If you want to, we both can, said the lesbian. Or if you want just me to die . . .
Neva, are you okay?
Yes, honey, and I love you so much. If it’s all right with you I’m going to lie down now.
5
I want to make you happy the way I did before, Judy pleaded, and how could the lesbian not make her happy then?
Aren’t you curious? moaned Judy. Don’t you want to know what I taste like tonight?
Tell me you desire me, said Judy.
The lesbian lifted her mouth from the other woman’s penis and murmured: I desire you.
Then she went back to sucking.
Tell me you adore me.
I adore you, said the lesbian.
Tell me you love me more than anyone else.
But by now the lesbian was tired, so she just kept sucking. No goddess answers all our prayers.
6
Hey, babe, it’s your Xenia calling. I wanted to call you earlier but I was in a bad mood. But now I took more goofballs, so I’m feeling . . . whee! Neva, Neva, I wanted to say goodnight and let you know that I had another teenaged dream about you. You were in a coffin-sized refrigerator that was down here, and then you came out to surprise me. It was a good dream, very sexual and suspenseful toward the end because we were deciding who was going to climax first and who was going to die first in our special game, and I think the one to go first was me, but I’m not sure because your being in the dream kind of blurred all the other details, and I . . . Well, I should probably sleep now because I have to wake up at five a.m. to get to work, but I just wanna say goodnight, and I’m thinking of you and hope to hear from you soon . . .
7
Judy, I have news, said the lesbian. Remember those glamor shots? I kept the best five on my phone. This morning I went down to the Tiger Zone, and Xenia’s friend Duane scrolled through them. He wants to give you a lip-synch audition on Friday.
Oh, my God! Neva, that’s . . . But I can’t.
Would you do it for me?
To please you?
That’s right.
Because—because you’ll love me?
Yes, said the lesbian.
Then I’ll do it. But I’ve got to get some pills—maybe two blue dolphins or just one.
Take three, and bring one with you for security. But Xenia’s about to ring the doorbell, so help me strip the bed. Thanks. Do you have everything?
I’ll fit the clean sheets on.
Are those your condoms on the sofa?
Oh, I forgot. Neva, I can’t find my house keys.
Here they are.
Where were they?
You put them under the bed. Did you do that on purpose?
Yes, Neva.
I love you. Give me a kiss.
. . . And the doorbell buzzed.
8
A woman unlocked two heavy wooden doors which were graffiti’d, paint-splashed and crookedly overlain with consumerist decals; from across the street the transwoman saw beyond that woman a long pallid flight of stairs rising invitingly to some unknown place—but then the door closed.
Two young women hurried wet and laughing down the sidewalk, stopping suddenly to share a kiss. The transwoman strained her eyes to see, hoping they would do something else. Already they were around the corner.
Like the ever disoriented Natalie, lately blissed out, who hastened back to the mound of feces and trash behind which she customarily bought her chemical happiness, Judy went home to imagine the lesbian. Just now it seemed that to have her was like owning some golden jewel—beautiful yellow-gold!—cold, yes, but ready like a reptile to lie against someone and absorb her warmth . . .—then it got put away again, and went cold again.
9
And did you feel any pleasure when your mother touched you?
It was only about what she wanted. That’s all.
Because when my uncle molested me, he used to eat my pussy, and I . . .
You enjoyed it, said the lesbian.
Yes, Xenia replied.
And that’s why you like me to give you pleasure now, and I like to give you pleasure now.
No, it can’t be that simplistic!
Why not?
Neva, I want to ask you something.
All right.
Do you think that you or I could have wanted it, or somehow done something to—
I want it now, whispered the lesbian, leaning forward and kissing her buttock.
Please, Neva, tell me . . . !
Now close your eyes and don’t think anymore.
