Once Upon a Time at The Glass Slipper Lounge
by Greg Ashe

Charles Ming spotted the woman of his dreams at noon one week ago on Friday wearing a long red dress so tight she had to take quick short steps but which looked nice with her blond bee-hive hairdo and thick rimmed glasses that had rhinestones on them and were pointy on the ends. She walked hurriedly down Hollywood Boulevard looking neither right nor left and chewed gum so rapidly it looked as if she were talking to herself knowing that words would not suffice for the things she carried in her lovely mind. And what a coincidence, she walked and talked like he thought: a mile a minute and with no silly illusion that anyone other than himself would ever know about the content held there within because he would never tell, not that he had any secrets really, but his Chinese background made him inscrutable and self contained. Usually he went for dark-haired beauties, and here in Hollywood he could have anything he wanted because this was freak town and everything was available except holiness and goodness and mental health but who wants that kind of stuff anyway? Certainly not him with his skin -tight leather pants and pink alligator shoes and ruffled pirate shirt and driving gloves and bouffant processed died black hair with lots of grease to keep it shiny and locked In place so it would take a hurricane to mess it up which was the reason his honored parents would not let him come home anymore so he became a good hearted predator with even better intentions. He was a gentle person but he knew what he liked and he sure did like Hollywood and he knew this was his kind of town.

Charles or Charlie to his friends used up time like his Buick Road Master used up gas or like the freaks in this town used up space or like seconds used up minutes and minutes used up hours but he would not waste time anymore because he saw her again at three A.M. wearing the same red dress leaving the infamous transvestite lounge where men impersonate famous women and where he said he would never go into because he was not gay and going in there would be like he was gay or something but now he ran to catch up with her but she got into a turnip-colored, mile long Lincoln Continental with gold spinner hub caps and a Royal Blue fur top and a driver wearing a wide brimmed hat with a feather in it. The driver saw him running toward the car and smiled at him and Charlie saw that he had a gold tooth surrounded by thick lips and a goatee so thin he could barely see it. But alas, it pulled away before he could tell her that he loved her and that he would do anything for her and that he lived in Hollywood but was not like all the rest and that he was really a deep thinker and a sensitive lover and a thoughtful housekeeper and a healthy eater and that he knew the difference between right and wrong and that if she knew him she would like him but she would not have to love him because he would love her and that would be enough so he tried opening the door to the lounge but it was past closing time so someone inside had already locked it after the girl in the red dress came out.

He said he would never go into the bar but he did anyway at ten AM and asked the hostess to tell him who the girl in the red dress might be but he was told that kind of information was confidential but since one person quit this morning he could go to work as a female impersonator and meet the girl in red in the dressing room getting ready for work. The hostess he talked to then said his name happened to be Norman but was known as The Fairy God Mother to his friends and that he looked quite beautiful in his costume and said he would bet he would be impressed so Charlie took the job and learned he would be paid to impersonate a woman named Pumpkin “Boom-Boom” Malone; the first woman gunfighter in the wild west and would have to wear an orange cowgirl suit, a green shoulder length wig, green shoes and sparkling red hat. Also for effect he would wear two six-shooters around his waist but would not have to shoot them because they were not real and would not shoot anyway but Charlie did not care what the hostess said because all he wanted was to meet his true love—the girl in the red dress—so he got excited and he asked Norman if the girl were actually a man in disguise but The Fairy God Mother told Charlie; well, he would just have to find out wouldn’t he, and that nice girls do not talk out of school, and patience is a virtue, and gosh what was so great about the skinny little thing in the red dress when here stood a woman of substance but Charlie showed no interest so Norman did not push it and told him he could go on back and check out the dressing room and his costume. And by the way, what kind of music did he want to dance to? Maybe a cowboy song like Vaughn Monroe singing about Ghost Riders in the Sky or High Noon by Tex Ritter but he had till tonight to decide so do not worry about it because here at the Glass Slipper Lounge everyone got along and could do their own thing and not get hassled so that’s what he did.

