February 17, 1996.
I wore all-black that night: black ribbed turtleneck, black
jeans, black thigh-high suede boots, and black leather
jacket. I had given myself scupltured nails by following the
instructions on a Kristy Wells Acrylic Nails Kit. It took me
six hours from start to finish: prepping my hands,
fabricating nails using scuplturing on top of nail tips, and
finally painting them. I painted my new 3/8"-beyond-the-
fingertip talons with Revlon's Toast of New York and wore
L'Oreal's Russet as a matching color. Russet is like Toast
of New York, but with a very light frosty shine. I left my
nails on until 7:00pm the next day. I really like the extra
dimension of femininity that sculptured nails give me. The
many hours I had spent perfecting the look of my nails was
all worth it!
My partner, Mary, styled my Ginger Brown-colored Tara 3/4-
style wig so that much of the hair on the left side framed
the left side of my face (see photographs at
http://www.cris.com/~Kalina/Vamp/Scrapbook4.html). I wore
the black headband with the wig again, the same successful
combination I wore last time I was out. That look was more
realistic than any wig and wig/my-own-hair combination I have
worn thus far.
We stood outside our apartment complex for a few minutes,
waiting for our ride to arrive. Our club friends, Shani and
Brian, were going to take us on a night out downtown. As we
stood on the busy street waiting, plenty of people walked by
and noticed me. Several men turned to give me a second
admiring and possibly wanting look. Heh heh. Mary remarked
that, with the choice of hairstyle and clothes, I looked
possibly Hispanic and maybe a little Black. I just thought I
looked like a hooker. I didn't mind. I admit I'm an
attention-seeking girl! It's in my nature.
Our first stop was the infamous Silk City Lounge, voted "Best
Dance Club in Philadelphia" by The City Paper, a freebie
newspaper in Philly that has club and concert listings in it.
Bruce Willis made a stop at the Silk City while he was
filming "12 Monkeys." The cover charge was $5, which was
outrageous considering a club across the street called The
Bank was a more happening place and had the same cover
charge. The cover charge at Silk City pissed everyone off,
since the club was so small.
"Maybe it turned cool," I said to myself. I was not
impressed by Silk City the first couple of times I was there
(two years ago and one year before that). I remember the
club was too small. I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
Just hoping.
The place was dark. Very dark. Much like the other two
times I had been to the club. The dance floor area was
greatly expanded from last year, which is not saying much,
since now they can comfortably fit about 20 people instead of
18. A disco ball about the size of a billiard ball was
suspended above the ceiling. A few colored lights were
suspended from the ceiling, too, but had no logical reasons
for being in the locations that they were at. An ugly
ceiling vent ran from one side of the room to the other. The
place still looked like someone's shabby old basement. This
place was voted "Best Dance Club in Philadelphia"?
The restroom situation was greatly improved. Now there were
two restrooms instead of one. The restrooms were the only
source of bright light, so whenever someone entered or exited
one of the restrooms, he or she could be seen by everyone in
the club.
On the three standup tables away from the bar area were
strange light fixtures, cone-like and filled with bright-
colored liquids and a strange mushroom-like growth in each
one. We each ordered one and only one drink. The prices
were more like club prices than bar prices.
Mary and Shani went off dancing. The music was definitely
cool, but the music did not seem to fit the people that were
there. Looking around the bar area, I noticed something odd.
The people.
It was an assortment of oddballs and rejects, club people who
looked like they were rejected by the "real" clubs. A trio
of all-black-wearing college-type clubkids sat in one corner
sipping the beer on tap. Two rather large and short biker
dykes in flannel shirts sat next to them. A Black man in a
black leather jacket with a skull and crossbones emblazoned
on it sat next to the dykes. The jacket had a strange
"growth" protruding out of each shoulder. They were not
identical protrusions, which led me to believe that perhaps
the foam shoulder padding was popping out of his jacket. A
tall and thin skinhead beatnik man stood next to a Jason
Alexander look-alike. A couple of Black girls in funky 70's
clothing and dredlocks stood next to the bald couple. Every
two or three people group looked completely different from
the next group. There was no consistency. When I stood back
to take in the entire bar area scene, it reminded me of
something I had seen long ago.
The Creature Cantina in Star Wars.
