Dawn Davenport Lives

Bring to mind the early films of John Waters: Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, etc. Remember the affect and facial expressions of Divine when he was playing sullen, like Dawn Davenport.

I almost drove off the road yesterday looking at a young man walking down the street who looked exactly like Glenn Milstead, out of drag. Or sort of out of drag.

Guy was walking down the street with that exact Dawn Davenport pout on his face. Sullen, angry, resentful. Since he looked facially like him, it was a surreal moment.

He was dressed in flimsy gray women's knit shorts with an elastic band. He had a Barbie Movie crop top on with most of his ample belly displayed. A desultory dab of blush, a few earrings, and limp, greasy "lady hair." Ear buds in, iphone held out in front of him like a floating oracle.

His eyes darted from his screen to mine as I drove by. He did that affected insouciance thing where he moved his eyes but kept his head rigid and pointed forward: “I ain’t movin’ my head for shit.” You often see that these days among young pedestrians who mean to communicate to drivers that they dare them to see them in time and avoid striking them as they sashay across the street against traffic.

He was walking down the street just as "proud" as can be. Swaybacked, hunched shoulders, belly proudly jutting. As if this were normal. As if living this way were serious, and something to fight for. As if it were the rest of the world, not him, who is looking at things cockeyed.

He's not proud, of course. He's miserable, but that set insists on claiming they're fulfilled and joyful. Their pain is their precious.

To see the actual, literal, take-me-seriously embodiment of a drag queen act from the 70s that was done as mocking parody was so shocking in the moment. So sad.

In the moment, I felt a pang of personal sympathy for this troubled young man. He doesn’t know that he’s a literal walking joke based on an earlier joke. He has no concept of a world that did not praise morbid obesity and men dressing like drag queen prostitutes from underground art movies 50 years ago. He thinks this is normal.

Life’s been a little bit hard on me, but I’ve come out better than some.

And then the personal sympathy passed as I remembered that this troubled young man is not only personally troubled; he’s a vector for causing trouble to every passerby. He’s part of the movement that is raping the minds of school children, that’s putting kids on a path to mental and physical mutilation.

I was grateful to be able to just push the gas pedal and put distance between us. For now.

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