Making Rain

A memoir of drag, big hair and covens

Fred Gorski, Dominic Ambrose

• Publisher: Ferrandina Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780983056843
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Making Rain is a memoir of drag, raging hairdressers and pagan covens. It is life on the edge of society in a bizarre Staten Island landscape of odd encounters: mob misfits, pagan priestesses and public servants in drag. Fred Gorski's personal saga combines self-discovery and hedonism in new and unexpecting ways, passing from a youth of teenage cross-dressing to adulthood as a drag performer, businessman and B&D madam, and on to a mature stage of perspective and wisdom. The setting is a dysfunctional seaside community of broken bungalows and seedy bars, Manhattan of drag balls and hustlers and a rambling suburban house with a series of sexual secrets. With a timeline that spans fifty years, the story moves from pre-Stonewall rebelliousness through sexual liberation and the tragedies of the AIDS crisis, to today, making it a part of gay history and at the same time, a worthy addition to the library of personal tales of discovery.

PART 1 - INVOCATION OF LARA

A club named Q opened up in Midland Beach. I knew the place well, it was in the Lincoln Hotel and my father worked there many years earlier as a bartender. In fact, the first bar my parents owned was in Midland Beach two blocks away. So I started takin my Fair Play customers there. I would send them over as soon as their makeovers were done (each makeover took about an hour). Then I would join them myself. This one evening I had sent three clients down there to wait for me. When they were gone, I took off my face cream, took the rollers out of my hair. I did my make-up, my hair, put on my shoes, grabbed my bag and my coat, jumped in the car and drove down to Q to meet them at nine.

And as I’m parkin the car, all of a sudden, boom: invocation.

I’m thinkin, Now where did this come from, what am I feeling?

I’m feelin the spirit of a wild girl, of a wild girl...that's all I can say. And as I’m lockin the car, I says,

Oh my God, Lara Quig.

******

She was a girl that was way ahead of her time in Midland Beach. She was probably fifteen years younger than my mother and father. She was seventeen when they had the bar. She hung out with all the boys, she drag raced on the boulevard. Tight toreador pants, she had to be almost six feet tall, bright red hair just flowin down her back, this great lookin woman, hot makeup, big boobs, low cut sweaters, skin tight all the way down, high heels. She would just pick her way across the street, and she’d say,

“How the fuck are you guys. Who’s racin tonight?”

She’d get in there and one of the guys would say, “Y’got a hot ass, Lara.”

And grab it.

She’d turn around and punch him right in the face, lay him right out,

“Don’t you touch my fuckin ass unless I tell you to. If I want you, I'll let you know.”

Oh, she was a bad girl.

She had seven brothers and two sisters and she grew up learnin how to fight and take care of herself. Her brothers were all bad boys in the neighborhoods, the Quigs, alway brawlin and fightin in bars. But I think Lara was probably the roughest of all the boys and she could lay a man out with no problem at all.

She was a hot woman, always in the bars, got pregnant without gettin married, would never say who the father was, took care of the baby herself financially. She lived with her mother and father, and gave ‘em money all the time. She was a barmaid when she got older, she made good money, drove taxis. She was a woman that stood up for the rights of people who couldn’t stand up for themselves.

******

I remember one night when I was very young, bein in the backdoor of Inquest Bar. Inquest was diagonally across the street from my house and my mother used to work there as a barmaid. In the afternoons after school I used to go in with my friends. We would sit at a table and have sodas and chips and snacks and play the jukebox and dance. That was our after school fun.

******

On weekend nights in summertime they would open the back door because there was no air conditioning. The dance floor was right there by the back door at about my shoulder height to the street. It was almost like lookin at a stage. You could see the band and you could watch the people dancin, which I loved to do. So I was out there watchin one night, I was allowed to stay out till about eleven o'clock. All of a sudden, some man comes flyin across the dance floor... and here’s Lara on top of him punchin him. I got scared and went home.

