The Melting Queen

by Bruce Cinnamon

  “Not much longer. Are you excited to hear the pitches for your project?”

  “If anyone shows up,” I say, gesturing around the half-empty deck.

  “They’ll show up,” says Sander. “Who wouldn’t want to meet a history-making Melting Queen like you? I bet there will be huge crowds!”

  When we arrive at Big Island, Sander is proven right—though perhaps not in the way he expected. The Edmonton Queen is met with a huge group of protestors holding up signs and banners:

  Not MY Melting Queen!

  #DamTheRiver

  Melting QUEEN, not Melting QUEER

  They boo at me as I walk down the gangplank onto the dead grass. Across from them, a smaller counter-protest has formed. They don’t have any signs, but they’re chanting “I don’t care if She’s a He, River is the Queen for Me!” City police hold back both sides, keeping them away from me and from each other. The protestors outnumber the supporters by at least two to one, but I hold my head high as Kaseema leads me through the crowd. I smile and wave at my supporters, and turn my back on the protestors, trying not to listen to the insults they hurl my way.

  I’m led to the centre of the island, where a remarkable sight sits in a huge grassy expanse surrounded by small poplars. An old riverboat, the City of Edmonton, was beached on the island decades ago and is being slowly consumed by the ground.

  The sun shines down as Kaseema leads me through the ruins of the ship, into a large room with a wood-planked floor. At the end of this slightly slanted grand audience hall sits another throne, though nowhere near as fancy as the Spring Throne. It’s really just a carved wooden bench on a raised platform, with several chairs and couches arranged in front of it.

  Kaseema gestures for me to sit, then brings me some peach tea and pomegranate macarons. There’s already a huge pile of gifts waiting for me, offerings and bribes by groups trying to curry favour. Sander settles into a seat near the gift table—which is heaped with all kinds of food, from potluck-style casseroles to expensive bottles of wine—and loads up three plates, blending borscht and blueberries and bulgogi with blatant disregard for flavour. He’s still in his recovery-from-hibernation phase, and I swear he gobbles down a couple plastic forks while he eats. Odessa is nowhere to be seen—she said she’d drive down and meet us here, but she seemed preoccupied. It’s not unlike her to flake out on things at the last minute.

  Kaseema stands before my throne, holding her trusty tablet.

  “We have quite a schedule to get through,” she says. “Seven hundred and eighty petitioners have registered for an audience with you.”

  “Well, we’d better get started,” I say, already shifting on the uncomfortable wooden throne. Kaseema nods and goes to the door.

  Over the next ten hours, I meet with dozens of organizations and hear their pitches for why I should give them heavily publicized endorsements or spearhead their initiatives.

  SPYGLASS (the Society for Promoting Youth Games, Leisure, And Summer Sports) urges me to push for more recreational facilities.

  EOS (the Edmonton Organic Society) wants me to advocate for a ban on all pesticides and genetically modified food in the city.

  PURGE (the People’s Urban Reform Group of Edmonton) asks that I endorse their plan to build a hugely expensive sky train around the city perimeter.

  The representatives from CURVED (Citizens United for River Valley Environmental Defence) don’t seem to want anything, but shout at Kaseema and me for five minutes about how bad the salt fall on Melting Day was for the environment.

  RAMROD (Rural Albertans Managing Responsible Oil Development) promises to fund any initiative or project I take on—provided I sign a pledge that I won’t be as anti-prosperity as some of my predecessors.

  The extremely large delegation from PAPRIKA (People Against Potholes Ruining the Integrity of Key Avenues) asks that I criticize city council for not spending enough on road maintenance. When they leave, Kaseema tells me that they’re one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the city. Apparently if I don’t do at least one anti-pothole event, I’ll lose what little support I have.

  I’m surprised to see a former Melting Queen amongst the petitioners. Iris Zambezi—a big Black butch lesbian whose head practically scrapes the ceiling—was the first out Melting Queen when she was crowned in 2004, on the 100th anniversary of the first Melting Day. Her signature initiative was to popularize Edmonton’s Pride Parade, at a time when Mayor Bill Smith and Premier Ralph Klein refused to attend and were attacking LGBTQ rights. She’s here today representing BUGLE (Bisexuals United with Gays and Lesbians of Edmonton).

