Science Fiction/Double Feature

I usually have vivid dreams, but the last few have been stranger than most. This leads me to wonder if crazy people have insane dreams, or if sane people are driven mad by unusual dreams. Are odd dreams a symptom, or a cause? Having resided on the bad side of sanity for some time now, I don't know that I'm a proper one to judge, but lately I've been wondering if the dreams of a crazy person are normal, or if they're like nightmares to normal people, only the crazies have adapted to sleep through them undisturbed.

With that to chew on, I offer up my dream of two nights past. Jaye, have a blast trying to analyze this!

I was visiting a big city, I think Chicago, with a group of friends. We ended up in a basement casino where a man in drag taught us to play an odd table game that combined cards and roulette.

The man was actually the dealer, and the most popular dealer in the joint. He was vivacious and ostentatious. At first he looked like Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but as dusk slid into dawn he came to resemble Prince, or - the Drag Queen Formerly Known as Prince. Either way, his name was Panty-Ho.

Panty-Ho was loved by both straights and gays, but hated by his fellow employees, because his table received the most traffic. Likewise, his garter was stuffed with the most green. Panty-Ho was so popular, he had sort of a catch-phrase-rhyme all the regulars knew. Have you ever seen Coyote Ugly? Where the bar patrons yell "Hell no H2O!"

The other table hosts weren't cross dressers. They weren't even gay. How Panty-Ho had managed to infiltrate this society of appearance was widely unknown, but he'd gained as much familiarity as bourbon in New Orleans. Not that they were about to name a room in the club Panty-Ho, this was, after all, still just a sleazy basement joint, but Panty-Ho was respected the way drug lords are. Because of fear as much as power. The two so often feed each other.

Despite all this notoriety, occasionally an out-of-towner would press through the crowd and come face to face with the tall, dark, and lipstick clad man in black lingerie. It was a race to see if they could turn on their heel before their jaw hit the cigarette-butt-littered floor. Panty-Ho, he didn't care. He knew he was better than them. Sure, he was a workin' stiff in an outfit where any sort of stiff was plainly obvious, but he had dreams, and he was moving towards them one sashaying step at a time.

Panty-Ho would sneer at their backs, these middle-America paper-pushers, acting as though they were in tight with the boss just because they handed the CEO his papers for the Monday Morning Meeting. They were going nowhere beyond suburbia. Few here were, but fewer tried to pretend otherwise, which is why these button-up proppers with their clip-on ties were scorned.

Panty-Ho's teeth were amazingly white under the hanging lights that only served to light the smoke in foggy halos, enough that people felt they could see everyone else without being seen themselves. Maybe it was just the contrast against the Virgin Cherry Red lipstick. No one thought a transvestite would take the time to use white strips, never mind the time it takes to shave head-to-toe every day. No one assumed he was anything more than a passing commodity, but they were sure on for the ride while it lasted.

His eyebrow would quirk, in the way of people who know something others don't, and he'd say in a lazy drawl, just loud enough to be heard, but just slow enough to almost go unnoticed, "It don't matter where ya go..."
At this, the crowd beamed, given the chance they'd been waiting all week for. The chance to belong. To take part in the moment. To belong to a group by means of scorning an outsider. Imitating the almost southern cadence of Panty-Ho's voice, the on lookers say, "You'll never find better than Panty-Ho."

These straight men, floozy women hanging off an arm or two, joining the chorus of a gay man because the herd did. Thinking they were on top while mindlessly echoing the praise of another. Panty-Ho has assembled his masses in the way of Marc Antony and Hitler, bundling the peons together for his plan under the guise of their own free will. Thought is too easily influenced to be sacred.

But for all his fans, for the rhyme, and the sneer, and the corset - Panty-Ho was confined like all others by the rules that govern him.

On the night of my visit, the Basino, as it was called, was offering a special prize. No one bothered to ask which truck had wrecked on the highway, but the night's top winner would receive a stereo set, complete with a DJ's assortment of CDs.

The man who announced this, Steven, didn't miss the flash of surprise behind Panty-Ho's mascara. Steven worked the table next to Panty-ho, the one often over run by the crowd swelling around the Drag Queen like bacteria clamoring at a fresh wound. His table was lost in the swell so often it was no matter if he disappeared in the sweep of the tide.

He watched Panty-Ho. He could never get close enough to listen, but he heard the Transvestite's body language echo throughout the basement.

Panty-Ho would sing as he delt. Shake his ass while he spun the wheel. By the looks on his fans' faces, he didn't hit a single sour note on the Basino's play loop. Panty-Ho wanted to sing.

Steve wanted Panty-Ho's income. And since he wasn't about to slide on stockings to get it, the only other alternative was to undo the drag. The CDs had been Steve's acquisition. The stereo set had all the hook-ups for karaoke, all the special lights and whistles to put on a real show. Just what someone would need to catch the eye, or ear, of a record dealer. Panty-Ho would never be able to pass up the opportunity.

The club didn't offer prizes often. Sometimes a free deck, or a drink from the bar. A place this shady didn't even have caps or shirts to give out. Since the prizes were never anything worth winning, the dealers never tried to win. This is why the topic was shaded. The dealers were allowed to win. What's more, it was easy to win. It was merely a matter of picking which two hands of the night you wanted to win, and you were guaranteed. This was part of the allure of the game, it depended on timing more than luck. The dealers would pull a win when they thought a player was getting too cocky, or when there was nothing at stake for whomever lost. It wasn't a well known fact that dealers weren't allowed to win anything they wouldn't give back to the table. In a night of gambling, any cash the dealer accrued could easily be slid back into the pot. Only Panty-Ho didn't intend to slide the CDs anywhere but into the sound system.



Okay, this is getting a bit long and involved. If anyone likes it, let me know, and maybe I'll finish it tomorrow, but for now, I'm breaking it off for a bit.