The maid's daughter was in the house last night. She has exactly the same hair as mine, and her mother proudly explained that it had been down below her waist before she cut it off.
"The heat?" I ask.
"No, she was using too much shampoo and conditioner. Too expensive."
So, as I'm packing I set aside my big bottle of shampoo for curly hair, and go to the next room to give it to her. I can hear her in the bathroom so I accidentally burst in her on the toilet, peeing. She's surprisingly casual about this, and delighted at the shampoo.
"Pantene," she says, "that's wonderful. I'll have to show it to Irma, or she'll accuse me of stealing it. My husband is a doctor, he works in the hospital across the road. And I've got a lovely son, he's very serious... you'll have to come to our house. It's ugly, but you're most welcome."
Doctors in Cuba earn a fraction of what taxi drivers do, it's all upside down and back to front here. Margorie has to wipe the floors and take the shit from awful, ignorant Irma.
She's still casually mentioning her son when I leave. Marrying your way out of Cuba is a hell of a lot safer than braving the Florida Straights.
I trudge a few blocks to a large apartment building, with peeling green paint and louvers on all the windows. There's a black woman waiting outside, with pitch-black hair and grey roots even though she can't be more than about 35. She takes me up to my room and tells me not to mention to the other man staying here that I'm only paying 25CUC because he's paying 40CUC. And if I get mugged, I can't go to the police. She's only registered for one room, so there'll be a massive fine if the government finds out.
I am immediately comfortable. The room has glorious old wooden furniture, the sort of rocking chair that would cost hundreds in a Surrey Hills antique store. There is a steady and very intrusive hum of airconditioners from the next building, and I can't work out why I keep sneezing.
"Oh, that's the fumigation," she says, "The government does it every Saturday for an hour."
Fumigating for what?
"Oh, insects or something."
Insects or free thought. Stop it.
I tell Georgina I'm going to a drag show tonight and she says I have to talk to her cousin. Uh oh. Awful Irma was always insisting I take her relatives out at night as 'friends for hire', and I don't need a friend for hire tonight thankyou very much.
The cousin, Raul appears from nowhere and starts chatting. I try to politely extricate myself but find myself drawn to him. We go and sit in the sunroom, with louvers that look out over all of Havana to the ocean. I'm wondering why he's got such an interest in my drag story, until he announces that he's gay. Brilliant. A man I can hang around with, without him trying to marry or shag me. This is a match made in heaven.
Raul insists on coming to the drag show, and bringing three friends. We now officially have a possie.
I've arranged my interviews for 9pm, so I decide to take a taxi rather than wait for the three friends to pick us up.
"No, no," Raul assures me, "They are five minutes away."
Half an hour later, things on the street corner are feeling a little desparate. Finally the car appears an we are propelled into a world of hair product. Now I understand what they've been doing for the last half hour, putting on perfume.
The old man driving the car must be about 65. His boyfriend is 18, and absolutely gorgeous. The other guy has yellow hair, and he's used the left-over peroxide on his eyebrows.
There's a battle of wills happening in the front over air temperature and music choice. As we set off for Lawton, it becomes gradually obvious that noone has any idea where we're going. The guy with orange eyebrows seems to have the best idea, but half an hour later, we're still not even in the suburb.
There is much discussion about the police. How to avoid the police, where the police are most likely to be. Later, I ask Raul why we were avoiding them, and he says that four gay guys going to an illegal drag club probably wouldn't have gone down well.
Still, Lawton is somewhere far off in the distance when the direction-asking stage of the journey begins. I watch the little clock on the dash leave 9pm further and further back in the past.
Generally it goes like this:
animated discussion-> mention of cops -> someone spots an innocent bystander -> car pulls over -> innocent bystander helpfully explains directions for at least five minutes with hand signals and waving of arms (waving of arms is to signify how far away Lawton is) -> we set off.
This process begins again every two blocks, and I'm not exaggerating. I am completely powerless.
I am gradually becoming extremely irritable.
