Drag Teen

by Jeffery Self

  I was also really excited by the fact that I was about to meet all these other teenagers who did drag. I was about to go from being the only one around to being surrounded by people I expected to understand why I got such a thrill when I put on a wig. It was like I was about to meet all these people I knew existed in theory but never thought I’d get to meet—my imaginary friends, come to life.

  The cab pulled up to a four-story brick building on a quiet side street. Daryl paid the driver and we piled out. The building was nothing special, aside from a rat the size of my mom’s dog digging through the trash. It seemed to take a moment to quietly judge us before returning to its digging. Even the rats in this beautiful city were interesting.

  “This is the place.” Daryl pressed the buzzer, which let out a piercing screech. “I’d say that the buzzer certainly works.” The screeching sounded a second time and the door was buzzed open. We went inside and climbed the winding staircase up to the very top floor. I tried desperately not to seem as out of breath as I actually was.

  “God! How do the people who live up here not go into cardiac arrest every day?” Heather panted as we reached the top. An apartment door opened and a sleepy-looking Latino boy in a beanie and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off appeared, revealing a lot of colorful tattooed flowers up and down his super-skinny arms.

  “Hey, dude, you Daryl?” He sounded like a mix of Matthew McConaughey and Janice from The Muppets.

  “Yeah, we spoke on the phone.”

  “Party, man!” he said, as if the word party itself was a response in the way okay would be. “I’m Pip!” he said, as if it were a toast.

  “Can we … come in?” Daryl asked after an awkward pause.

  The guy snapped into action. “Oh, sorry. Totally, dudes. And lady—unless that’s really convincing drag.” While he was a little out of it, he couldn’t have been friendlier. He welcomed us into the cramped apartment, the living room seeming to be half the size of the car we’d spent the past three days in. There was enough room for a futon jammed in the corner; it probably took up the entire room when folded out.

  Down the hall, which was more like just a wall, there were two doors separated by the bathroom. One of the bedroom doors was shut.

  “There’s two bedrooms over here, and that’s the kitchen.” He pointed over to a small corner with a mini-fridge and sink crammed in. “Sorry, I know it’s hella small, but it’s all good if you want to crash here during the pageant. The world is made for giving, right?”

  He finished that by making an unironic peace sign with his hand. Then he went on to explain that he and another contestant from the pageant were crashing in the guest room and that the apartment belonged to his aunt, who owned the place for when she visited the city every once in a while. The rest of the time it sat empty. Pip had come down from Vermont, where he’d been performing in drag off and on since he was six.

  I had never met a hippie before but I was pretty sure that was exactly what he was. By which I mean, he talked a lot about the universe and reeked of pot, his eyes so bloodshot it looked like he’d locked himself in a dark room listening to Adele songs on repeat, sobbing, for the previous three days.

  These were not what I thought of as drag qualities—but then, I also admitted to myself that I had no real idea what drag qualities were. YouTube clips and my own feelings were the only two things I had to help me determine this.

  “Pip, I appreciate your being so hospitable to your fellow contestants,” Daryl said. “You really get what our foundation of building queer community is all about.”

  “All good, dude. We’re all in this crazy thing called life as brothers and sisters. Hey, Tash is sleeping, so if you don’t mind keeping it down, that’d be rad.” Pip pointed to the closed bedroom door. “Tash just got in from Buffalo. He’s really far out. You can stick your stuff wherever, dudes.” He winked at Heather. “And lady.”

  That’s when it hit me that all our stuff was still in our car, which was still in the parking garage at the hotel.

  “You guys. Our luggage, I completely forgot.”

  Heather and Seth were just as shocked as I had been.

  “Where is it?” Daryl asked. I went on to explain that we’d left the car at the hotel. Daryl rubbed his forehead and said something about how thrilled he was not to have children. I felt bad enough that we’d dragged him out already; I wasn’t about to make him go on yet another cab ride with us. We promised him we’d be fine on our own, and, clearly very tired, Daryl said his good-nights, wrote down his number in case we needed anything, and went home.

  “Dudes, just take the key with you—that way you don’t have to buzz to get back in,” Pip offered. Handing Seth the key, he yawned, looking over at the clock on the wall, which read two a.m. “I think I need to crash anyway. You all cool?”

  We thanked him again and he brushed it off, saying that it was all about “giving the universe what you hope the universe will give you.” Then, as he went to bed, he called out to us, “Night! Party!”

  This time party took on the meaning of sweet dreams, and I found myself even more confused. We went downstairs and got into yet another cab.

  A few hours in New York and I was beginning to understand what the whole “city that never sleeps” thing was all about.

  “He’s nice,” Seth said once we were in the dark backseat of the cab. “Pip, I mean.” But I could sense a little waver in his voice, a little acknowledgment that he was out of his comfort zone. I was happy to hear it there.

  Heather was squeezed between Seth and me, texting like crazy.

  “Are you texting that creepy bouncer again?” I asked.

  “He’s not creepy.”

  “Heather, you just met him.”

  “Yeah, and he was very nice to me. Unlike all the gay guys there.”

