Backstab (4 page)

“To look beautiful, female impersonators suffer even more than real women,” said Ralph.

I wasn't sure I agreed, but I was willing to listen to his arguments.

“Some have silicone implants or take hormones. Others go through worse tortures. They may wear six pairs of panty hose to keep their hip and rear pads in place.”

I was impressed. One pair of panty hose is often beyond me.

He pointed to one impersonator struggling to zip up a blue sequin gown while he stuffed his lush foam tush back down in his sheer blue panty hose. I hoped he wouldn't have to use the john in a hurry.

“Should I refer to them as she or he?” I whispered to Ralph.

“It's polite to call an impersonator she when she is in costume,” he said—a bit of etiquette I haven't seen yet in “Miss Manners.”

We walked through thick clouds of hair spray and heavy perfume. Feathers floated in the air, lost sequins sparkled on the chairs and floors, and there were cries of “Has anyone seen my eyelash curler?” and “Who the fuck unplugged my curling iron?”

I watched a platinum blonde apply false eyelashes one by one with a tweezer. She was better at it than I was. She wore black stockings and a fetching black satin merry widow, which pushed up a pair of foam hooters the size of honeydews.

Jimbo was nearly pop-eyed. I guess he'd never realized beauty was only skin deep.

The Merry Widow grabbed Jimbo by the thigh and said, “Oooh, you're cute.”

“I'm married,” quavered Jimbo.

“That's how I like them,” the Widow said, merrier than ever.

Jimbo put his camera firmly to his face and started snapping. He aimed at a feather fan as big and bright as a jukebox. The sequin detail on a Bob Mackie dress. A large, sexy foot in a large, sexy shoe.

He spent a lot of time shooting a stunning impersonator the color of creamed coffee, in a rhinestone dress just a shade darker than her skin. She wore a pheasant feather headdress and glided gracefully on four-inch heels. Most women I knew couldn't have managed that getup. Most wouldn't want to.

“That's the favorite, Chocolate Suicide,” Ralph told me. “She's expected to win this year.”

She looked scrumptious, but a shade too short and plump to be a beauty contestant. “She'd have to lose twenty pounds to compete in a female pageant,” I said.

Ralph looked hurt. I didn't fully appreciate Chocolate's artistry. “This is one beauty contest where it's good to be short and a little chubby,” he said. “They look more like real women. A little natural padding gives them curves and breasts.”

I thought the female impersonator standing next to Chocolate Suicide made a better woman.
Sharlot Webb was slender and wore soft makeup. Her shoulder-length hair was a natural brown. Her black velvet dress with the big shoulder bows had hardly a sequin anywhere. I could imagine wearing it myself.

“How about Sharlot Webb?” I asked Ralph.

He shrugged. “Sharlot's okay, but she's not Chocolate Suicide. Let's go out and see some of the talent part of the show.”

Jimbo looked relieved to leave backstage. We three made our way through the dusty velvet stage curtains to the ballroom. The stage and runway were decorated with mounds of flowers. The ballroom was jammed with folding chairs, and more people were standing.

The audience was part of the show. At first glance, it appeared to be almost all women. At second glance, some of those women had five o'clock shadows. Others looked distressingly good. After a while I could pick out the impersonators. They were glamorous. The real women looked dowdy, like brown sparrows among the peacocks.

A tall redhead in a black satin gown cut to there made me feel like maybe I should check into a salon for a makeover. I mean, if makeup and padding could make a man look that good, think what could be done for me with the right equipment. “Is she in the show?” I asked Ralph.

“No. Some of the best impersonators never compete. They just do it for fun. I know one who is a banker by day. Another is an accountant. A few are hookers.”

A brunette in a red dress slithered by. “That one has a pretty face and a beer gut,” I said.

“That's a real woman,” Ralph said.

Onstage, things were dull. The talent competition was the slowest part of the evening. Many of the sets were fantastic. There were dungeons and harems and enough fake fog to cover London. But too many contestants simply lip-synched and paraded in flashy outfits. Watching men pretending to be women pretending to sing was boring. “How much longer does this go on?” I asked.

“One more to go,” said Ralph. “You're lucky. They scratched the Ass.”

I blinked.

“Maria Callous, the Ass with Class. She looks a little like Princess Di and plays on it. She wears these dresses you could wear to Buckingham Palace, with a little rhinestone bow over the butt. She's always escorted on stage by a guy with big ears who wears a tux.

