Drama Queers!

by Frank Anthony Polito

  Why didn’t I listen to my dad when he encouraged me to take Auto Shop? Instead, I thought, When I’m a rich and famous actor, I’ll just pay somebody to fix my car. Now I really needed to win that $500 Drag Queen–tainted pot o’ dough!

  Mom wiped her hands on a dish towel after washing them in the sink. “Where am I taking you?” she questioned suspiciously.

  I paused a moment. “I don’t want you to know.”

  Mom shook her head, regarding me with reluctance.

  “Bradley…”

  Again, she said my name like I couldn’t be trusted.

  “Please, Mom…There’s something I gotta do, and I don’t want you knowing what it is.”

  Sounding exactly like Carol Brady grilling Greg, Peter, or Bobby, she demanded, “Are you in trouble?”

  “I promise, I’m not.”

  “Then what are you doing that’s such a secret?”

  I assured, “It’s nothing illegal.”

  Now that I think about it, being underage in a bar while participating in an amateur Drag Queen competition very well could be against the law. But Mom didn’t have to know how I’d be spending the last Saturday night of my Senior Spring Break.

  I imagined Richie, Audrey, Ava, and Carrie whooping it up with Mr. Klan and all the other Band Fags at the Best Western Orlando. Or wherever the hell they’re staying. Just like we did Junior year when Wind Ensemble went to MSBOA State Band Festival, and afterwards checked into the Holi-dome up in Fowlerville. We spent the entire evening playing Marco Polo in the pool, and watching some godawful movies (The Fly with Jeff Goldblum, and House with The Greatest American Hero guy) on a VCR that Mr. Klan rented in his room.

  Mom would just have to take my word for it on this one.

  “Turn left, you said?”

  At the corner of West Warren and the Southfield Freeway service drive, Mom stops at the red light. I reach into my pocket, fishing out the directions Miss Peter dictated when I called this afternoon to ask what time she was picking me up, just before she bailed.

  8 Mile W to S’field

  S’field S to Warren

  L on Warren, 3 blocks down

  Btw. Clayburn + Memorial.

  “What’s a Gigi’s?”

  On the left side of the street, plain as day, Mom points out a purplish-color building with a turquoise sign.

  “It’s where you’re taking me,” I tell her, adding, “I think it used to be a bowling alley.”

  There’s no way I’m divulging its current business as a bar. Drinking alcoholic beverages is strongly frowned upon in the Freewill Baptist faith. I’m almost positive so is being a Drag Queen.

  “Would you look at those boys?” Mom says, slowing down for a group of five or six (gay) guys piling out of a Golf parked across the street. “They’re gonna get hit next time if they’re not more careful.”

  Better hit by a car than shot by a gun, I feel like informing her.

  Instead, I say, “You can drop me off on the side of the building,” the entrance being in the rear…No comment!

  Thank God I didn’t drive myself. The entire back parking lot is full to capacity once we pull in. Who knew amateur drag night was so popular in Detroit?

  “I most certainly will not drop you off,” Mom adamantly insists.

  Wanna know what she says next?

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Jesus!

  “That’s okay, Mom…Really.”

  “I’m not leaving you here by yourself,” she says, protecting me like a mother bird. “How will you get home?”

  Good question.

  “I’ll call a cab.”

  Mom quips, “Cabs are expensive,” not knowing I took them before so I’m well aware of the overpriced fares. “You save your money for school.”

  Like the messenger from the “Bob and the Kids are Dead” joke, I resist. “But Mom…”

  “Enough!”

  This would be her version of “Sing it!”

  No point in arguing. Like Alexis Carrington-Colby-Dexter, when Laura Victor-Dayton-Victor has made up her mind, there’s no trying to change it. After all, she originally hails from Alabama…Laura, that is. Not Alexis.

  “I think I see a spot,” I tell Mom, totally giving in.

  She responds, “God’s on our side,” giving her standard parking-related reply.

  Fasten your seat belts, folks…We’re in for a bumpy ride!

  Have you ever seen a Drag Queen? I mean, up close and in person. Believe me, it is not a pretty sight! Okay, maybe I’m being a tad bit dramatic. Some of them seem very nice. A few look sooo amazing, you wouldn’t believe that’s a guy prancing about in a lace corset and push-up bustier singing “It’s Raining Men.”

