A gay man recalls attending a drag queen’s wedding in his youth and harboring fantasies of his own marriage.
It was 1988 and I was a theater costume design major at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. I had just come out of the closet and divorced my wife.
As a novice homosexual, there was a lot of gay lingo for me to learn. It seems funny to me now, but we used the terms “married” and “husband” a lot back then in regard to our relationships. America was far from being ready for same-sex marriage at the time, so more often than not, the references were tongue in cheek.
There weren’t a lot of openly gay people around southern Illinois, so we were somewhat deprived of validation. But I remember my friends and I were still optimistic. When there was a sense of love and romance, it was like winning the lottery. It wasn’t hard to jump to the marriage fantasy.
GOODBYE DARLING
There were only three real places for the gays to meet in Carbondale, Illinois in 1988: a seedy men’s restroom in Morris Library basement; an unofficial parking lot at nearby Crab Orchard Lake; and one gay bar that had just changed it’s name from Mainstreet East to Two Hearts.
A big going away party was being hosted at the bar for a well-loved southern Illinois drag queen, Stella Darling. She was retiring from performing and leaving town for good at the ripe old age of twenty-five. I was rather sad to see her go: I liked to watch her perform.
But Stella Darling had fallen in love.
♦◊♦
It was a night of drag royalty as many of Stella’s drag queen friends had traveled from Chicago and St Louis to send her off. People came from miles around to bid farewell to our queen and see the drag show of a lifetime (for a small college town that didn’t know any better). The bar was packed and the energy was electric. Up to that point in my life I had never witnessed so much glitz and sparkle.
Between drag numbers, there was an open mike for friends to get up and roast the drag queen like an ear of corn. They told both flattering and unflattering stories about Stella Darling, who was off to the side drinking heavily in a smart, white dress suitable for a Las Vegas quickie. She was sitting on the lap of her mysterious Prince Charming who was wearing a sailor suit (for some reason I got the impression he wasn’t a real sailor).
At the end of the night, Stella stumbled to the stage and was asked to give a speech. She slured into the microphone in her husky, chainsaw voice, “I GOT ME A HUSSSSSBAND DON’T WANT ME TO DO DRAGGGG NO MORE!”
THE DETAILS
The image was funny. My friends and I quoted Stella and borrowed her dialect for years. I didn’t know the drag queen or her boy alter-ego, but that night at Two Hearts would leave a serious impression on me. For a couple of hours in a dark bar, my peers and I forgot we were minorities.
Two Hearts was our chapel, and our pastor, Stella Darling, wore sequins and high heels. She lip-synched every Sunday night on the dance floor altar. The idol was leaving the congregation to “marry” her sailor boyfriend.
The going away event was sort of a loose interpretation of a drag wedding. We rejoiced and celebrated Stella and believed that she and her sailor were married in their hearts. It was all we had. Why argue about the details?
SECOND CLASS CITIZEN
That same summer, I was asked by my friend Emily to hem her wedding dress. She and her fiance, Ted, were still virgins and my friends and I all joked that there would be “a shot heard round the world” on their wedding night.
I couldn’t resist secretly trying on her wedding dress and parading around my bedroom for a giggle. I quickly decided drag wasn’t for me.
I’m sure I didn’t give Stella’s drunken antics a thought as I witnessed my straight friends get hitched in their quaint Christian church. What I do remember feeling as I watched Emily and Ted make their love official, was that I was a second class citizen. It was twenty-five years ago, but I know for sure I felt that way. I felt that way at all the church weddings I attended.
As a young gay man, I felt I needed to be just like my parents. But society wouldn’t let me have what it said I was supposed to have.
DO OVERS
Years later, I found Emily on Facebook and friended her. Sadly, Emily had divorced her husband, Ted, in the nineties. The chat window was a confessional and I confessed to her that I had tried on her wedding dress. She LOL’d. Emily remarried and didn’t bother with much of a wedding dress the second time around. Husband Number Two, she happily reported, is a keeper.
I happen to have another wedding dress hanging in my bathroom right now that I agreed to hem for a friend. The bride-to-be is Joy, who is going to marry her wife, Stephanie, this upcoming gay pride weekend. This is their second time around, too. Same-sex marriage wasn’t legal yet in the state of Washington when they had their first wedding. Their baby daughter, Eileen, is giving the couple away.
This time, I am able to resist wearing the dress I’ve been asked to hem: been there, done that. The wives wouldn’t care. They’d probably give me the dress after the wedding if I asked.
As for Stella Darling …who knows? I never saw her on or off stage after her going away party. I would like to think she’s still fabulous, married, and lip-synching for her life.
Image Credit: maxintosh/Flickr
Read more on Marriage on The Good Life.
“I would like to think she’s still fabulous, married, and lip-synching for her life.”
But of course, he’s probably dead.
Why do you say that?
Yeah, I’m also curious.