Part 5
Things go on almost as usual for awhile after Miz Tanya is hauled off. Girls parade around the stage slowly to the warblings of Celine Dion and Michael Bolton, pink dresses crisp, eyes held unnaturally wide like they’ve received a shock from a cattle prod and grins firmly on display. Fake teeth. Yes, people will tell you that the judges don’t count off for teeth being less than perfect much less the missing teeth of childhood but that is a lie. Everyone here knows it’s a lie and most are using a dental appliance like a flipper, a small row of fake teeth to cover the child’s front teeth. They look like big ugly Chicklets, big, shiny and white, held in with glue. Fake hair, fake teeth, fake beauty.
The mothers are all abuzz about Tanya , barely paying attention to the tots on stage for a change. Even Sam is pulled into the gossip so much she doesn’t stand within Rayvyn’s sightlines and make frightening faces at her or mouth furious instructions. The local Texas moms seem to be the loudest, and I catch the occasionally drawled word, “makin’ a scene,” or “cheater”.
Beauty competition changes, going into the talent section. Spare us from the talent section please, filled with the untalented. In the years I’ve done these things I seen mostly such things parade as talent as wiggling around in time to music or fake gymnast routines involving coming forward to smile cutely at the judges along with the usual song mangling, baton twirling and more twitching as supposed dancing. Dear gawd, you should see some of the outfits through the years that my shop has churned out for the talent section of the pageant, more pinata diarrhea except without being limited by style of dress like the beauty dresses. The beauty dresses are those standard little girl Alice type dresses but made with lots of crinolined layers under the skirt so it will puff out, tons and tons and tons of rhinestones, pearls and lace. Most of them are some shade of pink and down in an expensive luxury fabric like silk or costume materials. I’ve seen and made some beauty dresses that are actually fancier than a standard wedding dress.
As I stand here and watch I realize my feet hurt and I think about sneaking out to go back to my hotel suite for a nap. Long ago I learned to never book a room to stay in at the same hotel that is hosting the pageant. Book a meeting room for the business, or book a room to do sales out of but do not stay on premises. If you do stay at the same hotel what will happen is that you’ll be deluged with ladies at all hours of the day or night pestering you, unfamiliar with the concept that you need rest or food. You’ll constantly be fending off people asking for free advice, or seeking your services in a panic. One of the first pageants I did I was awoken at 3 am by a pounding on my door of a hysterical pageant mom wanting me to get up and fix the lace on her beauty dress that someone else had designed and sewn. I’ve learned to stay away and to bring someone like Giselle who can crank out a few quick repair jobs in the sales room at a hefty fee.
Here in Houston the pageant is being held at a high rise hotel in the middle of town, soaring towers as defined by the Sheraton corporation. I’m staying across town at a Marriot suites hotel a stones throw from Harris County BBQ. Last night Giselle and I had a massive pig out at the BBQ joint before heading back to our rooms. Tonight we’ll do the same but we’ll have today’s scandals to devour as well. I might even haul Giselle to the Mall near our rooms and dress her, force her to get some properly fitting clothing for a change, the girl seems to want to fade into the woodwork.
As I watch Autumn Amber Joy completely flub her dance routine I watch “Butt Ugly” Mr. Steve with his daughter , watch as he readies her for her talent turn. She’s beautiful, this little Miss Jooniper, or she would be if so much about her wasn’t fake. Flippers, lots of blonde hair extensions, what hair is actually this child's is dyed a glossy blonde, it’s rumored that she wears violet blue contact lenses for the contest as well. Too bad she dances like a fat kid on crack. Too bad her gay daddy named her for a bush and then misspelt it in an failed attempt at cleverness. I don’t get a chance to see how she does for talent, to watch her dance routine because a angry Sylvia Landreax heads straight for me.
“You’re supposed to alter this sportswear for me and sportswear is next! Autumn Amber Joy cannot lose!! Did you see what happened with her talent, she cannot have an ill fitting sportswear to bring down her score..” The woman is shrieking now, arms flailing about and feet stamping. She bumps against another pageant mom and the next sight I see is her wig sailing through the air. I have to squelch a desire to bray out laughter as the spectacle presented by Sylvia Landreax’s wigless head and grimacing face. She turns without another word to me and proceeds to lay a hard right hook onto the garishly made up face of TouTou Touissant’s mother. I have to nervously skitter away, because this looks like the very beginnings of a pageant mom brawl, something I’ve only seen once before. Even the action on the stage stops again, the girls staring against the bright lights trying to figure out if their mommas are somehow involved in the shoving and shouting against the back wall. I keep smiling and stepping backwards until I’m almost to the door.
