Karate Kicks and Charles Ray

     "I'm glad it's you, Harlene," Mother said to the cop and I took note of another "ene" in Hot Springs. This one just happened to be a boxy built lesbo in a police uniform wearing rubber gloves and brandishing a pistol. "And don't you point that gun at me, honey.  I've known you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, and I'm not the one causing any trouble.  I'm ending it.  You should have been here ten minutes ago when these heathrens shut off the power and attacked us."  ( I think she meant heathens, but she said heathRens.....)
     "Hell, I wouldn't have stopped at all if I hadn't seen the lights were off.  What is going on here?" and then she paused and looked at me. "Hi, I'm Harlene." and I replied with a hello and a self-introduction....
     "It's nice to meet ya', but could you take your foot off his head so he can talk to me?" she asked me ever so politely like this sort of thing happened to me all the time. ( BUT, it didn't........unless I was with Mother....). I stepped away, and Harlene stooped to talk to the lassoed bigot with a taste for midget thangs.
    As her eyes got a little closer to the villain, she got a puzzled look on her face and said, "Charles Ray, is that you?"
     "Please don't tell Mama that we were here, Aunt Harlene," Charles Ray, the skinny, scarecrow, egg-throwing, dick-sucking, red-neck bigot begged as he bawled while Mother held his belted hands tightly behind him and straddled his butt....but he didn't say Aunt; he said Aint..these Southerners do that.  They use "aint" to mean a lot of things, and it's not even a real word.
     "And please," he pleaded. "Don't let them make me squeal like a pig.  This fat  lady's been sittin' on my ass for a long time, but I think she's really a Chinese man wearin' a harlot's dress. " Mother squeezed Charles Ray's hands a little tighter on that one, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing, but he wasn't quite finished yet.
     "We just came here to spread the good news to these sinners," He tried to sound very holy to his Aunt, but he wasn't fooling her either;  James Leroy chimed in with an,"Amen!" and it was all I could do not to spit on both of them who looked a little slain in the Spirit, but they were really laid-out by drag queens.  They'd been throwing eggs like Old Testament stones only a few minutes prior, and I guess they were trying to justify their behavior to their aunt, but she was one of us unbeknownst to them.  (( They really need to tell people in church what lesbians look like, because straight people miss the blatantly obvious lesbian clues all the time.  With one glance, I knew what team she played on, and I hadn't even looked at her fingernails.....))
     "Mother, get off of him.  This is my nephew, " Harlene said with a sigh and some shame intermingled with disgust, and then she looked over at the midget lying on the ground who had opened his eyes when she arrived ( which just confirmed that he had been playing opossum all along) and was trying to look all pious -- as best as he could.  I am sure he would have dubbed it, 'Suffering for Jesus', if given the opportunity.
    "Well, these are my nephews..my sisters, Darlene's and Charlene's, boys"....( this "ene" thing ran rampant  in the South)............and then she looked at Mother as she unstraddled Charles Ray and rose with a little indication of a crick in her back.....( and it was no wonder her back hurt. If you would have seen the way she'd spun and threw her legs like Bruce Lee...YOUR back would have hurt for her.  Those moves weren't  made for middle-aged, big-girl drag queens...).... "You remember my sisters, don't you Larry?  We all used to come visit you at the bowling alley, and you always made us the best banana malts.  The best in town. Couldn't get them anywhere else in town like yours."
     Harlene stood up and put her gun in her holster, and Mother leaned over and hugged her, "Well, thank you.  It was the honey AND brown sugar I put in them.  No one else ever does that, and it DOES make a difference, but don't go telling no one my trade secrets, " Mother smiled and continued with this familiar mode which I thought was a good ploy considering she'd just beat the hay out of this cop's nephew....
      "Y'all were such good little girls.  Your twin sisters were always so pretty with their blonde curly hair, and you were such a Tom-boy in your Festus outfit and used to boss them all over the place.  And now look at you, all grown up...You are a real live Festus, now," Mother chuckled, and as I looked at Harlene, I didn't doubt the Tom-boy part. Charles Ray began to rustle like he was going to sit up.  I took a mental note to make sure I got my belt back.......( and if Harlene would have had a mustache and goatee, she would have been the spitting image of Festus from Gunsmoke.)
     "Charles Ray, don't you move another muscle.  You lay still," and she glanced over at her other nephew, "And you, too, James Leroy,"  She paused for a minute as if she was wondering what she should do.  There seemed to be a battle in her mind, and she finally gave in to justice and bent over and roughly handcuffed each of her nephews where they lay.  I could tell by the way she pursed her lips that she was bothered by her decision,and I am sure any aunt would have hated to be the one who had to handcuff her nephews, so I didn't judge her, but she gained my respect.
     "Don't think you're getting out of this just because you are my nephews.  When I got this uniform on, I am an officer of the law, and I can't believe that you would come down here and embarrass me like this.  These are good people.  Your Mamas and me have been knowing them since we were little........" she said as she finished cuffing James Leroy.  Then she rose and walked to Mother Superior after telling Kerry and me to keep an eye on them ( and not to step on their heads anymore).
     "I'm sorry about this, Larry," she called the wigless drag queen in sequins and spider web panty hose by his Christian name. "What all did they do this time?"
     Then she lowered her voice to a whisper, and I barely overheard her plead  "Was it really that bad? Is there something we can work out?  I really don't want to haul my nephews into the station."
     Before Mother answered, she reached up to primp her wig -- which wasn't there.
     "My wig!! SiAra!...Oh my God, We forgot SiAra!" Mother said with some excitement as she ran over to the shed and started beating her hands on the boards, but I hadn't forgotten SiAra at all. I'd been wondering what the heck she'd been doing in that clap-board cubicle for a long time, but I guess Mother's mind had been on Karate kicks and Charles Ray.
    