10
So it came time to audition. In Judy’s fantasies a rise to stardom was generally as slow and reliable as the escalators in the Regional Justice Center of Las Vegas: first dim corner entertainment, next spokeswoman for a new deodorant brand that was inspiring, sexy and bold, then maybe even a chorus line flower in a remake of some black-and-white Hollywood “classic,” oh, yeah . . . !—but the nearer she came to her moment of being “discovered,” the more loudly her stomach fizzed and gurgled. Longing to overcome her body odor, she rushed down to the RiteDrug and took an “explorer”-sized bottle from the shelf, then realized that with the family size she could truly SAVE, so that was what she bought. Half an hour later, she was in the shower, rubbing it all over herself. And just as the advertisement promised, she could feel it enhancing, healing, smoothing, cleansing and improving her right through her skin! She felt younger and prettier. For good measure, she launched another secret puke party, which made her feel shaky but racked her total weight loss up to nineteen pounds. Pouting because the retired policeman refused to buy her the lime-green cross-body bag with the columns of sequins on it, haunting discount stores in hope of the unprecedented blouse that would help her change her style, listening with all her soul when the little television advised: Deep, penetrating moisture for that smooth, youthful look, throwing three shades of lipstick into her darling party clutch, she covered every feminine base.
Neva, am I beautiful?
Tickling her, the lesbian said: You’re beautifully disgusting! and they both laughed.
11
Behind the Tiger Zone’s golden tinsel curtain, up the green-and-purple-illuminated steps, lay a narrow chamber carpeted with crimson and walled with endometrial lining, and behind that the next incarnation of talent waited. Judy emerged; she was born and quickly died, after which the Tiger Zone decided that she would be maybe not a good fit, but the Pink Apple said (according to Neva-nudged Xenia) like, sure, whatever.
Xenia laid it out: I don’t have much of a routine. I get up and I look at my computer to see if I’m gonna work. The manager at Pink Apple decides that. We don’t choreograph our dances. It’s just like moving around. You don’t have to be skilled at all. Some of the best strippers don’t have any training at all. If there’s nothing doing there, I see what I can score down here. It’s all easy money. I was homeless. I just walked into the Pink Apple and got a job. I’ll keep stripping for maybe another year . . .
Richard says you’re quitting in July.
Well, what does that bitch know about me? The hell with him.
I’ll bet you feel like a real woman when you—
No, I just kind of do my thing and don’t pay attention to people very much. If they give me money I’m gonna get naked. That’s what I’m here for. I don’t care either way. And you know what your problem is? You still fuckin’ care. As long as they can see you care, they’re gonna shit on you. They’ll shit on you regardless, but when you care it’s more sad. All right; there’s your lesson for today. Look me up when you make more progress on your not caring.
I promise I don’t care about anything.
Your funeral, Frank.
Don’t call me that.
See? You care.
Okay, I’m sorry; you
can call me Frank.
Then you’re ready, so I’ll call you Judy. Let’s go, girl! And you know something funny? When they ask me what’s between my legs I always say: No, I’m not a tranny. I’m just an ugly old lady. That floors ’em, because then they realize that I don’t care. How much weight did you lose?
Thirty pounds.
Don’t lie to me, bitch.
Twenty pounds.
Whatever.
There was a stage with a red curtain, an atmosphere like a very large and crowded living room, half-nude G-girls loitering, lip-synching T-girls strutting around, taking sides in the eternal debate as to who was the best actress ever. (Neva, the one about whom our sensations turned, was already in the audience, encircled by admirers, smiling graciously all the way to the end of this thing that was being done to her.) Judy thought the G-girls looked down on the T-girls, but let’s say that was only her neurosis.—This was the big time: plump, pretty girls whose cheek-blush glowed in the red light and whose long crucifix-earrings and double crescent-earrings and various whatchamacallits glitter-jiggled whenever they hugged, oh, my GOD. Xenia outshone them; she wore a gold crescent across her throat, and her canyon of cleavage went halfway down to her navel. A big man with a moustached smile was demanding: Don’t I get some change for my dollar? to which she replied: If you’re the last in line, then what you get is what you get.—When she saw Judy her black-outlined eyes narrowed into teardrop-slits.
