Friday nights, the diner filled up quickly with locals in from the week’s work. Melissa didn’t mind it; the time went quickly, and the tips weren’t bad.

‘Give me a beer and one of those rib eyes, Melissa.’

‘Sure thing, Don.’ Melissa wrote the order down on her pad and walked towards the kitchen, high heels clicking on the tiles.

Melissa had been a server at the Buffalo Diner for two or three months now. It wasn’t bad as jobs go, and at least it was paying for some of the treatment. It was an expensive business, the hormone therapy, but it was producing results. Her breasts were larger now, and her voice was higher. She sensed that her muscles were becoming less prominent. She was over six feet tall and well-built, which made things a bit more difficult, but when she put her make-up on for work, she liked to think that she looked the part.

She’d been lucky to get the job, she reckoned. She knew that a lot of the customers at the restaurant didn’t know how to react to her. After all, Casper wasn’t known for its progressive views. Many of the clientele were oil workers and ranch hands, conservative through and through. When the wives came in, they were even more Republican. Wyoming was the most conservative state in the country, they said. She didn’t fit in, but then fitting in anywhere was hard.

Don was one of the regulars and he had got used to Melissa. At least he didn’t stare now, and he spoke to her politely.

‘Looks good,’ said Don when the rib eye appeared in front of him.

Don worked at a mine up on Salt Creek Highway and he was still in his work gear. He was a good looking fellow, thought Melissa, if only he’d wash up a bit. Like most men around here, he wore a baseball cap even when he was eating, and he needed a shave.

‘Well, you know the steak around here’s always good,’ said Melissa, laughing lightly. ‘Can I bring you anything else, darlin’?’

‘No, that’s it for now, Melissa.’

Melissa walked towards an elderly couple sitting at a table by the window. Meat loaf and gravy, she said to herself.

She took the couple’s order, which turned out to be one meatloaf, one fried chicken. Then she went and put in the orders and stood near the serving hatch with Cindy, the other server on duty. Melissa studied the diner and its customers. Strange place to end up when you thought about it, but it was a long way from the little town in Arizona where everyone knew her, where many of them insisted on deadnaming her. She’d come here because she’d heard there was a good clinic. It turned out to be just fine, a sympathetic therapist, reasonable fees. But it was the landscape that she stayed for. The miles of sagebrush, the pronghorn, the open range; yep, the high plains had got into her soul alright.

‘Hey, you!’ The voice carried clear across the restaurant.

The loud voice was coming from a man who had just come in and was sitting close to the door. Melissa stared straight ahead.

‘Hey, you, ma’am…or is it sir?’ There were guffaws from him and the man who was sitting next to him.

Melissa widened her vision so that she could see the men out of the corner of her eye. They were both in their late twenties, she reckoned, workers from a local ranch probably. Likely new in town; she’d never seen either of them before.

‘I don’t know, Jack,’ said the other young man, stroking his beard. ‘Looks like a man to me!’

Cindy said: ‘I’ll take this one; you go and have a break.’ It was their usual thing to back each other up.

‘No, it’s OK, Cindy. It’s my table, and I’ll take it.’ Melissa picked up two menus and walked over to the men’s table, her short skirt swaying. She aimed for a confident approach.

‘My name’s Melissa. I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get you a drink?’

‘Melissa?’ Jack, who, Melissa judged, had already taken a drink, laughed loudly. ‘Did you hear that, Chuck? MELISSA!’ The two of them laughed.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ Melissa repeated. Her voice was steady.

‘I don’t understand all this, do you Chuck, why men have to go and turn into women? I mean, look at him! Six feet tall and built like that. Give me a break!’

Melissa stared at Jack. She noticed the throbbing vein in his neck, the red flush on his face. It wasn’t the first time she’d encountered this kind of thing, and likely it wouldn’t be the last.

‘Send us a real woman for Chrissake!’

The other customers looked down, their ears pricked.

‘Sir, can I get you a…’

‘What’s you real name- Malcolm?’ Again, the two men slapped their thighs and laughed.

‘Sir…’

As Melissa tried to repeat her offer, she suddenly felt the air around her move. Don had got up from his rib eye and shot across the room. He was now standing right next to her with his fist grabbing Jack’s dirty Carhartt shirt collar, his face close to the young man’s. Melissa could feel the heat from Don’s body.

