when i grow up

christopher kuhl

When I grow up, after I turn eighteen (I'm seventeen now), I want to be a cowboy, a fireman, a cop, an FBI agent, a member of the Marine honor guard, a bronc buster, a rodeo rider, a NASCAR driver, a race car pit crew member-anything a girl can't be, or if is, gets laughed off the field with sarcastic wolf whistles.

I want to pee my name in the snow. I want to wear a tuxedo with a wing collar, and escort a woman-ever so lightly touching her elbow so that we glide-down a red carpet to some important formal occasion. I'll pull her chair out for her, and then push it in, and stand, ever so gallantly, when she rises to go to the powder room, and stand again when she returns.

We'll eat in restaurants where only the man's menu-the one I'm given-has the prices on it, so my date will be at my mercy, and realize what a hot-shit place this is.

I want to look like the men in clothes catalogs and GQ: casual in khakis, leaning comfortably, invitingly against a railing; in shorts and t-shirt playing a pick-up game of football, my hair ruffled in the wind; in a good-quality suit, among other men in good-quality suits, MBAs all, lounging in conversation in a room with walls sleek with wood panels, surrounding a long, highly-polished conference table, shortly before a meeting, secure in my abilities, my position, my bank account.

Secure in my abilities, my ranking, my bank account as I make my eight seconds on the unbroken bronc, the bull, never falling, always walking off to cheers, whistles, whoops, peeling off my riding glove, my points ever rising in the season's standings. My picture will cover magazines, girls will jostle, shrieking, around me, in my western shirt with pearl-faced buttons, and boot-cut Levi's, just right for my snakeskin boots, and the cut of my hat reappearing in the hats of country and western singers, who don't even know which side to mount a horse from. A real cowboy, I'll be ever gallant: yes, ma'am, no sir, tipping my hat as I drive off in my muddy, 4x4 Ford F-250.

That's what I want when I grow up, and girls who are good in bed. I mean, maybe I'll start a family someday, but why rush it?

Why rush it? Because I can't do any of these things: I'm a woman with a boy, perpetually seventeen, inside, admiring men in catalogs, on TV, in magazines, knowing I can never look like that, although I do my best, wearing jeans and boots and men's shirts.

And so I struggle in my dreams, and wake up, disoriented, confused and broken-hearted, the sheets tangled around me, thrown by the bronc, alone.