FRIDAY NIGHT LAMENESS
It’s the normal Friday hustle and bustle routine, song and prance
that we get accustomed to working at the Labyrinth. It’s in between rushes, during the usual Friday night 9-10pm
lull. The time, in between, where
the happy hour crowd leaves the bar for a short intermission. This is the time often used to go ride
the “white-tiger” or whatever the kids call it these days. For squares who may be reading this,
and unfamiliar with the lingo, the “white tiger” is when people snort their
evening’s hungers away, talk shit about their bosses, forget what ails them,
maybe grab a quick low-carb bite or bowl of “American Fries,” then come back out
to the bars and proceed to drink their way to love, getting plastered out of
their fucking goards.
It’s the American way. Some
call it Alcoholism. Here we call it Friday…,Tuesday…,Wednesday, pick a day of
the week, they all run together here.
There is no concept of time really here. Like Vegas casinos, there are no clocks here. I don’t need a watch. I can tell time by
observing the crowd. Here people
get wasted enough to not feel embarrassed (dancing alone like little
deaf-white-girls to any Madonna tune) on a dance floor full of men who are all
dancing to different beats and sweating profusely with moth-ball breath. Sounds
appetizing, doesn’t it? A gay bar’s dance
floor has a certain stench that I can only describe as furniture show room
meets a yoga mat, with a hint of Axe body spray. It’s one of those smells that initially made me feel like
puking on first contact, but eventually, I stopped noticing.
Customers leave and chase the “ski-lopes” with their dollar bills
that they later spend on booze or put down a go-go
dancer’s jock strap. Your hands
can go numb from these bills.
First there are the fat cokeheads, which is essentially putting your
hands in the air and admitting failure in life. What’s the point of doing lots of blow if you can’t look
skinny while doing it, right?
(Insert sarcasm here.) Then
there are the cokeheads looking to hook up. They are the “Larrys” from Three’s Company of the bar, if
Larry liked the poppers and had a deviated septum. They come to the bar almost every day and weekend cruising
for ass. Hours later these saps
are forced to explain why they can’t get hard and are grinding their
teeth. (That’s what they forget to mention in the “this is your brain on drugs”
commercial. Now that’s a selling
point! Tell teenage boys about
issues with their wieners, then they will listen! It’s everything they told you in every after-school
movie/driver’s Ed video, minus the hip 80’s haircuts.) Unfortunately, in this world, in this
place, cocaine is the social lubricant, if you will; what many people use to
have fun and numb their feelings, nose, and face, much the way Botox does. Who needs feelings when you can numb
them? The “key-train”/coke-parties
are both assumption and observation based on the fact, that many of the weekend
customers can often be found grinding their teeth, while their noses run into
their and mouth to create that “mothball breath” with a whiff of regret that is
only too common in these parts.
In general, I have never understood the mindset of the cokehead. Sure, I’ve tried it several times, just
to make sure it wasn’t my thing.
I’ve never been a coke person, though. I just don’t get the appeal really. It’s not a feeling I enjoy enough to
pay that much money for, only to feel lousy the next day, be snappy and have to
lie to those around saying, “I’m getting over a cold.” Upon observing the cokehead in their
natural habitat (a bar, bathroom stall or bus), as a
non-participating observer, I have noticed a few things. One line is never enough. It’s something no one wants to share. With other things like pot, food, booze
it’s more like a buffet. The more
the merrier! With coke, however,
normal, descent people become greedier than Wendy Williams at a wig sale (Side
note, I love her almost as much as I love ice cream and peanut butter). I
realize now how prevalent and stupidly obvious cokeheads often are at the
Labyrinth. Within a 5-minute
period here, one can observe three customers in a row order a drink while they
have boogies run down their face and into their numbed noses, into their mouths and over their lips, that undoubtedly are
covered in the latest lip-gloss Claire’s offers. This guy walks past me at the bar with a face like I just
described. I point out the mess on
his face, and similar to the way one treats a toddler, I offer him a napkin and
wiggle my nose like I have the sniffles.