  “I knew this day would come,” she says with a huge smile as she strides across the room. “It’s been lonely being the only openly queer Melting Queen. But here you are at last.”

  “Here I am,” I say. “I mean, I’m not sure if I’d really call myself queer, but here I am.”

  Her eyes narrow. Her exuberance evaporates.

  “Of course you’re queer,” she says, crossing her muscular arms. “You’re genderfluid. You said it yourself. It’s your responsibility to stand up, and be counted, and be a symbol of our community.”

  “What community is that?” I ask, turned off immediately by her aggressiveness. “I’m not a bisexual united with gays and lesbians. I don’t even think I count as being transgender. I’m just me. I don’t feel comfortable being the symbol of any community.”

  She lets out a long blast of air through her nose, like an inflamed dragon. She’s a huge, tall, formidable woman. She could snap me like a dry twig if she wanted to.

  “I think we got off on the wrong foot here,” she says after a moment. “Let’s start over.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry. What exactly do you want?”

  “I want you to be the grand marshal of this year’s Pride Parade.”

  I shift on my wooden throne.

  “I don’t think that’s really for me,” I say.

  Iris Zambezi grinds her teeth audibly.

  “You know, I’ve met hundreds of young gay men just like you—oh I know that’s not what you are, but that’s where I always hear this bullshit. They all say ‘Oh Pride isn’t for me, it doesn’t represent me, I’m not that kind of gay guy.’ They all think they’re different from the rest of us, that they’re not part of our community, that being queer is ‘just a part of who I am, it doesn’t define me.’ And sure, yes, of course it’s not everything you are, nobody said that. I get it, you’ve got your rights, everybody treats you like you’re a normal heterosexual human, like you’re almost their equal. But not everybody gets those rights. And until they do, you’d better fucking show up. You’d better fucking do your duty to the community that won you your freedom to be a whiny little asshole.”

  “Maybe people would be more willing to come to your parade if you didn’t try to guilt them into it like this!” I cry. “And maybe people would feel more comfortable coming to Pride if you didn’t have an orgy in the streets!”

  Iris looks at me with cold fury. My eyes start to water, but I force myself to face down the heat of her stare.

  “Have you ever been to Pride?” She throws each word in my face.

  I don’t answer. Brock never wanted to go. He always said exactly what she just said.

  “That’s what I thought,” snarls Iris. “So don’t you dare fucking echo all these straight lies about Pride. We march in a parade to honour our ancestors, who fought for our rights. We march to send up a signal to all our brothers and sisters—and others, yes, just like you said—around the world, that we are with them, that they are not alone, that they can find a home with us. Not just for the queers in Africa of the Middle East or the Caribbean, but for the kids in rural Alberta, in Canadian suburbs, whose parents throw them out into the street. Pride lets them know that they’re not alone. Pride saves lives. And people like you, who buy into the straight lies, who don’t do your part, who give in to the shame inside yourselves, are putting those lives at risk.”

  Her fumi
ng rage ignites my own. I feel the fury boiling beneath her skin, the rage and the resentment and the pain underneath it all, and it fans the flames of my own anger.

  “What’s your problem?” I snap at her. “Do you really think shouting at me like this is going to convince me to lead your parade?”

  She laughs in my face.

  “Oh I’m done trying to convince you. Clearly you’ve made up your mind about what I am and what Pride is. Yes, Pride is a party. But Pride is still a protest. Or did you not see the dozens of people picketing against you out there?”

  I stand up and my throne falls over behind me.

  “I see them, and I’m going to keep ignoring them! I’m going to keep being myself, and reject these boxes that they—and you—want to put me in.”

  She shakes her head, her lip curled in disgust.

  “I hope you’ll soon remember what those of us who came before you experienced,” she says as she turns to leave the ship. “Maybe that will help remind you of what you’re fighting for. Of what you owe to your community.”

