Donna Lethal

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Carmen R.I.P.

I was chatting with Daddy Lethal this AM and we were reminiscing about a notorious old bucket of blood in our hometown called “The Cosmo.” Even schoolkids knew about the Cosmo’s reputation, where anything - from dope to acid to hookers and pimps and transvestites - could be gotten. It’s all boarded up now but because the building is so old, the historical preservation society won’t let it be torn down. We had a good laugh over what the plaque on the building would read: “More overdoses here than any other spot in town!” or “More livers gone to cirrhosis on this spot in the Northeast!”

“The one and only time I ever smoked pot was at the bar at the Cosmo,” Daddy L chuckled. “Oh, I met some beautiful transvestites in there that were more gorgeous than almost any real woman I’d ever met,” Dad said. We know where my open-mindedness came from. I imagine my former-nun mother at home, with her manhattan, smoking a winston, listening to “Johnny Mathis’ Greatest Hits,” for the umpteenth time as Dad gets the lowdown from the bartender on “the girls.”

“Of course the owner told me, ’cause he didn’t want to see me make a fool out of myself. Whatever. You think Boston, you think New York, but not there! Those girls were too good to be in a place like THAT!”

“Whatever happened to Carmen?”

Poor Carmen. Carmen was the first transsexual most of us had ever seen. All the little kids knew and they’d say, “She’s a he-she, you know. Carmen’s a guy who dresses as a lady.” They’d yell at her and tease her on the street. She had dyed black hair and wore lots of makeup but didn’t look trampy, just a regular gal. She always looked sad and I felt bad for poor Carmen. Who wouldn’t want to be a girl?

“Carmen! Carmen’s real name was Dickie Bergeron. She just died a few months ago. I ran into her at the White Eagle and I hadn’t seen her in ages. Carmen was a funny, funny person, you know. She took a lot of beatings, the poor doll … thrown out of cars, everything. She was born in the wrong body, that’s all. It was just sad … awful to see a person suffer like that. And they liked her, sure, til they found out she was a guy and then they’d beat her up. Can you imagine that? And after all that, she still had a great sense of humor. I bought her a drink and we had a few laughs. She was all bloated - cirrhosis. She said, “Oh, you saved my ass a few times! I owe ya one.” But I wouldn’t let her get me a drink of course. Poor, poor Carmen.”

There were lots of characters in our hometown that Marky and I often reminisce about: Ding-Ding, the former boxer who wore a smelly old green suit who would chase you for blocks if you went “ding! ding!” at him (and all the kids did); “Walkin’ Sally,” an emaciated black woman with ankle socks and tennis shoes who carried her possessions in bags and was seen all over the city, earning her nickname; “The Cat Lady,” who was a tiny little old lady with large carpet bags on each arm and the legend was that she was hit by a car and hundreds of cats came flying out of the bags in all directions. They’re all gone now, of course, and with the Cosmo long closed and Carmen gone, “urban renewal” has been successful in more ways than one.