A Retrospective
By Mansfield Frazier
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
-Bob Dylan, “Maggie’s Farm”
Not for nothing was the stretch of Scovill Avenue (renamed Community College Avenue in the mid-’60s due in large part to its notorious reputation) where I was raised was called The Dirty Thirties. Back in the day it was the heart — and just as importantly, the soul —of the old Central neighborhood. But to us, “Central” was that next street north of Scovill where nothing much happened.
During the period when I was coming of age back in the 1950s, all of the action — the bars, after-hours joints, pool halls, gambling spots, outdoor crap games, and yes, the ho stroll — was on Scovill Avenue, between 30th and 37th Streets. My father owned Kings Tavern and Grill, a beer joint (which sat next door to the pool room he also had a controlling interest in) that we lived upstairs over on the corner of 31st and Scovill.
His after-hours drinking and gambling joint (a quiet and orderly place where rooms were rented by the hour to hookers) was located in a ramshackle — at least from outward appearances, but on the inside it was relatively plushy appointed — house that sat on a separate lot behind the bar. A church deacon, my father not only admitted to no knowledge of the existence of the establishment, let alone his ownership of it. Indeed, I never knew him to ever set foot in the place.
During the summer of 1955, when my road dogs and I (Junior Wells and Gene Booker were, in actuality, more like road puppies) tired of tearing through the neighborhood on our bikes we’d end up back at my house mainly because my mother kept a well-stocked larder, and they both were from large families where food could sometimes be a bit scarce. And besides, our upstairs apartment overlooked what was perhaps the busiest intersection on the inner-city east side of Cleveland.
That year we spent a bit of time almost daily looking out of the side living room window as construction workers built the first new building in the Central neighborhood in probably 50 years, right across 31st Street: It was to become the somewhat infamous — to some, even notorious — Silk’s Bar.
Watching the big heavy equipment clear the lot, and then all of the men come in to dig the foundation, lay the bricks, and then construct the roof … all of this made such an indelible impression on me at such a tender age that even today I’m probably most happy and content when I’m in a pair of well-worn work boots, sloshing around in the mud and muck of a construction site. I simply love the smell of fresh cut pine lumber.
In spite of the fact that Silk’s was brand new and relatively upscale, my father’s dumpy (by comparison) joint still attracted far more customers … some no doubt out of loyalty, and others probably for the lower prices my father charged. One of the first lessons of business I learned from him was that competition is good; having another watering hole in proximity attracted more drinkers to his tavern, not less.
Nonetheless, Silk’s struggled along financially for a number of years, and rumor had it that the bar was about to go under, that is, until the adult son of old man Bob Roberts — the man who had built the business — came up with a very unique idea: Turn it into a drag queen bar.
Now, in these changing times, I don’t know if the term “drag queen” is still politically acceptable. If not, I sincerely apologize to anyone who might be offended, but back then that’s what we called it, and certainly meant no offense. With that said, the term is quite a bit more concise than saying, “a bar for transgender individuals.” In any case, the idea was a sure-fire smash hit.
By 1957 “queens” from all over the city — and other cities too — were packing Silk’s on a nightly basis. A stage was built and the songs of jazz and R&B greats such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Ruth Brown came wafting out of the bar as the animated “entertainers” lip-synced while decked out in fancy dresses and other, more outrageous, costumes.
Prostitutes had worked the other side of Scovill Avenue since before I was born, but when the queens began working a ho stroll of their own in front of Silk’s, more cars, many of them being driven by white “tricks” from the suburbs, soon began lining up, the men beckoning to one or another of the five or six queens that were always strutting their stuff in spiked-heeled shoes and fancy skirts slit way, way up the side.
Truth be told, the female hookers on the other side of the street looked plain, pedestrian, and kind of sad by comparison. They could have taken some cues from the queens in terms of the packaging and marketing of their wares and services.
The already lively stretch of Scovill Avenue became much livelier that year as Silk’s literally became party central — and not just on weekends like most neighborhood bars: it was on full blast six nights a week (during that time blue laws prevented most bars from opening on Sundays). Therein lay the difference in profit margin that made old man Roberts wealthy: Six nights a week of high revenues, rather than just two or three.
* * *
My little crew and I were working our way through puberty (that stage in a boy’s life where everything is hilarious) and we had a front row seat out that side window, overlooking the lighted deck that had recently been built behind Silk’s where the coiffed queens congregated during the summer of my 14th year. I think they loved the fact we were providing them with an audience, and they could become quite bitchy towards each other on a fairly regular basis.
“You’re too ugly to be a man, and you want to be a woman?” was one of the insults one of the more effeminate queens (who went by the name of “Juicy”) hurled at another queen, a rather large man who worked construction during the day but immediately changed over to a dress and heels when he got off work. “Look at you,” Juicy could be heard practically screaming. “Your hands are rougher than number two sandpaper!” They did tend to do quite a bit of dramatic screaming on occasion, and we laughed our asses off.
