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P’mont & 10th (Or, At the Age-Old Corner of Gentle Memory’s Ill-Gotten Gain, Some Reason Reckon)

Cast of Characters

 

Speaking Man:                                                                    An unnamed cis man of no particular, but adult age, in wrinkled khaki

                                                                                               pants and a long-sleeved, autumnal-colors plaid shirt. Unshaven and

                                                                                               disheveled, he wears blatantly mismatched socks, shoes, and no belt,, and

                                                                                               sports a jacket and a backpack, which has a couple cans of beer in it. He

                                                                                               looks rough for the wear after a night out that should’ve ended before it

                                                                                               started.

 

Pink-Tutu’d Man:                                                              Any age/gender/race. Bearded, bearish, burly, but muscular, in a pink

                                                                                               tutu and wearing a sparkly tiara. Speaks no lines.

 

Director:                                                                              The director, of course! Any age/gender/race.

 

Nun:                                                                                      Any age/gender/race. Dressed in habit and with medieval,  oversized

                                                                                               rosary. This character is not essential, but does add levity, and as per

                                                                                               Director, may fan self with a playbill and/or say, “Hail Mary,” etc., during

                                                                                               more scintillating and/or overly serious moments of dialogue.

 

SCENE

That (in)famous, fabled non-heteronormative intersection of streets found in every locale heavily peopled enough to have at least two such souls aching for connection of the sort. You know the place we visit here –- if not visited already yourself, you’ve heard such talk of such places, maybe even whispered such jabber through your own parched lips.

 

TIME

Some morning, afternoon, or night in the distant past. A comforting, troubled time that alternates between feeling like yesterday’s toothache and near-gone memory’s tattered scrap book.

 

ACT I: You Know The Feeling

 

Scene 1: Been Here, Done This, Enough

 

 

SETTING:                                                                            Arranged around the stage are three high- school-classroom-caliber,
                                                                                               solid-wooden chairs, each home to one of the following sets of props (all
                                                                                               items not needed for full effect):

a) smart leather cap, ’70s-style-porn fake mustache, leather chaps, harness, boots, riding crop or whip;
b) cowboy hat, jeans with strategically suggestive holes, holster with fake gun, scuffed cowboy boots with spurs, western vest, lasso;
c) ball cap, classic athletic jock, tight athletic shorts, one noticeably soiled but still largely white athletic sock, baseball bat, lacrosse stick, jump rope.

 

The riding crop, lasso, and jump rope are all fastened around the back of the appropriate chair, to call attention to themselves.

 

Other props include three protester-type placards that read: “Race = __”; “Gender = __”; “Sex(…uality) = __”.

 

                                                                                               An empty stage other than the props mentioned above and a wooden
                                                                                               pole standing stage center. Affixed to the pole are two street signs with    
                                                                                               the wording blurred, broken, or otherwise obscured –- we could be in any
                                                                                               street or town. The placards lie stacked against the pole, their words hard

 

                                                                                               to make out from the audience viewpoint at rise.
                                                                                               Also, there is a similar chair, empty, off to one side.
                                                                                               The stage is dark; a dimmed light bulb hangs near the street sign, to     
                                                                                               illumine the metaphorical suggestion of every life- corner’s lurking
                                                                                               danger potential. A foot- wide rainbow of traditional Pride colors lies
                                                                                               across the stage at an offset angle; it is not yet entirely visible on the
                                                                                               largely darkened stage.

 

                                                                                               Asleep, SPEAKING MAN is passed out beneath the street signage, with a
                                                                                               beer can still in one hand, firmly. Purely at will and with no script-
                                                                                               directed cue, the actor throughout the performance admires, handles,
                                                                                               throws, places, tosses, relinquishes, mimics, satirizes, fantasizes,
                                                                                               fetishizes, wears, destroys, demeans, hates, loves, makes love to?, and
                                                                                               yes sports and worships and talks at and to the various props at times
                                                                                               throughout the play’s duration. The actor may read the wrylies, some or
                                                                                               all, as per Director.

 

                                                                                               Because SPEAKING MAN has virtually a monologue, it is entirely
                                                                                               appropriate to have a teleprompter or cue cards with his lines; they may
                                                                                               even be projected similar to operatic surtitles.

 

AT RISE:                                                                              Lights up slightly as darkened stage reveals the calmed DIRECTOR, who
                                                                                               enters stage right and speaks as if to an old friend, the audience.
                                                                                               SPEAKING MAN lies asleep, head propped up on his backpack, next to
                                                                                               street signage post.

 

