Autograph Penis: An Adventure in Competitive Performance Art

Denver

Our layover is in Denver. It's finally time for breakfast. Rookie is saving her money. She's young. She doesn't need food. T-Bozz and K-Rawk save me a seat in a diner-type restaurant as I go looking for a bathroom. The signs here lie. They say "restrooms" but it is just a maze of stores. There are acres of scarves. A store of incredibly overpriced and precious toys, some of which are awesome all the same. Finger puppets!

I check out the Crocs store, scanning the rows of foam shoes: olive green, black, Sponge Bob, ballet flats. I text the girls: I'm at the Crocs store. They do not have the elusive Crocs heels.

In 2008, T-Bozz and K-Rawk's rookie year, we had a team of four girls and a female coach. That year, we decided to dress like women. Sure, you'll see people in slam wear dresses, with their motorcycle boots and spiked bracelets. And there is something about my city's slam culture that makes us want to point out the norm, just to show that it exists.

Femininity is taboo if you are in a business of power-seeking. You don't see much badonkadonk in Congress. I'm not saying Congresswomen should dress differently. I'm just saying that people don't think of beautiful girls as having a full complement of human characteristics, and that people don't know that they feel that way. It's unconscious. If you're a woman with a facility for and interest in genre switching, you experience people's expectations of your intelligence varying pretty widely. And all the time you know you're the same. Behind the costume, professional or trashy, you experience what it's like to be seen as more or less competent.

We had five girls in our room that year. It was wall-to-wall leopard print bras, foundation garments, and lipliner. Our coach, Kat S., had just come off a year as a faux queen in Oakland. I try to keep up with the times but I had to ask her what that was. It's like it sounds, it's a woman dressed as a fucking iconic woman, so much so that she exceeds gender. Anyway, Kat's science was tight.

We came with 28 pairs of shoes and left with 41. At some point one of us googled "pictures of shoes," and discovered that Crocs was making heels. They were red. They were Barbie shoes mated with overlarge marshmallows. They were evil. Since then I have looked for them. Like Mr. Snuffleupagus or jackalopes.

T-Bozz texts back, Thank God! Abomination!

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