Ladies and Gentlemen!
For the first time anywhere...!
Making his debut on the World stage...!
FLAMER! The World's First Gay Phoenix!

So it's two weeks before Christmas, right? And I'm thumbing through the catalog FAO Schwartz sent me because I'm a little kid in a bodacious body, parading as an adult. As I flip through collectible dolls and groovy board games and exotic plush life-size animals, I land on the Harry Potter page and there he is! Fawkes the Phoenix, Dumbledore's fiery bird companion. I jump up and down and squeal for Silas, who comes running from the next room. "What? What?" he demands. "Look! I point emphatically to the bird on the page and read the description. "He's thirty inches high! A limited edition! Can you believe it?"

I've always wanted a phoenix. The bird had come to me in a dream before I even knew the full story of its Greek mythology. After I experienced a particularly scathing event in my early twenties, where a local church emotionally and psychically burned me at the stake, I claimed the bird as my totem. If I'd been born in the time of knights and heralds, the phoenix would emblazon my house's crest. He's an integral part of my internal landscape, and here he was--larger than life--waiting in the FAO showroom for Santa to swoop him up into the Christmas sack bound for my house.

Christmas came and went. No Fawkes. "That's OK," I thought. I knew my birthday was just a few weeks away and thought I'd get lucky. Sure enough, when I returned from a retreat on the Yucatan Peninsula to my house in Atlanta, Georgia, and walked up the stairs into the dimly-lit living room, Fawkes was sitting on a nest of brightly-ribboned birthday presents. "You got him! You did! Yaaaaaaay!" I squeezed him around the neck and then looked into his fierce eyes. I stroked his long claws. I ran my hands through his magenta feathers. Magenta? I stepped back toward the kitchen where I turned the dimmer switch up to full blast. And there he was in all his glory. Not Fawkes the red-orange phoenix straight from the fire, but Flamer! "Straight" from the Fires of Flamboyance, the Fuschia bird of Fabulousness, the Magenta Mistress of Miami nightclubs, the Firebird with Flare (I mean Flair!)...Flamer, my very own Queen of the Desert! That's when I noticed he wasn't merely sitting on the pink-and-purple glittery presents, he perched there, as only a poser can.

"Who are you and what have you done with Fawkes?" I laughed. 

"He certainly gives new meaning to the word fierce," Silas snickered. "I'm thinking Tyra Banks would love his strut for America's Next Top Model.

"We should call the boys from Queer Eye for the Bird Guy." I giggled.

"Let's write the 8th Harry Potter book and call it Out of the Closet and Into the Fire!" Silas spluttered.

"From Hogwarts to Hairspray!"  I grabbed my side with one hand (afraid it would split) and my crotch with the other (afraid I'd pee my pants), then rushed to the bathroom for safety purposes. Laugh-induced urination is a family trait. I think the official condition is Over Active Laughter Bladder. Or it is now.

When I came back up the stairs, still giggling, Silas burst out, "I've got it! I've got it! Let's call the Showtime Network and tell them we have the sequel to Queer as Folk. It's Queer as Fawkes!" I laughed so hard I actually snorted--twice--and collapsed against Silas in a fresh fit of hysterics. Mernie looked at us as if we'd lost our minds. "What are you two on about? Exactly?"

I clutched at the giggle-ache under my ribs and wiped at the mirth-tears leaking down my face. "Mernie, look in the catalog. Fawkes is a phoenix. A phoenix. Fire, you know? Blazing orange passion? Red feathers of transformation? This guy is PINK, Mernie. Almost purple. I'm not sure what fire he's been in, but I can almost guarantee it involved a lot of sequins, a padded bra and some false eyelashes. And look at that plumage!"

In the catalog, Fawkes was pictured with a rusty orange-brown body and a crest of striking red-and-black striped feathers on his head. Flamer, on the other hand, sported two fuschia-and-black feathers, while the remaining feathers at the top of his crown were hot pink, similar to those worn by scantily-clad, beautiful Brazilian boys on sparkling parade floats in Santa Domingo during Carnival. I had to suppress the urge to add rhinestones.

"Do you not like him?" Mernie asked. It was Mernie who had ordered him for me. She went on to explain that when she initially called FAO Schwartz, they had said he was sold out and there would be no more available for purchase. However, on a hunch the following day, Mernie checked the website and there he was, ready to be added to the handy-dandy shopping cart. She put him in the basket, went through the cyber check-out line, then held her breath hoping for a shipping confirmation rather than a sorry!-out-of-stock-so-we'll-refund-your-credit-card email.

"Well he's not what I expected. But..." I started.

"He's perfect for you. Look at your wardrobe, girl. He ain't the only bird of paradise that's coming out of the closet!"

I used to tell people--and sometimes still do--that I am a big, black drag queen trapped in a straight, white girl's body. "Think RuPaul," I'd say. "Sashay, Shantey," and I'd do a little swingy-hipped I'm-too-sexy-for-this-runway walk. I mean, I like Gloria Gaynor and Abba and Alicia Bridges. I like the nightlife. I love to boogie. On the disco-rouuuuuuuuund. Oh yeah. I actually enjoy padded bras and false eyelashes and a well-placed rhinestone can do wonders for a girl. Big hats and big color and bigger personalities actually feel like home to me.

I reached out and stroked the plush, purple wings, thinking of all the fires that had drawn me to the phoenix over the years. Scorched relationships, burnt-up hopes, fried trust, cindered plans, a body melting under a surgeon's knife in 1997 and all the charred faith in the ashes of that experience. 

"Well, I've been to hell and back and know those fires intimately. Maybe it's just time in my life for a different kind of fire." I laughed, wondering where I could find a flame-encrusted tiara. "Can you say Disco Inferno?"

That night we opened a birthday bottle of champagne and put Dancing Queen by Abba in the stereo.  We hustled and jived well past midnight, howling the lyrics at the top of our lungs. I even did a little shuffle down the imaginary cat walk, to shouts of "Go Angi! Go Angi! It's your birthday! It's your birthday!"

From his perch, Flamer watched it all, a big grin across his fabulously fierce beak. Out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw his wing move about his head in a two-snaps-up-and-a-twist salute. He's such a Queen.