The lipstick hesitated an instant at the generous mouth. “What kinda outfit?”
“One kind of like yours,” Mandy said.
Binkie grunted. “That a fact? Kinda big, ain’t he?”
“Actually,” Mindy began tentatively, “what he really needs is a make-over.”
Binkie snorted. “Ain’t in the make-over business, honey.”
Mandy winked at me. “She’s being modest, Ed. Binkie’s the best make-up artist in town.”
“Well,” I offered companionably, “if she can do make-up half as well as she can sing…”
Binkie snorted louder at the mirror. “Honey mouth on the white boy.” She snorted again. “Singin.’ Boy, you ain’t heard me sing.’ Should have sampled these pipes in the old days. Melt the butter in your mouth.” She sighed deep and long and it seemed to fill and leave her whole body at the same time. The reflection in the mirror had gone wistful now. “You see anything but white faces out front tonight? Shit. I’m lucky to get a rhythm section knows a string bass from a tuba, a guitar from a banjo. Half the time playin’ that rinky-dink Dave Brubeck crap. Where you hail from, Mr. Ed?”
“From Kansas City,” Mindy told her.
Binkie froze. Put down the tube of lipstick. Swung around on her vanity stool and looked me straight in the eye. “For real?”
“Yes, ma’am. Well, by way of Topeka.”
“Shut yer mouth.” She looked me up and down like she was sizing me up for something. “Damn. KC, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Count Basie. Charlie Parker. 1940’s Bebop!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She nodded in slow reverence—not at me but at the city, the times. “People say New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz, but she grew up in KC. Got it all over St. Louis and the Big Apple. Storyville, they used to call Kansas City. Wide open town. People come from all around just to compete. Keep a single tune performed in variation for an entire night! Extended soloing, heavy blues influence. Invented the 12-bar structure, put that 8-bar jazz to shame. Hey! You ever meet Tom Pendergast? Nah, you too young. Listen, whatever happened to the River Quay area?”
“Mob blew it up.”
Binkie slapped her knee and bellowed like a trumpet. “That’s it, sure enough! And killed off all the gangsters in the Vegas Casinos in the doin’! Bet you didn’t even know Vegas and KC was connected, did you?”
Actually, I did; I’d seen Martin Scorsese’s Casino.
Binkie was still laughing, straight from the heart. “Oh, bless me but that cracker town was the place! Least ‘till 1940 or so…” she sighed wistfully again, “…when they closed down Mayor Tom P. and all the best spots with him.”
She looked up at me sadly. “Ain’t nothing left of it now, I guess.”
“A little,” I told her. “The American Jazz Museum at 18th and Vine’s still going strong.”
She shook her head, grinning. “18th and Vine! Damn! ‘With my Kansas City kitty and my bottle of Kansas City wine’!” And she roared, slapped her knee.
She got up then, faster and smoother than most women her age, came over quick and stuck her face in mine. I blinked.
Then she began walking around me. Her eyes went up and down, up and down while her head nodded and that whisky bass kept going, “Uh-huh, uh-huh...KC boy, huh?”
She lifted my chin critically, ran her hands down my shirt all the way to my crotch. “Oh, my! Best tape down that Johnson!”
Mindy giggled.
“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” Binkie smiled, revolving round and round until I began to get dizzy, then stopping abruptly with a thoughtful finger to her chin. “Got you some nice eyes, Kansas City. Bedroom eyes. Uh-huh. Think maybe we can do a thing or two with this chile…”
Mandy and Mindy, way up on their toes, clapped excitedly in mimed silence.
* * *
We were running out of time.
But, in a way, had too much time.
As Mindy said: “We can’t have Binkie slave over you for hours, completely change your physical appearance, only to have you sleep on it overnight and wake up with most of it on the pillow.”
So—Ivan’s gallery show officially began at seven o’clock Saturday night—we told Binkie she’d have to put me together Saturday afternoon, was that possible? She nodded that anything was possible with the right bone structure (a reply I’m still trying to unravel). As we left her dressing room Friday evening, I asked if there was anything I could pick up in the morning, like fake mustaches, or hair color or whatever. She just shooed us out the door and told me not to worry, she’d handle it.
