Two Stories

From Dan Barry. (Is anybody as consistently readable?)

The Boy Who Became Judy Garland

DOWN some dark stairs, past cases of empty beer bottles, in the brick warren beneath the Off Off Broadway cabaret called Don't Tell Mama, a middle-aged man helps his middle-aged brother adjust the blue sequined top that complements his black sequined skirt. Fifteen minutes to showtime.

"Grab it from here," says Tommy Femia, 52, who is also wearing pantyhose, three-inch heels and a dark-brown wig that belts out Carnegie Hall, 1961. "There's just the one button."

"No zipper?" asks his brother Bobby Femia, 58, who fumbles about Tommy's back like a safecracker searching in vain for the combination. He is wearing…