I’m trying to be coy and not embarrass the guy, because I can be a nice
person. Then the asshole customer
smiles, tells me to “fuck off” and tells the bartender he is recovering from a
“cold.” Everyone knows that
nothing compliments a cold like a night of coke and booze. I’m thinking if you were recovering
from a cold, why are you at a bar?
Then I remember the mantra I have learned: Gay men aren’t quitters. If drinking were a sport, we’d
Gold-Metal in it. A second later,
as he is walking away, the Bi-Polar Bitch leans into my personal space, like
the way one does when they talk to an old-person and tells me that I am
“adorable,” with a big insane smile showing off his veneers. Getting a compliment from an asshole
like this guy is like bumping into someone you’ve slept with but don’t remember
their name, but do remember their
breath smelled like a rotten egg.
It’s awkward and generally not worth getting that worked up about. (Not everyone has had that
experience?) Being that I am
adorable as this asshole puts it, the compliment is always lackluster from
these cokeheads, since it’s usually said in a sarcastic tone, where you cannot
tell if they are complimenting or putting you down, like when it’s in in a text message.
If you are going to be a dick and try to insult someone, do it
correctly, to their face and in a way they can understand. It’s at this very moment that these gay
men use every mean trick they learned from when they were teased by
the popular kids growing up, and use it now as material on people like me, who
call them out on it.
My self-esteem is really low these days. It’s lower than my SAT score, which was awful, since instead
of completing the math section, I just drew a picture of Kurt Cobain because I
didn’t expect I would do well and didn’t.
I had worked the night before at Carl’s Junior. My co-workers were wasting time with
that age old argument of “Who Killed Kurt?,” which segued into an argument on
which Nirvana song was better.
Needless to say I was exhausted. In times like this, when I am down I think about other times
in my life where I felt just this way and it got better. When I was a chubby 12-year old and
Monica Gambini would yell at me across the playground, “Hey, ever heard of a thigh-master?” If this had happened now, I would have had some choice words
for that bitch! I would tell her
that she would be lucky to have an ass as big as mine, and furthermore to go
fuck herself. In those days, all I
had to do to handle that situation was an eye-roll. This was during the day of both the Thighmaster and that
infomercial where Cher would yap on and on about hair. I would pretend not to
listen to that bitch Monica, who I always hoped to hear did something classy
with her life, like turning into a stripper with 5 kids who ends up becoming
fatter than the lady from Donald Trump’s wallet. It’s not that I’m bitter. After Monica’s bullshit, I would then walk to my best
friend’s (a janitor), and eat three of those Carnation ice creams, which of
course they sold at my school. This
made for easy feelings eating.
Then follow with a healthy bag of flaming hot Cheetos, just to
compliment my white-trashiness. It
was moments like this that made me wish I could be Bulimic. I’m too Jewish, though. I would hate to see good food go to
waste. Presently, I do not know where Monica is. I guess I shouldn’t have used her real
name for the story. Please don’t
tell her she
doesn’t read. I hope she is just graduating from ITT
Tech and realizing that karma’s bitchier than even her.
The second the guy finally walks away for good, and all I can
smell is hospital scent: That of mothballs and regret. This is, of course, after he
purposely spills some of his drink on the floor and makes eye contact with me
to remind me that, after all, I am merely “the help.” It makes me want a sedative or at least a magical brownie to
tide me over and keep me from slicing up the overly manicured faces of the
lovely patrons around me. Not that
I would really do that, especially if my mother is reading. Being that my job at this point is
bar-backing, which is to clean everything up here, I am not into making more of
a mess than necessary. As I come behind the bar, James is cleaning his bottles and
chatting with Johnny about how he’s seen Johnny’s trick of the week out earlier
with another guy. Johnny is the
first guy who ever called me “Stud” when I first started here. He popped my cherry in that
regard. Conversations like these
make makes me call the bar “Castro-High” or “9021-uh-oh”. Then Johnny tells James that his guy is
like every San Francisco gay man and in an “open relationship.” Come to think of it, in my infantile
experience, this seems to be true.
