The First Gay Bar On Earth

Chapter 11

            The first gay bar I ever went to was in the Castro.  The circumstances were not the norm.  I was seventeen.  It was the summer before my senior year, or as I like to call it, the last year to freedom.  I lived in San Diego at the time, worked at Starbucks part-time and still thought I was straight.  I had a girlfriend who I loved at the time and still do.   It was summer time.  It was that moment off San Francisco summer before their unusually warm fall and right about the time assholes would start using a certain quote when they heard you were from San Francisco.  “The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco."

            It was a cousin’s birthday in SF.  I went with a few of my cousins to San Francisco for the weekend to visit our extended family there.  This was when I still thought Rice-A-Roni was the San Francisco treat.  It was years before I would learn the actual San Francisco treat was homeless people pooping on stoops and passive-aggressive arguments completely consisting of eye-rolls.

            After a lovely Friday evening of stuffing our fat Russian faces with as much Russian food as possible, we got to my cousin’s house in San Francisco.  We continued to snack on leftovers and regret.  This would lead to a Saturday waking up late, hung over and not feeling like doing jack shit.  I sat for hours chatting, eating and drinking coffee with three of my cousins and one of their husband’s.  At the time, this was my favorite part of a family event, eating, coffee and gossip.  My aunts would often talk right in front of me about the most recent gossip like I wasn’t there.  They must have assumed that my Russian was far worse than it was cause I got to know everyone’s dirt. 

After the fourth course and second pot of coffee my aunt, who’s house we were in, came in to her kitchen, which was now covered in food wrappers, poppy seed cake, kugel, empty doughnut boxes, myself and my cousins with crumbs ear to ear.  Her mother, my aunt calmly told us that her kitchen looked awful.  She of course yelled at us about the mess and then told us to go out and stop wasting the day away.  This was after she yelled at the two girl cousins for eating too much and then offered me, along with the only other male in the room all of the food that was left on the table.  That was of course the Russian way-make the women feel horrible about themselves while the men get fatter by the second. 

After yet another hour of stuffing my face with caviar, bread and guilt (Russian/Jew food staples), while the girls at the table were working on their eating disorders, we decided it was time to do something.  We didn’t have a plan, but all decided to get dressed.  This meant that two of my cousins would run upstairs, sneak ½ a pack of cigarettes while the other took a 2-hour shower.

It was dark out, around 8 or 9 in the evening and we just drove around the city.  We went to Twin Peaks, Lombard (the curvy street) and Golden Gate Park, all without getting out of the car because it was food coma time.  Eventually the older cousins decided they wanted to get drinks but couldn’t because some of us were under age.  This didn’t stop us though.  The conversation about drinking came, as we happened to be driving near the Castro District.  We parked there and decided to look around.  We had heard that this was where the cheapest bars in the city were and being the Jewish family we were raised as, we couldn’t help but check out the bargain. 

While walking around we chatted, joked around and my cousin’s husband (who was with us) brought up an intriguing idea.  He proposed a bet that we all pick a gay bar, all try to go in and then see if we could get someone of the same sex to buy us a drink.  The first person to do this would get a $20 from everyone on this outting.  There were five of us.

I was so excited about the getting to go to bars part that I didn’t care about anything else.  The first bar we approached smelled like rotten beer.  As we walked in, no one carded me and I was ecstatic.  After 30-seconds of rejoicing about that in my head, I looked around the bar.  It was all fat, older, hairy men watching the original Ellen Show.  It was such a stereotype it was ridiculous.  It was of course the episode where Ellen came out.  After 40-seconds of being in the bar Ellen had announced that she was gay on all five of the television screens in the bar.  Maybe this hit too close for home, not sure.  First thought was this is sick.  Second thought was, what am I doing here.  Third, can I get a cosmo?  We left quickly soon after. 

We walked a few minutes and found another nearly empty gay bar.  The entrance to the place just had these stairs that took you to the top of the building where the bar was.  Another place where I didn’t get carded, I was near shitting myself as a result at this point.  Out the windows of the bar we were looking over Castro Street, the HUGE rainbow flag and the years of bad decisions to follow like making out with a cop only to find he’s married to your current college professor.

We all split up.  One of my lady cousins hung out near the pool table of the place.  It was a few minutes earlier we realized that the pool table was lesbian territory.  After two seconds of being there, a big, fat man-woman person, dressed like Bruce Springsteen approached her and chatted her up.  I assume the conversation did no cover makeup or orthodontic work.

Next, that cousin’s husband went to another room and started chatting with some random college dude who in retrospect looked like an older version of the kid from the Terminator movies.

