Winter Solstice

A recently returned Vietnam veteran learns the consequences of failure to fully disclose.

1      Three days before Christmas, 1969, Brian Williams planned to celebrate the first anniversary of his return from Viet Nam with an evening of adventure and a night of sensual pleasure.  He had begun preparations early and stood, fully dressed and just as fully pleased with his appearance, before the full-length mirror in his hallway as the early-setting winter solstice sun, closing the shortest day of the year, was quietly withdrawing its slanting light from the interior of his apartment.
     Disciplined physical conditioning, relentlessly maintained since his discharge, had kept him thin and easily able to fit into a size twelve dress.  A year of freedom from the severity of military barbers had allowed his hair to grow full and luxuriantly to his shoulders, and he lingered before the mirror, brushing it into a feminine style and tossing it about.  He pressed against the mirror to test the feel of the breasts he had fabricated of plastic sandwich bags filled with drywall paste and was satisfied with their effect.
     Continuing the inspection, he turned, posing, practicing posture that emphasized the tightness of his skirt and the shape of his legs above high-heeled shoes.  He could pass, he felt, and he began to feel a twinge of excitement between his legs.  In spite of this arousal the smoothness of the front of his dress was undisturbed, confirming the wisdom of including in his attire one masculine item: an athletic supporter intended to guard against uncontrolled and betraying erections.
     The ring of his telephone interrupted, halting the study just as it threatened to escalate out of control.  Keeping his mirror image in sight, over his shoulder, to confirm the grace and femininity of his bearing, he walked down the hallway and around a corner into the golden, hazy sunset of his living room, picked up the receiver and listened.        
     “Lynn, it’s Jim.”  The caller sounded anxious. “Aren’t you coming in?”
     Brian’s voice, in response, altered, softened.  It didn’t really change pitch to become higher or falsetto, but rather just slowed down, lost a masculine edge.
     “I’m just about on my way.”  Lynn glanced down at herself.  “I’m all dressed and ready to go.  I’ll be leaving for the train station in a few minutes and …”
     “Train station?” her caller interrupted.  “You’re taking a train?”
     Lynn smiled with anticipation and excitement.  “Yes, I am.  I’m not sneaking into the city in my car tonight.  I’m going to be Lynn completely and publicly.  Tonight is an important occasion.”
     “Really?”  Jim was intrigued.  “What’s so special?”
     “I’ll tell you when I get to your place.  It should take me a couple hours.”
     “Are you sure you can do this?”
     “Certainly.  I’ve developed a thorough plan and have scouted the terrain, and besides, I’ve practiced.”
     “Practiced?” 
     “I’ve tested.  I’ve gone to the Brookfield Zoo a couple of times.  There’s hardly anyone there this time of year.  I just hand exact change to the guy in the ticket booth, park, and walk in. I’ve passed without problem.  Anyway, I catch the 4:30 train to Union Depot and take the 151 bus from right outside the station to two blocks from your apartment.  I have the train ticket already and exact change for the bus, so I won’t have to speak to anyone.  Don’t you think I can pull it off?”
     “Of course.  I have every confidence in you, Lynn.  You’re a beautiful woman.  The only attention you’ll draw will be admiration.”
     Lynn was pleased.  “Thank you, James.  I’ll see you in couple hours.”
     “I’ll be waiting.”
     Lynn hung up the phone and walked to the sliding glass door giving access to the balcony of her second floor apartment.  The final few minutes of sunlight gave a golden hue to the sky and glistened across the snow-covered quadrangle below.  Surrounded by buildings identical to her own, the park was empty and silent.  Lynn shifted her focus to her own reflection in the glass door and resumed appreciative study of her appearance.
    Time intruded, however, and with sudden resolution she turned and walked quickly back to the darkening hallway for a final calculating assessment before the mirror.  She proclaimed her makeup satisfactory; not professional, certainly, but, she felt, quite accomplished for one who had been doing it for so short a time.  Her body, too, appeared undeniably female.  The wide belt of her black dress enhanced an illusion of a feminine waist and imparted clear shape to her breasts. 
     “Legs look great,” she thought, posing once more to see how they looked beneath the fairly tight skirt of her dress.  A short slit in front of her right leg added excitement that was worth the risk of attracting too much attention.
     She walked well, she was certain, with a fluid feminine gracefulness.  Reassured, she left the mirror, returning to the living room where she put on a thigh-length coat and pulled its belt tight.  A quick check of her purse confirmed that the train ticket and the change for the bus were readily available.  She pulled on a pair of black leather gloves and hung over her shoulder, along with her purse, a small overnight bag containing an emergency supply of male clothing, a regrettable concession to caution.
     At the apartment door she paused and breathed deeply.  “This is it,” she encouraged herself.  “No hesitation.  Complete confidence.  Lynn only,” and with that she pulled open
the door, stepped outside of her apartment and turned left toward the central staircase.
     The hallway was as deserted.  She reached the staircase, negotiated it smoothly and crossed the lobby, delighting in the sound of her heels on the tile floor.  She pushed open the large entrance door and plunged into the frigid evening.  She turned left and followed the shoveled walk past her building to a sidewalk on which she turned north to head for the train station.
     There was no traffic moving on the street beside her, no one, so far, to observe her, and as she moved across the long front of an apartment building facing sidewalk, she surreptitiously watched herself in the patio doors of the succeeding apartments.  The image was of an attractive woman, and she was greatly encouraged.  As she passed the walk leading to the building’s entrance, though, the door opened and a man emerged.  Startled, Lynn feared appearing nervous, but the man simply smiled at her as they passed.  She walked on, tense, waiting for some alarm of recognition, but none came.
     “First test,” she thought.  “Passed.”
     A hundred yards ahead of her the street intersected with 55th Street, a major east-west roadway through several of Chicago’s western suburbs.  Approaching the intersection, she contemplated with some trepidation the large number of cars moving across her path.  The traffic light was against her when she reached the curb, and forced to stand motionless as dozens of motorists drove by, she felt vulnerable.  When the light changed, however, and the traffic halted, she realized her situation had become even more precarious.  Though she was no longer a motionless object, she realized that crossing the street required traversing four lanes of stopped cars, each car containing at least one person with nothing more interesting to watch than a lone woman walking across his field of vision.
     Lynn set out.  The street seemed interminably wide and she felt as though she were on a stage, performing before an attentive and critical audience and that any flaw in her performance would result in exposure and unthinkable disaster.  She looked neither right nor left at any of the people in the cars, but maintained focus on the seemingly unreachable opposite curb.
     She reached the other side, stepping up onto the sidewalk, just as the light turned.  Still walking resolutely ahead, she braced for a shout, a derisive howl of discovery, but behind
her the sound of accelerating cars implied that drivers had resumed their various
journeys, that she had aroused no outcry, no hue and chase.  Relieved, she worked her jaw a bit to relax tense muscles and looked about at the remarkably different neighborhood she had entered. 
     North of 55th Street the town of Clarendon Hills is old, older by a hundred years than the apartment complexes and mini-malls that have supplanted cornfields south of that roadway.  Having put the intersection behind her, Lynn no longer followed a wide, straight street, but rather walked beside a narrow, curving road embracing the gentle rise and fall of the land, the creation of planners who envisioned beauty in forms other than sterile grids.
     She passed stately homes set far back from the sidewalk on expansive lawns meticulously landscaped beneath towering oak, maple, and elm trees.  The neighborhood was silent; neither pedestrians nor automobiles disturbed the winter evening’s peace.
     The neighborhood of comfortable houses filled with satisfied inhabitants unsuspecting of the solitary person passing outside offered Lynn greater safety, but at a price.  Crumbling sidewalks tumbling over tree roots harbored patches of unshoveled snow and ice and made walking in high heels more precarious.  She had to slow her pace, and when
she crested a rise beyond which she could see the town’s business district and the train station, she heard the crossing bells sound announcing an approaching train and saw the gates begin to descend. 
     Fearing missing her train, she hurried past the final home at the edge of the commercial district and was able to walk more quickly on the smoother, cleared sidewalk fronting the block of upscale shops.  The train, though, hooted across the town’s main street and gasped to a stop at the station.  Few people disembarked, and still fewer waited to board.  The train’s time at the station would be short.
     When she reached the depot parking lot, Lynn observed the two conductors assist the final boarding passenger onto the train and step up from the platform, and she began to run.  One of the conductors, hanging onto the doorway’s center pole, leaned out to signal the engineer to depart, but before giving the wave that would leave Lynn at the station, he glanced across the parking lot and spotted the frantic, late arriving passenger.  He dropped back down to the platform and waited, interestedly watching Lynn’s progress. She was assured, then, that she would catch the train and yet fearful of being discovered by such close attention.  Still, she felt exhilaration, hoping in spite of her fear, that perhaps the two conductors were enjoying the sight of a woman running in heels and a dress. 
     Reaching the boarding platform, Lynn slowed to a walk and anxiously studied the conductors for signs of discovery.  The blue suited trainman, though, simply smiled as she arrived and greeted her, addressing her as ‘Ma’am.’  He took her elbow to assist her onto the train.  The other conductor reached down to aid her up the steps and into the vestibule between compartments where, safely aboard, Lynn allowed herself to retrospectively enjoy the thrill of her run in female clothing and the attention of the conductors.
     She slid open the door leading to the forward compartment and turned immediately to climb the narrow, winding staircase leading to the train car’s upper deck where a narrow aisle gave access to a row of single seats and where, according to plan, no one could sit next to her to endanger her masquerade by attempting conversation. 
     As the train pulled out of the station, she chose a seat, placed her bag on her lap, and from her purse extracted her ticket and a book.  Reaching down across the aisle to her left she slid the ticket into a clip from which the conductor, walking the center aisle below, could, again according to plan, punch it without having to ask her for it.
     Opening her book, more prop than sincere interest, she noticed a man seated opposite her on the deck along the left side of the car.  He was looking intently at her, and did not avert his gaze when she discovered him. 
     “Why?” Lynn wondered.  “What is he thinking?  He could be attracted, or he could be seeing right through me.”  Flustered, she looked away.  She stared out the window at the receding train station, but could feel the gaze of the man seated opposite her.
     The train accelerated past verdant backyards of stately homes, achieved a stable speed that lasted for only a few minutes before air brakes were once again applied for a stop in another quiet suburb.  The pattern repeated through several towns, each unique, but all sharing a satisfied upper-middle class sheen, and Lynn’s unwavering gaze took them all in, though her focus remained the man sitting across from her.
     When the eastbound train crossed Harlem Avenue, it entered a starkly different community.  The backyards flitting across Lynn’s narrow field of view were smaller, the
homes considerably more modest.  Drawing close to the city, the train began passing through dirtier, grittier, working class neighborhoods of bungalows crowded within a few feet of each other and duplexes scattered among factories and warehouses. 
     The train left both the upper classes and the sun in its wake.  Dusk and finally full darkness settled in outside Lynn’s window, and she discovered something remarkable.  Though she could still just make out buildings and garishly lit streets past which the train continued its final, uninterrupted run to the city, she could refocus her eyes and see in the glass the reflection of the car’s interior and of the man in the upper deck across from her.  He was reading a newspaper, apparently no longer interested in her.  Pleased, she opened the book she had been holding on her lap and passed the last minutes of the trip comfortably lost in its story.
     A long, slowing, grating turn to the north signaled approach to Union Station, and though the car began to sway and wobble across the many switches, the people in the seats below Lynn gathered their belongings and filed to the rear of the car, preparing to disembark as soon as the train halted. 
     The several passengers in the upper decks, two on Lynn’s side and three others, including the inquisitive man, on the other, also began to fold up newspapers and secure their belongings, and when the train’s air brakes gasped, bringing the train to a halt at the storied Union Depot, Lynn rose and made her way along the narrow aisle.  Halfway down the winding stairs she caught up with the two other passengers from her deck waiting for a chance to merge into the flow of main floor passengers pushing through the doorway to the vestibule. 
     As they moved forward and Lynn eased down the staircase and around its turn to directly face the stairs from the opposite upper deck, she was prepared to confront the man who had watched her, but the stairwell was empty.  Apparently he and the others from that side had merged more quickly with the lower deck crowd, and he was gone.  Able to forget him, she looked down at the people moving through the doorway, seeking an opportunity to step down among them.  She locked eyes with a young mother herding two small children toward the door.  The woman returned Lynn’s smile and pulled back on her children’s shoulders, offering her a chance to join the flow. 
     Unwilling to speak to thank the woman, Lynn attempted to convey gratitude with a nod and a smile, and hoped the woman would be no more perceptive than had been the men she had encountered thus far on her adventure.  She stepped down into the mass of people, moved out onto the vestibule, and down the stairs leading to the platform.  There were no conductors to offer aid, so with some trepidation she grabbed the vertical bar in the center of the stairway and made the large step down.  Her skirt pulled tight, but in spite of that and of her high heels, she stepped firmly onto the concrete. 
     Feeling a bit of excitement from the pull of her skirt, she turned left and picked up the pace of the larger crowd moving quickly toward the terminal.  The woman with the children made no outcry behind her, and Lynn took great satisfaction and confidence from having passed so close an inspection by another woman.
     She was able to enjoy the sound of her heels on the cement and, walking with the crowd along the narrow platform between parked trains, immersed herself more deeply into the pleasant sensation of walking as a woman among people who accepted her as such.



