Part Four:
Frank—Eunice
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I. Debut as Adult Female-Impersonator.
Ralph, I was ushered into this mundane sphere in the year of our Lord 1854. I was a lucky dog to be brought up on the upper West Side a few blocks from Central Park [New York City]. As a diminutive urchin, I dolled myself up in feminine habiliments at every opportunity. Eunice was my favorite playmate. I opined her appellation the most melodious that ever impinged upon my eardrums and regretted it was not mine personally. Whenever I flaunted myself in skirts, I adopted it.
In my early teens, father escorted me to a physician that the latter might query me concerning my feminine predilections and ridicule me out of same. Simultaneously father, through severe castigation, imposed a finis to female-impersonation in my own clique. I therefore commenced, during periods of special obsession to be a puella, the practice of perambulating the slums, first by daylight, and later after the shades of night had fallen. During these insensate peregrinations, there would swarm through my mind visions of flirtations with the ruffians around my age that I encountered. These "huskies" riveted my gaze. They fascinated me. But not until the fifth or sixth peregrination could I screw up courage to insinuate myself into the confidence of one of these magical intelligences.
I chanced for the first time to run across a Bowery bar-room, the "Pugilists' Haven," which, I had read in the papers, was the rendezvous of prize-fighters, gamblers, and gun-men [the most desperate type of gangster who will murder for pay]. The press advocated its obliteration. Curious that just because of this reputation, I was immediately insane to enter. For it was unholy ground. I reflected: "In this lowest of dives, they may accept me as a puella, although superficially a boy." Because all early influences, Ralph, had made me opine that taking the part of a girl was the very lowest thing a boy could descend to. I further pondered: "Between the luxurious mansion of pater familias and this dingy dive, give me the latter! For here alone I might be able to pass as a puella. In my own cultured, Christian circle, femaleimpersonation is castigated. But would not the attitude of the offscouring of our mundane sphere—the Pugilists' Haven gunmen—be different?"
And how crazy I was to insinuate myself with the adolescent gunmen, whom I had only read about! The very supposition of their presence just within that latticed door attracted me as a potent magnet snatches steel filings to itself. I passed and repassed the dive, continuously imagining what would transpire if I should penetrate this unholy of unholies, and having delectable visions of every species of flirtation with the demigods who made the saloon their rendezvous.
I finally emboldened myself to thrust aside a leaf of the latticed portal. It was my first appearance ininside a saloon, and I never had tasted any intoxicant. In my diffidence and ignorance of the proper course to pursue, I subsided into the first vacant fauteuil. For, on one side, against the wall, were rude, wooden fauteuils, almost all occupied by middle-aged cherry-nosed individuals. Extending the full length of the other side was a bar crowded with fast-looking younger men, each with a glass before him. Doubtless because of my verdancy, several commenced eyeing me, making remarks, and laughing. The nearest bar-tender immediately inquired: "Doll-baby, what'll yer have ter drink?"
"Nothing."
"Jackass! Every bloke dat comes inter dis here joint has ter take somethink!"
"Then give me a glass of beer," I replied hardly above a whisper. In my embarrassment, I imbibed the beverage almost at a swallow. That gave all the witnesses hysterics. They assured me: "We only sip it!" They addressed me as "Siss!" "Pet!"
"Fairie!" I did not immediately perceive the significance of the last appellation. I was encircled. Particularly two sailors ingratiated themselves. They requested me to purchase "schnapps" for them because impecunious. I provided glass after glass, for they were bewitchingly gallant. All the other individuals were kidding me: "The doll-baby likes the blue-jackets, sure Mike!" "Sailor-boy, take off your suit and make it a present to her!" "How I wish I was one of Uncle Sam's boys and I'd git steeped in schnapps too!" I was mortified by such observations, and as soon as the sailor-boys invited me, departed under their escort.
I hired a chamber at a third-class hotel nearby. I gave them funds to secure another. For we did not desire that the clerk perceive that we were all to occupy the identic room. We pretended the sailors and I were unacquainted. ......
They finished by inserting a handkerchief into my buccal cavity, tying a strip of the bed linen over it, binding my hands behind my back, and fastening my lower extremities to the bed springs so that I could not even kick. They then departed with my wallet and outer clothing.
