The House of Impossible Beauties

by Joseph Cassara

  When they finished, Hector pulled the condom off and his cum gathered down at the tip like a wad of spit. The condom looked so sad just dangling there under the weight of gravity. Angel couldn’t stand the sight of it. She cried.

  “What’s wrong?” Hector said after he got up to throw the condom in the basura.

  “I don’t like it,” Angel said. “I don’t like the way it feels.”

  “I guess it does feel,” Hector said, “a little different.”

  “A little?” she said. “It hurts me. I can’t even feel you anymore.”

  HECTOR

  Dear Martha Graham,

  Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if all of us people never had to use spoken language and we could only communicate with the movement of our bodies. I say that there’d be more love and less misunderstandings. Even when we have to yell, it would be beautiful.

  The nurse at the clinic told me that I tested positive for the virus and I got no words to describe it. I don’t even think I got the movements neither. My girl tested negative and now it feels like everything’s gonna go to shit.

  When I found out, I walked from the clinic to the public library. You know the building with the lions outside? That one. I got to watch your video of Lamentation. I watched you wrapped in that tight fabric—it looked like it was a combo between a bedsheet and a turteneck, all over your body—and you was, like, trying to rip yourself out of it. I cried one of those ugly cries when I watched you that I was worried someone was gonna pop their head in and see if I wasn’t being murdered right there on the spot.

  I took it to be that your lamentation’s dance was you trying to escape the self. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s just what I felt. It was like you was trapped in that fabric just like we all trapped in our bodies. Just like this virus is trapped inside me and there’s no way it’s getting out of me.

  As soon as I got home, I went to the roof and practiced my floor works and standing exercises, but I didn’t feel like standing no more. I didn’t want to do my jumps or my runs or my across-the-floors, so I worked on my falls. Even on that concrete, now that takes some dedication.

  The core of the technique during the fall was to use my back. I thought about each little bit of my spine cord, dangling like I was a pearl necklace hanging from a ceiling. What’s important is the contraction—makes me look like an electric shock is being pumped in my body. I had to let the weight of my body go against the floor. I couldn’t deny the weight of my body to gravity. There’s no use in even trying to fight gravity, and I wanted to make my fall look as graceful as I could.

  You talk a lot about life force. Especially in the hands. The palm of the hand’s gotta be straight out to the audience. I didn’t have an audience up there, ’cause I was just doing it alone. But I pretended. I said, I give you (my audience) myself, I give you what I have to give, because that’s what it means. I imagine it like there is light in my core and it moves to my hand and then I contract it out and the audience can see it.

  How many drops of blood have gone into the making of you, you said. And I didn’t understand when I first heard it, ’cause I thought, Now Martha girl, we can’t possibly count all those damn drops of blood. You said, how much memory is in each drop of blood. And I thought, Now this woman has lost her damn mind thinking that blood can have memories. But you pulled the stunt of the season on me, Ms. Graham. Now I just think each movement I make is just blood coming together to form my body, and each of those blood drops got viruses inside them, growing and multiplying. What I want to know is: If, when the virus advances and I’m still dancing—if I can still move—ain’t that just the virus dancing too? Ain’t that just the ugly beast of a virus trying to mask itself into something beautiful?

  That doesn’t seem fair at all. It all doesn’t seem fair. Because I’m in love again, Martha, and it’s the kind of love that makes you wish you could live forever.

  And I think about your words that any moment of choice is a sacrifice. How every single last one of us has life within us and we make a choice about what we will reveal. But I don’t got an audience, so what can I reveal if no one is watching me contract and fall?

  The thought that this virus might be little pieces of Tyler inside me is killing me. I don’t know how I’m gonna muster up the damn words to make sense of it. (I’m not gonna be a father. I’ll never see her be a mother.) Even if the world was like I dreamed it could be—no mouth sounds, just dance—I don’t even know how I’d find the movements to communicate everything that I’m feeling.

  Love,

  H.

  PART TWO

  THE HOUSE

  (1986–1988)

  We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.

  —Tennessee Williams, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore

  ONE

  DORIAN

  Oh darling, nobody was about to run up a cover of Vogue with my face on it, but I suppose you could say that I did have the name recognition in the ball scenes. And I remember when the balls were balls. We would make our outfits ourselves. Gowns and boas and more bugle beads than a bitch knew what to do with. Now it’s all about the designers. Anybody can lift a designer out of a store. Where’s the art in that? But times change, I know that. Now everyone wants to be looking like Marilyn Monroe or Alexis. Me? I wanted to look like Lena Horne, and let me tell you—when I was young, not nobody wanted to look like Lena Horne.

  When I first met Angel, I knew she was different. She had a spark to her and I could see it that first instant. Nearly broke down my door that night at Collage looking like a damsel in a baseball cap. Huffing and puffing like she ran down that hall. I wasn’t going nowhere, so I never know why they run. I always say, nothing going to get me to run unless a lion was chasing after me for a dinnertime meal. Then I’d have to run and look for a tree to climb. But that hasn’t happened yet, so I don’t understand why they still running.

