by Dean Atta
so I can apologize?”
“I’m joking,” laughs Lennie.
“Kim was still asleep when we left.”
Relieved, I hit Lennie with my stack of flyers.
I explain about Drag Soc
and our performance tonight.
They both look surprised but
say they’ll come along.
MICHAEL: Hey, it’s Michael
KIERAN: Hey, Michael! You good?
MICHAEL: Yh. How’s your sister?
KIERAN: Dee is fine.
She just can’t handle her drink
MICHAEL: I never knew you had a sister.
How old is she?
KIERAN: What do you mean, you fool?
You know my EVIL TWIN SISTER!
You did a play together for drama!
MICHAEL: WTF?! SHE’S YOUR TWIN?!
How did I not know that?
KIERAN: I don’t know, man
MICHAEL: Did you know she used to bully me?
KIERAN: I came to see the play. Not gonna lie, I was jealous when you kissed Rowan.
MICHAEL: I saw you at the cinema once.
Moonlight. Do you remember?
KIERAN: Yeah, you were two rows in front of me.
I was watching you more than the movie.
You ran away when you saw me!
MICHAEL: Were you on a date with that girl?
KIERAN: Were you on a date with Daisy?
MICHAEL: No. I’m gay
KIERAN: I was on a date. I’m bi
MICHAEL: Are you single now?
KIERAN: Are you single?
MICHAEL: Yh
KIERAN: Can I see you again sometime?
MICHAEL: Yh
I’m happy about Kieran
but I can’t help thinking
of Destiny
and how she bullied me,
not knowing
her own twin brother
would be the same kind of
sinner.
I think of her apology.
Did she only feel guilty
because it was something
so close to home?
I guess it doesn’t matter.
I’ve already forgiven her,
and now Destiny’s brother
could become my man.
Glitter Ball
How to Do Drag
Your gender matters but should not
limit you. Know your audience; if possible,
see shows at the venue before
you perform there. Know that your audience
wants to be entertained. Know that
you don’t necessarily have to give
your audience or anyone what they want.
Know that your audience makes
assumptions about you, your gender
presentation, and the gender you were
assigned at birth. Your gender is not
what this is about. Remember that
this is a character, it’s gender play
but not necessarily about your gender.
Know what you want to do before
you decide how you want to look.
Get friends to help you. If you don’t
have friends, make some. Watch online
tutorials. Remember eyebrows are sisters,
not twins. Go to makeup counters in
department stores and try their products.
Keep the receipts—they often convince
you to buy more than you need
or will ever use. Know that your skin tone
matters—not just for finding the right
shade of foundation but also for finding
the right tone for your act.
Do NOT do blackface . . . unless . . .
No, just don’t do it. Remember
makeup doesn’t make your drag work,
clothes don’t make your drag work—
your attitude and intentions are what
make it work. Aesthetic isn’t everything
but don’t look a mess . . . unless it’s on purpose.
Do everything with purpose.
Be in control, even if you plan to
make it look like chaos. Read the room.
Be shady but not bitchy. Don’t punch
or kick downward at groups in society
with less power or privilege than you.
Tuck it away, if you want to. Stuff
your trousers with a sock, if you want to.
Wear a chest plate to give you pecs
and abs or boobs, if you want to. Pad
hips and bum, if you want to. Cinch
your waist, if you want to. Shave
or add hair, if you want to. Make none
of the above adjustments if you don’t
want to.
Know why you want to do this.
If you don’t know why,
why the hell are you doing this?
Really, why the hell are you doing this?
Ask yourself the night before,
Why the hell am I doing this?
Ask yourself the morning of,
Why the hell am I doing this?
Ask yourself the whole day
leading up to your first performance,
Why the hell am I doing this?
Ask yourself the evening of,
Why the hell am I doing this?
If you don’t come up with an answer,
what’s the worst that could happen?
A wardrobe malfunction? A tech disaster
with your music or lighting cues?
(Who do you think you are having music
and lighting cues?) You could fall off the stage.
You could literally piss or shit yourself
if you can’t get out of your costume
quickly enough when you need the toilet.
When it’s time to go onstage,
know that you’re not ready but
this is not about being ready,
it’s not even about being fierce
or fearless, it’s about being free.
I don’t have a clue what I’m doing
but that’s not gonna stop me.
What It’s Like to be a Black Drag Artist
(for those of you who aren’t)
It’s knowing when you step onstage,
people will expect you to represent
all black people. It’s being the only
black performer on the lineup, one
of the only black faces in the room.
