Sipping Coffee

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My mother is my  hero times two. Yet until I was an adult, I saw neither the strength nor the courage that exits within her.

When I was a child, my heroes were always found in the pages of my comic books; the Fantastic Four, The Avengers, The Adventures of Superman. And while most boys my age wanted to be Captain America, I dreamed of being the Scarlet Witch. As long as the comic books remained open and the comforting figure of my mother sat at the kitchen table reading the latest edition of The Boston Herald, I was invincible. But childhood ends quickly, heroes stay within the ink-colored pages, and I wondered if my mother would grow tired and leave.

The superheroes had alter egos. The Scarlet Witch was also Wanda, but despite looking the same, no one noticed they were the same person. Was it simply because Wanda wasn't wearing a red hat and suit or because the writers decided to make it so? Perhaps it was because people only see what they want to see. I empathized with her divided psyche and the failure of others to notice.

Since then, I have realized that it takes time, knowledge, and a willingness to learn and share before you discover the person within the person.

I still remember the day I told my mother. A coming-out story I'd found in the Glad Day Bookstore, Are You Still My Mother? was beside my bed. As she walked into my apartment, I thought how awful I was to, in one split second, turn her world upside down. I stumbled over the words and when I finally spit them out as if they burned my tongue, I watched her turn into a rubber band in my arms. It seemed as if I'd transferred all the pain of my childhood onto her with one single sentence. She cried for hours and the tissues I kept by the couch disappeared in minutes.

She took the book with her, and I expected the worst. But the next day, she returned with a list of more than twenty questions for me to answer. And so began my mother's education and the shifting of a relationship that has flourished to new levels.

My mother does not belong to PFLAG, nor does she march in gay pride parades with signs declaring her feelings towards me. Instead, when she visits, she sits with every one of my friends and calls them her sons (or at times, her daughters, depending on the time of the year and the outfits they've chosen)  When I joined the ranks of drag queens and began performing in small clubs, she was the loudest in the crowd. My music would start and I would become Celine Dion or Sheena Easton. Then, I'd look up and see my mother jumping to her feet and cheering. It is a memory that is forever etched into my mind.

"Are you his mother?" someone asked her one night during a show.

"Yes, I am," she replied.

Giving her a bear hug, the man kissed her and said, "You look so proud. Good for you."

The baby books could never have prepared my mother for all of the ways she has seen me grow. And I, in turn, have watched a different kind of hero, one who does not need to rescue me every time I'm in danger, but only has to be who she has always been: My mother. Without her, I would have been lost - perhaps a runaway, a junkie or a kid escaping childhood by escaping life. If I hadn't felt confident during my  youth that she would be there to catch and lift me up, I would not be here today.

And when I return home, as I climb the stairs to my old house, she is still there. Quietly sipping her coffee and reading her paper. With one silent smile, she conveys every ounce of pride she feels. And I know, that if she wants to, she can make a hell of a lot of noise.

I Want To Hold Your Hand

When I was a little kid, I held my mother’s hand all the time, and it was that simple show of affection that made me feel safe and secure. One day, when she dropped me off for my first day of kindergarten, she let go and the sense of abandonment still burns in my memory. We walked into the hallway of the Franklin School and she released me into the hands of Miss Valentine (yes, Miss Valentine, how ironic)  - I screamed like it were the end of the world. My mother turned away and walked away from me – she hesitated for a moment, but she never looked back as the tears poured down my face and my lungs grew tired from overuse. Years later, on our trip to Paris, my mom shared with me that the school told her to not hesitate and to keep walking away and whatever she did, to not turn back. She related how her face was just as stained with tears as was my chubby little face. She said that it was the hardest thing she had to do. When I felt her hand leave mine, I felt my world crumble. 

