The Passing of Marshal's Father

You place a rose on your dead dad's grave. Rain spots its petals.

"Sorry your dad's dead," says Cori, patting you on the back.

You sigh. "Gee, thanks."

She slaps you on the shoulder one last time for good measure. "No problem. I'll go get the car."

Cori goes with the umbrella, leaving you alone and unprotected from the rain. Your dress shirt, hair, and tie are immediately drenched in the downpour. You sigh again, and without turning from the headstone, watch the girl go out from the corner of your eye.

Most don't look twice at Cori. She doesn't seem like much, admittedly. With a wiry build, short messy brown hair, and a narrow face, she isn't the kind of girl people think warrants a second look. But with Cori walking away beneath her broad green umbrella, you can't keep your eyes off her. Though all you can see of Cori is her baggy gray synthetic jacket, old cargo shorts, and her lean calves, that's enough.

Those calves...

Cori plays water polo, and she's an amphibious **** vehicle. Get her in the water and her combat power multiples by ten. You konw every muscle and contour of her back. You know how a blood-red one-piece suit clings to her hips, and how her stomach gleams in the sunlight while rivulets of water run down her body...

It takes great effort to extract yourself from the daydream. You shudder to think of what will happen to you when you leave town for your new job, but what choice do you have? Since the breakup, being around Cori is only becoming more difficult.

You have exactly one problem in life, and that problem is hot tomboy childhood friends.

You can't remember a time before Cori was your best friend. She's your next-door neighbor, and your parents bundled you together like peas in a pod. When you were teenagers, and you finally realized that boys and girls were different from each other, you couldn't keep your hands off each other. It doesn't work like that for most people, but you were an item all through high school.

So what the hell did you care if people mistook Cori for your little brother? You knew what she looked like naked. You knew how to make her whimper. And the things she could do with her mouth...

Dammit, you're doing it again.

The day of graduation. You were free to live your lives however you wanted. You would finally be together. But it all came crashing down.

Cori's voice echoes hauntingly through your head. "I want to do me for a while," she said. "Let's go back to being friends," she told you. "You get it, right?" You still want to grab her shoulders and shake her. But what can you do? If you wanted to be together forever, the only thing worse than losing your girlfriend would be losing your best friend, too.

You shake your head and look back to the grave, and the name thereon. Konrad Tomboy. You found peace with Dad's passing. The illness took months to take its course, and he had time to put everything in order. You've said your goodbyes. But even your family name taunts you with what you can't have.

Damn all tactless, relationship-illiterate, sexy tomboys to hell. Soul-sucking succubuses the lot of them.

New scenery, a new town, and a new job - in short, a new life - will help you move on. That's your plan. Run away from the heartbreak, and start again. You were always excited to get out of this town and begin the adventure that is life, making your own way in the world. You thought you'd be doing that with Cori, but... as your dad used to tell you, repeatedly, "There's plenty of fish in the sea."

Who knows. Maybe that's even true? You won't know until you look. So even if it hurts like hell, you're not putting your life on hold. The world won't wait for you.

Cori pulls up the graveside road in her cramped hybrid compact and leans over to pop open the passenger side door. "Marshal, hop in, you're getting soaked!"

Yeah, no duh, umbrella thief.

You spare your father's grave one last nod of respect and leave to join her.

On the way home, Cori sings loudly and off-tune to the radio. Geeze, even her flaws are charming. You're hopeless. You do a poor job of not checking out your tomboy ex-girlfriend in the driver's seat, while she belts lyrics to I'm on Top of the World, oblivious to your attention.

Accepting Cori's offer to accompany you to Dad's grave on the anniversary of his **** was an awful idea. In your head, it was an olive branch from her so you could bear your souls to each other and mend the rift between you. In reality, Cori just wanted to go in on two big burger combos for the price of one deal at Jack in the Box. Brooding, you cram the last of your cold curly fries into your mouth and chew.

This drive can't be over soon enough.

You tell Cori goodbye and head into your house. You go straight back to your room and launch face-first into your bed.

How will you ever replace her? It's not that you've never found another woman attractive, far from it. But living in such close proximity to Cori your whole life, you've developed a rather, let's call it skewed taste in women.

