Drama Queers!

by Frank Anthony Polito

  Rob hops off the stage. “Later,” he tells us before making his way towards the box office in the back corner.

  I can’t help but notice the way Aud watches Rob’s every move. In fact, Tuesday practically drools down the front of her maroon Flaggots—I mean, Flag Corps—windbreaker till he disappears thru the EXIT doors into the front lobby.

  “Lucky you,” Audrey sighs, “getting to work with Mr. Varsity Football.”

  “Yeah,” echoes Tuesday. “You sure are lucky.”

  I agree, “Yeah…”

  What else am I supposed to say in response to their remarks? Now if he’d only make out with me.

  After an awkward moment of silence, Audrey asks, “Wanna help me and Tuesday with our scene sometime?”

  “I’m free on Saturday,” I offer, since I don’t have to work at Big Boy’s till the evening and I got nothing else going on during the day.

  “Awesome!” exclaims Audrey.

  I never noticed she’s got a space between her teeth when she smiles, just like a certain football-playing Lesbian—I mean, Thespian—we know.

  Tuesday parrots, “Yeah, awesome!”

  The girls are working on The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Back in the ’60s, it played Off-Broadway. They also made a movie version with Paul Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, which I never seen.

  Audrey plays the crazy mom, Beatrice, and Tuesday is the daughter, Tillie, who’s all into science and shit. So far they’re doing a pretty good job, but if you ask me, the play’s totally fucked up. The mom kills the daughter’s pet rabbit for chris’sakes, you know what I mean?

  “We can hang at my house,” Aud informs us. “My mom’ll be at work.”

  I’m about to follow my classmates’ lead and get my ass moving to 6th hour French III Independent Study when Mr. Dell’Olio stops me on the stairs leading down from the stage.

  “Good work today, Dayton.”

  I can feel my face matching my hair as I humbly tell him, “Thanks.”

  I don’t know why, but I’m a little embarrassed by Mr. Dell’Olio’s praise. I mean, I certainly wanna do a good job. I live for the day others will laud me for my acting ability. Except right now, I don’t know what else to say. So I just stand there with a stupid smirk.

  “You’re a natural,” Dell flatters, patting me on the back. “I’ll see you at auditions, won’t I?”

  This semester we’re doing A Christmas Carol. You know, by Charles Dickens. Same guy who gave us A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist. The first one, we read in Mrs. Malloy’s English Lit, the other, I seen the musical years ago. Auditions are coming up the second week of November.

  “I’ll be there,” I confirm.

  I can’t say I read the script yet, but I watched the movie of A Christmas Carol on TV when I was little. I heard the boy who played Tiny Tim is now Artistic Director at Meadow Brook Theatre out in Rochester…God, he must be ancient!

  I’m still not sure what part I want. Sure, Scrooge has got the most lines, but I don’t see myself playing an old man. Being that I’m a Senior, I’m sure Dell will cast me in one of the leads…Why wouldn’t he, if I’m such a natural?

  “What’s up, Fox?”

  In the commons outside the auditorium, I run into Shelly Findlay—I mean, Shellee Findlay. I keep forgetting her and a bunch of the other Varsity cheerleaders officially changed the spelling of their first names. Karla Carlson is now Karlah and Melody Carnes is Mellowdeigh.

  Don’t ask!

  Me and Shellee go way back to 7th grade at Webb. We used to be in Band together, but like a lot of the junior high Band Fags, Shellee dropped out once we got to high school, which is a damn shame if you ask me because she was a very talented flautist.

  I don’t know why, but a lot of people don’t like our HPHS Band teacher, Mr. Klan, just because he’s a Total Fag. Well, we don’t know if he is for sure, but he is over thirty-five and he’s never been married, so the odds are in favor. Not that I want him to be or anything. I don’t find him the least bit attractive. In fact, he reminds me of my dad, which is totally bogue!

  “What’s up?” I wonder.

  Shellee hands me one of the mimeographed flyers she’s been Scotch taping to the glass doors outside Principal Messinger’s office. Her brunette head bobs back and forth as she cackles at me. “Duh! It’s all right there.”

  Sure enough, so it is.

  Don’t forget to Vote!

