in those calming moments was a place were everyone could love you just as you were, and that your friends and you would be together forever.

The feel of cold starched cotton against her chest made Sam open her eyes. The scent lingered just a minute more before she lost it.

None of us knew what we had then. We were free. I was free.

That thought, along with the images of Jean-Paul Hebret, Petey Fontaineau, Blair Bessin and others—that crew she spent her childhood with—joined the other thoughts in her mind.

I was free. You’ve done this before. Just be you. You’ve done this before. Just be you. I was free.

Freedom. Sam had chased that one word for a very long time. Her hands shook as she flattened the cold shirt to her chest and began pushing the buttons through the tight buttonholes. The fabric fought her and she grew frustrated as she tried to finish getting dressed.

Her Pappa’s voice floated into to her head this time. “Ma Chein, vous êtes une cheville carrée essaie de correspondre à un trou circulaire. It scares them.” They were sitting at the foot of Sam’s bed. He was pressing a piece of meat to her eye and wiping the crusted blood from Sam’s moth. She was fifteen. “You gotta change”. He gestured to Sam’s face, “this scares you Grandmere bad”. He shrugged, “Son Temps”.

It’s time. You are a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. You have to change.


That was the last night Sam had spent on Grand Isle. Early the next morning, before sunrise, she neatly printed a note and left it on the small kitchen table. She’d tried hard to explain as best in simple words her grandparents could read. Sam didn’t want then to have to ask for help with the note.

Je suis désolé. You did tres bein with me., but I am une cheville carrée essaie de correspondre à un trou circulaire. Grandmere, the me in the mirror isn’t me in my head. I can’t stay here and hurt you. I will be bein. When I am safe I will write you. Don’t cry for me.

J’ adore vous,

Sam

She’d gathered her clothes and her radio, selected a few dry goods from the kitchen and took one fry pan. At the last minute she went back in to take a jug of water and a sharp knife.

If I had this last night Blair’d be dead, Sam thought as she took in her home one last time. Fighting back tears she went down and loaded the boat. The sun was barely visible on the horizon as she fought with the outboard. Her right arm was swollen badly and cranking the engine took a huge amount of effort. It finally cranked. She stepped over a pool of her own blood getting into the boat.

It had started like many other afternoons. She and her cousin Blair had headed planned to do some fishing until dusk. As they fished awhile, Blair had stood at the end of the boat relieving himself. Sam averted her eyes.

“You can look”, Blair said. “Most girls would give their eye teeth to see me in all my glory”. He started jerking off.

Sam shifted and just cast the other way.

“But you don’t think of yourself like a girl do you?”. Blair sat next to Sam on the center bemch seat. He was fully erect now. “Why don’t you just let me teach you to feel like a girl?” He grabbed her hair and shoved her face into his lap.

“Open up and take it in – you’ll like it”

Sam did open up her mouth and with as much force as she could mange bit down on Blair’s erection.

“You fucking little whore”, Blair yelled. Still holding Sam’s head he threw her to the floor of the boat. “I’m going to teach you to be a girl yet”.

Sam struggled but Blair, 17, outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. When he released one hand to rip off her shirt and jeans she punched him hard in the jaw. He reeled for a second then hit her hard across the face with a flashlight. Sam was losing consciousness as he forced his way into her chiding “C’mon you know you like it”.

In less than a week, Sam had found her way to New Orleans, en Ville, and had a room in a small boarding house near Bourbon street. She found work as a day laborer on the docks most days, as long as she spoke deeply and answered to “Boy!” That was when she began to realize she could reinvent herself. She was safer in the city as a young man, and finding work that didn’t involve whoring was easier. She had worn baggy shirts to hide her small breasts, and used a bean bag to pad her crotch. Sam found that a dry brush with some ink made her face have a permanent stubble shadow. She shaved her head to a flat top and was Sam, the new guy.

Shirt finally buttoned, Sam slipped on her pants and tucked in the shirttail. The silent affirmations resumed.

I was free. You’ve done this before. Just be you. It’s time.

