By Rachael Robbins
© 1996 Transgender Forum & Rachael Robbins
Catch up on the series here Episode 1: Dawn Gets Her Chance at Stardom
Even before the first commercial break, I was squirming under the hot studio lights, and wishing that I had worn something a bit lighter than my stylish, but sweaty, Elizabeth Ashley suit. The silk of my blouse stuck to my arm pits, my bra straps itched like the devil and my legs felt imprisoned in the clammy caress of sodden pantyhose. It would be safe to say that I felt less than glamorous.
I was sitting with my fellow talk-show inmates in a row of chairs on the tiny stage at Channel Eight. On the right side, Susie sat in her dirty jumper, muttering to some imaginary adversary off stage, arms writhing in her lap. Kim Rogers, my friend from the Ingersoll Center, sat between us, managing somehow to look cool under the hot lights -- I hated her for it. To my left was Ramona, the androgynous queen of First Avenue, and Ashley, the beautiful blonde from the `burbs. Rounding off our happy band was Tiffany Diamond, the best Diana Ross imitator this side Interstate 5. We were as motley a crew as I'd ever seen.
At the moment, Johnnie Baker was posing dramatically in the audience, grilling Ramona.
"But what I want to know," he was saying, "Is just what do your, ah, clients see in you?"
Ramona pondered the question for a moment, chewing on her gum, and then said with a leer "My clients like a girl with something . . . extra, if you know what I mean." Then she waggled her jet-black eyebrows.
Kim Rogers looked at me and rolled her eyes, and I wondered what had possessed me to come on this show. Oh, yeah, I thought, it was the five hundred bucks . That and Cassie Martin's promise that this would be a sensitive, educational program. She'd even promised that Martine Rosenquist would be on, and I should have smelled a rat when told (just before air-time, naturally) that the gender therapist had backed out at the last moment. Another thing that should have set alarm bells ringing was the racist element -- we had a black drag queen and an Hispanic prostitute, while the apparent models of transgender womanhood were all white. At least Kim and I were upstanding, I thought, but I don't know about the lovely Ashley. For all I knew, she liked to have sex with three-legged cats . . . Johnnie hadn't gotten to her yet.
One thing certain was that the guests were from the entire spectrum of transgender-hood. Problem was, during the first fifteen minutes of the program Baker had concentrated only on the fringe elements. He hadn't been able to get much out of Susie, though, except mutterings about a vision of the Goddess in a dumpster.
I was jarred out of my reverie by a question from a matronly audience member. "Yes, my question is for the detective?" Baker shoved his microphone into her face.
At last, I thought. I'll finally get to present a well-reasoned, thoughtful image of the community. "Go ahead," I said, smiling.
"What I want to ask is . . . where do you hide it?"
I thought I was going to scream. Baker raised his eyebrows smarmily. "Dawn, hold that thought. We have to take a break, now, but we'll be right back with an answer from our drag detective."
The director held up his hand and ticked off the seconds. "And . . . we're out." Mercifully, the lights dimmed, and we were in commercial. Without glancing at any of us, Baker strode over to his producer.
"Cassie, I want that nut-case outta here," he said, pointing at Susie. I spotted Frenchy on the front row, made my way over to her, and we watched as Susie was hustled unceremoniously out of the studio.
"Great show, Dawn," she said. "I mean, so sensitive, so understanding. This oughta set the TG community back, what? Fifty years?"
"I know," I replied miserably. "The producer seemed so sincere, at the time . . ."
"How're you gonna answer that blimp's question?" She jerked her head in the direction of my questioner.
"I'm not going to dignify it with an answer," I said with a sniff. "Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you ask an intelligent question, sort of prime the pump? Maybe it'd start a meaningful dialog."
"Yeah, right. Like I want to show my face on this cut-rate Jerry Springer show."
"Come, on, Frenchy . . . do it for me. Please?"
I could see the wheels turning in her head. "OK . . . but you'll owe me one . . ."
"Thirty seconds! Places everyone!" the director called. I whispered my thanks to Frenchy, squeezed her hand, and scuttled back to my seat. Glancing offstage, I saw Baker shove something into his mouth. Cassie swept crumbs off his suit, and straightened his tie in an oddly affectionate gesture before he bounded onto the stage.
