II Jailed for Wearing Petticoats
Angelo—Phyllis.
A scrape that I like to tell about, mon cheri, although very bitter in the happening, is my only arrest for flaunting myself in feminine finery. Don’t you think a jail a queer home for a wishy-washy gentleman and art connoisseur? A softy whose swatting a fly was the worst act he was ever guilty of, and he almost had to weep when he did that.
Ever since driven from the Bowery six years ago, I have, one evening out of fourteen, clad in my beloved feminine finery, tried to get on the string strange young fellows in the Rialto ladies’ parlors. My nerves need such a lark now and again. Otherwise years ago I would have gone crazy or killed myself.44 In my later teens, while living in my home town, where I had to crucify my cross-dressing and female-impersonating instincts, I was its most melancholy being. Because I, a female soul, was imprisoned in a male body. How dark life looked from inside my male prison! How I pined to be free! To have my soul wholly clothed in woman’s bone and flesh instead of man’s for the most part—the latter so hated in my own body, but slavishly worshipped when breathing out |Regimentals Overpowering.| yells of joy in sport or the cry to battle and the clash of arms!
One evening five years ago in the Rialto I ran across two youthful artillerymen from Fort Q and spent the evening with them. Regimentals have always overpowered me. Even when I was as young as ten, when an acquaintance enlisted in the national guard, his mere donning the regimentals brought about, in my eyes, a magic transformation. If already handsome, the young fellow became supremely, unearthly enchanting. If plain and unattractive in civilian dress, he grew handsome. Blue clothing and brass buttons surely bring out whatever charm was born in a young fellow. Furthermore, his taste for warfare, shown by his volunteering, proves him a demigod. For I think warfare the highest function of the real man.
Whenever I catch sight of a youthful soldier, I rivet my gaze every second possible, even halting at the curb to look back at the wonderful vision. I yearn to fling myself at the soldier’s feet and cry out my worship of all his magic traits. As the vision fades away, a pang goes through my heart that he must pass out of my life forever and I never be able to make known to him that for the rest of my days I shall be continuously burning incense in my heart to his memory.
O Ralphie, I am overwhelmed when I call to mind the hundreds of the cream of physical youngmanhood with whom I have flirted, and whom I wholeheartedly loved! I have to weep at thinking that the way the world is made, I must be forever barred from them. In spirit, I am eternally joined, knit, dovetailed to |Eternally Dovetailed.| every man of them, but in the flesh, must never lay eyes on the demigods again. How I wish I could have continued to heap blessings upon them and make their sojourn on earth happy! But I am not God! In the next world, how I wish, as a reward for my always having tried in this to make my associates happy, I might be placed by Providence in the position of a sort of sub-deity to the hundreds of rough, uncultured young bachelors whom I have made protegés in this life, in order that I might be the means of affording each the eternity of bliss I so covet for them!...
I do not lose an opportunity to see a parade of the national guard, and particularly of regular soldiers, marines, and blue-jackets. I do not give a straw to see any other type of men marching. But while witnessing warriors stalk by, I am seized with a craze to prostrate myself in the roadway and have those fierce, pugnacious young tigers—as they tramp, tramp, tramp!—trample upon me until dead.
The two artillerymen I met in the Rialto begged me to make an hegira out to the barracks to give a female-impersonation before their buddies. One afternoon I made the hour’s journey, clad as an extreme dresser of the gentle, and at the same time hare-brained, sex.
Around five P. M., I knocked at my friends’ barracks. Being in woman’s garb, I would not step inside, but jollied with them on the large porch. The news spread that I was only a female-impersonator and half-a-hundred crowded around, flirting for all they were worth. That was, mon cheri, my apotheosis—far above all other adventures. I was overjoyed at hearing at one time from half-a-hundred demigods |Female-Impersonate Intoxication.| cries of admiration and affection. For I would sacrifice myself more for, and give more richly to, youthful common soldiers than any other class of men.
When, after half-an-hour, the bugle sounded retreat, how overwhelming, how unearthly, how infinite and divine, its notes! The bugle-call, because closely associated with the clash of arms and with that type of human who shine as demigods, always lifts me up into an unutterably blissful female-impersonate and cross-dress intoxication. I seem to be raised to the very zenith of the universe as THE SUPREME WOMAN, THE FAIRIE QUEEN, and to have all the fighting men that ever lived bowing low in worship of my feminine attributes. During the minute that the bugle-call resounds and reverberates, I live infinitely! I live out a whole eternity!
But to come down to earth again, Ralphie: When I went away at the supper call, my two friends said they would meet me in a beer-garden in a neighboring village. It was the favorite evening resort of the common soldiers. My two friends arrived with four buddies. Of the half-a-hundred patrons, none else, excepting several additional soldiers of my friends’ company who happened to drop in, knew, up to the very last, that I was only impersonating a female.
But toward eleven, some of my party had drunk a drop too much. Their behavior became boisterous and improper. When the waiters tried to curb them, a terrible fight started. The waiters were themselves ex-soldiers and born fighters. Heavy glass schooners were thrown back and forth. I had to get under a table.
After several minutes, two constables burst in and |The Woman-Man.| put all my party under arrest. I had now to ‘fess up that I was not really a girl. My faltering words filled the constables with disgust and hatred. This is not to be wondered at, because village constables do not know psychology like Bowery and Rialto policemen.
The seven of us were locked up for the night. The next morning the Justice of the peace discharged my companions with a mere reprimand because members of the army. But he was wild to punish me for putting on woman’s garb. He sent a constable with me to the White Plains jail, where I was to spend thirty days, or until I could pay a hundred dollars fine. The Justice thought I was a low-down poverty-stricken fairie from New York’s worst slums. I did not have the brass to tell him I was really a person of good character, a regular church attendant, well educated, and able to pay the fine.
The jailer, however, was sorry for me. I felt safe in telling him the worst of my secrets. I let him feel my woman’s breasts. That made him my best friend and he helped me get into communication with my New York lawyer. After only a second miserable night in a cell, the lawyer paid my fine and escorted me back to the city—even in my feminine “regimentals,” as he had forgotten to bring along one of my male outfits.
After that scrape, I made an hegira to the barracks now and again, but always in male garb. The whole fort marvelled at the “woman-man,” as they called me. They always gave me a great time. Nothing would I have liked better than to live with them in the barracks as their most devoted slave. Because they were my farthest opposites.
Angelo—Phyllis.