Chapter 1

AfterwordPreface

I hate prefaces. Oh, okay, I get it; this is a preface. But, to be fair, this is my thirteenth novel and first preface, so I’m willing to look the other way. To also be fair, this one is somewhat necessary, and so, I’ll be brief. Though as a writer, brevity really isn’t my strong point. Expounding. Yes, expounding is my thing. At length. And girth. Girthy expounding I prefer. But for the sake of this, yuck, preface, again, I’ll shoot for brief. Or, you know, briefish

Pronouns.

That was brief.

Now comes that aforementioned girthy expounding. See, pronouns fly out the window—on gossamer wings, or at least taffeta—when talking about drag queens. Oh, and, yes, I talk at length about drag queens on the pages that follow. At width, too. At witty width. This book is chockful of drag queens, in fact. Actually, you could choke on the sheer volume of drag queens that follow. Or at least on the girthy ones. But drag queens are men. Men go by the pronouns he and him and his. Except when said men wear dresses. Then said men go by she and her. Such is the case in real life. Such is the case in this real book. Really.

All that is to say, when I’m referring to a drag queen by her drag name, I use feminine pronouns. When I refer to a drag queen by her boy name, I use masculine pronouns. Writing a book is tough business. Writing a book and switching pronouns is lumberjackian. P.S., I’m a writer; I can make up words. Don’t try this at home; please leave it up to the professionals.

To sum it up: drag queen equals she and her; out of drag equals he and him and his. And that’s that. Brief. Ish. Though I suppose I could’ve simply stated that one summation and been done with it, but then look at all the girthy expounding you’d have missed out on.

It’s all about you, dear reader. It’s all about you. 1

Dying inside a whiskey barrel is not how I pictured myself going. Old-age, sure, that would’ve been preferred—highly, even. I’d have also taken: trampled at a Britney concert; crushed after falling off the Eiffel Tower while on a date with Chris Hemsworth— A.K.A. Thored to death; or shot in Texas, mainly because I’ve often said that I’d never be caught dead there. But pickled inside an overly-large oak cask? Yeah, not so much.

To be fair, said cask, at the time, was filled with a rather nicely blended scotch whiskey—and further blended with yours truly, Mary, Queen of Scotch, drag queen extraordinaire and noted private eye. And if you’re thinking that, wow, isn’t it ironic that a drag queen named Mary, Queen of Scotch was about to meet her maker while crammed and jammed inside a whiskey barrel, then you’d be wrong; it would’ve only been ironic had I accidentally found myself inside said barrel, perhaps for a little nip and/or nap, and then got trapped in there—again, accidentally. But there was nothing accidental about being inside that barrel, and so irony, however much a drag queen simply adores it, was nowhere to be found. Ditto for a crowbar or a working cellphone—mine being quite booze-logged by that point—or Chris Hemsworth, in or out of Thor garb.

This all, of course, begs the question: how did an extraordinary drag queen and noted private eye wind up trapped in a rather large whiskey barrel? Ah, see, most of that aforementioned notedwas noted by me, namely on Yelp, and it’s quite extraordinary that I became a drag queen to begin with. In other words, I’m a drag queen and private eye by trade, but those nifty added adjectives are a matter of opinion, mostly mine—and my mom’s.

In other words, my dying in a whiskey barrel isn’t really all that surprising. Sad, to be certain. Awful, you betcha. But surprising, nah, not really. And a five-star rating on Yelp doesn’t do you much good when the barrel lid is nailed shut and you’re very much crowbar/cellphone/Thor-less. It does you even less good when it was you and your mom who left you two of the four Yelp reviews.

Meaning, I was ready to hear Gabriel blow that old horn of his, preferably in a Britney medley, with or without Auto-Tune—preferably with, if only for continuity sake.

Perhaps, I should’ve simply become an accountant. That’s what Dad wanted, Dad also being an accountant. Dad has eighty-seven five-star Yelp reviews, by the way, and I doubt he left any of them. Though Mom probably added a few, Mom being Mom. Plus, accountants rarely get nailed inside whiskey barrels. Mob accountants, maybe, but Dad didn’t work for the mob. Least I don’t think so, what with us being Jewish and all. And while Jews do so love Italian food, that’s not quite the qualifier.