was pretty dense of her, considering.
“Hey, you know, we need to talk to you,” Hector said.
“Yes?” She smiled politely.
“Well, see, like, we’re The Moes, the three of us, you dig, and this is our turf,” he said.
She gave him a cautious nod. “I am so pleased to meet you, Mister Moe. And Mister Moe, and Mister Moe,” she said, nodding to Archie and Tom in turn, and turned back to Hector. “Now, then, how can I help you, gentlemen?”
Hector gave his crotch a meaningful grab and made smoochey-smoochey noises with his lips. “To tell you the truth,” he said, grinning, “we was thinking we could help you, Momma.”
Her smile vanished and she planted her ham-sized hands on her hips. “Don’t call me Momma, Mister Moe,” she said in a firm baritone. “I’m quite sure I am no relation of yours.”
Hector was not at all intimidated by her considerable size. It was his opinion that all queers were sissies. Even the gym bunnies with the pumped up arms and the massive chests could be counted on to turn into weeping Jell-O when confronted by a real man and he was sure this freaky looking drag queen would be no different. Besides, he was emboldened to see that while he was chatting with her, his two companions had slunk into positions on either side of her.
The drag queen saw them too, and turned toward Tom. “Go away,” she said in an imperious voice. “I command you to vanish.”
“Now, Momma, that’s no way to talk to a man.” Hector took advantage of her distraction to give the vast acreage of her fanny a pat.
Kapow! The next second he was in the air. He flew like a rocket and landed on a nearby garbage can with a bang. A foot-long rat that had been enjoying its supper in the can squealed an indignant protest and darted for an alley.
It happened so suddenly that Hector couldn’t quite grasp how he had one minute been patting her fanny and the next he was sitting on the sidewalk in a mess of stinking coffee grounds and banana peels. He shook his head, dazed and temporarily at a loss for breath.
“I said, don’t call me Momma!” she said emphatically. “And keep your filthy hands to yourself, creep.”
Stunned, Tom and Archie froze in place. In the slow-working machinery of his mind, Tom had just decided that it might be prudent to back away a bit, but he was too laggardly in getting the message to his feet. A hand the size of a catcher’s mitt grabbed the front of his jacket and another one started slapping his head from one side to the other. Whack! Whack! Whack!
“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” he cried.
To his credit, Archie moved as if to come to his friend’s aid with one of the karate kicks that had served him well in any number of street brawls, a kick aimed straight for the dragster’s crotch.
The kick never reached its target, unfortunately. In something less than the blink of an eye, the drag had let go of Tom’s jacket and instead seized Archie’s foot in midair. Like Hector before him, Archie found himself suddenly aloft, soaring in an orbit about the head of their would-be prey, while his leg felt as if it were being ripped out of its socket.
“Hey, ow, wait,” he squealed, “Let me go, let go.”
She did. He sailed through space, emitting a high-pitched series of squeaks and squeals until he landed atop Hector with a loud Kerplunk!
Hector gave a howl of agony and cried, “Shit. Get off, me, you fuck.” He scrambled to get out from under his sudden burden.
Tom made no pretense of heroics. He was not much of a thinker, but in a situation like this, he thought very clearly that it was every man for himself. He turned and ran without a backward glance.
Archie and Hector, seeing her attention momentarily fixed on Tom’s fleeing back, scrambled to their feet and tried to run in the other direction. Hector’s left arm hung down limply while Archie dragged one leg and hopped frantically on the other, which made for a slow shuffling process. Hector easily outdistanced him, bad arm and all, and disappeared around the nearest corner, but Archie paused to look back, scared that she might be after them. If she was, he had decided his only hope would be to drop to his knees and plead for mercy. He thought that this was no time for pride. He knew he didn’t have a chance of outrunning her with his leg hurting the way it was and, strong as she was, he was certain now that he couldn’t outfight her.
He was relieved to see that she was still where she had been, though, hands on hips, looking after them with a big grin on her face.
“Hey,” Archie shouted, leaning against a brick wall and trying to ignore the pain in his leg. “Who the hell are you?”
“Me?” For the first time since they had met her, she looked unsure of herself, as if she didn’t know the answer to that question either. “I’m—er....” She hesitated, her face screwed up in a thoughtful expression.
“Come on, you gotta have a name,” Archie said. “Everybody’s got a name, don’t they?”
From around the corner, Hector said, “Forget it, man, let’s go,” but Archie stood—or rather, leaned—his ground.
“I do have a name, of course I do. My name is....” Again she hesitated. Then she threw her head back and gave a loud guffaw. “It’s Thing,” she said.
“Thing?” Archie said in confusion. What kind of fucking name was that?
“My name is Thing,” she repeated, sounding altogether pleased with the revelation. “Drag Thing, to be exact.” With that she turned and sauntered away, still chortling to herself.
Archie followed Hector around the corner and found him backed into a darkened doorway, his eyes wide.
“Jesus, what happened there?” Archie asked.
“I think we just had a nightmare,” Hector said, anger taking over for his fear. “That fag, Tom, did you see him just take off running like that, the chicken shit, I thought we was Moes, we’re supposed to help one another out, ain’t we? Come on.”
Personally, Archie thought Tom had shown rare good judgment in running. In retrospect, he wished he had thought of it sooner himself, while he still had two good legs. But he didn’t think it wise to say that to Hector when he was sore. “What are we doing, bro?” he asked instead.
Hector, who felt that his role as captain of the Moes had been compromised by the events that had just occurred, thought it essential now to reestablish his leadership. “Just come on,” he said. For the first time in his life instead of dodging cops, he was looking for one to flag down. “And hope and pray we don’t run into that Drag Thing again.”
* * * *
By the time Drag Thing had gone two blocks, however, she had all but forgotten the Moes in the thrill of her new discovery: a shop called For The Girls. At first glance it might have been taken for just another woman’s store, but it took no more than a second glance to see that the clothes and accessories in the window were actually meant for men who wanted to dress as women. For one thing, most of them were huge. Even the wigs in the far corner, cascading down Styrofoam heads, were overlarge.
In her opinion, the dresses were tacky, though. She had an idea that
