My Life, a Four Letter Word

by Dolores DeLuce

“Well as a matter of fact, Jerry, I don’t like to brag, but I had a third cousin who was a distant relation to Frank. Unfortunately, he got shot in a phone booth, but I bet if I could get Frank’s number and mention my cousin’s name, he’d be very nice to me, I’m sure.”

  As Jerry listened patiently, I was dumbfounded by my good luck, everyone was out and the most outrageous queen of all was on his best behavior, actually amusing and putting my parents at ease. Jerry excused himself to get ready for work and we sat in an awkward pause once again.

  “Grandpa, can Uncle Richie stay in my room? He would fit just right in my bed,” Viva asked.

  “Yeah, Rich said, “Just like Goldielocks. Dad, how about it? If I stay with Dee and Viva, then you and mom can have that second honeymoon you’ve been talking about for years.”

  “That’s enough, smart mouth,” Mom snapped.

  Dad muttered, “We’ll think about it.”

  Just then Jerry swung back though the door, twirling like Loretta Young making an entrance in her ’50s TV show, wearing a floor-length, fur-lined, gold lamé coat. At the top of his falsetto, Jerry squealed, “Girl, what do you think of my new coat? Sylvester gave it to me.”

  My mother gasped, “Where would you wear something like that?”

  “For the stage, mom,” I jumped in. “It’s a costume for the stage.”

  “Yeah, Grandma, it’s drag,” Viva added. “Don’t you know about drag? Everybody wears it, even me. Mommy says I’m a drag queen in training.”

  At that, Jerry kissed Viva on both cheeks, preparing his exit. “So nice meeting you folks,” and then turned to me and planted a big sloppy kiss on my lips. “Gotta run, ta-ta,” and he sailed out the door with his gold lamé trailing behind him.

  As soon as he was gone, Mom caught her breath and asked, “Dee, tell me something, is Jerry, how do they call it, Gay?”

  Richie made a limp wrist/raised pinkie finger gesture while singing out loud, “He does it his way!” I could see the wheels spinning in Mom’s head as she tried to figure if Jerry was a fag, or if he was fucking me, or both.

  Dad did not say a word. The silence was broken when Tommy yelled out from down the hall, “Honey I’m home.” He entered carrying a gigantic bouquet of roses and put them in my mother’s lap. “Welcome to San Francisco,” he said.

  Viva excited made the introductions, “Hey everybody, meet my Uncle Tommy.” In unison, my folks let out a sigh of relief.

  As Tommy hugged Viva, I watched my mother lean over to Dad and I heard her whisper, “Thank God, he looks Italian.”

  During the two days that followed, Tommy accompanied me on every outing with my family. We had several meals in Chinatown and Little Italy, and took them to all the tourist spots: the cable car rides, Lombard Street, and Fisherman’s Warf. Except for Mom’s constant complaining, my family seemed content.

  While we were enjoying a great seafood dinner on the Warf, and Mom was slurping down her favorite oysters on a half shell, Tommy out of nowhere asked, “Would you like to meet my parents? They live in San Jose, just an hour from here.” I kicked Tommy under the table. “My dad would love you guys,” Tommy said. “You know he’s Italian, but Mom is Irish and always says she’s Italian by injection.”

  My parents laughed.

  The northern California countryside brought Dad back to pleasant memories of his childhood in Southern Italy. We picked fresh figs off trees that grew outside our bed and breakfast in Napa. I could see a real change had come over him. Perhaps it was his near fatal heart attack that softened him, but it was obvious that this visit was his way of making amends, and he was doing his best to accept me. For the first time in a very long time, I felt compassion for my dad. I sat down close to him on the grass under the tree.

  “Hey Dad, once you retire you might want to think about moving out here. You won’t have to shovel snow anymore,” I said.

  “Sounds good.”

  Mom seemed threatened by my father’s new serenity. When Dad mentioned that it might be a good idea to retire in Northern California over dinner that night, she sulked and said,” Yeah sure, just like that; you expect me to move away from our families? You’re nuts!”

  The next day I brought my family to the airport and as we waited for the check at the coffee shop, Richie and Viva hung out at the window watching the planes take off and land.

