Mary, Queen of Scotch

by Rob Rosen

  His smile shined in Klieg light proportions. “You’ll have to ask the manager/owner.”

  “Where is he?”

  His head moved left, then right, then left. “There she is,” he replied with a point of his index finger.

  “She?” My eyes followed his finger. I gulped. “She’s the manager and the owner?”

  The gulp, by the way, was well-placed. As was the one that followed it. And she was a he, by the way. And she/he was someone I already knew/knew. Too bad for me/me.

  “Auntie Bellum,” I said on the exhale.

  She squinted at me. It seemed to be the modus operandi around those parts. Or maybe it’s what you got when you worked in a dark bar. “That’s my name, sweetie.” She nodded her chin at Ray. “Something you need?”

  Auntie was in drag. I’d venture to say, not many men put on a dress and clown makeup to go to work. Ironically, I’d already done the same thing twice.

  Ray tilted his head in my direction. “Barry here would like a job.”

  Auntie smiled. I hadn’t seen Auntie smile yet. As smiles went, it was a scary one. Still, at least it was a start. “Sure. Bartender, bar-back, or bouncer? Pick your b. And boss is already taken.”

  Ray was shaking his head. I was shaking my head. “Drag queen,” said Ray.

  I forced a smile as my hand reached out across the gap. “Mary, Queen of Scotch. Nice to meet you.”

  She coughed. “No fucking way.” She shook my hand. She stared at my hand in hers. “No fucking way.” She looked up and locked eyes with me. “No fucking way.”

  “You already said that,” I said.

  “Thrice,” said Ray.

  She rolled her eyes at her employee. “Don’t you have a badly mixed margarita to make?”

  He took the hint. “Good luck,” he said.

  I managed a smile. “I think I’m going to need it.”

  She chuckled, meanly. “Honey, there ain’t even a leprechaun alive with that much luck.” She sighed exhaustedly. “Follow me.”

  I followed. Her dress was tight. Her shoes were on the high side. Meaning, I followed slowly. We wound up in an office. It was small. It was tight. I wished I’d had a drink, to also be on the high side. She took a seat. I stood, seeing as she had the only chair. She took off her wig. She was mostly bald beneath. Out of the wig, she could’ve been Ed Asner’s twin brother. Or half-brother. As in half man, half drag queen.

  “Experience?” she barked.

  “Um,” I hemmed. “Um,” I hawed.

  Her eyes went arollin’ again. “Yeah, that explains a lot.” She cracked her knuckles. She would’ve made a great mobster. In fact, she would’ve made a great anything else but a future boss.

  “I thought we got along well the other night.”

  “I’d been drinking.”

  “At work?”

  She grinned. “Especially at work. This is a bar, in case you missed it. If I worked at Starbucks, I’d drink coffee.”

  I showed her the burn scar on my hand. “Stick with the booze.”

  She tossed me a key. “Turns out, Connie Hung has pneumonia. She’ll be out for at least three weeks. You got a job for three weeks. Key unlocks the stage door entrance. You start tomorrow night. You can host. The host generally gets less stage time, less tips.” She scratched at her bald head. “And don’t upstage me.”

  I thought of something bitchy to say, old habits dying hard—even if old habits were fairly new. Thankfully, I stopped myself. I stared at her. I stared at the key. I was officially a drag queen. To quote: no fucking way. And that week I promised Arthur was suddenly extended to three. Fate again? Fine, we’ll go with that.

  “Congrats!” said Ray, not five minutes later. “You’re now one of Bellum’s Broads.” I couldn’t wait to send that little tidbit in to my high school alumni newsletter. “We should celebrate!”

  The music was loud, ergo his shouting everything at me. Or maybe that was also a condition you picked up from working in a bar: bad eyesight and shouting everything. I had a feeling that cirrhosis also made the list. “We should?” I replied.

  “I get off at midnight most nights. We should do something this week.”

  I blinked, eyes wide. I’d just been hired as a drag queen and asked on a date, all in the span of a few minutes. When it rains, it pours, right? I’d be sure to bring my galoshes. Or at least something made of rubber. Or maybe just a rubber. “Um, sure. Let’s work it out tomorrow.”

