For some reason, I thought I needed to explain the whole, sordid, Central sucksation to this cute, Page-boy haired boy with the deep voice. He listened intently, or appeared to. I should say that he maintained eye contact, but I did notice his eyes were a bit blood-shot. He didn't say a word. Didn't even nod or say "uh-huh". He just looked into my eyes. After I finished my story and basically had pled my case to him, he reached down the bar and snatched a small piece of paper and a mini-pencil from a small rocks glass that contained several of those slips of paper and nubby pencils. With a little effort, he grasped the tiny No.2 between his thumb and forefinger and scrawled something onto the paper that he handed to me. The business-card sized piece of yellow paper read:
TRICK CARD
Name: Kerry
Phone: 501 555 1234
Nice penmanship, I thought to myself. I had to speculate why so many gay guys had lavish, beautiful hand-writing and mine was akin to medical scribbles..........You really can't tell how a man butters his bread by his handwriting, and I was a testament to that. And this boy could have modeled for Land's End with his tight thin body and trendy hair, and that deep, gruff voice, and no one would have even suspected that he was gay................but he wrote like a girl -- all curly cue and pretty.......and LEGIBLE.
"How about dinner?" he asked bluntly with no trepidation in his voice whatsoever, then he brushed a wisp of sandy-brown hair away from his eyes.
"Huh????" I stammered because I was a bit surprised. I'd just met him...literally had just sat down next to him and spilled the whole story about the drag queen degenerates that I called friends and he'd asked me out. Wonders never ceased to amaze me. If I'd heard the same story from someone, I would have excused myself politely......What the hell did he want from me? (( and I'd ask myself that question often in Hot Springs ))..........but he was kinda cute, and I didn't know where this Bart thing was going. I had also told myself that I needed to seek other friends away from the queenly roundtable, and I didn't want to sit alone at home on my days off........
"I don't have any plans tomorrow night," I said quickly...a little too quickly, I thought to myself because history had taught me that NO ONE wants what he can easily have. Everyone likes to work for it. If it is too easy, it's not worth it...........maybe that is why I was wanting Bart now and not before...He was just too easy, at first. Maybe I liked working for it, too. I decided to take Scarlett's advice and think about that later, and got my head back into this ballgame.
"Neither do I. Dinner and a movie?" he asked. I was even more surprised. I hadn't had a real date since I'd left Spain, and I was beginning to think that these gays in Arkansas only slept with each other...and maybe had breakfast at Waffle House the next morning and simply called it a date to preserve decorum.
"Sure...." I said slowly knowing full well that I'd have to cancel the tentative plans that I'd made with my sister the day she knocked on the door and Bart's undies were on my kitchen Naugahyde.....which seemed so long ago, and only a little over a week had lapsed........
"Call me tomorrow, and we'll set up a time." he said confidently, and Kerry pulled his bar stool closer to mine. Music waxed, then waned from the back room and the already crowded front bar became a little bit more crowded as Mother wafted in the room in full drag and GIANT sunglasses with a gorgeous beaded art-deco inspired purse dangling from her arm. The purse made the outfit. It was about the size of a long business-sized envelope, skinny and sleek with gold, silver and black bugle beads. Miss Superior was followed close behind by two matching chicklets and a straggler. Mother and the chicklets looked like one of those ensemble groups from the 60s with matching sequined cocktails dresses...They could have been a caucasian version of Martha and the Vandellas with dime store white-rimmed goggle-sized sunglasses. I thought to myself that they must be going to do a number in the show as they sidled up beside Kerry and me. The straggler didn't match them at all; she looked like a misplaced lesbian with scraggly shoulder-length mud brown hair, but she didn't wear a T-shirt or Ace bandage around her ample bust, so my curiosity was piqued about her.
"This is Mellodean and Willadean," Mother said to me as she waved her hands over the girls like Vanna White framed her letters on "Wheel of Fortune" right before she turned them........"And that is their cousin, Boma Jean" and she waved over Miss Muddy Brown like she had a magic wand in both hands.....but her "that" told me that she didn't hold the straggler in high regard...........and I had to wonder if Miss Muddy Brown had noticed the slight, but something told me by the way she smiled through her discolored teeth, that she'd completely missed it.............
