“Where are you at with the dishes, Kay?”
“Almost done, sir.”
“Oh god! Please don’t call me ‘sir.’ You know, I had to call my father ‘sir’? My own father. What a fucking prick. Anyway . . . When I’m in drag, you may call me Clara McCleavaaaaaaaaaaaaage.” I nodded. I stared at Clara’s reflection in the mirror. It was extraordinary.
“Hmmmm. I don’t have your shade in my makeup case.” Clara began looking through her bag. My heart skipped a beat. Was this Christmas? “But I think I have a spare set of lashes and tons of lipsticks for you to choose from.”
She took out a bottle with a pointed tip. “Do you know what this is? Surely you know.” I shook my head. “It’s weave bond. Haven’t you seen Black ladies use it to glue their extensions into place?” She circled her hand in my direction, assuming I could confirm this fact through an invisible network of “my people.” I shook my head. A line of the adhesive was drawn along the length of a set of lashes. Clara placed them carefully along my eye line. The wet along the rim of my lids felt tingly cold.
“Funny enough, we have weave bond on your eyelashes,” she shifted her razor-sharp focus from the edges of my eyes to the pout of my mouth, “and lash glue on your lips.” She pried open the plastic case of the lash set, and a small tube fell onto her desk. The white liquid was applied and its stickiness was used to adhere red sparkles to my lips. She reached into her handbag again and pulled out a lemon-yellow wig.
“Now, it’s not a lace front. It’s more like some possum your dad ran over with the car. But it’ll do for now.” Clara made me tilt my head forward as she positioned the cap of the wig to hug the nape of my neck. I slowly sat up, and Clara used a rat-tail comb to smooth out my new tresses.
“You ready?” She positioned the mirror towards me and I looked. “Oh! Sorry, hun. Looks like you’re tearing up. Maybe I put too much glue?” It wasn’t the glue. I was crying. I looked so beautiful.
“That’s . . . that’s me?”
“Yes. Yes, Kay. That’s you.”
Clara thought I was a quick study. At first, my job, in addition to washing dishes, was to pass the hat around the room for tips. Clara’s numbers were too heavy with dramatic staging to allow for the distraction of grabbing bills from adoring fans while pulling puppets from her bra. Then my job expanded to include escorting hecklers out of the bar who entered just to call us faggots and throw things at us. It demanded a lot of finesse; not strong-arming people, but using humour and shade. The paying crowd played along and booed the hecklers out.
“Let’s give them a soundtrack for their exit, shall we?” I would cheerfully say before we sang the “So Long, Farewell” song from The Sound of Music.
I wasn’t the queen you knew right away, Evan. I had some growing up to do. Back then, only my face and wig were in drag. I began visiting Shoppers Drug Mart to spend what little income I had on my makeup kit. Clara made me return several times until I found the right shade of foundation. All makeup that was even close to my skin colour was named after food. Cinnamon Roll. Chocolate Fudge. Caffe Latte. As if we were meant to be eaten. Through clenched teeth, I settled for Hot Cocoa.
I pounded the pavement along Yonge Street’s endless storefronts, past gelato bars and falafel counters, dodging pigeon poop and spit puddles, to a hole-in-the-wall shop called Zenith. I stocked up on women’s clothes in size ten to fit my length and coupled them with a belt to cinch my tiny waist. In another Yonge Street hole-in-the-wall called Hairy Jane’s, I bought my first pair of heels. It was the only shop the drag queens went to, because they carried larger sizes. I bought a pair of red patent-leather stilettos, size thirteen and a half. They fit like a dream. I was living a dream.
“Be careful in those. I wouldn’t wear them in the streets if I was you,” said the elderly clerk, squinting his eyes at me as I expertly transformed his dusty shop into my personal runway. I spied my legs in the shop’s mirror and smiled. I was ready to perform.
Well . . . almost ready. Clara told me she had a gift for me. When I began jumping up and down in glee, she waved her hand, trying to get me to heel like an excited puppy.
“It’s not really a gift so much as a thank-you for not wasting my time. I can’t tell you how many times someone wanted me to be their drag mama when all they can do is that boring-ass step-touch dance move. Not everyone can do this, you know?”
