“OK, so.” Josh takes a drag off the joint we’re sharing. “I need to prepare you for the chaos that’s about to descend.”
We’re standing on the roof of my apartment building, and this joint is particularly good. The sky is looking bluer, the clouds fluffier, with every puff.
“Like, I’ll try to contain it,” he goes on, talking fast, all jittery. “But it just happens on its own.”
Josh is practically vibrating with anxiety. He’s in town for a show, a very big one, singing at Lincoln Center with a handful of Ru Girls. And he’ll be in full, chaotic, glorious drag.
“I just… oh god.” He takes another hit, passes the joint to me. “There’s just so much to fucking do.”
He starts rattling off his to-do list while I smoke. He talks incredibly fast, his voice snarling with the kind of frustrated anxiety that’s a hair away from rage. And his body language is spiky, abrupt, totally unlike the way he usually moves, which is liquid and undulating, like Blanche Deveraux on her way out to the lanai.
I’m not worried; he’s totally prepared. This is just how he gets. Josh is a perfectionist, and he is constantly under incredible pressure. The combination would put anyone on edge. Living out of a suitcase, traveling from gig to gig, making just enough money to stay in the industry and also, (barely) to eat.
But Josh has that thing, that star quality, that it factor that’s so hard to describe. The best way I can think to: at parties, in candid photos, when Josh is in the background, mid-conversation, not even looking at the camera, half-obscured by other people having other conversations, he is still, somehow, the center of the shot. Every photo is of him.
“Listen,” I cut in when he pauses to take a breath. “It’s gonna be fine. We’ll help.”
His face crumples.
“Really?”
“Yes,” I say, almost annoyed that he would even pretend to not know this already. “Obviously.”
We share a look as I pass the joint back. He appreciates me. I know.
“Now this boa,” I say, getting back to it.
“Oh, Jesus.”
He winces.
This is the single biggest item on his to-do list. It’s also—unlike fixing his wig and gluing his earrings and getting to rehearsal on time—entirely optional.
“I don’t know,” he says, dithering. “Should we even do it?”
I flash back to a week ago, the two of us, running all around the Garment District, dipping in and out of all the little fabric stores that have no discernible difference, looking at ribbons and appliqués and stones and strings.
“Didn’t you already buy everything for it?”
Josh sighs, passing me the joint.
“Yeah.”
“And how long did that video say it would take?”
That same day, before we went out, Josh showed me a YouTube tutorial of the boa-making process. The final product looked like a clown wig that had come alive and grown into a snake.
“Seven hours.”
“Christ.”
He starts to laugh.
“Why do I do this to myself?” He looks so tired of his own shit. “I’m not a maker.”
It’s true. Josh is an opera singer, a comedienne, a clown, a force.
But his hands do not absently search for tactile stimulation. He cannot sew. As a drag queen, this is a point of shame. And yet.
“We’re making the boa.”
“But didn’t Magda say it would suck?”
I sigh. I shouldn’t have told him that.
“She did,” I admit.
Apparently, Witch made a tulle boa once. It took days. Magda said they regretted the project almost the moment they began.
“But her girlfriend made it alone,” I reason, trying to sound dismissive. “This is totally different.”
Josh nods.
“That’s true,” he says. “There’ll be three of us.”
“Exactly. And again.” I cannot emphasize this enough. “You already bought all the stuff.”
We both went nearly cross-eyed on our Garment District run. I will not let this be for naught.
“And it would look really good, I think.”
“It would, wouldn’t it?”
He stares off into the distance, seeming to picture it.
“It would. The drama.”
“And I didn’t get a new dress made like I wanted to.”
There was no time, no money.
“Exactly,” I agree, feeling him soften. “You need something new.”
He takes another hit off the joint. Doubt, like a disgusting little worm, wriggles around behind his eyes.
“But is it worth it?” He sucks his teeth. “I’m only onstage for like, three minutes.”
“So?”
“So, no one’s even gonna know who I am!” he whines. “I’m just the jenkety little local girl. I’m nobody.”
“Stop.”
This is truly ridiculous. Josh’s stage presence, his talent, his voice. They are no joke. Listen.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, giving him my gentlest, most mother voice. “This is Lincoln Center. With the Ru Girls. And they cast you.”
Our eyes meet.
“This is it, honey.”
There’s magic in the air around this gig—I can feel it. I won’t let him talk himself out of it.
“All you have to do is make an impression,” I say. “And that boa—”
He nods, lets out a big sigh.
It has to get made. For whatever reason, no matter the mess or the stress or the inconvenience, the boa has to exist. Not making it feels not correct.
“We’re making the fucking boa,” I say again.
Hours later, after Josh has tried on several gowns and restyled his wig and we’ve all eaten dinner and the dishes are washed, we gather around the kitchen table to begin.
My partner, my sweet angel husband, Oden, is sitting up very straight, an eager little smile on his face, awaiting instruction.
Josh is seated across from him, a roll of green tulle and one of my high school yearbooks in hand.
“OK, so,” he says, beginning his demonstration. “First you’re gonna do this.”
He starts wrapping tulle around the yearbook, counting each layer. It looks almost like he’s working a loom.
“You’re gonna wrap it 30 times.”
“30 times??” Oden says, truly shocked.
“30 times.”
Josh looks a little bit like he wants to die.
“OK, and then.”
He cuts the tulle, slides its 30 layers off the yearbook. It is now a neat little packet.
“You’re gonna take this ribbon,” he says, cutting it at yearbook length, “and tie it really tight in the center.”
The tulle packet now resembles a bow.
“And that’s it,” Josh says. “And then we’ll attach all of them to that rope.”
A length of green, shining cord snakes across my living room floor.
“And then we snip the side-folds and fluff out the layers.”
Simple.
“But first we wrap the tulle,” Oden says.
I can tell by the look on his face that he cannot imagine what this will look like at the end.
“Right,” Josh nods.
“How much tulle?” I ask.
Josh lets out a dark laugh, gesturing towards the kitchen island.
“All of it.”
An absolute fleet stands on the countertop. The rolls look like they’ve unionized.
“Oh, god,” Oden says.
I am so grateful we smoked so much weed before this.
“Here we goooooo!” Josh sings, sarcastic, self-loathing, a little crazed.
I put Jem and the Holograms on the TV to play in the background, and we all get to work.
"30 times. Josh looks a little bit like he wants to die." Hahahahaha. I'd love to see the finished product. Hope the performance was everything Josh hoped it would be and more!