Camptown Ladies

by Mari SanGiovanni

  “Ha. They’re not together,” Vince said, as he and I both laughed a little too hard. Erica silently studied her menu.

  The waiter clasped his hands in delight, “Ooooh, I sense drama! I’ll get you kids some waters and be right back. I don’t want to miss a damned thing.”

  “You alright?” Vince asked Erica.

  “I’m fine, why?” she said, coolly before going back to her menu. Vince, Lisa, and I exchanged looks but were soon distracted by a commotion at the door as our waiter shouted with a snide tone, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Not in here, you don’t!”

  All the diners turned to the door to see the egregious offense; it was a straight couple with a toddler jammed into a baby stroller. “Outside, outside!” Jay said as he made shooing motions with wild jazz hands, “That thing must stay outside!”

  The couple looked horrified. They must have been wondering if he meant for them to leave their baby, or possibly their straightness. The husband had the freaked-out look you see on straight males who stray into P-town, brought by wives who are lured by the shopping. The straight guys have no clue how to act, and since the gay men act more like women, it follows that even if they are insulted, straight men can’t get too aggressive with gay men. Mix that with not wanting to risk anything beyond a half-polite nod of the head in case a gay man might think that they are leading them on, and that they also take it up the pooper.

  The straight couple still didn’t get the commotion, and the whole place was watching the floorshow as if the couple had tried to bring in a wheelbarrow rumbling with grenades. As Lisa liked to point out, you just don’t get to witness this kind of reverse discrimination anywhere else in the world, and, wrong as it may be, it sure was fun to watch.

  “Didn’t you see the sign?” the Jay the waiter asked. “All strollers are to be left outside. It’s much too small in here for that thing!”

  The husband looked aggravated, as a man might after being scolded by his boss’s wife, and took the walk of shame out to the curb with the stroller. The wife, an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, shouted back across the restaurant, “Can the child stay, or should I park him on the street, too?”

  The waiter giggled with delight that the straight girl was sassing him back, and Lisa watched with rapt interest. Jay shouted back to her, “Oh, honey, you and the kid can stay, but if that cute and clueless husband comes back in, you risk me serving him for dessert!”

  The place broke out in laughter, along with the woman, and Jay galloped over to her and gave her a flamboyant hug. She was thrilled, as many straight girls get when a man bothers to hug or pays attention to her yet has no interest in fucking her. (Note: This was how the Fag-Hag Syndrome was born. Women feel valued by gay men because their friendship has nothing to do with their vaginas—or, I’d say, breasts, but the truth is, many gay men are just as obsessed with breasts as straight men.)

  As Jay sauntered away after making nice, he yelled over his shoulder, “Love your boots, darling.” The woman laughed in such solid camaraderie with him as though she would have locked her husband outside on the street if this girlie waiter had just asked her too. They were life-long girlfriends now; he was just her husband.

  The husband came in from parking the stroller, saw his wife was busy with his child, and immediately fixed his stare on Erica, as happens with every man who sees her, especially when we are not in the gayest place on Planet Earth. Erica seemed oblivious, but Vince was watching the guy with daggers in his eyes.

  “Only in P-town,” Lisa said, then proved the point by leering at the attractive mom as she bent over the child to get the kid’s toy as it fell to the floor, while her husband was still leering over at Erica. Jay the waiter returned to leer at the husband’s clueless ass. I could see the look on Erica’s face; she was fascinated, this was an amazing place. Welcome to Provincetown.

  Lisa said, “Marie, doesn’t she kind of look like you-know-who?”

  “A little,” I said.

  Erica asked, “Who’s you-know-who?”

  Vince answered, “A ex-girlfriend Lisa embarrassed the hell out of, then got dumped by at a Christmas party. She doesn’t remember her name, and she didn’t that night, either.”

  Lisa said, “Can you believe she dumped me just because I called her a nickname?”

  “Lisa. It was in front of her boss, and you called her Retro-Bush.”