I hadn't forgotten my Oklahoma manners even though I wasn't pleased to see Mother, but she, like Cora, was behaving as if nothing had happened.....so I played along thinking to myself that might be the way they do things down here in the South as if they swept confrontation and controversy under the rug like it had never been...............(( I'd learn that they handled "family matters" privately, but all would look sunny and unruffled to the rest of the world. Apparently, I'd been baptized into this wacky family, and no one had told me.)). I knew damn well that Mother wore those sunglasses to disguise the redness and puffiness the Mace caused around her eyes, and she'd wanted to hide it so badly that she'd talked two twin girlfriends of hers into donning the ridiculous eyewear in this darkened, smoke filled bar, too...Their dresses looked new, too. I wondered if they'd hid the tags so they could take them back to Dillard's tomorrow -- which wasn't an usual occurrence among drag queens. Sometimes, you'd see them onstage and a price tag would poke out suddenly, and they'd look all glamorous except for the Minnie Pearl tag dangling from their armpit............but I played along and pretended like I hadn't read Mother to filth for being naughty just a couple days prior.........................and I shook the hands of all three girls and muttered "my pleasure" to each of them.....and I gave mother a tiny peck on the cheek as she bent over and gave me a welcome hug..... As a gesture of politeness, I introduced Kerry to this fab 4 and even pretended that he and I hadn't just met.
"Oh yes, I know Kerry," Mother condescended sweetly. "Do you want to borrow my sunglasses,honey? Does this smoke bother your eyes or somethin'?"
"I'm fine," Kerry said and looked down as he dangled his legs off the bar stool. I decided to overtake the conversation before Mother scared away my future date because I had every intention of clinging onto him the entire night if for no other reason than to squelch any rumors that Mother might have generated about her supposed romance with me that only existed in her mind. I had a sneaking suspicion that many people thought that Mother and I were an item, and I suspected that Mother wanted them to think that. Since she'd accosted Bart and attacked him, I also thought that perhaps Mother had misinterpreted our friendly evenings out as more than just friendly. I needed to define our relationship as friends not only for any onlookers -- and there were many in this town unbeknownst to me -- but also to Mother, herself. The bar was full tonight, and there would be no better way to end any speculation about the type of relationship I had with Mother than by being attentive to another guy with Mother standing or sitting right beside me.....(( Okay...I was using this boy, but haven't you done something similar before?))
"So are you all in the show, tonight?" I asked innocently although I thought it would be odd for two real girls to accompany a drag queen on stage, but I'd learned that nothing about this town and gay community surprised me.....and that feeling would be tested in the conversation to come.
"Oh no," one of the twins chimed. "We came to see our cousin perform."
"Oh, your cousin is a drag queen?" I asked and met the eyes of Boma Jean ( Miss Muddy Brown). "What's his drag name?"
"No...well, technically yes, but he's a crossdresser. He's not gay," she responded.
I was a little confused by most of her statement, so I just had to dissect it...word by word. Mother and the chicklets gathered closer to us and all four of them surrounded Kerry and me as we faced them with our backs to the bar. Kit still mixed drinks behind me, buzzed patrons in willy-nilly.....and "meowed". Wife-beatered lesbians clanked pool balls in the next room, and all manner of gay cliques ( drugstore cowboys, bopping-blacks, couple claches, twink gaggles...etc..) peopled the fairy-lit bar tables around us as they puffed on cigarettes, sipped their drinks and gossipped about everyone...and I noticed a few of them looked at our group and whispered amongst themselves so I knew that I was a part of their gossip; The juke box still played Reba or Whitney or Bette, but it all faded into the background, and our world temporarily became our conversation. Everything else faded to background noise.
"What do you mean? 'No, technically yes'" I asked with a strange look on my face because this girl was just not making any sense whatsoever. I'd eventually get to the crossdresser part, but there was something else just as interesting (( and Arkansan )) lurking behind her mysterious response. All of us looked at her. I noticed the twins lowered their sunglasses just a bit (( and their eyeshadow was impeccable. I even suspected that they must have had drag queen make-up schooling )) and peered over the rims at their cousin. Mother Superior looked over the heads of the chicklets as if she was bored, or didn't want to include Boma Jean in our world.
