Drag Queen Bingo on a Sunday in the Fall

Annie Dillard famously wrote, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing." One Sunday morning in September I went to church, by which I mean the arboretum where I walk with a friend, a circle of river birches sheltering our path like an open cathedral. Then I traipsed to a drag show, by which I mean a drag show with booze and gambling.

Actually, I drank club soda, and the gambling was bingo and raffles to benefit the local SPCA—but it was still a kick to float between those two venues. My friend Mimi, an artist who has donated her work to local animal shelters—including a series of murals, a months-long labor of love—kindly treated me to the show.

I should confess that I don't "get" drag any more than I got Dolly Parton's floofy wigs and skin-tight getups. I mean I don't get the urge to do glam: it seems like a senseless act of violence against one's comfort—all that stuffing of oneself into sequined sleeves like a human sausage. Luckily, nobody has ever tried to recruit me to this unnatural lifestyle, except for a corporate job in the late 80s where I had to wear panty hose.

But other people's sartorial splendor is not about me, and glam is an art of spectacle that adds formal beauty to the world. Besides, Dolly once said her wigs were her armor. The need for armor, I get. I've found that a flexible, semi-permeable shield is especially helpful around the heart.

Both Dolly and Annie are gone now, two artists trailing their life's labors and quips through our social feeds like the tails of comets. They had Christianity in common until Annie's grumpy website declared religion, none. Maybe what they shared was just this: no one will ever get fired for quoting either of them accurately.

I try to see the good in everybody, and I don't care who people are as long as they're themselves, whatever that is. — Dolly Parton

“There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.” —Annie Dillard, "Holy the Firm"

But back to drag queens: in younger days I met a few at parties, and what charmed me was not their glitter but their cheerful, ironic chutzpah. They deflect and defuse with wit, and honey, they're not going to take your shit. Like Dolly, they seem to have a gentle superpower: the power of the clown. That's what I looked forward to on a Sunday in early fall.

Here in Virginia, late September is when the hot, wet corset of summer finally loosens. Those first deep breaths of dry air fill me with hope and a euphoric sense of possibility. So I didn't mind waiting with the crowd on the bar's sunny back patio for a while till the doors opened. Then a guy looped neon-orange paper bracelets around our wrists, and we were in.

The venue was a cozy little cave of a bar with a few rows of long picnic tables, so unless you were a party of 10, sharing your table with strangers was a given. Still, the four handsome young men who approached our table asked politely if it was OK to sit there. (Later, Mimi would accidentally spill her drink on the floor and apologize for the disruption as we mopped up, and one young man would say, "Don't be sorry, I was just thinking I wish I could help you!")

Several entertainers took turns circling the little space and collecting tips. One was, of course, a Dolly impersonator. The persona was flawless as she floated around the perimeter lip-syncing Dolly's greatest hits. At first I stared at the boobs, trying to discern a seam between silicone and skin in the dim light, but then the rhythm of the music and lively energy of the crowd took over, and I just basked in the glam.

Dolly was a pro, but the most charismatic performer was an older, Rubenesque man in a tight, sequined evening gown. His drag persona was the name of a famous ethereal singer plus salad; I'll call her Hope Sprouts. Urging us to buy tickets for a fundraising raffle, Hope joked, "You could win a CAR! It's a '97 Pinto." She added, "It's brown."

Hope sashayed lightly around the room, visiting with each table as she plucked the dollar bills waving in our hands. Mimi had come prepared and handed me some of her dollars. I held one up awkwardly--was I doing this right? Hope moved close enough that I could feel her warmth. When she took the bill, she rested her large hand on mine for a moment. It felt like a blessing.

What do I know about blessings? Years ago before I finally declared "religion, none," I attended a Shabbat dinner at the small local synagogue. There, too, we sat at long tables that brought people together. I was in my 40s and by far the youngest person at the table. Next to me was a Holocaust survivor in her 90s in a jaunty red beret. When it was time to bless the children, she rested her hand on my head and recited the blessing for girls:

Yesimech Elohim k’Sarah Rivka Rachel v’Leah
May you be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.

For all children the blessing continued in unison,

May God bless you and protect you.
May God show you favor and be gracious to you.
May God show you kindness and grant you peace.

Before that night, no one had ever blessed me personally except when I sneezed. I felt like a five-year-old sheltered by kindness in a harsh world. Tears pricked the backs of my eyelids, held in only by my frayed corset of adult poise.

Then the woman in the red beret, the elder who had survived that soulless, merciless machinery of extermination, patted my head and pronounced, "Yer blessed, kid!"

So I know what a hand touching me in blessing feels like, and I know what a soul sparkling with warm irony feels like.

As warmth wove around us in that little bar, the crowd cheered each raffle winner—Mimi was one of them—and the young man who had wanted to help lip-synced "I Will Always Love You" to his lover, hand on heart. I looked at Mimi and our eyes reddened at the same time. My inner corset creaked, and I thought:

If men in masks and combat gear smashed through the door, armored to their soft chins, there would be no thoughts or prayers. Queen Dolly would thrust her giant prosthetic boobs in the way of their electric shock gloves, Hope would tower in terrible, sequined splendor, and the pink-suited emcee would shout into his mic to rally the troops. Mimosas spilling, we would clasp hands around whomever needed shielding.

If I may offer an addendum to Annie Dillard's proclamation: What we are doing with this hour is, God willing and the votes pour in, the closest we'll get to knowing what we would do.