Robert Barton was born a boy who loved to dress up as a girl. That was his only crime.
When he was 16, five high school football players and a man raped and brutalized him for hours before dumping him in a vacant lot.
The day after he is found alive, the bodies of his assailants start stacking up in the morgue.
Detective Sylvia Gomez must find this avenging angel before he or she takes out the last player and it's game over!
My father, Henry Barton, was a New York City fireman, and a two-fisted drinker. Most of the policemen on the lower East Side of Manhattan knew the 6-foot tall Irishman from the barroom brawls they had to break up. Henry never started them, but always finished them.
Tonight, the Barton family’s pillar of strength was pacing back and forth in the maternity ward of the New York Presbyterian Hospital. Although he had been through this event five times before, he was anxiously awaiting news of my birth. Present with him to lend support were my grandmother, Tilly, my oldest brother Henry Jr, age 12, Danny age 10, Curtis age 9, Martin age 7, and my sister Catherine age 4.
The reason for my father’s anxiety was because my mom, Sara, had never taken more than two hours to deliver any of my siblings. It was going on the fifth hour when Dr. Wallace came out, his forehead beading with sweat, and announced that he had just delivered a healthy six-pound boy. Everyone turned around in shock when they heard Catherine scream “No!” as she stomped her feet. She told the doctor to put me back in and give her a sister. Everyone broke out in laughter, all but Catherine who sat back down and pouted.
Catherine refused to come and see me for an entire week. If any of the neighbors asked her what our mother had, she always told them that I was a girl and my name was Roberta. My mother thought it was funny; my father did not. But Catherine’s resentment of me changed one day. It was the day she walked into the kitchen and my mother was breastfeeding me.
Sara was happy to see that Catherine didn’t run out, but instead stayed and watched as I suckled on her breast. She asked my mom if I was hurting her, and she assured her that I wasn’t because I didn't have any teeth. Mom was surprised when she asked if she could hold me. After a few minutes of instructing Catherine on how to hold me, she placed me in her arms. Catherine giggled with glee when I smiled at her and marveled at the way I looked at her. It was at that moment she accepted me; as her baby sister.
Henry Jr. was the first to notice Catherine calling me Roberta. He ran and told Mom. Mom confronted her and asked her to stop doing it, but even at age four, Catherine was very strong-willed. Mom gave up correcting her long before Catherine stopped calling me Roberta. Even Father’s threats of getting the belt didn’t dissuade her from calling me, Roberta. The last time she did it in front of my father was when he threatened to spank her. Instead of stopping, she said Roberta as loud as she could, stuck out her tongue, and then ran into the bedroom and hid under the bed. Grandmother was laughing when he threw up his hands and said he gave up.
I began walking exactly one day after my first birthday. Mom and Grandmother were on their knees with their arms outstretched trying to get me to let go of the couch I was using for support.
Suddenly, Catherine walked into the room, knelt, and said, “Come here, Roberta.”
I squealed, let go of the couch, and waddled over to her with my hands in the air. She caught me before I fell inches from her. Mom and Grandmother were shocked as I walked out of the room with Catherine. After that day, I followed Catherine everywhere she went into the house. If I wasn’t in my playpen, Mom knew she only had to look in my sister’s room to find me there playing or sleeping.
One of those places I could usually be found with Catherine was the bathroom. It was Catherine, not Mom or Dad, who potty trained me. The only problem was she trained me to pee like a girl; sitting down. At first, Mom voiced her objection to Catherine teaching me to pee sitting down. Then she changed her mind after Catherine purposely made me pee on the toilet seat and Mom sat on it a few times.
By the time I was two I was responding to both Robert and Roberta. I didn’t think it was odd. I knew my name was Robert, but that Catherine was the only one allowed to call me Roberta. This made my big sister seem even more special to me. She seemed to have more authority than Mom and Dad. When I needed a snack, I went to Catherine. When I needed my diaper changed, I went to her. If Mom scolded me, I ran to Catherine to be comforted.
By the time I was three, my light brown hair was shoulder-length. One of our favorite games to play was the tea party. Catherine would dress me in one of the dresses she could no longer fit into. To make it fit me, she would tie it around me with one of Dad’s ties. Then she would sneak into Mom’s room and borrow her lipstick and pearl necklace.
The first time Dad and Mom saw me dressed up, complete with makeup and my hair in two braids, they laughed. However, they weren’t laughing when it was time for me to go to start kindergarten and I refused to take off the dress.
*_*_*_*
I was so happy when the day came to go to school. So was Mom until she tried to take off my dress. After an hour of wrestling with me, she gave up and assumed that the teasing from the other kids would make me take it off on my own.
What she didn’t know was that the kids weren’t the ones who would have a problem with my attire. It was the gender-specific tyrant who was in charge of developing my mind that would be my main adversary. That person was Emily Falk.
