This is a true story. I have left the names and locations unaltered so that those familiar with these events can verify that I have recounted them honestly and accurately.

J.A.Z.

I

Wanda was a modern thrill-seeker, living hard and fast just past the blast-off of New, when the “Future” was “brighter” and “Tomorrow” always “a better…”.  All night, underground, virgin to almost everything except sex, drugs and drag, she pranced, danced, courted and displayed, nostrils flared by the proximity of promise, sweat-soaked corkscrews of long, black hair slapping gashes into thick, oh-so-carefully-applied layers of top of the line shoplifted makeup.  No wigs for her.  No taped-up chest or birdseed bra.  She was real!  No plucked, giant-shades alter ego for daylight, which she only saw the latter half of anyway.  Too new to the scene to be Queen of the Night (a throne she didn't covet, already firmly occupied by the great Christine), she was a rising Princess with a blooming reputation for outrageousness.

She wasn't afraid of turning heads on the street.  She loved it!  It was her aria of liberation, the snapping of her flag, the snapping of her thin, glitter-tipped fingers in the frowns of well-dressed moms who shoved their children aside as she sailed by in Salvation Army finery and her trademark – open-toed, white mesh wedgies.  As always, she ignored them, silently shouting her disdain: “Get over it!” Woodstock, Stonewall, first boot on the moon, all a few years earlier, had stoked her courage and clanged for her round in the ring.

Later, she couldn’t recall how she’d ended up on M Street that evening, with its “No Dancing!” rock joints (Imagine!) and straight bars farting cigarettes and beer. Uphill, upscale Wisconsin Avenue was home. There she perched with friends in opera boxes of indented storefronts, steps above the stream of tsk-ing tourists. Posing like Holly Woodlawn against protruding windows full of new ideas from New York, they dramatized their crises, traded drugs and plotted ideal itineraries for the chemicals on hand. Mostly under 21, the posted age at dance clubs like Pier Nine and Grand Central (caramel and macramé Lost And Found was just “toooo boozhe”), they also needed fresh intel on the doormen, friend and foe, and where emergency exits could be breached without triggering an alarm.

Dancing was, after all, the reason for everything. Sex often didn’t happen, and despite enormous investments of flirtation at every glint of interest, success usually meant settling for someone equally desperate, and equally high, at the last, worn-out gasp of night. Dancing reigned as the only reliable stairway to ecstasy.

It was early, too early on Saturday night for a quorum on the Ave, so Wanda went on, strolling leisurely east along the south side of M Street, vaguely craving an appetizer. And she looked Faaabulous! Not that anyone would notice, since she had her vintage cocktail-dress rolled up under a way-too-big jacket to get into the clubs. (She wasn’t sure which roommate the jacket belonged to, but there it was on the couch, and she needed it.) Though boys in platforms, makeup and ’50’s blouses were amusingly decadent to club owners, a male wearing a dress over pants wrinkled their noses. Full drag, admired as hallowed gay tradition, made gender-bending too uncouth to be unrestrained. Once on the dance floor, she could drop her hem to howls and applause, and checkmate sputtering managers into smelling unhip if they tossed her out.

The jacket was dark, bland, ordinary, but her face flawless, plum velvet flares sprayed on, and her shiny black hair waved free as if fanned in a photo shoot. From behind, she was a skinny glitter boy in platforms. From the front, no one knew what she was. To relieve the jacket’s dull expanse, she’d pinned her best and largest rhinestone starburst, ice-blue and white, just where a name should have been, so that everyone would know at least one thing for sure: She was special.

To her complete surprise, the abuse came from behind, from the Virginia traffic that oozed across Key Bridge and clogged Georgetown with metallic sludge every gorgeous spring evening.

“Faggot!” – like an icicle jabbed into her spine.

She tossed her head, shoulders too, as casually as possible (Garbo in Grand Hotel) to show she knew the turd wasn’t slung at her.

“Faaaag! Woo-hoo! Faggot!” Pulling up closer and then right alongside. In the passenger’s seat, hairless lanky arms reaching out of the truck’s window, the baseball cap wasn’t giving up without acknowledgement of his cleverness. Wanda, a slender five-foot six, dreaded the gamble of engagement, kept her pace steady and didn’t look. Toni, Christine too, would have momentarily inflated the jerk’s ego by walking up and flirting like dragqueen hookers with “You boys looking for fun?” and “Got money, honey?” After some clumsy crass insults, the flustered hicks would have pulled away defeated, having failed to embarrass anyone. But T. and C. were big, café-au-lait girls from rough neighborhoods. No one would dream of getting physical with them. Snubbing taunts was actually more dangerous, Wanda told herself proudly. A shadow in the driver’s seat ducked his head to watch, like a pigeon, but the jerky traffic made him very nervous.