  And sure, I had some of the kids come to me all the time asking for advice. I liked that. Made me feel special in the way that any kind of attention makes you feel special. But no one really dazzled me. I’d give them some advice and send them along. You absorb it, you take it, and you like it. But Angel was a different story. She was a much different quantity.

  She came in there when I was disrobing and chatting with Hector and even though she was dressed in that dreadful outfit like some little boy, I could see the fem realness queen deep within just waiting to burst out. Some people are just born to be fem realness queens, and that’s a good thing. They can get out of a ball, onto the subway, and home without blood running down their hair. And whenever I discover one who comes to me, I take them on because I don’t need to be teaching them how to hold their own. I need to make sure they can do that for themselves already, because I’m too old to be losing children to those mean, straight street fights.

  But when I first started teaching her how to bring out that inner queen, I had to make it real clear that I wasn’t going to be no fairy godmother. Life isn’t about the Cinderella bullshit and I wasn’t there to give her a set of glass heels and send her on her way. Hell no. I taught her the practical things. How to sew, how to select fabrics and make a gown, how to suck a cock so that you’ll never starve. I said that when things got hard, make rice and beans and put a fried egg on top because then you got your carbohydrates, your fats, and your proteins. Because look, you gotta work in this city. Work or starve, legal or otherwise. And we aren’t fools. We know that there just aren’t many opportunities and doors open for a natural-born man to walk into a corporate office like a fem queen. So we do what we can, and if we have to suck a cock, then we have to suck a cock.

  Angel was a fast learner and sometimes I think that maybe she didn’t need me to teach her shit. Sometimes I think that her inner queen would have come out just as natural even if I wasn’t in the picture. I reall
y took to her. There was a certain kind of charm to her sass that reminded me of myself when I was younger. And sometimes, but only sometimes, I would think that maybe being a fairy godmother would be a nice gig. You’d get to see these young queens grow into their own. But then I pop that bubble real quick, because that’s some whimsical fairy-tale shit. I would never let my queens ride inside a pumpkin or wear glass shoes. (Think of the corns on those damn feet! Glass does not breathe.)

  And then there’s the time limit. Who the hell wants to be a queen until the clock ticks midnight? That’s not nearly enough time. Darling, this is a craft. You can’t put a stopwatch on it like that. So, if I were a fairy godmother, I’d have no fucking time limit. I say that’s got to be the shame of it all—these queens should have the ability to live their lives without looking up at the clock to see when midnight comes. Because before you know it, it’s already midnight and the party is over, but just for you, because you see all the other young people still out enjoying their parties. And then what?

  That doesn’t seem fair at all.

  DANIEL

  He went down to the piers because that is where he thought boys like him were supposed to go. He had only packed a couple of needed things, the basics: a couple of camisetas made of cotton—a fabric that could breathe and be washed easily, plus some socks and undies and an extra pair of pants. Not to mention two packs of Newport 100s for an extra kick. He was never one for the longer cigs, but now was as good a time as any to start. He had a C-note tucked into the back of his briefs so that he could always feel the bill against his skin. A constant fear that it would slip away, just like all the other things, except this was money, and money he needed. He didn’t leave a note for his mother, but she should know why he had left like a bat flying away from a hot fireball sun. He didn’t want to think about her.

  Now that he was there at the piers with the other maricones, he didn’t know what to do with himself. There was a group of guys leaning on the end of the cement pier walls. Freestyle and disco and house were playing on random boom boxes here, there, and everywhere. One dude in particular caught his eye. He had curly brown hair and biceps that could kill. He was smoking a cigarette, looking up like he was bored with all of creation and wanted the sky to surprise him with something new for a change.

  Daniel thought about walking up to the guy for a chat. Hopefully, if things worked well, that convo would lead to a bed for the night. Daniel stared as he exhaled his smoke. It made him crave the nicotine too. The guy stared at Daniel and smirked. As the man’s eyes sized Daniel up and down, Daniel felt the heat in his face. He didn’t know if he could do this song and dance. Just as the man flicked his cig and started walking toward him, Daniel broke eye contact, turned around, and walked away.

  This whole cruising thing, he didn’t know, he just didn’t have the nerve to do it yet. There was a butterfly the size of Mars up in his stomach. Beginner’s jitters, he’d call it. Instead, when he was at a safer distance, he could stare and long and pine for. Those tight denim shorts exposing thick, hairy quads. A tight tee that showed a body that made Daniel think there wasn’t anything fair in the world.

  “You better give me my fucking money back,” a voice screamed out behind Daniel, but he couldn’t see where. “If you think I’m some wholesale ho giving out sale coupons, you must be one mistaken motherfucker.”

  Daniel spun around. The girl was near a cement traffic barricade, holding up her maleta in one hand and a can of hairspray en la otra. A body was on the ground at her feet. She kept screaming, My money, my money, piece of shit, as she kicked him in the balls.

  “Damn yo,” Daniel said to her. “You trying to kill the dude or give him a perm?”

  She gave him a look that told him to knock it off or he would be next.

  “This cheap motherfucker tried to stab me,” she said. “He’s having a lucky day that I’m feeling generous and not pushing that blade down through his shoulder blades, do—you—hear—me—you—cheap-ass?”

