Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens

by Tanya Boteju

  “My name’s Deidre, by the way, and you may refer to me as a Lady, Banshee, Sorceress, Warrior, and Fairy Queen. And the less interesting Ms., Ma’am, Woman, She, and Her, I suppose. And girl, I have to tell you—you are the cutest date I’ve had in a while.” Another wafting wink.

  I could easily call her all those things. “Well, Ms.—uh—Fairy Queen? I should tell you that you’re the only date I’ve had. Ever.” Instantly, I regretted revealing such a pathetic fact about myself. The cool, breezy feelings brought on earlier vanished.

  Those eyelashes rose almost to the top of her forehead, and her mouth dropped open. “NO.”

  I looked away, embarrassed, and nodded in confirmation.

  “But you’re adorable. This is a travesty. A travesty, I tell you. It must change, and tonight’s the night!”

  I laughed uncomfortably. Good one, Deidre. But her enthusiasm practically glowed through the sequins on her dress, so I let her think what she wanted to.

  The tent flap burst open and a person dressed in a suit, tie, and fedora announced, “Good evening, everyone! Please have your money out. Tonight we welcome you to an evening of gender-bending bliss! Come right in and find a seat, but beware the ‘splash zone’ up front.” The person grinned as she? he? they? pulled back the tent flap and fastened it open.

  Gender-bending bliss? Splash zone? My brain tried to register on the scale of “Nima’s Naiveté” where this event might situate itself. Above or below pretty punks? On par with gorgeous black drag queens?

  The line began shuffling forward and Deidre took my hand, clasping it to her chest while she hoisted a gigantic velvet handbag more securely over her shoulder. I felt underdressed in my jean shorts and tank top—not to mention my backpack—and I wished my fashion sense were more sparkles and less brown paper bag.

  By the time we passed through the entrance (I simply ignored the sign stating YOU MUST BE EIGHTEEN YEARS OR OLDER TO ATTEND), few seats remained empty, so Deidre pulled me up a narrow aisle toward the front.

  I instantly stiffened and slowed my pace. Surveying the seats populated with colorful, luminous characters, I realized how out of place I was. Seriously. What am I doing here?

  “Maybe we can sit back there?” I pleaded, indicating an area in the farthest back corner where fewer people would see us.

  But Deidre had the opposite inclination. “Oh no, honey—how’s anyone going to notice you if you’re looking at the backs of their heads? We’re going to the splash zone!”

  “But I—”

  “Not another word.” She tugged me forward and found us two seats right smack-dab in the middle of the front-frickin’-row. I assumed they were still empty because everyone else knew something I didn’t, and my shoulders quickly slumped.

  Both of us lugged off our respective bags and sat down on the rickety folding chairs. The air in the tent weighed heavy with heat and made my skin itchy.

  Deidre gave me a long look and asked, “How is it that a lovely little thing like you hasn’t had a date yet?”

  I pressed my fingers into my knees and stared at the stage. “This is a pretty small town, you know.” Also, I’m a pretty pitiful girl.

  “Honey, don’t I know it. You ever make your way up to North Gate? There’s a little more action in my neighborhood. Not much, mind you, but enough to keep a girl like me busy.” Wink-wink.

  “I’m a bit of a homebody, I guess. I don’t get out much.” Her mouth opened to say something, but I anticipated her words. “That’s my problem, I know.”

  Her mouth curled downward into a sympathetic smile. “It’s not a problem that can’t be solved, sugar. Stick with me and we’ll fix it together.”

  As we waited for the show to start, I discovered that Deidre had lived in North Gate for about six years. She shared with me about how she got started in drag, and I divulged my dad’s muumuu-wearing tendencies. I told her a bit about my drama with Ginny, and she reciprocated with a story about her own unrequited love with an older man she’d longed for as a teenager. The more she spoke, the less hot and heavy the air felt. I could tell already that this was someone to hang on to.

  At one point, the hunky-looking guy next to Deidre began chatting her up, and far be it from me to get in the way of that, so I took the opportunity to scan the tent.

