Drag Teen (18 page)

“If you want to get him to polish your Tony, do it on your own time,” she interrupted. ”It’s time now to call ten of our contestants to the stage. Egg roll, please!”

The atmosphere backstage changed in an instant, as Lady Rooster began calling names to the stage. It was unclear whether these were the contestants going home or the ones staying, and Lady Rooster was loving every second of our fear.

“Sandra Buttock. Mimi Pick Me. Annie Body. Texas Alexus. Katy Hairy.”

With each name, the corresponding trembling drag teen joined the line across the stage until Lady Rooster reached the tenth name, Dorothy Kale. The remaining ten of us backstage paced back and forth, waiting to find out if it was us or them going home.

Finally, Lady Rooster spoke. “As you all know, we must cut ten contestants at this point. So will these remain? Or will these, sadly, have to go home? This is one of the toughest parts of the night. Before we go further, I want to say again that all twenty of these drag teens are stars. So let’s give them another round of applause.”

After all the applause died down, Lady Rooster spoke slowly.

“This group of ten, I’m sorry to say, is going home.”

Various
aw
s and boos came from all over the room as each of the ten contestants’ hopes were dashed. I could feel for them, but I was also incredibly relieved. The rest of us retreated to breathe and to change into our next outfits. We were all very quiet as we reentered our dressing room, a rarity for this group. It was as if we’d all just survived a plane crash and were processing it, slowly but surely.

I was still late in the lineup, so I had some time before my talent portion. I changed into my outfit, a very flashy Western-style shirt that absolutely screamed Tina Travis, and not just because it belonged to her. I wore one of her big chunky belts at the waist across a short sequined skirt underneath, with the most dazzling high-heeled cowboy—or cow
girl
—boots ever created.
Dazzling
might seem like a bit much when describing boots, but they were bright blue leather with orange stitching and what appeared to be diamonds on the toes. (With anyone else I’d have guessed them to be rhinestones, but with Tina there was no way to be sure.) They were
way
too small for me, and for a brief period in the process of squeezing my fat feet into them, I thought they might never come off again without calling in the Jaws of Life.

I made my first attempt at walking in them as I took a test stroll around the dressing room; each step felt like someone was squeezing my feet and breaking them with their bare hands.

“Ouch. Crap. Jesus. Ouch,” I was muttering to myself as I wandered around in circles, almost bumping into Milton as he walked in after finishing his talent, which was juggling three lit torches. “Whoops. Sorry. How’d it go?!” I looked over and saw that Milton was holding his wig, which was smoldering with smoke and ash. “I’m going to guess not well?”

He tossed the ruined wig in the sink and turned on the faucet.

“Eh. Whatever. It’s my own fault. Why didn’t I think about hair spray being so flammable?”

This was a good question, but I didn’t think he needed me to reiterate it, so I refrained.

“Well, did they at least like it?”

“Oh yeah!” He brightened up. “Nathan Leary said it was the most flamingly perfect thing he’d encountered since the premiere of
Mamma Mia!
I need to go dig out my hat to wear for the rest of the pageant. Good luck, honey!”

From onstage, I could hear the tail end of Roxanne Roll’s performance, which meant I was three performances away. Roxanne was playing what she called a song but what really sounded like a fatal car accident on an electric guitar. I hadn’t spoken to her much throughout the pageant—but besides the
DEATH TO POP
tattoo on her right forearm, she’d seemed perfectly nice.

I hobbled into the alley to do a vocal warm-up, each step cutting off my circulation even more. The alley was quiet, except for the sounds of New York City traffic going by. I looked around to make sure no one was listening and then let out an enormous belt. My “Ahhhhhh” echoed off the fire escapes and Dumpsters.

I did another long, loud scale, rubbing my jaw to loosen it like singers do when they want people to notice that they are singers. Then I started to run through the song.

“
I was never the type of girl, the type who knew what she wanted / I was never the type of girl, the type who didn’t listen when she was taunted / I always felt alone, and—
”

“SHUT UP! I’m trying to sleep!” a voice rang out from a window overlooking the alley. I stopped abruptly. And before I could shout back that I was sorry, another voice screamed from behind me, “No, YOU shut up! He’s rehearsing!”

It was Tina, jogging down the alley toward me, zigzagging in her high heels on the uneven bricks.

“I thought you were watching the show?” I said.

