You're Lost Little Girl
A Novel
Jamie Antonia Symonanis
Copyright © 2010 Jamie Antonia Symonanis
Smashwords Edition
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Published by Jamie Antonia Symonanis
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You're lost little girl
You're lost little girl
You're lost
Tell me who
Are you?
-The Doors
THE CHAPTERS
Everything in this book happened, pretty much. I was born gender dysphoric, in essence being a female within while being perceived by all around as a male.
In an attempt to present a more accurate picture of what it may be like to be transgendered, the main character, Jamie, is referred to as a female unless she is being addressed by all around as the male they see her as physically.
I have been asked many times, "What is it like to be transgendered?" The best description I have been able to come up with is this. Imagine that every time you look in a mirror, what you see is wrong, and not only wrong but also the complete opposite of what you perceive yourself to be. You see yourself as this, yet the world sees you as that. You are powerless to change what you feel within, what you know with your entire being to be the reality that is you, yet the world continues to see you as that which you are not.
It's a funny thing that gender dysphoria is still described as a mental disease, when all that needs to be changed are physical attributes in an attempt to make it all match, to make one complete.
So, what I have done is attempt to take you on a journey through the life of a transgendered female.
You will be bounced through that life from chapter to chapter, from this period to that, like a dream.
Some say we are never to look back, and wouldn't that be nice since we have no control over our dreams, really. If you get dazed and confused along the way, welcome to the club.
Chapter 1
Born (again?)
The contractions were intensifying when the doctor walked in and greeted Hart. "Are you about ready for number three my dear?"
"I can’t wait to see her," she replied with a sweet but sweaty smile. It was August and one of the hottest ones on record and today everyone was sweating. Air conditioners were few and far between in 1950, and this day was a scorcher.
Hart had already been moved to the operating table. "What are you hoping for?" a nurse asked her.
"Oh, I am convinced this one is a girl, the way I have been carrying it, for sure it will be a girl."
The room was a pale green color with none of the sounds of a modern operating room. "It’s time" could be heard, "push, push" as well, and finally "(smack) it’s a boy!"
"Noooooooooooo," was the scream the newborn babe was filling the room with, but to the ears of the mother and the staff on hand it just sounded like the healthy cry of a baby boy. "Nooooooooooo, how could this be?"
In the waiting room Edward could smell the machine oil on his hands as he brought the Camel cigarette up to his mouth to take a puff. Incandescent bulbs glaring out of hanging light fixtures harshly lighted the room. Like most waiting rooms in the 50’s, one was allowed to smoke.
A nurse came in as he bent down to put out his cigarette. "Mr. Simnis you are the father of a healthy baby boy. This makes 3 boys now does it not? You must be very proud," she continued to purr.
"Another boy?" was his repl.y. "That is great but Hart was totally convinced this one was going to be a girl. As a matter of fact, I am not sure we have a name for the baby yet, when can I see my wife?"
Edward entered the room Hart had been taken back to. She was holding their newborn son in her arms. "Edward isn’t he gorgeous? I am sorry it is not a girl, I know you thought a little sister would be nice for two older brothers to love and protect" she said almost in a whisper.
"He is a beautiful baby, just look at him sleeping so peacefully," he said. "A name, we have to give him a name", they both uttered at the same time. "How about naming him after my best friend James," was Edward’s suggestion.
"I have always loved that name, but let’s make his middle name Anthony after St. Anthony, my favorite patron saint," Hart offered.
"Great, James Anthony it is," Edward spoke as their son began to stir. "James, James Anthony, this is your father with me my beautiful son," Hart tenderly spoke while gently touching the baby's cheek with a finger.
"James, James Anthony, that is not a girl’s name, this must be a mistake?" the baby shouted, but to the parents this was just the wonderful cry of a new healthy baby, their baby, their third son, James Anthony Simnis. This can’t be happening, the baby thought as she slipped back into a deep sleep.
Chapter 2
The coldest month of the year?
Jamie had never seen a bathtub. In the four years she had been alive she could only remember baths in the kitchen sink. Her family lived in a building owned by her grandmother, and a very old building it was. The toilet was in the hall with a pull chain flusher, state of the art one could imagine some 40-50 years before her birth. Her grandmother owned a grocery store that was right under the apartment Jamie's family lived in.
Today was bath day for Jamie. Hart continued to boil the water for the bath. Jamie stood at the kitchen window that was frozen solid, as it usually was throughout the winter, especially in February in Chicago.
"Your bath will be ready very soon Jimmy," Hart said as she poured the heated water into the sink. Jamie continued to hold her thumb against the ice on the window so it would melt the size of a peephole for her to be able to see out with that small 4-year-old finger. As she gazed at the bright sun trying to shine through the frozen window, a pattern in the ice made her think about her sister Mag. Mag was a year younger and today as she had done many times in the past, she could not help but wonder, it being bath day, why she looked different from her sister ‘down there’.
