She performs for Jesus now

Cherry was out from behind the bar lickety-split as the drunk scrambled to rise to his feet, but Cherry didn't give him the chance.  Before I knew what was going on, Cherry had grabbed him by his collar, manhandled him out the door and said, "I told you that I wasn't going to put up with your shit tonight." and had closed the buzzing door behind him.  I wondered how he'd gotten the door to open without the buzz................

Mother just stared at me..an even stare, and he didn't look away until Cherry returned to his position behind the bar.

"I thought he looked like him the first time I saw him, but I could have sworn I  heard his voice, just then," Mother said to Cherry.

"I thought the same thing," Cherry said quietly.

"I was afraid to mention it to you," Mother said tenderly.

"Everyone has mentioned it to me," Cherry replied and turned his back to us.

I had no idea what they were speaking about, but it all sounded eery and mysterious.  I was kind of wondering if anyone was going to clue me in, but no one did.  I resumed my seat and quickly swallowed the remainder of my drink. 

"Have you ever done drag?" Mother asked me.

"One time for Halloween some friends and I dressed up and went out to a bar in Oklahoma City, but I wouldn't call it real drag.  I'd just call it a Halloween costume," I replied and was instantly thrown back in time in my mind. 

For some reason, my friends Steve, Keith and I decided we were going to dress in drag for my last Halloween in Stillwater. It wasn't like this type of drag though.  We didn't want to be women.  We didn't want to do shows.  We never planned on being heavenly, ethereal creatures like I'd witnessed in this town.  It was just a Halloween costume, so my curiosity and semi-reverence for drag queens still remained.  Both Steve and Keith had dressed before, but I never had.  They had all the accoutrements, but I had none.  Steve had loaned me a long flowing dark green dress, and rather than buying a wig, I had opted to make a head-dress.  I worked on that head-dress in my free time for weeks, and it was grande with huge peacock feathers ( which were expensive ) reaching at least 3 feet into the sky.  With each step I took, the peacock feathers danced.  I thought I was the belle of the ball.  (( The head-dress was the deal; I was not.))

We'd rented a room at the Habana Inn, and had decided to visit the gay bars in the area in full drag regalia.  Steve painted me, and he used clown white as a base then had covered that with pancake make-up.  I'd discover later that he had no idea what he was doing as a make-up artist, but I felt beautiful -- even though I certainly didn't look it.  We got a good buzz while we were getting ready in the hotel room, and it seemed like it took hours to get ourselves together.  I think we wore our drag for thirty whole minutes in the bars before I got hot in  that mess and had decided that it was no fun partying in all that dress, and we'd decided to take it off and return to the bars as boys...................but it held a special place in my heart because Keith was dead, now................a victim of a drug over-dose after we'd gone our separate ways following graduation.  He'd never done drugs around me, and had been just as vehemently opposed to drug use as I had been when I knew him.  I always thought if we would have remained in each other's lives that he'd still be alive..........but that wasn't the road our lives had taken.

"Come here, I want to show you something," Mother said and brought me back from my memories. 

She led me to the far wall and pointed up to a picture of one of the drag queens that surrounded the upper edge.

"That's Marilyn," Mother said as she pointed to a photo of a lovely, young drag queen. "Did you look like her in drag?"

I looked at the picture for awhile, and I didn't see any resemblance at all.  This queen was gorgeous and looked like a real woman.  There was a slight resemblance to Sarina, you know, Samantha's sister on Bewitched, but more beautiful.

"Hell no," I said. "She's hot. Will she be in the show tomorrow?"

"No, honey,"Mother said quietly. "She performs for Jesus now."