A Starr is Born

by Ryan Field

  Harrison was looking down at his phone again, trying to text Morton. He’d been texting him since 3:00 in the morning and so far he hadn’t received a response.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  Harrison sent Morton another text and nodded. “I’m listening. I owe taxes. Just pay them.” He hated talking about money.

  This time Sam laughed. “If only it were that simple. You’d better brace yourself for this.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “You owe over a million dollars in back taxes,” Sam said. “I’ve been trying to tell you this for months and you refuse to listen. This is serious.”

  “How could I owe that much? I’ve been paying people to take care of all this for me.”

  “That’s why we have a new accountant,” Sam said. “I wish I’d seen this coming earlier.”

  “Then tell the new accountant to take care of it,” Harrison said. “Make it right.”

  Sam sighed. “You don’t understand. This could wipe you out, especially with the way you spend money. We have to start cutting back while there’s still money coming in.”

  “Then I’ll make more money,” Harrison said. “You worry too much. It’s only money.”

  “I sure hope so,” Sam said. “You’re not getting any younger and neither am I.”

  Harrison glanced at his phone again and there was still no response from Morton. “I can’t understand why he hasn’t replied to my texts. That’s downright rude of him.”

  Sam blinked. “Seriously? You dragged the poor guy up to Connecticut, you embarrassed him by trying to yank him out on stage, and then you left him in Connecticut all by himself with no way home. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never spoke to you again.”

  “I explained what happened in my first text,” Harrison said. “They had to get me out of there before the police showed up. There wasn’t time to go look for him. It’s not like I left him there on purpose.”

  “Why are you so worried about this guy?” Sam asked. “I’ve seen you pick up, and then drop, more guys than I can count in the last 10 years. Why is it so important that you get a reply from this one?”

  Harrison remembered listening to Morton sing for the first time, he remembered kissing him for the first time, and he remembered making love to him for the first time. He shifted his gaze toward Sam and said, “Because he’s different. He’s not like all the rest. I’ve never met anyone like him, and I can’t stop thinking about him.”

  The SUV reached the TV station and came to a stop. Sam didn’t reply to him about Morton. He opened the door and said, “Let’s go. We don’t have much time and you still have to get to make up.”

  Harrison followed him out of the SUV where he found hoards of reporters and photographers who had been waiting for his arrival. The instant they saw him appear they started shouting his name and asking questions about the way he’d fallen off the stage the day before. He couldn’t believe they cared about something so insignificant. It’s not like he’d found a cure for a major illness or saved someone’s life. He’d only fallen a few feet and sprained his wrist and ankle.

  Sam grabbed his elbow and led him to the entrance of the building, and Harrison smiled and nodded without replying to any of their questions. If there had been time, he would have stopped and spoken to a few of them. He’d always believed in total transparency, even when he didn’t think a situation warranted that much honesty. They were also screaming something about politics and he had no idea what they were talking about. There had never been a human being born who cared less about politics than Harrison Parker. He’d lived his entire professional life promoting LGBTQ issues as one of the few openly gay rock stars in the world. He’d come out before coming out was the thing to do, and he’d never regretted a moment of that. He cared deeply about equality and fighting hate and discrimination, but he thought all politicians were the truest scum bags of the earth.

  The moment they stepped out of the elevator someone was there waiting to whisk him off to make-up. While Sam went into the green room to wait for him, he followed a cute young guy to a make-up chair where three people worked on him at the same time. They fussed with his hair and straightened his beard. They powered his face and neck, and then applied something neutral to his lips. He’d been through all this before for hundreds of other talk shows and he knew the drill well. He would have preferred to go on without any make-up at all, but he knew how strict they were about these things in TV. The only thing he never did was wear things they suggested for him. He wasn’t about to change his look or his image. He wore his usual skin tight black, low cut T-shirt, his distressed jeans, and his black biker boots. And they all knew better by then not to mention any wardrobe alterations.