Perhaps that is why the safest and most loved I feel is when someone reaches for my fingers and curls theirs around mine. Long ago, when I fell in love (yes, I am capable of that), the object of my desire and I watched a stupid chick flick, “How to Make An American Quilt,” and although I cannot tell you anything about the movie, what I remember most is when his hand reached over, brushed my arm and found my fingers. We sat in the dark, his touch as real today to me as it was then, and all I thought was how wonderful this one moment in my life was. When it ended with a screaming match on Castro Street, my heart broken in more pieces than a jumbo jigsaw puzzle, seeing those same hands that held mine push me away cut me to the core. Unlike my mother, he not only did not turn back, he told me exactly where to go.

Although I was hesitant, I tried again, and walking around the happiest place on earth, hand in hand, I couldn’t imagine it any better. But, as you may have guessed, that too came to an unexpected and what seems with me, always dramatic end. Yet, perhaps it’s a credit to my mother, knowing that her love has never left me, that I want to rediscover the simple show of affection she instilled in me so long ago. Years later, as we walked around the streets of Paris, it was my turn to make my mother feel safe. This time, with her arm entwined with mine, it made me happy to be the comfort to her that she’s always been to me.  Perhaps one day, I’ll be that to someone special as they reach for my hand, but I know that even if it’s a long time in coming, I will remember that that feeling does exist. 

And like my mom and I on the streets of Paris, it will make me smile.  

  

Introduction

I'm toying with rewriting my short story collection again - this was my introduction to my original work - it still rings true. Especially, because, as theme of these stories suggests - I may be alone - but I am never lonely.

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Imagine how boring a party would be if no one was talking and the only way you could get to know someone was for the host to hand you a description of each guest. You wouldn’t be able to feel the sense of community among people without listening to the conversations between them. I’ve left too many parties where no one was talking. Besides being of little use for story ideas, they were just plain boring.

In fact, I often sit in bars and eavesdrop because I love listening to people. I pick up snippets of dialogue that I can incorporate into my stories, sometimes even thinking of entire plots based on one conversation. I not only listen, but also watch how people talk. The way they move or gesture to make a point are actions that help animate the characters I create.

It’s interesting that when a person walks away from a group, there’s a comment made when he’s barely out of earshot. A friend of mine once told me to count to ten when someone leaves. After all, “A lady never talks about someone right away.” That’s one remark that has yet to make it into one of my stories, but it’s ripe with possibilities.

Without fail, every conversation in a gay bar revolves around sex. There are jokes made on who finds which man more attractive than another. There are comments on who looks butch and who looks like a drag queen, as if they can tell a drag queen by the way the person appears outside of a dress. Many probably think they can, since the drag queen of traditional gay fiction is portrayed as a bitter man on the verge of self-destruction, or as an outrageously flamboyant character who can make no secret of his femininity.

In the stories I’ve read, these men are lonely, outcasts in a world that claims to be accepting of all lifestyles. However, my drag queens are not characters who carry switchblades in their purses and work the street corners turning tricks. They don’t sit in bars, drunk and smoking too many cigarettes. Nor do they teeter on the verge of suicide because they were born male instead of female. Drag empowers my characters to be stronger than the lovers who leave them. Surprisingly, drag enables them to walk away from the men who, ironically, desire them only because they create the ultimate illusion.

Whenever someone sees a drag photo of me, they usually ask why I do it. I’ve realized over the years, that the reason is very similar to why I write. Both are creative outlets for me. When I put on make-up, I invent a larger than life person. I create the look and the talk, as well as how the person I become interacts with others. It allows me to play with people’s minds. I attempt to take someone’s perception and shift it for the brief moment they meet me.

The ultimate goal, with drag, and with writing, is for everyone involved to have fun. In drag, I pose with people I meet on the street only long enough for them to take a picture. Readers of my short stories meet my characters for a brief moment as well. I want the people I create to stay with them just as a picture of my alter ego would stay in their photo album.

Writing stories and scenarios based on my experiences is also an inexpensive form of therapy. I can create a man based on myself, change the past, and even have him retort with the perfect snappy comeback to a lost opportunity. My characters are also a mix and match combination of people I’ve met, either as acquaintances or good friends. By writing, I can satisfy my curiosity as to what would happen if a certain person were in a situation with another. 

