"But I'll Make You Feel Like a Beginner"
Old Shit
e. and i used to walk around downtown jonesboro, and i'd touch the sides of the buildings i liked, palm nicely pressed against the sunwarmed bricks. i told her i liked that one because it reminded me of the Bailey Bros. Building and Loan Association building from It's a Wonderful Life, this one because i could imagine secretaries of old, pecking away on clanky typewriters until their gentlemen came to escort them home, and the that one because it was perfectly golden and squatting every evening when we were stopped by the red light. we'd peer through the dirty windows of the buildings that had yet to be restored and daydeam that we could afford one (not to mention the restoration!). i always liked the ceilings best, and e. liked to roll her fingertips across the doorplates, mumbling their numbers under her breath.
sometimes we would find ourselves wandering through the thrift store where, our lady of the nights, the drag queen "marina diamond" worked. she wasn't "marina diamond" during the workday through, and i always was startled when a depressed looking man would "ahem" behind me. i'd stand there staring at this pathetic man, and then i'd catch the curve of his fingers around the hangers he was holding, and i'd realize who it was. we didn't talk much; i always liked marina better anyway. she had a better habit of snapping her clip-on earrings open and shut during particularly good gossip she told, and truthfully i didn't even remember his name. later on, e. and i would go to the drag parties at her house. i'd sit around with the few hetrosexuals with only daytime names, and we'd smoke joints and change the cassettes in the tape deck to correspond with whose number it was, who was coming out. then the ladies would come, swishing through the doors in sequins and fake lashes. they sautered and rolled and whirled, and sometimes, someone would have to shake my knee when it was my hit because i'd become so enthralled with eva's carmen miranda oufit. after the show, they would get drunk in the kitchen and the resident hairdresser would do cheap cuts and coloring. we would sit with our hair wrapped in foil with blow dryers carefully trained. then hunched over the sink with sweaty margarita glasses, orbiting like planets, and get washed out. after the cut, we were released into the living room where a chorus of "OH, GIRRRRL," would ring out. we were made to turn our heads, primp and preen, but we did it clumsily and apolgetically, blushing like little girls around a room full of "women".