I must have looked doubtful: the twins hugged both my arms for morale. “You’re in good hands!” Mandy assured me.
By two p.m. Saturday afternpoon I was beginning to unravel myself; Binkie still hadn’t showed and this whole scheme of trying to fool the dangerously perceptive Ivan Kolcheck seemed more and more like a very remote, very bad idea.
By the time the apartment door rang around 3:00, I was ready to call the whole thing off.
Sylvie got the door, and a nice-looking young man strode in like he owned the place, black satchel in hand. “Where’s the patient?”
I was just coming out of the kitchen. “Is someone sick?”
The young man started before me and came up short. “Man, you ain’t half as good-lookin’ in the daylight!”
There was an eerie quiet from the living room, all three girls looking at me, Mindy with her lips pressed together like she was forcing back a scream. Or a laugh.
I looked from one to the other of them. “I don’t get it.” Then I looked down at the young man, unsnapping his satchel. “Who are you? Did Binkie send you?”
He craned over at the girls (Mindy sputtering by now) and lifted one brow. “You didn’t tell him?”
Mandy shook her head. “We were…afraid--”
“--that he wouldn’t go through with it,” Mindy finished.
The young man shook his head, withdrawing a long pink evening gown from the satchel while glancing around the apartment critically. “So what we got here’s a kinda “Three’s Company” thing, that it?”
“Ed’s Sylvie’s boyfriend,” Mindy said.
“He’s not my boyfriend!”
“Only Sylvie doesn’t know it yet,” Mandy said. “So how about it, Binkie, can you do anything with this big lug?”
My jaw dropped. About seven feet, I think.
I bent close to the young man. “Binkie?”
He pushed me back, set his satchel on the coffee table and began unloading his make-up kit. “Ain’t your Aunt Jemima, sugar. We gonna do this thing, Kansas City, or you turnin’ chicken shit?”
I was turning green is what I was turning. I staggered back about eight miles. “Do what thing?”
Sylvie came forward and patted Binkie on the back. “Binkie’s the best in the business, Ed! You wanted to get past Ivan, right?”
“Not in a pink dress!”
Binkie scoffed, handing the dress to Mandy. “A dress about the only way you gonna get past Ivan Kolcheck! Mandy, get this ironed.”
He produced a woman’s wig from the satchel, handed it to Mindy. “Comb this dead weasel out, honey.” But before Mindy could take it from her, Binkie turned toward me with the wig. “Wait a second, better try it on for size…”
I tried to run but my back was to the couch. Binkie slipped the wig over my head expertly.
I clawed at it. He slapped my hands away. And when Binkie slaps you, you stay slapped.
He stood back, fists poked on his hips, head turning this way and that. “Uh-huh…not bad…have to do.”
The howling laughter inside my head was cacophonous.
I looked across the room to find Mitzi arched on her back, four legs kicking helplessly at the air. “Oh my God! Oh my God, this is too good to be true! You look like freakin’ Ru Paul!”
“Just shut the fuck up!” I shouted.
Binkie stepped back. “Say what, bitch?”
“He
talks to the dog,” Sylvie sighed.
And that’s when Binkie turned to the dog.
He gave the chortling Mitzi the once-over. “Call that a dog?”
Mitzi stopped chortling, squirmed back up on her feet. “Say what, bitch?”
Binkie shook his head in wonderment. “Looks like a damn warthog. Where’d you pick that up, Sylvie, Lincoln Park Zoo?”
“Mitzi belongs to Ed, Binkie.”
Binkie snorted. “Belongs in the damn reptile house! Does it bite? Or is that its asshole?”
Mitzi growled low, stalked deliberately forward.
Binkie turned calmly to his satchel, produced a small black handgun and pointed it lazily at the dog, one hand on his sassy hip. “Keep comin’, Scooby! Put a cap through yer brainpan and out yer other asshole!”
Mitzi froze in place. “Jesus! He’s a psycho! Ed, he’s a redneck transvestite psycho!”
“He’s also the best jazz singer in America.”
Binkie spun to me suddenly, smile lighting his whole face. “Ain’t you the sweet one now!”
