Looking for Hope

by: Dawn DeWinter

 

Chapter 17 – Dawn Fiddles

Out of bed at dawn, and dressed once again like Alice in Wonderland, Dawn was frantic for their drive to start. "We’re 570 miles from Vegas, and we must do the drive on one day."

"But, Dawn, shuga, why the sudden passion for celerity?" Duchess asked. "Oh, y’all doubtlessly don’t know that word. It means real fast. Why accelerate now? Don’t you know that Las Vegas is a city of fear and loathing? There is no urgency in reaching it."

"Yes, its Strip is the boulevard of broken dreams," said Mortimer. He smiled shyly as Duchess looked on him proudly; she was beginning to fall for him. "Sure, he’s a mousy little man," she thought. "But better a mouse than another flea-infested rat like Sammy."

"Can’t you see the dementia in Dawn’s eyes," said the Queen. "She’s got gambling fever. I’ve seen that look many times on the Mississippi riverboats. She smells the crap … tables and is frantic to throw snake eyes before this day is done."

As Dawn couldn’t rightly explain her dream, she let them think it was the prospect of gambling that made her feverish and impatient. She got her way: the caravan of Hope pulled out of the motel parking lot at seven o’clock in the morning. They might even have gotten away twenty minutes earlier had Dawn not insisted on finishing her second pot of coffee.

The trip went quickly, considering how many times Dawn had them stop so she could make a visit to the "little girl’s room." At the second such stop, Boreman insisted on changing places with Holly in the back seat of the white Rabbit. His massive body took up so much space that he squeezed Dawn into the door handle.

Remarkably, Boreman did not fall asleep. Indeed, Dawn had never seen him more animated. It was her dress and pinafore that excited him. "You look like a young child," he oozed. "May I call you Alice? She’s always been my favorite ten-year-old."

"What a goat-footed satyr you are," Dawn thought before agreeing to his calling her Alice. Emboldened, Boreman whispered in Dawn’s ear, "Never mind what they all say, my dear, I think you’re the sexiest little girl in the entire caravan. I’m really turned on by the way you’re dressed, little Alice."

"Don’t tease so," Dawn said. "I don’t look like a little girl, even when I’m dressed like this. I’m quite sure I don’t look any younger than seventeen."

Boreman sighed with a little voice. Alice tried to find something pitying to comfort him. "If only he’d like teenagers like other people!" she thought. "But where is he ever going to find a little girl that won’t land him in jail? And rightly so!"

Boreman’s four chins came quite close to her ear. His lips tickled her earlobe, which changed Dawn’s thought patterns appreciably. "I know you’re a friend," Boreman whispered, "a dear friend, possibly a girlfriend. And you won’t hurt me, though I am an insect."

"What kind of insect?" asked Dawn as she searched her mind for a more suitable response.

"The worst kind," said Boreman, "that type that wants to sting little girls. But I never have, I swear! And with your help, I never will."

Just then the white rabbit hit a bump and jumped. As the car rose straight up into the air, Dawn caught at the thing nearest to her hand, which happened to be Boreman’s thing. It grew as she touched it.

"It’s certainly a very large thing, about the size of a chicken," Dawn thought. Though she felt nervous, she couldn’t remove her hand as long as it remained so long. Boreman’s massive body shuddered, and then with a mighty squeak he came. Transfixed, Dawn still couldn’t remove her hand even as Boreman’s overalls became moist and tacky to the touch.

"Then you like this insect?" Boreman went on, quietly, as if nothing had happened.

"I’d like you if you stopped talking about having sex with little girls," Dawn said.

"I will. I’ll even stop fantasizing about ‘em," Boreman said, "if you agree to be my girlfriend and to dress like a little girl, a ten-year-old, whenever we have sex."

Dawn was about to say "no deal" but the words stuck in her throat as her fingers revealed that Boreman was already growing again where it counted most. She was silent for a minute or two, pondering Boreman in all his immensity.

He amused himself meanwhile by humming "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." At last he asked, "I suppose you’ll want me to move in with you?"

"No, indeed," Dawn said, a little anxiously.

"Think how convenient it would be if you took me home with you. You could dress up like a little girl every night in clothes that I’d buy you. And every night you’d be making love with me! My hands will be so busy giving you pleasure that you’ll think I have six arms."

Then came a melancholy little sigh from the front seat. "Dawn, don’t be such a wuss," Freda said. "You owe it to yourself and to Boreman to discover if the two of you can build a stable relationship on fantasy. Dawn, you clearly want to be treated like a little girl, and he is clearly looking for a little girl old enough to keep him out of jail. You’re made for each other!"

