Fugatives & Refugees Read online

  If you ask, Does it still fit him?

  Walter says, "Yes... ?"

  And the staff of his nightclub laughs.

  "Okay!" he says. "So I added some feathers on the side. That's no sin!"

  In 1972, when Walter opened his nightclub in Old Town, Roxy was in the original show. His first night tap dancing there, "Roxy's first boy tap dance got this," Walter says and claps once. "The next night, in drag, he got a standing ovation because nobody'd ever seen a tap-dancing drag queen."

  Officially called "Walter Cole Presents: That's No Lady—That's Darcelle XV and Company," Walter and Roxy still run the last real burlesque show in town. In the North End's dark tradition of cabarets and music halls, it's a storefront theater, where—sick or well—the show must go on. Even now, at seventy-one years old, Walter Cole still adjusts the stage lights. He cleans the toilets. He makes his own costumes. When it rains too hard, the gutters flood the basement, and mopping up is also his job.

  But when the curtain rises, he's wearing Gracie Hansen's gowns and jewelry, laughing her laugh. Telling her jokes. Well... telling Totie Fields's jokes.

  "The only way I'll retire is when they plant me," Walter says. "And I hope it's during a full house."

  "And he's just gotten a laugh," Roxy says.

  "And I've just gotten a standing ovation," Walter says.

  Darcelle's is at 208 NW Third Avenue. Phone: 503-222-5338.

  10. Behind Closed Doors

  Portland is chockablock with beautiful, historic houses, and on the right day, you can walk right in the front door. To qualify for property tax breaks, the owners of historic houses and buildings must open them to the public at least one day each year. On any day you can go to the website of the State Historic Preservation Office, www.shpo.state.or.us, and find out which local houses are open.

  11. MONK-FOR-A-MONTH

  Here's getting away from it all. Live as a Trappist monk for thirty days at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey. You'll be out of bed for vigil prayers at 4:15 every morning and spend your days working with fellow monks, binding books, baking fruitcakes, and tending the forest that surrounds their isolated abbey. You'll be assigned a mentor to show you the ropes. The monastery is southwest of Portland, in the small town of Lafayette. Phone: 503-852-0107. Or write: Monastic Life Retreat, Trappist Abbey, Lafayette, OR 97127.

  12. Triceratops Cleaning

  Sixty-five million years ago, a baby triceratops was trying to cross a river in what would someday be eastern Wyoming. Well, the little tyke didn't make it. She drowned. Now she's "field jacketed" in thick plaster and waiting for you to come help scrape away the millennia of hardened mud. According to Greg Dardis, OMSI earth science lead educator, this cleaning will take the next fifteen to twenty years.

  "Paleontology is all about humility and patience," Greg says.

  "And calluses," adds volunteer Art Johnstone, as he scrapes away with a dental pick. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is at 1945 SE Water Avenue.

  13. Eviction Court

  For anyone who thinks the tradition of oral storytelling is dead, this is a must-see. Go to the Multnomah County Courthouse, downtown, at SW Fourth Avenue and Main Street. Enter through the main door on SW Fourth Avenue and go to Room 120. Eviction Court meets Monday through Friday at 9:00 a.m., and all dirty laundry is loudly thrown around. It is the professional wrestling of the courthouse.

  14. The De-Virginizing Dance

  The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been playing as a midnight movie at the Clinton Street Theater for more than twenty years. According to Rachel, a student at the Metropolitan Learning Center in Northwest Portland, anyone who has never been to the costumed audience-participation event is labeled a "virgin" and hauled up onstage for a rite of passage. The legally eighteen are separated from the under-eighteen, and... "They took this one girl up onstage and stripped her naked," Rachel says. "Then they wrapped her in gauze and dribbled this sticky red stuff on her and called her a used tampon." Rachel calls this "the de-virginizing dance." After all that you must swear to come see the show at least three times a year.

  The Rocky Horror Picture Show plays every Saturday night at the Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton Street.

  (a postcard from 1985)

  Our third night shooting on location, no one can find our meat.