"Ok darling, let’s get you squeaky clean," Hart spoke softly. "One day very soon we are going to move to a place where you can splash and bathe in a tub, but for now this sink is almost a tub for you and Mag young as you are."
She reached down and slipped the robe off Jamie, lifted her and put her in the deep water filled sink. There was already a bar of Ivory soap floating on top of the water that was the perfect temperature. After four children Hart had a lot of experience bathing children.
Once her hair was being rinsed free of shampoo, Jamie moved to a standing position in the sink so Hart could scrub her down more easily. "Mother, why do I have this?" Jamie asked as she reached down to hold her little penis between her fingers. "I don’t look at all like Mag, but I should."
"Because you are a boy and Mag is a girl," Hart giggled in reply.
"But I am not a boy mom, not really," Jamie replied, "I am just like Mag mommy."
"You are still young Jimmy, but you will see as you get older that there is a difference between you and Mag, between boys and girls," Hart said with a smile.
The mid day sun was starting to peek through some thin patches of ice that had melted on the frozen window casting a beautiful set of sun filled stripes on Jamie standing to dry herself. She caught a reflection of herself in her fathers shaving mirror focusing on her tiny penis as she watched it dissolve into the look of her sister in her mind. But I am no different than Mag, really I am not, she thought to herself.
It was just after noon and that meant it was time for Hart’s soap operas. She was addicted to watching them and quite often Jamie would curl up next to her, or play on the floor next to her while they were on. Today Mag was at her grandmas' house. Jamie gathered a few toys to play with and climbed up to the top bunk bed where she slept. She had chosen to play with her sister’s toys, a kitchen set and a girl doll in a pale green dress.
Hart was fully immersed in The Guiding Light as Jamie played tea party with Mag’s toys just as she had done many times with Mag, but as a guest. This time she was playing the hostess. It felt so right to play with these toys. She wished she had a dress like little Nancy the doll was wearing. "Nancy, one day I will have a whole room full of beautiful things to put on just like you have." "Would you like more tea?" Jamie asked quietly.
She could hear someone coming up the stairway, probably Mag or one of her two older brothers.
"Jimmy are you hungry, would you like a sandwich dear?” Hart asked.
"I would love one," Jamie beamed as she slid down the ladder and ran into the kitchen. In through the door walked Mag and their grandmother. Hart gave her mother a hug and offered her lunch, but she had to leave.
"Are you hungry Mag, I was just about to make us some lunch?" Hart asked. Mag nodded her approval. She could melt the ice on that kitchen window with a smile she was so cute.
Jamie and Mag sat down to eat at the kitchen table. On the menu was ham sandwiches and Campbell's chicken noodle soup. They sat and giggled as they ate their lunch. When finished, Mag went to the toy box only to find that Nancy was not in it. "Where is my dolly?" she asked.
"She is on my bed," Jamie answered. "Would you like to play for a while?" "We can have our own lunch party with Nancy,” she said with a smile. Mag nodded her approval, and climbed the ladder to the top bed as Jamie guided her up it safely.
They both went about playing tea party as they had done before, a new dimension being added to it since they were up on the top bed. Hart’s soap operas were winding down for the day as in entered their next older brother Bart. He was complaining about the cold and the kids at school, as he stood with his butt to the space heater to warm up. His daily routine was to watch Three Stooges shorts that were aired daily on the after school shows. Jamie and Mag loved to watch them too because the stooges were so funny and made them all laugh, so they made their way down the ladder and parked themselves on the floor in front of the black and white television set. Each of them had a doll in hand.
The first short up was one with Curly, which were always the funniest to watch. At the commercial Bart went to his coat to get a candy bar for a snack. Everyone's attention waned when the next short came on which had Shemp in it when the stooges were older.
Mag and Jamie began imitating the show they were watching with the dolls they were holding. They continued to giggle loudly as they gently bopped their dolls together, only to be interrupted by Bart. "Hey, keep it down I am trying to watch this show," he said. "Jimmy what are you playing with dolls for anyway?" "Here, play with this, now this is a good toy for you to play with," he said as he handed a gigantic Wyatt Earp long barreled six shooter down to Jamie.
Jamie looked at it and went back to playing with Mag who had lost interest, as she was engrossed in a cartoon commercial. Bart then reached down, pulled the doll from Jamie's hands, and threw it behind the couch. "Dolls are for girls or sissies," he said, and placed the gun in Jamie's corduroy covered lap.
She just sat there staring at the object in her lap, and could not help but wonder why this was all happening? She gently glided her fingers across the pistol and fancy scrollwork on the barrel and handle, and as she did began to dream about similar fancy lace patterns on clothes she would wear one day.
Next short up, another Curly and more laughing and playing. When it was over Mag and Bart ran into the kitchen to greet Hart who was returning from the grocery and offered help with the bags. Jamie pushed the pistol along the floor until it was far under the couch. She turned to Nancy the doll and put her finger to her lips. "Shhh, don’t tell anybody where that is, ok?" Nancy stared back at her with that same happy friendly smile as a Popeye cartoon began on the television.