In San Francisco, for some reason, most
long-term Gay man relationships are actually open ones. Being a young, inexperienced Gay who is
still optimistic and still clinging to the idea that love exists, this concept
makes no sense to me. This was in
a world that was different, before we knew that Ricky Martin was in fact a
Mary, queer, sissy-lala too. These
couples are committed to each other, but also openly have some things going on
side. Why this is acceptable, I will never truly grasp. I guess you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Actually, you can, and it is delicious.
As I walk past the rambling bar gossip, I go back to my Friday
routine. I stock pint glasses at
every station. Even though I
try to be working in my own cocoon of thought, insecurity and cleaning
products, I can’t help but notice that everyone around me is gossiping. If it isn’t about their boyfriends of
the moment, it’s yesterday’s tricks and tomorrow’s Ex’s. It’s like an episode of 90210
sometimes, but with more sex and less plaid. It is kind of making me sick just listening to everyone’s boring drama and makes me less engaged in
being here. All I can think about
is how I want to somehow end up at a better job than this. Somewhere I can make a difference. I am getting to the point
where, while at work, it’s hard to be productive. While I look like I am working, mentally I am 2,000 miles
away. In my mind, beneath the
little afro of hair on my head, I am on a faraway island watching the
tide. I am getting fed grapes by
bronzed cabana men, ‘cause why settle for boys in fantasies when you can have
chiseled men? While my physical
being is at the bar, working this bullshit job, my metaphysical self is working
through that bronzed daydream. Then, Gina quickly snaps me out of
it. She comes up from her station
to yell at me. At this point, I am
already in a bad mood and want to tell the bitch to relax and that I’ll get
there when I get there, but actually say nothing. She points out that she is in dire need of cold pint glasses
right away. She then adds in her
Gina way, “You need to wake up and start
paying attention for god sakes!” In my head, I am thinking, “Bitch,
get your own fucking pint glass and stop being rude! I have some day dreaming to get back to!” In my head I am also imagining
Julio and Avi arguing over who gets to wash my clothes. They, of course, are in Israeli
Military uniform that is all tailored, because that’s hot. The world
knows that Israeli men are utterly gorgeous, so I always have at least one on
hand in my dreams. Word to the
wise: Israeli men are much like Latin men of the Middle East, without the
Catholic-guilt bullshit, and less likely to live with their mothers. Gina likes being the resident
“belabusta”, which is Yiddish for bossy person who thinks they’re in charge,
even, and especially, when they aren’t.
That person who always has to be the leader of the group or whatever
they take part in, because that’s just how they roll. What I probably am not considering or caring about at the time is that she really is trying to get her job done so she could
make both of us money. She is
simply calling me out for not focusing on my job, which today happens to be
true. She’s like that teacher that
interrupts you to answer a math question while you’re busy playing MASH. Gina gives me honest constructive
criticism, and like most people in that situation, I write her off
as being a bitch. I also find out later, that Gina, herself, is stepping on
eggshells because she had just been reprimanded for apparently over pouring a
drink a day or two earlier by one second. Our bar’s shot pour standard was four seconds
then. The cameras apparently
caught her going over that by a second, which equals one ounce in theory. One extra second on your “pour” here is
the difference between having a job and filling out unemployment
paperwork. Now, apparently,
somebody is out to get her. She
just wants to keep her job, because it allows her a good standard of
living. The over-pouring
slip/moment in question is, of course, caught on the surveillance camera of our
elusive bar owner who is always watching us. Shit, he is probably watching from home right now. I imagine one screen with
“the Bachelor,” “Matlock” or whatever he watches, and another screen with us working. I rush over to Gina’s station
to stock her precious pint glasses.
As I reach into the drop down of her station, Nick the one in Medical
School /bartender is performing for some customers right behind me. Being the show-off that he is, he
bounces his big ass around while shaking some drink. He’s one of those black guys, much like Wayne Brady. He acts stereotypically black only when
he needs to, but generally acts like a typical white guy raised in the
burbs. When he works, he often is
not aware of his surroundings.
It’s like working with Bigfoot.
You never know what he will do.