DIRECTOR
I’m speaking for the playwright, as instructed in his script
     (holds up, waving, the script)
I added a big, burly, beefy, bearded, but muscly bear in a pink tutu to my play. He has no lines, but please be nice to him.
     (begins walking around stage)
There are three main themes in this place, no reason to keep hiding such things from the world at large:
    (counts on fingers)
gender and sexxxxx…uality and race.
    (stop walking)
He, the Pink-Tutu’d Bear, will dance around a bit at times with a placard to help guide our way, for those prone to sleepiness or worse in darkened corners of the mind, late hours of the night, or morning.
     (glances over at Speaking Man, before resumes walking, reading from and pointing at the script in hand)
I also gave the central character three sets of props, you see!
     (counts again on fingers, then points at chairs)
Jockkkkk. Cowwwwwwboy. LLLLLLeatherman.
     (stops walking and ponders words)
He, Speaking Man, assumes each in three micro-themed personas of Larger Self, again to help guide our way through this ancient tale of human woe, our lusty rituals of love and companionship, what an intersection those two! Commune with self, first and foremost,
     (nods, points at script in hand)
communion—with—self.
     (resumes walking)
Before we commence with the actual show, a bit of humorous history, hopefully news to most, if not all, of you here. Can’t we always learn something, every day?
     (stops walking at stage center)
The Latin phrase
     (drags out the pronunciation of the Latin phrase, to mimic its similarity to Hocus Pocus)
Hoc—Est—Corpus. Comes from the Church of Rome’s Eucharistic, or Holy Communion, key phrase, meaning “this—is—my body.” Referring of course to Jesus, the Christ, for those who believe in such forms of magic others call trusting religion.
     (resumes walking toward the street signage)
So we are told, so we are told. Hoc—Est—Corpus. Hocus—Pocus. In their own turn of tricks, ancient conjurers of medieval magic mimicked the priestly class, elevating their own forms of pretense, potion, and pageantry to dignified religion’s status while perhaps not so subtly also poking fun at the mortally serious business of priestly Transubstantiation –- you know, at the high altar on Sundays and Feast Days, turning lowly human hands- made bread into, Hoc—Est—Corpus.
     (stops walking, raises hands to Heavens)
Christ’s eternal and life-giving body, food for all, loaves and fishes!, remember?
     (makes sign of the cross)
Humor, indeed.
     (makes sign of the cross, again)
I hope not blasphemy, Trinity’s third time
     (slows speech)
the charm?
     (begins to make sign of the cross a third time, but reconsiders and walks on)
Yes, yes, you smarties, already figured it out, all you. We know these ancient conjurers’ magical turn-of-phrase today, in that abbreviated, more secular form of Hocus—Pocus! Hocus Pocus, from all of that, high-brow nobility of lowly birth upon the storied altar. Virgin’s ears, no?

 

                                                                                               (Speaking Man jerks in his sleep, rattling the beer can from his hand’s
                                                                                               release, the noise causing Director to look in his direction. Director
                                                                                               quickly puts script in a pocket, hurriedly and excitedly waves both hands
                                                                                               as if essence of time matters, in the direction of Speaking Man, as if to
                                                                                               conjure.)

 

DIRECTOR
This-–-is––my body, this—is—my work, Hoc—est— corpus, this is what I deem important, Hocus Pocus!

 

                                                                                               (Yawning, Speaking Man stretches out fully on the floor, hands raised
                                                                                               above head. He sits up slowly, looking around as if he doesn’t know how
                                                                                               he got there, can’t remember much more than who he is, who is he?)

 

DIRECTOR
     (hands still raised)
Supernatural, magical, worthwhile, real, human, humane. Lovable.
     (raises hands higher this time, this time as if blessing or calling upon a higher god)
Because I say so and feel it right. Worth a damn or a f—-. Hocus—Pocus.

 

                                                                                               (Director makes a circle in the air with his hands, while Speaking Man
                                                                                               stands, stretches, yawns again, before Director drops both hands and
                                                                                               lowers head forcefully, as if having exchanged one breath of life for
                                                                                               another’s. Speaking Man grabs his backpack, then lazily and instinctually
                                                                                               his crotch, aches to walk, anxious to act.)

 

DIRECTOR
    (tired, slowly heads toward stage right, looking back at audience, as speaking)
Even ancient stories must be told a certain way, you know. Theatrics provide levity here and there, even in churchly settings, especially there. We need entertainment and incense from time to time, magic, as much as love. Hocus— Pocus, indeed. Perhaps also nudity, though not always draped so elegantly our naked form on simple cross, but perhaps also here and crudely.

 

                                                                                               (Speaking Man scratches his crotch and stares about the scene,
                                                                                               wondrously.)

 

DIRECTOR
As per Director’s discretion, of course.
     (winks)
Hopefully, not too trite or crude, our words for you at play here,
     (points back at street signage)
in this youthful spot, sport of memory. We thank you for attendance.
     (exits stage right)

 

