Drag Teen

by Jeffery Self

  Tash scrunched up his face as if concentrating really hard. “You sing?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Most queens lip-synch.”

  “Well, he doesn’t,” Seth challenged.

  I could tell Tash was only getting angrier, so I attempted to change the subject.

  “Anyway, we’re from Florida. Where are you f—”

  “Well, whatever it is you do, just understand that some of us take this pageant very, very seriously.”

  “I take it seriously too.”

  “This isn’t just some little talent show for a boy to put on a dress and sing. If you want to do that, I suggest you go back to Florida and get yourself a job as one of the ugly stepsisters at Disney World.”

  Tash got a big kick out of this one. I wasn’t sure how we’d gotten here, but I realized I had somehow found myself in the midst of a full-blown argument with him.

  “Look,” I said. “We don’t want to cause any trouble, we just need a place to stay, and this appears to be our only option. If it’s going to be a big deal, however, we can go somewhere else.”

  Heather and Seth looked at me with subtle panic in their eyes; they knew just as well as I did that we actually couldn’t go somewhere else.

  “I think that’s a good idea.” Tash crossed his arms in victory just as Pip stepped toward me.

  “No, dude. You guys stay. Tash, where’s your human spirit?”

  “Aw, shucks, I guess I left it at the airport. My luggage was over the weight limit as it is,” Tash snarked, but Pip didn’t budge.

  “Well, since this is my aunt’s place, and I’m the one renting to you, I’m going to put my foot down. JT, Heather, Seth … welcome. Tash, deal with it, dude. I’ve got to get some sleep. Party, y’all.”

  He went back to his room and shut the door. For a brief moment we were standing across from Tash in a heavily weighted silence.

  “Just be careful whose toes you step on, Miss … what’s your name?”

  “JT.”

  “No, your drag name.”

  “I don’t have one yet.”

  Tash’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t have a drag name yet?”

  “Not yet. But a friend of mine told me it would find me when the time was right.”

  Tash stared at me for a moment, then shook his head, cackled again, and shut the door.

  Under his breath, Seth murmured, “He seems fun.”

  My stomach turned as I realized that I’d just had a taste of what a real drag competition was going to be like.

  THE NEXT MORNING WAS THE first day of the pageant. I woke up extremely early, due in part to Tash’s I’m-sure-totally-unplanned decision to sing the entire Mariah Carey song catalog in the shower beginning at seven a.m. I hadn’t slept great, seeing as all three of us had been crammed onto the futon like a tube of raw Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls. I was sleeping in the middle, and around the time that Tash had reached Mariah’s “Always Be My Baby” Seth pinched my arm, which was wrapped around him.

  “You awake?” he whispered into the sheets.

  “What do you think?” Tash had just reached a long belting high note that was almost impressively off-key. Seth laughed.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked. I could feel his gross, warm morning breath on my arm but it didn’t gross me out because it was him. “About today?”

  “Nervous, I guess. But also excited. Yeah, excited.”

  I still hadn’t been able to shake my feelings about Seth’s secret and how long it had taken him to open up to me when all that time I thought I was dealing with an open book. I wanted to just let it go, but I simply couldn’t. And it wasn’t just the secret part. If he was so good at reinventing himself one time, a voice inside my head said, then what’s he going to do when he goes off to college and leaves you behind?

  “Hey. You’re going to be great, babe. Don’t be scared.”

  “I didn’t say I was scared! Don’t put words in my mouth—especially weak ones. I have enough to worry about without you piling on.” My words came out blunt and weighted. I sounded like a wife who’d stayed silent around her overly critical husband for one too many decades. It was a bit dramatic, especially for this early in the morning, but well, what else was new?

  “Okay,” Seth said, a little taken aback. “It’s going to be a great day.”

