On the nook of Duval and Petronia streets, a part of what’s affectionately referred to as Key West’s “pink triangle,” the 801 Bourbon Bar stays open till 4 a.m. Pink fluorescent lights spill out onto the road, the place the crosswalks are painted in rainbow colours, and the sounds of ABBA might be heard from two blocks away.
Inside, the first-floor bar resembles dozens of others in Key West: alcohol, music, dialog, enjoyable. However we weren’t right here for that, and as an alternative headed for the staircase within the nook.
“He’s with me; we’re doing an interview,” a grinning Jobie Jacomine informed a bar worker whereas main the best way.
We headed upstairs, the place he, Jobie, would turn out to be Puddin Taine, the well-known drag queen who has known as Key West dwelling for the previous 4 years.
On the second ground, an intimately small stage awaited the night’s performers and two bartenders arrange a pink bar. However the black curtain and what lay past made this bar totally different. The curtain was heavier than I anticipated, and I hoped Jobie didn’t see me wrestle to maneuver previous it. The room past, with its mirrors and make-up stations, might match not more than three individuals, and my legs appeared to take up an excessive amount of area, making me really feel much more misplaced.
The partitions had been obscured by extra wigs and costumes than I knew existed — blonde, brown, pink, pink; sequins, feathers and ruffles. Jobie sat me down on the mirror subsequent to his, its corners lined by information clippings and photographs (some I dared to have a look at solely as soon as). The counters, as soon as black, had been overcome with glitter.
This night time could be totally different.
I discovered myself conserving my head down, uncertain (or maybe scared) of what I may even see. Subsequent to me, one other drag queen joked, “Puddin’ is such a celeb.” The topic of a number of articles and the recipient of a number of drag awards, she’s not simply media savvy; she’s a media grasp and he or she wasted no time, first summarizing her routine on present nights:
5:45 p.m.: Cat nap.
6:30 p.m.: Get up. Double espresso. Three cigarettes.
7:15 p.m.: Clean up. “You must be clear shaven for this job.”
7:45 p.m.: Get to the bar, all the time on time. Park within the semi-illegal spot within the alley.
7:50 p.m.: Apply Mehron make-up. Spotlight first, then base, then powder…”Are you penning this down?” Contour with powder. “Mixing is a very powerful step.”
(I had but to ask a query.)
8 p.m.: Head right down to the road beneath to welcome wandering crowds and promote the upcoming present.
Jobie had returned from New Orleans earlier that day, having spent the week performing and partying at Mardi Gras. Now, Puddin’ Taine would do the identical again dwelling in Key West.
Sitting on the sidewalk exterior the bar, “Let’s hear it for the boy,” blasting in my ear, I witnessed the present earlier than the present, promoted by the gross sales queen herself in a puffy black wig, brilliant inexperienced costume, a cigarette and membership soda in hand.
Puddin Taine instructions consideration and every passing face bore a special emotion — concern, delight, pleasure, disgust. Folks hugged her, swarmed her, talked and took selfies. Others appeared away, even headed to the opposite aspect of the road (through the rainbow crosswalk). However all of them obtained the identical unfaltering exuberance from Puddin. “Take a stroll on the wild aspect,” she known as, dancing to the music. She would proceed promoting the night time’s present till the place was full or it was time to move upstairs.
It’s showtime
Round 10:45 p.m., quarter-hour earlier than showtime, I used to be informed to sit down on the bar for the efficiency. I selected a stool near the again and farthest from the stage, hoping to look at with out being seen. Seats and tables surrounded the stage, which juts into the room like a brief style runway. The gang would fill in round it, with all however one couple sitting up shut close to the stage. They had been within the again on the bar close to me, additionally attempting to not be seen.
When the lights dimmed and the present began, my straight, 21-year-old eyes widened. This present was not like something I had ever seen or imagined. 5 drag queens carried out about 15 numbers. (I felt snug watching possibly three of them.) Reny Marie, 20, carried out to Beyonce, then Michele, 67, paid tribute to Madonna, adopted by Puddin dressed because the Liberty Bell.
It was mayhem for somebody as out of their aspect as I, but additionally one way or the other intoxicating. At one level, Puddin dragged an viewers member on stage, ripping his shirt off earlier than lifting and twirling him. (I missed the conclusion of that quantity because of the lack of garments.) “He was heavier than I anticipated,” Puddin later recapped.
Working the gang, she discovered the quiet couple within the nook whose eyes now stuffed with concern. “Honey, how y’all doing over there? Often the straights are scared away by now,” she teased. They chuckled nervously, however she didn’t scare them off. Puddin made positive the gang laughed with them, not at them.
Then her eyes met mine. When she informed the viewers she wished them to satisfy a particular visitor, I grew involved. When she beckoned me to the stage, I panicked. Standing on the sting of the stage, the eye had shifted. The eyes that had been on Puddin all through the night had been now on me.
Proudly boasting that I used to be there to interview her, Puddin launched me and informed the gang I used to be straight. It was one of many first issues she had requested once we met, and I appreciated her willingness to make it identified in all places we went.
