Drag Race
The aurora borealis? No – it’s her midnight-black hair flowing in the disco lights. She cat-walks down the runway and drops into the splits when she reaches the edge of the stage. She slides her legs together, one stiletto at a time. Our eyes lock.
She walks toward me. Her hand travels up her leather boots, her fishnet tights, her black lace corset, until it appears as an open palm before my eyes. Her fingertips twitch, pulling the invisible puppet strings that make me lift my hand to meet hers. Beyonce’s “Break My Soul” blares through the speakers, but I am far away. I feel like I’m water. Somehow, I am both drowning and floating.
“Thanks, sweetie,” the drag queen takes the dollar tip from my hand and cat-walks back to the stage.
I realize that my mouth’s been open. And that I’m blushing.
The next drag queen doesn’t do the splits. She doesn’t bounce in a squat. She doesn’t stretch herself across the floor or slide down the wall or roll her hips against a chair.
But she smiles and sways with the music, visiting each round table in the audience. She takes my hand and squeezes it, and I smell warm vanilla and Christmas. Her ankle-length satin dress sways as she steps onto stage and finishes with a bow. We cheer, clap and hand her dollar tips – because it’s not the splits or spins we’re here for anyway.
I was attending my third show at Black Lodge, a restaurant venue in Memphis, Tennessee. The audience was a room of empty chairs surrounding empty tables, except for the usual scattered fans: the four gray-haired gay friends who came dressed in button downs and neon-printed ties, hooting and hollering the loudest, the high school kids with streaked hair taking excited selfies with every drag queen, the family and friends of the drag queens who regularly attended with bouquets for the performers – and me and a friend
The emptiness wasn’t surprising. Unlike the monthly brunches that received a hundred attendees and a couple angry Facebook responses, these weekly shows weren’t extremely popular. Memphis is known for its Barbeque, Bass Pro Pyramid, and Blues Music – not its queer scene.
But we still came. We came because there was something about this dim-lit room – the old drag queens who never stopped walking the stage and the new ones who were just beginning their journey. The drag queens who chose to perform show after show, no matter what the media, world, politics, people screamed about their existence.
Sure, we loved the songs and dances. But that’s not why we come. We come because, to us, Shows are more than a performance: they are a protest. They say, “we are queer. We exist. And we will never stop existing.”