Freak Show

by James St. James

  Then when he asked me to sit with him at lunch, well, it sent shock waves through the entire school and terror into the hearts of the staunchest Lynnette supporters.

  People have started whispering: “He has a shot! He actually has a shot!”

  People have begun to think: “It’s not such a lost cause after all!”

  And I, myself, have begun to have real hope.

  Suddenly, I dared to believe.

  It could happen!

  I could really pull it off!

  “Lynnette really IS a bitch,” some people were saying.

  “Never really liked her.”

  “It would serve her right.”

  XXXI

  “Yes, Bo-Bo is a big catch,” Mary Jane conceded, “and you should be VERY excited by it. But he is only one person. ‘One swallow does not a summer make,’ and all. You’re on a roll, yes. But you need to capitalize, quickly, on the momentum his defection has started. You need one more big name to solidify it, make it look like a trend. Normally, I’d say Flip was the answer. But that’s not going to happen. So. Now is when we need to bring out the big guns. Play dirty. And here’s how you need to do it. . . .”

  XXXII

  So...

  After biology class.

  In my pretty, powder blue pantsuit . . .

  A hibiscus behind my ear.

  Not a care in the world.

  Skip to the loo!

  La la la.

  “BIB! BIB! WAIT UP!” I yelled. He turned and looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, and continued walking.

  “Whoooooo!” I screamed again, and LEAPED in front of him, blocking his path. He looked down at me like I was a swishy insect that needed squashing. But before he had the chance, I threw my arms in the air and shouted: “Bib, DAR-ling! Lover! Poodle!”

  He looked around in wild alarm, embarrassed and confused—was this some kind of joke? Were the guys playing a trick on him?

  “Now, Bib,” I continued. “Or should I call you HUGGY DA LUV THUG?”

  He froze.

  “Get over here,” he said, and pushed me behind a bank of lockers.

  “What is this, Billy?” he whispered menacingly. “Is this your idea of a joke?” He leaned in close, so close I could smell his sexy, big-boy breath. It smelled like protein shakes and oatmeal. “You better have a good explanation for this.”

  Well, I was terrified, of course. I was taunting Kong in his chains. But I kept telling myself not to worry, that I was Superfreak, remember? I was invincible. I was a mighty drag warrior, and that he was the oppressor. He deserved this. So I brazenly barreled on, in full auto-queen mode, blithely rattling on in the face of certain doom.

  “Well, LOVER, I’m so glad I found you. I had been just WRACKING MY BRAIN trying to come up with a song to play on my float, a theme song that really speaks to me, you know?

  “You’re still pissing me off, Bloom. Get to the point.”

  “Well, my theme is RETRO BOY BAND! YES! HOT, RIGHT! So picture my float: it’s me on a flatbed, lip-synching in front of a bank of forty television screens, singing along to the sweet, sweet harmony of . . . oh, gosh . . . what were they called? Who were those adorable street urchins that reached #173 on the Billboard charts in the summer of 1999?”

  “Lower your voice, Bloom. I’m warning you!”

  “Oh, now I remember! DA LUV THUGS! YES! With their lead singer, HUGGY THUG! Good stuff, there, huh? Now, I just can’t decide between ‘Mackin’ on da Playground’ or ‘Sour Patch Girl’? Hmmmm . . . ‘Sour Patch,’ of course, features one of your best performances, the spoken word love poem at the end, where you start to cry—I COULD JUST LISTEN TO THAT ALL DAY! But then in the video for ‘Mackin’,’ you’re all wearing those identical red leather jump-suits. . . . That’s a pretty hot visual. And of course, it will be on the jumbo screen above the football field, as well. And maybe I could be wearing a red leather jumpsuit, too! Hey, do you still have yours?”

  “I’ll kill you,” he said simply.

  “What?”

  “Look, Butt-lick, I don’t know how you found out about the Luv Thugs; but if you don’t shut up, I’ll pound your faggot face so hard, you’ll MISS that coma, got it? You either drop it or you’re dead—it’s that simple.”

  “And SURPRISE!” I said triumphantly. “You’re on HIDDEN MICROPHONE!”

  I opened my blazer to show him the microphone while Mary Jane simultaneously knocked from behind a window, pointed to her headphones and mini-tape recorder, and gave a big thumbs-up.

