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.