Every cousin had picked a person to talk to.  I just sat alone sipping some neon blue drink that had way too many garnishes.  After about a half-hour of sitting there I started to daydream about my next meal, hoping we would go to a late night diner and be able to get milkshakes.  It was then, this little Dominican fellow walked up to me.  He asked me if I was okay. 

Unfortunately it came out as “JEEEEW KAY?”

I misunderstood, gave him an “I’m insulted” face and looked away while I finished half of my drink in one gulp. 

The guy walked away and within one minute came back with a drink he handed me with his number on a napkin.  He was so gross that I think my penis shrank up into itself or at least that’s what it felt like…  I smiled, guzzled the drink down and told him I had to go.  I was headed to the exit.  All the cousins saw my accomplishment and one by one came up to me and gave me $20.  I glanced back at the guy in the distance who bought me a drink.  He looked appalled. Maybe it was cause all these people were handing me money and it looked like I was a prostitute.

Ironically it would be three year before I realized that I was in fact a gay and five years before I would be good at it.

Learning to Fight

Learning to fight

One aspect of working at the bar that scares me shitless is the need to be on-guard and confrontational at all times.  At specific times it’s the key to survival here. I guess that sentence is wrong, I mean, I have a distinct fear.  Not that it has happened.  I fear that I will shit myself at various times of the day.  More specifically, I fear shitting myself in a work situation that may possibly arise working at a bar.  I don't like the idea of having to be confrontational in general.  As a kid, when I was getting picked on by bullies I would get really nervous and in turn a nasty case of nervous-farts.  It was super embarrassing and one of the very reasons I feared getting into confrontations with people.  It took me at least 10 years to learn how to laugh at that situation and another 5 before I learned to control the nervous farts.  Back to the topic, confrontation, while I was raised by a Jewish mother who’s logic was “there isn’t and argument you can’t have” and a father who thought he was in the mafia the idea of getting in a serious fight scared me even though confrontation should have been my middle name. 

Currently. I will wear headphones without any music playing at the gym just so people don’t talk to me.  Men have a tendency at the gym to walk up to each other, men they may not even know and instead of saying “hi” they have to tell each other about their workout regiment.  No one asked.  It’s strange how men are such Neanderthals.  We can’t just say hi to each other without pretences?  It always sounds like, “Hey man. What you doing here?  Working out the Pecs today, was out of the gym for a while… the flu, injured my back pretending to be a much younger man, lifting way too heavy of weight, but now I’m back.”

Me,  “I’m working on solving global peace, that do you think I’m doing?  It’s a gym, I’m working off my daddy issues like everyone else!” 

Sorry for that long tangent.  Back to what scares me shitless, well at least one of the scenarios.  Like I was saying I don’t like to be confrontational when I don’t have to.  I was bullied a lot as a child and don’t feel like I need to play the battle of who has the bigger balls with other guys.  When entering a bar, specifically one that you work at, one needs to be ready to defend him or herself.  You never know when a drag queen will get pissed after too many Long Islands and make a nuisance or random idiots will feel the need to fight for honor.  Alcohol is the perfect lubricant for these situations.  Before I get caught up worried about the possible situations I may or may not get into while working at the bar, I remember that I’m in San Francisco.  Known as land of the soft, passive-aggressive and incredibly-high.  There is nothing more interesting than watching two stoners fight, it’s like watching slow motion television live.  Here 90 percent of the time, here, and fights tend to be non-physical and consist off passive-aggressive eye rolling with attitude. The last thing one thinks they will have to do here is speak up for themselves, the way the rest of the world does.  Unfortunately, in a bar situation you can’t always talk people down with a nice condescending political debate or joint induced conversation about who killed Kurt Cobain (even though we all know the answer).  Ideally, in the unlikely situation that I will have to kick someone out of the Labyrinth, I hope that I will be surrounded by hot muscular men, who are ready to jump in and fight for me.   They will want to do the dirty work for me cause that’s what the hot muscled men in fantasies do, along with sweating and heavy lifting around the house.  The truth is those guys only hang out with me in my dreams and even though it looks like we are fighting in these dreams I must admit that it’s all consensual, but I digress. 