  “That makes THREE recordings of HUGGY DA LUV THUG that I own now! Maybe I can make a mashup and play your death-threat confession over a chorus of ‘Sour Patch Girl’!”

  I could see the steam rising off his ears, and the whites of his eyes had suddenly turned bright red, so I knew he was about to lose his oatmeal-addled mind, any second.

  “What’s this about?” he said quietly, instead of ripping out my spleen.

  “Simple. I just want us to be friends, Bib.”

  “Funny way of going about it. Just tell me what you want.”

  “I need your support.” And I handed him a Scarlet F.

  “NO! NO! NO WAY!”

  “Hey, did I mention that if I’m elected, YOU’LL be my king? Queen picks her king, you know! I’m so excited. And that first dance will be just the beginning of our new working relationship. We’ll be together at every school function, in all the local papers, as the official representatives of the academy, even on the yearbook cover. And then, of course, we’ll be reunited at untold homecoming games in the future. We’ll be part of Eisenhower history. Forever linked together.”

  He punched the locker, denting it and bloodying his knuckles.

  “Easy there, Ox. I have a Plan B. If you help me out, I’ll drop the whole thing and go with a butterfly-and-rainbow theme. Five minutes of your time, tops. That’s it. That’s all I want.”

  “Grrrrrr.” Then: “When?”

  “The pep assembly, tomorrow, when Lynnette and I give our speeches. You’ll be on the platform, behind us. After I finish mine, you hold it up. After I leave the stage, you can put it down. Then you can set it on fire, or piss on it, or frame it and keep it by your bed. I don’t care.”

  “I freakin’ hate you.”

  “I know. It’s such a shame. In any other circumstances, we could have been so close.”

  And that’s how Bib came to be on the front page of the Eisenhower Dispatch holding a giant Scarlet F at the pep assembly.

  XXXIII

  Preparing for the big assembly . . .

  Busy, busy . . .

  Gotta look FABULOUS!

  Gotta TOP EVERYTHING!

  So . . .

  Right now, I’m putting that flesh-colored bodysuit to use by spangling it with REAL DRAGON SCALES. What? Yes! Dazzling green and black and blue, with flashes of silver. And a tail! A great big dragon tail! When I’m through, I will be a mighty, prehistoric lady dinosaur—RAR!—and everywhere I go, I will leave a trail of destruction in my wake. SLAP to the left! CRASH to the right! Drinks will be spilled. Tables overturned. Pedestrians knocked down. STOMP! STOMP! STOMP! Car alarms! Fire hydrants! Telephone poles! Why, the earth, itself, will tremble with each step I take. Just look at the big green claws on my hind legs. So powerful! So deadly! And did you check out my big green lizard boobs? How hot are THEY? I am truly a beautiful man-eater . . .

  “NO! NO! NO!” Mary Jane shouted when she saw what I was planning. “WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Think about it: You’re running for an election! You’re trying to get people to like you. You don’t want to alienate or provoke anyone with your outfits anymore. You need more voter-friendly looks. Something that will appeal to the people. That will evoke warm feelings and inspire trust.”

  Okay . . .

  What about . . . the Virgin Mary?

  Or a puppy-dog suit?

  What about Oprah? Who doesn’t love Oprah? Sure! I could stuff a few pillows here and there . . .

  “Maybe
we’re going in the wrong direction here,” she said. “Maybe being shocking is no longer shocking. Maybe what’s shocking is NOT BEING SHOCKING.”

  Ohhhhhh . . . I seeeeeeeeee.

  Damn, she’s good!

  XXXIV

  Monday, Monday, and game week has arrived! YES! At last, The Big One is here! In just five days: FIGHTING FRIDAY! When the Fighting Manatees finally square off against their sworn enemy, the Okeechobee Beefsteaks!

  But first:

  Homecoming week officially kicks off with the Monday morning pep rally. WHOOOOOO!

  In this delirious three-hour celebration of school spirit, the students pay their respect to the varsity football players by sobbing and shrieking like a bunch of horny howler monkeys. YEAAAAAAAAA!