  The set dressers and props people are pissed. They bought special cuts of meat for this, steaks thick as dictionaries. Chops big around as tennis shoes. They spent time rubbing the raw meat with face powder so it wouldn't shine under the hot lights. So it would look okay on camera.

  This is a music video being shot at Corno's Supermarket at SE Union Avenue and Morrison Street. The band is called Cavalcade of Stars, sometimes just COS, and the song is called "Butcher Boy." All night, from the time the market closes until it opens, a video crew is here on location. Night after night.

  The chorus boys are dressed as butchers in long white coats, but with big blue-eye shadow eyes and cheekbones defined with smears of plum and magenta. Their hair, moussed and teased into stiff crowns. The chorus girls wear oversized sweatshirts in Day-Glo yellow or pink, with the collar and sleeves ripped off. They wear striped tights and pull the sweatshirts to one side so one bare shoulder always shows. Their hair is streaked with bright green or pink and tied with scraps of orange or blue lace. Their eyes are sunk into deep holes surrounded with black mascara.

  For take after take the boys flop the steaks around behind the butcher counter, trying to look busy, tossing the meat with dirty hands and dropping it on the floor. The girls dance with shopping carts as partners.

  Local celebrities make cameo appearances. The rock critic John Wendeborn drinks champagne in the background of one shot. Billy Rancher, the lead singer of Billy Rancher and the Unreal Gods, looks thin and cool, his hair frosted in streaks, his band poised to be Portland's next Quarterflash.

  Me, one night out bar hopping with friends, a stranger gave me a business card and said to come for an audition. Now my role is to give the lead singer, Rhonda Kennedy, a come-hither look and make love to her in the meat locker. While dry ice fog cascades over us, we writhe naked in an antique bed surrounded by frozen sides of beef.

  The blue and red lights in the meat locker are melting the frozen meat. Pork and beef blood drips on us. It drips on the purple satin bedsheets. Rhonda gives me my first cocaine, a fat envelope I take into a bathroom stall. I have no idea what to do, so I poke my nose into the white dust and inhale it all in one long breath. My face flushed red, dusted with white, I could be a slab of our missing meat.

  And Rhonda says, "That was for all of us."

  She and I, we embrace and spin together under the colored lights, we fall into the big damp bed, and Rhonda's breasts bounce out the top of her black lace negligee.

  And the director yells, "Cut."

  Between takes, while the crew sets up the lights and cameras for the next shot, Billy Rancher and the chorus girls link arms and walk down SE Union Avenue, filling the empty street at three or four in the morning. These flashy, glam kids, they walk the half block to the all-night Burns Brothers truck stop. They smoke clove cigarettes and order coffee and dazzle the tired gas jockeys.

  Almost no one here is getting paid. We're each promised a percent of the profits from the sale of the video. We pray for a heavy rotation on MTV.

  Within a couple of years, Billy Rancher will be dead from cancer. John Wendeborn will be fired. The Corno's Supermarket will close. Union Avenue will be renamed for Martin Luther King Jr. Even the greasy old Burns Brothers truck stop will be replaced with a new minimart.

  Soon enough, the Dalai Lama will slap Rhonda Kennedy across the face and she'll become a force for the liberation of Tibet. She'll chaperone a team of Buddhist monk "skeleton dancers" on the Lollapalooza Tour with the Beastie Boys. Fifteen years after we spent our night in a bed soaked with cold animal blood, Rhonda tells me nothing is as nasty as sharing a tour bus bathroom with Buddhist monks: They're not
allowed to touch their penises and refuse to piss sitting down.

  Still, that night wearing all our blue eye shadow, we're thinking this will make us famous. We will look young and hip— forever.

  It's at some point that night the set dressers get word about the missing meat. The extra-thick steaks and chops, coated with makeup, fingerprints, and floor dirt, was ground into hamburger. By mistake, the day shift sold it all to customers.

  Chow: Eating Out

  Now that you've read the preceding story about dirty meat... let's go straight into planning dinner. Some of my favorite cooks have agreed to sacrifice their secret recipes here. Make one, or make them all, and have a best-of-Portland dinner party. If you're in town eating at any of the following places, chances are I'm at the next table.