  I wanted that to fix my feelings, but it didn’t. I figured the stuff we wanted to fix stuff never fixed stuff; it was the surprises when we were really not expecting them that did. Before I could muster up the nerve to ask Seth why he’d never told me everything about his past, when I’d told him so much, we were interrupted by the sound of chanting from Pip’s room, some hippie-dippie-sounding guided meditation. I’d always respected people who could actually meditate and not feel like idiots while they did it. A lot of people pretended to be all Zen and groovy, like our school art teacher, who demanded we call her Madame Goldberg. Pip, on the other hand, wasn’t putting it on.

  “Namaste, dudes and lady!” he announced as he burst out of his room in a floor-length kimono. “Today is the start of a beautiful journey!”

  Heather, who had been sleeping, abruptly sat up.

  “Is something on fire?” she asked sleepily.

  “No, dudes, I’m just burning some sage.” Pip held above his head the burning bundle of sage, which was filling the room with smoke and the smell of those expensive candles that don’t actually smell that good. “This is the perfect chance for us to cleanse our minds before the intense and exciting two days that await us. Are you feeling ready, JT?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. A small, ambitious part of me felt ready, but the main part of me felt completely and totally out of my element.

  The bathroom door opened, emitting a cloud of steam into the room. Tash emerged from the fog in a towel, showing off an enormous tattooed rendering of Rihanna across his chest.

  “What the hell is that awful smell? Is it one of you?” he shouted, pointing at Heather.

  “It’s all good, dude. It’s just sage. I’m cleansing the energy before we begin the pageant.”

  “Well, cleanse your own damn energy. That shit smells nasty.” Tash slammed his bedroom door as Heather shook her head, staring down at her iPhone.

  “You’re going to need a lot more than that sage to cleanse the negative energy out of him, Pip,” I said.

  “Have no fear,” Pip advised. “The pageant sees and knows all.”

  Pip, Tash, and I shared a cab over to the pageant orientation meeting, which was in the lobby of the historic theater in the West Village where the pageant would be taking place. Heather and Seth had wished me luck as they made plans for a day of New York adventuring. I couldn’t help but sorta wish I was doing that instead of beginning the next two days of competition.

  The lobby was already packed with guys around my age. None of them in drag, but many of them didn’t need a wig to display their inner diva. This room was a powder keg of relentless personality and sass.

  A circle of chairs was set up in the middle of the room, and as Daryl made his way through the crowd, everyone took a seat and began to quiet down. Or, at least, the noise level was reduced to the roomful of teenage drag queens version of quiet, which was more a subtle roar.

  “Okay, okay, guys. Let’s get started,” Daryl projected over the crowd of energetic sass. “Everyone, please have a seat. Welcome! Welcome to the Sixth Annual Miss Drag Teen Pageant orientation.” The room cheered. Daryl smiled and waved for everyone to settle down. “As most of you know, I’m Daryl Hart, the executive director of the John Denton Foundation, and I’ll be your go-to for any questions or concerns during the next two days. I’m going to pass around a schedule for today and tomorrow.” A stack of papers was sent around the circle. “As you’ll see, this morning we’ll be following our meet and greet with a staging and music rehearsal for this year’s opening number. As with every previous year, this opening number is to show the talent each of you inhabit in a group setting, a
nd also for each of you to introduce yourselves to the audience and state something that tells the audience a little about you. Please keep this introduction to a maximum of two sentences. As you can imagine, we’ve had some past contestants who, let’s just say, weren’t shy when it came their turn. That did not reflect well in their score.”

  Everyone laughed. I couldn’t help but glare over at Tash from the corner of my eye. Luckily he didn’t notice.

  “After the opening number, we make the very difficult decision of cutting half of you. Which, yes, does mean those people will not get to present their speech or talent.”

  Everyone moaned.

  “I know. I know. But today is a good chance to understand the judging criteria. In fact, later, one of this year’s judges will be coming by to tell you what he and his colleagues will be looking for from your ‘Why I Drag’ speech.”

  A kid with pink dreadlocks raised his hand.

  After being called on, he asked, “Who are the judges this year?”

  Daryl smiled proudly. “Well, I am happy to be the first to tell you that along with writer Quentin Brock and Broadway legend Nathan Leary, our esteemed judges from years past, this year we are happy to welcome our newest board member, the extremely talented actor Samuel Deckman.”

