Pea: or, the Rediscovery of Howard B. Moon

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A narrative, conveyed with the assistance of Vince Noir, of how Howard Moon realised she was a woman, and what was done about it.

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In Which Vince Fucks Up, and Subsequently Makes a List

Contents

In Which Vince Fucks Up, and Subsequently Makes a List

Now I’m gonna say right off, I’m not exactly sure why I’m the one who’s been given narrating duties for this story, ‘cos it’s Howard’s story, not mine. I figure maybe just ‘cos it’s personal? Or maybe it’s just ‘cos between the two of us, I’m the better storyteller, which is definitely true. I won’t even leave anyone dangling this time. Least, not any more than I can help, but fair warning, it don’t exactly have a proper ending. But that’s just life, innit? Hah, that makes me sound well profound, like all my juicy dangling’s just been practice for the real thing, ‘cos real-life stories don’t always wrap up nice and neat.

Anyway! This is Howard’s story. It’s got drama, self-discovery, fashion, good old-fashioned double act action, some adventure, even a little bit of snogging, ‘cos I know you dirty freakshows like that. And me, of course, but I’m gonna try not to pull focus too much.

It started simply.

‘I’m a girl,’ Howard said.

See that? Genius beginning to a story. WHAM right off the bat in with the good stuff. Hooks you right in, don’t it? Right, sorry, I’ll try not to interrupt too much.

‘Course you are, you big girl’s blouse, everyone knows that.’

‘No, I mean, I mean I’m a woman, Vince. I’m–’

‘Hah, no you ain’t, you big Northern bear, just look at you!’

‘–transgender. I’m transgender.’

At that unexpected addition, Vince did look, peering up from his Cheekbone to see Howard’s face crumpling in on itself, the lips all but disappeared under the moustache, and it hit him, too late, that Howard wasn’t taking the piss. He flushed cold. ‘Oh, shit. Shit, shit, Howard, Howard I’m sorry–’

But Howard had already vanished, leaving just the unusually loud crack of their bedroom door closing with ominous finality. Usually Howard was the one who griped at Vince about slamming doors. Vince swallowed, and put down his Cheekbone. Probably he ought to sit and think about the news he’d just been given and figure out the best way to deal with it. That would be what a sensible person would do, probably. Instead, he got up and tiptoed over to the closed door, like any loud or sudden movements might set Howard off. He pressed his ear to the wood, holding his breath. There were the vague shuffling noises of movement within, something Vince thought he could identify as the squeak of bedsprings, but nothing else.

‘Howard, come on,’ he called, rapping on the door, ‘Open up. Howard, Howard, Howard…’

Five minutes later, no response had come from behind the door, and Vince had slid down against it to rest with his knees bent up and staring up at the ceiling like a kid, still trying his persistent best.

‘Howaaaard, I said I’m sorry. You just took me by surprise! Springing something like that on someone, I coulda done with a warm-up. Aw, bollocks, no, sorry, it ain’t your fault, I just thought you were joking. Howard, Howard, say something? I can keep this up all night, y’know.’

‘Go away, Vince.’

‘You are there!’

‘Of course I’m here,’ Howard’s voice snapped irritably, ‘where else would I be?’

‘Look, Howard, I am sorry. We can try it again? And this time I won’t laugh, I promise, I’ll be dead serious.’

‘Will you?’ Vince winced faintly to hear the strained edge to Howard’s voice that probably meant she’d been crying. Howard cried a fair bit, but it was always a great melodramatic production meant for other people to see, often with background music and singing; crying in private was something else entirely, and it gave Vince an uncomfortable twist somewhere in the region of his diaphragm. ‘I tell you– the most important thing probably… ever, in my life, this thing that’s been eating at me for years and years while I try to figure it out. And I think, oh, Vince, he’s my best mate, he’s the Confuser, he’ll understand, of course he will, and what do you do? You laugh at me. You fucking laughed at me, Vince!’

The thing sitting knotted in Vince’s belly gave another squirm, and he identified it uneasily as guilt. Guilt was one of Vince’s least favourite emotions, and accordingly, he didn’t often entertain it. Things generally worked out for him, so he didn’t usually have to bother. This time, though, he’d definitely fucked up properly, and he didn’t even have the excuse of being distracted by something shiny.

‘Howard,’ he tried again, plaintively, and felt the door shudder faintly where Howard had probably just let a despairing shoulder fall against it. Howard’s shoulders did despair like an expert. ‘Just let me in? We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to; we can have a sleepie and try again in the morning, yeah?’

