Louise and Johnny also come into the living room. They dance together. I watch Louise’s shorts climb higher up her ass as her knees bend and pivot with the music. Johnny shuffles his feet from side to side in a sluggish manner. Someone has raised the volume of the music. I can no longer hear the rain.
The transvestite sits down next to me. He lights a cigarette and offers me one from his pack. I tell him I quit smoking, but he hands the lighted cigarette to me anyway and lights another for himself. The profile of his large face looks haughty as he rests his head against the wall.
“I like to smoke,” he says, “it’s sure-proof evidence that I’m breathing. I can go into a panic when I’m not sure if I’m breathing or not.”
I sit and smoke the cigarette while the transvestite nervously grinds his boot heel into the carpet.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“Nothing really,” I say.
“Can you interpret dreams? I’ve been having the most interesting dreams lately.”
“I’m not too good at that,” I confess.
“I had a dream last night where I locked my mother and father in this prison cell. They were begging me to let them out, and then I threw rattlesnakes in the cell. I laughed at them while they squirmed with fear. Pretty crazy dream isn’t it? What do you think it means?”
I shrug and let out a long exhale of smoke. I have no interest in talking about his dream because that would lead into talking about his life, his relationship with his parents, his childhood, and who knows what else. I am too weary to listen.
The transvestite continues to stare at me intently, waiting for my interpretation. I feel I must say something. I wing it and say, “It means you are able to be yourself at last. You have put your past behind you and you are free.”
The transvestite lets out a long stream of smoke upward and is in deep thought. “That’s good, that’s good! I like that!” he says and gets up with a burst of energy and starts to dance with Johnny and Louise.