Talk to Robert Hyers on the Fictionville blog
[1]
"I'm going to channel Fitzgerald tonight," Marc said. He blew the smoke towards the slightly opened passenger side window. He had removed one white glove to hold the cigarette, and was careful not to ash on his white Flapper dress.
"Channel Fitzgerald?" I said, keeping my eyes on the road.
"Yes. I'm going to summon him on stage."
I nodded. For the umpteenth year, we headed to another Halloween party at the gay club we frequented, I as a patron and Marc as a performer. Nothing special. But Marc had a talent for making the mundane interesting.
"So you liked The Great Gatsby?" I said.
"Yes, very much."
"Have you started on any of the other books I gave you?"
"No. I enjoyed The Great Gatsby, but I found reading itself to be tedious." He took another drag and exhaled out the window. "Do you think Fitzgerald was a fruit?"
"Fitzgerald a fruit? I don't think so. He had a wife, didn't he?"
"He did. She was probably his cover, though. You know how it was back then."
I didn't answer.
"What was her name?" he said.
"Zelda, I think."
"Yes, Zelda. That's it. Now she was absolutely divine."
Adverbs make terrible writing but great drag queens.
Marc finished the cigarette. He threw it out, rolled up the window, and carefully put his glove back on.
"Have any editors taken your story?" he said.
"I haven't heard back from them." Actually I had. Three rejections sent to my inbox today. But I didn't want to get into it. "What song are you performing?"
"A blues song from the twenties."
"Really? What?"
"You wouldn't recognize it."
This wasn't true. I knew more blues then he did. But I should've known he wouldn't answer. He never let me in on the details of a new performance before its debut. I had to wait just like everybody else.
"I've changed my stage name," he said.
"Really? What is it now?"
"Lady Buchanan."
I turned into the lot next to the club and parked. Then we hurried to the entrance. I kept my eye out for flying eggs, especially from the balconies at the hotel across the street. Ocean Ave was the only gayborhood in this little shore town. Our kind likes to party especially hard on this holiday, and the straights know it. Without fail, the ones with something to prove and a few too many beers in them come down to Ocean Ave. Last year was a massacre of yolk and broken shells. Marc wore a skin-tight angel outfit and white stiletto heels; he couldn't move all that fast. This year he could move more freely, and we made it into the club with only one egg crashing onto the gravel behind us.
[2]
The club had filled to capacity by show time. Every fag in a fifty mile radius was there. Some dressed up in badly done drag, and others dressed in actual costumes like devils or angels. One couple dressed as Eddie and Patsy from AbFab, another group came as The Pink Ladies. I wore my usual jeans and T-shirt. I never dressed up for Halloween, or any other occasion. Everyone had drinks in hand: glowing green Midori sours, pink cosmopolitans, dirty martinis. I drank my bottle of beer. They all held their own conversations, keeping one eye to the stage for the Halloween premiere of the now Lady Buchanan's new number. Finally, the DJ introduced her.
When the song started, I expected there to be numerous pops and scratches, but the recording was clean. The tribal beat we were used to, created by zeros and ones in advanced computers, was replaced by a piano whose cords echoed in an ancient studio, perhaps somewhere in Harlem.
Marc was right. I didn't recognize the melody. But I did recognize the voice: Bessie Smith .
Daddy, I want some furs and things
Daddy, I want the diamond rings
Lady Buchanan sauntered across the stage, lip syncing each word with precision. She slowly pulled off her gloves and gave them to the DJ to hold.
Aeroplanes, motor cars and such
If your little mama ain't askin' too much
She descended from the stage to the audience. She sang to men individually, sat in their laps, and ran her long white fingers and high-end press-on nails across their shoulder blades.
From you, from you
Won't you give me what I want, daddy do
I've known Marc since grade school. I remember him in his aviator glasses and ugly gray slacks. His mother would pull the waist half way up his shirt. And now look at him.