PAGE 6

     The portion of Union Station the departing passengers entered from the platform had once been a vast and cavernous depot, but had, in the name of progress, relinquished its air space to a towering office building, and had been transformed into an unprepossessing basement filled with snack bars, magazine counters, and stairways.  Once inside, the crowd dispersed, heading for myriad destinations served by various exits.  Lynn knew her route and moved quickly toward a corridor leading to the other side of the station. 
     Rounding the corner of a newsstand, she encountered a group of teenage boys sitting in wait on their luggage, and clearly they noticed her.  She experienced a slight panic, but averted her gaze and strode on.
     “Ooh, la, la,” she heard one of them say from behind her. 
     “Ooh, la, la?” she thought.  “Is he kidding?  Does he mean it?”  She worried that they may have perceived the truth, but no more outbursts were hurled after her, no derisive betrayal.  “So he did mean it,” she decided and she smiled with intense pleasure.  How wonderful to be the object of appreciative male attention.  She circled around a hot dog kiosk and entered a wide, vaulted tunnel that passed beneath Canal Street and led to the vast, landmark Union Station waiting room through which she longed to walk as a woman.
     The passage to the storied waiting room slopes gently upward and contains a row of ticket booths on one side and a large snack bar on the other. Though lines of ticket buyers were lined up at the several sales windows, few people were moving through the corridor, and Lynn had a wide space to walk.  She fully enjoyed it, savoring the sound of her heels on concrete and the feel of her skirt. 
     Her sensual pleasure was shattered, though, when a Chicago policeman, munching a hamburger, stepped out of the snack bar and walked directly toward her.  Too late to change course, Lynn steeled herself to brazen it out, to do nothing to betray her fear or to draw attention to herself.  The policeman stuffed the last of his burger into his mouth, tossed the wrapper into a trash bin, and, relieved of that concern, apprised his surroundings, the most prominent element of which was the woman whose pathway
was about to intersect his own.  As they came along side each other, the officer nodded a friendly greeting and passed on.  No arrest.  No interrogation.  Lynn perceptively sagged with relief.  The policeman had bought it.  If she could pass that test, she could pass any but the ultimate. 
     Buoyed, confident, Lynn lengthened her stride just a bit; subtly increased the swing of her hips, placing each step just a bit more exaggeratedly across the axis of her path.  She embraced the sensation of being a woman, of walking in public and attracting the admiration of men she passed.  It became intoxicating.
     Her continued progress to the waiting room brought her close to the ticket lines.  At the back end of one of them stood a tall, perhaps six-two, lanky soldier waiting patiently beside his duffle bag.  The patch he wore on his dress green uniform caught her attention: it was the patch of the unit in which she, or rather Brian, had served in Viet Nam.
     Lynn veered just a bit to approach him more closely, studying him intently.  Obviously, he was just returning home, as Brian had done a year ago.  As she drew near, the soldier turned and looked directly at her.  His eyes grew wide in apparent amazement.
     “He knows,” Lynn despaired.  Still, she declined to alter her course.  The soldier turned about to face her directly, and when Lynn was within a step of him, he spoke.
     “You’re beautiful,” he said with a humble, appreciative awe that Lynn readily remembered from Brian’s first days back in country. 
     Surprised, she smiled at the soldier, who took a step closer.
     “Merry Christmas,” he simply offered, conveying childish wonder in his expressive, youthful face.
     Lynn continued a few steps past the soldier, excitedly flattered, then stopped.  She turned back, glanced again at the patch on his shoulder and at the ribbons and Combat Infantry Badge on his chest, all of which revealed much to one who had similar experience, and she walked up to him.  She reached up with a gloved hand and touched his cheek, quickly kissed him and just as quickly did an about face to continue on toward the waiting room.
    Her impulsive act elicited appreciative hoots and whistles from the commuters in the various ticket lines, but she did not look back.  The excitement behind her gradually subsided, and soon she emerged from the tunnel into the stunning, immense waiting room stretching out before her to her right and left and looming stories above to an ornate vaulted ceiling.  She looked up and about at the heroic statuary adorning the upper reaches of the walls, stopped to appreciate the incredible scale of space that reduced the substantial wooden benches lined up across the expansive room to apparent miniatures. 
     Lynn had intended this to be the highlight of her adventure.  She had long imagined listening to her heels ring against the tile floor and echo through the vastness.  She had planned to linger over the intense joy of walking about that immense space in a dress.
     A glance back into the corridor, however, forced her to alter her plan.  She saw the young soldier lift his duffle onto his shoulder and start off in her direction.  The kiss had been a mistake.  There was no time to linger in the waiting room.  Lynn forgot the statues and the columns and set off quickly for the wide stone staircase leading up to
Canal Street.  Her flight took her out of the pursuing soldier’s view, but she paused at the foot of the stairs and, looking back, saw him emerge from the tunnel, spot her, and begin to run after her.
     She walked quickly up the first few stairs, but as soon as she was once again out of the soldier’s line of vision, ran up the rest.  The climb was long, and at top, just before pushing through the glass door to the street, Lynn again looked back. Far below, her pursuer, with the stamina and strength of a combat soldier, was taking the steps two at a time, apparently unhampered by the weight of his duffle.
     For the first time Lynn’s planning served her well.  Just across the sidewalk outside the door a number 151 bus about to pull away.  The door was hissing shut, and the driver was releasing the brakes, but Lynn ran the few steps to the curb and pounded on the closing door.  To her relief the driver decided to let her on, reopened the door, and Lynn climbed up the stairs, fumbling in her purse for the preset proper change, which she dropped in the hopper.  She moved swiftly down the aisle, lurching a bit as the bus pulled out from the stop, and when she found an unoccupied seat, she dropped down and slid across to the window.
     The soldier burst from the door and searched frantically in both directions along the sidewalk.  Frustrated, he looked up at the departing bus and saw Lynn watching him.
He seemed almost to collapse from disappointment, dropping his duffle onto the pavement at his feet.  Lynn raised a hand in an uncertain, apologetic wave, but the soldier did not respond; he just watched as the bus reached the corner of and turned left into the eastbound traffic on Jackson Street.
     Feeling saved, yet somewhat saddened, Lynn turned her face from the window and surreptitiously assessed her fellow passengers.  No one had paid any attention to her, so, with a final, wistful glance back toward the train depot, she settled in for the long ride to Jimmy’s north side neighborhood.
     The 151 bus threaded its way across Chicago’s Loop to State Street, turned north, eventually reaching Inner Lakeshore Drive, where, free of stop signs and cross streets, it picked up speed.
     For the first time, then, during the evening’s adventure, Lynn was able to relax.  The indifference and insularity of city dwellers had proven as much a protection as the skill with which she had affected her illusion.  Free of the fear of discovery, she focused on her book as the bus rolled north. 
     She had devoured nearly an entire chapter when the bus bounced through a sizeable pothole, jostling her in the seat, and interrupting her concentration.  As she repositioned herself, she felt a tug on her hair.  She froze.  After a motionless moment, she tilted her chin down almost imperceptively and felt the tug again. 
     “Is someone pulling on my hair?” she wondered.  Remembering the reflective nature of the window in the train, she turned her head just slightly and looked at the blackened window.  No one was seated behind her.  No one could have been pulling her hair.  She leaned forward, and her hair followed her movement without interference.  Apparently she had simply trapped her long hair between her body and the seat. 
     Silently admonishing herself for behavior that was beginning to approach paranoia, she leaned against the bulkhead of the bus and strained to look through the reflecting window into the darkness outside.  The bus moved past a bright cone of illumination from a street lamp, and she caught a glimpse of a sign that read, “Addison Road.”  Addison Road.  She had intended to get off at Belmont.  She was four blocks past her stop and traveling fast. 
     She reached up above the window and pulled the cord, signaling the driver that she wanted to get off at the next stop, then rose, and pulling her bag behind her, hanging onto the vertical standee poles, made her way to the exit at the middle of the bus.  A block later it came to a halt, and the pneumatic door fooshed open. 
     Lynn stepped down into the darkness of the shortest day of the year, and the bus pulled away, leaving her alone on an island at the edge of outer Lakeshore Drive, standing illuminated in the glaring, sterile spotlight of an overhead streetlamp.  Barely inches away, across a chain link fence, the southbound traffic of the Drive zoomed past.  In the other direction she looked across two lanes of traffic to the safety of a sidewalk and rows of north shore apartment buildings. 
     She looked both directions, waited for a sufficient break in the traffic, then ran across the inner drive, reaching the curb without incident.  She chose a narrow east-west street, and walked west, calculating the distance to Jimmy’s building: five blocks south and three blocks west.  Farther than she had intended to walk, but the neighborhood was affluent,
dark, and quiet, and she decided to enjoy the chance to walk in a dress and high heel shoes, listening to the sound of those shoes on the cleanly shoveled concrete.
      By the time she turned the final corner and approached her destination, however, the pleasure had yielded to a growing discomfort in her feet and toes.  When she entered the lobby of Jim’s apartment building and pushed the buzzer beside his name, she was ready to sit down.