After an hour of helplessness, I discovered that the partition to the adjacent chamber was scarcely more than card-board. Because I perceived sounds of the entrance of an individual. I could even hear his breathing. I discerned the words: "How I wish I had three hundred dollars!"
I commenced a continuous jouncing up and down. The uninterrupted tintinnabulation of the springs attracted the individual's attention and he addressed me. I could respond only with a low gurgling. The clerk soon liberated me. I had to confess everything. But he manifested sympathy and donated a nickel for carfare.
One blue-jacket was of about my own measurements. Evidently he intended to desert. For he had abandoned his uniform. I was compelled to attire myself therein and boarded a car for my domicile. My house-key had remained in my appropriated habiliments. How to enter was my problem. If I rang, my arrival at midnight costumed as a sailor would disclose everything. I hoped the butler had neglected to secure the covering of the coal-hole in front of the basement windows.
Every one had retired. Able to raise the covering, I dropped to the coal-pile. I discovered that the door at the head of the cellar stairs was also fortunately unsecured. With trepidation and in absolute silence, I ascended, in stocking feet, to my chamber and devoutly thanked Providence for restoration to my family without a hair injured.
I had only recently purchased the appropriated habiliments. The subsequent day I visited the same establishment and succeeded in securing an exact duplicate so that my family would not observe the disappearance of the original.
II. The Pug Heaven.
I henceforth visited the Pugilists' Haven one evening each week. After the appropriation of one good suit, I always attired myself rather shabbily. After seven o'clock dinner, I would change to the cast-off apparel and noiselessly glide down the two flights of stairs from my chamber. Fortunately father always had prayers after dinner. While the family were in the prayer-room and all the servants in their dining-room, I succeeded in engineering my exit for an evening's revel with little risk, in my poverty-stricken disguise, of encountering any individual in the halls. No one ever suspected the reason for my absences. It was several times remarked that I had been out late. But I threw the observer off the scent by the pretext of a perambulation to obviate insomnia.
As I proceeded rapidly from my domicile, I would, if I detected a familiar figure advancing, cross to the other side of the street and make a feint of ringing a doorbell. In order, in my dilapidated apparel, to avert the danger of encountering on the public conveyance some one acquainted with my identity, I would perambulate more than a mile in order to attain the Bowery by an east-side car. On the way I would conceal my house-key and an emergency greenback in a crevice in the Central Park stonewall—always the identic cavity in order to be regained with ease.
At Pug Heaven—as my dive was nicknamed—I was universally given a hearty welcome and secured the society of adolescent ruffians fairly clean and sprucely attired. Of course they always ransacked my pockets the first chance that offered. Before it could happen, I had treated liberally half-a-dozen of the handsomest, and thus insinuated myself into their good graces. I always kept a reserve five-dollar bill sewed in the waistband of my trousers—a pair worn on these sprees alone because too shabby to be a temptation for appropriation.
On my second appearance at Pug Heaven, the heroic gunmen entertained me with episodes about other female-impersonators they had encountered. I particularly remember stories about the "Duchess of Austria," from whom, they recounted, "some lucky guys had pumped" hundreds of dollars. One narrated anecdotes of a physician located south of Fourteenth Street. Young fellows would visit his office to be medicated and he would reveal his own bisexuality. My pals did not marvel at all over my strange appetencies. They entreated me to bring around other female-impersonators. They were merely anxious for the money it would bring them. When I apologized for my queer penchant, they said: "It is nothing. It is Nature."
Ralph, those adolescent Pug Heaven sluggers knew more about the psychology of instinctive female-impersonators than all the M. D.'s in America combined! From that single hour's conversation, I ascertained more about my own personality than in my prior fourteen years pilgrimage on this planet. For the first time, the riddle of my existence was solved; I perceived that I had been born a biological sport—a female with male genitals.
I soon acquired half-a-dozen permanent favorites. These adolescent sluggers and gunmen lost no time in assuring me: "You're only a doll-baby, Eunice, and so need us big, strong fellows to fight your battles. But you must stay with our gang! If we should catch you running around with any other, we'd murder you!"