"Today's show is `Crossdressers on Parade', and we have five lovely `ladies' to talk to." I wondered why there were no female-to-males on the show. Probably not titillating enough, I guess. "What makes these people tick? Are they trying to improve on nature?" He turned to the audience. "Is it an improvement, audience?"
A chorus of "No!" went up from the audience, along with a smattering of hands. Baker made a big show of carefully choosing just the right questioner, and his eyes lit on Frenchy.
"That certainly is an unusual t-shirt Miss . . ." He squinted at her name tag. "LaBoom. What's the matter -- don't you like men?" I noticed that he was breathing heavily, and looked a bit flushed.
Frenchy smiled demurely. "No, not much . . ."
"Heh, heh . . . I was only kidding."
"I wasn't," she said, and shrugged.
"Well, ah . . . do you have a question for our guests?"
She pointed at me. "Yeah. It's for that one in the middle with the big nose." Big nose? "Where do you fake women get off parading around in drag, makin' fun of us like that?"
Was this her idea of an insightful question, one that would open up an intelligent discourse on the transgendered condition? I struggled to remain composed.
"Well, Miss LaPhlegm . . ."
"LaBoom."
"Miss LaGoon. We're just trying to express our feminine side." Where had I heard that line before? "I mean, society doesn't frown on women being masculine , do they? Women can wear whatever they want, but just let a man walk down the street in a skirt and heels . . ."
"Horseshit," she replied. "You do it to get your rocks off. And what `feminine side?' You all have so much raging testosterone that it's a wonder you don't have continuous hard-ons under those skirts."
Ramona helpfully thrust her pelvis forward, displaying her crotch. I was spluttering, trying to frame an appropriate response, when a loud screech sounded to my left. Tiffany Diamond was out of her seat, hands on her hips, glaring at Frenchy.
"Test-tost- terone?" she screamed. "Honey, I'll show you testosterone . . ." And she leapt toward the audience and the smirking Frenchy. Just then, a woman in the audience screamed, and I looked to where she pointed.
Johnnie Baker was on the floor, face a mottled red, eyes bulging from their sockets and staring at nothing. Although he breathed in great, ragged gulps, he couldn't seem to get enough air, and his hands clawed at his throat. Frozen in our places, we watched as he became rigid, arching his back like an overstrung bow. The tendons in his neck stood out in high relief. I heard the assistant director scream for somebody to call an ambulance, but I knew it was too late. The convulsions gradually lessened, and he went slack, seeming to collapse in on himself, his feet drumming an awful tattoo. Finally, he was still.
I was the first to reach his side, and placed my hand against his carotid artery, just under the chin. "He's dead," I announced, and looked up into the white face of Cassie Martin.
I heard Frenchy say, with a touch of awe, "Is this a great show, or what?"
The next morning, I sat in my office, looking out at yet another gorgeous day. The idiotic weather person on Channel Six had become practically orgasmic at the prospect of five more days of "delightfully clear Emerald City weather" just after a report about half of Eastern Washington burning out of control from wild fires. Sunny weather always has its price in the Northwest.
I was on my third cup of coffee of the morning, licking my wounds after a bruising verbal battle with Frenchy over her confrontational questions on "Johnnie's Jive." It was her contention, of course, that she was just doing what I'd asked, paving the way for a greater understanding of the transgendered condition. I had replied (respectfully, I thought) that this was pure bullshit, that she was just trying to irritate me, and what was that crack about a big nose, anyway? Things had escalated from there to the point where she wasn't speaking to me anymore. At least something was going right that morning.
I heard the door to the outer office creak open, and muffled female voices, terminating in a terse "In there" from Frenchy. Resolving to have a chat with my associate about proper receptionist behavior, I swiveled my chair around to face my visitor.
Cassie Martin stood in the doorway, staring at me in confusion. "Dawn?" she asked. "Is that you?"
I realized that I was in male drab. "Yes, it's definitely me -- I don't dress like a woman all the time, you know." Only most of the time. "Have a seat."