I do, however, have to admit that I’m not one of those writers who carry a journal with me. I rely on my memory, especially when it comes to remembering dialogue. Bits of conversation I hear on the street stay with me for days. Even if it’s as quickly as listening to someone on a public phone before I cross the street. But, I’m not alone in my interest. Everyone involuntarily eavesdrops. Whether it’s at lunch, in the checkout stand, in the ATM line, or in the doctor’s office, people love to listen to someone else. I just do it deliberately.

When something I’m saying doesn’t sound right, I stop and start over. It’s the same whenever I finish a story, or a scene that is driven by dialogue. If the words sound funny or forced, I catch it by reading out loud and listening to the flow and rhythm of the conversation. If a person wouldn’t talk the way the words sound, then the dialogue needs to be reworked. For instance, people don’t talk in long paragraphs. They make a point by gesturing, taking a sip of a drink, or rolling their eyes.

Once, a writer in a workshop I attended was reading his story to the group. His main character was delivering a speech, and the author was running out of breath as he read the piece. He tried to finish, but then stopped, apologized, took a deep breath, ran his hand through his hair, and continued. It’s that action that should be incorporated into the character. I don’t like to sit and listen to someone ramble on for twenty minutes without taking a breath. That’s something I don’t expect my readers to enjoy, either.

One thing that I don’t enjoy is being assured by one of my friends that he has found me the perfect man. Usually, during the first half hour of this blind date, we run out of things to say. Attempts at conversation are met with yes or no answers, and to me, that conversation is vital. I don’t even agree to meet a man I’ve chatted with over the Internet who can’t talk in complete sentences.

What I enjoyed most about writing this work, is that the stories served as a type of journal for me. Delving into my own past allowed me to breathe life into these men. There are snippets of my conversations with friends. Scenes from my childhood. Attempts at love. And my adventures in drag.

Above all, I am like the characters in this book, unwilling to compromise who I am to find the perfect lover. Like them, I am surrounded by my friends, and, on occasion, a lover. At times, though I am with all of these men, there are moments when I feel alone—but I am never lonely.

I Bet I Can Guess

Anyone who has read my blog has probably picked up on the fact that my getting older has really made me appreciate my family more than ever. When I was younger, I hardly understood myself, let alone what made my relatives tick. However, through all my adolescence, there is one member of my family who, for years now, I’ve been able to share every aspect of what I was going through in my life. That person is my cousin, Donna who comes to visit me later this week. (And for the record, since everyone asks how we are related – our grandmothers were sisters.)

We’re a scarce nine years apart, but when you are young, that age gap is tremendous. For as many days as I spent over her house when I was a kid – she was this mysterious girl who flitted in and out while I spent time with her younger sister. She’d be off on dates, disco dancing, going to work, living a life I couldn’t imagine. We’d be in the kitchen making ice cream sundaes or watching TV and in would walk this girl who seemed to be so far removed from my life. As the years went by and I somehow couldn’t grasp the fact that I liked boys - despite dreaming about her boyfriend and pretending he was my pillow – I still found the age difference to be such a canyon between us.  I danced with her at her wedding, looking up to this woman who seemed so far ahead of me in everything – life, love, independence and education to name just a few. As I graduated college she helped me in my new and uncharted world. In fact, our very first dinner together – just the two of us –at the now defunct, Michael’s Grand Cru in Lynn, was not far from where she had her wedding reception. 

What did we talk about that night? I can’t remember, but I do know it was just the surface of my life – for my secret about boys weighed heavily on me. It was something no one knew, a clandestine topic that back in the early 80s was one that, once let out, caused fear or revulsion in many people. Where would I be if this woman that I so highly regarded and held in such esteem rejected me? No one in my family knew what I was going through and even when I moved to San Francisco in 1990, my “other” life was firmly behind the closet door. Of course, there were the whispered suspicions.  Where was his girlfriend, who does he know in that city by the bay? But, being 3,000 miles away, I could safely avoid the answers. My mother was the only one who knew – and together, as the atmosphere towards gays and lesbians was one of scorn and ridicule, we kept quiet. I disconnected from many, but as the age of electronic mail took hold (yes, I am that old - e-mail was not around when I first moved to California) – Donna and I remained in contact with each other. But our mails, like all of our dinners, only skimmed the surface.