The insults got cruder and louder. Wanda focused straight ahead, noticing only that several tourists stopped and pivoted to see what she would do. A final “Fuck you, faggot!” as the truck pulled away was so angry and slashing, so intentionally, viciously demeaning that Wanda felt she had been slapped in the face in front of everyone. Without turning her head, she followed the black pickup with burning eyes, teeth clenched so hard her jaw hurt. As the driver tried desperately to pull back into traffic, an absurdly long arm still hanging out of the passenger window snapped to attention horizontally and gave her the finger.

That was truly the last straw. Wanda, who had imagined nobly standing up for gay people by ignoring insults, suddenly felt she had done just the opposite. The gaggle of sightseers had watched her swallow abuse like a “good nigger” shuffling along an Alabama road while white supremacists shouted at her from the imagined safety of their ideology. With a sudden rush of hot blood, she raised her hand and popped a good-by bird at the truck.

Big mistake. Instantly, the pickup fought its way back to the sidewalk and stopped fifty feet dead ahead. Wanda faced a difficult choice. She could turn and run (though how soon country boys would give up a chase was an open question), or she could continue walking straight into the trap, proud and defiant, asserting her rights in a way she had failed to before. Halting her promenade to sheepishly await someone else’s notion of her fate would have proclaimed they were right and she was in the wrong.

He unfolded out of the truck limbs first, like a large spider from a small hole: slim, very tall, very young, his black tee-shirt, pants, paratrooper boots and cap obviously chosen for going to town and, equally obvious, meant to intimidate. Facing his prey, he planted military-size feet astride the center of the sidewalk, demanding confrontation. Wanda headed straight for him, her righteous anger leading the charge.

“What is your prob…?” Petite as she was, she had underestimated both the length of the giant’s reach and the teenage self-confidence behind his gleeful snarl. A huge fist connected with most of the left side of her face, between her glamorously high cheekbone and delicate jaw, snapping her head to the right with such force that it took her a few seconds to grasp what had happened. The pain of humiliation eclipsed any pain from the blow, but a savage stinging in her lower lip made her raise her fingers to touch the spot. She inspected them; they were covered in a surprising amount of blood. Her attacker, smiling, savored his achievement and waited patiently for an excuse to hit her again.

The driver sprang from the truck, equally tall but as dumpy, awkward and unattractive as his friend was trim, arrogant and handsome. Rather than feel threatened by the doubling of her enemies, any fear Wanda had been suppressing was suddenly withered by a blast of indignation and fury. Reacting without thinking, she stepped up to her tormenter, rose on her toes, shoved her bleeding face into his and began shouting with all the power in her thin, trembling body.

“You ASSHOLE!!” she screamed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You come into MY town from who knows where because it’s a hell of a lot better than wherever the hell YOU’RE from, and you give me shit for walking down MY OWN FUCKING STREET? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

The sneer drooped off the giant’s lips. His victim seemed completely unimpressed by his exercise of superior power, and this was too far from anything he had expected. He took a step backward. Spinning in the updraft of her spontaneous eruption, Wanda failed to realize she had just scored a serious tactical point, but she was aware of the crowd swelling behind her.

“You are a GUEST here, dammit!!” she roared, stamping her tiny foot at the black-clad bull. “WHY DON’T YOU ACT LIKE IT?!!”

The teen was temporarily stunned and would probably have pounced on Wanda and beaten her senseless in another second, but his friend, eyeing the gathering witnesses, grabbed his cocked arm with both hands and began to drag him back to the truck. The bully also took his eyes off Wanda for the first time and noticed their growing audience. Making a great show of reluctance, he allowed his pal to shove him back into the passenger’s seat and slam the door. With his head out the window, he fixed his stare on Wanda as the truck pulled away and grasped at victory by giving her the finger again and bellowing out one last “Fuck You!”

Wanda, motionless except for her violent panting, glared at the truck as it disappeared down M Street. Once it had gone, she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin to give herself a shot of courage as a chill of real fear poured down from above. It had suddenly dawned on her that she was injured, and she didn’t know how seriously. Checking with her tongue, she realized that her lower left canine had pierced right through her face, below and just missing her lip. (Thank God for small favors!) She would probably need stitches. Regretting that she had chosen not to wear a scarf, she pressed the scratchy cuff of her woolen jacket over the wound to stem the bleeding. In this awkward position, she turned around to find dozens of tourists staring from several yards away. She narrowed her dark eyes to a look of withering disgust.