A motley crue of alien beings and everything the cat could
possibly drag in.
"I'm going to have nightmares of this place," Brian remarked.
I told him about how this place reminded me of the Creature
Cantina and he laughed and agreed. We noticed quite a few
men checking me out and giving me welcoming smiles. Of
course, I liked it! Mary later pointed out that of course
guys would check me out, since I looked like I was flirting
with Brian the entire time. Since I sometimes get a kick out
of being read, I faked a shaving motion with both hands as I
was describing my facial hair shaving ritual to Brian in one
of our conversations, much to the astonished look of two
Hispanic men standing not too far away.
There were more people filtering into the club. More college
kids. More reggae-type kids.
After being utterly disappointed, we quickly left Silk City
and headed towards the Black Banana. Oh, yes, I got beeped a
lot walking out of the club and to the car. One man was
driving in his big car, totally eyed me up and down as he
passed by (I smiled at him, of course!), and came to a
screeching halt at the just-turned-red light a few feet away.
He almost ran a red light and just avoided hitting a car as
he sat there a bit shook up. Mary, Shani, and Brian shook
their heads at his stupidity. I laughed aloud. Now that is
a flattering notion, being able to corrupt traffic! I loved
it! You can bet I'm a sicko and love attention like that. I
would've gotten more jollies if he actually bumped into
something! Hee hee.
Mary remarked that the driver probably thought I was a
hooker. Hookers were notorious for walking the Spring Garden
Street strip.
"Cool!" I exclaimed and laughed. Shani laughed, too. Brian
waved off the Silk City and we all said "Bah!" in unison and
smiled as we drove away from the slushy snow-ridden street.
It was just before midnight when we entered the Black Banana.
The place looked desolate as usual at this time of night.
The Banana was primarily an afterhours place, so the action
wouldn't start until 1:30am to 2:00am when most clubs would
begin winding down.
I made a pitstop at the women's restroom. There was one
toilet and a stand-up urinal in the tiny restroom. The sink
and mirror portion of it was separated from the urinal
portion by the shortest of partitions. I quickly finished my
business for fear of someone walking in on me. I then
checked my makeup and my body in the mirror.
Just my luck. A middle-aged woman in a red suit walked in.
The music was blaring outside. She sat down on the toilet
and remarked, "Darn! Just when I have to go to the bathroom,
a Rod Stewart song comes on!" I smiled at her and she smiled
back. I don't think she had the faintest clue that I was a
guy while I was freshening up. I took my time studying the
mirror and making sure my face didn't look too shiny. I
patted my hips to make sure everything looked in place. I
love my lower torso padding! It makes me look so feminine!
I walked out of the restroom and into the first floor bar
area where my three friends sat. It was a cozy little bar
area. A church pew with four little tables in front of it
served as seating for one side of the room. A few more
tables and chairs were scattered here and there around the
long bar. A vending machine was next to the entrance and
sold cigarettes and overpriced snacks. The bar was stocked
with all top shelf liquors, more so than the upstairs dance
floor bar as I recall.
We had a couple of drinks before we headed upstairs. A
couple of guys walked in. One of them gave me a severe
lookover and I did the same with him out of courtesy. A
guido couple walked in and the guy kept checking me out even
though he was with his big-nosed blabber-mouthed girlfriend
who kept gabbing and gabbing and gabbing, so much that she
didn't even notice her boyfriend stealing glances at me. I
was sitting down as they walked by and I must have looked
very petite to him and, dare I say it, delicious. But the
night would continue and would later reveal a startling
revelation: tonight was called "Love Deluxe" and I had never
seen so many female couples in any club since Hepburn's
closed down.
The second floor area had been improved slightly. The VIP
section was totally revamped and now had a Japanese motif.
No one entered that section throughout the night. A working
wood burning fireplace stood next to the VIP area. It was
not working the last time we were there. The dance floor
area was decorated with simple white sheets hanging from the
ceiling, perhaps to resemble clouds. Banners saying "Love
Deluxe" were draped here and there.
We noticed the restroom with the one-way mirror was not so
"one-way" after all. You could see into the restroom from
afar and at a certain angle! This made me reel in thought at
all the times men and lesbians could have seen me doing my
number ones while standing up. How embarrassing!