Chapter 3
Death wish for Cutie
Spring has its moments. May could certainly offer up some gorgeous days in the Midwest, and this was definitely one of them.
What potent blood hath modest May, Jamie thought as she caught a reflection of herself in the draft board window. She always loved poetry and this day that quotation by Ralph W. Emerson stuck in her head.
The year was 1969 and Jamie was now 18. "Oh fuck it all to hell," she said to her sunny reflection in the window, and walked into the building. The place was a hustling bustling wash of young and old boys and men. "I hope I am not here all fucking day," she mumbled as she walked past everyone in a long line stopping at the long counter.
"Where do I volunteer my number?" she asked. The woman pointed to an empty counter area on the far right of the room. Jamie could not help noticing that the clerk had a black mustache. She has more hair on her face than I do, Jamie thought as she walked through everyone to the empty counter.
There was no one working at this station, so Jamie called for someone to assist her. "I want to volunteer my number for the draft, what do I have to do?" she asked as someone walked towards her.
"Fill this form out, may I see some i.d.?"
It was a short one-page form that stated you would be called up on the next roll if signed. "Once I sign this how long before?"
She was in the middle of asking when the clerk interrupted her. "Two to three weeks," she replied with a blank look on her face.
Jamie filled out the short form, signed it, and reached in her pocket for a cigarette as she walked out the door. Once outside she pulled out her slim Zippo lighter, lit her smoke, and ran to the corner to catch the bus that was coming.
On the bus ride back to her neighborhood, Jamie thought about what she had just done and smiled. Her entire group of friends was being scooped up and sent to Vietnam. It was just after the Tet Offensive, and there was an increased demand for replacements. The body bags were filling faster than ever before in this ‘conflict’ as they called it.
When she got back to the neighborhood, while walking towards her home from the bus stop she heard a familiar car horn.
"Hey you skinny fuck, how come you are not at work?" she heard coming from the spotless mint green Pontiac GTO. It was her friend Danny who had just received his draft notice the day before.
"Oh, no special reason, look at the weather, its fucking gorgeous out that’s why," Jamie replied. "How about you?"
"I quit my job already, just going to hang until I leave," Danny replied. "Come on, get in, I’ll drop you off at home."
There was never a speck of dust in or on this beautiful car. Danny kept it in pristine condition. It purred gently as they slowly made their way down the side streets. As they pulled up in front of Jamie’s house she asked, "Where are you going to be later?"
"Whatta you think, washing my car, it’s filthy," Danny replied with a big grin on his face, the unfiltered Camel cigarette hanging from his lips.
"Alright, maybe I’ll stop by in a bit," Jamie offered as she walked through the gate of her front yard, and into her house.
It was two days later when, upon returning home from work, Jamie walked into a somber scene in her home. Hart had a nervous look about her as she handed Jamie the envelope. Jamie's heart began to race as she thought, My, that was quick.
"Greetings," the letter began, “blah blah blah leaving May 21st?" "Holy fuck I am leaving with Danny," Jamie shouted out! "Oops, sorry mom, but it seems I have been drafted and I am leaving with Danny on the 21st.”
"The 21st of when?" Hart nervously asked as she began to cry out loud.
"May," was Jamie's reply as Mag joined in the sobbing. As upset as they were Jamie dare not tell them that just 2 days earlier she had volunteered for the draft.
"They were bound to get me sooner or later," she said, "looks like it is just sooner." After Hart and Mag had settled down, Jamie put on a light jacket and headed out the door. "I will eat out mom, and please don’t worry about me," she said as she reached into her pocket for a Marlboro
She headed toward Danny’s house to break the news that they were both ordered to report to the draft board on the 21st. On the way there a Chevy impala 4-door sedan slowed alongside as someone inside shouted "That is one tall bitch!" Pushed teenage guy laughter roared from the vehicle. This group of dicks was from a neighboring park and did not like the group that Jamie hung out with. "Where you heading sissy?" the fattest member of the group slobbered.
"Actually, I am heading to Vietnam, but before I do I was planning on doing your sister on the swings near the sandbox in OUR PARK, you know the one that has a sandbox and swings," Jamie replied as she took a final puff on her cigarette and flicked it at the group. "Or maybe I will do her in the back of the car you are in, since it looks like the family car to me."
"That remark is gonna cost you man," chubby offered as the car doors began to open. As they did, the roar of a familiar Chevy engine could be heard. It was crazy Ronnie burning out and speeding down the block only to jam on his breaks and stop within inches of the car full of testosterone.
"Ronnie you crazy bastard," Jamie screamed as he got out of his car. He was shorter than most of their friends, about 5ft 5inches. Hanging from his mouth was a half smoked Kool.
"Uh what seems to be the trouble here legs?" Ronnie asked with that huge grin on his face. His voice was rough from all the cigarettes he smoked, his hair short because he was home on leave from the Army.