2

     When Lynn had climbed the two flights of stairs and been let into her friend’s apartment, she dropped her bag on the carpet just inside the door.  Submission to Jim’s embrace was nearly a collapse.
     “You made it,” Jim leaned back to assess the state of the girl he was nearly holding up.  “You seem exhausted.  Problems?  Didn’t it go well?”
     Lynn stood up on her own and began to unbutton her coat.  “Not exactly problems.  There were just a few glitches in my plan.  But it worked.”  She summoned a bit of pleased enthusiasm as Jim took her coat.  “I’m here, and I haven’t been arrested.”  She looked covetously at the sofa on the other side of the studio apartment’s single room and started walking toward it while Jim put her coat in the closet. 
     “Want a beer?” he asked as he moved quickly past his guest to collect scattered and obviously thoroughly read pages of the Chicago Tribune, pages strewn across the sofa on which Lynn was just as obviously anxious to sit.  Receiving an affirmative reply from Lynn as she dropped a bit gracelessly onto the cushions, he carried the papers to the dining area, dumped them on his small table, and took two bottles of beer from the refrigerator. 
     Sitting beside his guest, he poured the beer into two glasses.
     “So what happened?”  He handed one glass to Lynn and, offering a congratulatory salute, drained a significant portion of his own.
     “Well,” Lynn, too, drank deeply, then began her tale, “there were just minor irritations, really.  I nearly missed the train, then had to walk right past a policeman at Union Station, and then I didn’t pay attention to the bus ride and went all the way to Addison and had to walk back.”
     “So you probably don’t want to go out for a walk right now?”
     Lynn smiled sarcastically at the suggestion, took another drink of her beer, then sat up animatedly and reached out to grasp Jim’s arm and secure his complete attention.
     “Listen, though,” she said with the eagerness of sudden recollection, “One interesting thing did occur.  Just after I skated past the cop, I came up to a soldier waiting to get a ticket out to the western suburbs.  He was at the back end of a ticket line and just sort of looking around with a dumbfounded expression.  His unit patch was the Americal Division, my ..Brian’s unit.  He had a Combat Infantry Badge, and was clearly just getting home.” She paused for another sip of beer.  “So anyway, as I was walking by he
sort of stared at me, and as I passed he said, ‘You’re beautiful,’ and wished me a Merry Christmas.”
     “That’s very nice.”  Jim was unimpressed.
     “No, wait.  When he wished me Merry Christmas, I kissed him.”
     This latter revelation made an impression.  “You kissed him?”
     “Right smack on the lips.”  Lynn watched for responding excitement.  “You should have heard the crowd in the ticket line.  They gave him a hard time.”
     Jim placed his glass on the coffee table.  “I’m not so sure that was a good idea.”
     “Actually,” Lynn reclined against the sofa back, “It almost wasn’t.  When I walked into the waiting room, where, by the way, I had hoped to spend a few minutes walking around and listening to my heels, I looked back, and he had shouldered his duffle bag and was heading after me.  I barely made it up the steps to the bus. If one hadn’t been ready to go, I would have had some awkward explaining to do.”
     Jim stood up and went to the fridge for two more beers.  “I mean that’s really not a good idea.  You shouldn’t fool around with guys who don’t know all about you.  You could get into some real trouble.  There are plenty of girls who have been beaten up because they tried to fool some straight guy.”
     “I suppose you’re right.  It was fun, though.  Kind of exciting, actually.  It’s only fitting for the happiest day of the year that he be welcomed home.”
     “Happiest day of the year?”
     “Certainly.”  Lynn leaned forward and placed her glass on the table.  “The solstice.  Today the sun begins its return to our half of the planet.  It gets sunnier from today on.”
     “I see.”  Jim sat beside Lynn, placed the bottles onto the table beside her glass, and reached over to draw her closer.  “Well, let’s celebrate the return of both the soldier and the sun with some pagan sex ritual.  You’ll certainly be safer here with me than attacking a militaristic stranger in a train station.”  He gently kissed Lynn and embraced her, holding her chin with his left hand as he eased her back onto the couch and then easing his hand down to her breast.
     As she began to grow aroused, Lynn pushed Jim away. 
     “Wait a minute.”  She rose from the couch.  “I’ll be right back.”
     She went into the bathroom, shut the door behind her, and pulled her dress up above her hips.  Unhooking the garter belt fasteners from the tops of her stockings, she pulled off the athletic supporter, then rehooked the garters and pulled her dress back down.  She dropped the jock strap into her bag as she walked back to the couch. 
     “Much better,” she explained, as she settled in back beside Jim on the sofa and wrapped her arms about his neck.  “Now it’s all feminine.”
     The next morning, sunlight bright as if to corroborate her solstice enthusiasm, beamed in through the apartment’s single window directly onto Lynn’s face and woke her with its warmth.  She rolled over, momentarily surprised when she bumped up against another person, but then she realized where she was.  Wearing only her bra, panties, and stockings, she was on Jim’s pull out couch, and he slept soundly beside her.  She lay still for a few moments, reliving the night’s pleasures, then jostled her sleeping partner.
     “Hey,” she shook him again.  “I thought you had to go to work”
     Jim opened his eyes, rose up on an elbow, and looked over an arm of the sofa at his alarm clock.  He flopped back onto the mattress. 
     “I must have forgotten to set it,” he mumbled.  “It’s a good thing you woke up.  I do have to get going.”
      Lynn stayed in the bed while Jim showered, shaved, and got dressed.  When he relinquished the bathroom, she grabbed her overnight bag to take her turn.
     “Do you want some breakfast?” he asked as he opened the apartment door and retrieved the morning Tribune from the hallway.
     “No thanks,” Lynn answered, “ I need to get going, too.  I’ve got to catch a train home and then pack.  I’m going to my parents’ for Christmas.”
     “Where do they live?” Jim rather disinterestedly asked as he slipped the string from the rolled newspaper and walked toward the kitchen area.
     “About two hours away.  Out in western Illinois.  A small town.”  She pulled the bathroom door shut. 
     Alone, she unhooked her bra, slid off her stockings and panties, and stepped into the shower.  When she emerged, she carefully examined her face in the mirror, washing off all traces of makeup.  From her bag she pulled a bottle of nail polish remover and cleaned the color from both finger and toenails.  She shaved, secured her hair into a ponytail, and then stuffed her bra, panties, and stockings into the bag, extracting as their replacements male underwear, blue jeans, a sweatshirt, socks, and shoes. 
     Jim looked up from his paper and bowl of cereal when the bathroom door opened. 
     “So.  Brian,” he said without particularly interrupting his reading.  “Sure you don’t want some Frosted Flakes, the world’s most perfect food?”
     “I’m going to head out, Jim,” Brian replied as he pulled a coat from the overnight bag and then walked about the apartment stuffing the rest of his feminine clothing inside.
     When Brian had gathered everything and was about to leave, Jim reluctantly ceased reading the paper and rose to see his guest out. 
     “So,” he began rather awkwardly, “when will you be back?”
     “I’ve got to work Monday, so I’ll leave my folks’ early that morning.  I think I’ll want to go to Charlie’s Tavern that evening.  Want to meet me there?”
     Jim held open the apartment door, and Brian stood in the doorway awaiting an answer.
     “Sure.  That sounds great.  I’ll see you Monday.”  He leaned forward to kiss his departing friend, but Brian stepped away, holding a hand up in front of his face.
     “Sorry.  You know I don’t like that.  That’s just for Lynn.”  He stepped out of the apartment and walked along the hallway to the stairs Lynn had climbed the night before.
     “I’ll look forward to Monday night, Jim.  Thanks for the pagan solstice celebration.  See you.”  Brian ran down the stairway, and Jim returned to studying the newspaper.