Childhood friends, athletes and sports stars, girls next door, short-haired chicks who play video games and watch action movies, abs and muscles and tans and toned legs - it's science. Tomboys are pure sex, and nothing less will do.

When you were with Cori, hanging with her swim friends was an excruciating experience. Don't misinterpret that - you'd never cheat on Cori. You don't put down a bar of gold when offered handfuls of silver.

But when a surfer chick blows past you carrying a board at the beach? Or four years ago when Coach Barlowe showed up at PE class with a pixie cut? Or just two weeks back when a girl brought a camouflage-patterned hoodie to your register at Target?

It's like being in an ice cream shop and being told you can only ever have one flavor. You've dwelled long and hard (literally and physically) on your predicament, but in a way, you never had a chance.

During the special time you were figuring out your sexuality, Cori was literally a fence jump away at any hour, day or night. And the sheer number of unsupervised sleepovers you shared didn't help much at all.

Even getting away from Cori to spend time with family, on or off vacation, provided no respite.

Max, the one cousin that's your same age who you always pair off with, is just as much of a tomboy as Cori is. The short, compact blonde runs track and is a lightning-fast bundle of power. You'd be a fool to let her small size and laconic, easygoing demeanor trick you. Max takes full advantage every time someone underestimates her, and people underestimate her all the time. With her long, toned legs, and her love of short shorts... well, it's a good thing she's your cousin, or Cori would have had some competition.

At home, it's not much better. Mom is... well, it was a shock to learn this from the other kids at school, but most boys don't 100% every Legendary Halo campaign playing co-op with their mom.

You've always admired your mother's strength, self-reliance, and ludicrous aim with the SRS99C. And it's not like you mind living off a diet of spaghetti, Chinese takeout, backyard barbecue, and pizza - Dad made sure you had vegetables too, sometimes, didn't he? You once read that men inevitably wind up with women who remind them of their mothers. Well, your mom is a tomboy, and she's beautiful, amazing, and awesome. Wanting to find someone like her for yourself is just good sense.

There's a knock at your bedroom door.

You lift your face from the bed. "Yeah?"

Mom peeks in through the door, checking that the coast is clear. She relaxes when she sees it's just you. "Great, you're here, Marsh. I was worried you weren't home yet. Cori's not hiding out too, is she?"

"What? No." You're offended by the question. Cori doesn't come over much anymore. To be fair you don't go over to her place either...

Your mom usually looks sad when Cori comes up, but this time she breathes a sigh of relief. "Are you sure? Course you're sure, what am I saying. Don't move a muscle." Mom slips into your room and locks the door behind her. Then she bounds across the room to pull your curtains shut.

You sit upright and frown, watching your Mom work. "Mom, what are you doing?"

Mom ignores the question and peers out the window for a moment, her eyes sharp and alert.

Your mom cuts an imposing figure when she's serious about something, and right now, she's serious. She's the same height as you, with her blonde hair the same shade as yours kept in a jagged, jaw-length bob. It frames a sharp, hawkish face - features you share, though by comparison, hers are more mature and, well, womanly.

She came in wearing a typical work outfit - jeans, a tank top, and an unbuttoned overshirt. Working as a web designer doesn't carry much of a dress code, unlike the slacks and polos required by Target (you're not sad you quit).

"I said I'd be ready for this..." Mom says under her breath.

Your pulse quickens and your fatigue disappears. "Ready for what?" you ask, beginning to worry. "Mom, you're freaking me out."

She suddenly sits beside you on your bed and takes our hands in hers. Her expression is grave. "Marsh, Mini-me, you're the most important thing in the world." Mini-me? Mom hasn't called you that since you were 10. Something's seriously wrong. "Nothing will ever change what you are to me, no matter what happens. All right?"

"A-All right," you stammer, unused to Mom being like this with you. On the phone when she's yelling at coworkers for screwing something up, sure, but Mom's not like this with you except when you bring home bad report cards or stay out late without telling her where you'll be ahead of time.

Mom searches your expression for a second, her blue eyes piercing. Then, with a small nod to herself, she reaches under the bed and pulls out an ornate wood box. This, she sets in your lap. It's light. She doesn't say anything, but you understand she intends you to open it.