I started. “Y-You heard that?”
She patted my check. “From the moment you walked into my dressing room, sugar.” She nodded at Mitzi. “And Killer there too!”
“Oh my God, Ed!” Sylvie said.
“Holy shit, Ed!” Mindy said.
“I’ll be damned!” Mandy said.
“This is a madhouse,” Mitzi said. “See you later, Ed!”
But she stopped immediately again when Binkie stepped in front of her. “You just stay put, Lassie, you’re part of this.” And he whipped the wig off my head and tossed it to the twins. “Pink frosting,” she told them, “to go with the dress. And Mandy, go get that pink clutch of yers.”
He reached into his bag and handed Sylvie a pair of long clippers. “You start on the dog, Sylvia. Try to make her look like a real poodle—or close as you can. Short hair and pom-poms. I’d use the kitchen floor, easier to sweep up. Call out when you’re done. Then start the bath. We’re going to dye her.”
“Dye me!”
“Pink. And we’ll need a pink leash to go with Ed’s ensemble.”
“Like hell we will!” and Mitzi started for the door again.
Binkie didn’t even bother lifting the gun this time. “Best do as you’re told, Frenchie,” he said in both Mitzi’s head and mine, “unless you want your nice roommates here to know all about your little…secret.” And he made little clicking sounds with his white teeth.
Mitzi froze, looked at me. “Please, Ed, let me! I’ll make it quick, painless! They can take him out with the morning trash!”
Binkie chuckled, at the gun in his hand, dropped it back in the satchel and winked at me. “Relax, Eddie, just a water pistol anyway. Keeps the street scum away!”
Mitzi dropped to the carpet, covered her head with her front paws. “I’m begging you, Ed! Don’t let this creature do this to us! Think of your pride! Think what Clancy would say!”
“Clancy won’t even know,” I said sadly.
But I caught Binkie’s arm gently. “Look. Binkie. I appreciate it, I really do. Even Mitzi appreciates the intent. But it isn’t going to work! You cannot turn me into a woman! Especially one that will get past Ivan Kolcheck!”
Binkie gave me a long thoughtful look, then smiled confidence, dug through his satchel. “Sugar, never said I could make you a woman. Said I could make you look like one! Rest is up to you. But by the time I’m through with your skinny butt, half the men at that gallery show will be tripping over their tongues asking for your number, promise you that. We’ll make you look like a woman, all right.”
And he looked up at me with a warning expression. “Meanwhile, you best start thinkin’ female, KC. Ivan Kolcheck’s no fool.”
I looked away, a chill around my heart.
Binkie took my arm. “Want some advice, Slick?”
“Please.”
“Be charming. Watch the twins. Do as they do. And with a little luck…”
“And what about my voice? What do I say to him if Ivan approaches me?”
“What all women do, honey.” Binkie winked. “Say it with yer eyes.”
* * *
I know what you’re thinking.
I was certainly thinking it myself. But we’d both be wrong.
Binkie actually pulled it off.
I’m not saying I was gorgeous. But there was something there. ‘Striking’ is maybe the word. And yes, in my own way, even sexy.
Remember that Canadian TV show Kids in the Hall?--the way Dave Foley looked in drag?—it was like that.
Later on, Binkie told me he wouldn’t even have attempted it if, after seeing me in the dressing room, the bone structure wasn’t there. And it wasn’t all there. But with putty and tape and some tricks he knew with white powder under pancake to hide the beard, he made it all come together. Maybe too well. After a while, when I looked in the mirror, I began to get this…weird feeling. Hard to explain. Not that I was beginning to feel like a woman, or even less like a man. Maybe that, on some fundamentally abstract level at least, there wasn’t all that much difference between the two. Does that make any sense? Never mind. You had to be there.
We shaved my arms but that didn’t really cut it, so Binkie made the sleeves long.
I was so long-out-of-work skinny we were able to make the dress tight and, with additional padding, fairly curvy. The girls made the mistake of gluing my nails on early so I couldn’t touch anything for fear of breaking one. Which was a problem when it came to hiding my own private parts. The nails kept breaking.