  Lisa snorted, “Oh, for Christ sakes, women are so fucking sensitive! If she hated the nickname, she should have taken a weed-whacker to that thing. It never would have worked out otherwise. You know, that woman with the kid over there is hot. Should I go talk to her?”

  “Her husband just went to the restroom!” I said, while Erica and Vince laughed.

  “Exactly,” she said getting up. “That geek will be festering over how to be in a gay bathroom without touching anything except his own dick. I could get a lot done in six minutes.”

  I pulled her back down and asked, “Seriously, Lisa. Are you a man? I’m asking the question.”

  She ignored me as Vince and Erica laughed, and said, “Where is that fairy waitress with our fucking drinks?”

  After brunch, which included pancakes, waffles, and a side dish of the best spicy French fries in town, Vince stepped outside for a smoke from a ridiculous glass pipe he bought at one of the head shops, and Lisa joined him, to “scope out the hot chicks.”

  Erica and I waited for the bill as we watched them from the window. She seemed visibly nervous now that Vince was away from the table.

  “How is it, being here with him?” I asked her.

  Since Erica and I were not deep talkers, and this might have been the most personal question I had ever asked her, she didn’t answer right away. Then, finally, she said, “It’s OK. Some things are much harder than I expected; others, a bit easier.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, sitting here with all of you feels, well, natural. It feels good for us to be together again . . . in certain ways. It’s just that—”

  “He looks at you with those puppy dog eyes and you wonder if you made a mistake leaving him.”

  She looked at me, sadly. “No. That’s not what I’m wondering.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I realize now I hoped that would happen. It would be so much simpler,” she said, drifting off.

  “What’s more simple than realizing you don’t love someone anymore?”

  I didn’t expect an answer, but she said, “Realizing I never did.”

  She looked at me so sadly then, that the pit of my stomach flipped uncomfortably for her. Or maybe it was for Vince; he had no chance. She was not ever going to be with him, and he had no idea. I felt my face and hands get hot, so I took a sloppy, forceful gulp of water to avoid looking at her, and a lemon wedge slid forward, nearly plugging my nostril. Thankfully, she wasn’t looking.

  We watched out the window as streams of gay boys paraded by. The streets were pretty busy for the off-season. Nearly all the men were taking notice of Vince. Some nodded at him, some winked, one yelled something we couldn’t hear, then Lisa yelled back and waved to the guy to come back as Vince grabbed her arm in a lock hold behind her back. Erica and I laughed as we watched Vince smoke the rest of his pipe with his eyes on the pavement so he wouldn’t make accidental eye contact.

  Down the street, I could see trouble coming in patriotic flashes of fire engine red and white stars on royal blue, and Lisa saw it, too. Vince was too busy with snuffing out his pipe to see trouble brewing. I had no idea what Lisa would do, but I did know she’d try to make the most of it.

  “Watch this,” I said to Erica.

  An extraordinarily tall drag queen, dressed in full Wonder Woman garb with bright red roller-skates, was heading right toward them, and Wonder Woman had spotted Vince. Lisa signaled from behind Vince a big thumbs-up for Wonder Woman to approach, and the six-foot superhero made a beeline for him.

  “Uh, oh,” Erica said, and she gripped my arm as if we’d just turned
a bend and the biggest drop on the rollercoaster had appeared out of nowhere.

  Erica’s grip was tight on me and I could feel the side of her start to pulse as she began to laugh, and I flashed to one other time she had grabbed my arm like that. It was just before she told me she was ending our business partnership and I was about to take a header as I slipped on a paper bag of nails I’d carelessly left on the floor. I had laughed, but she’d not found it funny and had let go of my arm without comment, going back to work, looking pissed I left the nail bag in our path. It felt good to hear the sound of her laugh again.

  With his natural gift for detecting impending drama, Jay the waiter flitted over to the window to watch the show with us. Even the straight couple with the stroller-less child turned their chairs to watch when they saw the flash of color zoom past the window.

  Vince was the only one not looking when Wonder Woman made full impact.