“Thanks for backing me up!” she spat, clumsily, over the sleeve. And she strode right towards their center, forcing the sheep to shuffle and part as she marched bravely on towards Wisconsin Ave.

II

The night had evolved a new, condensed shade of darkness when she left the Free Clinic. Never having needed medical attention before, for clap or whatever, she was grateful friends had pointed out the unmarked entrance, hardly a dozen blocks uphill. In the wide-open basement of a soot-blackened church, donated sofas hemorrhaged under sallow skins of thin, Indian print throws and minimally private exam rooms were improvised by pinning sheets to white plastic clothesline. The wait had been long and tedious, and Wanda cringed with embarrassment in the ruthless light from old, louvered fluorescent fixtures. One incident, however, made her laugh at herself and did much to lighten her mood. A tall, stunningly hot Jewish-stud intern kept coming in to take her pulse, but her heart began to race every time he took her delicate wrist in his big hairy hand. After three tries he understood and very kindly said, without any trace of prejudice, “Do you think I should call someone else?”

“Unfortunately.” Wanda smiled up with unaccustomed vulnerability, and he chuckled and winked at her on his way out between the sheets.

Four stitches and a very nasty shot of Novocain later, she was back carefully descending the steep grade of Wisconsin Ave in her blood-spattered wedgies. She had shed a surprising amount of blood – down the left side of her jacket, the white-striped cuff royally stained, and even several spokes of rhinestones on her favorite pin blotted out. Consequently, the nurse had folded an extra-large gauze over the wound, quite out of proportion with Wanda’s face. When passers-by shamelessly stared, she consoled herself imagining the impact it would give her story when she joined her friends at court.

Halfway down, Wanda abruptly stopped across from the corner of P Street. To her right was the first store she had ever worked at in Georgetown, so long ago, when she had been someone she could barely remember. Airport, an ultra-hip women’s boutique where she had run the stockroom and racks, maximized its gimmick with sheet metal counters and walls and rows of navy-blue runway lights that sprouted like mushrooms from a squishy rubber floor.

Even the exterior was sprayed silver, and its chrome double doors were inset deeper than at any other shop on the strip. A spare use of small, densely colored spotlights in the consequently huge display windows lured potential shoppers into a mysterious grotto to squint at the latest Manhattan fashions. Inside, total darkness, except for the runway lights, converted long glass panes in the doors to inky, enchanted mirrors in which spooky blue paths disappeared into blackness.

Something, perhaps someone, called to Wanda from behind those mirrors. She could, and yet could not hear a whisper, a mumbled name, no louder than a breath. She knew it was meant for her. Reluctant to respond after her earlier adventure, she recruited the logic that she needed to check herself out. There had been no mirrors at the Free Clinic. In the storefront’s shallow cave she could assess the damage without being seen and perhaps make the best of a look she hadn’t chosen.

She turned, carefully, and saw herself reflected in the door’s right-hand pane, small and glowing in orange light, but she seemed so far away that her only clear feature was the oversized gauze shining brightly on her face like a peach-colored tile. Without thinking, she slowly raised her hand to touch the offending bandage. Her whole body went cold. The girl in the glass also raised her hand, but instead of reaching gently to touch the dressing, she pointed at it accusingly, her finger stiff and unsympathetic, as if trying to remind Wanda of something forgotten. And though Wanda lowered her hand immediately to her side, surely the reflection beckoned? Languidly, like a ghost, with long curling fingers and flashing red nails.

Wanda shivered, but she had always told herself that courage is not lack of fear. Courage is what you do when you are afraid. So she took a deep breath, stepped into the dimly lit tunnel and walked right up to meet the reflection in the door.

A sad, pleading face looked back at her. Wanda, but not Wanda. She felt not so much that she saw herself, but rather that she was examining someone she knew really well, someone she hadn’t stopped to think about for a very long time.

Confused and apprehensive as she was, she had to solve the riddle. Cautiously she turned and tilted her face, searching for clues, letting a small pin-spot above her single out one feature at a time. Everything looked so familiar, and yet…

Suddenly, the light ricocheted off her rhinestones, throwing a handful of tiny sparks into her hair. Wanda knew. For a moment she froze, not wanting to deal with revelation. Then, her hands trembling slightly, but determined to tackle the inevitable, she removed the brooch from her jacket and pinned it into her hair, just at the right-hand corner of her forehead.