Dawn felt a little timid about going into a relationship with Boreman. However, she made up her mind to go ahead with it, "for I certainly won’t go back," she thought, "to living alone in a condemned apartment in Newark."

"If we marry," she asked Boreman, "what will become of my name? I shouldn’t like to lose any of it, especially as your surname is so ugly."

"Well, we could call you Hope," said Bill from the driver’s seat. "Then we wouldn’t have to go around calling everyone we meet ‘Hope,’ till one of them answers. We’ll just have to ask you."

"No, you cannot call me Hope. It’s taken me so long to answer to the name of Dawn, I don’t think I could learn another name. You don’t want me to embarrass you all in front of a cop by saying, ‘My name, you ask? H, I know it begins with H!’

"Dawn, you truly are hopeless," said Bill.

"No, she’s not," said Boreman, putting his massive arm around Dawn, "you’ve got to make allowances for her. She’s just a little girl at heart, and so she’s still full of hope."

His words unzipped Dawn’s heart, just as she unzipped his overalls. She did not resist as his tongue passed her lips for the first time. Dawn had her hands clasped lovingly around the soft folds of Boreman’s neck, as she gazed into his beautiful brown eyes. Once again, he came at full speed.

Dawn sat looking at his groin, almost ready to cry with vexation at having him come so suddenly. But she now knew that she wanted to live with him, and that her name was going to become Dawn Boreman. The name sounded less hoity-toity than DeWinter. It made her more accessible, less intimidating to those who might think that anyone named DeWinter must be a refined lady. Boreman had the common touch. She’d even use the name in her writing, as she expected her readers would think it the perfect pen name for such an exceptional authoress.

Boreman was lying asleep on Dawn’s lap, her Winnie-the-Pooh panties around his neck, when Bill saw an exit sign for Las Vegas. As he was driving the lead car, it was important that he take the right exit, even if weren’t the correct exit. There seemed to be one exit and two signs announcing it. They took the exit, always being sure to make the right turn whenever there was a fork in the road. And each time, there were two signs pointing the same way, one marked ‘TO THE LAS VEGAS CASINO" and the other ‘TO THE CASINO IN LAS VEGAS.’

"I do believe," said Dawn at last, "that we’re being directed to a single casino. I wonder why it took me so long to figure that out?" Possibly Boreman was to blame. He weighed heavily on her mind – and pelvis. "We can’t stay there for very long. Just one night."

They turned a sharp corner, and saw for the first time the casino entrance, and in front of it two fat little men. They were standing under the marquee, each with an arm around the other’s neck. One had ‘FIDDLEYOU’ embroidered on his collar, and the other ‘FIDDLEME’. They stood so still that Dawn quite forgot they were alive. She looked around for human help.

"I know what you’re thinking about," said Fiddleyou, "You want to ask me for a room."

"On the contrary," said Fiddleme, "She wants a room from me."

"I was thinking," Dawn said politely, "that there are nineteen of us who’ll want to stay at this casino if it comes with a hotel. I like its name – WONDERLAND."

The little men looked at each other and grinned. They looked so much like a couple of big schoolboys that Boreman couldn’t help pointing his finger at Fiddleyou and saying, "Are you gay? Have you ever had sex with a man?"

"Nohow!" Fiddleyou cried out briskly, then snapped his mouth shut.

"Next boy!" said Boreman, passing on to Fiddleme. "Do you want to play with me?" Dawn was relieved to hear him shout out, "On the contrary!"

"You’ve been wrong to start with a pass!" cried Fiddleyou. "The first thing to do when checking into a hotel is to say, ‘How do ya do?’ and then shake hands!" And then the two brothers gave each other a hug, and then held out the two hands that were free, to shake hands with Dawn and Boreman. The next moment they were dancing round in a circle to the tune of "Here we go round the mulberry bush" played by two fiddlers.

The twins were fat and soon out of breath. "Four times round is enough for an introduction," Fiddleyou panted out, and the dance ended as quickly as it had begun. Somewhere in the hotel two people kept fiddling with each other.

"I hope you’re not overtired?" Dawn said to the blue-faced twins.

"Nohow. But thank you very much for asking," said Fiddleyou.

"So much obliged!" said Fiddleme. "Do you like romantic love poetry?" he asked Dawn.

"Ye-es, pretty well – but not just now," she said, not wanting to share Boreman with the twins. "Would you tell me if there’s room for nineteen people in the hotel?"