‘You heard the lady, asshole,’ Don said through gritted teeth. ‘Either order or get the fuck out of here.’ With his other hand, Don held Chuck in his seat. ‘Or do you want me to throw you out the door?’

The two young men, clearly perturbed by this change in the script, didn’t move. Looking at Don, it was clear that they didn’t like their chances. Don was six foot six and two thirty pounds. Still, some kind of youthful brazenness kept them sitting there.

‘And don’t let me repeat myself,’ Don added. ‘My rib eye ain’t finished yet, and I’d kinda like to get back to it.’

Chuck let out a low involuntary laugh, more out of fear than anything.

‘And you, cowpoke,’ said Don, glaring at Chuck, ‘if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out- now!

The two young men still didn’t move.

‘Free country, last time I looked.’ The defiant stare that Jack gave Don as he spoke was enough to break the dam that Don was clearly holding back.

‘Oh really?’ Don lifted him out of his seat. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ He dragged the young man towards the door.

As Don hauled him away, Jack kicked out with his legs and caught Don between the legs. Don, incensed, lifted his fist and punched Jack clean across the jaw. Blood spattered on the clean tiles. A lone tooth slid across the floor. The young man reeled, but somehow managed to stay on his feet. He lurched towards Don, took his knife out of the sheath that was hanging from his belt. He ran towards the older man, holding the knife out in front of him. Two or three of the women in the diner let out screams. At the last second, Don swerved and blocked the knife hand. With one deft move, Don took the knife from Jack’s hand and swept the younger man onto the floor with a thud. The whole dance ended up with Don holding Jack’s own knife to his tattooed throat.

‘Come back again, and I’ll slit your throat.’ 

Don picked Jack up, opened the door with one hand and threw him onto the pavement outside. Through the window the customers saw the fellow splayed on the ground, his jaw a bloody mess.

Don turned to Chuck. ‘How about you, sonny?’

‘Er..I..’ Chuck got up quickly and backed out of the diner. Outside, he helped Jack to his feet and they hobbled off towards their pickup.

Don walked back to his table. People shuffled in their seats. The diner was deathly silent. Then, a man sitting on his own at the window started clapping. It was a soft clap, which seemed to go on for a long time. Then, slowly, hesitantly, others joined in. Before long, everyone in the diner was looking at Don and the wave of clapping reached a crescendo.

Don flushed, nodded and started back in on his steak.

 ‘I’ll get something to clean this mess up,’ said Cindy.

Melissa, statue-like through all of this, suddenly seemed to wake up. ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed to Don as she walked back to her station near the kitchen.

……………………

Around eleven, Melissa got into her pickup and drove out to the house she rented towards Casper Mountain. She drove slowly, still trying to process the evening’s events. It wasn’t that this was a new thing: people were always trying to put her into a box, usually the exact box that she wanted to escape from. The nastiness wasn’t new. The cruelty wasn’t new either. No, the new thing was Don. Here was a person, at last, that not only saw her as she wanted to be seen, but was willing to stand up for too. Yeah, that was new alright.

Melissa shook her head, a slight smile on her lips. She’d have to think about what all this meant. For now, the road was empty, the town behind her strung out like a necklace of lights. Headlights full on in the dark that pushed up against the mountain, she was suddenly upon a pronghorn antelope, separated from the herd, and standing stock still on the road. A full-grown female with long skinny legs and white stripes. The animal was taken by surprise and made no move.

Melissa came to a stop, slowed her breathing and looked full into the pronghorn’s eyes. It was completely quiet now, the moon casting a milky light over the grassy plain all around; just her and the antelope. She rolled down the window and breathed in the scented air.

‘What you doin’ here, darlin’?’, said Melissa, as if to herself.

The huge eyes of the antelope stared back at Melissa.

‘You beauty,’ said Melissa softly, looking in wonder at the tan and white beast, ‘what a lovely creature you are.’

The antelope, still entranced by the headlights, or perhaps by Melissa’s voice, didn’t move.

‘You better get off now,’ she said gently to the antelope. Then she made a quick shooing gesture out of the window. ‘Go on!!’

The pronghorn, finally startled into life, bounded off into the sagebrush and her herd.

‘Don’t worry darlin’,’ Melissa said. ‘They’ll look after you. You’ll be just fine.