Back to the bar.  Gina is doing what she does best, yapping and making a round of drinks.  Right as she pours the drinks, this drunk guy walks by and knocks over all the drinks she is making so that they spill all over her.  At this second her face changes from its usual shade of perfectly-baked tan to a red that can only described as maxi-pad red-tan.  As a gay man, I am saying this by assumption and what I have pieced together from a life of sharing bathrooms with women, but it’s still gross.  Word to the wise, do not under any circumstances piss off a lesbian.  It never ends well.  The guy has a body shape similar to that of a Mr.Chaz Bono (ex-Chastity Bono).  His belly looks like what I assume an industrial-sized jello bowl looks like.  I guess he is more of a summo-wrestler type.  You can see the cheese beneath his boulder thighs.  He is wearing a dog chain around his neck and has a striking resemblance to an aging Mr. T.  Little does he know, that one should never piss off a lesbian, especially Gina.  They will make sure you pay and get what’s coming to you.  She is so angered she snaps for me, the way they do in movies when they need backup.  I am not quick to figure out what she means by this snap, so I just stand there baffled.  She then nudges me, points in the direction of the drunk dude, and tells me to kick the drunken mess out.  Being her servant/barback for the evening, I stop and think of how I will get this guy out of the bar.  I imagine something similar to that scene in “Willy Wonka” where they roll the large round girl out of the room but with yelling and me being thrown across the bar.  I also start to wonder how such a large person could fit through the doors of the bar.  I also wonder if when he goes on airplanes, does he need to purchase 2-3 seats?  This guy is like three-of the mom from “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” in one.

Gina’s selective butchness kicks into high-gear once a shift, where she usually ends up kicking drunken messes out when we need her to.  This time, she tells me that it’s my turn to be the man of the group.  Why should I have to be the man of the group if I have a butch lesbian?  We all know about their elusive super powers that the lesbian as a species poses.  Gina, for example has tits that could distract any warm-blooded gay man, let alone a straight dude.  At one glance of her tits, even a may all of a sudden break into emotion.  Besides the tits, butch lesbians have this intense strength that I don't understand or question.  I know better.  They know to balance this strength much better than men too.  Maybe it’s the estrogen?  I assume it's because they never get penetrated by men, they have a heightened sense of adrenaline that pumps through their bodies at all times.  I assume that this is why straight men are so threatened by the true lesbian.  They can make any grown man look like a little pussy or I guess a better word choice may be, a little schmuck.  They can fight you, take your woman, and get her to always have a real orgasm (I don't think that women should have any reason to lie about that stuff with each other).  This is all my assumption though, lesbianism is as confusing and foreign to me as the straight fist-bump, which I assume is what lesbian sex is like.

While Gina’s logic is true, I have never really had to confront another man and tell them to leave an establishment.  I have until now exclusively been in little quarrels and “you mamma” contents, but nothing like this.

While as a child I was picked on A LOT, I always dodged the fight.  I have never really been hit or injured from a fight.  I had an unusual obsession with the show “Full House,” and an over-sized head, much like Charlie Brown’s.  This was reason enough for bullies to be assholes to me.  As a result, I have been threatened to get beaten up many a time in my young life.  I have never really been in any major physical confrontations though.  In my dreams, I have imagined that in the right situation I will reach into what I learned from years of playing "Mortal Combat."  The truth is that in reality, I would need a controller to do the things I could do in that game.

Often the “lets fight,” Neanderthal-ish threats turned out to be harmless.  Once some kid threw their yogurt at me while I was leaving school.  This, to me was fight enough.  After being mortified, when I got home, I washed the strawberry yogurt out of my hair and then ate a gallon of strawberry ice cream to heal the pain and called it a day.

Once, at camp, a counselor sent me to tell this kid, Wes, that it was time to get his Ritalin.  His response was to stab me in the leg with a pencil and then try to battle me to the death.  I was so shocked by his response I didn’t know what to do.  I immediately followed what I had seen on Ricky Lake and pulled his hair until he screamed for mercy, but that was barely a fight.

I ask the fat fuck, I mean large fellow, nicely if he will walk out with me to the exit since he has had too much to drink and maybe needs some “fresh air.”  His response is of course less nice.  Then my slutty co-worker who will remain nameless has to kick people out he will whisper into their ears, “Come outside, I'll show you my dick." And that usually works.  I am more timid and shy though.  I’m more timid and shy.  I couldn’t degrade myself in that way talking dicks.  Now hairlines, I can chat about.  Nothing entices a balding man like asking him to come outside so you can admire his prominent hairline when it’s nighttime.  All this just to kick him to the curb and once outside the drunks are left high and dry.  If only I was that smart.