"What shall I repeat to her?" said Fiddleme, looking around at Fiddleyou with twinkling eyes.

"A Shakespearean sonnet is the most likely to seduce her," Fiddleyou replied, giving his brother an affectionate hug.

Fiddleme began instantly: ""In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes …."

Dawn ventured to interrupt him. "Your poem already alarms me. Could you not give us some shelter instead?"

Fiddleme smiled gently, and began again:

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But ‘tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote;
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue’s tune delighted;
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unsway’d the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart’s slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

Dawn was unimpressed: "That’s got to be the worst love poem I’ve ever heard. I can write a lot better than that Shakespear dude. If I were trying to pick up you two guys, I wouldn’t tell you that there’s a thousand things wrong with you and that I despise you, or that I can’t stand your voice, or that I find it gross when you touch me. And I don’t think it warms anyone’s heart to be associated with the plague."

"On the contrary," said Fiddleme. "You couldn’t possibly write a better poem than Will Shakespeare. He was, after all, the Beard."

"How about this?" said Dawn quite heatedly. She then spat out her version of a love poem:

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Your sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my place with kings.

"Bravo! Bravo!" cried out Freda. "Zat is a masterpiece," said Kermesse. Suzie, the hat lady, did somersaults with glee. "So many rhymes, so many times," she yelled, "Dawn’s the best; she has the zest!"

But Duchess said, "It’s distinctly second-rate. Dawn’s poem is much too short and dreary. And its rhymes are quite conventional. I’m also sure that I’ve heard something like it before. Dawn, your poem is quite derivative. Had you written it thirty years ago, when you were in college, it might have impressed us. But I am sure that Sylvia Plath, Leonard Cohen, or John Denver wrote something like it first."

"On the contrary," said Fiddleme. "Dawn’s poem is worthy of the Beard himself."

"Duchess is talking nonsense, but your compliment is so very REAL," said Dawn, who began to cry with joy. "It’s foolish to cry over a compliment, but I get so few from strangers. It’s really getting late. Do you think you could find rooms for all nineteen of us? If you’re short on space, Boreman – he’s the one who’s been flirting with you – and I would be willing to double up with you and your twin."

"You may double up with us," said Fiddleyou, "if you’re willing to share a single bed. The twin beds are for us twins."

"Selfish things!" said Dawn, and she was just about to say "Good night" and to recommend they all look for another hotel, when Fiddleyou grabbed her wrist and said, "Selfish? Nohow! You will only have to use the single bed if you want to sleep. But we won’t be wanting to sleep. When there are just the two of us, my brother and I have sex for HALF the night; we should be able to go ALL night with two extra."

Half an hour later, everyone was checked in – one room for Bill and Freda, the transsexual lovers; a second room for lofty Duchess and Mortimer, her mousy masseur; a third room for Sissy and Gryphia, the teenaged Arkansas "lesbians"; a fourth room for the Mississippi Queen, Jim and the cucumber; a fifth room for Carlos, Conchita and Tage, the Japanese student; a sixth room for Suzie, the hat lady, and ever-smiling Ches, who catnapped between acrobatic stunts under the covers; a seventh room for Gloria, the Marsh Heiress, and Whitt, the father of the next Marsh Heir; and an eighth room for Kermesse and Pepe, who, romping about in soiled diapers, didn’t sneeze once after Holly had joined their game. They used a new rattle they’d found in the lobby to signal who should be babied next.

Dawn and Boreman never checked IN, because their roly-poly hosts were checking them OUT. Fiddleyou was, however, in a foul mood. "My nice NEW RATTLE is missing," he bawled. "You took it, didn’t you?" he yelled at his brother, who was doing his best to hide under the white bed sheets. However, he kept rolling over, and so ended up looking like a mummy. No one was interested then in having sex with him, for the other three were well-adjusted adults who’d never have sex with their mummy.

"Of course, you agree to dress for sex?" Fiddleyou asked Boreman in a calmer tone. "Dawn’s perfectly dressed, but your clothing is no fun at all. Will you dress like a five-year-old boy to make the fantasy complete?"

"I suppose so," replied Boreman, "only Dawn must help me to dress up."

So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand into a giant closet, and returned in a minute with their arms full of children’s clothing. It was, however, far from child-sized. The linen blouse with the rounded lace collars and mother of pearl buttons was as big as a sail. "Every one of these clothes has got to go on, somehow or other," remarked Fiddleyou.

Dawn said afterwards she had never seen such a fuss made about boy’s clothes in all her life. The way the twins bustled about, you’d actually think they found little boy’s briefs (size XXL adult) as erotic as her Winnie the Pooh panties.

