Rebent Sinner, page 11
It kind of gave stage fright a whole new meaning for me, Darren, those shows did. Just a little context for you.
I drank more on that tour than I usually do, and I slept for a whole week when I got home.
Now to your questions. You asked me about when I was talking about my gran’s heaven, and I said her heaven did not have a husband who beat his wife or fucked his children, and you wondered was I referring to my grandfather, or perhaps my father? Or both, or neither?
You said that line made you shed tears from that point on.
I can only assume that this line resonated somehow with your own history, Darren, and for that all I can offer you is my compassion and solidarity. I call this rattling someone’s ghosts, and I know that line is difficult to hear. It’s hard to say, even to this day, even alone to myself on the couch at home. I wrote that line not about my own father, who is a decent if complicated man. I didn’t even write it about either of my grandfathers, really, neither of whom were particularly good or decent men. I wrote that line for all of the women in my family. I wrote that line to conjure up a heaven where all of us can one day be free of the fists and wrongful touch of anyone’s father, anyone’s grandfather. I wrote that line for your ghosts, too, Darren. I wrote that line for all of us.
Thank you for including the picture of yourself at the bottom of your email. I remember meeting you after the show, but I do not remember seeing you in the theatre. If you were sitting in the front row slightly to the right of centre, chances are it looked like I made eye contact with you. The truth is, when the lights are on my face like they need to be for you to see me up onstage, I can’t really see too much of the audience. But I can feel you out there, and I can hear you, and believe me, I was listening. A good storyteller should always be listening.
Thanks for writing, Darren, and thank you for coming to my show, and for staying until the end. My hope is that my stories have done exactly what stories are meant to do, in their purest nature. I hope they made you see me, with girl hips, and beard-, breast-, and dickless, but full of my own truths. With my very human heart beating, just like yours.
Sincerely,
Ivan
11. CHEST
SHAME: A LOVE letter.
Do you remember all of your shame like I do? Does it creep into your chest when you wake up too early? Does it lie there, coiled beneath your scars?
Does it trickle down between the muscles of your back when you sweat inside the shirt you can’t make yourself take off, even on the beach on your birthday? Born in August.
We walked along the powdery sand to find a place to put our towels, and I couldn’t find any words to explain why I was crying on such a sunny day. Seven days later I can now say out loud that undressing in a crowd reveals what feels like a fading target on my chest, white semi circles where breast is now chest and round pink nipples I have not been able to feel for five years.
No one is staring at you, I tell myself. There are all kinds of bodies here, I tell myself.
But still. None that look like mine.
WHAT DID SHAME ever teach me, except to be ashamed?
I HAVE A lot of words for what I feel when I am the only trans person (that I know of) on the beach. In the gym. In the sauna change room bathroom doctor’s office street or bedroom. “Dysphoria” is not one of them.
BE CAREFUL WHO is listening when you talk about your desires. Some people have poisonous ears.
I’M CHANGING MY stage name to Corinthian Leather. Wikipedia says it was often found in 1970s Chryslers, same as me.
GENDER EUPHORIA
Gender plethoria
Gender I’m boredia.
REASON NUMBER ELEVEN hundred and ninety-seven why I love the baritone saxophone so much is that it requires me to wear a chest harness. Requires.
PEOPLE LIKE TO make fun of people who take selfies. But some folks grow up feeling ugly. Maybe having control over their image, taking a picture that makes them feel beautiful or handsome or sexy, and posting it makes them feel better about how they look. Queers get called ugly. Butches do. Homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, racism get aimed and fired at some of us. We are bombarded with images of who is allowed to be attractive and who is not. Maybe selfies are a way for some people to feel beautiful and get positive messages about their bodies. I know I always felt ugly when I was young, because I didn’t know any handsome female-assigned people. I didn’t know I was allowed to be attractive in any other way but pretty. I also know I still carry some of that feeling ugly around with me to this day.
ONE DAY I hope to tell a true story about a very old trans person. I want it to be a long and kind of boring story where the only pain is in my ancient bones and the biggest struggle of my day is how I’m going to get the gravy boat down from that weird little cupboard above the fridge because I’m having a giant dinner party and the family is coming over. We will eat dinner and then push the plates aside and one of the kids will say, “Tell us a story.”
And so I will.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Arsenal Pulp Press for their unflinching and ongoing support. I am ever grateful to Brian Lam, Robert Ballantyne, Oliver McPartlin, Shirarose Wilensky, and the always fabulous Cynara Geissler for their hard work and for publishing the kind of books my heart needs to read.
I need to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council, and the English Department at Simon Fraser University for the space and time to create.
My undying respect and love to Bet Cecil, Mary Bryson, Jack Barker, Janine Fuller, Kate Bornstein, and the late Jim Deva. May my words bring you a fraction of the love and honour knowing you has brought to me.
IVAN COYOTE is the award-winning author, co-author, or co-editor of eleven other books, including Tomboy Survival Guide, shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. They are also the creator of four short films, as well as three CDs that combine storytelling with music. Ivan is a seasoned stage performer and an audience favourite at storytelling, literary, film, and folk music festivals. Ivan shares their time between Vancouver, BC, and Whitehorse, Yukon. ivancoyote.com
Ivan Coyote, Rebent Sinner
