Preliminaries to Spree.
Just before leaving my residence, I always knelt and prayed the Heavenly Father to bring me back safe, and on my return likewise my first act was to thank Him for it. Arrived in New York, my melancholy and dread would almost entirely disappear, and in their place a sense of gladness would spring up that in the great metropolis I was lost to all who knew me. I was in the habit of putting up at a third-class hotel in a poor quarter of the city, registering under an assumed name. About eight in the evening, I would retire to my room, remove my outer clothing, conceal my valuables, dress myself in a rather shabby suit, and saunter forth, hurrying past hotel employees so that they would not observe my change of apparel. Reaching the Bowery or some other street among those named in the account of my “low-class fairie” period, I would experience a feeling of exultation at finding myself again on Jennie June’s stamping ground. I had left behind all my masculinity, such as it was. The feminine in me, suppressed for two weeks, now held sway. My first care was to hide a reserve fund in a small black box on a ledge of the old market on the site of the present Police Headquarters on Centre Street.
Encounters with Police.
I occasionally visited the scene of my fairie apprenticeship on Mulberry Street. But a resident adolescent once remarked with much truth: “You come around here looking like a tramp, but we have seen you up on Fifth Avenue with fine clothes on. You look as though you didn’t have a cent, but your shoes are full of money.” For success with this class, it is almost necessary that an invert be looked upon as belonging to the same social stratum.
On one occasion I was turned over to a policeman by a blackmailer, but the former refused to arrest me, although he believed the accusations. On another evening when I had not come to the city for a female-impersonation spree, but nevertheless took a walk on the Bowery, I scraped acquaintance with a high-class adolescent from the country who was stranded in the city. We walked down a side street until we came to a deserted block, and entered the pitch-dark portal of a closed factory. But a huckster on the nearest corner happened to notice us skulk into the portal, and supposing we were thieves, notified the first policeman who passed, who sought another policeman that they might together investigate. The two suddenly confronted us. I was horror-struck, as it was the worst possible time for me to be arrested since I had on me marks of my identity. They searched us and then made a correct guess. One said with reference to me: “This fellow is a ——. We won’t touch him because he can’t help it, but we’ll give this other fellow a good clubbing.” They made us depart in opposite directions, clubbing my companion a little.
Adventures with Thugs.
On another evening I had been robbed of all my money. When we reached the street I demanded back part of it. But my companion shouted “Police! Police!” in order to frighten me away, saying he was going to have me arrested because I was an invert. To a couple of young men he cried out: “This fellow is a ——. Call a cop for me, will you? I want to have him arrested.” But those addressed were too busy to interfere. A horse-car then happened along, on which he jumped. I ran behind for a hundred feet, crying to the conductor on the rear platform: “Put him off! He’s a thief! He has robbed me!” But neither the conductor nor the men passengers on the platform cared to interfere.
I occupied a room with a young ruffian at a third-class hotel other than that where I had left my ordinary clothing and valuables. Before retiring I withdrew to the toilet-room and placed the bulk of my money, a five-dollar bill, in the toe of a sock. As I undressed, I was careful to throw it far under the bed. After half an hour, we closed our eyes. But I intended to remain awake until he had fallen asleep in order to hide the door key lest he leave with my money and clothing while I slept. He intended to remain awake until I slept, and then depart as described. He tried to soothe me to sleep, exactly like a mother her infant, but finally losing all hope, said: “Do you know how much you can get for this? Twenty years in state’s prison!”
He dressed, ransacked my clothing, and then tied it in a bundle to carry away, repeatedly warning me not to interfere under penalty of arrest. I lay in consternation, meditating what steps to take. He finally demands: “Where’s your other sock? I’m on to all the sly ways of you fairies!”
A Steamboat Flirtation.