Pink in the Morning

by Kit McGuire

Content Warning: Transphobia, Hate Crime

For a moment, there was nothing, like the white sunlight of la petite mort. It was comparable, perhaps, to the moment the water hits your ears as you dive into a pool; a fraction of a second when your whole body recalibrates. I was instantly high on adrenaline. Blooming from that empty moment came heat—pain—spiralling from the imprint of his knuckles on my left cheekbone and across my nose like a child’s drawing of fireworks. Every single thing in the world, in that second moment, existed in the blood slamming against my skin. The park blurred and swam, first as I craned backwards and down, then as I swept up to standing and swung. It had occurred to me before, when I’d considered this moment becoming my reality, that I’d be disparaged for getting violent. I ought to be bullied and defenceless, and thus maintain my innocence in this at least. But I’m not defenceless. Besides, I had some stupid idea tangled into my foundational beliefs that it was better to be in a fight than to be beaten up.

It’s not. I’d never argue that a beaten party ought to have fought back if they didn’t. But in that moment, as it came, as I thought it might, I fumbled for some sense of agency. That sense manifested in my closed fist; right hook, short swing, swift contact. I hit him in the jaw. In hindsight, I wish I’d gone for a neat jab to his thorax, but to be fair, I had just been spat on, shoved into the wrong toilets, shouted at, and decked in the face by some prick with no ability to self-reflect. I’ll forgive my poor tactical choice. I wasn’t thinking clearly.

My fist connected with his jaw. There was a crisp pain in my knuckles, a warmth which curled around my fingers and threaded up to my wrist. And then his thick, gammony hands came for me. He punched me in the face again, and then he did it again. My shirt was bunched in his hand, just below my neck. It kept me on my feet. I’d like to say I thought about kneeing him in the balls, or going for another swing, but there was nothing in my head but blood. The third hit had brought a new kind of pain; something really terrible, searing, running from just under my nose and through my lip. I don’t think there are enough words for pain. We have plenty of adjectives—we can describe it ‘til the bloody cows come home—but there’s just the one noun.

Through its din, I remember my shirt at the small of my back, bunched and drunk with sweat; my attacker was grunting in the way I imagine a boar might; cars heaved past on the road about two hundred yards behind us and I could hear their engines, still; I could hear gasps from people I couldn’t reach; the sun baked the stillness around us; the blood in my mouth tasted like mixed metals but was oozy with mucus; there was a rasping, bestial sound I couldn’t place; I had to think about how to breathe and I had to think hard. But it was all pain. Inside and outside my head was all pain, and I didn’t even flinch for the fourth hit. Which was fine, surprisingly, because it didn’t fall.

“—cking dare you—”

“You want some?”

“You think that’s a good idea? Somebody take a fucking picture!”

I had heard it. Whenever I glance down at Victoria Park from the top deck of the 277, whenever I go back to that morning, I remember hearing it. It’s strange, I don’t actually recall it when I’m combing through the sensations of the moment, but it must have wormed its way in because I remember how they sounded. I remember their tone. I remember the distance, reaching across in swift desperation. But I only remember it when I get to this part, when I realised that I wasn’t imagining it, like it took the context to process it. I have to repeat the process every time. As the second hit landed, there came Tal’s voice: “Get off him!”

I lurched forward when the man was pulled from me, his grip still tight on my shirt for a blink, but it slackened and fell. I steadied myself with a step. Through the cluster of tears and blood and stars, Tal was haloed in July sunshine as they put their body between me and him. One hand, their left hand, was reaching back to me, palm flat, tension rippled up their arm. I don’t remember deciding to reach back—I don’t think I made that choice—but like a babe learning to walk, staggering for whatever solid upright object they can see, I raised my hand. I made some pathetic grasp at their wrist. Without turning to look at me, they grabbed my hand, tight and deadly certain. At the grip, a sob wrenched its way from my already-heaving chest out of my throat. Letting my face move that much sent another wave of pain over my mouth and nose. I took whatever strength wasn’t keeping me on my feet to hold their hand.

The first time we held hands, my breath had caught. It was just under a year before; we’d just got on the Piccadilly line, on our way back from a show in Piccadilly Circus itself. Date number five. We were getting comfortable so cautiously. We sat down on the train, and they turned their palm upwards on the arm rest between seats and drew their gaze from their hand to my eyes with a silly sort of wariness. The train hurled itself from platform to platform and we did our little slow-motion dance. I slotted my fingers between theirs, meeting our palms. Their hand was cold and larger than mine, and they closed their fist so their fingerprints dusted the dimples of my knuckles.

Tal stepped back, pulling my hand forward a little to counterbalance, though not enough to topple me to the ground. A fog had gathered by this point, what with the swamp of my face and the adrenaline and the heat and the near-overwhelming relief, and it left blotches over my memory. They were both shouting. It didn’t last long. Something about hate crime and photos and phones. I didn’t see the prick leave. What I did see, sudden and bright in the clear morning sun, was Tal’s face. They released my hand and turned to me; my Victoria Park was condensed and tacky, with room now for two people, and there they were. Me and them. Steady. Here.