“I am, silly. And you’re doing great. But I was sitting there watching that one fella whose wig caught on fire and thought about how I’d kill you if that happened to the one you’re wearing. Then I realized I forgot the most important part of your ensemble!”

She plopped a sequined cowgirl hat on top of my head.

“
Now
you look perfect.”

I thanked her and hobbled back inside as she ran back down the alley, whooping the whole way.

I took my place in the wings as Pip finished up his talent. He did an interpretive dance to “Colors of the Wind” in a purple unitard that he claimed was a commentary on global warming and “The Middle East.” The audience gave him a friendly round of applause but I could tell it had gone a bit over their heads. The judges tried to give him their best and shortest criticisms.

“Innovative!” said Quentin Brock.

“Beautiful,” said Samuel Deckman.

“Funny, I don’t remember taking LSD,” Nathan Leary deadpanned.

As Pip passed by me on his way off the stage, he squeezed my hand. “You’re going to be wonderful, dude.”

I smiled at him as I heard my name being said and the crowd beginning to applaud.

“All the way from Clearwater, Florida—where the hell is that?” Lady Rooster announced. “JT!”

The interlude of “People Care” began as I nervously walked out onto the stage, slowly—and not for dramatic effect, but because that was just as fast as I could move in the too-small boots. I got to the microphone, to my fate, to another potential humiliation. I looked down at Linda Lambert at the piano, and she winked at me as she began to play the verse and I began to sing.

The lights were still so bright it was hard to see, but I made a point to actually look around, and really take in my surroundings for the first time all night. What I was doing was extremely cool, and I was extremely lucky to be JT Barnett in that moment.

On the key change, I noticed the other contestants in the wings watching. It almost threw me off, but I stopped those tired old fears and used them, made them my fuel. I yanked the microphone out of the stand and walked down to the lip of the stage, like I’d seen famous singers do on TV.

I saw Heather and Seth seated in the middle of the theater. Heather waved at me, like a mom watching her kid in a dance recital. Seth beamed. It was clear that in his eyes, I really
was
shining. I almost started to laugh. As I walked across the front of the stage, I felt like more of a diva than I’d ever felt before. I was so in it that my feet weren’t even hurting. Or maybe they had just completely lost all feeling—either way, I felt great!

Suddenly, everyone was singing along, even people who didn’t know the words. It was amazing, everyone was focused on me, and not a single one of them was doing it to make me feel bad about myself. By the final chorus, the room was vibrating with the sound of everyone’s booming voices. I even spotted Lady Rooster mouthing along in the wings.

At the end, they leapt to their feet—like actually, they really did.

They leapt to their freaking feet.

It felt utterly spectacular.

ONCE I GOT OFFSTAGE, EVERYONE was coming up to me and telling me congratulations. I was attempting to take it all in, but my mind wasn’t entirely clear just yet. I still had to do the speech I hadn’t written.

I was soon busily changing into my next and final gown. I couldn’t believe just how fashion-forward Tina’s outdated wardrobe was coming across, the final gown being at least thirty years old. It had a really high collar, it was sleeveless (something I was NOT thrilled with), and it had this Southwestern-looking pattern, like a Navajo print, the kind of pattern you’d see on a throw pillow from Anthropologie. It was definitely the tightest of all three things I’d put on, and I thanked God I hadn’t tried to sing in it.

“Could somebody help zip me?” I called out to the room. Red looked up from his mirror, where he was reapplying some eye makeup.

“Over here, JT!” he called.

I turned my back to Red and winced at a glimpse of my back fat pouring out. Red grabbed hold of the zipper.

“Try not to breathe!”

I took a final gasp and held my breath as he yanked once, then again, then again, then again.

“Is it stuck?”

“Um … you could say that.”

I looked back in the mirror. It was stuck all right, but it wasn’t the zipper’s fault. It was the fault of all those Wendy’s fries. Or fries from McDonald’s. Or Arby’s. Or, if there was no other option, Burger King.

“Crap. It’s not going to work, is it?”

Red got an idea. “Hold on. I’m wearing something really loose for my speech. Unzip me.”

I obliged, albeit very confusedly, as Red stepped out of his gown. He was wrapped in something that looked like an enormous and highly uncomfortable Ace bandage.

“What the hell is that?”

Red began shimmying the contraption over his head. “They’re Spanx. Duh.”

