Scissors

"I'm afraid that I'll never find love again. But I don't think I will talk about that. Every night, I stay awake and I write, or more often, I'll record myself with this old Toshiba camcorder, one of the bulky cameras that are better left on a flat surface than a tripod should the tripod collapse. I don't sleep until dawn, curious if anyone else is still awake. But that's not what I talk about. I discuss politics.

I wanted to be a politician when I was.. about seven or eight. Well, not true, I wanted to be the prime minister of England. Except I grew up in a suburb outside of Philadelphia, so that dream was all but shot. I'm not really sure why, but I think I fancied the cultural differences. It felt freer. Freedom eludes me still. I'm thirty-eight years old now, and I've never visited England.

When I was a teenager, we landed on the moon. My father heralded that moment as America's greatest achievement. He caught me later that day masturbating to David Bowie off the cover of "Man of Words/Man of Music". Early the next year, my dad moved out, and my mother moved us to Long Island. They stayed married for almost 10 years while he lived in Doylestown and boarded with a prostitute who would take the train to Philly. I saw more of her than I did him.

I would visit her from time to time because I liked her company. She really just needed someone to help cook or occasionally drive her to work at the corner of Twelfth and a hamburger stand. In return, I learned about men, women, sex and drugs. She was my first carnal love and my only emotional love. In her, I felt passion, fire, soullessness and depravity. Every sense I had, she over-stimulated until I flooded with augre pain. Whip tails, kitchen knives, fingernails and pinpricks. Massive dildos, flavored glow-in-the-dark condoms, beads and broken lava lamps...

She was in love with my father, but he never loved her back, and he worked all day, sometimes all night. Every time he came home, he couldn't finish a sentence. I don't drink because of him. But I am a heroin addict because of him. Sometimes I left used needles on his coffee table to see if he noticed. Either he never did, or the prostitute cleaned them up.

After she died, I kept up my habit, but I didn't use it any more or less. I couldn't afford it. Once, I was fined four times for parking next to a yellow fire hydrant. In lieu of rent, I lived in my car. My heroin habit remained stable even then. Then I was fired, and I just didn't buy gas for three months, biked pizzas, and lived off sardines that people never wanted.

So, I came up with this idea. I would discuss politics and record it. It wouldn't be about International relations, and I wouldn't talk about scandal or the state of education or science. Nah, I'll talk about being a transsexual. First thing you need to know is that I never pretended when I felt pain or stress or arousal, but I acted like it, and no one knew the difference.

I started working the same corner a year before she died. My clients were men and women alike. But I preferred the men. They were always conservative accountants who dressed well, smelled nicely, had kids and a family. Sometimes I'd service them when they were supposed to be at church, being pious and acceptable. That got me off like nothing else, to know that I was their weakness, the failure in their knees, their sin. That's from everything she taught me. I was Philadelphia's underbelly.

As of the past five years, I'm a personality on your weekly morning radio, broadcasted across the Mid-Atlantic from Syracuse to D.C. I show up at the studio fifteen minutes before we go live at 6 AM, pass off handwritten post-its to the DJ, and drone on for a half hour recapping the day before. For this, I used to read the Inquirer then followed it up with the Bulletin until that folded. Now I just watch CNN until I have my talking points. I go live, I go to bed. It's doldrums.

I don't regret anything. I only wish a few things. Like, maybe I should have told her I loved her, and that my clientele only stimulated that love. I had quit on the anniversary of her death, not in memory of her, but because my dad died a month before. After that, prostitution was just a job. I guess I never really liked it on its own merits.

But now I have to say my last words, to piece together my whole life. How about "let it go"? That sounds like advice I wish someone had told me. Advice I wish my mother, or my father, or the prostitute took to heart.

I'm going to jump off Benjamin Franklin after we wrap up at 6:25. It's 5:15 now, I can see the sun is starting to rise, just by the reflection of light off of the clouds. Here I am, as I really am. Tousled hair, purple blush, rouge lipstick. This is my last needle, and these are the scissors that I'll use to cut the band from my arm... Safety scissors, even. Anything can be an instrument to fatalism if you want it enough.

Alright, I've said enough. Mother, I always loved my father and I never loved you. But I don't think you'll watch this far to hear these words. I don't think anyone else will find this since you'll burn it like everything else. Maybe it'll be a mention in my obituary. I hope not. Anyway, let him go."