BALLS Read online

  Wendy and I were babysitting Jill and our cousins Adam and Dana while our moms were out bowling. The five of us were at the card table embroiled in yet another never-ending game of Monopoly. Looking past our reflection in the darkness of the picture window, I could see the rain coming down sideways in the glow of the street lamp, the sound of thunder getting closer and closer. Since everyone was focused on the lopsided trade Wendy was trying to con Dana into, I decided it was a good time to run upstairs for a pee break. And that’s when I saw it: the red splotch.

  I froze, my mind flashing back to the movie I had been forced to watch with all the girls in my fifth-grade class. My first thought was, This can’t be happening. Wendy’s older than me. She’s supposed to get it first.

  My second thought was, I’m doomed.

  A loud clap of thunder crashed as if to accentuate the horror of my situation, followed by playful screams from below. I didn’t know what to do so I began frantically stuffing the crotch of my underwear with toilet paper, the escalating storm echoing my panic. I walked downstairs with the gait of someone who’d just ridden his first rodeo to find my sisters and cousins staring out the window as a lightning bolt struck the telephone pole across the street. The lights inside the house flickered. They all screamed in unison, more out of excitement than fear, while I sat there trancelike on the couch. Just then, my mom and her sister burst open the door, soaked from the rain. Sensing what was to come, Mom rushed to the kitchen to find a flashlight and some candles while Aunty Barbie headed for the sunroom. Within seconds, another bolt of lightning struck and the whole house and street went dark. More playful screaming like what you’d hear on a roller coaster filled the room, only to be drowned out by uncontrollable sobbing. My aunt followed that particular sound to the couch and, after whacking her shin on the coffee table, felt her way to my shoulder and put her arm around me. “It’s okay, don’t be scared, Jilly.”

  “I’m over here!” Jill shouted from across the room. The surprise in Aunty’s voice when she realized it was the twelve-year-old, not the nine-year-old, that she was consoling only made me feel worse. I wanted everyone gone so I could talk to my mom privately. Once she came in with the flashlight and began lighting candles, I took one up to my bedroom and waited for everyone to leave. When I finally heard the front door shut, I stood at the top of the stairs and called for her. Halfway up, she saw me looking down at her in tears.

  “What’s wrong?” she said, seemingly annoyed that her twelve-year-old was afraid of the dark.

  “I got my period,” I eked out. “What do I do?”

  Mom seemed just as caught off guard as I was. She too expected Wendy would go first. She ushered me into the bathroom and looked inside my underwear to make sure. Her face softened and then she disappeared to the linen closet while I stood there helpless, looking through the crack in the doorway as Wendy and Jill hovered outside it trying to find out what was going on. Soon Mom returned with some maxi pads and a fresh pair of underwear and closed the door behind her. I couldn’t speak. I knew my mom was talking, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the sound of my whole world crashing down on me. I climbed into bed with what felt like a diaper between my legs and cried myself to sleep, quietly so my sister wouldn’t hear.

  In one night, any hope I had left of being the boy I knew I was evaporated. No matter how much I prayed, I was stuck with this body—stuck being a girl. And I knew things were only going to get worse. I saw a future filled with degradation: bleeding “down there” five days a month for the rest of my life, the public humiliation of buying tampons and pads and—oh God—bringing them to school with me! Plus it was only a matter of time before those buds on my chest would no longer be hideable. The design on the front of every concert t-shirt I owned would soon be ruined by two protrusions held in place by beige lycra with a pink rosebud, and straps that would show through the paper-thin cotton. Everyone would be able to tell and would make fun of me. It was a life sentence of misery without parole. And it changed my whole personality.

