I’m in a transvestite bar in Oakland.  We’re watching
the Oscars.  She comes over to my table, done up
like Cher.  Her name is Chair.  She asks if I’m getting
into the pool.  I don’t have any money.  She goes down

to the next table.  I’m in the far back.  Hacksaw Ridge
wins for film editing.  There’s boos.  Hacksaw Ridge
wins for sound mixing.  There’s booze everywhere,
nervousness if Mahershala Ali doesn’t win Best Actor.

He wins Best Actor.  The bar goes crazy.  But we want
the big one.  We want Best Picture.  It means everything.
It means history.  A man dressed up like a coroner
sits next to me.  I hear him say that Mahershala lived

only five blocks from him.  I hear him say that this
is going to come down to either Moonlight or La La
Land.  There’s talk of the hatred of La La Land.
Someone asks why.  We’re talking over Makeup

and Hairstyling.  One lone shh.  Why hate La La
Land?  Anger at this question.  People gravitate
to the conversation.  I’m alone.  I’m dressed like
Brad Majors.  “Because it’s horrible.”  “Because

it’s so white that it blinds my eyes.”  A counter-
argument: “Twenty years ago, it’d be the queerest
film of the year.”  Oh, someone shut him up!
I’m a fly on the wall.  Chair walks by, surprises

me, brushes her fake fur against my cheek.  I
melt.  The end is coming.  The fight at the end
of the tunnel.  Warren and Faye.  “Can this get
any whiter?”  “If I don’t hear a letter M, I’m

smashing this television set.”  Someone yells
that it’s too high for her to reach.  She yells
back that she’ll get her high heels.  Beatty
announces La La Land as winner.  Someone

cuts all the power in the place.  Pitch black.
I hear fake vomiting.  The only light’s from
an EXIT sign.  Then cell phone’s open up.
It feels like we’re in a bomb shelter, post-

apocalypse.  The front door opens, light
shatters our Armageddon.  I make my way
out onto the street, get into my car, drive
home.  It’s not till the next day that I hear

Moonlight actually won.  I think about what
it would have been like to get to be in that bar
and have that miracle happen onscreen.  How
Chair would have kissed me in glee.  How

the plague would never have happened in
2019.  How I would be married now and not
alone.  In Detroit.  My heater broken so I type
this, seeing my breath.  Tonight, I will pile

 all of my clothes on my bed for warmth.

Ron Riekki’s books include My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Loyola University Maryland’s Apprentice House Press), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press). Riekki has edited eight books, including Here (Michigan State University Press, Independent Publisher Book Award), and The Way North (Wayne State University Press, Michigan Notable Book). Right now, Riekki’s listening to Nicolas Britell's "Bonus Track: The Culmination."