  When he was finished with make-up, they brought him into the studio for a few last minute checks. This had always been his request, not theirs. He’d been in the business long enough to know everything there was to know about lighting and cameras, and he always insisted on inspecting the set before the show began. He was one of the most popular rock stars in the world and he knew they wanted him more than he wanted them. He liked to know that everything would be perfect when they introduced him, and that he wouldn’t be lit from the wrong angle, or shot on the wrong mark.

  After he inspected everything and made a few minor lighting adjustments that suited him, he went backstage and waited for the show to begin. It was only a half hour show, and he would be the only guest that morning. He’d reached the point in his career years ago where he’d been a guest on all the major late night talk shows, and he was only doing this show as a favor to Benny Larson. It wasn’t because he’d fucked Benny senseless that one time. It was because he believed in supporting any openly LGBTQ person trying to build a career in a world of total straight privilege. Benny was one of those small time early morning talk show hosts who knew how to work his audience… and the network… by acting as the gay clown and court jester. The odds were he’d never be more than that because he was openly gay and working in an industry that was controlled almost totally by a heteronormative world. Benny was their token gay, the one who did what they expected and played by all the rules that straight people have for gay people. If it meant promoting a few stereotypes, Benny went along with it.

  When Benny finally introduced him, he walked onto the set and the audience stood to applaud him. Benny was wearing one of his typical high-end designer business suits and he looked just as good now as he had the last time Harrison had seen him. He wasn’t male model perfect, but he’d done the best with average features that he could do. He’d gone prematurely gray in his 30s and he now wore his hair short and sculpted like millions of other gay men his age. He didn’t have a line, wrinkle or sag on his face yet and the gray hair actually made him look younger than his early 40s. When he reached out to shake Harrison’s hand, Harrison grabbed his arm, pulled him closer, and gave him a great big bear hug and a huge kiss on the mouth.

  The audience loved it, especially the women. Two gay men hugging and kissing in public that way always made them cheer louder. It wasn’t a sexual thing. It was an emotional thing for most of them. Kind of like watching lab rats in action. Harrison knew they adored seeing the underdogs… those poor sad gays… show any signs of emotion in public.

  When Benny stepped back, they both took their seats and Benny started asking simple questions about Harrison’s music, his tour and his love life. They both made a few jokes and lame quips about being single gay men, and the audience seemed to love every moment of it. Harrison knew how to play the game when he had to play it, and he wanted this interview to come off as positive as he could get it.

  During commercial breaks, Benny left the set to go back and talk to one of his producers about something. Harrison could see them from where he was sitting and he saw the serious look on Benny’s face. They were both moving their hands around a lot and Benny started shaking his head, as if refusing to do something. Harrison figured it was none of his business and he went back to
texting Morton. He still couldn’t believe that Morton hadn’t replied to him. It was as if Morton was going to make him pay forever for one silly little mistake and he didn’t think that was fair. But he wasn’t going to stop texting him either. He’d get a response from Morton if it was the last thing he did on this Earth.

  The entire half hour passed so quickly Harrison didn’t even realize it until Benny said, “We only have a few minutes left in the show, but I have to ask you this question.” His voice went from jovial to somber, and his expression from cheerful to funereal.

  Harrison smiled. “Then shoot. You know you can ask me anything.”

  Benny continued to remain stoic. He sat up and squared his shoulders. “News just broke that you’ve been financially supporting one of the most anti-gay political candidates in Washington, D.C., and I think the entire world is curious to know why you’d do something like that.”

  Harrison blinked. “Huh?”

  Benny went into a quick explanation about some hateful anti-gay politician that Harrison had never heard of, and then asked again, “Why would you give so much money to an anti-gay politician who has been on the record for proudly supporting things like reparation therapy and repealing legal same sex marriage?”