It’s worrying if a white performer will do
a blackface act. It’s worrying your act
is too black, not universal enough. It’s
worrying you’re not entertaining enough
or fierce enough or shady enough.
It’s giving up worrying about being universal
and being you. It’s doing what feels true.
It’s knowing that doing drag and being trans
are not the same. It’s gender nonconforming.
It’s gender bending. It’s gender ascending.
It’s a performance. It’s not letting anyone
else tell you what your drag means. It’s not
really for the audience. It’s for your liberation.
It’s knowing that after this nothing will be
the same for you. It’s a rebirth.
It’s giving birth to yourself. It’s giving
yourself a new name. It’s giving yourself
a new narrative. It’s not letting anyone
forget your name. It’s Marsha P. Johnson
smiling down on you. It’s an ancestry.
It’s a black queen who threw a brick
that built a movement. It’s building
yourself up from zero expectations.
It’s reviving your history. It’s surviving
the present. It’s devising the future.
It’s Afrofuturism. It’s Afrocentrism. It’s black,
/> black, blackity-black. It’s batty bwoy, sissy.
It’s queer, gay, and faggy. It’s yours
and it’s yours. It’s mine. It’s time to step
out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
I’m finishing my makeup
in the dressing room, everyone else is ready.
I’ve done my whole face
but I’m struggling with
gluing on my eyelashes.
Mzz B says, “Why didn’t you do them earlier?
You should always start with the eyes.”
I snap at them, “That’s easy for you
to say but you never actually taught us
about makeup. You said the makeup
doesn’t make our act.”
“Sure, honey,” says Mzz B,
“but any YouTube tutorial will tell you,
‘You always start with the eyes.’
That’s just the basics.”
“Well, I don’t know the basics!”
I scream. “You were supposed
to teach us the basics, weren’t you?”
“She needs to calm down,”
Mzz B says, turning her back on me.
“Someone give her a hand.”
And I like being referred to
as “her” but I don’t know why.
Katy helps me glue on my lashes
and reapply the eye shadow
I smudged in my previous failed attempts
of lash adhesion.
“You look gorgeous, Mike,” says Katy.
“You look pretty handsome,” I say to her.
I look at everyone in their costumes
and it’s like we’re about to do a play
that we’ve been rehearsing for, separately,
our whole lives.
I’ve not seen anyone else’s act in full
and they’ve not seen mine, either,
and yet we’re about to do this show, together.
Mzz B introduces me
and the audience applauds lightly.
I recognize Sienna’s solitary, “Whoop!”
as I breathe deeply, offstage
in the wings. I see Sienna
and Lennie sitting at the front
as I enter in my borrowed pink
fluffy coat and handbag.
Pink wig and black heels,
the rest hidden for now.
I stand center stage
in the spotlight and say,
“Put on that costume.
Wear what you want.
Where do you think
you’re going dressed like that?
It doesn’t matter
which costume.
A witch costume.
Werewolf. Vampire.
Zombie. Mummy.
Daddy?
‘Where is love?’
Wear his love.
Despair is love
for what isn’t
here anymore,
or never was.
Love is a costume.
Son is a costume
you shrug on and off.
Mum is a costume
she squeezed
herself into, for you.
Dad is a costume
discarded
for other men
to try on.
Maybe it will fit
someone.
Maybe you
might grow into it.
Maybe it might shrink
to fit you, Barbie Boy.”
I decide not to pause for applause
and I continue, “As a young flamingo
I was given pink toys.”
I reach into my bag and
pull out the pink flamingo toy
Mum bought in Cyprus.
“My family loved me,
my color and flamboyance.
My difference was noted, not degraded.
It still made me feel separate.”
I deliver this next part directly to the toy.
“The Black Flamingo looks in the mirror
of the salt lake’s surface and doesn’t
understand why a shadow stares back
at him. He doesn’t look like the other
flamingos around him, he feels foreign
to his own flock, within his own family.”
I put the flamingo toy back in the bag.
“You look amazing, Mike!” shouts Mia,
and I spot where she, Simon, and Jack are.
“I know,” I reply, and the audience laughs.
“I always saw black excellence around me
and online but it didn’t feel like it was mine
because I was not perceived as fully black.
I felt queerness made me even less black.
Being both black and queer,
affirming that I exist,
I am here and I have been here
long before this moment,
the first people were black
and queerness predates its modern meaning.
Queerness predates its derogatory meaning.
Queerness predates colonialism
and Christianity.