Boma Jean giggled a little,"Well...he is my cousin....but...we've been married for a long time, too," she paused for a second. "We've just been cousins longer."
"You married your cousin?" I asked...slow and drawn out...but tried not to act surprised (( but you know, I don't think I'd win the Oscar with that performance )).
"Well....It's my second marriage, but it was just meant to be. I've loved him since I was four and he was six, and we used to play Gilligan's Island......I was always Mary Ann, and he was The Professor," she said very innocently and naively. Okay, I'd say that she sounded like a ding-bat....and I could tell that a turd-ball bug had more sense than she had...but I don't want you to think I'm too bitchy. (( It's just the truth. The bitch was stupid.))
"Is that legal?" I just had to get to the bottom of this.
"Well, I had a different last name cuz I'd been married before...and no one asked us any questions, so I guess so." she continued to fill me in with no notice of the look on my face, cuz I just can't hide it when I hear some things, and this was one of those times. Mother released a slow sigh and Kerry and the chicklets didn't seem to notice anything unusual about the situation.....or the conversation. But, I was keenly interested. Boma Jean was the first, real, live hillbilly that I'd ever met, and she had the credentials to prove it: she'd married her cousin.
"A different last name?" I delved a little deeper and then asked Kit for a double shot of Goose to add to my cranberry spritzer. I didn't think a couple shots would matter because I was going to be here for awhile, and I needed the shots just like Mother Superior needed her double cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper, but Mother stood undrinked, so I assumed she must have already heard this story.
"Yes......"she paused and a look passed over her face as if she didn't know whether she should continue, but she did anyway. "Our daddys are brothers so we had the same last name. So....I guess.....I got to keep my maiden name after all." Boma Jean spoke naively with virginal white honesty, and Kit wasted no time adding the vodka to my spritzer (( probably because I tipped damn good...and she gave me a 10 count directly from the bottle....of course, I counted the pour, and tipped accordingly because -- for those of you who don't know how to bartend -- she'd given me at least three shots with her pour......)) and I quickly took a big gulp of my drink...........and then I took another.....and another until I'd ingested about half of my drink. It didn't take long for the warmth of the Greygoose to spread through out my body and limbs.
"Well....." I said and not knowing exactly what to say at the moment I asked, "What is your last name?"
"Plantagenet." she said flatly while still maintaining her second grade innocence.
"Boma Jean Plantagenet....what a name," I let eek out before I thought, and I took another gulp. "And Boma Jean, your husband is a drag queen?"
She looked at her other cousins -- Willadean and Mellodean, who I assumed were also the blood cousins of her husband.
"No," Mellodean interjected. "He is a crossdresser. He ain't no drag queen. Drag queens are gay. Joseph Eugene has always been good at fashion, hair and make-up.....See?" she said as she removed her sunglasses and ran her fingers through her long blonde hair. "He even did our eyes for us tonight....BUT...he's not gay. He just likes to play dress up every now and then. That's how we met Mother....at his very first show." Willadean and Mellodean were good looking women, and the boob and hip gene must have run in the family cuz all of these girls were built the same way. They were a bit pear-shaped, heavier at the bottom than most pears, but shapely and they had beautiful faces which I hadn't noticed completely until Mellodean had removed her glasses. Boma Jean had received the same body chromosomes, but the Lord had passed over her in the hair and face departments...bless her heart -- I blamed it on her Mama's side of the family...But......I was curious to see Jo Gene.........both in and out of drag. The cousins were the children of three brothers, and I had to admire that these cousins and the cousin/spouse had come out to support their kin -- which is something that would never happen in my family.
"Oh....yeah." I said in that I-can't-believe-I'm-hearing-this-crap-I've-got-to-be-in-Alice-In-Wonderland-way, and looked over at Mother with the same look in my eyes, and remembered that I much preferred to be in Wonderland than in motherfruit Jungle...........at least dicks didn't land willy-nilly on car windows in Wonderland.