And then one day, she was coming to the Bay Area for a conference. Alone, without her husband, she asked if she could spend a few days with me. Without hesitation, I said yes, but deep inside, I was terrified – how could I hide who I was in San Francisco? I lived in the Castro with two other gay men, my friends were drag queens (I had not yet summoned the courage to debut Shanda Leer) and there was no escaping the company I kept. For days, I agonized over what I should do. In the hours that proceeded that night – I have never been so nervous. Except for my mother, this was the only “coming out” scenario I planned. Because, back then, you “came out,” you found the right time and place to share who you were, and if you were lucky, the right words were said and the love was still there. 

As the work day came to a close and I drove to pick her up at her hotel, my palms were wet with nervousness and I could hardly breathe. There she was in the lobby, dressed in her little pink cowboy boots and perfect outfit. We drove to the restaurant and throughout dinner, we skimmed the surface of so many topics, with the one that I knew I had to approach weighting heavy on my mind. My usual ravenous appetite was nonexistent and I could feel the perspiration seep through every piece of clothing. 

Finally, it was time for dessert and we decided on spumoni. Maybe, I thought, the chill of the Italian ice cream would cool my feverish head. With my stomach in knots and the coffee before us, I simply said, in a chocked whisper, “I have something to tell you.”

“I bet I can guess,” she smiled coyly.

“Great, you do that,” I blurted out.

“Oh, no,” she laughed taking a bite of the dessert. “You have to tell me.”

And like I did years before with my mother, my hands shook, tears filled my eyes and my voice cracked as I feared the confession would destroy everything between us. And, then, it was over – my napkin soaked, the ice cream melting on the table in front us and her hand on mine telling me that it was alright – that nothing had changed between us, and that this was, in fact, going to be okay.

I don’t know how long we sat at dinner – I only remember the ice cream melted and that day was the first in our new relationship. From that moment on, we no longer stayed on the surface but dived with our heads first, fathoms deep into our lives. Today, there’s nothing she doesn’t know about me. From the pain of failed attempts at relationships, to the joys of drag, together over the years, we’ve laughed and cried all the while never, in all these years, running out of things to say to one another. 

That nine year difference is inconsequential now – and, I think, in a way, has made us even closer. And, though, I jokingly tell her that we are only in the same decade of age only once, we still feel as young as those two people who had that first dinner so long ago. A closeted boy and his much revered cousin have become so much more – we’ve become best friends. So this weekend, there will be, for sure, more stories to share, more tales to tell about life, love and our crazy but loving family. We’ll discover something new about each other and reminisce about times past and those that we have lost and loved. 

And without a doubt, we’ll have to tell someone that our grandmothers were sisters, but this time, at dinner, instead of coffee, I’ll order us some martinis and maybe, just maybe, I’ll ask if they could serve us a dish of spumoni.

In A Mirror

Watching Dame Shirley Bassey kill it on the Oscars last night made me think of the story that opened my short story collection. Enjoy.

 

In a Mirror

            “Someday, you’ll do your own face and you won’t need me anymore,” Roberto says, smearing my face with base. One thing he knows is that I can’t apply my own make up. He’s been my creator for years and loves to hear me say how much I need him. I call him my fairy godmother.

            “I make you more beautiful every time I do this,” Roberto announces, with a wave of his imaginary magic wand. “Look and see.” He turns my head towards the mirror.

            “Certainly not Cindy Crawford, but close enough for a drag queen.” My green eyes stare eerily back at me from my base-covered face. “I’m too pale, aren’t I? Maybe, I should go out like this and really scare the shit out of them.”

            “You’re impossible.” Roberto jerks my head back, squinting his eyes and crinkling his nose. “I haven’t powdered you yet. Don’t forget, you’ve got to be extra glamorous tonight.”

