“Dorian, please think this over,” Daniel said. “You’re gonna start something.”
“I know, little darling,” Dorian said. “And I tried. Believe me, I tried. But I don’t own any menswear that would be appropriate for the occasion. If I came in denim, I’d have to go home and shoot myself for the shame of it all.”
“Angel’s gonna die when she sees you,” Juanito said.
Dorian let her head back and laughed. “Well,” she said. “I’m already dressed for a funeral.”
“Please,” Daniel said.
“I’m a human being,” Dorian said. “I’ve got a soul. I’ve got a mouth. I will walk in there to pray for their loss, so help me god.”
* * *
Daniel knew that there was no telling Dorian what to do. Dorian marched to her own fucking tune. So he knew that shit was going to fly when Dorian walked in. He held on to Juanito’s hand and they waited a few heartbeats before following Dorian in. They didn’t want Angel’s mother to think they were connected at all. They didn’t want to feel her wrath.
Dorian walked in there, head high. Daniel and Juanito stood at the edge of the doorway so they were far enough to feel outside of the situation, but close enough to see everything. Dorian marched all up in there like she was Jackie O at a gala in a long black dress with rhinestones. (Rhinestones! During the day!) She had one of those lace veils over her face. French manicure. The man was pure class.
When she walked in, Angel looked like she wanted to drop dead right then and there. And her mother? Don’t even get a bitch started. She had on her falcon eyes, just watching Dorian who went to kneel down in front of the casket to pray the rosary.
All of the old women were silent, trying hard not to stare, but staring anyway. No one talked or made a hush. Angel’s mother walked over to the priest. Daniel couldn’t hear what she said, but she must’ve said something.
The priest walked over to Dorian, whose head was angled down into her praying hands. He tapped her on the shoulder and whispered into her ear. She looked at him and said, “How dare you? You call yourself a servant of the Lord?”
He didn’t say anything back to her.
“How dare you ask me to leave?” Dorian stood up and looked out at the crowd of people gawking at her. “Yes, I know I’m beautiful,” she said to everyone. “But it’s rude to stare.”
Juanito snorted and Daniel wanted to laugh and snap his fingers in solidarity. Oh, the hug they would give her when everything was over.
Once they were outside, they walked a block away so they could congregate without worrying about what Angel’s family would think if they saw them all together.
Angel ran out to join them on the corner, but she didn’t hug Dorian. “What was that?” Angel said. “What were you pulling in there? Dressed like that? I told you not to.”
Dorian dished out a smirk. “I knew I had to come, darling,” she said. “I wanted to be here for you.”
“But I told you—”
“And, darling,” Dorian said, “I’m telling you something now.” Angel hushed her mouth and blushed a little, like a child being scolded. It was an odd feeling for Daniel to see their mother being told what’s what. “After all I’ve done for you, you just stood there silent while I had to stand there, alone, as if I was some kind of freak show.”
“I—”
“You,” Dorian said, taking over the floor again, making no hesitation to show that Angel would have her time to speak, but now was not that time. “You know who I am, Angel. And you know I’m not going to change or play dress-up just so that I can fit into some fucked-up version of the world those people think we should be trapped in. I’m disappointed in you.”
Angel’s eyes began to water and Daniel put his arm around his mother.
“That’s enough,” Daniel said to Dorian. “You made your point.”
Dorian looked at Daniel, up and down, and then she walked away from them as Angel cried.
FOUR
DORIAN
Life is a ferocious motherfucker, that’s what I always say. And it’s not death that you need to worry about. He always comes, and he’s usually quiet about it. But life, boy. She is loud and fast and—vicious.
Back before Hector died, I remember talking to him. Oh gosh, he was so young then. One of the LaBeijas, I think it was Crystal, told Hector that he was a slut. Now, of course, as he was telling me this I was thinking, And? Isn’t that a compliment?
No, he told me, it wasn’t a compliment.