  Homecoming “Top 25”

  10/1/87

  Ah, yes…“Top 25.”

  The yearly ritual to pick the twenty-five Seniors at Hazel Park High School most deserving to be elected to Homecoming Court.

  Personally, I’m pretty bic-cited (excited).

  Back in 10th grade, I had these two Senior friends, Alyssa Resnick and Cheri Sheffield. They were both on “Top 25.” I remember thinking what an honor being singled out by your peers must be. Not that I need validation or anything. For the most part, I already know that people like me…And if they don’t, fuck ’em!

  I wish Shellee “Good luck!” even though she’s a shoo-in. She was always Most Popular Girl at Webb Junior High and continues to be to this day.

  “You too, Fox!” she replies, waving with pinky, forefinger, and thumb extended. Then she gathers her flyers and moves on to the display case next to the library.

  This is where, along with the VFW award, the American Legion award, and the prestigious Erickson Cup, sits the coveted “Thespy.” At least twice a day since Sophomore year, I stop by to stare at it. I imagine how the gold (plated) statuette will feel held in my hot little hand, how my name—BRADLEY JAMES DAYTON—will look engraved on the metal plate marked “1987–88.” What it will mean to be honored as Thespian of the Year.

  For those not up on their Drama Queer terminology…Thespis is credited as being the first actor ever to appear on a stage in something like 600 BC. According to Aristotle, Thespis was a singer of dithyrambs, which were songs about mythology that featured choral refrains. He also invented the style that became known as tragedy (as in “comedy and…”), where one single actor performed all the characters in a play, using different masks to differentiate.

  Hence the creation of the International Thespian Society by a group of college and high school teachers in Fairmont, West Virginia, in 1929.

  “Act well your part; there all the honor lies.”

  This is the motto of the ITS, taken from Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man.

  I won’t presume I’m gonna get the “Thespy,” but I am President of Troupe #4443, so I know I’m in the running.

  But first things first…

  “Top 25.”

  I can’t say everybody shares my attitude. Especially my Best Friend, Jack Paterno. Perhaps I should say, my other Best Friend, considering I already referred to Max Wilson as filling that spot. Jack spends sooo much time worrying about what other people think of him. In fact, he even dropped outta Band this year because he was sick of being called a Band Fag.

  Or so he said.

  Like Carrie Johnson, I met Jack in 7th grade Varsity Band over at Webb. Well, we didn’t really meet in Band, we met in the cafeteria during lunch. Jack was sitting with Carrie and Ava Reese and Katy Griffin (the girl I think might be a lesbian), going thru some stupid Sign-In Book: “Calvins or Jordache?” Well, I walked right up to the table, sat myself down, and was all like, “Fuck those! I like Sergio Valentes better ’cause they make your ass look hot!”

  At least that’s what Jack says I said.

  I seriously doubt I’d say something like that—not in front of a group of girls. Of course, knowing me, if I did say it, I was trying to get a rise outta Jack…Talk about a Persnickety-Persnick!

  If it wasn’t for our junior high Band teacher, Jessica Clark Putnam, encouraging us to attend Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp the following summer, we would’ve never become Best Friends. I remember us bragging to all the other Band Fags about how cool we were and how swanky the whole thing was gonna be. T
welve days in the lap of luxury at an exclusive Summer Band Camp.

  Or so we thought.

  Imagine the expressions on our faces when Jack’s parents dropped us off in the middle of the woods in Bum Fuck Muskegon. Boy, were we surprised!

  What the fuck?

  I remember this being my first thought as me and Jack stood there, clad in our regulation robin’s egg blue BLFAC polo shirts and navy blue shorts, mouths totally agape.

  This is what you get for $300?

  Nothing but dirt roads and trees for miles…So much for being exclusive!

  You should’ve seen poor Jack when we checked in with our counselor over in the Broadway unit at Cabin Cabaret. Try saying that three times. Right next door to Brigadoon, Carousel, and Okla-homo!—I mean, homa!

  “Where are the walls?” he wondered, suitcase and pillow in hand.

  “Maybe they can’t afford them,” I guessed, even though we were paying a shitload of money to be standing there. Somebody at BLFAC must have thought exposed beams were all the rage in early ’80s décor.