  From that moment on, I was no longer the fun-loving kid I used to be. My sense of humor went from good-natured to sarcastic. I was angry all the time, snapping at everybody for everything. Well, everybody at home that is. At school and with friends I put on an act and pretended like everything was fine. But as soon as I walked into the house, I took out all my anger and frustration on my family. I was bitter, envious of my sisters who were born “normal” and living carefree lives. I remember one Saturday walking into the family room to find nine-year-old Jill in her frilly pink and purple dress sitting peacefully at the coffee table watching a cartoon and eating a cupcake. A feeling of rage washed over me and I walked right over and punched her in the arm as hard as I could. She stared at me in confusion and started bawling. Tears welled up in my eyes as I realized what I’d just done. It wasn’t my sister’s fault I was the way I was. I hugged her and said I was sorry, but remained haunted by my action. As the middle child, I had always been the peacekeeper in the family. The one who quelled arguments and fights or prevented them from happening. Now I was the one starting them.

  My dad was the first one to call me out on my behavior. Weeknights and weekends, I spent more time with him than my sisters did, probably because I was more interested in washing the car, throwing a softball around, and learning about all the different things a can of WD-40 could fix. After one of my outbursts, he kept me from stomping out of the family room and sat me down for a talk.

  “Kris, you used to be so easygoing—the calm one in the family. What’s wrong?”

  “Well, how would you like it if you had to live the rest of your life as a girl?”

  That’s what I wanted to say. But I was afraid. I knew what I felt was “wrong,” and if I said it out loud, there’d be no taking it back. Besides, what would be the point? There was nothing I could do about it anyway.

  So I slunk deeper into the maroon leather sectional, looked down at my lap, and answered my father the same way almost any twelve-year-old kid would when asked that question: “I dunno.”

  What I did know was that I was attracted to girls so I thought I must be gay, and that was truly horrifying. This was the early 80s. There was nobody gay at my school. Well, there were people I suspected (I’m sure some suspected me), and many who probably were, but no one who ever publicly admitted to it. There weren’t even any celebrities that were “out.” George Michael was still in the closet, for god’s sake, and those were the Wham! years. He was bopping around onstage in white Capri pants singing, “Wake me up before you go-go,” and girls everywhere actually believed they had a chance.

  I’d heard the word “gay” a million times. It was a derogatory way to describe something weird or odd or queer. I knew it really meant boys who “liked” boys. Girls who “liked” girls were lesbians but could also be called gay. Back then, saying something or someone was “so gay” was socially acceptable, so no one thought twice about it. Somehow “gay” evolved into “gay-bone” which everyone thought was a riot, including my sisters who picked up the term. My parents even said it on occasion. Hearing my family use these words made me even more ashamed and scared to tell them how I felt. So I called things gay and gay-bone too, just to fit in. If I didn’t, people might think I was gay, which was way worse than me just thinking it.

  The problem was, when I looked up the word “gay” in the dictionary (yes, I was that thorough), all it said was someone who is attracted to the same sex. There was nothing in the definition about feeling like you’re in the wrong body or wanting to become the opposite sex. Same with the word “lesbian.” So I figured I must be a freak, and there was no way I was ever going to tell anyone how I really felt inside—certainly not my family. I was too afraid, especially now that my mom was becoming more adamant about me wearing skirts and dresses to church. Wendy had grown out of the tomboy phase, and I guess Mom expected I would too. Instead I clung on to it for dear life. Maybe she was embarrassed by the fact that even in my ear
ly teens I was still being mistaken for a boy. Whatever the reason, I knew every Sunday morning there was going to be a battle about what I would wear. Sometimes I would win and leave the house in nice corduroys or the twill elastic-waist pants with the colored piping down the side that Mom had bought for me in the boys’ department. Other times I’d end up in tears in my room, stuck having to put on the hideous skirt from the back of my closet that would make me feel like I was dressed in drag in front of my entire Sunday school class. My only saving grace was that none of those kids were from my town.

  Unlike many Armenian families that tended to live in the blue-collar Watertown area of Massachusetts, my family lived in Wayland, a small, upper-middle-class Boston suburb. You can usually tell someone is “Armo” if their last name ends in “-ian,” so being an Eskandarian, I easily identified the only two other Armenian families in the entire town. Those families were Catholic, not Protestant like us, so they went to St. Ann’s in Wayland along with most of my other non-Armo friends. We, on the other hand, drove a half an hour to the First Armenian Church of Belmont where my mom went growing up. While the distant location of our church proved to be an advantage, overall my Armo heritage only made things worse. Not only did I feel out of place because my body was the wrong gender, but I looked out of place because of my olive skin and dark hair, which at this point was growing on my arms, legs, and upper lip way more than someone who was supposed to be a girl would’ve liked. Especially a girl starting junior high.

