i picked him up the summer before, cruising across the states in my blue hired ford. he was
the hitcher, i was the driver,  a chick with a dick from sydney, pushing thirty-two, thought i
was pretty cool.

        i had holiday money, a free heart, springsteen's nebraska playing on the car stereo,
i had it all.  i gunned it down the highway across the border and there i saw him, thumb stuck out.

        i stopped to stretch my legs and smoke a cigarette before the horizon. washed out blue sky
and the crops bleaching for harvest, i knew i was far from home but still it moved in my blood.
i was hungry for reminders, anything'd do,  god knows this far into hicksville i had queer
cold turkey. i needed some affirmation, craved my reflection. hey,  i'm human.

        brandon got in, shy, diffident. the talk turned to girls and he told me his dreams of finding
the right one. he was a romantic, he wanted marriage, i just wanted sex. but brandon
wasn't interested  in my stories of sydney filth, i sensed his discomfort. you got beaches there,
haven't you? i've seen pictures - beautiful surf beaches.

        and no matter how hard i tried, i couldn't stop wanting to reach over and put my hand
between his legs: i knew what was there and i wanted a piece of it. i imagined us getting out
at the next truck stop, going into the toilets, me already hard, brandon kneeling to unbutton my
jeans, take me in his mouth.

        i dropped him off and drove on. cute but so cautious,  i forgot him almost immediately.

        later, i read about it, see photographs, i see the film. i learn how they undressed him to
her and bashed her and raped her, taking their turn. he deserved it because he was a she,
impostor, pervert. how after brandon reported them they denied it, following  him later to
a farmhouse hideaway, shooting him dead along with two others, leaving a baby crying beside her
mother's corpse.

        brandon returns, we are all haunted. the indistinctness of his voice, embroidering his pauses
words chosen by others. saying all i ever wanted was to be a boy. i just wanted to be normal, find
a woman and love her, live my life. you took my dignity you took my life, now you're doing it all
over again, sacrificing me for your cause. i don't know shit about politics and sex ain't that important.
i just wanted to be a man, fall in love with a girl the way a man does.

         i wasn't trying to start a revolution, i didn't ask to be sacrificed, his voice rising now.
is this all my life was worth, to be used as a character in a tragedy of someone else's making?
if this is my punishment, what was my crime? if i'm such a hero, where's my reward? and his gaze
is burning me branding me forever, i'm screaming in agony as i cut my cock off and watch the blood
leaving my body. my life flowing to oblivion, the mutilation, the sacrifice, blood loss unceasing.
 i can't stop it, can't stand,
i just can't stop it.

Fiona Mcgregor for  BRANDON roadtrip