Music rules my mind

It’s a late Saturday night on the anniversary of his mother’s death. His dad promised that he’d come home for a family dinner, so Robert had gone all out. The rice was cooked, the vegetables chopped, the beef marinated and fried, and the kitchen smelt like it used to. For those beautiful hours he spent cooking, he could close his eyes and pretend that his mother was just in the other room. 

But like always, his father never showed up.

So Robert threw a fit. 

It was ugly—like he was still eight years old, and banging on the mech-suit with a hammer. It didn’t end with a chunk of his ear missing, but it did end with a trashed kitchen and a refrigerator that maybe needed to be replaced. (What is it with him and wanting to attack machines when he’s down?)

And like always, when the stillness of the house becomes too loud, Robert switches on the TV. Unfortunately, because it is midnight on a Saturday, the usual cartoons are all run up and all that’s left are weird, adult pieces that Robert isn’t sure he should be watching. He flicks through the channels at random until— 

Oh my God, she’s beautiful. 

A woman is regally sitting in front of the camera in what looks to be an interview. She’s dressed in a yellow sundress, sleeves billowing out like a storybook princess. Long lashes frame her eyes like the claws of a ring that cage the diamond in, and her lips are painted a bold, ostentatious orange, glossy as a pearl. 

Then she talks, and Robert abruptly thinks: 

Oh, is this a man? 

And like she read his mind through the screen, she laughs. 

“You know, a lot of people—when they see me, they think, ‘oh, she’s gorgeous’. And then I turn around and talk, and all of a sudden, it’s all ‘are you a boy or a girl’?,” she looks away from the interviewer and faces the camera, smiling, “And that’s alright! That’s okay! I get it… People like me are very, uh… considered to be very abnormal. You know, sometimes, unwanted. But, honey, I promise you. We are beautiful. And all you have to do is listen, and you’ll think so too.” 

Robert finds his lips tracing the words. We are beautiful. 

“Everyday, I’m so happy that I can be a woman.” 

Her smile is radiant. 

“I feel so blessed that I can— can— wear my little dresses, and brush my hair, and do my make-up. Everyday, I feel so free that I can look at myself in the mirror, and think: Yes, that’s a woman right there. And even without all my glam, I can just square my shoulders and know in my heart that I am a woman!” 

A big pause. The smile starts slipping away from her face. She tosses her pearlescent hair across her shoulder. 

“But you know, my father…” The woman purses her lips. “When I came out to him, he kicked me out immediately. Just— ‘pack your bags and get out’. Didn’t even let me say goodbye to my mom.” 

“Oh, wow,” the interviewer says. 

“Yeah.” She starts to smile. “And you know what’s fucked up? My grandfather had done the same thing to him.” 

“Oh!” 

“Mhm. Daddy wanted to be a singer. Pop-pop thought he was selfish. And a sissy. And sissies had no place in his household, no sir. So my father stole five-hundred dollars from Pop-pop’s wallet and walked out that night. And my father, he never ended up singing professionally, actually.” The woman is still smiling. “‘Cause he had me.” 

Robert scoots closer to the TV. 

“But he always loved music. He would sing everywhere. He used to sing me to sleep, actually. He’d be singing when he came home from work, even though he was dead tired. He was in love with music. And it— I—” 

The woman is blinking a lot, and Robert sympathizes. She’s trying not to cry. 

“We shared that. And it brought us close. He always said I’d make it. But…” The woman sighs deep, and blinks long and slow. “In the end, I did make it. Just not with him.” 

Then she’s laughing. And Robert is switching the TV off. 

Later that night, his father would come crashing into the house, reeking of smoke and sweat, and promptly collapse on his bed. Robert would wait until he heard his snores fill the empty space, before softly padding to the bathroom. 

In the mirror, Robert would try to imagine himself as that woman on the TV, with her effortless charm and her ephemeral glow. He’d pucker his lips and imagine what he’d look like with lipstick. He’d drape a towel around himself, pretending it was a dress. He’d twirl the strands of his short hair, and wonder how it’d look like if it was long. 

Umma had long hair. It splayed across her back like a black waterfall, and softened her face. People always said he looked exactly like his father, but his eyes and lips were all hers. He knows this as fact because sometimes his father can’t stand to even look at him. 

Robert makes up his mind right there and then. He wants his hair to be like Umma’s, he wants to wear all those dresses, and maybe do make-up too. 

Robert squares her shoulders and thinks at her reflection: That right there is a woman. 

— 

Still, of course, she will be Mecha Man. The only reason she was born, the only reason she was conceived of (even in thought), was to eventually inherit the mantle; continue the line of stalwart mechanical heroes. Mecha Man was a symbol of human persistence and innovation that has run alongside (kept up with) a rapidly metamorphosing humanity for half a dogged century. 

"You will make a good Mecha Man," her father says, one quiet night, a wound silently weeping in his side as he lays haphazardly on the living room sofa. Rendered almost drunk from pain medication, he holds Robert's thin shoulder with a broad, warm hand, still gloved from his hero outfit. This assessment is wrought with the affection he cannot express. 

Robert has measured her life in training milestones. Her worth in her ability to take pain. Her love is dedicated to a distant but steadily approaching future. A good Mecha Man.

And then her father dies. 

Abruptly, her legacy has arrived. The cock-pit is empty and waiting. Robert clambers in, small and unsure like a bird at the edge of a cliff. Before that hatch closes, Robert stares at the empty space she’s always envisioned her father standing in; the familiar patch of concrete that she’d stand in, right before her father took off to the skies. In front of the mech suit with his arms crossed and his shoulders relaxed, and a smile on his face, confident and proud. 

It’s empty. 

And the hatch closes. 

She is fifteen. The city needs her. Robert notes with rapt interest the strange balance of hero-worship and vile slander that the news paints her in. Somehow, they know she is too young. She is either a selfless and strong heir, or a reckless nepo-baby. 

"An inspirational story of a young hero, moved to protect the city after the untimely death of his father." “A line of brave men spanning three generations, even this teenaged—” “Mecha Man Blue is the worst Mecha Man to ever protect the streets of Torrance—”

Honestly, she finds it all a bit funny. And she learns to turn off the news. 

She is sixteen and has earned a good amount of scars. Robert is proud of them. They are her scars; proof that she has bled for her mantle. “A good Mecha Man.”

She is seventeen. Her face keeps growing hair. Her father once had a beard; it almost resembled an M hugging his lips. It was an inconsequential detail about him. Anyway, her face looks better without facial hair, so she shaves it every morning until it’s as smooth as the day she came into this world. 

“Know in my heart that I am a woman.” 

She is eighteen, and she learns that she is an attractive man. With little effort, she can slip into bars. If she smiles charmingly at any pretty lady that does have a fake ID, she can “handsome” her way into alcohol and music. Or, she can chat it up with the bouncer—“Did you catch the Rams game last night? Aw, dude, [whatever players’ name] had great defense”—and they usually let her slip inside after a bro-fist, ID-check forgotten. 

She doesn’t let herself drink every day. She feels uncomfortable being impaired the next morning, when lives are dependent on her competency. Though oblivion feels nice, after all the stress of saving lives, the perceiving, touching, talking that comes before… 

She knows she likes people. Just. In small doses. 

And now she is twenty-one, and out of her suit. With great effort, she has stripped herself away from her mechanical turtle shell and roams the streets of the city she protects as one of its citizens. 

It’s a Saturday. She hasn’t felt like a person in weeks. So it’s time to drink. 

--