2:30am. Weekly on Saturday
By Sahil Desai
The train is desolate, like a shopping mall in March. The bright white lighting perfectly highlights the yellow tone that all the seats have acquired over the years of wear and tear. I sit quietly in my secluded corner, mindlessly scrolling through my Twitter feed, numb to any reaction beyond the light double-tap of my thumb against the cracked screen. I should get that fixed. There are a few others on the train: a late-night worker clad in a perfectly pressed suit, a man sleeping through the center row of the car, covered in a plaid blanket stained with black and brown blotches, and a woman sitting quietly with two big bags of groceries that look like they might break open at any second. Where did she get those from? It’s far too late for most stores to be open. I wonder what they think of me: a young man dressed in a baggy disguise that eats up my form as it drapes down, touching the bright blue seats, accompanied only by a big tote bag that is spiked with miscellaneous objects jutting out.
The train rumbles slowly through the sleeping city, its mellow hum only interrupted by the melodic tone alerting the riders that the door is closing. It takes years to get to my stop.
The place is only a ten-minute walk from the stop, but the short commute always feels twice as long in the quiet night. The street is lifeless, only showing signs of habitation with the occasional bright neon headlights flying down at speeds that would surely earn them a ticket at any other hour. I always feel like someone is watching me as I walk, lurking in the shadows, ready to ask where I’m going and with what intent. I don’t know if it’s anticipation or fear, but my pace quickens, making a small breeze against my face in the cold night air. The ground is hard against my beaten-up gym shoes, the ones with soles so worn I can feel every step jolt against my heels. I’m getting close. Just a few blocks from the only sweet relief I get from my corporate job that makes me want to jump out the floor-to-ceiling window and splatter onto Wabash.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding as I see the battered-down building. The old bricks are rusty red and rounded, eroded by years of wear and tear. Small rays of multicolored lights bleed out of the edges of the black curtains that cover the large glass windows that line the street front. They vibrate with the bass of a house song I can’t quite make out the lyrics of. The entry is a small alcove that juts inward between two of the large windows. Its big black door and the neighboring brick walls are plastered with posters seeking roommates, advertising book club meetings, and promoting various performances, protests, and events. I always wonder what it’d be like to bring my friends here. It definitely wouldn’t be their scene. I grasp the large bronze handle, ornamented like an old New York hotel where you would imagine someone getting murdered. The door is heavy, but with the concentrated force of my whole body, it swings open, and I slip inside.
The small mudroom is no bigger than the bathroom in my apartment. I brush my shoes on the black mat and make eye contact with the bouncer. She’s a large woman with short hair, dressed in all black. She lifts her arm and shines her flashlight on my bag. They usually don’t let you bring bags this size in. I open the bag and show her its contents. She digs around for a second before silently nodding and opening the second door for me.
Stepping in, I’m hit with the heat of a hundred bodies. It smells like sweat, liquor, and nitrites, with a faint hint of the cheap air freshener they use to try to make the place presentable. The air has a smoky look from the large fog machines that go off with every beat drop, which makes it hard to make out the edges of people or objects. The club is a modest size. The large open space is divided into three sets of parallel worlds. On the left, there’s the bar. It’s a long and sleek black countertop dotted with patrons grabbing drinks for the dance floor, talking with others, and a few making out with feverish intensity. On the right is the floor: a bounding pit of tangled bodies jumping and moving is relatively in sync with the house track. Red, blue, and green lights shine down on them, spiraling along the walls and spreading across the entire club, giving it a purplish glow. Above the floor is the cage, hanging high from shaking steel bars. Two queens in torn fishnet stockings are dancing their hearts out to the roaring cheers of those below. In between are a few high-top tables, filled with loud drunken conversations and a few older men staring at the dance floor as they search for young prey. The room is alive with the blasting music, parallel conversation, and the loud screaming of good friends bumping into each other.
I push myself through the sparse border of the crowded dance floor and the edge of the tables, mumbling a quiet ‘excuse me’ as I push through the room to the back. I slip into a different world when I enter the bathroom. The volume drops rapidly with the slam of the door behind me, quiet enough that I can hear the light hum of the fluorescent lights above me. A queen is doing her makeup in the mirror. She’s so close, I worry she’ll bump her hand against the grimy glass and stab her eye with her eyeliner. We don’t say a word to each other.