"How do I look? Do I look like a five-year-old boy?" asked Boreman after he’d put on MIghty Mouse briefs, a linen blouse, a purple satin bow tie, purple velvet shorts with velvet suspenders, white anklet socks, and burgundy-colored Mary Jane shoes.

"Well – yes – a little," replied Dawn gently, adding under her breath, "if he’s being subjected to petticoat discipline."

"We must have a foursome now, but I don’t care about going on long because I have a headache," said Fiddleyou. "What’s the time now?"

Fiddleme looked at his Mickey Mouse watch, and said, "Half-past seven."

"Let’s play doctor until nine, and then have Kraft dinner," said Fiddleyou.

"Very well," Fiddleme said. "I want to start with Boreman, and you and she can watch him diddle me – only better not come very close. I generally grab everything I can touch, when I get really excited."

"And I touch everything within reach," cried Fiddleyou, "whether I can grab it or not."

"I have an idea," said Dawn. "Let’s all play house under the sheets of that bed." She pointed to one that looked particularly inviting. "Why not?" all three said in unison, as they dove under its covers. They played house that night, as well as nurse and doctor. They even made each other’s peepee spurt.

Afterwards, feeling toasty warm in his felt pyjamas (which not only had a back flap but feet as well), Boreman realized that he wasn’t a pedophile after all. Several times that night he’d made love to ADULTS. He also realized that he wasn’t a heterosexual, for the twins had been much better sex than Dawn. He decided to let Dawn down gently. It would surely crush her to lose him to two others. So he didn’t crow in the morning about the little-boy sex he’d had. Instead he lied, "Dawn, you’re still my one and only."

She frowned mightily until he persuaded Fiddleyou and Fiddleme to join the caravan of Hope. They said they were tired of Vegas where they were getting a reputation as the "incest kids." We want to move to LA or New York," they said. "There’s more hope for the likes of us in a big metropolis."

But which direction would the caravan of Hope go? Onward to Los Angeles or back to New Jersey? Since they were in Las Vegas, Dawn decided to let Lady Luck decide. And so, she had a chicken slaughtered so she could check out its entrails.

 

Chapter Eighteen -- The Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn

The bird was too chicken to talk. Dawn was disconsolate. She didn’t know which way to head. The situation looked hopeless. "Possibly, we should do a better job of looking for Hope here in Las Vegas," she said to her friends assembled in the Wonderland hotel ballroom. "After all, she told me she loved the great white way. That must be the strip in Vegas, right?"

"The great white way? That sounds more like New York than Las Vegas," Duchess said. "Is it possible that Dawn has been taking us in the wrong direction. Possible? Once posed, the question answers itself. It is not only possible; it is highly likely. Do all agree?"

Everyone nodded vigorously, even the boyish twins. "That’s not fair at all!" Dawn seethed. "The twins hardly know me. How could they possibly know whether I’ve been heading in the wrong direction."

"I order you to repeat all the clues you have to Hope’s location," said the Queen most regally. "Yes," all roared in unison. "Tell us the clues that led us to Las Vegas, the city of infinite hope, but no Hope."

And then, with the help of better memories than hers, Dawn related the clues that had lured her ever westward:

1) Hope could see the sun rising over an east river.

2) Hope had been to Pennsylvania Station

3) Hope staked out President Clinton’s office for days in the hope of getting a kiss from him.

4) Hope thought about JFK when she drove to the airport

5) Hope lived in a town with a Broadway

6) Hope lived in a town with thousands of paintings on display

7) Hope lived near the great white way

What did it all add up to? No one was sure, least of all Dawn herself. Her friends were about to abandon themselves to hopelessness when Dawn suddenly remembered her dream. Well, she sort of remembered it. These were the only words that still rattled around her head:

1) Albuquerque was 2000 miles from Hope

2) The battery is down

3) Yo wind, turn up your speakers man

4) A dogg pound

5) She traveled through a hole in the ground

6) She couldn’t make it anywhere but the place where Hope lived

7) A big apple tree

8) She’ll find Hope in a place that never sleeps

9) She drinks a pot of Sri Lankan coffee (poured by Madam Zita?)

10) She stands like a statue, while a man takes the liberty of measuring her towering height

11) She sees Superman in Gotham City

12) She becomes "half the hero of her dream" (like Larry Kirwan)

Dawn still didn’t have a clue as to Hope’s location even after Duchess had her repeat her dream three times. But everyone else knew. Duchess was just about to make Dawn feel like a fool when Kermesse hopped in with a compliment, "Dawn, you are so intelligent. You have just told us ze verity about Hope. You tell us, Dawn, zat Hope lives in Manhattan. It’s damage that New York is so far from here. It will be a long time in zee automobiles before zat we arrive zere."

