Fiercest of Them Allis in its sixteenth season and was basically Drag Queen 101 when I was a ten-year-old boy at the library pretending to do research on photosynthesis while I was actually watching YouTube clips of this mythical art of drag I never even knew existed. Honestly, I think some people in this town would have been less disturbed if they’d caught me looking at porn rather than grown men in dresses. Not that anyone should have been surprised. I’ve always been the kind of gay that announces itself and asks for a wide berth.Flamboyant, as Grammy says.
It was in that library that I gobbled up the history of drag and all the ways it’s woven into queer history, especially Black queer history, which is definitely not something Ihad any luck finding reading materials on within a five-hundred-mile radius. Thank Goddess for the internet.
As forFiercest of Them All, it wasn’t until I was in middle school that I figured out how to watch episodes from sort of sketchy websites. (I’d like to think that the drag gods would forgive me for my early and ill-informed pirating days.) Around that same time, all the things about me that signified to other people that I was definitely not straight grew bigger and took deeper roots.
Some people are obviously queer, and others... aren’t. I just so happen to fulfill some of the broader stereotypes surrounding gay guys. Mom once admitted that when I was younger, she and my dad thought it might be a phase. Maybe just my grandmother rubbing off on me. It’s true that her love for glamour, themes, and drama was contagious, but I never did grow out of it, so by the start of high school, watchingFiercest of Them Allon the family TV was suddenly the least shocking thing about me. And sometimes, Mom and Dad even sat down to watch an episode, which in real time was annoying, because I was constantly having to explain context and how the show worked. Now, though, with only a few months left at home, it’s easy to feel nostalgic for their old-people quirks.
I honk—with love—as Clem pulls Hannah through the parking lot. My sister gives me a hmph as she slides in next to me with Hannah in the passenger seat.
“Sorry to make you wait, Waylon,” says Hannah in a voice that honestly doesn’t sound that sorry, if we’re splitting hairs. She bites on her lip ring, a recent addition andbirthday gift from Clem. Not my style, but it complements Hannah’s whole look, which is combat boots and shaggy bangs. Some people say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and if that’s the case, Hannah’s thick, wavy bangs are the curtains. Of course, there’s the matter of her teeth too. A little oversized and a little gapped. Hannah’s been getting shit about them for years, but what those losers don’t know is that some people become supermodels thanks to their quirky teeth, so if you ask me, Hannah’s teeth are a major future asset.
“He barely waited,” chimes in Clem. “We got out of school like eight minutes ago.”
“Listen,” I say as I shift the truck into drive. “It’s not my fault our parents have done us the inhumane disservice of not including DVR in their cable package.”
Clem groans. “It doesn’t even matter. This season is a done deal. Ruby Slippers has it in the bag.”
I let out a hiss as the truck rumbles out of the parking lot and into downtown Clover City. “Don’t you speak that evil in my Beulah.”
“OurBeulah.Ourtruck,” she reminds me.
“Mimi Mee is the one true queen of season sixteen and I will accept nothing less.”
“They’ll never crown a fat queen,” Clem says. “At least not anytime soon,” she adds gently.
Hannah lets out a here-we-go-again sigh.
“It’s not that I don’t think they should,” Clem continues. “But how many plus-size queens have we seen make it all the way to the finals season after season only to be shutdown again and again? Honestly, I think we should stop watching altogether after this season. Go on strike.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, that’s going to make a real statement. Two kids from Clover City refusing to watch literally one of the biggest television shows in the world is going to make a real dent.”
Outside my window, Clover City ripples by in a blur as we make our way through downtown, past the weathered gazebos in the main square, and beyond the civic center. I’m not supposed to love this place. For as much as I love the fat queens onFiercest of Them All, the small-town queens always hold a special place in my heart too. It’s a reminder that incredible things happen in all kinds of places, even Clover City. This is the kind of place gay teenage boys like me are supposed to dream of escaping. But my relationship with my hometown is much more complicated than that. Yeah, I think about the wider world out there and what it might have for me, but there’s also some comfort in walking into a room and feeling like the most refined, smartest person there. Even though Clover City feels like one big joke sometimes, it’s my joke. My charming joke of a town that thrives on beauty pageants and dance teams and a football team that couldn’t figure out how to win a game if the other team had forfeited, but underneath it all, it’s more than that small-town stereotype. It’s a shithole. But it’s my little shithole.
As we pull into Grammy’s driveway, Clem reaches over Hannah and opens the door before the truck is even in park.
Grammy lives in a house with her two best friends and fellow widows, Bernadette and Cleo. If it’s true what they say and that in our old age, we revert to our youth, Grammy’s in her party-girl college years. The three of them are always driving out to New Mexico for the casinos and getting into trouble—sometimes even requiring bail. Basically, they’re everything I aspire to be.
I hope I live to be old and wrinkly with Clem, getting into as much trouble as humanly possible. Maybe I want to kill her more often than not lately, but the idea of riding into the sunset with her by my side is one hell of a way to go out if you ask me. (Assuming we both outlive our spouses, of course. Though I would be lying if I said I didn’t fantasize about being the town’s famous black widow, who wipes his tears away with piles of cash and furs. Just kidding. Murder is bad or something.)
Bernadette, an older Black woman with medium-brown skin who famously has a mole behind her ear in roughly the shape of Texas (seriously—she and it were inTexas Monthly), sits on the front porch in her rocking chair. “Darlinda! Your little chickadees are here and they brought that delightfully grumpy girl!”
“I’m not that grumpy,” murmurs Hannah as we get out of the truck.
I glance over the hood of the car at her. “Seriously?”
Clem catches her hand. “It’s endearing.”
“You’re grumpy,” Hannah retorts as she takes Clem’s hand. “Hi, Ms. Bernadette!” she calls in an extra-cheery voice.
“Really proving us all wrong,” I say.
The Hen House (as Grammy refers to it) is a basic brick ranch-style house, the kind that defines the nicer, older neighborhoods of Clover City. Except there’s nothing basic about this house. When Grammy, Cleo, and Bernadette bought this place, they decided it would finally be the house of their dreams, unfettered by their husbands or the needs of their families. Much to their neighbors’ dismay, they painted the brick light pink and added yellow trim, as if the pink wouldn’t catch enough looks. If you think the outside of the house slows cars, you should see the inside.
Grammy, tall, white, busty, and broad, pushes the screen door open and beckons us inside. She stands framed by the doorway with her white hair tucked into a leopard-print bonnet, her hot-pink coveralls rolled up to her knees, and her shiny red toenails peeking out of her leopard-print kitten-heel slides. “Y’all come take a look at this faucet for me, would ya?”
Grammy dresses for every occasion of her life, whether she’s wearing an elaborate sundress to pick up her prescription, a teal faux-fur coat for bingo, or even a battery-powered cocktail dress on Christmas Eve with actual string lights. The woman loves a theme, so of course she would find her faucet is leaking and don her hot-pink coveralls before even putting in a call to her grandkids.
Inside, we each take our shoes off and leave them in the entryway. (The Hen House might be a bachelorette house, but these women are no slobs.)