“Uglier than three day old fried chicken, aren’t they,” says Butt Ugly Mr. Steve as he holds the door open for me. “Let’s sneak out and have a ciggie..” I look at him suspiciously and say, “Don’t you have to be in there when Jooniper is dancing..” He laughs, “Oh hell naw, I can’t hardly watch her dance. It’s the weakest part of her routine.. I work with her and Roy works with her and it’s still pitiful.. I have to sit out watching her sashaying towards doom.. makes me too nervous” We pace the long hallway outside the ballroom towards the front doors and sweet freedom. I ask him in idle curiosity, “Where’s Cedar been? I haven’t seen her at a pageant in ages.” Cedar is Mr. Butt Ugly Steve’s eldest daughter, also on the pageant circuit, she used to be the one to beat, the reigning queen of everything and she never danced like a fat kid on crack. She’d be about fourteen now. I’ve obviously said the wrong thing because Steve looks down and frowns for a moment, “You know how hard it is to work with a rebellious teen? She just suddenly stopped wanting to do the whole pageant thing. Over night she went from blonde princess to surly girly with moody black hair and bondage clothing.. listens to some sort of music called ‘Emo’ and moved in with her mother.. says I don’t understand her..” As I listen I realize that Steve is actually getting teary eyed and I have to reach over and squeeze his arm and mutter, “Oh honey I’m so sorry..” He makes a joke of it all, “Maybe I’ll start sponsoring a pageant for her and little buddies, the Anti Pageant, we can judge them on who has the blackest hair and moshes the best..” I smile back, “That’s an idea..”
We get as far as the front door when we both have to pause and stare. What looks like every single patrol car in the city of Houston is in the parking lot, cherries on top spinning. Cops jump out, earnest and well scrubbed, flat topped, black clad, it’s impressive. I mutter to Steve, “Officer, thank Gawd you’re here, crimes against fashion and nature are occurring in the ballroom.” Steve whoops with laughter, not realizing I’m not entirely joking here. We stand, cigarettes forgotten and watch as the best of HPD pile out of the cars and congregate in front of the building. Accompanying them are four commanding looking folks in suits, detectives I’d guess. I listen as the lone woman detective barks at the crowd of cops to seal every entrance in and out of the Sheraton pdq. Some of the cops scatter and the rest fall into step behind the detectives, coming into the lobby through the big glass front doors. They push through like they own the place.
Instinctively both Steve and I back up, reversing our steps back to the ballroom. He whispers that this must be something serious with one of the guests. I say nothing but my gut feeling tells me that the hotel management must have summoned the cops after talking to Miz Tanya. That must mean that Atlanta is really missing. This isn’t good, not good at all.
Sure enough as we pace back towards the ballroom the cops are right behind us, overtaking us to flood around us like a river of black uniforms eddying around us rocks. I could feel Steve shrinking back against me, I’m betting as a flaming gay man he’d had some interesting experiences with cops. My only knowledge of cops is that in New Orleans you pay them off and you try to avoid them. If they ventured into the 9th Ward you didn’t know nothing, you didn’t see nothing and you sure didn’t tell anything at all. You might find yourself in the Mississippi taking a permanent bath if you complained of police brutality. Police were to be avoided.
We weren’t so lucky, one of the men stops with us and asks who we are and what we’re doing here. We explain as best we can that we’re here to work at the pageant but I’m not sure this young man understands. As we talk I get the feeling from his expressions that we might have been speaking Mandarin Chinese for all he understood. He dismissed us to go into the ballroom where the other cops had congregated with the exception of the detectives. I’d seen them go directly to the managers office, all except the older black detective, he’d gone forward with the bulk of the officers. Okay, l admit, I’d been looking at the female detective’s coat and shoes, wondering how much cops make. Either they have hefty pay or this lady is a smart shopper. She’s wearing what looks like expensive shoes and a designer coat. I can’t help looking at clothes, fashion is my life.