  She grabbed Vince by the waist and picked him off his feet in a bear hug as she did a perfect spin on her rollerblades before setting him back down, but she didn’t let him go. Through the window we heard Vince give a loud girlish shriek, which further encouraged Wonder Woman that he was fair game. Lisa roared with laughter as Wonder Woman tried to get Vince to dance with her in the street. All Vince could do was hold on for his life, shocked, laughing, and once again turning a P-town-straight-guy shade of non-Italian pale.

  Jay started hooting and clapping, which alerted the rest of the diners to watch the show unfold. Lisa was doubled over laughing, watching Vince’s confusion and embarrassment. He hadn’t been manhandled by a female superhero since we were kids at Halloween and Lisa abused him when she dressed as Batman. (“You’re the Penguin,” she would shout, whipping the cord from mom’s old vacuum cleaner around him, tying him up rodeo style, then beating him with a black, spray-painted Wiffle ball bat.)

  “Well, if you change your mind and you want him back, you’d better move quickly,” I advised Erica.

  “I wouldn’t dare get between them,” she said, and now we were laughing so hard we had to hold each other up in our seats. Vince tried to dodge Wonder Woman and once nearly broke free from her grip, but she was skilled with her bright blue boa, and snapped it around his neck like a leash. Vince was laughing, but there was a growing look of panic in his eyes. When Wonder Woman almost pantsed him in the street, Lisa at last took pity and placed herself between Wonder Woman and her brother, but the superhero would not give up that easily. As any good performing tranny, she was very aware of her audience in the diner and on the street, so she chased Vince, Tom and Jerry-style, in a circle around Lisa, whose eyes kept flicking back to me to make sure we weren’t missing the show, her face contorting with laughter. Vince yelped every time Wonder Woman got a hold of him, holding on for protection to the same dyke sister who had served him up to the six-foot superhero. Finally, Lisa shoved him back through the restaurant door and the people inside clapped in appreciation for the show and Vince, relieved to be safe, and red-faced under his beard, took his bows like the good sport that he was while the place cheered for him.

  By the time the show was over, Erica and I were exhausted from laughing and she had cried off a good amount of mascara. I helped clean her face with a napkin, while she fought another wave of laughter, which brought fresh tears. I smiled at her and said, “Not helping. But, you look pretty good without makeup.” I was lying, and worried she would see it in my face. The reality was she looked gorgeous without makeup.

  Erica took the napkin and turned back to the window. We watched Wonder Woman wave and bow to the crowd, reminding everyone that she was performing that night, down the street at the Crown & Anchor, before roller-skating down Commercial Street.

  Erica didn’t turn back toward me, but she quietly said to my reflection in the window, “I’m so glad I came.”

  “Good. Me too,” I said, and it bothered me how glad I was that she was here, knowing my brother could get hurt all over again. I wished they still had a chance. She was perfect for him and I wanted to see Vince happy again. Selfishly, I also didn’t want to lose her again. When I turned back to the window, Lisa was watching me with a raised eyebrow. I looked for Vince, but he had disappeared from inside the doorway.

  Vince seized the rare opportunity to grab Lisa when she wasn’t on guard, and pinned her against the glass window to administer a favorite childhood move, the Revenge-Wedgie. When he succeeded, the whole restaurant applauded again for the encore, but since Vince had boa feathers stuck in his hair, Erica and I agreed that the well-executed wedgie did very little to restore his dignity. This was especially true when a well-meaning passerby grabbed Vince by the scruff of his neck because it looked like he was attacking a woman. This was not Vince’s day.

  Vince ended up yelling, “But that’s my sister, that’s my sister!” and Lisa, of course, shook her head no and shrugged her shoulders like she didn’t know him and walked back inside the restaurant, hanging Vince out to dry, pleading for his life from one of the rare straight guys wondering Commercial Street in a Patriots jersey.