  ALSO, there are speeches and cheers and chants and dance routines and marching band maneuvers . . . WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  AND VERY IMPORTANT: This is where the candidates for homecoming queen give their final speeches—a very important indicator of who will win. And a good speech can make or break you. So this is A VERY BIG DEAL TODAY.

  First up on the program: The March of Champions!

  WOOT! WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!

  One by one, each Manatee walks the length of the auditorium to the frenzied, hunk-drunk cries of the student body. The varsity cheerleaders tumble about the auditorium and lead the crowd in the familiar school chants and cheers. They flip and twirl and spin around the boys, doing cartwheels and backflips, giving them all their due.

  Each player is introduced over the loudspeaker as he walks onto the stage and takes his seat.

  “Bib Oberman . . . Bernie Balch . . . Flip Kelly . . . ,” and so on.

  And each boy is given an automatic standing ovation. (Well, of course. It’s just the way things are.)

  But get this: When Bo-Bo Peterson’s name was called, he pulled out his Scarlet F and walked the length of the stage with it held up high over his head, causing an unprecedented reaction. Some audience members actually booed! YES! BOOED! Which was UNHEARD OF! A MANATEE—BOOED? That we should live in such extraordinary times!

  And what’s more: booed because of ME! I was horrified and thrilled!

  Then came the speeches by Principal Onnigan calling for good sportsmanship and honorable behavior at the game and afterward, at the dance, BLAH BLAH BLAH . . . Coach Carter screamed that this was the best team he’s ever had the pleasure to coach, YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! And finally, Bib Oberman, the captain of the football team, summed it all up by simply chanting “MAN-A-TEES! MAN-A-TEES!” over and over, until everybody had chanted themselves into a sweat-soaked frenzy of Man-on-Manatee love.

  Then there were MORE cheers and MORE pom-pom routines, and these seemed to last for seven or eight hours, AT LEAST. Finally, after all the cheers had been exhausted and we were sufficiently full of pep, it was time for the homecoming queens to give their speeches.

  Henny and Alma were introduced and allowed to sit on the stage platform, but because they were merely write-in candidates, they weren’t allowed to actually make speeches.

  So it was just Lynnette and me.

  Me and Lynnette.

  Good vs. Evil.

  The devil and Miss Bloom.

  Lynnette was introduced first. She came out to medium-level applause.

  She looked even grimmer than usual. Her jaw was clenched; her eyes were slits; and a large purple vein throbbed, furiously, on her temple.

  She cleared her throat and shuffled her notes: “Um . . . number one: I can’t believe I have to remind you guys of the most basic reason to vote for me, but I guess I do: Homecoming queens are GIRLS, y’all. Quarterbacks are BOYS. That’s the way it is. That’s the way God made it. You can’t decide what’s right and wrong based on the cast of The Real World. And you can’t just change your values just because you think ‘times have changed.’

  “Boys are made for some things, and girls are made for others. I mean, what if I wanted to be the boys’ locker room attendant?”

  (There were many excited “hell, yeahs” from the audience.)

  “Or what if Flip Kelly decided he wanted to be a Hooters Girl?”

  (There was an eruption of “Hoot! Hoot!”)

  “What then?

  “Okay, second reason to vote for me: My rival—I’m not even going to insult my lips by saying his name—is a newcomer to our school. That alone should disqualify him. Homecoming is about celebrating traditions and memories. So far, our only memory of him is the sickening way he’s tried to turn our school into a gay bar.

  “It’s a fact: Gays are going to hell. I say, if he wants to be queen so bad, LET HIM BE THE QUEEN OF HELL!”

  Lynnette broke into a series of inappropriate cartwheels, bouncing across the stage, letting her legs stay spread open perhaps a beat too long, and exposing her cheerleader’s underwear, which elicited a few catcalls from the boys.

  “YEA!” she screamed. “I’ve got spirit, y’all! OKAY, GUYS, LET ME HEAR YOU: I’VE GOT WHAT? (clap clap) SPIRIT! YEA! GIVE ME AN S!”

  “S!”

  “GIVE ME A P!”

  “P!”

  “GIVE ME AN I!”

  “I!”

  “GIVE ME AN R!”

  “R!”

  “GIVE ME AN I!”

  “I!”

  “GIVE ME A T!”

  “T!”

