Pussy Bratchford is on the Verge of Becoming a Good Christian

by Jamie O'Connell

Editor's Note: The author, Jamie O'Connell and the Long Story, Short Journal would like
to dedicate the following story to activist Panti Bliss. Read more about 'Panti's Noble Call' here. 

Pussy Bratchford is on the verge of becoming a good Christian. Now that he has given up sex and ketamine, he gets his kicks bidding at auctions and leaving without paying. He makes plenty money on the drag circuit, where he calls his audience gee-bags, muff divers and sword swallowers. One time, when he hosted bingo, he asked the crowd had anyone got a line when he spotted an RTE children’s presenter in the audience and told her ‘not the kind of line you’re thinking of’. The one from the telly broke her hole laughing.

          It’s all shits and giggles, that’s what Pussy says, if you didn’t laugh you’d cry. He thinks that comedians are destined to have sad lives, though he’ll also admit that most of the shit he brought on himself. Whenever a new ‘gal’ appears in the show, Pussy tells them doing drag will fuck up their love lives. He has had a string of guys during his thirty-three years, some who wished he’d give up the makeup, others who liked the idea of woman upstairs, man downstairs. Though Pussy claims never to have been in love; he can’t stomach ‘all that Hallmark shit’.

          Tonight is Pussy’s first time back on stage in Tool Box; it has been over a month since his grandmother, Nana Ryder, was buried and, though he made his stage debut over a decade ago, the thirty-five days outside of his usual routine have made his nerves return. He opens his large suitcase and lifts out the folded clothes, the dresses glitter with sequins, other pieces he found in high-street stores and charity shops. Penneys is good for shoes; their size eight heels just about hold his size nine feet. Sure, Pussy’s toes burn after each show but that’s what you get for wearing plastic sling-backs.

          Pussy lays out his MAC make-up and sits at the small dressing table. Hanging over the edge of the mirror is the set of fake pearls; next to them is a small photograph tucked into the corner, black and white, a woman in a smart two-piece suit, her hair pinned to one side. ‘Katherine Ryder was a recognisable face in the village. Her humour and sharp wit were well known. Her fondness of her grandchildren was also evident, as was her love of her home and her dogs…’ Pussy frowns, recalling the priest’s words at the funeral, thinking what lies they were. There could be no truth in politeness. Yet, for some reason, Pussy was comforted by the ritual and anyway, now it’s all over he can grieve properly alone.

          The weight of the coffin was heavier than Pussy imagined, he can still feel the impression on his shoulder. He was at the back, his brother Matthew at the other side. Pussy felt Matthew’s fingers dig into his collarbone as they walked from the church. People watched from the pews, some tearful. Pussy stared at the floor. He focused on the tiny stone in his loafer, remembering Nana Ryder’s teasing in his childhood, that ‘walking with pebbles in your shoes could cause a stroke.’

          Marie, Pussy’s mother, stood in the pew to his right. Her face was shiny, like she’d used too much apricot scrub. ‘Your tie is crooked… there,’ she’d said to Pussy that morning, tightening it to the point where Pussy could feel the shirt pinching his neck. He waited for her to disappear into the kitchen before he pulled at his collar with his index finger.

          ‘She did it to me too,’ Matthew said, appearing from the bedroom. He looked strange in a suit, like a cartoon wildebeest wearing clothes.

          Pussy glanced in the hall mirror, his hands tweaking the dark grey suit. He’d thought about shocking them all and wearing the ‘Virgin Mary Robes’ or the ‘Madonna-Jean-Paul-Gautier Bra’. After the last few weeks he’s spent with Nana Ryder, he’s sure she would’ve loved it. But it was a simple fact she wouldn’t get to see it.

          Martin, Pussy’s father, was the last to be ready for the funeral. He’d been up early, milking the cows. Pussy found it curious how, despite the funeral, the cows needed milking, the grass grew, and the sun shone exactly the same.

          ‘Thank God it isn’t raining,’ Martin said. ‘I thought she would’ve made sure it rained.’

*

Pussy dabs his eyes and tucks the black and white picture back into the side of the frame. He looks closely at his reflection, thinking he should’ve avoided the sun during his teen years. Thank God for makeup. He smoothes a cool cleanser over his face, cotton wool sticking to the first hints of stubble. It doesn’t seem to matter how much his shaves, within hours the shadow returns, costing a fortune in foundation.

          People have asked him if he wishes he was a woman, with all the mincing around in dresses and wigs. He can’t say that he is unhappy as a man. Sure, when he works out it's pop music by female singers that keeps him motivated. There’s something about them that feels more ‘him’ than male rock bands, and yet he likes the masculinity of his strong arms and thighs, the same way there’s something freeing about hiding his cock and balls and yet he loves the fact he has them. It was all contradictions; it only became confusing when he thought about it. He was different. He always had been, even back in his primary school days.

          ‘You’re not going to,’ a fifth class boy said. The group was hidden around the back of the school. Gary’s foot stamped down. The bat was still. Jack (as the nine-year old Pussy was known) winced. It was his first time seeing a bat outside Scooby Doo and he was surprised how small it was. Its wings were shrivelled, pointed like arrows, the furry body mouse-like. The three others laughed.

          ‘I’m telling teacher,’ Michelle said; she and a couple of the girls stood a couple of steps away. Gary walked over to her, his face close to hers.

          ‘You wouldn’t hit a girl.’ 

          ‘He can hit me if he wants,’ Michelle replied. ‘I’ll kick the crap out of him.’

          ‘You can’t hit a girl. That’d make you gay,’ a different boy said.

          ‘Fine. But if you tell The Master I’m going beat him up.’ Gary pointed at Pussy.

          ‘Get lost Gary,’ Lydia said. ‘What did he do to you?’

          ‘Look at that,’ Gary sneered. ‘Protected by the girls.’

          Even though it’s a quarter of a century later, as Pussy thinks of this moment his cheeks feel hot. He’s often thought about what he’d do if he could go back to his school years. Revenge fantasies were satisfying.

          Back then he was slow with come-backs. Nana Ryder was always quick off the mark. ‘What’s wrong with your stomach?’ she’d asked one afternoon shortly after his Junior Certificate. She sat in her brown and pink seat, rummaging through the Scots Clan. Top Hat with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was yet to begin. Outside, echoes of the farm could be heard, Matthew and Marin calling to each other. Pussy sat upright.