She texted me an address close to High Park where she would meet me. She refused to tell me any more. The 1950s apartment sat adjacent to the subway station and the expansive urban park. I spiralled up several flights of stairs until I made it to the suite listed in the directions. I knocked.
“One moooooooomeeeeeent!” a voice sang from the other side of the door. The vintage brass peephole swung open and I heard another singsong “Well, hellooooooo.” A fat white Queer opened the door and posed. His face was still undone. His floral silk kimono curtained across the round of his belly. Judging by his hairlessness, I was catching him just after his shaving ritual. In one hand he held a roach clip with a soggy, crooked roach letting loose a pathetic line of smoke into the already dusty apartment.
“My name is Korus, as in chorus girl.” He waved his roach, gesturing at all the showgirl paraphernalia crowding the entryway behind him. “As you can see by my wardrobe, my drag acts fulfill my dream of becoming a Rockette without risking losing my girlish figure.” Korus framed his fat body with his newly shaven arms and curtsied.
“My name is Kay.” I curtsied back and he giggled.
“You are so damn cute!”
“Stop flirting and bring Kay in!” I heard Clara shout from some unknown place in the apartment.
“Hold your horses, you old cunt!” Korus screamed back, then looked at me and smiled. Korus began leading me through his tiny apartment as if it were a museum. Every square inch was covered with various costume pieces. Racks of clothes covered every window, so there was little to no natural light in the home, and every bulb hung dim, waiting to be changed. Where “normal” people would put a television set sat a pile of hat boxes so crooked it threatened to fall at any moment. Where “normal” people would line up books on the shelf, Korus had lined up his footwear, from standard nude character shoes with their clunky heels and quick-release buckles to bedazzled boots.
“Don’t mind the platform sneakers,” he said despite pointing right at them. “It was during the Spice Girls era. I thought I could be Sporty Spice, when I was more of a pumpkin. The left shoe squeaks, but I don’t have the heart to get rid of it.”
Korus led me to a kitchen cum dressing room. Or at least I assumed it was a kitchen. A ballroom dancing dress hung over the fridge, its sleeves half covered with twinkling cheap purple jewels. A silver tube of E6000 craft adhesive sat on the counter beside it with a tub of purple jewels waiting to be affixed to their new home. It was the brightest room in the house thanks to his vanity mirror, with all twelve bulbs shining brightly in a golden glow. Sitting at the vanity was Clara, with her hair in a headwrap and large sunglasses on.
“You look like a Warner Bros. star the day after her movie premiere!” I smiled at her, hoping she was impressed with my comparison. She did not smile back.
Korus put out his soggy roach in a weed box underneath a Styrofoam wig mannequin. He held the mannequin head under his arm while smashing the roach to bits in the debris of his past joints. Clara sat among dozens of mannequin heads, each with a different-coloured wig, each sitting on a wall of shelves that reached the ceiling and blocked any light from an adjacent patio. It appeared as though I was facing a jury of queens and wig heads.
“Korus?”
“Yes, Clara?”
“Suit this bitch up.” I shuddered in anticipation. What was happening?
Korus opened what had been a cutlery drawer. Inside were dozens of tiny eyelash boxes grouped together in blue elastic bands. “Shit. Where is that thing?” Korus opened another drawer, where “normal” people would put serving spoons, this time with countless
lipsticks. He opened another drawer—this one, deeper than the others, the type of drawer “normal” people would place Tupperware in—and found a large electrical saw among rolls of electrical tape and pantyhose.
“What’s that?” I said, alarmed.
“What does it look like? It’s an industrial cutter.” Korus plugged the contraption in. I took a step back. The saw and each of its gleaming silver teeth looked large enough to cut someone’s head off.
Clara pointed up and down at my sweatpants ensemble. “Take off your bottoms.”
“Excuse me?”
“How is Korus going to do his work if he doesn’t know what he’s working with?” She waved her hands in frustration, then eventually landed them on her lap for emphasis. I took my pants off. “Now show Korus your bum.” I lifted the bottom of my hoodie. They both nodded.
“What do you imagine?” asked Korus.
