Catching Her Drift

Going to college in Nashville, I had a girlfriend, Lynne Lastname, from Evansville, Indiana. Pretty. Tall, thin, long blonde hair. A “real” blonde. It‘s easy to tell. Anyway, I met her at a SCLC meeting about a month before Kennedy was shot.

On that sad November day, I was reading to a blind student from Kentucky, Larry Lastname, when my roommate, Terry Lastname, walked in and told me the news from Dallas.

Lynne and I spent a lot of time together in late November being pissed off at the senselessness of the assassination and quite depressed along with the rest of the country. I was profoundly affected. So much so, I wrote a short, sophomoric poem:

John is dead.
The world asks,
“Why”?
And Dallas asks,
“Why here?”

In the spring, Lynne moved off campus into an apartment. In the house next door lived a transvestite. His name was Larry. Many evenings, at or near dusk, Larry would prance out on his back patio dressed for an evening out and I guess looking for love. Slinky, almost always in a dark dress, pumps, stockings, well - coifed wig and lots of make-up: red, red lipstick, heavy mascara and eye shadow, etc. We never knew her name.

We used to laugh about it. Lynne said, "There’s a man and woman living next door. We never see them together, though. Strangest thing is they have the same shoe size".

One night, I said, "Imagine what trouble he must go through. I mean shower, probably shave his legs and maybe underarms, put on make-up, shape up and hook up his padded bra, rummage through the closet to find something fetching, check his stockings for runs, pull it all together, dress and go out to find what the evening has to offer... her. Imagine all the effort"

Lynne looked at me with a wry smile and said, "Yeah, just imagine."