I wait in the wing of the cabaret space, knowing my moment is coming. I go over the lyrics of the song in my head. I practise the hand movements.
“Now, who is ready for some show?” Screams. Thunderous applause. “Next up is the performer I know you’ve all been waiting for.” The audience goes silent. It’s quiet enough that I can hear Fanny’s hand rub against the handle of the microphone. I can hear her laboured breathing. “Let me tell you about her. You may know her as Queen Kay. But I know her as my sister. She told me to run. I didn’t listen. And I know every day she thinks of me and wonders if I am safe.”
I can’t resist peeking my head around the curtain of the wing. I can see Fanny’s stunning fat silhouette against the heat of the spotlight. It is a voluptuous shape achieved from our countless weed sessions and late-night poutines. My jaw drops at the sight of you in the front row, wearing the suit you wore when I met you. You are smiling from ear to ear. You sit proudly, awaiting my performance.
“And tonight, I want to tell her that no, I may not be alive. Her beau, Evan, may not be alive. But girl, thanks to you, we lived.” Liv, Firuzeh and Beck’s eyes become misty, and they hold hands waiting for me to step onstage. “Everyone put your hands together for her royal highness. Queen Kaaaaaaay!”
The crowd cheers. Liv puts leaves on the campfire to create smoke. It diffuses the light of the moon above my head. I take my place, my back to the audience, taking hold of the wall.
In the mist and semi-darkness, Liv cues a Deborah Cox song and starts the laser light show from the tech booth. Everyone is on their feet, screaming and dancing to that familiar song with the endless intro. A side light bathes my silhouette in red. The light shifts to a crisp spotlight over my head. Applause at the sight of me. When the lyrics begin, I whip around and lip-synch, looking directly at Firuzeh. She shyly points to herself and I nod my head in approval. I sing to her as if she is an unwanted romantic interest, someone I cannot resist despite having given up on love long ago. I hold on to the wall, stifling my desire for her, and the crowd howls. Firuzeh’s face erupts into blushing.
In the audience, a bearded queen twirls her skirt, revealing her fat, hairy legs. A lesbian elder dances as if it were her very own show, her audience in the corner of the bar. A Trans femme twirls a baton into the air and catches it. The beefcake in his floral briefs nods his head to the music.
As the song crescendos into a frenzy of bass beats, you begin dancing to the beat of the music, your arms conducting a staccato symphony of Queerness. My eyes well up with tears. My beautiful Evan. My beautiful people. We are visible. We are dancing. We are fearless. We are fierce. Full length, width and depth. Our bodies at full volume. Unfurled. Unhiding. Just as the song reaches its zenith, my lips quiver the sustained final note in mock vibrato, you toss a handful of golden sparkles into the air, and we all watch the sparkles fall.
The cabaret fades away. In its place, a meteor shower streaks the night sky. We are surrounded by trees once again, the sound of crickets singing among the reeds.
We hold hands, shaking, crying. The five of us Others. History-makers. Soon to be dead. Soon to be free. Under the cosmic light show of our resilience.
11
When I wake, I sit up immediately to confirm the location of the moon. It has moved since last night. It now sits prettily in the sky to the west of us, just above the skeletal remains of a rotten cedar trunk. It is the full moon now. It is time.
Beck pours a bottle of water over the campfire’s embers, and smoke sizzles up towards the cloudless blue above. We are taciturn, considering our precious last tasks on the farm. We pack up our sleeping bags. We eat another humble meal of dry goods. Liv takes inventory of the weaponry and distributes it among us. I sit beside Firuzeh, and we load our magazines with bullets. Click. Click. Click. Each one a life we may take today. I notice Bahadur standing over the remains of the campfire with their eyes tightly closed.
“Hey, Bahadur,” I say gently. “Are you okay?” They smile weakly before picking up a stray cracker sleeve wrapper from the ground and wandering away from my concerned gaze.
Hanna stands on the porch, watching us carry supplies to the van. Back and forth. She cradles her big bosom like a bag of spoiled apples she no longer wants, her face sour with helplessness. Each time Beck passes her I can see words forming at the edges of her lips. And each time those words are about to spill, I see her catch the eye of Peter, who is scowling as always and pretending not to care about our impending journey. Beck makes his way to the van again, this time with a case of bottled water. He almost falters in his grip and Hanna steps forward. Another strong scowl from Peter and Hanna backs off, swallowing hard.
We all enter the van. Liv covers Bahadur and Firuzeh with a blanket and looks at me, ready to tuck me into hiding yet again. Before I join them, I look back one more time at Hanna, choking on tears.
Beck places his jacket over the back of the driver’s seat and makes his way to his mother. They stand about six feet apart. Hanna wrings her hands together in a continuous circle trying to make sense of this final exchange.
“Mom . . .”
Hanna goes towards her son, her arms outstretched. “Please don’t—”
“Hanna!” Peter shouts from the front door. He does not make eye contact with Beck. “Let them all go. They made a choice. They all made a choice. Let them do it.”
“Beck.”
“Hanna! Get inside the house. Now.” Peter makes his way into the house and closes the screen door. A gesture. A symbol. A line. A border.
“Beck?”
Beck sobs. “Yes, Mom.”
“Beck. Beck.” Hanna feels the word in her mouth. Lets the word lift from her lips into the air. An experiment. “This is who you are.”
“Hanna! Will you get inside?!” Hanna turns to Peter with the look of the devil in her. Her face is red.
“Shut up!” Peter’s mouth twists, and he moves inside, away from the door and out of sight. She turns back to Beck. Wipes her face. Starts again. Love. “Beck. My son. My beautiful son. I love you. I love you. My beautiful Beck. I love you. Just the way you are. Just the way you are now. I love you. And I hope whatever shape you are in, whoever you turn out to be, one day you can love me back.”
Beck’s shoulders are pumping up and down. Hanna reaches out and holds him. Maybe even holds him up, he is shaking so hard. It is a full-body hug. She laces her fingers into his hair and covers his forehead with kisses as he whispers into her ear something that makes her release a single, vocal sob. It comes from deep in her belly, a place so deep, a place she hasn’t touched since her first cry into this wicked world. Then she looks at him straight in the eyes and says, “Okay. You go and fight.”
We drive. The dusty road is bumpy and unforgiving. It jostles about our silence like it jostles our supplies in the van. Before I go under the blankets with Bahadur and Firuzeh, I see Liv considering whether to say something comforting. Instead, she holds her concern in her throat and between her eyebrows. Liv turns on the radio and scans for a station. Country music. Static. Soft rock. Static. A vague signal of a news program. Static. She gives up and shuts off the radio.
We drive. The sound of the squeaking shocks is replaced by the constant hum of rocky asphalt. With the blanket covering only my legs, I lie back and run through our plans in my head the way I used to run through choreography before a performance. Thumbs, one above the other, in a snug embrace. Line up the point in the front end of the gun with the open square on the back end of the gun. Slowly squeeze the trigger. I catch myself imagining the paper target Beck created for us on the farm transforming into a Boot. A leather jacket. The zippers. His rifle pointed straight at me. A decision moving from my brain down the length of my arm into the tip of my finger, to kill or be killed. My bullet flying out of my weapon and piercing the surface of his chest. I shake my head to douse the image burning in my mind. I wipe my face of the imagined blood sprayed from the Boot’s wound. Your imagined touch on my arm calms me, and I exhale. Evan. My beautiful Evan.