Clara pinched the end of her chin in thought. “Obviously Kay doesn’t need help in the back end, but he definitely needs help on the sides. We need to turn this triangle into an hourglass, stat!” Korus nodded, then left the kitchen/dressing room.
“What’s going on?”
“You, my dear Kay,” said Clara ceremoniously, “are getting a new ass and hips.” My eyes widened. If the blade of the saw weren’t so close to me, I would’ve jumped for joy.
Korus returned with a block of solid foam and placed it on the kitchen table/vanity. He strapped on a pair of goggles, picked up the industrial cutter and began carving an ass and hips.
After five minutes of foam pieces flying everywhere, I exclaimed, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Why do you own an industrial cutter?”
Korus froze. His goggled face was covered with foam bits. Clara stopped powdering her nose. Korus looked at Clara. Clara looked at Korus. They both looked back at me.
“I’d rather not say,” said Korus.
“It’s best we don’t talk about it. Probably best you never know,” Clara added while nervously looking side to side. And that was that. Korus returned to carving, Clara returned to powdering, and I returned to sitting on a pile of Korus’s dirty laundry, still without my pants on.
When the carving was done, Korus instructed me to wrap the curvaceous foam creation around my hips before putting on four pairs of dark-brown stockings to match my skin colour.
“Thoughts?” Korus said to Clara, one hand still on the plugged-in industrial cutter.
“I won’t know until I see her in swimwear.”
I changed into a bathing suit and put on heels.
“Now?”
“Perfect, Korus.” Clara finally smiled at the sight of me. She removed her sunglasses, and I could see her right eye was swollen and bruised.
“Clara!” Korus exclaimed.
I stepped towards her. “What happened to your face? Who did that to you?”
“Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh,” Clara said, placing her finger to her painted lips. “Please don’t ruin this moment by reminding me of last night’s misfortunes. You, Kay, are just perfect. Korus, show Kay what she looks like.”
Korus opened up a tall cupboard door in the kitchen/dressing room, where “normal” people would put their canned goods, to reveal a long mirror and an image of a woman’s curvaceous body looking back at me. Now I was truly ready to perform.
That night, I stood stage right, waiting for my big moment. Clara McCleavage had just completed her ode to the horror movie Carrie, which ended with three audience members splattering blood on her white dress using spray bottles. Out of breath, Clara took the microphone. “I love being sprayed with questionable substances by complete strangers! It reminds me of last weekeeeeend.” Snickers. Clara made her way to a tall stool where a tumbler of lemon water and a hand towel waited for her. She sipped on the water and then gently patted the sweat along her hairline and her upper lip. “I just wish you’d sprayed me more. Look at me. Hardly any blood. I imagined complete carnage, but this looks more like a paper cut. These are dollar-store spray bottles. You have to pump them and mean it. You have to pump those cheap fuckers. This is an homage to a classic horror movie, people.” Clara rolled her eyes, then gave a sly grin.
After the applause settled, Clara winked at me, then took a breath. “Well, tonight, I am one happy drag mama.” My heart grew two sizes. “This is her first gig, so be prepared to catch her wig if she didn’t pin it right. Put your hands together for Caramel Kay!” The audience cheered. For a moment I was thrown off. I had told her my name was Queen Kay. Suddenly, just like the foundation colours at the drugstore, I too was fit for eating. I quickly tucked my embarrassment into the sides of my forced smile. Shaking my hands awake, I exhaled to centre myself and did one last check of all the props hidden in my pockets. Don’t fall in your heels. Don’t fall in your heels, I thought to myself.
An uncomfortable silence fell as Clara stepped off the stage and took a seat. She signalled the bar staff to press play. A slow and steady bass rhythm filled the room, and the audience applauded, recognizing “Giving Him Something He Can Feel,” sung by En Vogue. Instead of the iconic red dresses worn by the group in their music video, I entered wearing a sexy nurse’s outfit, which was tight enough to show off my new bum and hips, short enough to reveal my muscular legs. Cheers.