Queerness predates any hate attached to it.
I call myself black.
I call myself queer.
I call myself beautiful.
I call myself eternal.
I call myself iconic.
I call myself futuristic.
And you”—I point to Jack—“can call me later.”
I get a massive laugh from the audience.
Jack folds his arms, shrinking in his seat.
I spread my arms
in a gesture to the whole audience:
“You can call me
The Black Flamingo.
I’m going to give you some advice.
I’m going to tell you five things not to say
when chatting up a black flamingo:
Number one: ‘Can I touch your feathers?’
Number two: ‘Is it true what they say about
the size of your wings?’”
The audience laughs again, even louder
this time. I continue, feeling emboldened.
“Number three: ‘I usually prefer pink but . . .’
Number four: ‘I really love the contrast
between us.’
Number five: ‘You know what they say,
once you go black you never go back.’”
Lennie yells, “Tell them!”
Next comes my
burlesque routine.
I perform a strip tease
with my lip sync
to “Back to Black”
sung by Beyoncé.
I suggestively
open and close
the pink faux fur coat
before I let it drop
to the floor.
I snatch off
the pink wig
and throw it
into the audience.
I shimmy
with the feather boa,
then wrap it around
a smiling stranger in the front row.
I slip out of the tutu
and kick it away.
The crowd
goes wild for it. For me!
I stand triumphant
in a leotard and heels,
a full face of makeup
and a beard,
and say my final piece:
“I give thanks to
Adam Lowe, Ajamu X,
Alice Walker, Alicia Garza,
Alvin Ailey, Angela Davis,
Audre Lorde, Bayard Rustin,
Bessie Smith, Big Freedia,
Billie Holiday, Campbell X,
Carl Phillips, Chardine Taylor Stone,
Danez Smith, Dionne Brand,
Diriye Osman, Don Shirley,
Dorothea Smartt, Essex Hemphill,
Frank Ocean, Gina Yashere,
Jackie Kay, Jacob V Joyce,
Jacqueline Wo
odson, James Baldwin,
Janelle Monáe, Janet Mock,
Jay Bernard, Jean-Michel Basquiat,
Jericho Brown, Josephine Baker,
June Jordan, Kayza Rose,
Kei Miller, Keith Jarrett,
Kele Okereke, KUCHENGA,
Labi Siffre, Lady Phyll,
Langston Hughes, Lasana Shabazz,
Laverne Cox, Le Gateau Chocolat,
Lorraine Hansberry, Ma Rainey,
Marsha P. Johnson, Meshell Ndegeocello,
Mia McKenzie, MNEK,
Munroe Bergdorf, Mykki Blanco,
Mzz Kimberley, Nikki Giovanni,
Octavia E. Butler, Opal Tometi,
Patrik-Ian Polk, Patrisse Cullors,
Paula Varjack, Rhys Hollis,
Rikki Beadle-Blair, Roxane Gay,
RuPaul, Rudy Loewe,
Saeed Jones, Samira Wiley,
Sapphire, Skin,
Staceyann Chin, Stephen K. Amos,
Syd, Tarell Alvin McCraney,
Thomas Glave, Topher Campbell,
Tracy Chapman, Travis Alabanza,
Wanda Sykes, Yrsa Daley-Ward,
and of course our very own
‘Em-zed-zed, you can call me Mzz B!’
Your art and activism have inspired me
to stand on this stage and feel free.”
Faces appear one by one
on the screen behind me,
all the people I mentioned.
I gesture toward them
and exit into the wings.
There is a pause
before the applause begins.
Sienna’s whooping is joined
by many more voices
and there’s a huge cheer, as Mzz B
comes on, their photo projected behind them,
to announce the intermission.
I go into the audience
to greet my friends. Sienna and Lennie
say, “Well done!” in unison.
Simon, Mia, and Jack come over,
so I introduce everyone. In heels
I can look Jack straight in the eye.
He asks, “Can we talk privately?”
“Sure,” I say. I sashay toward
the smoking area and he follows.
It’s not so private but at least
we can hear each other here.
“So, what’s up?” I ask casually.
“I’ve thought about you,” Jack says
in a hushed tone and steps closer,
“every day since that night together.
I need to tell you, I’m not straight
and you weren’t the first guy
I’ve slept with. It’s something I say—
I tell guys I’m not gay
to make them want me,
to become a trophy to be won,
it’s a character I play;
it’s my performance and I’m good at it.
Saying I’m straight suits me,
I wouldn’t know how to be gay,
