It was the best game of hide-and-seek in our entire lives. Not just for the kids, but for me as well—a non-binary trans masculine adult pushing forty. Baz and I had a playdate with his friend Emmerson and her sister Evers. They lived in the East Village in a beautiful two-story penthouse apartment with a roof deck patio/garden and ample hiding spaces. Their father snagged it for a steal from a grouchy old cat woman who allowed her numerous pets to take over and damage the joint. Because ol’ cat lady was so misanthropic, the fourth in a line of brokers screwed her over, and her place sold below market value. The father felt slightly guilty about how he got the apartment but said, “Hey, she was crazy when I got here.”
Baz and I are still pumped from our three-hour play sesh as we get on the elevator. The whole ride down, he gives me the play-by-play of the game—like I wasn’t there video recording it on my phone for Baz’s up-and-coming YouTube channel. He’s like my little brother, the thirty-one-year age difference between us could be easily explained by an elderly philandering father. Baz is very tall for the age of seven, and rail thin, with a light brown complexion and sun-bleached brown hair that billows from his head in a tuft of curls. I love him like he is my own blood.
As soon as we hit the street, Baz’s enthusiasm lags.
“Will you drag me?” he says, trying to play me with a cute pouty lip. I’m onto his games.
Usually I would give him a shoulder ride, but my sciatica is flaring up—a nagging current of pain that flows from my lower back, down my left leg, to my toes. I consider dragging him. Baz likes to grip my hand with both of his and have me pull him behind me like a sack of potatoes. I won’t do it. It will scuff his shoes, never mind the fact that I would look like a terrible person.
“No, Baz, no dragging. Come on, let’s walk. It’s not that far.” I try to urge him forward like a traffic cop, motioning with one hand while pointing in the direction I want him to go with the other.
Baz refuses to walk another step. He feigns weakness and leans against a building, clutching at his chest like he’s about to die.
“Carry me, please—I just can’t go on!” He’s such a joker.
Still, we do need to get going back to his place before Mom gets home. I bend down and sling Baz over my right shoulder with his legs in front of me. We only make it a block or so before I have to put him down. Even though I had top surgery last year and look quite boyish, I’m not on testosterone and still get my period. It’s either a heavy flow day or I just pissed myself. Baz accidentally kicked me in the bladder while trying to slap me in the butt. As one does. Thank god I’m wearing a pad!
I put Baz down and decide to start a water fight. It’s perfect summer weather, and sometimes games are the only way to get him moving of his own accord. We had one earlier in the day while skipping down West 4th Street. A man walked behind us smiling and laughing the whole way as I squirted Baz with my disposable water bottle, and Baz retaliated by unscrewing the wide cap off of his sport bottle to drench my backside. When Baz and I are together the fun feels magical, enchanting all who bear witness.
Baz stands right where I put him down, determined to stay there, until I squirt a little water at his chest. He immediately goes for his sports bottle in the side pocket of his backpack and unscrews the cap. His bottle is full and mine is half empty. I’m outgunned for sure. The sidewalk is wide and nearly empty except for an elderly woman and her sweet, fluffy, beige pooch milling around near her building entrance. I slowly step backwards, all too aware of how much Baz wants to pour his water down my butt crack, while at the same time taunting him to keep him moving forward. At least I’ve convinced Baz to put one foot in front of the other.
“Hey, Idiot! Watch where you’re going! You could step on somebody!” says the elderly woman, with the kind of vitriol New Yorkers generally reserve for bad bagels or cab drivers.
“No worries, I saw you,” I say, as I estimate the distance between us. It’s at least a few feet. Her wrinkled, white, liver-spotted face contorts with disdain, like I was standing on her personal property.
“How could you see me? You were going backwards. What are you, an IDIOT?!” she says, a rhetorical question. She already has her answer.
Baz stands on the sidelines with a full water bottle in one hand and the cap in the other, shrewdly watching our exchange, the three of us forming a triangle. I look from Baz to the old woman to the water bottle I still hold at the ready.
A little spark of mischief ignites in my brain.
“What are you afraid of, a little water?” I say. But I already have my answer.
I don’t know what possesses me to squirt water on a little old lady—maybe 5’2” and 95 pounds—but I do. Straight across the front of her, like a seat belt strap. It’s a minor splashing.
“Assault!! Assault!!” she says and charges after me—and by charge I mean aggressively shuffle. I quickly walk backwards, somehow in shock at her response.
“I’m sorry, it was just a little water, lady. I was only playing. It wasn’t assault.” I face forward and lightly jog to keep away from the old woman, who is reaching out to grab me. Baz is transfixed in the same spot with his water bottle at the ready. He watches as she chases me, slowly making large concentric circles on the sidewalk, and screams her head off while her dog happily pants at her side.