I leaned a little heavier on my Haan

     “Give me your belt, bitch!” Mother yelled over to me.  My eyes zoomed from my midget, who was passed out cold at my feet — a little spit drooled out of his mouth, but no blood, thank the Lord — to Mother and her struggling red-neck whose rage had turned to pleading for Mother not to fuck him up the butt.  ( HIS exact words...)   She’d rolled him over and was straddling his backside ( in her sequin cocktail dress  —  tags flapping in her armpit  — and what was left of her Sheer Energy's which looked more like a spider web than panty hose because of all the runs caused  from all those Karate kicks, I figured) and holding his hands behind his back, so I almost understood his pleas...........but I also thought at the same time, that straight men are so presumptuous and always think we want to pork every one of them.  Lord, someone needs to tell them that they aren't God's gift to gaykind.  Some of us do have some standards....even Mother.

     “I said give me your damn belt before he gets loose!!” her insistence shook me from my stupor, and I yanked off my braided leather belt ((( which was quite trendy at the time...we even made sure they dangled in front of our crotches, so we had to buy them extra long.  It was terribly phallic and probably the reason it was so popular in the gay subculture.)))  I ran to her and quickly complied.
     "Please, Please don't rape me," the idiot bellowed.  "I give really good head, ask James Leroy."  Now, I got the impression that he wanted an excuse to demonstrate his fellatio techniques,but it was only suspicion..and I didn't know who this James Leroy was for sure..but I had the distinct feeling that he was the midget who was passed out and drooling on the asphalt.  Apparently, these boys were closer than they would normally admit.
     With a couple of ounces of effort, the struggling scarecrow, raised his face up and looked right into my eyes and said, "You're going to hell, you pervert.  God hates you!"  His words pierced me and stung, and brought back an ocean of memories that flooded my mind and paralyzed me with thoughts for a few seconds.  

