Second to last of the interludes for Men of the Skull. This one is about Linda Lewis.
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Interlude
XI: Fingernails
Saturday
December 28, 2013 Judge Upholds N.S.A.’s Bulk Collection of
Data on Calls
Well, I guess it should start back
when I found out about her. My femme
side resurfaced in 2008- that is true- but I knew about trans sites before
that. Around 2001, I was doing an
internet search for fiction sites so I could post my work, and Fictionmania
came up: a transgender story site. I
remember starting to read a story there and I was hooked. I couldn't believe that there was a site that
had stories such as these- stories that spoke to something that I had long buried. From there, I started looking up other
transgender sites, and very quickly after I found Linda.
Linda ran a website at the time,
with pictures and her interviews from various magazines like Ladylike
and such. She also has a Flickr page,
where she has thousands of fans. She was amazing, gorgeous, and untouchable: an
Icon. And she still is.
Heck she even appeared in ads! When I re-awakened in 2008, I started looking
for things that would improve my figure etc.
One of the places I found made scientifically designed hip pads for
Trans people. A new one had just come
out and there, on the ad, was Linda- sitting on a stool in a red dress looking
absolutely stunning. Later in my search,
I found a site that sold breast prosthetics, and there she was again- modeling
the breast prosthetics. I was like
"this woman is everywhere!" and again I thought she was some kind of
Royalty. In addition, she did
transformation makeup in Hollywood at Jim Bridges’ salon near a place called the
Queen Mary.
In 2009, that I sent Linda a Flickr
message, asking her about the breast and hip prosthetics. She kindly responded, and I felt I'd been
touched by the hand of God.
Years later, Linda posted something
on social media. I forget exactly what
it was, but she seemed very down. She
had a health scare of some kind, which I later found out was a collapsed
lung. She needed financial help, so I
sent what I could. It was then that she
and I started chatting online. I found
out that we had a lot of movies and music in common. A tenuous friendship began.
I decided that I was going to go to
the Southern Comfort Conference. A few
of us wanted to help Linda attend as well.
Now this is saying something because Linda is a very proud person and
doesn't like asking for help. We figured
out a way to get her a hotel room- she would room with a friend I knew, and
between us we paid for her transportation.
I didn't realize when this started that by the time Southern Comfort
came around, my life would have completely turned upside down.
And it was there I met Linda, and
we became friends… when I wasn’t making her angry.
A couple months later, she was supposed to move down to Florida. The details there are personal, I’ll skip them. However, she was delayed- she couldn't move down to Florida, but her lease was up in Michigan. She had nowhere to go. I asked my dear friend M, with whom I was staying, if she could put Linda up for a couple weeks. She readily agreed, because she is the kind of person who Helps. So it was that in late December 2013, I met Linda in her drab mode at State College, Pennsylvania, where we had agreed to meet. (Only a week before, I was headed this way during a snowstorm to blow my head off, but I turned around.) It was a rainy, snowy, messy day, and she followed me from there back to the house where we would both stay for another six months. I lived on the second floor, while she lived in the basement, but it was during that time that I got to know the woman behind the Legend.
Tuesday,
December 31, 2013. Bomb Attacks in Russia Echo Threats by
Chechen Insurgent
Sandy Empanada was coming north to
go to the Raven on New Years Eve. I didn’t want to go as my knee still
hurt from a bone bruise suffered in a workplace accident a couple of weeks
before. But I wanted to be there for
Sandy, as this would be her first New Years without Lisa. Linda had settled into the house and was
willing to go out. I wanted to introduce
her around to the Trans Community here. That's one thing she didn't have
in Saginaw, Michigan: a community. So, I
went.
I wanted to impress her with my makeup skills, so I tried a few things I’d learned here and there. I then waited in the kitchen for Linda to emerge. She took one look at me and said “Oh HELL NO! Sit DOWN!” My heart sank! She pulled a chair from the dining room as I went to get my makeup per her demand. She completely redid my look while teaching me some techniques I never knew. M teased out my wig. Not just teased- she got absolutely sadistic with it! And it looked great! I received so many compliments all night. Linda met many people of the Philly Trans scene. And she danced the night away while getting rather tipsy. I didn’t drink, as I was worried about all the other drivers and police.
I thought Linda would just be there for a few weeks. However, she kept getting delayed through no fault of her own. Eventually she gave up on Florida, found a job, and we decided to get an apartment in Pennsylvania. We moved out, found a third roommate Zoey (without whom we would have been on the street- and we will be forever in her debt.) We lived there for a year, then moved from place to place, hanging on by our fingernails as jobs for me were sporadic. As of this writing, she is my roomie in State College. No one will ever replace Lisa, but Linda has helped my soul heal. And hopefully, I’ve been able to help her as well.