Doushy Mc Doushy informs me on how I am “a little faggot mouse” who has now right to tell him what to do.  Who calls someone else a fag in a gay bar? That’s like calling someone fat at a Weight Watcher’s meeting, and just asking for a riot.  WHAT?! I am infuriated.  I am so angry that I'm steaming inside, but outside I can't talk.  Not knowing what to do, I just freeze not sure of what my next move should be or what to say.  Then Gina comes right up from behind the guy, puts her arms around him in what looked like an old fashioned bear-hug, while restraining his arms down.  She then walks in a waddling fashion, similar to the way one walks when concealing a fart.  She waddles with him to the door while keeping his arms tight to him.  She leaves him outside of the door with the doorman and then tells me that next time she won’t be there to help. 

The concept of even possibly getting into a fight makes me think about how my father always makes me spar with him even as an adult.  It’s been this way ever since I was a small child.  Sparring is another term for practicing boxing, punching a given hand, item or punching bag.  This is a great self-esteem strengthening exercise for an awkward kid like me.  Little do I realize how this practice will come in handy when I will be dealing with drunken assholes for a living.  This will lay the bricks for many things later on in my life.  It is like an informal training on how to “handle it” as my good friend Tracy would say.  My dad always explains it like this, “one day you’ll be walking down the street with a hot girl and some guy picks a fight with you.  What will you do?  Chat it out?  Compromise? No, you’ll hit him harder than he can hit you and look good in front of your girl.”  Such simple cut-and-dry logic.

My dad always fancies himself to be this amazing boxer much in the way that others dream of being a rockstar.  He has an unusual obsession with boxers, their world and life they live.  He idolizes boxing legends like Mike Tyson (before the ear bite), Lennox Lewis, Muhammad Ali.  According to him, some of these guys are on par or equivalent to modern day gods.  He replays Tyson’s fights any time he needs inspiration or something to do.  I have consequently seen every Mike Tyson fight at least 3 bazillion times.  Where I fall asleep to “Golden Girls” and “Roseanne,” he falls asleep to the fights.

Living in the city of Angels, my muscular father is like most Southern California men.  He is obsessed with going to the gym and making sure that people know he does such.  He references the gym at least one time per conversation when he is feeling right, usually while lighting a cigarette.  The difference is his preference of gym.  My 5’7, fair-skinned, four-eyed, bald-headed father travels to Compton to workout at this place called the Broadway Gym.  Dad says that he can’t go to another gym because real men don’t workout there.  Apparently he needs a Rocky Balboa type to workout there or a man with tears tattoo on his face to feel like he fits in.

The Broadway Gym is the one and only place were my father seems to feel at ease, something that will take me years to understand. He is always worried about life’s daily struggles, money, his relationships, possible mistakes of the present and past, the list goes on. This is the only place where he has real control of his life. As an adult I can still clearly remember him making me go with him so that I could “watch him workout”. This is similar to the episode of the “Simpsons” where Homer makes Bart look at the Virginia Slims ad for hours to make him feel more macheesmo-ish. The gym is his way of showing me how men are supposed to be. Even though my dad always tries to be close to me, we never really connect in the way he hopes. The gym though is his time to show me his concept of masculinity and tries to extend it as a role model. While I couldn’t grasp this concept as a child, now I understand the point of watching him box with other beefy men, beating each other’s brains out. Mostly, it just made me want a beefy, sweaty man of my own to play with, but that is not really the point. Boxing proved to be just another one of life’s million games where men work on proving who has the bigger balls. Boxing though, seems more interesting and more skillful than other games of this nature. It’s definitely more interesting than watching a guy show off his ridiculous sports car. At least with boxing, it comes more from the gut, sometimes literally.

I will always remember my father in this specific way. Him rolling up to the Broadway gym while blaring his hip-hop or hard gangsta’ rap, loud enough for people to hear he was coming. As he would get out of the car, he of course then takes out a Benson Ultra-Light, his cigarette of choice. Maybe swig a sip of water, which in his case was always a coke or seven-up and then ask me to grab. I am always about 2 feet behind him like a golf-caddie carrying his bag. An ironic side-note about Russian immigrants, in case one has never had the delight of being raised by them the way I have, is that there are several kinds of water.  All the families like us that I know, they always refer to sodas of any kind as water. Generally, drinking pure, crystal-clear water is considered unusual. Even plain water would have alka-seltzerish bubbles simply because that’s what they are us to from the motherland that treat them like prisoners, but I digress.