Mother looked at me quickly and mumbled quietly to me,"I'll tell you later," and then she looked above us all again and continued to look around the bar uncomfortably as she pulled her beaded envelope bag closer to her because it had dangled down her wrist. That purse would be a constant bother to her all night long, but it did set off her outfit to a T. People continued to be buzzed in, and the music waxed and waned as people left the front bar to enter the back bar to get seats for the approaching drag show. By that time, I'd completely forgotten that I was mad at Mother, and had decided that I'd overreacted.(( I'm sure the Goose helped a little))....I'd just remember to always drive my own car in the future. Kerry slid his hand onto my thigh, and I jerked a little out of shock, but I didn't move his hand.
"So, we have Mellodean, Willadean, Jo Gene and Boma Jean," I stated the obvious and looked at Kerry and smiled at him with the same look I'd given Mother....and patted his hand. He returned my look with a red-eye blank stare. "Ya'll sure like that "ene" sound, down here in Arkansas." I chuckled a bit, and they all joined me.
"We sure do. Our Daddy's name is Dean. Jo Gene's daddy is named Eugene and Boma Jean's daddy is Bojene.." and then Willadean paused for a minute -- for effect, I gathered, "And our granny was the original Jolene -- which just happens to be Jo Gene's favorite song......You know, Dolly Parton's big hit...but Granny was Jolene before Dolly came along...........and she didn't steal no man."
I cleared my throat to squelch a laugh because I thought Willadean was exaggerating a bit, and I expected the family and Mother to laugh, but no one did. Willadean had delivered her family name history in total seriousness. It was all a little unbelievable to me, but I was in the South.........and in wonderland. Kerry did squeeze my thigh so I knew that he, at least, had found the whole thing as odd as I did. He was just minding his Southern manners by remaining silent, I thought. Mother checked in and out of the conversation with her eyes for a second or two and then went right back to scanning the crowd. I thought that she was being terribly aloof and quiet, which was strange for her, but I chalked it up to being uncomfortable in my presence because of our previous argument.........and I knew she wondered if I was aware of the street fight she'd had with Bart and the mace.....but I'd keep her guessing and never allude to it this night.
"What is Jo Gene's drag name," I just had to ask after my mind sorted out all of the ene's in this family, and something told me that Boma Jean and Jo Gene were not the first cousins to marry in this close -- very close -- knit clan.
Mellodean regally declared her straight cousin's drag name with perfect poetic alliteration "Penelope Jo Gene Plantagenet."
TRICK CARD
Name: Kerry
Phone: 501 555 1234
Nice penmanship, I thought to myself. I had to speculate why so many gay guys had lavish, beautiful hand-writing and mine was akin to medical scribbles..........You really can't tell how a man butters his bread by his handwriting, and I was a testament to that. And this boy could have modeled for Land's End with his tight thin body and trendy hair, and that deep, gruff voice, and no one would have even suspected that he was gay................but he wrote like a girl -- all curly cue and pretty.......and LEGIBLE.
"How about dinner?" he asked bluntly with no trepidation in his voice whatsoever, then he brushed a wisp of sandy-brown hair away from his eyes.
"Huh????" I stammered because I was a bit surprised. I'd just met him...literally had just sat down next to him and spilled the whole story about the drag queen degenerates that I called friends and he'd asked me out. Wonders never ceased to amaze me. If I'd heard the same story from someone, I would have excused myself politely......What the hell did he want from me? (( and I'd ask myself that question often in Hot Springs ))..........but he was kinda cute, and I didn't know where this Bart thing was going. I had also told myself that I needed to seek other friends away from the queenly roundtable, and I didn't want to sit alone at home on my days off........
"I don't have any plans tomorrow night," I said quickly...a little too quickly, I thought to myself because history had taught me that NO ONE wants what he can easily have. Everyone likes to work for it. If it is too easy, it's not worth it...........maybe that is why I was wanting Bart now and not before...He was just too easy, at first. Maybe I liked working for it, too. I decided to take Scarlett's advice and think about that later, and got my head back into this ballgame.
"Neither do I. Dinner and a movie?" he asked. I was even more surprised. I hadn't had a real date since I'd left Spain, and I was beginning to think that these gays in Arkansas only slept with each other...and maybe had breakfast at Waffle House the next morning and simply called it a date to preserve decorum.