  A lot of the guys let out gasps at the name. A small guy who looked like he could have been a ten-year-old girl raised his hand and asked with the deepest voice I’d ever heard, “Is that the Samuel Deckman?!”

  Daryl smiled and nodded. “Yes. Many of you might know that Mr. Deckman recently came out as a gay man, making him the first gay actor in history to play Aqua Man. In his first public appearance as an out gay man, he’ll be helping us select this year’s Miss Drag Teen USA!”

  Everyone clapped and cheered. Samuel Deckman had recently come out in one of those very public “Yep, I’m Gay” interviews in one of those entertainment magazines that ask newly out celebrities vaguely offensive and incredibly outdated questions like “When did you know?” and “How difficult has it been?” and “Why now?” It was a huge deal he had come out, not just because he was an extremely famous actor but because he was an extremely famous actor who was also extremely attractive.

  “At this time, I’d like to turn the floor over to our pageant director and choreographer, Eric Waters, and our musical director, Linda Lambert, who any Broadway fans here will know as the Tony Award–winning writer of The Lady Isn’t Waiting.”

  Two adults stood up in the back of the room and made their way up to join Daryl.

  “Good morning, guys!” Eric Waters was a handsome, muscular man in his fifties with perfectly coiffed silver hair. He had a very cheery voice. “I’m Eric Waters and this is Linda Lambert.” Linda waved. “I’ve directed and choreographed this pageant since year one. John Denton was a huge inspiration to me when I was around your age; he wrote some of the first gay characters I’d ever read in a book or seen onstage. I couldn’t be more excited to continue his legacy with the queer community—and if there’s one legacy I think Mr. Denton would’ve loved the most, it’s an original opening number written by a Tony winner, my dear friend Linda Lambert. Not all of you are singers, not all of you are dancers, and I don’t expect anyone here to do anything they don’t want to do … but I think with the talent we’ve got in this room, we can make this number one of the best we’ve ever had. How about it? Who in here wants to kick every other year’s butt?”

  The excitement was infectious. Even I was cheering … and I hated cheering.

  “All right, everybody, follow me to the stage and bring your shoes!”

  Pip looked over at me as we headed for the theater.

  “Party!”

  The opening number was really catchy. They’d only played it a few times and it was already stuck in my head. The first couple of times hearing it we were all crowded around the piano as Linda Lambert sang it along with us, each of us a couple inches taller in the heels we were now wearing. This wasn’t a full dress rehearsal, but the director understandably wanted to see if we could make the moves in the proper footwear.

  Eric Waters spaced us out onstage into three rows. I was in the middle, directly behind Tash, who absolutely loved that he was blocking me. Pip was somewhere on the other side of the stage and in the back because he was so tall. As with most things, Pip didn’t mind this placement one bit.

  I was a terrible dancer—I always had been. So the prospect of learning choreography, in heels no less, was very nerve-racking. Eric walked us through the initial steps, which, thankfully, were pretty simple. I was impressed at how easily all twenty guys moved in their heels, including me. Only a handful of people were having a hard time—one particularly unfortunate guy who was even bigger than me couldn’t keep his balance to save his life; at one point I really thought he was going to fall off the stage and die. After a while Eric politely suggested he rehearse without the shoes for the time being. I could see the relief all over the guy’s face.

  I feel you, I thought.

  The other queens were a smorgasbord of looks and personalities, no two alike. There were skinny boys, heavy boys, black boys, white boys, Asian boys, Latin boys, Indian boys, even an albino boy. I was feeling, surprisingly, at ease. There was something really freeing about being in a group of people so vastly different from one another, and I wondered if that was why New York City itself was so freeing, because it was an entire city made up of vastly different people. It seemed to me that anybody who needed to feel less alienated in life should simply come to New York City for a couple days … as long as they steered clear of fancy hotels, valet attendants, and Tash.

  I was lost in feeling grateful for having made it all the way there when I realized the music was vamping while Eric Waters repeatedly called my name. I snapped back into reality.