  I watched as she sent a kiss emoji.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, you heard that drag queen say they don’t normally let girls back there. And the way everyone was staring at me in line. You noticed there wasn’t a single girl in sight, right?”

  “I’m not sure that lack of competition means that he’s a prize,” Seth said.

  “Plus,” I added, “he’s too old for you, and Daryl said you should stay away.”

  “Of course he did.” Heather scoffed, slapping her phone down into her lap and attempting to cross her arms—no small feat while crammed between Seth and me in the tiny cab.

  “I wonder what kind of drag Pip does,” Seth wondered aloud.

  “I don’t know, but I can’t imagine what Pip does is anything close to what I’m going to do,” I answered. “And I’d say both of us couldn’t be more different than Lady Rooster if we made it our life’s mission. That’s what is cool about drag.”

  We pulled back up to the fancy hotel and paid the cab driver a small fortune. The same valet attendant in the red vest from earlier opened the cab doors, formally welcoming us to the hotel … until he recognized us from earlier and dropped his shtick.

  “Oh,” he said disdainfully. “You again.”

  “Good evening.” I climbed out of the cab. “We’ve actually decided to stay somewhere else, so we won’t be needing to leave our car here for the night.”

  The valet attendant rolled his eyes. “Fine. Do you have your ticket?”

  After Seth handed over the ticket, the attendant looked at it and pulled our keys out of the little box.

  “All right—that’ll be three hundred dollars.”

  I laughed—not to be sarcastic, but because I assumed he was joking around. He had to be joking around; we’d only parked the car there three, at most four hours before.

  The attendant didn’t budge or bat an eye.

  “Wait,” I said. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Why would I be kidding? I don’t even like you.” The attendant looked at me like I was a guy who’d shown up to the birthday party of one of the most popular kids in school dressed as Maleficent, because
he had mistaken the invitation for a costume party but was the only one who did so. Not that this had ever happened to me.

  “But three hundred bucks? We were only parked here for a few hours, man,” Seth said, using the term man to try and toughen up his image. He always did that anytime he needed to impress someone in the service industry.

  “Yes, and we only offer overnight parking for our overnight guests. It’s the hotel’s policy. We charge by the day, not the hour. I wouldn’t have parked your car if you hadn’t told me you were staying here for the night.” He seemed to be taking more pleasure out of all this than seemed necessary. “You’re welcome to send a complaint through the Issues and Queries tab on our website. I’ll pull your car around. We can take cash or card.”

  He went through the door marked GARAGE with our keys. I was seething but also too embarrassed to do anything about it. This place already made me feel like a total country bumpkin; at that point all I wanted was to get out of there and back to that crappy apartment of Pip’s. At least I felt comfortable in a dump.

  “That’s so much money, you guys,” Heather said the second the attendant was gone. “How much are we going to have left?”

  I pulled out the crumpled wad of bills from my pocket.

  “Well, with the cabs we’ve taken, and this three hundred bucks here”—I continued counting—“we have, of this money, one hundred bucks. How much do you guys have left?”

  Seth guesstimated he probably had a hundred or so bucks. Heather gritted her teeth into a guilty expression.

  “I spent my few bucks on that purse in Ocean City, but I think we can all agree it’s extremely cute. Right?” She held up her license plate purse, which couldn’t have been less “cute.” Now that I knew it’d cost Heather the last of her money, I found it to be full-blown butt-ugly.

  The valet honked the horn as he pulled our car around.

  “Here you go.” He stepped out of the car, leaving it running. “Cash or card, kids?”

  It pained my heart as I handed over the three hundred bucks.

  “The next time you kids decide to take a sweet little adventure to New York City, maybe stay somewhere a bit more, let’s say, your speed. This is a very important hotel and we don’t have time to be screwed around.”

  “Hey! Listen, you dick,” Heather shouted as she saw my face shift into utter humiliation. “I’ll have you know that you’re talking to the future Miss Drag Teen USA!” She patted my shoulder proudly while the attendant rolled his eyes yet again.

  “Let’s just go,” I said under my breath as I buckled my seat belt and began to shut my door. Heather slipped into the backseat while the attendant stood there, expectantly silent and not moving his gaze.

  “Is there something else?” I asked, finally. He sighed and shook his head, then pointed at the sign attached to his valet station: PLEASE TIP.

  I dug my hand into my pocket, feeling the remaining few bills of my cash stash with my fingers. Just as I began to disappointedly pull out a bill, Heather rolled down her window.

  “Here’s a tip, you douchebag!” She hiked her butt up to the open window, pulled down her pants, and mooned him. “Drive, JT!”

  Seth and I burst into laughter as we sped away. The laughter continued for a dozen or so blocks … which was right when we ran out of gas.

  THE ENGINE SPUTTERED AND THE car came to a halt in the middle of the four-lane street. Immediately, a symphony of car horns sounded behind us, with agitated voices shouting at us, in a menagerie of languages, to get the hell out of the road.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I sat very still for a moment. Heather craned her head behind us to assess the late-night mob.

  “You guys, there are A LOT of angry New Yorkers behind us” was her conclusion.