"Sure...." I said slowly knowing full well that I'd have to cancel the tentative plans that I'd made with my sister the day she knocked on the door and Bart's undies were on my kitchen Naugahyde.....which seemed so long ago, and only a little over a week had lapsed........
"Call me tomorrow, and we'll set up a time." he said confidently, and Kerry pulled his bar stool closer to mine. Music waxed, then waned from the back room and the already crowded front bar became a little bit more crowded as Mother wafted in the room in full drag and GIANT sunglasses with a gorgeous beaded art-deco inspired purse dangling from her arm. The purse made the outfit. It was about the size of a long business-sized envelope, skinny and sleek with gold, silver and black bugle beads. Miss Superior was followed close behind by two matching chicklets and a straggler. Mother and the chicklets looked like one of those ensemble groups from the 60s with matching sequined cocktails dresses...They could have been a caucasian version of Martha and the Vandellas with dime store white-rimmed goggle-sized sunglasses. I thought to myself that they must be going to do a number in the show as they sidled up beside Kerry and me. The straggler didn't match them at all; she looked like a misplaced lesbian with scraggly shoulder-length mud brown hair, but she didn't wear a T-shirt or Ace bandage around her ample bust, so my curiosity was piqued about her.
"This is Mellodean and Willadean," Mother said to me as she waved her hands over the girls like Vanna White framed her letters on "Wheel of Fortune" right before she turned them........"And that is their cousin, Boma Jean" and she waved over Miss Muddy Brown like she had a magic wand in both hands.....but her "that" told me that she didn't hold the straggler in high regard...........and I had to wonder if Miss Muddy Brown had noticed the slight, but something told me by the way she smiled through her discolored teeth, that she'd completely missed it.............
I hadn't forgotten my Oklahoma manners even though I wasn't pleased to see Mother, but she, like Cora, was behaving as if nothing had happened.....so I played along thinking to myself that might be the way they do things down here in the South as if they swept confrontation and controversy under the rug like it had never been...............(( I'd learn that they handled "family matters" privately, but all would look sunny and unruffled to the rest of the world. Apparently, I'd been baptized into this wacky family, and no one had told me.)). I knew damn well that Mother wore those sunglasses to disguise the redness and puffiness the Mace caused around her eyes, and she'd wanted to hide it so badly that she'd talked two twin girlfriends of hers into donning the ridiculous eyewear in this darkened, smoke filled bar, too...Their dresses looked new, too. I wondered if they'd hid the tags so they could take them back to Dillard's tomorrow -- which wasn't an usual occurrence among drag queens. Sometimes, you'd see them onstage and a price tag would poke out suddenly, and they'd look all glamorous except for the Minnie Pearl tag dangling from their armpit............but I played along and pretended like I hadn't read Mother to filth for being naughty just a couple days prior.........................and I shook the hands of all three girls and muttered "my pleasure" to each of them.....and I gave mother a tiny peck on the cheek as she bent over and gave me a welcome hug..... As a gesture of politeness, I introduced Kerry to this fab 4 and even pretended that he and I hadn't just met.
"Oh yes, I know Kerry," Mother condescended sweetly. "Do you want to borrow my sunglasses,honey? Does this smoke bother your eyes or somethin'?"
"I'm fine," Kerry said and looked down as he dangled his legs off the bar stool. I decided to overtake the conversation before Mother scared away my future date because I had every intention of clinging onto him the entire night if for no other reason than to squelch any rumors that Mother might have generated about her supposed romance with me that only existed in her mind. I had a sneaking suspicion that many people thought that Mother and I were an item, and I suspected that Mother wanted them to think that. Since she'd accosted Bart and attacked him, I also thought that perhaps Mother had misinterpreted our friendly evenings out as more than just friendly. I needed to define our relationship as friends not only for any onlookers -- and there were many in this town unbeknownst to me -- but also to Mother, herself. The bar was full tonight, and there would be no better way to end any speculation about the type of relationship I had with Mother than by being attentive to another guy with Mother standing or sitting right beside me.....(( Okay...I was using this boy, but haven't you done something similar before?))
