ABSTRACT
Aunt Jeanne (who was not a blood relation, but who lived next door to my family when I was very young) let me sit on her lapsomething I don't recall my parents ever doing. She was a very tall, masculine-appearing woman, who had never had children; she was in her seventies or eighties at the time, and her living room always had a strong Victorian scent about it, with a ticking grandmother clock, a parakeet, old, old Persian rugs, and antimacassars. One time, when I was sitting on her lap, she chucked me under the chin and crowed, "A mole in the center of your neck! That means you're going to die by hanging!" Aunt Jeanne was an amazing woman-not afraid to say something like that to a six-year-old. I'm sure a psychologist would have a field day with comments like that; me, I just grew up to be fascinated by the idea. Of course, I think I'd already gotten a miniature preadolescent hard-on over Zarro (the book, not the series-no television, remember), especially the scene where Benito Avila is almost hanged. Zorro, of course, cuts the rope and saves him just before the evil Commandante gives the signalbut a secret part in all of us, I think, wanted to see those next few seconds that were averted. Connecting this scene with the rest of the book, I suspect, had a great deal to do with the formation of my formative libido. Those illustrations of Zorro in his skin-tight black clothes! The picture of him with his hands bound at his sides! And the one of Benito (in Zorro drag) being dragged by his heels down from the tiled roof of the jail! Come to think of it, my fetish for names that end in -o or -a may also be traceable to that book. My interest in leather boots, tights, masks, and black clothing certainly originated then, unless you believe that such things are genetic and innate. Then there's my fascination with hanging ...