So why are you here, actually? said she. Because with your so-called outfit you won’t make any money!
Maybe I’ll please someone—
I’d bet my last fuckin’ nickel you won’t. That tight dress makes you look like a sausage wrapped in razor wire.
Two fat Goth girls rubbed hips, giggling together.
I’m sorry, said Judy. But you said . . . I mean, I should have—
Too late now.
Just as Marlene Dietrich so often had to vomit once or twice on the way to a morning shoot at Paramount, so Judy now felt queasy, but she replied: Even so, it just feels like the right thing for me to do.
Please yourself, said Xenia.
Can I buy you a beer? I mean, it would be my honor to—
And you know, honey, white looks shitty on you, because your skin is so red and coarse. I myself will always wear red—didn’t I tell you?—because I believe red makes men hungry. Men do have a type they glom onto, but they’re hungry for something and—
But, Xenia, you’re not wearing red.
That’s because I . . .—oh, fuck you anyway.
Here came battling cones of light green and yellow, white and pink, pulsing circles on the floor, planetoids orbiting through rays, the disco balls slowly turning, the dance floor still empty, with the canned music pounding in Judy’s breastbone. Where had Neva gone? She felt sicker than ever.
Never expecting to be as graceful as the blonde stripper on the round stage who, almost ignored on account of the six other strippers each on her own respective round stage, reminded me of a figure skater because her high heels glided across the ice-blue stage in between each naked twirl, Judy nonetheless hoped to earn a handful of dollars or maybe some applause. Xenia was pep-talking a dithering old man: Sweetie, with your money you’re the king of the world.—From the bar, Starfire uncrossed her ankles and fired off a hellishly nasty look at Judy.
The manager came to oversee and dominate Judy. (Yes, reader, he picked the right girl!) His goal was to stand a hundred and one percent behind the company. To him all these dancers were scum. Just as our greatest pharmaceutical companies saw clear to advertise their poisons on television once those previously significant middlemen called doctors had been sufficiently weakened, so he wished to go straight to the almighty customer base—this gay couple, that wide-eyed cross-dresser in a striped skirt, those two women sitting with their legs open, gazing unsmilingly straight ahead—cutting out human performers in favor of cheap, consistent video porn. Whenever he fired someone he’d say something like: She couldn’t even make up her mind about paying her bills, so come on.
He now said: What’s your name?
Judy. You know, like Judy Garland.
I was never a fan. You’re Number Six.
Okay, she said, feeling hot and nauseated. Xenia would be Number Thirteen.
So I had my crown on, and this big purple gown on, a T-girl was droning. Judy wondered what she was talking about. A sexy G-girl kept pushing drinks on everyone. There was already a twenty-dollar cover (which even Judy and Xenia had to pay), then a two-drink minimum, not to mention five dollars to take a photo with the drag queen emcee on Tranny Bingo nights. Neva had not yet returned. A young man in horn rim spectacles changed a hundred-dollar bill into ones which he kept giving out by the handful. A tall broad drag queen in a loose silver and blue robe, pasty-fleshed, flattered her public by asking about their job and birthdays while the other performers got ready. Two boys dreamed their way out onto the shimmering empty floor, dancing in each other’s arms. Judy bit her nails.
Then Number One was already flashing and swaying her milk-white flesh, outspreading her long blonde hair, while her buttocks pulsed back and forth. This tall one could lip-synch so well with her wide mouth and dark dark lips that Judy felt seriously outclassed. Now for applause, which Judy Garland called the most beautiful music in the whole world! The worshipping little boys were laughing and bowing down as they rushed forward to plant dollar bills in Number One’s crotch.
Number Two, almost as glamorous as Shantelle, was a tall black T-girl in a long silver dress with the ultrablue light on her so that she was all different kinds of blue, her skin a chocolate-blue, her massive wig silver-blue, her rhinestone earrings and choker silver rainbows of blue; when men sprinted forward to give her a dollar or two she would winkingly kiss her O of thumb and forefinger.
