You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown
Please note: this entry incorporates adult situations and language. Reader discretion is advised.
We hope to glimpse gay Atlanta’s nightlife. That night, we meet Richard and Jim, lovers occupying a restored and generously subdivided house in downtown Atlanta. We stand for a few minutes in their yard, enjoying the cool air. Just above the Victorian roof of the house, low clouds catch and reflect the orange glow of sodium vapor street lights. Skyscrapers, apparently built of fluorescent smoke, shimmer in the fog.
Jim, a waiter, meets us at the door with a stern handshake. Richard, a chef, hugs us as though he’s known the both of us — not just Clyde — for years. We take the obligatory tour: small kitchen, dining room, central bath, bedroom, walk-in closet converted to a study, and a living room, where Egyptian figures by the tiled hearth hold slender sticks of sandalwood incense.
The large rooms dwarf the furnishings, with ceilings, designed to counter the summer heat, rising fifteen feet above our heads. The decor pleases me, mostly because it reflects my own tastes: a few pieces of well-chosen and comfortable furniture, large spaces dominatd by huge plants, a good library on orderly shelves, and a complete lack of clutter.
After a few minutes on the couch, the pair whisk us out the door. We walk in a tight group down dark streets, passing only a few other silent pedestrians. Once, a man springs out of the shadows, makes a noise like a cat, then retreats into the shadows beneath a broad magnolia tree.
Charlie Brown’s Cabaret sits in relative shadow on one corner of a junky parking lot. According to the signage, had we arrived one night later, we would have had the option of dropping our drawers to avoid the cover charge.
Tonight, though, we are greeted by a bored lesbian and a tough-looking drag queen. “You’re way too early,” the lesbian says. “Just go on in.”
Inside, wild lights skitter across an empty dance floor. Twisting corridors and sudden staircases make me wish for breadcrumbs or a ball of twine. After climbing several flights into frigid darkness, we wind up in a gay version of a brass and fern bar. We pass the drag queens lingering in the shadows of the room and take our seats at a table near the stage. A waitress who resembles my Aunt Helen takes drink orders and explains the two drink minimum.
“Amateur night,” Richard tells us. “We only come on amateur night because the show’s the same every other night of the week.”
The show, when it begins, starts several minutes late, and is hosted by Lilly White, who looks like Herman Munster’s wife, Lilly, on a very bad hair day. She reels off a few tired puns and delivers a series of limericks she calls toasts, and then introduces the Talent Night fare.
Manic music begins, accompanied by a siren. A black drag queen with a long, blonde I Dream of Jeanie wig throws herself onto the stage and begins to vibrate. She slings and jerks her head at dangerous speeds — hard enough, I think, to bruise her brain. Despite all these gyrations, she lipsynchs flawlessly, repeatedly mouthing the words, “Put your finger in the hole!” Near the end of the act, she squirms across the floor in simulated passion, but her frenzy never touches her emotionless eyes.
The other acts cannot match her energy. One husky queen stomps out in a navy blue dress and pretends she’s at the USO; the buttons down the front of her dress pucker the fabric, revealing foam rubber falsies. A bored-looking young man (a drag king?) lipsynchs a song with six minutes of music and one minute of actual vocals.
Finally, a tall, blonde drag queen mouths the word “banana” while Annie Lennox sings “Litte Bird.” She strides into the audience, seeking tips, and trips over three chairs in rapid sequence. She puts her foot up on the table, exposing a long and muscular leg; the table tilts, and she pinwheels her arms for balance. Before stumbling back onto the stage, she executes three pratfalls worth of Chevy Chase.
Eventually, Charlie Brown herself comes out for an appearance. Not as overweight as Lilly White has warned us she would be, Charlie is, by far, the most real-looking woman on stage. Unfortunately, her routine no longer seems to delight or interest her, and her wicked humor sounds forced and tired tonight.
She performs an obligatory trademark routine — sniffing out “straight pussy” — and then quickly moves to a series of dry community announcements.
At this point, a few members of the audience begin heading for the door; as they do, Charlie abandons her announcements and launches into a long speech about respect. “It takes guts to do drag,” she warns us. “It’s that courage,” she intones, “that makes me insist that each and every person on this stage be shown respect.”
“Under that wig,” Richard whispers to us, “she’s bald as a cue ball.”
Add comment