  About forty to fifty seats filled the space. A makeshift stage occupied the front, five times bigger than the stage in the punk tent. The decor reminded me of one of those old kaleidoscopes—fractured light from a disco ball and a few stage lights panned the room in a circle, coating everything in diamonds of reds and blues and yellows. Twinkle lights lined the edges of the stage, and painted black walls, meant to serve as the wings, I supposed, stood on either end. One wall boasted a mustache painted in pink, while the other presented a set of thick blue lips. Across the bottom of both were the words TUCKED AND PACKED.

  Hmm. I wondered what Charles would make of all this. I could hear him in my head. Nima, are you sure you want to do this? It’s getting weird.

  He was usually right, and though I still felt like a bland pigeon among a gathering of especially flamboyant peacocks, I did find myself wanting to do this. Wanting to see if I could do it. The night had already brought me so many enchantments—I adjusted my butt in my seat, leaned back, and tried to absorb all the weirdness like it was meant for me.

  Somebody let out a whoop and everyone turned to look. The tent walls at the back ruffled like someone was slapping their hands repeatedly up and down and all around outside. Then more hands, and music began to play—Beyoncé, maybe? The ruffles outside the tent traveled to the sides and then to the front.

  People hooted and hollered, including Deidre. She nudged me and winked for the billionth time this evening. I gave her a confused smile, and she wrapped her sinewy arm around me for a firm squeeze.

  The walls of the tent seethed now, and the flapping made its way to just behind the stage. The music rose and morphed into a techno version of “Stayin’ Alive,” a song I knew well given my dad’s loyalty to the sixties and seventies.

  The crowd’s energy grew into a frenzy, and I wondered where all these people had come from. Looking around, I didn’t recognize anyone, and no one I knew would be dressed like any of them, that’s for sure. Bow ties, sequins, feathers, leather.

  Except that guy standing over there in the corner in plain black baggy jeans and . . . a Rolling Stones shirt. I knew that shirt. Wait, what?

  What the hell is Gordon doing here?

  At the moment, he was staring at the quivering tent, thankfully, and hadn’t seen me. I sank into my chair and tried to hide behind the boa of the drag queen to my right. Sneaking glances between fluttering red feathers, I could see it was definitely Gordon, and he looked utterly horrified. He kept glancing at the woman next to him, who wore a full tuxedo and was practically falling over with excitement. His arms crossed his chest, and he hunched down so low that his long hair hung over his eyes. I leaned forward farther to see if he was with anyone, and just as I blew some feathers out of my face, his eyes met mine.

  He looked away a split second before I did, but I quickly straightened my spine and faced the stage. A stiffness crept into my neck, and I suddenly found it hard to swallow.

  What the feathery frock? Gordon was literally the last person I thought I’d see here. Literally. Hadn’t he called the festival a shithole and said he was leaving?

  I refocused my attention on the stage, and thankfully, it looked like something was about to happen, because the frantic hand-tent-flapping thing stopped. The music continued but kept changing—first a remixed Lady Gaga song, then that screeching sound a record makes when you pull the needle off too quickly (my dad still had a record player, okay?), then some Pink, screech, Janelle Monáe, screech, some song I didn’t know, screech, another song I didn’t know, screech, and then the tinkling piano of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” With each new song, the crowd’s cheering would surge, level out, and resurge—my heart moved back and fort
h with the energy, and between that motion and Gordon Grant, I felt a little nauseous.

  Just as the song broke into its beat, a flap behind the stage burst open and in marched one . . . two . . . six individuals. The crowd erupted.

  Each person wore something spectacular. One floated in with delicate fabric wings attached to their back and an enormous, bushy beard growing from their chin. A dark blue wig fell in heaps off the head of another and trailed behind them like a supernatural wedding veil. Two particularly androgynous souls were squeezed side by side into one silver unitard that had been sewn together from two. From each of these two folks’ genital area extended a plush, blossoming, tissue-paper flower.