There's a lock on the front. Mom produces a small gold key and presses it into your hands. The key fits the lock perfectly, and the box pops open.

Inside is an old leather-bound tome, the size of a composition notebook, with esoteric symbols impressed on the cover. Among the symbols, you recognize the signs for Venus, and Mars, as well as one that looks like a stylized bow and arrow. The title is etched in calligraphic style: Boekdeel van Tomboy.

You remove the book and set the case aside.

Though the box it came in was light, the book itself is heavy. Is there a strip of metal in the binding? The tome feels heavier than the wood box was before you opened it, but that would be impossible.

"What is this?" you ask, hefting the old book in hand.

Mom's eyes mist over. "It belonged to your dad," she says, knocking your shoulder with her fist. "It's been long enough that it belongs to you now."

You frown at her. "But what is it?"

"Look and see."

Perplexed, you unwind a slender chain that keeps the book shut. The leather cover is oddly warm to the touch, like skin - you flip through the pages. The book's pages are filled with minute, cursive text in a language you don't recognize. The pages are yellowed and soft with age.

You shake your head. "I can't read it."

Your mom nudges your attention back downward. "Are you sure about that? Look closer."

Mom's not much for pranks, so you furrow your brow and flip back to the first page, your confusion beginning to mount. Much to your surprise, and contrary to your initial impression, the book is actually is written in plain English. You could've sworn it wasn't, but the cramped, cursive lettering isn't nearly as difficult to read as you first made it out to be.

You skim the first few pages, darting from one paragraph to the next. The book isn't a journal or a novel like you expected. Rather, it's formatted like a legal document, or perhaps a piece of scripture. Yet, the weirdness truly starts when you actually read the words.

The book is titled, Tome of Tomboy. Which you assume is a reference to Dad, or even your late grandfather, but then you keep reading - and the more you read, the stranger it becomes.

i. Contained within this tome is the inviolable Tomboy Code of the Cult of Tomboy. Those who call themselves tomboys must study the tenets and commandments of the Tomboy Code until they know them by heart...

iv. A member of the Cult of Tomboy demonstrates the extent of her piety by how fully she embodies the Tenets of Tomboyhood...

II. A tomboy considers her body to be a temple. **** use, smoking, excessive **** consumption and overeating, those things which **** the body are to be shunned...

VIII. The Master Tomboy is the Childhood Friend. A tomboy patterns her relations with others after the exemplar relationship between herself and her first and truest Childhood Friend...

The Tome of Tomboy is full of instructions, commandments, and philosophical instructions, all directed toward tomboys. Not men of the Tomboy family, but rather women of all stripes who identify as tomboys.

The book lays out the tenets of tomboyhood as guidelines to delineate who is and who isn't a tomboy. It impels tomboys to live by specific social, moral, and intellectual guidelines. And bizarrely, throughout the text, there's repeated mention of a messianic figure referred to as 'the Master Tomboy'.

Mom sits quietly beside you while you pour over the book.

After twenty minutes of puzzling through the tome, you shut the cover. "Mom," you say, "why am I holding a book about tomboys?"

She lets out a long breath. "Phew. How about we have this conversation over dinner, huh? I'm starving."

Baffled by everything happening, you can only accept.

Mom cleans her place of ribs while you try to stop the pulled pork from falling out of your sandwich. Fat Buddy BBQ is your family's favorite restaurant (read as, your mom's favorite restaurant), so you're unsurprised she took you here. It's her comfort zone, and this whole weird tomboy book business seems to have her on edge.

"I never thought I'd be the one to tell you all this," Mom says through a juicy mouthful of rib meat, "but you know how there are certain girls who act a little different from other girls?"

"You mean tomboys," you say, wiping your face off on a moist towelette. Here it comes.

"And did you ever wonder why we're called that?" Mom glances at the old tome you've set to the side on the table. She insisted you bring it. Her tone brooked no discussion on that point.

