my lost queen

My preteen self: I know it was preteen since I broke the six foot mark shortly after turning thirteen, passing my father then and my mother at least a year previous, which is important to note. My sisters (both in high school) had drama club and sports practice, which got me an exquisite two hours to myself every single weekday.

The most profound splinter was in one of these moments. I never felt great shock or trauma from the loss, but my grief has been slowly, quietly oozing from my pores as I continue down the path of my prime self. I am awed that I just walked away quietly, calmly – well, after that first afternoon anyway, and never thought to look back on the event until some odd thirty years later.

In my forties, in the middle of a conversation regarding gender expression, I spoke of the event for the first time without a smudge of haze, like it had been a regular subject of the therapy that never happened through my teens.

You see, I wasn’t fast enough. And at that time, I was fast. I moved far faster than my form suggested I could. But my guard was down. Thoroughly. I mean, my dad never came home early from work. And I was in the half bath with the pocket door off the family room, the bath that was my mom’s vanity, since the other door led to their bedroom.

Clearly, I had never thought through emergency scenarios. It never dawned on my to consider them necessary, but in hindsight it would have been far safer and more sensible to have used the bigger mirror in the hall bath, the one just feet away from my bedroom. Not the one with the open pocket door that sat exactly opposite of the garage door across the family room. The door my dad chose to come through that day.

She never stood a chance. I didn’t even know her name. My mom was never the sort to wear high heels, she was only a half inch shorter than my dad in flats, and apparently being the taller dance partner was hugely traumatic for women of her generation. At least for her. She didn’t wear fancy dresses much either, but she had flowing skirts with stretchy elastic waistbands. Those worked best. I could fit in the lingerie that was always a gift to her from my dad that almost always immediately wound up in the back of the bottom dresser drawer.

The selling point when discovering the redhead wig in the wig-box up in the far corner of their bedroom closet. (The same closet where I repeatedly sought out my dad’s Penthouses.) The wig made all the difference in the world. It made a different world.

Of course, the wig needed makeup to support the look, which is why I was so exposed in the half bath instead of sensibly tucked far away from any entrance. That is where the makeup is kept. That is where I first learned to paint my face. About all I understand at the time that related to beating a face was the early-on knowledge that coloring inside the lines was. an. important. note. to. make.

There was absolutely no solid thought of me yearning to perform drag in that preteen moment, but any adult moment of me in a dress clearly was attached to it in the straightest of lines. Truthfully, those urges in my youth were very much tied to the extreme difference in how my father treated me compared to my sisters. I think in a small quiet form of misogyny, they were held to easier standards about the house. They didn’t have to knock before barging in on me, but girls, girls had to be protected, and treated softly. And I didn’t much care for the hard treatment always waiting for me. That softness eventually enticed me to wanting to be a girl, be a sister among my siblings.

Anyway, when I snapped out of it as my dad smelled something amiss, I spun on my (mom’s) sensible heel, drawing the pocket door closed and swept through the door to their bedroom, hoping he didn’t get a clear sight of me. For whatever reason, I made horrible choices that day in my instant panic and instead of aiming for my bed and launching under covers for some fake nap that was never to be believed. Instead, I slam the door and put my weight against it, somehow thinking I could ever put my preteen weight up against the mass of my dad.

Back then, my dad is either quiet or angry. In this, he was very quiet. I didn’t know what to make of it. He didn’t yell, didn’t curse, didn’t make me feel small or worthless (except that I was caught in something I did not wish to be). But I got out of my mom’s clothes and back into my own, and washed the makeup off of my face, and went to my bedroom in hopes to never have to leave it again.

I do not recall that my dad threatened me about any recurrence, but he was so quiet, and concerned. And afraid. That is what scared me that day. I’m not at all certain that he said I could never do that again, but I walked away from that day understanding that I would only ever be a boy in my life under their roof.

Honestly, my gender doesn’t fit either sex better than the other, so being a boy physically has never felt alien to me, except to double standards. But this one moment, this moment where the joy of a frilly flowing skirt is nearly literally ripped from me, is practically all that was needed to keep my unicorn, my fairy bug, my dainty priss, and my sick drag queen always ever beneath the surface.

Whenever I contemplate unfurling my wings in a manner that is uncompromised by the dressings of masculinity, I am only ever successful when I move on without thought. For when that thought catches me, it sweeps me back to that flash of panic and the moment a child chooses to squelch his dawning sense of identity to hold his parent secure.

When I view this moment with my quantum brain, I peak through the veil hoping to catch a glimpse of my parallel Queen. What a creature she would be, what at six foot five as bald-headed, flat-footed me… I do not think there is any single parallel space where I could survive a death-drop, but she’d be quick witted and sharp tongued, cutting up the audience’s antics. And she would be quick and light on her feet as well, seeing that she clearly dodged to the safety of cover under the bed sheets before being found and undone.

Welcome to the nexus of my suppressed queer youth…