“Oh,” I said, attempting to sound like I had any clue what he meant. He was in disbelief that I didn’t.

“You don’t know what Spanx are? Come on. Everybody knows what Spanx are! Don’t you watch any daytime women’s talk shows?”

I shook my head in understanding because I did. I’d just never seen the oft-discussed Spanx in person.

“They’re the greatest invention ever made. Better than the lightbulb, better than the Internet, better than frozen yogurt. You slip this bad boy on and everything gets sucked up into one nice tight roll. Think of your body as a bunch of fatty beef and this as a sausage casing.”

The image was less than appealing, but I took the Spanx anyway. Red helped me slide into it. Did you ever hear that story about the guy who passed out drunk in India and, while he was passed out, got swallowed by an enormous cobra? There was even a photo—it was all over Facebook and forever stopped me from going to India, and for a brief period, ever going on Facebook again. Anyway, that was what putting on these Spanx felt like.

“Now let’s try the dress again.” Red helped me step into the dress and pull it back up around me. Then, as if I were a size zero in a size ten, the zipper went up without any struggle whatsoever.

“Jesus Christ!” I shouted.

“I know!”

Red walked over to his rack of costumes, beaming with pride like a dad who’d just taught his son how to hit a baseball, and put on his gold blouse.

“You ready for your speech?” he asked me.

“We’ll see.” I spoke to him through the mirror as he finished changing. “I didn’t have time to write one, but I’m just trying to trust that I’ll get up there and know what to say. Speak from my heart and soul or whatever.”

Red stepped beside me. We were both looking at each other in the mirror, each of us looking not just like drag teens but, honest to God, legit, glamorous drag queens.

“Sounds good to me. After all, JT, isn’t your heart and soul the whole point?”

Public speaking is basically the worst possible thing to put any human through unless they’re famous, in which case, people will listen to absolutely anything you say even if it makes literally no sense. This was evidenced by Samuel Beckman, who, while very, very handsome, was quickly proving himself not to be the sharpest tool in the shed. He’d asked one performer, after they finished lip-synching to Cher’s “Believe,” who had originated the song. He was met with a cacophony of boos and actual hisses.

The judges had been all around really kind throughout the evening, aside from a few snide jokes from Nathan Leary, but even then it was clear it was in good fun. Lady Rooster and Nathan Leary had officially had enough of each other, both exhausted from competing for the attention of the audience.

For this final part of the evening, they had chosen a new order. At the moment, Roxanne Roll was finishing up her speech, which basically consisted of her screaming “rock ’n’ roll!” at the audience a lot, and bragging about how she wasn’t part of the “gay system,” whatever that was.

I’d gotten to hear a few snippets throughout the speeches. Milton had given a long speech about hoping to follow in RuPaul’s footsteps as a fashion icon, and had even added a joke about how proud he was to be a flamer. Pip had spoken briefly, and poetically, about how drag is like being a flower.

Tash was waiting on the other side of the stage, ready to go on, as Roxanne Roll finished. The audience clapped politely, and I could see more than a few of them actually scratch their heads.

“Wow! Well, that was something, huh?” Lady Rooster joked as she came back to the stage. “I can’t say that I mind she’s not a part of
my
gay system. Up next, we’ve got somebody I’ve seen on the drag scene since she was a tiny little drag preteen—hey, that rhymed! I should be writing the Broadway musicals! Right, Linda?” Linda, still seated at the piano, smiled politely, obviously as exhausted by Lady Rooster as the rest of us were. “Anyway, please make some room for our next little bitch, Natasha!”

Tash walked out, grand and regal.

“Good evening. I am legendary, I am divinity, I
am
Natasha!” Tash spoke way too loudly, and a little too proudly, into the microphone. She didn’t seem to care—but the audience, however, did. I could see a few of them shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

Tash went on to give what was clearly a memorized speech. It was all done in his usual persona, and when there were jokes, he got laughs, and when he called out for responses, he got responses. But overall it felt so formulaic, so routine, so the Tash I’d met in the apartment. It was worlds away from the Tash he’d revealed to me, the Tash who had cracked out of the perfectly formed drag teen he’d built around himself.

“Greetings, Earthlings. I come from the Planet of Natasha, in the galaxy of fabulous, in the universe of …” She didn’t stay a word here but instead snapped her fingers and vogued her arms into a spasm that was at once revelatory and violent.

