Chapter Text
The comment was stupid. It shouldn’t have mattered. And yet, the Wheeler family sat around the table in tense silence.
“All I said was that your hair’s getting long.” Mrs Wheeler shook her head and Mike’s shoulders tensed up further.
“You should cut it.” Mr Wheeler’s tone of voice rarely changed from one of perpetual boredom. “You’re starting to look like one of those damned hippies.”
“Ted, no politics at the dinner table. Please.” With that, the silence resumed. Mike poked halfheartedly at the steamed carrots on his plate and tried his best to look interested in Holly’s recount of her day at kindergarten.
Finally, Mrs Wheeler placed down her cutlery and declared dinner over. Nancy disappeared upstairs to her room, and Mike was about to make a dash for the basement when his mother grabbed him by the shoulder.
“You, young man, have been skipping out on your chores. Dishes, please.” Mike opened his mouth to protest, but a raised eyebrow from his mother was enough to shut him up. She attempted conversation, idle small talk about his friends and their families and had he been having fun so far this summer? He gave short answers, tired and wondering whether he still had El’s water bottle in his backpack, but Karen forgave him. He was fourteen and it was summer, after all, she was sure he had a lot on his mind.
“Thank you.” She ruffled his hair. “Your hair is lovely.”
“Hmm, yeah.” Despite himself, Mike smiled. He considered wrapping his mother in a hug, but before he could decide he was distracted by a loud scoff from the living room.
“Can you believe this?” Mr Wheeler gestured at the TV screen with his beer. Mike sat down on the floor next to Holly, who was distracted scribbling away at her colouring book.
“... joined here in the studio today with New York insurance agent Walter Brown, who identifies herself as a ‘transsexual woman’.” The camera cuts across to show the other person, perched elegantly on the edge of the armchair.
“It’s Iris, if you please.” Her voice, even through the Wheeler’s new television set, had a roughness to it. The purple dress she wore pressed flush against her, necklaces dangling and drawing attention to the hair on her flat chest. She had broad shoulders and dark eyebrows and shoes that were clearly too small and her adam's apple bobbed up and down as she spoke.
Mike Wheeler thought she was the prettiest woman he had ever seen.
“Iris, then. How did you come to know that you were a transsexual?”
“Oh, I think on some level I always knew. I was different from the other kids, you know how it is.” She continued laughing and explaining her story - from bullying to girlfriends to marriage to a costume party to a realization to a “coming out”, as she called it, to a divorce - and Mike hung onto her every word.
“And are you on good terms with your friends, and family?”
“Some of them, yes. It’s difficult for many people to understand, but I am a woman. That’s simply all there is to it.”
The interview ended what felt like all too soon. The station cut back to the regular newscaster, who began reading off the last headlines for the day, and Mr Wheeler let out another grunt of annoyance.
“It’s disgusting, men parading themselves around in women’s clothing - going on TV like it’s something to be proud of.” Mr Wheeler shook his head. “Disgusting.”
“I just don’t understand it.” Mrs Wheeler frowned.
“You saw that freak up there, Michael?” Mike turned away from the screen, a small lump of feeling nestled into his ribcage. “That’s what people are gonna think you are if you let your hair keep going like that.”
“Oh.”
“Come on Holly, time for bed.” Mrs Wheeler scooped up her youngest daughter, carrying her off to bed.
“It’s tragic, what this country has come to.” Mr Wheeler shook his head again as Mike stood up slowly.
“I think I’m gonna go to bed too.”
Stepping into his pyjamas, Mike paused to look at himself in the mirror. He fiddled with his hair - he didn’t think it was that long, not quite even reaching his shoulders. Climbing into bed, he switched the lights off and tried not to think about the way his father had spat at the word ‘transsexual’, or why he cared so much.