Big Cats
“You know,” he says, “the snow leopard is the most elusive of all the big cats.”
Why do all the lunatics gravitate towards me? We’re at Pride, last Sunday, and there are hundreds of scantily-clad boys about, so why is it, the one in a red dress, adorned with skulls no less, is talking to me? And about snow leopards?
At a bar called the Eagle! Everyone I know, in every city in North America, goes to an Eagle and it’s a veritable sexfest, toilet spying, blow jobs under the bar, backrooms. I go and bump into a naturalist transvestite wanting to solve the wild feline world.
“Excuse me?” I say, because unless I’m mistaken, I’m not wearing my I LUV BIG CATS t-shirt.
“Snow leopards,” he says wiping the corner of his red lipsticked lips with an elbow-length latex gloved finger. “Yes, to this day, they remain a bit of a mystery.”
Oh for fuck’s sake. “Really?”
“Partially because their coats are such perfect camouflage to their surroundings. Makes them very difficult to photograph and study. Very nomadic creatures as well.”
“They’re white,” I say, because what do I know about snow leopards?
His wig is long and straight and when he laughs, he pushes it back, tucking it behind his ears. “No, Silly, their coats are like any other leopards, but thicker, with some white, yes, but your typical leopard pattern.”
What is a typical leopard pattern? I have to think about that. In my daily routine, I tend not to bump into leopards, snow or otherwise, and while I possess a vast array of underwear, sadly, no leopard thongs. This is going nowhere. Maybe if I look at the art on the wall, which in a gay bar is just naked men, he’ll get the point that I’m into cock and not nomadic snow cats.
Did he just call me Silly?
“Chances are, if you were in the Himalayas, you wouldn’t even know one was watching you,” he continues. “Stalking you.” His gloved hands make the shape of a cat claw.
I should ask him, upon embarking on an aimless trek through the Himalayas, if there are any preventative measures I should take, like a can of snow leopard whoop-ass, but instead say, “I need a cigarette.”
“Oh, I don’t smoke,” he says. Neither do I, but from learning what little I know about the snow leopard, I need some camouflage, to blend in with my surroundings. To be difficult to find and even more elusive to photograph and study. And, most importantly, to be left alone.
