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Here's the short story I'm turning in today for my Creative Writing workshop. It sucks, I know, but I just started it three hours ago.
Queen Victoria
Nick Gloras swallowed the last two finger-widths of his generic scotch, wincing slightly as it burned its way down his throat and started bubbling in his stomach. The pilot had just announced their descent, and on cue the plane had started to list slightly to the right, circling around to land at Miami International. The last dying rays of daylight were burning through the tiny windows of the crowded 757, and for just a brief moment, Nick thought that the plane was on fire. It’s not that he hated flying – on the contrary, he rather enjoyed the feeling of shooting through the sky like some mythological bird. It’s just that this time, the destination was far more intimidating; he was eager for the whole ordeal to be finished.
As he waited at the baggage claim for his three enormous suitcases to pinwheel out from beneath the vinyl flaps, he looked around at all of his fellow travelers. It was mostly good old American families: stone-faced fathers lost in the complex maze of gates and security checks, with their petite wives and upstanding children towing behind them like the tin cans of a wedding car. But then there were the other usual suspects: business men in expensive two piece suits with messenger bags slung over their shoulders, foreigners from colder climates who came to soak up a the famous Florida sunshine, and old people. Hundreds upon hundreds of old people, shuffling from one plastic seat to the next, trying to make it to the sliding glass exits, but having to stop and rest for just a moment; blue hair and balding scalps as far as the eye could see. God, please take me before I get that old, Nick thought grimly.
He hated old people. He hated anything old, really. Mostly he hated the fact that no matter what, the clock keeps ticking, and there’s only so much time left before it runs out. For him, life was an hourglass which was tipped to spill its sand the day a person entered the world. He was already thirty-three years deep, and he feared how much sand was left to fall.
He was reminded again of why exactly he left Miami once he stepped out of the cool confines of the steel and glass airport, plunging into the thick heat of an August evening. Even before he could hail a cab, slick rivers of sweat were weaving their way down his face, legs, and back. He felt dirty and grimy, even though he’d showered right before his flight. And though he knew he wasn’t, he felt like he smelled. Naturally, he found that the cab he finally chose, after having loaded all of his bags into the trunk, was without air conditioning; and the cabbie was at least sixty years old. Great, he thought with a roll of his eyes, this is a good omen.
He laughed contemptuously as the taxi pulled up in front of the hotel: in big, blue sequined block letters, an enormous banner over the entrance read, “7th Annual Miami International Drag Queen Competition: Welcome Ladies & Ladies.”
After tipping the cab driver, who shifted his eyes back and forth from the banner to Nick to Nick’s many bags and finally sped off into the night, Nick made his way into the lobby. The cold air greeted him like a Colgate kiss, and almost suddenly his spirits lifted. The lobby was busy, with competitors and spectators running to and fro, checking in and checking out the competition. Large cardboard signs posted on tripods littered the room, advertising the events that would take place over the next few days: talent shows, the beauty pageant, and a host of other trials and hoops to jump through in order to be crowned the Queen Queen.
He checked in at the front desk with a young, blonde, waif of a girl, got his keycard, and had a bellhop follow him to his room with his luggage. After tipping the young boy and assuring him that he would need nothing more, Nick began the arduous task of unpacking the things he would need to make him look as young, and as beautiful, as possible. First he put away his dresses and ensembles – each in its own garment bag, hanging them up in the closet. Removing each of his three wigs from their hat boxes, he placed them on their stands on the dresser. Then, grabbing both make-up cases, he carried them over to the vanity and took out all of the essentials: lipsticks, eye shadows and liners, moisturizers, eyelashes, rouges, glitter, and anything else he would need to make Victoria shimmer. With every passing year, she needed a few more products, and a couple more minutes, to look as stunning as she did when Nick was in his twenties.