Emily had us all standing in front of the classroom waiting to be seated at our desks. She would stand by a desk and call the students’ names. Once they were seated she would move on to the next name. When she called me and I walked over to the desk she said she hadn’t called my name yet. When I insisted that my name was Robert, Emily lifted my dress, pulled down my underwear, and exposed my penis. The other children broke out in hysterics laughing.
Emily dragged me into Principal Morton Simmons’s office by arm. I told her I was hurting from her grip but she ignored me. Once inside his office, Morton lifted my dress again and looked at my penis. I couldn’t understand why they were so fascinated with it. I couldn’t wait to go home and ask one of my brothers if all the teachers looked at theirs as well.
When Mom showed up she had a look of panic on her face. I ran and jumped into her arms, hugging and kissing her. She asked me if I was alright and I told her yes, except for my arm where Emily had grabbed me. Mom took one look at my bruised arm and grabbed Emily by the hair. It took Mr. Simmons and his secretary to stop my mom from punching her in the face. I never went back to that school.
To avoid another incident like the one with Emily, my mom met with the principal and the kindergarten teacher at the next school before enrolling me. The principal, Mr. Hank Sloan asked me if I was a girl or a boy. I told him I was a boy. When he asked me how I knew I was a boy, I lifted my dress, pulled down my underwear, and showed him my penis.
My future kindergarten teacher, Carmen Lopez, was present and laughed when I explained to him that girls didn’t have a pee-pee. Hank obviously wasn’t one to leave things alone when he asked me why I was wearing a dress if I was a boy. I told him because I looked pretty in them. Mom and Carmen laughed not because of the answer, but because I looked at him as if he had asked the dumbest question in the world.
They were much more understanding and tolerant at Portman Elementary. Hank told Mom they’ve had kids who at my age thought they were vampires, invisible, and a kid who wore his Superman Halloween costume to school every day. He assured my mom that I would grow out of the “little problem.” How disappointed he was when I graduated eight years later still wearing a dress.
On the first day of school, I met my soon-to-be best friend. His name was Tyreek Lamar Campbell. He was African-American, had a small afro, and was the biggest kid in the class. He also had a bad cold. When he sat at the desk next to me, I ran over to Carmen’s desk, grabbed some tissue, and wiped his nose. The other kids laughed when I told him to blow.
Tyreek thanked me and told me I was very pretty. The kids laughed when Carmen informed Tyreek that I was a boy and not a girl. That’s when Tyreek shocked everyone when he said, “I know but he’s still pretty.”
From that day on we were always together. All the kids accepted the way I looked. The girls even asked me to play games with them including jump rope. But mostly they liked to play with and touch my long hair.
I only had one small problem on the first day of school that Carmen had to address, and that was when it was time for a bathroom break. I went to the boy’s bathroom and found two second-graders already inside. They told me I was in the wrong bathroom and to get out. I told them I was a boy and went inside the stall.
They climbed up on the outside of the stall and peered over. When I stood up and they saw my penis, they dropped down and waited for me to come out. I don’t remember the names they called me, but I do remember the punches and kicks. One of the boys was trying to pull off my dress when Tyreek came in.
The boys were shocked when he picked them up and slammed them on the ground. One boy was knocked out and bleeding from the back of his head. Tyreek was in the process of knocking out two of the second boy’s baby teeth when several teachers ran in after hearing the commotion.
Carmen had finished cleaning me up when Dad and Mom rushed into the principal’s office. Tyreek’s mother was talking to Hank at the moment. Dad didn’t notice that I was wearing a dress at first. He started ranting at Tyreek’s mother for not teaching him to not pick on smaller kids.
That was when Carmen got in Dad’s face and told him that he should be on his knees thanking Tyreek for saving me. She also mentioned a few other things about snap judgments but it went over my head. All I know is that it was funny to see someone as small as Carmen scolding my dad.
I wished her admonishment had lasted longer when Dad turned around and saw me sitting on Mom’s lap wearing my dress. Mom was mad at him because he was more concerned about my appearance than to notice the pain I was in. Carmen, however, did notice and ran over to me just as I passed out in Mom’s arms.
The x-rays revealed that one of my ribs was fractured. When Dad heard the diagnosis his thinking toward me changed. He realized how I could have died if it had not been for someone standing up for me. As he held my hand as I slept, he made a silent promise to accept me whether I wore a dress or not.
I was home for over a month. Martin, with who I shared a bedroom, hadn’t spoken to me for over three weeks. It was Catherine who told me why he was giving me the cold shoulder. It seems Martin had a few fights because of my idiosyncrasy. The reason why no one knew about them was that they happened after school in Hyman Park which was a block from the school.
