Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

But of course everyone in show business knows that theAcademy is a huge success with an enrollment of onethousand three hundred young men and women, allstudying to be actors, singers, models. Some live oncampus but most live elsewhere and drive to school in theirjalopies (a marvelous Forties word that I heard for the firsttime in Best Foot Forward--oh, to have been an adult inthose years!). The Academy mints money. When Buck hadfinished his tale of woe, I crossed my legs slowly anddeliberately (my skirt was practically mini, my legs divine),and was rewarded by a noticeable increase in Buck'ssalivation. He swallowed hard, eyes on that triangulateddarkness beneath the skirt, forever inviting the question: isit you-know-what or panties? Let him wonder! No man willever possess Myra Breckinridge, though she will possessmen, in her own good time and in ways convenient to hertyrannous lust. In any case, Buck Loner is a three-timemarried man whose current wife, Bobbie Dean, once sangwith Claude Thornhill's band in the Forties, and is now apassionate Jehovah's Witness, forever saving sinners inback streets. Gertrude thought her common. "Naturally, thisis all quite sudden, Myra, I may call you Myra? Even thoughwe never met but then you are my niece-in-law, and sopractically kissin' kin." There is a crash outside my window--was a crash (in the time I took to write "there is a crash"the tense changed). Two cars have collided on the Strip. Iheard breaking glass. Now I hear nothing. If the accidentwas serious there will soon be the sound of a siren. Morethan ever am I convinced that the only useful form left to