The retired policeman, knowing that Judy would never do anything of value without first consulting him, sat beaming in the audience right next to (finally!) the lesbian—who of course was perfect, while Judy was trash. But with each shot of watered-down bourbon, the music hurt Judy’s ears less and grew more exciting. Besides, Neva was here! Bachelorettes kept darting up, giggling happily to stuff dollar bills between each T-girl’s boobs. Telling herself, Soon this will happen to me!, Judy felt almost thrilled.
Number Four was a wide tall-wigged drag queen with huge eyelashes and a deep bass voice. Thick-belted like a roll of carpet lashed to a pickup truck, with her rhinestone earrings down to her shoulders and her rhinestone necklace halfway down her belly, she sang “Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” leaving Judy envious and despondent.
Number Five was three black ladies in starry glitterskirts with silverpearly lavender lipstick shining on their parted lips, swishing their arms, moving a trifle more heavily, perhaps, than certain G-girls, but still convincing. They were so glamorous that Judy’s heart sank further.
Number Six, said the manager. Go, go, go!
She emerged from the curtain and the spotlight stuck to her like a leech, and then, instead of lip-synching or dancing or even merely swaying, she stood helpless and humiliated, for all the world like a painted skeleton in a cage. Then she started sobbing.
A drunk shouted: Shake your ass, you big fat cow!
The retired policeman clapped as loudly as he could, but it didn’t help. She dared not gaze at Neva. Starfire was laughing at her. Or maybe she . . .
Number Seven, said the manager.
Lowering her eyes, the lesbian turned sadly away.—Judy would have done anything to be dead.
From behind the red curtain came someone with the black-banged wig and pale face and loose black dress, very glamorous, with glittering eyes in a Liza Minnelli face, who said: Out of my way, fatty!—Everyone laughed at Judy.
She ran to the ladies’ room and tried to lock herself in, but there was no lock. She could hear Number Seven singing What makes
a man a man?
After a long time the lesbian came in. When she laid her hand on Judy’s neck, Judy shrugged it off, saying: I’m fine.
No, honey, you’re not, said the lesbian. Come here and let me hold you. Please?
No.
Just for me—
All right, said Judy, sobbing with relief. Tears and snot soaked Neva’s hair.
Now come on out and sit with us.
It was almost stupendous the way that Number Eleven orbited so rapidly around the catty pole, holding on with one hand above the other, with her body five feet up and parallel to the stage, and her thighs always spread, crablike; her legs made a questing claw whose pincers were sharpened by her long high heels; she rushed around on her side, with her dark wig nearly touching our workaday Earth and funneling outward into a wide display of aggression or invitation outshining her faraway breasts and head.
The retired policeman held Judy’s hand.
Approaching Neva, the dreamy androgyne of a certain marble Dionysus murmured something to her; then a lesbian in coveralls and a butch haircut said to Judy: Do you remember me?
No.
Good. I’ll tell you something humiliating that happened to me. Wouldn’t you like that?
I don’t know, Judy whispered.
Well, one time I was holding hands with another girl in Wenatchee, Washington, and people were honking and shouting: Make out! It all depends on where you are. There’s an island where I live; you might have been there, too. Over there they treat normies as freaks.
Irritably the retired policeman cut in: I’m a freak, you’re a freak. Judy sure is a fuckin’ stinkin’ freak—
The butch woman laughed in his face. Judy leaped up and ran outside, while the retired policeman sat drinking, sullenly afflicted by a vision of the lovely high-breasted lesbian squatting nude and offering her shining pink seashell to his impotence.
12
So she had failed the audition—oh, what a disgrace! (Once again she had thought to escape from going down the way that we all must go.) Trembling, blubbering and snivelling, she incarnated her namesake: yes, she almost could have been Judy Garland crying to see how ugly she appeared in the film Pigskin Parade—or if you’re tired of that comparison, how about Natalie Wood when she lost the Oscars competition to Sophia Loren in 1962? If only she’d worn red according to Xenia’s advice . . . !
The Lucky Star Page 53