          ‘I’m grand Nan.’

          ‘Do I look like a feckin’ eejit?’ 

          Pussy pulled up his hoodie. Underneath was a white square of cotton. He peeled it back, revealing the black stars. They looked shiny from where the tattoo had scabbed.

          ‘I’m assuming your mother knows nothing?’

          ‘You won’t tell her?’

          ‘Hmmm.’

          Pussy reached over and kissed Nana on the cheek, wrapping his arms around her neck. ‘Sure you’re all kisses now, trying to butter me up. Come on now; I’m missing my show.’

          Two days later when Nana came to dinner in the new bungalow she made an announcement at dinner. She stood up from the table, fumbling with her waistband.

          ‘What are you doing Mam? Marie glanced at Martin.

          Nana pulled out her silk blouse and lifted up her top, revealing her stomach. There was a white cotton bandage stuck down with tape.

          ‘You didn’t,’ Pussy said. Nana peeled back the cotton. She’d three stars tattooed on her hip.

          Pussy smiles, looking in the dressing room mirror; he’s thought about getting the stars removed but he’s never quite gotten around to the laser treatment. It’s always a ‘one day… maybe’. He picks up the Pritt Stick and begins to work on his eyebrows.

          Eyebrows were a nuisance really. He’d inherited the ‘Ryder brow’, a strong straight line of hair, next to no arch at all. Out of drag, people often ask him why he’s frowning. It takes about six coats of glue, smearing it on thick with a spatula, to flatten his brows to his forehead. Once dry, he smoothes over the pan-stick, applies a dusting of powder and his eyebrows turn opaque, before vanishing. Pussy turns his head left and right, checking if it’s smooth and there are no shadows. There aren’t. His ‘palette’ is now blank and ready to be painted. He lays out the rainbow of eye shadows in front of him: mauve, pink, emerald and azure blue.

          As a child he helped himself to the shelves of Marie’s creams and makeup. Though he was forbidden to touch them, it didn’t stop him occasionally lifting down the glass jars. Once he got caught, sitting on the corner of the bath with Elizabeth Arden Eye Cream, rubbing it into his tiny hands. Marie walked in.

          ‘What are you doing? I told you…’

          Pussy’s face turned red. ‘But my hands,’ he shouted. ‘They’re all wrinkly.’

          ‘They’re your knuckles; they’re meant to be wrinkly. That’s eye cream; do you know how much that costs?’

*

Pussy lifts out the tights from his case and frowns, putting them away again. Sometimes the glamour of smooth legs, perfect makeup and hair appealed to him; those were the nights he sang Judi or Tina. Other times, he liked the grotesquery of wearing a beautiful dress with two hairy legs projecting out from underneath it. Or makeup with a full beard. It was wonderful to be shocking. The attention was addictive.

          ‘Matthew, Jack. Put your phones away,’ Marie said. Christmas ’95. Matthew and Pussy slowly placed their Motorolas in their pockets.

          ‘Well Mar, you can put on quite a spread,’ Nana Ryder said.

          ‘Jack made one of the desserts,’ Auntie Marie replied.

          ‘Did you Jack? Now what do you make?’

          Pussy had made an apple crumble, a replica of the one he’d made in Home Economics.

          ‘Did you make any Matthew?’

          ‘Cooking is for girls.’

          ‘Would you ever get Jack out on the farm?’ Granddad Ryder asked Martin (it was to be the final Christmas before he died).

          ‘I did once,’ Martin laughed. ‘Jack didn’t seem too keen. Anyway, I’ve got this young fella to help me out.’ He looked at Matthew, rubbing the boy’s hair. Most days after school, Matthew spent his time outdoors in his Wellingtons, helping his father herding cattle.

          ‘Did you like your presents?’ Nana Ryder asked Matthew.

          ‘The megadrive is brilliant. Thanks Nana.’ Matthew said. ‘Look at my tattoo Mam.’ He showed her the small transfer on his wrist. ‘It’s not real or anything. I put it on with water.’

          ‘Isn’t that lovely,’ Marie replied. ‘Where did you get those?’

          ‘They were in the crisps. I got one of a tiger too. Jack won’t give me his one.’

          ‘Ah Jack, would you ever give the tattoo to your brother?’ Nana Ryder said.

          ‘Why should I? It’s mine.’

          ‘Give it to your brother. What would you be doing with it at your age?’ Marie said.

          ‘I stuck it on my vagina.’ The words came out before Pussy knew what he was saying. Martin placed down his can of Heineken.

          ‘You did what?’ Marie asked.

          ‘I stuck it on my vagina.’

          Nana Ryder was about to speak but Marie put up her hand.

          ‘No Mam, I’ll deal with this… Jack, go to your room, just go. I don’t even know what to say. Just go. You’ve ruined dinner for everyone.’

          Later that evening, Nana Ryder came down to Pussy’s bedroom with a few caramel Roses from the large tin. He could hear the sound of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom echoing up from the sitting room.

          ‘That’s enough sulking from you and Marie,’ she said ‘We’ll say no more about it. Come on now, up to the sitting room with you.’

*

Pussy’s eyes sting as he realises what Nana Ryder’s death will mean within his family. He puts down the fake lashes and focuses on the sound-check from the stage outside, breathing through his nose. The eyeliner was hard enough to apply without it streaking down his cheeks.

          Pussy opens his wallet and lifts out the broach he is to wear on his costume, a firefly with amber eyes. He gave it to Nana Ryder the first time the cancer appeared. She was fine that time. During the chemo, Pussy visited the hospital with the others. She’d bought a wig and showed it to him.

          ‘Why should you be wearing that? What have you to be ashamed of?’

          Nana laughed. In the end, she never wore the wigs, just silk headscarves. Her favourite had a sailor print, a gold rope looping through hooks and hoops. She continued to wear makeup, though without her eyelashes and eyebrows, it was odd.

          ‘Are you hot?’ Pussy asked one afternoon, as Nana kept blinking. Perspiration dripped from her forehead.

          ‘I’m grand. It’s just the medication. Isn’t it better that I’m too hot than stone cold?’

*

An alarm goes off on Pussy’s iPhone. Putting down the broach and turning the alarm off, he takes the carton of multivitamins and a bottle of water from his suitcase. The label on the vitamins is old and somewhat worn off. He unscrews the top and lifts out one of the large blue tables inside. He swallows one, screwing back on the lid quickly as a knock comes on the dressing room door.