I coveted to be their slave, Ralph, and did all I could for them without disclosing that I belonged to a wealthy family, because a female-impersonator of a higher social stratum associating incognito with gangsters must conceal his status. At Pug Heaven, I became an expert detective and actor—an accomplishment requisite for every upper-class impersonator destined to sprees in the Underworld.
A thousand times I desiderated female corporeality so that I could have married one of these magic gunmen. How I have envied many a young mother before my eyes with babe in arms! How could a God of love have created me physically a male when I have always so coveted personal female corporeality, and, in adulthood, the mothering of offspring!
These weekly female-impersonation explosions continued more than two years, when my father relegated me to a university several hours from New York. I leave it nameless—to spare it the disgrace of having once numbered "Frank White" among its students. These evenings in Pug Heaven were the most beatific feature of life. During college vacations, and for several years following graduation, I occasionally visited the joint. But finally, on my return from an extended residence in Europe, I discovered a haberdashery occupying the site. I was informed that an application for renewal of license had been denied. Its habitues became thus scattered.
III. A University Friendship.
Would it interest you, Ralph-Jennie, to hear how I was blackmailed in college? The episode commenced only in my junior year. Throughout the first two years, because of the safety-valve I possessed in the Pug Heaven gunmen, I had succeeded in restraining my appetencies and presenting no occasion for chantage. But early in my junior year, the janitor of my dormitory happened to be an exquisite chocolate cream-drop. Only twenty, and with such a "divine" countenance! I could have gazed into it throughout eternity without a second's intermission—until I detected the rascality underneath! Such dreamy brown eyes! Perfect, arched eyebrows! Sun-flower cheeks! And soft chestnut hair! Ralph, you never saw anything so fascinating! For weeks I experienced anguish at being denied a declaration of my admiration! I then commenced making the "divine" creature presents. And it was then not long before I began inviting him around to my room after all the other students had retired and there was little risk of any individual discovering the unequal friendship. For I would have been ostracized for entertaining a janitor. And again it was not long before Jack manifested a roguish streak in his character, which any one but an intimate would have opined equally beautiful with his countenance and figure. After I discovered his true character, my fascination died down. But there was absolutely nothing to do but tolerate him up to graduation.
In the course of my two decades of adulthood, I have repeatedly fallen victim to the physical charms of some adolescent stalwart menial in my every-day environment. I have lived much abroad. In the United States and Great Britain, three out of four, if of generally good reputation, demonstrate themselves diamonds in the rough. They refuse to take advantage of a step-child of Nature whose secret they happen to unearth. But on the continent of Europe, the proportion is as high as nineteen out of twenty. There a correct knowledge of sexual intermediates is widely disseminated and the courts deal out justice to the woman-man. Even the Paris apache realizes that these bisexuals are worthy of commiseration and not responsible for their idiosyncrasies. But English-speaking countries give carte blanche to every prude actuated to pillage and even murder us women-men. We are outlaws; enjoy no police protection; and are denied recourse to the laws and courts. In English-speaking lands, as already in other civilized countries, even the scum of society should be educated, first by newspaper propaganda whenever the murder of an intermediate is described, and then from mouth to mouth, that the woman-man and the man-woman are irresponsible for their exceptional sexuality and should not be tortured on account of it.
Notwithstanding that I immediately entered into an arrangement by which Jack benefited fifty dollars a month, I soon perceived evidences of whisperings that "Frank White is abnormal!" An exasperated classmate once even exclaimed sarcastically: "You are not a proper person to associate with!"
In my senior year, I failed of a much coveted election to a senior society—an election which many indeed had prophesied on the basis of my wealth and scholarship. The failure was explicable only in the rumors apparently being circulated. But fortunately they were only rumors. In my college days, I would never have been so reckless as to have permitted any individual ever to discover me, even for a second, in conversation with such as Jack. Thus Incredulity followed closely on the steps of Rumor. Because of my general goody-goodiness, the fellows probably thought it impossible for me to be so utterly depraved! But the actuality was far beyond rumor. The only mistake was the rumormongers a priori assumption of deepdyed depravity. I was not a whit more corrupt than those Pharisees themselves! The worst of the matter was that I am a girl incarnated in a fellow's body, and nevertheless doomed to be segregated exclusively with males. If the world could only realize that nearly all their anxieties and horrors are as groundless as this abhorrence of myself in the university!
