By Chance

“You’re ambivalent.” Rue said.

“I’m am-what?”

“You’re ambivalent.”

“And you like to use words that other people have never fucking heard of.” He pretended scowl. Rue laughed instead. “My ma used to call me a smarty-pants.”

“Then, your mother was a wise woman.” He went back to turning his wrench on the leaking piping beneath the sink.

“You don’t like people, do you?”

He raised a brow. “Well, I shouldn’t say I don’t like people. I just don’t care.”

Rue rolled her eyes. “Therefore, you’re ambivalent or apathetic, my friend.”

Joe Vic sat up too quickly, hitting his head on the metal piping. Eyes scrunched tight after impact, “Shit!” He pushed out of the dark space. Rue reached for his head, but he shrugged her off. She padded softly away to get some ice for Joe Vic’s throbbing head.

He sat on the floor with an array of tools scattered between his legs and around him. They fell over when he bumped his head. Rue offered the wrapped bag of ice, but Joe Vic’s eyes remained squeezed shut.

“Here.” She removed his hand and placed the ice on the slightly swollen bump. “Shit! That smarts,” he groaned. He cracked his eyes open and watched Rue apply the ice. “That will teach you to argue with me,” she quipped.

A scowl was the only thing he could manage with the warm throb in his head. “Yeah, whatever.” He took the ice pack and they sat in silence. “Before I hit my head, I was going to ask you about what were you?”

“Huh?” Rue blew a strand of hair from her face.

“Yeah, you know. You called me ambiv- something…”

“Ambivalent and apathetic.” Rue corrected.

Joe nodded. “Yep, but what are you then?”

Rue laughed slightly. Her voice going deeper, and for the first time making Joe Vic see some of those male qualities. “I’m just weary.”

“Why?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

Joe Vic shrugged. “I guess you’re really young, so I figured things should be kinda light and care free. But with-you know, I guess things wouldn’t be, right?”

“They say it’s all about life experiences and I have had some …really shitty experiences.” Her drawl was short and tight. There was a look in her eye, distant-sad even, but Joe Vic was interested so he pushed her knee to get her to continue.

Rue smiled slightly, crooked and kind of half hearted. “I’ll make you a deal.” Joe Vic perked up, while shifting the ice pack from the center of his forehead.

“What kinda deal?” He asked.

“You tell me about your life, I tell about mine. Deal?” Rue extended her hand. Joe looked at it and shook. His giant mitt nearly swallowing her long thin fingers entirely. “Deal.”

She looked at him waiting for him to start. “I’ve lived in the Slums all my life.”

“What about your parents? I never hear you mention anybody…ain’t you got folks?”

Joe shook his head. “Not that I know of….your turn.”

“I grew up in Louisiana, for a bit in New Orleans then out in the swamps. Then, we moved to Mississippi, along the coast.”

“Your folks?”

“Yeah, they’re still there. I’ve got two sisters and seven brothers, including me there’s ten of us. Well, really eight with my sisters being dead and all.” Rue said with nonchalance.

Joe Vic dropped the ice. “What happened?”

Rue stood up with the discarded ice. Joe Vic continued to sit rubbing the wet lightly throbbing place on his forehead. “A bus accident. You know they always put those signs up about icy roads--” She shrugged. “Well, someone took down one of those signs and bus lost control on one stretch of road and plunged into a nearby lake.”

Joe Vic moved to stand on his feet. Rue extended a hand down to Joe Vic, who looked at it cautiously. He then took it. It was remarkable how soft Rue’s hands were compared to his big rough paws.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it…What about you? What’s your story?” She asked with interest.

“You know how it is. Had parents that were too young to take care of me. Dropped me off on the steps of a church and hauled ass. End of story. ”

Rue looked him over like seeing him for the first time. “You ain’t got no folks?” She lifted herself to sit on the kitchen counter, while she watched him get a beer.

“None. I had a bunch of group homes. Some good, some bad. Then, I was in and out of juvie until I wound up at one of those boot camp places.” He sipped his beer and looked at Rue.
Her raven hued hair had gotten longer in the near four months that they’d been living together. The majority was pinned up with one of those big bulky plastic clips girls liked to wear. Her shoulders were still rather broad for a normal girl, maybe it was due to the tank top she wore with the spaghetti straps. The tops of her breast peaked above the rim. Her midriff was out as baggy gray sweatpants hung from her nicely curved hips.

All in all, it was a good picture. He took another swallow of beer. “So, your family kick you out?”

Rue nodded slowly. “My dad and my brothers are all the rough and tumble types. And me, well I’m what they liked to call a ‘sissy’. After one too many bloody noses from the other boys at school, they started taking turns…My sisters protected me, but with them gone…well, I just felt there was no need for me to stick around much longer.”

Joe Vic tightened his fist out of habit. He hated bullies. He hated people who hit kids, because they were too cowardly to fight someone real, someone with a real score to settle, someone like him in search of a fight. “That sucks. I know what it’s like to get a knuckle sandwich every know and then…But, what about you, I mean did they flip out on you, because you …” He was at a loss for words. He wasn’t sure how to say what Rue was. “They knew you liked dressing like a girl?”

Rue cocked her head to the side. The slight smile on her belied her actual need to cry. She wanted to look at Joe Vic and think that he was actually different than all the rest out there. But, obviously she was still a freak even in his eyes. Just like the eyes of her dad and her brother. But, she’d show them…

She reached out for the beer that Joe Vic was just nursing. “My mom loved my sisters. She gave them everything, pretty dresses, dolls, hugs and the like…I never understood why she didn’t do the same to me. It never mattered to me whether they made fun of me; it was--just that I felt like a girl. I’ve always been a girl no matter what anyone else said…”

“So, your family’s like super religious or something. They just tossed you out without caring?”

“They’re not really religious, just old school bigots. One of my brothers was kinda understanding…I started doing research one afternoon at school…I was hiding out from a bully.” She laughed ironically. “I started poking around on the internet and I found out there were other people like me. So, I kept researching, trying to understand. We’d go back to New Orleans quite often, so I was able to meet with a doctor…you know, just to talk. The doctor told me about all the steps and the hormones. I figured that was the least I could do.”

She got a far away look in her eyes. “One of my brothers, Quentin, he caught me changing one night. Another brother of mine saw me naked and told him.” She laughed. “He was shocked to say the least, but he told me things were only going to get worse for me. Quent gave me all the money in his car fund and dropped me off to the bus depot. Now, here I am!” She gushed ecstatically.

Joe Vic remembered the bottle in the bathroom. “The bottle in the bathroom I found was for your hormones?” She nodded. Well, he thought. At least he learned something, all he knew was that guys who wanted to become chicks got their dicks cut off and that freaked him out. Dicks and scissors just didn’t go together.

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that. Right now, it’s the most important thing until I can get my surgery.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. The idea made him uncomfortable. “I don’t get your name though…”

Rue smiled. “Yours either.”

He chucked lowly. “ Joe Victor Dean at your service.” He extended his hand.

She took it. “Rue ‘Rueben’ Delacroix.”

Rue was short for Rueben. “I’d change my name to, if I was named Rueben.” He joked and Rue half heartedly punched him in the arm. And it was all good between them.


TBC/?

Review please