Well, you can always take it as one, I said. Now that had him thinking. I asked him what he was so afraid of. So what, she called him a slut? Can’t a queen make her own decisions and decide who and when and how she wants to quench that sexual thirst? Because god knows we get thirsty.
So I’ll tell you what I told him. I said, we fags are gonna hurl the same shade that the straight people toss at us, except they don’t call it shade and we do. And when she calls you a slut, you can’t call her a slut back because that would be a lazy read. Like, honestly. But you find another flaw in her and bring it out. Make it larger than life and toss it right back into her misshapen face and have a good kiki about it.
And Hector said to me, Yo, Dorian, what’re you afraid of if you ain’t afraid of words?
I had to think about what to tell him because I know what I’m afraid of, but I wasn’t about to vocalize it. Especially to him. He was so young then, and if being called a slut could hurt him, I didn’t want to set anything else into that mind of his that would make him worry. So I told him I was a fearless motherfucker and did he not know that already about me?
Ha! And he laughed and I laughed and we all laughed and kiki’d together until he forgot about the question or was too afraid to ask me twice.
What I was, and still am, afraid of was much harder. You know, back when I was a—young queen. OK . . . , I wasn’t that young, but I was younger—I had some friends down in New Orleans. This was in the seventies. They were preparing for pride festivities at the UpStairs in the French Quarter. And then somebody came in, doused the place with gasoline, and lit a match. Yes, lit a goddamn match and torched the place with all those pretty people inside it. In our safe place. What more can I ever say? To this day, whenever I perform, I refuse to wear flammable fabrics. I just can’t shake that fear. I can’t.
But I couldn’t tell all of that to Hector baby. He’d never come back stage to take off my wigs after that! He’d be scared as straight as a mascara wand. So I told him something to try to reassure him. I told him what I always say when someone tries to take away the power that I have over my own damn body by calling me a slut. I told him that I wish I could just take out my compact mirror and turn it around on the other person. Because unless you’re a nun, you shouldn’t be hypocrite enough to talk down to someone for being slutty. Like damn.
So I always say that when the world calls you a slut, just kick back your legs and fuck and enjoy it. Because if life don’t call you a slut, she’s gonna find something else to call you.
And life is too short to be a Puritan. Who wants that anyway? That would be no fun at all.
VENUS
The biggest shame in the whole world was that coke wasn’t a vegetable. If it was, she would be chock-full of vitamins and minerals. When she was blowing through lines, she didn’t have to think about how she felt. She was too blown to give a fuck. That’s what she loved about coke. It made her whole body tingle. Her mind felt sharp, alive. More than anything else, it made her feel confident.
That winter, she fell into a kind of habit. She wasn’t addicted. It was just a habit, nothing more. She started off doing bumps of blow on the tips of keys, every now and then. Then she started doing her bumps after having a little cafecito in the morning at the bodega. Then she graduated to lines on top of the metal boxes that house the toilet paper rolls in the public bathrooms. When the mood was right and she had a good wad of cash on her, after pulling some tricks, she’d get a fresh baggie and celebrate with a big f
at rail. But that was only when she had the money. She didn’t want to blow through all her money and run out of stuff. That would put her in a pickle.
In an ideal world, she would cut lines with the edge of a charge card. But she didn’t have any charge cards. Instead, she used the next best thing: a dull razor blade about the length of her pinky finger. Damn, sometimes even a glance at the refined powder made her think of powdered sugar, and she’d have the urge to take a pinch of the coke in her fingers and sprinkle it on top of a muffin or a slice of lemon pound cake.
But she would never! That would be wasteful, and she didn’t want to be wasteful with her coke. Snorting it was always the better experience than rubbing it on her gums or tongue. She’d rather feel the brain do twirls than have her mouth go numb, though she had to admit, the thought of putting it on lemon cake made her wonder if maybe her throat would go numb in the process.
