ANDREW AND JANET

NOTE: The author herself has taught many classes in Sedona. Apart from her being the furthest thing from wealthy, the difference is that her students learned practical skills with which they could earn a good income as a result, and received many days of training for far less than the cost of the weekend seminar referenced.

 

ANDREW AND JANET
A TRUE STORY
by MARY ELIZABETH (LEACH) RAINES
© M. E. Raines, 2025

 

PREFACE
When I lived in Sedona, our small city underwent an enormous housing crisis when landlords consumed with greed decided to turn their homes and apartments into lucrative short-term rentals for tourists. A large number of residents were kicked out of their homes. Housing costs skyrocketed. It reached a point where not a single one of our thirty police officers was able to live in the very city that they were protecting, and a high school teacher was living out of her car. Those who lurked on the fringes of society had no chance at all for decent shelter.
    The extreme housing crisis did not seem to concern the handful of famous New Age gurus, all multi-millionaires or billionaires, who buzzed into our community one weekend to give a three-day conference. Sedona, a Mecca for the New Age, had helped them become wealthy, and this weekend would be no exception. The hundreds of out-of-towners who’d enrolled in the conference—many of whom were staying in the short-term rentals—paid a hefty four-figure admission fee in exchange for the promise of having their spiritual frequencies raised so that they could live the abundant life they had always desired, and along the way, elevate planetary consciousness.

ONE DAY THERE was a knock on my door. Peeking out, I saw a 70-ish man on the landing. When I cracked open the door, he smiled at me in a kind, friendly way.
    “Hello,” he said. “I’m Andrew, your neighbor.”
    White-haired, quite tall, lean, with a large nose, Andrew was a man who might almost have cut an elegant and appealing figure, except that there was something just a little off about him, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
    Because I felt uneasy, I kept the chain on my partially opened door. He didn’t seem to mind. He told me that a shade umbrella had blown over in my carport, and he said rather proudly that he had uprighted it for me. I thanked him, and he left. It was quite odd.
    Not long afterward I learned that Andrew was utterly broke and homeless. He was staying quite illegally in a tent that was hidden from view in the back yard of Starlight Blue* (*not her real name), an eccentric neighbor of mine who lived in a shabby house across the street from me. Starlight was a compassionate and earnest elderly lady, a hoarder who loved to take in homeless strays—human ones. I liked her. I liked her strays less.
    Andrew was definitely an improvement over some of the people whom she had invited to live with her. There had, for instance, been Brad, a young man who was also a serious substance abuser. When I first moved to the neighborhood, he introduced himself to me on the street in front of my house. He did so by grabbing my breasts. “Nice tits,” he shouted by way of welcome. He sometimes came into my yard to vomit. Whenever Starlight Blue went away, Brad would station himself on her front porch, turn the radio on full blast, drink, and proceed to pass out.
    One day when I was outdoors, Starlight Blue came nervously across the street, looking back over her shoulder, and revealed to me that she was scared. This took me by surprise. She was normally a pretty intrepid person, someone who always kept her doors unlocked and who took walks around the neighborhood at 1:00 a.m. She was not the type who could be easily frightened. She anxiously told me that Brad had put his hands around her neck not once, but multiple times, and had threatened to kill her. She didn’t know what to do.
    I did. I drove her straight to the local police office and helped her get an officer to remove him from her home, along with an immediate restraining order.
    Another example of the homeless people Starlight Blue generously took in and sheltered was a man who (presumably) suffered from Tourette’s syndrome; it was either that or crystal meth. This meant that at random times during the day and night he would wander outdoors and shout obscenities at the top of his lungs.
    Now you understand why I kept the chain on my door when I first met Andrew. Fortunately, he turned out to be a sweet, harmless, and very helpful aging man. Whenever I saw him he looked happy, despite living completely off the grid in that small tent without so much as a radio, cellphone, or Social Security card.