Binkie finally got disgusted, held up a fat white roll and addressed the room. “Who wants to tape down his Johnson!”
“I’m free!” from Mindy, before her sister could open her mouth.
It didn’t go well.
“It won’t stay down!” Mindy complained, kneeling before me. “Ed, stop that!”
“I can’t help that!”
“It’s a taping job, Mindy,” from a bored Binkie, “not a hand job.”
“I’m doing my best!”
“Yes,” her sister agreed, “we can see you’ve had years of experience.”
“Try thinking of baseball,” Sylvie advised.
The heels were even worse.
We used Binkie’s and though too tight, they fit at least. I just couldn’t walk in them. Even after practicing for an hour, hobbling back and forth across the living room, the girls looking on with quiet scrutiny.
Toward the end I thought I might actually be getting the hang of it.
“How’s that look?” I asked hopefully after my latest pass.
The girls watched me for a moment.
“Ruptured duck,” from Mindy.
“Cob up your ass,” from Mandy.
“Well, he can’t go in flats!” from a frustrated Mindy.
In a stroke of her usual genius, Binkie came up with the solution. “Leave them off, Ed.”
I balked. “But that’ll look ridiculous!”
“Barefoot?” from an incredulous Mandy.
“In sandals. With pink toenails to match the fingernails,” Binkie muttered at my hem, pins in his mouth, “it’s a Chicago gallery showing, everyone will think you’re Bohemian. Very chic.”
The bathroom door swung open and out came Sylvie leading a barely recognizable Mitzi by a bright pink leash.
Everyone turned.
Everyone gasped.
I almost dropped my girdle. “I’ll be go to hell!” I smiled with genuine awe.
“I second that motion,” the pink poodle grumbled.
FOURTEEN
We waited in the tower lobby.
The girls looked fabulous.
I looked a wreck. Or, felt a wreck, anyway.
And like everyone in the foyer was staring at me. And that not one of them was being fooled for a moment. I suddenly understand the concept of a panic attack. I nearly bolted for the men’s room. Only that would have been the wrong door, right?
Sylvie hugged my arm tight and beamed up at me proudly. “You look wonderful,” she said. “Really, sweetie, you look beautiful!”
My eyes must have revealed my terror.
“Not that you look any less a man! I mean…underneath! Not that you can tell you’re a man! I mean, I…you…”
“--look like an idiot,” Mitzi growled at the end of her pink leash, “as idiotic as I feel! Do you have any idea how long either of us would last out on the streets like this at night? I thought we came to Chicago to pick up Clancy, not be pick-ups!”
“Better shut-up,” I told her, “Binkie might hear you.”
“No, Binkie went back to his apartment, locked the door and buried his face in his pillow so I couldn’t hear his maniacal laughter from here! Binkie is the one person in all this who managed to retain a small part of his sanity!”
“Right. His sanity.”
“You don’t really think we’re going to pull this off, do you, Ed? Do you!”
“You don’t really think you’re putting my mind at ease, do you, Mitzi? And I don’t know what you’re bitching about, you finally look almost something like the poodle you claim to be!”
“Oh yes!” she echoed painfully in my skull, “--pink! I always prayed to the gods to be pink! ‘I’ll do anything’, I prayed, I’ll eat cat food and do that weird thing where they lift one leg and lick their nuts, just please make me bright fucking champagne pink!”
She snorted and settled at my feet. “You know Sylvie wanted to paint my toenails pink too, like she did yours. Crazy bitch. I threatened to bite her.”
She sighed, cast about. “Anyway, why are we hanging around down here in these plush lobby chairs? Aren’t we taking that battle wagon Prius of Sylvie’s to the party?”
I nodded at the hotel’s double doors. “There’s your answer…”
A uniformed chauffeur was stepping smarty past the shiny glass and brass handles, headed toward us.
Mitzi got back on her feet in a kind of dreamy awe, glimpsing the black stretch limo at the curb beyond. “A limo? You’re kidding! The girls can afford this?”
I took hold of the pink leash and stood with her. “No,” I told her, dry-mouthed and nauseous, “Ivan can afford it.”
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