  Still, I did my best to fit in. I shaved my legs. I bleached my mustache. I buried my feelings and made new friends. Like many girls my age, I covered my bedroom walls with posters of Rick Springfield. Not because I was in love with him like they were. Because I wanted to be him. Nonetheless, it served as good cover.

  But it was going to take a lot more than that to be convincing as a girl, and the thought of ever having to wear a skirt or a dress in front of my friends and classmates made me physically ill. For that reason I dreaded formal events and did whatever I had to do to get out of them. A few of my new friends were Jewish and when a bat mitzvah or bar mitzvah invitation arrived in the mail, the pit that had taken up permanent residence in my stomach would get larger and I would shift into panic mode. I made up excuses and lies about why I couldn’t go and then spent the month leading up to the event worrying about getting caught in my web of deceit. This went for chorus performances and school dances too.

  I also declined all pool party invites, because putting on a bathing suit was even more traumatizing than wearing a skirt. Sleepover parties were crossed off my list after one girl noticed the pajama bottoms I was wearing had a fly. She announced to the whole group that I was wearing boys’ pajamas, which led to an eruption of laughter and finger-pointing. The host came to my defense with an abrupt, “So what?” which put an end to their teasing; but I still wanted to crawl into my sleeping bag and zip myself inside.

  Eventually my classmates caught onto my avoidance tactics and some became hell-bent on trapping me so they could see me in girls’ clothes. One time, a few of the ringleaders convinced me to go out for field hockey and then waited until I was at tryouts to inform me that I’d have to play in a kilt. My solution: I played like crap and then justified quitting because I wasn’t good at it. One birthday girl told everyone not to tell me her party was a pool party. She then called me up the night before to confirm I was coming and nonchalantly added, “Oh, and bring your bathing suit.” Ugh! She got me.

  My impending humiliation had me tossing and turning in bed until finally I gave up and crept downstairs, knowing I’d find my dad in his big black leather chair watching the eleven o’clock news. He was the one I always turned to for advice. Coming home in his business suits from a world where serious matters were discussed and analyzed, he always seemed to have the answers, or could easily come up with solutions to my problems. He heard me before he saw me.

  “Kris, you scared me. What are you doing still up?”

  “I can’t sleep,” I said.

  He picked up the briefcase he’d been using as a lap desk and moved it aside so I could take its place. Sitting there, staring down at his loafers that I’d secretly try on when he wasn’t home, I admitted I was embarrassed to wear a bathing suit and didn’t want to go to the party. It was the most I’d ever said to anyone about how I felt. He told me everyone my age had something to be embarrassed about and confided that when he was growing up, he always had hairy legs and never liked to wear shorts. His anecdote didn’t help solve my problem, but Mother Nature did: The day of the pool party it was pouring rain.

  Then there were the dreaded make-out parties. I was constantly trying to avoid those too, conveniently disappearing when an impromptu game of spin-the-bottle broke out, always choosing “dare” to avoid having to answer questions about how far I’d gone or who I had a crush on. The peer pressure had me in a constant state of anxiety that regularly led me to the nurse’s office with inexplicable nausea. My mom and the school nurse determined it must be motion sickness from riding the bus. While I was prone to getting carsick, I knew it was more than that. But I wasn’t about to share my theory.

  By the end of eighth grade I finally gave in and went to “The Last Dance” in a pink and white dress that my mom was thrilled to buy me. I felt totally ridiculous in it, and expected to be made fun of, but everyone told me how pretty I looked. And so, at age fourteen while dancing to “Straight from the Heart” by Bryan Adams, I had my first kiss. It was with the cutest guy in my class. Very good kisser. Soft lips. I remember for that brief moment going home happy—happy I’d gotten that milestone over with and seemed to be able to pass for a girl. I went to bed praying that from now on I would be attracted to boys and learn to like being the gender my body was born into.