"Oh nothing, these boys were just trying to ask me out on a date is all, but I told them I don’t have the time since I am leaving for the Army on the 21st,” Jamie shouted as she lit up another cigarette.
"Uh, I think I am starting to loose my hearing from all that artillery practice, what the fuck did you say?"
The group in the Impala drove off as Jamie replied, "You heard me, Danny and me are leaving on the 21st’"
"No fucking way," he grunted. "Come on, get in, we have to find Danny."
On the shotgun seat was the latest Playboy magazine, May.
"So, have you passed your physical and all that shit?" Ronnie asked as he started up his car. As were many cars in the 60’s, this was a Chevy impala with about the largest engine one could acquire in a gas combustion engine vehicle of the day, complete with stick shift and bucket seats and a sound that could break windows if he floored it.
"Nope, I just got my letter today," was Jamie's reply as she made her way through the Playboy to the centerfold.
"Yeah, but you gotta take the physical to get drafted, what did the letter say?"
"Greetings, blah blah blah you are to report for active duty on the 21st of May 1969, I volunteered my number Ronnie, it is like joining except I will only have to do 2 years." She continued to explain how since everyone else was gone or leaving, her being 1-2 years younger than those she hung out with, she did not want to come back years after they got out. Why not just go now? At least that is what she was saying. What she was really feeling inside was that her life was a miserable joke, and that in some bizarre way this might either make her feel better about how the world perceived her, or she simply would not come back alive at all. Either way it simply did not matter anymore.
About 6 months earlier Jamie had clandestinely visited a doctor to inquire about her feelings and how overwhelming they were all of the time, about how horrible it was to be seen as this tall male when inside all of her feelings were just the opposite. After listening to all Jamie had to say, the doctors reply was, "You’re young and you have your whole life ahead of you." "If you started taking estrogen and all those other pills you would be dead from liver failure in a couple of months." "Just go about living your life and in time it will work itself out." After hearing that Jamie could not help but feel a sense of hopelessness, helpless to change what she felt inside, unable to change how the world related to her, so she began slipping in a more male manner of being, or at least she tried to.
Jamie finally made it to the centerfold, Miss May 1969. Sally Sheffield, a gorgeous brunette from Brooklyn. She held it up for Ronnie to see as he reached to remove the cigarette from his mouth, leaned over and licked the picture from bottom to top. "She reminds me of Angela's cousin from Elmwood Park, don’t ya think?"
"I don’t think I’ve ever met her," Jamie replied as the vision of Ronnie's tongue sliding over the centerfold made her wonder how it would really be to explore this Miss May with her own tongue. "Is she the one who drives the cream colored Pontiac Le Mans?"
At the moment it did not matter as they pulled up in front of Danny's house. Even though Danny's parents hated it when his friends pulled up in front and honked, Ronnie laid on the horn and revved up his engine after doing so. Danny's father came to the window and shouted, "Danny no home," in his broken English Polish accent.
Ronnie just put it in gear and sped off towards the Park they all gathered at. He pulled up nice and quiet to the back door of the park house, in the still dirt-covered alley and began to rev his engine. In a few moments the door opened with Danny and Skip standing in the doorway, both smoking cigarettes and holding ping pong paddles. "You fuckin’ jagoff, keep it down out here," Danny said with a laugh, finding it hard not to show how happy he was to see Ronnie again after some 5 months.
"I just got back today, decided to sneak in," Ronnie replied, "Sorry I won’t be here long enough to drive you and someone else to the draft board in a few weeks."
"Someone else?" Danny asked with a puzzling look on his face.
"Legs here and you report on the same day," Ronnie answered with that tailor made grin on his face, "He volunteered his number and leaves with you."
"Yep, that’s right," Jamie added. She expected the goofy remarks that were about to come out of Danny's mouth. You’ll never pass the physical, you look like a baby shaped like a broad, and on and on, but deep down he was happy that he would not be going into the military void alone.
They all entered the park house, a small building whose interior still smelled a bit like a winter of kids ice skating and playing hockey and leaving behind too many smelly socks. The green tiled brick walls and cement floor made every sound in the place sharp and loud.
"You’re out of your fucking mind," Skip said to Jamie. He seemed to be the only one who was down about the news. Skip was a 4-F which meant that he could not join the Armed Forces if he wanted to, even though it was certainly the farthest thought that might ever surface in his mind. Skip was beginning to wonder just who would be left for him to hang out with. In the past few years he and Jamie had become good friends. There was something about Jamie that calmed and comforted him as he put it. You see Skip was one of the biggest and toughest guys to hang out with their group of individuals. "I hope you don’t pass your physical," he said with a laugh and shook Jamie's hand.
"Don’t worry, she won’t," Danny giggled as he threw a paddle at both Ronnie and Jamie. "Let’s play some doubles girls," he continued to offer now beginning to laugh out loud. When she heard herself referred to as a she, it sounded so right.
