[Tommi]

“Tommi! Tommi! Do you want some pie.” “No thanks. I smiled at the curly headed little girl cousin. Three year olds playing in the mud. The girls were making pies. The boys were making bombs. I was making tunnels and roads for my trucks to drive through. My folks had a trucking business, so, it made sense. My cousins played contentedly in their make believe. I searched through the dirt for sticks and stones to create my great escape.

An only child, I observed that girls made mud pies and were tiny little women. I saw that boys made things that went bang, pop, smash and were tiny little men. I knew I would not grow up and be like them. I wanted to make my own roads, build bridges, pave my own way for as far back as I can remember. I knew I hated to be dressed like a girl, because, I wasn’t. Dad grumbled about me being in that tomboy phase. Gramma announced this was not a phase I would outgrow, because I was like my Mom. Gramma called me Tommi Rae, like my Uncle Donny Ray and told the world, I was her little hero, and he was our Marine.

In the summer of my fourth year, I read all of our names in the newspaper. We were going to school. I announced I would be in Kindergarten with Janet Craig, that pretty girl with long brown hair she twirled around her fingers in the sun. I said I was going to marry her. I smiled and knew I would love school and the travels to and fro.

Jackie, my high school girlfriend, with the long brown hair took the place of Janet and moved in with us. This time, I twirled her long brown hair. My bedroom became the house where she was the tiny woman and I was the…. What? Exactly what was I? Jackie called me her guy, her hero, her knight. I had rescued her from an abusive alcoholic father. Dad now called me queer. Gramma called me Tommi, and Mom. Mom said she was envious for a happy life she could never have.

Several years later my Mother met someone she loved, came out of the closet, threw my father out, and we all lived happily ever after. Was that the end of the story?

Not on your life, that was just the beginning of an adventure that carried us across the country, on the run from a jealous husband, and angry town, and the Chief of Police. You see, Jackie was his daughter, I was queer, and my Mother had stolen money from the family business to support her mistress. A true story of love, loss , hero’s and heroines in the country where we are all born free. We made that great escape to live another day and to be free and gay.