Gabe thinks he's a master of disguise—after all, his given name is Elizabeth. He HATES being Elizabeth. But now Gabe’s got a radio show, procured by his musical mentor (and former radio DJ) John, and things are different. Giving voice to his love of music helps the rest of the world seem better. Then he gets fans--Gabe fans. They do what he asks them to do, and he asks them to do wild and crazy stunts. But there are also enemies. Between John, his BFF Paige, and the Ugly Children Brigade, Gabe figures out how to be his own person in the face of opposition.
How about some pages?
1: John Burrows is the new Elvis, because He Played Elvis First
If radio is the medium of the ugly person, then I can live my life as a voice, not a person. And the world will be perfect.
But the dead air has got to go.
While I fumble for the next CD, I attack the mic. “And that’s Mika, with “Grace Kelly’. Now let’s have some Green Day. Here’s ‘American Idiot.’ This is Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, on community radio 90.3, KZUK. Welcome to my show.”
John—my neighbor, my idol, a fellow music geek, the oldest DJ in the universe—claps my back. “Perfect! Don’t worry about the dead air. You’re just learnin’.” John’s from the South, and every so often his accent creeps in. “But you gotta relaaaax . . .” He gestures like he’s smoothing out the air. “You gotta let it floooooow.” Another swoopy gesture. “Chatter and patter and let it floooow. Enjoy yourself!” He can see on my face that I’m still not buying it. “Maybe next time.” He leaves the booth to find a Pepsi.
John’s the one who got me this show, because he keeps his DJ chops fresh at KZUK. His show is called Remember Me to Rock N Roll, and it’s all the stuff he played when he was a DJ in Memphis in the 50s. I almost flipped when he asked me if I wanted an hour of airtime. I practiced at his house for about a month, and now we’re live. He said I could tape it, but what fun would that be? The thrill is knowing people are out there. Or, in my case, might be out there someday, since the only people who know I’m doing this are me and John.
If I could do radio for the rest of my life I’d be set. But I also know it’s a dying industry. Checking “ radio DJ” on a high school career survey is like checking the box for “dinosaur,” if there was such a box. Besides that, no DJ these days does even half of what John used to do. Now, commercial DJs just stream pre-recorded stuff and say the weather once an hour—they don’t even get to have personalities. The only place it’s OK to play and say what you want is on community radio. I have no idea if a person can make a living at dinky little stations only nerds care about, but I intend to find out. Not here, of course—this is strictly volunteer. But graduation is soon, and so is summer. Life is soon.
Then—of all things—the phone rings. I stuff my voice deep in my chest and race to grab it.
“Hello, KZUK, the Z that sucks.” Maybe I shouldn’t say that, but it’s too obvious, given the call letters. I probably wouldn’t risk it at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, but since it’s 12:06 a.m. on a Saturday morning, who cares?
“No you don’t!” A perky voice answers me. “I love your show. Can you play a request for me?”
“Who is this?” I try not to let the tremor in my hands appear in my voice.
"Just a fan."
My very first show’s been on the air for all of 10 minutes—and I have a fan? No way. “I can't do a request now, but I’ll bring it next time if I have it. Uh . . . what’s your groove?” Dumb. Dorky, in fact.
“‘In the Summertime,’ by Mungo Jerry. Do you know it?”
“Music nerds know all the weird songs.” It’s a one-hit wonder from the early 70s, so it’s truly obscure. “How do you know about Mungo Jerry?”
“My folks are really into music. I’m Mara, by the way. Who are you?”
I haven’t said my name on the air yet, but John’s gone, so it’s OK. I rush it out of my mouth. “Gabe, uh, thanks, Mara, and tune in next week for your one-hit wonder.” I hang up before things can get any weirder.
She brings my listener total to one. If I can get the number up to five I’ll be set.
Then I realize what I did: I let a stranger talk to me, and I talked back. AND I told her my name. No way is that good. I have to keep to myself.
Silence again in the studio. But the KZUK promo is cued, and I just need to push the button. Not more than three seconds’ worth of dead air. But I don’t remember how short the promo is, so while I’m reaching for more CDs, the world is awash in silence.
Then I get it together. “Let’s have a slow one, for you and your sweetie, from way back in the 50s. Here’s ‘In The Still of the Night,’ the Five Satins.”
