Queen Streets

On my morning commute I bike through a notorious stretch that is the domain of transvestite sex workers. Even during the morning rush hour, the girls are always out in the street, brazenly open for business, preening and gossiping, strutting and sashaying, admiring each other’s outfits as they drink their morning coffee. The girls are all over the spectrum: shemales with prominent brow ridges and linebacker shoulders, delicate ladyboys with enviously slim hips, and flawless decepticons, who could fool me and have probably left many a satisfied Midwestern conventioneer customer none the wiser as well. They are all something to see, but the queen that holds the most fascination for me is African-American and seven feet tall in her platform shoes. She is usually propped up against a wall, singing disco tunes or belting out gospels. As I pedal past, trying not to gawk, I hear fragments like,

"Get down, oogie boogie oogie! Get down, oogie boogie oogie!"

"AMAZING GRACE! HOW SU-WEET THE SOUND"

“I believe in miracles! Where did you come from, you sexy THANG!”

Her outfits are an inspiration. Sometimes she is decked out head to toe in gold sequins, shimmering in the sun. Other times she is a vision in swirly diaphanous pastels. The other day she was in brightly colored kimono, nostrils flared and arms stretched out, displaying herself like some sort of celestial dragon. I was so awestruck that I didn’t notice the panhandler beachcombing for cigarette butts in the gutter next to the bike lane.

“Watch yourself, sugar!” she warned, and I swung out just in time.

The girls must have worked out some sort of arrangement with the police, Sin City style. Or maybe the police are just scared of them, and leave them free to conduct their business, because as Buddy Cole cautions, “An angry drag queen is scarier than a minotaur!”