Maiden Voyage hits the rocks:
There he is, the tall, skinny black kid, still a virgin, the one running down the center of the street, panic in his eyes, confusion in his stride, blood still oozing from that freshly sliced six-inch-long valley across his forehead. Okay, so maybe you're right, maybe it's just his clothing that has you somewhat confused--white chiffon blouse, with ruffled sleeves, matching leather skirt, nylons and black high heels--but the heels are gone now, left somewhere back there near that go- go bar, and so is that long blond wig he was sporting only a short while ago when he mistakenly tiptoed into the wrong bar, filled with the wrong crowd--just one more unsuspecting refugee turned victim on the incoming tide.
That's right, he's a drag queen,and this is the first time he 'dressed' up, which is not the same thing as a transsexual but then I guess such topics don't come up much around the average American dinner table. So please allow me to enlighten you a little. He doesn't live as a woman, or at least not twenty-four hours a day anyway, which means that his feminine alter ego is still somewhat agreeable to the notion of sharing his body without the requirement of radical surgery or feature softening hormones. In fact, if the truth be known, he enjoys his masculinity about as much as the next guy, secure in the belief that he has somehow managed to master the nature of his own borderline schizophrenia in much the same way that a tight rope walker masters the high wire, a tight rope walker working without the benefit of a net.
His past is a blur of childhood dreams and broken promises, not all that much different from your own actually, and his future is every bit as certain as the will of God; because of course we're all going to die. His days, typically enough, are spent working feverishly in pursuit of a few Benjamins, --someplace, somewhere, it really doesn't matter--and his dreams, predictably enough, revolve around that equally all too familiar hope that one day things will undoubtedly change for the better; but we all fall for the carrot on the stick routine.
And so, like the nocturnal predator, the female in him only comes out at night, the darker the better, strolling through the uncertainty of the moment with a lustful eye toward sucking the unproductive seed of life from those who are still able to give it, and still willing to give it to him, or her, as the moment dictates. But not tonight. Tonight he's just running, running for cover, fleeing headlong out across this concrete jungle of neon and taxicabs, sirens and midnight air, civilized decadence and the purely curious reaction of a few autamatons, merely dying, or already dead.
No, he's not a bad man. He doesn't murder the innocent or rape little children. He doesn't misuse the public trust. He's just struggling with what he perceives to be life, desire and his own unique roll in it all. I'm not saying that I agree with him, and I'm not saying that I don't. But then just who the hell am I to say who gets to cast the first stone. . . and who the hell are you to pick it up?
Ho-stroll:
She walks the street, that black sequenced skirt hugging her ass like cellophane and hanging down a mere two inches below the crack of it. Her panty-hose are crotchless, which only makes business that much more brisk since most of it is conducted in the alley anyway. She's a slut, a hooker, a tramp, white trash--the choice is yours. Her smile is just as genuine as drugs will allow, and her attitude lives somewhere in between a wolverine at feeding time and Sister Mary Margaret. She's fifteen, rather young don't you think, and yet she's been
doing this now for going on two years. She's pretty good at it too, but it really isn't what she'd planned on doing with her life.
She got her first broken nose when she was eleven, something about sticking it where it didn't belong. Actually the blow wasn't even meant for her, it was just one more sadomasochistic love tap aimed at her mother by a man who wasn't even legally related, and yet had become way too fond of the girl to be considered legally innocent either.