  Again, I was asking God to change me—this time on the inside, not the outside. Again, my prayers went unanswered.

  Every morning I woke up still attracted to girls and still hating what I saw in the mirror. It was time to face the reality that in this movie called “My Life” I was stuck playing the role of “girl.” I resolved to make the best of it and hone my acting skills. While it felt totally unnatural to me and keeping up appearances only added to my internal stress, I felt I had to do it to fit in. In high school when my friends talked about guys, I joined in the conversation. I’d say I had a major crush on someone clearly unattainable, like the good-looking senior football star with the hot girlfriend, and hope that would explain my lack of interest in other guys.

  I continued to shop in the boys’ department—I couldn’t walk past it without the Ralph Lauren section drawing me in like a magnetic force field—but I also expanded my repertoire and began buying more girls’ clothes. I was playing a role and I needed a better costume to be believable. I even let my mom talk me into getting my ears pierced. I think she thought it might help people stop mistaking me for a boy, which is why I agreed to do it. But, as soon as the gray plastic gun fired the first gold stud, I knew it was a mistake. While Wendy was choosing all kinds of earrings to take home, I sat on the mall bench with pangs of regret, which only got worse when I got home and saw myself in the mirror. I came downstairs the next day, minus the studs, hoping no one would notice, but Mom homed in on my naked lobes immediately and told me to put them back in before the holes closed. I had to think fast.

  “Oh, they were hurting, so I just took them out for a bit.”

  She didn’t buy it, and I wore those damn things for the prescribed six to eight weeks until the holes were permanently open. From then on, I wore earrings only if I had to dress up. Like for the one major high school coming-of-age ritual I could not avoid: The Prom.

  There I was at Priscilla’s of Boston, surrounded by Mom, Gram, and Wendy, trying on creepy dresses in various shades of pastel and hating every minute of it. Chewing glass would’ve given me more pleasure. The only reason I even went to the stupid prom was because not going would’ve caused me more scrutiny than putting on a pink tea-leng
th dress. So I accepted the role of “female prom date,” and went with a friend who asked with very respectable lead time. He was the kid who hit puberty in fifth grade—“the big one” who towered over all the other boys. He was good-natured, funny, and got along with everyone. This included our limo-mates, one of whom had recently suffered some type of mental breakdown and nearly backed out at the last minute.

  I was ready to back out myself after coming home from the salon and taking a good look at what had been done to my hair. I didn’t know it was capable of achieving such heights and asked Wendy to try to tone it down as well as apply the minimal amount of makeup necessary to pull off this whole nightmare ensemble. I performed all the other lovely rituals too: wore the wrist corsage (at least for the first hour), posed for cheesy photos, and partook in the obligatory slow dance to our prom theme, “Almost Paradise.” Yeah, “almost” is right. Looking around the dance floor in my pink poofy dress with shoes dyed to match, I envied all the guys in their simple black tuxes. They were everything I wasn’t; everything I wanted to be.

  MORTAL THOUGHTS

  College Graduation, 1991

  “So, what are you gonna do after you graduate?”

  With four years of college coming to an end, I was asked that question over and over by family, friends, the cashier at the local liquor store . . . And every time I answered it, I lied.

  I just assumed “kill myself” wasn’t the response they were looking for.

  But that was my plan all along. Well, since senior year in high school anyway.

  I knew I couldn’t continue pretending to be a girl much longer; keeping up my act was exhausting. And to what end? When I looked to the future, all that was in store for me was more misery. Well, except maybe for college. That was supposed to be a blast. Everyone expected me to go and I’d worked hard throughout high school to earn the right. I may not have had a say in what body I was stuck with or who I was inside, but grades? Those I could control. So I focused on my studies to distract me from my gender issue and it paid off: high honor roll fifteen out of sixteen terms, number nine in my class of 240, SATs . . . never mind those. But I played sports and was in a bunch of clubs so I had the well-rounded thing going for me. Throughout the entire application process I figured I’d get in somewhere that would make my parents proud, party it up for four years, and then kill myself after graduation.