It’s very still outside. The studio windows are wide open, and nobody’s around. I love being awake at in the middle of the night. The darkness soothes me.
The phone rings again. I almost don’t answer it, but I can’t help myself. “Hello, KZUK, the Z that sucks.”
“Gabe, I have another request.”
“Mara?” My voice is high, because I react instead of think. I clear my throat, pull it low, and try to sound cool. But didn’t I just vow not to talk to strangers?
“‘You Know My Name,’ by the Beatles—do you have it?” She doesn't seem to notice my slip.
I clear my throat again. “I’ll have that one and 'In the Summertime' on the next show.”
“You’re awesome!” She hangs up without more chitchat, thank God. No more phone calls for me.
More songs go on, more music goes out into the night. Then I miss another cue, but this time it’s not my fault. With community radio, the equipment tends to be marginal. We only have two CD players, and—of course—the one with the song in it jams on me. I’d been warned, but I spaced it. Thank God I have another song cued up in the other CD player, but it takes me a second to remember what’s in there. Then a disco ball pops into my head.
“Let’s finish out the show with another danceable love song, ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,’ by Rod Stewart. Boogie on, people, and I’ll see you next week. You’ve been listening to Beautiful Music for Ugly Children on community radio 90.3, KZUK.”
My voice is beginning to get hoarse from keeping it so low in my chest.
When Rod Stewart’s done the Hustle off the airwaves, I plug in a tape of Marijane, the master gardener. I can’t imagine people really want to garden at 1 a.m., but who knows? KZUK fills up its night spots with gardening, how to learn Chinese, and news from New Zealand, of all places. Once I know Marijane is digging in her dirt, I pack up my crap.
John never came back from his Pepsi run. What he’s been doing for the last fifty minutes I have no idea, but I find him outside, smoking. He knows he’s not supposed to smoke, so he looks embarrassed when I catch him.
“You know that’s bad for your heart. And everything else. You’re old.” He’s in his 70s somewhere, I think.
“I’m not that old, and you just respect your elders, all right?”
“What were you doing all this time?”
He grinds it out with his heel, then puts the butt in the ashtray and grabs another one. “Driving around, enjoying the night. And listening to your show.” He dangles my car keys in my face. “I swiped ‘em from the box of CDs.” He sighs. “And I was being jealous, because I wasn’t that good my first night. So I was pouting and having a smoke.”
I flip open my Zippo and light his next one for him. “I bet you were that good. Better, in fact.”
John chuckles. “You’d bet wrong. Besides, the radio I did was a whole different thing. We had stuff to fill up the time besides our own voice. It was a lot easier than what you’re doing.”
“Maybe.” I really want to believe him, because that was hard. I put myself out there, and I don’t do that.
“Your mom will wonder why I’ve got you out so late.” He’s at my car, and he opens the door to get in while I stow the music in the back seat. My mom knows I came with John to the station. But she doesn’t know about the show. And I’m not going to tell her.
“Next time, though, you’ve got to say more. Tell them about you. Tell a story with the music.”
“A story?” No way.
“It’ll take practice, but you’ll get it.” He looks way more convinced than I feel.
T-Pain is in my car stereo, and we have it up loud enough that college kids stumbling from party to party turn their heads to watch us go by. What’s life without loud music in your car? T-Pain is not John’s favorite, but sometimes I listen to Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66 with him (gak), so we’re even.
When we get home, John invites me in. We’ve spent many early-morning moments debating the merits of Stax versus Motown (rhythm and blues record labels, and it’s a toss-up), or Merle Haggard versus Conway Twitty (old country legends, and it’s Haggard, though Twitty has his merits, and Johnny Cash trumps them all). He always wins with this line: “Look, I was alive then, and you need to get a grip. You don’t know nothin’ about it.” Someday I’ll make him debate Johnny Rotten versus Sid Vicious, British punk legends that he hates, and I’ll win that one. Maybe.
John moved next door to us when I was ten, and, to put it bluntly, I want to BE him. Musically, anyway. He’s the only other person I know who dives headfirst into music and drowns in it. I guess you could call him my mentor. I know it seems weird to be hanging around with an old man, but I think of him like a grandpa. And my parents trust him, after living next to him for eight years and inviting him to a billion barbeques and Christmas parties. Plus he’s a musical god—who wouldn’t want to hang out with someone like that?