The dressing room looked posh and Charlie felt important but when he found his closet he noticed that it had the name “Phil” on it and realized the name would have to be changed to his name and then he felt really important and wondered why he had not done this kind of work before. Feeling good he went back out to the bar and asked Norman to change the name on the dressing room closet to which Norman agreed and grabbed a box of letters and headed on back to do it, but wouldn’t you know there were not enough letters so Norman just used what he had and came up a little short on the name Charles and wound up with Char Ming and said that would be fine and do not worry and people would know that it was his closet. He looked for the girl’s closet and he found one with her picture on it but the picture showed her with two other girls tap dancing on a stairway that lead up to a stage with black and white alternating tiles set in diamond patterns on the floor. Two of the girls Charlie had never seen before and they were black girls but the third one he recognized as the girl in the red dress and since she was not black she wore make up to make her look like she might be, sort of like Al Jolson used to do only years ago. And just like Al Jolson all three girls wore top hats and tuxedos with bow ties but instead of slacks they wore short pants with net stockings and cute little tap shoes and the sign on an easel off at the side of the stage explained that it was the Three Step Sisters who were doing all the fancy dancing. And sure enough, there were three closets right together with tuxedos hanging from a bar and top hats on the top shelf, so Charlie knew he had found the girl of his dreams but she looked far too classy for this joint and he thought she could do a whole lot better somewhere else. In other words, Charlie believed the Glass Slipper Lounge just did not fit the girl in the red dress or either of her two friends that she danced with. It appeared, by the names thumb tacked to the closets, their names were Frank, Harry, and Mitch the last one belonging to his girl so it became clear that he loved a girl named Mitch and somehow that seemed odd to him and he thought maybe he wasn’t so deeply in love as he first thought he was and he felt frustrated and deceived although no one ever said Mitch was a girl, but all the same he smashed his fist down on the dressing table knocking over a half full glass of stale beer with no head at all and with a cigarette butt floating in it. The noise sounded loud since no one else was there making any racket so the stage girl came to find out what had happened and it only took one look at her for Charlie to completely forget about the girl, Mitch, and fall head over heels in love with her although she was not classy or confident or pushy or even pretending to be a girl because she really was one which was evident by what he saw under her see-through blouse and by the outline of her body accentuated by her close fitting pink satin short-shorts that looked like they were probably hand-me-downs but she seemed comfortable enough although the boots she wore made her look taller than her actual height . She wore a nametag pinned to her multi colored velvet bowler hat that said her name was Sin-Dee, obviously a stage name or else a take off on her real name which was probably the case but the name fit for this place and she looked right at home so although the Glass Slipper Lounge did not fit Mitch, Frank and Harry, it sure did fit her. Yes, the Glass Slipper Lounge fit the girl who was busy cleaning up his mess.

Sin-Dee told Charlie she hoped she wasn’t interrupting anything but she heard a crashing noise and it was her job to keep the place clean and now that she knew what happened she would go get a broom, a dust-pan, and a mop and please do not worry about a thing because this sort of thing happened all the time and since she had the misfortune to be a real girl she was not allowed to dance and the best she could hope for was to be the stage girl cleaning up after all of these temperamental and messy artists who, if they had not left a half empty glass of beer just sitting around it would not have gotten knocked over, so just relax and if he needed anything to please ask and she would get it for him. Charlie asked Sin-Dee about Mitch and she said she lived with her and her two partners, Harry and Frank and they told her she could never make it on her own and that she needed them and since she came from a place far, far away in the San Fernando Valley, she didn’t know how to live in this big city what with all the mean people who lived here and were ready to take advantage of her so they made sure she had clothes—just look at this nice outfit—food, and a roof over her head so, after all, she felt pretty lucky to have someone to look after her but for some reason every time The Fairy God Mother handed over her pay check she would tell her to go find a place of her own, that living with the Three Step Sisters was not a good idea and she needed to spread her wings and find out who she really was. Norman told her that someday she’d meet her Prince Charming and he would treat her right and not take advantage of her and she would be surprised when she met him because he might not be ravishingly handsome, or rich, or tall, or smart, or even a good dancer but he would treat he like a princess and she would be happy but never mind that, she said, let me help you with your costume since you have not put it on before, have you?

