6hairyheart BISHOP, CA—Just as the summer heat descended, I met a man wearing a dress who promised to teach me how to dance. I was resigned to going through life sitting it out, but Ed the cross dresser insisted I join him on the dance floor of the local saloon for a lesson. If there is a phobia of dance floors, I suffer it; I am terrified of stepping out onto parquet and wiggling around to music, and terrified even more at the specter of being twirled out there. I spun once—right into a bowl of non-alcoholic punch at a wedding in Bixby Knolls, and that could be the root of my terror, but I think it goes deeper, perhaps to a past life. In any case, Ed seemed like my last chance at crossing over to the shore of people who boogie, who Tivo Dancing with the Stars and who believe America’s Got Talent. I wanted and needed to have my phobia transformed.

Ed promised I would not suffer the process too greatly if I invested an afternoon with him at the saloon where, once a month on a Sunday, a swing band plays to a crowd of senior citizens still dressed in their church clothes. In Bishop, that is the equivalent of a night on the town, and the prospect ought to have made me giddy. I’m not sure what state of mind I displayed instead, but when Ed saw it he decided we would not wait for the date. He gave me a Contra dancing lesson right there on the driveway, in the middle of my garage sale, and I wondered whether we’d even known one another for five minutes. Contra dancing sounds strangely political, but is in fact a form of square dancing. I was pretty sure this call-and-response exercise was not in the least a cool thing to be able to do, but it was a form that provided ongoing instructions, and that suited me fine.

So there we were on the blacktop in straight-up-noon heat, a torrential rain of sweat coming from Ed’s brow creating a little microclimate of humidity that wrapped around us. Ed held my left hand in his and fastened my right hand to his forearm, then started leading me in a circle so that his very aura suddenly had centrifugal force. Predictably, I got dizzy, and my feet tangled up. With firm professionalism, he instructed me to fix my gaze on one steady point or I was sure to fall down, so I focused on the little heart locket he wore on a short chain around his neck, and noticed the gray hairs from his chest against which it lay. He smelled exactly like a man wearing a dress.

After that, I was locked in to a date. He was to pick me up the following Sunday promptly at 2, and we would make our dance debut in the buffet room at Whiskey Creek. Ed the cross dresser came to my door in a nice peasant blouse and long floral skirt with a hem of eyelet lace, and I greeted him in my best t-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. His long gray hair was done up in a ponytail fixed with an ivory barrette, he had a freshly combed beard and his nails were polished the color of gold-flecked flamingos. His blue earrings set off his eyes nicely. I felt underdressed.

The band had a snare drum, a tambourine, a jazz guitar, a trombone, a bass, a jangly piano, and a deep-voiced singer with long white hair who stood about 6-feet-4-inches tall and whose gold shirt was unbuttoned down to his solar plexus. He wore aviator shades and had a gorgeous Gibson strapped across his chest that he didn’t play, but oh, could he sing. “Summertime… and the livin’ is easy…” The lyrics rolled along like a slow-moving train with a heavy whistle, and all the old ladies swooned. Mercifully, Ed pulled me to my feet on just the slow numbers at first, so that I could acclimate to the dizzying heights of dancing in front of people.

Even though he was a stout, 60-something man who carried a cute little purse on his arm, I was the one who felt self-conscious. Especially when a bibbed old lady eating fish and chips without utensils giggled each time we passed in front of her to return to our seats. I later realized it was not the sight of a backwards and upside-down couple that amused her, nor was it the spectacle of my dancing. She was merely suffering from dementia.

Elizabeth is still living in the Eastern Sierra, having fled the Long Beach area 29 months ago. She’s always planning on moving back, but hasn’t found a good enough reason to yet.