The Hermaphrodite Next Door

"Strange eyes fill strange rooms."
-The Doors, "Strange Days"

I'm going to try once again to post about the hermaphrodite from my old neighborhood. Hopefully this time I won't stray from the draft and lose it like I did last time.

Anyway, my old neighborhood was the area surrounding UNM, a neighborhood lovingly referred to as the "student ghetto," an area comprised of older, smaller houses and makeshift apartments. My own apartment was a tiny box shoddily attached to the back of a house. I shared the backyard with Curt, the man that rented out the house, and two other people that live in two more apartments surrounding the yard. Strangely enough, Curt, a bearded carpenter with dark curly hair, looked very much like Jesus. But this post isn't about Curt, it's about Greg, the hermaphrodite that eventually moved in next door, along with his schizophrenic wife.

This neighborhood seemed so strange at times that sometimes it felt like some kind of cosmic practical joke. This feeling, the idea that the joke's on me, intensified when Curt befriended the hermaphrodite, and I'd leave the house to find Greg in the driveway, with his frizzy bangs, his tie-dyed muscle shirt, his apron and a tool belt. He'd often be working on Curt's car or inviting himself over to use my grill in the backyard, whether or not Curt was with him. Once, I found him wining and dining an entire family on my back porch, and I wondered just how he got the impression that he could wander into my backyard whenever he wanted. Greg had his own backyard, overgrown with weeds, so I guess he preferred mine, which I kept looking quite pleasing. Still, I'm a generous guy, but I have to draw the line somewhere. All the time spent in my backyard he could have used to clean up his own.

Quite often, I heard yelling from next door, fights that Greg said resulted from his wife's extreme case of paranoid schizophrenia. These fights usually ended with police cars at the curb and Greg in tears.

Anyway, Greg often wore sandals, showing off his pedicured toenails, usually painted silver, but other than that he seemed all male, with his large build, his wide shoulders, and his deep voice. But I learned much more about him when my father visited me and ended up joining Greg for drinks on my porch. After a vodka tonic, Greg volunteered far more information than I would ever ask for.

"Most hermaphrodites are mostly one gender and just a bit of the other," he explained, "but the ones like me are very rare. I'm 50/50, half male half female." He went on to tell us that he cries often, that it hurts him to shave his face. But it didn't end there.

"God has blessed hermaphrodites with an extra gift," he said. According to Greg, God had given him psychic powers. "I've even had police approach me to help solve crimes," he said.

It gets even more strange, so off the wall that I looked around my backyard, waiting for the crew from Candid Camera to jump out and laugh at me. Instead, Greg stood up and went on. He pointed to his chest. "I've even got breasts."

To me, they only looked like pecs beneath his tight muscle shirt, but when he gently tapped the bottom of these pecs with the tips of his fingers, they jiggled. Greg had real boobs.

"This one time," he continued, "this woman and I were getting intimate. So she started suckin' on my nipples and whatnot, and then she got something wet on her lips. I was lactating." He sipped his vodka tonic. "Yep, I lactate."

It was then that I sensed God's presence. I think he looked directly at me from the clouds, and I almost felt a rumble as God laughed heartily and said, "Gotcha."