I snatched that queen bald headed

Obviously, Mother had been here a few times before.

"So, what happened?" I almost pleaded.  Sometimes my thirst for gossip overtakes me.

"Well, honey, you left before the real show even started on Thanksgiving." Mother laughed as she led into her story.  And, she was right.  I was experiencing sensory overload my first night at the gay bar, and I needed time to process it all.

"Mitzi, the stupid chicken shit, came and got me and told me Fiona had stolen her brooch and was wearing it in her gnarly mop on stage.   By that time, I'd had enough of Miss Springs City, and I was raring for a fight."

"Oh Lord," I said.  "What did you do?"

"Well, I threw the door open to the back bar and that bitch was doing Miss Heatherton's Crazy AND sure enough, Mitzi's brooch was in her hair.  Now, how stupid is that? She stole a big rhintestone brooch, and she wore it on stage for all of us to see.  I tell you, some of these drag queens are just plain, old dumb."Mother commentaried as the waiter placed our drinks in front of us.  Mother's Pina Colada was pretty but it kind of looked like a muddy colada with whipped topping oozing down its side, and of course, the drink was covered by a paper pink parasol drink accessory.  VERY drag queenish, I thought to myself. 

"What is the big deal about that song? And maybe she just sorta' borrowed that brooch to do the number  and she planned on  returning it," I tried to make logical sense of the situation and see it from Fiona's point-of-view.

"No, No, No...We don't do that shit here, and she knows that.  This isn't the first time the cunt has had her tit in a ringer over this type of shit......but I bet it's her last..." Mother smiled as she took another sip before she continued.   "Miss Heatherton's Crazy was Tuna's number.  AND, before she passed away, she gave it to me.  EVERYONE knows that.  AND Tuna gave Mitzi the brooch.  She doesn't loan it out," Mother explained it in a way like I should understand all of this consternation, but I really didn't.  It all seemed like a bunch of silliness to me.

"So, I guess this Tuna person was pretty special, huh?" I gathered from all this talk.  If you want to know the truth, they talked about her like she'd nursed the baby Jesus for the Virgin...and THAT would have been a real miracle since she only had foam titties.

Mother looked down at the table and took a long sip of her non-alcoholic, frilly frozen beverage again.  It was so long that I figured she'd look up with a brain freeze.  "That goes without saying....Tuna is gone, now and we only have tiny pieces of her.  It is disrespectful to dishonor her memory.  He was the best person I've ever known, and he did more for the art of female impersonation than any person in this whole country," Mother got pretty loud with her emphatic explanation of Tuna, and she rubbed the area between her eyes at the top of her nose. Yep, brain freeze, I thought...Truthfully, I didn't get any of this, but I have never got into hero worship.  Unless a person walks on water and makes the blind to see, then they won't get praise from me.

Her controlled emphasis was only a transition into her next soliloquy which was even more emotional.

"God damn, it's all about respect.  We've all been doing drag for years and years in this town, and now this bitch moves in, wins a damn pageant -- which had to be rigged -- and she thinks she can do whatever she wants.  It doesn't work that way around here.  You got to pay your dues.  Hell, she moved to Little Rock  from Beaumont cuz they ran her out of town.  She was Isis Princess there, and when she lived in Little Rock she was Krissy Kristy.  They ran the bitch out of town there, too.  Then, she shows up in Hot Springs, and she thinks she's a Fontaine.  A Fontaine?  She can't be a Fontaine.  Those girls have been sisters since they first put a on a ball gown, but she thinks cuz everyone likes Paul that she can be a Fontaine, and they'll like her, too...." She ended by slamming her hand on the table as the waiter placed our chips and salsa in the center of the table. 

By the expression on his face, the waiter looked like he was frightened by this semi-enraged drag queen.

"You have to excuse me, honey.  Sometimes, I get a little riled," Mother chuckled to the waiter who looked at me and winked................winked...Hmmm..He's probably just trying to get a bigger tip, I thought to myself as I watched him walk away.  He was just as pretty walking away as he was from the front, too.....