Finally we arrive. The bar is actually a house, wrapped so tightly in fairy lights that it's like a beacon.
I am over an hour late, but I figure that's ok because I still have an hour to interview.
Rojelio (pron: Ro-hell-ee-o) treats me the appropriate level or sickly sweetness that you'd expect from someone who's just made 100CUC out of you.
I head into the makeup room - it's just like a hairdressing salon. Long benches with mirrors and some chairs, with lots of very manly looking men standing in front of them.
Drag IS amazing. That a man can wipe almost all traces of his sexuality is truly incredible.
I am interviewing a man with massive lips lined by almost black lipliner, and hair around his nipples. His voice is a normal man's voice, and he's pleasant.
"Now tell me if this question is too private," I say, "But exactly how do you get rid of the lump?"
These guys all get around in bikinis and the like, with no sign of their penises. And I know for a fact that they haven't had sex-change operations.
"Oh, not too private at all," he says. He's standing in stockings with a thick set of flesh coloured bike pantish-but-stronger thing over the top. He pulls open the bike pants, so we can see down his front, and half-crouches.
"So, you push it down," he says, pushing it down, "And then, stand up. And it stays between your legs. See? Completely flat??"
Oh. Glad I asked. I don't have a penis, but did somebody say ouch?
Jesus Christ, it'd be less painful to just chop it off. Sex change operations are illegal in Cuba, so this is the only option.
I then move onto an interview with Barbara. She is more than happy to chat, she makes up at home so is ready to rock'n'roll.
"Your breasts are amazing," I tell her, "Congratulations."
She's standing in the doorway to the house, where all the guests are entering. "I know," she says, "Look at this..."
And she lifts her silver sequined top to show a lacy bra encasing two perfect and enviable breasts.
Barbara and I chat for ages. She had her operation at dawn in a hospital, and now has a boyfriend, although he still has a wife and child somewhere else. Unlike the rest of the cast here, she spends the night and day as a woman, in woman's clothing with woman's hair. Just not a woman's voice.
I am just setting off downstairs to see the transformation process, when Rojelio appears. Or Moodswing Rojelio, as he will hence be known. Sure, my mic's phallic, but at the sight of it he starts flapping his arms around and shooshing me up the stairs. As in, UP the stairs.
I'd love to describe the miracle of trans-formation, but all I can give you is the before and after. Mofo. 100CUC, that's $150 AUD, and I get two lousy interviews, virtually no pics.
Rojelio can take his gold pincers and go to 'jel(io).
I head back upstairs and take in the show. Who knew drag could be so fun when you've got people to enjoy it with.
At one stage, my first interviewee starts ripping off his eyelashes, then his fake nails and then his wig, then his dress. Oh my god, it's a strip show with a twist.
This is considered incredibly artistic and met with violent applause. I admit, it was really quite exhiliarating.
A fat guy sends a drink over and we're all perving on the incredibly gorgeous gay guy on the other side of the room.
On my way to the toilet, the fat dude greets me and pulls me down for a kiss - which I assume to be the usual Cuban cheek-kiss greeting, until he plants his big, wet lips all over my mouth. I extricate myself feeling violated, and then have to explain myself to the lesbians at the next table, who are berating me for letting him do it.
Oh this is all too much. In the toilet line, I find myself standing next to Mr Gorgeous Gay Man and the transexual from the table behind me instructs me to tell him that she's in love. With him. God, who's not.
I do so.
He turns out to be incredibly charming and proceeds to chat me up. Cripes, even gay guys can't resist women here.
Finally, it's my turn for the toilet. I walk in, and find myself looking at a bowel that is COVERED in blood. That's right, blood. Who died in here?
I walk back out, to find the Mr Gorgeous Guy of Questionable Sexuality explaining himself to his boyfriend.
This is all getting too much. We all end up on the dancefloor, with one of the lesbians fondling my waist during the human trains (you know where everyone runs around cheerfully clutching the person in front of them?) and before I know it I'm being dragged out to the car.
It's a man's world, for this noone's girl.
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