  Much later, we were laughing about this as we walked through the center of town toward the live music. We knew it had to be Gertie, our favorite 70-something singing transvestite. Her identity was given away by her choice of music that was more Aunt Aggie and Uncle Freddie’s speed, and by her crackling karaoke sound system. She was a big woman in a tight mini skirt, whose specialty was a blend of Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland tunes. But while she dressed as a woman, she made no effort to disguise her deep, yet pleasant, male voice. As we approached, we saw Aunt Aggie leading Uncle Freddie, Mom, and Dad through the crowd to secure the bench closest to Gertie.

  Lisa signaled to them like a soldier using hand signals. We held up, fanned out, waited, and watched. Gertie was blasting out a beautiful version of “My Way” as Aunt Aggie sang along and swayed her large body to the music, clueless that she was enjoying a transvestite performer. I could tell that she disapproved of the shortness of Gertie’s skirt (which barely covered her ass and other unmentionables) and was puzzled about her deep voice, but Aggie had been known to generously give “creative types” a pass.

  She had done it for Eddie and she had done it for Liberace (though this may have been because Liberace was half-Italian) and I could see the struggle as she tried to do this for Gertie. Still, her expression ranged between pleasure and puzzlement and occasionally a brief wave of disgust that she beat back with an awkward smile. Dad and Mom appeared to know the deal—not really to their credit, as you would have to be well over 70 or legally blind to miss the tranny angle—and Mom was wearing her best “I can play along with the best of them” frozen smile.

  My sister and I both keyed in on a flatbed truck loaded with college boys as they rolled down the street with a video camera. They slowed the truck for as long as possible before the traffic behind them started beeping. Once they spotted Gertie, they began whooping and hollering like a bunch of escapees from the movie Footloose, just let out of their cornfields for a tour of New England gays in the wild.

  Erica’s attention drifted away from Gertie to the boys in the truck, who were now making catcalls. “Obviously, she wants an audience, but she doesn’t want to be treated like that.”

  I said. “Imagine if those boys were yelling at people of another race like that, what this crowd would do . . .”

  “Gay is the new black,” Erica said under her breath. Smart and beautiful, I thought, feeling pity rise up for my brother once again. How does a person get over a woman like her?

  When the boys on the truck spotted Erica, they turned their whistles in her direction and one of them yelled over to her, “That’s more like it, a real woman!”

  Just then, Lisa barreled over to Erica and put her arm protectively around her and yelled to them, “Hey boys, you are you saying you want this young guy right here?” The boys looked stunned as some of the crowd laughed. Erica held her lips together so she wouldn’t laugh, but her true test was when Lisa yel
led, “If you think he’s pretty, you should see his package!” She followed that by grabbing Erica by the crotch and adding, “You guys have great taste in boys!”

  Erica was the superhero now. She stood, Lisa’s hand at her crotch, and simply nodded her head like her package was legendary in these parts, and it was perfectly normal to have someone acknowledge it with a public grab.

  What a woman!

  This proved to be effective since the boy with the camera lowered it, and the truckload of them look sickened as they thought they had been yelling sexual offers to a man. “That ain’t a guy,” one of them said, but he didn’t sound completely convinced, and when Erica took a step toward the truck, the boy pounded on the top of the truck, which must have been a signal to get out of Dodge since the truck lurched forward.

  As the truck started to roll off, Lisa grabbed the guy’s arm and said, “Oh, don’t go, stay for your mother’s next song.” There was legitimate fear in his eyes as he pounded the roof of the cab again and the truck sped off.

  There was an interruption to the song when Gertie said into the microphone, “Thanks Lisa,” and Lisa gave a chivalrous bow as a smattering of applause broke out around her.

  As we turned our focus back to the Gertie, Erica asked, “Your Aunt and Uncle don’t have a clue about the whole transsexual thing, do they?”

  “Nope,” I said.

  “But when Aunt Aggie figures it out,” Lisa said, “we need to be there.”

  That moment came when Gertie’s song ended, and she bent down very low to change the song on her karaoke machine. This was when she revealed her ample nut sack under her mini-skirt; a special treat to the folks lucky enough to secure prime seats on the bench right behind Gertie’s Karaoke machine. Since Dad had inherited the need to grab the best seats for an event, the senior Santora family was lucky enough to be seated in the best view in the house.