Beauty School Revenge at Miss High Femme Frankies
By Devon Devine
My punk rock boyfriend just started beauty school at Miss High Femme Frankies, the classiest queerest styling school on the West Coast. Situated in the heart of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, not only could you get a haircut from a budding stylist, you could purchase counterfeit pills and make friends with a queen named Bubbles holding a protest sign that read ‘Sexy is as Sexy Does.’ The decor was a cross between a vintage American Apparel back-page advertisement and a Patrick Nagel retrospective, which seemed appropriate for an institution spending hours discussing asymmetrical bangs and drag queen brows.
My baby comes home every night and talks about shampoo this and condition that and blending this and blow dry that. He named himself Crisbolene after my favorite Tracy and the Plastics song because I, as a reigning chubby superstar, can settle for nothing less than the most trendy. I tell him to learn only the most postmodern methods of hairstyling to add to his many talents as a witty chef, deadpan comedian, and most importantly — double agent to my competitor. His many talents go a long way in saving me money to afford living my extravagantly fabulous lifestyle. My market rate million dollar mission rent-controlled flat is the envy of my peers and, most importantly, Public Enemy #1: Xavier Abrelaboca Marinata.
Mister Boca, as he is known, is my personal competitor around here, flaunting his skinny brown ass around like people care. As if that’s not bad enough, when he found out about Crisbolene and our torrid love affair (the beginnings of which are another story entirely involving a grange hall, the state of Alaska, and a dyke in drag) he went out and got himself Pollo — a houseboy he pawns off as a lover — when both you and I know that no one, not even for money, would touch Mister Boca’s drug-infested loins. And that’s saying a lot, because I love drugs and loins.
Crisbolene’s spying led him to find out Pollo was actually a talented yet basic adversary. He could do everything my Crisbolene could do but more — including runway modeling, fashion design, and reality television cameraperson.
One day, the utterly adorable Crisbolene comes home to inform me of their first test — a competition with a special guest judge who will crown the winner class reigning queen (and everyone else a stylist failure). The competition will put the students’ doll heads through rigorous workouts which intend to test the doability, durability, and overall fuckability of the style.
Now let’s get a few things straight (so to speak). Crisbolene and I are in love, and his weekly stipend is by no means a salary. It’s just a way to cover our mutual needs. Secondarily, while I don’t believe in pitting gay against gay in a learning environment, there can only be one winner, and it must be Crisbolene — no matter what it takes. Thirdly, since I must be the most beautiful, rebellious, and vindictive fatboy faggot this side of the San Andreas fault, I decide that I must do anything I can to eliminate the competition — including forsaking my values (just a little bit) in order to outstyle and outfashion Mister Boca’s houseboy weapon.
“What hairstyle should I give my head?” Crisbolene asks me during our nightly hummer. With my mouth full, and in an attempt to not ruin the moment, I open up just a bit wider and say “BAHHHB.” I clamp down nice and tight on the second ‘B,’ proving, once again, my ultimate versatility in a) problem solving with a cock in my mouth, b) uttering my personal favorite hairstyle, all while c) bringing Crisbolene to a finish.
“Yeah! A bob! Retro is so postmodern,” he exclaimed and immediately pulled up his briefs to begin planning his award-winning haircut. From ‘graduated bobs’ to ‘one-length bobs’ to ‘mod bobs,’ so many decisions had to be made in order to be crowned Reigning Queen of Miss High Femme Frankies.
I am fully confident that Crisbolene has his nut licked in a chair with this competition, but apparently he’s worried. “Exactly why is Mister Boca your Public Enemy #1?” Crisbolene asks me one night after two piña coladas and a mutual handy.
As we basked in the afterglow I began telling the tale of how I first came across Xavier Abrelaboca Marinata in our roles as brown punk rock superstars trying to make it in the San Francisco underground. He was a DJ at a drag bar, and I was a budding chubby fashionista promoting the one-off rock ‘n roll show at dirty dives across the city. I didn’t even think I was on his radar, but apparently he was coming for me. He was the ultimate in pretentious basic fashion skinny priv — nerdcore to the level of looking like a creep. After meeting him a few times and him pretending not to remember my name, I realized a) he was not my people and b) Xavier Abrelaboca Marinata was a pretentious dick.
It just so happened that Mat, my handsome and smart-ass best friend, was on Mister Boca’s record label with his band Faggag. Think cool ass queers from the Northwest now transplanted to the Bay in full-on lumberjack-inspired fashion playing garage-rock ballads. Mister Boca had organized a record label showcase that Faggag was playing at the leather bar, and Mat enlisted me to promo the show to my fans.
Yes, I had fans, which was mostly a steady following among lesbians who frequented the local dyke bar and loved drugs as much as me.