She gasped. She had seen that face far beyond any number of times she could possibly count. She had seen it all her life. It was a late 1940’s face, black and white and glowing in soft focus, but radiant from within, too, with youth and beauty and the joy of being in love. Where rhinestones now sparkled, a gardenia had glistened against shining ebony curls carefully sculpted in the height of style, its petals thick and overly white in studio lights. Even the makeup was the same. The portrait her mother had always kept on her dressing table.

Only, the expression had changed. Instead of a gleaming smile and eyes moist with happiness, the face looking back at her was the mother she had seen every day: sad, lonely, hungry for answers and tired of searching for them, brows pinched from inability to understand. Wanda couldn’t gaze into those sad, haunted eyes any more.

Then the bandage caught her attention, and she remembered. Her heart began to pound so hard she had to reach for the door to steady herself. Of course! How could she have forgotten!

She recalled how many, many nights her mother had knelt by the right side of her father’s chair, legs tucked under, cheek against the overstuffed armrest, silently, patiently begging for attention while they watched TV together. Wanda never remembered her father touching her mother on those nights, never stroking her hair or her back, never squeezing her shoulder, kissing her on the top of the head, certainly not on the lips where her lipstick always remained flawless. Wanda often felt vaguely embarrassed that her mother would lower herself to beg so openly, to plead so obviously for some sign of love even if it was insincere.

One night, either in desperation or as a spontaneous expression of love for her husband, she had dared to reach up and stroke his wooly forearm with her impeccably manicured fingers. In a flash, the back of his hand smacked her in the face knocking her clear to the floor, his heavy army ring gashing her just under her lip. Immediately, he jumped up, took her in his arms and apologized profusely. He had never struck her before, and repeated again and again that it had been just a reflex. Wanda wasn’t so sure.

There, in the black glass before her, was that face, the folded white gauze on Wanda’s left switched by reflection to her mother’s right. That same expression of pain and longing beamed uncontrolled from dark-ringed eyes welling with tears.

Wanda gasped for breath. Too many emotions swirled through her like a stampede of winds, a hurricane trapped within her skin. Oh, how she, too, wanted to be loved! How she wanted a man to love her, to touch her, to feel his love in his touch, wanted a man like her father to love her, oh... Oh how she wanted her father!

No! Oh, no. Too much! She couldn’t deal with it. She had already been through enough for one night. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to her mother and it wasn’t fair to… NO! Not again! Never again! And anger began to swell inside her like a fire, spinning its flames up into the hurricane, constricting hot coils tighter and tighter around her heart. Harder and harder it pounded. Like a drum, like those wooden jungle drums hammering out a message. “Never again!” they sang. “I will not BEG! I don’t NEED to beg for love!” They proclaimed: “I deserve love! I am good enough exactly the way I…”

Though a fog began to surround her, Wanda’s eyes were drawn back to her mother’s. A light flashed out from them growing brighter and brighter, spreading across both their faces, hard to bear, but kind and warm, powerful yet gentle, overwhelming yet inviting. And Wanda, her heart about to burst, was falling… falling… falling…

Jimmy stood very, very still, looking down at Wanda. She had fallen perfectly, in a pool of light like Veronica Lake in a film noir, legs tucked under her cocktail dress, hair fanned out like Harlow in a Hurrell, hands above her head, fingers curled and her nails and makeup absolutely flawless. He loved her very much, and he would miss her, but the softness of her expression, and the gentlest wisp of a smile, made it clear she was at peace.

He glanced up at the enchanted mirror. Slowly, he raised his hands and unpinned the rhinestone clip from his hair. He was about to return it to his jacket, but deciding it had attracted enough attention for one night, he gently slipped it into the big pocket, as gently as he would have returned a baby bird to its nest. He would keep it to remind him of Wanda.

He turned and walked to the mouth of the cave. A fresh, cool breeze had taken over the night and blown most of the tourists and traffic away. Under amber streetlights he checked out his reflection in a display window. He was sorry he had made such a mess of the jacket.

A sudden twinge under his bandage announced the retreat of the Novocain, and he decided he would be better off going home. He had so much to think about. He turned to blow Wanda one last, fond farewell kiss and was neither surprised nor saddened by what he saw.

Wanda was gone.

              The End                  

 

J. A. Zecca is a journalist who has written for several New York LGBT nightlife publications.  He lives on an exceptionally quiet and shady backstreet in New York's notorious Chelsea district with far too many pets, which is a good thing since, after years of trashing around, he has matured into a compulsive recluse and has serious trouble going out without the company of genuine friends.  His short story "Cycles" was published in Forbidden Fruit issue 14 and is is available in our Archives.  You can contact him here.

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