Because no busybody engaged a detective to ferret out my secrets, I was privileged to graduate. But commencement day was like that of my own funeral. For I realized I was bidding alma mater a farewell forever. First, on account of Jack's treacherous character, who had remained with the university because of his advantages with me; and secondly, on account of my questionable reputation. Tears even trickled down my cheeks during the commencement exercises, Ralph. For I felt that I was in my death throes so far as the university is concerned. I was compelled henceforth to keep out of touch, including all alumni gatherings. In all class letters and address lists published the first five years, I engineered things so that there appeared after my name: "Whereabouts unknown."
Otherwise Jack might have ferreted me out. The Pharisees doubtless concluded my "depravity" had wrecked my life. But the fact was that I rose rapidly in my business career.
Primarily in order to give Jack the slip, I spent the year after graduation in Europe—for the most part in Paris. I despatched Jack several cards in order to put him on a false scent.
On resuming residence in New York, I had to make the best of its Overworld. I ascertained that they are incredibly bigoted as compared with the liberalism of continental Europe. Only a person who has resided there has acquired the acuteness of vision to discern the legend on the hatbands of upper-class New Yorkers: "I am holier than thou!"
I had heard that the Rialto is New York's stamping-ground for amateur female-impersonators. Accordingly I commenced devoting one or two evenings a week to its resorts. As. soon as I learned that "the Hall" is the home of cultured female-impersonation, I made it my own headquarters.
IV. The Masked Ball.
You inquire, Ralph-Jennie, if I have been blackmailed during my business career. I confess I have been more negligent than most cultured women-men, and as a punishment, have suffered more blackmail. I have insanely betrayed my secret to several dishonest young bloods who knew who I am and therefore forced large sums out of me. I shall describe the most remarkable case.
But first, why have I been the victim of blackmail? Because my strongest passion is to get into feminine finery now and then and play the coquette. I also occasionally yield to instinct in the way Nature ordained for me. But in all this I transgress not in the least against God or man. Of course I have offended against laws that are a legacy from the Dark Ages.
No man should cast a stone at me who indulges in marital joys more than once a week. For since my Pug Heaven apprenticeship, I have not myself averaged once a week. True I have changed partners about thirty times. But if circumstances had rendered it possible, I would have been satisfied with a solitary permanent one. But in the case of women-men, there do not exist the reasons for monandry and the permanency of the bond.
But while I have been guilty of nothing to be ashamed of in the eyes of the All-Wise, I have—owing to irrational laws, fear of imprisonment, and particularly of bringing bitter disgrace and sorrow on my family—suffered myself to be bled unmercifully.
Ever since resuming residence in New York, I have taken advantage of all the public masked balls to gratify my instinct to pose as a belle. Even those under the humble auspices of the Draymen's Union, the "Tonsorial Artists," and the "Societe Universelle des Cuisiniers."
A particularly great event has been the annual Masked Ball of the Philhedonic Society. Every pair of trousers may attend which can scrape together $10 for self and "lady." The patrons range from scions of the aristocracy out for a lark, to crooks bent on thievery. For conditions at the Philhedonic Ball are ideal for the light-fingered fraternity, particularly because every patron is in disguise, with a mask covering at least the upper third of the face, and the millionaire and the thief dance and flirt together.
Our families have, of course, no suspicion that we hermaphroditoi are only pseudo-men. While marvelling because we have never courted a girl, they have not been so far enlightened as to discern what that signifies. That they may always remain in their ignorance, we hermaphroditoi—as you are aware—set out from our respective domiciles for a public Masked Ball in masculine attire. Later, with hired masculine escort, we depart from [Paresis] Hall bewigged, bepadded, bepowdered, bejewelled, and begowned to shine as belles on the bewaxed floor of XGarden. After arrival there, we associate, without waiting for an introduction, with whatever pair of trousers—that is, presumably—appears fair to look upon. We hermaphroditoi do our best to converse like real belles. An accidentel gruff note does sometimes betray us. But usually the gallant comprehends, sympathizes, and merely laughs at a good joke on himself.
