Drama Queers!

by Frank Anthony Polito

  “It’s Sunday,” I say, trying to account for the lack of eye candy and the emptiness of The Pit. “Maybe they’re all at Menjo’s.”

  With the exception of me and Miss Peter seated side by side on stools, and Mike-the-mohawked-bartender bare-chested at his post behind, there’s a total of zero other guys in the entire bar.

  “And to think I wasted this outfit…”

  In honor of the holiday, Miss Peter sports a pink off-the-shoulder sweatshirt, à la Flashdance (“What a feeling!”), a big broken heart stenciled on the front. On her feet she wears ballet slippers. Covering her lower extremities, leggings—I made the mistake of calling them tights. Big mistake!

  “I like your fairy wings.”

  When she first arrived, I complimented the homemade feather-covered pair she had strapped to her back, along with one of them container-thingies that holds the arrows…A quiver, maybe? Thank God the pink tips are only plastic suction cups.

  “I’m Cupid,” Miss Peter croaked. “Not a fucking fairy!”

  No comment.

  To quote Rizzo from Grease when she turns to Marty after spying Crater Face Balmudo in the Rydell High parking lot, coming up with a plan to score a date for the National Bandstand dance contest: “I think our luck just might be changing.”

  Thru the door walks a very attractive man. Tall, dark, and handsome, you could even call him with his slicked-back hair, parted on the side, and matching mustache. An olive-drab trench coat drapes his broad shoulders. He wears tan slacks, a plaid button-down shirt, open just enough at the collar to reveal a patch of hair sprouting up from his chest. He looks a tad bit like a teacher, but he’s definitely a man. As opposed to some 15-year-old boy, like the one I been pining away for the entire evening.

  “Well, well, well…”

  Miss Peter becomes an entirely different person the second she spies School Teacher Guy walk past us. Her eyes sparkle, a smile dances its way across her only-moments-before dour face.

  Seconding the emotion, I echo, “Well, well, well…”

  “I could sure go for some baked ham,” Miss Peter muses, without taking her eyes off the prize.

  “Some baked ham sure would hit the spot,” I concur. “Don’t you think so, Mike?”

  Mike chuckles to himself. “You girls are insatiable.” This doesn’t stop him taking a break from restocking the refrigerator with Bud Light bottles to peek over his shoulder. “Mmm mmm mmm…Baked ham does sound good right about now.”

  Baked ham is one of our code words. Like when one of us sees somebody we like and we wanna make it obvious to the other without coming out and blatantly saying so. Last week it was casserole.

  School Teacher Guy pulls up a stool about five feet away from us. “Can I get a Bud?”

  Miss Peter just about wets herself at the sound of his voice. Not since Jon-Erik Hexum have I heard such a deep, resonant bass.

  “So…?” she says, a little louder than usual, even for how inebriated she is.

  “So…?” I repeat, trying to pique STG’s interest.

  Too bad his eyeballs are glued to the TV above the bar where some spandex-clad speed skater does laps around an ice rink in Calgary, Canada. The Winter Olympics only started yesterday, and already I’m sick of them interrupting my regularly scheduled ABC programming. Like tonight, I’m missing Dolly Parton’s new variety show, Dolly. I only caught a few episodes, but some of my favorite guests so far include Juice Newton, Emmylou Harris, and Miss Piggy.

  I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’m a big fan of the Olympic Games, particularly the winter ones. Call me stereotypical, but my favorite event has gotta be women’s figure skating. This might explain my passion for Ice Castles.

  Starting with Dorothy Hamill in ’76, I fell in love with the sport, even though I was only six at the time her (and her haircut) took home Olympic gold, so I barely remember a thing. I do, however, recall seeing the commercials the following Christmas for the Dorothy Hamill doll.

  It wasn’t till four years later that I developed a serious passion for the sport while watching the 1980 Winter Olympic Games held in Lake Placid. I distinctly remember skating around our sunken-in family room in my stocking feet, pretending I was the dark-haired American contender, Linda Fratianne, sporting my sequined skating dress, displaying my perfect axels, triple toe loops, and triple salchows. I was sooo bummed (and outta breath) after watching poor Linda skate her butt off and only win the silver—what a gyp!