          ‘Hey gurrl,’ a young woman puts her head around the door. ‘Can I come in?’

          ‘Of course Adel darling, how are you?’ Pussy says, putting the vitamin carton and water on the counter. Adel is one of few lesbians he can tolerate.

          ‘Don’t worry about me. How are you?’

          ‘I’m fine. Hanging in there, ya know yourself. These things happen.’ Pussy smiles. ‘You got the hair did, I see.’ Adel comes over and gives him a hug. Her hair is blond and spiked and she’s wearing a plaid shirt. ‘You’re a walking cliché.’

          ‘Says the man in a dress. Fuck off you, ya big mo.’

          ‘It’s good to see you, my dear,’ Pussy says. His eyes are glassy. It was weird how laughing could feel like crying. 

          ‘There’s no changes to the set tonight?’

          ‘No. First night back – I’ll take it steady.’

`         ‘The place hasn’t been the same without you. Patsy Spent… I mean Jez…’

          They both laugh again.

          ‘Any word from Trish?’ Adel asks.

          Pussy shakes his head. 

          ‘I wouldn’t be expecting it. Not after all these years.’

          There is an awkward silence. Adel makes her excuses and leaves. Pussy turns back to the table and picks up the packet of ‘vitamins’. Fifteen years since the diagnosis. He’d got it during those dangerous teen years when he, like everyone else, felt invincible. ‘It’ll never happen to me’. Stupid words. Now, it was seven years since he’d started medication. Of course, the nurse had said it was no death sentence after she told him the test results. She was right. Now, he accepted HIV as a life sentence, anticipating that dreaded moment after the fourth or fifth date when the guy would sense his resistance to go beyond a kiss.

          Pussy has imagined the sympathetic looks that would follows this revelation, the same look those on lifeboats likely gave when they watched those left behind on a sinking ship. So he never told anyone in Dublin – too local. He went to Berlin and New York, met others like him and kept things simple. At home, he did the checkups, set his alarm each day, took the tablet and forgot about it. He certainly wasn’t going to sit in some HIV group on a Tuesday night, sipping bad coffee, trying to feel empowered. Fuck that shit. He’d live as long as he could, make the best of each moment and when he was dead he was dead. And that would be the end of it.

*

Spring of nineteen-ninety-eight. The hedgerows around Nana Ryder’s farmhouse were thick with vegetation competing for the May sun-light, buttercups and forget-me-nots breaking up the green foliage with patches of bright colour. Pussy lifted two wooden deck chairs beyond the farmhouse stone wall into the meadow. The main herd of cows was three fields over, flicking flies away with their tails. Nana Ryder sat beside him. It was a year’s anniversary since she’d been given the all clear.

          ‘You need a bit of sun,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen mushrooms with better colour.’

          Pussy was obsessed with study since getting his pre-Leaving Certificate results. Four A1s and three Bs. He might get a perfect six hundred. He completed his homework on Friday, allowing him Saturday and Sunday for full days of revision. In car journeys, he took his French books so he could revise verbs in the back seat. 

          Pussy picked up his copy of King Lear from the grass.

          ‘Sir, I love you more than words can weld the matter... dearer than eyesight space and liberty... beyond what can be valued rich or rare...’

          ‘How are you getting on with your Senior Cert?’

          ‘I’m on track Nan. I’m worried a bit about Maths Paper two, the probability question, but it’ll be grand.’

          ‘That’s good. Marie was telling me that you think you’ll get full marks?’

          ‘If I want to get medicine, I’d have to get at least five-seventy.’

          ‘Off to Trinity so. Isn’t that something.’

*

He could be a consultant by now. Pussy sucks his stomach in as he wraps the corset around his waist, catching the hooks one by one. What a sad life it would’ve been. Pussy glances in the mirror, placing his hands on his shrunken waist. He doesn’t need to tuck his cock and balls for this performance. No underwear required.

          Pussy unhooks a blue gingham dress from the hanger and pulls it up over his body. He touches his shoulders. There was no hiding those. He pins the little firefly broach onto the dress and looks in the mirror. It’s almost time for the wig, with its long plait that almost touches his bum. With his bonnet and basket of cupcakes, he’ll be Anne of Green Gables, a picture of innocence (with a foul mouth). Or as he liked to call this performance, ‘Anne, Queen of Anal’. 

          Anne, Queen of Anal won him an alternative drag award, back in the early two-thousands. It was Trish Delish who’d come up with the idea. Medicine in Trinity didn’t stand a chance.

          ‘Be careful now,’ Nana said as Pussy hugged her goodbye the September after his Leaving Certificate. ‘Dublin isn’t like here. They’d bite your hand off as soon as look at ya.’

          Pussy smiled. ‘I’ll be grand Nan’. Marie and the others watched at the door as Pussy pulled out the drive. Nana warned about the roads but he felt invincible listening to Britney and pushing down the pedal. Driving up the motorway, he watched the disappearing cream and grey bungalows, their white plastic gutters and windows.

          Pussy arrived in Trinity shortly before dark, wandering over the cobblestones between the ancient limestone buildings. He opened the apartment door and stepped into the living room. A man was in the kitchen, with a large bleached quiff and a nose-ring through his septum. 

          ‘Trish Delish,’ he said. ‘Charmed darling.’

          ‘I’m Jack.’

          ‘Is this your first year?’

          ‘I’m starting medicine.’

          ‘I’m music. Post-grad. Olive?’ On the countertop was an open packet of crackers surrounded by various cheeses.

          ‘I’m okay. Have you been here long?’

          ‘Oh, about a hundred and fifty years. Do you know anyone around?’ Trish had a drawl in his voice, the vowels extended.

          'Not really.'

          'Have you been to Dublin before?'

          'Only once.'

          'How wonderful. Well, we shall go see Panti's show together. It's marvellous.'

          Pussy glanced at Trish’s denim shorts, low V-necked pink T-shirt and bare feet. Trish Delish cut off a piece of cheese, which was covered with a white skin, and put it on a cracker.

          ‘Your room is second on the left,’ he said. ‘Fancy a gin and tonic? I must hear all about how people live outside The Pale.’

          ‘There’s nothing much to say.’

