Lucy and Ethel

The door buzzed and Cora walked in.  We were a bit of a distance away from the door, but she just didn't look right at first glance, and she was wearing this awful mid-waist fur coat.  (( I only say

"mid-waist" because it didn't quite fit over her belly -- that honestly shook when she laughed like a big bowl full of jelly  --  and how does someone kindly say that she was too fat for this little coat?))  It looked like rabbit fur, and I'd never seen a man in rabbit before then.  Of course, she had some strange, exotic name for it, but when it boiled right down to it, it was just a damn rabbit coat -- no matter how much she'd been conned into spending on it.

"Oh God," Mother said quietly with a laugh under her voice. "She's got her hair glued on backwards again."  But she didn't say a word about the coat, and that was the feature I was focused most on.  I still swore to myself that I'd landed in Alice in Wonderland and not Hot Springs, Arkansas.

"Queen," Cora said to Cherry as soon as he stepped inside the front door."There's a naked bum laying right outside the front door.  You need to call the cops."

Well, you know we all had to run out and take a look for ourselves.  I had a strange feeling that we knew who that naked bum was............Cherry, Mother, Cora and I stood behind the glass front doors -- after Cherry reached over and turned the lock -- and looked out on the stinky guy who'd just accosted me in the bar.  Sure enough, he'd stripped off those cover-alls and was laying stark-ass naked right beside the door on the cement slab in nearly December weather. 

"That's going to ruin your business, tonight," I speculated.

"I think he's passed out," Cherry said.

"Oh hell, open the door, " Mother said as she took control of the situation.

"Queen, what are you going to do?" Cora asked petulantly.

"Just open the damn door.  He's too damn drunk to punch me, and where is he going to hide a gun? In his ass?  Open the door, I said." Mother demanded

Cherry reached over and twisted the lock to open it.  I could tell it was against his better judgment.

"Why don't you just call the police and let them handle it?" I asked which, I thought, was the common sense thing to do.

Cherry explained, "We handle things ourselves.  We'll lose our license if we have too many calls to the police station." Then he turned to Mother and said, "You all handle this, I need to go back in and watch the bar."

Mother and Cora walked outside, and Cherry turned to walk back in the bar.  He held the door open for me and said with some concern in his voice, "Let them handle it.  You come back in here with me."

"Oh, I'll be okay. I have Mace in my pocket," I said and I did.  I always carried Mace in my pocket.  I'd never used it, but I had got it on my finger once and accidentally rubbed it in my eye...and it works.....it worked so good my eye swelled up for two days........... Cherry closed the bar door, and I went through the glass doors to get a better look at the situation.

"Is he alive?" I asked.

"Yeah, I can see him breathing," Mother said as she gently nudged his hairy butt ( with goose-pimples ) with her foot.

"What are you going to do with him?" I asked.

"Well, we need to put him somewhere safe and cover him up.  It's cold out here.  Do you see his Cover-alls anywhere? she asked.

Cora and I began to search the parking lot for his clothes, and I finally located them -- all wadded up -- under a beat up old Ford Truck.  I reached under it and grabbed them and realized why he'd taken them off as soon as I unraveled them.  From Crotch to right foot, they were soaked, and it was obvious from the new smell what they are soaked with: PEE.  (( I began to take notice that , for some reason, there was a cosmic connection with this place and pee.))

"Oh God," Mother said. "That's why I don't drink.  I'd never want to do stupid shit like that."

"Hey," I said as a new idea struck me. "Do you think that's his truck?"

"Hmmm.  Maybe, queen.  Check his pockets for his keys." Cora instructed.

I looked at her like she was crazy.

"Oh give me the cover-alls," she said as she yanked them out of my hands, and I was glad she did.  Cora held them at arms length and muttered something like she didn't know how she got herself into this type of stuff................and I had to agree with her.  It seemed like there was always some weird antics going on around here, and we were always in the big middle of it  ...............and this was only my third time to come here.  ALICE IN WONDERLAND

I looked over at the drunk guy, and he still slept on the cement slab.  He hadn't moved a muscle. Drool seeped out of his mouth.  I thought to myself that he wouldn't be half bad looking if he'd just clean up a little.......... Mother just kept looking at him,and she'd nudge him every now and then with her foot. I heard a jingle, so I knew Cora had found his keys.

"Here, queen," she said to me. "Run over and see if any of these keys fit that truck." So I complied, and I found the correct key to unlock the truck  door almost immediately -- the cold was a good motivator.  I looked inside the truck, and there was an empty fifth of Stoli lying in the passenger floor board.  If he had drunk that whole thing and was unconcious and drooling in this cold weather as he lay on the cold cement slab, I surmised that he had alcohol poisoning.  His behavior in the bar had been erratic, and he was barely able to walk..........Perhaps that is why he'd grabbed my neck...Perhaps his mouth next to my ear had been poised to ask for help..........Guilt came over me, but I shrugged it off.  (( It was always trying to sneak its way into my conscience, but this guy had drunk himself into this condition and THAT was NOT my fault.))