The Philhedonic Ball is the spectacle of a lifetime. I do not approve all that transpires. The two large orchestras, playing alternately, pour forth continuously into the inebriated ears of the three thousand revellers the thrilling music of the most voluptuous dances, rightly tabooed by all decent society. The revellers are as impious a crowd as ever gathers in America. I would approve the police's radically restricting the present license. I am sure we hermaphroditoi are not among those who give the ball a bad name.
Some of the costumes have been ordered from Paris and London. Many have already graced the Mardi Gras of New Orleans or Nice. Practically every romantic or grotesque character ever heard of is on the floor: monkeys, parrots, geese, yellow kids, foxy grandpa, Happy Hooligan, Cupid, Mephistopheles, and a thousand others.
At a Philhedonic Ball of about ten years ago—at which the most remarkable blackmail episode of my life had its origin—I impersonated Euterpe. Down to my debacle, money fortunately came easy with me. I therefore endeavored to adorn every Masked Ball with the most elaborate feminine costume on display there. My Euterpe gown, terminating at the knees, was of turquoise satin. It was ornamented with several flounces of miniature sleigh bells washed in gold. Whenever I moved, they emitted a melodious jingle. My silk, open-work stockings were of an azure hue, and the pumps of purple kid, with mother-of-pearl buckles. My chevelure was surmounted with a gold-plated lyre, studded with hundreds of Paris diamonds, which, under the myriad gas flames, scintillated dazzlingly. I had had my beardal hair eradicated so that I could glory in a countenance of an infantile softness and an exquisite glabrity.
Until about three, everything transpired after a beauteous fashion. My unrivalled costume had attracted a score of flirts, begging a dance with me. I finally fell to chattering with an individual in a bearskin. He soon declared his conviction that I was merely a female-impersonator. But by exception he manifested irritation at being hoodwinked, and nausea at the very idea of cross-dressing. A panic supervened upon his strident tones. I was overwhelmed with mortification and trepidation on discovering myself in the clutches of what I supposed one of those charlatans who attend the function in order to unearth a moneyed female-impersonator of some prominence with chantage as objective. I lost all heart for mimicking a belle. Most terrible of all, the fellow next denuded my face of the mask. Horrified lest my identity be disclosed, I pressed the lacerated fabric to my countenance and proceeded toward the dressing-room.
In the corridor, the fellow blurted out: "I think I know you. Those eyes of yourn—how far apart they are! They give you a queer look that no guy kin forgit who has seen you several times. Any bloke'd recognize you anywhere, even with a girl's wig on. I have often passed you down on Wall Street."
Though actually employed a stone's throw from that street and promenading it almost every lunch hour, I responded almost inaudibly, I was in a state of such trepidation: "You are in error. I am employed on 42d Street."
"Don't think I'm a fool! I'm so sure of meself that I'm goin' to hang 'round Wall Street till I run into you agin . And I'm sure comin' up to say 'Hoddo!' Sure I remember your sissie stride and, most of all, the way you stare at young fellers as if you were goin' to eat them up! I work on that street meself; elevator man in the Z — Buildin'. Me name is Tony Neddo. I'm not ashamed to let any one know who I am! But you! Do you know you've done an awful dirty, disgustin' thin' in comin' to the ball in a girl's rig? For this you'll have to pay dear! But if you know on which side your bread is buttered, no guy 'll ever be the wiser on account of what I've just found out.
"But get rid of your tremblin'! You needn't be 'fraid of me. I ain't the mean guy you think. When you meet me in my every-day clothes, you kin see for yourself. You'll see I'm a young feller of strong, pure manhood. You'll see I've the build of a pugilist. Whoever you are, Mr. Skirt, I know, from the diamonds in your harp, you're rich! On the other hand, I know I kin do for you far more than you kin for me. Any how, let's you and me be best friends? We'll part now, but you'll sure see me comin' up to you on Wall Street soon. Bye-bye, sweetheart!"
O Ralph-Jennie, the fellow was really cute as he took his departure. He captivated me by his goodhumored farewell. It dissipated all my depression. While I realized he would descend to chantage, I already perceived he possessed innumerable compensating characteristics. Every individual is derelict in some respect. Tony had never been enlightened on the immorality of chantage. So I hardly devoted a second thought to his cupidity. At the time I possessed no "best friend"—no "adopted son", as we older hermaphroditoi designate our sweethearts. I immediately commenced to gloat over Tony as my conquest—my boy! How proud I already was of him, although not yet having visioned his countenance! But he had strutted away in such a manly fashion and possessed such a deep bass, ultra-masculine voice! I could perceive he was athletic and a little larger than the average man. And I was particularly obsessed with his blatant, nonchalant description of himself:
"Strong, pure manhood"!
