The Foundations of a Subtle Battle

Miss Greasy Crinilin must have been a theatre major ( and she had been ,but she'd flunked out her sophomore year, I later learned ) because she knew how to work that spotlight in ways that Tonya Lee could have never thought of ( and we've already discusssed why ).  Slowly, like a cat stalking its prey, Miss Crinilin edged the spotlight from the base of the stage to its final destination, but she'd contorted it into a skinny oval shape.  All other lights in the room had been extinguished.  Only the spotlight beamed, and of course the red fairy lights did their flicker in the center of most tables -- ours lacked a fancy candle because Mother had shattered it in her mini-rage to me and the porters had not replaced it when they redressed our table -- and they were probably wise with that decision.

At the very back of the stage, I could barely make out the figure of a woman dressed in black if I squinted; I did take note that Cherry had made no introduction for this queen, and that struck me as odd.........and the music hadn't started either..........but a hush had filled the room.  Only the whir of the fog machine could be heard and the gentle click of heels on the wood parque' stage/dance floor.  No one, including Mother, moved.  We all just sat and waited.  Our curiosity had been aroused at this dramatic beginning of someone's number, and our thirst for the performance had been whetted.

The first few bars of the music seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't wrap my mind around it....and the spotlight still crept slowly to meet its queen as she inched forward to step into its beam.  Stitch by stitch, it climbed up her sleek, midnight black dress which was actually long fringe that stretched the length of the mysterious performer's body, but none of us would notice that until the chorus of the song. I did notice ample cleavage because her dress appeared to have straps with plenty of boob.  On the first word, of the song -- which was all too familiar, but it was a mix that I'd never heard before -- the spotlight reached the face of BIANCA.

                                  "First I was afraid
                                   I was petrified
                                   Kept thinking I could never live
                                   without you by my side"

This mix of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" was much slower than the original version, but I assumed it was building to a climax of epic proportions by the staging. It took a moment for the audience to recognize Bianca --  probably because we didn't expect to see her again on that night after the previous throw-up event, but it could have also had something to do with her wig -- or at least, I thought it was a wig.  I had to turn to Mother and ask what it was.

"It's a skull cap........AND it used to be mine," she managed to say between pursed lips, but she was maintaining her composure much better than before...and I thought she was even enjoying the performance.  Mother kept time to the music with her big toe ( she'd kicked off her size 12 black patent leather heels because she really needed a size 15).  It could have been my imagination, but I thought I saw her moving her lips to the words of the song.  For some reason, I gathered she was a little bit proud of Bianca, but it was only my intuition whispering  in my ear, so I couldn't be sure ( but it was rarely wrong).

The skull cap was fashioned from the same material as the dress: Long black fringe, but it had a string of oval rhinestones that encircled the crown of Bianca's head and one supreme oval rhintestone pendant was centered in the middle of her forehead.  The cap clung closely to her head and was reminiscent of a headdresss in an Erte' print.

                                "But I spent so many nights
                                 thinking how you did me wrong
                                  I grew strong
                                  I learned how to carry on"

The entire scenario reminded me of the final scene of the great Barbra Streisand's FUNNY GIRL when she performed MY MAN on a darkened stage.  I was totally mesmerized, and I could only inhale Bianca's beauty.

                               "and so you're back
                                from outer space
                                I just walked in to find you here
                                with that sad look upon your face
                                I should have changed my stupid lock
                                I should have made you leave your key
                                If I had known for just one second
                                you'd be back to bother me"

Bianca, who'd been standing regally still and only lip synching with perfection and using the fine art of facial expression, spread her black evening-gloved hands ( which had previously hung loosely at her sides ) to reveal more long fringe attached along their seams that hung to her knees and blew slightly in the wind of the fans and over the bubbling fog like sails in a gentle sea..  At this point, I thought  this performance was extemporaneous, and that she hadn't planned it tonight, but I thought she should thank Mitzi for the fog and the fans because it was a spectacular picture to behold.  I'd later realize that this had been one of two choices for her performance this evening, but I wouldn't figure that out until the last few bars of her performance. I also knew that like her previous song, this number was also directed at Mother, but it told a much different story...a defiant testimony, and it did not ask for forgiveness.  I didn't know what else Bianca had planned, but I realized that she had cow-towed to Mother on her first song, but she was preparing to wage an all out war, now...and I couldn't blame her.  I knew that Mother was responsible for Hester; she might not have been directly involved with the puke, but she had planned a disruption of some sort.  All the circumstantial evidence pointed in that direction, and I'd never be able to verify it with total certainty, but I knew..I knew.  The pinch of the leg from a woman that Mother pretended to detest and Mother's surrende of a couple of bills had told me plenty.  Granted, Mother had snatched the 20s out of Hester's hands to make up for the splash of puke...but still...those actions told me all i needed to know.  Somehow or other, the Superior drag queen and the eccentric middle-aged drunk were in cahoots.