As a child, I have no clue that the Broadway Gym is in the city of Compton and known for being a bad area. This is my dad’s version of a country club, so I never really think about it. While he looks like the odd man out there to most onlookers, it is here that he feels he belongs. As he puts out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe, my dad’s voice drops 3 octaves lower and he then begins to swagger, much like JJ on “Good Times” or LLCool J. He then grabs my hand and is greeted by this big, bald black man who goes by the name B-bell. He is about 35 years older than, and balding like my young father. The few hairs on his head, are grey and slicked down so much that the wind can’t make a dent. This man always treats me like I was his own grandchild. As a child he always has handed me a jump rope and treated me like I was training for the Olympics or a big Vegas fight. B, an ex-famous boxer, friends with the greats during the time of Ali and the “rumble in the jungle.” His place here is to be the mentor for up and coming boxers and those who need fatherly guidance. He is like the trainer from “Rocky.” He even has a slightly East Coast way of talking. One of those Boston meets NYC drawls.  He is a father to the fatherless of Compton’s Broadway gym.

In this gym they have these rows of seats, much like the benches one may see in church, which was perfect since this was my dad’s church. Come to think of it, they may have been actual church benches.  How did they get here?  Did saint we-don’t-pay-taxes-and-hate-gays-but-love-their-choirboys have an estate sale?  I will always remember sitting there, watching my dad going back and forth, between punching 2 different bags, one the size of a human, and the other, a little one above his head, he seems happier than I have ever seen him. This is his time to show off and be proud. He always waits for me to look over and applaud. Every now and again he will stop and chat with someone about old fighting-scars from knife fights and so-on, but that again is his way of showing me what he thinks men do. Fights, exaggerated talk about sex and making fun of those who can’t get it. In between these conversations, he then looks up to see that I am still happily watching him. He then tells whoever he was talking to, that I am there to watch and soon will start to spar myself. At which point, I am half-asleep, dreaming about things that most boys seem not to, with a ribbon of drool soaking my shirt, then I would wake up, wave and go back to it.

My dad, generally is not a very outgoing person as the way most people know him. The ring is the only time he will step up and let his hair down, so-to-speak since he lost most of it at 26 when his father died. In the ring is when I learn the most valuable lesson he has ever taught me, how to strive and defend myself. This is the only time that I don’t fall asleep is when he is in the ring ready to fight another human being and does just that. Watching, I don’t realize how much of this brutal, savage and somewhat complex sport I am absorbing. My dad is very observant, always practicing his opponent’s next move before they made it and then combating by doing the opposite or hitting them first. Maybe this is what has and always will get me out of major fights?

I use my intuitive senses to use conversations as a means of badgering bullies instead of actually hitting them, this in turn to make a bully tired. That way they don’t have the energy to fight like my father does with his fists. He plays the game as he talks the other person down, like any good fighter does.

Once I start at the Labyrinth, I don’t realize that I will have to at times be the security of the bar. I would have to play the battle of the bigger balls via my speech and way of holding myself. Me, at a statuesque 5’8 (5’7 and ¾ in actuality) responsible for kicking out guys the size of houses and drunks ready to beat up anyone within a square foot of them. The second time I have to ask a guy to leave the bar, he tells little old me that I am a kid and he knows when he’s had enough to drink. Then I inform him that I am sorry, but he is done drinking for the night and should leave. He then tries to swing a punch at me, I duck as my father does in these situations in the ring and the guy hits the brick-wall behind me. His fist is now scraped and bloodied. I then tell him that we can take it outside but now that he had tried to hit me, I have every right to defend myself, not only physically, but also make sure that he is taken to a drunk tank. The mix of poor reflexes and lack of words make him slowly walk out. This was just one of over 2,000 similar stories. Every time I have to kick someone out, my voice for some reason travels down around 3 octaves and the adrenaline takes over. It’s as though I channel my father every time someone picks a fight with me.  Even though I spent years at the gym watching my father spar, I never once did it myself.  I never had the desire to.  The whole time I was praying that I was adopted instead of focusing on what he was doing.  Now it’s like I actually picked up how to fight from the old man.

On and off for about three years, every time I need an extra shift, I end up being the bar’s door man. The ironic thing is that I am one of the few to make it without a single scratch. I use the tools and ghetto know-how that my father has provided me with.  If not for my father, I couldn’t defend myself the way I do. I make it through these times without fear because of him. My father is the only light-complexioned man I know who during the famous LA riots is stuck buying a pack of cigarettes right in the middle of it all.  He gets to a gas station in the middle of the rioting and asks for his favorite brand, Benson Ultra-Lights and the black gentleman in front of him wearing a bandanna turns around.  The guy tells him “honkey, you’re gonna wanna get out of this mothafucka.”  My father of course takes his time, lights his smoke and slowly walks away from the scene, like a pro.