3

     The following Monday evening, Christmas three days in the past and his work day over, Brian opened the door to his apartment just as the phone rang.
     “Have you seen the paper?” the excited caller asked, not bothering with a greeting.
     “Jim,” Brian identified his caller.  “Nice of you to call.  What paper are you talking about?”
     “Toay’s Tribune.  Have you seen it?”
     “I just got home, Jim.  I didn’t even get one today.  Why?  Are you in the obituaries?”
     “It’s the personals, Lynn.  Your soldier is looking for you.”
     “You read the personals?”
     “Of course, but that’s not the point.  The soldier you kissed in the train station the night of your solstice put an ad in.  He’s trying to find you.”
     “It’s everybody’s solstice, Jim.”
     “Are you paying any attention to me?  The poor sap is desperate.  Listen.”  Jim read the ad.  “’Seeking the woman who gave a returning soldier a kiss Tuesday evening in Union Station.  I must meet you.  Please respond to this paper, Box 215.’  And he signed it, ‘Spec 4 in love,’ whatever that means.”
     There was silence over the phone, as Brian considered Jim’s news.
     “I told you fooling around with guys who don’t know was crazy,’ Jim continued,   “Now this deranged Viet Nam vet is hunting you.”
     “He’s not deranged just ‘cause he was in Viet Nam.  That’s offensive.  Besides, he can’t find me unless I reply to his ad.  He has no idea who I am.  And Spec 4 is his rank: Specialist 4th Class.  But, listen,” Brian changed gears, “Are you going to be at Charlie’s tonight?
     “Yes.  I’ll get there about 9:30.” 
     “Great.  I’m going to take a nap, then get dressed.  I’ll see you there.”  Brian hung up the phone, but instead of heading for his bedroom to take a nap as he had suggested, he put his coat back on and walked out the door. 
     Leaving his building, he ran across the parking lot and then across another serving a complex to the north of his own.  He skirted the neighboring buildings, crossed a narrow alley at their rear, and edged through a gap in a tall hedgerow, emerging on the other side in the parking lot of a Jewel Food Store.  Hustling against the cold, he pushed through the slowly opening automatic door and walked directly to the newspaper rack where he picked up a copy of the Chicago Tribune.
     Still moving quickly and with obvious purpose, he grabbed a six-pack of beer, made his purchases, and retraced his steps to his apartment.
     Back home, he tossed his coat onto the floor, plopped the six-pack on his kitchen table, pulling out and opening one of the bottles, then sat down and spread the paper out before him.  A few minutes of searching found the ad.  It was just as Jim had related.  Brian read it several times, then leaned back and finished his first beer. 
     When he’d drained the bottle, he went to the counter beside the kitchen sink and from a wide, cluttered drawer fished out writing paper, a pen, an envelope, and some stamps.  He opened another beer and, striving for a convincingly feminine handwriting, began to carefully craft a letter to “Spec 4 In Love.” 
      An hour later, behind schedule and hurrying to meet Jim at Charlie’s Tavern, Lynn paused in the lobby of her apartment building to drop the letter into the outgoing mail slot, then plunged on into the cold for the drive north.  Traffic on the Tri-State Tollway was light, and she was able to pay some attention to the brilliant lights of the downtown towers visible far off to the east in the clear winter night.  
     She drove past O’Hare Airport and well into the northwest suburbs before exiting the tollway and droving east.  After fifteen minutes of travel through mixed commercial and residential neighborhoods, she pulled into the parking lot of an unremarkable strip mall.  Although the businesses all appeared closed, the parking lot was full, and Lynn drove the length of the mall, eventually finding a spot around the corner of the last store.
     Bracing for the cold, she opened her car door, ignoring the temperature sufficiently to be excited by visual effect of her leg, her tight skirt, and her foot in high heels as she stepped onto the pavement.  Walking past darkened store windows, she watched her reflection and listened to the sound of her heels on the pavement, using the cumulative effect to enhance her journey into femininity.  About halfway along the length of the mini-mall, she stopped at a nondescript, darkened door above which an unlit sign unobtrusively identified the entrance to “Charlie’s Angels.”
     Pulling the door open, Lynn entered a small vestibule, then opened a second door and walked into Charlie’s.  The tavern comprised a long, narrow rectangle extending back from the entrance.  To Lynn’s left as she waited, adjusting her eyes to the dim lighting, a horseshoe-shaped bar began a course that extended about a third of the way into the room, then curved back and rejoined the front wall.  Beyond the bar, beneath the room’s single bright light, was a pool table; beyond that a wooden dance floor filled the remaining space to the far wall, which was mirrored floor to ceiling.  Filling the back two-thirds of the length of the right wall, an elevated platform contained several tables, few of which were being used on what was apparently a quiet night at Charlie’s. 
     Lynn returned the bartender’s greeting and searched along the curve of the bar for Jim, whom she discovered standing up on the rungs of his barstool and waving madly from a spot near the point at which the bar reconnected with the front wall.  
     Amused, chuckling to herself, Lynn hung her coat on a rack to the right of the entrance and walked around the curve of the wooden bar. She and Jim exchanged a greeting kiss, and she stepped up onto a vacant stool beside him. 
     “So how was Christmas?” Jim asked as he signaled the bartender for service.
     “Wonderful.”  Lynn placed her purse on the bar and pushed an ashtray a few places away.  “It’s always great to get back home.  How was yours?”
     “Quiet,” Jim acknowledged.  “I pretty much worked through the holiday. Ah,” he reacted to the arrival of the bartender, “Barry, please give me another beer and bring the lady whatever she wishes.  Within reason.”
     Barry picked up Jim’s empty beer bottle and turned his attention to Lynn.
     “Happy Holidays, Lynn,” he cheerfully offered, leaning across the bar to kiss her cheek.  “A beer?” 
     “Please.  It’s a bit quiet here tonight,” she observed.
     “It’s still early,” Barry countered, “but I don’t expect too many girls tonight.  People are away for the holidays, or doing family rituals.  Speaking of Holidays, will you be here New Year’s Eve?  We have a wild and crazy evening planned.”
     “I wouldn’t miss it,” Lynn answered, then, looking at Jim, “You are going to meet me here for New Year’s, aren’t you?  I bought a knockout dress and a pair of opera length gloves.”
     “Of course,” Jim nodded affirmatively.
     “Great,” Barry said, “it will be a night to remember.  And even tonight will turn out well now that the big tipper is here.”
     “Very droll,” Lynn offered to the bartender’s back as he moved off to get the beers.
     “So, Lynn,” Jim turned to face his date, placing her legs between his, “that’s pretty amazing about that soldier trying to find you.  He must have really been smitten.”
     “Smitten?” Lynn smiled.  “There must be some ‘Corny’ infection going around.  Some guy at the train station that night said, ‘Oo-la-la,’ as I walked past.”
     “Oo-la-la. That’s cool.  Anyway, this trooper must have come home a little unscrewed.  No pun intended.”
     “I wish you’d quit ragging on Viet Nam veterans, Jim.  Brian’s one, you know.  Besides, just because he wishes a girl Merry Christmas doesn’t mean he’s a psycho.  I remember how it was.  He hasn’t seen an American girl in a year.  He’s overwhelmed by the sights and sounds all around him.  He’s legitimately awestruck.”
     “Still,” Jim continued, “I’m amazed that he’d even imagine someone would respond to an ad in the personal column.”
     Lynn turned to face the bar, swinging her legs around.
     “Sometimes people do,” she nearly whispered.
     “You answered the ad?” Jim was stunned.
     “Sort of.”
     “How can you sort of answer it?  What did you do?”
     Just then Barry arrived, offering Lynn a bit of a reprieve.  He delivered the two beers and selected his money from the bills on the bar, but the shout of an insistent patron precluded continued conversation.
     Well,” Lynn resumed when he had left, “I just sent a note to the box number.”
     “A note?  You told him the truth, I hope.”
     “Not exactly.”
     Jim placed an elbow on the bar and placed his head in an upraised hand. 
     “Listen,” Lynn began her defense, “he’s a cute kid.  He’s just back.  He deserves some consideration.”
     “What consideration did you give him?”
     “My phone number.”
     Jim confronted Lynn with an earnest and serious aspect. 
     “Lynn, you can’t fool straights this way.  I’m serious about girls getting smacked around.  This guy’s a trained killer.  He’s liable to freak out.  He can find your place.  Besides, suppose you get away with it for a meeting or two.  Is that really fair to him?  This is truly a bad idea.”
     Lynn poured some beer into a glass and took a drink.
     “No, he can’t find my place.  The number’s unlisted.  And since you’re so convinced 
that we’re all killers, that would apply to me, too.  I must be able to defend myself.”  Lynn brightened up, taking one of Jim’s hands in her own.  “Anyway, he may never call.”
     “If he does, you’ve got to tell him the truth right away.”
     Lynn pulled Jim’s hand to her lap.
     “Come on, Jim,” she cajoled.  “The evening’s slipping away.  We both have work tomorrow, so let’s forget the soldier and enjoy ourselves.”  She hopped off the stool, still holding his hand.  “Dance with me.” 
     Jim held back, resisting Lynn’s attempt to pull him from the stool.
     “Listen to me,” he urged.  “I’m deadly serious.  I’ve known girls who’ve been really injured.  This guy could kill you.”
     Lynn continued to pull on Jim’s arm. 
     “Perhaps you’re just jealous,” she jokingly taunted.
     “You know that’s not it.  This isn’t just another guy, Lynn.  He thinks you’re real.  Promise me you’ll tell him the truth if he calls.”
     “All right, I promise.  Now come dance with me.  We can play some Righteous Brothers on the jukebox and have the whole floor to ourselves.” 
     The promise given, Jim relented and followed without further protest to the jukebox.