  “Whoa now,” Daniel said, “no need to scream.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Diplomatic,” she said. “But did I ask you?”

  “No, I guess you didn’t,” he said. He didn’t believe her about the knife, but what could he say. Stabbing was a drastic thing to accuse someone of, but he didn’t know either of them from a hole in the wall.

  The guy made for her ankles with one hand. With the other, he whipped a blade out of his back pocket. The motherfucker was about to play, but Daniel wanted none of it. Daniel kicked the guy’s back so hard, a splat of blood came out of his mouth. He was out cold on the sidewalk.

  “Damn—look at you, Mr. Hercules,” she said. “That was some kick.”

  A drag queen walked by in a silver jumpsuit and big neon-green hair and said, “Yes, honey, you tell that man how it is.”

  “Fuck yo,” Daniel said. “Tell me the motherfucker’s still breathing.”

  “I could give two shits right now if he’s still breathing,” she said. She crouched down and screamed in the guy’s unconscious face, “Two shits, you hear me, pendejo piece of shit!”

  When she stood back up, she asked Daniel for his name. When he told her, she said, “Daniel what?”

  “Just Daniel.”

  “Honey, what do you mean just Daniel?” she said. “Like you’re Prince and about to get down with some funk right about now.”

  “I’m sorry?” he said. “My last name is Sanchez, but I’m not sure why—”

  “No, no,” she said. “Like what house? Like from whence you came, you understand me when I speak all formally?”

  “My mom didn’t own a house,” he said. “We had an apartment in the Bronx, but—”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh-oh. I’m having an aha moment.”

  “Are you always this confusing?”

  “No, darling,” she said. “My name is Venus Xtravaganza and I’m from the House of Xtravaganza. My aha moment is that your pretty-boy face don’t belong to a house yet.”

  She thanked him for helping her and opened her clutch to take out a crumpled up five-dollar bill. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” she said, then she laughed at herself. When he didn’t take the money from her hand, she looked at him like what was wrong with him. “Well, I ain’t gonna blow you too. This kitchen is closed for the night.”

  “No,” Daniel said. “I’m not looking for none of that. Why are you so defensive and shit?”

  Venus put the money back into her clutch and snapped it shut right in front of his face. “You should never ask a real woman what she’s up to.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was being dismissive, flirty, or just dishing out sass for the sake of dishing out sass. “A real woman?” he said and he could feel his forehead was all eyebrows.

  “Oh, you’re being shady now,” she said. “Don’t even start with me because I’ll spray your ass too.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh at her. She was so short and flaca that her energy was like an excitable small dog that loved to yap-yap-yap just to hear themselves. But then he saw her eyes became angry and he realized that she wasn’t joking and that he shouldn’t have laughed.

  “Sorry,” he began, “I was just—”

  “Earth to the maricón in denial,” she said, “go back to your wife and leave me a set of peace on your way out.”

  The words just came out of him: “I don’t have anywhere to go.” He wished he could take them back. Who was he to think that this stranger, with her can of hairspray and sass, could be capable of caring for the fact that he needed to find an easy guy to fuck so that he could rest his head on a pillow that night, the next night, for a week or month or however long, until he could find a job and make his way in the world.

  She let out an ahh. Her stare looked right into him, and he felt like she was really seeing who he was, had been, and always wanted to be. She lowered her voice to a whisper, “Don’t you tell me that you just busted out and ran away?”

  “Or else what?” he said. “You
don’t know me.”

  “I knew it,” Venus said. “All the same, I tell you. You really do need to find a house, you pretty thing.”

  Daniel didn’t say a peep.

  “Well, I been there, girl,” Venus said.

  “Girl?”

  “Hush, it’s just a phrasing,” she said. “I call everyone a girl, even the muscle boys like you. Unless they’re being bad! Then I don’t call them nothing!”

  She stepped over the body between them, careful not to let her heel get caught on the guy’s shirt. She grabbed Daniel’s hand and said, “Come here, baby boy. Maybe Angel and I could help you out.”

  “Who’s Angel?” he asked.

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Venus said. She smiled at him and kept walking over to an area of grass near a bench. “Good,” she sighed. “It’s still here.” She picked up a fur coat and draped it on Daniel’s back. She told him it was a mink, from Paris.

  “Bull to the shit,” he said. Even he knew that there was no way this pre-op transsexual with the cheap stilettos could afford a Parisian mink coat.

  Venus laughed and said, “Oh good, for a second I thought you were gonna be the worst baby gay. You’re absolutely right, darling, but Hector always liked to say this was a mink from Paris but—” now she was down to a whisper, like it was a secret they both needed to keep from the world, “—you know, Angel said she got it for him at a sale in Queens. I didn’t tell you that. That information is just between you and I, darling. I assume you can keep a little secret.”

  * * *

  Six. When he was six years old, what he wanted more than anything was a Hot Wheels track. It didn’t matter if it was the mongoose track or the drag ’chute stunt track, he just wanted a track with a loop-the-loop where he could put the cars on and send them flying.