Playing

As Mother turned right onto Central off of Bridge street, Cora said, "Queen, make the loop first, and we'll check out the merchandise."

"Merchandise?" I asked wondering what they were looking to purchase.

"You'll see, honey.  I think you'll like this.  We're gonna' take you for a ride," Mother cajoled.

She drove slowly down Central avenue, and I looked at the lights of Central as she drove.  This certainly wasn't the strip in Vegas or the lights of New York's Times Square, but there was a an indelible charm to the downtown of this Southern city.  Christmas lights were already being strung, and the vintage Christmas decorations brought a little cheer to my heart............... until Mother spoke.

"That Mitzi was about to drive me crazier than I already am.  Can you buhleeeeve she thinks she's going to live in drag?"  Mother asked both Cora and me.

"That bitch is gonna' have a rude awakening," Cora said and then she pointed between Mother and Me through the Front window. "Now, there's a nice buck,queen.  Remember him on the way back."

Deciding that I didn't want to hear Mother and Cora bad-mouth Mitzi for the next few minutes -- because I felt sorry for her, and thought they were being discompassionate -- I altered the conversation a bit, "So, I guess she got her name from the movie?"

"Oh....this will tell you how crazy she AND her family is," Mother said.  "Mitzi says she was 12 years old when she saw Tootsie at the movie theatre, and she had an out-of-body experience right there in the movie theare and knew she'd one day be a drag queen.  The bitch is crazy...CRAZY, I'm telling you," and then she paused for effect. "Her white-trash  family had called her Toots all of her life, and they still do. She thought it was a sign from God that her nickname was Toots and the drag queen in the movie was Tootsie" Mother stopped for a minute, but I could tell there was a laugh just barely below her voice that she was squelching.

"Why did they call her Toots?" I asked again.

"Cuz she had gas a lot when she was a kid!" Mother hooted and hollered. I thought she was going to lose control of the Oldsmobile she laughed so hard, and of course, Cora and I had to join the chuckle. 

"Her drag name came from a fart, gurl," Mother had to place the cherry on top of her story, and she rocked back and forth laughing while she drove (( which certainly didn't help with her vehicle control)).

"And she got Mitzi from Mitzi Gaynor.  The bitch fell in love with "South Pacific", and the first time she did a talent night she wore a grass skirt and coconut boobs.................... and the crazy bitch came out with wet hair and did "I'm Gonna' Wash That Man Right out of My Hair.................It was tragic..just tragic," Mother said with some chuckles peppered into her explanation.

"Queen, to the left, there's a big *igger, right there.  I bet he's hung like a horse." Cora said.....and kind of drooled at the end as she pointed like a teen-age girl at the dress shop window.  And YES, she said the "N" word.  Even the gay people in the South were biggotted, which surprised me.  I didn't understand how one oppressed group could look down on another, but they did............and strangely, Cora preferred chocolate over vanilla.  She'd flat out tell you that there was only one thing a black (( not the word, she would have used, by the way)) man was good for.........................  It was just another strange paradox about the south.  Some of these white boys might have liked the black boys, but they only liked them in their bedrooms.  I don't ever recall seeing a mixed-race couple at the gay bars, but I saw plenty of white boys leave the bars with black boys and not remember their names the next day, and they vehemently denied anything had happened between them when asked...............They tossed around the "N" word like it was no big deal, and that was a major cultural adjustment for me, and it was probably one of the things that surprised me most about the South. 

The other was that the drag queens watched football on the T.V, AND they weren't just watching it for the half-time show................??  Football was like caviar to me.  If someone liked either one of those things, I figured they had to be lying and only said they liked it because everyone else did.  Both of them sucked in my book, and I wasn't ashamed to tell anyone that.  These queens down here would call the hogs and do their "WOO PIG SOOIE", and I thought they were nuts.  Sometimes, they'd even have the audience at a drag show stand up and do "WOO PIG SOOIE" in honor of a University of Arkansas win.  Have you ever seen a drag queen call the hogs?  It's something I'll never forget.  I kind of figure their adoration of football and black men went together..........................

Mother drove along Central, she drove past the Bath house row, Arlington Park, The Arlington, and then she turned around at Whittington, right before The Majestic Hotel and started her journey back down Central.

"Look, gurl," Mother said as she pointed to a van in a parking lot nestled between buildings that set at the base of mini-mountains (( which sometimes collapsed and buried innocent cars )). "The whore-dog family is out and working the streets, too."

"Huh?" I asked. "Whore dog?"

"Gurl, haven't you met them yet?" Mother asked. 

I shook my head, "No."

"Queen, I think they are out every night looking for dick," Cora said. "I doubt they've been in the bar when he was............Start slowing down, I think I want that one."

"Gurl, you told me to make the loop first," Mother protested.

"I changed my mind.  Pull over here," Cora said quickly and cracked her window enough to hang a bill from it.

"Is that a 100 dollar bill?" I asked.

"Hell, no, it's only a 20.  He doesn't get the 100 till I'm done." Cora said as a black man approached the car.

"Till she's done with what?" I asked Mother.  An uneasy feeling began to creep over me, and I remembered Cherry's warning.  What did these two have planned exactly?

Mother looked at me with a smile on her face and said, "Playing."