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what’s the point of thinking twice anyway? The only possible outcome of double thinking is that you invariably end up negating whatever it was motivating you in the first place. Forcing yourself to think twice about something is just admitting that somehow you are instinctively stupid, and that repetition is the only thing that will save you from yourself.
    After knowing Jack for merely forty-eight hours, I’ve learned that he will willingly think for me too. He’ll decide when I should drink. Decide what I should wear to bed. Decide what I want for breakfast. And it’s pretty relaxing, never having to think once—let alone twice—about something. The only other time I get to feel as free as this is somewhere around my twelfth vodka. It’ll be interesting to see if Jack gives me a headache the next day.

4
    I ’m working the door at Jaguar, a small club two doors down from the Hells Angels headquarters on East Third Street. It’s a slow night, and my drag codoorperson, L’il Debbie, is getting restless. L’il Debbie is close to three hundred pounds and famous for her raunchy numbers.
    One of her most notorious appearances occurred just last month when she was scheduled to open a show at a club called Don Hill’s. She didn’t look so well when she showed up, but that was nothing terribly unusual for any of us queens.
    Due to a scheduling problem with another drag queen, the hostess of the show moved L’il Debbie’s song to the finale rather than the opening number. L’il Debbie sat backstage for an hour and a half, growing more and more sickly by the minute. She refused to sit down and spent the entire show pacing back and forth, sweating far more than a three-hundred-pound man in makeup and leather bustier would even under normal circumstances.
    When her number finally came, she rallied. It was a high-energy punk rock version of “The Candyman.” She skipped back and forth across the stage with a black leather parasol in one hand and an oversize lollipop in the other.
    â€œWHO CAN TAKE A SUNRISE?! SPRINKLE IT WITH DEW?!” she shrieked at the audience with such force that several people actually looked as if they were trying to come up with an answer for her.
    â€œCOVER IT IN CHOCOLATE AND A MIRACLE OR TWO?!…THE CANDYMAN CAN!!”
    She started twirling now in that way ice skaters do, where her body was in constant rotation, but her head would stop at each revolution to stare at the startled audience. She held the parasol out to her side as she spun, threatening to decapitate the entire front row.
    â€œWHO CAN TAKE A RAINBOW?!!…”
    The lollipop was flung out over the crowd, beaning a Long Island Italian gay boy toward the back of the room.
    â€œTHE CANDYMAN MAKES…EVERYTHING HE BAKES…SATISFYING AND DELICIOUS!!”
    It was incredible that Debbie hadn’t thrown up yet. She’d been spinning at an increasing speed for nearly a full minute. The end of the song was approaching.
    â€œTHE CANDYMAN CAN!!!…THE CANDYMAN CAN!!!…THE CANDYMAN CAN!!!”
    At this final line Debbie stopped spinning. What happened next will go down in drag queen history. Debbie stopped with her back to the audience, lifted up her chain-link miniskirt, and bent over, revealing what looked like a big red plastic umbrella handle coming out of her ass.
    None of us could make out what it was at first. It looked familiar. All of us had seen one before. Somewhere. And then, just as the crowd collectively remembered what it was, Debbie reached behind her and started pulling and twisting at it.
    It was one of those giant hollow plastic candy canes they used to sell at Christmastime in the checkout lines in Woolworths. They were about two feet long and filled with M&M’s. The front row panicked as they realized exactly what that red handle Debbie was tugging at was attached to: two full feet of M&M delivery chute shoved up her ass.
    The