Subject: Blackmail –

There it was as plain as day in the subject header of the incoming email. “Blackmail.” I couldn’t read it at the moment. I was in a planning meeting regarding future plans for corporate expansion in our city. I work for a chain restaurant and do market analysis of the population base so we can plan expansion or consolidation or menu changes or services to add or drop. My skill at investigating what motivates our customers to darken our doors is, according to my superiors, admirable. My ability to make them part with their hard earned money is, according to them, enjoyable. So being in a meeting where I am so loved, I found myself forced to set aside the email, so I could speak about my research and feel the love. But, I knew from whom the email was from. And that had me curious. I also felt that is where my real loving attention should have been also.

Shannon, who is my best friend, sent the email. I had a suspicion what it said. I’ve known Shannon for years. We first met in kindergarten. We hadn’t been really together as best buds since, gosh, graduation from Clement High School. First college separated us. Then work. Then life’s necessities of home, transportation, food, entertainment, and the all important one, companionship. All of these recklessly took charge of my life. But, back then, in my misspent youth, my companion was a scrawny kid, who, as far back as I could remember, never had any muscles. Shannon was the kind of kid every bully in the school sought out to prove his manhood in front of others because, well, he was so easy to bully.

Ironically, to me at least, he wasn’t a coward by any means. He just disliked being confrontational. I remember him getting into a scrape with Alex Smith’s little brother Terry. He pushed him away with a gentile push and Terry fell and skinned his knee. Any other kid would have said he deserved what happened to him and just walked away. But not Shannon. No, he cried with him, and held him, and said he was sorry.

Contemplating what kind of message he could have sent me, I looked out the conference room window as my CIO took over to talk about new point of sale software. I began to think about my close friend and what we meant to each other. Through thick and thin, as they say, we lived our lives. My thoughts latched onto a pivotal moment in our relationship when a friend of ours, Oscar, had his bike stolen …

“C’mon Shannon. It is just a hospital room.” Shannon was clearly upset by being there and I had interpreted it to mean he thought he would die going into the room. Once in there, we heard about the three thugs that came up to Oscar and demanded he hand them his bike. He tried to get away and, in the ensuing scuffle, one of them stabbed Oscar and left him for dead. A passer by called 911. Shannon looked pale as he heard the debriefing. Oscar lay there looking haggard but well. Maybe better than Shannon.

“I am going to track down those s.o.b.’s and give it to them.” he fumed. For the next several minutes I listened to him describe the events over again. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught that Shannon had enough. He wished Oscar a quick get well and then left the room and I continued hearing Oscar’s side of the story. Finally, after all was said and done, I exited the room to find Shannon on a bench crying.

By this time, our eight grade year, I had come to know that Shannon wasn’t what I would call macho. Don’t get me wrong. He was fun to be around and all around funny. He didn’t act the sissy, mind you. He just wasn’t macho. For instance, my mother loved to go grocery shopping when she knew he was coming over. She would time it so he was there when she got back, because, without asking, he would come out and help her bring in the groceries. Always made me look bad, but I had a Nintendo to play. She would look at me as if I might get the message. So, I invited him over more and, as a result, she was happy. So, I knew that he was crying about what had happened to Oscar. Through his tears, Shannon said, “He’s going to get himself killed. The bike isn’t worth his life.” He began wiping them away as I sat next to him. He continued, “Why can’t he see that?”

“I can see that. But, sometimes you have to stand up for yourself, Shan. And it left him feeling pretty vulnerable. Like he had been bullied. You of all people should understand that. Much of what he said in there was just the bravado of being scared. I don’t think he will ever do it.”

Shannon looked back towards the room and then nodded in agreement telling me that he understood my point. “I guess you are right. But it just doesn’t seem to make sense to lose you life over a stupid bike. It is just that he is so lucky to be alive and that doesn’t seem to matter to him. Does it?”

