Elsie Saldaña, 81, performs as the drag king El Daña, in Los Angeles.
She had cleaned houses seven days in a row. Her knee ached from falling, and she couldn’t afford a garment bag to carry her costumes from Fresno, California, to Los Angeles, but Elsie Saldaña had waited decades for her big break, so she packed her clothes in white trash bags, and headed into the Silver Lake bar where she was the night’s headline performer.
Earlier that week, Saldaña had received a letter from the Guinness Book of World Records, officially naming her the world’s oldest drag king. She was 81, decades older than the other women who would perform as men that night. But her hips still moved well enough that an audience member had asked a month earlier if they were surgically enhanced.
Saldaña wore a little makeup to hide her wrinkles, and she dyed her hair black, but the hips were natural. If she swiveled them right tonight, she thought, maybe she’d charm a few women.
She climbed a flight of stairs to the dressing area, and hung her trash bags on a metal shelf. Saldaña had been in Los Angeles for less than 24 hours, and already she had missed her nap and tripped face-first into a sidewalk curb, scraping both her nose and her knee. The fall had zapped her confidence and her energy, and she worried she would let the crowd down that night.