My father is the same man who since grade school tells me that, “If anyone fucks with you, hit them back 2 times harder.” Even though he is absent from many of my childhood memories, his tools for defense are ones that will always help me become a stronger man in the long-run and in turn even stronger, knowing I won’t need to use these skills. I can keep them safely stowed in my back pocket for emergencies. It is like that condom in the wallet that many guys keep there just incase but never use because they aren’t sure how long it’s been there, but feel empowered knowing they have it just in case.  I never realized the lesson learned from my father’s Benson Ultra-Light haze of wisdom..

Chapter 6. What to do after work, Atlanta

Often I don’t know what to do after my shifts at the bar.  While my teenage self would be happy going straight home to pillage a box of pop tarts, another of hot pockets, and top that off with a gallon of cookie dough ice cream with a tub of peanut butter, while watching Designing Women.  While I have watched enough Lifetime television to get a period, I’m a man that needs more.  Going home is an expensive cab ride, where once home, I have to be sure that is where I want to be.  That’s how living in a city without a car works.  It’s something we get used to.  This is also the reason cities seem to have more happily inebriated people.  It’s cause we can drink without worrying about who we will trick into being our designated driver.  Here, even if you have a car, good luck finding parking!  If one goes home, once there, the question will be, “now what?”  A man can only comfort-eat so much.  Three-4 hours tops and then what? 

Being a Leo, I often yearn to be out, to be seen, to meet new and interesting people.  I hope to one day meet the love of my life or at least make a new friend.  Most of the friends that I have made within the past year of living in San Francisco, from on-campus life, all have much different lives from my own.  If it isn’t dropping out for rehab (no one likes quitters), or taking too heavy of a school load, having a significant other or being stuck in their own quest to put together the pieces of their own lives, it’s something else.  I am never really free to hang out with them anyway.  I work every weekend and evening that “normal” people are free.  I call their schedules the schedule of the living.  I guess that makes my schedule the one of vampires and shitty infomercials with Tony Little, and the “Girls Gone Wild” commercials.  I’m on a different wave-length here.  One where drag queens and gay men who do porn get a red carpet thrown at them and Madonna is queen.

Most of my old friends have no interest in hanging with me at gay bars or like dealing with my lame availability.  This is the point where some of them bite the dust.  We cut ties now for no other reason than incompatible schedules and interests.

            When finishing work at my prior service industry jobs, the shifts are often followed with a meal, hanging out, a drink, a cigarette, and then eventually sleep, if you’re into that sort of thing.  The bar quickly has become a family member without the yelling and crying.  It’s better all around cause these people act as though they like me.  The bar, to me is a friend, much like a television becomes to an only child. 

Unlike a family member, the bar doesn’t create a profile for me on JDate and then constantly send me profiles for people they think are appropriate for me.  Every week my mother calls with a new profile and an update on the Jewish front.

“Mom, why did you send this to me? He’s 55, in jail and loves Celine Dion… (insert sarcastic eye roll) How did you know what I wanted?”

“He’s Jewish!”

“So what?”

“What about the other?”

“What about him?”

“I know he’s a killer, but his JDate profile says he’s Jewish, single and has some money… By the way, did you know that Lisa Kudrow is Jewish?”

My coworkers in some ways are becoming the siblings I never had.  I always dreamed of being a part of a large family much like that of “Family Ties.”  Once I had a dream that I was on “Growing Pains” and lived in Mike’s apartment above the house.  That dream had the makings of a good porn or D-rated horror movie.  Back to the bar though.  Here everyone is that family that I never had growing up.  The people behind the bar here with me, just seem to get it.  At the end of every shift, it’s always the same thing. I clock out and always wonder what will be next.  It’s that same feeling I get when flipping channels hoping something cool will pop up on but eventually settle on an infomercial selling food slicers.  I clock out and realize that most of my friends now are the people working.  I then feel obliged to hang out with my family and have a drink because one mustn’t be rude.  I end up staying the night and drinking enough to embarrass myself but not so much that I do things that make me look like a complete idiot.  It’s that fine line I walk between happy drunk and turning into Courtney Love.

I think that you can clearly judge a man by how he handles his liquor and is adult enough to know his own limits.  I like to think of myself as that person.  Any douchebag can drink himself in to oblivion.  It takes a man though to either drink a lot, handle himself well or more appropriately stop at the right time.  It’s the stopping at the right time that is an issue here.  I never get sloppy though! And when I do, I instantly plop myself into a cab and go to the nearest pizza place cause I’m a responsible adult.

            My new bothers and sister, educate me on how to drink smart to the best of their abilities.  It’s great cause while they do that, they’re also getting me blasted drunk.  They also teach me that “well” drinks, are now to be drinks of the past, only to drink in emergencies or to clean cuts.  I chat with them, while they serve me drinks and I sail down on a burning boat to oblivion. 