“Last year she was Second Runner-Up. This year, she didn't show after the first day. Rumor is she knew she hadn't added anything to her act this year, couldn't afford a hot new outfit, and didn't have the club support. Rather than risk her title, Maria dropped out. Now she can still call herself 1995 Second Runner-Up, rather than 1996 loser.”

“Does dropping out midpageant happen often?”

“All the time. On Tuesday, the Shady Lady left in a snit after she told the judge to stuff himself
during the poise and presentation competition. She figured she couldn't win after that, and she was right. The Sue Warrior, who dresses like a lawyer and strips to her briefs for her talent competition, left after her boy friend punched her in the face and broke her nose. No way those bruises could be mistaken for war paint.”

Jimbo had been taking pictures, but Ralph and I hadn't been paying much attention to the stage. Now, we sat up and noticed. Chocolate Suicide appeared, and it was like the room had a jolt of electricity. The audience was cheering and chanting, “Chocolate! Chocolate! Sweet baby girl!”

Semisweet, actually. Six studs in black leather carried her out in a sedan chair. She stepped out on their heads, then dismissed them with the flick of a whip. The music started, Tina Turner at her wildest. Chocolate was at her wildest, too, all fire and energy. Her rhinestones shimmered, her feathers shook. So did the rest of her. She strutted and high-stepped and practically turned herself inside out as she danced. The crowd cheered and showered her with money. She wiped her sweating face with a handful of bills. No doubt about it. She had style.

She was the last act in the talent section. Now it was time for the worst test a man can face: the evening gown competition. Wobbly high heels and heavy beaded gowns have dethroned many an aspiring drag queen. The judges were merciless. Careers were ruined by the slightest slip.

“You have to be able to walk naturally,” Ralph
said. “The winners will be dragged around to all the talk shows. These are our movie stars, our society. They raise money for charity.” Also, for themselves. I couldn't forget the ten- and twenty-dollar bills shoved at the contestants for tips. Tipping is an innovation female beauty queens should consider. The retiring queen and the new title holder parade on the runway, while the audience hands them money. Serious money. At this pageant, a winner might make one thousand dollars in tips, plus five thousand in prize money.

Who would wear the nine-inch-tall rhinestone crown this year?

It was down to three contestants, and just as in female beauty pageants, they were all Southerners. The judges made their choices, and I thought they were good ones. The bland, tuxedoed announcer called them out:

“Miss Florida!” She wore a stunning green sequin number that showed off her sleek, dark red hair. She was a sensational Third Place.

“Miss Lou-ee-zee-ana!” Her gown shimmered in gold. With her blond hair, it was a blinding combination.

“She'll probably get the crown next year,” whispered Ralph.

But it was clear who the winner was: “Miss Texas!”

It was Chocolate Suicide, in a cocoa-brown gown to die for. I knew it looked like money, but I didn't know how much. Ralph did. “I heard
that gown cost thirteen thousand dollars,” he said.

The crowd chanted her name: “Chocolate Suicide! Chocolate Suicide!” and pressed forward to give her money. I saw men waving tens and twenties, crawling over each other to hand her the money. They were practically rioting to make her rich. Trust men to add this moneymaking innovation to a pageant. It sure beat Bert Parks singing “Here she comes, Miss America.”

Chocolate graciously grabbed it all. “Get used to this, girl,” said the announcer. “It's going to be like this for the next twelve months.”

More cheers. The pageant was over. It was after midnight.

Jimbo the photographer packed up to go home to the burbs. I told him I couldn't wait to see his photos tomorrow.

Ralph wanted to talk a bit more. “Let's go to Burt's Bar for a nightcap,” he said. “It's on the way home.”

That was the beauty of Burt's Bar, and one of the keys to its popularity. It was on the way to everyone's home. Right on the edge of downtown, a few blocks from three major highways, I-55, I-44, and I-64. The other key was Burt himself. He was the perfect old-fashioned bartender. His martinis had zing. His beer was cold and his glasses were chilled. Burt was a vigorous seventy. He always wore a starched white shirt, striped tie, and clean white apron. His mahogany bar top was polished. There were no ashes
in the glass ashtrays on the shiny black-and-chrome tables. The bottles and glasses gleamed on the back bar. He ruled over this clean and pleasant place. No one, but no one, was allowed to say a four-letter word or harass a woman in Burt's Bar. Burt's wife Dolores did the cooking in the spotless stainless steel kitchen.