     “Hold his head down with your foot, and smash his face in the  ground.  I'm tired of hearing his mouth,” Mother panted as she wrapped up his hands.  I looked at her with deep question marks in my irises. But, I didn't move.  For just a few seconds, I remembered when I had thought like he did, but I hadn't committed mutiny to the Lord.  I'd just decided to be honest and be me, and now, this self-appointed messenger of the Lord had come here to spread the Gospel with his disciple, the midget.  He was thoroughly convinced that harassing us, intimidating us, calling us names and even throwing eggs at us were sanctioned by Jesus, even though he did the same thing we did in secret with  James Leroy.
     “Don’t be a fucking pansy now, just do it!” Mother cried even loud and brought me to the situation at hand ….Timidly, I placed  my right Cole Haan on the back of his wiggling head and tried not to hurt him.  
     “Smash it, or the turd will get loose..and HURT him.  Don’t be a pussy.  He would have killed you if given the chance,” Mother yelled between breaths, and I knew she was right.  If the tables had been turned, and if Mother hadn't been a closet Karate expert, I might have been lying where the red-neck was... so I smashed... and I smashed hard.  Truly, the enormity of the situation hadn't struck me until that moment.
      His yelps were muffled by the blacktop and he spit and sputtered and begged.  He offered to perform oral services more times than I could count all the while interspersing those offers with threats of hellfire and damnation, but it was kind of funny to watch him squirm.  We certainly didn’t ask for them to accost us; we were just trying to turn the lights on….but the lights still didn’t shine and Jennifer Holliday had grown silent.  I had to wonder just what SiAra was doing in there.  The lights had flashed off and on multiple times, so she’d obviously found the switch, but they were off now, and no sound came from within the clap-board fence which was more like a roofless shed against the back wall of the bar. It was as dark and quiet as a tomb. What was SiAra doing in there? 

    I guess the red-neck grew weary of wiggling and figured out that we had no intentions of deflowering him because he relaxed a little and only released puffs of loud moans intermittently. If someone would have glanced over and heard the sounds, they would have sworn that a wigless drag queen was being quite anal with this red-neck, but we didn't think about that at the time....so Mother straddled him, and I smashed his head.  He wasn’t going anywhere.  I glanced over at Kerry, and he had followed Mother’s example and had flipped over the midget and lassoed his hands with his belt ( which, of course, was the same as mine...I told you they were the trend then).  The midget snoozed away like he was on a Serta Perfect Sleeper rather than on the cold, hard black top.  The idea that he was playing opossum ran through my mind, but it was quickly replaced by my wonderment at what we were going to do with these two holy basher-wannabes.  Just then,  I heard a car driving behind the bar and coming up the narrow stretch of drive-way where we had subdued our villains.  Mother looked up and saw it first, and then I saw the beams from the head lights slowly creeping up beside me.  I was afraid to turn around and possibly lose my footing, but I was also aware that these bashers might have had friends who were late arrivals.

     “Oh God, it’s the cops,” Mother said.  Honestly, I was relieved that the police had shown up but the sound in Mother’s voice told me that their appearance was not good news. 
     “Let me do all the talking, and pray that I know them,” she instructed Kerry and me.  I heard the engine turn off and a car door open. The headlights provided ample light for me to notice that the red-neck's hair was greasy and matted.  I was going to have to clean my shoes after all this ends, I thought to myself...but his Jeans and leather jacket were tattered and torn. Part of me realized that he was poor and disheveled..and you know, stupid me, felt a little sorry for him...just a little, so I let off my foot some......

     “Mother, get off of him, “ I heard a female voice demand.

     “Nope,” Mother said, but there was relief in her “nope”, so I knew that we weren’t going to jail for defending ourselves.  Then, I heard the door slam and footsteps…..The mouth under the head that I crushed with my foot started begging for help and uttered some more things about butt sex, pig squealing, fat ladies, Chinese  perverts, Jesus and hell.  He uttered fag in there somewhere too, and I wanted to remind the red-neck that he’d offered to perform fellatio on me less than two minutes prior and had confessed to his oral prowess on James Leroy, but I restrained myself....... Instead, I leaned a little heavier on my Haan.