  Speaking of…

  “May I borrow your tape?”

  Backstage, I’m gathering my ensemble together, when a drop-dead gorgeous redhead with a slight Southern accent taps me on the shoulder. I assume she’s a fellow drag performer, but her tits sure do look real…As does the snake she’s got draped around her neck!

  Finding it an odd request considering Red doesn’t even know what song I’m singing and shouldn’t she should have her own music, I say, “Sorry…I gave it to the hostess already.”

  Meaning “The Lady Z.”

  Picture the joy on Zephyr’s face after me and Mom paid the queenie old guy smoking an Eve 120 cigarette working the door our $5 cover and headed downstairs.

  “You brought your sister!” Lady Z beamed, making Mom blush.

  I almost didn’t recognize her all done up as a blonde. Until I remembered she goes platinum when she does the PTA. I hoped Mom would get a kick outta that number, one of the only Country ones I imagine we’ll hear tonight.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said politely after I introduced her to Zephyr. “I’m Bradley’s mother, Laura.”

  Poor Mom…She thought Lady Z was really a lady. Or she pretended to. I doubt she would ever point out something as obvious as a man wearing a dress. That would be rude.

  “‘Blow out your candles, Laura…’”

  I forgot Zephyr proclaimed herself a Drama Queer from way back when, so it surprised me at first to hear her quoting Tennessee. You know, as in Williams, from The Glass Menagerie, a fellow DQ himself, I’m told.

  Then she offered, “Allow me to find you a seat.” Lady Z led Mom down to the front row. I couldn’t believe how polite she was being. Until I heard her cry, “Move it, Twinkie!” ordering some gay guy not much older than me to give up his chair. “This seat’s reserved for a real lady.”

  Mom took her place. “Thank you, Miss Zephyr.”

  “Call me…Lady Z,” Lady Z replied zealously. Then to me she said, “This way to the dressing room,” curt as ever. “Move your ass!”

  “You gonna be okay?” I asked Mom, terrified to leave her alone.

  She insisted, “I’ll be fine…Go do what we came here to do.”

  The way she said those words, I had a feeling Mom knew the exact contents of the paper bag I clutched in my sweaty little hands. Thank God Miss Peter can sew is all I can say. When I told her I needed a costume for my act, she asked me what I wanted and presto! Two days later, I picked it up…

  “You made this?” I asked incredulously, admiring Miss Peter’s handiwork.

  “Shit! That ain’t nothing,” she bragged. “Remember Larry?”

  How could I forget the hot mechanic from Taylortucky?

  “Well, you know how I took his sister to the Prom back in the ’70s?”

  I nodded, seeming to recall the fact being mentioned in passing. “Uh-huh.”

  “Who do you think made her gown?”

  Back in the Gigi’s dressing room…

  Red looks at me like I never did a lick of drag before. Maybe because I haven’t.

  “Not your music cassette,” the Southern Belle clarifies, correcting herself. “I’m talkin’ ’bout your duck tape.”

  “Oh…Duct tape!”

  Why would I have any type of a
dhesive and what would I do with it if I did?

  “Here ya go, sweetie…”

  A mannish-looking transvestite sporting a Jean Nicole jumpsuit stops tweezing her eyebrows for two seconds. From out of her bag o’ tricks, she pulls a roll of extra-sticky silver tape, offering it to the Snake Charmer.

  “Thank you kindly.”

  After Miss Red disappears down the hall towards the restroom, I say to Jean Nicole, “Excuse me…What’s the duct tape for, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “How else you gonna hold down you ho-ho?”

  A teeny-tiny Geisha “girl” answers my question. She lifts up her red silk kimono to reveal a strip of silver running from the top of her pubes (if she has any), between her legs—completely concealing her crack. Below her belly button, another smaller piece of tape crosses the first, forming a T.

  “When you get home tonight, take a nice hot shower,” the 6’2” African-American Drag Queen to my left suggests. She reminds me of the chick from the sex-flick, Emmanuelle on Taboo Island. “And use lots of baby oil.”

  “I will,” I promise, grateful for the inside scoop. Too bad I don’t get it. “What for?”

  My fellow competitors burst into hysterics.