Martin walked into the room and started arguing with Catherine about me. But when he called me a faggot she punched him in the nose knocking him into the hallway. Although she was only nine and Martin was twelve, Catherine was tall enough to look him in the eye.
Mom and Grandmother ran in and pulled her off of him, demanding to know what it was about. When Catherine repeated the word that he had said, Mom scolded him. Martin argued back, blaming Catherine for raising me to be the way I am, and that if Mom had been a better mother, I would have turned out normal. That’s when she slapped him hard across the face.
Martin stared at Mom in disbelief before running out of the house. Mom never spanked us. She either threatened to tell Dad, or she did something special for the rest of the family, excluding you. Grandmother didn’t share that policy. If you did something wrong and she could catch you, you got a spanking.
It took Dad, and the police department, three days to find him. He was hiding in the boiler room of the building next to us. Mom, Dad, and Grandmother had a long talk with him. They explained to Martin that he didn’t have to like the way I was, but that he still had to love me as his brother.
They reminded him of how Curtis, Danny, and Henry Jr. came to his aid when the kids on the block were teasing him about his stuttering. Danny, who overheard the conversation, chimed in by telling him how annoying his speech impediment was but he wasn’t going to let anyone pick on his little brother but him.
Martin overcame his stuttering with the help of the family following the instructions from a speech therapist. He then asked Mom why not send me to a psychiatrist. She informed them they had spoken to one and they assured her that I would probably grow out of it. When Martin asked what if I didn’t and Danny answered that they would kill me, Catherine chased him around the house with a broom.
A part of me knew that Danny was joking, but I still insisted that Catherine sleep with me that night.
The next day at school I was swarmed by my classmates. The girls were the most concerned and happiest to see me. Carmen had the classroom decorated with a streamer that said, “Welcome back Robert!” But it was Tyreek who I ran to and hugged.
I thought about him the first week I was in bed. I asked him how come he didn’t visit me while I was out sick. He said his parents wouldn’t bring him although he asked them every day for two weeks. Tyreek said he stopped asking when his mother slapped him and ordered him to stop being my friend.
When I asked him why she told him that, he said it was because I was wearing a dress. Tears began to well up in my eyes and I told Tyreek that I would take the dress off if it meant saving our friendship. Then he said something that brought a smile to my face and made me wipe away my tears.
He said, “Then you wouldn’t be my special friend.”
I never had any more trouble with the older kids. Everyone knew what Tyreek did to the boys who bothered me, and he was always by my side. When I had to go to the bathroom, he went with me even if he didn’t have to go himself.
By the time I was in the second grade Martin was already in his first year of high school. Tyreek took on the responsibility of protecting me from the older kids who thought they had a free shot with Martin out of the way. But they all forgot about Catherine because she was a girl and didn’t know she could fight.
It was during recess when I was sitting on a bench eating my pudding and talking with a couple of the girls. Tyreek was on the other side of the schoolyard playing with a Frisbee. A group of 4th graders was staring at me and whispering. Julio, a Puerto Rican kid who was kicked out of another school came over and knocked my pudding cup into my lap.
Tyreek didn’t see the incident, but Catherine whose classroom window faces the schoolyard did. She bolted out of the classroom and tackled Julio from behind. The impact knocked him down, causing his forehead to hit the bench’s concrete support. He was knocked out cold.
Catherine was pummeling a second heckler by the time the teachers could pull her off him. Even though Hank empathized with my sister protecting me, Catherine was suspended for a week because of the severity of the beating.
Mom always took me shopping for my new school clothes. That is until Catherine, in her sophomore year of high school, got a job working after school at Lilly’s Boutique. Every payday, she would use her employee discount to buy an article of clothing for her and one for me.
I loved when we wore the same outfit and would confuse everyone. We could always fool Mom and Dad but never Grandmother. I was the same height as Catherine, and she colored my hair blonde to match hers. We would laugh when we tricked a neighbor or visiting relative. Then something happened that made us agree never to do it again.
Catherine was in the stock room, looking for the perfect blouse for me when Douglas, her boyfriend of two weeks, came inside Lilly’s to take her to lunch. I was admiring the way my legs looked in a skirt when he grabbed me from behind and kissed my neck. Before I knew what was happening, his hand was up my skirt and groping my crotch.
Douglas screamed as he realized that he was holding my family jewels and not Catherine’s peach. Catherine rushed out when she heard the high-pitched squeal, thinking something had happened to me. When she saw the look on Douglas’s face she knew what had happened. She reminded him that she had warned him about sneaking up on her.
Catherine and the rest of the store broke out into laughter. Douglas did not. He stormed out of Lily’s calling us freaks. He broke up with her the next day at school. I felt about it but Catherine told me to never feel guilty about being attractive.
“Besides, I was going to dump him before the prom anyway,” she said handing me a pretty pink blouse.