Just then Dawn remembered another line from her dream. The man in it had said, "It takes all the running you can do just to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast."

"Look everyone, as long as we take the highway we’re never going to find Hope, or at least we won’t find her in time. We’ve just been staying in place. To reach her, we must leave the highway for the skyway. We must fly."

She said it with such urgency that Duchess agreed to pay not only for their airline tickets but also for the cost of shipping their motor vehicles to New York City. Everyone agreed to come along, out of curiosity, bonding, and love.

Late that night all twenty-one of them checked in to a Times Square hotel. The first to discover that New York was the city of hope was Holly. "No one sneezes when I come near ‘em," she whooped with delight. "Any nose that can adjust to the thousand and one odors of New York City has no difficulty with sneezeweed. I’ve finally found my home. This is where I’ll stay."

Pepe and Kermesse said they’d miss her, but they’d be heading off the next day to schools in Ottumwa, Iowa thanks to Duchess and the Queen, who were paying for their tuition, and to Dawn, who’d arranged not only for their admission but for a welcoming committee composed of three students whom Dawn had once known.

The Marsh Heiress also left New York for her Arkansas mansion, her latest husband, Whitt Babbitt, in thrall. Both of them hoped for quadruplets. Suzie, the slightly mad lady with the hats, hoped for less -- that her new husband Ches, wouldn’t turn out to be a total alley cat. But she, and he, figured he’d hang around Yokum’s Patch as long as she kept him well fed and comfortable.

Duchess headed off to New Jersey to live with Mortimer. Everyone said that Jersey was the ideal location for the loving pair. Duchess had hopes of their becoming the state’s most aristocratic couple.

Jim and Bill both decided to live in New York City where their construction skills were in demand. To everyone’s surprise but Jim’s, the Mississippi Queen decided to stay with his black "boyfriend." Did the Queen yet know the truth about Jim? No one else knew; but Dawn did think it suggestive that the first thing Jim looked for in New York was a store that sold firm, fresh vegetables. Freda naturally stayed with Bill, and two years later she married Bill – he in a black tuxedo, she in a magnificently flowing white dress – thanks to Duchess and the Queen who shared the cost of sexual reassignment surgery for the young lovers.

Sissy was also going to get their money. Soon, she’d no longer be a mock girl. After surgery, she’d be as real a girl as a boy can get. And her lover Gryphia hoped that they’d both graduate from Columbia University – their tuition being paid for by Duchess, who said that it was fitting that Sammy’s oily wealth should put two lesbians through college.

Tage also decided to stay in New York where she’d be close to her mother in Princeton, and even closer to her lover Conchita. Carlos had decided that New York was the ideal place to live a double life – as Tage’s girlfriend and as a guy cop. He even figured that one day he might become Officer Conchita. New York was the kind of place where one could hope for almost anything.

Fiddleyou and Fiddleme opened a bar in Soho that they called "Little Threesome" in honor of Boreman, who moved in with them. All three of them hoped that New York City would overlook their little eccentricity. And it did. Only rarely did the three little boys get even a catcall as they barhopped in short pants, Buster Brown shoes, and striped tee shirts early on Sunday mornings.

Thanks to Duchess, Dawn soon got breast implants. Were they ever big! However, as Dawn saw her friends pair off and head off in different directions, she naturally became a bit blue.

Mortimer and Duchess were consoling her as she sat lonely and forlorn in Central Park. She was wearing her Alice in Wonderland outfit, Dawn said, because something in her dream made her think that it might lead her to Hope.

"But I’m almost given up all hope of finding Hope. There are eight million naked people to check out in this city," Dawn sobbed. "You’ve all found love and hope through your journey with me, but I’ve found no one – no one that didn’t love me and leave me. I’m soon going to have to go back alone to my apartment. I just hope that the electricity has not been turned off."

"The electricity is definitely on," said Duchess. "I’ve bought the building and you’ve got free rent and electricity there for as long as you live."

Dawn pretended to be thrilled at the news, but she ‘d rather hoped that Duchess would buy her an apartment in Manhattan. Newark might be fine for Duchess, but Dawn still hoped to make it to New York City. Oh well, perhaps one day. Dawn could always hope that eventually one of her stories might sell. The prospect of her first Pulitzer briefly brought light back to Dawn, but there was no way to cheer her up, for she had not found Hope.

