“I… can’t… breathe….”
“Girl Scouts sell cookies in the February, Darren. Door to door. And my bedroom window happened to face the front entrance to the house. So not only did my lubed up twelve-inch dildo get stuck in me, only to be forcibly removed from my ass, breaking a window in the process, it struck a twelve-year-old Girl Scout named Tiffany Moore in the side of the head who was about to knock on the front door to sell us Thin Mints. I knocked down a little girl selling cookies with a dildo, Darren. She had a bruise in the shape of the head of the dildo for two weeks. She apparently went to a Catholic school, too, and had to have that bruise in front of nuns. I felt so bad, that for the next three years, I saved everything I could and bought every single box she had to sell because her mom told me that I needed to find Jesus and the only way to do that would be to buy all her cookies. So I did.”
That set him off again, and I was oddly pleased. I thought it possible that he should always sound like this, like he wasn’t trying to prove anything, that he wasn’t trying to intimidate anyone. It was a nice thought, and I wondered why things couldn’t always be like that. But I didn’t let myself be fooled. This wasn’t him, not really. This was a part of him, sure, but it was buried under the cocky persona I despised for rather shallow and petty reasons, but reasons nonetheless.
“I have nothing,” he said, breath hitching, “nothing that will ever compare to that. I am horrified and in awe of you.”
“As one should be of a drag queen,” I said. “That’s something Vaguyna first told me. That a drag queen was here to entertain, but also to make things as awkward and uncomfortable as possible. And most likely scare you the tiniest bit.”
“She was your mentor?”
“Yeah. My drag mother. Taught me everything she knew. She was one of the best who ever lived, though she wasn’t that well-known outside of Arizona. No one could do a Madonna like her. She never took shit from anyone, either. I saw her kick a Marine’s ass, just for disrespecting her as a lady.”
“What was her real name?” he asked. Then, “I can ask that, right? I’m not breaking some kind of… drag… secret code?”
I was a little taken aback by how nervous he sounded. “No. You can ask that. I honestly can’t remember the last time anyone asked me that. They always just think of her as Vaguyna and not as a man. She was like me. She wasn’t transgendered or a transvestite. She just liked to perform in drag. Uh. His name was Billy. William. William Solomon. He was a nurse at the university hospital for going on twenty years, kind of like your mom, I guess. They all loved him there; almost every one of his shows had a coworker or two at them. This was the late eighties and nineties, too, so it was good to know he was so accepted for who he was.”
“I saw her perform once,” he said.
“You did?” I hadn’t known that.
“Yeah. Years ago. I’d just turned twenty-one, first time out to the bar. She was doing some Cher thing.”
“Oh god,” I said. “I hated that wig on her. She loved it, but I thought it looked like a dead poodle on her head. She told me little baby queens like myself should learn to not be so mouthy.”
“You were there?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Probably. I usually went to most of her shows, even if I wasn’t performing in them. I would have been twenty-four then, I think. Since you’re almost thirty.”
He snorted. “Yeah, you just had to get that dig in, didn’t you.”
“Eh. It’s not bad. You get used to it. Though, you’ll probably just fall apart. It’s what happens to attractive assholes like yourself. You’re on top of the world, then you hit thirty and your hair falls out and you get fat. It’s going to be amazing.”
“You think I’m attractive,” he said. I could hear the smile in his voice.
“What?” I said. “No, I don’t. Shut up. You don’t know me. I would never say that.”
“You called me an attractive asshole.”
“I meant that in the general sense. Not specifically you. Just… general. Like, all the homo jocks.”
“So, all the homo jocks are attractive, is what you’re saying.”
“Exactly.”
“And I’m a homo jock. Or even the king.”
“Right.”
“So, if homo jocks are attractive, and I’m their king… wow. You must find me really attractive.”
“That’s not what I said!”
“Now that’s the secret I should have been told, not that beating a Girl Scout upside the head with a dildo isn’t a good one.”
“I didn’t beat her upside the head—”
“Semantics. If it makes you feel any better, I already knew you found me attractive, so it’s no big deal. I could see it in your eyes.”