For the Couple Who Became John and Mary, Madden Keroff

For the Couple Who Became John and Mary

Madden Keroff

My name, at least for the moment, is Nikolai. I don’t have an amazing reason for why I chose it. It was there on one of those baby naming websites and it sounded Eastern European, which is what my family is, at least historically. In America now, no one seems to be anything. My Grandpa’s father was a little boy when his parents caught the boat to Ellis Island in 1913. Then, because my family isn’t exactly known for having the best of luck, their only possessions were taken–which, to be fair, was only a sack of dried fruit–and they were turned away. Can you imagine how depressing that would be? You risk it all, you carry your babies and your fruit across the ocean and then it gets taken away and at the end you feel lucky to be still holding your child. Though, they didn’t separate the children too often then… Did you know that people used to be turned away a lot? I didn’t. And I guess I still don’t. I found sources that said that there’s no evidence of a lot of people being denied entrance to Ellis Island. All that I have to say that my family was denied entrance is the story that no one’s supposed to talk about. But let’s be real, the greatest country in the world turned away how many Jewish people during the Second World War? Anyways, that story that no one is supposed to tell says that, after my family was rejected from Ellis Island, they ended up going to Canada and sneaking down over the border into North Dakota–”accidentally,” of course. Doesn’t that ever happen to you? Don’t you ever accidentally travel close to 200 miles more than you needed to on foot? While carrying all of your meager possessions and your children on your back? That’s believable, right? Yeah… I never found it that believable either. Of course the family claims that they lost the papers to prove they came in legally. This is a very lengthy way to say that my father’s family may be hypocrites when they’re shaking their head about “those damn illegals.” Maybe this is an even longer way to say that maybe being queer and trans in the Midwest isn’t the life I’d pick. You’d think that I’d have picked a different name than Nikolai when I fnally decided not to be my mother’s little girl anymore. And yet I specifcally went to all those silly baby name websites and searched “Russian baby names,” “Bulgarian Baby names,” “Eastern European boy names.” I suppose on the one hand the name sounds cool. I suppose on another I do not wish to pretend that I am not what I am. I am white. I am the grandchild of immigrants. I do beneft from the hellish systems in the United States. When I walk down the street, most people will simply believe that

I am a typical cis-woman. And there is privilege in that, even if I would rather people’s eyes gloss over my curved hips and chest and settle on the me that I want them to see as opposed to the one that is visible. And Nikolai is part of that. He is both embracing who I am and my family’s roots, as well as acknowledging the past while allowing myself to move into the future. If the story is true, one of the ways that my ancestors tried to blend in was to change their names. “What? Why would you suggest we weren’t from here? Our names are John and Mary Smith.” Just imagine that was said with the thickest Russian accent you’ve ever heard. I wonder how they’d feel if they knew I chose a name to sound more like the identity they had to leave behind. I wonder how they’d feel about the identity I take on. Being a man (of the trans variety) in the Midwest is the funniest thing you could ever experience because you can wake up in the morning and spend an hour contouring your jaw, fattening your chest, gelling your hair, picking an outft (straight leg pants help hide the hips, hoodies help hide the curves of the torso, boots add a little height); you even practice with your voice, recording it and playing it over and over again, and think that hopefully next time it’ll be a little lower. But you spend an hour doing all of this only to get “hey girlie!” all day long. And yet, you have to remind yourself that this is the life your family gave up their own names for to give you. Imagine trying to be trans in Russia… here, in the new country, you might be misgendered but you aren’t murdered and I know which I would rather be. Maybe that’s why picking the name that I did feels so valuable. It looks to what was given up. My father and his siblings were the frst people in his family to drag themselves out of poverty. My aunt cleans houses, my uncle preaches, and my father teaches. It took three generations of work to get the collective wealth of a housekeeper, a preacher, and a teacher. Between the three of them, they make less than $150,000 dollars a year, but the richest man in America does nothing and makes $205,000,000 a day. My father is still paying off college debt for his $40,000 dollar-a-year salary that allows us to own our house. A house where two doors down is a crack den, across the street are four foreclosures, and a man was shot in front of our home. But we don’t have to worry about that; when your skin matches the president’s home, you don’t have to fear police. So, I chose a name that represents what my family had to give up for the greatest country in the world. I do not even know the names that John and Mary were given by their parents back in Russia or Ukraine where they were born. All I know is that they came here, and they left their selves North of the Canadian border. In the greatest country all are meant to leave their 56

colorful coats of culture at the door and become one with the milky-white melting pot. Those who don’t quite ft the predetermined Pantone scale have their children locked away, are sent back to their war-torn countries, or, at best, are labeled as criminals, drug dealers, and rapists. I chose my name to honor John and Mary because, in part, they picked right. They picked the one country where, as a transman, I am ignored or ridiculed instead of murdered, the one country that is so focused on the hatred of other people that I can slip under the radar. I picked this name because how else am I supposed to express this combination of undying gratitude for the risk my ancestors took and every hardship they endured with the absolute rage that comes from living in this nation. Choosing Nikolai feels a little like the stitching of embroidery back onto that coat that my ancestors painted over when they came here; embroidery that runs down just the one side, of course, because asymmetry is something that wards off the evil eye, and protection from evil is one of the many things they gave up to be here. Because Americans are not superstitious. Americans are not superstitious except when they are. Americans are not superstitious until their son picks up a Barbie, and then they must chant their prayers over his head so that he will not become gay. Americans are not superstitious until a lesbian couple moves into the house across the street and then husbands start to worry about their wives. Americans are not superstitious until a girl comes out, announces her pronouns, and commits the ultimate sin of needing to use the bathroom at school, and then it is as if every girl in the school is in danger. Americans are especially not superstitious when they are in church because, while tying a red string around your wrist for good luck is superstition, eating a cracker and calling it fesh is truth. And it is not superstition but truth that demands that each and every gay person must burn in fre and brimstone for what may as well be a chronic typo in the Old Testament. It is a truth that my preacher uncle screams from his favorite pulpit, the blue and white façade of Facebook. It is truth and not superstition that makes sure that he keeps his adopted Mexican daughters away from the “bad infuence” that I am. Though, I do wonder how bad I can be; after all, it was he and not I who took their language away from them. After all, as every American knows, it is truth and not superstition that says that English is the only language one should speak. Allow me my superstitions, they are no stranger than those of this nation. Allow me to shave the side of my head, to pierce one ear, to tie a red string around my wrist, to wear strings of fake, jingling coins on special occasions because this is the modernized warding against evil that my family gave up the right to practice so that I would be born. The least I can do is

give it back to them. Maybe they look down on me from wherever they are and maybe they feel a bit of pride. Maybe they feel some bitterness. I hope they understand that I try to use the freedom they gave me the best I can. So, I cut my hair short, I bind my chest, I ward against the evil eye, I wear the colors my great grandfather would have before he boarded that boat, and I change my name; because in this world, I am one of the lucky ones who has the privilege of being able to be remade in my own image. If I don’t use it, I allow my own death. I named myself Nikolai for a million reasons. But chief among them being that if I did not name myself, no one else would. Maybe no one else sees me the way I am, but no one ever will unless I choose to step into the sun. I name myself because I cannot reject the culture that weighs on all of our shoulders, turning each of us to Atlas, while living a lie. I cannot declare every human being to be a beautiful work of art while also viewing myself as disgusting. So, allow me to introduce myself. Hi. My name is Nikolai. I am a man, I am an American, and I am alive because of a couple who dressed up as John and Mary.