Paring Knife

When I was a kid my aunt saw me trying to cut an apple with a small paring knife. She ran up to me and seized my hands. She chuckled and gave me a much bigger knife. She said “Never use a boy to do a man’s job”.

I think a lot about the streetcar. I think a lot about how darting eyes paranoid I get on the streetcar. I think a lot about how a lot of my friends are women and I can’t defend them on the streetcar.

Never use a transgender to do a man’s job.

Or else they’ll just call you a dyke or sometimes a faggot it really depends on their eyesight and what I’m wearing, I’ve found.

I’m not a dyke and I’m sorry for the stolen valour.

I’m a man and I can’t defend my friends on the streetcar. I’m a man and my ID says I’m 5”7 but I’m pretty sure I’m 5”6. I’m a man and I didn’t know how many needles you have to get when I signed up for the whole transsexual thing. I’m a man and I’m sorry for that god I’m sorry, ok, jesus. I’m a man and I panic when another man tries to man handshake me, I wish someone would take my hands and guide me into the sort of fellowship I used to hear about at church.

I grew up in the closest thing to a mega church my town could muster, a gym and kitchen and offices and a stage with two projector screens and a 12 foot cross in the center. It was tantalizingly repressed and resplendently Baptist. I played hide and seek in those pews at youth group. I played dodgeball in that gym with my cousins. I played dumb when my pastor discussed, flanked by two projector screens, Caitlyn Jenner’s man hands hidden behind her back on the Vanity Fair cover, and how it was a metaphor for the permanency of God’s holy truth, hidden or not. He did not call her Caitlyn.

I played a Bowie song from my phone held up to my ear in the parking lot during the reception following my mother’s funeral.

You’ve got your mother in a whirl / Cause she’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl

My mother’s funeral was the second last public gathering I went to before Covid lockdowns. The last was seeing “Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn” at the Scotiabank theatre on Richmond, but that’s not important right now.

Hey babe, your hair’s alright / Hey babe, let’s go out tonight

I’m a man and I wore a queen t shirt under my fully zipped up black blazer at my mother’s funeral. I’m a man and I probably ate half a soggy tea sandwich at my mother’s funeral, but I don’t really remember anymore. I’m a man and I didn’t cry at my mother’s funeral. I do remember my stomach flipping between being proud and ashamed of not crying at my mother’s funeral, rising and falling like the sea with every quick and hot breath in and out through my mouth.

You like me and I like it all / We like dancing and we look divine /

You love bands when they’re playing hard / You want more and you want it fast

Lately I’ve been on the streetcar more. I got a new job, and I’m trying to save money because I’m getting married this year. On the streetcar I like to look at people. On the streetcar people like to look at me. On the streetcar I like to look away really fast when people look at me looking at them. On the streetcar, people like to look away really fast when I look at them looking at me. On the streetcar the driver called me boss once. On the streetcar a lady asked me and my friends if “we ladies” were getting off soon. On the streetcar I can categorize people in my mind by who would call me a dyke and who would call me a faggot and who would call me nothing at all. On the streetcar I can nurture the chip on my shoulder.

They put you down, they say I’m wrong / You tacky thing, you put them on

My mother clings to my coat lapel and to my shirtsleeves. My mother hides in the chip in my front tooth from trying to open a necklace I bought at Michael’s when I was 14, something she specifically told me not to do with my teeth. My mother was a community dinner theatre actress. My mother once told me about a theatre in Toronto where she saw a naked man run around onstage acting like a chicken. My mother will never now I’ve been in a festival at that theatre twice now. My mother may or may not have known that was a queer theatre. My mother had mixed opinions about queer people. I sometimes worry my mother had mixed opinions about me.

Rebel rebel, you’ve torn your dress / Rebel rebel, your face is a mess

I’m a man and I use the correct sized knife to cook my fiancée dinner. I’m a man and I let the steam curl up in my face at the stove. I’m a man and I drink a beer in a glass while I cook my fiancée dinner and the steam curls up in my face at the stove. I’m a man and I habitually run my tongue over the chip in my front tooth I would not have if I had listened to my mother.

Rebel rebel, how could they know / Hot tramp, I love you so

My mother played both sisters Mary and Martha at my mega church’s Easter play (different years). I played with plastic knives in a plastic kitchen in the basement as a toddler before I was allowed to incorrectly cut an apple for real. I think a lot about all this on the streetcar and when I’m cooking dinner. I’m a man and my mother never knew that. I’m a man and I miss her like someone’s sitting on my chest. I’m a man and I know which knife to use now. I’m a man on the streetcar and no one is looking at me.

I don’t listen to David Bowie much anymore.