Baseball Hats and Boxers

A Story by Monica Garcia

A glimpse at identity...

“Are you a boy or a girl?”

I knew the answer I always wanted to say; the one that felt most comfortable…the one that felt like me. But I found myself spitting out the expected four letters that always unfairly defined me.

That Sunday morning was the worst. The Sunday morning that I came bounding down the stairs in my oversized plaid boxers sticking out of my brother’s old ripped jeans with my baseball hat turned backwards, and a big goofy smile on my face.

“My daughter will wear a dress in the house of God.” He demanded.

I remember thinking to myself that his shiny black church shoes must be tied a little too tightly this morning. His voice was cold, and his grip on my tiny wrist felt sharp and excruciating like the time I tried to fit my hand inside of the jawbreaker machine at City Market. He dragged me back up the stairs knocking off my baseball hat and insisted that I put on a dress.

“Well maybe God can come play at our house today, daddy. Then He and I can both wear our baseball hats and boxers.”

Looking back, maybe his church shoes were always tied too tightly. He rarely found me funny.

But that was the thing; I wasn’t ever trying to be funny. I was always just trying to be me. As a child, I must have been delayed in picking up the social norms of society. I found nothing wrong with standing up while I urinated. I found it completely acceptable to sag my pants and wear my father’s aftershave. And I just near had a mid-adolescent crisis when I found out that I wasn’t allowed to join boy scouts. As I got older I learned that pissing all over myself�"because I lacked a vitally important tool to pee standing up�"was not okay. I also realized that girls are expected to wear pants three sizes too tight and shirts six inches too low. It was a gender law that I must sell cookies instead of popcorn, knit friendship scarves instead of build pinewood derby cars, and sing at old people homes instead of go camping and rock climbing.

When I was twelve I thought that I had finally beaten the system. I would join the community baseball team. It was in those fields that I finally found freedom as I disguised myself behind dirt smudges, sunburns, and baseball hats. It was in those fields that it didn’t matter if I was a boy or girl. All that mattered was how far I could make those red stitches soar.

When football season arrived I found myself playing on an all boys flag football team. I was home. Until my father found out that I was not in fact at cheerleading practice, and his tight church shoes stepped in once again and dragged my stubborn a*s off of the muddy field.

I longed for the day that when somebody would ask him “is that your son or daughter?” he would jump out of his coward skin and proudly say back, “that is my child. And I love her.”

I am 24 years old now. I still haven’t fully grasped the concept of the social norm. I wore a dress to his funeral and felt guilty every time I had to uncomfortably fidget to readjust my boxers that I had on underneath. Sometimes I feel even guiltier when I realize that I never gave him a beautiful daughter to walk down the aisle. I never gave him the grandchild he always begged me for so he could spoil him rotten. I never allowed him to give me the “every parent’s worst nightmare” sex talk. I never gave him: the picture of me and my prom date, s****y lipstick that he’d force me to take off, painted nails, bonnets on Easter, shoe shopping trips from hell, bouncing curls, swept floors, clean dishes, ballet shoes, lacey underwear…and a beautiful little girl.