  Harrison didn’t know what to say. He’d always supported same sex marriage and he’d always been repulsed by reparation therapy. He didn’t know he’d been giving money to an anti-gay politician. His former accountant had always taken care of his charitable contributions. “Well, I had no idea I was doing that. Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?” He tried to make a joke out of it, but the audience remained dead silent.

  “TBZ publications broke the story just a few minutes ago on social media and it’s trending all over the Internet,” Benny said. “They have records and proof of the donations.”

  Harrison started to wonder where the happy power bottom Benny had gone. Now he was treating Harrison as though he’d committed a crime, with insulting questions as if this was an interrogation instead of an interview. He thought they were friends. He never expected Benny to turn on him this way. So he did the only thing he could do at that moment: push and deflect.

  He leaned forward and looked into Benny’s eyes. “Look, dude, I don’t know anything about that. But I will get to the bottom of it and make it right. I don’t support anyone who’s anti-gay. Let’s talk about something else first. Speaking of getting to the bottom, let’s talk about gay power bottoms. I’ll bet the audience would love to hear your take on serious gay power bottoms. From what I remember, you know a lot about that.”

  Benny’s face turned such a bright shade of red Harrison thought he might tip over sideways.

  The audience forgot all about the political contributions and started applauding and cheering to hear more about gay power bottoms.

  But before Harrison had a chance to say another word, Benny flashed his best great big fake TV smile and said, “Well, I can’t believe it’s been a half hour, but it’s time to wrap this up. Thank you for coming on today as a guest, Harrison. Good luck with the tour and your busy schedule.”

  “Thank you for having me, Benny. You’re a real gem of a guy.”

  Music began to play and the audience stood to applaud. Benny stood up without saying a word to Harrison and he headed down into the audience like he usually did to speak with different people at random while the final credits ran across the screen. Normally, he would have remained there and said something to Harrison. Harrison wanted to grab him by the back of the neck and ask him what that was all about. He wanted to shake him up and down for putting him on the spot that way. Instead, he continued to smile, he yanked his microphone off, and walked off the set as if nothing was wrong.

  When he met Sam in the hallway, he asked, “What was that all about?”

  Sam took his arm and headed toward the elevator. “I’ll tell you in the elevator. Let’s get out of here. This could be very bad, and we’re going to have to do some serious damage control.”

  Apparently, failing to pay taxes wasn’t the only crooked thing Harrison’s former accountant had done wrong. He’d also made large charitable contributions to one of the most anti-gay politicians in the country without Harrison’s consent. Someone had leaked the information to the news organization TBZ, and they’d published it on their website and shared it all over social media. Sam said that by now every news organization in the world would be publishing something and they had to come up with a viable explanation otherwise Harrison’s entire career might be over.

  Of course it didn’t make things any better when they left the building and one journalist from TBZ shouted, “How does it feel to be such a hypocrite, Harrison? How does it feel to stab your own people in the back?”

  It got even worse when Harrison yanked his arm from Sam and lunged at the reporter with both hands. “You don’t know anything about me, you asshole. I haven’t even made a statement yet. I never supported that politician.” He grabbed him by the throat and two security guards from the building had to pull him off the guy. He put his hands up and promised he’d leave peacefully, and then Sam took his arm and led him toward the SUV at the curb.

  He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. He was being blamed for something he didn’t even do, and the presumption of innocence wasn’t even mentioned at all. And in the middle of all this, he looked down at his phone to see if Morton had replied and he found nothing at all.

  Chapter Seven

  If it involved his career as a performer, Morton never said no to anyone. Even if it went against his better judgment, he would be willing to try it anyway. On this particular evening, he was preparing to audition for a new reality TV show called The Biggest Star. He didn’t have any grand expectations; everything about this audition sounded contrived and ridiculous, but it wouldn’t be the first time he did something that was a complete waste of time to further his career, and he hoped it wouldn’t be the last. Hope being the key word.