"So are you all in the show, tonight?" I asked innocently although I thought it would be odd for two real girls to accompany a drag queen on stage, but I'd learned that nothing about this town and gay community surprised me.....and that feeling would be tested in the conversation to come.
"Oh no," one of the twins chimed. "We came to see our cousin perform."
"Oh, your cousin is a drag queen?" I asked and met the eyes of Boma Jean ( Miss Muddy Brown). "What's his drag name?"
"No...well, technically yes, but he's a crossdresser. He's not gay," she responded.
I was a little confused by most of her statement, so I just had to dissect it...word by word. Mother and the chicklets gathered closer to us and all four of them surrounded Kerry and me as we faced them with our backs to the bar. Kit still mixed drinks behind me, buzzed patrons in willy-nilly.....and "meowed". Wife-beatered lesbians clanked pool balls in the next room, and all manner of gay cliques ( drugstore cowboys, bopping-blacks, couple claches, twink gaggles...etc..) peopled the fairy-lit bar tables around us as they puffed on cigarettes, sipped their drinks and gossipped about everyone...and I noticed a few of them looked at our group and whispered amongst themselves so I knew that I was a part of their gossip; The juke box still played Reba or Whitney or Bette, but it all faded into the background, and our world temporarily became our conversation. Everything else faded to background noise.
"What do you mean? 'No, technically yes'" I asked with a strange look on my face because this girl was just not making any sense whatsoever. I'd eventually get to the crossdresser part, but there was something else just as interesting (( and Arkansan )) lurking behind her mysterious response. All of us looked at her. I noticed the twins lowered their sunglasses just a bit (( and their eyeshadow was impeccable. I even suspected that they must have had drag queen make-up schooling )) and peered over the rims at their cousin. Mother Superior looked over the heads of the chicklets as if she was bored, or didn't want to include Boma Jean in our world.
Boma Jean giggled a little,"Well...he is my cousin....but...we've been married for a long time, too," she paused for a second. "We've just been cousins longer."
"You married your cousin?" I asked...slow and drawn out...but tried not to act surprised (( but you know, I don't think I'd win the Oscar with that performance )).
"Well....It's my second marriage, but it was just meant to be. I've loved him since I was four and he was six, and we used to play Gilligan's Island......I was always Mary Ann, and he was The Professor," she said very innocently and naively. Okay, I'd say that she sounded like a ding-bat....and I could tell that a turd-ball bug had more sense than she had...but I don't want you to think I'm too bitchy. (( It's just the truth. The bitch was stupid.))
"Is that legal?" I just had to get to the bottom of this.
"Well, I had a different last name cuz I'd been married before...and no one asked us any questions, so I guess so." she continued to fill me in with no notice of the look on my face, cuz I just can't hide it when I hear some things, and this was one of those times. Mother released a slow sigh and Kerry and the chicklets didn't seem to notice anything unusual about the situation.....or the conversation. But, I was keenly interested. Boma Jean was the first, real, live hillbilly that I'd ever met, and she had the credentials to prove it: she'd married her cousin.
"A different last name?" I delved a little deeper and then asked Kit for a double shot of Goose to add to my cranberry spritzer. I didn't think a couple shots would matter because I was going to be here for awhile, and I needed the shots just like Mother Superior needed her double cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper, but Mother stood undrinked, so I assumed she must have already heard this story.
"Yes......"she paused and a look passed over her face as if she didn't know whether she should continue, but she did anyway. "Our daddys are brothers so we had the same last name. So....I guess.....I got to keep my maiden name after all." Boma Jean spoke naively with virginal white honesty, and Kit wasted no time adding the vodka to my spritzer (( probably because I tipped damn good...and she gave me a 10 count directly from the bottle....of course, I counted the pour, and tipped accordingly because -- for those of you who don't know how to bartend -- she'd given me at least three shots with her pour......)) and I quickly took a big gulp of my drink...........and then I took another.....and another until I'd ingested about half of my drink. It didn't take long for the warmth of the Greygoose to spread through out my body and limbs.
"Well....." I said and not knowing exactly what to say at the moment I asked, "What is your last name?"