  Iris Zambezi stomps down the length of the audience chamber, the old ship shaking with every step. Kaseema sets my throne back on its feet and I sit down, shaking as much as the derelict riverboat. I take a deep breath and try to regain my composure.

  “Was she always that angry?” I ask.

  Kaseema’s face is inscrutable.

  “She was my first Melting Queen,” she says. “It was never easy for her.”

  I look at Sander. He crunches awkwardly on some carrots that he’s brought in a sandwich bag from home. The parade of petitioners resumes.

  Businesses shower me with gifts—dresses and coats, cosmetics and accessories, food and wine—hoping I’ll wear or consume their products in public, or come to their establishments with a bunch of media in tow. Concerned citizens read me statistics and tell me stories about drunk driving and teen pregnancy and the old derelict house on their block. One guy even plays me a song on a mandolin.

  I hear them out, nodding along and showing as much polite interest as I can. But none of these people look me in the eye. None of them seem comfortable being in the same room as me. And they all seem to have a sense of entitlement about them. As if, since I’m a defective Melting Queen, I’m lucky that they’re even here agreeing to work with me. That they’d risk alienating people by having me as their mascot. As if I should pick them because they’re generous enough not to tell me, at least to my face, that I’m a freak. I know I’m supposed to give them some bland encouragements, praise how admirable their ideas are and tell them how happy I would be if we got to work together over the coming year. But I’m just as bad at faking my enthusiasm as I was at following the proper steps in the coronation.

  These projects and initiatives are important, sure. But what would any of them really accomplish? Edmonton might pay a little more attention to one issue or another for a year, but then everything will go back to normal. What even were the projects of the Melting Queens ten years ago? Apart from the two people in the room with me, nobody can remember. Like Odessa says, there can be more trans-formative change than this.

  By the time the sun starts to set, we’ve finished only half of the groups on Kaseema’s list.

  “I can’t do any more of this,” I say. “I physically can’t. Sander, bring me some tea and cakes. I feel weak.”

  My thin friend won’t meet my eyes as he brings me a cup of tea.

  “There weren’t that many cakes,” he says innocently. “But I put some extra honey in this.”

  He places the cup on the table beside me and then Kaseema looms over his shoulder, tablet in hand.

  “Please no. No more.”

  “There’s just one more that you can’t ignore,” she says, staring down at me. “They won’t take no for an answer.”

  I sit up against the throne and take a sip of tea.

  “I’m sure that whoever it is can wait for next year.”

  “It’s your mother.”

  I choke on my tea and start coughing roughly and before I know it Madeleine Truman is striding through the dilapidated ship. She’s a solid, red-cheeked woman with short brown hair and thick legs. I scramble to my feet as she approaches.

  “Oh Adam,” she says, and before I can stop it she’s collapsing forward onto me, sobbing and hugging me tight.

  I stand there, mortified, stiff as a plank. It’s been ten years or more since my mother gave me a hug. I’ve never seen her cry.

  She pulls away from me and stares up into my face.

  “I can’t believe it’s true.”

  She buries her face in my chest and squeezes her arms around me. I’m still so thin and she’s too strong and it hurts. I slither out of her arms and step back. My mother stands there, holding both hands up to her mouth, shedding big theatrical tears and watching me.

  The sight of her here is so surreal that it completely consumed my attention. But now I notice that someone else entered the ship behind her. Brock Stark stands at the end of the long hall, glowing like a marble statue in the golden light of dusk.

  “What are you doing here?”

  At least he has the decency to look ashamed of himself.

  “Your mom asked me to come,” he says. “I tried calling her after you disappeared, but I just heard back from her after the coronation.”

  My mother dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  “You’re a good boy, Brock. You did your best.”

  She turns back to me.

  “I couldn’t believe what I heard when I got home. You abandoned your fraternity brothers? You dropped out of school? I was so worried.”

  “I’m sure you were fine.”