          ‘Don’t knock it darling. You’re only new once.’

*

Fourteen years ago. Pussy slips on the wig, smoothing the plait over his shoulder and chest. You are a fucking goddess, he says to himself. A six foot man-girl in a knee length gingham dress, white apron, thick plait and bonnet tied under the chin. Across his cheeks are a series of painted freckles. There is a knock at the door.

          ‘You ready Puss?’ a voice shouts.

          ‘Bitch, the name’s Pussy and I was born ready.’ He throws open the dressing room door.

2

Pussy walks down the narrow corridors backstage; he hears the base coming from the main theatre. Patsy Spent is doing the warm-up act. The poor thing would never headline. There was no ‘performance’ to talk of, just a queen on stage doing what he used to do as a child in front of the bedroom mirror with a hairbrush.

          ‘Luca, plant a wet one on me,’ Pussy says. He kisses the muscled young Brazilian on the lips, ‘Mwahh’. Luca is dressed in torn denim dungarees, its straps curving around his nipples. A couple of pieces of straw have been strategically slipped into his curly black hair. ‘Where’s Marcio?’

          ‘The bathroom.’

          ‘Alone at last,’ Pussy says, pulling Luca down onto his fake breasts. ‘Motorboat those titties, you wicked tease.’ Luca laughs, pulling back. For a moment Pussy wonders what sort of life Luca had back in Brazil, if two years ago he could’ve envisaged that he’d be a backup dancer for a drag-queen in Dublin, his face wedged into Pussy’s fake cleavage.

          Luca pulls back a crack in the curtain and they look out onto the stage. Patsy Spent is finishing her final song, a mime of ‘I Will Survive’. Pussy glances at Patsy’s shoes, his ankles bulging around the straps like slab of bacon through net packaging in a butcher’s window.

          ‘At least you’re not dancing for that,’ Pussy says to Luca. Luca smiles back. ‘You know, about a thousand years ago I was like that. Well, never that exactly. But new. If it wasn’t for the coke… Trish Delish always had a bag. She always had her head in it, like a horse eating oats.’

          ‘Your family ever come to your show?’ Luca asks.

          ‘God no – are you joking me? Morto.’

*

‘So how are you getting on?’ Marie said. Pussy sat with her and Matthew in Bewley’s on Grafton Street. Matthew had come to Dublin to visit an orthodontist. Pussy had been home briefly for Christmas. Otherwise they’d barely spoken since he’d left for Trinity the previous autumn.

          ‘Great,’ Pussy replied. ‘It’s a lot of work but I’m managing.’

          ‘And how are you finding university? Are they friendly? Nana told me that you have a nice roommate?’

          ‘Yeah, he’s a bit older than me but yeah, he’s nice.’

          ‘Well, you’re looking well,’ she glanced at Pussy’s hair. He had let it grow longer, the loose waves falling forward.

          ‘So how is everything back home?’ Pussy asked.

          ‘You know. Things are the same. We’re all just fighting on.’

          ‘I hear you’ve started playing rugby?’ Pussy said to Matthew.

          He nodded.

          ‘Yeah, under sixteens. I’m training on Tuesdays.’ His voice was deeper than before. ‘Those are mad looking,’ he said, glancing at Pussy’s skinny jeans.

          Marie stood up, lifting up her Guess handbag, excusing herself. Pussy pointed out the bathrooms. Matthew watched her walk away and said,

          ‘Can I ask you something?’

          ‘Work away.’

          ‘Well, there’s this girl, Mairead, I’ve been seeing, right. She’s great and all but her best friend is mad about me and I kind of fancy her too. Do you think I can drop Mairead and get with your’wan?’

          ‘I don’t know,’ Pussy said. ‘I guess if you don’t fancy Mairead you should finish it up.’

          ‘But,’ Matthew grew uncomfortable. ‘It’s not that simple. Mairead and I, you’know... did it. She’ll hate me...’

          ‘You? Oh... I was only kissing and stuff around your age.’

          Marie returned.

          ‘There was a queue for those bathrooms. You’d think we were at a concert,’ she said. Pussy smiled politely. The food arrived and there was an excuse not to talk. Pussy ate his Caesar Salad, sipping his Americano. He chewed slowly, thinking of what’d he’d say once his plate was empty.

          ‘Have you any girlfriend for yourself?’ Marie asked.

          Pussy looked up. A careless feeling came over him.

          ‘Mam, I’m gay.’

          She nodded.

          ‘Oh well, isn’t that’s great.’

          ‘You’re what?’ Matthew asked.

          ‘I’m gay.’

          ‘As long as you’re happy,’ Marie said.

          ‘Oh.’

          Marie fiddled with the clasp on her bag.

          ‘We might as well get the bill anyway. It’s getting late enough. I don’t want to be driving those back-roads in the dark.’

*

‘Pats, you were fabulous,’ Pussy says, kissing Patsy Spent on the cheek. Patsy’s forehead is beading with sweat.

          ‘Watch that bunch of lesbians in the corner,’ Patsy replies. ‘One of them spilt a pint. The stage is drenched. It’s great to see you pet. I’m sorry about you granny – she was pretty old though, right?’

          'Thanks babes.’ Pussy lets Patsy slip past, looking over at Luca and Marcio, making a wanking gesture.

          Two stage hands appear and move Pussy’s props out from behind the curtain. The music for the intermission plays. Pussy opens a black plastic bin liner. An odd smell of bleach fills the space. Pussy pull out a small branch of blossom.

          ‘What is that?’ Marcio pulls a face.

          ‘It’s a Callery Pear.’

          ‘It smells bad.’

          Pussy laughs.

          ‘That’s the smell of cum, my dear. Filthy tasty cum. And it’s going all over the stage.’ Pussy got the idea for his swing performance after seeing Fragonard’s painting in London. He peeps around the curtain. The bar is filling up during the intermission. He smiles at the lesbians in the corner.

          Marcio and Luca help the two stage hands pull the large wooden swing into place. A cheer goes up from the crowd. Piece by piece they lift the small branches of blossom out of the black bag, tying them to the swing with twine. Pussy can hear a couple of sneezes.

          A fanfare of trumpets lets the audience know the intermission is over. The lights drop, the swing in shadow and the MC begins.

