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Look the part
By
Mitzel
I remember the incident well, though why it ever became an incident I still don't understand. It was October 31. I was working at my last job, managing a GLBT bookstore in Boston, and a rather good one. It was late afternoon, and the day staff was about to take off and the evening staff was arriving, one a new hire named Gabe, nickname for Gabriel. Gabe was a sweet young guy, very tall, and from a fundamentalist Protestant up-country family. There are so many of them, I can't recall which sect his folks were from. Freedom of religion, and all that.
Gabe asked me if he could have a minute or two to get himself together. I said of course. Gabe withdrew into the commodious restroom with a suitcase. Minutes later, he emerged in a total makeover. He wore what looked to be a prom gown, a wig done up in big hair, and hose and pumps and makeup. His appearance was formal and quite striking. I commented on how nice he looked. Gabe began his shift as cashier.
About then, our bookkeeper, my dear friend Sam, arrived. He noticed Gabe, got a severe look on his face, and harrumphed into his office. Minutes later, he asked me to join him there.
"Have you noticed that Gabe is dressed in High Drag?" he asked me, somewhat accusatorily, I thought.
"I did."
"Do you think that is appropriate attire for a young man working at a gay bookstore?"
"Sam, it's Halloween. I don't think it's inappropriate. He's very well dressed."
Sam disagreed. What was I to do? Gabe was doing his job in high drag on Halloween. Sam was miffed, even though Sam had told me a great story about his youthful adventures going to a party in Honolulu in hoop skirts and his problems getting in and out of the cab. When is your attire appropriate?
When I saw Gabe the next day, I mentioned this incident to him. He was pleased he had the opportunity to work in public in the threads of his choice. We were listening to "Blow, Gabriel, Blow," a ditty from the Great American Songbook, on a disc by Chris Conner or Blossom Dearie, and Gabe looked at me. "I hate that song," he told me.
"Why?"
"It's what all the boys in high school would hiss at me in the hall as we changed classes." I was sympathetic, but actually pleased that high schools boys in up-country New England would know "Blow, Gabriel, Blow."
Gabe left his job at the bookstore and, as I heard, worked as a cross-dressing prostitute for some time -- giving blow jobs out of his apartment to men on their in-bound commute. Later I heard that his Christian parents came down to Boston, took him away, back to the north country and the church; the last word I had was that Gabe had been wed to a plump young woman and they were the proud parents of a child.
Do clothes make the man?
Another acquaintance of mine was active with the Royal Court of Massachusetts, a social group that throws a Big Ball every year to raise money for health care issues. My friend also liked occasions in which he could appear in High Drag. There was not only the Royal Court Ball, but, he informed me, a private club in one of the suburbs where gentlemen could retire weekly to cross-dress.
"How nice. A warm, supportive environment for men of similar tastes."
"It's not quite like that. Last time I was there, here I was, sitting around in high drag with a bunch of straight men, who were also in high drag, and the football game was on and all we talked about was football!"
I had to think: you know, as hard as you work in gay life to get where you want, that tsunami of straight life always comes washing in and ruins the party. I can think of very few exceptions to this rule.
Is getting in High Drag to make you pretty? Or to catch a sex partner? It worked for Miss Mae West. Aren't clothes sexual advertisements? My late friend, Jon-Henri Damski was a columnist for Chicago's Windy City Times. I remember a column he wrote about clothes as sex. He had been on a train once, probably back in the 1950s. Fellow passengers included Bing Crosby, the noted singer, and Crosby's sons, with whom, it has been reported, Crosby had strained relationships. Damski said he checked out the Crosby boys, all knock-outs, and they all wore blue jeans. Damski got all excited. He knew blue jeans were work clothes; here he was seeing blue jeans being worn as sex clothes, which, of course, in the 1960s, became the primary advertising pitch for this line of items.
Likes a man in...
The nice thing about my tastes, more along the line of uniformed police officers, sailors and Marines, is that their work clothes are their sex clothes. Just showing up is a sexual allure. So many otherwise plain-looking American high school boys get transformed, and know it, once they get decked out in a Marine uniform or a sailor suit. (Well, I have seen some very shmoo sailor boys, but that has more to do with the obesity epidemic among American youth.) Most disappointing to me, in the uniform scene, has been that adoption by the U.S. Army of their new design for fatigues. The old olive drab ensemble I thought just right for the military. They now have this weird pajama-game-camo BDU that neither looks military nor sexy, more like Bozo The Clown. Who the fuck came up with that? Certainly not a gay focus group. Perhaps that's why our wars, lately, have gone so badly: simply not dressed appropriately for the occasion.
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