I remove my dark hoodie, revealing my short white top adorned with a small bejeweled heart. It’s cropped to reveal around three inches of my midriff. I think it’s tasteful. I trade my baggy sweatpants for a small skort that shimmers in a shiny red. It’s ugly in that seventies in-your-face sense that makes it scream “camp.” I pull out my chunky red heels from my bag and slip them onto my feet, gaining around four inches of height. I dump the remaining contents of my bag onto the black counter, slightly wet from the used sinks. My unorganized makeup falls out, a mixed collection of brushes, palettes, and bottles dotting the tight counter. I quickly paint myself, brushes caking every square inch of my large face. It’s hard to see in the mirror, which is stained and tinted from years of use, but I’m proud of my work: a simple face with sparkly pink eye shadow that rises into small wings. I throw my clothes and makeup in the loose tote bag and look at my reflection, putting on my thin hoop earrings that hang to my shoulders without pulling on my ears and adjusting my wig to hide my peeking hairline. I can’t help but feel a tinge of shame, the loud voice of my father yelling at me for wearing my mom’s heels or playing dolls with my sister. I’m far from passing, looking like a man deluded into thinking he can become something softer. I’ll never be beautiful like the women in magazines, but here I can live in my fantasy just for a second, just don’t look back in the mirror. But I do, and the shame sits heavy momentarily as my eyes dart from chin to shoulders to hairline, like Sherlock Holmes investigating a crime scene for anything that seems out of place. I catch myself and force myself to turn around. If this is a delusion, let me live inside it a little longer, at least while I’m here.
I don’t spend long in the bathroom, shame melting away as I go back into the club proper. The dance floor has definitely expanded: the sea of bodies now butting up against the central tables themselves, disturbing the seated patrons. I fight past the hoards of dancers, who jump and shove against each other in liberated frenzy. The quiet bathroom seems miles away as I push through to the sleek, black bar. I catch a glimpse of Christina, whose black ponytail flies in the air as she frantically scoops ice and pours drinks from the well.
“Hey—Christina!” I yell over the music.
“Oh, there you are, was wondering where the usual Friday crowd was,” carefully constructing some bright-red grenadine potion.
“Quiet night?” I ask sarcastically,
“Something like that.” From the unreactive look on her face, I can tell she’s not in the mood for my shit.
“Can I just get my usual with a double?”
“Here you go, gorgeous.” She gives me my drink with a light smile before returning to the packed bar to serve the other patrons.
I can’t lie, I melt a bit when she calls me that.
I feel God on the dance floor, caught in the sweaty mess of people that jump in unison to that SOPHIE song none of my friends seem to know. We all sing in unison, overpowering the music itself, except the bass, which vibrates my entire body with each thump. I disappear in the sea of energetic dancing, becoming one with the crowd like individual trees blurring together into a lush forest. In the haze of moving hands, heads, and legs, I find myself traveling the dance floor with every move. Song after song, my heels click against the sticky floor as I dance with temporary partners, who appear and vanish into the crowded floor. I close my eyes and let it all dissolve into color and motion, into the drunken joy of being alive right now, in this exact second.
Tonight, I’m greedy. After what feels like only a moment on the floor, I can feel the vibration in my bag cutting through the resonant bass. 2:30 sharp every week for almost two years: it’s time to change, go back to the life I float through without direction, to friends who don’t know who I am, to tailored suits and Excel spreadsheets that burn my eyes red. I’m not ready to go back yet. Tonight, I need more.
Snooze.
2:43. Snooze.
2:56. Snooze.
Then, it’s over. My body still wants to move even as the crowd thins and the melody stops. The bass keeps pulsing somewhere in my ribs after the speakers cut, a ghost rhythm no one else can hear. The bright lights flick on, shining on the few individuals still dancing, who reel at the fluorescent haze like vampires. I can’t believe it’s over: it can’t be.
Before I can make it into the bathroom, I’m ushered out. Fuck me. I never should have ignored that alarm. Maybe I can change outside: indecent, yes, but definitely not the worst thing that the street has seen after closing.
The meager crowd exits the small building and spills out into the pitch-dark street. The silent avenue is now disrupted by the chatter of the night owls, who clamor and gossip outside. It’s my first time outside in these clothes, and what strikes me is how ill-prepared I am for the cold. A smoke will warm me up, then I’ll change and head back.
3:19. Snooze.