  “Me thinks I need another…”

  My cup far from runneth-ing over, I decide I could use a refill.

  “Allow me,” Miss Peter offers cordially. “It’s the least I can do since you were dumped on Valentine’s Day.”

  This last part she says at the top of her voice, for the benefit of our new arrival, I’m sure.

  “Hey!” I cry, totally taking offense. “I’m the dumper here, not the dumpee.”

  Miss Peter shakes her head, winking at Professor Studly. “Sure you are…”

  Reaching for one of her love darts, she draws back her bow and lets her arrow go. Luckily, Miss Peter is already wasted off her ass, not to mention her aim sucks to begin with. The arrow falls to the floor with a thud, missing its mark by a bijillion miles.

  “You girls need something?” asks Mike.

  I just about cream my jeans watching him suction-cup the toy to his massive man tit.

  The only reason Mike’s even here tonight is because Heaven isn’t open on Sundays and, believe it or not, he’s single. Being the good guy he is, he decided to give the regular bartender the night off and come slumming with the rest of us losers. Only thing is, Mike gets paid to be here!

  “What-choo havin’, Opie?” Miss Peter turns to me, slurring her words only slightly.

  “Sloe gin fizz.”

  With the entire bar draped in red, I figured I might as well match my drink to the décor and switched from fuzzy navels. What stinks even more about this whole V-Day situation is…I been plotting it out in my head for like the last month as to how exactly I wanted to spend the holiday: alone with Richie as Ryan and Noel.

  Mr. and Mrs. Tyler went away for another bowling tournament, and we were gonna have the entire house to ourselves. I specifically requested the night off from Big Boy’s, so I only had to work 10:00 AM–5:00 PM at the Gap, allowing plenty of time to go home, shit, shower, and shave, and be over Richie’s by 6:00 PM for a romantic candlelit dinner of chicken parmigiana, garlic bread, and mixed-greens salad, which he promised to have ready and waiting on the table.

  I even bought a new pair of Calvin Klein undies up at Hudson’s for the special occasion, in case we ended up rehearsing any of our Ryan and Noel love scenes, you know what I mean?

  “Bottoms up.”

  Mike returns with our drinks in hand.

  His massively large hands, matching the rest of his massively large, totally perfect body.

  Why can’t I find a boyfriend like Mike?

  Because I don’t want one…’member, I’m not a fag?

  Liar!

  Making the most sour-looking face I ever seen, Miss Peter lets out a serious moan. “What is in this drink?”

  Mike replies, “Captain Morgan’s.”

  “Captain Morgan’s and…?” Miss Peter quizzically questions.

  “Captain Morgan’s and Coke.”

  This Mike says with a slight trace of uncertainty.

  “Well, no wonder if tastes like ass…I asked for Captain Morgan’s and Diet.”

  “My apologies…I’ll take it back.”

  Mike reaches for Miss Peter’s glass, but she isn’t giving up the ghost.

  “Oh, no…This one I’m keeping.”

  Miss Peter slurps her Captain and Coke as Mike makes her another avec Diète. She’s practically done with the first by the time the second appears.

  “Sorry about that.”

  Reaching into her man-purse, while at the same time firing up a Tareyton, Miss Peter instructs, “Just take it out of this,” flinging Mik
e a $50.

  “Your money’s no good here, ma’am,” her informs Miss Peter, doing his best Wild West barkeep impersonation.

  “Since when?”

  Mike nods his head towards our not-so secret admirer.

  “It’s nice to see somebody take pity on a couple of single girls,” Miss Peter sighs with glee.

  “Sorry, guys…Wasn’t me.” STG downs his Bud and signals for another. “Yo!”

  Wanna know who we see standing just beyond School Teacher Guy?

  Go on, take a wild guess!

  Both are tall and handsome—one dark, the other fair.

  At first, I don’t recognize them on account of they’re the last two people I expect to find at The Gas Station on a Sunday night, let alone on Valentine’s Day.

  “Bradley,” says the dark one, nodding his gorgeous head of hair my way.

  “What’s up?” asks the other, shit-eating grin on his beautiful blue-eyed face.

  Obviously, Miss Peter doesn’t recognize them either.