The rest of the evening was spent laughing, explaining, remembering and enjoying a comradery that was soon to be changed once again. In two weeks Ronnie was off to Vietnam and in three, Jamie and Danny were off to points unknown.
The days passed quickly, but not quick enough to suit Jamie. She was ready to explode if something did not change in her life.
On reporting day, Skip drove both Danny and Jamie to the draft board. It was a bit of an emotional moment for them all, as emotional as the average American Male would allow. They shook hands and slapped each other on the back and offered best wishes. Jamie turned back to look at Skip as they entered the building. His head was resting face down in his arms that were gripping the steering wheel.
Once inside large signs explaining which color line to follow greeted them. They needed to follow the red line, which was the line for those leaving that day.
The first order of the day was for everyone to strip down to their shorts. There were long lines twisting through the place for each test. They were fingerprinted, probed for blood, told to give urine and generally assume some of the most awkward and embarrassing positions imaginable. At one point they were told to line up with about 20 others, drop their shorts and bend over and touch their toes. A doctor came along behind them one at a time, followed by someone recording his findings. OK was the finding for most, but when they came to this guy to the right of Danny, the doctor beamed, "Smelly hemorrhoids," to his assistant. The entire place went into an uproar. Jamie and Danny were still laughing when they were seen and given the ok.
After all the physical tests were completed they were gathered in a room with about 300 others. An Army lieutenant entered the room and told them all to raise their right hands. He did not seem nice at all as they were told to repeat after him, an oath to serve the country or die in the process basically. Once that was over they were all officially members of the Armed Forces, the Army they thought.
A Marine lieutenant now joined the lieutenant standing at the front of the group. They laughed together at some quiet joke uttered to each other before the Marine made his way through the crowd, selecting about 25 recruits, instructing them to stand along the wall on the right. Each one he chose had shoulder length hair or longer. Once finished he returned to the front of the room and instructed them that they were indeed being drafted into the Marines.
"Fuck" was the quiet response among the remaining victims. The rest had all become a part of the United States Army this day.
They were dismissed for lunch and instructed to remain in the building until they were collected.
The first thing they both did upon entering this room with tables and chairs set up was light up a smoke.
"So you passed you fucker," Danny said forcing a grin.
"Yeah, I guess my hemorrhoids looked good enough," Jamie answered breaking the ice that was forming on the day as they both laughed out loud.
"I never thought you were gonna make it this far, really."
"Yeah, how about the psychological test? I mean did your’s consist of more than a few questions, one of which was do you like girls?" Jamie asked as inwardly she pondered on that question. "I do," was the answer she gave and could not help but wonder what that made her. At best even after the past few months of trying to be ‘more male’, she felt that her attraction to women was abnormal, that she was a lesbian in the wrong package. "I told him I liked girls so much that I wanted to be Miss May in Playboy."
They both laughed as they started to eat the cold cut sandwiches being served along with something that tasted like way too sweet cool-aid.
Later that day, they were ushered into buses and taken to O'Hare airport. There, a Boeing 707 was waiting to take them to some place called Fort Polk in Louisiana.
"Well, at least it will be warmer where we are going and we won’t be training in the snow like Ronnie and Mark huh?" Jamie said to Danny who was unsure about flying and offered Jamie the window seat.
"Yeah crawling through snow would really suck," Danny replied as the plane sped down the runway and lifted off. For the first time, they both had a view of Chicago from the air even though it was a nighttime view.
"Sure wish it was lighter out so I could see more," Jamie said as a gong sounded throughout the cabin. A light came on saying they could smoke if they wanted to. At that point a plane full of cigarette smoking Army recruits lit up, all seeming to settle into a newfound sense of doom and gloom as to what lay ahead for all of them. Jamie however could not take her eyes off the stewardess, and thought how absolutely fabulous it would be to be walking in her shoes.
Chapter 4
Take it off
Jamie sat in a relatively comfortable chair at the V.A. Hospital. The waiting room was full today, and the usual assortment of veterans filled the room. As Oprah introduced her guests on the two televisions on opposite ends of the room, Jamie thought about what she was going to say to the doctor that saw her. When she checked in she told them she was feeling sick and did not know exactly why.
What is the V.A. policy on transitioning and sexual reassignment surgery? she thought might be a good start. She was not nervous, but could not help feeling uneasy about asking that in her present surroundings. Would they just get pissed off because they felt she was wasting their time when they were so busy?
The room was really packed now and a vet who would have been Jamie's father's age did not have a seat so she offered her’s up to him. She noticed that not only was there no trace of World War I veterans to be found like when she first started coming to the V.A. in 1972, but there were less and less World War II era veterans like the one she just gave her seat up to.
The morning passed with one daytime show after another. It was nearing noon when her name was called and she was told to report to room 106. Once inside a nurse told her to have a seat and the doctor would be in shortly. About fifteen minutes had passed when a young male doctor entered the room.
