Drag (A Fairytale)

I suffered through the first 30 minutes of temp-training, still realizing the misery I committed myself to and felt pulsating waves of existential despair crash over me, each larger than the next, until once I was finally left alone, I found myself covering pages of a notebook with run-on sentences about my feelings punctuated by nothing but question marks.

At my first break I raced to the nearest bookstore, which happened to be at the core of Times Square, at least temporarily seeming to give me some sense of purpose among the maddening throngs of tourists with perhaps too much purpose, or perhaps no recognition or acknowledgement of their existence whatsoever considering the planetismal size of most of them.



In the basement of the Virgin Megastore among the perpetual displays of Fight Club, Chronicles by Bob Dylan, and a photography book of nude tattooed white chicks titled Suicide Girls, I found at least Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy, which seemed appropriate even though the reason it was appropriate seemed like it was quietly passing and perhaps prematurely. I'm scared of what NY might be like once the primacy has worn off.

The first story in the trilogy dealt with a boy locked in a dark room for the first nine years of his life as an experiment by his father, a Columbia professor. I thought similarly of tales of abandoned children who are taken under the care of wolves, but more entertaining what if the poor misplaced child was found and raised by a band of three caring drag queens?

I imagine he would have an incomparably fortuitous life until one day near the age of ten his guardians become enraged in a fight over who got to play Miss Diana Ross and the frightened boy flees their wooded glen.

At first he is taken in by a nearby village and when word arrives to King James that a boy raised in the wild has been found, they send no one less than Sir Thomas Aquinas himself to investigate.

Sir Thomas Aquinas proceeds to interrogate the boy about his thoughts on God and general theologian perceptions to which the boy replies firmly to each question in a harsh rasp, "first, a martini!"

After satiating the boy's thirst for olives soaked in vodka they let him loose thinking he was posessed by the spirit. He was quite a whirlwind to keep up with but was eventually found hunched over a small stump furiously working over his hands and face.

As they approached he turned around and shouted, "Praise the Lord!" The boy had taken caterpillar legs to extend his eyelashes and used the dust from butterflies to make horrendous eye shadow in the manner of a near perfect Tammy Faye (the boy was way ahead of his time). "Praise the Lord!," he repeated to a thoroughly relieved Sir Thomas Aquinas.

Over time they found the boy altogether amusing, mysterious, and fascinating except for the trick with the anal beads, which while they found repulsive it must be said they understandably took it as a colloquial form of communication, though they never could figure out anatomically how he managed to pull them through his nose.

So endeared was the boy that he was given residence at King James' royal estate, and was allowed to perform each evening in the King's dining hall as long as certain acts were left until later in the evening.

With their laughter and joyous bacchanal the boy constantly felt happy. Their persistent assertments that he had been found made his young heart feel as though previously he had been lost and this was the fulfillment of what he was meant to be.

Yet one morning he woke shaking from his dreams, and his cheeks were wet from tears he must have wept in his sleep. That night at dinner he found himself unexcited about dancing around a chair in a beaded dress and no longer cared if Papa could hear him.

On his face he could not hide his dejection and sullenly he removed his dress, tossed it aside like a kerchief and stated blankly, "to hell with it," before leaving.

A hushed gasp crept around the dining table.

"The spirit has left him," one portly woman declared.

"And the devil himself has taken its place," said another portlier woman.

With this Sir Thomas Aquinas was struck from his seat where he methodically had been constructing a Jesus Christ out of his mashed potatoes placed fiercely across his T-bone steak.

"He is lost," said a third even portlier woman.

"Then there is nothing we can do," said Sir Thomas Aquinas, "but destroy him before he does to us!"

With haste the table disbanded and a stake was raised in the nearest field. Word spread quickly and townsfolk began gathering twigs and branches with such excitement and anticipation that some mistook their intent and also brought with them marshmallows and graham crackers.

The poor boy was caught easily and tied firmly to the stake. The townsfolk piled the wood high around him and crowded near with anxious eyes. King James himself came before the crowd with a widely lit torch.

"With the arrival of this boy," he said, "we thought we had found something wonderful."

King James turned toward the boy with a large wave of his torch and looked heavy into his eyes with a penetrating hatred. without losing such gaze, he leaned in to light the fire.

From several directions a small wind picked up an earthen powder and dispersed it into the air. Before the flame could reach the kindling King James fell to his knees in a coughing fit and a thick cloud of dust fully encompassed the crowd.

All that could be seen amid the dense storm was the frightened boy, and at thirds to him, the three corpulent women.

"We always carry a lot of powdered foundation," said one of the women, winking at the boy.

"At our age it's essential," said the second.

"And powdered always travels better," said the third.

With the quickness of devotion the women replaced the boy with a likeness made of nothing but irises.
















Such was the beauty that the townspeople had found in the boy that they could not distinguish him from the flowers and rubbing their eyes proceeded to cheer as King James set his likeness ablaze.

As the irises burned, the crowd found that the sweet smell of the conflagrant flowers reminded them inextricably of the ocean and of children and at once they were struck by a wave of sentimental nostalgia, and in a few of them, alas but only a few, a small hammer of guilt panged desperately at their hearts.