Standing on stage in a t-shirt, shorts and Crocs, I yearned for the obscurity of my seat within the again. I used to be out of my aspect, a naive newcomer, and but Puddin and the queens had a manner of distracting the uninitiated from their very own discomfort. After the present, Puddin came to visit to test on me and requested my response.
“I noticed issues I by no means knew existed,” I mentioned. it was a line she’d repeat to everybody we met for the remainder of our time collectively.
Wait, what’s subsequent?
We agreed to satisfy again up the subsequent day at 11:45 a.m. — for the all-male, clothing-optional pool occasion she hosts each Saturday on the pool bar behind the Bourbon Road Pub Complicated, diagonally throughout the road from the place we had been the night time earlier than. I went from being happy with myself for surviving night time one to worrying frantically about day two, and my face apparently confirmed it.
“Solely keep so long as you’re snug,” she mentioned.
Once we met up the subsequent day, Puddin was within the alley, smoking a cigarette and exhibiting her good friend footage from Mardi Gras. “Don’t make it appear to be I simply smoke cigarettes all day,” she pleaded. i promised her I’d attempt.
Way more snug on our second encounter, I requested questions whereas she did her make-up. I discovered about her drag household, her ardour for stage play writing, and her dream of at some point escaping to a farm. I discovered about her weekday job at Blue Heaven restaurant, her love for her hometown of St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana, and the “cash-only Italian restaurant” job she had when she first got here to the Keys (although she wouldn’t give many particulars). I heard concerning the difficulties of daytime drag within the warmth, and another, extra private, drag queen challenges. We sat and talked in a manner that was extra pleasant dialog than formal interview. By the point we headed throughout the road to the pool occasion, I had crammed eight pages of notes, and knew extra about her than I did a few of my associates.
To get to the pool, we went by way of one other bar, this one darker than 801, and out a again door adorned with a sexually suggestive sticker. I took a deep breath and opened the door to no matter lay past.
Regardless of a complete childhood in Key West and a neighborhood’s familiarity with Duval Road, the existence of this pool and its surrounding backyard bar space was information to me. There was a tiki bar, an upstairs solar deck and one males’s restroom. A Greek sculpture flanked the lavatory, and, very similar to most of the individuals across the pool, it didn’t disguise a lot. A DJ was organising below a tent within the nook.
Puddin once more launched me with the identical “he’s straight” spiel, to which an older gentleman replied wryly, “That’s what all of them say at first.”
At the same time as a author, I used to be misplaced for phrases.
I then met 305 Mari. He was the DJ for that day and it was his second time ever working a queer occasion. As welcome as I’d felt by Puddin, the presence of one other straight man was a welcome consolation. We talked for a bit as he arrange, laughing concerning the uniqueness of our state of affairs and the awkwardness of his first queer DJ gig. This time, he mentioned, he’d introduced a special playlist.
Because the pool occasion progressed, it grew to become more and more troublesome for me to look anyplace apart from my pocket book. Puddin had warned me that I might wish to depart earlier than everybody received too snug, and I began to know why. A voice stopped me as I began to say my goodbyes, my eyes locked on the ground.
Conversations & connections
“You understand, we’re enjoyable, cool homosexual individuals value speaking to as nicely,” mentioned an older gentleman sitting subsequent to a youthful man carrying giant designer glasses. Regardless of their starkly totally different appearances, the 2 are fortunately married.
For the subsequent 10 minutes, Jeff McQuary shared his story.
Upon popping out at age 15, he feared his army dad and mom would ship him to a “lunatic asylum” as an alternative of faculty. He informed me how his mother, up till his marriage, had relentlessly tried to set him up with girls.
The wedding was set in movement by a former Republican state congressman in McQuary’s dwelling state of Indiana. McQuary, a Democrat, had additionally labored in politics, and had celebrated when the highly effective Republican state Rep. Sam Turpin was charged with bribery.
However McQuary had no thought, again within the mid-Nineties that he and Turpin would turn out to be shut associates 15 years later. And he definitely couldn’t have predicted that Turpin would assist him meet his husband. The lesson, McQuary concluded, “Watch out who you’re evil to.”
Like Puddin, dialog with the couple got here simply. I used to be a vacationer of their world they usually had been proud to be my tour guides. There was a way of satisfaction in all the pieces they informed me, they usually clearly loved exhibiting off their lives to somebody who had by no means seen something prefer it. Puddin had informed me she by no means seen her job as distinctive or unique, however there was all the time a way that she knew it was chaos, and cherished it. Regardless of her plans to at some point escape all of it, her ardour for the approach to life was apparent.
As I left by way of the bar and walked into the Duval Road sunshine, Puddin’s mic echoed from the pool bar and seeped onto the road out entrance. I chuckled on the thought of the surface world overhearing her and felt a tiny bit like an insider.
Earlier than assembly Jobie/Puddin, I assumed we lived very totally different lives. It seems, we occupied two totally different worlds. However I used to be welcomed into that world from the second I entered and I skilled nothing however real hospitality (and a few lighthearted ribbing). My two days within the queer world had been intimidating, awkward and unpredictable, however unparalleled, eye-opening and unforgettable.
Guided by its movie star ambassador, Puddin Taine, I used to be welcomed into the world of Key West drag. And whereas I by no means felt that I belonged, I used to be by no means made to really feel that I didn’t.