4

     Early New Year’s Eve, work over, Brian lay on his couch in the full warmth of sunlight that remained in his living room perceptibly later than it had even a few days before.  Resting prior to undertaking the elaborate preparations required by the special evening ahead, he was engaged in a rather disinterested struggle to read a book.  Giving up, he dropped the book onto his chest and looked over to the balcony door to enjoy the slanting sunbeam and a peaceful quiet that was unexpectedly destroyed by the harsh jangle of his telephone.  Nearly knocking the phone onto the floor in his effort to answer without getting up from the couch, he found the receiver and pulled it to his ear. 
     “Yes!” he rather gruffly addressed the caller.
     An unfamiliar voice asked a question that grabbed Brian’s attention, bringing him swiftly up from his recumbence.
     “Sir, may I please speak to Lynn?”  The voice was gentle, but crisp.  “This is Specialist Andy Johnson calling.”
     Brian sat in stunned silence for a moment. 
     “Sir?” the caller tried again.
     “Lynn.”  Brian scrambled.  “Yes, Lynn is here.  Just a moment, I’ll get her.” 
     He pushed the phone’s mouthpiece down into the pillow on which he’d been lying and
attempted to summon some calmness, to formulate a plan.  After what he believed was an appropriate interval, he raised the phone again and spoke.
     “Hello.”  Making no attempt to employ a falsetto voice, a pitiful caricature of feminine speech, he simply softened his tone, added a bit of breath, and slowed his pace. “This is Lynn.”  It seemed to work.
     “Lynn,” the caller did not disguise his excitement.  “I’m Andy Johnson, Spec 4 Andy Johnson, the soldier who wished you Merry Christmas at the train station.”
     A bit rattled, uncertain how to proceed, Lynn offered little more than curt acknowledgement.
     “Yes, Specialist Johnson.  Welcome home.”
     “Thanks.  Lynn,” the soldier continued excitedly, “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you answered my ad.  This is unbelievable.  I hope you don’t think I’m some kind of a nut, but I was definitely sincere that evening when I told you how beautiful you are.  I generally don’t do things like this, but… well, I’m just back from Viet Nam, and I guess I still need to regain some social skills.  I was really disappointed when you deedee’d out of the station.  I didn’t think I’d ever find you.”
     The familiar expression soldiers in Viet Nam used for “get out of here” caused no confusion for Lynn, nor did she consider that this understanding might seem odd for a girl who presumably had not been in Southeast Asia.
     Her caller failed to wonder.
     “Well, thank you for the compliment,” Lynn responded,  “I appreciate it.”
     The soldier exposed a bit of concern, asking, “You’re not married, are you?  That wasn’t your husband who answered, was it?”
     Lynn hesitated a moment, then plunged on.
     “No, I’m not married.  That was my brother.  Brian.”  Sensing no questioning of her voice, she became emboldened.  “Actually, he served with your division in Viet Nam.  The 11th Brigade.  He’s been back for a bit over a year.  That’s why I particularly noticed you at the station.”
     “No …kidding?  That’s number one.  I was with another brigade, the 198th, but he must have been around the same area, basically.”
     “Yes, I believe he was.”
     A brief, awkward silence followed this exchange, but Andy quickly retook control.
     “Anyway, Lynn, I was hoping we could meet.  I’d love to get to know you.  Would you have dinner with me?”
     “Dinner?”  Lynn struggled for a sensible response.  “When?”
     Specialist Johnson’s relief and excitement were evident.
     “Tonight.  Now.  You have a Clarendon Hills phone number, and I’m just over in Downers Grove.  I could be there in a few minutes.”
     Despite her anxiety, Lynn enjoyed the swiftness of the soldier’s attack.
     “It’s New Years Eve, Specialist ...”
     “Andy.”
     “Andy.  Anyway, I already have plans for the evening.”
     “You have a boyfriend?”
     “Not exactly, but ..”
     “Then couldn’t you change your plans?  We’re destined to meet.  We certainly connected in the train station.  What do you say?”
     “I can’t, Andy.  Actually, I’m very much looking forward to tonight just as it’s planned.”
     The soldier’s disappointment was palpable in the silence.  Lynn let the conversation hang fire for a few moments, then seized an opportunity.
     “How about this?”  She paused to consider.  “Tomorrow is a holiday.  We could meet in the afternoon.”
     “Meet?  Can’t I pick you up?”
     “I’d rather we meet on neutral ground the first time.  Do you know where the Brookfield Zoo is?”
     “Certainly.”
     “Well, we could meet about 3 O’clock.  Say, in the Primate House.  It’s the first building to the left after entering the south gate.  Do you know where that is?”
     “Roger that.  It’s sort of behind the high school.  I’ll be there.”
     “I have to go now, Andy.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”
     Brian hung up the phone and walked to his patio door and watched the final rays of the sun withdraw from the central square.  As the last direct light pulled out over the top of the building to the west, his pensive study relaxed to a gentle smile.
     “The sun is coming back,” he said to himself, then turned from the window to begin dressing for the night ahead.


