When "Dreamgirls" attack.

I got throttled by an angry, wigless drag queen.

How was your Fourth of July?

I was avoiding my mother on the holiday, which is why I didn't attend my hometown fireworks display. I guessed my mother, first of all, was with those grandkids of hers that I've tried never to meet.

I also didn't want to see my mother because the Fourth of July marks the third anniversary of the night that my Saturn broke and, in neutral, almost ran me down in the middle of a country road - which resulted in my big argument with my stepdad where he called me a faggot and told me to get out of the house, which resulted in me avoiding my mother's house, despite her pleas, for the better part of three years.

Larry and David joined me for dinner at Red Chair on the holiday.

Larry's able to treat Red Chair as though it's just some regular restaurant. He likes the eclectic, well-prepared food, and I imagine he enjoys the gay atmosphere. He's able to sit and have conversations with friends of his, in spite of the blaring techno music and giant, distracting video screens.

I, of course, can't hold a conversation there usually. The parade of men on their way to the stand-and-pose section of the bar and the clothing-optional music videos leave me unable to concentrate.

Last night, I thought I was getting a reprieve, though, because the music videos were gone, though there was still a DJ spinning club music. A makeshift stage was also set up near our table.

"Oh," Larry said. "It must be the night of the amateur drag show that Bubba D. Licious hosts."

I'd only seen Bubba D. Licious at parades or on car commercials. I'd never seen her perform, but I'd heard she's hilarious.

When the show started, a stars-and-stripes-bedecked Bubba D., badly lipsynching to a country version of "God Bless America," made 15 unsuccessful attempts to light the sparkler she was carrying.

Frustrated, she ended the song by throwing the firework and the lighter on the ground, telling the audience never to shop at Walgreen's.

My friend David later came out of the audience to help her by using his lighter on the sparkler, but it still didn't work. Bubba D. had to get one of the staff to ignite the sparkler on the stove in the back before she was able to finish the patriotic display.

Later, Martina, another drag queen, came out, performed a Whitney Houston number and then actually performed her own accompaniment on violin. She, of course, received a standing ovation, and I passed along one of the dollars Larry was giving me to tip them to her.

I was, after all, the one sitting in the aisle. I knew, before what happened next, that you never to sit in the aisle at a drag show. But, um, it had been a while since I'd been to a show. So I guess I forgot.

The performer's name was Brittany Powers, and Bubba D. had announced to everyone before her number that it was her birthday and to be generous. (Bubba D. also added that it was important to be generous, even though Brittany "probably won't be any good.")

Brittany came out in a red dress and a raven-haired wig that kept falling in her eyes. Her eyes, by the way, were designed with layers upon layers of liner and eyeshadow, probably intended to mask the performer's actual age. The pancake makeup on her face, though, couldn't hide the wrinkles. Her lipstick was cherry red. So the total package gave her this Bette Davis-in-"Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" look, minus the pigtails.

The song Brittany'd chosen to do was "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" from the musical "Dreamgirls." Brittany, in an attempt to channel Jennifer Holliday, mustered every ounce of her inner diva for the number.

And when that didn't work, she basically just through an over-the-top fit with me as her primary target.

The whole thing happened so quickly, but here's what I remember.

She walked by my chair, touching me and grabbing hold of the post I was sitting next to. I, intending to tip her, decided to play along by folding my dollar bill and putting it in my teeth. The butt-ugly Brittany deep-throated the dollar so that it looked like she was kissing me, which Larry and David laughed at.

Then, as the song reached an angrier tone, Brittany pushed her way past me and sat on the table of this guy and his female best friend.

Brittany got a dollar from him, then used him to make a play for the song's theatrics. Soon, Brittany'd taken off her wig and began whipping the man across the face angrily with it.

I turned around in my chair to see Brittany, who was probably about 60 and mostly bald with tufts of white hair on the sides, wailing on the guy with her wig. And the guy started, thankfully, to guard his face.

So Brittany backed up a few steps and started beating me upside the head with her raven-haired wig. And, I'm sorry, but polyester hair flying at your face hurts a little.

I put up my hands, I think, but, since the song got more dramatic, Hurricane Brittany just kept coming at me.

While the audience watched and applauded and while she continued to lipsynch, Miss Brittany knocked me out of my chair and to the ground. Then, she threw the chair across the room. (Larry told me later that it almost hit a really cute waiter.)

I was laughing, in the spotlight and on the giant video screens as Brittany stood over me, alternating between hitting me with the wig and pointing her finger at me.

Then, Brittany got on her knees and straddled me, pinning me to the floor of Red Chair. I didn't really try to get up, to be honest.

And I didn't mind when she took off my glasses in the middle of the song, kissed
both lenses and then placed them squarely back on my face.

Toward the end of the song, she dropped the wig, threw her skirt over my head and proceeded to dry-hump me on the floor of the restaurant. (Gosh, there's a sentence I never thought I'd write.)

Then, she threw face on mine, whispered "Thank you, sweetie," in my ear, helped me up and finished the song in full Jennifer Holliday mode, even though she still didn't have a wig on.

And I stood in the aisle, stunned, as people applauded Brittany.

Looking at me with my glasses smudged with lipstick as I tried to pick the strands of wig hair off of my face, Larry laughed out loud, proclaiming, "Oh my God, this is the BEST drag show I've seen in AGES!"

When another performer approached me with a microphone a couple seconds later and asked me if I was OK, I couldn't say anything because I kept gasping for air.

"BRITTANY," the performer yelled toward backstage, "YOU DONE WORE HIM OUT!"

As the next song started, I headed to the bathroom to wash the lipstick off my glasses, and these two cute club-boys started talking to me.

"Was that PLANNED?" one of them asked. "'Cause it looked like you took one hell of a beating."

I told them no.

"Well, on the plus side, I think you're gonna be in DAVID magazine," the other one said.

"What?" I asked.

"There was a guy taking all sorts of pictures of you," he said. "Didn't you see him?"

I'm guessing that all happened when the skirt was over my head. Larry confirmed to me that a photographer took all sorts of shots of Hurricane Brittany's "Dreamgirls"-fueled assault.

And here I thought I wasn't exposed to enough of Atlanta's gay culture.