  The Alibi

  With sculpted hula dancers under black light, woven palm fronds and coconuts, this is Portland's answer to Gilligan's Island. Portland's only tiki bar, the Alibi is at 4024 N Interstate Avenue. Phone: 503-287-5335. It's the summertime home of "Exotiki," the annual festival of bad tropical music, featuring twenty-four-hour pagan voodoo weddings. Wintertime, it's the stomping grounds for the Santa Rampage karaoke singers.

  Delta Cafe

  According to cafe owner Anastasia Corya, these fritters make a great appetizer. According to cook and filmmaker Ryan Rothermel—whose films include Ampersand and Lover or Liver—you might add two diced jalapeño peppers to the dip. These recipes are for restaurant quantities, so throw a party or do the math to cut them down. Better yet, go to the Delta Cafe at 4607 SE Woodstock Boulevard. There isn't a disappointment on the whole menu. Phone: 503-771-3101.

  FRITTERS

  12 cups white flour

  4 teaspoons baking powder

  2 teaspoons salt

  12 eggs

  5 cups milk

  ¾ pound butter, melted

  4 cups com kernels, raw

  4 cups cooked black-eyed peas (see recipe below)

  Mix the dry ingredients. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Heat an inch of vegetable oil in a frying pan and cook the fritters until golden brown.

  FRITTER DIP

  5 pounds cooked black-eyed peas (8 cups)

  1 27-ounce can diced green chiles

  1 pound jack cheese (4 cups), grated

  ½ pound butter, melted

  Mix all the ingredients together. Put one-third in a food processor and blend it into a paste. Mix the paste back into the remaining two-thirds. Heat in a double boiler until the cheese is melted and smooth.

  BLACK-EYED PEAS

  10 pounds dry black-eyed peas

  1 bunch celery, chopped

  2 yellow onions, chopped

  4 carrots, sliced

  4 tablespoons salt

  2 tablespoons black pepper

  2 bay leaves

  ¼ pound whole garlic cloves (about 1 cup), peeled

  Put all ingredients in a stockpot and boil 45 minutes or until tender. Add water if needed.

  Fuller's Restaurant

  Come have breakfast or lunch with the locals, but don't leave without a loaf of Fuller s incredible fresh-baked bread. It's at 136 NW Ninth Avenue. Phone: 503-222-5608.

  Le Happy

  Owner John Brodie also manages the band Pink Martini, a popular band here in the States but cult heroes in France. "When I've traveled with Pink Martini in the U.S. and France," John says, "we always seemed to find a good creperie. So I decided to open one here. So now when the French visit us, we can take them to an authentic creperie in Portland, Oregon." Wherever you are, check out the website www.lehappy.com. The restaurant is at 1011 NW Sixteenth Avenue. Phone: 503-226-1258.

  LE HAPPY'S FAUX VEGAN CREPES

  Traditionally, crepes are served folded over in a half circle, or with the sides of the round crepe folded in to make a perfect square. To make at home, we've adapted this recipe to serve smaller rolled crepes.

  Makes 8 crepes, 4 servings

  Buckwheat crepe batter

  ¾ cup all-purpose flour ¼ cup buckwheat flour

  1⅓ cup whole milk

  2 eggs

  ¼ cup water

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  Pepper to taste

  2 teaspoons butter, melted

  Vegetable oil for frying

  Mushroom ragout

  1 pound mushrooms (about 6 cups), chopped

  2 tablespoons butter

  1½ teaspoons porcini powder (see note)

  ½ cup dry sherry

  Salt and pepper to taste

  1 cup heavy cream

  8 tablespoons Gruyère cheese (or Swiss), grated

  2 cups fresh spinach, chopped

  4 ounces mild goat cheese ('A cup)

  2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

  ½ teaspoon fresh thyme, minced

  4 tablespoons crèmefraîche (see note)

  TO make crepes: Whisk together the white and buckwheat flour. Add the milk and eggs and stir to combine. Add the water, salt, pepper, and melted butter and stir until smooth. The batter should be the consistency of heavy cream.

