Don't Laugh,
Sweetie
by Don Drewniak
From 1978 to
1999, I had the good fortune of being the
director of the Central Mass Striders’
running club men’s open team. The team’s
first race was at the 1978 eight-man team
Plymouth to Provincetown Eighty-Mile Relay. We
finished third.
The team
placed first for nine consecutive years from 1979–1987
and second in 1988 when a Nike sponsored pick-up
team caught and passed our lead runner in the
middle of the final leg.
That was the
final Plymouth Rock to Provincetown Relay. The
chief of police of one of the towns on the route
refused permission to continue the race citing
that the large numbers of teams (over two hundred)
had become a threat to public safety.
It was either
in 1984 or 1985 that the race was held on the
same October weekend as the Fantasia Fair that
was attended by transvestites from near and far.
I, along with another runner (Ralph), stopped by
the Provincetown Inn early in the evening to pick
up the team trophy and first-place medals for the
eight members of our winning team.
We had a total
of eighteen men’s and women’s teams
that competed in the race. I ran the seventh leg
(fourteen miles) for one of the CMS age 40–49
teams.
I had
previously decided to skip the awards ceremony at
the hotel and instead have dinner with my wife,
Dolores, and anywhere from fifteen to twenty
couples and individuals associated with CMS at
The Mews Restaurant and Cafe in Provincetown.
Driving from
the inn to the restaurant, I spotted a tall woman
(or so I thought) dressed in a long black dress,
arm-length white gloves and spiked high heels.
Topping all this was long, flowing blonde hair.
“Look at
the size of that woman!” I blurted out.
“Look
again,” countered Ralph, “that’s a
guy.”
So it was.
After parkig
the car, Ralph and I found ourselves walking
behind Blondie as he/she entered The Mews. The
restaurant was divided into two sections by a
three-to-four foot wooden partition that ran down
the middle of the interior. Seated to the left
were our CMS runners and family members. To the
right? You guessed it, Fantasia Fair attendees.
All were men dressed as women. They were dressed
to the hilt (to use an expression from decades
long-since past). It was quite the sight.
I should point
out to any “youngsters” reading this
tale that scenes such as occurred at The Mews
were rare back in the 1980s and were considered
by most living in the United States to be
abhorrent behavior.
As luck would
have it, I sat next to my wife, Dolores, with the
separating partition directly behind me. A club
member (we will call him Jeff), who ran on the
same team as I did, was seated directly opposite
me. During the course of the evening he consumed
a beer or two more than he should have. The
result? He made more than a few rather loud
derogatory comments about the Fantasia patrons.
Jeff wasn’t
alone in making comments. Many of these were loud
enough to be heard throughout the room, and most
evoked laughter from our side of the restaurant.
Times were far different in the 80s than they are
today.
The Fantasia
ladies (at least for that night) began to leave
en masse close to eight that evening. Our section
dropped into total silence with everyone looking
beyond me. Meanwhile, I noticed that Jeff picked
up a fork and held it face high in front of him.
I took a
glance behind me. There was Blondie leaning
slightly over the partition with two others
standing on either side of him. He was an inch or
two over six feet in height (6'4'’ or so
with the high heels) and probably weighed about
190. Bright red lipstick, and who knows what
other stuff graced his face. It failed to erase
his masculine features. Blondie’s breasts,
or whatever they might have been, were quite
pronounced.
Staring
directly at Jeff, Blondie said in a loud falsetto
voice, “Don’t laugh, Sweetie, I have a
wife at home who is a knockout.”
Not a sound
other than the clicking of high heels could be
heard as the three walked out of The Mews. All
hell then broke loose.
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