SPEAKING MAN
     (first three words spoken loudly, almost shouting and building to crescendo)
Ashamed. Ashamed. Ashamed. B.I. Back before the internet. Before Internet. Not B.C. or A.D.
     (kicks at the beer can on the floor, then speaks more softly, genially)
Story of the fallen. Us outcasts, The Other, The Dark, The Fey, The Female. You know, it was the center of the world at that time
     (points at street signage, with mix of reverence and mockery, but without looking at signs)
and had been, but for a moment,
     (glances at street signage)
or so it felt back then, in B.I. Times nary forgotten. Or so it felt. Didn’t someone, ‘Hocus Pocus!’ it all up? Undo. Undo. Control—ALT—Delete.
     (rolls hands as if to conjure, starts walking three times counterclockwise around the street pole)
After I’d grown big, I’d moved back to the Big City, yes some of us actually called it thus and so way back then with no sense of irony, near the corner of, well you know the spot, don’t we all? [garbled speech] Avenue and [indecipherable word] Street in [uncertain utterance], in these once-United dear, dear States of erstwhile, once- upon-a-time America. I’d moved there from another part of the country or
     (questions his memory)
another country?, was it Switzerland that time?, well just as the millennium turned. No 911 yet, I don’t think, but several years still shy of 30.
     (stops walking, stares at audience)
Not that shy. Not back then. Few of us were. Mature, or so we thought, and oh fast on with the adulting,
     (looks off in the direction of Director,now offstage, and points)
regardless of whatever that other guy was talking about–
     (resumes walking, the items in the chairs having caught his eye, from the distance)
Oh, I’d lived in Europe, supped with royalty, sucked by– better not say that, lived in
     (counts continents on his fingers)
Asia, Africa, Australia,
     (throws hands in air)
all the rest. Traveled extensively. Back when most regular folk, like us, didn’t. Lucky me, but another story that.
     (stops walking and looks at audience)
It just wasn’t a thing, not yet, back then, travel before the internet and smartphones– I know, I know, what a world? What a simple place, indeed.
     (points at street signage)
But boring? Boring, it was not.
     (resumes walking)
I’d seen a lot of shit before Reaganomics taught us –- the American, and therefore cloyingly copy-cattish, global, middle class –- we not only have credit, but we could fling it with wild abandon and no pause for consideration of next month’s statement or next door’s neighbor.
     (paws like a cat)
Meow! This was those years before the Great Recession, The Financial Crisis, as if there’d only been one and we were shocked, shocked!, to have it again the, Oh, but that’s also another story for another time’s porch, and well, today, well, remember? I’m stuck by some flick-of-the-wrist magic remembering this time and this place
     (stops walking, sighs, points again, but begrudgingly this time at street signage)
for your edification,
     (takes off backpack, reaches into it and searches)
me trapped in ill-faded memory of oft-sordid sorts, such an original Southern theme.
     (finds only an empty can, which he pulls out, disappointedly)
Moonlight and magnolias dried out in the sun.
     (turns dry can upside down, shaking hoped-for drops into his mouth, before throwing the can on the floor)
You see,
     (pointing around the stage)
I was full of a lot of self-hatred back then,
     (reaches back into backpack, finds another beer can)
back then I was,
     (discovers this one also empty and throws this can to the floor)
always searching for myself at street corners, in quiet moments of truth, dark, ill-lit, brightly colored,
     (points to the rainbow on the floor, which becomes illuminated, and straps backpack back on)
all the same, hating every such place for any opportunity it afforded me, friend or foe. Me. Working at anything meant risk. Risk meant I might fail. Or succeed. Why risk it? The potential for failure. If at first you don’t try at all, you don’t never, ever, ever fail, fail, or fuckin’ succeed. But I wasn’t ready for that realization. I thought sex would numb it all a little longer while dabbling in the occasional religion, drink or dope, no longer worked.
     (stretches out hands, shrugging shoulders)
and how twisted is that?
     (pauses, then drops hands)
Sadly, far from unique. In any era. Abra–ca–dabra? Was– that–the–word–they–used?
     (scratches head, resumes walking, but as in a daze of reverie, approaches street signage and begins fondling the phallic
sign in strange mix of adoration, bewilderment, hostility, and contempt)
I’d just wanted some guarantee for good, that I was good, that this life could be good, but what now? Historical definitions, the church, the church,
     (fiddles with hands, as old nursery rhyme would suggest)
more than a steeple, open the doors and see all the–
     (tightens hands into fists)
fast falling by every wayside with all the other litter never fully out of sight, disappearing ignorance of fragile
mind, sturdy pretense, a different type of war ongoing, both internal and external, all imagined, imaginary, rote, rot. But still here, in parts.
     (leaves street signage alone and meanders, taking on tone of an all-knowing professor, pointing)
Those historically relevant definitions of everything, all that was once deemed so important enough to fight real and culture wars over, ignoring all: 20th-century baggage stuff like race, color, creed –- do *even* Southerners still go to church these days?, and what about marriage, gender –- I bet if we even took a survey right here, right now, in this very place and time, would we -– we very small, we very few assembled, we elites of Metropolis –- would we agree 100%, 75%?, 50%?, on any definition, any these words, psshawww, could we even trust the results of the ballots,
     (laughs uncontrollably)
much less the news reports
     (looks to right, then left)
from either side of objectivity, all gone. Hocus—Pocus!

 

                                                                                               (Speaking Man freezes. Pink-Tutu’d Man enters, dances upstage from
                                                                                               right to left and unseen by Speaking Man, carries a protester-type placard
                                                                                               that reads “Gender = __”, and just as he passes in front of Speaking Man,
                                                                                               causes Speaking Man to unfreeze.)

 

SPEAKING MAN
Maybe not even a simple majority in agreement on a few select words. And, remember, we’ve yet to bring up –- ta- dah! –- sex, sexuality, that historically American, historically divisive, historically white-elephant-in-the- Southern-sitting-parlor-room’s corner chair, unspoken-to- and-about, unacknowledged topic, lest we forgot how we all got here, you know, our parents, they did—it—too, ya know? Come on, y’all, we wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t, right? No shame.

 

                                                                                               (Pink-Tutu’d Man exits stage left. Speaking Man stops walking, acts like
                                                                                               he heard something amiss, looks off in direction Pink-Tutu’d Man exited,
                                                                                               then continues.)

 