So I knew what I knew about Mother, and it didn't surprise me.  I'd known how she was along, but no one is all good and no one is all bad.  She had to cling to her position; it was who she was.  I didn't know much about her past, but I knew she'd been stepped on by other queens in the past, and she was strong enough to prevent that from happening again......But Bianca's reappearance on her stage of shame, told me plenty about her, too.  Apparently, Bianca was resilient and tough, or she would have crawled away like Mitzi had done, and Lord knows that Bianca's humiliation had been magnanimously more than Mitzi's...............and the next few moments would lay the foundations of a subtle battle between a drag queen who refused to reliquish an inch of  her kingdom and one who simply wanted her place within it.

The repaired spotlight came up, barely

"Gurl, if this aint' a hodge podge of haints, I don't know what it is," Mother managed to say between fits of laughter, snorts and table banging...........and she wasn't alone.  I had to concur with her.  Even though there had been some high points in the evening, we had witnessed mainly scag drag, and I had determined that the term "talent" night was a definite misnomer.  Only Cherry Fontaine and Bianca had displayed any true talent, and with Bianca's unfortunate vomit demise, her performance was a bit marred, to say the least.

BUT..I had been entertained, perhaps not in the way the queens had intended but it was much more fun than sitting at home alone in my carpet-up-the-wall apartment pining away for Bart, who had escaped my thoughts for most of the evening, and the freedom had been liberating.  In my mind, I'd taken a little Cher with me, and I think she would have enjoyed the show too.  Where else could I have witnessed a black queen in a blonde wig impersonating Dolly Parton, the resurrection of Mel's Flo with a slightly Frankensteinish air by a "straight" man whose cousin/wife sat only a few seats away from me twirling her hair and making spit bubbles, or witness an Aphroditic drag queen get barraged with barf by a fiftysomething eccentric heiress in a Martian motorcycle helmet?  Even Mitzi's stumble in an ocean of fake fog and subsequent accidental mooning-- which would have made the front page of the town's gay gossip rag -- paled in comparison to all of that.  What else could possibly happen on this evening?

With all of those images being rehashed in my mind, I managed to notice the unheadlining novice queen ( with the bicycle chain grease still evident on her crinilin ) glide through the rumbling fog like she was Jesus walking on water and slip  by us with a cassette tape in her hand.  Mother was still cackling like a goose with the "ene" cousins, so she didn't even notice that there had been a pause in the evening's performances.  I turned around  and squinted through the darkness to see where Greasy Crinilin had gone, and I watched her hand the tape to the DJ, and then she tapped the Spot Light operator on the shoulder -- who was also in drag ( if you can call it that.  I'd later learn that her name was Tonya Lee, and she had been a resident at the town's occupational rehabilitation center for a few years............uhm...well..I think the PC term to describe her is mentally and emotionally challenged, but we would have called her slightly retarded when that word was still possible to use without causing eyebrows to arch.)  Tonya stepped down off the concrete blocks and walked backstage while Greasy Crinilin struck the spotlight a few times with her gloved hands and managed to shake the green gel loose.  She tested each of the other colors and color combinations...red.....blue...purple.yellow..orange...green again..and clear..and they all seemed to be in working order.  No one in the audience seemed to notice the color display dancing atop the fog as several people were up and about gossipping, laughing, exchanging numbers or ordering new beverages. 

The cocktail waitress -- who was looking a bit haggard and needed to touch up her paint-job and re-spray her haphazard up-do -- was running hither-thither trying to get as many orders as she could.  The lesbians -- who were notoriously bad tippers -- had given up getting any service from the drag queen waitress ( and who could blame her for ignoring them since they defiantly refused to tip ?) and they were standing around the bar waiting for some bartender -- whom I'd never seen -- to pop their tops for them -- and from the grimace on his face, I deciphered that they weren't tipping him either....but even in a grimace and from a distance in darkness, the face was nice...........and I suddenly got thirsty.