That's the joke of your family, though - that your mom is a tomboy who married a Tomboy. She doesn't usually bring up being a tomboy herself, but you vaguely know the trivia. You may have even googled it once. "In the 1500s it was a nickname for rowdy boys," you provide. "At some point, it switched over to referencing rowdy girls instead."

Mom takes a deep breath and straightens her overshirt. "Well, back then, in the 1590s, one of those rowdy boys was an orphan named Hector. He worked as a shipboy on a merchant vessel. Everybody called him a tomboy and so it stuck. Hector Tomboy."

You know the name and the story. He's your ancestor on your dad's side. "He came to America with his wife to escape religious persecution," you say. "You've told me this story a hundred times."

Mom tips back her draft root beer bottle and drains half of it in one go. She slams it back to the table, fizz coming out the top. "Sorry Marsh, but we never told you the whole story. I hate to admit it but... you're kind of a sheltered kid." She gives you a pained look. "I wanted to tell you sooner but Konrad - I mean your dad - thought we should wait till you were ready to be your own man. He didn't want it to distract you, especially since you and Cori were so close."

Her cagey response leaves you more confused. Mom makes it sound like there's some ridiculous grand family conspiracy you're utterly unaware of, but that's absurd.

"Dad didn't want me distracted by what?" you demand. And what did Cori have to do with anything? But you don't ask that.

Mom drums her hands on the table. "Do you know what religion they persecuted your 16th great-grandfather for?"

"It was some new sect of Protestantism or..." you trail off when you draw a blank for the name of the church that got the man kicked out of Europe. "You never told me what religion he was, did you."

"That's because he sort of started his own movement," says your mother, giving you a sheepish look.

Wait. What? So that's what this is about? Some black sheep story? A family curse? You didn't think your mom was superstitious, but she did keep the windows locked for months straight after you showed her Five Nights at Freddy's...

You lean forward. "Talk."

Mom gathers her wits. "Okay, okay. Storytime. Bear with me, all right? So, a lot of Hector's friends were girls who were orphans like him, but women weren't given much freedom back then."

"Uh huh," you say. You're skeptical, but Mom really doesn't sound like she's joking.

"The older they got, when Hector would run off on adventures or set sail to foreign countries, the harder society tried to stop them from coming with him. People hated Hector for showing girls they could do the same things boys could do. They tried all kinds of things to get rid of him."

This sounds like an implausible windup for the reveal that tomboys are actually called tomboys because of your great-something grandfather.

"They made fun of him for it," Mom continues, restlessly shifting in her seat. "They started calling Hector's friends Tomboy's girls."

Holy shit you called it!

Mom suppresses a laugh. "Don't look at me like that! This is serious!"

"Oh. Sorry, Mom."

She gives you the stink eye, finishes her root beer, then orders another from the hot server lady. "So where was I? Right. They hated Hector. Hated what he was doing."

She pops the soda's bottlecap off using her butter knife and the edge of the table, and launches back into the story.

"People claimed Hector started a cult so they could jail him. They even accused tomboys of witchcraft so they could burn them at the stake - as one does to women who wear pants in the early 1600s - but eventually, the Netherlands got what it wanted. They drove Hector and the first Tomboys out."

She tells this part of the story with a somber expression.

"But, it was too late." Mom's eyes gleam with mischief. "Girls from the new generation were already calling themselves Tomboys, but in secret. Even though Hector Tomboy left the continent, his Message continued to spread in his absence - and the Tomboys who left with Hector brought his Message to the new world, where it continues to spread to this day."

Mom's story is so incredible you reject it out of hand. "What a load of horse shit," you say. "No fucking way there's literally a Church of Tomboy."

Mom regards you with impatience. "It'll be easier just to show you," she mutters, flagging down your very hot server.

"Yes ma'am?" says the server, stopping by the table. Sarah doesn't wear a nametag, but she introduced herself when she seated you, and it is physically impossible for you to forget the name of a punkish girl with piercings and a rainbow pixie cut like her (Punk girls are basically tomboys with extra steps).

Mom makes intense eye contact with the server chick. "To whom can the secrets of the heart be trusted?"

Sarah the server's eyes dart to you. She looks uncomfortable. "I'm not sure I can..."

"I'm so sorry about this," you say, embarrassed second-hand. "I have no idea what she's talking about."

