Two lovers, naked as jaybirds and apparently as crazy as looneybirds, climbed a tree in Central Park yesterday - and put on a bizarre four-hour show that drew cops and hundreds of gawkers. In a shocking new twist on the birds and the bees, a 17-year-old boy and a 32-year-old preoperative transsexual offered an X-rated sex spectacle - refusing cops' pleas to leave their unlikely love nest 50 feet above the Chess and Checkers House.
The standoff ended at 8:30 p.m., when the duo voluntarily came down and embraced as onlookers cheered. They were then taken away for psychiatric observation.
"We don't get this back home," said tourist Elise Gaillard, 21, of Adelaide, Australia. "Crazy Americans."
Earlier, the teen told cops that his parents did not approve of his relationship with his newly bosomy pal. "I want my mother and my psychologist," he yelled.
When police began scaling the leafy larch tree, the couple climbed higher.
"You think I won't jump?" the transgender tree-hugger screamed at cops, who rushed two cherrypickers to the scene and put a huge airbag around the base of the towering larch.
At one point, the older of the couple broke off a branch and threatened to throw it at cops, before demanding a vanilla diet Pepsi.
When police handed up a regular old diet Pepsi, the 32-year-old hurled the can to the ground, screamed, "Vanilla!" and declared, "What I say goes!"
The couple also shouted complaints about the portrayal of transgender people in the media, and called for an apology on national TV.
"I think they were just mentally distraught, fed up with how people were treating them," said Detective Steven Elter, who climbed up the tree to talk to the couple. "We just tried to talk to them and make them feel comfortable."
The incident came just days after two Canadian women took a swim - fully clothed - in the Central Park reservoir.
Yesterday's surreal antics prompted tourists like Louise Sharp, 24, of Scotland to change their sightseeing plans.
"We were going to go to the Empire State Building, but we thought we'd stay here instead," Sharp said.
With Kerry Burke
Originally published on April 23, 2004
