“Sorry I’m late,” Jason Lovely apologizes, sidling up in a black sequin dress and blond wig. “It’s a drag thing.”

A drag thing it was Tuesday night at Carmen Verandah in Bar Harbor. A drag queen thing, to be precise. Men dressed as glamorous women, lip-synching and strutting on the small, hardwood dance floor, having crumpled dollar bills stuffed into their bodices.

At the end of the evening — the grand finale in a summer-long series — mistress of ceremonies Lovely would hand over three months of cover charges to charity.

“We may be freaks,” he screamed hoarsely as the packed house cheered, “but we’re freaks who just gave $4,000 to Down East AIDS Network!”

Thanks to Lovely, a waiter at Carmen’s, drag made a comeback this summer in Bar Harbor. It had been a kind of tradition there in years past, with shows organized by Alex Gurette (known in drag as Lexi Love). Gurette died of AIDS a few years back, and that glittery side of island nightlife faded.

Enter Lovely, an East Corinth native known to his friends as “Hylie” in drag and out of it. “Highly excitable, highly contagious, highly intoxicated — anything fits,” he explains, in the smoky voice that may be his greatest asset onstage. A touch of a New York accent lends a comic-exotic cadence.

Lovely, 27, got his start onstage five years ago at Avalon in Boston. He was working the door at the nightclub when his roommate, the well-known drag queen Kandi Kane, told him, “You need to be in a dress.” He started as a backup dancer, “worked his way up the drag ladder,” and brought his considerable talents to The Bar in Bangor last year.

After performing at an open mike night at Carmen Verandah last summer, Lovely worked out an arrangement with owner Michael Boland to take the stage every other Tuesday night this year. The $2 door charge would go to the local AIDS agency, they agreed.

The reponse was dramatically positive, Boland said, from all types, “tourists, people from Iowa. We never had any problems. It surprised me.” When doormen explained what the money was for, many patrons handed over $10 or $20 and declined to take back any change.

Then they got busy, drinking, cheering, clapping and tipping. Tuesday, spectators wore everything from cowboy hats and leather pants to jeans and baseball caps. Some happily welcomed drag queens onto their laps. Others hung back with the mesmerized stares of first-timers, warming up as the cocktails multiplied and the night progressed.

“I never thought I could do this for a so-called heterosexual crowd,” Lovely said. “The response has been phenomenal. The summer has gone by so fast.”

On Bar Harbor’s Main Street, men in dresses is still something fresh.

“Drag has almost gotten old in the gay scene, but you can come in here and get this response from a straight crowd,” Lovely said.

It was a warm, welcoming place for a debut performance. Sasha, 24, a student at UMaine in Orono (known there as Steve), made his first-ever appearance in drag Tuesday. He looked stunning in a white dress, black gloves, long auburn curls and a sequin handbag — which he flung across the room at the start of one number, accidentally smashing a tableful of glasses.

“How do you feel?” someone asked him afterward.

“Great, how do I look?” he asked back.

“I hated drag until three weeks ago,” Sasha confessed. “I thought everything would have to be perfect. But when I heard the music start, it was just like dancing at a club.”

He planned to donate all his tips ($107 total, including one $40 tip and one for $30) to Down East AIDS Network.

As well as it went, he doesn’t plan on becoming a regular. “It’s fun, but it’s a lot of work,” the newcomer said. “Nylons! — I respect women. And the looks I got at Sears, trying on dresses! I think they almost had a heart attack.”

Some of the 10 more experienced drag queens on the scene included Crystal Rose from Augusta, in black-and-white polka dots, ruby-red fingernails and sunglasses; Bangor’s own Desire, a polished blonde who will host a children’s benefit at the Oronoka Restaurant in Orono in December; and Valene, a brunette with gold heels, a peacock headdress and “more legs than a bucket of chicken,” according to Lovely, who recruited the other participants.

Next to some of the more risque ensembles — transparent plastic dresses, red fur leotards — Lovely looked almost innocent in his end-of-the-evening outfit, a blue, baby-doll slip dress and satin platform shoes to match.

After midnight, with a $3,600 check ready for donation (including $600 collected at the door Tuesday), Lovely worked the crowd and quickly solicited another $400 in cash gifts.

His “adopted father,” Bob Strout of Ellsworth (actually a close friend’s dad), wasn’t surprised by the evening’s success.

“Hylie has a way of winning people over,” he said proudly. “You feel the love in this room? These are real people.”

A few minutes later, lip-synching wildly to “River Deep, Mountain High” (Celine Dion’s remake of the Tina Turner original), Lovely brought down the house, with the crowd ultimately spilling out onto the dance floor.

“It was clear the energy had been building all summer,” said Ron King, director of Down East AIDS Network, which will use the money for prevention, education and direct service to people with HIV. “I was particularly grateful because local money is harder and harder to raise.”

Bar owner Boland said Lovely would accept no compensation for performing instead of waiting tables, though every show night meant a loss of earnings.

“He’s got a huge heart,” Boland said.

For Lovely, good energy was the payoff. Tuesday night, he glowed, and started making plans for next summer. This winter in New Orleans, he’ll be collecting new moves and new dresses to bring back to Maine.

“Someone told me I brought life back to Bar Harbor,” he said, sounding a little amazed. “Things like that are really nice to hear.”