"My trip was entirely in vain," she wailed. "Dawn, never think that," Mortimer said. "You’ve made so many friends and brought hope to so many lives." But she was inconsolable, and still sobbing with pain as Mortimer and Duchess left for their first social event in New Jersey – a candle party.

Dawn was just about to throw herself in the lake. (It was only about three feet deep, and she wouldn’t drown. But muddied, she could wallow even more deeply in self-pity.) And then came a small voice: "Please don’t cry. If you keep crying, then I’ll soon be weeping myself."

Dawn looked up to see a fourteen-year-old black girl with pert little breasts. "She has a kind face," Dawn thought.

"I like your dress and pinafore," the girl said. "I have a friend who has an Alice outfit, but unlike you she doesn’t have the courage to wear it outside."

Dawn was startled. How many men dressed like Alice in Wonderland? Well, probably a lot. But how many of them told anyone about it? It couldn’t be that many. Could this girl actually be her friend Hope?

Nope, she was far too young. Hope had been Dawn’s intellectual peer, indeed her superior. No kid this young could match wits with Dawn, a dying breed, an intellectual.

"Hi, my name’s Hope. What’s yours?"

It had to be her, but could it be? No, it wasn’t possible. Allan had never gone out dressed like Hope – that is dressed as a girl.

But what if it were really Hope? She couldn’t know that she was talking to Dawn, for Dawn had lied to Hope about her age. On the Net, Dawn had always said she was twenty years old so that people would write her back.

"I look a bit older than that," Dawn decided; "I don’t want to lose Hope’s trust by her finding out that I have lied a wee bit about my age." So Dawn lied again: "My name is Ariadne."

They chatted for a while, and as they did, the girl finally felt comfortable enough with Dawn to confide that she was really a boy. "My real name is Allan, and I should be in school right now. But I’m too afraid to go."

"Why is that, sweetie? Is it because of the dress? But why are you wearing it? I thought that you were afraid … er, I imagine that any boy your age would be scared of going out in public en femme."

"I was. But everyone in New York has shown so much courage since September 11^th, I thought it was time for me to be courageous too. So I asked my school principal and teacher if they’d let me be Hope from now on. And they said yes! I even told them that I’d come today in a dress, though normally I’ll wear jeans just like the rest of the girls."

Dawn was so proud of Hope it showed. "Then why don’t you go to school, Hope sweetie?"

"I can’t face two of my classmates. Bad Bart Sampson and Tight-ass Teddy Murfee are such prejudiced little shits! They’ll probably want to hurt me. But, Ariadne, I think I’ve got the courage to face them down. It’s time for me to tell the world that I’m a transsexual. But I can’t do it without your help. Will you come with me to school? Will you watch over me as Hope goes to school for the first time?"

They went to the school hand in hand. There, a sympathetic principal allowed Dawn to watch from the school corridor as Hope entered the classroom to reveal herself first to her History teacher, and then to her classmates.

"Hope, is that you? Yes, by Guiliani, it is! Well, child, it’s about time you showed up. When you missed homeroom this morning, all your teachers started worrying about you. Well, you’re finally here. Better late than never."

"Yes, Mr. Esperanza."

"I believe you have something to tell this class, so that they can tell the rest of the school before the day is out? Yes, class, I want you to feel free to gossip so that Hope here can be a one-day marvel. By tomorrow, she’s to be treated like all the other girls."

"That bad?" hooted Bart Sampson.

"Mr. Sampson, one day you will learn how to treat a woman. Until then, my best advice to you is to stay away from all the girls."

"Yeah Bart, stick to boys or let the boys stick it to you. Have you been to Gaywich Village lately, Bart?" joshed Teddy Murfee. Briefly there was pandemonium – it lasted just long enough for Dawn to appreciate that Hope wasn’t going to school with saints.

Her classmates were typical fourteen-year-olds, which meant they were terrified of "abnormal" sexuality – especially in themselves. Dawn knew she’d never have the courage to tell these kids that she was a cross-dresser, and here was Hope – Allan actually – about to announce to the entire school that she was a transsexual.

 

And many of them knew her route home from school. And they knew were she lived.

"Okay, that’s enough teasing of Bart," said Mr. Esperanza clapping his hands briskly. "I know how much you love to tease people, and I expect you’ll be having some fun at Hope’s expense too." He looked over at Hope, but here eyes were downcast.