  I left the bar in shock. I called my mom. “Ma, your son is officially a female impersonator.”

  “Which son?”

  “I’m your only son.”

  She sighed. “You sure the whole Starbucks thing is off the table?”

  I laughed as I got back inside my car. “I’m on a case, Ma. The drag queen thing is a disguise, remember?”

  “Tell that to our rabbi.”

  “You told me not to tell the rabbi.”

  Again, she sighed. “Oops, my bad. He’s praying for you. He wanted me to let you know.”

  “Great,” I replied. “Ask him to pray for a sale down at Neiman’s while he’s at it; I need some new clothes.” I grinned. “Care to take your son blouse shopping? Again, I mean?”

  “This is not what I pictured when I brought you home from the hospital, Barry.”

  Again, I laughed. “Pick you up in twenty, Ma.”

  “Make it thirty. And I think we need to go to Lane Bryant. Neiman’s isn’t exactly ideal for someone you’re, you know, size.”

  “I’m more tall than wide, Ma.”

  “Still.”

  I flicked off the phone. I stared at myself in the rearview mirror. “This case is getting weirder by the moment.”

  Talk about your gross understatements.

  * * * *

  I started the next night, arriving early, outfit flung over my shoulder, my face already done up. The woman down at Macy’s and I were now on a first-name basis, mainly because her name badge only had her first name printed across it.

  “Mary!” bellowed Ray upon my arrival. He pointed at the poster on the wall. My name was on it. Mine! On a poster that was not of the wanted variety!

  “Why is the lettering for my name smaller than everyone else’s?”

  He grinned. “Auntie does all the marketing.” His grin widened. “Still, pretty neat.”

  And that it was. Sure, it wasn’t the same as seeing your name in lights, in mega-watt brightness, but it was a start. They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I had a feeling that the they who said it wasn’t wearing six-inch pumps at the time. “Neat,” I echoed, running my well-manicured, albeit fake, nail across the paper. I then turned to look at him, shaking the stage-door key his way. “I’ll let myself in, Ray.”

  I slid the key in the lock as he asked, “Songs for tonight?”

  “Pat Benatar’s ‘Heartbreaker’ and Gaga’s ‘Poker Face.’ Doable?”

  He grinned. “All done by computer. I can do just about anything.” He winked. “Anything you want.”

  I gulped as a flush spread like wildfire up my neck. “I’ll, uh, I’ll have to test you on that one.”

  He leaned against the bar, chest to metal. Lucky metal. “An oral exam, I hope.”

  I wondered if he was really flirting with me or if he was simply having a bit of fun. I mean, I’d seen it before. Gay men flirted with drag queens all the time, a bit of raunch tossed back and forth, witty banter with a sexy twist. It was a game we played, filthy poker, of a sort. I see your dick joke and raise it up your bung hole. Plus, I was a towering mess of drag queen; what could he see in me? In fact, he’d never even met the real me. Would he ever, once the case was closed?

  Still, I continued the ribaldry with, “You have to score above a sixty-nine to pass.”

  He chuckled rather throatily. “You set the bar awfully low.”

  I pointed at the bar he was still leaning against. “Easier to reach your drink that way.” I opened the door and staggered inside. T
he door shut behind me. I stared down. My jeans were tenting something fierce. A circus could set up camp in there. “Down, boy,” I chided. “We have work to do.”

  See, I didn’t get there early just to get ready for the show. I mean, sure, it took a long time, even with my makeup already applied, but, really, I needed to do a bit of snooping, and since Ray was at the bar, and the other girls weren’t there yet, this was my chance.

  The room was oddly empty. Oddly because, without the others in there, it was devoid of bitchiness, of fabulousness. It was all shell, no soul. Cryptlike would’ve been apt, but crypts rarely come replete with boas, bangles, and a blinding array of beads.

  There were four tables, all with mirrors above them, bulbs all around, the lights now dim. The tables were cluttered, the mirrors lined with photos of the girls, of their loved ones, of naked beau-hunks, of catty cartoons. There were makeup containers everywhere, clothes strewn about. A cyclone couldn’t have made the place look any more cluttered.

