In Her Day

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Since when is ‘apeshit, batshit’ meaningful?”

  Just then, Lester uttered quite distinctly, “Each against all.”

  Adele exasperated, “What the hell is that?”

  “That’s the Twelfth Commandment, sweetheart.”

  Throwing her hands to heaven, Adele pleaded, “Why me, God, why me?”

  LaVerne answered in a deep voice, “Because you piss me off.”

  “That joke is so old it’s got gray hairs. You spend more energy teaching that damn Lester dirty things to say. We’ll never be able to give a party. Plus the mynah’s picking it up.”

  “These birds learn faster than half the kids did in my third grade class,” LaVerne noted.

  “Just goes to prove that we humans are highly overrated.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  “No, I’ve got most of it under control. The damn car rental place won’t let us use BonBon as a chauffeur. I can’t decide whether to rent someone’s private Rolls or whether to do without Bon as the driver.”

  “Will she be upset if she doesn’t drive?” LaVerne asked.

  “I don’t think so. As long as she’s in on some of the fun she doesn’t care in what capacity.”

  “That’s good. Decided what you’re going to wear?”

  “That clingy thing you gave me. I think it’s the soul of the 1930’s. What about you?”

  “Give me five minutes and I’ll show you. Don’t follow me in the room. Let me surprise you and if you don’t like it then I can change to something else.”

  LaVerne raced into the bedroom and closed the door. Lester was crawling up the side of the cage then swinging by his bill. Apricots brought out his athletic nature. Lester adored Adele and she fussed over him while waiting for LaVerne. He liked to stick his tongue out at her and she’d pretend to grab it. Then he’d say, “Pretty boy,” and nod his head up and down. LaVerne opened the bedroom door and appeared in a pale yellow chiffon dress with a broad brimmed hat. She walked right out of the twenties.

  “Honey, where’d you come out?”

  “The Cotton Bowl.”

  “Gorgeous. Stunning. That is so gorgeous. Really, you look like a debutante on her way to the final bash. And that yellow makes your skin glow. Damn, now I don’t know what to wear.”

  “Adele, I thought you were going to wear the blouse I gave you?”

  “Well, I was but I’m outclassed. I have to think of something better.”

  “Let’s go through the closet and use our imaginations.”

  After an hour and a half of combinations Adele decided upon a blood red jumpsuit with wide legs and a wide black sash. She also decided to use the regular Rolls rental.

  A shining highhat Rolls picked up Adele and LaVerne promptly at seven p.m. On the way over to Carole’s they fiddled with all the gadgets in the back then stared regally out the windows and enjoyed watching people crane their necks to see who could be in the car. As the car glided to a halt in front of Carole’s, Adele told the driver to honk the horn. What could be more perfect, she thought, than to have your date beep for you? She was sorry she hadn’t remembered to buy furry dice to hang on the rear view mirror. The door opened and Carole froze on the steps. Adele rolled down the window and yelled, “Get your ass in here, Mary, we’ve got a full itinerary.”

  Carole dazzled in a floor length gown. Simply cut, it had a plain round neck, tight long sleeves, and a line that followed her body. The deep midnight blue was electrified by a half magenta sunburst that started at the collar on her right side and one ray ran in an ever thinning line down her right sleeve, the other rays beamed through the dark blue body. She carried no purse and when she bent her tall figure over to get into the car, Adele said, “See, LaVerne, I told you. Royalty never carries money.”

  “I have it in my shoe along with my Virginia state driver’s license which I’ve faithfully renewed since I was sixteen.”

  “Carole, that is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It’s perfect for you. Where did you ever buy it?” LaVerne stroked the fabric.

  “One day I was looking through old costume books … I think the fashions in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were so magnificent and I got the idea to design this dress. Since you and Adele have been after me to bedeck myself, I took it to a designer friend of mine at Vera’s and she did it. Her work is exquisite.”

  “Driver, to McDonald’s on 70th and Second Avenue,” Adele directed.

  “Adele?” LaVerne couln’t believe her ears.

  “We’re going to load up on shit food and eat it on our way to the theater. I’ll bet you never ate a Big Mac in the back seat of a Rolls.”

