A Shrine to an Unknown God

BONE MARROW

WE LEAVE THE AIRPORT. Dahlia leads us to her mini bus. Outside, all the lurid colors drive daggers into my eyes. Here, everything is lush, green, and sepia-hued. The humidity is so strong it's suffocating. The only two familiar things are the heat—pooling down the back of my spine, so oppressive I can taste it—and the palm trees as they sway in the breeze.

Dahlia's mini bus is bulky, big, and old, with chipped greenish paint, clear tape in place of one of the back windows, and bright stickers all up and down the rear of it. A large tail extends from its back end. She and Ezra get into the front two seats, and I get into the cramped back. (Only after Ezra tells me that no, I cannot sit in his lap for the ride.)

Mucky saltwater, earthy skunk, and something sour and chemical but strangely sweet wafts over me. A film of sand covers every surface. Old food wrappers (which I can tell once were food wrappers by the crumbs stuck all over them) and crumbled up papers are strewn about the seats. Strange items of clothing—things that would cover nearly all of a person and things that would barely cover a sliver of skin—and several brown boxes full of seashells, rocks, and various gems and crystals share the backseat with me. Damp towels lay bunched at my feet. When I go to buckle the seatbelt like I was taught to do back in Athens, the tiny metal piece burns me.

"Sorry about the mess," Dahlia says. "It's always like this. Usually much worse. So is my life, though, LOL."

"What happened to the back window?" Ezra asks. "Were you robbed?"

"Oh, no, señor." She starts the car up and backs out into the parking lot. "When I first got Bertha—that's this ol' baby's name—Marisol and I were loading up our boards, and she accidentally knocked the window out. I covered for her and told my moms it was me, and since they thought it was my fault, I had to be the one to get it fixed. I tried saving up at first but there were just so many pretty shinies I wanted to spend my money on, so basically it's never getting fixed."

"You have two moms?" Ezra states. "You've mentioned them before, but I just now realized that."

"Yeah. Cool, right?"

"Hella. Makes my gay heart happy."

"How does it work?" I ask.

Dahlia makes a face. "What do you mean?"

"That you have two moms. I mean, how were you born?"

"Same way you were. Poof, out the vagina."

"Yes, but there needs to be a man."

"Oh, Lordy Jesus," says Ezra.

Dahlia snickers. "Not always."

"How?"

I'm genuinely curious. The prospect of childbirth with no man involved interests me, to say the least.

"Well," says Dahlia, "first of all, not all men have penises, and not all people with penises are men. Genitals don't equal gender, so jot that down."

"Amen!" Ezra adds.

"You could have a trans woman and a cis woman, or a trans guy and a cis guy, or any number of combination with non-binary folks, and they could have kids together," Dahlia continues. "There's also artificial insemination. Which, yeah, a man's involved, but not really. And a trans woman or AMAB non-binary person could always donate sperm, too. And I think scientists are working on this thing where you can use bone marrow to impregnate people with vaginas. So theoretically two cis women could have a kid together. I dunno, I saw it on Tumblr."

Transgenderism I am familiar with. It's prevalent in our religion and our culture, and mostly accepted. My father is sometimes a woman, and has had children from partners of many different genders and genitalia. So I guess the concept of it is not as unfamiliar to me as I had thought. But the other stuff she speaks of...

"What's artificial insemination? And this thing with bone marrow, what else do you know about it?"

"Oh, it's when someone with a penis donates some sperm to some lab, and then someone with a vagina can be impregnated by it without the two of them having to have sex. And I honestly don't know anything else about the bone marrow stuff, but isn't it so badass?"

"How do you get artificially inseminated?"

"Well, shit, man, I dunno."

"In this show I watched this one girl artificially inseminated herself with a turkey baster," Ezra replies. "All to manipulate this one guy into staying with her. And she's not even a bad guy. I mean, she kind of is, but everyone still loves her."

"Ezra, sometimes I really worry about you," says Dahlia.

"Is that how you were born?" I ask. "Artificial insemination."

"I'm hungry." Dahlia says in response. "Are y'all hungry? There's this great vegan ice cream place coming up. And I've got some emergency cash in Bertha. Needing ice cream absolutely counts as an emergency, so shut your faces."

"Do they have anything that, like, a normal human being can eat?" Ezra asks.

"The ice cream tastes completely fine, dude. It's just dairy-free."

"I guess I can try it. So long as you pay."

"What's ice cream?" I ask.

"The most delicious thing in the world. Don't worry, you'll love it," Dahlia replies. "So, anyways, Ezra, where do you live?"

"Hell."

"I'm serious. I need to know where to drop your dumb ass off after we get ice cream."

A long awkward pause as Ezra dramatically looks out the window, then at Dahlia. "I was actually thinking maybe I could stay with you while you keep Antigone with you. I just—I live alone, and I don't really feel like being alone right now, you know?"

"Oh, dude, for sure. My place is plenty big for the three of us. Wait 'til you guys see the view." She mimes an explosion. "It'll blow your minds."