  “You cute,” Madame Butterfly coos.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  Removing my costume from the bag, I begin getting ready.

  Oh, my God…I just realized I haven’t said anything about my outfit!

  Picture me in a blonde, flippy-banged wig, pulled back into a top-knotted ponytail. Covering my torso, a cornflower blue, one-piece leotard with short-short skirt attached. Flesh-colored tights adorn my silky smooth legs, leading down to a pair of…

  “I like you ice skates,” Madame B compliments. “Make you so tall.”

  Poor thing…She can’t be more than 5’5”, despite the flip-flop-thingies she’s wearing on her feet with three-inch wooden soles.

  Emmanuelle Taboo asks, “What do you call yourself?”

  Without even thinking, I answer, “My name’s Bradley.”

  Again, my fellow contestants share a snicker at my expense.

  “She means your drag name,” Jean Nicole clarifies.

  Proudly, I show off my white Peter Pan collar with the sewn-on letters: L-E-X-I-E.

  Yes! That’s me.

  Alexis Winston, the star of Ice Castles.

  And now, for my fellow Drag Queens…

  Jean Nicole formally calls herself “Sally Crockett.” Emmanuelle goes by the name “Ebony Sunset,” and Butterfly’s moniker is none other than “Asia Fantasia.” When Red returns (much flatter down yonder), she introduces herself as “Honey from Chattanooga.” She’s what they dub in the drag biz a traveling queen, meaning she (and her snake) goes from town to town performing in various venues cross-country, building up a fan base.

  FYI…The tits are totally real.

  Well, they’re implants. And they co$t a pretty penny.

  Not that Honey’s not a nice girl, but if you ask me, she’s taking things a tad too far. I may be sexually attracted to men, but I’m perfectly content being one myself, you know what I mean?

  “Good evening, ladies!”

  An older man in his mid-30s enters the dressing area unannounced. All decked out in a white tuxedo with silver cummerbund, he ducks his head as he appears thru the door. ’member how I said Gigi’s used to be a bowling alley? Well, this explains why the backstage ceiling is so low.

  Notice how whenever somebody walks alongside the first or last lanes before disappearing to fetch a lost ball or whatever it is they do behind that tiny door, the further away they go, the larger they appear to get? Like in that scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Gene Wilder enters that room with the piano-lock that plays Rachmaninov.

  “We’re not ladies, sir, we’re girls.”

  Miss Crockett gives her Eva Gabor brand wig a gentle once over with her Lady Catherine hairbrush as she informs our visitor of this fact.

  Lemme tell ya, the guy thinks he’s Robert Goulet. You know, from The Fantastiks. Or Carousel. Whatever show features “The Impossible Dream.” For whatever reason, he’s also performing tonight. They call him “Mr. Showbiz.”

  “My specialty is male-identified show tunes.”

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  I thought the whole point of a drag show was watching men dressed up as women.

  Hence the term drag.

  Soon as Mr. BS—I mean, SB—bids us farewell, one of the Queens insists she saw him the other afternoon working the Drive-Thru at Wendy’s in Westland. When they say, Don’t quit your day job, I guess that’s what they mean.

  “How do I look?”

  I turn to Ebony, after I lace up my skates, asking for her honest opinion.

  “You look real pretty, baby,” she compliments. “You sure you ain’t never done this before?”

  “Never,” I insist. “It’s an amateur contest, isn’t it?”

  “Shit,” Miss Sunset snarls, tossing her long dark hair behind her shoulder. She looks absolutely gorgeous in a glittering Bob Mackey-esque evening gown. “We all been doing this forever…We just none of us ain’t never been paid.”

  From beyond the thin paneled wall, the crowd suddenly goes bezerk. Looks like the show’s officially begun as Lady Z. Zephyr takes to the stage. Me and the other Queens rush outta the dressing room, taking our places behind the curtained-off area where we wait backstage in the so-called wings. Luckily, the ceiling out front, I’m told, is a good six inches higher if not more. Especially since we’re all wearing heels and/or skates.

  “I want to tell you all a story ’bout a Harper Valley widowed wife…”

  Lady Z sounds even better than I anticipated.

  “She’s good,” I whisper. No wonder she’s the Hostess with the Mostest. “How does she do that?”