She was already coked out of her mind when she got to Washington Square Park. It was the middle of the day and the sky was so blue and bright, not a cloud to be heard of. She sat on a bench and dug a key into her coke baggie, brought the scoop up to her nose, and inhaled it gently. She licked the tip of the key and pinched her nose so that the inside of her nostrils could absorb what needed to be absorbed. She turned to look at the young dude—probably an NYU kid—who was taking a nap next to her on the bench. She wished he wasn’t napping because she would kill for a good convo. Oh yes, she wanted to talk and talk and talk. And she had interesting things to say, so maybe that guy would listen to her and be charmed.
“Why, hello, I didn’t see you there,” she said, even though she had been sitting on the bench for a couple of minutes and had seen him there. He probably didn’t notice. She waited for him to wake up and she could feel the coke gears in her mind clicking into place. The sky was getting even brighter now, so she reached into her backpack and put on her sunglasses. “Hello?” she said, hunching over him to see his face. She wanted to see if he was handsome, and she couldn’t tell because his arm was covering half of his head, but his bone structure looked sturdy.
“Gosh,” she said to him, “you have the loveliest eyebrows. You know, I got this theory that if your eyebrows are done on point, then everything else in your life just falls into place. Just falls right into place, I tell you. Isn’t that a great theory?”
Still no reply.
“Well,” she continued, “I guess I can ask you to confirm or deny it, but I really hope that you confirm it, because if you don’t, it would send my life into a tailspin.”
Still nothing.
“Okay,” she said, “maybe I’m being dramatic. I know it’s a lot to process. Wow, what a beautiful day. I love beautiful days, they just make me want to stand up and spread my arms.”
She stood up and spread her arms up, up, up, and then she just had to sit back down. But not before rolling out her ankles a little. It was good to stretch a little bit.
Still no response from that one. She laughed and moved her hand to flip back her hair, but then she remembered that her hair wasn’t long anymore. It was just out of habit. A natural reflex. How strange.
“Look,” she said, “if you don’t wanna talk to me, just tell me. I’m a big girl, I can handle it. Otherwise, I’ll just keep talking because I love to talk, especially on beautiful days. Look, there isn’t a cloud in sight. Amazing. I mean, you don’t even know me, but I could talk an ear off. Ask anyone. I just talk and talk and talk and then, boom, you look down on the ground and there’s your ear, the ear that was on your body, but there it is on the ground now. Fallen off.” She took a deep sigh. “Do you have any gum? I’d really love to chew on a nice wad of bubble gum. Oh, damn now, you are a silent one. I mean, I do love a good silent man. So underrated, silence, you know? One time I let this guy fuck me and he was so loud, and the whole time I was thinking, Can’t you just be a couple notches more quiet, can’t you learn something from the silent dudes, I mean shiiit. Like, when he came, I thought he was having a stroke or some shit. Like he was dying, it was animal-like. But then I realized he was just enjoying himself and I thought, Good for you. And then I thought, Good for him? No, good for me.
“I mean, if you don’t say nothing, I’m just gonna keep blabbing and when you go back to your dorm or whatever, you’re gonna tell your friends, Oh, wow, I met this chick today and she could not keep a lid on it. You know, it’s like when you give a girl an inch, she’ll just want eight more.”
Still no response. Not even a chuckle to her joke.
“Oh, come on, you are a tough crowd. That’s what we call a joke. And it was a cute joke, if I might say so myself, shiiit. I always think my jokes are funny though, but I guess you’re making me rethink that. But I guess when I think about it, everyone thinks their own jokes are funny, because, like, why would they say them if they didn’t think they were funny?”
She looked over at him. Not a budge. He was out cold. Maybe he took something. Damn, she wanted whatever he was having. “Well you’re no fun,” she said. She put her arm on his side to shake him. She knew it’d be rude to startle him awake, but she wanted to talk and she wanted to listen. She was tired of being alone, but he still didn’t move.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh god.”
He wasn’t moving, she didn’t know if he was even breathing. When she looked at his eyeballs, they looked like they were rolling back. “I’ll be damned,” she said. “You’re one dead motherfucker, aren’t you?”
