Drag King Dreams Chapter One

“Who cares what anybody’s got between their legs?” Vickie whispers in exasperation. I’m the choir she’s preaching to, so I figure she doesn’t really expect an answer.

My gaze is steely, fixed on the red-faced, blustering man who is pounding on the closed subway car doors. His confrontation with us has lasted throughout the PATH train ride under the Hudson River into Jersey. It began as a headache. It has become a throbbing migraine.

Now Vickie and I are on the platform. The subway car door is closed, separating Vickie and me from the man wildly flailing to get at us—the uncaged beasts. His shouts are muffled. The rubber-rimmed plastic windows bounce with his every wallop. I can feel my own fists clench, bloodlessly tight, at my sides. My heart is pumping adrenaline.

“Quite a ride home,” Vickie says. “Is it always like this at night?”

I’m immersed in the deep currents of this instant. “It’s like this wherever I go.” My throat tightens around the words.

The livid man tries to unzip his pants, rummaging between his legs to transform a penis into a weapon. But his zipper jams halfway and his hand is stuck. He’s spitting hatred, fueled by fury. If Ruby were here she would lift up her mini-skirt and waggle her bottom against the subway pane right in front of him.

I smile thinly, mockingly, and wiggle my little finger at him.

Vickie slaps my shoulder lightly, involuntarily. She is horrified. “You’re gonna make him madder.”

My laughter sounds shallow. “He can’t get much madder than this.”

The timbre of her voice drops. “Are you scared?”

I don’t feel anything. I’m numb in this long wintry night. “I’m not scared of him. I’m scared of how many there are.”

Vickie needs reassurance. This is not her terrain. She’s an activist, not a street fighter.

“Together, we could take him,” my tone is mechanical, bitter. “Besides, I don’t think he really wants to get at us. If it was me and I wanted to get my hands on someone, I’d go out the door between the subway cars and be out on this platform before they could swallow their tongue.”

Vickie pales. This does not reassure her.

We are watching the apoplectic man raging behind the transparent barrier of plastic. Inside the subway car, late-night riders and early commuters gape at us. Across the tracks, the early rush-hour crowd gawks at the whole scene. Spectacle staring at spectacle.

“C’mon Max, let’s go,” Vickie tugs my coat sleeve. “We’re just pissing him off more by standing here.” I shake my head slowly from side to side. I won’t turn my back until I’m sure the doors of the car will not re-open.

From the next subway car, the conductor slides a little window open and leans out before signaling “all clear” to the motorman, who in this case is a woman. The conductor sees everyone frozen, focused in one direction. He hesitates, squeezing further out the window to locate the ruckus. He tips his head towards the hollering from the next car and looks at me quizzically. He’s friendly, the guy I give my newspaper to at the end of my ride most mornings. I lift my chin towards the problem and shake my head: Don’t open the door. He nods ever-so-slightly and flashes me a weary smile. His diamond earring glints against his ear lobe, a glittering star. I can see at a glance that Vickie doesn’t catch any of this.

The conductor pulls himself back inside and slides the window shut. The train is slowly moving out from under the iron-beamed canopy of the Journal Square station. I smile and wave at the man who wants to kill us as he goes by, taunting him, knowing I may see him again.

My head aches as the tide of adrenaline starts to ebb. I’m tired, cranky. I’ve been up a long time, all night long. The only thing that feels real to me right now is the raw rock subway tunnel around us, a short alleyway through an urban mountain. Outcropped boulders, locked into place with bolts as big as my arm, gathered up in steel hairnets.

I look out the end of the tunnel towards the glowing cobalt sky. “Almost dawn,” I tell Vickie. “I’ve gotta get home. There’ll be another train to Newark soon. I’ll wait with you.”

The platform across from us is crowded with those headed to New York. Their backs are to us, as they huddle and position themselves for the next train’s arrival—too many people forced to compete for too few seats.

Vickie shakes her head as though she could dislodge the experience. “I couldn’t go through this all the time,” she sighs. “This is not the way I want to fight.”

My anger flares like a match, the scent of sulfur in my nostrils. My tone is curt, resentful. “I don’t have a choice.”

I’ve struck a nerve. Vickie’s eyes brim with pain, her voice cools. “It’s not that simple, Max. You know that.”

I chafe with irritation. “You can just go back to being Vic. I can’t just change my clothes and go back to the day world and be a lawyer.” I say each word carefully, like I’m teaching her. As I hear the words out loud, I’m sorry they’re coming out of my mouth.

Vickie clenches her lips tight until they almost disappear. She adjusts her wig absent-mindedly, by feel.

I wish the next train would hurry up and arrive. They don’t run very often in these pre-dawn hours. I lean forward on the platform and peer down the track to see if the signal lights are green. I dig my hands into the deep pockets of my pea coat, thick as a wool blanket, and stomp my boot heels on the platform to warm myself.

“You don’t have to wait,” Vickie’s tenor is as icy as her breath. “I’m a big boy.”

I make an effort to ease the tension between us. “Is Estelle gonna pick you up at the station and drive you home?”

Vickie leans forward to look for signs of a train. “No.”

“No?”

She’s visibly impatient. “No. I told her: Sleep in and don’t worry about me. I’ll be home for breakfast and get a few hours sleep. I have to see clients all afternoon.”

We stand next to each other, awkward.

“You live far from here?” she asks. Small talk.

“Nah, just a couple of blocks.”

I hear the shriek of a whistle as the train to Newark roars out of the tunnel towards us. I can see a glimpse of the western Jersey sky lightening. That means to the east, across the Hudson River, the sun is inching up behind Wall Street. I’m anxious to get home before the day begins.

“Go,” she suggests.

I look at my boots as I stamp them. “I’m sorry,” I say. I mean it, but it sounds flat.

She nods, perfunctorily. “Go home, Max. Go to bed.”

The train pulls up next to us, slowing down with a screech.

“You got your camera?” I think to ask.

She pats the big leather purse slung across her shoulder and steps through the open subway door. We wave goodbye to each other, half-heartedly, as I turn away.

Relieved to be alone, I take the stairs, two at a time, up and out of the station into the frosty outdoors. The service road is still narrowed by post-9/11 barricades, its entryway watched over by a guard hunching over for warmth in the little wooden sentry station. The soldiers are gone now. No more teenagers in fatigues, automatic weapons slung over shoulders, clustered nervously around armored Humvees, ordered to search for an enemy in every face.

Now there’re only the spiny-branched trees, dark silhouettes against the lavender rim of the sky. No birdsong. My every breath a cloud. My lungs ache, I cough, and my nose hairs bristle. The air itself could shatter into shards. There is safety in cold like this.

As I walk, I cast no shadow on the concrete. A pale sun begins its arc through streaks of salmon. Daylight is shortening the night. Frozen plumes of smoke and steam hover in the air—the breath of the city.

I pull the brim of my cap down low over my eyes and tug up my scarf to warm my ears. I can smell my body, my own eco-niche, reeking of other peoples’ tobacco and stale beer. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the sun on my body, seen my own slender shadow trailing me—that small sliver of night I take wherever I go.

I’m on my block now, almost home.

The traffic lights are still set to blink, yellow suns flashing: caution, caution.