Goodbye to Madam X

I last saw Le Roy Scott riding his battery-powered scooter up John R. street three weeks ago.
He was headed toward Cathedral Terrace where he reigned – gaily content – on the ninth floor facing east; the same senior citizen tower my mother died in 22 years ago.
I waved but Le Roy didn't see me. I called out, but he didn't hear. He was fashionably bundled up against a chilly afternoon wind. He sailed on silently, majestically southward, one or two regal miles per hour.
This was our final, one-sided goodbye. He died March 23. He was 91. Determined to live life to its differently abled, glamorous, occasionally cross-dressing fullest. Good gay genes certainly helped.
I recall his words a summer ago. "Is getting your scooter in and out of this crowded restaurant a chore?" I asked. "Are you trying to grandstand me?" he replied.
I met Le Roy in the mid-'80s. He had come here from New York where he worked for a social service agency. He inherited his mother's house. Co-founder of the short-lived Unlimited Seniors, he wrote a campy monthly newsletter, "Madam X's Gossip."
Famed photographer Diane Arbus snapped his picture at a NYC drag ball. Tagged succinctly, "Cross Dresser 1970." Le Roy threatened to sue, but found her seductive shot – with display of reasonably believable cleavage – sassy publicity for entertaining.
Last year, Le Roy attended the annual convention of Black and White Men Together. He performed with aplomb, feather boas, and totally amazed attendee applause.
This past week another friend, straight ally to our community, died. Sculptor Irving Berg, 87, beloved in Jewish and art circles. He retired from the Detroit Public Schools, where he had been innovative head of Cass Technical High School commercial art department.
I lived for 24 years as a tenant in the Cultural Center's Park Shelton, before it went too-hastily condo. The Bergs, Irving and dancer/choreographer wife Harriet, stayed on, their home a show place of works by Michigan artists. Both encouraged me in the '80s and, gratefully appreciated by me, bought my fledgling art.
These deaths coming close together are bracketed by first viewing of "Don and Chris, A Love Story," a DVD about writer Christopher Isherwood and artist Don Bachardy.
Don was 18 when he partnered Chris, 39. Don was breathtaking. Poetry of joyous youth. All sunburst smiles. Captured "forever" on 16-mm home camera for repeated visual pleasuring.
The contrast between Don then and senior citizen Bachardy, 73, I found disconcerting. Bachardy sounds to my ear oddly creaky – a quirky, queeny dialect he says was absorbed by osmosis from 30 years with Isherwood. (I have yet to finish the DVD.)
I wondered how this disconnect between unaffected Don and affected Bachardy happened. (Yes, I realize this says much about me; how I, too, have changed decade piled on decade, sometimes not for the better. But – if you want my unbiased opinion – modestly said, of course – superbly as an LGBT artist.)
Truth told, we gays – myself included – are inculcated with countless images of handsome faces, exquisite physiques, he-man cruising prowess. Those similarly blessed – or cursed – gather in image-reflecting clans. Those not so blessed – or cursed? – are relegated to stand-and-envy sidelines.
(Question. How many sideliners turn to Ex-Gay mind-control therapy out of outsider frustration? Alienation from artifice exchanged for alienation from authentic self.)
Looking back on my own gay mileage totals – I've had a reasonably good run for my money – I realize that all that exists – philosophically trite, so reluctantly admitted – is NOW!
Where once I zipped carefree here and there, I now find myself putt-putt-putting along. One near-sighted eye on my rearview mirror. The other, focusing cautiously ahead to life's final hump, er, big bump in the road.