  “You know, you should marry Tommy. He’s a good man; his hair is too long, but I can tell he really loves your kid,” Mom said.

  “Mom, Tommy’s not husband material, we are just good friends.”

  “But friends make the best husbands. He looks like a keeper to me.”

  “Mom, I really don’t think marriage is in the cards for us.”

  Then my father chimed in, “You could do a lot worse. Tommy’s a little cappo fresca, but a real nice boy. You’re lucky that any guy would want you with a kid that’s not his own, especially in your circumstances.”

  “I’m lucky?”

  Mom defended their argument, “You can’t fault your father for wanting to dance at his daughter’s wedding?”

  I took the last gulp of my coffee to wash down the anger building. “You were both so excited that Tommy wasn’t black that you failed to notice that he’s queer.”

  “What a ya gonna do, live in flat with no carpets on the floor with a bunch of strangers for the rest of your life? Just don’t come crying home to me if you end up alone without a pot to piss in,” Dad said raising his voice.

  “Have I ever asked you for a dime? While you were ignoring us for the last six years, those so-called strangers were my family,” I yelled.

  Then Mom turned on the water works, “Alright already, stop arguing. It’s not good for your father’s heart.”

  “Why not blame me for that too while you’re at it?”

  The boarding call for Newark came over the loudspeaker. The argument stopped abruptly when Richie and Viva came back to the table. I hugged Richie. Mom, who was still in tears, hugged Viva.

  “Don’t cry grandma, I’ll come to visit soon.”

  Dad gave Viva a hug and kissed her on both cheeks and turned his back to me and started to walk toward the boarding ramp. Mom and Richie followed him, but unlike Dad, they kept looking back and waving until they were out of sight.

  As we walked to the car, Viva said, “What’s wrong Mommy, you look like sad grandma?”

  “Nothing sweetie, goodbyes make me sad, that’s all.”

  36. FEEL Me HEAL Me

  Although I practiced Yoga religiously and read the popular spiritual books of the day like: Autobiography of a Yogi, Seth Speaks, Be Here Now, and The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment, I was a reluctant seeker. I had worshipped at the Altar of the Trinity: Drugs, Sex, and Disco, but my only Higher Power at that time was theatre and performance.

  Just when I needed it the most, an amazing healer came into my life—a long-haired, handsome Japanese Buddhist named Reuho Yamada. Born in an old Zen temple in Beppu, Japan, Reuho was the son of a devoted temple wife and the head priest of the temple, Choshoji. From age three, Reuho was dressed in formal Zen robes and accompanied his father on his service rounds. Throughout Reuho’s education he studied English and learned Shiatsu from a Zen Shiatsu Master, which led him to the West and the Zen Center at Tassajara. Reuho decided that hippies had a lot to teach him and made a choice to expand his consciousness with mind-altering drugs. But when I first met Reuho, he was as a pure as his Buddhist lineage name “Ungai Reuho Dai Osho” would suggest. “Out from a Cloud, the Dharma/Treasure of the Dragon-Great Teacher/Priest.”

  One of Lulu’s friends, a pretty Jewish princess from the Bronx, Shirley Flowers, discovered Reuho. There were few straight boys to go around in San Francisco, and Shirley saw him first. She made it her mission to serve his mission, and made him her lover. I recall the first day she brought him to Clayton Street in 1976. Reuho had long, straight, jet-black hair and wore wire-rim glasses.

  Before I knew it, Reuho left Shirley in the ki
tchen chatting with my roommates and we were on the floor in my bedroom where he began treating me to one of his miraculous shiatsu massages. He spent the next three hours placing the tips of his thumbs deep into my flesh at many critical pressure points. I had had massages before, but nothing like this. It was as if Reuho was a skilled psychic surgeon who used his thumbs like a knife. As he plunged deep within me and held each point, I could feel lifetimes of pain leave my body. At the end of this session he bowed and thanked me, and then Shirley entered the room and suggested how I might repay his kindness. Shirley knew I sold LSD on occasion to supplement my welfare checks, and she let me know that Reuho would appreciate getting high. Rumors were circulated that Reuho had been the Shiatsu practitioner to his Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Shirley, an ambitious woman, soon turned their lavish Pacific Heights apartment into the Temple of the Lotus Flowers where monks, punks, hippies and artists would gather to discuss principles of Zen and healing while Shirley collected donations to pay the rent.