          

  Extra glamorous is right. I have new songs, new costumes, and I finally saved 

enough money to fly my mother out to watch me perform. Roberto arrived one hour earlier than usual this evening to make me perfect.

            “I passed out a ton of flyers about the show today,” he says rummaging through his make up bag. “Where the heck is that new eye shadow?” He can’t find what he’s looking for, so he stuffs his face into the bag. “Even old what’s-his-face took a flyer.”

            “Who’s what’s-his-face?”

            “That cute man you dated for a while, the one you used to say looks like that bully from high school.” Roberto puts the bag down and swipes his hand to the bottom of it. “What’s-his-face.”

            “Not Bruce?” I feel my color drain under the foundation.

            “Bruce. That’s his name.” Roberto’s hand emerges triumphantly with the color. “I was just standing on the corner and he actually said ‘hi’ to me. He never even says ‘boo’ when I see him, so it took me by surprise. Well, I take that back, maybe he was horny. He always talked to me when he was horny.” Roberto opens the eye shadow. “I swear, if you hadn’t dated him, I’d do him. Now, close your eyes.” 

“He used to hate me in drag. Jesus, do you really think he’ll come?”

            “Oh, will you relax? Don’t be getting your hopes up. Even if he is into chicks with dicks now, doesn’t mean he’ll call you again. Stop squirming. I don’t want you being messy.”

            “I’m relaxed,” I lie. The day Bruce knew I was a drag queen was the day he ended our relationship. It was foolish to think his attitude towards me had changed. But as long as I was pretending to be a woman tonight, why not go a little further? 

“I know what you’re thinking. Stop it. It’s not healthy.”

“What?”

“I know that look. If you don’t concentrate on your performance you’re going to fuck it up.” 

“Well, at least if I forget the words to my songs, I’ll look pretty doing it.”

            Roberto swipes the brush applicator across the shadow. “Stop twitching,” he orders.

 “You won’t forget anything. And I’ll make you ugly if you don’t forget I mentioned Bruce. Just to be safe, I’ll even say a few Hail Mary’s before you go on.”

            “If you do, could you recite it in Spanish? Otherwise, pick another prayer.”

          

            When I was kid–during the summer months–I would reluctantly accompany my mother on the weekly trips to her mother and sister’s house in the Irish neighborhood of Boston called ‘Southie’. I dreaded those Thursday morning visits more than going to gym class, but I couldn’t skip out on them. Unlike Physical Education, there was no way to avoid seeing my cousins.

            My grandmother was always smoking when we arrived. I could never tell if it was her second or third of the morning–the pack was already open and the ashtray full of extinguished butts. She and my mother made polite conversation as they waited for my grandfather to arrive home from his night shift job at the post office.

Nana’s philosophy was that boys weren’t meant to hang around the house, so every week, I was banished outside to play with my cousins. Before I went, however, I managed to stick around to eat the only chocolate honey-dipped donut that we bought as part of the weekly breakfast offering.

I tried making that donut last as long as a five course meal, but ultimately it lasted about as long as it took Nana to smoke another cigarette. I went out to face her other grandsons–her ‘have a good time’ still rings mockingly in my ears. 

            Now, it was late afternoon, the sun still strong enough to melt the dog shit that littered the sidewalks. My older cousin Thomas and his gang of friends blocked the path to my grandmother’s house. 

            “You wanna cross the street, fairy? Then get on your knees and let me hear you pray.”

            Thomas had just turned sixteen and already tipped the scales at 200 pounds. I’d managed to avoid him all day, playing instead at the beach, listening to the waves and smelling the low tide. He reissued his order.

“I said, let me hear you fuckin’ pray.” 

            I stuttered and found my voice. “Hail Mary, full of --”

“He’s actually gonna do it,” an unrecognizable voice said from behind him. Then, my cousin Keith.

            “He said on your knees, you little fag.”

            I turned to escape back to the beach. My third cousin, Gary, was suddenly behind me.

            “Where you goin’? Nana’s house is that way,” he smirked, pointing towards my salvation. “Let’s start again, Hail Mary...”