  The last two performers were less outrageous but exceedingly attractive. One—an older drag queen—wore a long, lustrous gown engulfed in sequins. She walked haltingly with the aid of two elbow crutches, but the crutches were adorned with dazzling diamonds. Her glamorous hair and dress drew on the classic looks I’d seen in some of the vintage photographs lining the walls at Old Stuff, while the complex tattoos engulfing both her arms rooted her firmly in a more unconventional present. The sick feeling in my stomach eased and I could feel my entire face flush with excitement and awe.

  The last performer slipped in stealthily with his back to the audience. Smartly dressed in lace-up oxfords, fitted black pants, and tight black jacket, this figure somehow saturated the stage with his presence. When he turned, the fedora perched on his head fell low enough to hide his face, but then he looked up, and my heart flopped to one side in my chest.

  It was Winnow, the pretty poetic punk from earlier.

  A classy suit vest and slender black tie completed her outfit, while a light fringe of facial hair bordered her mouth. Her sideburns had grown lengthier too. If she’d been alluring before, she was even more captivating with this slick, masculine look.

  And damned if she didn’t look straight at me when she raised her eyes. I may have imagined it once again, but from the way my legs suddenly turned into Jell-O, I didn’t think so.

  All six figures stood along the edges of the stage, the twins facing left, the winged and wigged looking right, and the stunning queen and Winnow staring straight out front.

  The music faded to silence, and the crowd grew quiet as well. Even Deidre seemed to be holding her breath.

  Slowly, each performer began to tap their left foot in a methodical beat. The clicking grew loud enough to echo across the tent, and as the reverberations of their beat pulsated through the crowd, my own feet impulsively moved along with theirs.

  As the performance continued, my eyes, frantically trying to catch every flick of the wrist, every cocked eyebrow, every toe point, eventually slipped into a blissful stupor and allowed themselves to be mesmerized by the scenes unfolding in front of them, like some fantastical narrative transpiring from the pages of a storybook.

  The rest of the show streamed through my vision—alternately hilarious, sexy, poignant, lewd, and ludicrous—and left me with sweaty armpits, a not completely unpleasant swirling sensation in my stomach, and several moments of breathlessness.

  With each passing moment, I’d get that feeling you sometimes have the moment you’re about to flip the final page of a really good book, when your anticipation for what happens next overwhelms you, but you also know that turning the page means you’re closer to an end.

  This was a story I didn’t want to end.

  Amid the blur of images emerging before me, Winnow’s performance definitely brought my vision into sharper focus. She performed to George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90.” Between Charles’s and my dad’s penchant for music from any era other than the present one, I had several decades of music covered.

  Winnow held the audience spellbound with a slickly choreographed lip sync to the song and an energy that somehow toyed moment to moment with our sense of her. The sideburns screamed masculine, but her soft, shifting limbs and elegant eyelashes spoke all girl. She emanated stillness and exertion, modesty and brashness. And then none of those things but something in between.

  Toward the end of the number, I watched in a haze as she slowly shed the upper half of her clothing until she wore only shoes, pants, and a thin band of hot-pink flagging tape wound several times around her chest. Every part of my body burned with heat and anticipation as she undressed and prowled the stage on her hands and knees, lyrics unspooling from her mouth like silk ribbons.

  My throat clamped shut as she crawled toward me. Leaning over the edge of the stage, her face hovered so close to my own as she lip-synced a few lines and fixed her eyes on mine.

  “I just hope you understand, sometimes the clothes do not make the man.”

  This time there was no mistake. The Jell-O in my legs steadily overcame the rest of my body, and I thought I was going to wobble out of my chair. I wanted to hold her gaze, I really did. But I feared she’d see right through me to the quivering mess inside and realize she was wasting her lyrics, so I dropped my eyes to her hands and watched them slip away from the edge of the stage.

  When I looked up again, she’d focused her attention on an older woman whose mouth opened into an enormous smile. Winnow stepped down off the stage and sat down just at the edge of the woman’s knees. She sang the next few lyrics from there, placing the woman’s hands over her own shifting hips. After a few moments, Winnow stood, swiveled smoothly toward her chosen audience member, and placed a kiss on the back of the woman’s hand.