Sam slipped both feet into the new work shoes, and began on the laces. Her hands worked quickly as she looped and tied.

The only time she had returned to Grand Isle had been when her Pappa had died in 1988.

She was leaving work one night with a gang of men and heard “You Sam?”, yelled across the space between the docks and the train loading area. He was too far away for Sam to make out who he was.

“Depends on who’s asking”, Sam quipped back, hiding the fear growing in her belly. Her coworkers laughed and joked about the answer.

“Eileen sent me”, came the reply.

“See you later guys”, Sam said and walked toward the man.

He was well dressed and clean cut. He had a faint scar on his jaw line. Sam looked him in the eyes. “That from me?”

“Yeah never would really heal”, Blair answered. “I only came because Eillen asked me to come get you—your Pappa’s dead--heart attack. I promised your grandmother I’d bring you back for the funeral. Meet me here in the morning and I’ll talk to your boss if you need. Dress up a little; we will be going straight to the wake.”

Blair had been there the next morning as promised. Sam wore a church shirt and tie and slacks. After she’d explained to her boss, she’d climbed into Blair’s car, a foreign job. “Can you ditch the tie now at least?” he asked. Blair had become a lawyer and was doing well.

Her Grandmere stoic and red eyed hugged her tight at the wake. She called family over, “Look its Sam, she drove in from the Ville. What a fancy shirt, must be the style there, non?”

After the funeral, after the crowd had left the little house and all that was left was Sam, Eileen and a mountain of food, they sat in the darkening room and talked.

“Can you stay, Petit?” she’d asked.

“No, I have to go back tomorrow. I’ll take a bus.”

A few moments of silence passed before Eillen took Sam’s hand. “Blaire, he say you work on the docks – unloading boats.”

Sam nodded.

“As a man.”

Sam nodded, and her Grandmother burst into tears. “I always knew. I think you momma did to. Tu 'oir pas ton vrai-meme dans le miroir. Her guilt killed her, not Camille.” The words were barely audible under the sobs.

“Grandmere, momma died in Camille. You know that. You need to rest. Then we’ll eat and I’ll take care of whatever you need.”

Eileen shook her head furiously. “Non Petit, she just chose wrong. Poor Angelia, she was ‘fraid of that, scared always scared.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Pappa and I decided not to tell you ‘till you was an adult, eighteen, but then you ran. I always hope you come home. I barely can say it, “I couldn’t write it.”

“Grandmere, tell me what you are talking about.”

Eileen took a deep breath and her chest rattled with the strain of holding back tears. Exhaling roughly she started. “They flew you to that doctor school en Ville when you was 2 days old—on a copter. Your momma’s friend Alice drove her up. Doctor Jenkins here didn’t know what to do. He told everyone you had a breathing problem and needed a better doctor. He never left your mother those two days. He was afraid for you and for her”. Eileen started crying louder, uncontrolled.

“It’s ok, I’m fine, momma was right to let me go.”

“Petit, that was not the choice. When you was born, there was a problem mais not with you lung, it was a fib” Eillen sobbed, “Preacher said God was angry with Angelia and Renee for not being married proper. So he gave them a deformed child. Down here”, Eillen pointed to her lap, “you was both”. Eileen fell into Sam sobbing. Repulsion ran in cold spikes down Sam’s neck. She sat frozen. Her mind sluggish she tried to grasp what her grandmother meant. “The Doctors at that school…”

“Tulane?” Sam said robotically.

“Oui, they said the boy part was too little to work. They tell Angelia the right choice was to make you a girl. She didn’t know, so she did what they said. They cut that part off of you but they couldn’t cut it out of you.”

Eileen patted her eyes in vain, “You was supposed to see them doctors again, but when your momma died, Pappa and I decided to let you just be you and only see Doc Jenkins when you was sick. We did what we knew”.

Sam tired to stand, and head spinning, stumbled out the door. The bile came up through her over and over until she was retching up nothing but spit. Her body was covered in sweat but she couldn’t stop shaking. Grabbing hold of the porch rail she tried to steady herself.