I hadn’t approached it from that perspective. I just understood Oscar’s perspective and wondered why Shannon didn’t. Shannon was failing to consider something else of paramount importance to Oscar which was why he felt violated. Oscar was 18 and out on his own. His parents had recently moved away. He needed that bike to get to work. So, I pointed that out to Shannon. He looked at me for a moment and then excused himself to Oscar’s room. A moment later, he came back with a smile. “Why the grin?” I asked.

“I told him that he could use my bike. Mom bought a too big bike for me for my birthday saying that I would grow into it soon, right? Well, you’ve seen it’s too big for me anyway when we ride our bikes to school?” I nodded yes.

The full impact of that moment didn’t hit me until the day or so after Oscar got out of hospital when Shannon caught up with me on the way to school. We were too young for a car and too old to walk. I heard a ca-ching ca-ching behind me and turned to see Shannon on his sister’s bike ringing her bell.

“What the ...”

Before I could finish my sentence, Shannon blurted out … “Yeah, it’s Stacy’s old bike. Oscar swung by and picked up mine yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you warn me? I thought you would ride your old bike else I would have told you could have lent your sister’s bike to Oscar. No one would have taken it from him for sure.”

Shannon looked at me glumly for a moment and then said, “Oh well, I didn’t think of that. Besides, Mom gave away my old bike.” I paused for a moment to reflect that if she had kept Stacy’s old bike, then she would have surely kept Shannon’s old bike too. Did this mean I was being lied to by him?

Before I could think about it any further, Harry Stevens rode up. “So, it is true. You lent Oscar your bike.”

“You mean you knew about it?” I asked wondering how he would know about it before me.

“Yeah, Spencer, the whole school knows or will know. It was a very nice thing for you to do Shan. Oscar sent word through his cousin that no one was to tease you about having to ride your sister’s bike. Anyone teasing you will hear from him. Although, did it have to be a pink bike. It is going to make it hard not to tease you.” Harry snickered and nudged Shannon who turned a beat red. “C’mon. I was just joking. You have to be a real man in order to ride a girl’s bike for a friend in need.”

Harry scurried off and I looked back towards Shannon. It was then that I saw something in his expression that told me that he wanted to ride that bike and was happy for the excuse. I couldn’t shake the feeling all day. He wanted to ride a girl’s bike. Why? It was then that something occurred to me that hadn’t before. I resolved that afternoon to confront Shannon and ask him about it.

“I … I … well … it is like this … umm … Spence … I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

“Tell me what? That you want to be a girl?” I must have sounded evil to him because he looked frightened. His whole face turned ashen.

At first he stated, “No no, I was just joking. Yeah, it was only a joke. I was going to tease you by telling you I was a girl and I guess you were serious and wouldn’t laugh at it.” He looked very uncomfortable.

“Okay,” I said and started riding home again accepting on face value that he was just joking.

I was briefly shaken out of this remembrance when the CIO asked me if anything in my recent survey of customer’s dislikes could be used to enhance options for customizing meals. I quickly responded that I would send along a Excel spreadsheet showing particular options for each of our menu items that customers have either wanted or have asked for in conjunction with their meals broken down by sex and age. He was delighted.

This aspect of being able to spot details and collect information has suited me well since I can remember. And it was this, as I continued my interrogation of Shannon that proved to be the anchor that I held onto as the lie of Shannon, the boy I knew, came undone.

My next line of inquiry began when I slowed down and let him catch up. I turned to him and said as calmly as I could, “Look Shannon, if you want to be a girl, I will still be your best friend. I just want you to be honest with your best friend, okay?” I must have unplugged something with that last line because he pulled over to a curb, leaned his bike against a tree, sat down and began to sob.

I walked over and sat down next to him. Well, I guess her. That was my confused pronoun era for sure. I regarded his miserable condition with youthful ignorance. Had I been older and wiser, I might have done something foolish. But, because of my youth and inexperience, it drew my pity and forbearance ahead of my reason, which, it seems, was a far better response. He had few friends as it was and if I were to turn on him back then … well, let’s just say I didn’t want to know the result. Sucking up my courage, I began as kindly as I could to find out more about his … no … her problem. “How long?” I asked.