Nearly two hours later, Nick was finished turning his moderately-priced suite into what would be his home for the next few days. It was nearing the witching hour, and having not eaten since breakfast, he felt the familiar rumble-gurgle in his stomach. Glancing over the room-service menu prices, he opted to make his way downstairs to the TGIFriday located just through the lobby. He grumbled to himself as he noticed the sign over host station, proclaiming that “Queens Eat For Free.” Knowing this, he was unsurprised as he followed the hostess into the dining room to find that nearly all of the patrons were in various stages of drag. Some of the men were in dresses with no make-up or hair, some with make-up and hair but wearing Budweiser t-shirts and raggedy jeans, and still others looked like some hybrid alien-meets-Tammy Faye Baker tragedies. From the other side of the restaurant, Nick could hear some desperate queen sobbing into her Mai-Tai over a boy that had done her wrong.
“You know what?” he turned to the hostess. “I think I changed my mind. Can I just order my food to go?”
The first two events were the following morning: the opening ceremony during which each queen was introduced to the judges and the cheering crowd, directly followed by the first stage of the competition – the Gag Drag Ball. During the Gag Drag Ball, each contestant dressed up as some object of scorn or amusement, to see who could be the funniest. This event was nick-named by the veteran contestants The Ugly Pageant, because most of the new-comers every year took their costume either too far, or not quite far enough. The previous year, one first-year contestant had tried to look like Roseanne Barr, but she wound up looking like Kathy Bates via Misery. Though the results were typically quite ghastly, it was one of the most fun events of the whole weekend because every queen could show a little more personality in their wardrobe then they could during the rest of the serious events. This year, Victoria was dressed as Sherry Lewis, complete with a Lambchop hand puppet – dressed, of course, in an emerald green sequined evening gown. For this event, Victoria came in fourth place, trailing behind a Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, and Francis Farmer.
The rest of the afternoon was spent preparing for the night’s big event, the Look What I Can Do Talent Show. While Nick spent the afternoon selecting the perfect gown – a soft blue sundress with a red sash and matching shoes – for Victoria to wear that night, the rest of the competitors took part in the activities sponsored by the hotel and the organizers. For the athletic, there was Drag Sand Volleyball and Confusion Fusion Doubles Tennis; for the less ambitious, there was Big Queen Bingo and Pedicure Poker. The hotel was also showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show in two of the conference rooms, and sponsoring seminars on make-up tips and performance cues.
The talent show went well, with all of the girls doing their best at plinking through piano cabarets or sliding their way through tap dancing concertos. Victoria won this round, however, doing her usual routine of hypnotism and comedy. She’d won this event the previous year as well, doing primarily the same act. She had done well in all of the events for the past five years that Nick had entered her into the contest – every event except the final one, The Beauty Queen Contest, worth over half of the overall score. This was the only “normal” contest out of the entire competition, in which each contestant puts on her most beautiful gown and her best wig, and tries as hard as she can to look like an honest-to-god beauty queen. The first year that Victoria competed, she had won second place, but the previous four years she had come in third and fourth. Nick had decided after last year’s disappointing loss that this year would be the last performance for Victoria, whether she won or lost. He was going to retire her and return to being just another piano playing cabaret lounge singer. He didn’t even really like performing in drag, but since he had first introduced Victoria to his fans six years earlier as the product of a lost bet, his income had doubled. Something about seeing a man in a dress made people drink more and tip heavier.
After a relaxing bubble bath and a good night’s rest, Victoria was on stage again the next afternoon, waiting for her music to begin and the curtain to rise. The second to last event was the Performance Event, where each contender had to select a song to lip synch and perform a choreographed dance to. All of the younger girls had chosen current pop hits from Beyoncé to Avril Lavigne. And though some of the costumes were amazing, it was a well known fact that the judges responded better to older songs than new ones. For this reason, Nick had chosen the classic war tune, Where The Boys Are, for Victoria to perform. There was little movement in the piece, mostly because Victoria couldn’t dance, but her star-spangled red, white, and blue gown, as well as her expert synchronization with song, was sure to make up for the lack of shimmying.