It’s chaos in the ballroom, some of the girls have burst into tears onstage at the appearance of the police. The music comes to a jangly stop, even Gay Tuxedo Host is stunned and wordless. The mothers fall silent, save for a few that quickly go to remove their child from the stage. Once the room is completely quiet the detective takes the stage and motions to the host for the microphone. I notice as he takes the stage that this is a very dignified black man, with silver shot through his short hair, dressed in an off the rack dark suit with a white shirt and a very plain tie. He has that command presence about him, you can just tell no one ever gave him any shit, or if they did they quickly came to regret it. His presence on the stage commands your immediate attention.
The mothers are all abuzz about Tanya , barely paying attention to the tots on stage for a change. Even Sam is pulled into the gossip so much she doesn’t stand within Rayvyn’s sightlines and make frightening faces at her or mouth furious instructions. The local Texas moms seem to be the loudest, and I catch the occasionally drawled word, “makin’ a scene,” or “cheater”.
Beauty competition changes, going into the talent section. Spare us from the talent section please, filled with the untalented. In the years I’ve done these things I seen mostly such things parade as talent as wiggling around in time to music or fake gymnast routines involving coming forward to smile cutely at the judges along with the usual song mangling, baton twirling and more twitching as supposed dancing. Dear gawd, you should see some of the outfits through the years that my shop has churned out for the talent section of the pageant, more pinata diarrhea except without being limited by style of dress like the beauty dresses. The beauty dresses are those standard little girl Alice type dresses but made with lots of crinolined layers under the skirt so it will puff out, tons and tons and tons of rhinestones, pearls and lace. Most of them are some shade of pink and down in an expensive luxury fabric like silk or costume materials. I’ve seen and made some beauty dresses that are actually fancier than a standard wedding dress.
As I stand here and watch I realize my feet hurt and I think about sneaking out to go back to my hotel suite for a nap. Long ago I learned to never book a room to stay in at the same hotel that is hosting the pageant. Book a meeting room for the business, or book a room to do sales out of but do not stay on premises. If you do stay at the same hotel what will happen is that you’ll be deluged with ladies at all hours of the day or night pestering you, unfamiliar with the concept that you need rest or food. You’ll constantly be fending off people asking for free advice, or seeking your services in a panic. One of the first pageants I did I was awoken at 3 am by a pounding on my door of a hysterical pageant mom wanting me to get up and fix the lace on her beauty dress that someone else had designed and sewn. I’ve learned to stay away and to bring someone like Giselle who can crank out a few quick repair jobs in the sales room at a hefty fee.
Here in Houston the pageant is being held at a high rise hotel in the middle of town, soaring towers as defined by the Sheraton corporation. I’m staying across town at a Marriot suites hotel a stones throw from Harris County BBQ. Last night Giselle and I had a massive pig out at the BBQ joint before heading back to our rooms. Tonight we’ll do the same but we’ll have today’s scandals to devour as well. I might even haul Giselle to the Mall near our rooms and dress her, force her to get some properly fitting clothing for a change, the girl seems to want to fade into the woodwork.
As I watch Autumn Amber Joy completely flub her dance routine I watch “Butt Ugly” Mr. Steve with his daughter , watch as he readies her for her talent turn. She’s beautiful, this little Miss Jooniper, or she would be if so much about her wasn’t fake. Flippers, lots of blonde hair extensions, what hair is actually this child's is dyed a glossy blonde, it’s rumored that she wears violet blue contact lenses for the contest as well. Too bad she dances like a fat kid on crack. Too bad her gay daddy named her for a bush and then misspelt it in an failed attempt at cleverness. I don’t get a chance to see how she does for talent, to watch her dance routine because a angry Sylvia Landreax heads straight for me.
“You’re supposed to alter this sportswear for me and sportswear is next! Autumn Amber Joy cannot lose!! Did you see what happened with her talent, she cannot have an ill fitting sportswear to bring down her score..” The woman is shrieking now, arms flailing about and feet stamping. She bumps against another pageant mom and the next sight I see is her wig sailing through the air. I have to squelch a desire to bray out laughter as the spectacle presented by Sylvia Landreax’s wigless head and grimacing face. She turns without another word to me and proceeds to lay a hard right hook onto the garishly made up face of TouTou Touissant’s mother. I have to nervously skitter away, because this looks like the very beginnings of a pageant mom brawl, something I’ve only seen once before. Even the action on the stage stops again, the girls staring against the bright lights trying to figure out if their mommas are somehow involved in the shoving and shouting against the back wall. I keep smiling and stepping backwards until I’m almost to the door.