Among the most elegantly dressed and outrageously flamboyant queens was Penny, who also was among the dozen or so transsexuals who could actually pass for being a woman — if you didn’t look too hard or know better. Tall and slim (but as curvaceous as any woman you could imagine), with high cheekbones and long lashes that she knew how to perfectly highlight with makeup, if there ever was a man trapped inside a woman’s body it had to be Penny.
The only giveaway was the slightly protruding Adam’s apple, which she skillfully hid with a scarf on most occasions. She had a slight accent and seemingly delighted in playing the southern belle.
Penny also just happened to be the only queen on the corner who was white, or at least appeared to be white; she certainly could have passed for white. Eventually other white queens would begin to frequent Silk’s, but Penny was the only one who actually lived in the neighborhood. But race really was a non-issue since she was completely accepted into Silk’s, and indeed the rest of the neighborhood at large, just like all of the other queens. There really was no prejudice against any of them, not even from the likes of my sometimes bible-quoting father.
* * *
One late afternoon I heard a loud tumult spilling out the front door of Silk’s into the street. I ran to the window (by then I was as hooked on the drama across the street as any soap opera buff) just in time to see Penny kick off her spiked heels while taking her hoop earrings out of her ears, as she prepared to lock ass with another, much larger and more manly queen who went by the name “Diamond.”
“Bring it on bitch with your bad self,” Penny taunted, as she put up her dukes and adopted a crouching boxing stance that would have made Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali proud. “I got something for you, ho — you can’t bring that kinda bullshit to Penny, bitch.”
Penny always referred to herself in the third person. However, just as in every other case of threatened fisticuffs (something that occurred on an almost weekly basis), two of the other queens intervened and pulled them apart. Ten minutes later the two almost-combatants could be seen laughing and having a gay old time of it on the back deck.
* * *
My father’s nearly new black Chrysler (which was reserved for family outings and church on Sunday) sat on the side of our building, but he always had one or two hoopties parked outside. He kept them for everyday work driving, and would toss me the keys and tell me to find one of the two men that worked for him around the bar to drive me on the errands he regularly assigned to me, such as picking up supplies for the tavern. But by the time I was 15 I began to tell the guys they were supposed to just ride along as I drove. I was pretty sure my father knew what I was up to, but he said nothing.
As my 16th birthday approached I got bolder and bolder and would take the car keys from where they hung on a hook by the cash register and drive myself where I wanted to go around the neighborhood without a chaperone — usually to pick up my buddies or go see one of my girlfriends. Having access to wheels made me very, very popular with my peers.
One Saturday, late afternoon, as I was just getting into one of the jalopies, Penny came dashing across the street in an obvious panic. She was so animated I initially thought it was a matter of life and death.
“Sugar, you’ve just got to take me downtown,” she breathlessly said, “my ride didn’t show up, ain’t nobody else around with a car, and I’ve got to get there in time. You got to help me, I’ll buy you some gas,” she said, reaching down the top of her blouse and pulling out a wad of cash.
I’d never driven in downtown traffic, but didn’t want to seem like the juvenile I actually was, so I told her to get in. Of course the promise of gas money certainly colored my decision as we headed off towards downtown.
Penny, similar to a number of the other queens, had, over the last year or so, occasionally directed sly sexual innuendos towards my buddies and me as we began to mature (something we never took offense at, but which made us later laugh like hell at and tease each other) but I wasn’t prepared for what was about to happen.
Before I was two blocks away, Penny hitched up her skirt (which was already pretty short) way, way above her knees, and kind of wiggled her legs back and forth just in case I missed the move. But even at a streetlight I kept my eyes focused on the road ahead, or at least pretended to. She then placed her highly polished nails on my shoulder (which caused me to tense up a bit, but I tried not to show it) and when I didn’t brush them off she let them slide down to rest on my thigh. I gulped, but did nothing else.
“You’re really much more mature than those other boys you hang around with, “ Penny cooed as her hand caressed my thigh. By this time I was sweating bullets.
The mixture of trepidation and fascination was causing my heart to beat like a big bass drum … as if it were on the verge of leaping out of my chest. “You want Penny to stop,” she asked, “just say so.” I did, but then again I didn’t, so I remained mute.
Against my own volition, my own efforts to control my body, I began to get an erection, something Penny immediately noticed. She was directing me to a small parking lot tucked away behind a group of businesses (one of which she was going into ). It was out of the way and as cozy as a bedroom.
“My, my,” Penny said with obvious delight at her sexual prowess, “what do we have going on here, my little man?” referencing my erection.