I am told that other gays can smell my “minty-new gay scent,” as James puts it “like a new car.”  I am fresh meat and have no clue how to cover it up.  No matter what I do, they all seem to know, all the gay men I encounter here anyway. 

As I stay lingering at the bar stirring my straw in a glass filled with melted ice and remnants of a vodka soda, I chat about local gossip with a bartender friend.  I also observe the crowd.  Being here, I feel like prey in the wild.  I both like and hate this feeling.  I feel that there are predators watching me, yet I can’t really tell who.  It’s just a feeling.  I always stand there hoping that someone will come up to me.  I want someone who is worth my time.  Don’t want to end up eating a gallon of double chocolate peanut butter ice cream, a can of whip cream, four granola bars and a bag of Reese’s tonight out of boredom.  I want to eat it out of excitement.  There is a difference.  I keep in mind that as I continue drinking, my standards may lower but hope it won’t come to that.  I wait for someone to strike up a conversation with me.  All who come up to me seem to have something off about them, but I find it good social practice.  I study them, watch their “moves” and then digest.  I have never really even been on a date, let alone do I have any idea of how to talk to another guy or really how to flirt with them.  To make a long story short, reading between the lines in this regard, is not my forte.

            Later on in the night, I am alone chatting with my friend Michael at his bar station, also known as a well.  We are just chewing the fat about random bar gossip, then this being, starts walking up to me out of the shadows.  I don’t even know where he came from.  I hope he has a mint and a Tums though.  Michael being the married man that he is decided it only fitting to whisper a bit of advice into my ear: “Go get it for the team, be a slut for all of us, what I wouldn’t give to be single for one day”…  Then, as this guy comes closer, Michael changed his tune to.  “Hey you can at least put a bag over his head and stare at his hot body.”  I still don’t really know what Michael was talking about since I am oblivious and in my own world.  Then, he taps my shoulder.

The man at my shoulder side is one who was trying to defy gravity, physics and deceive my intelligence.  He is wearing a low cut, tight V-neck with a low hanging chain weighed down by a heavy diesel pendant.  His eyes have no wrinkles around them, in-fact his face is completely absent of expression.  His chest/pectoral “muscles,” nearly as big as Gina’s, are obvious implants matching his horrendous ass implants. His dark fake tan and absence of any body or facial hair only make me more uncomfortable.  He opens his mouth, to show veneers so white that they are blue and the only part of him covered in wrinkles, although he tries to cover it in shinny lip shit.  Now, the noise came out of him.  It’s one that pierces my ears over all the music playing in the background.  It’s so high I am afraid the drink in front of me (that I don’t remember ordering) will shatter as a result.  It is so high-pitched that I can’t understand any of it.  It’s like the sirens from Greek mythological tales.  His subtle lisp and use of the word “honey” is the only way I can tell that he is presumably of some sort of Latin descent. Then he reaches down and pinches my butt cheek. Catching me by surprise, I accidentally spill the drink in my hand on his 7 jeans that are so tight that his ass is leaking out of them.  When I say leaking out, its like his ass is trying to get air.  Quickly his high-pitched siren goes off once more, I assume to curse me out.  Then out of nowhere, he unexpectedly slaps me on the right cheek, snaps and says something in his high-pitched rhythmic explosion of sounds coming from his mouth.  Maybe it’s Portuguese?  I am not sure.  Whatever he said, I assume it’s an insult and then the man vanishes back to the shadows.  I am so stunned and utterly confused by tonight’s events and the fact that a grown man slapped me, I drink more.

A few drinks later I am still at Michael’s bar station.  I am sipping the concoction that he has made me.  It seems to be made out of gasoline, not that it matters by now.  Then I noticed this guy a few feet away from me leaning against the other side of Michael’s station.  He has that look like the weight of the world is leaning on his back.  He sees me staring and begins to edge towards me.  He looks about my age, a foot taller, with hair much like that of Kurt Cobain in 1990.  Cute, but distracted by something, probably baggage, the way I seem to like ‘em.  He is a stranger in a bar full of people who all while different, are all lonesome strangers.  He asks me if I will like to drink with him.  Being the show off Leo that I am, I signaled to Michael to come over.  Michael hands us two shots, which appear to materialize out of nowhere.  I smile at this boy and point at the shots.  I then tell him that it looks like he would have to get the next round.  Michael, being a good bartender, plays his favorite role as cupid.  We don’t connect for the reason of love exactly, it is more so through connection of needing someone who will listen.

