A rainbow of spectators fidgets on the white leather couches as they wait for the drag queens to take the stage. A faint spotlight swirls on the cement floor and around the unbecoming wood pillars that hold up the small club on Ocean Blvd.
“I love this girl,” Sha’Day Halston St. James, the host of the Sha’Glam, says, standing stiffly in a long black gown in front of a velvet blue curtain in the intimate Club Ripples. “She is definitely one of my new sisters; she’s blowing up in the drag community; this girl is showing up all over the place; please welcome, FOXIE!”
Foxie Adjuia struts out in a shimmering zebra dress shorter than the standard t-shirt, hugging curves that seemed to appear out of thin air. She drew a sharp contrast to the matriarch that introduced her, dancing energetically, striking wide-legged poses, her arms stretching gracefully about her as her fingers framed her body.
“She can sure put it together, can’t she,” Sha’day says, a mass of a queen with just as much attitude. “Skinny bitch.”
The audience laughs, but at neither of the queens’ expenses; sweet in drag, they’re sour if crossed. After all, Foxie is one of few who has stayed away from Sha’day’s poo-poo list, reserved only for flaky and dramatic drag queens.
To his amusement, most of 21-year-old Malik Adjuia Smith-Thompson’s acquaintances have seen no need to learn his real name. As his own publicist, he has named himself Foxie Adjuia.
The soon-to-be super senior communications major is unemployed, but considers drag a sufficient source of income for the time being—he makes between $100 and $200 a week for his highly seductive, lipsticked perfomances. To ensure popularity, Foxie often takes on the guise of Beyonce, Fantasia or another African American pop star.
His hands sway aquatically as he describes the beautiful garments he bought at the last sale—“things with wings, sequined gowns and boots up to—” he gasps glamorously. Each five-minute dance shows a new Foxie with a new weave, taller boots and a more stylish ensemble. He said he recently spent over $200 on makeup alone, but he knows he has no trouble earning it all back.
As one of her mash-ups play over the deafening surround sound, regulars hold up dollar bills like flowers sprouting from sweaty palms, and Foxie collected them between dance moves, holding them in her hands like crumpled bunches of leaves as she twirled on point and high-kicked, skills refined by university dance classes in hip hop and ballet.
“[For a lot of people] it’s really hard to commit to a character,” Malik said as he picked at the white Styrofoam box filled with an emulsion of greasy chow mein and jelly-covered meats, drenched in extra sweet and sour sauce. “Foxie is just another extension of myself. Its like a samurai and their sword.”
Adjuia is crazy and bitter, while Foxie is sweetly glamorous. On stage at the several venues he frequents thrice a week, he is a mix of enchanting and fearful, the embodiment of the most desired trait in drag: fierce.
Drag summoned Malik in Spring 2012, when he was powdering his friend for a show. That semester, he revealed his shockingly feminine legs to the virgin residents at a talent show in the CSULB Parkside dormitories. His social fraternity, Delta Lambda Phi, holds an annual spring drag show, Dragalicious. Spring 2012 was Foxie’s first show on a full-size stage, and she went on to host Dragalicious 2013.
“Starting off, I thought I looked fierce, I thought I looked good,” Malik said. “Luckily I have [feminine features]… I didn’t look horrible, but I was horrible.”
Without his wig, his fluffy hair is pushed back as if by an invisible headband. The milk chocolate complexion, uncovered by creams and powders of the same color, is clean and calm as his flirtatious brown eyes framed by the remainder of last night’s eyeliner. Chiseled cheekbones crown his thin face; his lips are plump even without lip-gloss.
Untainted by plastic surgery and razor burns, Malik is a man who knows he naturally looks good as a woman, confident in both elements but most satisfied in the latter. He crosses one muscular leg slowly over the other as he eats his lunch, his black nail polish complimenting his tattered black Vans.
He reiterates that he does not consider himself feminine, this time becoming more frustrated. On his hands and forearms coarse black hairs peek through where he had shaved, Arms lean and muscular, he wears a white wife-beater and baggy black pants.
“I don’t consider myself transgender because I love my male parts,” Malik said with zeal. “I love myself in drag too, I’m like damn I look good! I stay in the mirror for a few hours!”
Since New York’s Stonewall Riots in 1969, drag has been a popular platform through which men are able to express themselves. While some fool their families and employers to escape heteronormative realities by putting on makeup and dresses after the sun goes down, Malik is comfortable in both of his aliases.
“[Because of] their community, culture, they have male imprinted on them and they cant break that,” Malik said. “I’ve broken my social boundaries for myself, long before I did drag.”
After shows he visits his family’s house, still “in face” He said his family loves Foxie and knows her well. Some fraternity brothers say they like Foxie better than Malik.
Following queens in plaid suits, gaudy jewelry and dresses decorated with emojis, Foxie emerges a second time, having engulfed the shell formerly known as Malik. Her curly red wig whips as if it has a mind of its own, still always falling perfectly as if it is her real hair. She wears much less makeup than the other women, and as far as the audience is concerned—she is a woman, the most artificial aspect of her performance being her lip-sync. Tonight, she is playing no one else but Foxie.
“I’m growing into “Foxie,” Malik said. “She’s there, I don’t know her that well, and we’re growing together. I’m fitting into her mold, slowly but surely.”
Malik and Foxie have become one. As late nights turn into miserable mornings dulled by glitter-drenched hangovers, his college career approaches the long-awaited end. Malik doesn’t skip a beat, but continues to flaunt Foxie on the streets of Long Beach and the infamous clubs of Hollywood, ravenous for her big break. Malik says he refuses to be satisfied with his success.
“It doesn’t matter who you love, it doesn’t matter what you love, it doesn’t matter how you love, but what matters is that you love yourself,” Sha’day said, closing out the show.
The Stoked Daily. 