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make-up and accent. When he walked out into the street
still dressed as myself, he was physically attacked!”
Thankfully Quentin’s days of being harassed on the
street are long gone. He is a venerated celebrity on the
Lower East Side. During our conversation, several people
wave at him as they pass in the street, and a respectfully
deferential young man who introduces himself as
Winston comes in to ask Quentin for his autograph on
a napkin. As I walk him back to his apartment, one of
the bums hopefully shakes his cup and greets him with
“Yo! Mr Crispy!” We pause at the street corner to say
goodbye, and Quentin leaves me with one last anec-
BUY Quentin Crisp books online from and
dote. “When I returned to the States after completing
Orlando, I was stopped by the passport officer because
of my status as a resident alien. He was an enormous
man with a shaved head – he looked like an absolute
thug. I thought, ‘Poor me, my time has come!’ And then
the officer leaned over the barrier, pressed the passport
back into my hand and whispered, ‘It must feel good to
be so utterly vindicated.’” Quentin looks directly at me.
“And it does.” With that, he gracefully takes his leave,
his small figure soon disappearing amongst the busy
sidewalks of the Lower East Side. Quentin Crisp – the
definitive Englishman in New York. �
188
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