  Ebony peeks thru an opening in the curtain, catching a view of the star working the crowd. I think I spot Mom sitting between two (non-drag) queens, both reaching up towards Zephyr, dollar bills in hand. Who knew she got to perform and received tips?

  “She sounds exactly like Jeannie C. Riley.”

  This I say in reference to the original “Harper Valley” chanteuse.

  For the third time, my fellow four bust a gut. Only now, they keep their hysterics hushed. God forbid Zephyr “The Lady Z” has her act interrupted by a bunch of amateurs and their backstage antics.

  “Lexie darlin’, she is not that good.” Honey wraps her real-life non-feather boa round her neck. “Haven’t you ever seen Puttin’ on the Hits?”

  Of course. I can still picture the Total Babe host, Allen Fawcett, with his blond perm and boyish good looks. Then I comprendre the point Miss Honey is trying to make.

  “Lady Z’s not singing?”

  I am stupefied. Isn’t this supposed to be a Drag Queen contest?

  “Nobody sings,” Sally Crockett informs me, like it’s rule #1 in the Drag Queen Handbook, if there even is such a thing.

  Why didn’t anybody tell me this?

  Sure enough, when Sally takes her turn, she performs a one-woman Pointer Sisters “Jump (For My Love).” Sadly, she’s not very good. In fact, her only choreography consists of her jumping every time Anita, June, and the other one sing the title verb.

  Did I mention the time me and Jack went to see the sisters Pointer out at Meadow Brook back in the summer of ’85? We got his dad to take us and drop us off, and my mom and his mom came to pick us up. This was back when Jack’s mom thought my mom was a (quote-unquote) incompetent buffoon, so I thought for sure they were gonna kill each other on the ride out to Rochester. Surprisingly, they hit it off and had a ball the entire way home.

  That same year, we discovered the Vikette advisor, Mrs. Cuc-cioli, had a picture tacked up on the bulletin board in her office of some Vikettes taken with Anita and What’s-Her-Name Pointer out at Metro Airport. You can bet me and Jack spent months coveting that photo. Much like Operation Revenge of the Band Fa
gs! back at Webb (long story, I won’t go into it), along with Cheri Sheffield, Alyssa, and Luanne, we devised a similar plot to hijack said souvenir in what we dubbed Operation Grand Theft Photo…We may sound like bad kids, but I promise we’re not.

  “Cut the music, Chico!”

  Once Ebony’s song fades (“Dark Lady” by Cher, which explains the get-up), Lady Z calls out to the DJ up in the booth at the back corner of the bar. I’m told he’s a totally charismatic, totally hot Arab, but don’t you dare call him Chaldean because he’s not—he’s Muslim. Supposedly Chico’s got a thing for the young boys, a fact I’m finding more and more common amongst the over-thirty set, even though I don’t know why. I mean, what does a man want with a young boy?

  “Shut the fuck up, bitches!”

  Lady Z shouts over the din of the crowd. Like a nervous wreck, I wait in the wings, ready to make my entrance.

  “Before I introduce our final performer,” she continues, “I need to remind you…If you’re drinking and driving tonight, drive someone else’s car.”

  How I ended up dead last, I don’t know. “Saving the best for…” I can only hope.

  “And now,” Zephyr announces, like a gay Shrine Circus ringmaster. “I give to you…the one and only…Miss Alexis Winston!”

  And the crowd goes wild!

  As I step thru the curtain, blinded by the light, my adoring fans immediately recognize my persona, validating my belief in the brilliance that is Ice Castles.

  With a wink and a smile, Lady Z offers me the oh-so-phallic silver microphone. Graciously, I accept, making sure to leave the switch in the ON position. Maybe all the other Queens here tonight lip-synched, but this girl is out to win the competition with her song-stylings au naturel.

  As the lilt of the piano plays, a hush falls over the room.

  I stare down at the floor, totally in-character.

  “‘Here’s for my mom.’”

  Until now, these words were nothing more than a quote from one of my favorite movies. But since she’s sitting right here in the front row, about to observe her only son sing the Melissa Manchester love theme from Ice Castles before an audience made up of gay men, butch dykes, and flamboyant Drag Queens, the line seems all the more à propos to the situation.