  It seemed that whenever I was at my lowest, Reuho would just appear at my door to give me one of his remarkable healings. The day after my family left town, Reuho showed up at my door. I never needed to use the phone. I was in a heap under the covers with a severe migraine. The upset with my parents and the pressure of opening Broken Dishes for our second City run had gotten the best of me. Usually Reuho was silent in deep meditation while treating me, but on this day throughout the massage, Reuho kept repeating the word SURRENDER. In his thick Japanese accent he said, SURRENDER, SURRENDER like a mantra several times over. Unbeknownst to me, I was being taught a spiritual principle. Surrender seemed like a great concept, but I hadn’t a clue as to its deeper meaning. After Reuho left, taking my migraine with him, I got dressed and headed off to collect Amber and grab a bite at the Café Flore before our show rehearsal.

  After a year of his drug experimentation, Reuho, in my opinion, was beginning to lose his purity. He found himself indulging in stronger and darker drugs and one day he took an overdose of Angel Dust and had a psychotic breakdown with violent eruptions. Shirley had to call in the troops for help when Reuho chased her around the apartment with a knife. To avoid hospitalization, we took turns sitting vigil with him as he went in and out of a coma for more than forty-eight hours. When it was my turn to watch over him, I sat on the end of the couch where he lay curled up in the fetal position. Like a baby, he put his head on my lap and took one of my hands in his two strong hands and while in a semi-conscious state began to apply deep Shiatsu pressure into the palm of my hand. I stroked his hair and he nuzzled deeper into my lap. I had never entertained sexual thoughts about Reuho before because I did not want to destroy the purity of our relationship, but suddenly I felt aroused. I tried to slip out from under his head and as I did this; he grabbed my middle finger and started to pull it backward as if he wanted to snap it off my hand. I got very frightened of his strength and was able to slip through his grip and move away from him. And the whole time he appeared to be asleep.

  Reuho survived this breakdown, and he and Shirley eventually married. Not long afterwards, his elder brother, who at that time had inherited the role of head priest of his family’s temple, died suddenly, and when Reuho went back to Japan to attend the funeral, the temple’s board members implored him to come back to Japan and take over the temple. Shirley joined him as his temple wife; he shaved his head, and followed his destiny.

  37. JAIL BIRD

  On the same day that Reuho took away my migraine and taught me the principle of surrender, I got dressed and headed off to collect Amber and grab a bite at the Café Flore before our show rehearsal. Feeling hopped up on the healing energy and caffeine, I pulled away from my parking place and made an illegal U-turn in the middle of Market Street to get going in the right direction. In my rear-view mirror I caught a glimpse of a cop as he almost fell off his bike making a quick turnaround to catch up with me, but I kept on going. Amber begged me to stop, but I felt invincible. In the back of my mind, I knew that if he stopped me, he would check my license and find my outstanding traffic warrant.

  When the motorcycle cop finally caught up and waved me over, I remembered Reuho’s message and surrendered. With my brain firing off excuses, he pulled in front of my VW Bug and made the hand gesture to roll down my window. I played innocent and pretended I hadn’t seen him chasing me. He asked me for my license and registration.

  “I left my purse at home,” I lied. He asked me to get out of my vehicle.

  Amber was batting her eyes at the cop trying to distract him.

  “Officer, what did my friend do?” she said in her sex-kitten voice.

  The cop noticed my gigantic purse on the car floor. “What’s in that big purse?” the officer asked. Then he ordered me to get the bag and dump the contents on the hood of my car. I repeated that I didn’t have any ID as he picked up my wallet and scrutinized my California driver’s license with my smiling photo.

  The officer asked, “Who’s this in your picture?”

  “It’s my sister, we’re twins and we have identical purses and I grabbed hers by mistake this morning.”

  “Are you a gypsy?”

  “What makes you think that?

  “Because all gypsies lie.”