I was in completely uncharted territory, totally out of my depth in terms of life and sexual experiences. While one of my girlfriends had gone down on me for the first time a few months prior, I recall thinking her efforts must be somewhat clumsy, since it wasn’t as thrilling as I had been led by my older brother to expect.
Since I had no basis for comparison, I suppose I was curious in regards to how a real expert performed the act, but was torn between ignoring what I knew as a fact — that Penny was born a man — and the seductiveness of the strikingly beautiful female whose hand was by now causing me to quiver.
She noticed my hesitation and then, as if reading my mind, said, in a most seductive voice, “Penny ain’t like those little girls you been fooling around with, she really knows what to do with that, and she don’t bite, and she sure don’t tell.”
But fear began to take hold of me. Similar to other sexually coward males, the potential opprobrium and ridicule I would suffer at the hands of my compatriots if they ever found out began to set in. All I could think to stammer out was, “Uh, we don’t have time, I gotta get the car back.” And just as quickly as it arose, the moment passed.
Penny blithely smiled, briefly savoring her moment of sexual superiority (knowing that she was more liberated than I and always would be) and said, “Just let Penny know when you grow up and change your mind.” She then dashed out of the car to pick up the fancy dress she had had altered for her performance, which was scheduled for later that night.
Many a time over the ensuing years I’ve wished that I had had the courage as a 16-year-old to experiment — perhaps then I would not have been left to wonder all this time what the experience would have been like. Is it this singular event that perhaps has lead to my lifelong fascination with transsexuals … albeit, always from a safe distance?
* * *
The next spring Penny started showing up at Silk’s wearing a maternity smock over a pillow that made a noticeable bulge: Penny, obviously, was pregnant. A fact that became more and more evident by the gradual growing of the size of the bulge all summer and fall.
It became the talk of the neighborhood, and all of the other drag queens treated Penny with all the deference accorded any woman who is “with child.” As the size of the pillow grew, the other queens would help Penny ease into one of the deck chairs, and then go and fetch her drinks. Penny reveled in the attention, and for us, even though we didn’t realize it, this was living, breathing street theater at its absolute finest — and the best argument I can think of when I thank my lucky stars I was not reared in some safe but bland suburb.
Even the tough guys that shot craps on the other side of the building bought into Penny’s pregnancy, and on more than one occasion you could hear one of them call out to Penny and ask, “When is the baby due?” Penny, in response, always blushed.
Sure, we all got a chuckle out of the pretend pregnancy, but to my mind here’s the important part — everyone was laughing with Penny, not at her. If she wanted so badly to have all of the experiences a naturally born woman could have, who were we to mock her desires? At least Penny had the courage to try to fulfill hers, and, as I would find out throughout life, that’s a damn sight more than many others of us are brave enough to do.
Right before Thanksgiving Penny showed up cradling her little bundle of joy. All of the other queens peered into the pink blanket at what must have been a doll and oooh’ed and ahhh’ed as if the blanket contained a real child. These were “women” who had learned the art of — who indeed were mistresses of — pretense.
I probably would have pretended right along if I’d been given the opportunity, but right after the “birth” Penny left town, supposedly going back down south from where she hailed. She told everyone that she wanted to show her “baby” off to her momma.
Penny never returned.
A few months later rumors circulated through the community that Penny’s body had been found by the side of a back road (somewhere in southern Ohio or northern Kentucky) near the trailer park where her mother resided, her head crushed in and genitals mutilated. Her “baby” was found lying in a ditch near her body.
The patrons of Silk’s Bar got all gussied up (it didn’t take much of an excuse for them to do so) and held a dignified — well, as dignified as possible for a bunch of drag queens — little memorial service on the back deck for Penny. Some of people from the community who had never before set foot in Silk’s attended.
Junior, Gene and I solemnly watched from the side window as everyone asked the same question: “Why? Why would anyone do this to Penny, she never hurt nobody.” No, Penny never hurt a soul.
* * *
But the larger, more important question has to be — what has happened in our society over the last half-century? Why are we — and especially black folk who should know better when it comes to discrimination against anybody about anything — seemingly becoming less tolerant, rather than more?
The rise of the religious right in America has — consciously I might add — created an atmosphere of hatred in which three transgender persons have been killed in the northeast Ohio area in the last quarter of last year and no one seems to be all that concerned. Shame on us.
Life is already hard enough without bigots making it harder based on race, sexual orientation or any other manufactured reason and it’s our duty — all of us who truly believe in freedom and fair play — to stand up and be counted. We owe at least that much to all of the Pennys of the world.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: The Summer Penny Got Pregnant”
Sharon
Really, really loved your story. I grew up in that area during the 60’s , and it’s good to hear the colorful stories of black neighborhoods way back when. It’s seldom and rare, to read stories of (what I would say-black Cleveland).