SPEAKING MAN
Always about family in the South, right?
     (kicks at beer cans on the floor, looks to see how far it went, resumes walking)
A family member of a family member in this city had known somebody who knew someone who knew something about a job
that was available for someone with a person like me with my credentials, someone who looked like me, background and looks and gender. It was those heady dot-com days, and I drank the Punch o’ Power, so to speak, and took the opportunity to sip and get drunk. It was all OK, but still thought myself stuck. Back in the South. Framed in, fenced in, hemmed in but with cuffs this time, just still backwoods, backwards, this city so striving, so pushy, so full of, led by, those people, mine, largely cut from the same, common, goddamned stock, all drag, all dragged up once again, what Southern Confederacy’s aristocracy long been famous for, in every shade of caricature, movie, cartoon, book, song ‘n’ dance, all routine mo-fo’s mirrorin’ their own humble, shamed beginnings, clueless to reality, copyin’ them cats once again, that few, seldom, can, do, must, evolve, escape, prevent, much less molest, some memory, those formative, traumatic, early years!
     (takes a much-needed, deep breath, sighs audibly, looks about, as if for a tutu, reaches down and collects a beer can, picks
     it up and shakes, searching for a sip, then looks at audience)
We must be shaken awake. He told me on our last date, in between tears flowing from us both, that I talk too much, that I think about weird, fuckin’ subjects, and I interrupted him, to ask, what wrong with that?
     (pleading)
Tell me. Someone. What wrong with that?
     (throws down can, moves chair around and sits, legs spread wide)
I finished my drink, my mumbled thoughts, my sentences of all-wrong paragraphs, before realizing he gone, left me to my silly words, what a perfect open marriage for me, open mouth, open can, and he, him, never again to visit me, my, my, my words, too many for him, but he always visits me…
     (rests head in hands a few seconds, then continues)
in my thoughts and dreams of day and night, nearly every day and often twice a night when hard,
     (softens)
in my thoughts…An intersecting and joining of two selves,
     (jerks hands in strange motion as if assembling a toy of the memory to repair)
if but momentarily, a crossing of two paths but at odd ways, weird angles….
     (points at street signage)
A real Phoenix we got here, eh? Burnt to a crisp, but no regeneration still, no gentrification I mean just yet, the wings, still clipped, at least on this mythological beast of New-South Capital, burnt, burnt, but not all gone with the…flutters to prevent flight, to relish ruckus in the muck—us. Hocus—
     (chuckles, looks around, at the chairs assembles, reconsiders)
Should, could those ol’ Yanks have burned us up some more? To save us sooner, faster? From ourselves, our ancient ways.
     (stands, mad, disgusted by such deep thought, looks around at the chairs, the audience, off in the direction of tutu and
     Director)
Who, what got me on this subject?
     (points at audience, flirting, winking)
Back to this corner of my mind’s eye, did I feel I was coming home, coming here, coming…? When I came back to Big City to live, for good, but found all had changed, nothing ever the same, what history, Mr. Faulkner–
     (throws hands in air, as if to concede, then points to street signage, and whispers)
Just today, actually, just now, did I have that epiphany. Just like they said,
     (stretches out hands in wonderment, shouting)
Hocus—Pocus!

 

                                                                                               (Just as Speaking Man turns to face audience again, a searching-also
                                                                                               Pink-Tutu’d Man tiptoes upstage left to right, still unseen by Speaking
                                                                                               Man)

 

SPEAKING MAN
     (looks down and kicks at his shoes)
I … couldn’t … live … any- … where … else. Nowhere Else.
     (looks up, roars)
Thanks be to God!

 

                                                                                               (Frightened, Pink-Tutu’d Man scurries off stage right as Speaking Man
                                                                                               continues speaking, but in lowered voice now, wistfully)

 

Unicorns and rainbows. Fairies. Drawn to the Big City. Always. A magnet. Oz. To strangeness, to the familiar. Here.
     (points back at street signage)
I knew what this place was before I knew what this place was. You know what I mean? Intersection of need and want. Of spirit and body. Yes, of sex and love. Or so hoped. Back then, the internet didn’t even attempt to offer such. Didn’t exist. How could it?
     (Light illumines rainbow colors on floor.)
Rainbows. Mystical, magical, momentary. Clouded in smoke sure to dissipate. Rainbow, now that’s one historical definition won’t change. Ask Noah. How about that Ark, bro? The dove.
     (scoffs)
Now, for-now legally married, intersection of streets. Maybe you already know what I just came to know? We came here to slay dragons, as in all fairy tales, to search for limitless pots of gold, leprechauns with big guns, to turn from forgotten cellar maid to star-o’-the-show Cinders, Cinderella you call her in America, I believe. Y’all know what a cinder is, right? Ember or ash, we come back to this city’s Phoenix mascot metaphor, yet again…Talk about transformations and
     (points to his ass and wags an invisible tail)
tales and fairies. The drag queens at this bar over here used to scare the be-Jesus out of me. They were good, mind you. First rate, if you inta that sorta thing. At least it was legal back then. Or we didn’t care.
     (sits in chair)
Once upon a time, this story should’ve started, I majored in anthropology and folklore studies … at college. That words still means something, right? We never concluded what fewest words sum up man. Or woman. Or trans. Or non-binary. These stories need to be told, even if sourced only to Memory, faulty and fictive as he/she/they may be. I’m sorry. My memory just ain’t what it once was. Not Covid. Just living through the last few years of pandemic and– Something over there
     (points)
reminds me of all the years I stayed here not knowing where I belonged or if. They put all that crap over there for me to figure out who was I.
     (shakes head)
I’m still me. Aren’t you still you? Regardless of label. With or without definition.
     (stands)
Clean and sober. I looked at those signs today, thinking once upon a time, if those streets could talk, but no, the go-’round becomes less merry, as the liver falters and that muscle teeters. I finally realized I can’t live anywhere else but the South. I have to look in the mirror, but I don’t have to go to church or eat my veggies or fuck, work for that matter, at least not back on Cypress Street, not on any street, not out on The Street. I’m sorry, as personal as this already is, I just can’t tell you everything you must want to know at this point. Painful enough for me to remember. All the details. Oh sure, I still may go to black-out parties where no lights are lit (but the men are!), go to pig parties (no explanation needed, I hope!), to jock dances (you get the idea at this point), to strip clubs, to get high, to smoke whatever us Cool Kids are supposed to be doing these days. For Heaven’s sake, in Midtown these days, you just need to walk a few blocks and if the wind’s blowing in your favor … through the mini-Manhattan canyon’d corridors surrounding the hallowed spot where once upon a time in a land far, far near was that delish club that never closed, where we’d all do these and other things … soak in and wallow in these angry-incensed, frankincensed-incensed, mired-myhrr’d remembrances we now share as porridge with Goldilocks-With- Cocks as if partaking of our daily Holy Cum-Union … Hocus Pocus!

 

NUN
(seated in audience, now stands up, waving playbill, causing a commotion as if a fire has been spotted in the theater)
Well, I’ve never! Enough blasphemy! In all my years! Never! Not once!