“I come to this pageant to pick up what is rightfully mine—the crown! Miss Drag Teen is in my blood. Along with fierceness, divinity, pizazz, and electricity. You want Miss Drag Teen to matter? Well, honey … now it does!”

Her speech dragged on with self-congratulatory comments like, “My soul is made up of the same stuff as Beyoncé and Miss Heidi Klum. You prick us and we bleed
beauty
.”

I couldn’t help but be disappointed. I thought I’d gotten through, broken past whatever guard he had, but the reality was that guards, when left standing long enough, get harder and harder to break. I made a promise to myself that no matter what, no matter the nerves, no matter the inhibitions or insecurities, I would break mine. I would break that heavily built guard and go out there and show me, show the real me, not just the me I wanted to show them, but all of it. Because that’s what drag meant to me … the truth. Sugarcoated, for sure, but the truth above all else.

I heard my name being called to the stage. Everything seemed to be in slow motion as I walked back toward the microphone.

“Hi. Wow. Does this look as bright out there as it does up here? They’ve really got to figure that out. The stage lights blinding you, I mean. At the very least, I’m going to need an eye exam after this, so if you’re an optometrist, leave your card.”

My first laugh—a good one too.

“My name is JT. As I mentioned earlier, I hadn’t really done a lot of this before tonight—only once before, actually. On my way here, I didn’t have a drag name, and I still don’t. JT is my actual name. Somebody told me to make my drag name what spoke to me, and I don’t know if I’m lazy or not, but whatever the reason, the only name that spoke to me was my own.”

My second laugh.

“And that’s not coming from a diva place or whatever—it’s just, I don’t know … what I feel. Somebody told me that the great thing about drag is that it allows you to be the you you’re afraid of letting loose, the you inside of you, and that’s exactly what I feel like I’ve done. Up until tonight, I’ve never felt comfortable in my own skin. But tonight, as I walked onstage to do this, as I felt this crowd, as I sang, danced in the opening number, I felt … well, I don’t know how to describe it, but right now I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be. More than any other time in my life.”

I adjusted my wig.

“I love being a drag teen. I do. And I hope that one day I’ll be a drag queen. But I just want to say that within the past week, I’ve learned so much. Not just about drag, but about myself, my fears, my insecurities, my passion, and what allows me to feel okay. And do you want to know what that is? It’s putting on a wig and some mascara and heels and shining before an audience. I am such a terrified human being. I worry about what other people are thinking so often that I dream about it. The minute I step into a room, I assume you don’t like me—or hate me, even. And sometimes that’s the case. Sometimes people hate me. Sometimes they don’t notice me. And I used to think that’s all I wanted, to blend in. But if I’ve learned anything this week, it’s that a lot of people not only notice, but they care. And that feels so much better than blending in ever has. Maybe I’m only half a drag queen, or half a boy, or half a something … but I want the world to meet JT. Sometimes JT looks like this. And sometimes he looks like this.”

I pulled my wig off and fussed with my hair. Then I put the wig back on. Flawlessly.

“But sometimes, this wig, this eyeliner, this all-of-it … it’s just the boost of confidence I need to feel really and truly and happily me. And so that’s who I am, JT. We all need our own form of drag sometimes, to wrap ourselves up in, as we brave the frontier of self-discovery. There’s been a lot of talk in this pageant about the four key words: glamour, talent, heart, and soul. I found the first two moderately quickly. Those you can rehearse. But the final two—well, that took coming here and doing this to solidify.”

I cleared my throat.

“Heart. I have the sweetest and most beautiful boyfriend in the world, truly. I’d ask him to stand up if I weren’t afraid of all of you stealing him.”

The crowd laughed and looked around like dogs for a treat that had just been tossed into the yard.

“And soul. I’ve realized that all of this … performing, letting go, feeling beautiful, feeling loved … that’s my soul. That’s everyone’s soul. And I’ve found that here, a happy equation of it all, which I suppose is the whole point of tonight. Despite every setback, every failure, every mishap and freak-out … here I am. JT. Take me or leave me, wig and mascara and all. I’m just JT, and that’s why I drag.”

As I stepped away from the microphone and the audience applauded, I caught a glimpse of Daryl in the wings.

He was giving me a thumbs-up.