They had a hand on each of my shoulders. By this point that was all that was holding me up; I’m still not quite sure how I stayed on my feet up to that point, what with my sinuses stuffed and my world knocked longways. My inner ear was churning like a washing machine for a minute there. Their hands were at my shoulders, and I trusted their guidance. I trusted the solidity of their frame if not my own. Their right hand flicked to my chin, along my jaw, so cautious as to be more a whisper than a touch. Their amateur examination concluded with a sticky-throated Oh my God.

I couldn’t work out if I was supposed to say something. I didn’t want to move my mouth, but they had this deer-like expression, so still you’d wonder if they’d been paused if it wasn’t for the twitching of their eyes, over my face, over and over. Their mouth was parted, so their two front teeth peaked out below their top lip, just a glimmer, beneath their cupid’s bow. Time pulled like taffy. Our brains both jammed as we tried to process; them my bloody state, and me their very presence. We weren’t meeting until eleven, but I had to be early. I’m always early. Early enough for a quick piss before they showed up.

“Okay.” Something was calibrating, shoving the shock of the moment to the back burner. For as long as we stood staring at each other, I dripped searing blood down my shirt and their mouth got drier and drier. The only action plan I was capable of coming up with was sit down. Or maybe clean up blood. They tidied up their panic and knocked their pragmatism into gear. “I’ll call an Uber. We’ll get you to A&E. The café might have a first aid kit.” They looked up, sudden and sharp as a fox. “Hey, can you—hey!”

In my daze, I glanced up to follow their eye-line; I couldn’t focus, but a smudge of a person was standing nearby. Not just one person, actually. We were in Victoria Park on a gorgeous summer morning. It wasn’t just one person.

“Check if the café has a first aid kit. Go on!”

“Were they—” I cut myself off. Or rather, the cacophonous pain in my lip cut me off. Aftershocks of the strikes rippled over my face. I raised my hand to my mouth, the demand to understand the damage finally winning out over fear of the same.

“Don’t,” they said, their hand coming to my hand, lifting it away. But it was too late.

That first instance—the ginger, calculating tap of my fingertip—wasn’t enough to let my brain comprehend what had happened. It was enough to fill me, absolutely, with dread. They had my hand. Still more cautiously, I prodded the curve of my top lip, dead in the centre, with my tongue. It wasn’t until that moment of confirmation that I realised what I was afraid of. My attacker had these big, chunky rings on. Or at least one. And I had a Medusa; a pretty gold stud nestled in that lovely little divot above my top lip. My tongue was coated now in blood and my gag reflex fidgeted. When I met their eye, I met my horror, reflected.

Oh, God.

I don’t remember the second time we held hands, but I remember an evening early on, just on the wrong side of autumn, walking along Embankment. Neither of us had brought coats, summer had been so hot and so long. We clutched our freezing hands. The expanse of the river intensified the chill, so we peeled away in the hope that the crammed concrete might insulate us better. It did a bit. We headed up to Seven Dials in search of food. Ever averse to crowds, Tal yanked me off the main road down St Martin’s Court, then stopped dead at a shop window.

“That one.”

I looked beyond where their finger was pressed against the glass, perplexed. It was a tattoo shop, and a display case was set up near the front. The context of previous conversations fell into place; at the time, my Medusa was pinned with a small titanium ball, once treated to look gold, but tarnished by time and spit. I’d said I wanted to replace it with real gold when I could afford to. My dream gold stud stared back at us from the display case, winking at Tal’s finger.

“Yeah, just like that.”

“We’re getting it.”

“I cannot justify buying gold jewellery right now.”

“Happy birthday.”

It was not my birthday and it wasn’t Christmas and it wasn’t Purim. They dragged me into the shop anyway.

With a seam now ripped down my face, vomiting was absolutely the worst possible thing I could have done. I remain grateful that I did not do it, but it really was a close thing. My mouth was already full of different fluids, but I could pretty much feel my saliva glands engage, and the rancid, sweaty stench of bile flooded what little space remained in my sinuses. In the same few seconds, I watched their expression shift, slow and definite. There was a decision. There was my hand in their hand.

“It’s going to be okay,” they said, clear as fountain spray through the roaring in my ears. Their other hand was rooted to my shoulder. “You’re going to be okay. We’ll get you to A&E, and they will fix this.”

Utterly, I believed them.

They didn’t actually book the Uber until the staff member came out with this blue box. The stranger who’d been sent to find this staff member stood at a passive distance, like a temp with an anxiety disorder waiting to be dismissed. I’m not sure how much bullshit this barista had to put up with on the daily, but she managed to power through the sight of me with a poker face. I think I caught it falter at first sight, but for less than a second. She’d have made a good paramedic. Not actually being a paramedic, though, she had only a scrappy idea of what she was doing. She guided us to a bench and had me sit—at this point Tal was calling the Uber—then she started rifling through the box. I didn’t recognise her. We’d not been here since last summer. It was Tal’s idea, our fourth date; we’d gotten iced black americanos like good gays and walked looping spirals around the park.

