“Blue Shadow”

By Christine Stoddard

Southern city streets are silent on Sundays. Churches shake withthe sounds of heaving organs, fervent clapping, and tearful screams of praise, but the roads remain deserted. Even the squirrels rest fromcollecting their acorns. Sunday, the Bible reminds Virginia through Texas, is sacred. Only atheists, Jews, and Candy Loo ignore this.Candy Loo parked himself on a rickety bench just facing SacredHeart Cathedral. The final bell rang as a five-member family scrambledinside, the mother dragging the smallest and most reluctant child bythe hand. The father held the door open for them all. Then the five of them disappeared into the house of wafers and wine. Candy Loopopped an unsalted peanut into his mouth. The salted kind cost toomany pennies extra. He would rather spend that money on the outsideof his mouth. The mouth boasted full lips, the kind that even saltiest peanutscould only slightly deflate. The lips looked soft and smooth. And for allthe time Candy Loo spent exfoliating and applying strange, Europeancreams to them, it was no surprise. Candy Loo colored his lips the mosttempting shade of red—not vampishly red or red light district red. Itwas a lush red, like fresh fruit syrup. His lips deserved to be kissed.And you wanted to kiss them. You did not, however, want to kiss the rest of the face. The smalleyes gleamed black and nasty, even when Candy Loo smiled thesincerest of smiles. Nobody could trust those eyes under anycircumstances. The large, crooked nose craned over the fruity lips. Ablue shadow darkened the cheeks and chin. Shaggy, bleach blondehair hung straight down the sides of Candy Loo’s face, making itappear even longer and thinner. It was a witch’s face, minus theunfortunate warts.As one’s eyes traveled downward, they noted the thick neck thatalso bore a blue shadow of stubble. Nothing about it alluded to thewhite and slender neck of a swan. The Adam’s apple protruded as if Candy Loo himself had gagged on a bite from the Tree of Knowledge. The broad, bony shoulders nearly burst out of the women’s extra-largeblouse the man usually wore. A stray hair or two poked out from theholes in the blouse’s delicate lace. The chest was a man’s, the handswere a man’s. The invisible waist, the narrow hips…they all belongedto a man.

Yet Candy Loo never identified himself as a man. At least notanymore. Ever since high school, he shaved his legs, pulled onpantyhose, and wore the biggest stilettos you ever saw. So desperatelydid he want to shed his birth given sex and shine at his senior prom ina taffeta gown. He dreamed of a shimmering silver dress with aluxurious train. And in his dreams that gown remained. His parents saidhe would either go in a tux with a nice neighborhood girl or not at all.Candy Loo made his choice and, thus, did not attend his prom. Then, the day of graduation, he dropped his birth name andbecame Candy Loo, the most pathetic drag queen in all of Richmond.When the school principal called out “Harvey Lomax, Salutatorian”during the ceremony, Candy Loo remained seated. The auditorium’smood fell from celebratory to horrified. The Valedictorian extended hisspeech on the whim as a quick cover-up but nobody listened. They onlypeered over at Harvey, with their confusion slowly evolving into puredisgust.His father never forgave him. His mother skipped the graduationreception afterward and walked to the car, crying. Candy Loo’s parentsrevoked his college tuition and told him to pay his own way. So CandyLoo decided not to go at all. Instead, he hitchhiked across the countryfor a few years, supporting himself as a dancer for gay bars and awaiter for straight ones. Every drag queen he saw surpass him in theirglorious femininity. Fatigued and thoroughly jealous of all the she-menstars that outshone him, Candy Loo eventually returned to Virginia. Noone asked where he had been because no one remembered him. OnlyHarvey Lomax existed in their minds.But Candy Loo was no longer Harvey Lomax. Harvey Lomax worecool Levi’s jeans and impeccable polos, with his hair gelled back, justas his mother expected. Harvey Lomax made out with tittering girls toconvince his father that he had a libido. Harvey Lomax was a track starand Honor Roll student because that’s what his older brother had been.Harvey Lomax was a liar and a huge disappointment only to himself.Candy Loo abandoned polos and girls and conventionaleducation and organized sports. Rather, Candy Loo embraced thriftstore duds, sloppy men, his public library card, and walking around citystreets for exercise. That may have worked for him in Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco, but it wouldnot work for him in Richmond. Not if he wanted a roof over his head.“I’ve had a roof over my head long enough,” Candy Loo hissedwhen the twelfth potential landlord with whom he had scheduled anapartment tour slammed the door in his face. Two facts existed: 1) No respectful Christian Southerner would

tolerate a drag queen in his building. 2) Candy Loo would not change.So Candy Loo begged during the day and slept in the park atnight. He carried around a coffee can he had painted pink, shaking it atall passersby and putting on his best falsetto:“Ma’am, mister—ya got some change ta spare? Anythin’!Anythin’ will do!”People either responded with pity at his crooked fake eyelashesand overwhelming perfume, or they condemned him for pretending tobe what they believed he was not.“Such a sick man.”“Look at him. He think he a woman.”“Couldn’t he at least shave the hair off his face?”“Faggot. Fucking faggot.”Sometimes, after a long day of begging, Candy Loo would walkpast his childhood home and wonder about his family. Had his fatherfinally retired from the university? Had his mother started up thatcatering business like she always hoped? Was his brother married,living out in the suburbs somewhere? Maybe they had all died andCandy Loo was the only surviving member of the Lomax clan. Yet hewas no longer a Lomax.On this gray Sunday, Candy Loo had already been awake forhours as pious Richmonders scrambled into church. He had alreadysurveyed all of the empty stores with their richly adorned windows,reapplied his lipstick sixteen times, and gone through two bags of plainpeanuts. Since the public library was closed, the only thing left to dowas beg. People, he knew, usually exhibited vain generosity on theSabbath.At noon, the congregation scuttled out of Sacred Heart, filling thestreet like James River crabs in the summertime. Candy Loo threw hisempty peanut bag on the ground and picked up his pink can. Time togo crabbing.“Ma’am!” he called out in his high-pitched drawl. A short, middle-aged woman sporting a garish lavender hat spun around.“Can I help you?” she asked through tightly pursed lips.“Got any change to spare, please?” The woman instinctively clutched her purse. “I just gave to the