"But never forget the rule of this school: everyone belongs here. Everyone has an equal right to go here. We are a community, now more than ever before. We know what hate produces. We will NOT hate anyone. And we’re definitely not going to hate Hope, for that would make us a hopeless group indeed. You all know Hope. She’s one of us. You will protect her, as you protect all your brothers and sisters at Yorkville High."

"What do you mean we all know Hope?" asked a slender, curly-haired girl seated in the back. "None of us have never seen her before. But you got good taste in skirts, girl. Purple pleats, how fifth-avenue!"

"Yeah, Hope, I never seen you before, ‘coz if I had, you and me would be dating already," shouted a freckled, red-haired boy by the window.

Mr. Esperanza nodded. It was time for Hope to say something before any more of the boys embarrassed themselves by coming on to her.

"I’ll accept that date, Dan, but only if you ask me again real nice after you and everyone else hears what I’ve got to say."

"Cool!" said Dan.

"Yesterday, and the day before, and all the days before that, I came to school as Allan. Allan Brown."

"No way!" scoffed a Latino boy in the third row. "Yes, it’s Allan Brown. Or it was Allan Brown," said Mr. Esperanza, "but from now on it’s Hope Brown because Hope is a more suitable name for a female."

"What gives?" yelled Bart Sampson. "Are you telling us that Hope’s been pretending to be a boy for years, and is just now admitting to being a girl all along? That’s real weird. Hey Hope, are you some kind of dyke?"

Mr. Esperanza looked again at Hope. He smiled as he nodded. She nodded grimly back, her face almost screaming with strain. "Bart," she began, "you and the class have the right to know that I’m what’s called a transsexual. I’ve always been a girl, but I was born with the wrong body – a boy’s body. That body has been my lifelong curse. It’s made me so lonely I often thought I’d die." Hope’s body shook painfully.

"There, there, Hope, take it easy, you’re among friends, isn’t she, class?" said Mr. Esperanza as he put his arm around Hope.

"Well, I’m not sure about that friends part," said Bart cautiously.

"What’s a trans … sexist?" asked a small boy in the front row. "Is that a kid who likes to put on his mother’s clothes?"

"How would you know about that, dickhead?" yelled a voice from the back. "Is it ‘cause you do? Are you wearing mommy’s panties right now?"

The small boy caught Hope’s eye and blushed fiercely. "Maybe I’m less alone than I thought," said Hope to herself. She could have sworn she’d once seen a trace of red polish on Billy’s fingernails. Well, maybe she had. When all eyes weren’t upon them, she’d check Billy out.

"Calm down, class," said the teacher. "We don’t use words like dickhead, or dyke, in this school. Got that, everyone? That’s an order! Here we diss no one, right?" He glared at Bart Sampson, who looked away.

Mr. Esperanza continued: "Hope, why don’t you tell your friends in this class what a transsexual is."

"Can I ask Bart a question?" asked Hope.

"Yeah, but don’t me for a date," Bart answered, "coz I don’t date sickos. Mike’s the one that likes you. I sure as hell don’t."

"Bart, you always know a girl’s a girl, right, no matter how she’s dressed?"

"Well duh, any real man can pick out a real girl, no matter how’s she disguised."

"Right. Exactly right. Even if she had bound her breasts and had a banana in her boys’ jeans (everyone tittered), you’d know she was a girl because being a girl is something a lot more than the way a girl looks. There is something deep inside her – maybe it’s her soul – which tells you and her that she’s a girl. Right?"

Everyone nodded, including Bart.

"So being a girl isn’t mainly about having breasts or having a …"

"You don’t need to spell it out, Hope, we’ve all got imaginations," interrupted Mr. Esperanza.

"Okay," Hope continued, "so being a girl is not mainly physical. It’s about who you are down deep inside. What do you think, Teresa, is that right? You’d be a woman even if you had breast cancer and lost …"

"Those super hooters!" called out Billy, trying to recover his reputation.

"Well," said Hope, "if you lost … those, you’d still be a real woman, right?"

Teresa nodded, even as she gulped at the thought of such a tragedy.

"Well, I’ve got breasts. And they’re real."

"Can I verify that fact for the class with a squeeze test?" yelled Teddy Murfee. "Ouch!" Two girls had clobbered him with their binders.

"But it’s not these breasts that make a girl named Hope. They’re not the reason why Allan is gone from my life forever. I’m a girl because I’m female at that innermost point where I face God, where I face eternity."

There was a shocked silence. A minute passed. Then two minutes before Mr. Esperanza asked, "Why now, Hope? Why are you wearing that dress today? Why did you say goodbye to Allan today?"

