Chapter Eight #2
There was, admittedly, graffiti on the dumpsters, and there were patches of brown grass, and the pathways were occasionally littered with cans and napkins and Popsicle sticks, but for the most part, Central Park was as nice as, if not nicer than, any park he’d been in.
In the meadow where they laid down their sweatshirts as makeshift blankets, he didn’t even find a single needle—or, for that matter, a single sheep.
“Still worried about Son of Sam?” Christian said, slipping off his purple jelly sandals and burying his toes in the grass.
“It’s nice,” Danny admitted, turning his face to the sun and closing his eyes. “It even smells like autumn,” he said, taking in a deep breath of air.
“That’s just pot,” Astoria said, pointing to another group of kids standing in a tight circle a few yards away. “Want me to ask them to pass the Dutchie?”
“No!” Danny blurted, so loudly that even one of the nearby tokers turned to look. “I mean, nah, no, I’m fine.”
“Suit yourself,” she sighed, laying her buzzed head across one of Orion’s parachute-pant legs.
FLASH.
Orion’s camera sent out a silver flare, cranking out a square photo of his friends’ bodies in repose on the grass.
What’s he going to write this time? Danny thought.
Orion reached into his bag (shaped like a pair of red patent-leather lips) and pulled out his famous Sharpie, scribbling something on the white border. He then took the photo and tossed it into the air, letting it helicopter down and land gently in Danny’s lap.
“ ‘Ballyhoo’,” Danny read, annoyed that he’d been foolish enough to expect it would have some deeper meaning, or give a name to the new feeling that had been growing in his chest.
“What’re you gonna do with all these?” Danny asked, handing the Polaroid back to his alien…friend.
Orion shrugged, unzipped his lips, and slipped the photo inside.
“How’s Pippin going, Nina?” Christian asked, stretching his legs out and pointing his toes.
“Oh, it’s slammin’,” Nina said, beaming. “Ms. Mellon’s doing some really cool stuff. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say there’s a lot of flashlight acting.”
“Flashlight acting? What’s that?” Danny asked, but then immediately caught himself. “No, wait, lemme guess, it’s some technique I should have already learned by now.”
“No,” Nina said. “It means we literally use flashlights. Like, in every scene. As props and light instruments. It’s all very downtown.”
“Speaking of downtown,” Astoria cut in, “who’d like to come with me after school to scout for locations?”
“Locations for what?” Danny asked.
“For my one-woman show, Hysterical Blondeness,” Astoria declared, expressing more interest in Danny than she’d ever shown.
“It’s a piece I’m writing for the Winter Arts Showcase about sex-positivity and vegetarian ecofeminism and also about the summer that my mom forced me to sell Girl Scout cookies. ”
“Huh,” Danny said, nodding stupidly. “And…you need somewhere to perform it?”
“If you know of any places…,” she purred. “Ideally east of the Bowery and not too expensive.”
“I don’t think I do,” Danny replied. “I mean, my church on Staten Island has a basement where they sometimes do karaoke.”
“A church basement on Staten Island,” Astoria muttered to herself. “Probably that sucks, but I’ll keep it as an option.”
Danny was leaning back on his elbows, staring into the sky at a rubber-duckie-shaped cloud, when a nearby group of parkers spun the dial on their boom box radio.
Sweet dreams of rhythm and dancing.
Sweet dreams of passion throoouuugh the night.
“This is my sooooong!” Christian wailed springing from the ground like a disco grasshopper.
He waved his arms and kicked his legs and swung his wrists above his head like he was batting away a swarm of stylish bees.
Astoria, Nina, and Orion all sat up, clearly delighted, shouting “yes!” and “live!” at their gyrating friend.
This spontaneous dance, if you could call it a dance, wasn’t like the ones Danny had seen in ballet, nor was Christian like any of the guys he’d seen backup dancing on MTV.
The way he moved was decidedly, even aggressively, feminine, but the opposite of delicate.
Danny looked around, trying to hide his secondhand embarrassment, and noticed that his friend’s dance was attracting attention from the other strangers sitting on the lawn.
“You go, girl!” a young woman hollered from the group with the boom box, turning up the music like this was something she had seen before and acting like it was normal to be calling Christian a “girl” even though he was clearly a boy.
Orion started clapping along and Astoria snapped her fingers, shimmying her shoulders to the beat.
Christian dipped his head and whipped it back up, twisting his body into isosceles triangle poses, like he was a mannequin in a mall window or posing for photos in a fashion magazine.
