“I’m one of the lucky few who’s always known what they wanted to be since they were a kid. Honey,” he says, winking at a guy at a table directly in front of him, “I didn’t just play with Barbie, I wanted to be Barbie!” After a couple of more jokes on this order, our ME tells us to put our hands together and welcome “Miss Lynn Leopold, our own Louisville Slugger!”
Accompanied by a drumroll, out comes a man or woman-I can’t tell. If born a male, Lynn has had his share of hormone treatments because only his jaw seems too firm for him to be taken for a woman. In fact, Lynn is stunning: wearing a red dress slit on both sides, revealing tanned thighs, he or she launches into a credible version of “New York, New York,” and sways back and forth to the music on five-inch red heels. In this person’s eyes throughout the song there is a hurt look that won’t go away. Despite the jaw, she has a pretty face with glittering dark eyes that try to smile. She has a little cleavage (possibly pushed up, but maybe hormones), and as she dances by the table in front of me, I feel the faint stirring of lust. What the hell is going on? I know she isn’t for real. She stops in front of a couple’s table to my right and begins to sing to the man.
In his thirties, bespectacled, bald, he looks as uncomfortable as I’m feeling. His wife, a trim brunette wearing an Atlanta Braves baseball jacket, seems to enjoy it enormously, a story to tell to their friends. (“Bill nearly wet his pants while this beautiful creature came on to him right in front of me!”) Actually, beneath the sickly grin. Bill seems about to turn four shades of red. I notice Lynn doesn’t quite touch him. If Bill is a good old boy, he may have to prove himself somehow, so there seems to be a fine line she doesn’t cross.
Afterward, our ME is back.
“Where is everybody from?” he asks. Familiar with this question-this group looks as if it usually vacations in Branson, Missouri-the audience surprises me by yelling out places like L.A.” San Diego.
Through his gown, our ME scratches his crotch and smiles maliciously.
“Well, that just goes to show if you put too much pressure on the sewer system,” he cackles, “anything is liable to pop out.”
The crowd loves it. A transvestite Don Rickles. The next performer is Marvin the Mambo Queen who does something that is strangely reassuring. An ugly little Latino, Marvin marches out on the stage with his makeup kit, gown, and wig and proceeds to get dressed to the accompaniment of some furious banging by the house percussionist and the keyboard man. Watching this guy, I sense more diversity in the performers than I would have suspected. Were it not still the afternoon, I would be willing to bet my return ticket home that Marvin has a day job and dresses up for entertainment.
As he dons his long black wig, completing his transformation from an ugly Latino into an ugly Latina, I have the feeling that our ME and Lynn take themselves a lot more seriously.
Afterward, our ME brings everyone out on the stage, a total of seven in an array of gowns and dresses, and they parade around as if they were trying out for the Miss America pageant. My eyes are drawn again to the Louisville Slugger. She is more than a female impersonator, her sad eyes proclaim. Finally, the music ends, and except for the ME, who begins to shake hands with some of the couples, they dance off the stage. If Chet has sent me out here to divert me from the real action in Blackwell County, he is accomplishing his goal. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.
As I head for the stairs, the ME calls after me, “Gideon, what’s your hurry?”
I nearly knock over one of the tables in my shock. I haven’t told a soul my name. I turn, and see this big man, his arms bare and ugly folded across his chest covered with taffeta and sequins.
“How do you know me?” I stammer, squinting in the smoky haze that is like the fog bank outside.
He comes toward me, and says in a low voice, “You cross-examined me once. Not bad for a rookie public defender. Search and seizure. You kept a couple of grams out of evidence that day.”
I think back, my eyes stinging in the gloom. Of course. This is Harold Broadnax. Beneath the makeup, the false eyelashes, the mascara, the man’s round face takes on a sardonic expression that I think I recognize.
How weird! He was one tough deputy sheriff. Automatically, I extend my right hand and then feel foolish.
Harold grins and then crushes my hand as if it were a paper sack.
“You’re early,” he says loudly.
“Give me ten minutes to change and we’ll go down to the bar. I got an hour until the next show.”
So off-balance I feel physically disoriented, I mutter, “Sure,” and stand by the entrance trying to assimilate what I’ve just seen. Over in the corner of the stage, the Louisville Slugger has reappeared and is talking animatedly to a good-looking young guy I hardly noticed until now. He places his hand inside one of the slits and moves his hand up her thigh. I watch, transfixed. I wonder if she has had surgery. With his free hand, he begins to gesture wildly, and after a few moments, she turns on her heel and again strides dramatically off stage. Despite my best intentions, I feel cheered by his rejection and catch myself only after I have allowed myself to gloat that the young don’t always finish first. How can I be jealous of a man who comes on to a female impersonator?
The male ego never rests. I’d compete against a dead man if somebody threw his corpse on top of my grave.
Harold comes out the same entrance that the Louisville Slugger disappeared into, and I wonder if they watch each other change clothes. This infantile thought lingers in my brain all the way down the stairs. What is sex? I don’t seem to have a lot of control over my reactions right now. Harold, his baritone voice booming against the walls, says playfully, “I saw you looking at Lynn. She’s been the downfall of many a poor boy.”
“Harold,” I say, finally recovering my tongue, “what in the hell are you doing in San Francisco?” I know I sound a little shrill. Still, I’ve got good reason. How many other ex-deputy sheriffs wear gowns and eye shadow? Maybe more than I know.
“What comes naturally,” he says cheerfully as we enter the bar. He is wearing jeans, an Arkansas Razorback sweatshirt, and Reeboks.
“How’s Chet these days?”
I have been in a gay bar, I realize belatedly, as we turn the corner downstairs. Birdwing just blinks his eyes as we take a seat at the bar. I am not totally unsophisticated (or so I thought) about these things. Skip Hudson, my best friend before he moved to Atlanta last year, is gay, and when he finally came out of the closet, I went to a gay bar with him a time or two.
“Not so good,” I tell him. After what Harold has revealed about himself, there doesn’t seem a lot of room for pretense.
“I don’t know what he’s told you, but he’s dying of cancer.
That’s off the record.”
Harold, his makeup still in place, winces and orders us a couple of beers. I remember now. He beat a guy within an inch of his life who was harassing a friend of his, and Chet somehow got him off. There wasn’t even a trial. Until that incident no one even suspected Harold was gay. He resigned from the Sheriff’s Department, and no one ever saw him again. I guess Blackwell County was about to find out a lot more than it wanted to know about its gay population.
“Damn,” he says soberly, “he was one hell of a lawyer.”
I nod. I’m not sure what he is now though. I look around the bar to try to see if I should have picked up on its identity, but it seems pretty ordinary. There are a couple of Forty-Niner posters on the walls, a TV, even bowling trophies behind the long counter. Mainly there is booze. I am disappointed. I was looking for more atmosphere.
Small talk seems too awkward, so I ask, “You know what we’re looking for?” Harold, without the wig, has a big meat-ax of a face. He is beginning to go bald worse than I am, and he looked better with the mass of hair to distract from his features. I had forgotten how ugly he is.