THE TIME WARP from ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. Story by Katherine Kovacic.

 

Hawthorn,  Melbourne, 1988.

My all-girls’ high school had a strict uniform code, particularly when it came to jewellery. You were allowed to wear a single pair of studs in your ears, but anything else, except for something of religious significance, was forbidden.

Consequently, just about everyone I knew wore a cross: from actual friends to classroom acquaintances, from the girls who stood either side of me in choir to the scrags anyone with half a brain avoided. Even if all you could actually see was a gold chain, you knew there’d be a cross at the end of it.

As one did at that age, I had a few different friend groups: sporty friends, brainy friends, arty friends… and the odd little sub-set of the friendship Venn diagram where a couple of the girls somehow managed to exist in two places.

One of my sporty friends — we’ll call her Jen — wore a very large, very visible, cross. Jen reminded me of a character from one of those Girl’s Own Annuals. I hardly ever saw Jen in her actual school uniform; in summer, she was in cricket whites, in winter, hockey kit. She was jolly and bracing in a way that head girls in books of the 1940s were. You could actually imagine her telling you to buck up if you were feeling a bit blue. But Jen was someone to have in your corner.

Although she wasn’t in choir or any of the music groups — it would’ve interfered with sport — I knew Jen liked musicals. She’d seen My Fair Lady and Cats with her family, and I remember her raving about Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

And so, I did something they told us in Ghostbusters never to do: I crossed the streams and invited sporty Jen to come to a music gang outing. A bunch of us were going to see the latest musical. Jen knew the most famous song from it, but she’d never seen the show.

She was excited.

I was happy she was happy.

We were all so damn happy.

Fast forward. Comedy Theatre, middle of the stalls. The show is under way, and then we hit the big number. The crowd is into it. I look at Jen seated next to me and she’s into it, she’s mouthing the words, a huge grin on her face.

The song ends to wild applause.

There’s a bit of dialogue and then…

Frank n Furter makes his entrance.

I heard a squeak from the seat beside me and looked across. Jen is pressed back in the burgundy velvet, eyes wide, a look of absolute horror on her face.

‘What’s happening?’ she whimpers. ‘Why’s he dressed like that?’

‘It’s Rocky Horror. He’s —‘

The cast launches into Sweet Transvestite, leaving further explanation on my part null and void.

Jen grabs for the cross at her neck and clutches it tightly. I can see her lips moving, but I don’t think she’s singing along anymore.

At that moment it dawns on me. Jen’s cross isn’t just for show. She’s the real deal. A cross-yourself-forgive-me-Father-hail-Mary Christian. And right now, her world is imploding.

I jerk my head. Did she want to leave?

She shakes hers. The other girls would see. School, cliques, bitches, rumours… Jen was going to tough it out.

At intermission, she mumbles something about the bathroom then dashes off. I think she’s probably throwing up. I have visions of The Exorcist.

But just before the second act she reappears. Face pinched and white, she hunkers down in her seat.

‘What did you think this was about?’ I hiss.

‘A haunted house? The Addams Family?’
Back at school, Jen avoids the topic of musicals.

Then a couple of months later, she invites me to dinner.

At her family’s lovely, obsessively tidy home, I can’t help but notice — now that I have my eye in — the crucifix on the wall and the large Bible, positioned smack bang in the middle of the coffee table.

Her mother passes the potatoes and smiles brightly at me. ‘Thank you for taking Jen to that show! What was it again, dear?’

I open my mouth to reply but someone kicks my ankle. Across the table, Jen’s eyes are wide in mute appeal.

‘Gilbert and Sullivan.’ I say. ‘HMS Pinafore.’

Jen sighs. Her mother smiles, and says grace.

I have the grace to blush. I’d made a sneaky liar out of my devout Christian friend.

After that, we never spoke of it — or the Time Warp — again.

Funny thing, though.

A few years later, Jen came out, loud and proud.

And I like to think that maybe, just maybe, accidentally taking my devout Christian friend to see a show about a cross-dressing, mad scientist transvestite was one of the best things I could have ever done.

 

Stereo Story#751