    Andrew spent his time volunteering. He would walk cheerfully to his destinations in all sorts of weather and would usually refuse when I offered to give him a ride. One of his occupations was helping to prepare meals for less fortunate elders at the senior center, which was where, I imagine, he was also fed, since Starlight Blue certainly did not have the funds to buy food for him.
    He volunteered at the library, and with an organization that took care of homeless people (which was ironic), and at the local animal shelter. His weeks were full, busy, and rich.
    In those days I was dealing with some physical issues. Andrew noticed this and, without even asking, took it upon himself to wheel my garbage cans out to the street and back on garbage day, for which I was immensely grateful. Multiple times I asked if I could reimburse him for his help, and this impoverished man would say brightly, “Oh, no. All I want is to see your smile!” I would comply, and he would be genuinely delighted.
    Then, seemingly overnight, Andrew decided that he was actually a woman trapped in a man’s body. He told me that he was changing his name to Janet.
    Janet did not have the means to do anything medical about her newly chosen gender, so she retained the same deep voice, muscles, “equipment,” and masculine gait as before. Those traits did not enhance the womanly look she desired, especially combined with her height, broad shoulders, angular face, and large nose. Some neighbors called her Klinger behind her back*, for she soon began wearing makeup and earrings, and attempted to dress fashionably with donated clothing. (*Klinger was the name of a big-nosed male cross-dresser on an old TV show called M*a*s*h.) She never quite hit the mark, every day donning a different overblown and oftentimes ludicrous outfit. Finding dresses and skirts that fit her tall, lanky, male frame must have presented a challenge. You certainly noticed her when she walked down the street, for she looked absurd.
    Even so, she took her newly acquired gender seriously, and when anyone commented on her appearance, she would say merrily, “Well, I’m still in training.” The only time I ever saw her brow become cloudy was when I accidentally called her Andrew instead of Janet.
          
    I confess that I held more than a little judgment about her new  persona, that is until one day when we chatted for a bit on the street. Tears suddenly came to her eyes as, looking down on me, she said, “You know, I was expecting people to react poorly when I made my change, but everyone has been quite kind to me.”
    I was moved, and this made me feel more tender towards her, but it does not mean that everything she did was appropriate or wholesome. Here is an example. Even though she lived in the tent, she had permission to spend time on the porch of the house if the weather became too hot. One warm day Starlight Blue came across the street to find me. She was once again in visible dismay. Apparently a little girl and her mother had come to visit. When they arrived, who should be stretched out happily on a lawn chair on the porch, relaxing right next to the front door, but Janet, who had donned a woman’s skimpy bikini. Unfortunately, her male bits were bulging immodestly out from the tiny bikini bottom, stuff that one oughtn’t to show, especially to little girls—or to anyone else, for that matter. I doubt if Janet was deliberately attempting to expose the “him” parts of herself, but nevertheless, that is what happened.
    Starlight Blue was distraught and didn’t know what to do about it, so she wound up doing nothing. Janet simply didn’t possess a good sense of such things. On the positive side, she was honest, nothing much ever disturbed her, even her own poverty, and she was consistently cheerful.

    Over the course of a few years, Janet moved from the illegal tent into a similarly illegal small trailer that was also in Starlight Blue’s tiny and cluttered back yard. The new accommodation couldn’t have been easy. Like the tent, this ramshackle old trailer had no electricity or plumbing. Worse, Starlight Blue, who did not herself conform to society's norms, kept such high stacks of old magazines, yellowing newspapers, and hoarded junk in the trailer that Janet could scarcely move. It was, however, a step up from living in a tent, so she did not complain.
    For all her peculiarities, I liked Janet, and Starlight Blue and I confided in one another that, bikini aside, we felt much safer having someone with a man’s muscular strength living within easy earshot.

    Okay. Remember those super-wealthy gurus? On the very weekend when they were happily raking in lots and lots of cash in exchange for injecting a spiritual high into the well-heeled crowds who could afford it, I saw that my garbage cans had not been taken out. Concerned, I went across the street and learned that Janet had been discovered lying unconscious at the door to her trailer. Nobody knew how long she had lain there. She was rushed to the hospital, where it was discovered that her body was riddled with incurable cancer. Living as she did, she’d had no access whatsoever to medical care, and none of us had any idea if our uncomplaining neighbor had been suffering. Within a couple of weeks, she died.
    Sadly, even if she had remained well, Janet would never have been able to receive the wonderful spiritual gifts the New Age leaders were bestowing on the attendees at their conference. She couldn’t possibly afford to get her frequencies heightened so that she could live an abundant life and, along the way, raise planetary consciousness. Then again, she wouldn’t have been able to attend the seminar even if she did have the money to pay to boost her spirituality. She was far too busy volunteering to help others.

    I often think what a difference it could have made if the many so-called spiritual leaders who had become extremely rich by coming to Sedona would have pooled just a tiny fraction of their wealth to buy a few places and turn them into affordable housing for police officers, or school teachers...or people like Janet.
    It made me wonder who among us was the more spiritual: the famous billionaire/millionaire speakers who offered amazing enlightenment, but only to those with plenty of cash to fork over to them? Or was it my friend Janet—humble, homeless, disconnected, penniless, and more than a little crazy—whose entire life was spent in service to others?

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