  There were eight of them, eight in the troupe. The eighth was now me. There were four tables shared by two girls. Lucy shared the table closest to the wall. It, like the other three, was covered with drag debris: discarded lipstick tubes, half-open jars of makeup remover, a few dislodged feathers, rhinestones. There was a photo of Arthur and Chad taped to the mirror, a Polaroid, the couple in some sort of Buddhist-looking temple. The person taking the photo was a good bit away so their age difference seemed less apparent.

  My eyes went from my client to the tabletop to a drawer below. I gave it a pull. It pulled back. In other words, it was locked. Locked drawers have always held a special interest to me. And I’m not speaking euphemistically. Mostly. I mean, you watch any detective movie, any detective TV show, read any detective book, and the detective is always adept at picking locks. I mean, sure, I was no Columbo, but I could still hold my own in the whole lock-picking thing. That said, don’t tell my alma mater. Lock picking is illegal. And even online schools frown on their alumni committing crimes. Or at least getting caught doing so. Meaning, I learned from YouTube and practiced on my mom’s bathroom door and jewelry case—when she wasn’t at home. Mainly because Mom frowned on illegal activities as well, especially when they were done by her son, who the sun surely shined down upon, who the angels had blessed with all things wholesome and good, who walked around a trail of ants rather than stomp across them. FYI, I burned them with magnifying glasses when I was a kid. I prayed the angels were looking the other way at the time.

  In any case, it was an old desk and a cheap lock, and there were bobby pins galore in that dressing room. Which is to say, Columbo would have been proud. Or maybe the fickle finger of fate was simply flipping someone off, preferably not me. And hey, I didn’t even need to put gloves on to hide my fingerprints because I was already wearing a pair—satin instead of rubber, but still.

  The bobby pin went in, I did a few YouTube-inspired twists and turns, and, voilà, I was in like Flynn. I quickly rummaged around inside. There was mostly jewelry inside, more expensive stuff, by the looks of it, than was left on the countertops. There was some cash, too, but not much. Mostly, it was just knickknacks. Mostly. Mostly but not only.

  “A key,” I said.

  To which I got a rattling reply of, “What are you doing, Mary?”

  I turned right quick and shut the makeup table door. Chad was standing there, not yet Lucy. Chad wasn’t supposed to be there. Chad had already done his two days. “First day on the job,” I replied, keeping my voice even, not speaking too fast, trying not to look guilty. I was good at that. I’d practiced, lying to baristas, to store clerks, meter maids. Making shit up off the fly. Takes some getting used to. When most people lie, you can tell. Politicians are good at it because they do it so often. Takes training, is what I’m getting at. Me, I was trained. Online, sure, but trained nonetheless. “Looking for some space for my valuables.” I tinkled my earrings his way. They were my mom’s. Valuable was a matter of opinion, namely Mom’s. EBay might have a different take on it.

  He nodded as he walked in the room. “That’s my makeup table.” Chad didn’t seem as nice as Lucy. Maybe the wig did it. Turned on some nice-switch inside his brain. Lucy always seemed to be smiling. Chad definitely wasn’t as he drew nearer.

  “I’m filling in for Connie,” I said. “Isn’t this her table, too?”

  Chad shook his head. He eyed the now-closed drawer nervously. Chad, it seemed, wasn’t trained like I was. “That one,” he said, pointing at the table next to his. He grabbed for the drawer. It opened, of course. “This was locked.”

  I shrugged. “Not just now. Maybe you forgot.”

  He squinted at me. It was weird. We were friends, of a sort, except he suddenly looked anything but friendly. He thought to say something. His mouth began to move, then stopped. A smile appeared. Even out of drag, there was still this strange sadness behind it. He breathed. He seemed to have counted to ten, given that about ten seconds had gone by. “Yeah, I must’ve forgotten to lock it. My bad, Mary.” He reached out his hand. “Congrats on the gig.” The smile widened. “Chad, by the way.”

  I shook his hand. “You make a nice boy.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll tell my parents you said so.”