Siara and Kerry were involved in conversation, or SiAra was talking and Kerry appeared to be listening, but sometimes blank stares can be misleading -- and I secretly hoped SiAra would take Kerry off my hands, but her cough was persistent and rather unattractive with its deep hacking sound, so I knew my hopes would never come to fruition, and Mother was enjoying a lively whoop and holler with Willadean and Mellodean.  Boma Jean was completely spaced-out and still sat spred-legged twirling her hair.  If I would have liked her, I would have cared, but I didn't...so I didn't.  It was a perfect opportunity for me to escape, quench my thirst and do some investigative work concerning the new bartender.  After all, it could be an investment in my future.

I didn't bother to excuse myself like I would have done had I been with my Oklahoma friends; I just slipped quickly out of my chair and walked directly to the back bar.  My eyes met quite a number of stares, and I even garnered a couple smiles and nods along the way.  I'd been instructed years prior by my first boyfriend, Larry, to never return a smile from anyone in a gay bar, or I'd have trouble all night.........and I had adhered to that advice for many years and habit made me cling to it even on this night.  Larry had been my first boyfriend which had also made him my gay teacher by default, and even though I thought some of his advice had been rude and mean, most of it had been correct.  He was the beautiful boy I'd met at the McDonald's drive-thru.  At the time he was instructing me on how to be gay, I hadn't realized he was teaching me how to be a bitch, but being a bitch works, and I have to thank him for that...........He had taught me the look to give to remain unapproachable,and it was tried and true.  Unapproachable is always alluring, and even though someone might know they can never have you, they will still want you............because they can't have you..Unapproachable was necessary in a room of drunk or drugged gay men especially if it was an older crowd.  For some reason, some older gay men thought their persistence was complimentary, but it actually bordered on stalking . On the other hand, there were times when I didn't want to be unapproachable, and that got really confusing especially after I'd already given someone the unapproachable glare several weeks prior.  Like I said, I am a fickle bitch, and underline the word bitch cuz it's true, but men love bitches honey.  They sleep with sluts, but they give their hearts to bitches. 

But when the bartender looked up at me with those doe-eyes when I reached the walnut-slab of a bar, it wasn't his heart that I wanted. Prurient images flashed through my mind, and I had to concentrate to order a cranberry juice.    He ignored the lesbians and immediately poured me some juice much to their chagrin and one ( she was the one with the mullet who'd almost lost her fem to a Sooner that I mentioned earlier )  even said something about lesbian discrimination.  My heart told me he moved quickly cuz he liked what he saw in me.  My mind told me he knew I'd tip so the non-tippers could wait.  I overheard a twink, sitting at a nearby barstool, ask a troll who I was...and the troll replied that I was a bitch. (( Uh huh, I thought, to you, I am, old man... )) I pretended I hadn't heard his assessment of me, but I winked at the twink to spite the troll...and the twink smiled back broadly.  I paid for my drink and tipped the bartender 2 bucks and winked at him, too.  He returned my wink with another wink, and I turned to walk away.  To determine if he'd winked at me for the tip, I turned my head slightly to look at him............No, he'd winked at me because I was me.  When I'd turned around,  he was watching my ass as I walked away....and so was the twink.   It was those moments that told me I was wasting my time with Bart, but my stupid heart was deaf to it all.

When I returned to our table, Mother had her compact open, and she was checking her make-up.  For some reason, she thought she needed to apply some more lipstick, so she did but neatly this time...and then she squirted herself all over with something that smelled like feline flea-spray but came in a pretty crystal bottle with a frosted 3-D plastic flower for its lid.

"Is that too much perfume?  You know, I can't smell a damn thing so I always put too much on," she'd said -- which explained how she'd been able to endure such proximity to the puke.

"Oh, no, it's just.... purrr-fect," I lied with a fake smile, and if she'd known me any better she would have known that I was being facetious by my felonious word choice.  Satisfied, she replaced all of her articles of beauty in her art-deco beaded purse, clicked it shut and placed it neatly on the table in front of her.....Just as she'd lain it down, the repaired spotlight came up,barely.

Mother laughed loudest of all

One of the good qualities that Mother Superior possessed -- and she had many -- was her forthright honesty.  It was a rarity in the South, but she was like me in that regard.  Truth was truth no matter how you painted it, and you might as well just say it like it was...............and she didn't lie about Mitzi's performance.  It did get worse.  I think the worst part of it was that it was boring and lacked creativity.