He’s usually too busy looking for “hot” Jewish Doctors and Lawyers” in
the bar. Essentially what I’m
saying is that he has the same taste in men as my mother. The rest of us have developed a third
eye on the back of our heads that help us maneuver our way around the Labyrinth
bar. Nick has no idea about this third-eye business, nor does he care
about those around him when he is working. He is very into making his money and calls himself a
“Self-Elected Jew of the Bar” (even though he was raised Baptist); and as an
actual Jew, I’ll speak for all of us when I say the following:
1.
No one wants to be Jewish, it just happens.
2.
No one goes to a plastic surgeon and says, “Can I get a little ski-slope nose no, no, no I want the Barbara
Streisand Beak.”
We don’t want Nick; the rest of the world can have him. Like a whore in a red-light district,
Nick always focuses his attention on the person with the money in their hands that is within his hand’s reach. He is almost as
good at guilt trips as my mother; and that’s saying a lot! He can guilt anyone to investing in anything he does, from
cocktails to a date. The Goy has
the skills of an old Jewish woman and the money sense of a Donald Trump. Nick is hitting on some customer and
putting a bottle back in place which belongs behind him, near his
register. He did this without
looking. In this course, he also
accidentally pushes me into the pint glasses I am putting away. This causes a domino effect of
problems. This is when the
nightmare begins. This action, in
turn makes one of the pint glasses shatter into a beautiful glittery rain that
looks like an explosion around my hand of glass dismemberment, which drizzles
everywhere. Then a huge shard of
glass is then pushed into the skin about three inches above my inner left
wrist. I am so in shock that, I
almost don’t believe that this happening. As I pull my arm out of the drop down
cooler, I could see a piece of my flesh just dangling. I can’t see how deep the cut is, but
all I can see is blood. I drop
everything and run into the back room.
Nick is still chatting with the customer oblivious to what just
happened. On the way to the back room, I leave trails of blood. In a fluster flurry, I open the
first-aid kit that the bar had.
Like a cruel joke, it’s of course empty, full of just a pile of napkins,
three tiny Band-Aids, and one tampon.
I have a double-take
moment. Being that this is a men’s
gay bar, a tampon is highly unusual in our first aid kits. I would more likely expect to find lube
or even glitter before a fucking tampon.
I start laughing hysterically, in that awkward way the way I do when
someone tells me a joke that I already know they think is funny and I get why
they think it’s funny, but it’s not.
Then they inevitably try to explain it to you, like you missed the point
and then you laugh louder to make it sound like
you care. Meanwhile, I’m still unsure as to why I am laughing during a
horrible moment like this. I am a
person who tends to always laugh at exactly the wrong moments. I am the guy who laughs at funerals,
any religious ceremony, any of life’s generally awkward ceremonial
moments. Like when I look at any
full-length mirror and during romantic moments in movies when most people
cry. I laugh at the sight of bad
news, and most people find it revolting.
Sorry. Get over it. I pick up the napkins I find
to soak up all the blood, James walks by and asks if I am okay, while he stares
at my arm from a distance. His
face looks horrified. James asks
me if I will be able to work the rest of my shift, and whether I have
insurance. Right after the words
leave his mouth he sees my face instantly turn red. This is the point where, if I was a cartoon, steam comes out
of my ears. I start laughing
uncontrollably. It’s the type of
laugh that is more scary than cute.
I am getting even more upset by this point. I am starting to simmer with James’s question and the
evening’s predicaments. The fact
that he has the gall to ask me such a
bizarre question as I have a piece of my own flesh dangling from my arm is
ridiculous. I switch from laughing
like a crazy person to complete silence, giving James an evil stare and telling
him, “Yeah, I’ll work. We can turn this place into a fucking
making Bloody Mary bar tonight!” As I stare at my mangled arm I begin to
feel a subtle sharp, throbbing. It
is getting worse with every second that I stare at the blood-infused napkin
covering up the glass battle wound.
I catch a glance of my face in the Hello Kitty mirror of the back
room. My own expression freaks me
out. It’s like a weird Mona Lisa
expression and my face looks even more pale than hers. I have a look of “What the Fuck Should
I Do/I Want my Mother” sort of face.
