Subj: Collinsport 2001 Year One Part Eighteen
Date: 5/5/01 12:07:07 AM Central Daylight Time
From: N.E. Collins

"Come one, come all to the Special Grand Opening of The Puple Cow, caberet extradanaire. It sez here that there will be featured headliners such as Miss Trixie LaRue, direct from Gay Paree and Norma Preforma of Old Broadway. Hmph! Have you ever heard the like? It's sin. SIN and FOOLishness if ya ask me! People may call me backwards and old fashioned, but in my day we wouldn't have called these kinds of goings on entertainment, no ma'am!" Clarissa Hairebairn complained bitterly as she balled up the handbill flyer that was being posted on every car's windshield in Collinsport. "I MEAN! If my sainted father were still alive and this here was a-going on he would have put a stop to it, he would have! He didn't brook no desires for such rebellion and I am telling ya that no good will come of this place. No good at all. I mean, LOOK at this picture of this Trixie LaRue...have you EVER seen such a circus freak in ALL your born days. This woman must be eight feet high if she's an inch! How could a woman be so tall? It's just not natural, I tell ya."

The woman clucked and cackled like a hen giving birth to an egg three sizes too large. Jon had been politely listening to Mrs. Hairebairn as he always did when she came in to redo her hair. She was what had commonly become known as one of those "little blue-haired ladies" and she was also one of the most obnoxious of that gendre that the tiny fishing port art community of Collinsport, Maine had EVER seen. Her family had at one time been very influential in the town's government, but those days had passed, and now she was just one of those town personages that one didn't cross. It wasn't out of any real fear. It was just a matter of respect for what had been her family's past glory. Clarissa Hairebairn was Collinsport Royalty. A royal pain in the ass, thought Jon as he sat there in his silence.

Jon put down his crossword and gave Clarissa his undived attention. "I really HATE to be the one to have to tell you this, Mrs. Hairebairn, but Trixie LaRue is NOT a woman. Trixie LaRue is a man."

Clarissa was shocked almost beyond words. "A MAN? But how could this woman be a man?" She pointed to the picture on the flyer in disbelief.

Jon continued. "Trixie LaRue is a female impersonator. A performer. Not a woman. A man. Do you understand now, Mrs. Hairebairn?"

"I MOST certainly do. This is WORSE than I had first thought. Why this sort of thing is what heralds the end of all that is good and decent in this world. I tell you we will ALL rue the day we let this kind of thing come to town! It's shocking! It's depraved!"

The woman left The House of Styles sputtering and muttering the whole way out the door and down the street as she toddled off. Jon got a smart alecky tone to this voice as he said to anyone who could hear, "Shocking, depraved and indecent? Sounds like FUN to me! You know, I'LL be there tonight. Front row. CENTER." Everyone laughed with unbridled glee. The show was on and not even old lady Hairebairn could stop it!

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.