Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/132

106 an evening of 1921, the pedestrian would conclude that no such phenomenon as sex attraction existed. But during the period that I was an habitue, the Fourteenth Street Rialto was as gay as European brightlight districts, which I was fated to explore.

The Rialto is confined principally between Third Avenue and Broadway. While I was an habitue, theatres, museums for men only, drinking palaces, gambling joints, and worse abounded.

On pleasant evenings, when the sidewalks were thronged with smartly dressed adolescent pleasure seekers, I would promenade—up and down, up and down—until I chanced to meet a coterie of young bloods who invited me to join them. Our evenings would be spent in pool-rooms, gambling joints, beer gardens of ill repute, or worse resorts. Nature made me proof against the vices I there witnessed. My only weakness was the craze for female-impersonation. My greatest joy was to flaunt myself as a bisexual before those who did not know my identity. I realized that every soul among my Rialto associates was turning his or her back on the Creator. But I was always determined to give Him first place in my affections. However, for fear of bringing reproach on religion if I made myself its representative—I, a misunderstood female-impersonator, whom even the Underworld in general regarded as one of the most impious of humans—I never mentioned the theme except under extraordinary circumstances.

If the weather were bad, I would immediately enter a beer garden and call for sarsaparilla. I would consume it in driblets while watching for the