            I ignored the hot pavement as it burned my knees, and I inhaled the stench of the shit. My concentration was lost. I couldn’t remember the words. I closed my eyes and the tears stung as I tried to hide them. The flies that had landed on the dog crap buzzed in front of my face. My voice cracked and I imagined myself in the stifling heat of a confessional. 

            I finished my penance. 

            “You tell your mother what happened, fairy, and I’ll kick the shit out of you. 

Understand?” Thomas’ black eyes seared into me as I got up off my knees. I stared into his belly, hoping I wouldn’t be as fat as him when I reached his age. My younger cousin pushed me towards the sidewalk.

            “You can cross now. Think it’s time for dinner. Let’s go eat.”

            “I’m starved,” Thomas said, winking at his brothers. “I skipped breakfast. There’s never any good doughnuts left when the fairy comes to visit.”

            One year, there was a small cake when my birthday fell on a Thursday. It wasn’t home made–I saw the Sara Lee box in the trash can. The ten candles were shoved into the near frozen frosting. Nana didn’t even remember that I was twelve. I closed my eyes, and made a wish. When I opened them, my grandmother’s cigarette smoke mingled with the trail from the now extinguished candles. Thomas, Keith, and Gary still sat across from me. No answer to the silent wish.

            Prayers. Wishes. They’re all the same. Neither one seemed to help my mother much either. Her greatest wish was to have a boy. Mom checked into the hospital at 4:30 p.m. on Friday the 13^th, and I was out and in the world by half past five. I joke with her, saying the day gave us a good compromise on the boy-girl situation.

“All that nudging you used to do in there,” she said to me years later. “You kicked me around the clock. I couldn’t even sleep without you moving around.”

            Guess I didn’t like what I saw in there. I haven’t been inside a woman since.

            “What are you laughing at?” Roberto scolds me. “You’re squinting your eyes. Now I’ve got to redo this one. What’s so funny?”

            “Nothing, doll. I’ll behave.”

            Roberto studies my face. He cocks his head to the left and then to the right, while he sticks his tongue out and runs it across the tiny wisp of a mustache along his upper lip.

            “I don’t like this color,” he announces. “It’s too coppery. You look like a penny. I’m going to go back to the black and white shadows.” He reaches for the sponge wedges by the mirror and wipes off the offending eye color. “I don’t want your mother thinking I’m a lousy make-up artist. She’ll hate me before she even meets me.” 

            It still takes me by surprise that I don’t look like my mother when Roberto finishes his handiwork. I’d like to say the woman I see is just me in Technicolor, but I think I must resemble my biological grandmother. She was Lithuanian, long gone before I was born. I found out years later that I had no blood connection with the Nana we’d spent visiting on all those summer afternoons. 

“You mean, we’re only half cousins?” I asked, suppressing my delight when my mother finally told me her greatest secret. 

            “Well, yes, since their mom’s my half sister. My parents were divorced when I was three. Dad married Nana a few years after that.” She curled her suddenly sweaty hand around mine. “Those days, they didn’t give custody to the father. Aunt Nancy took care of me.” Mom’s other hand clenched a tissue. Her fist was like a heart beating. “Every so often, my real mother would come around. She always smelled like vodka and cigarettes.” 

She closed her eyes as if the light from the window had momentarily blinded her, and then spoke softly, whispering more to herself than to me. “It always caused a huge commotion when she was there. My father would be yelling at her. She’d be screaming at him. My Aunt Nancy would rush me out of the room. I could hear the fighting even outside.” 

            She tried to smile. “After he remarried, I didn’t see my mother until I was ten. All that time, Nana just told me I was a good for nothing Lithuanian. Even up until I was sixteen, she didn’t let up. I used to call myself the South Boston Cinderella.”

            I held my mother’s hands. They were icy cold. I gripped them harder, trying to warm them. “Seriously? What’d she do? Make you clean the floors?”