  Heat an 8-inch nonstick crepe pan (or omelet pan) over medium-high heat and brush lightly with vegetable oil. Pour ¼ cup batter into the hot pan and quickly tip and swirl to evenly coat the pan. Cook, over medium-high heat, until the bottom is golden brown. Flip and cook second side briefly. Remove to a warm plate. Repeat with remaining batter. Hold crepes in a warm oven until needed.

  TO make mushroom ragout: Sauté the mush-rooms in the butter over medium-high heat until the mushrooms are tender and beginning to give up some of their liquid. Stir in the porcini powder and dry sherry and cook over high heat until the sherry is almost completely evaporated. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the cream. Cook over high heat until the cream is reduced and the sauce is thick. Taste and season again with salt and pepper if necessary. Keep warm until ready to fill crepes.

  TO assemble crepes: Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place a warm crepe on a plate and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon Gruyère. Top with ¼ cup chopped spinach and one-eighth of the mushroom ragout. Crumble 1 tablespoon goat cheese over the mushrooms, and sprinkle with a mixture of parsley and thyme. Roll the crepe around the filling and arrange seamside down on a baking dish. Fill and roll remaining crepes and place in baking pan. Cover and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until crepes are heated through. Drizzle with crème fraîche and serve hot.

  Note: Dried porcini mushrooms are available at specialty markets. To make porcini powder, pulverize dried mushrooms in a spice grinder or blender.

  Crème fraîche is two parts heavy cream to one part buttermilk (blend, let stand overnight until thick, then refrigerate).

  Western Culinary Institute

  Portland's old guard of rich cheapskates don't want you to know this little secret of theirs. The waiters and chefs at the institute have not just their jobs and wages riding on your satisfaction, but their grades and future as well. The dining room is swank and intimate, and the service is very snappy with no more than two tables per server. Fat's no issue—it's real butter and cream—and the food's terrific. All this and free parking. It's no wonder folks flock down from the West Hills for fine dining at a fast-food price.

  The dining room is at 1316 SW Thirteenth Avenue. Phone: 503-294-9770. Lunch is served 11:30-1:00, five courses for $9.95. Dinner is served 6:00—8:00, six courses for $19.95. Thursday is buffet night, offering at least thirty-five items. Very important: Reservations are recommended at least a week in advance.

  Wild Abandon

  The building is a former link in the chain of Ginger's Sexy Saunas—several massage parlor "jack shacks" that used to dot Portland in the 1970s. You can't get a handjob here, but you can get a great dinner, and breakfast on the weekend. Say hello to the owner, Michael Cox, and look for the actress Linda Blair, a vegan regular. The restaurant is at 2411 SE Belmont Street. Phone: 503-232-4458. The menu changes, but I always look for these:

  DEAN BLAIR'S LEMON-LAVENDER SCONES

&nb
sp; 1½ cups flour

  ½ tablespoon baking powder

  ½ teaspoon baking soda

  ½ cup brown sugar

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ¼ pound cold unsalted butter, cubed

  1 tablespoon lavender flowers

  Zest from one lemon

  ½ cup buttermilk

  1 small egg

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

  In a medium bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Add the cubed butter, lavender, and lemon zest. In a separate bowl combine the buttermilk, egg, and vanilla and whip with a fork. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the buttermilk mixture. Combine with a rubber spatula until just moistened. Transfer to a cookie sheet and form the dough into a wheel roughly 9 inches in diameter and ¾ inch thick. Score it into eight pie slices and top with brown sugar. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes.

  (a postcard from 1986)

  Somewhere a man's hollering about devils and demons. From some other hospital room he's bellowing and screaming about how the niggers and fags are out to get him. You can hear him all over the third floor when he screams, "Get away from me, you cunt!" And his shouting just goes on and on.

  This is Emanuel Hospital, the big medical complex at the east end of the Fremont Bridge. I'm here as a volunteer for a charity hospice. My job is to take people places, mostly relatives of dying people. Mostly, I drive visiting mothers from their motel to the hospital. After their son or daughter is dead, I might drive them to the airport for their flight home.