*

Though the process of elimination, Pussy is pretty sure when he contracted HIV. For years, he blamed it all on the influence of Trish Delish. If they hadn’t moved in together then the first in a series of decisions might never have occurred. But life by its very nature was a series of ‘what ifs’.

          ‘I swear to God, if anyone goes in my room tonight I’ll fucking kill them.’ Trish said, sitting on his bed. He fixed his makeup using a broken mirror that was balanced on the back of a radiator. The mirror was a casualty from a previous party; someone had been too enthusiastic cutting coke and cracked it in two, ruining five perfectly good lines, which were now part of Trish’s duvet. One of the legs of the bed collapsed and was now held together with elephant tape.

          ‘Don’t tell anyone I’ve put them in here.’ Trish removed a wooden knob from the end of the bed frame, inside of which he placed a plastic bag of pills.

          ‘Can I get a few off you?’ Pussy asked.

          ‘How many?’

          ‘Five will be grand. Is Alan coming?’

          Trish’s face dropped.

          ‘He can lick my hole. I know he was with that twink. Course, he denies it. He’s a sneaky fucker.’

          Pussy laughed.

          ‘Your outfit is fucking amazing.’

          ‘It’s Anne Summer’s.’ Trish stood up and twirled, wearing a baby blue air-hostess outfit that barely covered his rear. ‘Sixty quid, but it does the job.’

          ‘You want a drink?’

          ‘Yes darling, would you get me G&T?’ Trish squeezed foundation onto his fingertips, rubbing it vigorously into his face. ‘Jaysus, the bags under my eyes.’

          Pussy opened the bedroom door, wandering down the hallway.        

          ‘Close on the door there,’ Trish called out. ‘Someone might wander in and catch a glimpse of my gee.’

          The couch was pulled back against the sitting room walls; it was riddled with cigarette burns. In the corner, DJ decks were set up. The front door opened.

          ‘That you Mary-P?’ Trish shouted down the hall.

          ‘Howareya snedge,’ Mary-Patricia called back. Pussy smiled. The last time they’d been stoned, Trish had discovered ‘snedger’ in The Dictionary of Irish Slang – ‘an old man who sniffs the bicycle seats of young women’.

          ‘Did you pick up the stuff?’

          ‘Course petal.’ Mary-Patrica answered. He came into the kitchen, lifting out a small white bag of powder from his pocket. Trish joined them. After preparing three lines and snorting the first, Mary-Patricia rubbed his gums, handing Pussy the twenty. Leaning over the chopping board, Pussy snorted the line cleanly. The coke was smooth, barely burning the inside of his nose.

          ‘Much better Pussy, ya hot mess,’ Trish said. The night before was the first time Pussy had snorted coke. It took three attempts; half of the coke remained lodged up his nose. For the next two hours, every time he sniffed or swallowed, a not-unpleasant chemical taste filled his mouth as the powder slid down the back of his throat.

*

Pussy parades onto the stage, carrying his basket of cupcakes. Marcio and Luca walk behind him. A few in the audience whistle at the ripped dungarees. Pussy sits down on the swing, placing her basket of cupcakes on the ground. Luca stands behind her while Marcio kneels close by, a basket of blossom in hand. The spotlight turns on, lighting Pussy. He smoothes out his gingham dress. The wind machine blows air upwards and the music begins.

‘           I made it through the wilderness. Somehow I made it through…’

            Pussy mimes the first verse, Marcio tossing petals and blossom into the air, carried up the two floors by the wind. Pussy leans back, touching Luca’s chest gently, mouthing the words. Luca’s chest is smooth and he can smell baby lotion, though the stench of the Callery Pear is almost overpowering. Girlish and simpering, Pussy strokes his plait, fingering the red bow at the end of it. The chorus begins. Luca starts to push the swing.

            ‘Like a virgin, touched for the very first time…’

            The swing rises higher over the crowd. Pussy continues to mine, his gingham dress billowing in the breeze. And the reason for the wind machine and lack of underwear becomes apparent.

*

Pussy hit the snooze button on his phone for the fourth time. He listened to cars outside his window. The surrounding clothes, shoes, bottles and DVDs, even his own hands, seemed strange to him, like he was part of another reality. He lay there, as he had done for three weeks, half-watching day-time TV, or listening to Peggy Lee on loop:

‘Is that all there is? Is that all there is?

If that’s all there is, my friend, then let’s keep dancing...’

He was aware that he was melodramatic. Trish told him to ‘snap out of his mood’, that he ‘reeked of self pity’. The forms from the GUM clinic were still on the countertop where he left them, the numbers he could call for advice and assurance. They told him to talk to somebody he trusted. But who? It’d be like coming out all over again. ‘Hi, I’m gay. Also, I’m a tranny called Pussy Bratchford. Oh, and by the way, I’ve HIV’. It was all sordid and pathetic.

          There was always Trish. But the idea of Trish made him angry. How could Trish live like this for fifteen years and be healthy and he be barely out of home and this to happen. Life was unfair. Pussy closed his eyes.

          Of course, the mood wasn’t all just because of bad news. The coke didn’t help – they didn’t call it ‘suicide Tuesday’ for nothing. However, no amount of rationalizing made his mood feel less real. He stared at the bulb that hung from the ceiling, eventually turning on the television. On one channel was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The cartoon annoyed him, so he put on Ireland-AM, though he didn’t pay much attention.

          That split second decision in January. ‘You’ve a condom?’ ‘No’. Then fucking anyway. But Pussy was no fool. It wasn’t one choice; there were a myriad of little ones leading up to that moment: the first drag of a joint, the first half a pill, the coke, the two day parties. And of course the random kissing, blow-jobs and fucking. Finally, there was ice. He found it hard to believe he’d done ice.

          The glass pipe was unsettling, as was the blue-flamed lighter. But the steam, when he inhaled for the first time, didn’t seem so bad. Nor did he mind when the guy, naked on the bed beside him, inhaled the vapour, kissed him, pushing the air deep into his lungs. Later, the guy suggested a booty bump. The syringe was in its wrapper so Pussy said ‘why not?’.

          They fucked. They fucked till their bodies were bruised and there were burn marks on their knees and elbows. They kissed till their mouths, noses and chins were raw. But there was no soreness. It wouldn’t have mattered if flesh had come away from the bone. It had to be touched more. Pleasure mixed with carelessness. A dangerous freedom. Looking back at that moment, Pussy realised he’d experienced what it was like to have the mind of a devil.

