Rebent Sinner by Ivan Coyote

Author:Ivan Coyote
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Published: 2019-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

SIX: TO BE CLEAR

I WANT IT said for the record that I don’t believe the answer to making the world safer for our youth is teaching queer and trans kids that they need to toughen up to face down this world. They should not have to. A kid shouldn’t have to learn to live through trauma and swallow a diet of other people’s ignorance simply to become themselves. We need to be changing this world faster. We need to soften this world up, not make our kids harder.

SEVEN: MONTHLY DUES

I HAVE MADE a living writing and performing these last many years, and I haven’t had to work a trades job since 2003 or so, when I quit the film business for good after I got that first teaching job up at Capilano, then College now University. That at least covered the rent and then a little back then. It wouldn’t now, though, so I know I’m lucky, especially in this goddamn city these days.

I miss physical labour, though, I do. I mean, the road can pound your body, make no mistake: planes and trains and that thing my Achilles does now after thirteen hours of driving, and my back is tweaked permanent too, from hauling gear and merch and suitcases and who knows what else over the years. I know my knees and back are grateful I’m not pulling wire on a construction site or humping dollies of gear up mountainsides on a film set or mowing lawns and digging ditches, but man, I used to sleep good back then, and I loved it when my biceps were hard like apples, and I remember the salt taste of farmer-tan-and-good-work-in-the-hot-sun sweat, not nervous or slept-on-a-plane sweat. And calluses, man, I miss those too. I mean on my palms, not my fingertips from playing guitar, though those are cool as well.

I have days when I dream of quitting the road and getting a job as an electrician again, buying aluminum checker plate tool boxes for the back of my truck and a new hard hat and digging out the old tool belt. I’ve still got it, and I know exactly where it is right now. I could be ready for work in a couple of minutes, still, to this day.

I know it wouldn’t be that easy. I mean, I never saw any fifty-year-old, female-assigned trans people, ever, on any of the job sites I was on, in any of the trades I did. I know they’re out there somewhere, probably more of them now than ever before. I just don’t know any.

My ticket is expired, too, and my union memberships lapsed years ago. IATSE were real bastards about it, to be honest, and repeatedly referred to me as “sister” when they called to say they were taking my name off the register, and no, there was no way to keep my name on any of their lists unless I was paying monthly dues, working or not, writing career or not. I remember

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