Starting Semi-Portrait of a Thembo as a Young They

by Goldie Peacock

I

Early 90s: Queer in Sheboygan, Wisconsin

From the beginning, the child’s given name never fit. 

As a toddler, they named themself Zipper and Foxy and Baby Lady Elaine. 

They were objects, animals, scrambled-up characters. 

When people called them Young Lady, they said, I’m not a young lady. I’m a fox and I’ll bite your face off. 

In this time and place, theyness was not really a thing, but ‘they’ is what honors the child. ‘They’ is one name that fits.

At four, five, the child tried to be a sweet baker woman like Mom. 

A kind lawn mowing man like Dad. 

They didn’t quite attain either. 

When they stumbled out of bed to Mom baking granola in the kitchen, she broke into a smile and said, Good morning, sweetie! The child aimed to mimic her enthusiasm, already less blessed by serotonin than she. They put on a matching apron and stood next to her on a stool, and she let them take over the mixing bowl. 

When Dad sat at the kitchen counter eating the granola, the child attempted to match him bowl for bowl, wanting to grow up to be strong like him. When he mowed the lawn, they followed him with a plastic push mower, a hand-me-down like their clothes. He said, Wanna try the grown-up one? They pushed and pushed, managed to move it a foot. He laughed, Good job, bud, gave them a pat on the back. The child knew they hadn’t really done a good job, but Dad didn’t usually say much, so they took the praise. 

On the family’s secondhand black and white TV, the child watched aerobics shows. Three models in high-cut leotards stood on circular platforms, smilingly going through the motions at different dynamic levels. The child set out to surpass the most intense one, stepping and kicking and jumping and sweating but heading nowhere fast.

*

At Beth El Synagogue during Saturday morning services, an old man shifted and grimaced in his usual front row seat, muttering disapproval. 

The child, now six, sat a few rows back. They asked their mom what was going on with the man. The mom whisper-explained the source of his ire: the middle schooler standing up on the bima in a smocked, floral dress, chanting from the Torah for her bat mitzvah. The man didn’t believe girls should be allowed to do this—they hadn’t been, back in his day. 

Who cares what he says, thought the child. He’ll probably die soon. Oh well.

*

The child lay belly-down on their summer lawn, stroking the stem of a wild violet but not picking it. Its scent, a sharp purple-green, hit the back of their throat. For a seven-year-old, they sometimes fell into impressively caring behaviors with plants. However, they had also been known to absentmindedly tear up fistfuls of grass during park playdates. In this moment, they were their gentlest self. Good job bud, from the dad. Way to go sweetie, from the mom. If they had been there. Only the plants stood witness, silent to the child’s ears.

The child sat up, cross-legged, and swished the wavy hair that fell to their waist. They wore matching hot pink spandex leggings and a crop top, and the hair tickled their back. It was often the bane of their existence. Ugh, the hour it took to soak, wash, condition, and then sit still while their mom blow-dried the masses! They longed to have short hair, thought it looked cool. 

When they got their wish the following year—or at least the wish of short-er hair, an asymmetrical bob—their mom cried and saved an envelope bursting with the locks. The child’s eyes remained dry, tears reserved for the living, not dead things they could do nothing about. 

Back on the lawn, the child, now eight, wanted out, wanted somewhere with an electric edge. They shook their bob and started playing their favorite game: pretending to be a mystic. With closed eyes, they tried to go into a trance, to escape. Felt the earth packed hard beneath their crossed legs. 

Maybe it hummed, or maybe that was just the vibration of a plane overhead. 

Maybe now a divine presence would speak. All they heard was static crackling beneath a monologue of their wishes.

They waited.