  “JT?”

  The music stopped.

  “Sorry! Sorry!”

  “No worries. Like I said, you sashay to the front and land on this green mark, after Milton’s turn. You say your introduction, then sashay back to where you are. Got it?”

  I nodded, but as I did so, I realized I had forgotten to come up with an introduction line.

  “Great, let’s try it.”

  The music started over and Eric called out “Go!” I sashayed up to the green mark, attempting to come up with something in my head, but I had nothing. I hit the mark, the music stopped for my introduction. I stuttered and finally came out with:

  “I’m … I’m … I’m …”

  I just kept repeating I’m as if I were a malfunctioning toy. Finally, Eric called out, “Okay, JT. Just rehearsal. Let’s keep moving. Music!”

  The music came back and I sashayed, boiling red with embarrassment, back to my spot—only to discover it wasn’t even my spot.

  I was going to have to find my place—and soon.

  After we locked down the choreography, we took a ten-minute break and drew numbers for the pageant order. I drew twelve. I was trying my hardest to put on a brave face around these people; if I’d learned one thing from watching more reality television than should be humanly possible, it was that competitors thrived off one another’s fear.

  “Hey, you! What’s your number?”

  I turned to see the short guy with the deep voice. He was rail thin, with beautiful wavy hair. He stood with both hands on his hips and wore a skintight T-shirt with a picture of a unicorn on it.

  “Twelve,” I told him. I held out the piece of paper I’d just drawn, which caused the boy to whistle over to a very handsome and much larger guy on the other side of the stage.

  “Red! Get over here! I found twelve. I’m Milton, by the way.”

  Red came bumbling over. He was a giant—six foot six at the very least, with bigger muscles than anyone on my school’s football team. However, when he spoke, his voice was higher than anyone on my school’s cheerleader squad. He was like a one-stop pep rally.

  “Hi, I’m Charlie,” he said, offering his hand. I shook it at my own risk. �
��Call me Red, though, because I hate the name Charlie and I look great in red. You’ll see later. Anyway, listen. I’m number thirteen. Any chance you’d switch with me?”

  Milton leaned forward. “Red’s been terribly superstitious ever since he stepped on a crack and actually broke his mother’s back. Long story, but it wasn’t pretty.”

  I looked down at the thirteen on his paper. “So you want me to have the unlucky number?”

  Red scrunched up his face, clearly a little embarrassed to be asking such a blatantly sabotaging favor. But before he could apologize, Tash appeared beside me.

  “Yeah,” he clucked. “That’s exactly what he’s asking. You superstitious too?”

  Tash managed to carry a dark cloud over him at all times. No matter the conversation he entered, you felt the wave of bad attitude cover it immediately.

  “Hi. Guys, this is Tash.”

  Milton and Red looked at each other apprehensively, crossing their arms.

  “Oh. We know,” Milton said.

  The two shot Tash a suspicious look while Tash simply rolled his eyes.

  “Didn’t realize I’d be seeing you two here.”

  “It’s nice to see you too, Tash,” Milton said. For his part, Red seemed to cower in fear behind his tiny friend. “You remember Red, don’t you?”

  Tash pursed his lips and nodded.

  “I haven’t seen you since, what? Miss Teen Atlantic City?” Milton awkwardly proceeded. “How’ve you been?”

  “Fine.” Tash’s answer had all the feeling of a dial tone.

  “Oh. You two know each other?” I asked, sensing the kind of tension reserved for gang fights.

  “We do.” Milton’s once-perky voice had grown icy cold.

  “We met doing Miss Teen New Jersey together. I won,” Tash hissed. “By a landslide.”

  “And then I beat him in Miss Teen Atlantic City. Also by a landslide.” Milton ignored Tash’s eyes burning into the side of his face.

  “Wow. I didn’t realize there were so many drag teen pageants.” I was hoping to break the tension, but it didn’t work. Milton clearly had a lot to say about and to Tash, but he kept quiet and polite, with a towering yet fearful Red behind him. The two of them passively turned their backs to Tash and talked only to me.