5

     As neighborhood church bells were striking noon the next day, Lynn drove into the parking lot in front of her home, parked, and, holding up her long evening dress, ran across the snowy pavement into her building and up to her apartment, encountering no one enroute, and fortunately so, she felt, as her makeup betrayed a long night and morning of wear and the faint shadow of a growing beard.
     Once safely inside her door, she walked quickly to her bedroom, kicked off her shoes, and collapsed on the bed.  Just as she surrendered to welcome sleep, she remembered her afternoon appointment and, regretting the shortness of time, reached up to set the alarm clock to allow only a brief hour of rest.
     When the alarm rang at one, Lynn reluctantly forced herself to sit up.  Reconnecting slowly with the conscious world, she reached behind her back, unzipped her gown and wriggled out of it, leaving it on the bedroom floor.  Making no effort to place the any of the previous night’s discarded feminine clothes into the wall locker that served, in a corner of Brian’s closet, as a secure hiding place for them, she stumbled down the hallway to the bathroom, discarding underwear along the way, stepping naked, finally, into the shower.
     An hour and a half later, refreshed and dressed in chunky-heeled boots and a long skirt that allowed her freedom to run or defend herself should it be necessary, Lynn drove up to the ticket kiosk at the Brookfield Zoo’s south parking lot, handed several dollars to the attendant, and then chose a space near the ornate, arched entrance way to the zoo grounds.  She pulled her long coat close against the cold and cloudy gloom as she walked through the arched entrance building, and once inside, surveying the expanse of winter dormant promenade stretching north across the entire zoo park, was pleased to see that, as hoped, there were no other visitors to be seen.
     She continued on, bearing left past the closed gift shop toward the first large building.  Cages lining the building’ exterior were empty, barren and filled with drifts of snow.  She moved hurriedly to the entrance above which bas-relief monkeys flanked the carved designation “Primates.”
     The rush of moist tropical heat that greeted her inside the doors was startling, but welcome.  She paused just inside the entrance to acclimatize.  To the right and left large cages lined the walls and straight ahead a vast, barred enclosure reached to the lofty ceiling, dominating the huge expanse of the primate house. 
     Leaning against the observers’ rail, but intently watching the doorway rather than the graceful gibbons swinging among the artificial trees of the cage, was a solitary figure.  As Lynn shook off the chill of the outside, the man left the rail and walked quickly toward her.  He held out his hand, hesitantly, and addressed her as he approached.
     “Lynn,” he said, betraying eager anticipation.  “You came.”
     “Specialist Johnson,” Lynn offered a gloved hand in response.  “Happy New Year.”  Cautious, fearful, Lynn spoke softly and slowly, striving for femininity without some comic exaggeration.  Again, it seemed to work. 
     Reminded, perhaps by her greeting, of the circumstances of their last holiday exchange, the soldier leaned forward as if to initiate another kiss.  Lynn countered with a slight retreat that gave him pause.
     “Please,” he held on to Lynn’s hand, “call me Andy.  I am on leave.”
     Smiling, and looking beyond her companion to the large central cage, Lynn extracted her hand from his.  “It’s wonderfully warm here.”  She moved toward the exhibit, unbuttoning her coat. 
     Andy fell in beside her, his gaze fixed on her. 
     “Did you have an good New Year’s Eve?” he asked.
     Lynn nodded, smiling, and continued on.
     “I’m a bit awkward here,” Andy offered, “This is not how I usually meet women.”
     Lynn looked up at the tall soldier.  “No?  How do you usually meet them?”
     “That’s not really what I mean,” her companion struggled.  “I guess I just want you to understand I’ve never before put an ad in a paper.  It’s just that I didn’t know how else to find you.”
     The pair reached the railing surrounding the cage, and Lynn, offering no response to the soldier’s statement, placed her hands on it and studied the acrobatic antics of the monkeys.  Hoping to use her voice as little as possible, to take no more risks than necessary, she allowed Andy to control the conversation.
     “I’m glad I did, though,” he continued, “this is like a dream come true.”
     Lynn’s quick glance conveyed amused skepticism.
     “Really,” Andy defended his perceived excess, “I’m serious.  When I first saw you walking toward me in the station it was as though I was seeing someone I’d known, but lost, someone I’d dreamed of for a very long time.”
     Lynn turned to face the soldier, stepping a bit back.
     “Andy,” she admonished, “You’re just back from Viet Nam.  I know – I watched my brother – it’s hard to adjust.  Everything’s still so unreal.”
     Fearful of speaking too much, Lynn stopped and returned her attention to the incredibly long armed gibbons gracefully flying in immense arcs from tree limb to tree limb and across the barred cage ceiling.  She listened to the background monkey chatter emanating from cages throughout the building.
     Andy said nothing more for a few moments, then reached inside his coat pocket and extracted a thick, carefully folded sheet of paper.  Slowly, almost reverently, he flattened it out. 
     “I wanted you to see this,” he said, offering it to Lynn.
     Lynn took the page, apparently torn from an art pad, and studied the artwork it bore, a pencil drawing, masterfully rendered, of a thatch Vietnamese hooch.  Though she did not reveal the fact, the scene depicted was familiar.  It was a convincing representation of a Vietnamese house placed in an accurately captured background of Southeast Asian rice paddies and forest.  Incongruously, though, standing in the open doorway of the structure was the figure of an American girl.  Even more surprisingly, the girl bore an uncanny resemblance to Lynn.  Her hairstyle was almost identical, and her face was eerily similar.  At the bottom right corner of the page were the initials ‘A. J.’ and the date 22 June 69.
     “You drew this?” she asked, looking up at the soldier.
     “That’s affirm’.”
     “It’s really very good.  You’re an artist?”
     “I hope to be.  But that’s not the point.  Don’t you see the resemblance?”
     Lynn looked again at the drawing, further confirming the undeniable fact that the girl in the picture could be herself.  She nodded.
     “And yet,” Andy continued, “I drew that – and others – from imagination long before I ever saw you.  You understand how seeing you at the station seemed a prayer answered.”
     “You’re very talented.” Lynn held out the drawing, but Andy declined it.
     “I want you to have it,” he said.
     Lynn hesitated before folding the paper and placing it into her purse.
     Again the two fell into silence, watching the caged gibbons’ aerial gymnastics.  Suddenly, Lynn turned toward the door and began buttoning up her coat.
     “I don’t have much time,” she said walking toward the exit.  “I’m meeting my brother for dinner tonight and need to get going soon.  I think, though, that we’re just at the right time, if we hurry, to see the big cats get fed.  It’s fun to watch.  You could tell me all about yourself while we walk over to the lion house.”
     Andy acquiesced, and the two stepped out of the tropical warmth into the harshness of Chicago’s winter.  They walked swiftly north, circling the Teddy Roosevelt Fountain, frozen and dormant at the juncture of the zoo’s wide central promenades.  As they walked, Lynn only half listened to Andy’s words, allowing much of her consciousness to embrace the feel of her clothes, her hair, and the fullness her breasts imparted to her coat, to imbue this wonderful experience with a spurious sense of truth.  Though she regretted not hearing the sound of high heels and missed the tug of a tight skirt, she increasingly succumbed to the thrill of walking beside a man who believed her to be a woman and who was so clearly intent on pleasing her with his explanation of himself.
     Andy spoke enthusiastically.  He made no mention of his time in Viet Nam, and Lynn understood.  Instead, he regaled her with his dreams, his love for art, and the future that would unfold for him when, in three months, he would be released from active duty and
begin studying at the School of the Art Institute.  His willingness to monopolize the
conversation perfectly accommodated Lynn, whose greatest anxiety was of having to speak.
     They were the only figures moving across the snow swept, uninviting parkways, and that, too, suited Lynn.  Near the zoo’s north entrance she guided Andy to their right and into the warm and distinctively odiferous Large Feline House. 
     Her estimate proved accurate.  The panthers, lions, leopards, and tigers were pacing, bellowing, roaring, and coughing as a keeper moved along the row of cages wheeling a cart laden with raw meat.  Andy suspended personal discussion while he and Lynn shadowed the keeper’s progress and watched the graceful and powerful cats voraciously devour the huge amounts of meat tossed with a dull thud into each successive cage.   
     When the last animal had been fed, Lynn decided she had pressed her luck sufficiently.
     “I have to go, Andy,” she said, as she buttoned her coat.  “We can talk some more on the way back.”
     “It seems to be just me talking,” her companion noted, but Lynn merely smiled and he again fell in step beside her. 
     They left the lion house through doors opposite those they had entered, and their path took them past the zoo’s long, terraced restaurant, abandoned for the season, and along the wide, sloping walk beside the outdoor bear pits.  The displays were unoccupied by
animals, as the pathway was devoid of other human visitors. In spite of the cold Andy and Lynn walked rather desultorily, pausing occasionally to read the placards describing what they could have seen in the artificial habitats had it been a warmer season.  Andy seemed to have exhausted his store of anecdotes and stories and, Lynn offering little conversation, fell into silence.  As they stopped before the Asian Black Bear’s vacant home, he reached out and grasped Lynn’s hand.
     Startled, she jerked her hand slightly back at first, then, welcoming the heightened level of experience, let it stay in Andy’s.  She enjoyed the feel of his grip and the significance of the contact.  Just then, for the first time that day, the sun found a break in the overcast and perceptibly warmed the air about them.  The sun was indeed returning, Lynn reflected, and she abandoned herself to complete enjoyment of her situation.
     Their perambulation soon brought them to the end of the row of bear pits and back to the central promenade on which they turned left toward the exit.  One final building intervened between them and the gatehouse, and as they passed the walkway leading to it, Lynn stopped and pulled the soldier back.   
     “It’s the Small Mammal House,” she indicated the columned building confronting them.  “Let’s go in for just a minute.  I want to see if the aardvark has moved.  He never does.  I think he’s stuffed.” 
     She pulled Andy up the concrete steps.  The glass panels of the double set of doors were darkened, and just inside, the two lone visitors had to pass around a wall that further restricted the entrance of light, a barrier necessitated by the fact that most of the animals housed inside the Small Mammal House are nocturnal. 
     With the familiarity of one raised near the zoo, Lynn walked quickly through the eerily green darkness around a large, central glass case populated with hundreds of bats, down a side wing, and stopped in front of a large window beside which an explanatory note indicated the display’s inhabitant to be an aardvark.
     Waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark, Lynn unbuttoned her coat.
     “He’s always asleep, or else he’s dead,” she explained, peering through the glass and pointing to a nearly impenetrably dark area of the habitat, “in that back corner.  Watch.”
     The aardvark hunters concentrated in silence, adjusting their eyes to the dim light, seeking to spot the elusive anteater.  As seconds passed, Andy’s interest proved less intense than his companion’s.  He glanced about the wing they occupied and discovered it to be as deserted, other than for themselves, as the rest of the zoo had proven to be.  He looked down at Lynn and took her hand again, applying a gentle pressure that Lynn returned. 
     “I see him,” she said with an excitement that nearly betrayed a potentially fatal unfeminine voice. 
     She pointed to into the cage and turned to see if Andy were following her lead.  He wasn’t.  She discovered herself to be the full focus of the soldier’s attention and, surprised, could only offer an awkward and ineffective, “See?”   
     Andy released her hand and thrust both of his inside her coat, around her waist, drawing her close.  Instinctively, defensively, fearing her breasts might not feel authentic, Lynn pulled her elbows in and raised her hands to Andy’s shoulders, providing protection where their bodies were about to touch.  She yielded without struggle, though, to his kiss. 
     Feeling its passion, she briefly contemplated its hazards, but then surrendered intellect to sensuality.  She responded with warmth, thrilling to the sexuality of the embrace and kiss, but as her own passion increased, she felt its inevitable effect stir between her legs.  The athletic supporter she wore over her panties, she knew, could not fully contain the one part of her that would always be Brian.  Discovery imminent, she pushed herself away from Andy. 
    Clearly flustered, disturbed, she struggled to regain control, drawing her coat close about her. 
     “I’m sorry, Andy,” she whispered. 
     The soldier moved a step closer. 
     “Didn’t you enjoy that?” he asked.
     “I did, very much,” Lynn answered, backing off.  “It’s just… sudden.  I’ve got to go.” 
     She walked around the puzzled soldier and made her way to the exit.  Outside, in the frigid and bright air, she regained composure, buttoned her coat, and waited for Andy to catch up. 
     “I’m didn’t mean to offend,” he offered as he stepped out of the door.  “Please don’t be angry.”
     Lynn smiled reassuringly.  “I’m not.  Walk me to my car.”  She held up a silencing hand as Andy attempted to continue to speak, and took his hand for the short walk through the gate and across the parking lot to her car.  
     “Can I see you again?” Andy asked as she opened her door.
     Lynn nodded. 
     “Tomorrow?  It’s Saturday night.”
     Lynn placed a foot into her car, then hesitated.  “Call me about six.”  She stepped back out of her car and, repeating her actions from the train station, placed a hand on his cheek and kissed him. 
     Headed home, having driven past the bored ticket taker huddled in his tiny, but warm kiosk, Lynn smiled to herself and reached down into her lap, pulled up her skirt and struggled to loosen the constricting athletic supporter.  Unencumbered, she left her hand in her lap and as she drove the quiet suburban streets, replaying the excitement she had just experienced. 

