Page 51 of The Voice of Wild Places
“They don’t have much storage space, do they?Minds, I mean.”Watt murmured.
Cornelius’ lip quirked.“No, they don’t.”He sighed, the night air far crisper than it was during the day.Cold, but not the kind that awaited one in Michigan.Here it was sharp and sudden, so unlike the aching and endless cold that soaked one to the bone.
“I—I wonder if I am doing women a disservice.”
Watt blinked, long and slow.“I don’t understand,” he said after a moment.“Can you explain?”
“I—do you remember when you came to my office with Mrs.Fawcett?”
Watt’s confusion softened, and a smile touched his lips.“Yes.”
“She wanted to go with him, to come here.But Percy said it wasn’t her place, that she wasn’t fit for it.And this is just one case of many, men telling women what they can or cannot achieve, that they are physicallylesscapable.Too delicate.And yet, here I am.With a lame leg, to boot.It hurts like hell fire, but I’m here.Capable.But none of the credit will go to women, because I …” Cornelius trailed off, frustrated.He desperately wanted another cigarette, or better yet a drink.But his lungs were heavy with all the tobacco he’d already smoked that day, and his throat was drier than sandpaper.He'd been the one to ensure no alcohol had come along with them, and now he was angry with himself for it.
Watt studied him, brows drawn together.Slight wrinkles creased his eyes and mouth, and Cornelius became strangely fixated on them.He wanted to trace them, feel how deep they went.It was too early to tell what they were carving into Watt’s face, and the next few years of his life would determine whether they deepened into laugh or frown lines.Cornelius thought maybe they were leaning towards the latter, and he wanted to change that.But all Cornelius had done in his life was make people frown.Hell, Watt was doing it now.
Slightly baffled, Watt said, “But you aren’t a woman, Cornelius.Why should … ‘the credit’ go to them?”
Cornelius made a frustrated sound.He gripped his head with both hands.“I amhere, but here?”His hands drifted downwards, grazing his throat, pausing meaningfully on his chest, then continuing until his hands came to rest in his lap.Voice rigid and angry, he said, “The physical proof they need is righthere.”
Cornelius felt as if he could tear himself open right then, and abruptly realized he had.He was set aflame, even if the fire was several feet away from them.
In that slow way of his, Watt said, “I hear what you’re saying, but I think you’re looking at this wrong.”
Cornelius lifted his head to look at him.“Why?”
Watt scratched at the scruff along his jaw that had taken hold since Cuiabá, a much darker color than the hair atop his head which had grown, but lightened in color from bronze to gold.He said, “I don’t know, because how can anyone know who someoneiswithout being explicitly told, but you may be the first … transvestite?I don’t know the right word, I’m sorry if that’s not right.But you may be the first American of that nature to go on an expedition into the Amazon of this magnitude.Isn’t that something worth claiming the credit for?And besides, there are women explorers.Hell, we’ll be meeting up with one soon, and you know many.Women are more than capable of forming their own stories without us men doing it for them, you know."
Watt said this last bit playfully, as if Cornelius had been saying otherwise.Cornelius stared at him, at a loss for words.For a few moments they said nothing.Cornelius reluctantly turned his gaze to the sky when he realized he’d been staring open mouthed at Watt for longer than appropriate.Two thoughts hit him.
Watt was right.And Watt was playing with him.Comfortable enough to.He wasn’t shocked by Cornelius’ question, or put off.He even sounded interested, like he’d been waiting to be asked this very question.Or perhaps more simply, any question at all.
Cornelius lifted a shoulder.“That word never really fit me.It’s … not about the clothes.Or notjustabout the clothes.”
Watt nodded.“Is there one?A word?”
Cornelius shook his head.“I don’t know.Man is fine enough for me.”
“Alright.”Watt rubbed at his beard again.“Can I … ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“When did you know?”
Cornelius’ fingers twitched, then relaxed.He glanced at the campfire, then to Watt.Their past temporarily superimposed on the now, of Cornelius telling Watt all those years ago how he felt, who he was inside.He said, “I … I was never agirl.Not in the way they were supposed to be.I was rough and played hard, asked too many questions and refused to be tamed.Mother said I’d grow out of it, that it was the hazards of growing up in the country.But I didn’t.When I got older, after I’d …”
Cornelius’ face heated exponentially.“Once my body started changing, I knew something was wrong.Off.Everything fit wrong, including my own skin.I hated to be seen in dresses, or seen at all.I didn’t know why, only that I was angry.I thought maybe it was the way women were treated, the expectations put upon them.But one day, when you were swimming in the lake with Jimmy …”
Watt startled a little, surprised to hear of himself.When Cornelius didn’t go on, Watt said, “What?”
Cornelius cleared his throat.There was no way around this.“During the last summer you visited, I—well.I thought it was a crush.I was just so fascinated by you, and in a way that was entirely like anything I’d felt before.And then that day at the lake came, and watching you swim I just thought … I don’t want him.I want to be him.Notyouyou, but … I wanted your life.I wanted to be a man.”
Okay, so he might have lied a little.But he couldn’t make Watt uncomfortable, not now.Although, by the rising color in Watt’s face Cornelius had already done that by tenfold.
“I remember that day,” Watt whispered, and his eyes glazed over with memories.“I almost didn’t get in the water.It felt wrong somehow, that you and your sisters weren’t allowed to swim.But you kept pestering me, telling me I wouldn’t get another chance to dip my toe in Lake Michigan.So I did.”
Cornelius grinned.“Me?A pest?”
Watt chuckled.“The most troublesome of them all.”
