Hello gentle Americans. Gay people are born liars. It is not because we want to lie, it is just because we were trained at a very early age that telling the truth was very likely to get us into trouble with the people around us, who were supposed to be there to protect us, to love us. One of the first memories I felt shame for just being me was around the age of 3. “How could you possibly remember something from that long ago?” You are asking yourself. Very easily, drag queens are much like elephants, we rarely forget. And just when you least expect it, we will trample you to death underneath a 6-inch Fredrick Of Hollywood pump, because of some slight made years ago. Let me take you back in time:
It was a warm summer day in Pigeon Tit Tennessee, I could hear the crickets chirping in the thick night air, and my little soul was just jubilant with life. My mama, Shredda Lynn Lettuce, her current boyfriend and I just finished watching Julie Andrews in the Sound Of Music and upon seeing her on the mountain top spinning around, singing at the top of her lungs, “The hills are alive with the sound of music!”, filled my little heart with glee. So much so when my mama went to walk her beau to his motorcycle, I picked up my mama’s apron, with the lace trim and the daisy’s all over it, put it on, and began to reenact that very special cinematic moment. As I was in mid spin my mama walked back in, with her Pall Mall cigarette dangling from her red lips, her bleached blond hair fried and puffy like a pastry, she stopped dead in her tracks, put her hand on her thin hips and exclaimed, “What are you doing? You pretending to be a little girl? Well if you want to be a little girl go ahead and be a little girl. But not in my trailer young lady! I meant young man.” And she ripped the apron from my waist and threw it back into my face and walked outside into the balmy night. I was crushed like the little apron crumpled on the floor. It was in that moment I felt shame. That little apron was my apple in the Garden Of Eden and the moment I put it on I should have known that trouble would be soon following. But how could I know, I was only 3.
A few more shameful experiences down the road one realizes rather quickly that this feeling is not very good and we learn to lie to people, to tell them what they want to hear, so we please them and hide who we are. Lying becomes second nature to most gay folks; it is our default, programmed into us along time ago. It is so hard to break the habit, because even years later when you don’t have to lie about yourself, you find those little lies popping out of you mouth like a butt plug from a flabby bottom. Splat! They hit the floor and before you can close your orifice another one falls out on to the floor and pretty soon the linoleum is littered with butt plugs. A terrible analogy, but you will never forget it. Though my lying has gotten better over the years. When someone asks my age I only lie by two years, when someone asks me how big my ding-a-ling is I only lie by an inch and not two, and when someone asks me where a bathroom is I point them in the right direction and not the broom closet. So you see my little darlings it is progress not perfection.
Stay fresh,
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