I thought Burt's Bar was a fine example of a city saloon. My readers agreed. Six years ago, when I ran a contest to find the Best St. Louis Saloon, they voted it Number One. Burt was so proud when he won. He gave the first prize—an engraved beer mug—its own shelf over the bar. He framed my column and hung it over the ice machine.

For years, Burt's was a neighborhood bar. Then he was discovered by the city's movers and shakers. Now you could spot them after midnight, hanging around the watering hole and trying to figure out why X was with Y and what it meant in their ugly little jungle. Burt gave me the credit for his late-life success, but I never thought I'd done much. If I hadn't written about Burt's, someone else would have. It's no great feat for a journalist to find a saloon.

It was crowded at Burt's, but we found a table. Instead of Sally, the waitress, Burt himself came over to take our drinks order—a high honor on a busy night. “Francesca,” he said, a big smile lighting up his face. “You haven't been in here for months. I thought you forgot about me.”

“Never, Burt. You're looking good these days.”

“Awww, I'm just a hardheaded old Dutchman,” said Burt, blushing like a boy. “We never change.”

“I hope not,” I said.

Burt quickly got down to business. “What can I get you?” We ordered our drinks. Burt brought them and disappeared back behind the bar. He had too many customers to chat with me for long.

Ralph talked for a while about the female impersonators. I asked him what would happen to the contest's losers and dropouts. “Some are headed for trouble, like the Shady Lady. Rumor has it she's doing too many drugs. Sue Warrior will probably get her act together if she bounces her boy friend. I hear Maria Callous has a steady sweetie and may settle down for a while.”

But I could tell his mind was elsewhere. He was restless and worried, and that made him wheeze. He took a hit on his inhaler. He wanted to tell me something, and eventually he'd get around to it. Finally he did.

“I had to cash in a lot of favors to get you into that pageant,” he said. “You can write anything you want about us. We're different, but we have feelings. We get hurt. Please don't make us look like freaks.”

I patted his hand. I was a freak, too. It just didn't show as much.

“I'll be careful, Ralph,” I said.

I left some money on the table, and waved to
Burt as I walked out the door. It was near closing, and he was busy cleaning up behind the bar. I didn't stop to say good-bye. I didn't know it was the last time I'd see Burt alive.

T
he next day, I woke up early and energetic. The morning matched my mood—sunny. I dressed for work and decided to fix myself breakfast instead of eating a bagel in the car. I rummaged in the fridge, found a poppy-seed bagel that wasn't too stale, and toasted it. Then I fried an egg. Perfect. It was sunnyside-up, the yolk slightly runny, just the way I like it.

I plopped the egg on the toasted bagel and took a bite. The yolk broke, slid through the bagel hole, and ran down my suit. The rest of the day was going to slide down a hole, too. I just didn't know it yet.

I got dressed again and drove to work, still convinced that it was a good day. It had to be. It was fifty degrees in February, and I swore I could smell spring—along with the city blend of smog and freshly brewed beer.

I found my desktop piled high with mail from readers. Another sign things were going right. I
love my mail. There's always something to make me laugh. Today, a seventy-seven-year-old woman had sent me a photo of her cat watching
Wheel of Fortune.
A group of outdoorsy guys invited me once again to go on their annual February float trip to the Ozarks. They know my idea of roughing it is a hotel with no room service.

I was in such a good mood, I even laughed at a letter addressed to “Francesca Vierling, Whore of the
CG”
on my desk. Jeez, I always thought I was fairly discreet. The envelope had my name printed in black letters with SS lightning bolts. The inside wasn't quite so funny. The lined notebook paper was covered with homemade lightning bolts and shaky swastikas. The writing was more black printing, underlined with three colors. All sure signs of a nutcase. Yep. The letter was signed by the “Aryan Avenger.” It began formally. “Dear Whore of the
CG
: You liberal bitches are all alike….” I didn't bother to read the rest.

I wrote my column on the female impersonators and liked it so much I called my friend and mentor, Georgia T. George. Georgia was fifty-five, a small, smart, elfin blonde who wore the ugliest, boxiest gray suits money could buy. At a successful paper, she'd be managing editor. But the Gazette papers had never had a woman ME, and I didn't think they ever would. Not without a lawsuit. The
St. Louis City Gazette
was one paper in a chain of mediocre multimedia money-makers owned by a Boston family. The publisher kept a mansion in St. Louis for his rare visits
here, but lived in the East. Decisions came out of corporate headquarters in Boston.

