Mark loved the Golden Girls. I think Mark secretly wished he were a drag version of Dorothy Zbornak, wafting around Miami in her chunky jewelry and sloping shoulder pads. Even on September 11, when the entire country was beside themselves with panic, Mark's attention was glued to Lifetime's Golden Girls marathon until that afternoon when my insistent phone calls forced him to change channels and catch up.
I mentioned drag, but Mark didn't do drag that often. Really, he didn't. It's just that at six foot eight, when he did put on a dress, he was so extraordinary that even today his drag persona, Amber Dextris, is one of the first images that come to my mind when his name is mentioned. Mark wore a tea-length black pencil skirt with an enormous copper sequined tunic, worn with a crazy red wig in a spiral perm. He looked like a huge mutant Wynonna Judd.
He wore this lovely ensemble when he begged C and me to accompany him one October evening to "drag bowling night" in Columbus. "Pleeeeease girl... come to drag bowling... it'll be a blast, and we'll go out for Halloween afterward... " It was useless to resist Mark when he begged like that. C had never done drag before, and for good reason. After spending a tempestuous two hours applying makeup (for which the appropriate application tool would clearly have been a trowel), C ended up looking like Bette Davis playing Baby Jane Hudson. I, on the other hand, looked like a thinner version of Lanie Kazan in my huge bouffant. We arranged for the charming company of our friend Lynne, whose costume consisted of a beautifully draped white toga-style dress, sandals, and two enormous cinnamon rolls strapped to the sides of her head. Accompanied by our own low-rent Princess Leia, we stepped out into the dark Columbus night with hopeful anticipation.
The run-down bowling alley crouched, hunkered down, in a neighborhood that looked like it had been built specifically to house a run-down bowling alley. We parked in the cluttered gravel lot and walked briskly inside, careful to dodge the slowly cruising low-rider cars booming hip-hop music through tightly closed, darkly tinted windows. Upon entering, we understood why Mark had begged us to go... other than Mark, we were the only ones in costume. Surrounded by a couple hundred haggard-looking bowlers in what can mercifully be described as "casual attire", we proceeded to spend the next three hours in a futile attempt to sip from domestic beer bottles without smudging our impasto-like lipstick. "Girl, I'm on the gay bowling team... I can't leave until we're done with both games... " It continues to amaze me that Lynne, C, and I made it back to the car in one piece, and that Mark somehow avoided being pummeled to death by Baby Jane Hudson and Princess Leia.
Mark was equally infamous for his pot-soaked dinner parties. Whether the entree was microwaved meatloaf (it looked like an autopsy) or DiGiorno frozen pizza ("DiGiorno's in the kitchen, girl. Help yourself. (belch) "), guests soon learned to adjust their expectations away from the standard dinner party script. He did eventually learn to make a delicious bourbon-glazed ham, but I suspect it took the lure of meat soaked in booze for him to adhere to a recipe. Most parties concluded with Mark splayed out on his sofa, nightshirt pulled up over his head, sawing logs in a weed-induced coma. If one word described Mark, that word was glamour.
The call came just after C and I moved to Madison. "I've got cancer, girl. Something called Burkitt's lymphoma. Sing something pretty at my funeral." (Mark wasn't known for his subtlety.) We rushed to the car and raced back to Ohio, my inner voice quietly but incessantly chanting "no...no...no...no...no...". I had so many things I wanted to tell him, so many sentiments left unexpressed and apologies left untendered. When we got there I saw that the cancer had ravaged his body quickly, his body gradually and inexorably shutting down. The necessity of long and involved discussions immediately dissipated. "I love you" and "I love you too, girl" were all that we said, and were all that was needed. Sometimes, after all the drama, it just boils down to that.
In a few days he was gone. His mother, an enchanting southern woman with a gentle spirit and a salty wit, said at his funeral that there was a hole in her heart that will never be filled again. Mark's loss was a heart-rending one that should by rights be laden with grief, despondency, and a throng of regrets. Instead, all I can summon up are the summer evenings smoking a bowl on the sunporch, mornings playing hooky from work and watching the Golden Girls, crazy Christmas parties with dilapidated local strippers, and long phone conversations consisting of mostly giggling. I recall the many afternoons he spent sitting with me in the hospital waiting room while my dear friend Robin slipped away. I remember sunny holidays hiking through the Smoky Mountains, delighted to be asked the age old Southern question "sweet or unsweet?" when ordering iced tea. When my mind is quiet I can hear his breathless, high-pitched laugh. And if I close my eyes, I can see him in his gargantuan Wynonna Judd outfit, getting ready to bowl another strike for the gay team.