  The driver double parked between 70th and 69th right in front of McDonald’s and Adele, after taking everyone’s order, rushed in. People came out of the place to look at the car. Just as many stayed in to look at Adele. She came out and crawled in the car, calling out orders like a curb waitress. “Wait a minute. Just wait before you expose one of those burgers. LaVerne, reach back and give me the towels. There now, cover yourselves in the towels because I don’t want you to slop food all over yourselves. Okay, on to the theater.”

  As they pulled up in front of an off-Broadway theater that must have been an old burlesque house, Adele warned the driver under no circumstances to throw away their McDonald’s litter.

  “Man of La Mancha,” a big hit in the middle sixties, was being revived. Even the theater’s immediate past seemed a better risk than the present. Most producers had lost their courage. Regardless of the reason the play was preferable to the latest 1916 revival lighting up Broadway. As it was Cervantes’ birthday, Adele considered the play’s reappearance a stroke of good luck.

  After the play, Adele ordered the driver to head for the Plaza.

  “What are you up to now? The play was enough,” Carole exclaimed.

  The great hotel loomed into view, an expensive relic, holding court at the southeast end of Central Park. As the gleaming car pulled around the white fountain, the doorman anticipated their stop, expecting perhaps baggage or at least the emergence of the occupants who would then disappear into one of the overpriced eateries. A Rolls has a magnetic quality: once again people waited on either side of the red carpet to see what celebrity would come forth and reveal some fatal flaw, a sagging bustline perhaps or an obvious toupee.

  With the air of one who regularly deals with the rich, the doorman in his phony Prussian uniform opened the door.

  Adele stuck her face out and said, “Hi, you all. We just dropped by,” and dumped all the McDonald’s Big Mac wrappers, french-fry holders, milkshake containers, and dirtied napkins right there at his feet. The fellow let go of the door in horror—this was as ghastly as the assassination at Sarajevo—and Adele unceremoniously stretched out a blood red arm and closed the door. The driver floored it and they barrelled down Fifth Avenue, the three women roaring from the spectacle.

  “Adele, whatever possessed you to do this?”

  She looked at Carole and LaVerne and said, wiping moisture from her eyes, “I came to the conclusion that most people give up their dreams by calling them fantasies. All that’s left of their lives is a dusty survival in old telephone directories. Once in a great while we have to let fly or we atrophy. So I’m making one evening the way I want it.”

  “You know, you’re right, honey. If people have surrendered their dreams then they’re keeping up with the Joneses who can’t keep up with themselves.”

  “Ah, so tonight is a night of destiny,” Carole laughed.

  “Let’s hope we don’t meet our destiny on the road. Driver slow down up there,” Adele commanded.

  “Where are we going now?” LaVerne questioned her.

  “Wait and see. The unexpected keeps the human race from stagnation.”

  “There she is laying down those heavy lines of life.” LaVerne squeezed Adele’s elbow.

  Rumbling down the pitted streets of the Manhattan bridge, the car seemed to the riders to be able to keep th
em safe from the desolation of the lower East Side. They crossed over the bridge and the driver took a side street into Brooklyn Heights, depositing them as close to the Promenade as possible. From there they could view all of Manhattan, a dark honeycomb dotted with lights.

  “The buildings look like a Titan’s dominos,” Carole remarked.

  “I can never gaze at this city without a sense of awe. It’s the best and the worst,” followed LaVerne.

  “I always think of it as the altar of corporate vision … the city that money built. I wonder, if an ancient Mayan could see it, what would she think?”

  “Especially if she had to go to the bathroom. Ever notice how Americans build cities with absolutely no regard for how our bodies function?” LaVerne said.

  “That’s because we live amid the remains of architectural imagination, Vern. This is the city of post-human reference.”

  “That may be so but I think LaVerne is trying to tell us she has to relieve herself,” Adele noted.

  “You mean the Rolls doesn’t have a built-in bathroom?”

  “This is as good a time as any to head for our next stop where such matters can be attended to.”

  The next stop was a gay bar on Sheridan Square, the Queen’s Drawers. As usual people stopped to see who would be getting out of the car. Adele led the procession like a secular cardinal. She didn’t especially like the bar but where else could they go? She hadn’t the money to rent Roseland. As it was she had to bribe the manager to put a few unusual records on the juke box. “The Blue Danube” was not often heard at places like this. BonBon and Creampuff held down a table near the dance floor. They applauded when the threesome approached like gradations of the rainbow.

