The road we had been working on had seemed an eternal monster whose appetite for asphalt would never be quenched. The sun, ever a taskmaster, had been particularly cruel that day. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you find yourself on a road crew in Alabama during a hot summer day then something in your life has gone wrong.

We were all beat. Tired. Exhausted. Our bodies were soaked in sweat from our various ball caps to the socks which rested like water lillys beneath unforgiving steel-toed boots. The worst part of being drenched in such a way is the underwear. When your boxers feel like swim trunks comfort is impossible, no matter how high you turn on the work-truck’s AC or the number of windows roll down.
Still, the day was done. We listened to some rock station the driver had picked, drank tepid gatorade, closed our eyes and envisioned showers and lazy boy recliners on the near horizon.
“Check this shit out. Isn’t that your old lady, D?” asked one of my co-workers in a taunting voice. Teasing, or ‘janking’, helped the days go by, much like singing spirituals must have been a salve to the slaves in cotton fields.
I looked up. Walking up the road against traffic was a man. Dressed as a woman. Even from the distance we were at, maybe 700 feet or so, you could tell.
D just laughed and said nothing.
The driver spoke to Eric, the original taunter. “Think I saw you with him last night Eric.”
Everyone laughed, me included, because that’s part of the rules of janking. You gotta laugh.
As we passed the transvestite she looked us in the eye, indeed seemed to be eying every car that passed. Tall and lanky with a blue dress and long, dark hair, she looked like an abused dog in demeanor. Still, she continued walking up that road, intent on her destination.
I had looked her in the eyes, briefly. I had read the message she was projecting:
“Fuck you.”
Good on you. I thought to myself.
Working construction is a ‘mans’ job, and some of that machismo is warranted I assure you. Whiners, slackers, the weak of will need not apply. We’ve had men looking for work nearly a year, show up one day and not return the next. We’ve had people die from heat stroke, accidents, reckless drivers. You have to possess some ‘fuck you’ in your soul to do the kind of work we do.
Still, I think it takes a whole ‘nother level of bravery to walk up a busy road in Mobile, Alabama wearing a dress when you’re a man.
What had to be going through that person’s mind as she woke that morning? To step out your front door knowing that you would be the subject of ridicule, laughter, snide remarks, even genuine disgust?
Could you do that?
I don’t think I could. I don’t think I got the balls. I think my badass, fighting, construction-working ass would hide in my house and drink.
Yet there she was, there she had been, there she was going. Past the cars, past the school, past the church, past the ‘Stop N Shop’.
I don’t know where she was going.
I haven’t seen her again, but I respect the hell out of her. You may see her as a man, or a woman, or something in between.
All I see is courage.