Cross-Dressing For Country

"Alright troops, before I begin, does anybody have any acting experience?" This seemingly innocuous question, to me, would soon become as consequential as "Do you take this woman to be your wife?", or "Do you understand these rights as they've been read to you?". The year is 2011. I am a 23 year old, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Infantryman private. I had recently completed a full 3 year contract with the army. I immediately re-upped for a second round, as I hadn't had a chance to go to war yet, which should say everything you need to know about my intelligence at that age (or lack there-of). The truth is, when you're not overseas trying to kill anyone that doesn't look like you, the army is actually pretty boring, and your daily life is transformed into a celestial battle to stave of alcoholism and debauchery. A group of us had been "hand picked" to represent our regiment at an upcoming festival called the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo. In civilian terms, it's a celebration of foreign and domestic military skills on display. In army-speak, it's a 3 week booze fest in an ACTUAL city, complete with College girls to chase and a per diem to waste. Our mission, with no choice not to accept it, was to participate in said Tattoo, and perform what was called an "unarmed combat display", among other things. On paper, it looked brilliant. We were to rappel down from the roof, at a break-neck height into the middle of the convention centre, and simply kick each other's asses for a couple of minutes. For lack of a better term, this was a slam dunk, a good go, an infanteer's wet dream. Enter Private Jones, stage left.

"I've got loads!" I shouted, with an alarming amount of enthusiasm, given my present company. The truth is, I have always been a closet thespian. At the tender age of twelve, I secured my first lead role as Jack Skeleton in The Nightmare before Christmas at the local YMCA Theatre camp. Determined not to be just a blip on the theatrical radar, I followed up that performance by throwing a temper tantrum the next year when I wasn't chosen to play Joseph in his wonderfully coloured dreamcoat. After accepting my fate as Joe's lowly slave owner (Potiphar), I chose to neuter my acting career by taking issue with my openly gay director over how he chose to costume me. I simply couldn't fathom a pre-biblical Egyptian donning quite so much gold plate in my child's mind. But I digress.

Unfortunately for me, there were no auditions for this particular part. For the trouble of admitting my theatrical roots, I was rewarded with an opportunity to portray Grandma; a plant in the crowd who would become suddenly overwhelmed by the excessive violence that my brothers were visiting upon each other that I felt honour-bound to intervene. I was to be issued a dress, cane, a wig, a makeup artist, and a pair of underwear with the Union Jack sewed to the rear end. I had been completely indoctrinated by the army at this point, so the thought to question that particular detail never once crossed my mind.

Cue a one week montage of "preparation", and we were officially in Halifax, home of one of the busiest ports in the world, some of the most well respected schools in the country, and unfortunately, us. We were housed at Dalhousie University rather than the Navy base, because the last thing a bunch of horned up war machines need is help finding a fight. Thankfully for the school, there were very few students staying there, so we had little ability to drag down it's prestigious reputation. There were surprisingly few orders to follow considering the platoon of reprobates that had been assembled. I was given a generous timing to be at the Metro Convention Centre every day, where we would perform for a few hours every night, but beyond that, we were largely left to our own devices. Unsurpisingly, I managed to lose my entire pay cheque at the city casino my very first night. You see, our company motto back home was "you can always bet on black", but the part they forget to mention is that while you can indeed always bet on black, you still stand to lose your shirt to red... This was my first real taste of financial lacking, and I found it surprisingly relieving. If you take away one's means of taking part in sinful acts, it really limits the amount of damage one can do, and allows one to become completely devoted to the mission. Devoid of all means of supporting my habits, I was free to concentrate on the task at hand: Being the best goddamned Grandma the world had ever seen.

In the beginning, the preparation and practice was incredibly difficult. We were not only taking part in a jumped up wrestling farce, but we were involved in several drill displays, obstacle courses, and the like. For instance, I was expected to be marching around with a dummy rifle wearing full dress uniform fifteen minutes before I was expected to transition into "Canada's nanny". The first thing out of my make-up girl's mouth was "We HAVE to do something about that beard". I had shaved three times that day... Given my lack of obvious femininity, she was an absolute genius at the smoke and mirrors game. She aged me several decades with a an amazing array of make-up, wigs, and my very own cane to hunch over. Her talents were put on full display though when she diverted attention away from my perma-stubble by simply giving me monstrously huge tits. I have absolutely know clue how her career progressed beyond those fateful weeks, but I'm sure she's at the top of her game. It took the fellas a few days before they could comfortably rappel almost a hundred feet from the Centre roof without worry of critical injury. It wasn't their skills that were lacking, because as proud infantrymen, we had been given ample training in that department. The trouble lay in the fact that on any given night, the majority of us had enough liquor in our systems to give Andre the Giant liver cirrhosis. One of my most vivid memories of this entire misadventure was having to stooge slap one of my colleagues and scrape the vomit off of his parade uniform before heading out to perform a marching display in front of thousands of people. The reason I can recall this particular moment in detail is because it happened on a nightly basis. Despite our inability to cohesively stay sober, we pulled off a hell of a show. In trying to win the crowd's favour, we had to compete against all sorts of individuals that were much more talented (and sober) than the likes of us. The French sent a motorcycle troupe that specialised in popping wheelies and looking "dope as f***", the Germans sent a rifle drill squad that could toss their rifles better than they could shoot them. There was a crew of mechanics that within the space of a minute, could disassemble a fully functional jeep, put it back together, and drive it off the stage. Add to that an Icelandic roller skate team, a mind boggling amount of gymnasts, a plethora of women wearing leotards and performing incredible feats of acrobatics. Suffice it to say we felt like the cast of Jackass warming up the crowd for Cirque du So-awesome. Despite the abundance of talent, we quickly established ourselves as the toast of the Tattoo. After every show, I would don my drag once more, and mill about the crowd, copping off hand compliments such as "We could have sworn you were a REAL woman!". Once everything was said and done, I would ditch the wig, brassier, bum flag, etc. and we would all hit the town for a drink or ten. I only came to the realisation of how truly popular our gig was whilst trying to get into the pants of a Dalhousie freshman. I somehow found myself in conversation with a girl far above my station, and our chat quickly zeroed in on the Tattoo, given that all performers were provided a VIP lanyard to hang about our necks to help us get into bars and pants while we were off-duty. Contrary to popular belief, I was actually somewhat embarrassed to admit my role in the festivities, especially in circumstances such as the one I presently found myself in. Nevertheless, it didn't take long for her to ferret it out of me, and I was forced to admit that my contribution to the event was nothing more than cross-dressing for the crowd. Instead of the awkward "Oh that's nice" comment I was expecting followed by an urgent need to use the bathroom (and subsequently never to be found again by the likes of me), I was met with an accusation. "You're not the Grandma you f**king liar!" She exclaimed. "I met that guy like an hour ago!" After quickly confirming with my alter egos that I hadn't met this specimen previously, I came to the realisation that my character was so popular, that dudes were literally pretending to be my version of Mrs. Doubtfire just for a whiff of a chance of getting laid. That singular moment was all the confirmation I needed. From Jack Skeleton to Potiphar, Duke Orsino of the Twelfth Night to Lysander of A Midsummer Night's Dream, culminating with a performance as an 80 year-old Karen with an inexplicable distaste for England, I HAD RANGE!