Chapter 1

Emery C. Walters, nee Carol Ann Forde, died blah blah, 2076, (why not?). The death was accidental; Mr. Walters slipped on a piece of chocolate while trying to get the last sip of iced tea out of a Starbucks cup, causing him to fall onto his pirate sword and skewer himself like a barbequed chicken. He was born on April 15, 1943, in the one-time crime capital of the world, East St. Louis, Illinois, after a rushed trip with police escort to the wrong hospital. He almost ended up being born Catholic instead of Episcopalian.

No visitation or funeral will be held, as those who loved him saw him and or interacted online with him while he was alive, and besides, the pirate-themed birthday party would be too hard to beat.

Oh yeah, the female to male bit.

Emery was a writer and photographer and liked nothing more than embarrassing his friends and family in public. ‘Blabbermouth’ was one of his nicknames. He was a geocacher, trained Ninja, and a founding member of the ‘Curiosity Killed the Cat but it Hasn’t Hurt Me Too Much Yet’ club.

A survivor of many ‘oh shit’ moments, glaucoma threats, disease of the month, and a few other assorted off-to-the-hospital occasions, he finally had to succumb to the ‘everyone-dies-and-that-includes-me theory’ which seems to have turned out to be true.

He was employed over the years by a box factory, a police station, and a county government; was a volunteer probation officer, scout leader, room mother, and book stocker. He enjoyed snorkeling and hiking and hated to travel.

He was the author of many books, most of which you’ve never heard of, and producer of thousands of photos, most of which should have been deleted but weren’t. All of these can be found online (e.g., at Amazon under Emery C. Walters) or somewhere in the piles of crap on his desk, if you’re really interested. Though none of the books have been best sellers (yet), he donated many to organizations and libraries where their messages of hope, overcoming, and the fact that you never know when there’s going to be a party might reach the people who need them most.

Whew! Emery is survived by his loving and patient wife, four children and their spouses or partners, and seven grandchildren, sister and niece and nephews. There are/were many friends and young people he loved as well, too many to list, but you know who you are. There may even be great-grandchildren by now. Bear in mind that none of his biological descendants can do anything at all about carrying his genes, bwah hah hah.

“I Told You I Was Sick,” were his last words.What Took Me So Long?

Several times I’ve been asked why I have not written an autobiography. The answer is that writing fiction is more fun. A second answer is, I’m boring. My wife and I are just another old boring, married retired couple, with just that one little thing that makes us different—we were both brought up in the opposite gender to what we are now. Big whoop, right?

Then we met and married and changed genders and lived happily ever after. The end.

She’s older than I am so her story starts earlier, but our lives dovetailed with each other’s at precisely the right time. How did we get from point A to B?

By long and different roads, through tangled woods with no map.Part One: Baby and Toddler

Maybe I was a mistake; a biological mistake, like a club foot or a port wine stain. Wine, sounds good. BRB. ***

I don’t like autobiographies, they’re too boring, there’s no plot, and the ‘hero’ is so, so perfect. NOT. Mine will not be like that. If that’s what you want, close the book now, buy some coffee and go home. Go to the movies. Robin Williams could have played me in the movie adaptation of my story, the book you are holding now.

So many stories start at the beginning and go on to the end; mine has no end as yet, and I hope, won’t for a long time. Or looked at sideways, has had many endings. I was a child; I was a teenager, a young married woman, an older married-to-a-different-person woman, and then, finally, I became me. Is that six? If I were a cat, I’d have three more; unless I get perfect in some way, I’m not sure I can handle three more of me. I’m not sure I can handle this one, let alone what’s left over from the previous five.

But let’s begin.

There’s a young couple in a 1939 Mercury, let’s say, speeding toward a hospital in East Saint Louis, Illinois. I have no idea what they’d done with the prototype, I mean, their first child, but number two is on the way and apparently, I am in a hurry. A police car gives chase to the speeding car; then when he sees my mother, blowing and grimacing, and my dad for once panicky and brittle, proceeds to lead, wrongly, straight to the closest hospital. So I was almost born Catholic.