  “Where’s the Pope?” BonBon bellowed on seeing Adele.

  “Punching holes in prophylactics so there’ll be more Catholics,” Adele answered.

  They seated themselves, ordered drinks, and caught up on who did what, when, and to whom.

  “Where’s Maryann?” LaVerne asked Bon.

  “When last seen she was heading west on a tricycle with a flat.”

  “Yeah,” Creampuff added, “she went to Chicago for an audition but she’ll return next weekend. She sends her love on Quixote’s birthday. Isn’t that what you’re celebrating?”

  “Sort of,” Carole agreed.

  “Jesus, listen to that music: Palm Beach mortuary style. After this dance they’ll have to take a body count,” BonBon grumbled.

  “ ‘Ritual Fire Dance’ isn’t on the box. Think you’ll manage?” Adele teased.

  “Better than ‘Camptown Races.’ ”

  Creampuff stopped the conversation with, “Did you hear Pat Smith’s friend died today? She choked to death on a chicken bone.”

  “Ha,” BonBon interjected, “that old dyke swallowed a fur ball.”

  LaVerne, shocked, admonished her, “How can you say such a thing?”

  “Because it’s true. That old broad did so much muff diving we should have bought her scuba equipment. Anyway, I hated her.”

  “Whatever for?” Carole asked. “She run out of oxygen on you?”

  “No, she sold us a fake early American painting and she did it on purpose. If she’d have asked for the money we’d have given it to her but she made a fool out of us, dammit.”

  “Are we going to see the Rolls Royce?” Creampuff changed her own subject.

  “Sure, when we leave,” Adele told her.

  “Next thing I know, Dell, you’ll buy an estate on the Hudson River, you’re getting such expensive tastes—like the landed gentry,” Bon sniffed.

  “I’m starting my own back-to-the-land movement,” Adele replied, “and buying cemetery plots.”

  Carole laughed. “That’s right. My mother always told me, ‘Buy land; if there’s a war you can fill in the potholes.’ ”

  BonBon, slightly out of joint, went back to the faults of the departed. “She used to masturbate on chairs. God knows how she did it. Maybe I’m dumb or missing something. Anyway, the first time I was ever in her house I had to ruthlessly stifle an urge to wiggle on all the chairs to see if it works. Besides that she wore prison matron shoes. I could never look down at her feet without thinking of the time Creampuff and I landed in the pokey for lewd conduct.”

  Adele whispered to Carole, “I don’t know why but picking up pieces of Bon’s diatribe reminds me of the men who were arrested for exposing themselves in the snake cage at the Bronx Zoo. Remember when the papers carried that story?”

  “Was your Big Mac laced with opium?”

  Creampuff spiced Bon’s tale about the jail: “… even when she was parked she was a moving violation, that’s what the pigs said, the fuckers.

  “Let’s dance.” Carole motioned for everyone to get up and shut up.

  However, dancing produced a high-octane reaction in BonBon. She became Motor Mouth. “Did I ever tell you how we got out of the business?” And before waiting for a reply she launched away, “Creampuff and I were working at the King of Clubs down in D.C. Oh, D.C. was a hot strip-town back then—all covered by the cops, of course. All those government types used to come and jerk off as soon as they’d hear the first drum roll. Creampuff’s specialty was the slow peel.” Creampuff demonstrated to the applause of the onlookers. BonBon continued, “Drove the rednecks bananas. My big number was a take-off of Sally Rand and her fans. Top billing, and the costume …”

  Creampuff interrupted. “You shoulda’ seen her. She wore a long black wig put up in a French twist. Elegance. Her costume, such as it was, was emerald green to accent her eyes and her spike heels made her as tall as Carole Hanratty.”

  BonBon regained the floor by upping her volume. “That’s important now. Remember spike heels back in 1956? For a year or two there was a fad of steel high heels figuring they wouldn’t wear out as fast as that cardboard crap they passed off as shoes. Used to do my routine to the ‘Ritual Fire Dance.’ Drove them wild. Absolutely wild. Well, the King of Clubs had light sockets on the stage floor. Lots of old stages do, ya know. So it was twelve midnight. Creampuff slithered off the boards and I was shivering in the wings waiting for my cue. The music starts, you’ve all heard that beginning.”