 

PINK-TUTU’D MAN
(pokes head from behind stage curtain)
Oh yes, you have, sistah! No, actually, you haven’t, not even – and that’s your problem, hun! Not even once–

 

(Nun in a huff storms out, before coming back to retrieve playbill from his/her seat; when Nun finally disappears, Pink-Tutu’d Man nods his head as if to say, “job done!” and then he also disappears offstage)

 

SPEAKING MAN
[resumes as if had never been interrupted] … yes, mind you, yes sir / yes ma’am, mind your manners however high or low they may be, and … you’ll be weedy-high before you get back to your abode. Holy Cum-Union. Hopefully, you can find your way home, before the high’s all [searching for the right word], before the high is all … gone … with the wind? [smirks, then twirls/spins still sitting on the floor]

 

You see those signs up there? [points to street signs] I mean, really, see it. That thing’s the yellow-fuckin’-brick road for Southern queers, for fab fags, hobbled hobbits, dicked dandies, the “How’s ya fatha?” crowd of that older generation who’ll be the only friggin’ few to get that allusion…. Why the f— here? This confluence of streets? The pot o’ gold we all been a-minin’ an’ a-pinin’ for … in this lay [smirks] of land, of asphalt and concrete and alcohol, and what-not? They even painted up four rainbows at the intersection, no clue, no idea why or how – ask That-Unnamed-Search-Engine-Be-Damned-No-Free-Advertising- In-This-Here-Skit or [deadpans, with limp wrist] even better, ask Fuckin’ Do-ro-tttthy! Whatever the elixir or
secret sauce, this place, a sex-mad Jerusalem, the corner calls us, beckons just as the liquid-druggie always hears liquor-sto’ lights tweak on at the chime of opening hour in his/her head. [shakes head, shrugs shoulders] It’s not just the pull of the penis, the dick, the schlong, but the heart, the innermost, as if homing pigeons; are we returning here – this corner just where we meant to be? Like I reckon, just as if out of a 21st-century Flannery O’Connor morality tale, here’s a grotesque for ya: a gross but grace-filled men’s room out there somewhere waiting for epiphany, revelation, redemption, slap-the-meat-in-yo-face- and-come-to-Jesus-before-the-altar-call-ends-and-we-go- home-to-yet-another-meal-of-cold-fried-chicken-alone … but wait!, this Gothic bathroom-stall moment has stalled, too graphic to describe fully here, even in this skit, with this audience…. Hocus Pocus!

 

[Pink-Tutu’d Man dances along upstage right to left, still unseen by Speaking Man; he carries a protester-type placard that reads “Sex(…uality) = __”]

 

… somewhere, Milledgeville, Mid-Georgia … that men’s room wall with scribble on it [scribbles in the air as if writing], next to the deliciously oversized glory-hole, of course and it says: FOR A BETTER TIME, with an arrow pointing to the number TEN and the word PIEDMONT. Followed by these words: BIGGEST & THICKEST N DA SOUFF. Words like the Hollywood sign all aglow, shiny, and stand-out, but strangely here, hidden, smudged, nasty, tasty. It was where it only could be.

 

[Pink-Tutu’d Man exits]

 

[stands back up] Back then, back before these kinds of marriage were federally legal, before trans became a thing and a who (no longer a what, thankfully), before airplanes crashed into – for fudge’s sake, brought down billion- American-dollar sky-scraping landmarks, totems, sentinels, back then I didn’t know so much, and didn’t know that I didn’t, didn’t see this intersection for what it was…. You know, the French call them, skyscrapers, gratte-ciels, because they think buildings this tall can’t scrape, but rather gratte, scratch the heavens. [he raises a hand as if to scratch the sky] Subtlety, something we’re not known for so much here in the South, what with all the shoot-’em-up- bang-bang, noose-makin’, flag-wavin’, Bible-thumpin’, Christ-callin’ (is it just me, or do y’all also notice driving up I-85 to Charlotte how in between every Baptist Church is a massage salon or palm [raises eyebrows] reader palace, tucked away just so, hidden, but not, in plain sight?). Distance didn’t deaden my own flirtatious attempts at love with this place either – distance fuckin’ impregnated it, the bigger they got, the hole again and again, filling its seed to brimming overflow, overflowing, overflew with that…. You get the idea, or if you haven’t by now, well never fuckin’ mind. [smirking] It kept cuming, bringing me back. Couldn’t stay in Chi-town, Man-attan [do not pronounce the ‘H’], LA, Miami. No place had what this place had here – has here – going for herself, lacking only the waving of a scepter (it had enough rods already), it had the fairy – dust. Gyurrrrl…. [waves hands as if to survey the intersection]

 

