Who's the Little Gay Boy?

Who's the little Gay Boy!

I recently answered a mySpace-group questionnaire that asked if I had ever dressed up in Drag. Initially I thought the answer was "no," but thinking back further in time, I realized the answer was "yes." That is, if it counts as Drag when you're eight or ten.

As a child I was a big Lucille Ball fan. I watched I LOVE LUCY, and LUCY SHOW reruns, and watched HERE'S LUCY, which was still running in prime-time. My mom helped me send her a fan letter and I was out-of-my-mind-crazy when I got a signed photo of Lucy in the mail a couple weeks later. It was in black and white - and signed rather generically "Love, Lucy."

A few weeks later I got my third-grade school pictures back. I raced home, cut one free from the sheet of small photos, and boldly signed it, "Love, David," and sent it to Lucy. A couple weeks later I got a full-color photo of Lucy back in the mail! Show-and-Tell here I come!

I eventually wanted to be Lucy and asked my Mom and Grandmother if I could get a red wig. They bought me a fright-wig ala Ronald McDonald!

"No, no, no," I say. "Not like that, like real hair, like Lucy!"

For some reason my Mom and Grandmother didn't bat an eyelash. And when my Grandmother was at the beauty salon next she let me pick out an inexpensive red-head wig. I think it cost $2.00, which was several times my allowance. It was a start. Next I wanted false eyelashes! And at the local Skaggs Drugstore I'd spotted a pair of Deep Blue lashes that were to be my next purchase.

I don't know how many times I dressed-up as Lucy. It was more than once, though! My grandmother had a pretty silk blouse, that on me, worked splendidly as a mid-thigh length dress. And I loved my grandmother's heels! My grandmother was a nice, southern, Methodist lady. But my Mom was a feminist, women's rights activist (who didn't really wear dresses!) and my Mom had a number of lesbian friends. I remember one coming over to our house and lecturing me on female stereotypes; and saying that I didn't have to do my hair and wear false-eyelashes to pretend I was a woman. "Oh, please," I thought. "I'm not dressing up as a woman, I'm Lucy!"

The last time I remember donning "drag" was when I was ten, when I wrote a play for me and my best friend, Gail, a black girl who lived down the street. It was called Millicent Martin takes Manhattan and featured me as Millicent Martin. She was a penthouse-living, New York Socialite, based loosely on Eva Gabor in GREEN ACRES and, of course, Lucy. My friend Gail played Leroy, an African-American homeless bum. In the play we fell in love and I introduced Leroy to New York society! I invited my family and assorted kids from the neighborhood to attend the play. A couple of my male friends seemed fascinated by my costume, too.

I didn't figure out I was Gay until I was 22 - kinda' hard to believe!

--David

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Copyright 2006 by D. Maxine.
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