  I realize when you’re little time goes by a lot slower, but they were the twelve longest (and poop-free) days of my life. Up at the butt crack of dawn for breakfast. Followed by Band practice. Followed by lunch. Followed by sectionals. Followed by dinner. Followed by whatever damn evening activity they had planned for us.

  This one time they brought in this guy, Slim Goodbody, to put on a show. He wore this skintight bodysuit, painted to look like his skin was removed so you could see all his organs…Bogue!

  Nobody wanted to sit and listen to good old Slim sing these stupid-assed songs about “Food is Fuel” and “Healthy Habits” and “Bones, Bones, Bones.” All the guys in our cabin thought Mr. Goodbody was a Total Fag, you know what I mean? Including me and Jack.

  That was the one thing I noticed most about being at Blue Lake. Back at Webb, we had a tendency to get picked on—nothing major. We never got our asses kicked in the parking lot after school or anything, but people (guys mostly) would call us fag, just because we were friends with girls and liked to dance at the Fun Nights. Yet the entire twelve days we spent at BLFAC, the guys there were totally cool to us.

  Even this one guy, Greg, who elected himself cabin leader.

  “Hey, Dick Shine!”

  Greg picked on everybody in Cabin Cabaret. He came from Kalamazoo, played alto sax, and was a year older than me and Jack. I’ll never forget he had bangs that hung in his eyes and hair on his legs…God, he was cute!

  “Who, me?” asked Paul, a cellist from Southfield. He kept a stash of apricot nectar buried beneath his bunk. Greg nicknamed him “Berf.”

  “No you, Faggot Ass!” Greg scowled at “Scooter.”

  “What did I do?” Scooter wanted to know. His real name was Jay. He wore thick glasses, played baritone, and hailed from Milford. Or did he go to school at Mumford? I forget.

  Scooter—I mean, Jay—was hilarious! Somewhere, I got a photo I took of him drying his tube socks with a blow dryer on the steps outside Cabin Cabaret. He had this totally nasal voice and he used to crack all of us up with the dumbest jokes.

  This one was my favorite: “So there’s this lady, see? And one day, she sends her husband and kids off on a hunting trip…”

  “Why, Jay?” I’d interrupt, even though I already heard him tell it a dozen times.

  “Because,” Jay would answer. “She’s had enough.”

  “So what did she do?” I’d prompt.

  Causing Greg to yell, “Shut up, Dick Weed!” before he tossed a pillow at my head from his bunk beside mine and Jack’s.

  “So,” Jay continued, “she makes a spot of chamomile tea, and she sinks herself into a hot tub. Just as soon as she’s all relaxed, there’s a knock at the door…”

  Knock knock!

  “The lady’s like, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t come to the door, I’m in the tub.’ And the guy at the door is all like, ‘Telegram…It’s important.’”

  Meanwhile, I’m about to pee my pants!

  “So the lady says, ‘Well…Could you just sing it?’ And the guy says, ‘But lady…’ ‘Sing it!’” (pause) “‘Dum dum dum dum dum dum…’ (singing) ‘Bob and the kids are dead.’ The End.”

  Anyways!

  Wanna know what Greg’s nickname for me and Jack ended up being?

  “Brad the Nad” and “String Sucker.”

  Wanna know why?

  Well, Brad rhymes with nad, and Greg swore up and down he woke up in the middle of the night and caught Jack sucking on the strings of his sleeping bag in his sleep. But I didn’t believe him. By that point, I knew Jack for almost an entire year, and not once did I ever know him to suck on anything.

  I don’t know why, but being picked on at Blue Lake never felt the same way as it does here in Hazeltucky. At BLFAC, if somebody called you fag, it was like a badge of honor. It didn’t mean they really thought you were one, even though I totally was—I mean, am.

  You know I’m gay, right?

  As in I like boys.

  Just checking.

  Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want

  “So for once in my life

  Let me get what I want…”

  —The Smiths

  Today’s the big day!

  Basically what happens is…Around 12:30 PM, two representatives from the Junior class come into the Choir room with ballots containing the names of all two hundred eighty-three Seniors of the HPHS Class of ’88 so that we members of Chorale can cast our “Top 25” vote.

  “How have you been?”