Mitzi was a less-than-glamorous drag queen wannabe who was dressed in loose gypsy garb trying to sell a song that lacked a climax.  Stevie Nicks could sell it because of her gravelly voice and speculation about withcraft, but Mitzi couldn't. Some people had it, and some did not, but I'd eventually learn that there was a HUGE difference in entertainment value between drag queens and transexuals.  Every now and then the two united and a transy was a good drag queen, but more often than not, transies just weren't performers.  Something other than their outward appearance lurked on their insides and yearned to be set free, but it wasn't talent.  Unfortunately, Mitzi had that bug...and the booty flu, too.  I thought she should just go get the surgery and bake bread for a pot-bellied husband ( and pretend to be barefoot and pregnant ) and forget about the art of drag queenery.  Judging from her performance, she was a definite transy, and NOT a drag queen.............and I'd judged Mother too harshly on her criticism of Mitzi.  She'd been right all along, and the very thing that I admired about Mother -- her honesty -- had offended me the most when she'd told Mitzi the truth about her performance ability.  I was a fickle bitch, but who isn't?  In the future, I'd realize that I was new to this ballgame, and I should sit back and watch a little more before I passed judgment.  Perhaps Mother knew more than I did -- but I hated to admit that -- even to myself.

Of course, I tipped Mitzi.  We all did.  She even had a line of fans on one side of the aisle waiting to offer her monetary accolades, but no one cheered...and the tips were pity tips.  From the look in her eyes, I could see that she knew that, but she trudged onward...........and most of the audience was polite and just waited for it to end...and then there was an interruption in her tape and new music started.

"Oh God," Mother said outloud ( with Mitzi no more than 3 feet away from us ).  "She's made a mix. How long will this shit last?"

"Just a couple more minutes, bitch," Mitzi said to Mother before the words started to her song, and I kicked Mother under the table.

"Well, do something besides just stand there.  This shit is boring," Mother sneered at Mitzi.  I elbowed her hard on that one and immediately thrust a dollar bill into the air to try to make up for Mother's overflowing honesty. 

Mitzi snatched it out of my hand and said to Mother, "Fuck you, you old hag.  All you do is SPIN all over the stage when you do a number.  You don't even know the words."

"Uh!" is all Mother uttered, and I had to hold her arm down to prevent her from getting up and making a total jackass of herself.  She'd done enough of that on this talent night, and Mitzi deserved simple stage respect if nothing else.  Thankfully, Another Stevie song started and Mitzi backed off and moved her arms up and down to the driving notes of her new song. Her shawl had fallen off of her wig, and it made good impromptu wings.  Mother crossed her arms, tapped her foot, and her ears got ketchup red, but she shut her mouth.  Mitzi thrust her hands into the deep pockets of her prarie skirt and threw hand fulls of gold glitter into the air -- and the fans - just as her lyrics started, but something went wrong within seconds of her thrusts.
                                                "Rock on - gold dust woman
                                                 Take your silver spoon
                                                  and dig your grave"

Mitzi started making strange eye contortions, and tears streamed down her face.  At first, I thought that Mother's harsh words had hurt her feelings, and she was crying on stage, but that wasn't the problem at all.  All of that gold glitter that she'd thrown up into the air -- and which had looked simply spectacular in the green spot-light ( and had received the only cheer from the audience that she'd get on this night ) had blown right back into her face and eyes.  She warbled around for a few more beats to the song, and then her heels got entangled in her prarie skirt, and she went down..down..down into the rumbling fog.  If that wasn't bad enough, the spot light operator honed in on her as she tried to crawl away, and all the audience could see was her panty-hose covered butt as she crawled away to the dressing room and out of her humiliation.  It was an interesting sight because her arms were concealed by the rolling clouds, and all we could see was her ass -- in hane's sheer-to-the-waist fawn beige.  I guess the skirt must have come up and she just shined her moon at us.  (( I, secretly, thought to myself that it was intentionally aimed at Mother, but I'd never be able to verify that for sure because Mitzi refused to ever discuss that night again, and she hung up her tiara forever after that.))

Initially, the audience didn't know what to do.  Everyone at our table exchanged glances, and there was a beat of silence then all at once, as if the entire room had an invisible conductor, the place erupted into a cacophony of laughter..and Mother laughed loudest of all.

