Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

looks like a regular.”
    The man grunted. “A regular what , we won’t say.”
    “Does she live here?” Michael asked.
    “She does now. She came out here five years ago from Havasu City. When I got sick.”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “I guess she thought I didn’t have too long, but…surprise, surprise.”
    “She lives with you, then?” asked Thack.
    “Oh, Lord, no. She lives with a friend of hers from Havasu City. The friend has a son here too.”
    “Oh.”
    “The two of ’em are real party animals.” He smiled dimly. “She knows more queers than I do.”
    Thack laughed. The old lady twirled into view for a moment, waggled her fingers at her son, and twirled off again.
    “She’s subdued tonight,” he said. “She’s got a whole outfit that goes with that hat.”
    “You know…” Michael’s brow furrowed. “I think I’ve seen her before.”
    The man looked at him. “You play bingo at Holy Redeemer?”
    “No.”
    “How ’bout the Bare Chest Contest at the Eagle?”
    Michael laughed. “She goes to that?”
    “Never misses one,” said the man.
    “It must’ve been somewhere else,” said Michael.

    The music ended, and the dance floor cleared. The old lady made a beeline for her son, dragging her partner by the hand.
    “Ooowee,” she declared, patting her lilac wisps.
    “How ’bout a Bud?” asked her son.
    “Don’t mind if I do. George, this is Larry. Larry, George.”
    “Hi. Uh…this is…” The man turned to Michael and Thack, looking apologetic. “We didn’t actually get each other’s names.”
    “Michael.” He raised his hand in a sort of generalized greeting to all and sundry. “This is Thack.”
    Nods and murmurs.
    The old lady cocked her head. “Either of you boys feel like a go at it?”
    “Oh, Lord,” said her son. “She’s worn out one and workin’ on another.”
    “You hush up,” said the old lady.
    “You don’t have to,” the man told Michael.
    “I’d like to,” said Michael.
    “You see, Larry,” said the old lady.
    “I’m not sure I know how ,” said Michael, seeing Thack’s amusement out of the corner of his eye.
    “Nothing to it.” The old lady took his hand and led him toward the floor.
    “I thought you wanted a Bud,” yelled her son.
    “Hang on to it,” she called back. “Was it Michael, did you say?”
    “Right.”
    “Well, I’m Eula.”
    “Hi,” he said.
    Another song had already begun, so they waited for a space to open, then merged with the stream of waltzers. Custom seemed to demand holding your partner at arms’ length, which worked out fine, really, since Eula’s immense polyester-ruffled bosom had a few demands of its own.
    “You’re doin’ good,” she said.
    He chuckled. “It’s sorta the old, basic box step, isn’t it?”
    “That’s it.” She nodded. “Watch those girls ahead of us. They’ve got the knack of it.”
    The “girls” were a pair of fiftyish dykes in Forty-Niners jackets. They were good, all right, so Michael caught the rhythm of their movement and copied it.
    “There you go,” said Eula. “You got it.”
    “Well, you’re a good dancer,” Michael told her. And it was true, amazingly enough. She was remarkably light on her feet.
    “First time here?” she asked.
    “Uh-huh…well, no. I came here once in the early eighties, when it was called something else.”
    “What was it called then?”
    “I don’t remember, actually.” This was a lie, pure and simple. It had been called the Cave, and the walls had been painted black. Its specialties had been nude wrestling and slave auctions. Why he was hiding this from a woman who frequented the Eagle’s Bare Chest Contest, Michael did not know.
    “That’s my son you were talking to.”
    “I know,” he said. “He told me.”
    “He don’t like to go out much, but every now and then I make him.”
    He didn’t know what to say.
    “Ronnie—that’s his lover—he’s even worse. All them boys wanna do is rent movies and stay home.”
    “I know how they feel,” he said.
    “Oh, now,” she said. “You’re more fun than that.”
    The coquettish glint in her eye made him register finally on where he had seen her. “You were at the Castro Theatre, weren’t you? The Bow-Wow Beauty Pageant?”
    “That was me,” she said.
    “You had the Chihuahua, right? Dressed as Marie Antoinette?”
    “Carmen Miranda.”
    “Yeah. That was great.”
    “Larry made the little hat,” she said proudly. “He found all them little plastic bananas