Ethan Mordden - I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore

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Contents

To Michael Denneny,

sine qua non

The author wishes to acknowledge the strategic collaboration of the house team, which, he is glad to note, still includes the masterful Ina Shapiro, one of the most precise of stylists. Paul Liepa keeps a yare ship, Deborah Daly is indispensable in jacket-art meetings, Izume Inoue presents a unique rendering of The Emerald City of Manhattan on the cover, Laura Hough designed what IBM would call a reader-friendly book, Carol Shookhoff assisted in the typing of a printer-friendly manuscript, and, for the home side, there remains the redoubtable Dorothy Pittman, the authors best friend and agent, in that order. As for Michael Denneny, the editor of this book, I have expressed my feelings a few pages to the fore.

In particular, I would like to thank Charles Ortleb, the founder and publisher of Christopher Street, where a substantial share of post-Stonewall gay lit has originatednot because writers have battered their way in, but because Chuck personally stimulated, encouraged, and in some cases helped subsidize their careers. Without his insistence that gays maintain at least one forum for new journalists, storytellers, and poets, gay publishing might have consisted of nothing but an occasional shuddering of the linotypes chromosomes.

I have sat with friendsand I mean very close friendson those long nights at the Pines, listening to the ocean dancing about our mysterious island, and on those long days at the brunch table, trying to remember to be urbane, and on those odd, ironic afternoons of confessing feelings of such intimate enthusiasm or disappointment that one regrets having made them for the rest of ones life. We have traded tales, my buddies and I: of affairs, encounters, discoveries, weekends, parties, secrets, fears, self-promotionsof fantasies that we make real in the telling.

Well, it occurs to me that all of gay life is storiesthat all these stories are about love somehow or other, and that many jests are made in them, though the overall feeling may be sad. Ones life breaks into episodes, chapters of a picaresque adventure. As each episode ends, the material for the next shifts into place. Defunct characters cede to new ones, though a few figuresthe best friendshold their places throughout. A happy ending must be temporary, and a gloomy one may yield to surprising amusement without warning. It is a lively life I sing, with but two constants: humor and friendship. I am looking back now on what I have seen and heard, and on the men I have known, and on certain perceptions I am reluctantly compelled to share. And these are my tales

At night, writing longhand in a spiral notebook at my desk, I can see my reflection in a window washed in lamplight, as if I were working before a mirror. I have a romance going that I am my characters, and can put on any of their faces at will. I can be all forearm and fist, or startled behind spectacles; I can wear my college sweatshirt, or hold my pen in an old-fashioned manner. When I view my reflection in the window, I am telling stories.

I say this because I recall that the drag queen recounted her saga into a great mirror that stood just over my left shoulder. She scarcely looked at me, or at her friend Paul, who had brought me to her.

You must tell her story, Paul had urged. This is gay history.

No, I was writing nonfiction then. I had no reflection. I wouldnt know where to sell it, I told him. No stories.

Try, he said. Just take it down. Someday.

I was intrigued. Paul arranged it, took me to a shabby walkup where Bleecker Street meets The Bowery, introduced us, andbreaking his word of honor not to leave me alonewalked out. Youll see, he murmured. See what? I answered; he was already at the door, waving.

Who was that masked man? I quoted, to cover my embarrassment. And: Why does everyone I know run out on me after five minutes?

This was eleven years ago. The drag queen was perhaps fifty. Black cocktail dress, spike heels, cabaret mascara, and opera jewelry.

When Miss Titania gave an order, you obeyed or thats it, you were out! You were glue. You were grovel! I mean. Miss Titania was the very certain queen of the Heat Rackand was she big, I ask you? Bigger than a Zulus dingus on Thursday night. Big in spirit! Miss Titania had her court, and everyone else was dogmeat when Miss Titania got through. Ask anyone. I dont know where they are now, but you ask them.

My pen flew. Wheres Miss Titania now? I asked.

The drag queen shrugged. Its all gone, so that is no question at all to me. Now every man in the city looks like trade in those muscle shirts, with those demure little bags like theyre carrying their makeup kit or I dont know what. I dont think theres a man in New York who isnt available. Once even the gays were straight; now all the straights are gay. New York doesnt like queens anymore, regardless. Were the old revolutionaries. They say we dressed up because we were flops as men. Born to be freaks. They say we didnt care what other folks thought. She lit a cigarette like a woman, blowing the match out; and held it like a man, between thumb and forefinger. Well, its not true. We dressed up so they could see how lovely we are. We hope they see it.

What if they dont?

Then we say something pungent.

Tell me about Miss Titania.

She was ruthless. The Heat Rack was her court, and no one upstaged her. The dire episodes! Once an upstart southern belle came in out of nowhereI suspect Scrantonand there she was, taking up space and flouting Miss Titania. I will never forgetMr. Sandman was playing on the juke, and Miss Titania liked to sing along, you know, such as Mr. Sandman, please make me cream. A slightly altered version of the original, as I recall. Well, La Southern Comfort cries out, Deyah me, it would surely take the entiyah football teyum? at Ole Miss? to make you-all creayum, Im shuah? And there was such silence in the whole place. Except for Mr. Sandman. I mean. Even the toughest trade shut up. And Miss Titania. She looks at that no-good, lightweight daredevil, and smiles her famous smile and puts down her drink and fan. And suddenly, I dont know, it couldnt have been more than a few seconds, but Miss Titania flies across the room and rips the hair right off that southern girls headI mean her wig, truly; did you think I meant her skull hair? because, really, what an odd look youre wearingand then Miss Titania rends the bodice of the southern girls gown and pulls off her pathetic training bra or whatever she had on, and we are all roaring with laughter, so that southern girl runs into the ladies and wont come out till the place is closed. We never saw her after that. Because you dont challenge the queen in her own court.

And Miss Titania was the absolute queen. Even the Duchess of Diva, who presided over Carneys on Thirty-eighth Streeteven she knew better than to tangle with Miss Titania. And the Duchess was a gigantic mother. She must have weighed three hundred pounds. Always wore black, for her husband. He died in the war. And did she have a savage streak. Everyone feared her. But Miss Titania had the prestige.

Tell me more about the Heat Rack.

Or the Pleasure Bar, or Follys, or The Demitasse, or Club La Bohme, or sometimes no name at all. It changed by the week. To me it was always the Heat Rack, because thats what they called it when I made my choice.