I pull a loose American Spirit from my pocket and light it. It’s bent, but with a deep inhale, I manage to get it lit, warm smoke filling my lungs. It keeps me safe from the cool evening air. Looking around at the others lingering outside, I feel a bit out of place. Two women are making out violently against the brick wall. The sharp bricks dig into her back in a way that I can’t imagine is comfortable. There are a few other smokers: a group of older men who talk loudly in flamboyant voices, and a clique of very young teens who are complaining about the DJ’s taste. They all seem to know their place, etched into their being and not shoved away in a threadbare bag tucked deep behind their dressers.
Then I see him. He’s medium-height, but I tower over him in my heels. His short brown hair outlines his small face, dotted with patchy facial hair. He has light wrinkles under his green eyes, which reveal his age. He’s around my own age, maybe older, mid-thirties or so.
“Hey!” He gives me a smile that scrunches his eyes, “Can I bum a cig?”
“Sure,” I respond as I fish around my bag and grab another loose cigarette, “She’s a bit crooked, though, might be hard to light.”
“Thanks,” he lights it with relative ease and takes a long drag.
“What’d you get into tonight?” I figure I should start a conversation.
“Oh, nothing much, just enjoying a night out,” he pauses for a second. “How about you? How are you so beautiful and still out alone?”
I never really feel beautiful: not as a man, and sure as hell not as a woman. Maybe after years of Ozempic and a half-million spent on feminization surgery, I could feel that way. But right now, in my cheap outfit, muffin top, and uneven eyeshadow wings, I know what I am.
“You’re just being nice because I gave you a cig,” I say with a light chuckle.
“Maybe.” He gives me a shit-eating grin, “or maybe I think you’re beautiful.”
As I lean against the wall, lightly puffing my cigarette, at this point blind to the acrid scent of tobacco that I’m sure has made its way deep into my wig, I feel powerful.
“You came at the right time.” I recenter myself.
“Why’s that?” He takes a step back, flicking some ash to the side.
“Well, any later, I’d have changed back,” I explain with a deadpan tone, like it’s common knowledge.
“Really?” He’s pushing me, like he knows my deeper motivations. He knows the fear, the shame, and the hesitation that plague me.
“Why would I dress like this anywhere else?” I answer too quickly, words flying out of my mouth before I can really think about them.
“Why are you dressed like this now?”
3:32. Snooze. We don’t address it.
There’s an awkward silence between us. I realize now that we’re the last ones outside, the last remnants of the night hidden on the quiet street of brownstone houses and nuclear families. I realize that this man is different from the usual creatures who hunt for men in heels. He doesn’t have the ravenous eyes that other men have when they hit on me. No, he sees right through me, beyond the questionable outfit and into my mind. We silently finish our smokes and walk towards the train station. The night is silent except for the sound of my blocky heels unevenly clicking against the ground as I strut down the dead avenues. I’ve never worn them this long, and the backs are starting to dig into my ankles. We walk in tandem until around halfway, where he splits right on a neighborhood street. We exchange numbers and say a quick goodbye.
I feel a small hint of fear when I pass the first alley alone. There’s no hiding now: I almost imagine some stranger will jump out and see me, the real me. He’ll yell out some profanity and take pictures to send to all my friends and my mother. Don’t be stupid, nobody is out here. I continue to the brightly lit train platform and sit below the rotisserie-style warmer: heat tingling on my skin, protecting me from the arid and cold atmosphere.
I get on the train, and it’s the usual crowd: sleeping passengers, late-night workers, and drunken teenagers. Nevertheless, the silence of the car is only broken by the light rumbling of the tracks below. I wonder what they think of me: painted with questionable makeup, smudged with sweat, and tastefully paired with a wig that is sliding up my head, revealing my true hairline beneath. Maybe they’ll appreciate my oddly-shaped heels, or comment on my ill-fitting vinyl ruby skort. Surely they won’t. They never do when the lights come on.
It’s hard to push away the noise from the thousands of voices in my head telling me how to feel. Who can I listen to? Surely not my father, or the wellness influencer who spends her whole life convincing people they’re ugly. Somehow, I find harmony through the dissonance: Christina and the man outside. I hold onto their words tightly, like they’re going to fall away as the train rumbles north. I whisper them to myself, quietly, and the voice almost sounds like my own. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Enough.
3:45. Snooze.
Sahil Desai (any) is a senior studying Psychology and Biology in WCAS. Their work focuses on the grand diversity of gender and sexuality and finding the divine in the seemingly mundane.
