Chapter One: Welcome to New York City CHAPTER ONE Welcome to New York City "Don''t you fall," Aja warned, rushing Esai Andino toward the J train, their high heels scraping along the pavement. Putting Esai in the shoes had been a risk. Even in sneakers, the fourteen-year-old boy tripped--over curbs, steps, nothing at all--pretty much every day. The fat cans of Four Loko they''d polished off while getting ready in Aja''s room hadn''t helped Esai''s composure. As soon as their makeup was dry, seventeen-year-old Aja had rushed Esai out the door and into the cold night: two Brooklyn teenagers in search of attention, cash, and adventure in the big city. Then the pair turned a corner and, sure enough, Esai''s ankle rolled. He screeched and keeled over. Fall 2011 had been mild, but in the evening chill his breath was visible in small puffs.
Esai leaned on Aja as they hobbled into the station and up the stairs. It was their first night out in Manhattan as drag queens. Their first night trying the thing they''d been talking about for months. Earlier that day, Aja had earned fifteen dollars reading a woman''s tarot cards and used the money to buy Esai a pair of gold sparkly heels. Esai paced on the train platform, shivering and limping slightly. He had on black tights and a star-print skirt over a polka-dot bathing suit. Aja, who had been raised as a boy but prefers the pronouns "she" or "they," was wearing a floral shirt she''d made for a class project at the High School of Fashion Industries. They arrived at Bar-Tini on Tenth Avenue in Hell''s Kitchen early, to avoid getting carded.
A drag queen named Holly Dae, who''d recently changed her name from Holly Caust, was hosting a competition for newcomers called Beat That Face! In the drag world, "beat" could be a noun or a verb meaning a face of makeup or the act of applying makeup. Esai had chosen a drag name: Naya Kimora, because he loved Kimora Lee Simmons, the fashion designer and former wife of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. Aja''s name came from the chorus of a catchy Bollywood song. The other queens there had on long dresses and shiny, blond, expensive-looking wigs. Aja and Esai should have felt out of place--conspicuously underage and unpolished--but alcohol had steadied their nerves. The bar filled up. When it was Esai''s turn to perform, he collected himself at the center of the stage and waited for the DJ to cue his music. The drums began, and Esai started swinging his hips, turning slowly in a circle.
Esai lip-synched as JLo sang, "Let all the heat pour doooown." The shoes chewed into Esai''s feet. The beat hit. He ignored the throbbing in his ankle, kicked his leg in front of him, pivoted, and began to twerk. People in the room tittered and politely cheered. "Dance for your man," JLo commanded. "Put your hands up in the air-air-air--whoa oh-oh-oh," she sang. It was a good thing the words were simple, because he had not practiced.
Esai left the stage panting and joined Aja, who had performed "Judas" by Lady Gaga, a song about toxic love, with dark synths and a wailing chorus. Brave and foolish, these two New York City children had done something many older, wiser, and more experienced queers would never dare attempt. They''d gotten into drag, walked into a bar, and jumped onstage, without hesitation and with very little concern for the consequences. They were new, and they were rough around the edges, but even in this utterly amateur moment they had the priceless combination of guts and hunger that helped seemingly small people do big, scary things. Kicking and twirling while lip-synching in front of an audience felt like flying. Aja lived with her mom on Hopkins and Throop in Brooklyn, where hipster Williamsburg met working-class Bushwick. She was adopted and her father had moved out when she was young. "I was wild," she would later say about her childhood.
At seven, she ran away from the babysitter, and when the police found her on the playground, Aja lied and told the cops her mother had left her there. Later, when Aja locked the door to her bedroom, her mom kicked it in. As a teenager, she dyed the family pug, Gizmo, blue with a spray bottle full of Kool-Aid and once threw an ice cube into a deep fryer in a manic desire to see what would happen. What happened was third-degree burns on her face that healed into bumpy pink scars. People were always coming for Aja over her scars, her asthmatic wheezing, her swishy walk. Even old ladies on the street would offer unsolicited recommendations for clearer skin. "It''s not acne," Aja would try to explain, and then sigh, "Oh, never mind." But Aja could give as good as she got.