Nick was right, and Victoria came in at second place, right behind the girl who had performed Girls Just Want To Have Fun so well, a person could swear Cindi Lauper had been on stage instead of the pushing-forty over-breasted drag queen that it was.
With the final event getting closer and closer, Nick began to get more and more nervous. He wasn’t quite sure why; Victoria was retiring regardless of the outcome. Perhaps it was because this was her last public appearance, and he wanted her to go out with a bang. Or maybe, he wanted her to win just once, so that he could say she had done it, that he was good enough to pull it off. No matter what the reason, as Nick was slipping his feet into sharp red satin heels and fastening the clasp of the I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Diamond necklace around his neck, he felt like he was going to be violently ill.
He managed to keep the day’s food down where it belonged, but Victoria was still shaking slightly as the final curtain rose to reveal all one hundred and eleven contestants dressed in every shade of every color and in every fabric imaginable. The entire stage was a treasure trove of sequence and glitter, chiffon and silk, diamonds and gold. Each drag queen flashed her biggest and brightest smile, stood as straight and as still as she could, and tried as hard as possible to look humble, yet deserving. The scene looked exactly like a Miss America finale; the only difference was that none of these women were women.
The auditorium fell silent as the Chief Judge, wearing a crisp new tuxedo with a red silk bowtie, took to the stage to announce the winner. He announced the third place winner first – the Lucille Ball from the first night’s event, followed by the runner-up – the Cindi Lauper performer, and then the drums began to roll.
“I am pleased to announce,” the judge lisped through the microphone, “that the Seventh Annual Miami International Drag Queen of the year is…”
As Nick packed away Victoria’s dresses and hats and shoes and all of the thousands of little trinkets and accessories into boxes to put into storage, he recalled everything that had happened over the last few days, from the time the plane touched down in Miami to the time he arrived back at his apartment in St. Paul. He smiled fondly at the memories of Victoria’s last days, and sighed with a breath of weariness and disappointment.
Just as well, he thought. I’m getting too old for this shit.
Queen Victoria
Nick Gloras swallowed the last two finger-widths of his generic scotch, wincing slightly as it burned its way down his throat and started bubbling in his stomach. The pilot had just announced their descent, and on cue the plane had started to list slightly to the right, circling around to land at Miami International. The last dying rays of daylight were burning through the tiny windows of the crowded 757, and for just a brief moment, Nick thought that the plane was on fire. It’s not that he hated flying – on the contrary, he rather enjoyed the feeling of shooting through the sky like some mythological bird. It’s just that this time, the destination was far more intimidating; he was eager for the whole ordeal to be finished.
As he waited at the baggage claim for his three enormous suitcases to pinwheel out from beneath the vinyl flaps, he looked around at all of his fellow travelers. It was mostly good old American families: stone-faced fathers lost in the complex maze of gates and security checks, with their petite wives and upstanding children towing behind them like the tin cans of a wedding car. But then there were the other usual suspects: business men in expensive two piece suits with messenger bags slung over their shoulders, foreigners from colder climates who came to soak up a the famous Florida sunshine, and old people. Hundreds upon hundreds of old people, shuffling from one plastic seat to the next, trying to make it to the sliding glass exits, but having to stop and rest for just a moment; blue hair and balding scalps as far as the eye could see. God, please take me before I get that old, Nick thought grimly.
He hated old people. He hated anything old, really. Mostly he hated the fact that no matter what, the clock keeps ticking, and there’s only so much time left before it runs out. For him, life was an hourglass which was tipped to spill its sand the day a person entered the world. He was already thirty-three years deep, and he feared how much sand was left to fall.
He was reminded again of why exactly he left Miami once he stepped out of the cool confines of the steel and glass airport, plunging into the thick heat of an August evening. Even before he could hail a cab, slick rivers of sweat were weaving their way down his face, legs, and back. He felt dirty and grimy, even though he’d showered right before his flight. And though he knew he wasn’t, he felt like he smelled. Naturally, he found that the cab he finally chose, after having loaded all of his bags into the trunk, was without air conditioning; and the cabbie was at least sixty years old. Great, he thought with a roll of his eyes, this is a good omen.