Each time I make a lap, while the old woman pleads for the cops to come arrest me, I talk to Baz.
“Baz, I made a huge mistake.” Another lap.
“Baz, we gotta go, honey.” Another lap.
“Baz, let’s go. Come on.” Another lap.
“Baz, please, walk with me.” I grab his sports bottle and put the cap on. We start moving at a brisk pace, but I can’t go that fast. I have capsulitis in my left foot, and I’m not sure what’s wrong with my right heel yet, but it hurts like a bitch. The old lady is coming after us, still hollering for the police.
“Baz, do you want to run?”
He rolls his eyes at the mere mention of running, and looks behind us to see the old woman struggling to keep up. Baz shakes his head. For a moment, I’m relieved. I don’t think I should be running in the first place.
We continue west and walk past a street fair set up on Broadway. Pedestrians are everywhere, and there is no way to lose her at the light. The closer we get to people the more nervous I become.
“Baz, I’m really sorry if I caused you any stress right now.” I put my hand around his shoulder.
“I feel fine. She’s the one that’s the idiot,” he says.
“Stop that man! He assaulted me!” The old woman points at me and gives chase through the throngs of people milling between food stands and merchandise.
Unfortunately for this particular senior citizen, when someone with no apparent injuries screams assault on a New York City street, most people just mind their own damn business. Baz and I hold hands and walk fast on 9th Street, bobbing and weaving through foot traffic until the bellows of the old woman become another part of the city din.
“Baz, what I did was wrong. I had no right to squirt her,” I say, hoping to recover some moral authority after setting such an immature example. Who did I think I was, Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream? That I was going to squirt water on this old woman like it was magical pixie dust, and she would grow wings and take flight like a fairy, laughing and spinning in delight as she joined us in our hijinks? I was only playing after all, wasn’t I?
But she is not.
She catches up to us as we stand waiting for the light to change at University Place—and we can hear her coming.
“Stop that man! He assaulted me!” I turn around to see the animus in her eyes, the knobby judging finger jutting in my direction—and the ironically happy fluffy face of her canine companion. That dog is probably getting one of the best walks of his life on what is the slowest chase in the history of humankind.
I try to pull Baz along, but he stands still, unbothered, watching the old lady approach. Baz says nothing. His face is calm. If I know this boy—and I know this boy—he is intent on seeing some drama. The elderly woman doesn’t disappoint.
“You ought to be ashamed to have a father like that!” The bitter ol’ gal spits the words at Baz like a snake spits venom.
“Hey! Lady! Leave us alone! We were just playing.” I pull on Baz’s hand one last time to get him to come with me. There is a gap in traffic wide enough for us to hurry across University Place. We walk fast so we can lose her again. How long can this old lady give chase anyway?
Before long, she’s again out of earshot. I think she’s given up, and don’t bother looking back because I can tell Baz is angry. We’re still holding hands.
“Baz, she was wrong to say that to you. You have nothing to be ashamed of,” I say, letting go of his hand to pet his curls.
“Yeah, and besides, SHE’S NOT MY FATHER! I don’t have a father. I have two moms and they can both kick her butt!” he says with enough attitude to shade the shadiest of drag queens, a personality trait he may have picked up from living on Christopher Street.
“Baz, listen. I know you’re mad. And you have every right to be. She was wrong to yell at me and insult me when I didn’t do anything to her, but I made it worse by squirting her with water.” We reach the corner of Fifth Avenue and stand, waiting for the light to change.
“So basically two wrongs don’t make a right,” Baz says, and I’m grateful. Maybe I didn’t just completely blow it today by teaching Baz a bad lesson in how not to treat your elders.
“Very good Baz. Two wrongs don’t make a—”
Right then, I feel a sudden push from behind—something poking into my backpack. I turn around to find the old lady pumping her fists in the air like a street brawler from a 1940’s classic movie.
“Do you wanna hit me?! Come on, hit me!!” All this old lady needs are a boxing ring and a bell.
My jaw drops as I realize what just happened. A senior citizen punched me from behind. “Punch” might be a strong word, a bit much. “Hit”? No, a tap. I was just on the business end of a ferocious old lady tapping. At nearly six feet tall and over two-hundred pounds, there is no way I’m laying into this tiny elderly woman throwing a tantrum on a public sidewalk.
“Jesus, lady, are you crazy!?!” In the moment, it’s all I could think to say.
The light changes. Baz and I scuttle across Fifth Avenue. I look behind us this time, but it seems like she might not follow.
“I’ll find you!” she says, a vow I hope she is incapable of following through to the end. It occurs to me she may be in pain. I hope she makes it the couple of blocks home okay.
Baz and I shuffle along on our gradual getaway, with a plan to make a diversion should the old lady decide to continue the chase and catch up to us on the next block. There was nothing else we could do at that point. She was crazy when we found her.