Candy Cane, the gay Mexican

An excerpt from BAD MOVIES, my paperback novel

(It's the 1970s, and the movie studio is an old barn in the desert)

Parting a plastic tarp, and stepping into the barn aisle, a man said, "Hi!" He was cute-as-buttons. He had brown-skin with pouty lips and heavy-lidded eyes sporting shiny blue eye shadow. He walked up to us.

"Poof," Bod scoffed.

He ignored Bod as if he wasn't even there. His eyeballs went obstinately the other way. "I'm Candy Cane," he introduced himself to me, "and I'm bad." I nervously held out my hand so he could see my new pink press-on nails. "I need to take your measurements for the costume," he continued.

"You sew?" I asked.

"I do everything around here. You name it, I do it. It's all very serious, man."

He wrapped me tightly in his tape measure.

I asked, "You Mexican or what?"

"You ca-ca?"

"You don't sound like it," I marveled. "You don't have a funny speedy little type accent; you sound American." Then I had a flash of lucid memory. "I used to live in Mexico. Or I visited there once with Mom. It was hot and the gardens on each side of the sidewalk grew like crazy and everything smelled like flowers and I told Mom that I loved flowers, but she already knew how girly I was. And for some reason, I was wearing a dress!"

Candy Cane looked at me in worry and put his hand over my forehead, like I really would be all right. He said, "American is a really screwed up language. Seriously. But I manage. The other day, a car tried to run me over in the crosswalk, and I yelled at it that I was a pedophile. I thought it meant I loved to walk. Then I realized I wasn't a pedophile at all, but was a pedestrian. Who would have known they were different."

"I love corn chips. My favorite brand is Corny Peso. Does that make me an honorary Mexican?"

He put his hand up to check me for a fever again.

I felt stupid, so I blurted out, "I hope I'm not too fat."

The plastic tarp slapped aside, again. An older thick-necked man walked through. He'd been poking at a little futuristic calculator but put his hand out for shaking. "You must be Jilly," he greeted me warmly.

"Yep I am," I said, "and you must be Oscar, the owner of this nice place." I tried not to stare at his hair, or what little there was of it. He was bald on top with wiry tufts of grey hair around his ears, and,I dared notice, some of it was coming out of his ears. Candy Cane looked at him like he was dirt, turned way, and left us.