"Good Morning, my name is Doctor Stromberg," he said in a mild tone. "Let’s see here, it says here you are having an unexplainable pain. Would you care to clarify that Mr. uhm Mr. Simnis, where is this pain?"
Jamie pointed to her head and simply spit it out. "I want to know what the hospital’s policy is for transitioning from male to female and sexual reassignment surgery, and if that is not an option, would I be able to have the V.A. perform an orchiectomy?" Jamie thought what she had rehearsed came out perfectly.
"Uhm, did you mean vasectomy?" the doctor asked with a puzzled look on his face.
"Not a vasectomy doctor, but a complete orchiectomy, I want to have my testicles removed so I can transition using far less estrogen which is safer," Jamie replied as if she were the doctor in the room.
"I will have to ask for the answer to that question, if you will excuse me," the doctor said as he made his way out of the room and closed the door.
Once again Jamie was in the room alone. She sat and watched the birds in the bush outside the window. This hospital was near the lakefront and even though it was surrounded by high rises and other hospitals, there was always a touch of nature to be seen.
About ten minutes passed when there was a knock at the door and a woman doctor entered. "Hello James I am doctor Lane," she said with a smile. "What brings you here today?"
"As I explained to the resident, I want to know what the hospitals policy is for transitioning from male to female and sexual reassignment surgery, and if that is not an option, would I be able to have the V.A. perform an orchiectomy?"
"Do you mean a vasectomy?"
"No, as I explained to your assistant, I would like to see about the V.A. performing an orchiectomy. I want these removed," she offered as she reached down to cup the pain she had experienced for so long between her legs.
"I see, but why would you want to have that done?"
"Because in here, and in here," Jamie said pointing to her head and touching her heart, "I am and have always been a woman. I decided a month ago to finally transition from male to female physically, and although it is a shot in the dark, I decided to come here to see about the possibilities for getting any part of it done through the V.A. I have already started taking estrogen and a drug called spironolactone which curbs to some extent what these things produce, that being testosterone. I want them removed so there is no testy barrier in place resisting the estrogen and I certainly don’t want to regress physically with them in place in the event I must stop taking estrogen for any reason."
"Well, it seems that you have done a little homework on the subject Mr. Simnis," Dr. Lane said with a gleam in her eye. "I admire your courage in coming here to discuss this, and especially for doing what you are doing, but I am not at liberty to make this decision. What I can do is schedule an appointment for you with urology, as they will be the ones who could best make that decision. Was there anything else I could help you with today?"
"Yes, you can tell me what perfume you are wearing, it has such a clean smell," Jamie asked with a smile.
"It is a Marilyn Miglin body lotion, and thank you for asking. You can see the clerk at the desk and they will schedule you for the next earliest urology appointment. It was a pleasure to meet you, best of luck on the road ahead of you."
"Why thank you doctor, that really means a lot to me to hear you say that."
They shook hands and parted. The clerk at the front desk was a rather gruff individual who scheduled Jamie for a Uro appointment in one week.
It was such a beautiful summer day, the end of summer for sure but gorgeous. The warm wind was out of the west, sun shining with puffy clouds floating gently through a rich blue sky.
Well, I scheduled the day off for med appointments so the rest of the day is mine, she thought. Jamie was still feeling the loss of Hart just a month earlier. She had suffered her third stroke and at 82, this time it looked like she would need machines just to stay alive. But, still having her wits about her, she told the doctors to pull the plug. When Jamie heard that she chose to check out rather than live some miserable existence hooked up to machines in some nursing home, it warmed her heart and made her happier than she had felt in a while. It is what she would do in the same circumstance. Oh sure, she missed her mother dearly, but that was one of the fondest memories of her now.
She headed west through Chicago’s streets to the neighborhood she and her family lived in up until the time her father died. As she made her way down Augusta Blvd. in no hurry, she caught a light at a street called Kedzie. She looked out her side window facing south to see if she could catch a glimpse of the towers on the Basilica at the high school she attended.
Jamie attended an all boys Catholic School called St. Philip Basilica High School. It was a grade school now in a neighborhood that was still populated by African Americans, but they were slowly being moved out by the wave of yuppie investors buying up old buildings and erecting new ones on all the vacant lots still left over from the buildings that were burned to the ground by the riots after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 some 34 years earlier.
Jamie hated high school, especially an all boy high school, especially a Catholic all boy high school. She had long ago divorced herself from any religion, and her existence at the time was one of a teenage girl being mistaken for a boy in the midst of all the pain and suffering the sixties brought to her generation. It all seemed like a form of cruel and unusual punishment just to be alive as she was, but to be in a Catholic all boys’ high school in the sixties was one step away from being catapulted back through time to the Spanish Inquisition.
It was a day very much like this one back in 1964 when Jamie reported to her first day of high school. She still remembered the beautiful new shirt Hart had bought for her to wear on her first day. She liked it because the rayon material made her feel even more feminine. Jamie was the only one of her classmates from grade school to decide to attend this school. After grade school, she chose this school because of that very reason. In some way she thought that by starting new for the next four years, with a new set of friends, at least in school for most of the year, she just might become a part of something, anything that would make her feel better about her life.