My mom was workin that night, so the next morning when I seen my mom I asked her what happened. My mother told me that Lara Quig’s sister, who was pregnant and showin, went in the bathroom and there was a girl in the bathroom that said something nasty to her, something nasty about the baby, not knowin who the father was, and no wonder, you’re Lara Quig’s sister. The sister said something back to her and the girl punched Lara Quig’s sister in the face.

The sister came out and goes over to Lara.

“What's the matter with your face?”

Lara Quig walked over to the girl and said, “You have somethin to say about my sister, you take it up with me.”

The girl said, “Get your fuckin hands off a me!”

Two guys walk up to them and said to Lara, “Leave her alone, she’s with me!”

“Don't you tell me what to do. She hit my sister. I'll kick the shit out of you too!”

And she did. She hit the girl once and the girl ran. Then Lara beat up the two guys, wiped the dance floor with them. Nobody would step in and separate them, not the owner, not the bartenders. You had to be out of your mind to separate Lara. No, let her go! When she’s done, she’s done. She won’t kill em. Once they’re down, if they pass out, she’s not gonna kick them. She used her fists, she didn’t kick, she didn’t pick up a chair. She used her fists. She got right on that guy and she started punchin him in the face - while he was down, yes, but he wasn’t passed out. Lara Quig knew how to fight.

******

When my father found out about me being gay, there was a big to do and I ended up running away to Manhattan. I came back to Staten Island a couple of weeks later. I was eighteen now and I went into this other bar on Father Capodanno Boulevard, the Beach Bar, which was owned by two lesbians, and when I walked in, there was Lara,

“Ah, Fred, come over here!”

I said, Oh shit.

Although she had always been sweet to me and she knew my mother and father so well, I was just a kid and she was this big grown up lady. Now all of a sudden I'm eighteen and I'm in the same bar with Lara havin a drink.

“Fred, come on over here. I wanna talk to you!”

I said to myself, oh shit. What did I do? Am I in trouble? Am I the next one gettin hit?”

“You know, I understand, you’re havin some problems with the neighborhood. A lot of people are up in arms about your lifestyle. I just want you to know that whatever you wanna do, is perfectly all right for you. You shouldn’t give a fuck for any of them. If they have a problem and they come to you and say somethin about your lifestyle, you tell them, Lara Quig said to take it up with her, and that’ll stop anybody from givin you any kind of grief. If you have a problem with anybody, you let me know, kid.”

******

She knew my parents very well, they were very close. She always respected my mother, Josephine, my mother being a barmaid, too. She’d be in the bar that night and somebody would say,

“Hey bitch, gimme a beer!”

Lara would go, “What did you call her?”

“What the fuck is it to you?”

“First of all, that’s a lady, and you don’t talk to a lady like that and you don’t talk to anybody like that in front of me.”

... and punch the guy in the face or drag him by his hair outside and beat the shit out of him and leave him in the sand.

“You never talk to Josephine like that, that’s a lady.”

That’s the way she was.

She’d be on the dancefloor, she’d be wigglin, she’d be dancin and guys would say,

“Who the fuck is that?”

“Oh, you don’t wanna know who that is. Keep away.”

“No! She’s hot!”

“So you wanna dance?”

“Yeah sure, I’ll dance with you.”

And they’d grab her ass, and she’d say, “Get your fuckin hands off me, I’ll lay you out.”

At the end of the night she’d say, “Come on, hump.” (She called them hump.)

“Come on, hump. Let's go. You’re it for the night.”

She’d take ‘em to a hotel. That’s the way she was, free thinkin woman. Call her a tramp or a slut and she’d beat the shit out of you.

******

There were women in the bar, they were playin the field, they were playin with men for drinks, they were loose women, but they were friends in the bar. Unmarried, couple of children and they were loose. And if all of a sudden some guy they were with started gettin nasty, Lara would walk over and say,

“What’s the problem here, Ella, is he botherin you?”

“No...

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
• PART 1 - INVOCATION OF LARA
• PART 2 - OCEAN BREEZE
• PART 3 - BOYSBARN
• PART 4 - AN EVOLVING RAIN
• About the Author
• Also from Ferrandina Press