As I passed out flyers in between searching the internet for online skater porn, I came across a blog post Mister Boca had written about the upcoming show. In an attempt to befriend a local brown queer punk, I wrote a very friendly comment on his post:
Can’t wait for this show! See you queerwads in the pit!
As quickly as a good boofing before a dinner party, a response popped up to my comment. It was direct from the mouth of Mister Boca Himself!
Maybe stay out of the pit, honey, it’s already hard enough to get around you. Please stick to the bumps and the lines that yr used to.
THE FUCK! As I was coming to terms with the fact that he finally acknowledged me (while processing his cleverly worded insult), all i could do was respond with my fat faggot manifesto:
I am young. I am fat. And i can do whatever the fuck I want.
But as I always say — keep your friends close and your frenemies closer, and this was definitely landing Mister Boca in frenemy territory. I began moving through what I thought I should be feeling after someone basically calls you out as a fat cokehead. Yet, the more I pondered his cocaine ”Waterfalls” allusion, the more I thought he wasn’t totally wrong. I respect a TLC reference describing my lifestyle of excess, and that’s when it hit me like a jolly rancher in a Zima:
“I was World Famous in San Francisco! This town ain’t big enough for the both of us — and it ain’t me who’s gonna leave!”
“And that is how Mister Boca ended up as my Public Enemy #1. He’s got nothing on me — and Pollo has nothing on you,” I tell Crisboline. “Stand strong, focus on yr mod bob, and you will win the competition!”
The competition is one fierce Chaz Bono! From threatening phone calls in the middle of the night to poisonous snakes in people’s lockers, these girls are serious about hair. “May the Best Bitch Rule School” is what I think, knowing that while my rock ‘n roll Crisbolene may appear approachable and demure, he has the longest fighting claws these pussies have ever seen.
Then the day arrives.
All the students are lined up, dressed in obligatory all-black uniforms, awaiting the special guest judge. As the clock struck 5:30pm, in walked none other than the wise one herself, the racial barrier breaker in the flesh, our favorite mainstream fat ally of love: Tyra Fawkin Banks! For a moment, as the class tried to make sense of her Victoria’s Secret push up bra and how the angel beast herself was standing just a few feet from us, all was silent. Then, they all freaked. “Tyra! Oh Tyra, I knew it would be you!” “Those legs are even longer in person, girl!” “Tyra, please, pick me!” All at once everyone gushed over her, and Tyra the Wise took it all in stride as she began her judging.
“Each of these dollheads represents your class status at Miss High Femme Frankies. By the end of the day, one of you will be eliminated” — this part wasn’t true, she was confused, but nobody corrected her — ”All of you, through your haircuts, need to show me how bad you want this. Show me you need to be here. Show me you want to be America’s Next Top Faggot Hair Stylist!”
Some students gasped. Others just started uncontrollably sobbing. My Crisbolene stared down Pollo in a final attempt at intimidation. Two topless male models wearing pink bow ties and black sequin booty shorts delivered a doll head full of hair to each student.
“Good luck my young cosmetologists!” Tyra the Wise blurted, and with nothing more than a few dozen hair clips, a pair of scissors, a styling comb, and a dream, the students at Miss High Femme Frankies put their hairstyles to the test.
I’ll spare you the details of petty treason, backstabbing, bad bleaching, and Tyra the Wise one-liners that occurred over the course of the next three hours. When all was said and done, thirteen hairstyles stood before us — most notably Crisbolene with a ‘mod bob’ and Pollo with a layered asymmetrical ‘do. As Tyra the Wise asked her final elimination questions, more students slowly sunk back, realizing they would never have the chance to be Reigning Queen. Even simple descriptions of their haircut could get them booted.
“I dyed my doll’s hair black with red highlights to represent the giddy feeling you get when you recognize people in the internet porn you’re watching.”
“I’m very sorry,” Tyra the Wise would explain, “Because while I see that feeling represented in your hairstyle, you should know that, as a hairstylist, you never ‘dye’ hair, you color. Or tint. I am not convinced you want this badly enough. I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you.”
And with the snap of a finger, the buff pink bowtied men whisked away the doll head and stylist to a backroom where they could watch the finalists on a TV monitor with buttered popcorn and vodka martinis.
This moment all lead up to the final two students — my tragically hip yet modest rocker boyfriend Crisboline versus the venereal-looking two-faced houseboy-lover of Public Enemy # 1: Pollo. As Tyra the Wise stepped into the spotlight to declare Miss High Femme Frankies’ Reigning Queen, the anticipation of the winning announcement was insignificant to me, as I already knew the answer.
The moral of the story:
While revenge can be sweet, so is paying off an A-List model turned celebrity reality-TV-show star to get what you want.
The End