In my mind, he's still here... smoking a bowl, watching the Golden Girls, and wondering why I haven't called in so long. Mark, I miss you, girl. I've left a DiGiorno in the kitchen for you if you're hungry. Help yourself. <(belch)>.
I mentioned drag, but Mark didn't do drag that often. Really, he didn't. It's just that at six foot eight, when he did put on a dress, he was so extraordinary that even today his drag persona, Amber Dextris, is one of the first images that come to my mind when his name is mentioned. Mark wore a tea-length black pencil skirt with an enormous copper sequined tunic, worn with a crazy red wig in a spiral perm. He looked like a huge mutant Wynonna Judd.
He wore this lovely ensemble when he begged C and me to accompany him one October evening to "drag bowling night" in Columbus. "Pleeeeease girl... come to drag bowling... it'll be a blast, and we'll go out for Halloween afterward... " It was useless to resist Mark when he begged like that. C had never done drag before, and for good reason. After spending a tempestuous two hours applying makeup (for which the appropriate application tool would clearly have been a trowel), C ended up looking like Bette Davis playing Baby Jane Hudson. I, on the other hand, looked like a thinner version of Lanie Kazan in my huge bouffant. We arranged for the charming company of our friend Lynne, whose costume consisted of a beautifully draped white toga-style dress, sandals, and two enormous cinnamon rolls strapped to the sides of her head. Accompanied by our own low-rent Princess Leia, we stepped out into the dark Columbus night with hopeful anticipation.
The run-down bowling alley crouched, hunkered down, in a neighborhood that looked like it had been built specifically to house a run-down bowling alley. We parked in the cluttered gravel lot and walked briskly inside, careful to dodge the slowly cruising low-rider cars booming hip-hop music through tightly closed, darkly tinted windows. Upon entering, we understood why Mark had begged us to go... other than Mark, we were the only ones in costume. Surrounded by a couple hundred haggard-looking bowlers in what can mercifully be described as "casual attire", we proceeded to spend the next three hours in a futile attempt to sip from domestic beer bottles without smudging our impasto-like lipstick. "Girl, I'm on the gay bowling team... I can't leave until we're done with both games... " It continues to amaze me that Lynne, C, and I made it back to the car in one piece, and that Mark somehow avoided being pummeled to death by Baby Jane Hudson and Princess Leia.
Mark was equally infamous for his pot-soaked dinner parties. Whether the entree was microwaved meatloaf (it looked like an autopsy) or DiGiorno frozen pizza ("DiGiorno's in the kitchen, girl. Help yourself. (belch) "), guests soon learned to adjust their expectations away from the standard dinner party script. He did eventually learn to make a delicious bourbon-glazed ham, but I suspect it took the lure of meat soaked in booze for him to adhere to a recipe. Most parties concluded with Mark splayed out on his sofa, nightshirt pulled up over his head, sawing logs in a weed-induced coma. If one word described Mark, that word was glamour.
The call came just after C and I moved to Madison. "I've got cancer, girl. Something called Burkitt's lymphoma. Sing something pretty at my funeral." (Mark wasn't known for his subtlety.) We rushed to the car and raced back to Ohio, my inner voice quietly but incessantly chanting "no...no...no...no...no...". I had so many things I wanted to tell him, so many sentiments left unexpressed and apologies left untendered. When we got there I saw that the cancer had ravaged his body quickly, his body gradually and inexorably shutting down. The necessity of long and involved discussions immediately dissipated. "I love you" and "I love you too, girl" were all that we said, and were all that was needed. Sometimes, after all the drama, it just boils down to that.
In a few days he was gone. His mother, an enchanting southern woman with a gentle spirit and a salty wit, said at his funeral that there was a hole in her heart that will never be filled again. Mark's loss was a heart-rending one that should by rights be laden with grief, despondency, and a throng of regrets. Instead, all I can summon up are the summer evenings smoking a bowl on the sunporch, mornings playing hooky from work and watching the Golden Girls, crazy Christmas parties with dilapidated local strippers, and long phone conversations consisting of mostly giggling. I recall the many afternoons he spent sitting with me in the hospital waiting room while my dear friend Robin slipped away. I remember sunny holidays hiking through the Smoky Mountains, delighted to be asked the age old Southern question "sweet or unsweet?" when ordering iced tea. When my mind is quiet I can hear his breathless, high-pitched laugh. And if I close my eyes, I can see him in his gargantuan Wynonna Judd outfit, getting ready to bowl another strike for the gay team.
In my mind, he's still here... smoking a bowl, watching the Golden Girls, and wondering why I haven't called in so long. Mark, I miss you, girl. I've left a DiGiorno in the kitchen for you if you're hungry. Help yourself. <(belch)>.
