My encounter with Leslie


One morning in 2004, I was on my way to work at the McElroy Translation Company. First, however, I pulled into a convenience store at the intersection of 10th Street and Lamar Boulevard with one purpose in mind: to become fabulously wealthy in the blink of an eye. I bought a lottery ticket, which—like all the others—turned out to be a loser. Before I could get into my car, Leslie came up and asked for a ride.

Leslie. It seemed that everybody in Austin knew him by his first name. His full name was Albert Leslie Cochran, and in a city with an abundance of characters there was no other like him. Describing him is almost impossible, but I will try to do so succinctly. Leslie was a cross-dresser whose favorite ensemble was a leopard thong, high-heel shoes and a tight-fitting shirt, with a tiara resting daintily on his head. He appeared to have taken estrogen because he had, shall we say, female characteristics up top.

I lived and worked in the central part of the city, which is where Leslie hung out. Thus I saw him on dozens of occasions. Sometimes he was walking, sometimes he was pushing a cart on which he had piled his belongings. It was adorned with all sorts of whimsical accoutrements and a sheet of cardboard on which he typically lambasted the Austin Police Department. He thought the cops were too harsh on him in terms of public intoxication, loitering and other such matters. As a result, Leslie had spent more than a few nights in the “graybar hotel.” But he gave the prosecutors so much grief that they eventually told the police to stop charging him. A detente of sorts was established on the streets in regard to the esteemed Mr. Cochran.

By no means do I consider myself an intolerant person. I am all for live and let live, but Leslie—to whom modesty was a foreign concept—really pushed the proverbial envelope. He was flamboyant, although I suppose there is no such thing as a subtle transvestite. If the weather permitted, he was prancing around half-naked in women’s attire. It was offensive, and I averted my eyes whenever Leslie came into view.

I had been in close proximity to him a few times before, and here we were again at the 7-11. Were he attuned to my facial expression and body language, he would have known that I emphatically did not want to deal with him. But Leslie had long since stopped caring about how other people felt. He needed a ride downtown, just a few blocks east of where we were, and he did not hesitate to ask. Again, I doubt he noticed or cared that my response was anything less than enthusiastic. “Fine," I said. "Get in."

He was in the passenger's seat of my rusty Mazda for 10 minutes at the most. Our conversation was pleasant enough, but I refused to acknowledge his rather unique identity. He had run for mayor three times, once getting nearly 8% of the vote, and been featured on TV, and in the Austin American-Statesman and Austin Chronicle countless times. I pretended he was just an anonymous person who needed a ride. Was there an alternative? I saw two: (1) Call him Leslie, shake his hand and validate his outrageous mode of expression, or (2) Tell him exactly what I thought of how he dressed and lived. Instead I played dumb—but so distant that if he had a brain in his head, he knew I knew and did not like his act one bit—and dropped him off at 6th and Congress with the blandest of good-byes.

When I got to the office, I said to one of my co-workers, Richard Taglienti, "You are not going to believe who I just gave a ride to."

He answered, "Leslie."  Such was the man's notoriety.

Leslie died a few days ago, on March 8, 2012. Since I live in Korea, I would not have known about this except that I read a rather glowing article in the New York Times' web site. How many homeless cross-dressers get an obit in the Times? I found that he had a fairly extensive entry in Wikipedia and that he had been born in Miami in 1951, attended Florida State University for a while and had a variety of jobs on the West Coast and in Colorado before landing in Austin in 1996. He had been in poor health for three years prior to his death, which set off a round of condolences that seems genuine—viz., the Austin City Council observed a moment of silence in his honor and Mayor Lee Leffingwell declared March 8 “Leslie Day” henceforth. A parade and memorial service were both well attended.