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Long-term Art Project

By

Gabe Montesanti

•

A cartoon of two women walking down a road. Text reads: A few nights after my first time performing drag, my wife Kelly and I strolled down Delmar Boulevard, full from our dinner at a restaurant in which we were the only two patrons. Dining there felt like being on stage, in a way. Walking down the street we were less conspicuous, thought Delmar was a complicated part of St. Louis. Sometimes locals referenced "The Delmar Divide" because the road serves as a socioeconomic and racial dividing line in the city and has for decades.
A drawing of a group of people, including a police officer. Text reads: As we walked to our car, which was parked down the street, panicked shouts began to ring out. People scattered. An unhoused man called out to us, "They're shooting! They're shooting!" and I froze, becoming aware of my own pulse in my eardrums. Then, I felt a sharp sting on the side of my neck. It was not the pain of a bullet. I knew this even as I saw a dark vehicle drive by, window rolled down with a barrel of a gun sticking out. "They're pellets," I heard someone behind me confirm. Flashing lights in my periphery indicated police had arrived. Then, a cop appeared beside me and said, "He's gone now." At home, I nursed my pellet wound with ice. My body shook. I was harsh to myself, my internal dialogue cruel and unrelenting. Why are you reacting this way? It was not an active shooter. It was not a real gun.
A drawing of a person holding a plate. Text reads: A few days later, I returned to Delmar Boulevard for lunch with Rocky B. Goode, a nonbinary drag queen I had met at the show.
A drawing of a woman with brown skin and brown hair in a high ponytail. The text reads: As we began to eat, we bonded over the ways we had educated ourselves about queer culture, primarily through YouTube and older gay films. "The first drag queen I e saw was Latrice Royale from Ru.Paul's Drag Race, and I was in the 6th grade," Rocky told me. "Her energy. Her outfit. It was all just so beautiful to me." I told her I watched, Paris is Burning, the 1990 documentary, on my laptop in my freshman dorm room instead of doing my calculus homework. It mesmerized me. Enthralled me. I wanted to know about ballroom culture, and about African-American and Latino queer culture. I wanted to know how the art of drag had evolved, how the landscape was different, and most importantly, how people had managed to survive in a world pitted against them.
A drawing of a church with giant boxing gloves hanging over the steeple. Text reads: When I asked about Rocky's childhood, she told me that she was raised in the church, and briefly after she realized she was queer, she thought God hated her. "I just figured, you're already Black," she told me. "It's hard enough to be Black. Now you're going to be gay on top of it?" I was silent. After a few beats, I said, "I was raised in the Church, too. Also-I wondered if your drag name is a reference to the Italian stallion?" She cracked a smile and nodded. "That was my nickname in high school," I told her. The spark I felt between us made me wonder if this was how drag houses came into existence: tightknit communities that led to the opposite kinds of divides that sliced up St. Louis.
A drawing of a Waffle House restaurant with a crescent moon in the sky. Text reads: I looked out the window at the people passing by on Delmar. There were bikers, caricature artists hunched over their sketchpads, couples like my wife and me a few days ago with their arms linked. In a sentence, I told Rocky what happened with the pellet, the police, and my body's overreaction. "I don't think that's an overreaction," she said. She told me about a time she was out eating waffies at 2:00 in the morning after a drag show, and a man opened-fire. She hid out in a bathroom, calling out for her father. She called him "daddy," a term she hadn't used since she was a child.
A drawing of waffles, berried, and a fork on a red plate. Text reads: "I've heard about fight, flight, or freeze," Rocky said, "but I hadn't experienced it until I was in that Waffie House. I didn't know what I would do." I nodded, understanding completely. When Rocky and I first met, we bonded over our teaching backgrounds. I always worried about being in the classroom, about the split-second choices I would or wouldn't make to protect my students or myself. It seemed there were people in the world-people like Latrice Roy ale or Pepper LaBeija from Paris is Burning-whose instinct would be to simply fight the threat. I wanted to be one of those people. Not somebody whose body turned to stone.
A drawing of people looking at art supplies. Text reads: After lunch, we crossed Delmar and walked into an art supply store so that Rocky could get some materials for her art classroom, and so that we could browse for inspiration for our next drag costumes. "You know," she said. "I think that drag is my long-term art project." There was something so comforting to me about that thought­ something sustaining and calming: the opposite of what I felt on the street after being struck in the neck by that tiny piece of lead. It occurred to me that performing drag could be a way not of fighting, but unfreezing.
A drawing of a hand holding a bag with a paint palette, paintbrush, and pair of scissors drawn on the front. Text reads: "Do your students know you're a drag queen?" I asked Rocky. "They know I'm not one of those heterosexuals," she laughed. "My kids may be young, but they're not stupid." "Are you worried about the "Don't Say Gay" laws in Florida that are now bills in our state government?" "Of course I am," she said. "What am I supposed to do if I can't talk about who I am? Some of my students are queer, and some have queer parents." "Some of these legislators think they can just erase us," I said. "And they don't care about the people who are actually trying to erase us with their assault rifles."
A drawing of a hand holding a ruler over red fabric. Text reads: Back at my house, we laid all the art supplies out on the dining room table: her shiny blue scissors, a slew of paintbrushes and sequins. I thought about what Rocky said drag has served in her life. I thought about the Waffle House bathroom, the hopeful melody promising sun i the Annie showtune "Tomorrow," and the audience on their feet for Rocky after she nearly danced off her wig. If I got my tarot cards read on Delmar in that moment, they would indicate that my exhilaration about finding a long-term art project was nearly bubbling over. Everything I had felt after my first performance returned: the giddiness, the popping feeling in the pit of my stomach. While Rocky squirted paints into her new palette, I pressed down a ruler over the bumpy fabric and began slicing it carefully in two.

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Gabe Montesanti
Gabe Montesanti is the author of Brace for Impact: A Memoir (2022), which chronicles her time skating for Arch Rival Roller Derby. She earned her MFA at Washington University in St. Louis in Creative Nonfiction. In 2023, she captured the inaugural title of Mx Pride St. Louis and is at work on an illustrated memoir about her time performing drag.

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