6

     Late Saturday afternoon, the second day of January, bright sunlight poured through the windows and patio door of Brian’s apartment just as it had eleven days earlier when, on the winter solstice, it had begun its trip back north.  Though it remained incapable of 
dispelling the winter cold outside, it warmed and brightened Brian’s small living room sufficiently to bathe him in glistening sweat as, feet jammed beneath the front edge of the sofa, he worked through a set of sit-ups. 
     An incoming telephone call interrupted his count, but determined to work to muscle exhaustion, Brian continued his rhythm, reaching for the phone on the upswing of a repetition.  His effort succeeded in dragging the instrument off the end table, sending it crashing onto the floor beside him, but he secured the handset and put it to his ear without pausing the rise and fall of his upper torso.
     “Yeah,” he gasped into the mouthpiece.
     “Lynn?  It’s Jim.  What the hell are you doing?”
     “Wait one.”  Completion of his set imminent, Brian wheezed the admonition to his caller and dropped the handset onto the carpet.  Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, and at last a final, struggling push to rise to the upright, and Brian reached his goal, collapsing, breathing heavily, back onto the carpet.
     “Whatever you’re doing,” Jim’s voice was just discernable from the discarded handset, “it sounds great.  Do you have someone there, or are you just enjoying yourself?”
     Brian regained sufficient breath to collect the phone and offer an intelligible response.
     “Sorry, Jim.”  His words fit between deep breaths.  “I was doing some sit-ups.  I didn’t want to quit before finishing.”  Though the call was for Lynn, Brian made no effort with his familiar companion to utilize a ‘Lynn’ voice.
     “Well, more power to you, Babe.  Better you than me.  Anyway, I was wondering if you’ve recovered from New Year’s Eve enough to be at Charlie’s tonight?”
     Brian pulled his feet from under the edge of the couch, sat up, and placed the phone back on the table. 
     “I’m recovered, but I don’t think I’ll be at the bar tonight.  I’ve sort of got a date.”
     “A date?  No kidding.  And you’re not going to Charlie’s?  Where – Hey, you don’t mean with the lovesick trooper, by any chance?  I thought you were going to tell him about yourself.  You did tell him, didn’t you?”
     Brian ducked the barrage of questions.
     “Sort of ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’  I haven’t exactly told him everything, if you must know.”
     Brian heard only silence from the other end of the line.
     “Jim?” he sought response. 
     “You’ve got to be nuts,” Jim bellowed.  “Don’t you ever listen?  This guy’s going to beat the crap out of you.  How do you think you can get away with this?”
     “Actually, he won’t.”  Brian became a bit defensive.  “I’ve already been with him, or rather spent some time with him.  We met at the zoo yesterday and spent a couple hours together.  I was a real woman for him.  It was wonderful.”
     “He suspected nothing?  He didn’t question your voice?”
     “Not a bit.  It seems I’m the incarnation of a vision he had in Viet Nam.”
     “Get out of town.”
     “I’m serious.  He showed me a drawing he made over there.  It looks just like me.  He’s a very talented artist.  He’s going to the Art Institute when he gets out in three months.  He’s not just some dumb grunt.  And besides, I can understand what he’s been through and how important this became for him.”
     “What ‘This?’”
     “This dream.  The image he created.  I understand how something like that can take hold over there.”
     “Did you tell him how it is you understood?” Jim began to betray a growing disgust.
     “No, of course not.  Not exactly.  I told him I have a brother who was in his division a year ago.  I live with him, and he’s shared his experiences with me.”
     “Brilliant.  Brother Brian, no doubt.”
     “Don’t get obnoxious, Jim.  This has been the most wonderful feeling I’ve ever experienced.  No disrespect.  I’m really a woman with him.  He doesn’t see me as a guy in girl’s clothing.  It’s more than I could have imagined.”
     “Did you make physical contact?”
     Brian got up from the floor and flopped, still exhausted from the exercise, on the couch. 
     “Well, not that it’s really something I should talk about, but, yes.  We held hands.  We embraced.  We kissed.  It was thrilling.  I’d never been kissed by someone who believed me to be a woman.  You can’t understand.”
     Again there was a pause from the other end, then Jim spoke carefully and intently.
     “I can understand this:  you’re new at this, Lynn.  I’ve been around girls at Charlie’s and other places for a long time and I’ve never known one who could pull off fooling a straight guy for very long.  This soldier’s been overseas for an entire year.  He’s going to want more than a kiss, and when he goes after it, you’re going to get hurt.”
     “It’s not like that, Jim,” Brian sat up straight.  “Andy is an artist.  He’s sensitive, liberal.  I know I can’t fool him all the way, I’m not completely deluded, but when I tell him the truth, he’ll accept it.  It won’t make a difference.”
     “Where are you going with him?” Jim altered his tactic.
     “I don’t know.  He’s going to call around six.”
     “Well, I recommend you make it someplace safe.  Someplace that affords an escape plan.  Don’t bring him home without telling him, and don’t go to his place.”
     “He’s with his parents.”
     “Then don’t bring him home.  Lynn,” Jim’s tone grew even more intense, “you’ve really got to tell him.  Tell him when he calls, before he finds out where you live.  Before you put yourself alone with him again.  I understand how you feel about this, but believe me, no matter how sensitive and liberal he is, he will not handle the truth.  He’s looking for a
woman to fulfill this dream.  You could cause more damage than if he were someone just looking for a date or some quick sex.  You’re building him up, and it’s going to be a strange fall.  I’d hate for you to be caught in the rubble.”
     “He won’t care.  Lynn is his dream, and I’m Lynn.  It won’t make a difference.”
    “Then tell him.  You owe it to him.  Tell him when he calls, and if he can handle it, I will rejoice for you.” 
     “I’ll think about it, Jim.  And I appreciate your caring.  I’m going to grab a shower.  I’ll talk to you soon.  Have fun tonight.”
     “You too.  Be safe.”
     Brian placed the receiver on the phone and leaned back on the couch, absorbing the final minutes of sunlight and considering his friend’s advice.
     An hour later, showered and dressed for the evening in a short, black dress and high heels, Lynn sat patiently on the couch in a darkened living room, waiting for the phone to ring.  Precisely at six, it did.  She let it wring twice, then picked it up, but said nothing.
     “Lynn?” Andy queried, puzzled by the silence.
     “Yes.”  Lynn strove for a tone even softer than usual.
     “Ah.  You’re there.  You sound a little odd.”
     “I’m fine, Andy.  You’re very prompt.”
     “I’ve been watching the clock.  Time has dragged for me since the zoo.  I was hoping we could go out to dinner and maybe have a few beers.  Can I come pick you up?”
     Lynn rose to her feet and picked up the phone so she could walk about a bit to feel her tight skirt and high heels while she talked.
     “I’d like that, Andy.  The time at the zoo was wonderful, and I can think of nothing I’d enjoy more than going out with you.”
     “Number One.”  Andy’s excitement was evident.  “Where are you, then.  Give me your address, and I can be right over.”
     “Actually, Andy,” Lynn sat back down nervously on the edge of the couch, “it may not be that easy.  There’s something you ought to know.”
     “Oh, oh.  What’s this?  Are you married?”
     “No, certainly not.  Listen, Andy,” Lynn hunched over as though she had to protect her conversation from eavesdroppers, “I want you to know how important meeting you has been.  If you have some impression that I’m some sort of incarnation of your dreams from Viet Nam, for me you have become something similar.  I very much want to see you some…”
     “What’s the catch?”  Clearly growing anxious and defensive, Andy interrupted.
     “I’m not actually a woman.”
     Silence followed Lynn’s rather incomprehensible revelation.
     “Hello?” she explored the silent line.
     “What do you mean?” hesitantly, Andy conducted his own puzzled exploration.
     “Well,” she let it go, “you know how I could understand all you told about Viet Nam, how I could sort of anticipate some things you would relate.  That’s because I was there.  I don’t have a brother.  I’m my brother.  I’m not really a female, I’m just trying to be one.”   In spite of the thoroughness of her confession, Lynn made no attempt to reinforce it by reverting to Brian’s natural voice.  Sitting on her couch, she strove to assume as feminine a posture as possible, to maintain Lynn’s identity while repudiating it.
     “This isn’t funny, Lynn.  Actually, it’s kind of cruel.  If you don’t want to see me, you could just tell me, you don’t have to pull this kind of a sick joke.  Is there some guy you’re hooked up with?”
     “It isn’t a joke, Andy.  I’m really male.”
     Andy became insistent, unaccepting.  “That’s impossible.  There’s no such thing.  I’ve seen you.  I know what I see.  Now tell me your address, and I’ll come over.”
     Lynn hesitated, wanting to just give the soldier her address and continue on as they had been. 
     “You can’t come here, Andy, but if you really want to see me tonight, there’s a place we can meet, a place I go a lot. We could get together there and sort this out.  Okay?”
     “What place?  Where is it?”
     Without revealing its nature, Lynn explained to Andy how to find Charlie’s, and when he had indicated that he would find it, she told him to meet her there at nine o’clock. 
     “I hope you do come, Andy,” she appealed sincerely, “You’ve got to believe how much I enjoyed being with you.  I’ll be waiting for you.”
     She hung up the phone and walked over to the patio door where she stood, not particularly looking outside, as darkness obscured everything beyond the glass, but rather studying her own indistinct reflection until, aware that she needed to get to Charlie’s well 
before her soldier, she turned away and gathered her coat, gloves, and purse from the sofa where she had placed them in earlier anxious anticipation of a rather different night out.  Just over an hour later she parked her car in the parking lot outside the unique tavern’s door.


