“You a regular?” I asked him from across the cracked vinyl booth.
Charlie shrugged. “You could say that. This place has been around for a few decades. Vaguyna and I used to come here after her shows.”
I blinked in surprise at the mention of Vaguyna again. “You did?”
He nodded as he sipped his tea. He’d forgone his leather jacket (fortunately, seeing as how it was approaching triple digits outside) but had a leather cuff on each wrist and a piece of leather hanging around his neck on a silver chain. He looked comfortable in his skin, which always made me happy. “We’d sit right here or thereabouts. She’d still have her makeup on and a feather boa wrapped around her shoulders.” He smiled quietly. “People always thought by looking at her that she’d be loud, and sometimes she was. She was a drag queen, after all. But when we came here, it wasn’t about that. She was quiet. Almost… contemplative, I guess. They used to have these old mahjong tiles, and we’d play until the sun came up. She needed it, I think, to shed the Vaguyna persona.”
I sighed dreamily. “That sounds wonderful.”
“She was trans too, you know.”
I nodded. “I figured as much. The pronouns. You always refer to her as her. Sandy does too.”
“Though back then, you were more likely to hear it called transsexual or cross-dresser. It got better toward the end. Not by much, but it did.” He shook his head. “Some queens didn’t like her because of that. They said she was an insult to the art of drag. They had this fool notion in their heads that drag culture was supposed to be men performing as women and nothing else. You know what she told them?”
“Hopefully to fuck off. Drag kings exist too, after all.”
He grinned, his face craggy and wonderful. “A little more colorful, if you can believe that.” He fiddled with the handle to his mug. “I was very lucky when she took me under her wing. I was much older than most of the other people there, but like a baby deer on wobbly legs. She watched as I fucked my way through half the people in the bar before she told me that was quite enough.”
“Cracked that whip, did she?” I teased.
He laughed. “It was… good. Those years. Hard, but good. I felt guilt a lot of the time. I’d had a family. Kids. I thought I was betraying some part of myself, though I’d felt the same when I played the role of the semifunctional heterosexual. It was a catch-22.”
“How’d you get past it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know that I ever really did. It took a long time for me to learn to love myself. Vaguyna played a large part in that, but she couldn’t do it all. She understood that I needed to grieve and allowed me to do so. I still have days when I think I did the wrong thing. Days when I wish things could be different. But then I look around and I see you kids and everythi
ng you’re doing and I think it’ll be okay.”
I reached across the table and took his hand in mine, squeezing tightly. “We’re lucky to have you.”
“You’re damn right you are,” he said gruffly. “These days, young people don’t seem interested in hearing the stories of who came before them and fought for them to have the freedoms they do now. They’re all focused on their phones and who they’re going to fuck next.” He pulled his hand away. “Not all, of course. You and Paul and Sandy and Darren and Vince don’t seem to mind having an old fart around.”
I was struck by something that hadn’t occurred to me. I didn’t know why I’d never thought about it before. “What do you think about coming into Phoenix House? Maybe talking to some of the people there?”
He looked surprised. “Me?”
“Sure. I think it’d be great for them to hear from you.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know that I’d have much to say.”
I shook my head. “I think you do. It wouldn’t have to be for long, and I bet they’d have a ton of questions for you. Kind of like bridging the gap, right?”
“I’ve got a busy couple of weeks coming up,” he said. “The Leathermen of Tucson are holding their annual Mr. Leather contest at the bar. I gotta be there for that.”
Ah, yes. Charlie’s other life. He wasn’t just a staple at Jack It. He was a towering figure at Build-a-Bear Sweat Shop. Sandy had been a couple of times and said Charlie was treated like a god there. I was curious about it, but not enough to work up the courage to actually go inside. I would be picked out as a fraud the moment I stepped in. “How’s that going?”
He shrugged. “As it usually does.”
“So lots of men in chaps, then.”
He laughed. “Sounds about right.”
“Whenever you’re ready, and only if you want to. I’ll be there all summer, so if you do want to come in at some point, just let me know. I can get it set up.”
“Can I think about it?”
I smiled at him. “Of course you can. And you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m not going to lie and say they don’t make me want to pull my hair out most days. They can be little shits.”