I really didn't want to heel my midget

SPLAT

The noise came from my left and both the red neck and I looked over to see Mother scraping a broken egg off the left lens of her sunglasses. ( And, I knew then the Lord had made his message complete.  If I ever saw eggs in or near a gay bar again, I'd high-tail it out of there....Why did I always overlook these omens? I asked myself)  If I hadn't been just a little bit afraid because of the situation before us, I would have thought it was Karma for what she had done to Bart.  For a second, Mother Superior just stood there -- wigless -- wiping the egg remnants from her glasses and dress, but she wasn't JUST wigless.  Unbeknownst to me, many drag queens wore a cap fashioned from knee-high panty hose to hold their boy hair when they wore a wig and Mothers' was transversed with white medical tape to just above her brows, so she looked a little like a wounded soldier who lacked proper bandages and had to resort to hose on her head and sunglasses. A Muffled Jennifer Holliday

                                               "You're the Best Man I'll ever Know"

made its way to us from inside the bar and some light leaked over to us from the other side of the parking lot...Then silence and darkness again.  For some reason, SiAra had found the switch, but flipped it back off.

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT

and Mother, Kerry and I were assaulted with a barrage of eggs streaming from the pocket of some crazed boy's leather jacket. One after another, he pelted us..and then stopped to reload his hands.

SPLAT

But this time, Mother caught it in her hand, and rushed to the source of the eggs.  Of course, the force had caused it to break in her hand, but she ran lickety-split to the other red-neck, who was a little taller, but as skinny as a scarecrow during a famine and the source of the eggs.  These red-necks were not corn-fed boys; they were hillbillies who were missing their cob pipe and straw hats.  ( Imagine Huck Finn with less class )...........and Mother grabbed that boy by the hair of his head and rubbed that egg all over his face.  The scarecrow let out a scream that any five year old girl would have been proud of and had the gall to call Mother a faggot...........and that's when all hell broke loose.  And light again and muffled

                                       "There is no way I can ever go...no, no, no no way
                                         no, no, no, no way I'm living without you"

Then darkness ( again) and only the sound of skirmish and "Faggot..Faggot...You're going to Hell" from a boy who was losing handfuls of hair by the second.

"Repent, Sodomite!!!" he yelled as Mother spun him around and around like he was on a merry-go-round.

and light, and dark and light and dark.  It was a little strobeish.  I think it scared my midget a little bit, cuz he backed away from me and watched Mother beat the hay out of that skinny scarecrow for a minute or two..( she even threw in some Karate chops and kicks -- and I don't know where that came from, but she was a deadly spinning pinwheel in sequins and high drag -- absent the wig, of course  -- pretending to be oriental and doing a damn good job of it.  She even uttered some guttural "Hay Yahs! for emphasis) For just a second or two Mother whirled like a ballerina in a jewelry box and kicked that mouthy redneck in the gut, and he went down.  With rage in his eyes, my midget looked at me and reached into his jean pocket but from somewhere behind me, a heavenly punch appeared and smashed him in the face, and he fell unconscious to the asphalt. ( and all of a sudden, Kerry started looking pretty good to me because he was the one who'd delivered the final blow...)  I was relieved because I really didn't want to heel my midget. 
                                        

Have you ever been heeled?

So there I stood, shivering in the December breeze, clutching a size 12 black patent pump in one hand and a billy-club flashlight in the other while 2 and half drag queens tried to climb a fence.  I tried not to laugh at those clumsy queens as they attempted to hoist SiAra up and over the plank-board fence, but it was just impossible to hold it in.  I released a few belly laughs before Mother scolded me and informed me of the seriousness of the situation.  At first, Mother and Kerry joined hands and SiAra tried to step into their make-shift human step ladder to get a hoist, but she couldn't maintain her balance.

"Damn, bitch, how do you walk in heels if you can't even stand in our hands?" Mother asked while her lips quivered from the cold.

Then, Mother decided to get on her hands and knees -- which was a position in which she had ample experience, to provide a stepping stool for SiAra.  That didn't work either. The sequins were just too slippery. SiAra fell off twice and busted her ass on the asphalt before she protested loudly enough that Mother listened to her.

"Shit, I need a country boy to do this," and Mother cast her eyes on me.

"Don't look at me, Queen.  I might have been raised in the country, but I got sense enough to know that there are rats and mice and God knows what else up in there, and I don't give a canned fart whether you get these damn lights on or not.  I'll just go home and to hell with all of you.  I can't believe the shit you get me into..."And Mother could tell from my bitchy tone that I meant every word, but really, it was my anxiety over the entire situation that was speaking.