  “Those boys are cute!” she squeals. “Let’s go over and say hello…We’re gonna starve if we wait around for some baked ham.”

  I can’t help but follow the fifteen feet to the end of the bar with Miss Peter dragging me along as her human crutch.

  “What are you guys doing here?” I inquire, the second we’re within speaking range.

  “It’s Valentine’s Day, isn’t it?” the older of the two responds. “We’re celebrating.”

  “Isn’t that sweet,” Miss Peter coos. She raises her glass, offering a toast. “To young love…What’s your name, bitches?”

  “Noel and Ryan,” supplies the happy couple’s younger half. “I’m Noel…This is Ryan.”

  “Charmed,” Miss Peter replies, drunkenly yet still demure.

  Before she gets a chance to extend her hand, I cut in. “No…You’re Richie and he’s Joey.”

  Miss Peter does a double take. “Richie from Scrooge, Richie? I thought you said your name was Joel.”

  I explain to Miss Peter that Richie and Joey are working on an acting project for school, in which they portray characters named Ryan and Noel—with an N. Like a lot of Drama Queers, they sometimes get carried away with playing pretend, so we have to indulge them.

  “I’m a big fan of role play,” Miss Peter quips. “Care to join Opie and I for a cocktail?”

  Now it’s Joey’s turn to do a double take. “Opie?”

  Richie replies, “Don’t ask.”

  As if this night couldn’t get any worse!

  I properly introduce Miss Peter to my so-called friends, and we take our seats. Luckily, there happens to be two empty stools between us and our stingy new friend, the school teacher. I make sure to grab the one on the far side, keeping as much distance from Noel and Ryan as I possibly can. My plan is to sip my sloe gin in silence, and let Miss Peter do all the entertaining while I smoke a cig-rette.

  This is how I sometimes say cigarette, mostly when I been drinking.

  “So what are two nice boys like you doing in a dump like this?”

  Richie begins, “We were in the neighborhood—”

  Miss Peter interrupts, “You mean the gayborhood?” She laughs so hard, she starts hacking up a lung.

  Note to self: don’t smoke for too long.

  “We were in the gayborhood,” Richie continues, “having dinner at Backstage.”

  You can bet this gets my attention.

  “Did you try the chicken parmigiana?” Miss Peter interjects, salivating. “It’s to die for!”

  I can’t believe The Sophomore had the nerve to take Joey Palladino for dinner at our special restaurant. Now he brings him to the very same bar we went afterwards…What the fuck is up with that?

  “Tell me more about this acting project you’re working on,” says Miss Peter, lighting another Tareyton, legs crossed at the knees, all ears.

  “It’s a film called Faded Flowers,” answers Joey, filling her in.

  “After the Shriekback song,” adds Richie.

  Miss Peter makes a face like she’s smelling a fart. “What the hell’s a Shriekback?”

  That’s what I said!

  “It’s a New Wave band,” Joey explains, removing his navy pea coat.

  I can’t help but notice he’s all dressed up in super-tight navy dress pants and a super-tight white dress shirt, unbuttoned just enough to show off the little gold chain around his neck, which I’m pretty sure he got from his girlfriend, Diane Thompson. Where the hell is she tonight, anyways? It’s Valentine’s Day, for chris’sakes!

  Miss Peter shrugs, exhaling. “If it ain’t Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, or Teena Marie, forget it…What’s the movie about?”

  “This group of high school kids,” says The Sophomore. “One of the girls gets pregnant, two of the guys are gay…Your basic John Hughes plot.”

  Again, Miss Peter shrugs, oblivious. “If you say so.”

  “We’re playing the gay guys,” Joey reveals, as if there was any question. “My character is the ex-boyfriend of the pregnant girl.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere!” Miss Peter gives her full attention. “So you break up with the girl because you’re queer?”

  “No,” answers The Sophomore. “He doesn’t realize he’s queer till after he breaks up with her and falls in love with me.”

  “Smart boy!”

  Miss Peter praises Joey with a squeeze of his bulging bicep. You can bet she’s milking the situation for all it’s worth. Has she totally forgotten what I told her a mere two months ago?

