#HomoAmerican #MirrorsPast - 1975 - Something has changed in me. My priorities have shifted; I am determined to find a reflection in my mirror that fits and to the devil with the rest. My job at Carnegie Hall will be up in two months time but I’m not worried.

For the moment I’m enjoying the freedom of irresponsibility.

I haven’t cut my hair in months and it’s nearly to my shoulders. It’s
surprising how a simple change of hair has changed the way I think about myself and the way others see me.

I wore a fresh hibiscus in my hair at the Laura Nero concert. She was a
flower child and we were handing them out, so it seemed fitting to the occasion. It isn’t regulation attire, but the customers didn’t seem to mind.

It was the first bright Sunday of Spring that Rory and I set out for the park. My three silk scarves fluttered in the spring breeze and peach-blush lipstick caught the coral light of late afternoon.

Heads turned every direction as we made our way into the heart of the
Rambles, the gayest of strongholds, north of the lake.

As we strolled along a path, wearing our bright colors like badges of courage, a gaggle of queens stopped in their tracks with malignant intent.

As we passed, “Trick or treat,” one giggled to another, as they continued down their path in hysterics.

It wasn’t so much what they said as much as that it was true and in our hearts we knew it.

Wit is indefensible, stupidity and hatred are worthy fights, but that simple cutting remark was enough to send us home to reevaluate our decisions.

By the next day I was ready for a change. I got up late and left the apartment without a word to Rory and set out across the park, not sure what I was about to do, but certain that something needed to be done.

Before long, I found myself on Madison Avenue and there on the corner, one flight up, was the answer.

“Let me style it a bit for you,” a timid barber said, looking unsure. He held the strands of my hair up, in pieces, shaking his head.

“No!” I was adamant, “Cut it all, very short,” I held the base of one strand to show him.

He snipped tentatively at the first locks of hair, then faster and faster, until black curls fell all around me and I could feel the weight of another life draining away. I
left the shop a new man; one that would require new clothes and I knew instinctively where to go. I jumped on the E train and rode it downtown to West 4th Street.

It’s exhilarating to shed one skin and take on another, although in the void of transition, I find that I exist only in inadvertent reflections.

The old “me” has gone away and only the shop windows assure me that someone else has taken my place.

I went to a little shop in the West Village called The Marquis de Suede and spent my last $200.00 on a motorcycle jacket and leather cap, to go with my new look. I cut the tags and put them on then and there.

“Enjoy,” hissed an old lizard of a salesman, under his canopy of chains and studded leather jockstraps, but I barely heard him.

Before I turned the corner, from Bleecker onto Christopher Street, I could already feel a new man emerging in the reflective gaze of the young men and drag queens
that I passed.

@ Manhattan, New York