          Pussy’s phone vibrated and he muted the Ireland AM. It was just a text from Trish, ‘Hey babes, fab weekend. Epic show by you. Lecture is vile. The head on me xx.’ Pussy didn’t reply. He swung his legs out onto the cool wooden floor. Looking in the mirror, he gazed at the reddish spots that were forming between his brows. Twisting his shoulder, he could see the flare-up of acne on his upper back, painful red lumps under his skin.

          He walked into the kitchen and switched on the kettle. There were only three clean mugs. Two shelves were filled with empty wine bottles. White streaks covered the chopping board. Lifting out a tub of blueberries from the fridge, he picked them up one by one, feeling them burst on his tongue, the vague sweetness gone immediately after it was tasted. Pussy flicked on the television, watching the tail end of a chat-show. Walking back to his room, he slipped into bed.

          He woke up at ten past one with a headache. Pulling on a hoodie, picking up his electric toothbrush from his bedroom, he wandered into the bathroom. He looking at its used head, thinking of his saliva on it, wondering if was now a biohazard. It seemed now that every part of him was dirty: his cum, his blood, his saliva. He wondered what he would do if he cut his finger on a kitchen knife and blood went into the chopping board.

          For the first time since his Leaving Certificate, Pussy wanted to be home. Though he felt little desire to talk to his family, imagining being in that space was comforting. Observing the farm, the dogs barking, the fields fresh with new grass, would be enough. Of course, he would visit Nana Ryder. She wouldn’t ask questions, it wasn’t her way. Tears came to Pussy’s eyes as he realised, yes, it was time.

          An hour later, Pussy drove southward. The motorway was quiet and the time passed quickly. It felt peculiar entering his local town of Castlemoy, gazing up at the sash windows, familiar and alien all at once. He turned onto the back road to the small village of Ashgrove; the family farm was on its outskirts. The car rattled over the bumps and stones.

          In Ashgrove the local shop was gone and an Applegreen took its place. The car slipped past the small estate of houses on the land that Martin had sold.  A mile outside, Pussy paused, looking down the old laneway to the old farmhouse. The lane was damp, the car’s headlights illuminating a wet cow-pat on the grassy centre. Just beyond, he could see a light in the kitchen window.

          He turned off the ignition, leaning his head on the steering wheel and closed his eyes. This was a bad idea. They’d never understand. The only option would be to lie about what worried him, though how comforting their words would be if he didn’t tell the truth?

          From here on, he was on his own. Enough of the Hallmark bullshit. He turned the car around and drove back towards Ashgrove. Somewhere on the road to Castlemoy, he wound down his window and threw his phone into the ditch. He’d get a new number when he got back to Dublin.

*

The music ends and Pussy steps off the swing, flattening down the ends of his gingham dress. The audience shrieks with laughter. A series of tampons and open condoms lie scattered across the floor where they fell out from underneath Pussy’s skirt. He looks down at the lesbians in the front row.

          ‘Looking for sympathy? Check the dictionary between shit and syphilis.’

          The crowd roars. Pussy sighs.

          'You know, if I have one flaw – and that’s a big if – it’s that I’m too nice.’ Pussy pulls his dress out of his backside. ‘Christ, it’s nearly lost up there. After that black fella last week me hole is like a blood orange. You should hear me walking up the street, entrails hanging behind me, slidin a like slug up the road.’ He makes a series of suction noises into the microphone until the audience are nearly throwing up into their pints.

          Marcio comes forward and hands Pussy the basket of cakes. Pussy offers the basket to a twink in the front row. ‘Cum-cake?’

          The young guy refuses.

          ‘Would you like a cream pie instead?’

          ‘I’ll eat your muffin?’ a drunk from the crowd roars up.

          ‘Course ya can chicken. It’s plenty moist.’

          The crowd shouts louder. Behind Luca and Marcio bring on the props for the next part of Pussy’s performance.

          ‘So, are ye ready to play Gay Taboo? Where are my victims?’ Hands shoot up from the audience. ‘Come on so, you’ll do. Jesus pet, would you ever try bulimia.’ Three people are dragged from the crowd. The first is a girl with Goth eye makeup. 

          ‘Where are you from?’

          ‘Australia.’ A few whoops go up from the crowd. 

          ‘Racist so. And what about you?’ Next to the girl is a skinny twenty year old. He has blond streaks in his hair.

          ‘I’m in UCD doing medicine.’

          ‘Ohhh, I like you. I like you a lot… and you?’ On the end is a guy in his late-twenties, a white T-shirt skimming his athletic body. ‘That has to come off. Come on boys.’ Pussy, Luca and Marcio strip the top off the guy, who only offers mild resistance. He has a clipped chest of hair. Pussy rubs her fingers in it.

          ‘I’m sure you have a name,’ he says. ‘Though I don’t think anyone gives a shite… Ok, round one. Body parts. Hands on buzzers please.’

*

Six weeks before the funeral, Pussy’s phone rang and he was surprised to see Marie’s name appear. Nana Ryder’s cancer was back and it was terminal. Cancelling that night’s show, he drove south to Castlemoy hospital. Sitting beside Nana Ryder’s bed, he stroked her fingers, avoiding the leads and tubes. He touched the band of her wedding ring, which had worn thin over many years.

          ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were sick before?’ he asked.

          ‘I didn’t want them bothering you.’ Nana replied, the oxygen pipe running around her ears, two tubes disappearing up her nose. Pussy felt an ache in his chest. More than a decade of brief phone calls – they eventually found out his new number – and a trip home once a year at Christmas. It was too late now to make up for all that lost time.

          ‘You better get well,’ Pussy said.

          ‘Go away you and get a haircut.’

          ‘To think they are giving you oxygen and all you’re doing with it is throwing insults.’

          ‘The day I’m liked is the day I’m dead.’

          ‘What did the doctors say was wrong?’

          ‘I would’ve been down more often but…’ Words fail him for a moment. ‘You know what I am Nana, don’t you?’

          ‘Isn’t there one in every family?’ Nana Ryder patted the back of his hand. ‘I had an uncle growing up who was that way, used to wear cologne, that sort of thing. You probably got it from him.’

          ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

          ‘I didn’t want to embarrass you.’

          ‘I would’ve been embarrassed.’

          ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said, resting her head on the pillow. She closed her eyes slowly, before reopening them. ‘Would you ever pull back a cover Jack, I’m as hot.’

          Pussy lifted off the top duvet. Underneath, he could see the outline of her thin legs.

          ‘That’s a grand scarf,’ she said, looking at the orange and brown striped one he’d taken off and rested on his lap.

          ‘Paul Smith,’ Pussy said. ‘A Christmas present.’

          ‘Oh.’ She glanced at him, raising her eyebrows.

          ‘Nothing like that. I bought it for myself.’

          ‘Good. The best presents are the ones you buy for yourself. Your poor grandfather, God rest his soul, bought me a couple of brooches. They’re awful.’

          ‘I’m sorry for not ringing more,’ he said. ‘I kept meaning to and meaning to, but….’

          ‘Get away or that. There’d be something wrong with ya if you were always on the phone your Nan.’

          Pussy smiled but Nana Ryder’s words did little to help the guilt. He hadn’t thought about her enough, sitting in the farmhouse alone. What did she do in the evenings by herself? He couldn’t see her looking through photo albums, longing for the past. He imagined her practical, making herself a cup of tea, opening a packet of Café Noir, flicking through Women’s Weekly, while The RTE News played in the background.

          ‘Do you need anything? Fresh pyjamas?’ Pussy asked.

          Nana laughed.

          ‘I have a cupboard full of them. Marie brings me new ones the whole time. And didn’t both Noreen and Kate in the village drop me out fresh pairs too. In the end, I told Noreen to take them away with her, that I preferred to sleep naked. Jesus, she laughed, the tears were rolling down her cheeks.’

          ‘Did the doctors say how long you’d be in for?’

          ‘Till Friday, though they keep pushing the day back. You needn’t be hanging about for me.’

          ‘Nan, of course I’ll stay around…’ Pussy could see she was growing tired. Her eyelids closed for a number of seconds before they re-opened. He offered to pull up her duvet. She shook her head.

          ‘But what if you get cold?’ he asked. ‘You won’t be able to get it.’

          ‘I’ll be grand,’ she said. ‘Go on; get out of here.’

3

‘I don’t give a fuck no more, if people think I am a whore. I just wanna dance, oh I just wanna dance…’

          Pussy lifts off his bonnet and places it on the dressing table. His forehead is beaded with sweat. It went well overall. ‘I Just Wanna Dance’ was an easy finale. The crowd were all pissed anyway. For a moment he thinks about how much he’d love a line of coke. Maybe he should’ve taken longer off. 

          He closes the door and sits down. The downward lighting was not flattering. Around the corners of his mouth are deep lines, which betrayed the life he’d lived in his twenties. Too many late nights. Too much coke, pills, ketamine, g and ice. Too much of everything really, but wasn’t that what they called ‘wonderful’?

          He takes off his wig. A part of Pussy vanishes. He places the wig gently down on the table, pulling off the hair net. Wincing, he pulls off the fake lashes. The glue drags out his lids, making his eyes run. He lifts out a packet of baby wipes from his case.

          Nana was dead. Pussy glances at the small picture in the mirror again. Grief was strange. It wasn’t something that gradually faded, like a receding tide. It was more like a bad knee that flared up when put under pressure. Some days it was possible to feel cured. Then the rain would come.

*

Nana Ryder was discharged late afternoon. She’d no eyebrows left, just two dark lines drawn on, above washed out, reddish eyes. Through her cotton-wool hair, Pussy could see the pastel shades of her scalp, which matched the oversized pink ruffles on her dressing gown collar that jutted out like the ones put on dogs to stop them biting their wounds.

          ‘Pussy… Pussy, imagine… who cares what that shower of bastards think,’ was Nana’s response, without telling Pussy who the shower of bastards were. ‘Granted, I’d have murdered ya, not keeping in touch. And all because of this silliness. D’you think I’d have cared? As long as you’re healthy and happy, I’m happy.’

          Tears streamed down Pussy’s cheeks.

          ‘Just know I couldn’t be prouder.’ Nana Ryder said. She sniffed, reaching down for the cup of tea beside her, her fingertips touching the table several times before she grasped the handle. The tea was rich mahogany. She took a sip, taking a bite of the pink wafer on the saucer and placing it down on the small table. ‘I suppose I’ll never see your show now,’ Nana broke off, licking her lips as she realised pink flakes were stuck like bits of fish-food.

          ‘I’ve one or two recorded. You sure you want to see them?’

          She nodded. Pussy lifted out his phone. He rarely felt nervous, but he could feel his stomach and heartbeat. It made it hard for him to breathe. He moved around so that she could see the screen. She craned her neck forward, squinting.

          ‘That’s you… in the gingham?’ And she laughed. The kind of laugh Pussy hadn’t heard in years. The tinny sound of The Sound of Music filled the sitting room. ‘Holy mother of God, the calves on you – those are Ryder legs. You could be modelling nylons.’

          Pussy blushed. In the end he showed her all of the six videos he had on his phone.

          ‘You won’t say it to the others, will you?’ he asked.

          ‘It’s not my business.’ Nana Ryder sighed. ‘My poor little man... and this has been it. All these years....’ Without looking, she reached for the teacup again, with the same motion, feeling for the cup handle, not bothering to look down. But her eyes began to close; her hand became limp, no longer seeking the teacup. Her mouth opened as her head leaned backwards. He gazed at her right hand as it lay an inch from the silver teapot, gazing at the ink-like bruise from the drip, the edges of which had turned a mottled shade of green.  

          Her breathing was low, whispering up her nostrils, like a draught that cut around doorframes. Outside, Pussy could hear the cows in a neighbouring field, part of the hundred and fifty acres of family farm. It reminded him of the time he asked Martin why the cows jumped up on each-other’s backs. Martin said the girl cows were looking for the males. ‘So they can see further?’ he asked. Martin said it was, looking down, kicking a small rock into the ditch.

          Nana shifted herself, murmuring, her lips twitching. Her head slipped onto the side of the brown and pink armchair. It was dated, like most of the other furniture in the farmhouse. The room smelt of shop-bought flowers – the bitter green odour of oversized carnations and daisies.

