Many years ago, when I was still a female impersonator, a man in his early fifties approached me after a show. An esquire from Northern Virginia, he presented a business card and swore he could give me a life like none I had ever imagined. I could move into his penthouse and have a nearly limitless expense account.
All I had to do
was become his lover.
Having grown up poor, and having a deep resentment of the rich, there was no way I was going to let anyone pay my way through life. In addition, there was the fact that I had no physical attraction for this man. However, he had cited he was fond of me for the reason that I resembled his lover, who had passed away some years earlier.
That touched me,
so I offered to be a friend to The Esquire.
The next day, he returned to Alexandria; shortly thereafter, he sent me a
list of all the famous people he knew. He
also sent stationary and napkins embroidered with the White House insignia,
along with a note that these things had come direct from Bill Clinton.
(Sometime later, on a trip to Washington D.C., I saw all these items for
sale in a gift shop).
I had my suspicions even then, and the 'country' in me started to rear
its ugly head. I didn’t like
playing the role of a hungry mule being strung along with a carrot in front of
its face. If this man thought so
much of me, then by God, he should just cut me a check and be done with it.
If all that he wanted was for me to have a good life, then why not just
give me a few grand, wish me well, and leave me alone?
Why did I have to debase myself in order for him to be my benefactor?
However, I stayed my tongue, because I was trying sincerely to be decent to this individual who had spoken so eloquently of the love he had lost.
A few weeks later, The
Esquire returned to Charlottesville and asked if I would go to
dinner with him. If so, would I
choose a restaurant? I said ‘yes',
with the provision that we were just meeting as friends and there would be no
talk of my becoming intimate with him.
That night, upon entering the restaurant, he stated he wasn’t accustomed to eating in such places, but since I had chosen it, he would suffer through the experience. Then, as The Esquire went to sit down, he saw a small piece of lettuce in his chair. What ensued was the most foppish hissy fit I have ever seen in my life. He railed at the host, saying he had never seen so filthy an establishment.
I walked out and
left him.
I was reared a Greene County boy…and still very much am.
I don’t take anyone talking down to another person, and I don’t put
on, or accept others, putting on airs. I
went home, wrote the nastiest piece of invective I could compose, and mailed
it to The Esquire.
I’m relieved to be able to say that bastard never spoke to me again.