  One of the girls, Tracy Cardoza, I’m happy to see for the first time since school started a month ago.

  “You know,” she shrugs, “hanging in there.”

  I can’t believe how much Tracy’s changed since junior high at Webb. We weren’t ever really friends, but her sister, Lydia, has known my sister, Janelle, since we first moved to Ferndale. Back in 9th grade, Tracy went with Jack Paterno to the Carnation Dance. I’ll never forget she wore this totally Madonna “Like a Virgin” get-up, complete with long gloves and matching scarves in her hair. Now three years later, I barely recognize her.

  First of all, she’s super skinny. Not that Tracy was ever fat or anything, but I bet she’s lost at least twenty pounds. And now she’s a Total Punk. She’s traded her blond bob for a totally dyed-black, sticking-up-on-top/short-on-the-sides ’do—save for the long wisps coming down by her ears like sideburns. You should also see the way she’s dressed…Tight black tank top worn with black tights and black rubber bracelets cascading up and down her arms. She must have her ears pierced six or seven times on each side.

  Good-bye Book Worm, hello Sex Kitten!

  “What’s up?”

  This I say to the other girl, a short, cute Vikette named Diane Thompson. She looks very Preppie sporting a beige cardigan with a brown turtleneck, pegged pants, and brown leather Bass loafers.

  Diane replies, “Oh nothing.” She avoids looking at me like she thinks I totally hate her or something, just because she dumped Jack’s sorry ass after dating him during Junior year. Yet she asks, “Have you talked to Lou lately?”

  Uh-oh, here we go!

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid this forever.

  Where do I start?

  ‘member the two Senior girls I mentioned being friends with during Sophomore year? The ones who both made “Top 25”? Alyssa Resnick and Cheri Sheffield. Well, like Diane, Alyssa also dated Jack. And like Diane again, it only lasted a couple months.

  Wanna know why?

  I probably shouldn’t say anything. It’s none of my business, really. But the fact that I barely seen him since school began because of it is starting to piss me off, you know what I mean?

  Jack Paterno is gay.

  At least I think he is, and I been his Best Friend since 7th grade, so I should know, right?

  To make a long story short…

  Me and Jack met Alyssa and her other Best Friend, Luanne “Lou” Kowalski on a
Marching Band bus trip at the beginning of Sophomore year. Well, Jack and Alyssa hit it off and started going together, which totally pissed Lou off because Lou is a lesbian, and she was in love with Alyssa at the time.

  Fast forward to Valentine’s Day 1986…

  This totally hot guy, Joey Palladino, moved back to Hazeltucky after his parents got a divorce. Him and Jack were Best Friends back in elementary school at Longfellow, I guess. Seeing Joey again made Jack realize he was in love with him, and probably had been since they were in like 4th grade.

  That’s about the time I had my Okla-homo! audition.

  “You’re really gonna go thru with that?”

  Jack immediately asked me this question when I mentioned I planned on trying out.

  “I already told you, it’s what I wanna do with my life.”

  Ever since Mrs. Malloy assigned us the What I Want to Be When I Grow Up paper earlier that year in 1st hour English, I made up my mind…I, Bradley James Dayton, will be a famous actor someday!

  Wanna know what Jack said when I confessed I’d be doing the Jane Seymour speech from Somewhere in Time?

  “But that’s a girl’s monologue.”

  “So what?” I snapped, sounding totally defensive. “I like it and that’s all that counts.” Plus I can do an awesome Jane Seymour impression: “Is it you?”

  “Aren’t you gonna care what other people think?”

  Didn’t I say Jack spends all his time worrying about other people? Me, I don’t give a shit what they think. The fact that I was auditioning for Okla-homo! already made me a Total Fag in most people’s eyes, you know what I mean? They don’t call ’em Drama Queers for nothin’.

  And that was the moment I first told Jack I’m gay.

  He claims he never knew. That he never once considered it, even though back in 9th grade he helped me steal a copy of Playgirl from my sister, Janelle, and conduct a séance to resurrect the then-recently departed Jon-Erik Hexum from Cover Up and Making of a Male Model with Joan Collins. I can’t believe that after being my Best Friend for over three years, Jack didn’t suspect I could be (quote) a little light in the loafers (unquote).