Back then, it wasn’t the best of times or the worst of times, that summer. I had started going to a tanning bed [lies down corpse-pose-like hands clasped and resting on navel – inches from the street sign], and that had led to psoriasis, no not psoriasis, but – um – yes, it was rosacea and then hives and then after that shingles – stress, but still no STD or STI or ST-XYZ … well, maybe not … [sits back up] but I had gotten enough of a tan before I had to stop because of these conditions. I used to do this tanning thing before every summer. While John Waters ventures off to P’town, I could only get as far as Florida. What was it … Tennessee or Capote … who said: “Southern Creatives with money after the War (meaning the 2nd Global One) went to NYC, those without got only as far as N’awlins.” I got as far as Pensacola for summer’s start, P-apostrophe-cola. Memorial Day in Penis-cola – eternally tragic, but alas, Atlanta’s got no coast, ‘member? All three times I went. The Emerald Coast of Florida’s Panhandle full of red-necked white trash burnt to grossly well-done crisp, back then I swear nothin’ but pale-white-ass faggot-queers (talk about diversity!), far from accepted by family, church, society, or law, all drunk – drunk-ass, pasty-white-ass, on cheap- ass, watered-down domestic, burnt-to-Quentin-Crisp their lily-white selves, and strung out on T-X-G or – God knows – A-B-C, 1-2-3, yet again. Jesus!, when ya-need-us. Tiresome. So very exhausting. All this short-speak, in-the-know, abbreviated chat-nonsense. Keeping up, attempting to, at least: Such an ancient trend, still relevant, timeless, how American. … Now remember no prophet’s appreciated in his hometown, in his own time. Like a lord without a birthright, no manor, no manners. Or a priest without a parish, no Pentecost, no wafer, with or without gluten. My Charleston’s a relic of the 18th century, post-War in this case meaning (surprise, surprise, not the UnCivil but) Revolutionary; New York very much a post-War 20th-century city (despite all the cameras up and down NYC avenues, can you believe the crumbling sub-way, talk about sub-par!), in that one-half-century-wonder of a city’s case meaning WW2 (as stated pages ago), but The ATL? I’m hopeful she belongs to this century, this bold-brash-truly-global-really-mixed- race-mixed-stirred-up-diversely-diverse 21st-century – in the league of (the better neighborhoods of, am I even still, after all this, classist?) Shanghai or Delhi or Rio, these post-Colonial, so-called tough-as-BRICs, emerging markets, all Third-Worlds-no-longer. ATL: Welcoming to all, in a meaningful but fist-fight kinda way, where we tangle and cha-cha to melt the pot, smoke the weed, just a weeeeee bit longer, to savor the broth, to mix the breed, to make something anew, while respecting what’s ancient, primordial, and has-been – and in the process, ourselves. Hopefully, while we still have time, to be who we meant to be: … Hocus Pocus …

 

THE JOCK:
[hands to heaven, standing now near the Jock Chair]

 

I recycle. I brush – and floss, daily. I go to the gym, of course. At least once a day. I go to church, Christ! At least once a month! I play on The Team! I eat my veggies, even and especially Brussels sprouts. And not because I’ve been told to, bitches, but because I fuckin’ love them taste of B. sprouts with kosher salt and extra-damned- extra-extra-virginal virgin olive oil, slightly toasted, G- D-M-F-er, yum. [sits down, legs crossed] I daily say my prayers, to God and Goddess and more recently, to Trans- Diety, neutral gender. And yet, I’m gay, a homo, a ‘mo, fag, queer, fudge-packer? Because of this, a result of
this? Chick, egg, omelette; coach, jock, referee/umpire: Which came first? WTF. MF. GD. God, my God, why– But ask the Church, and well, “those-types” will have you on your knees, in movies, helping *them* forget *their* own painful answers to the very same questions you ask *of them*, about *yourself*– So tired of asking this question [holds head in his hands]. It gets fuckin’ old. Much like me. And these high school or college athletic trophies – can you believe that guy’s online profile still says he played Division One sport; unless he’s aging VERY, very badly, there’s no way he’s only 42….

 

I said years and years ago to a friend I no longer keep in touch with, “Ya know, that’s a hinge event.” “Huh?” he responded. “You know, like a pivotal moment, a time when all the rest forever-and-ever-after-AMEN! hinges on the choice, the direction you take at a particular junction in time, at an intersection [points to the street corner sign]: Do I join the military (‘only poor people or immigrants do that,’ he said, before correcting himself, ‘oh that’s redundant’), or do I get into politics (‘only straight white people, men, who’ve tried every other way to make money and failed do that,’ he said)? Do I go to college (‘these days, very, very bad ROI, given higher cost of higher ed,’ he said), or do I just get married (‘like that ever settled anything; divorce is expensive, kids even more so,’ he said)? How about my accepting my parents’ deaths and just fuckin’ moving on along with my life (he was silent, my friend, truly, just a friend, as gays always have to clarify with non-homo-normative crowds)? Why don’t I just accept my own mortality (silent still, he was, the really-just-a-friend-friend)?” Not long after, he quit returning my calls, then apparently blocked my texts. Hinge moment, indeed. … Hocus Pocus …

 

THE COWBOY:
[stands up, exchanging the Jock Chair for the Cowboy Chair, the ball cap for the cowboy hat]

 

This other friend (also a friend-friend-only) had been poz … positive, HIV positive that is, for a long time before I knew him. When he first told me (we’ve never had sex, by any definition, mind you, Mr. Clinton), I apologized, causing him to frown. At which point I apologized again, making things even worse. He looked like he wanted to hit me. His face got all tense and manly. Then he charged me, but instead of hitting me, he collapsed, his entire spirit just gave way, as if all his blood had run through his veins and back into that vial that had been used to test for the presence of the virus (or its antibodies, I’m no chemist!). It all drained, sank into me, into my veins, into my being. I’d never held such a heavy shell of a near- lifeless life-being, before or since. Ignoring any cut. On him. Or me.

 

It’s a good thing I’m a cowboy. Rugged. Tough. Yeah that.

 

I held him as I told him: “Times have changed, bo. My cousin, back in the ’90s, died a horrible, long-ass death, went blind. All because, the family said, because of that roommate who came down from New-York-City.” “I came to Atlanta from New York,” he replied. “But you ain’t from New York.” “Jeez, thanks,” the Pennsylvania native said. If only things were that easy….
Hinge, not hung [rolls eyes], moments. Pivotal points, not exactly points – on this ride – for the number of penises or inches you’ve touched or licked or sat on [rolls eyes, again] or whatever the Cool Kids or the Mean Girls are doing with them, these days. Excising, exorcising, exercising, I hear… [makes a V-shape with his fingers] No judgment, tried it all, top, bottom, vers, sideways, double, all genders, races, ethnicities, decades, and generations, even talked with an M.D. and therapist about having that procedure done. Me? Don’t like needles or knives, much less surgical procedures requiring anesthesia, antibiotics, and years of recovery and transition. Too scary. [walks around the street sign, clockwise] Too much pivoting. Not an intersection I’d have the nerve to cross….Why did the chicken cross…? … Hocus Pocus …

 

THE LEATHERMAN:
[puts back cowboy hat, walks to Leather Chair, handles riding crop, sits in Leather Chair, one leg crossed over the other as a cowboy or leatherman would sit, continues playing with crop, striking the air or floor as if he’s taming the audience, the world, or himself?]