Corporate headquarters made Hadley the managing editor. He belonged to the right clubs, wore the right clothes, could talk culture with the Harvard-educated publisher—when he condescended to come to town—hold his coat and tell him what he wanted to hear. Hadley was no leader. The paper was hemorrhaging circulation. Morale was poor. The staff sniped at each other instead of working together. The
Gazette
was hated in its own community as aloof and arrogant. But Hadley was a genius for two reasons: First, he convinced the snobbish publisher that these problems were the fault of the stupid readers, not the stupid editors. Second, he kept profits high by cutting expenses and staff and hiring inexperienced young reporters and copy editors. Then he overworked them. They made a lot of mistakes, but it cost nothing to run a correction.

Georgia tried to explain to the publisher that this way of operating hurt quality, and ultimately, profits. Her career suffered for her candor. She could have transferred to another paper or a TV station in the giant Gazette chain, but she stayed in St. Louis because she loved the easy, comfortable life here, and the fourteen-room penthouse overlooking Forest Park for the price of a one-bedroom co-op in New York. At the paper, she was equally comfortable. As assistant managing editor for features, Georgia rated an office on Rotten Row, the string of private offices for newsroom execs. Each one was the
size of a shower stall and had about as much charm. But in an overcrowded open newsroom, privacy was a coveted perk. I didn't want to be seen running into her office too often, so at work we usually talked on the phone.

She answered her phone with a sharp bark. “Georgia George.”

“Got a minute? Call up my column for Tuesday and let me know what you think,” I said.

“What are you trying to slip by Charlie now?” she asked warily.

Georgia is the only person at the paper I trust to tell me when a column is lousy or a joke doesn't work. Georgia was unflinchingly honest, even when I didn't want her to be.

She called me back ten minutes later. “I love it,” she said. “But you better have a backup. You know, Miz Condom on the Grapefruit, that Hadley is on one of his morality kicks.”

“But I ran the idea past Charlie and he said to go for it,” I said.

“I've also told you what Charlie means when he says that. Grab your ass and kiss it good-bye,” she said.

Like many newswomen, Georgia could be coarse. Newsmen generally kept their maidenly modesty, and rarely uttered a vulgar word. Newswomen showed they were tough by talking tough. In Georgia's case, she was genuinely tough. I knew she'd faced down a high-powered lawyer with a shady client who threatened her with a career-busting lawsuit. The
Gazette
had exposed his crooked client. Sometimes, even
when the
Gazette
was right, its wimpy lawyers would settle out of court because they thought some lawsuits were too expensive to defend. Georgia stood her ground, the lawyer with the exposed client blinked, and the
Gazette
's honor and her career were saved.

Georgia had saved my career, too. She was the one who'd opened my eyes to good-time Charlie. Ten years ago, when I had just started writing my column, I used to think that Charlie was my friend and mentor. He was always advising me on how to deal with Hadley. He told me I had to take a firm line with the managing editor. He urged me to go into Hadley's office and confront him. So I did. I didn't get anywhere, but I felt a lot better after I screamed at him. And it made me a hero to the staff. I was the brave woman who talked back to Hadley Harris the Third.

Charlie's advice advanced me all right. He almost advanced me right out of the newsroom. I probably never would have figured out what Charlie was up to if Georgia T. George hadn't taken me under her wing. In those days I knew her only as a distant figure, one of the
Gazette
's rare women editors. She was frighteningly smart. She existed on another plane, far above Charlie's crowd. We said hello in the hall, but that was about it. Then I wrote my notorious Chicken Plucker column. It never made the paper, but the entire newsroom surreptitiously called it up on their computer screens and read it.

I wrote about the Rialto, an exclusive St. Louis men's club, which refused to admit women members because the men liked to swim nude in the club's penthouse pool.

I wrote, “The Rialto is supposed to be the club for the city's movers and shakers. Most of them are shakers, or at least tremblers. The average age of a Rialto member is a frisky seventy-five. The Rialto refuses to admit women to the club because it says it will have to discontinue its nude swimming. The club spokesman who told me this was a scrawny old gentleman. Without his exquisitely tailored suit, he would look rather like a plucked chicken. So would most of the other club members. The thought of all those old pluckers naked in that pool is enough to make a woman take the veil.”

Hadley was a member of the Rialto (and a scrawny old plucker to boot). When he saw that column on the “Family” page proof, he killed it instantly.

