The Black Flamingo

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,