  ‘member when I spent the night at Richie’s house and he totally called me out about being a Total Fag? Not to mention everything I confessed concerning what me and him have been doing together physically for the last thirty days, give or take. For all intensive purposes, Richie Tyler is my ex-boyfriend, and here he is at the gay bar with another guy! Or is it “all intents and purposes”? I never know exactly which one it is whenever I say it. So I just sorta slur my words together hoping nobody else will hear me say it wrong if I am.

  Then Miss Peter says, “Wait a minute…This sounds vaguely familiar.” She turns to me, confused. “Weren’t you making a movie with the exact same plot?”

  I sit up in my seat, tall and proud. “I was…”

  The Sophomore insists on slamming me back down. “He quit.”

  “I didn’t quit,” I defend myself, refusing to meet his gaze. “I dropped out.”

  “Same difference.”

  “I took over his part,” elaborates Joey.

  “So now you two are boyfriends,” Miss Peter deduces, finally making sense of the scenario.

  “That’s right,” Richie affirms with a smile. “Opie’s out…Joey’s in.”

  As ABBA’s “The Winner Takes it All” comes to an end, the bar falls eerily silent.

  “Be right back.”

  Sliding off my stool, I dig deep into my jeans pocket, in search of some quarters. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s being in a bar without any background music. The challenge is finding something to play on the jukebox that isn’t a Golden Oldie.

  “Howdy, boys…”

  Outta the corner of my eye, I see Mike make his way over to welcome the latest addition to our pity party.

  “Give these young men whatever’ll make them happy,” Miss Peter orders.

  Mike grins, his square jaw working a piece of cinnamon Dentyne. “I can think of a thing or two that might do the trick.”

  Miss Peter howls. “Get your mind outta the gutter, hooker!”

  I choose #A-34: “Only in My Dreams” by Debbie Gibson. To this day, whenever I hear that song, it takes me back to the night I set foot in my first gay bar.

  Flashback to the spring of 1986…

  Me and Luanne just came out to each other. One night while sitting at Big Boy’s drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes the way we always did, we encountered our favorite waiter, Brett. A cute guy in his early 20s, tall and thin with dark hair and dark eyes, Br
ett always slipped us free fries on account of he knew me and Lou were both poor as dirt.

  “What are you guys doing later?” he asked, refilling our cold cups with hot Maxwell House.

  We were like, “Nothing…Why do you ask?”

  Brett was like, “I’m meeting some friends down at this bar on Woodward…You should come by.”

  He reminded me of that guy Robbie from Dirty Dancing, which I finally went to see by myself, by the way. ’member, he’s the one who knocks up Johnny’s dance partner, Penny, so they gotta take her to have that back-alley abortion? What a jerk!

  Sadly we informed Brett, “We’re still in high school.”

  “That’s okay…They’ll totally let you in.”

  That particular night, Lou’s mom was on her case (as per usual), and she had to have the car back by 10:00 PM. So after we paid our bill, she took me home.

  Well, I got to thinking about how much fun it would be to go Dirty Dancing with Brett at a bar, since I never been to one. Except at the time, I was only fifteen, so I didn’t even have a driver’s license, let alone a vehicle.

  Wanna know what I did?

  I dug out the yellow pages and called a cab, which is something you never do in the Motor City.

  Twenty minutes later, I stood in line all decked out in my favorite jeans and turtleneck/cardigan sweater combo, waiting to fork over my five bucks.

  “ID.”

  The burly Bouncer Guy grunted, looking down at me. This was before Nancy’s uncle hired her (and her horse teeth) to be the Crypt Keeper.

  “Um…I don’t drive.”

  You can bet I batted my eyes, hoping if I looked cute enough the guy wouldn’t care that I was underage and would invite me inside.

  “How old are you?”

  “Um…Fifteen.” Remembering what Brett said, I figured I didn’t need to lie.

  “Hand.”

  The guy grabbed my paw, marked it with an X, and up the stairs I climbed.

  “Well, if it isn’t Chicken Little…”

  That’s the first thing Mike said to me from his post behind the bar. I’ll never forget he had on his uniform: military fatigues, combat boots, and no shirt. At first, I thought I couldn’t possibly be in a gay bar with a guy that looked like him working there.