Nah! I should really have been reeling in thought at why so
many men had approached me on those very nights that they
could have seen me whizzing while standing up. I guess a
chick is a chick to some men even if the chick has something
she's genetically not supposed to have. Hmm...
The dance floor filled up quickly in the course of an hour.
Two Milli Vanilli/Scritti Politti types were dancing in the
middle of the dance floor. A drunken gay man in a blue denim
jacket starting twirling about. His friends would join him
later. A number of female couples were dancing together.
Mary and I got on the dance floor shortly thereafter.
"Can we switch?" a young Black girl in a fancy dress and
rhinestone-studded necklace next to us asked me. I could
tell she wanted to dance with Mary. I danced with her tall
Black friend who looked very much like plain Jane
newsreporter, Tracey Matisak, on the local Fox television
station. "Tracey" was lethargic and didn't look like she
wanted to dance with me. Perhaps I was not her type or she
figured out I was a guy, I don't know.
After one song, I mouthed and hand-gestured "No more of
this!" right in front of her and moved back to Mary. The
Black girl in the fancy dress smiled and moved back to her
friend.
"Bleagh!" Mary said aloud. Mary didn't like dancing with
that girl.
The dance floor filled with more and more female couples. A
large number of single men were standing hopelessly around
the dance floor, many of them looking dumbfounded; others
looking stoned and stupid. If only they knew that the secret
to having loads of fun was to dress as a woman!
We got off the floor to get another drink and all eyes were
on me. I loved it. I smiled at everyone I passed. The
Black girl that danced with Mary moved next to me now and
tried to strike up a conversation with me. She was drunk and
needed advice on flagging down the bartender for another
drink. After she got her drink, she quickly scooted back to
a table where all of her friends sat. It looked like one big
bachelorette party where she was the bride-to-be, since she
was the most lavishly dressed. I wondered what the guy she
would be marrying would think of her lesbian tendencies.
Mary and I finished our drinks and headed back to the dance
floor.
As I was dancing by myself in front of the mirrors for a
while, I noticed a young hulk in a tight white sweater
checking a few girls out, including me. He kept staring
incessantly in one place, never losing his focus. His eyes
darted around the dance floor, but ended fixated on me for
many minutes. I gave him my patented wiggling body motions
that could fool anyone into thinking my faux pas body parts
were real. His friend was sitting next to him and was
staring aimlessly at me as well. Gee! The Creature Cantina
was not limited to Silk City; there were some bonafide
cantina creatures in the Black Banana that night, too.
But, mostly, there were lesbians... which was cool, since I
consider myself to be a lesbian.
After much dancing, I finally sat down and the hulk moved his
eyes to another dancing female, my friend Shani. A cute
skinny brunette in tight black clothing accidentally bumped
into me while I was sitting down and watching everyone.
"Ooh, I'm sorry!" she said. "Well, now that I got my ass in
your face, I'll tell you about this party we're having Monday
nights at the old 'Revival.' Remember that place?"
I nodded.
"It's a party called The Spot. Here's a flyer. Hope to see
you there!"
"Thanks!" I said.
Cool. It looked like another "ladies only" night.
We cut the night short after everyone agreed that we should
get something to eat. Philly has some great all-night
diners. Most everything in downtown Philly is closed after
2:00am save for a few clubs and the all-night diners. These
diners were always filled with club people, many of whom
we've seen in our past and present adventures.
We saw Terri Arnaldi, Elaine Howard, and another
transgendered friend sitting at a booth as we walked into the
Midtown Diner on 11th and Sansom. Towards the rear were
several people we had seen at the Silk City and the Black
Banana. Brian, Shani, Mary, and I each ordered omelettes.
It was 3:30am now and a quick check in the restroom revealed
my makeup still looked fresh. Shani remarked at how great I
looked all night. She revealed that she was wearing the top
that she had attracted Brian with the night they first met.
Let me tell you that Jayne Mansfield looks like a
prepubescent girl compared to Shani. Shani's ribbed top
flattered her upper torso like there was no tomorrow. Brian
agreed. Mary and I finally hit the sack at about 5:00am. It
was a great night, full of fun and cantina creatures.
Kalina
The Sexy Vampire