"Plantagenet." she said flatly while still maintaining her second grade innocence.
"Boma Jean Plantagenet....what a name," I let eek out before I thought, and I took another gulp. "And Boma Jean, your husband is a drag queen?"
She looked at her other cousins -- Willadean and Mellodean, who I assumed were also the blood cousins of her husband.
"No," Mellodean interjected. "He is a crossdresser. He ain't no drag queen. Drag queens are gay. Joseph Eugene has always been good at fashion, hair and make-up.....See?" she said as she removed her sunglasses and ran her fingers through her long blonde hair. "He even did our eyes for us tonight....BUT...he's not gay. He just likes to play dress up every now and then. That's how we met Mother....at his very first show." Willadean and Mellodean were good looking women, and the boob and hip gene must have run in the family cuz all of these girls were built the same way. They were a bit pear-shaped, heavier at the bottom than most pears, but shapely and they had beautiful faces which I hadn't noticed completely until Mellodean had removed her glasses. Boma Jean had received the same body chromosomes, but the Lord had passed over her in the hair and face departments...bless her heart -- I blamed it on her Mama's side of the family...But......I was curious to see Jo Gene.........both in and out of drag. The cousins were the children of three brothers, and I had to admire that these cousins and the cousin/spouse had come out to support their kin -- which is something that would never happen in my family.
"Oh....yeah." I said in that I-can't-believe-I'm-hearing-this-crap-I've-got-to-be-in-Alice-In-Wonderland-way, and looked over at Mother with the same look in my eyes, and remembered that I much preferred to be in Wonderland than in motherfruit Jungle...........at least dicks didn't land willy-nilly on car windows in Wonderland.
Mother looked at me quickly and mumbled quietly to me,"I'll tell you later," and then she looked above us all again and continued to look around the bar uncomfortably as she pulled her beaded envelope bag closer to her because it had dangled down her wrist. That purse would be a constant bother to her all night long, but it did set off her outfit to a T. People continued to be buzzed in, and the music waxed and waned as people left the front bar to enter the back bar to get seats for the approaching drag show. By that time, I'd completely forgotten that I was mad at Mother, and had decided that I'd overreacted.(( I'm sure the Goose helped a little))....I'd just remember to always drive my own car in the future. Kerry slid his hand onto my thigh, and I jerked a little out of shock, but I didn't move his hand.
"So, we have Mellodean, Willadean, Jo Gene and Boma Jean," I stated the obvious and looked at Kerry and smiled at him with the same look I'd given Mother....and patted his hand. He returned my look with a red-eye blank stare. "Ya'll sure like that "ene" sound, down here in Arkansas." I chuckled a bit, and they all joined me.
"We sure do. Our Daddy's name is Dean. Jo Gene's daddy is named Eugene and Boma Jean's daddy is Bojene.." and then Willadean paused for a minute -- for effect, I gathered, "And our granny was the original Jolene -- which just happens to be Jo Gene's favorite song......You know, Dolly Parton's big hit...but Granny was Jolene before Dolly came along...........and she didn't steal no man."
I cleared my throat to squelch a laugh because I thought Willadean was exaggerating a bit, and I expected the family and Mother to laugh, but no one did. Willadean had delivered her family name history in total seriousness. It was all a little unbelievable to me, but I was in the South.........and in wonderland. Kerry did squeeze my thigh so I knew that he, at least, had found the whole thing as odd as I did. He was just minding his Southern manners by remaining silent, I thought. Mother checked in and out of the conversation with her eyes for a second or two and then went right back to scanning the crowd. I thought that she was being terribly aloof and quiet, which was strange for her, but I chalked it up to being uncomfortable in my presence because of our previous argument.........and I knew she wondered if I was aware of the street fight she'd had with Bart and the mace.....but I'd keep her guessing and never allude to it this night.
"What is Jo Gene's drag name," I just had to ask after my mind sorted out all of the ene's in this family, and something told me that Boma Jean and Jo Gene were not the first cousins to marry in this close -- very close -- knit clan.
Mellodean regally declared her straight cousin's drag name with perfect poetic alliteration "Penelope Jo Gene Plantagenet."
No comments:
Post a Comment