‘No!’ Howard snarled, and there was a sudden thump through the wood that made Vince startle, and then the vibration of hard footfalls back into the main body of the room.

Vince gnawed on his lower lip, and tried a last ditch effort. ‘Can’t I at least come in and get my pyjamas?’

‘You can sleep in your pants!’

And that was the end of that conversation. For a moment, Vince let himself slump down onto the floor, cheekbone pressed uncomfortably against the floor. He couldn’t see much of anything under the door but warm light and the uneven nap of the carpet, and after a moment, he rolled over onto his back and let out a long breath.

‘Well done, Noir.’

Now this is the part of the story where I sat down with some lemon squash and just had a good proper think. It don’t make for very good viewing, and it’s not something I do a lot, admittedly. Now I know a few trans people, but they’re all sort of trendies, and I’ve only ever known them afterwards, once they’ve already done the whole transition thing, so it weren’t ever something I had to think about much. It was weird at first, trying to apply that to Howard, but it was kind of a revelation, the more I thought on it. I could sort of feel me brain putting out little threads like a baby spider just learnin’ how to spin a web.

The thing of it is, as long as I’ve known Howard, she’s always been well obsessed with bein’ manly. Or really, Manly with a capital M. Even when we were kids. Bein’ a maverick, a Man of Action, an explorer, all that stuff. But she’s never been very good at it; always ends up making a right tit of herself. So as I was thinking, right, it kind of came on me that maybe the reason is ‘cos all her life, she’d been sort of trying to prove to herself that she was a man, only she weren’t at all, so she couldn’t ever get it right. Not that ladies can’t do all that action jazz, but then it ain’t about being manly, it’s just being a lady who happens to be a kickboxer or an archaeologist or whatever. And then all that stuff about being touched, maybe that was ‘cos her body wasn’t right with her, and being touched only reminded her more of it.

And when I realised that, all of a sudden I got so sad for her that I just wanted to bust into our room and cuddle the stuffing out of her until she was all right. But I know Howard, whether she’s a lady or not, and that definitely wasn’t gonna make anything better.

Like I say, I don’t do a lot of hard thinking as a matter of habit, so sometimes it helps if I can get all the thoughts out me head so I can sort through them properly. So I thought, here’s what I’ll do: if Howard’s a woman, I’ll make a list of what I can do to sort of help out, by way of apology for being a tit just then. Howard appreciates gestures.

Feeling buoyed by his newly-acquired plan, Vince made himself a fresh glass of squash and pulled out his crayons. All his paper and sketchbooks were in their bedroom, but Howard had left one of her many ruled notebooks filled with aborted attempts at poetry or fictional travelogues out on a side table, and that would do just as well. He frowned thoughtfully at the blank page. One of the reasons he wasn’t as good at thinking as Howard was that all his thoughts usually were pretty content to just bounce around inside his skull doing their own things. They didn’t naturally come in nice straight lines. Still, he could wrangle them when he had to, and after a moment, he carefully put crayon to paper and wrote a 1.

Five items didn’t seem like much for a proper list, but the space after 6. remained stubbornly blank, with nothing occurring to him to fill it, and eventually he gave it up as a more or less complete job. All that was pretty good to start with, at any rate. Definitely better than nothing.

It was tiring work, all that serious thinking, and Vince realised once he’d stopped that his heart was pumping all the way up under his clavicle in anxiety for Howard shut away in the bedroom, which probably wasn’t helping. He frowned, pressing a hand to his chest to feel the insistent, troubled pounding of it. He hadn’t been this worried over Howard even when he’d had to rescue her from Monkey Hell, or when she’d been kidnapped by Old Gregg, or that time Bainbridge nearly cut her head off. Where was the logic in that?

But pointlessly worrying over things she couldn’t affect was Howard’s gig, not Vince’s. He’d have a sleep, and in the morning, Howard would have to come out of their room, and then– well. Then something. So Vince stripped down to his vest and pants, nicked a blanket from Naboo’s room, and curled up on the couch. After a few moments of turning discontentedly, he got up again and crept over to the clothes tree, fishing in the pocket of the jacket he’d been wearing the other day, burgundy leather with wild zebra-print lapels.

Some digging produced his iPod, and Vince returned to the couch, this time with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars to fill the fuzz in his head. He was asleep by the opening chords of Starman.