  The honking and shouting was only getting louder by the second. Seth unbuckled and got out of the car, waving his hands over his head and apologizing to the angry line of traffic. This didn’t help; traffic was backing up as cars filled the lanes surrounding us to get by. I had no idea who all these people were and why they were out so late.

  “Where are Tina and Bud Travis when you need them, huh?” Seth said as he got back into the car.

  A taxi driver navigating his way beside us shouted, “Learn to drive or go back to Florida, idiot!” as Seth shut and locked the door.

  “Okay, what the hell are we supposed to do?” I was panicking. “Should we just ditch the car here and tell your parents someone stole it?”

  “What?! Are you crazy?!” Seth yelled.

  “I’m kidding, doofus.”

  A police officer on a motorcycle zigzagged his way through the line of cars and up to our window.

  “Uh-oh.”

  He stepped off the motorcycle, leaving its lights flashing, and walked over to the car.

  As soon as he got to the window, I launched into my apology. “I’m so sorry, officer. We ran out of gas.”

  The officer nodded. He had a friendly face, which smoothed over my nerves quite a bit.

  “We’re from out of town!” Heather shouted from the backseat in an attempt at an explanation.

  “The closest gas station is all the way over on Houston; we’re going to have to get you kids towed off the road. Can’t have you sitting here holding up all these cars.” He made a call on his radio, requesting a tow truck. A dispatcher confirmed it was on the way. The officer then stepped into the other lanes and began directing traffic.

  “Jesus Christ. This is bad. Why are we having such bad luck?! Is it because we lied to our parents?!” I cried into the dashboard.

  I could see that Seth was stressed too, but he was trying to swallow it instead of barfing it up like me. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Just think—all this adversity has got to be a good sign for the pageant.”

  I knew I should have accepted his comfort. Instead I wanted to smash him in the face.

  “In what possible way is this a good sign about anything, Seth?” I said, exasperated.

  “All great things in life come with setbacks. They only make the eventual success even sweeter. Like when I was walking around my old school, it made me realize how lucky I am that I didn’t allow crap that happened to me as a little kid ruin my teenage years. Setbacks are just road signs, ya know?”

  I gripped the steering wheel as another angry driver pulled around us, spitting his gum onto our windshield.

  “Well, then this pageant better turn out to be real damn sweet.”

  The tow truck finally arrived and towed the car over to the nearest gas station on Houston. A small part of me still wished they’d somehow lose it. Sure, Seth would have a lot of explaining to do to his parents, but at least we wouldn’t be able to leave New York. Also, I was beginning to think the car was somehow cursed.

  Begrudgingly, we hopped in yet another cab and followed the tow truck to the gas station, where we filled the gas tank and had to fork over two hundred bucks to the tow service. It was official: In the course of one night, we’d gone from having a lot of money to burn to being unequivocally broke again. I supposed there was a life lesson to be learned in there somewhere, but I was in no mood to learn it.

  With our pockets much lighter, we made our way back to Pip’s place and found a parking spot nearby. We quietly let ourselves in, hauling all our luggage behind us, and attempted to unfold the creaky old futon without making any noise. We weren’t that successful, though, because one of the bedroom doors immediately flew open.

  “Who the hell are you?!” a shrill voice screeched, like a parrot that had just learned how to scream. “Don’t you dare move, or I’m calling the police! Pip?!”

  The body attached to this unfortunate voice stepped out of the shadowy doorway; he was very short, very thin, and very annoyed to have been woken up. He was wearing nothing but a blanket he had wrapped around himself.

  “I’m JT,” I explained. “Pip said we could crash here. I’m in town for the pageant and we didn’t have a hotel, so Daryl suggested we—
”

  “PIP!” he screeched at the top of his lungs.

  Pip’s bedroom opened and a very groggy (even groggier than earlier) Pip poked his head out.

  “Huh?” Pip rubbed his eyes, his hair looking as if he’d just stepped out of the inside of a cyclone.

  “Who the hell are these creatures in my living room?!”

  “Tash, it’s all good. This is JT and Seth and Heather—they’re crashing here for a few days. Daryl brought them over. Guys, this is Tash Sanchez.”

  Tash was not amused in any way, shape, or form.

  “What gives you the authority to allow a group of strangers to barge in here in the middle of the night?! With a female, no less!”

  Heather shot me a look that said, See my point?

  “This is my aunt’s apartment,” Pip said with a shrug.

  Tash, clearly unable to come up with a suitable comeback, simply snarled.

  “Hey, listen. We won’t be any trouble at all,” I assured him. “I’m the only one in the pageant. Seth and Heather are just here for support, so we don’t even have a lot of stuff with us.”

  Tash arched one of his overly plucked eyebrows.

  “You are in the pageant?”

  I nodded as he looked me up and down.

  “Oh God.” He placed his hand on his heart. “Good luck.”

  He let out an evil cackle that even on a cartoon witch would have seemed a little too on the nose.

  “Hey, don’t laugh at him! He’s really good!” Heather was pissed. “Wait until you see his talent—he sings like an angel!”

  “You sing? Party, dude!” Pip piped in.