She came back out on the porch after her Grandmother had gone to sleep. So many thoughts flowed through her head that she was sure she’d go mad. She’d always felt like a boy, but had no way to understand it. Others thought it was wrong, but it felt right fir her. She ached with a thousand pains of cruel words, of that night Blair raped her, of the guilt that drove her mother to stay in Camille, of the heavy burden her Grandmother bore. In the midst of that pain and confusion, it was her silent affirmations that kept her from going completely insane.

I’m not crazy. Momma just chose wrong.

Sam had returned to New Orleans and stumbled through the next couple of years working on the docks, drinking with the guys after work, dancing with girls in bars. She kissed a few but never more. She wrote her grandmother often and called some, but could never quite find the courage to go back to the island.

During one such call, Eileen had said “Blair was by last night. He wants to come see you Saturday”. Despite Sam’s objections Blair showed up at the flat she now lived in at 8 am that Saturday. He looked a lot older than the last time she had seen him. He wore shorts and a T-shirt.

“Eileen wants you to come home for Easter”.

“I can’t, um I won’t”.

“She knows but she wants it still” Blair said. “I came to show you this” he said as he opened a backpack. “Eillen told me everything” he said.

Sam stood up abruptly, knocking over her chair.

“Sit down, I want you to read this. I’m going to get a cup of coffee. I’ll be back”. He tossed the magazine on the table and calmly walked out. The article that was dog-eared was on something called reassignment surgery. It took Sam a long time to read it. Blair was back before she was finished.

When she looked up he asked, “Did you get your GED like you told Eillen?”

“Yeah. I had to have it to be a supervisor.”

“Good. You are still young, twenty-five right?” Sam nodded. “The process takes awhile. And you can’t be doing the kind of work you are now.”

“What makes you think I want to be, um, reassigned?”

“Wouldn’t you have liked a voice when you were two days old? Just hear me out please. I will pay your living expenses for 4 years and tuition for those same 4 years at UNO. You can study whatever you like. And I will get you into a study about the reassignment options. I will cover whatever costs there are there to.”

“Just a freaking minute. What are you doing? Trying to buy away your guilt for that night?”

“No. I can’t do that. Nothing will ease my guilt or your pain. I am sorry. I just feel this is a way to make something good out of this all. Eileen wants it too. I told her everything. She knows why you ran”

The next week Sam called Blair and agreed. She started studying social work at UNO. And she started hormones. She had the top surgery done before her grandmother died – with Eileen’s full knowledge and support. Blair kept his word and paid everything.

Eleven years after that morning over coffee, Sam stood fully dressed and tried in vain to tie his tie. On the third try he got it right. He was starting a new life at thirty six. He was going to be a counselor at the LGBT center in downtown Dallas. For the first time in Samantha’s life the person she saw in the mirror was truly her—was truly him. As Sam stepped onto the street and locked the apartment door, it was his silent affirmations that kept him from going completely insane with apprehension.

It’s time. I am free. You’ve done this before. Just be you. You finally fit.
_________________
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. - Plato

Post Fri Oct 06, 2006 7:45 pm 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
Allison



Joined: 12 Oct 2005
Posts: 4216
Location: Florida


Lostsoul......That was a very moving and well written story. Thank you for sharing it and welcome to the boards.

Alli
_________________
Alli

Post Thu Oct 12, 2006 11:15 am 
 View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail AIM Address  Reply with quote  
goldenwillow



Joined: 12 May 2006
Posts: 87
Location: nashville,tn


i must agree. wounderful story.

Post Thu Oct 19, 2006 6:12 pm 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
lostsoul



Joined: 28 Mar 2005
Posts: 372


Alli & Golden

Thank you for taking the time toread and comment on the story. Hope you two have a great weekend.

Lost
_________________
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. - Plato

Post Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:05 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
  Display posts from previous:      
Post new topic Reply to topic

Jump to:  


Last Thread | Next Thread  >

Forum Rules:
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

 


Search For Posters!


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group

In Association with Amazon.com
     
Terms & Conditions Privacy Statement Acknowledgements