She didn’t know why she was asking him if he was dead, because that’d be some nonsensical bullshit. Like, duh, he wouldn’t be able to respond. She needed to get out of there quick before the police found him—found them. She needed to find somewhere else to go.
* * *
She went to the subways because she loved the subways. She loved that every inch of the metal cars was covered in squiggly lined graffiti. She loved the ads for bagels and lox. She loved that the Equestris Restaurant had taken out an ad calling itself the most exciting restaurant in New York, as if anyone would ever want to trek to the outer edges of Queens to eat a meal at a horse track. She loved the mix of outfits and people—that anyone who got on the train was instantly an equal in those minutes or hours, however long it would take a person to get to wherever they were going. That afternoon, she sat down on the seat below the words Pelham Bay and Brooklyn Bridge. Venus was sandwiched between an older white lady in stockings and a wool skirt, and a middle-aged white dude who was holding up a newspaper above his knees. She wanted to compliment the man on his red tie, which she could swear was a Dior, but she knew she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t dare break the unspoken rule of the subway: this was not a place for talking to strangers. NEWPORTS: ALIVE WITH PLEASURE! She loved that, there, underground, she could feel alone in a car full of people. And damn, she would kill for a good menthol cigarette.
Somewhere below Midtown Manhattan, the train was full but not too full, which meant that some people were standing because there were no more seats, but it wasn’t like they were a packed can of sardines. Venus had her legs crossed and was delving into her copy of Myra Breckinridge, which she loved to crack open after doing some lines. She was at the part where Miss Myra’s in the infirmary after attending her Posture class and Rusty is being friendly with her (ever since their dinner at the Cock and Bull), when all out of the blue, a man in a suit stepped on Venus’s foot. She looked up from Myra in order to read him: he was wearing gold wire-rimmed glasses and had a tie that was striped horizontally. He’d probably be bald before the decade ended. He didn’t apologize for stepping on her toesies, so she glared at him.
She watched as he avoided looking at her. He held onto the bar above her and scratched his salt-and-pepper sideburns with his free hand. But after the doors closed and the train started moving on toward the next stop, the man unzipped his pants and plopped his dick right in the middle of her book.
Now she had seen some shit before, and of course she knew that a person could never predict the level of Ne
w York Crazy they would witness on the street or the subway at any given time, on any given day, but this was taking it over the line somewhere. She was too shocked to even scream. A dick on her book? The absolute nerve, she thought, as she looked at it. Uncut, oddly veiny, but not in a hot way. It was like an anteater nose, and could he beg her pardon if she informed him that his dick was in need of some aloe vera lotion. It wasn’t a pretty penis, though she didn’t know if that would’ve made any difference. A beautiful penis could still be shocking, but perhaps for different reasons.
But what got her riled up was that as she continued to gape at him, he wasn’t even looking down at her. It was like he had gone and done this weird-ass thing, but then didn’t want to see her reaction, or didn’t want to even acknowledge that she was sitting there, behind that book that now held his dick. Like she was fucking invisible. And what the fuck did he think she was going to do? Stick out a finger and stroke it as if it was a newborn puppy too young to even open its eyes, and say to him, Aw, would you look at this cute little penis laying in my book?
No! She would rather not. The train kept going because, now she realized, they were in an express tunnel. Wondrous, she thought, that’s just my luck. Like some kind of fucked-up version of Murphy’s Law. She looked to her left, where the man kept staring at his newspaper, then to her right, at the older white lady who was spending 100 percent of her energy and attention on smoothing out the wrinkles in her wool skirt. She looked out at the other people around her on the train—the white woman with knee-high patent leather boots, plus her skinny boyfriend who was resting his head on her shoulder, the woman with her grocery cart full of plastic bags, the young muscular black dude in the red beret near the sliding doors. They all looked around at anything and anyone but her, but the man, but his ugly dick. No one was helping her.
“I beg your absolute pardon,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “but could you please let me read my book?”
The House of Impossible Beauties Page 31