Mom holds up a hand, silencing you. "This is my son, Marshal. He's all right. I'll vouch for him." Then she repeats her prior question. "To whom can the secrets of the heart be trusted?"

"A childhood friend," answers the girl, as if finishing a memorized passage. Paradoxically, she relaxes her professional demeanor, despite the fantastical line of questioning. "What's up?"

What the actual hell? Did they rehearse this?

"I need to prove a point to Mini-me here," says Mom, jabbing at you with her unused fork. Fries and ribs don't require much in the way of tableware. "Mind if he asks you some questions?"

Sarah the server tucks her notepad in one of the many pockets of her black apron. "I have to wait other tables, but sure, it's slow. Shoot."

You look incredulously between Mom to Sarah, but they both just watch you like you're an exhibit behind a pane of glass at the zoo. "Okay fine, I'll bite," you say, throwing up your hands. "Sarah, nice to meet you. My mom claims she and every tomboy in the world is a member of the secret tomboy union. What's your take on that?"

Mom doesn't appear embarrassed. Rather, she wears a smug expression, which is always a bad sign. What is she up to, and why?

The attractive server lets out a hiss of breath at your question. "Wow, okay. So, for starters, everything you said is super offensive," states Sarah. "We're a faith group, not a union, and we'd really prefer it if you called us the Cult of Tomboy. And yes, every Tomboy in the world follows the Cult of Tomboy. Why else would they call us tomboys? What's next, wondering whether Christians believe in Christ?"

You don't believe it. "You're joking."

Mom's expectant smugness turns into victorious smugness. You scrutinize her, but it's all genuine emotion. But how did Mom know a random server at Fat Buddy's BBQ would play along? Unless... no. No way in hell. Mom was telling the truth?

You whip back to Sarah, eyes wide. "Being a tomboy is a religion? How did I not know this?!" You're supposed to be the expert in tomboys!

"Feminism," answers Sarah. "The Cult of Tomboy only proselytizes to and accepts women. You're not the first ignorant man to exist."

"But - but I've googled tomboys before! I mean, not like that -" of course like that "- but you know what I mean!"

Sarah examines her nails. "The scholarly theological term for the Cult of Tomboy is Hectorianism, but if you just type in 'tomboy' like a child instead of 'tomboy faith' or 'tomboy church', you'll need to go past the first page of search results before you see it. We don't exactly advertise."

"That's - that's not fair!" you splutter. "Nobody's ever looked at the second page of Google search results!"

The server shrugs. "Being Tomboy is about living your best life, not turning more girls into tomboys." She looks up toward Mom. "But your mom's a tomboy. How is this the first time you've heard about the Message?"

You give Mom an indignant glare. "Yeah, I wonder."

Mom winces. "I can explain."

Sarah detects the tension between you. "I should really get back to work..." She scrupulously disappears for another table.

"You kept your religion secret from me my whole life?" you ask, hurt.

Your mom didn't tell you about tomboys? How could this be? You still don't believe it. Your head is spinning. Your tomboyish mom... betrayed you? What other secrets is she hiding? Is the world flat? Is the moon fake?

Mom shakes her head. "It wasn't my decision, Marsh. It was your father's."

"Bullshit. You could have told me."

Mom throws her fork at you. You dodge, and it knocks a glass off the table behind yours. "Quit it, Marsh. You're not just my son, you're your father's son. And he wanted to let you have a normal childhood. If we told you, everything would have been different."

"Yeah, my mom wouldn't be a stranger to me for starters," you say.

"Your name isn't just another cute piece of trivia. It comes with baggage. It comes with responsibilities."

You scoff, of half a mind to get up and storm out. "What's my name have to do with anything?"

Mom flashes forward across the table and grabs your arm painfully tight. "Everything," she says. "You're a Tomboy, Marsh. And you're a direct descendant of Hector Tomboy. The First Tomboy. The Master Tomboy. As was each of his heirs, down to present day."

The hair on the back of your neck stands up. "Mom..."

Her eyes are like flint, her grip like steel. "Konrad was a part of that chain. Your dad was the last Master Tomboy," she tells you, "and you're his heir."