I Am Not Myself These Days (20 page)

H
ugs and Fishes.

 

Aqua never saw Jack again.

Back in the East Village, she moved in and out of friends' apartments, going out less and less. Fewer people remembered her each time, and that was okay with her. Well not okay, but inevitable, and that passes for okay.

Toward the end, when she grew tired of going out because it was the same “out” over and over again, she would sit and pluck the stray gray hairs cropping up in her wigs.

Mostly, she just drank and watched a lot of TV. But when
Blue's Clues
got a new host, she turned that off as well.

On some late nights, in the deep haze of her vodka, she would dial Jack's pager repeatedly, just to see if anyone would call back. Eventually Jack's ad disappeared from the back of the local gay magazines, and his pager was disconnected. Still, she would dial the number occasionally anyway, along with Ryan's and Grey's and even Trey's. They all had vanished into the city's maze of boxes. Sink or swim. Sink or swim. There is no round-the-clock lifeguard in New York City.

The fish lived, and the fish died. And new fish took their place—though without the constant practice of regular appearances, the newcomers tended to be lackadaisical, even sloppy, with their performances.

She missed Houdini. She missed Mr. Beefeater. She missed stupidity and insanity and danger and fun. She missed the raw truths that bubble up when survival is gambled and mocked.

Four years later, she lived in three boxes marked “Aqua stuff” in a storage facility five blocks from the penthouse she'd once called home for seven months. When she turned thirty, a frozen pipe burst somewhere over the storage unit and dissolved her boxes and wigs and makeup and costumes into an indistinguishable mess. An iridescent glob that smelled faintly of smoke and sweat and cheap perfume. But she wasn't all that upset by the loss, because she knew when she turned thirty that she was never going to become a movie star, and if you are never going to become a movie star, then you may as well just be who you are. With little or no makeup and jewelry.

And so, around four fifteen one Saturday morning, around the time she used to be coming off a shift—she left.

She left because she was left behind—in rotting cardboard boxes and foggy disappearing memories. She left because she wasn't really needed anymore. What was needed was sleep, and a career, and sobriety, and a boyfriend whose vision of the future didn't include someone dead. And all these things showed up eventually, but not for her. She did all the prep work, then got shuffled aside. And a drag queen can survive a lot, but she cannot survive obscurity.

So she abandoned the baubles and shiny things. She pushed aside the wigs and the metallic thongs. She stepped over the piles of her sparkly history and walked completely naked down to the East River, past twenty-four-hour delis and an undercover vice squad officer who once asked her to blow him in his brown sedan. She walked past small huddles of clubgoers stumbling home from places she'd worked at before they were named whatever they were named today.

Expecting her to hail them, cabs slowed as they passed her. She ignored them. Just as she ignored the other drag queens emerging from the dark doorways trying to joke with her, their lipstick smeared and creasing in the corners of their mouths, and their foundation caking and powdering around their eyes.

She ignored the city as well, as it reluctantly shrugged off another night. The lights in the buildings began to slowly blink off as the sun rose, like sequins popping off an evening gown. She ignored the undressing city as it, over time, had come to ignore her. She just stared at her feet as she walked, refusing to look up at a skyline she'd once looked down on from her white penthouse in the sky.

 

She climbed up and sat on the metal railing overlooking the freezing, roiling East River, and she
wished to God
she had a double vodka before she pushed off and slipped into the inky currents below. Gliding underneath, pulled down under the surface, her limbs danced in the bass rush of the icy river.

And the reflection of the amber lights from the bridges sparkled on the rippling water around her body like thick curling schools of shimmering goldfish as she passed underneath on her way out to sea.

 

There was no funeral for Aqua. In lieu of flowers, she respectfully requests that you buy a round for the bar.

And if you didn't know Aqua, that's a shame, because everyone who knew her loved her. And everyone who loved her got their fair share back.

And she just wants everyone to remember—please remember—that once there was a darkly sparkling, glittering, shimmering, lovely dangerous time in this city when Aqua loved Jack.

And Jack loved Aqua.

And I loved Jack.

And Jack loved me.

And boys will be boys.

And boys will be girls.

And sometimes the show can't go on.