Henceforth my stream of thought was surfeited with visions of conversing with him again. But the opportunity did not supervene until two awfully long hours -in the closing half -hour of the ball. The floor was ankle-deep with confetti, rendering further dancing impracticable. A goodly proportion of the revellers were anyway too tipsy or too fatigued to be on their feet. The hundreds promenading the arena, besides the couple of thousand in the boxes and balconies, were sprinkled with red, white, and blue confetti and wound round and round with paper streamers of all colors. A steadily flowing river of humanity was discharging into the street. I would myself have already taken my departure, but had devoted the last half-hour to dragging myself wearily to every nook and corner in search of my bear.
Finally, in the main corridor, a handsome adolescent stepped smilingly out of the stream of humanity slowly moving streetward: "Are you looking for me, sweetheart? I am Tony Neddo."
He dared excuse himself, for a moment or two, from his "lady"—considering to what class she belonged! We withdrew out of her hearing. I was tickled to death on now beholding what I had drawn in the lottery. I had known the fellow was ultra-masculine. But not until that moment did I discover that he was handsome into the bargain. Indeed he was indisputably the best looker of the hundreds of young fellows who, with their "ladies," streamed by as we whispered together.
"How old are you?" I began.
"Nineteen is all."
"Eleven years younger than myself. Just my ideal age for a young man to be adopted as my son. Tell me frankly: Did anybody ever tell you that you are unusually good-looking?"
"That's not for me to say. But you yourself see me now when I have my own clothes on. I don't look as if I belonged to the weak, crippled sex—as you do yourself—do I? I look to be a he-man, don't I? While you are one of those awful she-men! Mr. Skirt, just think of your own shameful, disgustin' nature! Your secret and character have come into me power. And it wouldn't do you any good to hit back. I have nothin' at all to lose.
"But I'm only talkin' business now. Every bloke puts his foot into it now and again. And I did at our first meetin'. Because I was then just crazy for money. That's all. But it only looks as if I'm after your money. What I really and truly want is the chance to make your life happy. I want to be your best friend. Just let me see what you would do for a young feller who would give himself to you, body and soul. No one is poorer than me these days. All I got is the suit on me back. I only rented that bear rig for the evenin'."
"Well, Tony, how much would you expect?"
"Two hundred bucks a month."
I argued for one hundred—all that at the time I cared to part with, although my infatuation soon after augmented so that I voluntarily presented him three times my first offer. But on this first night I repeatedly assured him coaxingly, though sincerely, that he was just the type of young fellow that appealed to me. Over and over again he replied: "I wouldn't sell me goodwill so cheap! All your fine talk, Mr. Skirt, doesn't get us anywhere. It doesn't have the least effect on me. Only money talks. If you'll part with two hundred bucks, I'll know you think that much of me. Besides, if we don't fix up matters now, don't ever show your face again on Wall Street!"
But when he had bluffed to his limit, he accepted my first offer. And I didn't mind the promise of that stipend to him—so winsome and handsome and assuring me he would be my soul-mate.
Because his "lady" was dancing attendance, our conversation had to be broken off before the end of five minutes. In parting, I said: "The more I have heard you converse, the better I like you, Tony. You are a pretty smart boy. I would be glad to give you an education, so that you can rise to my own social level instead of continuing in the servant class. We shall not regard our agreement as blackmail. Instead I now adopt you as my sole well-beloved son. I will even be your slave. We shall enjoy together all the good things of life. But, remember, you must never do anything to betray my character and our relations to anybody. And, Tony, always call me 'Frank.' I would prefer that in private you called me 'Eunice,' but if you acquired the habit, you would sometimes make a break before people."
