cups of chocolate pudding, and turned on the
Golden Girls
marathon on Lifetime Television for Women and Gay Men. I would obviously never make the cheerleading squad. I was barely able to brush my teeth without tripping; what could I hope to contribute to a cheerleading squad populated by experts? I finished the pudding and considered making more. The best dream I had ever had was dead, and in its place I felt a void that not even the Golden Girls’ biting insouciance could fill, not even in the episode where they sneak into somebody else’s high school reunion so they can meet men and Rose has to pretend to be the school’s Korean exchange student Kim Fung-Toy.
But the next morning, when I went again to the Cheer New York website immediately upon waking up not that I was obsessed or anything, I understood that fate had spoken, because there was a new section that said they were having tryouts in a week and a half. If I had to claim to be a gymnast or a professional dancer or a former college cheerleader in order to make it onto the squad, then so be it; neither mortal nor god was going to keep me away from the Alfred E. Smith Recreation Center come Monday week.
When the appointed day arrived and I walked into the huge gym on the second floor of the dilapidated building, it appeared empty at first, but then through an open door at the back I saw a group of homosexuals filling out pieces of paper en masse. I joined them and started answering the questions on the form they gave me. Mercifully, it did not ask anything about dancing or gymnastics or prior cheerleading experience. There was a section for “Special Skills” in which I wrote “speak French, German, Italian proficiently; have eliminated gag reflex.” This was a lie; I had not eliminated my gag reflex, but I figured that if they insisted on a demonstration I could always say I was still three days away from being officially STD-free. The form also asked for my weight, and I wrote it down honestly, possibly for the last time in my life.
Once the co-captains of the squad, who introduced themselves as Horace and Javier, had collected all the forms, they led us over to the bleachers, where the coach, a queeny, mous-tachioed martinet the size of Tinker Bell, welcomed us to the clinic. His name was Christopher, he told us, though on the squad people referred to him as Princess. “But calling me Princess is a privilege,” he continued sternly. “You have to
earn
the right to call me Princess.”
He went on, but it became somewhat difficult to concentrate on what he was saying when a dozen guys and one woman in startlingly bright but uncampy uniforms (shortsleeved shirts and long pants for the men, a short halter top and a pleated skirt for the woman—all, lamentably, polyester, but I came to learn that this was standard fabric for cheerleading uniforms) began practicing behind him on the other side of the gym. My heart leapt within my breast to see a grown man jump into the hands of two other grown men who hurled him up into the air, where he executed a complex maneuver that had undoubtedly required years of study to master but that filled him in this moment with the grace and fire of a sub-Saharan predator or a bird long dead even to myth. Then he fell back down into his protectors’ arms as if they had been formed to fit him.
Watching this, I became, if possible, even more determined than before to become a part of the squad. I tore my gaze away from the practice and unobtrusively surveyed the other homosexuals gathered around me. There were a couple of women and perhaps two dozen men, all of whom I hated. Who knew how many new squad members would be accepted? What if they were looking for ten new cheerleaders and I was number eleven? Two or three of the hopefuls were unspeakably beautiful and I hated them most of all. To my left in the row in front of me sat a gorgeous Latino with a Japanese character tattooed on his arm; I wanted him to ravish me and then
Golden Girls
marathon on Lifetime Television for Women and Gay Men. I would obviously never make the cheerleading squad. I was barely able to brush my teeth without tripping; what could I hope to contribute to a cheerleading squad populated by experts? I finished the pudding and considered making more. The best dream I had ever had was dead, and in its place I felt a void that not even the Golden Girls’ biting insouciance could fill, not even in the episode where they sneak into somebody else’s high school reunion so they can meet men and Rose has to pretend to be the school’s Korean exchange student Kim Fung-Toy.
But the next morning, when I went again to the Cheer New York website immediately upon waking up not that I was obsessed or anything, I understood that fate had spoken, because there was a new section that said they were having tryouts in a week and a half. If I had to claim to be a gymnast or a professional dancer or a former college cheerleader in order to make it onto the squad, then so be it; neither mortal nor god was going to keep me away from the Alfred E. Smith Recreation Center come Monday week.
When the appointed day arrived and I walked into the huge gym on the second floor of the dilapidated building, it appeared empty at first, but then through an open door at the back I saw a group of homosexuals filling out pieces of paper en masse. I joined them and started answering the questions on the form they gave me. Mercifully, it did not ask anything about dancing or gymnastics or prior cheerleading experience. There was a section for “Special Skills” in which I wrote “speak French, German, Italian proficiently; have eliminated gag reflex.” This was a lie; I had not eliminated my gag reflex, but I figured that if they insisted on a demonstration I could always say I was still three days away from being officially STD-free. The form also asked for my weight, and I wrote it down honestly, possibly for the last time in my life.
Once the co-captains of the squad, who introduced themselves as Horace and Javier, had collected all the forms, they led us over to the bleachers, where the coach, a queeny, mous-tachioed martinet the size of Tinker Bell, welcomed us to the clinic. His name was Christopher, he told us, though on the squad people referred to him as Princess. “But calling me Princess is a privilege,” he continued sternly. “You have to
earn
the right to call me Princess.”
He went on, but it became somewhat difficult to concentrate on what he was saying when a dozen guys and one woman in startlingly bright but uncampy uniforms (shortsleeved shirts and long pants for the men, a short halter top and a pleated skirt for the woman—all, lamentably, polyester, but I came to learn that this was standard fabric for cheerleading uniforms) began practicing behind him on the other side of the gym. My heart leapt within my breast to see a grown man jump into the hands of two other grown men who hurled him up into the air, where he executed a complex maneuver that had undoubtedly required years of study to master but that filled him in this moment with the grace and fire of a sub-Saharan predator or a bird long dead even to myth. Then he fell back down into his protectors’ arms as if they had been formed to fit him.
Watching this, I became, if possible, even more determined than before to become a part of the squad. I tore my gaze away from the practice and unobtrusively surveyed the other homosexuals gathered around me. There were a couple of women and perhaps two dozen men, all of whom I hated. Who knew how many new squad members would be accepted? What if they were looking for ten new cheerleaders and I was number eleven? Two or three of the hopefuls were unspeakably beautiful and I hated them most of all. To my left in the row in front of me sat a gorgeous Latino with a Japanese character tattooed on his arm; I wanted him to ravish me and then
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