"Rats?" SiAra asked sheepishly, but Mother ignored her.

"Well, you don't have to be such a damn bitch about it," Mother said to me.

"The hell I don't," I said.  "If I weren't, you'd be throwing my ass over that fence.  Now, let's get this show on the road"

They all shut up after that, and I could tell that Mother wasn't too pleased with my protests, but honestly, I just had to lay down the law with Mother because she couldn't understand practicality unless it was rubbed in her face.  I'm sure her anger at me gave her the extra umph to get SiAra over that fence because it wasn't two seconds later that she placed SiAra atop her shoulders and Kerry pushed her butt up just far enough so  SiAra could get over the top.  However, she somehow got Mother's wig caught in her crotch and scalped Mother's wig and took that with her over the fence and knocked Mother's sunglasses onto the frigid asphalt.  And you know, Mother Superior had plenty to say about that.....and  just as Ms. Superior had bent over and placed her sunglasses back on her irritated eyes, two red-necks came around the corner of the building.

"Well..well..well..What have we got here?" One of them said as he looked  up at me ( because he was barely five feet tall). "What are you gonna' do with that shoe, boy?" he snarled as he walked up to me and pressed his chest against mine ( on his tip-toes).  It wasn't a big chest because he was just a skinny Arkansas boy with more attitude than muscle....and I literally looked down my nose at him ( and diagnosed him with a Napoleon complex).

I really don't know what happened to me, but I was immediately on the defense.  I was already pissed at this entire situation,and I certainly didn't need someone to rile me any further, but I think it was because this idiot really thought he could intimidate me.  Straight men always underestimate us, but really..this midget thought he could scare me?

With as much meanness as I could possibly muster, I asked through clenched teeth, "Have you ever been heeled?"

You Keep Watch

Just before all four of us slipped through the side exit door, Bessie handed me two flashlights.  They were the  metal billy-club type of flashlights which were weapons in themselves....and Mother slipped off her heels and handed me one and retained the other.  She whispered that they were lethal weapons if used correctly and told me to plant the spike heel in someone's temple if necessary.  I cringed and gave Kerry one of the flashlights.  SiAra was basically unarmed up to this point, but she grabbed a nearly full wine glass from an unattended table and downed it before we entered the dark and cold night.  I supposed she was trying to fortify herself with liquid courage, but she took the empty wine glass with her as we entered the unknown.

"Oh...Oh..OHHHH...God, this asphalt is cold", Mother wailed as she ran in the darkness looking more like a crazed squaw doing a rain dance than a drag queen on a mission.  Although the most  of the exterior of the bar and it's parking area was lit by floodlights, this side of the bar drive-way, which was only wide enough to allow one car through at a time, was only a few feet from Convention boulevard, so it was not flood-lit.  The full moon and the red-green-and yellow bulbs of the stoplight at the intersection of Malvern and Convention lit our way.

"Shit!" Mother exclaimed again ...and I'd never heard her utter this expletive as much as she did on this particular night which had to be another omen.  "It's locked," she said as she tugged on the padlock that hung in the center of a plank door which was part of a tall wooden fenced-in area on the bar's edge.  "We're gonna' have to hoist someone over it to get to the breaker box," she paused for a minute and scanned each one of us up and down ........ and then her eyes landed on SiAra.

"SiAra, you're the littlest.  Git ur ass over here." Mother demanded and she allowed no room for protest.  SiAra cautiously stepped out from behind Kerry and walked to Mother with her head down like a child who was about to be scolded.  Mother jerked  the wine glass out of her hand and placed it on the black-top and exchanged it with a lit flashlight...then she proceeded to give  SiAra intricate instructions about the location of the breaker box and its main power switch which was on the side of the box..

With hesitation, SiAra spoke what we'd all been thinking, "Girl, there might be some bashers in there, and you'll be throwing me into the lion's den."

