THE YEAR I ATE NEW YORK: Drag Me to Brunch

Getting drunk on a Sunday with a bunch of queens (and moms from New Jersey) is actually fun.

- E. ALEX JUNG

ONE SUNDAY IN JANUARY, some friends and I went to drag brunch at the Standard Grill below the High Line. Anthropological curiosity drove us-we're all of homosexual, but not drag brunch, experience. The Body Beautiful, hosted by Essa Noche, was the toniest setting we could have imagined for a few hours of eggs with a side of tucking panties. The crowd matched so many YSL bags. There was a table of wine moms from Essex County with perfect roots, a woman wearing a cupcake hat celebrating her birthday, and a five-top passing around a drowsy baby over margarita punch bowls. Earlier, I'd asked the maître d' what kinds of people usually come to this, and she said, "Everyone. Moms, babies, husbands, grandmas."

The drag I knew happened in gay bars where the funk of sweat, alcohol, and sex commingled from bodies crowding closer together for a view of a queen letting loose onstage. Bam! Death drop, duckwalk, drama. We screamed like confetti cannons. This was the stuff of nighttime, the original backdrop of queer life, when people could be themselves under the slip of darkness and you could see God at 2 a.m. (drugs?). Initially, I was a skeptic: Were drag brunches just a way for PFLAG moms to get fucked up? Yes, but spending various Sundays at them around the city allowed me to consider the bigger picture of the wig economy. At the end of the Body Beautiful, I witnessed one of the most astonishing things I had ever seen at a drag show: a $150 tip.