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For all the girls | page 1, 2
In addition to clothing, her suitcase contained a strap-on penis. Wearing one is called "packing." I believe she talked about the special occasions that required such "packing," but honestly it was hard to concentrate on her monologue. Ali kept sneaking sideways glances to see of I was OK and some of her friends in the seats around us were checking her out to see how she was managing the idea of her mother watching all this. I wanted to ask why a lesbian would ever want to wear a fake penis. I didn't think they liked male sex organs. But I could not ask and so I gave the performance my full attention. I have since learned that dildos come in lots of shapes -- dolphins, fruits and vegetables, snakes -- because vaginal sensation is still desirable and not necessarily associated with penises, although the penis shape is also acceptable and sometimes used as a joke or a statement, as in the case of Peggy Shaw. Her stories connected loosely in time and place and gradually formed a mosaic. I understood that I was witnessing a journey on the stage, but also within myself, because Peggy Shaw's gender gradually ceased to matter. Gay, straight, bi, transgendered, who cared? She played with it so much that she rendered it meaningless, like someone repeating a word over and over until it sounds silly. She could strap her breasts and pack her trousers and look like a woman with flat breasts and socks rolled up in her undies. Or she could convince me that she was a gay man on sex-change hormones, or a straight man with a slightly funny shape. Oh well. Oh well. After about an hour, she changed into a charcoal-gray silk suit -- a crooner's suit. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como, they all wore suits like that. She unrolled thin, black dress socks, found a shoehorn and slipped into shiny wing-tips. From the suitcase she took a starched and folded white shirt and I was reminded of my dad who wore a fresh white shirt every day. They came from the Chinese laundry folded just like that with a band of blue paper wrapped around them. Peggy Shaw pulled her shirt collar up and knotted a tasteful silk tie at her neck. She straightened the knot and rolled her collar neatly. Then she greased her hair and slicked it straight back from her forehead. Music came from speakers on either side of the stage. She pulled the microphone free from the stand so she could wander around the theater. A white spot followed her and she began to sing the Julio Iglesias song "To All the Girls I've Loved Before." She moved as though she might break into a waltz at any time, reminding me of Fred Astaire. She had a mischievous look on her face, like a flirty man, or an outrageously provocative woman, or anyone who is getting away with a great trick. Suddenly she fell to her knees in front of a woman in an aisle seat and sang right to her, meltingly, looking right into her eyes in a parody of seduction. I was jealous. I wanted her to come over and sing to me. I wondered if Ali shared the same wish and if she could tell what I was thinking and if she had become embarrassed to have me there. Peggy Shaw sang more verses, each more dramatic than the next until the strings soared and the piano rippled and the lilting refrain of the last phrases faded ever so slowly, just like the music behind the credits at the end of a hopelessly romantic movie. Then she raised the mike in one hand and bowed from the waist and smiled into the white, hot spotlight. Two more small bows, blown kisses, roses on the stage -- over. The house lights came up and we all began to shuffle out of our seats. The end of a good performance makes me lonely and I let go slowly just as I linger over the end of a good book. It's always like losing friends. "Yes, really I did like it," I assured Ali. It was already well past 10. I declined her offer of tea. Also, I did not feel ready to talk about it in detail. Ali walked me to my car and I headed home on empty roads that brittle cold February night. Route 63 passes horse farms, the turnoff to the Peace Pagoda and an ashram; a Quaker meeting house, leaning old farmhouses and glass-walled custom homes with westerly views. Only a few lights remained on at that hour and I thought about all the warm people curled up under the covers, dreaming, drooling, snoring, farting, wheezing -- oblivious. We enter sleep with such trust and really there's nothing between our helpless half-naked selves except window glass, a wooden frame and some clapboards -- barriers without much meaning.
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