“Just about. I wasn’t worth much in her eyes. Once, she slapped me across the face so hard my lip wouldn’t stop bleeding. I don’t even remember what we argued about, I think maybe I stayed out too late. Since I was always so clumsy, she told Grandpa I fell down the stairs. I didn’t dare say a thing.”

Her fingers tightened over my hands. “I got used to it, didn’t care after a while. You couldn’t mistake me for Irish, not with her and my father’s kids next to me. The more she called me names, the more it reminded me of who I really was. My father was my only saving grace. Since he’s gone now,” she paused. “There’s no reason to go over there anymore.” Then, she laughed. Quietly. Surprisingly. “When your father proposed to me, I showed her the engagement ring. She told me it was a piece of shit, and that I should wear it,” she tapped the side of her nose twice, “right here, so people would notice it.”

She sat with me for several hours that day, relating these stories of her childhood, hardly stopping to take a breath, as if she were afraid that pausing would make her lose her courage. When she was done, she looked at me, searching my eyes for understanding or acceptance, perhaps both. When I told her that she made me happy just because she granted my wish not to be Irish, she sat back, winked her eye and tweaked my nose.

“You little piece of shit,” she said.

“Shit,” Roberto says looking over my shoulder.

“What, did you mess the eyes up again?”

“No. I think I forgot the lip liner.” He moves the cosmetics around on the table. 

“It’s sticking out of your pocket.”

 “Oh. Sometimes I’m such a blonde.”

“Sometimes?” I laugh.

“Don’t go there, girl, or I’ll smear your lipstick.”

That’s something I wear more of than my mother ever has in her sixty years. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I started and wound up three nights a week lip synching to Barbra Streisand and Shirley Bassey’s Greatest Hits.

It was probably when Roberto and I became friends–never lovers–just instant sisters. He was a big drag queen then.  Dolled up every weekend it seemed, until he just gave it up one day. I ask him continually if he’ll join me on stage at least once, but like tonight, I always get the same response.

“When you stop looking pretty, that’s the day you stop. I was never that good.”

“Sure you were,” I defend, like a true sister, but Roberto was dead set against getting back into a dress. “Once a drag queen, always a drag queen.” I chide.

              “Yes, yes, but I was strictly an RTV.” That stood for recreational transvestite, a term which ceased to apply to me when I stepped out on stage for the first time. Roberto snatches the pencil from his pocket and starts sharpening it. “I’ll do it if you wear this great beaded gown I saw at Macy’s.” 

“No way, beaded makes me look fatter than my Aunt Nancy with her human maraca arms. Besides, I can’t buy off the rack, anymore.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Thang,” Roberto laughs. “Look up,” he instructs stretching his lips and pointing the sharpened pencil towards mine. “I almost forgot. Anita Martini is a big star now.”

Anita Martini, that’s me, the “star attraction”. Roberto christened me one night when I loudly declared my need for one more cocktail. Suddenly, I realized he’d turned the conversation away from himself. He grinned and traced my lips with the pencil.

“Don’t say anything. You’ll mess my work.”

I wish I knew when I was a kid that staying silent would give me some extra cash. If I could’ve lip synched on the streets of South Boston and in high school– when the names reached their peak–maybe the humiliation would’ve disappeared.       

     Once in gym class, Papalardo, who I tried my hardest not to dream about late at night, was elected co-captain for the football game, along with David, my former best friend from grammar school. I waited to be chosen for a side, my eyes searing holes in the ground. Finally, there were just two of us remaining, and I kept my gaze riveted on the girl’s feet next to mine. They were stuffed into a size five sneaker, the sides straining against the pressure, the laces threatening to untie themselves. 

Papalardo looked over at us, surveying us like we were the last slab of day old meat at the deli counter. “Just girls left,” he spat to David. “You choose.”

            I prayed silently, anticipating David’s answer. My eyes tied and untied the shoelaces.

          

 “Debbie.” 

            It was later, after the softball was headed directly into my chest that Papalardo sneered at me. “Did you catch the ball, sissy, because you were afraid it was going to hit you?”

            All the pride I had in ending the inning evaporated. I tossed the ball at his feet and ran to the dug out.