  Although I knew this was not the surrender Reuho had in mind for me, I had to laugh at the irony. So off I went to the San Francisco City Jail. Luckily it was the first of the month and all my friends on welfare had just gotten their checks. After one phone call, the gossip mill spread the dish that Dolores DeLuxe had been taken to jail as a political prisoner. Before the ink was dry on my fingerprints, a small posse showed up with my bail. I was greeted outside the bars with a Quaalude and was taken directly from the jailhouse to the fabulous Hula Palace where the Grand Princess Lee Lee, a.k.a. Lee Mentley, was hosting one of his fabulous salons. This was the first time Winston Wong performed a piece called Bound Feet, for which he later won an Obie Award and before he performed with his punk band, Tuxedo Moon. I felt so privileged to be a part of this community of cutting-edge artists. In the intimate setting of the Hula Palace living room, I sat on the floor spellbound and watched Winston manipulate a handmade puppet to tell the story of oppressed Chinese women. Once again I was reminded of the many ways women have been kept in prisons throughout all times and cultures. His artistry breathed life into his magnificent puppet as he spoke volumes without a single word.

  A month after this incident, the Boom-Boom Girls were invited to perform at the California Institution for Women, a State Prison in Corona. As our van pulled through the opened gate with the barbed wire all around the facility, I had an eerie feeling in my gut. I was happy to be giving back to this disenfranchised community, but afraid to come so close to real criminals. This was decades before the passing of the three-strikes law, but I felt I was tempting fate after my three brushes with incarceration, once in New Jersey for shoplifting and twice in L.A. for traffic warrants. I got very nervous during the security check. What if they found out I still had some old warrant in the system? Just being in that environment made me guilty.

  Once we got past security, I relaxed and we were brought into a recreation room that looked a lot like a school gym with a small stage at one end. The room was set up with round tables and chairs for the inmates to watch the show. While we were preparing back stage, the guards let in our eager audience. From a safe distance, I imagined the worst. What if the inmates were restless and planning a prison break? We would be convenient hostages.

  We had prepared one of the early Boom Boom shows in which we played white trash gals at a trailer park looking for love. My favorite song from that show was a clever country western lyric that Janice wrote. As we sang the lyric in four-part harmony, “A beer and a pizza and a man that’ll treat ya like the woman he loved as a child,” our first and only all-female audience went wild.

  When the show ended, the coordinator told us that we would then participate in a meet-and-greet with the inmates. I was reluctant to ge
t down off the stage and as soon as I did, one of my new fans cornered me.

  “You were fucking amazing. You gotta come sit at my table, please!” She said.

  Reluctantly, I sat down. She was a fast talker with a desperate intensity and within a few sentences I knew her life story.

  “I got three young kids on the outside in foster care. When their deadbeat dad left I had to deal weed to make ends meet, “she said.

  “How long is your sentence?

  “Twenty years.”

  “For selling dope?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that and second-degree murder.”

  I sat in awe as she went on to defend her crime.

  “Because I was inching in on his territory, a rival dope dealer put a hit out on me. It was self defense. I haven’t seen my kids in five years, only pictures.”

  My heart went out to her. At this time the law was cracking down hard on pot dealers, especially poor ones who had no access to deep pockets for their defense. I believed she was telling the truth, and I clearly thought, There but for the Grace of God, go I. Her vulnerability touched my heart, and by the end of our time together she asked for my address. She said it would mean a lot to have a friend on the outside.

  A month later her letter came. As I read in between the lines it was apparent that she had interpreted my compassion as romantic interest. She signed her letter, “Love and Affection from the Woman’s House of Correction.” I didn’t want to encourage her fantasy, so I never wrote back. I always felt bad about that.

  Later that year, Martin Worman wrote a musical about a political prisoner, The Passion of Barbara Martinez, and used my prisoner’s line, “Love and Affection from the Women’s House of Correction,” in a song lyric.

  38. FREE FALL

  Broken Dishes opened at the Goodman Building in 1976 and over the next year and a half we did short runs at local clubs like The Palms Café on Polk Street where the show continued to evolve with new numbers, characters and back-up boys.