V. Frank-Eunice's Indiscretion.
Would you like, Ralph-Jennie, to be enlightened as to how I came to reside, five years of my prime, within prison walls? You have censured me for black-guarding the Church and religious people. But do you marvel thereat after I disclose that it was they who were instrumental in robbing me of five years of man's all too brief sojourn on earth? In my youth, I was naturally religious. While no longer a church member, not a Sunday passes but I attend morning service. I continue to be a disciple of Christ in my own way, and estimate church attendance as one of the greatest privileges of existence. But religious people, the Church, and the Bible have occasioned me such terrible persecution that I can no longer do aught than revile them for their hypocrisy. And the average preacher, while meaning well, is so bigoted! Only recently I heard one declaim about the deluge: "God then drowned humanity as rats with the exception of Noah's family because MONSTERS were being born in considerable numbers." He claimed that "monsters" is the correct translation for "giants" of King James' version. And he made evident that he understood by "monsters" us bisexuals. Must we poor sexual cripples bear the blame not alone for the decline and fall of nations, but also for the Noachian deluge?
You ask, Ralph-Jennie, my philosophy of life. First: To brighten the lives of unfortunates. Secondly: To get out of existence all the good times one can without transgressing against any one else. We are certain of nothing in this life except the passing moment. I even do not know that you exist, Ralph, otherwise than as a percept in my stream of thought.
My incarceration supervened, but not immediately, upon my reception of Tony Neddo as adopted son. Nature created me impotent. I could never possess wife and children. And for the reason that I accepted the only alternative of an adopted son, society incarcerated me! Ralph, do you call that Christianity and enlightenment? You, Ralph, recognizing that I am a congenital goody-goody, are in condition to accept my declaration that I have never in all my earthly pilgrimage transgressed against a solitary individual. In addition, Mother Nature endowed me with such cerebral capacity that at the university I was one of the leaders in scholarship. Nevertheless policemen and jailers—who of course are not responsible for their meager education in the rural districts of Ireland, where they were instructed merely to spell out the primer and scrawl their own names—have tyrannized over me, handcuffed me, and compelled me, when absolutely guiltless of any offence against the Deity or society, though having transgressed against mediaeval jurisprudence, to accompany them whither I strenuously did not desire, and to perform hard labor for years without remuneration, and to abide in a cell, amid vermin, and subsist on disgusting nourishment! Do you marvel that such impositions, continued for years, have rendered me a misanthrope? For while I sympathize with and alleviate the sufferings of humanity up to my capacity, I experience only detestation for hypocritical humanity surfeited with exuberant health and in influential positions.
After the Masked Ball of ten years ago, Tony Neddo continued, for a longer period than any other young fellow, to be my adopted son and soul-mate. With the exception of his initial roguery, he rang true. Of course the consideration that I loaded him with benefits exercised an enormous influence. He realized that solely by cultivating my affection, he could play a good thing for all it was worth. My ambition to educate him for a profession was doomed to disappointment. While sufficiently intelligent in practical affairs, he lacked the gray matter for acquiring book knowledge.
The immediate reason for my incarceration was merely an indiscretion. I had resided two years on the continent of Europe, where every individual comprehends bisexuality and nobody oppresses those so unfortunate as to be afflicted therewith. That tolerance unfitted me for residence in the United States, where the words "sex" and "sin" are synonyms. I erroneously opined I could be as overt in New York as in Paris.
Therefore, while continuing to reside with my aged parents, I, soon after adopting Tony (not legally of course) leased for him a furnished apartment at a high-class residential hotel. Two successive hostelries finally refused to rent further to Tony and me. In the third year, we were in our third caravansary. But its personnel proved of unexampled bigotry—because the manager was a narrowminded Methodist. He opined that simply expelling Tony and myself ignominiously was not sufficient. He was busybody to the extent of praying for my incarceration. Therefore he engaged an unusually handsome youthful detective to enmesh me. Attired as a Beau Brummel, the sneak first scraped acquaintance and then insinuated himself into my confidence. Soon he succeeded in seducing me where it was possible for a confederate to employ a camera without my suspecting anything. It was on the basis of that photograph that I was sentenced. My accomplice, who had been the sole occasion of the so-called felony, and who alone had proceeded deliberately and wilfully, received merely the thanks of the court and of society.
You inquire about the element of suffering during my incarceration. The first week in the Tombs jail, I lay awake half of every night in mental anguish, for I realized I was a martyr. Every one was accusing me of deepdyed depravity when my life was actually on a high ethical plane. All the journals announced in big headlines that I had been surprised in a double life—intimating wilful immorality. "Immorality"!