He laughed contemptuously as the taxi pulled up in front of the hotel: in big, blue sequined block letters, an enormous banner over the entrance read, “7th Annual Miami International Drag Queen Competition: Welcome Ladies & Ladies.”
After tipping the cab driver, who shifted his eyes back and forth from the banner to Nick to Nick’s many bags and finally sped off into the night, Nick made his way into the lobby. The cold air greeted him like a Colgate kiss, and almost suddenly his spirits lifted. The lobby was busy, with competitors and spectators running to and fro, checking in and checking out the competition. Large cardboard signs posted on tripods littered the room, advertising the events that would take place over the next few days: talent shows, the beauty pageant, and a host of other trials and hoops to jump through in order to be crowned the Queen Queen.
He checked in at the front desk with a young, blonde, waif of a girl, got his keycard, and had a bellhop follow him to his room with his luggage. After tipping the young boy and assuring him that he would need nothing more, Nick began the arduous task of unpacking the things he would need to make him look as young, and as beautiful, as possible. First he put away his dresses and ensembles – each in its own garment bag, hanging them up in the closet. Removing each of his three wigs from their hat boxes, he placed them on their stands on the dresser. Then, grabbing both make-up cases, he carried them over to the vanity and took out all of the essentials: lipsticks, eye shadows and liners, moisturizers, eyelashes, rouges, glitter, and anything else he would need to make Victoria shimmer. With every passing year, she needed a few more products, and a couple more minutes, to look as stunning as she did when Nick was in his twenties.
Nearly two hours later, Nick was finished turning his moderately-priced suite into what would be his home for the next few days. It was nearing the witching hour, and having not eaten since breakfast, he felt the familiar rumble-gurgle in his stomach. Glancing over the room-service menu prices, he opted to make his way downstairs to the TGIFriday located just through the lobby. He grumbled to himself as he noticed the sign over host station, proclaiming that “Queens Eat For Free.” Knowing this, he was unsurprised as he followed the hostess into the dining room to find that nearly all of the patrons were in various stages of drag. Some of the men were in dresses with no make-up or hair, some with make-up and hair but wearing Budweiser t-shirts and raggedy jeans, and still others looked like some hybrid alien-meets-Tammy Faye Baker tragedies. From the other side of the restaurant, Nick could hear some desperate queen sobbing into her Mai-Tai over a boy that had done her wrong.
“You know what?” he turned to the hostess. “I think I changed my mind. Can I just order my food to go?”
The first two events were the following morning: the opening ceremony during which each queen was introduced to the judges and the cheering crowd, directly followed by the first stage of the competition – the Gag Drag Ball. During the Gag Drag Ball, each contestant dressed up as some object of scorn or amusement, to see who could be the funniest. This event was nick-named by the veteran contestants The Ugly Pageant, because most of the new-comers every year took their costume either too far, or not quite far enough. The previous year, one first-year contestant had tried to look like Roseanne Barr, but she wound up looking like Kathy Bates via Misery. Though the results were typically quite ghastly, it was one of the most fun events of the whole weekend because every queen could show a little more personality in their wardrobe then they could during the rest of the serious events. This year, Victoria was dressed as Sherry Lewis, complete with a Lambchop hand puppet – dressed, of course, in an emerald green sequined evening gown. For this event, Victoria came in fourth place, trailing behind a Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, and Francis Farmer.
The rest of the afternoon was spent preparing for the night’s big event, the Look What I Can Do Talent Show. While Nick spent the afternoon selecting the perfect gown – a soft blue sundress with a red sash and matching shoes – for Victoria to wear that night, the rest of the competitors took part in the activities sponsored by the hotel and the organizers. For the athletic, there was Drag Sand Volleyball and Confusion Fusion Doubles Tennis; for the less ambitious, there was Big Queen Bingo and Pedicure Poker. The hotel was also showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show in two of the conference rooms, and sponsoring seminars on make-up tips and performance cues.