“Since Kindergarten.” I guess.

“Does this mean you are all gay and like to see me naked when we skinny dip?” I winced at my own defensiveness. I am glad he ignored it.

“No. I’m sorry. Being friends with you means a lot. I try to keep those kinds of thought out of my mind, although … ”

“Although ...” I begged him to continue the train of thought, but he withdrew to another subject. I would have to pursue what he meant at some later time.

“Although, I have used you to convince my mom that everything is fine with me. She notices my girlish behavior and fights it. She wants me to act more manly. That is why she got me that special mountain bike that is too big for me, I think.”

I considered at the time his confession for a moment and something hit me that I had asked him about one time before. So, I pursued it again. “Okay, now tell me why doesn’t your sister have dolls?”

I could tell that he knew he was cornered. He stammered out, “Because I would play with them behind her back. Sid, my older brother caught me and told mom. He also tattled on me when I would play at Olivia’s house. I liked playing with her, but, one day, my sister shows up and drags me home. I never played with her again.”

“So, why me? I’m a guy. I like to do guy things.”

“And I like to watch you do them. You never force me to do the stunts you do.”

“Well, that is true. You are a good audience. I think that is one of the reasons I like playing with you. You let me do crazy stuff but won’t egg me on to do stupid stuff. My mom likes you to play with me because you are a nice boy.”

As he calmed down, I decided it was time to confront him on one other issue. “Your bike wasn’t given away, was it?”

“No. I broke it and told my Mom I fell off of it because I goofing around with you. You will back me up, won’t you?”

“Yeah. But what are we going to to about this wanting to be a girl thing and your folks not caring about it?”

For the next few days, we made plans. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to help him. I grabbed my dad’s pharmacological book and we checked things out on the internet. Finally, we settled on a drug that was available from Mexico. I cheated and got him a script that would be acceptable for them and we waited. A few weeks later, the meds arrived in a secure location I had arranged with Oscar who swore that he would never tell the drugs were coming in care of him.

I even went so far as to exchange the medicine bottles for ones with his name on it, but had secured a local pharmacy’s labels from the other side of town so if anything went wrong, they wouldn’t know how Shan got her hormone blockers and later her hormones.

The biggest problem would be that we would have to allow a certain amount of growth and masculine maturation to occur or his mother might become suspicious. So, we delayed it for one year, then on the second, let him start, and then by the age of seventeen, it was too late for his parents to do anything. He had avoided most of her male puberty and was already on her female puberty.

Shan’s grandparents had left “him” a sizable college fund before this. I had gotten access to it some time back to pay for his meds. His parents knew nothing about it. At my suggestion, Shan moved in with a mutual girlfriend of ours who knew what his secret plan was and had helped us before. She lived about two hundred miles away and was going to college. Shan’s parents were thrilled because, well, he was living with a girl and going to college. Nudge nudge, know what they mean? Never mind that he was a girl. I mean she, but at the time she was known as he. Damn pronouns. Their only concern was that their “son” was in nursing school. Of course, the real reason was that there was such a shortage of nurses at the time, so her education was paid for leaving the rest to cover her transition.

I often think about the last time I saw “him.” He was boarding a flight to Thailand for “the operation.” I gave “him” more than a goodbye hug. Nobody knew the significance of seeing this young lady with a flat chest getting a soul crushing kiss on her lips and down her throat. They just knew she was surprised and giddy as she got on the plane. That was three months ago.

As I left the conference room, I opened the email. I smiled and leaned back against the wall. I typed a quick reply. “Got it, my Love. Flight 3726. Yes, I do owe you dinner. Pick you up at seven. Love you so much, Spence.”

Some people are lucky. The truly lucky ones marry their best friend from long ago. And, after tonight and the days and months to come, I think I will become truly a lucky man.

Copyright © 2018 by AuP reviner