"Cause New York has changed. The world’s changed forever. So I’ve changed. Things are different. I see people all over this city coming together to help one another. People are working together. Everyone’s friends now. Their race or sex doesn’t seem to matter. This city has filled me with hope."

"This city is ground zero of a new world of hope. Before 9/11 I lived in quiet desperation. I didn’t think you’d ever accept me. Shit, I figured you’d beat me to a pulp if I told you the truth – which is that I’m a transsexual, a girl. So I didn’t have the courage to give you a chance to show me some love. But there’s so much frigging courage all around this city. If a fireman can run into danger, and a postal worker sort mail, which might have anthrax on it, then I can tell you – here I am. I’m Hope, a black girl from 96^th street. Do you have a place somewhere in your heart for me? Cause if you do, I can stop hiding. Is this the day I’ve been hoping for all my life – the day when we can all live as one, in a world of love?"

Mr. Esperanza broke the awkward silence: "Well, fellow New Yorkers, fellow Americans, fellow human beings, do you have as much courage as Hope here has? Do you have the guts to stand by her even if other schools find out about her and start picking on her? What about it, Yorkville High, do you have as much courage as the firefighters and cops of this city? Do you have what it takes? Do you have the right stuff?"

"Damn right we do!" shouted several boys in unison. "Go, Yorkville, go!" chanted several girls from the cheerleading squad.

Then there was silence as all eyes turned to Bad Bart and Tight-Ass Teddy, the class bullies, the class leaders, the class clowns. Everyone knew that they’d be the ones to determine Hope’s fate, at least in the week ahead.

Bart spoke first, real … slowly, so there was … maximum suspense: "Hey listen up! Allan was a real embarrassment to this school because he was always acting prissy like a girl. Now we know why. He IS a girl! It’s okay with me if Hope goes to this school. Thanks to her there’s one less sissy going to Yorkville, which is all right by me."

"Yeah, welcome to Yorkville, Hope. You’re real weird but we like you anyway," said Teddy. Then he blushed beet red as Hope caught him staring at her breasts. "Once you get fixed – you know, once you’re a girl all over, I might even ask you out. So long as you don’t tell anyone that you were once a guy. Hell, you’re quite a fox even now."

"Yeah, she sure is," mumbled Dan. His eyes caught Hope’s meaningfully. He clearly wasn’t going to wait until she got "fixed" before he asked her out.

"Okay, enough of that. History class is not a dating service," said Mr. Esperanza. "I see a face peering at us from the corridor. Maybe you should say goodbye to … your … interesting friend, and while you do that, Hope, we’ll get back to studying Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage. Hope, if President Kennedy had seen you today, I think he’d have put you in his book. You’re as gutsy as they come."

In the hallway, Hope and Dawn hugged as though they’d known each other forever. "Thank you, Dawn. I couldn’t have done that without you. Knowing that you were in the hallway pulling for me. That’s what put me over the top."

"You know who I really am?"

"Of course, silly, from the moment I saw you in that Alice outfit. Who else but my Dawn would wear something like that in public, even in New York? Dawn, I’ve been so worried about you. My computer was broken and when I got back on-line you were no longer there. I didn’t know where you’d gone. I thought you were dead!" And then Hope started crying.

They had a good cry together while Dawn told her about the journey of Hope. She’d barely started her story when Hope said, "I’ve got to get back to class, Dawn, or I’ll have to stay after the bell. The principal said that Hope had better behave better than Allan. So I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot, even if my foot does look nice in tights. Send me a long e-mail telling me about your adventures since your last e-mail." They kissed and Hope flew back to class on the wings of hope.

 

I did send that e-mail. And Looking for Hope is a faithful copy of the letter I sent to her. Hope said the story read like a tall tale and wondered how much of it was true. I swore to her – and to you, dear readers – that this story is mostly true. Okay, I confess that I only got laid once during my travels. And there are some places in the story where I embroidered the truth a little. But it’s mostly true nonetheless. At least, this is how I remember my trip across America "Looking for Hope."

May hope be with us, everyone.

 

THE END

Acknowledgements: This story was made possible by all those who cared enough about it to download it or to post a comment or to write. Thanks to Kelly Ann Rogers for rewriting the synopsis so it had more allure. There is one special person to whom I want to dedicate this story, and who shares the credit (or the blame) for its completion. It’s Josie. Without Josie, I would never have gotten past chapter four. At times I kept writing only because I knew that Josie was dying to know how the story turned out.

 

 

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© 2001 by Dawn DeWinter. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.