When Jamie got to school she was amazed at the variety of nationalities she was to be attending school with. African Americans made up for about 1/3 of the student population. Since the Servite fathers, most of whom were Irish ran the school, there was a fair amount of Irish students. But most of Jamie's closest friends in high school were Italian and Mexican. A huge group of lunatics who populated a few Italian gangs not too far from her home are who she rode the bus home with daily. Then there was the Taylor St. assortment of absolute nutcases, an Italian neighborhood that was changing to Mexican somewhat.
The Servite fathers, what a group of sadistic bastards they all were, she thought as she settled into those high school memories that she mostly hated but laughed about now as she made her way back to her old neighborhood from the sixties.
Her neighborhood like the surrounding ones had changed dramatically since her teens. Like so many neighborhoods fearing the oncoming ‘black horde’, they sold their homes and moved out, most to the lily white suburbs. These neighborhoods were now exclusively black and poor, and black and poor in a city like Chicago at any time usually means a rough environment.
It was finally time to turn off the boulevard she was on and make her way down the side streets of her youth. Nobody was left that she would remember, but the memories just kept washing in as she slowly cruised through the neighborhood. Most people catching a glimpse of her in her pickup truck driving slowly checking everything out probably thought she was just another white yuppie coming to buy up the property they lived on forcing them to move out.
It was hard to make it down any street without remembering someone she grew up with, but this day, she could only remember the girls she grew up with. She couldn’t help but think about where they were now, what they looked like, were they even alive after so many years.
First to come to mind was Beverly. As she slowly came down a side street a block away from her old home, she remembered Beverly. Beverly was always so nice to her, and she was highly intelligent. She was one of the few friends Jamie actually confessed her inner feelings to. She was a doctor now, in Arizona and a lesbian. Jamie remembered how all the guys from grade school drooled and lusted after Beverly. You see, not only was she extremely attractive with the sweetest smile, she was gutsy like a tomboy and even in 5th grade she was already sprouting what were to become the most sensational pair of breasts Jamie had ever seen to this day.
The first time she saw them was in 7th grade. Beverly had invited a few friends over for lunch and to hang out and play games inside since the weather was crappy outside, but she told Jamie to show up an hour earlier than the others. After letting her in, she said that she still had to hop in the shower, and to make herself at home. Jamie turned on the television and drifted off into imagining how beautiful it would be to be Beverly, to have that hot water and suds running down your body, and not just any body but one as beautiful as hers. She heard the shower turn off as the phone rang. Beverly shouted for Jamie to get it, so she answered it. It was Frank, wondering if he should bring any games. "Yeah, bring whatever you want, games sure," Jamie answered.
Just as she hung up the phone, Beverly came out of the bathroom wearing a thin cotton robe that she put on right out of the shower. You could see every detailed curve of her body as the damp material clung to her.
"Who was it?” Beverly asked.
"Oh, Frank wanting to know if he should bring any games," Jamie replied.
"Games huh?" Beverly asked softly with an impish look on her face.
"There is something I especially want you to see and experience Jimmy, something that very very few will ever get to see," Beverly said almost in a whisper as she undid the tie on her robe and walked across the room and sat down next to Jamie. "I more than anyone know just how much this will mean to you," she whispered as she opened her robe, and pulled Jamie's right hand to her naked breasts.
Jamie's heart was racing as she ran the gamut of usual questions that flashed through her head each time she felt an attraction for a girl, for another girl. "You’re absolutely gorgeous Beverly, and I would die to be you," Jamie said as Beverly now pulled her head to them.
"Kiss them," Beverly softly commanded, as Jamie was helpless to resist. "Now that is a memory I wanted you to have cause I still believe that someday you will own a pair of these," Beverly said with a giggle as she reached down to squeeze the little bulge in Jamie's trousers. "Too bad you of all people have one of these."
They could now hear a few familiar voices coming in the building as Beverly scooted into her bedroom to get dressed. Jamie ran to the front door and left it open, then returned to the couch and crossed her legs to hide the softening erection Beverly had created.
Erection, my how I have always hated that word, she thought as she pulled up the alley in the back of her old house. There was no one living in it now, the factory next door had purchased the property and it was vacant. Whenever she visited this place she was immediately overwhelmed with memories of her father.
He had nearly rebuilt the place from the ground up after they had moved in, making an apartment downstairs for his parents to live in. She remembered them for a moment with fondness. For some reason her memories of Hart at this house were always inside memories. She could not remember much of Hart in the great outdoors for some bizarre reason.
When she got to the front of the house she marveled at how small everything looked now, how as a child it all seemed so much larger, larger than life, certainly larger than her own mixed up life. Life, something Hart shared with her no more she thought as she broke out in tears. "I miss you both very much" she said and drove off, heading east and back home. There was too much for her to do since she had chosen to start her life anew.