Charlie said he would back me all the way on this one. He advised me to go in and yell at Hadley. “Shouting is the only way to make an impression on that guy,” Charlie said. “It takes guts, but he'll respect you. Go in there and do it now. I'll back you to the hilt.” After Charlie's pep talk, I was ready. I was stalking across the newsroom to give Hadley what-for when I was intercepted by Georgia T. George.

“Can I see you in my office?” she said sternly.

Everyone standing nearby assumed she had been delegated to chew me out. That's what I
thought, too. She looked so small and fierce. I followed her into her office. She shut the door, another sign trouble was brewing. “Let me guess,” she said. “You are on your way to Hadley's office to give him a piece of your mind.”

“Yes,” I said. “He killed my column. He needs to be confronted.”

“And Charlie told you to do that?” she asked.

“Yes, Charlie's very good about advising me on how to deal with Hadley. He's one of my best friends at the paper. He said he'd back me to the hilt.”

“Would you like to see what your friend Charlie wrote about you?” she said. “I'll show you.” Georgia had a high security clearance, so she could read the memos on the HADLEY desk in the computer system. This was where the upper editors sent reports they could look at, but the deckhands couldn't see.

Charlie wrote this memo to Hadley: “I am very concerned about Francesca's hysterical mood swings. She has become verbally abusive to some of the men on the staff. I believe she has taken a dislike to mature males. She told me she was ‘going to give that old goat Hadley a piece of my mind.' I tried to stop her, but if she comes into your office screaming and violent, I recommend she be severely disciplined. These outbursts must be stopped.”

For a minute, I didn't say anything. I felt numb. I could hear a strange blank sound in my head like running water.

“He backed me to the hilt all right,” I said,
bitterly. “He put the knife right in my back, the self-righteous little sneak. Let me take that sawed-off snake out on the back lot and beat the tar out of him.”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” Georgia said, and she sounded like Sister Mary Grace, the principal at my grade school. “That is simply another version of what he wants—a show of violence on your part. You are not going to star in the scene Charlie has written for you. You will not touch him. You will not say a word in anger. Do not let him know you have found out about his double-dealing. Now get your coat, get outside, and cool off. Go do some interviews. I do not want to see you in this office the rest of the day.”

It was the first of a lot of good advice from my new mentor. But today I was feeling cocky enough with the female impersonator column to discount Georgia's advice. Especially when she wanted to cut my favorite line. “I suggest that you can any mention of Maria, the Ass with Class,” she said. “That's the first thing that's going to be cut. It may set off Hadley.”

“You know my theory,” I said. “I deliberately put in something that he can take out in the first three paragraphs. Then he leaves in the stuff I want.”

Nine times out of ten my theory works. This was time Number Ten. Georgia warned me, but I didn't listen. After all, it was a good day. I even finished writing early. I sent the column to Charlie's computer desk at two o'clock, four hours
ahead of my deadline. Thirty minutes later, Hadley's secretary, Nelson (Hadley believed male secretaries were classier than females), was at my desk. That meant Hadley was requesting an audience.

“Mr. Harris and Charlie would like to see you in Mr. Harris's office,” Nelson said.

“How serious is it?” I asked. If things weren't too bad, Nelson would joke with me. This time he said nothing. Uh-oh.

It was a short trip across the newsroom to Hadley's office. Like walking the plank. Hadley's office looked like a newspaper museum. There were framed front pages going back to World War I. A wooden California job case with my favorite typeface, classic Caslon, designed by Londoner William Caslon in the eighteenth century. Small tools ranging from a pica stick to an eye-gouging copy spike on an ornate green metal base. Hadley even had a Mergenthaler Linotype machine from the late 1890s in his office. The landmark typesetting machine was big as an upright piano. I bet it was a bitch to dust.

The real museum piece was Hadley himself. Hadley longed for the good old days of newspapers, when editors could ignore life's ambiguities. News was clearly defined: accidents, government scandals, crimes against white people, and fires, floods, and other natural disasters. The only sex was in court cases about divorces, contested wills, and paternity suits, and none of these scandals were about the publisher's friends. Women stayed on the women's page.
Women's issues were society parties, bridge clubs, fashion, children, and recipes. Rape, race, sex discrimination, syphilis, suicide, and child abuse were politely ignored, like a fart in church. As for men with tits like women's, you could snigger about them with the boys at the bar, but you didn't write about them in a newspaper.