Wild Dances by William Lee Adams

Author:William Lee Adams [Lee, William Adams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000 Fiction / General
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Published: 2023-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

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Spring arrives and with it the first-ever Miss Harvard pageant. Organizers, who are raising funds to support poor children in developing countries, say they’ll mitigate the objectification of women by allowing men to compete in drag alongside female students. One of the male producers describes it as a “battle of the sexes to see who is better at being a woman.” The campus women’s group seems less enthusiastic. Its chair warns that the pageant raises a red flag about loaded issues for women.

I haven’t worn a dress for years—I haven’t had a reason to. But I’m depressed, overweight, and slipping further into the darkness. If my therapist won’t give me drugs, perhaps I can self-medicate this way.

The night of the contest, staged in a university dining hall, my friend Brooke does my makeup and makes sure my dresses fall just right. I’m in good hands: She’s a real-life beauty queen from Texas and the reigning Miss American Achievement.

Playing to the audience, I mock the pageant at every turn. “A vote for me is a vote to bolster relations with Asian Americans,” I say in the parade of contestants, wearing a golden tube dress. “Race doesn’t define beauty. I do.” During the talent segment—after one guy stages a tae kwon do combat sequence, and a woman paints while roller-skating—I perform a baton routine to “It’s Raining Men.” I start in a raincoat with umbrella, but end in a blue crushed-velvet leotard.

The applause is rapturous and much of it comes from my gay friends who have turned out en masse. During the swimsuit competition, I wear plastic pork chops over my loins to protest this staged meat market. Jim, one of my best friends, rips off his shirt and throws it at me as I march past. He waxes lyrical to a news reporter during intermission. “I just wanted to support my man in his hour of need,” he says. “But based on the swimwear competition, he doesn’t need it.”

I win and several of us celebrate at Pizzeria Uno afterward. Jamison takes a wet napkin and removes my smear of lipstick.

“Sugar, you ain’t my baby girl no more,” he says. “You really are the queen.”

It’s a strange achievement—and one written up in a few national newspapers. I decide to take it seriously.

I embrace my unofficial duties and start appearing at charity events, creating new routines to “It’s Raining Men” and “Last Dance,” and riding through downtown Cambridge in an open-top convertible during a parade to celebrate Anjelica Huston. One night I host a variety show inside Memorial Church, the main church on campus, in support of Take Back the Night, the charity that works to combat sexual violence against women. I’m not sure why a drag queen has been invited, given that the audience consists mostly of retirees from around Cambridge and Boston. But the crown gives me a purpose. For my opening number I stand at the pulpit, staring down the central aisle, and tell a joke about a series of people standing up to request hymns from the pastor.

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