“My friend Cody, the legendary creature with painted nails and black ringlets that reach halfway down his back. It is rumoured that he is a hermaphrodite, that he possesses extra plumbing, perhaps special powers. I have never asked him, because it is none of my business, and Cody has never inquired about the bulge in my own pants. He is a creature of immense grace and beauty, and that is all I need to know.

“I take Frances into the cafe where Cody works, to introduce them to each other with all the pomp and circumstances reqiured when in the presence of royalty.

“”Cody, I’d like you to meet my godson, Frances. Frances, this is Cody.”

“But Frances doesn’t acknowledge Cody, or his ringlets, or his fingernails at all. Something else more pressing has caught his attention. He reaches his small hand up to caress the fabric of Cody’s silver velvet shirt, tight and shimmering over his slender torso. Frances smiles in wonder to himself and his mother places her hand on my shoulder, and laughs like a leprechaun.

“”That’s my boy,” she says, and for a second I am unsure whether she is referring to Frances, Cody, or myself, but it doesn’t matter, because we are all where we belong. Home.””

—from ‘Red Sock Circle Dance’, from the collection Close to Spider Man, by Ivan E. Coyote.