I had lost in the lottery-seven and a half million, after my son had a tantrum and I forgot to play the daily-and I lost in Vietnam more than half the swearing finger-and a wife who had a beak for a nose, which tormented her along with her rich parents-until she ended it with a likely story of a fall from our ranch house into the laundry room.
So here I am, back at the ranch, alone with a son-no mother-and a drag queen of a neighbor who takes care of my household with relish- "she," that is, Charlie, my only company nowadays. Charlie works in a drag show, and when she's not taken up with the higher things, she makes my bed, puts a rose into the lapel of my only faded Sunday suit, is truly Mrs. Clean except in her language-a better homemaker than Roberta, and what's more, she loves it. Says it gives her satisfaction-but sings the phrase like in the rock tune, as she cradles Steven.
"Life's a bitch," she says. She's smiling in red lipstick and red bandana.
"I could have been set up in life if I won the lottery-8-15-22 and 35 comes to me every day and night-and I could have set you up as a queen really deserves. My wife, she was a New Jersey princess, but Charlie, you're a monarch."
"Charlene, remember...but today I'm in a royal flush...I've been whistling while I work and will give you the best job of the day."
"You're better than any wife, Charlene."
I kiss her.
"You didn't realize you were an admirer until your wife died."
"I used to watch you...I admit it...putting your lingerie on...I got hard...and then with my marriage hard up and then when I lost Roberta..."
"You knocked on my door."
"I needed help."
"My wife...she didn't have any accident in her fall from here to the cellar...She just took some pills: a little diet, some phenos, my old reds from Nam, and...there she goes...down the drain."
"Oh, Hank." She begins to dust furiously.
"Charlene, picture the guys in Charlie company if they could see me now."
"You were there. I was only in junior high when I carried the sign in D.C., 'Bring our boys home.'"
"Maybe your sign brought me to your door."
Charlie lets me massage her, the vacuum cleaner roaring. I turn it off.
"I'd better get my rusty dusty over with." She takes up the feather duster. "I have a show to do uptown."
"Do you put receipts in your breast, Charlene, the way they do in the shows?"
"Come and see me some time."
"No, sugar, that would spoil my image of you. When we were shopping I noticed the guys staring at you, gorgeous."
"Did it make you jealous?"
"No, knowing I could have you any time, it didn't bother me."
"I have to go, Hank. The show starts at 10:00." She gets her rabbit fur coat.
"How come you were home so late yesterday?"
"Keeping tabs on me? I registered for a course in interior decorating and I met with George."
"Not the professor cat."
"Yes, George Milo, the screenwriter who wants my story."
"The only story I'll find you in will be in the Star."
"That's mean."
"I didn't mean it, but I miss you honey...every night."
"I can't sit home watching TV. I am one."
"I never knew transvestites before you. You're the first. But I bet you know a lot of men like me. I know I'm not much, just a loser in the Irish Sweepstakes, but I love you, anyway."
"I know you do. That's why it hurts if you insult me."
"You've done it to me."
"But it's part of my world. I don't want to be hardened to it. Do you think it was easy growing up in Canton, Ohio, feeling I was really a girl? School was a pain, but my family was after me to change, and eventually I decided against having the operation."
"You liked your dick too much."
"I was used to it, Hank, and afraid...so damn afraid to go through with it."
"It won't matter to me, one way or the other."
"Does my dick bother you in my nightgown?"
"No...I like it. I've got it both ways."
"But when I met you, Hank, you seemed like such a straight shooter."
"In Nam I had guys, American as well as Vietnamese, even a Frenchman, and, would you believe it, an Australian."
"But what about the war whores?"
"I know it sounds crazy, but I thought it was in the Catholic pecking order the worst sin-it'd hurt my wife and God. I guess we're all crazy when it comes to what we believe, especially if we are dangling every minute between life and death."
"So you were afraid of hell, Hank."
"I was in hell, and purgatory was too long to spell. Yes, I prayed, too. I hope God heard me."
"I prayed, too, since I was seven and playing on a swing, for someone like you to notice me and treat me better than any girl."
"Girl, you going to wear a pink slip tonight?"
"So go on and sound like a dirty old man. And take away the romantic in you."
"Just kidding...You like me even without half this finger?"
"So you can't swear at me..."
"Or finger you properly."
"You do all right."
"Miss Browning, the social worker is worried about us and Steven."
"Don't call her Miss Browning. It's Brown."
"I know that...but she don't think much of us. I can tell."
"They can't separate a father and son, without grounds...and if they feel I'm not the proper mother...then you can do both."
"You seem to do both as a woman and a guy."
"Then take a lesson from me. Kiss me-I'm late, real late. And Mr. Goldrush won't like it a minute."
"You don't like me to call people names...but you can get away with it."
"Us small people have to get back at the big guys some way!"
"I'm a big guy."
"Don't I know it. See you later."
I didn't want to let go of her.
"Stop holding me, please."
"You don't have to work. I support you."
"Not that song and dance. I make a living doing a drag show."
"And what else besides?"
"You think I cheat on you?"
"I don't know, honey. Sometimes I have to wait up for you until the morning to know you are OK."
"I believe it. Can you tell if I've had a sperm whale on my back too?"
"Well, I know you don't like fish."
"Nor do you."
"I did, until you..."
"Let's not fib."
"It's true, honey child. You are the first and the last."
"You sound like my Sunday school teacher who tried to feel me up every church service."
"Did he succeed?"
"He suck...he suck...succeeded, but he passed out like Satan falling in the choir loft. I was thinking today...some guys impress me by something about them-eyes, mouth, bod, their clothes, their walk, the way they fuck me up...but with you, Hank...I can't figure out the chemistry between us."
"I flunked chemistry in school."
"Please let me go."
Steven is crying. He is having a bad dream, and goes over to Charlene.
"You see, you're a natural woman."
"Tell that to Mrs. Brown. Good night, guys."
Charlene goes out and watches the stars. She thinks every star has a secret, the moon
the greatest of all. The moon cannot understand the loneliness of every other celestial
being. We are no better.
Z. Niditch's work appears in The Denver Quarterly, Hawaii Review, Pacific Review, Minnesota Review, Asylum; new plays are published by Stage Whisper.
For other stories by B.Z. Niditch, click here.
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