He fanned his face and swam without water and arched his back like he’d forgotten he had a spine, and ended the whole thing by sliding down into the splits on the grass with a laugh.
Nina and Orion and Astoria all leapt to their feet, giving Christian a standing ovation.
“What was that?!” Danny cried. “That dance? What was that from?”
“Oh, just something I’m working on,” Christian said, rolling onto his side and posing like a centerfold with his chin resting in his palm.
“They taught you that at LaGuardia?” Danny asked, confused.
“Ha! I wish.” Christian laughed. “No, just something I’ve been practicing with my drag mother, Portia Thority.”
The blank look on Danny’s face asked the question before he even said it. Nina leaned over and slung her arm around Christian’s waist.
“Did he not tell you? Our friend Christian here is a drag queen.”
“A drag queen in training,” Christian corrected her. “A drag handmaiden, if you will. I’ve never even performed yet.”
“Yes, but you will,” Astoria interrupted. “Next month at the Limelight, which is, like, the best club in the City to make your debut.”
Danny hoped that his silent nod would be the only contribution expected of him in whatever conversation was happening, but everyone turned to look at him anyway.
“Danny?” Nina asked carefully. “You do know what drag is, don’t you?”
“Like…,” Danny said cautiously. “Car racing?”
At first, their laughter was polite, hidden behind a furtive hand.
“A drag queen is a female impersonator,” Astoria declared, finally. “For entertainment purposes, mostly.”
Danny could feel the features on his face coming slightly unglued.
“Oooh!” Nina inserted, “You know, like Angel in Rent.”
“Wait…Angel in Rent is…,” Danny sputtered, suddenly feeling like he’d crapped his trunks while standing at the edge of the diving board. “Oh my God.”
“No! Stop!” Astoria gasped. “Wait, you didn’t know Angel was a guy?”
“I just thought she, er, he had a deep voice!” Danny bleated as his friends’ polite laughter escalated into a full-on riot, painting their outfits in grass stains as they rolled on the ground in delight.
“You’re killing me, Smalls!” Christian cackled, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his turtleneck. Okay, well, at least that’s a reference I get, Danny thought. “But, hey, if we’re being totally honest, I’m not even sure Angel is a man.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” Nina cut in. “I think Jonathan Larson makes that fact pretty clear.”
“Oh, you mean, straight, male Jonathan Larson?” Christian deadpanned.
“May he rest in peace,” he added quickly, giving a sign of the cross.
“Look, I’m just saying, when you’ve got a character dressing femme for almost the entire show, even when she’s not performing at clubs, you just have to wonder. ”
“Wait, so you’re saying Angel is…?” Nina crinkled her eyebrows.
“A woman?” Christian shrugged. “Why not? I don’t think she’s doing it just for entertainment.”
“And what about you?” Danny asked, brushing the dirt off his elbows, an icy feeling traveling through his veins. “Are you trying to be a woman? Like a…transvestite or something?”
Danny’s father had warned him about those kinds of people. The kinds who worked down by the docks. The kinds his father would bust and then come home sweaty and keyed up, like he’d just bagged a ten-point buck.
“Chicks with dicks,” his father would snort with a shit-eating grin. “You shoulda seen their ugly faces.”
“I’m not trying to be anything,” Christian said, an edge in his voice. “I’m just being me—Christian Geronimo. Who is someone who, on occasion, likes to paint his face and dance in heels. That’s all.”
“But,” Danny sputtered, shaking his head. “You’re gonna perform like that…in public?”
Christian flinched slightly, then locked eyes with Danny in a measured stare.
“Why not?”
“Well, ’cuz.” Danny looked over to his friends, who didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned. “It’s not…I mean, aren’t you scared of what people are gonna say?”
Whatever giggles remained in his friends’ throats were immediately swallowed. Nina, Orion, and Astoria all turned to Christian, the insides of their cheeks clenched between their teeth.
“Honey,” Christian said languorously, dropping his chin and leveling Danny with a look like he was about to deliver a remedial lecture on the importance and influence of Bob Fosse in the corpus of American dance. (Again.)
Christian picked himself off of the grass and stood tall above his friends, the sun forming a corona around his spiky hair as Danny squinted up from the turf.
“Point number one,” he said, raising his finger like he was pronouncing a commandment. “The only thing people are gonna be saying about me is that I’m a sensation.”
“Mm-hmm,” Astoria hummed in agreement, looking at the dirt under her nails.
“Point number two,” Christian continued, raising a well-practiced middle finger. “I don’t give a withered fuck what people say, regardless.”