"We need to take him to the hospital or just call an ambulance," I yelled to them.

"Gurl, you're crazy.  He's just drunk and passed out." Mother said.

"Gurl, I know what I am talking about. There's a an empty bottle of vodka in his floor board, and by the looks of him, I think he's got alcohol poisoning.........................  Besides,  what are you going to do with him? Load his ass into his truck  and leave him there so he can freeze to death? Or throw him in the alley and put his Cover-alls on him so he'll for sure freeze to death?" and then I paused. "Or do you want to take him back to your place so he can puke all over your house IF he wakes up...or better yet..you find him dead on your couch in a few hours? How are you going to explain that to the police?  Are you going to tell them you found a naked man outside of a bar, so you just loaded him into your car and took him home for the night?"

"Queen, she's got a point" Cora said.

"Let's just call an ambulance, " I said assuming that was the quickest way to get this man some help.

"Queen, he'd be dead and frozen solid before they ever got here....IF they came at all," Cora explained to me like I was stupid.

"Why? Is ambulance service that slow in this town?" I asked perplexed.

"It is at a gay bar during an AIDS epidemic,"Mother said knowingly.

At that time, I was terribly naive about how gays were viewed by the rest of America -- even the medical community.  It was even worse in Arkansas.  People really did believe that all gay people carried the virus, and they thought the walls of gay bars seeped with it.

"Well, we're just going to have to take him," I said with finality.

Mother retorted, "I'm not putting him in my car, gurl" and she nudged him with her foot again.  He still looked like road-kill.

"God damn," Cora exclaimed as she started walking toward her Jag.  "He better not puke on my interior."

"Grab his feet," Mother instructed as she reached down to grab his shoulders, so I complied.  He was lying on his side, so we had to roll him a little to get him prone.  When we rolled him over, it was obvious that he was happy to see us.  I wondered how that could be possible in his condition and this cold weather, (( since cold was known for causing shrinkage )) but seeing was believing.  Of course, Mother saw it, too, and she looked at me mischievously

"Hmmm...maybe we should just take him back to my place," she said and let out a whoop and laugh.  ( and stumbled backwards and nearly fell over because she was in such a fit of hehehe's.)  I had to laugh, too....But, I knew if I had agreed with her that we would have taken him to her bed, but I insisted that he needed to go to the hospital (( and my earlier speech had sunk in her head, too)).

Cora pulled up right beside us and we lifted the drunk and sorta' dragged him to the open passenger side of the Jag.  He was a relatively thin man, but dead weight can be rather heavy and cumbersome.  Cora adjusted her front seats so we could lay him in the tiny back seat ( if you could even refer to it as a back seat ).  It was a struggle getting him in there, too..and Mother dropped his head more than once.  I thought to myself that if he didn't die of alcohol poison that he'd surely have a concussion because his head thumped like a pumpkin every time she dropped him. (( I just hoped that no one was watching.  What would people think if they saw two Big Gurl Drag queens and one skinny over-dressed fag loading a  motionless, NAKED, man into the back seat of a Jag?  They'd swear that we had drugged him and were taking him somewhere to have our way with him.......That's how people think of gays, you know.......................))   Well, as luck would have it, as soon as we got him in the back seat, his hefty soldier decided to let out a huge stream of piss.  Cora didn't notice because he was walking back over to the driver's side.

"Oh God," Mother said as she threw the Cover-alls over his streaming penis to block the flow. "Don't tell Cora.  She'll have a hissy."

"We can't all three fit in here," Cora said.

"Well, I'm not going to be seen with you in public with your hair like that, anyway," Mother said.

"What's wrong with my hair, queen?" Cora asked with her hands on her hips.

"Bitch, you got it glued on backwards, again" Mother chuckled as she told Cora the truth.

"Oh shit, I've got better things to worry about now. Somebody get in." Cora said frustrated as she got in the car and shut the door, but I noticed she checked her hair in the rear view mirror.

"Gurl, we can both fit.  Get in.  I'll sit on your lap." I told Mother.  And we did.  It was as tight squeeze, and I had to duck down and ride hunch back to the hospital, but we made it, and we delivered him to the ER door where we told the attendants the truth.  We had no idea who he was and that we'd found him naked outside and feared for his safety.  They took him inside -- and were much more careful with him than Mother had been.  They didn't drop him one time.  We gave them his Cover-alls, and Cora took us both back to Our House.  I had seated myself in the back seat on the side that I knew was pee-free.  I figured Cora would notice the smell in a day or two...after it was good and ripe, but I'd figure out a way to let her know about the pee-scapade when Mother was out of ear shot.

As I pulled myself out of the back seat, I said, "Y'all remind me of Lucy and Ethel."