  That could have been my hand.

  My next breath remained trapped in my chest, and my rib cage cracked from the pressure.

  Deidre reached over and squeezed my knee, but I scarcely felt it. I could barely do anything except try and get that breath out. When I finally did, a sassy geisha peeked through a gap in the pink tape as Winnow disappeared through the back of the tent. The familiar sense of a missed opportunity swept over me.

  One performance followed hers.

  I don’t remember any of it.

  CHAPTER 6

  When the show ended, Deidre wrapped her muscular arm around me once again and gave me a big, lipstick-y kiss on the cheek.

  “Girl! You got your money’s worth tonight, didn’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah. That was . . . awesome” was all I could get out. My tongue felt like Jell-O too. Or something mushier. Pudding.

  “One number in particular, I think, hmm?”

  I sucked in my lips and stared at the ground in front of me.

  “Don’t be embarrassed, lovely! I’m not one for the female types, but even I can appreciate utter sex appeal when I see it in a woman. And that slick George Michael is simply steaming with it.”

  Yeah, that’s the problem.

  “Do you want to meet her? I happen to know people who know people—I’m that connected.”

  Before I could answer, she yanked me out of my seat and pulled me toward the exit behind the stage. I’d almost forgotten about Gordon, but I glanced back now. I couldn’t see him, and I hoped I wouldn’t, but part of me really wanted to know what he was doing there. Another part of me hoped he’d left before seeing me turn into a blob of sticky-sweet gelatin.

  We flapped through the tent to the festive world beyond. The night had warped into a whole galaxy of glinting lights, bobbing heads, and bursts of fire. The moment we stepped out, I felt like I’d plunged into a soaring Milky Way of stars and unearthly matter. Luckily, Deidre still had my hand and guided me through the universe and toward the bonfire.

  I wasn’t sure what time it was, but the party had definitely started. The bonfire raged, its flames leaping high into the night. Crowds of people danced and staggered around the flickering sparks and flares. The rest of the drag-show crowd had also made its way out here—a smattering of feathers and glitz flashed across the scene.

  Deidre pulled me into the masses, and we made our way through like salmon swimming upstream. As she tugged me in a zigzag, my hands became hotter and sweatier. What in the world was I going to say to these people? To
Winnow? What could I possibly have to say that would be even remotely interesting to someone like her?

  Hey, nice show.

  That pink tape looks sticky.

  Does your geisha have a name?

  Cool sideburns. Is that your real hair?

  Would you like some Jell-O? My legs are made of it.

  Good God in glittering gumboots. What am I thinking?

  “Hey, Deidre, I think I should just go home. It’s getting pretty late, and I never really let anyone know where I was going, so—”

  She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face me. “Oh hell no, lady friend.” Grabbing my face in her hands, which smelled like lilacs, she said, “My darling. You’re nervous. I get it.” She spoke loudly over the din of the crowd. “But sweetheart, live a little.”

  Easy for you to say, Queen Deidre. Your “living” probably doesn’t involve tripping over yourself and constant rejection.

  Looking me square in the eyes, she added, “Do you really want to wake up tomorrow not having done this?”

  Depends on the “this.” What if “this” includes being tongue-tied in front of Winnow? Or being ignored by her entirely?

  But something in Deidre’s eyes and sympathetic smile fortified me. I guess she had a point. I might make a fool of myself, but at least I wouldn’t regret it tomorrow. Or maybe I would regret it. But at least I’d know what I was regretting, instead of regretting not knowing what I would have done. Right?

  “Okaaaayyyy. But please don’t leave me alone. Please.” I didn’t mean to sound as whiny as I did.

  She gave me a pitying look. “Sugar, I am not that type of girl.”

  Somehow, I believed her.

  She pinched my chin and continued to tow me behind her, past the bonfire, around to the back of one of the smaller tents, where there appeared to be a separate gathering taking place. Another fire popped and crackled in the middle, with a mix-and-match of chairs gathered around it.