"Shit,gurl!" Mother exclaimed.  "There ain't no bashers in there.  That breaker went off cuz of that fog machine.  Now, get over here before I throw you over this fence by myself.  My toes are frozen, and I can't feel them anymore...........and I know I've gut a runner in my hose," Mother looked at me with a "keep your mouth shut" glare, and I complied....but I knew if SiAra had any sense that she'd know that it hadn't been a blown breaker or only a few of the lights would have gone out.....

"How am I going to get out after I switch it on?" SiAra asked with more sense than I gave her credit for.

"This is where Twyman keeps all of his empty beer kegs.  They are all around the edge in there.  It's a lot easier to get out of there than to get in to." Mother explained then turned to Kerry.  "Come here, stud, help me hoist her up," she said to him and then turned and whispered to me, "You keep watch."

In the family

Murmurs filled the audience, and I could hear the sequins on mother's dress rustle, and then she uttered "Shit, they've done it again!" as she struggled to put her feet back in those too-small heels.

The flood lights that were hitched to the green exit sign lit up above the side escape door in the wall to our far right, and lighters began to flash all over the room. The fairy lights that flickered in the center of each table cast an eery red hue through the room, and little embers of orange  glowed and danced like chubby lightening bugs through out the audience to indicate nervous smokers in the dark. Of course, the fans that had previously trapped the fog in the center of the stage had ceased, so the fog wafted up and around the first few rows of seats.  I could feel the humid cold of the fog on my face, and my visibility was almost nill. A tremendous uneasiness came over me.  After turning to Willadean and telling her to watch the money, Mother turned to me.

"Come on, " she said tersely.

"What's going on?" I asked with a little trepidation.

"Some asshole has turned off the electricity again.  I told Twyman to move that damn breaker box inside the bar." she said as she waved her hands in that characteristic gay fashion as if it was a common occurrence.

Her nonchalance comforted me, but I still didn't think it was wise -- or safe -- to go outside especially since we knew that someone had purposefully shut off the power.....but maybe it was safer to be outside rather than inside because I didn't know what these pranksters had in mind, so I was torn.  Homophobia ran rampant in the supposed City of the Arts in Arkansas, and the current situation proved that fact...if mother was correct in her supposition.  For all I knew, there was a city wide power-outage, and we were only members of failed electricity and not victims of harrasment.

"Mother,it's not safe to go out there.  They might still be there.  Let's just wait a minute.  Maybe it's a power outage", I urged, which of course, was the common sense thing to say.

"Gurl, I am a seven feet tall drag queen who weighs," and she paused a moment before she revealed her weight then continued, "Who weighs enough  and you know I am mean as hell.  Now, come on," and she tugged on my shirt, so I rose and started to follow her but not before I waved Kerry and SiAra along with us.  I told myself there was strength in numbers.  "I won't let anyone hurt you, chicken shit," Mother said supremely, but I wasn't totally convinced of that even though I'd witnessed her manic power.

Reluctantly, Kerry and SiAra rose, and we all began to follow Mother Superior across the dance floor and into a seeming thunderhead of rising fog. I could hear SiAra's quiet protests to Kerry between her coughs, but Kerry didn't say a word.  He trudged onward like a zombie, and his toes kept bumping into my heels  - for which he did not apologize.  It was taking awhile for our eyes to adjust to the darkness, but we did pretty good as we felt our way through the cloud of fog.....until Mother bumped into the bowed head of Bianca and knocked her crown off, and I fully expected to hear a crash of thunder and see a flash of lightening. ( Later, Mother told me it was an accident, but it was so terribly convenient that I believed it was happenstance as much as the puke was.....).   I heard a clatter of metal and Bianca yelped , "My Crown," and Mother  let out a whoop that scared the audience which caused loud jabbers and mutterings to break  forth from them. I heard lezzies and queers alike rouse and rise from their seats.  Bianca was hunting all over the floor with her hands ( she even grabbed my shoes which made me get the willies ) before she finally located her crown and released a relaxed sigh.

"Hey..Sit down and Shut up!  Don't nobody panic.  We just blew a breaker because of that damn fog machine.  Sip your cocktails and Bessie get some flashlights and hustle your ass and get these people some more drinks," Mother bellowed and calmed the crowd.  She thought quickly on her feet, I thought, and the calmness in her voice chased away any uneasiness that began to enter the minds of the audience.  If I didn't know of her suspicions about homophobes in the night, I would have believed her and sat still............and that's just what they did.