Just Watch, Gurl, It Gets Worse

By the time, we'd reentered Our House, and received our customary MEOW from Kit -- who was scrubbing out the crock-pot in the bar sink -- most of the crowd had migrated to the back bar.  Queens and dykes alike were spinning on the dance like no one had ever puked on it.  Mother and the "ene" cousins had resumed their seats, and Boma Jean looked wild-eyed and spastic and she sat spred-legged and twirled her hair with her index finger.  Something had happened to her in my absence, but it would take awhile for its effects on her to affect me. Kerry and I took our seats, and Siara seated herself at the end of the table but not before  Mother stood and hugged her and acted like they were dearly departed friends who hadn't seen each other in years -- which was another strange bar ritual that I never quite understood.  Heck, I'd never talk to most of these people in real life; I sure as heck wouldn't hug them.  It reminded me of the "fellowship" time at country churches where the pastor told us all to "shake somebody's hand or hug their neck", and I always cringed.  It was worse in a gay bar, but I didn't have to paint on a face and pretend I liked it like I did at church, and I sure as heck never hugged anyone unless I wanted to.  I just looked at them like they were nuts if they stretched out their arms to me, and I didn't want to hug them.  That could be another reason why I eventually won the bitch award.............but at least, I was real.  I wasn't going to be a hypocrite and hug someone who'd spread lies about me or stabbed me in the back.  The phrase, "turn the other cheek" meant something totally different in the gay world and Christian rules just didn't apply there.

"Where have you two been?" Mother asked in an accusatory voice that lilted at the end as she resumed her seat.

To add fuel to the flames of her gossip fire, I said, "At the dumpster." point-blank and shamelessly.... AND I knew full well that she envisioned a new condom on the ground by the way she lowered her sunglasses and peered over their rims with raised eyebrows....and I didn't correct her.  I just smiled.  I'd learned to stop caring what other people thought about me years prior and knew that they'd believe what they wanted -- rather than what was true -- anyway.  Belief of any type takes effort and desire. Depending on which direction a person's heart was pulled on a matter, determined what he believed.  I couldn't do anything about what she believed or wanted to believe, and I hadn't lied.  We'd been at the damn dumpster, but we hadn't vulcanized our thangs or even pulled them out.  Mother just couldn't believe that I wasn't like her, and it would take her years to realize that. By this time, however, I knew Mother well enough to know that she wouldn't have left a condom on the ground either, but she would have been bent over like a heifer at a feeding trough if given half the chance.  THAT just wasn't me, but it WAS her. Animalistic behavior at a dumpster was below ME.

The music changed to some Lawrence Welk "travelling" music ( as the drag queen's called it) and as if on cue, the dance floor cleared and the seats filled up once again to compose a surprisingly full audience. (( and I told myself that not even egg puke could scare off this crowd)).  The spotlight ( still stuck on green ) began to trace figure 8's across the back wall, and the black porters appeared and turned on 4 floor fans ( two were directly in front of our front table and one each were on the side walls).  They were all aimed at the dance floor.  When I'd initially seen Mitzi place them there after Hester's puke party, I had assumed that they were to clear the air, so to speak, but I was wrong.  I'd soon discover their purpose.  Fog started rolling onto the dance floor from somewhere, but the fans kept the billowing clouds centered on the dance floor.  Within a very few minutes, that dance floor/stage was transformed into something that slightly resembled a graveyard in a horror movie..........and then there was Mitzi.  She just popped out of the back.  She wore gypsy looking garb  that the wind from the fans whirled and lifted hither and yon..........She even had part of it draped across her head so she looked like Mary -- you know, the Madonna..the Mother of Jesus..that you see in depictions of her in the Children's Bible.  Mitzi Tootsie wore all white, and we all knew it wasn't because she was pure, but the grassy tinge from the spotlight added some honesty to her get-up...and cast a strange hue on the fog.

"Oh, Lord," Mother said quite audibly. "I've seen this shit before.  Hold on, gurl."

                                                "So I'm back to the velvet underground

                                                     Back to the floor that I love

                                             To a room with some lace and velvet flowers

                                         Back to the gypsy that I was, to the gypsy that I was"

Mitzi lip-synched and flapped her flowing white robes around, and the wind from the fans caught them nicely.  Lord knows, the song was boring with barely any beat and certainly wasn't a good drag choice, but Mitzi made it look pretty -- for the time being.

I nudged Mother and asked in a whisper,"Is that Stevie Nicks?"

Mother nodded with a sour look on her face, "Yesssssssssssss" she drawled,"This is the number that got her last place at Miss Arkansas.  Just watch, gurl, it gets worse."