 

I’m told by reliable sources that in every city with even a gay male population of count 2 (because it takes two to
fuck, after all, as historically defined, FUCK), there’s a bar known as The Eagle. Ours in this Fair Phoenix’d City, last I checked with my Boy and his other Sir, was still down on Ponce de León [pronounces León with-accent, accordingly] Avenue, still searching for his Fountain of Youth, of course…. Far away, near the pool and fountain in my own oasis of a Midtown apartment building’s courtyard, there are five fully grown cypress trees [counting out with his fingers and pointing] … (1) mature, (2) evergreen, (3) ever-present, (4) all year long, (5) from steamy-summer’s thunder-boomers to ice-tipped- branches’ wintry wear. I sometimes see the faces of guys I’ve met at various Eagles in various so-called Gay Cities, other times I see faces of family members long gone – all their faces in the sad, wilting hairy needles of these trees: My grandfather who loved his Navy years a little too much merely to be an unresolved Patriot; my cross-country- semi-driving girl cousin no one could ever recall seeing in a dress; my great-uncle (married with four kids and six grands and two mistresses, both female) about whom everyone after initially meeting asked, “How did his parents take his coming out of the closet?” and to which the reply of “He hasn’t yet” always led to profound sadness in the other party and even more awkward, uncomfortable silence for the conversation’s remainder; the grandmother who, after watching Springer on TV one weekday afternoon decades back, proclaimed, “I think I might be a lesbian, too!” My father still hasn’t responded to that comment, and Granny’s been pushing up daisies longer than I’ve been butt-fuckin’/- ed/DP’d ATL at this point…. These trees, these five fully grown cypress trees in my Midtown Atlanta apartment building’s courtyard, they see all of my goings-on, the games, the tricks, the crimes-of-heart, the lies, the lays, the lay-overs, the loves, the lovers, never audibly commenting to my ears [snarkily, smirkily], other than the obvious blow …-ing in the wild, but absorbing my carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen back, to give me yet, still, another moment of breath, another minute, compiling another day that not one of these relatives or FB’s can have again for themselves. With or without the Church. With or without an Eagle, or a Phoenix.

 

[stands, still holding the riding crop] Back before the internet and these damned mobile apps ruined the bar culture [rolls eyes], back over there [pointing], on the other side of Peachtree, but on this side of the University, my friend got the clap, or whatever they call it these days. Yeah at that place. The one that was raided, then closed. You know the one. These days, it’s surrounded by what city promoters term “development.” News Flash: Forty contiguous blocks of simultaneous development, recently completed, in process, or planned, as they put it last year. Or was it at the gas station a block over. Oh hell, fuck, he got it twice (twice that he told me about), I remember now. All these places – once upon a time, as all these tales are sure to announce – all of these places within walking distance, once upon a time, back when all these New And Other People, who used to live out there, OTP (that’s Outside-The-Perimeter AKA I-285 to you non-Atlantans here with us) or ex-USA, back then those types all lived not-here, but-there [pointing, somewhere]. Back before the internet’s web, indeed. Back when Atlanta was all black or white — not mixed races [rolls eyes]; Indians were from Cherokee, North Carolina, well until they got moved by Andy Jack and trailed their tears [woefully]; back when Presidential friends Russian presidents were not, really. [dejected] … Hocus Pocus …

 

O Peachtree, O Peachtree, O Peachtree … Oh for the Tree of Peaches, the Street of Peaches … Peachtree, O Peachtree … I love Atlanta – But you must know, one mere COUNTY in South Carolina once produced more peaches PER ANNUM than the ENTIRE so-called Peachtree STATE. Bless their hearts. I hear that the Palmetto State still produces more than Georgia. Our fair city-state city of peaches, round and bubbly, bubble butts, delectable ends for luscious beginnings, striving still to compete, decades post- Olympics. Where’s a firm peach of a pink tutu when you need him/her for a taste? [opens mouth and bites the air, searching] … Hocus Pocus …

 

This corner, despite all those changes, still draws the queers [proudly], but lotsa Others, with a capital O….which box do we check, still a pertinent question, maybe more so:

 

[moves center-stage, and performs the following five lines, Broadway-esque song-and-dance style]

 

You wanna keep them in?
You wanna keep them out?

 

[Pink-Tutu’d Man enters, dancing along upstage left to right, still unseen by Speaking Man; he carries a protester-type placard that reads “Race = __”]

 

We wanna keep you in?
We wanna keep you out?

 

[Pink-Tutu’d Man exits]

 

… Is it the forget-me-not liquor, the always-bigger-the- next-night Big D at the Eagle (once raided), the bliss- bliss-blissful true happiness Campbell wrote of mythologically, the Jungian return to Home-Home-Capital-H come full circle Elliotesque? What hunger bleeds its negative-positive-neutral-detectable-non- soul upon this particular battlefield of sex, this crossing of roads [extends arms as if surveying the land]?

 

How many suburban or downright rural-county or non-Georgia license plates purposefully passed this tourist way all these years to sightsee:

 

… Hocus Pocus … that seemingly hetero-normative, married father cis man of four cis kids with mortgage or two but for this hour without cis woman wife or four cis kids that night or early morning before 3:00 a.m. when the bars close and oh-he-so-horny as fuck for (cis or non-cis) dick or two or what-not…;

 

… Hocus Pocus … that traditionally married cis male / cis female couple needing to feel better about their dromedary lies-lived-life staring and starring and starving as they drive by Piedmont Park… to gawk and to pat themselves on the back … [whispers] well done!;

 

… Hocus Pocus … those age’d queens (the elder sissies, we all become, we best remember, if we so lucky, in fact, one day to become) cruising one last time just before sundown when they can still see despite the cataracts or glaucoma, one last time before niece and nephew take the car away, for good. We all know, they know, the nursing home won’t be long after… Hey, this is what we do in America [shrugs, snapping the riding crop]?!