The talent show went well, with all of the girls doing their best at plinking through piano cabarets or sliding their way through tap dancing concertos. Victoria won this round, however, doing her usual routine of hypnotism and comedy. She’d won this event the previous year as well, doing primarily the same act. She had done well in all of the events for the past five years that Nick had entered her into the contest – every event except the final one, The Beauty Queen Contest, worth over half of the overall score. This was the only “normal” contest out of the entire competition, in which each contestant puts on her most beautiful gown and her best wig, and tries as hard as she can to look like an honest-to-god beauty queen. The first year that Victoria competed, she had won second place, but the previous four years she had come in third and fourth. Nick had decided after last year’s disappointing loss that this year would be the last performance for Victoria, whether she won or lost. He was going to retire her and return to being just another piano playing cabaret lounge singer. He didn’t even really like performing in drag, but since he had first introduced Victoria to his fans six years earlier as the product of a lost bet, his income had doubled. Something about seeing a man in a dress made people drink more and tip heavier.
After a relaxing bubble bath and a good night’s rest, Victoria was on stage again the next afternoon, waiting for her music to begin and the curtain to rise. The second to last event was the Performance Event, where each contender had to select a song to lip synch and perform a choreographed dance to. All of the younger girls had chosen current pop hits from Beyoncé to Avril Lavigne. And though some of the costumes were amazing, it was a well known fact that the judges responded better to older songs than new ones. For this reason, Nick had chosen the classic war tune, Where The Boys Are, for Victoria to perform. There was little movement in the piece, mostly because Victoria couldn’t dance, but her star-spangled red, white, and blue gown, as well as her expert synchronization with song, was sure to make up for the lack of shimmying.
Nick was right, and Victoria came in at second place, right behind the girl who had performed Girls Just Want To Have Fun so well, a person could swear Cindi Lauper had been on stage instead of the pushing-forty over-breasted drag queen that it was.
With the final event getting closer and closer, Nick began to get more and more nervous. He wasn’t quite sure why; Victoria was retiring regardless of the outcome. Perhaps it was because this was her last public appearance, and he wanted her to go out with a bang. Or maybe, he wanted her to win just once, so that he could say she had done it, that he was good enough to pull it off. No matter what the reason, as Nick was slipping his feet into sharp red satin heels and fastening the clasp of the I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Diamond necklace around his neck, he felt like he was going to be violently ill.
He managed to keep the day’s food down where it belonged, but Victoria was still shaking slightly as the final curtain rose to reveal all one hundred and eleven contestants dressed in every shade of every color and in every fabric imaginable. The entire stage was a treasure trove of sequence and glitter, chiffon and silk, diamonds and gold. Each drag queen flashed her biggest and brightest smile, stood as straight and as still as she could, and tried as hard as possible to look humble, yet deserving. The scene looked exactly like a Miss America finale; the only difference was that none of these women were women.
The auditorium fell silent as the Chief Judge, wearing a crisp new tuxedo with a red silk bowtie, took to the stage to announce the winner. He announced the third place winner first – the Lucille Ball from the first night’s event, followed by the runner-up – the Cindi Lauper performer, and then the drums began to roll.
“I am pleased to announce,” the judge lisped through the microphone, “that the Seventh Annual Miami International Drag Queen of the year is…”
As Nick packed away Victoria’s dresses and hats and shoes and all of the thousands of little trinkets and accessories into boxes to put into storage, he recalled everything that had happened over the last few days, from the time the plane touched down in Miami to the time he arrived back at his apartment in St. Paul. He smiled fondly at the memories of Victoria’s last days, and sighed with a breath of weariness and disappointment.
Just as well, he thought. I’m getting too old for this shit.
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This is funny because I'm participating in a drag show this weekend :) And of course part of our opening number is Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. It's a classic.
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Good read, Brad.
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