            It didn’t take much to get Papalardo to touch me, and I admit there was a certain thrill knowing that the only way it would happen was when he was beating the shit out of me. Whatever the reason-the way I walked or because he cheated off my paper and I had the wrong answers-the confrontations never surprised me. One day, after I was left picking up the pieces of my Captain America book covers, he and his henchmen wiped their hands on their jeans and calmly walked away.

            “Why’d you go and beat him up, Pap?” his accomplice asked.

            “He pisses me off. The faggot looks at me funny.”

“Look straight at me,” Roberto instructs, holding one of my fake eyelashes. “I wish you knew how to put these on. It’s the only thing I hate to do.” 

“I suppose I could learn. But what if I don’t need you anymore?”

“Oh, don’t start that again.” Roberto applies the glue to the lash and sticks the fake on top of my own. “Ugh, these piss me off,” he says as the lash sits haphazardly on my lid.

“Why don’t we skip them tonight?”

“Anita, all the mascara in the world won’t show your own lashes under those lights. Give me a second.” He adjusts the fake. “There. One down. I’ll learn to get these on right the first time yet.”

“Practice, practice. Just like you told me the first time I wore pumps.” 

“You were born in pumps. No one had to teach you.” Roberto takes a step back. “Jesus, I’m dying for a cigarette.”

“Not in here, you’ll set my hair on fire.” I blink my eyes. 

“You don’t have to test them. I’ve got so much goddamn glue on those lashes, they’re not going anywhere.”

“I wasn’t testing them.”

“You were too.” We both start laughing. “This” he says sucking in his cheeks. I obey and Roberto brushes my face quickly with the Wild Raspberry blush. “Fabulous. You should look so good as a boy.”

I agree with him. I’m thirty seven and there’s not a crows foot in sight. Hell, I can still pass for twenty-four. Roberto says its because of the moisturizing make-up remover.

            “Do you really think I’m that young?” I asked a guy once after we played the age game one night in a bar.

            “Why shouldn’t I?” He handed me a beer. “So, tell me something interesting about you.”

            “I’m a big old drag queen.”

            “You are not.”

            “Why would I lie?”

He took a step back and looked at my face.

“It comes off,” I added, rubbing my beard.

            Son of a bitch still came home with me.

            Roberto plops my already styled wig on my head, pokes at a few banana curls and then surveys his handiwork one last time. He pats the tiny bead of sweat that dares to materialize on my forehead, and then blows me a kiss. “You really are too beautiful,” he repeats. “Have a great show. Where’s your mother sitting? Should I check up on her?” 

            “I got her a table up front. You’ll recognize her, she doesn’t look a thing like me.”

            “Very funny. I’ll just stay in the back. You can introduce us later.”

            Roberto reaches for his cigarettes.

            “Out.” I point to the door and toss him a book of matches. I don’t smoke but I’ve accumulated a hundred matchbooks. “I’ll see you after the show.” 

            “Break a heel, Anita.” 

            Roberto shoves the cigarette between his teeth and waves it up and down. I mouth a silent good-bye to his reflection as I take another look at myself in the mirror.

I lack a sense of comfort with my new song set, plus I’m distracted by who will be in my audience. For a moment, I imagine Bruce. I’ll thank him for coming and he’ll say it’s nice to see me. Then Papalardo. I’ll look at him, bat my eyes and pucker my lips. He’ll offer me a tip and I will walk over to him and whisper if he really likes it when the boys look like girls. I’ll see Irish Nana sitting in the back row with her grandsons. I’ll tell her there’s no smoking while I’m on stage, then ask her to describe what a goddamn Lithuanian really looks like. I’ll blow my cousins a kiss, nod my head and then launch into my new song, Shirley Bassey’s ‘My Life’.

“Funny, how a lonely day, can make a person say, what good is my life? Till I look around and see this great big world is part of me and my life.”

My dressing room is quiet. I take a deep breath, smooth the front of my gown, stand up, and press play on the CD machine. I listen to Shirley’s loud, brash diva voice.

            My own soars above the recording.