Sin-Dee explained about all the zippers, hooks, Velcro, and laces to Charlie and held the dress while he stepped into it which fit perfectly just like magic and it even had built in falsies so he filled it out nicely and after fitting on the green wig and red cowboy hat and slipping on the sparkly green shoes he somehow felt transformed and realized how the word transvestite came to be and how he now was one even if it was just a job, and temporary at that, but despite himself he felt pretty and wished he could dress like this all the time and if he had Sin-Dee to live with him and help him dress and to clean up after himself he might be a happy Chinese guy and maybe his venerated parents would allow him to return home again. He had not introduced himself to Sin-Dee yet so she snuck a peek at the name on his closet, so he wouldn’t think she was prying, and the name she saw struck her a blow so powerful she had to sit down which was not easy in her short-short pants and her lace-up platform Hollywood-hooker boots but with Charlie’s help she made it and after a few minutes she came around and told him she knew he would come and that she would be his forever and why didn’t he tell her right away and not keep her waiting? That was when Mitch came in wearing the same but very messy red dress and his blond bee-hive wig was all loose and nearly falling off his head and his makeup had disappeared so Charlie could see he was not pretty after all but had a crooked nose and the start of a beard because he had been out all night partying and he had a stubby cigar clamped between his yellow teeth so Charlie wondered what he was thinking when he fell head over heels for such an ugly girl, but she sure did look nice from a distance so he cut himself some slack. Mitch yelled at Sin-Dee to get his cold cream out of the drawer and to get his blue dress ready and his short purple pixie wig and his white Capezio tap dancing shoes but Sin-Dee said no, that her Prince Charming had come to take her away so she could just kiss her behind and take a flying you-know-what for all she cared then she looked at Charlie and told him to tell Mitch wasn’t that right but Charlie only stood and stared and couldn’t believe what was happening around him so he asked Mitch what he thought of his Pumpkin “Boom-Boom” Malone outfit and did it make him look fat or old? He said he sure did like wearing it and he sure had fallen for Sin-Dee but gosh didn’t she work for everyone in the show? Mitch knew how to dominate a scene so he slapped Charlie hard across the face and then punched him in the eye making a mouse appear and then he told him to take off the orange dress, that he wasn’t fit to wear it and now he had a mouse under his eye so he was too ugly to perform and then Charlie realized that a mouse had been his ticket out of this dangerous predicament and he went out to explain the situation to The Fairy God Mother which was the best thing he could have done because the old Miss Pumpkin came back and now Charlie no longer had a job so he’d be out of the closet and back on the street.

The sun blinded Charlie for a minute when he stepped out onto Hollywood Boulevard but he could hear Sin-Dee chasing after him in her clumsy boots having to take two and a half quick short steps to his every one so he stopped and waited for her to catch up. She reached him and put her arm in his and told him she loved him and would go anywhere with him and it would be way cool if they had a nice coach to ride in to go to his apartment so she could see her new home and so they could snuggle because Charlie had not told her about his Buick Road Master yet and for some reason she just assumed he did not own a car. That is when Charlie heard a short beep from a horn and put his hand over his eyes to block the sun and was able to see the turnip-colored Lincoln waiting at the curb with the driver smiling at him and motioning for him to come on over to the window so he could hear him offer a ride since that ugly, old, fey sister Mitch would be busy for the next six hours and he even got out and went around to open the back door for the beautiful new couple to enter with style. As the driver stood there holding the door Charlie saw how nice he looked in his sheep skin colored suit with its padded shoulders and bellbottom pants, the lavender ruffled tuxedo shirt buttoned at his neck out of which came a pencil thin chartreuse neck tie, the red and black patent leather pointed wing tip shoes on his feet, the exaggeratedly wide purple hat cocked onto the side of his head at a precarious angle sporting the same many colored peacock feather as he had last night, and the respectful manner in which he displayed his shinny gold tooth as he smiled, reminding Charlie of the sun coming up in the morning. For accent the driver had installed a long golden chain to his belt loop and it was so long it reached down to his knee before it came back up to disappear into his pocket. But his elegant manner did not deter his sense of professionalism nor did it detract from his courteous, service oriented style.

Once the two lovers were comfortably seated in their ride, and after the perfect driver closed the solid sounding Lincoln door, and after the climate control got set to Sin-Dee’s comfort level, and after a suitable compact disk—Bird Songs From the Canadian Northwest—was inserted in the stereo, and after the glass partition was raised between the passenger compartment and the driver, the car pulled away from the curb which is when Sin-Dee turned and asked her man a simple question. “What just happened? What did you say to The Fairy God Mother back there? Is she really cool with me just walking out like this?

Charlie told his true love, “I just told her I’d take care of you for the rest of our days, and that I’ll treat you like the princess that you are. I asked if that was okay with her.”

“What did she say to that?” asked Sin-Dee, or Cindy now that they were out of that cesspool of a nightclub.

“She said,” answered Charlie, “You had better, young man. You had better be the Prince Charming I’ve been telling her about or I’ll find you and take her back. Can you live up to that?”

“What was your answer, sweetie,” Cindy asked.

“I said that I could” said Charlie. “I told her my life has been a mess up until now, and that I haven’t had a moment’s peace until you came along. Will you be my Cinderella?”

“Honey, I don’t know if you really are Prince Charming or not, but you’ll do until the real one comes along.” …..True love always is and always will be the happiest ending of all….