Eventually, Lady Buchanan returned to the stage. I found the perfomance funny, this white Jewish boy, dressed as a Flapper, lip syncing blues sung by a black woman who's been dead for seventy years. I wanted to laugh but didn't because no one else was laughing. They looked entranced. Perhaps I have a different sense of humor.
After the final note faded, the audience broke out in applause. Lady Buchanan struck one of her signature poses, holding her hands out. Picture Madonna as Evita on that balcony. "You're all beautiful fools," she told us. "Every last one of you." She took her gloves back from the DJ and walked off stage.
A little while later she began mingling with us fools, drinking her signature cosmopolitans. The show was over. Now the booze could start.
[3]
By about 4:30 the place had been empty for almost a half hour with the exception of the staff, Marc, and myself. Marc was talking with one of the young barbacks, young enough to still think working at a gay bar was a dream job, until the owner yelled at him to get back to work. Now Marc found it difficult to stand in his heels. I stood behind him, with one hand on his shoulder and the other on his opposite hip. It was difficult; the beers had numbed me a little, but I held him up. He turned his head towards me. "It was those damn free drinks. They got me."
"You would've drank just as much if you had to pay for it."
He stared at me. His white cloche hat sat crooked on his head. "This is true."
Thank God the front door wasn't far. He managed to blow a kiss to the barback as we left.
My car was at the opposite end of the lot. Large overhead lights illuminated the lot, making it unable to see if any shadows stood in the balconies. The gravel crunched beneath us as I escorted him, one slow and drunken step at a time. My hand was around his waist and his arm was around my neck. From time to time I focused on the darkness, trying to see into the balconies with no luck. When we reached the passenger side door, I took his arm from around my neck. "If you feel dizzy, grab onto the car." He nodded. I fished in my pockets for my keys. That's when the first egg hit the car hood.
"Shit," I said.
"What the hell was that?"
Another egg came out of the darkness and hit the windshield. It split in half. The yellow yolk slid towards the windshield wipers. I found the keys. The fear that had me peering into the darkness turned to adrenaline. I opened the door. "Get inside!"
"No."
"What do you mean no?"
Marc turned to the darkness. "These assholes don't know who they're dealing with."
"Don't do this now, Marc."
He turned to me. "Do they have any idea who I am?" An egg hit the back of his head and knocked his white cloche hat to the ground. "Shit!" He bent forward in pain and grabbed the back of his head. The yolk saturated the white glove. I heard laughter in the darkness.
"Get in the fucking car!" I pushed him into the passenger seat and closed the door. I ran behind the car, taking an egg on the arm. The sensation was sharp at first from the breaking shell, then cold and slimy from the yolk. I unlocked the driver side and got in. By the time the key was in the ignition, Marc had opened his door and lifted himself back out. He had to hold on to the open door for support.
"Do you know who I am?" he yelled into the darkness. "I am Lady Buchanan!"
"Why don't you give us a kiss, Lady Buchanan?"
I didn't recognize this voice. I looked through the stained windshield. A large man who looked to have no neck stood in the street. He stood with his legs slightly spread apart, in a shirt that read "No Fear" and athletic pants. He held a baseball bat.
"Don't flatter yourself, asshole," Marc said. Another egg hit him on the side of his head. He screamed. The man with the bat laughed.
"Get back in the car!" I started the car. The man with the bat walked towards us. I leaned over the console and pulled Marc back into the passenger seat, ripping the dress.
"What the hell did you do that for?" he said, staring at the tear. He turned his head to the window. "And what about my hat?"
I leaned over him and pulled the door shut. I turned on the windshield wipers for a second to remove the shell pieces that blocked my view, and drove away. I heard a thump at the back of the car. Another egg must've hit the trunk. The one that hit me was starting to dry. I took my eyes off the road for a second to look at Marc. Egg dripped down the side of his face. Either he didn't notice or he didn't care.
"Do they have any idea who I am?"