John makes us peanut butter and banana sandwiches—we are huge Elvis fans, anything and everything, including PB&B sandwiches—and we sit down with a copy of Rolling Stone from the early 80s to argue about whether Face Dances by the Who—John’s choice—or Emotional Rescue from the Stones—my choice—was the lamest sellout album for a super group. Both the Stones and the Who were pretty much a mess in the 80s. He wins, of course—it’s Face Dances, which is truly horrible—but I make him argue for forty-five minutes. He almost gives in when I put on “Another Tricky Day,” the only song on the album that doesn’t completely suck.
He cocks his head while he listens. “You’re right, this one is OK. But these are the people who put out Tommy. This song blows ass compared to Tommy.” That’s the Who’s rock opera.
I can’t hide my grin. Then I realize how long I’ve been at his house. “I’d better go. If my folks heard us come home, they’ll be wondering why I didn’t come inside an hour ago.”
John rubs his bald head, which is the signal he’s thinking. “I’ll come up with another Friday Night Fight for next week.” That’s what we call our “this versus that” arguments: Friday Night Fights, like the wrestling matches they used to have on TV in John’s era. “We can argue while we pick out music for your next show.”
John spends all his money on music, which is awesome for me, but it makes the rest of his life pretty empty. His living room has a couch, a chair, a table with a lamp on it, big speakers, a magazine rack for all his music mags, and that’s it. But he has three bedrooms packed full of boxes and crates of music, some organized according to artist, some according to theme or place or era. At this point his rooms contain more than 6000 albums, plus too many CDs, cassettes, eight-tracks, and reel-to-reel tapes to count. He also has a computer full of MP3s. I think my collection’s doing all right—225 albums, 320 CDs, 270 cassettes, and another giant amount of MP3s—and then I come over here and get a reality check.
“You got it.” I hand him back the crate of music that I put by the door when I came in. “Can’t wait.” And that’s true—this show is the coolest thing in my life, no contest.
He waves at me before he picks up the crate. “Good night, Elizabeth.” Then he disappears back into a bedroom to put the music away.
My birth name is Elizabeth, but I’m a guy. Gabe. My parents think I’ve gone crazy, and the rest of the world is happy to agree with them, but I know I’m right. I’ve been a boy my whole life. I wish I’d been born a vampire or a werewolf instead, or with a big red clown nose permanently stuck to my face, because that stuff would be easy. Having a brain that doesn’t agree with your body is a much bigger pain in the ass.
I know there are ways to match things up, though I have no access to any of those ways right now. I try to be cool, since I’m taking baby steps toward the goal, but it’s almost impossible. There are 24/7 reminders that you’re not you, like my name. Not that Elizabeth is a bad name, but it’s not what I think of as my real name. That’s Gabe.
I also know people think I’m an ISSUE, and that gets really old. Society, politics, religion, whatever it is, when those scary trans people come up, regular people go nuts. It was even an Oprah issue, the pregnant transman and all that stuff.
Here’s what I say: fuck being an issue. I’m just a guy. And I’d rather be a voice than anything else. This radio show is one of the baby steps toward being Gabe for good.
I let myself out John’s front door. When I step onto the porch, I notice the air: it’s just a little warmer. But there could be snow tomorrow, you never know. Nothing like April in southern Minnesota. After I brush my teeth, I check, and John’s lights are still on. He stays up even later than I do. When he was still working, his told me his show was ten p.m. to two a.m., not quite the graveyard shift, but not a civilized daytime shift, either. We both like the dark the best.
Every night, before I go to bed, I dust my original pressing of Elvis’s “That’s All Right,” Sun Records, 1954. It’s on a stand, on my desk, and some people say it was the first rock and roll song ever. John gave it to me, from his private collection. I read on the Internet that John was the first person in the United States to play “That’s All Right” on the radio, and when I brought it up, he denied it for a while. He’s pretty modest. Even if I didn’t like him as a human, which I obviously do, I would worship him for that reason only, even though I had to read it on the Internet.
When I’m stressed, which is 95% of my life, I imagine Elvis saying, “That’s all right, Gabe,” and it helps. Sometimes I think, “What would Elvis do?” when the situation is weird, and sometimes I come up with an answer.
I make sure the windows in my room are open, cracked to let in the night air, and I drift away, listening to the faint sounds of Tommy wafting from John’s house.