          Pussy inched himself off the sofa and made his way over to the photographs on the wall, his socks silent on the carpet, sinking into the pile. Watching for woodlice – the house being riddled with them – his eyes focused on the pictures that he knew contained himself. In one, Pussy was squinting, about five years old, his hair surprisingly dark. He was holding a bunch of bluebells. Matthew was next to him, grimacing as a black and white Jack Russell scratched at his jeans.

          Marie and Martin were in another picture. It was taken shortly after they were married. She was pretty in a doll-like way – blonde hair and a symmetrical face – nothing could be defined as wrong. Still, it was bland head.

          At the centre of the photographs was a black and white of Pussy’s grandparents on their wedding day. Nana Ryder wore a two piece suit with a brooch on her lapel. Granddad was shorter than her, uncomfortable in a suit, gazing at the camera sideways, suspicious of it. One of his ears stuck out slightly further than the other.

          ‘Make sure to hang onto those pictures when I’m gone,’ Nana Ryder said. Pussy wondered how long she’d been looking for him. She tried to sit herself up. Pussy moved forward to help her. ‘I’m grand,’ she said. ‘I’ve a favour for you.’

          ‘What?’

          ‘Promise you’ll do it.’

          ‘Whatever you want.’

          ‘You promise?’

          ‘I promise.’

          ‘When it’s time, I want you to let me go. None of this lingering about. You know what I mean? None of this dying in hospitals away from home.’

          Pussy frowned.

          ‘Nan…’

          ‘It’s all I ask. You know what I mean. When it’s time.’

          ‘But…’

          ‘Pssshht. I’ll say no more.’

*

Pussy cleans his eyelids with the baby wipes. He used to buy the proper face wipes till he realised they were exactly the same thing, just repackaged and twice the price. As he wipes the glitter and eye shadow away, the pink, emerald and blue, his eyes look small and old. Underneath all the makeup and colour was just a normal forgettable face. Forgettable – Pussy hates the word. 

            Five used baby wipes lie on the table. He lifts out a cream cleanser and cotton wool and rubs it over his skin. Then it’s the toner and finally some cool Clarins moisturiser that he works up from the neck. He touches his eyebrows. They are still slightly sticky, an unfortunate side-effect of the trade. There is a knock.

            ‘Come in.’

The door opens. It’s Luca.

            ‘Good show. You were very good,’ he says.

            ‘Well… passable. Though you were great, my little Brazilian flower.’

            Luca smiles and hovers at the door.

            ‘What are you doing now?’

            ‘Home to my little abode. Poor Liza will be needing her Pedigree Chum.’

            ‘Okay. You want company?’ Luca continues to hover. Pussy smiles. Luca has stayed over in the past and always spooned when they slept. The last few weeks, while Pussy was home with Nana Ryder, Luca took Liza for walks. But Pussy and Luca have never fucked. Pussy won’t have sex without telling him the truth and yet it never seems to be the right time.

          ‘Not tonight Luca. I’m not sure I’d be able. Me nerves.’ Pussy laughs but it sounds hollow. He is baffled as to why Luca still seeks him; maybe it’s the world of parties he inhabits or that Luca likes the comfort of having someone slightly older looking out for him while he’s ten thousand miles from home.

          ‘Because of your Nana?’

          ‘Everything really.’

*

Nana Ryder called from her room. Pussy tossed his book on the dresser and swung his legs onto the carpet. Putting on an oversized hoodie, he shouted that he was coming. Her groans became louder. 

          Nana Ryder was turned on her side, scrunched up. Her covers had been thrown off; a thin sheet covering her torso. She was heavily jaundiced. Pussy dialled Marie on his mobile.

          ‘Nana’s had a bad turn. She’s all yellow. Call an ambulance.’

          ‘No… don’t be bothering them,’ Nana Ryder panted.

          ‘We’re getting an ambulance Nan.’

          He kneeled on the floor beside her bed. She was cramped up.

          ‘Nan, please… are these them?’ Pussy held up the packet of tablets that were on the dresser. She nodded. He shook two onto his palm.

          ‘Can I sit you up?’ Pussy asked. ‘It’ll be easier to take them.’

          ‘No. Christ, the pain...’

          Pussy gently pushed the tablets against her lips. She opened them a fraction. He put the straw next to her mouth and she swallowed, closing her eyes, the skin of her eyelids creasing like tissue. He held her hand, letting her know he was there but he couldn’t stop himself shaking.

          ‘You should’ve called me before,’ he said. Her breathing was shallow. Pussy looked at her face, the skin around her eyes dark, like she’d been punched. The whites were canary yellow.

          ‘It’s time Pussy,’ she said. Her body seemed to relax. ‘Don’t let them take me out of the house,’ she whispered.

           He watched her closely, her mouth ajar and her cheeks sinking inwards. He noticed her right hand tapping the pillow beside her.  He lifted it up. She smiled faintly and didn’t resist. It was all over in a minute.

*

The morning after the show, Pussy sits in his apartment alone. It’s nine a.m. and the Nespresso is making him a skinny latte. Liza scratches at his leg, wanting to go for a walk. After his coffee, Pussy has an hour of kettlebells in the gym. Tonight, he’ll be performing at bingo in The George with Shirley, Veda and a few of the others. Otherwise, he is free. Maybe he’d do brunch, give Luca a call.

          Glancing through The Sunday Times, he sees an advertisement on page thirty-five for an auction in Adam’s on St Stephen’s Green. They are selling a collection of porcelain figurines from an estate down the country. He circles it with his pen, wondering what he might wear for the event.  Maybe he’ll wear that hat with the oversized rim, the one that stopped people getting within four foot of him.

          Poor Nana Ryder. Christ, if there was ever a damned man it was him. But what was the point in dwelling on things? There would be no lying on the bed listening to Peggy Lee. He was himself, perfect – a thirty-three year old HIV-positive drag queen. Getting on with it. Dying the slow, normal way to die.

JAMIE O'CONNELL'S first short story collection Some Sort of Beauty (Bradshaw Books) was published in 2012. He was awarded an Artist’s Bursary by Dublin City Council in 2013 and is now completing an MFA in Creative Writing in University College Dublin. He is currently finishing a novel based around Dubai, one of eleven projects shortlisted for the Sky Arts Futures Fund out of over a thousand entries. More information can be found on www.jamieoconnellwriter.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamieoconnell .

ELIAS VELLA is a fashion photographer and scenographer based in Milan, Italy. View more of his work at Flickr.