Doctors claim to understand such as me a priori and are too squeamish to investigate. They would say I am insane. I have never shown any sign of a diseased brain, nor has there been any taint of insanity |The “Rabbit.”| in my family. Ours, mon cheri, is simply the case of half-and-half as to sex. The only taint in my family is that father is somewhat womanish: falsetto voice, sissie mannerisms, and never any mind for things thoroughly masculine. He ought never to have married to perpetuate, and probably strengthen, his own mild sexual intermediacy.
As I walked the Bowery on that first spree, I was puzzling my mind as to which of the brightly lighted dance-halls or the dark and fearsome dives—through whose doors I saw pass only sailors, gutter-snipes, and slovenly gangsters—would be the best stage for my virgin effort at female-impersonation. At last I slipped into the least prosperous-looking and, to the stranger, most uninviting, dance-hall, the notorious “Rabbit.” And why the “Rabbit”? Because it looked to be the most crime-inviting of all the dance-halls. I had stood and watched as there passed in and out the most criminal-faced of the Bowery boys: coal-heavers, dock-rats, and fierce-and-cruel-stalking gunmen—not to speak of the poor, deluded “fallen angels.”
I dropped into a chair. Almost in less time than I can tell it, four youthful coal-heavers came up grinning: “Hello Bright Eyes!”
Those three words were the most soulful, the most infatuating, that had ever fallen on my ears. I was also delighted because so lucky as to take in, right off, some of the many bewitching Bowery boys I had stared at that night, and cement them to myself. I smiled back: “Hello!”
For the next few hours, I was in hitherto undreamed-of bliss because of being wooed by all four in |Phyllis Finds “Herself.”| their delightfully wild and rough way. Ever since my later teens, I have always yearned to be treated by young fellows as a girl, and on my female-impersonation sprees now and again, I have had such yearnings fully met. On that debut at the “Rabbit,” I was for the first time in my life with sexual counterparts before whom I could be myself because they did not know who I was. And they treated me as their sexual opposite. They danced with me in turn. Only after four hours, I had to own up that I was not an out-and-out female. But that knowledge seemed to count for nothing with these lovesick coal-heavers.
Already two hours before, I had felt that I had had more than enough flirtation for one night. All my efforts to get away, however, were useless. At two A. M., the “Rabbit’s” doors were locked. I had to allow one of my beaux to escort me somewhere: to the Grand Central waiting-room, for there I would be safe. I now warned my beau that if he did not leave me, I would sit there for a week. But it took him two more hours to give up all hope of my yielding to his goodhearted pleas.[[43]]
Five minutes after he left, I sought the street. I turned half-a-dozen corners, lurking a minute around each to see if the coast was clear. I then boarded a car. I slowly dragged myself up the three flights of |Leader of a Bowery Gang.| stairs and noiselessly let myself into my flat. Tired out, I threw myself on the bed only half undressed and slept until noon.
But, mon cheri, I had now found myself. For seven years afterward, I sought the “Rabbit” or the “Squirrel” once every other week, giving the rest of my time to business or self-culture. One evening out of fourteen was all I could spare for the female side of my being. But the balance of my waking hours were filled with blissful thoughts of my flirtations—memories which will last as long as I. These sprees have been to me the first thing in life. I would have given up anything else for them. When now and again something has blocked my fortnightly spree, I would be the most melancholy person in New York.
On the Bowery, I always went with the same gang of about a dozen savages. If any one took a look at me, Ralphie—so soft-spoken, so chicken-hearted, so wishy-washy—they wouldn’t set me down as leader of a Bowery gang, would they? But that’s just what I once was. All the members of my gang were of foreign parentage, sturdy, possessed of well chiselled features, and tolerably clean. I found nothing disgusting about them. None had had more than three years’ schooling, or the least training in morality or religion. Nevertheless they were not a bad lot; far from being as evil-minded as the upper class would judge from the outside. None was more than twenty-five while a member of my gang, and none bright enough to earn his bread at an occupation of higher grade than coal-heaver.
The average age remained low because one after another settled down in marriage, having brought to |Androgynes’ Favorites Fortunate.| an end his sowing of wild oats, and some budding gangster took his place with me.