"And Bessie, bring us some flashlights.  They're under the bar..... Craig, help her," Mother added.

"Bianca, honey,  come with us and help us with the breaker," Mother uttered willy-nilly in the darkness, and I wondered just how many drag queens it took to turn the lights back on.............Apparently, Mother was being cautious just in case the pranksters wanted to accost us outside, and I wasn't the only person thinking about strength in numbers.  I really don't know why she didn't grab a few butch lesbians on our way out, but she didn't.

"Baby, I aint' got no clothes on..and it's 30 degrees outside.  I ain't goin' out there.  I need to git my tips before someone takes off with the whole wad." Bianca protested as I followed her voice as she rose from the floor to our ear level in the darkness because I couldn't see her.  The stage was a dark abyss...and I gathered that "baby" was her word much like Mother's "gurl" and Cora's "queen".

"Oh...Okay..but tell your crew to git out there and stay with Kit and the cash register..but tell them to put some clothes on.  They might have to whoop some ass." Mother instructed., and her words certainly didn't comfort me.  I assumed she wanted to leave some strength inside the building just in case more trouble decided to invite itself within.  But, she was calm and only taking precautions..I don't think she really supposed anything would happen; she just wanted to cover all bases in the event of an attack, or I hoped so.  I told myself this must have been how settlers and soldiers felt as they faced an onslaught of enemies as they hid within a supposedly safe fortress. 

"Baby, I'm sure those straight boys have their clothes on now.  Do you think those straight boys are gonna' stay naked in  a room full of half dressed drag queens?  Now, go on, and get those lights back on,"  Bianca chided, and we all followed Mother in the darkness as we clung to the backs of each other.  As we walked, I took note of the ease in the conversation between Mother and Bianca.  Months and Months of hard feelings ( and gallons of puke ) had seemingly melted and disappeared.....But that was Hot Springs.  These queens could fight and argue for weeks on end, and then something would trigger forgiveness ( or Mother's mood just simply changed ), and all those bad feelings appeared to vanish if only on the surface.  It was very familial in that regard, howbeit dysfunctional, -- as long as everyone remained in the family.

Nothing

Bianca had no shame - which was a bit shocking to me at the time.  She pranced  in a set of Victoria's Secret lacy black bra and panties in the midst of that rolling fog like she truly was the Queen of the night...........and she meant it when she synched:
                                                          I got the stuff that you want
                                                          I got the thing that you need
                                                          I got more than enough
                                                          to make you drop to your knees
                                                          Cuz I'm the Queen of the Night
                                                          Queen of the Night
                                                          Oh yeah, Oh yeah, oh yeah yeah.
But judging from her physique, the knee-dropping line held a bit more meaning in a gay bar, and I knew Bianca was well aware of that. ( but the "thing" that they needed was well-hidden)... While she paraded around the dance floor nearly naked, it was impossible to overlook her smooth washboard stomach  or bulging biceps.  But, I was still perplexed at how such a Michelangelo David body could have such a womanly butt..............Bianca was smart enough to play up her manliness as well as her femininity.  She knew a crowd of gay men ogled her, and she wasn't afraid to appeal to their primal passions.  I made note to remember that for future reference:  Be a woman, but tempt them with a suggestion of man.

The music started to quiet a bit, so I assumed Bianca was nearing her finale especially since she blew a kiss to the audience, sunk to one knee, and bowed her head.  For a moment, she looked humbled.  Still beautiful, but gracefully meek........ slowly her head began to come up and her lips perfectly formed:
                                                         And I am telling you
                                                         I'm not going
Jennifer Holiday's version from Dream Girls was flowing from the speakers, and Bianca was looking directly at Mother with tears in her eyes.  It was then that I realized that this battle was over, and Bianca,the warrior princess, had won.................and then all went black and silent.

No Spot light.

No Music.

No whir from the fog machine.

Nothing.