  In case they hadn’t, Creampuff hummed the tune and supplied the drum rolls. Adele fought valiantly to choke back an explosive laugh as her voice wiggled up and down on the high notes and Creampuff couldn’t resist a little hip action when she made a boom sound. Carole couldn’t look at Adele or they would have squealed like grade school kids looking at a picture of genitals.

  “Beautiful, honey,” BonBon said in a firm voice.

  Creampuff kept on adding more and more English to her drum rolls.

  Her voice somewhat sharper, “Beautiful, honey. They all remember the song now. The footlights came up and the spot picked me up as my leg kicked out in front of the curtain. The boys dug that. Really dug it. Legs were important then. Now it’s all tits and teeth. Was I hot that night. Could do no wrong. Yes, I was the Jane Russell of strip. Well, honeys, right in the middle of my number I stepped in a light socket and the juice hits me so hard my wig flies off into the audience and I can’t move! Ya know electricity holds you. I hung there on that socket, my heel stuck in it, vibrating like I had St. Vitus’s dance. The boys went wild. Those asswipes thought it was part of the show. They’re whistling and throwing money and shouting ‘Hot Mama’ and who knows what else. I was so scared I didn’t know whether to shit, run, or go blind. I’d a died out there if Creampuff hadn’t run over to the board and thrown all the switches.”

  “I saw my baby out there being electrocuted and I want to tell you I took off like a shot. Knocked down the stage manager, a greasy old fart who weighed three-fifty if he weighed a pound, charged to the switches right behind the curtain there, and hit everything at once. The house went dark and the guys musta’ been creaming in their supporters because they thought by now she was in the altogether. I ran out there on the stage and threw my silk sequined cape over BonBon who couldn’t s
peak, my god, she was half-fried. We’d been together for about four years then and I thought I was losing the only person in the world who made life worth living. I was bawling and sobbing and stroking her forehead, telling her I loved her and she’d pull through. I promised Jesus my G-string and Virgin Mary my pasties. Management kept the lights down, of course. Imagine if those sock jocks found out most of us chippies were queer? I don’t know when the ambulance came but I hit the attendant over the head when he tried to keep me out of the back and I crawled in, in full drag mind you, sparkles all through my hair to say nothing of the feathers, and I held Bon’s hand the whole way. I didn’t care who knew.” Creampuff finished out of breath with the violence of her recalled emotion. “That was that,” Bon picked up the thread. “I figured the Good Lord was trying to tell me something so I quit the business and opened my antique shop up on 62nd and Second. Business has been good to us and we have a lovely apartment and the house in the Pines.”

  What BonBon didn’t tell was that even in the hospital after the shock she kept her nails long, teased her hair, and put on a full face by noon promptly. She began to see shadows in her mirror when putting on her Revlon nonsmear mascara. BonBon became convinced there were spirits in the room. Not hostile ghosts but spirits trying to tell her something about what to do with her life. Since that time she developed into a closet mystic. Only Creampuff knew how deeply she felt about astrology and the occult. Her friends had the faintest whiff of it when she asked their signs, rising and so forth. Carole told her she was a Sagittarius with temperatures rising but BonBon wheedled her birth date and place out of her and discovered Carole to be a Sagittarius with Libra rising. Adele was an Aries with Libra rising. Bon kept their charts yearly and silently nodded to herself whenever they confirmed her computation by some significant action like the purchase of a painting or catching the flu. But her own life remained a mystery to her and Bon could never quite be sure why she was put on earth. She decided her mission was to bring joy to her friends and quietly watch over their fortunes like an ancient Aztec scanning the stars.

  Bon chattered on, punctuated by Creampuff’s laughter. They never tired of one another. The other inhabitants of the bar, while not exactly spring chickens, were a good deal younger than the dancing group. They stared at the dancers. Their manners and their elegant clothes gave the impression that the older women were slumming. Such women rarely visited the Queen’s Drawer where New Jersey meets the Bronx and lives happily ever after, where the toilets overflowed each night at midnight, and where Marijane Kerr, an old barfly known to all lesbians, had personally painted the plunger with the word Ladies in jungle-red nail polish.