In the back of my mind, I was hearing what Mother wasn't saying, but I wasn't going to tell her what I was thinking.  From what I could see, Fiona Fontaine was a young, beautiful and talented drag queen who'd swooped into town and won a coveted title.  Since Mother was an aging queen in her late thirties, I surmised that she was afraid of losing not only her social position but some of her drag bookings to this new girl, and Mother was afraid of losing control of all the other girls, too.  You see, we can all be kings in the kingdoms of our own making and mother was the ruling matriarch in this town.  I felt like it was a newly gained title that occurred with the death of Tuna and that Tuna had chosen her successor before she died.  She made this choice public by passing her "Crazy" onto Mother, not to mention the fact that Mother certainly lived up to the title of the song...........

 Of course, that is only my simple psychological assessment of this situation, and Mother was learning  -- or trying to learn  -- that heavy is the head that wears a crown and who serves hamburgers at the local bowling alley.  I later learned that Mother was the first runner-up in the pageant that Fiona had won, but Mother didn't bother to tell me that part of the story, and that certainly lent credence to what I had surmised about the situation.....There are always a few background tales that never seem to make it into a person's personal version of the event or events.

"Are you going to tell me about the scratches on your cheek and the semi-black eye?" I asked.  The background information was intriquing, and it helped me understand Mother and this community a little better, but I had a feeling that Mother could rant for hours before she got to her point IF someone didn't direct her. 

"It's NOT a black eye.  It's just swollen a little, " she protested.  But when I looked closely at it, I could see that she'd tried to Cover Girl most of it, and it WAS a black eye.

"Anyway," she continued after a sigh, "Something just came over me when I heard mine and Tuna's song.  The next thing I knew, I was on stage with her performing my number.  I don't know how I got there.  All of a sudden, I was just there."

"What did the audience do?" I asked knowing full well that my eyes were as wide as silver dollars.

"Oh honey, everyone in this town knows how things are.  They gave me a standing ovation, and I raked in those tips.  That pickle bucket was overflowing with Georges," Mother smiled.

"What did Fiona do?" I asked.

"Well, I could tell that I'd caught her off-guard because she backed up and let me do MY number." Mother gloated.

"So, how'd you get the injuries?" I decided to broaden the scope a bit and NOT refer to her black eye as a black eye.

"As I was taking my bows, out of nowhere, Dixie Rebel tried to tackle me." Mother said kind of dumbfounded

"Who is Dixie Rebel?" I'd met so many drag queens that night and had heard so many drag names that they all kind of ran together, so I needed clarification.

"Oh that is Miss Thing's lover.  Can you believe that two drag queens are fucking each other?  It makes me wonder who parks the car in the garage." (( "Parking the Car in the garage" is a euphemism that indicates position in the bedroom.  The party parking the car is the inserter.  The garage is the inserted.  I know it's weird, and Hot Springs is the only place where I have ever heard this phrase.))

"But you can't tackle this big girl, honey.  Miss Dixie is just a  big sissy, and she can't fight like a man.  She scratched me with her Press-Ons like the damn PUSSY cat that she is, " Mother said as as she rubbed her right cheek.  As she continued with her story, it got faster and faster, and I really don't know know how she completed all of it without taking a breath, but she did,  "And Fiona, tried to jump on my back while I was throwing Dixie off of me and she clubbed my eye. I  was spinning her ass around for awhile making her dizzy as bat shit as she  held onto my back for dear life.  I got a few good punches in, but it's hard to punch someone when they're holding onto your back for dear life as you spin them like they're on the Himalaya at the county fair. I finally just gave up and did something that impersonators are never supposed to do to each other." and Mother paused for a second, for effect it seemed, but I think she just needed to gasp for air, then she went on quite loudly, " I grabbed her frizzed-out wig, and I SNATCHED THAT QUEEN BALD HEADED."