Bigger boys threw punches and skateboards, Aja threw them back. Aja was a pariah but talented. By twelve she was hanging out on the East River piers, where queer kids from across the borough gathered to listen to music, trade insults, and dance. Aja was a natural, quickly learning to vogue, kick, and duck-walk as the other kids cheered her on. When Aja wasn''t running the streets, she''d stay up all night perfecting sketches of Pokémon and Mortal Kombat characters. She could read a bitch to tears. Aja met Esai, whose family occupied a crowded one-bedroom apartment a few blocks away, about a year before that first night out in drag. All the gay boys from the neighborhood crossed paths eventually.
At the time, Esai was dating Timothy, a kid Aja knew from Fashion Industries. It wasn''t really Aja''s business, but she liked Esai and she couldn''t stand the thought of him going out with someone with a boxy face, bad skin, and terrible breath. When Timothy heard Aja had been talking shit and threatened to fight her, Aja''s response was a cool "Bitch, you''re nothing more than gum on the street to me." Aja was not faking. Anyone who''d spent sixteen years disobeying a no-bullshit, always-yelling Puerto Rican mother wouldn''t be scared of much either. After a few months, Aja''s dogged campaign against Timothy paid off. Esai showed up at Aja''s house to talk about his "boy troubles" (some kid had sent Esai a Facebook message saying he''d been sleeping with Timothy, too) and they bonded over their disgust for Esai''s--now ex--boyfriend. Aja felt protective of Esai.
No one seemed to be looking out for him. Some of his close family members were moody and unpredictable--raging one day and sulking the next. Others were like ghosts in the house; the only signs of life were the liquor bottles they hid in the couches and cabinets. Esai''s grandmother, who was from the Dominican Republic, tried to look out for him as best she could, but Esai, feminine and quiet, was basically on his own. Before he was old enough to grow facial hair, he was taking the train to gay house parties in the Bronx where he''d lie about his age and guzzle alcohol. Esai and Aja started hooking up. They''d both been with guys before, but this felt different. Aja wasn''t used to being with someone so young.
She thought she could help Esai avoid some of the struggle and drama she''d gone through. For a while, they were a good match. While Aja sometimes tried to butch up, Esai never hid his girlishness. "I did not give a shit what anyone had to say," Esai later said about those early years. Ever since he was a little boy, he loved lip gloss and short shorts. His mother would buy him oversized pants and, by the time he was twelve, he was having friends with sewing machines tailor them to show off his ass and thighs. He wondered if he liked rainbows and sparkly clothes because he was actually a woman. In seventh grade, he asked a gynecologist about a prescription for female hormones.
The doctor referred him to a therapist. Esai later said this was how he figured out that, no, he wasn''t a woman, he just "wanted to look so soft and cunt" and, to him, that meant manicured nails, crop tops, and a big rhinestone Victoria''s Secret bag. As a kid, Aja would sometimes steal her cousin''s skirt and line her lips in dark red to do a furious impression of the crass, no-nonsense former supermodel and America''s Next Top Model judge Janice Dickinson falling down the stairs. Aja loved people like Janice Dickinson and Tiffany Pollard, who were fun to watch on TV. "I was always very thoroughly entertained by people who just didn''t really give a fuck," she later said. The impression had her family howling with laughter and Aja basked in the attention. But it wasn''t until 2011, after Aja and Esai had been hanging out for about six months, that she began to consider calling herself a drag queen. One of the trans girls at the piers told Aja that drag queens made money giving lip sync shows at gay bars in Manhattan.
Aja and Esai had both heard of drag queens--men who dressed up as women and performed songs onstage--but they had never really paid them much attention. Now, Aja was intrigued. Money was always tight at home, but it had gotten especially so lately. A few years before, bullies had broken Aja''s arm, and her mom had stayed with her in the hospital, missing so much work she lost her job. They lived close to the poverty line, but what set them apart from many other families in the neighborhood was the fact that Aja''s mom owned her house. It was the foundation of their security and their relationship, the thing that protected them when Aja''s dad left. After her mom lost her job she couldn''t afford her storage space, and so she moved what felt like fifty Tupperware containers full of holiday decorations and old clothes into the house. These hoarding tendencies, her mom''s refusal to throw away something she''d paid money for, had caught up with them and, just as they were at their poorest, they were surrounded by stuff.
At one point, Aja came home to find that the lights ha.