Holly: a cross dresser without the glamour on the Manhattan subway

Holly's hair was a mess. It was dishevelled with bits sticking out here and there. This could have been the result of a day's hard work but I have a feeling that Holly (whose name I have made up) wasn't really any good at doing her hair anyway. Neither was she any good at applying makeup. The makeup just didn't conceal the ridges in her face and the lipstick was too bright. This is what comes of being a woman in a man's body but with a man's brain in the cosmetic and dressing department.

You could tell that Holly was man by her big hands, big frame and the man's face behind her makeup. There were no rings on her fingers. She was, I speculated, on her way home from work with two colleagues, women. She sat beside them on the subway from Canal Street to Times Square admiring a top that one of them had bought. In this, and in the way she sat demurely beside them, she was all feminine. Regardless of her hair and her makeup, the women seemed to accept her as one of themselves.

Holly was in her fifties and I wondered how many years of pushing in among the girls she had had to go through and what it had cost her to get to this point. There was nothing glamorous about her. She had to go to work like anyone else. Her fake, furry jacket could have come from a charity shop. She wore ordinary jeans and scuffed boots. If she wanted an operation to change her gender I doubt if she could afford it.

So she does what she can to be who she is and I had the feeling, as we stopped at Times Square, that she just might have been the most courageous person on the train.

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A career in alcoholism: man in Manhattan

“I am a career alcoholic.“ Tony, all smiles, energy and with a bottle of Bud in his hand, materialised beside me one evening in a bar in Manhattan where I had gone to shelter from a drizzle, have a drink and get a little peace.

Having established my name and country of origin, he told me about his career as an alcoholic. “It makes me feel good,” he declared. “What else matters?” I agreed. He was in that state of elation which, in some people, can turn ugly in a second if you put a different point of view.

He seemed in good shape for a guy who had made a career out of being an alcoholic. He was fifty years old, he told me. His hair was jet black, he was only a little overweight and he was light on his feet. Tony hopped around quite a lot as he talked and he sometimes danced in place to the music.

“Lose the hair,” he told me. “It will take ten years off your age.”

There was much that I couldn’t understand of what he said because he spoke so fast. For instance, I could not make sense of his explanation for why he, personally, knows global warming is real. “See this burn mark?” he said at one point, putting his hand to his forehead, as part of his explanation. There was nothing there but I said I had seen it anyhow.

Then he started talking about his ex-wife, “the evil one”, and how she had unsuccessfully tried to get his kids to say he had molested them.

“I am telling you this because you are elder,” he said. I am definitely going to lose the hair, I told myself.

He took out his wallet and showed me photographs of his kids. They were graduation photographs, three girls and a boy, all looking happy and proud of themselves.

He told me I was a good listener. Not bad, I suppose, when all you’re trying to do is avoid an argument.

Two young women, maybe in their twenties, came into the bar and sat down. Tony started to chat them up. The young women laughed it off but Tony’s attention had definitely turned in their direction.

I said goodbye and left. I expect he is still dancing in the bar in Manhattan, chatting women up, explaining global warming and showing pictures of his kids to other customers. I hope the career works out.

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