Around me, through tears and sweat, the park shifted in and out of focus. A few yards away, pigeons took turns around the grass. Their necks shimmered with oil-slick iridescence in the sunshine. Some kids were squabbling over a ball at the railings beside the lake. I heard the ripping of paper, and the barista’s steady expression filled my vision. Understandably, she avoided my lip with magnetic resistance, a north pole each in her hand and my mouth. The alcohol wipe on my cheek was a neat sort of pain; a familiar sting, concentrated on the broken skin, along with the uneven, throbbing pressure where a bruise was ripening, my skin swelling like earth around a germinating seed. I don’t really know how long it was between booking the Uber and its arrival; each dab and wipe took an age, I think, but I often find that the moment of that first impact and of first seeing myself with stitches in my face could have been concurrent. It was enough time for Tal to dip inside and get a whole load of napkins.

The barista deferred to their greater knowledge; not of first aid, but of me. Tal didn’t know how much pain I could take or how I like to receive aid when it’s needed, but our eyes met. They started with the mess of pinkened drool at my chin. The barista stood as a nurse, taking the rubbish as it came, passing what was needed. I appreciated the attention to clean-as-you-go. It’s the only way to work, in my experience. They wet a napkin, looked me in the eye, and dropped their gaze to my top lip. Their irises are ocean grey. Waves of burning, wet, wicked pain crashed over me, pressed against my teeth. I kept my eyes on theirs. I grappled with my pain for steadier breaths through my broken mouth and broken nose. They cleaned the excess blood, exacting and temperate, until the Uber arrived.

I caught the driver’s eye for half a second as we negotiated ourselves into the car; amongst other things, I swear I could see an understandable concern for the state of his seats. I still had the wad of napkins—if I could have spoken, I’d have promised to do my best to keep my blood to myself. If there was any acknowledgement of fear for the upholstery, I was out of earshot for it. Somehow I doubted Tal would have taken that concern kindly. I think the driver had the wherewithal to keep it to himself.  

In the back of the car, having tentatively strapped myself in, my hand was again taken. We rolled forward almost silently—it was one of those hybrid Toyotas that were so popular on Uber at the time. I looked to Tal as Victoria Park slipped away. Their lips were pressed together, calculating gaze roughly mapping the roads and the route on the app, before turning back to me. I could practically feel how much they were clenching their teeth. My jaw was loose, relaxed at pain’s demand. I think they were trying to work out what to say.

I pulled my sodden clump of napkins from my mouth for long enough to say, “You okay?” It was all right—they’re sounds you can make without moving your top lip. I almost laughed at the utter bewilderment they fixed on me.

“Am I okay?”

I nodded.

“Am I okay. You’re asking if I’m okay?”

The napkins pressed to my mouth were dutifully soaking up my blood, and between broken skin and swelling, I imagine that the top half of my face was as illegible as that which I was obscuring. So I squeezed their hand. I tried, in a touch, to be understood. We’d done it before, in cluttered living rooms and noise-crammed bars; knocked our knees together or brushed fingers against a bicep. We’d had whole conversations in eye contact. I squeezed their hand. I knew what I was asking. I meant it.

Last Christmas, I introduced them to my sister—she’s big into classic cars. We drove out to this hotel—the only place to eat in my sister’s back-end-of-nowhere town—and the car sounded like a fat cat the whole way there. Tal sat up front. A couple of minutes in, I caught their eye in the rearview mirror: Why does your sister fucking drive like this? I ran a finger along their shoulder and smiled in the mirror, as reassuring as I could be whilst laughing at them. On the way back, they sat next to me and toyed with my knuckles like stress balls while the engine yowled and my sister took the corners way too hard. She’s never had an accident.

I told them, later, cosied up on the sofa-bed, how she started taking me for rides around the lanes at night the minute she got her license. We’d go 80 down these single-track, unlit, crappily paved roads at half eleven, me in my PJs and her in her old school blazer with the sleeves cut off, Lindsey Buckingham competing with the engine for best vocalist. I don’t think I’ll ever feel normal in an electric car. Back in London, Tal told me that they didn’t know how I could have had conversations in cars like that all my life. I said something about trying to have a conversation on the Vicky Line. Once you reach that stretch between Finsbury Park and Tottenham Hale, you’ve just got to wait it out.

In the weird quiet of the Toyota, I listened to their breath grow uneven, the practical focus that had been forced to take the reins by the emergency shivering under interrogation. They shifted their grip to knot our fingers together, knuckles locking each other into place. Their little crow’s feet tightened and their forehead creased. I ran my thumb in small circles on the back of their hand.