dragged... (Part 14)

        A Change Is Gonna Come

          As I sat there facing my mirror, I looked into the eyes of someone who had just been dispelled in front of an unsuspecting public, with streams of mascara leaving black trails of shame and desolation on my face; however, I did not feel defeated I felt liberated.  With Sam Cooke’s heart wrenching song of change blaring in the background, I pulled the hope of promise against my chest, knowing that I was still somebody to be reckoned with in this game of glitter and glam.  

          My existence flew high above the confines of this little Drag Club, for I knew I was more than nothing and I was a whole lot of something, but I clamored in the rage of my soul out of sheer wit and determination to be who I was rather than the someone hungry for simple adulation and praise. On the outside I presented myself to this world as a woman, but on the inside I knew that I was still a black man emasculated by my own desires to be something beautiful. 

          I knew that in society’s eyes, black, brown, yellow and white, I was a shame to men all around the world, but I wasn’t ashamed of who I was, at least I was living my life out loud and not hiding behind the façade of masculinity like Maddox and my love, Nicholas.  The shackles of the fifties, the afros of sixties and the rap of the eighties were all a part of my history.  I was no better or less than anyone of those people, fighting for their voices to be heard and their equality to be had.  

          If I planned on being heard then I needed to step from behind the shadows of the down low and rise to the next level without anybody’s approval.  If I was going to stand for something, then let me stand for those younger than myself, whose families had turned their backs on them.  Unlike Elixir and Sunny, I wanted to represent more than sequined gowns and colorful feathers.

          Sunny assumed that I was going to retreat back into anonymity, but what she didn’t realize is that I knew that I came from a long line of greatness and I was about to use my courage to enlighten others in need of enlightenment, and be a symbol of strength for those who thought they were weak.  The SS Missouri was more than a glossy boat who took her passengers on vacation, she was a battle ship equipped with state of the art weaponry, and the first ass she was going to blast was Sunny’s. 

          She had it coming too.

          Everything that I threw at her ass was going to be well deserved because she was a flaw on the face of mankind and I was about to empty out my arsenal on her crooked, heartless, and manipulative ass.  I knew that she had something up her sleeves, but what she didn’t know, is that I had a whole bunch more up my sleeves.  I was going to make her sorry that she ever tried to sink the SS Missouri. 

          I know that, in her eyes, I was not a threat, but this is where that bitch would slip up, because in her selfish quest for fame, she was not going to see me coming and once I was done with her, all that she was and all that she strived to be was going to be put on front street.  I was going to expose her for what she truly was, a lying, cheating, frightened little boy, too frightened to wear the shoes of a man, and too weak to wear the stilettos of a woman. 

          “Sing it Sam,” I said out loud, swaying in front of my vanity mirror with the velocity of a drunken sailor. 

          “Baby, let’s go home,” Nick suggested, wrapping his arms around me.

          “Leave me alone, Nick, I am fine, I am the best of both worlds; the woman and the man, I’m alright…” I told him, shaking myself out of his embrace. 

          “Don’t become her Missy…don’t become her, baby,” he pleaded, treating me like a delicate flower. 

           “PLEASE…don’t do that, Nicholas,” I said, waving my arms around so that he wouldn’t be able to wrap his arms around me again. 

          “Missouri, you’re more woman than she’ll ever be,” he said, working the top-side of my last nerve.

          “This isn’t you, baby…this drinking….all of this loudness…it ain’t you,” he told me.

          I spun around on the chair of my vanity, looked at him, as the black mascara traces continued sliding down my face.  I scoffed at him, and put my hand on my hip, and said, “How in the fuck would you know who I am, Nick?  You scared to be seen out in public with me, so how in the fuck do you know who I am when you don’t even know who you are, baby,” I told him, with a twinge of sarcasm in my tone.

          He looked at me in disbelief, not wanting to accept what I had just said, but my dick was longer and thicker than his, so he knew that I was a man, and I dared him to challenge that title at that moment.  I stared him down like he was a stranger to me.  He was too.  You see, I had played my cards wrong for too long not to be able to call it right.  He needed to hear it.  He needed to shut his pretty self up and listen for a change. 

          “Don’t even try to deny it, Nick, you know I’m telling you the truth.  You love all of the sexual things we do, but you aren’t willing to jeopardize your precious image to walk arm and arm with me down the street because you fear what everybody else is gonna say, am I lying, baby?” I asked him, repositioning myself in a dominate pose. 

          He charged over to me, and grabbed me around the throat, but I didn’t care, I kept my glare going in full effect, if he was going to strangle me then I was going to go out like a rider. I suppose I had a little bit of my daddy’s attitude in me because I refused to back down to his aggressiveness. 

          When he didn’t proceed, I snatched his hand down, and told him to get the fuck out.  When he didn’t move right away, I asked him again with all the masculinity in my tone that I could muster. 

          “Get the fuck out of my room, Nick, and take your closet door with you,” I said. 

          “All of you things are crazy,” he said, backing away.

          “Oh, I got your thing right here in my panties motherfucker and it’s way bigger than that little ink pen you working with,” I told him.

          He slammed the door with such velocity until pictures fell off of the wall. 

          I didn’t care either. 

          “Take your tired ass on, nigga, you ain’t got the balls to be standing in the presence of a Diva,” I told him, as I lifted up my glass and toasted my freedom.

          After a few moments, I slammed the glass goblet down onto the vanity’s table. 

          “Sunny Skies, add me to the list of people you had fucked with for the last time!” I screamed to the top of my lungs.   

          A skank by any other name would still be a stank ass bitch!

          My name is Missouri, and you could quote me on that! I had little to loose, but every damn thing to gain.  I was going to wipe the floor up with that tramp! 

          I was pretty, but I was about to get pretty damn ugly!