Um, what?

Holy shit.

Holy shit, shit, shit.

That’s when I heard it, the piano and strings starting Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer’s “No More Tears.” I’d sung it a gazillion times with Tod in Stevie and Tod’s living room after over-imbibing chilled sparkling wine and a marathon of Yahtzee.

Never in front of an audience.

Never.

Ally pulled me out of my chair, Marianne, Dolores and Andrea pushed me to the stage, which was tragically too close and Stevie shoved a dead microphone into my hand. Burgundy had already done her Barbra hum, I had no choice but to lip sync my Donna “ooo”.

Then I was on the stage, doing the slow introduction, singing about what lacked in Donna’s romantic life and trying to play off Burgundy, trying to look her in the eyes like I felt the words deep into my very soul.

Problem was, I was stiff as a board and the disco bit was coming up.

Lee was watching. The last thing I wanted to do was dance around on stage in front of a hundred people, one of them Liam Nightingale, lip syncing badly to fucking disco.

I had to pull it together, this was for charity. I had no idea what charity but what did it matter? I’d look more of a fool if I didn’t loosen up, and fast.

There was nothing for it.

We sang eye-to-eye while Barbra and Donna harmonized. Burgundy shot me a “for God’s sake, pull yourself together” look and I shrugged my shy discomfort.

Burgundy gave it her all on Barbra’s long note, closing her eyes with feeling and holding her hand to her throat. I stayed stiff on purpose, pretending to be uncomfortable and wanting to be anywhere but there.

When the disco hit, my “ahs” came on and I shuffled with discomfort, keeping up the sham.

Then the horns kicked in and I pulled out all the stops, strutting, shaking my hips and stomping across the tiny stage like a white, pissed off Tina Turner, throwing attitude that would do Chowleena proud.

The crowd went wild and jumped to their feet. It helped that front and center were all my friends and family, not to mention it was well into the show and most everyone was shitfaced. They lifted their arms, fingers pointed towards us, wrists snapping and bodies bouncing to the beat.

I used Donna’s lyrics to lecture the audience then Burgundy and I got nose-to-nose screaming at each other, shaking our hair in tandem with the angry words and the crowd began chanting the chorus.

It was Barbra’s song, Donna was only dessert so I worked the crowd, leaning double at the waist, my hand at my hip and got in the faces of the people who dared to approach me with dollar bills, snatching notes out of their hands like the tip was my God given right. I scrunched up my face with mock-pissed-offedness and didn’t give a single kiss. I even went so far as placing the sole of my sandal into a butch biker’s chest and sending him careening backwards giggling himself silly.

The crowd ate it up, shouting, cheering and sending up deafening whistles and cat calls.

It was beautiful and the biggest fucking happy rush I’d had in my life.

It was when the disco slowed to the funky bit that was a wind up to when Barbra gets so pissed off her voice goes husky that I saw Pepper Rick standing across the room, pointing a gun at me.

I froze.

Then, without my brain telling my body to do it, I whirled and threw myself in a body tackle, bringing Burgundy down. Both of our tip money and microphones flew out of our hands and Burgundy shouted a very male, “What the fuck?”

The crowd began to cheer, thinking it was part of the show but the cheer turned to screams and shouts when gunfire rang out.

“Crawl,” I hissed to Tod, “stay low and crawl the fuck out of here.”

We almost started to crawl as more gunfire rang through the bar, then I jumped back on Tod, covering him with my body. Once the sound of the guns cleared, I could hear Dad and Malcolm shouting orders to people trying to keep calm and stop a stampede.

We started crawling again, all I could see was Tod’s sequined ass. I heard heavy footfalls on the stage and, all of a sudden, I was lifted up. I let out an half-enraged, half-startled scream and tried to twist away but I no sooner got a look at who had me when I was thrown, like a human discus, off the stage.

I flew through the air and hit Lee with a grunt, both his and mine, and his arms came around me as he staggered back a step to brace himself. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Tex, who had made it to the stage, and me, before Lee. Tex executed the stage dive to end all stage dives, his bulky weight toppling the unfortunate and unprepared people who’d been in his way.

I didn’t get a chance to process this because Lee lifted me up by the waist and carried me to the door, moving anyone out of our way by either shoving them, punching them or just plain old body slamming them with his shoulder.

I saw Hank in front of us with Ally in a similar hold just as Malcolm pushed Kitty Sue out the door.

