The queens looked at one another and shrugged before VaVa unlocked the plane’s door and lowered the stairs. Her manicured index finger instantly pointed outward. “Listen to that instead, girlfriend.”
Once we were helped out of our seats, Dara and I, hand in hand, poked our heads out the door, our ears instantly greeted to the uproar, to the din of the cheering crowd. To the thunderous applause of—steady yourself—a sea of drag queens, a flock of fawning fans, the likes of which I could barely imagine in my mind’s eye.
“What the—” croaked out Dara.
“Fuck,” said I, finishing her train of thought. My head turned this way and that, trying to take it all in, to take them all in, to wrap itself around this vision of quantum queenliness. “Fuck,” I repeated in one long, deep exhale. And with lungs as long dead as mine were, that was no easy task, let me tell you.
“You already said that,” said Flo as she led me down the stairs. Well, carried really, because zombies can do many things, but climbing down isn’t generally one of them.
“It merits repeating,” said I as she set me down, Ginger doing the same to Dara, until we were both standing on pavement, the sea of humanity now a tidal wave, surging toward us. Suddenly, I knew what Dorothy felt like when she emerged from her twister-riding, black and white house into Technicolor. BOOM!
“I don’t get it,” Dara said, her hand again gripping my own. “Every man and woman and child, all drag queens. Did we die and go to heaven?”
“Technically . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, hon,” she said. “But it’s either that or one hell of a dream.”
Ironically, neither one was still possible: dying or dreaming. “Technically . . .”
She squeezed my hand. “Technically, we shouldn’t be three hundred year old zombies, so please stop saying that.”
By then, the sea had parted, and we, like Moses, proceeded to amble through it, hands lifted up on all sides of us in cheer, voices as well, like we were the prodigal, um, sons (yes, more irony) returning home.
I looked to my left. VaVa was by my side, waving at the throng, her smile so big and bright that it looked painful. “They adore you,” I made note.
“Us,” she retorted. “They adore us. As well they should.”
Again she lost me, but with all the hubbub and ado, now, I figured, was not the time for more questions. Save, that is, for one. “But how . . . how can an entire population be, well, gay?”
She stopped, I stopped, Dara stopped, and Ginger and Flo kept right on walking. Guess they were too swept up in the moment—go figure, a drag queen who lives for applause. “Gay?” said VaVa, sotto voce. “It is not a word allowed here.”
My face froze—uh, well, froze even more so than usual. “Huh?”
“Yeah, what she said: huh?” said Dara. “But you’re all drag queens.”
She shook her head. “We are Libetians. It is what we have always been, back to the—”
“Beginning,” I said, with an ever-growing frown. “Yes, we got that.” And it was then that I understood, finally. “My friends, Destiny and Kit and Blondella . . .” Again she seemed to pray at the mention of their names. “You, you worship them?” I stared at the torch-bearing drag queen that rose high above us, then back to VaVa. “But they weren’t gods. They weren’t even all that talented entertainers. Though they could certainly drink a sailor under the table, but that’s no reason to worship someone, is it?” Admire, maybe, but worship? I think not. A whole boat of sailors, okay, but not one measly sailor.
She stared at me as if in a daze, but then seemed to shake it off. Or forced herself to. “Please, just follow me. Your room is waiting.”
Dara again gripped my hand and pulled me toward her, her mouth up to my ear. “Watch what you say, hon. Might not be in our best interest to mock, just yet. Fun as that usually is.”
I nodded my head. “Good point.” Then I again turned to our hostess. “Please, do lead on.”
And so she led while I stared at the adoring masses, each one dressed, if my eyes did not deceive me, in, what I could only assume, was now vintage Donna Karan and Stella McCartney and Versace and a host of designers I had knock-offs of a few hundred years prior. Plus, they were all in towering heels and equally towering wigs, with enough makeup to spackle all of Hoover Dam with. Beguilingly beautiful, yes, but just as unnerving, too. I mean, back in the day (like way, way back) it was great being a big fish in a little pond, but now, suddenly, all the people were the same, everyone and everything, well, fishy.
“Are you as lost as I am?” shouted Dara above the din.
“Loster,” admitted I. “Guess it’s best to just go with the flow for now.”
She shrugged. “Hell, for one of those Bob Mackie gowns we just passed, I’d flow like a simultaneously menstruating school for girls.”
“Gross,” said I. And this coming from a seriously crusty, old zombie. Meaning, I knew of gross. And then some.
In any case, soon enough we were driven across the pontoons, through the center of town, and lifted up, up, up the stairs and into Lady Liberty herself before we were shown to our quarters. I didn’t ask why we were given these accommodations; it was, after all, obvious in just about two and three-quarter seconds—the three-quarters needed to get over the initial shock.