  “WHAT DOES IT SPELL?”

  “SPIRIT!”

  “So in conclusion: I deserve to be homecoming queen because I love the school, I respect tradition, and plus, if you vote for the transvestite, we’re going to have coed bathrooms. God’s truth, y’all.”

  “YEA!”

  And she bounced off the stage to slightly less-than-moderate enthusiasm.

  XXXV

  Then the principal introduced me to the crowd.

  There was a gasp of surprise as I strolled onto the stage in my new Prada pin-striped men’s suit (that Dad was ALL TOO HAPPY to buy me). My hair was scraped back into a prim and respectable bun. How’s that for a change? Why, I was positively demure! Like somebody’s secretary!

  AND LOOK! NO MAKEUP! NONE! Well, a little base. And some bronzer. And blush. And lip pencil. And light eyeliner—but that’s all STAGE MAKEUP.

  The look was TOTAL anti-drag!

  I was solemn as soap.

  Composed? You bet!

  Mary Jane made the right call. She knew that being normal was the most shocking thing I could do. (“Always keep your enemy guessing! Never become predictable!”—from The 48 Laws of Power.)

  I approached the podium brimming with poise and self-confidence, and stood for a moment, drinking in the attention of my beloved subjects.

  SMILE, BILLY!

  “Gosh, how to follow THAT?” I said, and applauded as Lynnette left the stage. “Thank you, Lynnette, for that gracious set-up. ‘Queen of Hell,’ indeed! HEY: with FRANZ like these, who needs ENEMIES, right?”

  (Nothing. Crickets.)

  (Tough crowd. Okay. Can the corn and move on.)

  “Now, my appearance today might come to many of you as a shock, I know. I look positively respectable, eh? And what’s THAT all about, right? Sure, I COULD have worn a real showstopper of an outfit and made a big, ugly scene which is what I’m sure you were all expecting.

  “But no, no, no. Not today. . . .

  “And I could stand here and talk smack about Lynnette and tell you why she IS SO WRONG FOR THE POSITION, that rewarding ignorance with prestige is a slippery slope that can only end with the dreaded phrase: ‘Academy Award winner Paris Hilton.’ But that’s unsportsmanlike. And Billy don’t swing like that.

  “Why, I even had another whole speech prepared where I went for the hard sell, saying: VOTE FOR ME, I’M AN EXPERIENCED TIARA-WEARER, ha-ha-ha, and tried to pass myself off as the spunky underdog with the heart of gold. I could have even played the guilt card by reminding you all that you DID try and kill me, AHEM, so maybe you OWE me this vote to clear your conscience—

  “BUT I’M NOT MENTIONING AN
Y OF THAT.

  “Instead, I stand before you today, barefaced and unadorned, stripped of all the usual homo-signifiers you’ve come to expect. No glitter, no gloss. No lipstick or lashes. Just a fresh-scrubbed face to show you that underneath the artifice, I am perhaps not so different from you.

  “You call me a freak.

  “You say that I’m ‘different’ and that I ‘don’t belong.’

  “Well, okay. I accept that.

  “But I’m here today to say that deep down, we are all freaks. Yes! Alone in our rooms at night, we are all weirdos and outcasts and losers. That is what being a teenager is all about! Whether you admit it or not, you are all worried that the others won’t accept you, that if they knew the real you, they would recoil in horror. Each of us carries with us a secret shame that we think is somehow unique.

  “Maybe somewhere out there sits a beauty queen in adult diapers. (And here, LittleAnne Swafford looked guiltily at the ground.) Or perhaps there is a debutante who is addicted to suppositories. (And here, Baba Deschler started to say something, then thought better of it and looked at the ground.) Or maybe there’s a young ‘cutter’ out there who cuts herself in the name of her lord. Or a popular student council member who is secretly manorexic.

  “Maybe some of you have a secret double life. Maybe you spent time in juvie for shoplifting a Jones New York blazer, and hope to God nobody ever finds out. . . .”

  (And by now, everyone was looking wildly indignant, and terribly guilty—but nobody moved, and nobody dared speak up.)

  I paused for a moment to let my words sink in. Then I continued, in a bright and sunny tone: “I mean, can you imagine what it would be like to have any of those problems?