Lee dragged me to Ally’s car, a newish, convertible Ford Mustang. Hank was shoving Ally in the driver’s seat. Lee shoved me in the passenger side.

“Indy!” Dad shouted from somewhere.

“Here. Safe,” Lee shouted back.

My eyes found Dad and I noticed he lifted his index finger and snapped it smartly at Lee in a “you the man” gesture. He got in with Malcolm and Kitty Sue as Lee started talking to me.

“Stay here, lock your doors, stay down and out of sight.”

I turned to him.

“Tod, Stevie, Tex. Ohmigod, Andrea’s a mother!”

But he wasn’t listening, he slammed the door and ran back to BJ’s.

“And now you,” I whispered, watching him go.

Ally’s hand took mine.

“He’ll be okay,” she said. “You know, you wouldn’t even want a man who wouldn’t go back to save someone’s mother and a drag queen.”

This was true.

Her hand went from mine to my neck and forced me down and my torso explored the limits of the seat belt Lee buckled on me.

“I’ll tell you what’s happening,” she offered.

I bent forward as far as I could to hide myself, heard the locks go on the doors and she started the car in preparation just in case we needed a fast getaway. I listened as Ally counted off Duke and Dolores, who roared off on their hog. Marianne came out with Hank, who took her directly to her car. Andrea came out with Lee, trailed by Andrea’s husband. Lee made sure they were in their mini-van before he went back in. Tex raged out on his own power but this included from Ally an, “Uh-oh, I think he’s bleeding again”. I nearly shot up but she kept me down with a hand at my neck.

The locks went, I was pressed further forward as the back of my seat was tilted, the seatbelt strained to its limits and cut into my chest, and Tex threw himself in back.

“Holy fuck, pandemonium at the gay bar!” he yelled.

I reached out and closed the door, the locks went again and I turned my head and looked back as best I could in the position I was in.

“You okay?” I asked Tex.

“Think I tore somethin’ lose either throwin’ you or doin’ the dive or maybe when I got in a fight with that guy in leather. Doesn’t matter. I feel fuckin’ great! It’s bedlam in there. Fuckin’ nuts!” He stopped, leaned forward and looked out the windshield. “Hey, that’s the guy that shot me!”

My head popped up and sure enough, it was Pepper Rick.

He ran to a car with people in it, a little Mini. The people had left the bar and were trying to get away. I could hear sirens as I watched Rick yank the driver out, the passenger throwing himself out the other side. Rick got behind the wheel and burned rubber.

“Go! Go, go, go!” Tex shouted and Ally didn’t hesitate, she laid rubber too.

I turned my head to her.

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

“He can’t get away!” she shouted back.

With my head turned, I saw Terry Wilcox’s boys, Goon Gary and The Moron as they exited BJ’s.

Jeez, it was like an Indy Torture Squad convention.

Then I could notice no more as Ally jerked around a car trying to exit the parking lot and jumped the curb, screeching south onto Broadway, cutting off a car as we swerved across the two lanes going north and pulling right out in front of a squad car coming south.

The cop car was about to execute a turn in to BJ’s but jerked back out onto Broadway behind the Mustang.

“Pull over, let the cops have him,” I said.

“No way! This guy shot me!” Tex yelled.

Ally wasn’t listening anyway, she rocketed down Broadway, shifting gears quickly, ratcheting up the mph to levels so far beyond safe it wasn’t funny.

“Ally, pull over!” I screamed.

“He’s two cars in front of you. Pass! Pass!” Tex shouted.

We shot passed two squad cars going north, their lights on and sirens blaring. One screeched to a halt and did a uie behind us.

“Stop now! There are more cops, he won’t get away!” I yelled.

“Don’t stop!” Tex shouted. “Never say die!”

I went to bars and clubs without my purse, usually carrying money, credit cards, driver’s license and lip gloss in my front pocket and my cell in my back. It was now that I felt my cell phone vibrate against my ass as I heard it ring. I snatched it from my pocket and tore my eyes from the road long enough to read, “Lee calling”.

I flipped it open as Tex crowed, “No cars in front of us, bump him! That’s it!”

“Don’t bump him!” I shrieked “He’s in someone else’s car.”

Ally didn’t listen, we bumped Pepper Rick, did a nauseating, out of control jerk from side-to-side before Ally righted us and then she yelled, “Righteous!”