  Hope is what had pulled him through all the roughest times in his life. When the kids in school used to tease him about having two gay dads who were drag performers, he used to hope a piano would fall on them and squash them like pancakes. When he started performing in drag himself and all the other typical drag queens told him he was too plain and no one would ever take him seriously as a drag queen, he hoped they would all break their legs falling off their cheap high heels. And when his dads were both killed in the auto accident, hope got him through that, too. For the entire year that followed just hoping he could get up in the morning and function brought him comfort.

  He was born to hope for the best. His dads hadn’t adopted him the traditional way. They found him as a newborn infant early one morning in a dumpster down in the Village on their way home from a performance. Evidently, his birth mother hadn’t been prepared to raise a child so she figured the best thing to do would be to wrap him in a sweatshirt and set him on top of empty boxes in a dumpster. At least she left the lid open, otherwise his dads might not have heard him crying. At first they figured they’d bring him to a police station where he would be safe and cared for. Then his one dad, Albert, made a very good point. He told his other dad, Stephen, they’d never have another opportunity again in this lifetime to raise a child of their own. After a few minutes of debating all this, they ultimately decided to bring him home and raise him as their own. They swore they’d never tell anyone how they’d found him. They’d named him Morton because he’d been resting in the dumpster next to a discarded box of Morton fish sticks.

  Of course he didn’t know any of this until he was 16 years-old. They sat him down on the night of his 16th birthday and told him the entire story. Up until then he’d always been told he was adopted, and he’d never thought twice about it. But as he grew older he started to wonder about his birth mother and he started asking his dads questions they couldn’t answer. So they told him the truth that night, and they made no apologies for anything they’d done. For one year, they’d waited to se
e if his birth mother would come forward to claim him. When no one did come forward, they believed finding him was an act of fate and a blessing from God, and they also believed no one would have loved him and cared for him better than they had. As Morton sat there listening to them tell the story, he waited until they were finished to thank them and tell them how much he loved them.

  He still missed them now, especially when he was preparing for an audition like this. They would have encouraged him and given him performing advice. Although they’d always been based in New York, they’d traveled the drag circuit all over the country, from Provincetown, MA to West Hollywood, CA and they knew everything there was to know about performing the hard way.

  At least he’d paid attention to them while they’d been alive, and he’d learned everything he knew by watching and imitating them. He also knew what not to do, at least as it applied to his own circumstances.

  As he pulled a skin-tight white mini-dress over his head that night, he turned toward a full-length mirror in his bedroom to smooth it out. He normally wore skimpy black dresses, but he felt like doing something different that night. Maybe it would help his chances. He’d suffered enough rejection in show business to know by then that anything was worth a try.

  The white dress was a little shorter than his black dresses, and it make him appear a little sluttier than usual. Of course looking slutty always worked to his advantage. He couldn’t perform in drag with his hair pulled back in a bun, wearing a beige shift, looking as if he worked in a library. For what he lacked in glitter and sequins, he made up for in raw sex appeal. He knew that if he looked hot enough in drag, and he could turn heads just walking down the street, he didn’t need all the extra make up and gowns and jewelry to compensate.

  After he smoothed out the dress, he put on a pair of white six inch stilettos and went back to the bathroom mirror to check his make-up. He applied a little more pink lip gloss, and checked to make sure he hadn’t put on too much blush. He didn’t have a heavy beard and his natural skin tones were olive. He always looked as if he had a tan, even in the dead of winter. Then he put on some eyeliner and mascara and checked to make sure his hair looked okay. He wasn’t wearing a wig that night. Sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t. It all depended on how he felt and what kind of a look he was going for. That night he wanted to keep everything extremely simple, with a more gender neutral look that didn’t make him appear as if he was trying to be something he wasn’t. One of the things he’d learned about performing in drag is that if he tried too hard to be serious it would never work. The best drag performers were also the campiest and they knew how to laugh at themselves. He didn’t want to be campy or too outrageous. He wanted to be taken seriously, but without looking as if he was trying too hard to be serious.