 

Hocus Pocus. Center of the Gay South. Once Upon a Time. Corner of the Park. A Perfect Peach. Hocus Pocus. A Black Hole for largely white, college-educated, professional- working cis men, back then, for all I knew at the time. Once upon a time. Despite all the changes of American – make that global – economics, society, culture, language, civil AND human rights [rolls eyes] … this year’s Pride Parade, Hocus Pocus, full of nothin’ but Care-for-Votes- only-&-forget-us Faceless Politicos and Equally Faceless, Utterly Meaningless Corporate American Titans’ Marketing (Make That PR) Dollars, no heart. Here, no surprise, we all about the Dollar or is it now Yen or Rupee or Renminbi? ¡Español hablado aquí! And Hindi or Mandarin or … but they all speak English.

 

Once upon a time. There’s no going back, to any of that bliss, off-radar, hidden (alas), a real escape remained possible then, pre-Internet, pre-smartphone, when we weren’t so dumb after all, it seems, to be off-grid! Some of that’s still here, if we want it, they want us to believe, what with made-up make-up borrowed from the ageless Southern Beauties’ Pageants’ Formulas (do you hear the lovely sucking sound [rolls eyes and sucks lips]), but for how long? And then what, and then where? Camp them, us up in another concentrated form, to watch us better, to monitor? Debt, enslave us all. Package us, just right, and push us aside for younger and younger and younger still, and, yet again, away. Once upon a time, this all mattered less and less and yet meant so much more. More.

 

[still carrying the riding crop, reaches for the leather cap and puts it on] Despite what you might think, everyone – I mean, Every One – looks better in Black Leather, there’s a rational reason for the fetish, especially in a darkened room. [stares out at audience a few moments] Forget the coach on his/her playing field, forget the horses and their lassos, even perhaps this tool for enhanced creativities, no longer needed. [drops riding crop]

 

[as if hearing a voice from offstage] What’s that?

 

[walking offstage as he speaks, more and more softly to himself or perhaps to the voice he’d heard] Yes, dear, sexier and sexier he gets, the more he speaks. Without words, fewer and fewer. Honesty. To become the man he were meant to be. The farther he gets [winking at the audience], from this, his once-beloved, special, mystical, magical, momentary place … this cornered quicksand of Piedmont Avenue and Tenth Street [pointing one last time to street signs] in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, not far from Piedmont Park, in these once-United States of America, Eastern Time Zone … back then … once upon a time … Hocus … Pocus …

 

[Pink Tutu’d Man re-enters to dance slowly with Speaking Man, as lights fade, pause for dark, then lights back up, for Director to enter, holding again the script; the Couple continues to dance on other side of stage from Director, separated by the street signs]

 

 

DIRECTOR:

In the movies, in some of them, those still shown in picture-show theatrical rooms, not in our living rooms streaming via telecom lines, those movie-goers who linger and wait after the screen’s gone black and the credits begin to role, maybe you’re one of them? [pointing to a select few in the audience], we get rewarded with additional musical scores or pictured scenes chopped from the final cut. Here now, our writer rewards those of us still assembled:

 

Race, so tied with language, but pre-Babel, before that Biblical, mythical Tower of Chit-Chat …Gender: Adam as in Adamah, in Hebrew means earth, but pre-genitalia?, pre-Rib given to Eve, her name meaning breathe, to live, to give life …

 

And what about Sex(…uality) … Hocus Pocus … : so much harder (pun or no pun, your choice) to define, to diagnose, to pinpoint, point out and to: something inserted into something?, next to something, some vibration, some stimulation, some release, this complex word this simply defined?

 

Three words – three definitions – historically relevant only these days – all nearly lost meanings today – 20th century meaninglessness, at this point. Relegated, rightfully?, to the Trash Bin of the Ages. So we are left amused, but unruttered, set aloose, turnt adrift or rescued from lost to found, relinquishing what no longer serves these budding newer and newest generations of youth in this new century, who no longer need Pride Parades or bathhouses, fundamentals of race or segregated (black- white-male-female) restrooms or segregated churches or barber shops / slash / hair salons or even need of dirty, dimly lit pre-internet porn stores, or even need, yes!, oh, man, oh, woman, oh, gender-neutral, yes even, these Piedmont and Tenth streets’ intersection [pointing to street sign], as they, we once did … important, supernatural … rainbow’d [points to stage floor] … mystical, magical, albeit all-momentary … once upon a time … Hocus Pocus (one final time!) … fuckin’ fairy dust, fleeting-gyrating gender-race-sex(…uality), scintillating scepter, teasing tiara and tossing tutu, and all that, that stuff, that once. Was. Here. Once upon a time.

 

[crossing himself, in High Church-priestly fashion] For these and for all the many other Blessings of Life – in all
its many Blessed Forms, may we be Thankful. Truly. Thankful. Yes, thankful even, and especially, for Time and Place, for Street Corners and Streets: for Ninth–Tenth– And–Eleventh–Streets, for Peachtree Street and Piedmont Avenue, for Magic and Rainbows, for New Definitions of Ancient Words, and yes, Thankful-Very-Thankful for Change. In the name of the Father — Hocus Pocus – and of the Mother – Hocus Pocus and of all Other – And all the people said, “AMEN.”

 

(CURTAIN)

 

(END OF PLAY)

 

About the Author
R. P. Singletary is a rural native of the SE USA.