“Uglier than three day old fried chicken, aren’t they,” says Butt Ugly Mr. Steve as he holds the door open for me. “Let’s sneak out and have a ciggie..” I look at him suspiciously and say, “Don’t you have to be in there when Jooniper is dancing..” He laughs, “Oh hell naw, I can’t hardly watch her dance. It’s the weakest part of her routine.. I work with her and Roy works with her and it’s still pitiful.. I have to sit out watching her sashaying towards doom.. makes me too nervous” We pace the long hallway outside the ballroom towards the front doors and sweet freedom. I ask him in idle curiosity, “Where’s Cedar been? I haven’t seen her at a pageant in ages.” Cedar is Mr. Butt Ugly Steve’s eldest daughter, also on the pageant circuit, she used to be the one to beat, the reigning queen of everything and she never danced like a fat kid on crack. She’d be about fourteen now. I’ve obviously said the wrong thing because Steve looks down and frowns for a moment, “You know how hard it is to work with a rebellious teen? She just suddenly stopped wanting to do the whole pageant thing. Over night she went from blonde princess to surly girly with moody black hair and bondage clothing.. listens to some sort of music called ‘Emo’ and moved in with her mother.. says I don’t understand her..” As I listen I realize that Steve is actually getting teary eyed and I have to reach over and squeeze his arm and mutter, “Oh honey I’m so sorry..” He makes a joke of it all, “Maybe I’ll start sponsoring a pageant for her and little buddies, the Anti Pageant, we can judge them on who has the blackest hair and moshes the best..” I smile back, “That’s an idea..”
We get as far as the front door when we both have to pause and stare. What looks like every single patrol car in the city of Houston is in the parking lot, cherries on top spinning. Cops jump out, earnest and well scrubbed, flat topped, black clad, it’s impressive. I mutter to Steve, “Officer, thank Gawd you’re here, crimes against fashion and nature are occurring in the ballroom.” Steve whoops with laughter, not realizing I’m not entirely joking here. We stand, cigarettes forgotten and watch as the best of HPD pile out of the cars and congregate in front of the building. Accompanying them are four commanding looking folks in suits, detectives I’d guess. I listen as the lone woman detective barks at the crowd of cops to seal every entrance in and out of the Sheraton pdq. Some of the cops scatter and the rest fall into step behind the detectives, coming into the lobby through the big glass front doors. They push through like they own the place.
Instinctively both Steve and I back up, reversing our steps back to the ballroom. He whispers that this must be something serious with one of the guests. I say nothing but my gut feeling tells me that the hotel management must have summoned the cops after talking to Miz Tanya. That must mean that Atlanta is really missing. This isn’t good, not good at all.
Sure enough as we pace back towards the ballroom the cops are right behind us, overtaking us to flood around us like a river of black uniforms eddying around us rocks. I could feel Steve shrinking back against me, I’m betting as a flaming gay man he’d had some interesting experiences with cops. My only knowledge of cops is that in New Orleans you pay them off and you try to avoid them. If they ventured into the 9th Ward you didn’t know nothing, you didn’t see nothing and you sure didn’t tell anything at all. You might find yourself in the Mississippi taking a permanent bath if you complained of police brutality. Police were to be avoided.
We weren’t so lucky, one of the men stops with us and asks who we are and what we’re doing here. We explain as best we can that we’re here to work at the pageant but I’m not sure this young man understands. As we talk I get the feeling from his expressions that we might have been speaking Mandarin Chinese for all he understood. He dismissed us to go into the ballroom where the other cops had congregated with the exception of the detectives. I’d seen them go directly to the managers office, all except the older black detective, he’d gone forward with the bulk of the officers. Okay, l admit, I’d been looking at the female detective’s coat and shoes, wondering how much cops make. Either they have hefty pay or this lady is a smart shopper. She’s wearing what looks like expensive shoes and a designer coat. I can’t help looking at clothes, fashion is my life.
It’s chaos in the ballroom, some of the girls have burst into tears onstage at the appearance of the police. The music comes to a jangly stop, even Gay Tuxedo Host is stunned and wordless. The mothers fall silent, save for a few that quickly go to remove their child from the stage. Once the room is completely quiet the detective takes the stage and motions to the host for the microphone. I notice as he takes the stage that this is a very dignified black man, with silver shot through his short hair, dressed in an off the rack dark suit with a white shirt and a very plain tie. He has that command presence about him, you can just tell no one ever gave him any shit, or if they did they quickly came to regret it. His presence on the stage commands your immediate attention.
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