  It was now my turn to squint. Chad didn’t have parents. Chad hadn’t had parents for almost a couple of decades. And yet, his face didn’t register the lie. Meaning, maybe he was more trained at lying than I’d given him credit for. In fact, he was still smiling as he said it. Was he that cold or that calculating, or a combination of both? I’d been taught not to overanalyze, but I was also taught to go with my gut instincts. And guess what? My instincts were saying frigid cold and connivingly calculating.

  I slid over to Connie’s table. I was still in boy clothes. I began to undress. Chad watched. I watched Chad watching in the mirror. When I was down to my skivvies, he said, “You make a nice boy, too.”

  “Thanks, but I won’t tell my parents; they already too much enjoy taking credit for anything good about me.”

  “And the bad stuff?”

  I smiled into the mirror. “Nope, all my fault.”

  He shrugged. He also began to undress. I’d seen him undressed before. But without the binoculars and alone in the small dressing room, this was something decidedly different, which was evident by the stirring in my shorts. When he turned to hang up his jeans and T-shirt, I dropped the purloined key inside my purse. Oh, and, yes, I’d stolen the key that had been inside the drawer. I’d make sure to return it as soon as possible. Bad stuff, fine. We won’t blame my parents. Or even tell them that I did it. Or my school, which also frowned on stealing possible evidence.

  When he turned back around, I was slipping inside my virginal white dress. He was still staring at me. Did happily married men stare? Could one be on a diet and still look at the menu? And, yes, I knew the answer was yes, but it still gave me pause.

  “Chad,” I said, “do you have a day job?”

  He was now slipping inside his dress, his face covered. “Nope. This is it,” came the muffled reply. “Twice a week. Three this week. Connie’s being off screwed up the schedule.”

  “And before this?”

  “College,” he said, his handsome face reappearing.

  I smiled as I continued getting into my outfit. “They teach drag in college?”

  He smiled in return. “Princeton. Drama major. Drag is simply getting into character.”

  He was telling me the same lie he told his husband. And DeVry wasn’t known for turning out too many thespians. So, this was the second lie in less than a few minutes. Did that prove anything? Nope. Did it mean he was cheating on Arthur? Nope. Did it mean that maybe he was embarrassed about his past? Possibly. Maybe he was lying to Arthur for the same reason. I mean, a rap sheet like Chad’s isn’t something to brag about. Neither are two dead parents. And yet, something was up. That gut instinct of mine was pounding away, beating up against my bellybutton.

  I was about to ask more
questions, but we were joined by two more queens, the last two of the night. One was older, one younger. One tall, one short. One on the ugly side, one handsome. And here’s where that fickle finger of fate once again decided to ram its lubeless finger up my bum—which made me glad that it wasn’t the fickle fist of fate. In any case, the younger, shorter, handsome man, well…

  “Barry, is that you?”

  I coughed. “You recognize me like this, Jeff?” I pointed to my made-up to high-heaven mug.

  He pointed the same way. Sort of. “Those are your mom’s earrings.”

  I blinked. I remembered. He’d given them to her as a birthday present. When we, you know, dated. Him and me. A year prior. We broke up because we didn’t like each other’s professions. He thought mine was too dangerous. His took him away too much. He was a jewelry supplier, which is how my mom came by the somewhat expensive earrings, which is how he recognized them. Which is why I suddenly had that fated finger fingering my fuck-hole. Ironically, I’d always loved that he was a drag queen. Ironically, now we both were, and in the same club. Fate seems to like irony as much as frequent fuck-hole fingering.

  Lucy coughed to break up the obvious tension that had risen like stink off shit. FYI, it wasn’t an amicable breakup. “You two know each other?”

  “Intimately,” replied Jeff, now known as Mora Less. It seemed an apt moniker. Jeff was short, ergo the Less. Jeff was hung like a horse, ergo the Mora. And Gigantica Less didn’t have as swell a ring to it. As to ring’s, the one below my balls took months to recover after our demise. Just saying.

  “An odd coincidence,” said the tall one. He held out his hand in greeting. He looked like Ian McKellen in his younger days. Though not much younger. I supposed there was no expiration date for drag. “Bobo Van Ness. Or Paul, if you like. A pleasure.” She was smoking. Indoors. Drag queens, expired or not, have always been rebels.