"I will live the rest of this miserable life out as a female or die trying," she uttered out loud while popping in a Morrissey cassette. "One tall homely babe, but a woman nonetheless."
Chapter 5
Dry season
Jamie had been in Panama 2 months now. "What do they have in store for me?" she asked herself when, upon finishing basic training and advanced infantry training at Ft. Polk, Louisiana, in the midst of a war escalating out of control, her orders were to report to Jungle Operations Training in the Canal Zone, Republic of Panama.
She thought about how lucky she was to be there as she lay out on a large towel at the beach, about how after only being there two days she was summoned to Headquarters Company and told to report to Lt. Brass. Upon arriving she was told that her 201-file showed that she could type. She confirmed that info as being accurate and Lt. Brass had her follow him to a brand new state of the art IBM electric typewriter.
"I want you to practice on this for a while and I am going to give you a test," Brass said in a cocky slight southern drawl and left the room.
There were about eight desks in this office, a few behind partitions that had closing doors. She began to peck on the keys, They are so sensitive to the touch, she thought. Within minutes she was flying on the keyboard. It sounded like quiet machine gun fire to her as she marveled at the speed she was capable of on this machine.
After about fifteen minutes Lt. Brass came barging through the door and seemed furious. "I told you to practice on this thing, not play dammit, it's not a toy" he barked as he ripped the paper from the machine to look at it. What he saw was all readable typed text, and he quickly moved to one of the back offices and picked up the phone.
"Yes sir, it looks as though we found what we need," he reported happily to someone on the other end of the line. "I will have him report to Sgt. Ortega first thing in the morning."
"Si, sim, how the hell do you pronounce your name anyway?" Brass asked.
"Simnis sir, it is a relative easy one to pronounce if you just," she started to explain being cut short by Brass.
"Yeah yeah, whatever. You are hired private," he said. "Report here first thing in the morning to Sgt. Ortega, you are going to help us run this place."
"Yes sir," Jamie replied and left after being dismissed. "Sure glad I chose typing instead of a language in high school," she thought and left the office.
The weather was gorgeous, the most beautiful time of the year in Panama, the dry season, where it still sprinkled a bit each day, but passed quickly giving way to plenty of sunshine and temps that always seemed to hover at about 85 degrees.
"Jim do you want a beer?" Mike asked standing above her, that killer smile on his freckled Kentucky face.
"Hey, how come there’s never any broads on this beach unless we bring them?" Thumper shouted as he popped open a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.
"Not yet Mike, thanks," Jamie replied.
"Because it’s too remote and it’s not the Pacific Side where all the fine babes hang that are not whores," Mike replied with a huge grin giggling. He would not get anywhere near the seeming endless flow of women from all over Central and South America and all surrounding islands because he had a gorgeous wife waiting for him at home. Prostitution was legal in the Republic of Panama, and the collection of gorgeous young women from everywhere helped them all pass many a night.
Jamie lost her virginity to a young girl from the Dominican Republic. Mercedes was an incredibly beautiful girl at the ripe age of 19 when Jamie met her in a bar. She fell in love with her strong free spirit and sexy husky feminine voice and laugh, as did many others. Jamie only paid her once, the first time, to spend the night with her. Mercedes liked her so much that she would have Jamie meet her at the end of the evening and head home with her to spend the evening.
Today they had not brought Mercedes and a host of her working girl friends to the beach. This was just a spur of the moment ocean front drunk they decided on. When they were not on maneuvers training or running training in the jungle, their evenings and weekends were free unless the pulled some extra duty from that roster.
A huge rain cloud passed overhead and soaked them with one of those welcome dry season showers. Just as soon as it came it went and in minutes they and everything around them was dry again. Panama was a strange place. The entire country was only some 55 miles wide through the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific side, yet on the Atlantic side where they were stationed, it rained twice as much as the Pacific side, over 180 inches of rainfall a year.
"What’s everyone up to later?" Bob asked as he sipped on his beer.
"Not much for me I am afraid, I have duty driver tomorrow," Jamie replied.
Duty driver meant you spent the entire day traveling at the whim of whatever officer wanting to go wherever. Jamie had gotten her first driver’s license in Panama just weeks before, she knew how to drive but never obtained a license before the Army.
The rest of the day was spent doing what guys do when they get together to drink and belch and fart and whatever. Jamie decided to catch a ride back to the fort when Spencer offered to go pick up another case of beer. What she did not want was a major hangover to start her first day as duty driver in the morning.
She arrived back at beautiful Fort Davis and strolled over to the PX to get something to take back to the barracks to eat. As far as military forts go, this was truly a beautiful place. The barracks were large and they all had plenty of room to exist. A full size pool was a their disposal, but was practically never open for use it seemed.
She ordered a grilled ham and cheese with tomato and an order of fries and headed back to the barracks.
"Oh baby, you’re really red," Gary said as he started to laugh out loud.