Featherette's 7

Sammy had gotten ready with us, but ran in and out of Rodgers place. Sammy was one of a kind.
When Hank dragged him into the show he was throwing “star attitude” from that first moment. When Kenny Alton and I were making moments and a new friend in Rodger, Sammy just wanted to do his number and get to the bar. Sammy wasn’t a drinker or a smoker, but boy could he sex it up. He always had a boyfriend. Sammy didn’t join us for rehearsals or dinner. He came in, took Rodgers clothes, got himself made up and left.
It was decided that the three of us would go over in Kenny Alton’s car. We would have to go back to Rodgers to get our guy clothes. While hearing my voice coming from a woman’s was strange, going into an elevator dressed in drag was beyond strange. Kenny Alton looked flawless, he definitively found his calling, and Rodger looked like Carol Bunnett. I was the one who looked like a guy in a dress and could not pray hard enough to get safely to the car. Rodger lived in a questionable part of Hackensack. Ironically, I would move into that building many, many years later.
We got to the car and arrived at Feathers safely. Performers enter through the “stage door” – the rust eaten door that faces the employee parking lot. The parking lots were packed! I remember being so pissed that I couldn’t be a part of the party and had to stand in a dressing room until show time. Back then Hank had this rule that performers had to sit in the dressing room, which back then was just the small 3’x4’ space behind skid row bar (the dance floor bar). The dressing room is still there, but where the beer room is today, used to be the Dee Jay booth. There was a door that stopped you from going into the dee-jay booth, so we literally just had that little area for four performers and “touch-up” make bag.
If the four of us wasn’t enough Kenny Casper came barging into the room! “Sisters! You look FABulous! A little homely, but FABulous!” Rodger ordered him out of the dressing room. “Johnny’s here!” he added as left. JOHNNY! I was ill I had to run out! Kenny Alton followed me as I threw up being the dumpster! “Oh, I’m so nervous I can’t perform. Kenny, what are we doing?” “It’s not too bad. I do look pretty.” Alton said in a comical voice. We went back in and I got a bar rag to wipe my mouth. The Dee-Jay asked for our show line up. Randy, the Asian Dee-Jay, told us hot great we looked and wished us luck. He told us it was ten minutes until show time. TEN MINUTES TO LIVE. My life was about to end. I was going to stand there, with no rhythm, looking like an idiot. Rodger, who had been carrying a brown bag asked for the mike stand. Randy gave him the stand and he took out a radio “WGAY” microphone covering. “We will place this on over the mike and it will look like we are in a radio station. That will explain why we are just standing there and not dancing around.” Rodger said smiling. “My hero!” I cried as I went to hug him. He stopped me. “Rule number 27 No hugging, kissing or touching before a show. It ruins the makeup and wrinkles the dress.”
Hank came back to tell us the place was packed and he had better be good or we wouldn’t have jobs. He had such a way with words.
FIVE MINUTES-PLACES
Places! Oh My God! I was so nervous and so sick. Kenny Alton held my hand, Rodger grabbed my other hand, as we got ready to embark on a new chapter. The announcements began. Back then the manager brought out the performers and tonight we had Oe in all his glory announcing the new drag sensation, the Andrew Sisters!
The curtain opened!
Till Tomorrow, be kind