  Last fall, Candace Khan, the telegenic leader of the newly created Lodgepole Party, destroyed the forty-six-year-old Conservative government dynasty. My mother went from being a promising Legislature backbencher with Cabinet potential to losing her seat by a sixty-percent margin. She flew off to Palm Springs to lick her wounds all winter and plan for the previously unthinkable—a life after politics. But now here she is, sharpening her claws and getting ready to sink them back into me.

  “I’m here for you now,” she says, taking a step towards me. “When I first heard you were the Melting Queen, up there wearing a dress, I didn’t know what to think. Part of me thought that this was just a phase, like when you asked us to call you ‘Atom’ in junior high. But Adam or River or whatever you want to be, I support you. I understand.”

  I back away from her as far as I can, pressing up against the old wooden walls of the paddle steamer.

  “Stay away from me. Please just go.”

  Madeleine stays where she is but she reaches out her hands beseechingly.

  “Honey, I love you. I just want to be here to support you. I will be by your side for as long as you need me.”

  “What, so you can use me as a prop for your comeback campaign? No thank you.”

  Her face slides into a wounded pout. She’s always been good at manufacturing the right emotions, but they always appear just a millisecond too late.

  “That was unkind,” she says. But I can hear the machines behind her face whirring. I’ve figured out her obvious strategy already.

  “Give us a chance,” says Brock Stark. “We all miss you, Adam. River, I mean. Sorry.”

  “You miss Adam. You don’t know River.”

  “We could get to know you. If you let us. We could be your brothers again.”

  I look at Brock’s shining white teeth and glittering gold hair and earnest green eyes.

  “I believe you. More than her. I know you want to be my friend. But every time I look at you it reminds me of a past life. A life that no longer belongs to me. And I can’t go back to that.”

  “I’m sorry, River. I just want to know what we did wrong. What I can do to make things right again.”

  “Nothing. You were the best friend Adam Truman could’ve asked for.”

  Brock shakes his head and trudges out the door
. My mother is more determined.

  “Your father and your brother and sister are all very concerned about you,” she says.

  “I doubt that very much.”

  “Is it so bad if I want to stand up and say that I’m proud of my transgender son or daughter or whatever you are? That I love you and support you? Is it so bad for me to stand by your side, in solidarity with you?”

  “I know you. This isn’t about me. This is about you. That’s what it’s always been.”

  My mother glances at Kaseema and Sander, clearly uncomfortable with me airing our dirty laundry in front of strangers. But I’m too tired to play the perfect son in our little Truman Show anymore.

  “Okay,” says Madeleine. “You need space. I understand.”

  “Stop saying that. You don’t.”

  She walks towards the door, then pauses and turns back.

  “I’m here whenever you need me, sweetie. And I’ll be an advocate for you, no matter what people say. Don’t worry about that.”

  I say nothing, watch her go. When she finally leaves the room, I look to Sander.

  “Typical,” he says.

  Sander’s always understood my relationship with my family in a way that none of my other friends could. His parents adopted his little brother Alex because they didn’t want to gamble that their next kid would be as defective as the first and hibernate every winter. Sander was actually born asleep (we celebrate his half-birthday in June, because he’s always asleep in December) and he still lives with his reluctant parents. They took him to Hawaii one year, before the First Snow fell, to see if he would fall asleep even far away from Edmonton. He failed this test, and so they decided to effectively replace him with a normal child.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Well. Hopefully that’s the last of her.”

  “I doubt it,” says Sander with a wry smile.

  “Me too,” I sigh. I turn to Kaseema. “What’s next?”

  The Melting Queen’s Ball marks the end of the Picnic, a masquerade and feast under the night sky. Odessa still isn’t here, so I have to try to make myself look as good as she can make me look. After I’ve changed into a three-piece suit with a mirror-encrusted carnival mask, Kaseema leads me outside onto the dancing green (I guess it should be called a dancing beige, because the grass is completely dead), which stretches out before the prow of the City of Edmonton. The grand lawn is once again strung with pink and green lights, which shine down onto the hundreds of assembled guests. Tables are spread all around the field, where the petitioners can eat and network and scheme.