7

     Though just two days after New Year’s Eve, it was a Saturday night, and by seven-thirty when Lynn pushed her way in the door, Charlie’s was already crowded.  The coat rack was full, so Lynn held her coat in her arms as she threaded her way along the near side of the bar. 
     Barry, working quickly and efficiently with two other bartenders, noticed Lynn and found a moment to wave ‘Hello.’  With a nod of his head, he directed her attention to the opposite side of the long, horseshoe shaped bar.  Lynn answered his greeting with a smile and a wave, then maneuvered herself between two men so she could look in the indicated direction.  Through the shifting bodies and cigarette haze she spotted Jim seated on a stool near the far front wall of the room.  He was talking animatedly with two other men. 
     She set out to circle around the curve of the bar, but all the seats sat the bar were full, and people were stacked up behind those with seats, talking, drinking, or attempting to gain the attention of the overwhelmed bartenders, and progress was slow.
     The crowd was nearly three-quarters men and the remaining quarter apparent females, some more convincingly so than others.  The fluid sexual politics of Charlie’s accepted any
 combination, and some couples were exclusively male, others female, many ostensibly mixed, yet the interactions of Charlie’s patrons mirrored the shifting dalliances and sexual hunting expeditions of more conventional nightclubs. 
     Lynn greeted several friends of various gender affectations as she threaded her way through the throng.  At the midpoint of the half-circle end of the bar, she found a quiet backwater and paused to watch two men shooting pool.  The first notes of “Louie, Louie” from the jukebox, however, sent a surge of couples toward the dance floor, and Lynn was jostled out of her spot. 
    She resumed her progress around the bar and eventually squeezed through a group gathered to watch a man and his apparent girlfriend play darts, emerging just behind Jim, who was making some excited point to his two interlocutors.  She waited patiently and when he paused in his oratory, placed a hand on his hip. 
     Jim turned and reacted with joy and surprise to discover the initiator of the contact. Carefully balancing a full glass of wine, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and they kissed.  He removed the hand holding the glass, keeping the other about her shoulders, and introduced Lynn to his friends.
     “I thought you had a date.”  The introductions complete, Jim directed is attention to Lynn.  Eliciting only a weak, resigned shrug in response, he discerned, or hoped he did, what had happened.  “You told him.” 
     This suggestion earned an affirmative nod, and he leveled more intense scrutiny at the silent object of his inquisition. 
     “He didn’t become violent?”
     “I told him over the phone,” Lynn offered her first verbal reply.
     Jim turned back to the two men with whom he had been speaking and who, arms about each other as they waited for the conversation to resume, revealed themselves to be a couple. 
     “Would you mind excusing me,” Jim requested of them, “My lady friend has a lot to tell me.  We can take this up again later.”
     He took Lynn’s coat from her and laid it on top of others across a cigarette machine tucked unobtrusively in the corner of the tavern. 
     “Let’s grab those stools,” he urged, directing Lynn toward a pair of bar stools amazingly unoccupied, apparently abandoned in favor of “Louie, Louie.”
     Having taken possession of the seats, Jim captured the attention of Barry, as he was delivering drinks to a couple, also male and putative female, seated next to them. 
     “ Beer?” he asked, and, with Lynn’s affirmation, relayed the order to the harassed Barry.
     “So,” he eagerly inquired when the bartender had departed, “Tell me about it.  Why did you change your mind?”
     “I don’t know.  It was dark in the living room when he called.  The sun had set and I’d been thinking while waiting for the phone to ring and I guess I just hoped he wouldn’t care.”
     Jim intently studied his friend for a moment, then remarked, “You’re mad.  Of course he’d care.  Did he threaten you?”
     “No, I told you he’s not that sort.  Actually, I don’t think he really believed me.”
     “What do you mean?”
      Attempting an explanation animated Lynn.  She finished her beer, set the bottle at the inner edge of the bar so Barry would notice, and turned on the stool to directly face Jim, placing her knees between his legs. 
     “He seemed to think it was a ploy to dump him.  He was hurt.”
     “Couldn’t he tell by your voice?'
     Lynn made no reply, and Jim discerned the truth.
     “You didn’t really try to convince him, did you,” he admonished.  “You hoped he’d ignore the facts.  And you’re going to see him again?”
     “Well..” Lynn hung fire.
     Exasperated, Jim freed his legs from the entanglement and turned to the bar to order another beer for himself, as Barry picked up Lynn’s empty.
     Seeking to appease her lover, Lynn put an arm around his shoulders.
     “I don’t think I’ll see him again.  I really did tell him.  We’ll know soon.”
     Jim’s puzzled glance elicited explanation.
     “I gave him directions here,” Lynn continued.  “I asked him to be here at nine.  I told him we could sort it all out.  I really don’t think he’ll come.”
     “Did you tell him what to expect?” Jim emphasized his question with an encompassing survey of the tavern.
     “Not exactly.  I just said it’s a place I go a lot.  He should figure it out.”
     “Well,” Jim resigned himself, “at least if he does show, you’ll have backup.  Barry will not be thrilled if there’s a fight, though.”
     “He’s not that sort,” Lynn quietly reiterated as she took her beer from the bartender.
     She and Jim passed the succeeding hour without further reference to the soldier.  Charlie’s grew even more crowded, and, causing Lynn increasing discomfort, as the expiring evening encouraged greater boldness, the contingent of “girls” acquired several considerably unconvincing individuals.
     She and Jim played some pool and danced several times, but after eight-thirty Lynn’s attention became rather focused on the tavern entrance, and she riveted herself to the barstool.
     At precisely nine o’clock, Jim’s conversation with a man seated beside him was interrupted by an odd comment from Lynn.
     “He made formation,” she said with some apparent satisfaction.
     “What?” Jim twisted about to face her.
     She pointed across the two legs of the bar to the space just inside the doorway where a tall and clean cut young man, newly arrived, stood, obviously somewhat confused, alternately searching the room over the heads of shorter patrons and staring intently at individuals whose gender appeared suspect.
     “He always makes formation,” Lynn expounded, “always on time.  He’s a good soldier.”
     Jim watched the newcomer for a moment.  “That’s the Specialist in Love?” he asked.  “He is good looking.  Definitely a Wally Cleaver.”
     “Don’t mock, Jim.  He’s for real.”  She stood up on the rung of the barstool and hurriedly surveyed the back end of the tavern.  “Look,” she seized Jim’s arm, “Donald and
Mary have the whole back table in the corner to themselves.”  She pointed to the raised platform along the opposite wall.  “Please go ask them to give it up for a bit.  I’ll get Andy, and he and I can talk there.”  Lynn looked imploringly at her friend, then grabbed her purse and beer and stepped onto the floor, heading out to meet the disoriented soldier at the doorway.
     Andy spotted her as she came around the curve of the bar, but he gave no indication of either pleasure or disgust.  He simply waited, watching her, as she approached.  Stifling her desire to embrace him, she stopped a few steps away.
     “Hello, Andy,” she softly and tentatively greeted him.
     Andy looked past her, studying the various forms of gender appearance among the tavern’s patrons.
     “This is the place you hang out?” he asked with thinly disguised repulsion.
     “I told you,” Lynn answered, “what kind of person I am.  Is it so horrible?”
     Andy offered no response.  He moved away, apparently intending to leave, and Lynn stepped toward him gently grasping his arm, then quickly removing her hand.
     “Don’t go,” she urged.  “I’m awfully glad you came.  If you could just give me a few minutes, we could talk.”
     Still the soldier remained silent, but he ceased movement toward the exit.
     Encouraged, Lynn pursued the opportunity.
     “There’s a table in the back corner we could use.  No one will bother us.”  She sought to direct his attention into the bar, away from the door.  “Just a few moments.  Please.”
     Andy followed her lead through the crowd, moving carefully to avoid contact with anyone. 
     Several people spoke to Lynn as she weaved a path to the back of the building, but she didn’t hesitate, acknowledging them only with brief smiles.  As she and Andy, trailing behind, approached the vacant table, she noticed the couple that had given it up watching from the edge of the wooden dance floor.  She nodded in appreciation, then stepped up
onto the platform and stood beside the table as Andy caught up.  She’d hoped he would pull out a chair for her, but he just went to the one that put his back to the wall and sullenly sat down. 
     Lynn stood over him momentarily, considering her next move, then took the chair opposite.  Andy continued looking over the crowd, avoiding meeting Lynn’s eyes.  She opened her mouth to speak, but Andy cut her off.
     “This is pretty sick,” he observed.
     Intimidated, Lynn looked down at the tabletop.  
     “Yes,” she softly responded, “I guess it is.  But no one here is evil, Andy,” she looked up at him pleadingly.  “There is just good feeling and searching for love, like any crowd.”
     “No evil?”  Andy was animated.  “What you did was evil.  You claim to have fought in Viet Nam, to understand what that year was like, but you tricked me.  You made a joke of my dream.”
     “That’s not what I intended, Andy.  I ..”
     “It’s queer.  You’re queer.”
     Lynn leaned over the table. 
     “No, Andy, that’s not exactly right.  I’m attracted to you.”  She watched him wince, but continued, “I’m not attracted to someone of the same sex.  It’s not like that.  I’m a woman, and..”
     “No, you’re not.”
     The undeniability of Andy’s harsh response silenced her.
     “You don’t understand how this hurts,” Andy admonished.  “I just got home.  You came along and made everything perfect, then you ruined it.  I’d be humiliated to tell anyone about you.”
     Eagerly, Lynn leaned back and opened her purse.
     “It’s not ruined, Andy.”  She pulled out the drawing Andy had made, unfolded it, and laid it on the table, turning it to him.  “See.  That drawing is still real.  I could be that girl.”
     Andy stood up, grabbed the drawing and crumpled it, tossing it onto the floor.  From the corner of her eye Lynn saw Jim begin to move from among the people on the main floor toward the table.
     “You can’t be that girl,” Andy lashed out, “You can’t be any girl.”  He furiously pushed out from behind the table and moved toward the edge of the platform.
     Lynn rose and called after him.
     “Andy,” she pleaded, “please think about this.  I can be what you want.  Maybe in March when you’re discharged and back for school you could call me and….”
     Andy turned and confronted Lynn, ending any thought she had of following. 
     “I’ll never call you.  I hope to be able to forget you.  And don’t ever look for me.”
     He whirled about, pounded down the step from the platform and roughly pushed his way through the crowd.  From her elevated spot Lynn watched him muscle between
couples and groups and eventually disappear out the barroom door.  She turned back to the table, retrieved the crumpled drawing from the floor, sat down, and began smoothing it out on the table. 
     She said nothing when Jim sat down beside her.
     Her friend waited for a few moments, hoping she would speak.
     “It didn’t seem to go too well,” he stated the obvious. 
     Looking at the wrinkled drawing, Lynn agreed. “No, I guess it didn’t.  I guess you were right, Jim.  I should be with those who know what I really am.  It can’t be real.”
     Jim made no response; he simply let Lynn struggle with her emotions.
     “See this?” she twirled the drawing so it faced her friend and placed a finger on the date near its bottom.  “22 Jun 69.  He drew this on the winter solstice, but the one in the southern hemisphere.  The sun was returning down there.  Unfortunately, it was leaving here.”
     “I think Donald and Mary want their table back, Lynn,” Jim took her hand and nudged the drawing back toward her.  “Come on, let’s go back to the bar.  I’ll buy you a drink and later, if you want, I’ll show you just how much of a woman I think you are.”
     Lynn smiled with weak appreciation, then folded the drawing and put it back in her purse.  Letting Jim take her hand, she followed him off the platform and through the increasingly inebriated and frantic crowd. 

THE END

    






     
    
    



    

    
  
  
    
    
    
 
    

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