Across from me on the sofa sat a former navy officer in a bright floral dress, frizzy pink wig, and green contacts with stars around the pupils, watching me struggle to find the right words to describe his style of drag.
“You’re kind of… a demon-Muppet?” I tried. Cucci Binaca seemed pleased with that.
“Creature-monster,” he said. “A lot of people would say, ‘Oh, you’re not a drag queen.’ But I AM a drag queen. I have lots of makeup on, I have eyelashes, I wear heels. I’m a drag queen. My makeup is definitely goblin, 100 percent.”
Tyler Lane had been waiting for his time in the spotlight ever since his parents bought him a radio in the third grade. He’d lock himself in the bathroom for hours with the shower on cold so no one would know that he was living in front of the mirror, blasting music and lip-synching at himself.
But it wasn’t until he joined the navy and was serving on a base in Bremerton that the lure of drag finally caught up with him. It was a risky time to put on high heels: Don’t ask don’t tell was still in effect, and even today you can be discharged for cross-dressing.