She sat in the chair I'd indicated, the one opposite the desk, and crossed her slender legs. Her hair shimmered in the reflected glow from my window -- it was set off by the simple black dress. Black for mourning, I realized.
"What can I do for you?" I asked.
"Have you heard the preliminary autopsy report on Johnnie?"
I hadn't, and told her so.
"He was murdered," she said. Her lip trembled, and tears appeared in her dark eyes. Although I couldn't for the world understand why anyone would waste emotion on Johnnie Baker, she looked so lovely and vulnerable in that moment that I wanted to cradle her in my arms and wipe the tears away. I fought off this purely altruistic impulse, and settled for passing her a tissue across the desk.
"What was the cause of death?" I asked.
"They're saying it was poisoning . . . somebody put strychnine in his Twinkie. Johnnie always ate Twinkies during the commercial breaks . . ."
It fit what I'd seen of Baker's death --the clawing of the throat, the bright red face, and the horrible, gasping breaths that used up energy, but brought no relief. I knew that the infamous bitter almond odor of strychnine was detectable by only a small percentage of the population, so the victim would not necessarily have noticed the compound in his junk food. Strychnine was the poison of choice of gentleman killers in drawing room mysteries and indiscriminate maniacs who laced over-the-counter drugs. And, apparently, by somebody with a deadly grudge against a sleazy talk-show host.
"I want to hire you to find Johnnie's murderer," Martin continued.
"Well, the police will conduct their own inquiry," I said. "I don't like to interfere in an ongoing investigation . . . what's your interest in the case, anyway? I mean, Johnnie wasn't exactly a lovable character . . ."
"I probably know that better than most," she said ruefully, dabbing at her eyes. "Johnnie was my brother."
I remembered the oddly tender gesture during the commercial break, and it all began to fall into place. There was still something missing, however, something that drove her to seek help from decidedly unconventional channels.
"What makes you think I can do any better than the police?" I asked.
"Well, for one thing, Johnnie was being blackmailed."
"Forgive me, Ms. Martin, but the police have some experience with blackmailers." She seemed ready to cry again, so I continued gently. "Look . . . is there something you're not telling me?"
It took some time before she made up her mind to tell me. I waited patiently for her response, and when it came I had to lean forward to hear it.
"We, uh, have another brother . . . David. He teaches school in Bothell." Bothell -- why did that ring a bell?
"And you think David was blackmailing Johnnie?"
"No, that's not it. David is the reason for the blackmail." She let out a heavy sigh. "You've met David, you know . . . only you know him as Ashley, from the show."
The revelation hit me like a freight train. Ashley of the come-hither, bedroom eyes? Of the long legs and languid gestures? Johnnie's brother? I stared, slack-jawed, as Cassie continued.
"Johnnie loved David, but couldn't get over his little . . . peculiarities. So they didn't see much of each other, but Johnnie knew that if David's crossdressing got out, he would be ruined -- high schools don't like their male teachers looking like Heather Locklear." She paused, collecting her thoughts. "About a year ago, somebody, Johnnie never told me who, came to him threatening to out David unless he were paid. I think it was somebody on the show."
"If Johnnie was being blackmailed, then why in the world would he have David on the show?"
She grimaced. "David was always the baby in the family, and Johnnie never could refuse him anything. So when David heard we were doing a show on transgenderism, he begged to come on, and Johnnie agreed. "
"But what could this have to do with Johnnie's murder? To a blackmailer, that would be like killing the golden goose."
"Just before the show, Johnnie came to me and said he couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't afford the blackmail with the show going national and all, and David was going to have to look after himself. He was going to tell the blackmailer."
"Did he?" I asked.
"I don't know," she replied.
I leaned back in my chair and tried to look judicial. "Cassie, what you should do is go straight to the cops and tell them all this."
"I can't -- that'd destroy David. I thought with you being the way you are, that you could talk to David, and be discrete . . ." There was a pleading look in her eyes, and I'm a sucker for entreaties from beautiful women. I sighed.
"OK, Ms. Martin, I'll look into it. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to keep David's name out of it, but I'll do my best."
I hoped that it would be enough.
Next: Dawn Takes a Ride