Determined to appear fearless and experienced despite being afraid and a rookie, I worked my way through the crowd, taking the vital signs of audience members in raunchy ways. I checked one person’s pulse while placing their hand on my buxom bosom. I used a stethoscope on another person’s crotch instead of their heart. With a more willing audience member, I took their temperature by making them suck a larger-than-life thermometer. In between each action, I would pass a patron who offered me a tip. I tried to remain casual and continue lip-synching, but each crisp bill represented a meal, represented rent. By the end of the song, during the final chorus, I welcomed someone to reach under my skirt and reveal my Godzilla-sized strap-on. The audience sang along while my fake phallus was stroked in rhythm with the bass guitar. The song faded in time with my exit. Standing ovation.
When the night was over, I sat in the office staring at the wad of cash I had earned, now damp from the folds of my fake titties. The adrenalin rush had yet to leave me, and I sat still, replaying the delicious details of my performance again and again. The faces of the audience. Each reaction. I did it and I got a standing ovation.
“You did it, guuuuurl!” said Clara, half out of costume. I smiled at her, unable to speak. I could feel the tresses of my wig painting my sweaty neck and the edges of my lashes fraying. Clara took one bill from her own chest of tips, slapped it onto the surface of the desk and said, “Now go buy yourself a hamburger. You deserve iiiit.”
I became a regular feature at Epic, along with regular guest queens such as Bitches of Madison County (specialty: housewife-turned-naughty scenarios) and Kamel Toe (specialty: foam body embellishments showcasing maximum vulva). I enjoyed sharing space in the tiny office while we transformed our faces. Our backstage exchanges with each other, both catty and endearing, translated onstage into me being hotter on the mic for insults and comebacks. This came in handy when we hosted Royal Travesty, whose shtick involved lip-synching to eighties British punk while wearing floral-printed dresses fit for Elizabeth II.
On the night she was scheduled, I greeted her at the entrance to Epic with my fervent hand extended. “I’m Queen Kay. We’re performing together tonight. It’s great to meet—”
She pushed past me with her large rolling suitcase trailing behind her. She wore extra-large sunglasses to hide her undone face. With lips pursed she said in a surprisingly deep raspy voice, “If you see a drag queen walking with her suitcase, don’t bother her,” before passing me and heading to the office/dressing room.
I was slated to perform after Royal Travesty. Eager to learn some new skills, I waited in the wings and watched. During her number, the Sex Pistols played on full blast while she waved her cupped hand “hello” to the audience. Everyone che
ered.
Clara and Royal exchanged some witty repartee before introducing me. “Oh look, there was a sale at Goodwill.” Clara dryly eyed Royal Travesty up and down. She returned the gesture by inspecting Clara’s blue organza extravaganza.
“Will you give the audience a twirl?” Royal Travesty said. She gestured towards Clara, then turned to the audience with expert timing. “Don’t you just love estate sales?!” The audience winced. “Nothing like stealing a dress off a dead lady.”
Clara chuckled, then changed the subject. “Before we kill each other onstage, I think it’s time to introduce our next performer. Is everyone ready for Caramel Kay?” Hurrahs from the audience. My name was said wrong again. I forced myself to smile, shake it off.
“Tell me about Caramel Kay.”
“She’s new on the scene, and she is quickly becoming one of Epic’s favourites. I taught her everything she knows about drag. I am so proud of her!”
Royal Travesty put her hands on her hips, readying the audience for another joke. “But did you teach her how to get a job?” Some of the audience members coughed in shock. Most of them laughed. The smile on my face wilted. “Do you know this joke?” Royal Travesty raised her hand as if she were conducting an orchestra, orchestrating my demise. “What is the difference between a Black guy and a large pizza?”
Clara awkwardly guffawed, then managed to spit out, “I don’t know. What is the difference, Royal?”
“The large pizza can feed a family of four!” The white people in the audience laughed and laughed. An Asian couple shifted in their seats uncomfortably. My ears were ringing. “Oh, come here, Caramel Kay.” The audience laughed again. I did as I was told. My arms were numb. I walked towards her feeling like my heels were stilts and my ensemble was rags. I smiled. “You know I’m joking, right? You thought what I said was funny, right?” She smiled a devilish smile at me. Pleading. Forcing. There was a long pause. I knew this was my opportunity to make things right, to break the ice. But when I saw an audience member covering her mouth in shock, I decided to throw shade instead.
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