"Immorality!" That was the keynote of all newspaper accounts of myself, as if hitherto "immorality" had been an unknown quantity with Knickerbockers. People could not get through singing the refrain: "At last a New Yorker has been discovered who is infected with immorality!!!" The journals stated that I had been incarcerated in the Tombs to await trial, the evidence against me being so incontrovertible and the felony charged so revolting that bail had been refused. At the time I was unenlightened as to what that evidence was and a thousand possibilities coursed through my stream of thought, none of which, however, emerged in my subsequent trial.
I was terribly browbeaten by the plebeian police. They resorted to subterfuge and endeavored by every means to betray me into confession of the secrets of my heart that they suspected. They adopted insulting language. They inquired point-blank over and over again in the common indecent expressions whether I had not with such and such persons (particularly Tony) been guilty of what jurists denominate ridiculously, though solemnly and with bated breath, "the crime against Nature," when in fact nothing is more natural than the conduct in question. It is exclusively Nature's feat. But I scrupulously guarded myself from making a single incriminating statement. I refused in any way to admit being a bisexual—because all my inquisitors presented evidence that they considered that condition the most horrible of crimes.
This was before I ascertained the existence of the photograph and I fully expected to elude incarceration. And the result proved that they were impotent to lay their hands on any other legal evidence beyond the detective's statements.
That first week in the Tombs I would have committed suicide if I had been vouchsafed an instrument. For I was continuously immersed in the deepest melancholia. But the jailers were careful to deprive me of my pocket-knife and everything else by which it was possible to do myself harm. Even while at meals, I was continuously observed lest I utilize the table knife on my body.
"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
He knows you not, ye heavenly powers!"
Before I experienced it, I did not believe an individual could survive years of such depression. But, as you see, Ralph, it turned my hair white. Fortunately it has not rendered me bald or wrinkled.
And the judge's charge was so absurd: "The crime of which you, Frank White, have been convicted, is of such a disgusting character that it can not even be defined!"
To think of relegating an individual to state's prison on a charge that no one comprehended; that no one had ever been permitted even to investigate—because the subject is beyond investigation, no intellectual even being willing to define it!
The judge said: "It is as heinous as murder, because it strikes at the very existence of the race! No one but a criminal of the deepest dye could descend to it! Frank White, you have been convicted of the awful felony of race suicide!"Unreason and prejudice! There was hardly an individual within the hearing of the judge who had not been guilty of race suicide, though in a different way from my own! And they for the most part deliberately, whereas I was compelled by Mother Nature. They imprisoned me for what they conceded to themselves: Following Nature's behests other than solely for the perpetuation of the race!
And then the day following my sentence, in the yard of the Tombs jail, being thrust into an ironbarred bus along with a score of hardened male criminals—just as if I were myself a male!—to be driven to the Grand Central to board a train for Sing Sing. I, the goody-goody girlboy, having evolved into a felon!
But my prosecution by self-righteous Christians for what were really offences against no one—simply to satiate these Christians' thirst for tormenting people whose views differed from their own—had more serious results than my five years in prison. My life has been a wreck ever since. My having been incarcerated on a conviction so utterly loathsome to the ordinary mind—because it has never been permitted access to the truth of the matter and is governed solely by mediæval bias—completely alienated every member of my family, who now regarded me as dead, and disinherited me on the ground of deepdyed hypocrisy and degeneracy. If we encountered one another on the street, they would not speak.
When liberated from Sing Sing, I was compelled to adopt a new appellation and strike out into a new field of labor, where it has been possible only with difficulty to make ends meet.
As for Tony, he escaped to parts unknown immediately following my arrest. My deprivation of his friendship was the severest blow of all, for he had shown himself so devoted—but only, as results demonstrated, because of the fortune he derived from me. He merely left a memo declaring he would write me some day, but never effectuated his promise.
If only the Javerts who prosecute Nature's stepchildren realized the world of woe they thereby occasion these most unfortunate of mankind, they would reflect twice before inaugurating the prosecution. But society prohibits the reasons for the conduct of bisexuals becoming known. Which knowledge would prove a death blow to such prosecution.