            This boy, I won’t lie, his name escapes me.  I can’t seem to remember his actual name even after chatting with him for a few hours.  All that I do know is that he has a heavy southern accent and mentions that he was from Atlanta.  Since I don’t feel comfortable to ask his name yet again he will be known forever in my memories as “Atlanta.”  Atlanta is tall, slender, white, average-looking, with long big dark-blond curls, all complimented with manners, something that seems to be rare.  In conversation he speaks up for himself, something unheard of in passive-aggressive San Francisco.  The fact that he gives me the time of day and cares is all that matters at this point.

            Soon Atlanta and I have been chatting for about 4 hours or so, time is an alcohol-induced blur by now.  He is looking cuter, but so do most of the people in the bar that I normally think are repulsive; the drink is an evil friend.  We keep on buying each other drink after shot, after drink.  He then brushes the long hair off my forehead and tells me that he thinks I am beautiful.  Rewind, what he actually does, is peel a long frizzy curl stuck to my face off of my now sweaty forehead, wipe his hand and then tell me he thinks I’m beautiful.  This is the first time that I have heard this.  I start laughing, being the cynic that I am.  I have a way of making any good situation awkward.  I am the type of person that always laughs at the wrong moments.  I’m like Mary Tyler Moore in that episode where they are at a clown’s funeral and can’t stop laughing.  I know, the references can’t get gayer can they?  I don’t know what to do or say, so I punch him lightly on the arm and start giggling with a smirk of confusion on my face.  He then leans in and gave me a kiss on the cheek.  By this point I am intrigued and still unsure of how to react, I can’t help but still hyperventilate/giggle.  I have never seen someone look into my eyes the way he does and then to be intrigued by me the way he seems to be.  He then asks if we can get some food.

            As we leave the bar, Michael yells something obscene to us, as any healthy gay man would.  It’s something along the lines of, “I want photos, details and maybe the video!”  I have never at this point ever left a bar with a boy.  I usually leave alone, walk to Walgreens, purchase a pint of whichever ice cream is on sale (Jewish stereotypes aside) and then proceed to eat it while waiting for the bus because I have no patience to wait to eat my feelings.  I’m not sure of what’s next really.  It’s more that I am not sure of what I am feeling now.  I am wound up, nervous and a bit nauseous.  It’s like that feeling I felt when I finally got a ninja turtle of my own, way after they where cool.  As we reach one block from the place where we had met, I am in a drunken stupor and embarrassed over the fact that I fall on walk into a bush 5 seconds ago.  He then suggests that we skip food and go to my house.  Atlanta is direct and to the point.  Shockingly direct.  That is the huge difference with gay and straight men.  Gay men are more specific because our attention spans are much shorter than other’s I think.  I suggest his place.  He then tells me that he has nowhere to stay and truly enjoys my company.  Not being jaded yet, I let him keep talking.  He then says that he doesn’t want to take advantage of me, but thinks that I am a nice guy and wants to have all the cards on the table.  I am too drunk to realize this must be some line he tells everyone.  When people say that they want to have “All the cards on the table,” it’s refreshing, but one of those things that is hard to really believe. 

It’s not like a crazy fucker is going to be like, “Oh and here is the card that tells you just how nuts I am, here is the infidelity card, and oh yeah when I introduce you to people I will refer to you as my “friend” and make you feel like an idiot.”  No one does that.

All I can think about in my drunken-slushy head while he says this is, “Lets get ready for a load of bull shit.  Here it comes.”  He then goes on and says that I don’t have to take him with me.  There is a long pause that seems to last forever.  Now we are near the bus stop at 18^th and Castro where all the taxis are lined up waiting for passengers.  He then kisses me again, his way of sprinkling fairy dust to put me in a trance, which is pretty easy now since even my sweat is pure vodka at this point.  He then says that he “isn’t expecting sex, just a cuddle” and company.  Luckily, the cynic in me is playing King’s Cup and not paying attention.  For those unaware, King’s cup is a game played in colleges all over the country.  Players must drink and dispense drinks based on the cards drawn.  Basically, if it doesn’t end in someone puking, you’re not playing it right.  Being alone really in the city at this point, for some reason is a bizarre concept, yet good excuse to take him.  It will sound even better retelling the story. 

            In the cab, all the cards are being strewn on the metaphorical table, he tells me something else that takes the night for another turn.  He says that I should know that he may or may not be positive.  I don’t understand what that means.  I can’t seem to connect the dots whether he is talking about his mood or HIV status.  If it is HIV status, how could he not know?  I then, stupidly ask him what he means.  He then says that he has just found out that his ex, who he had moved out to Cali with, a much older LA/WeeHo guy has been cheating on him left and right.  He has had no idea that the guy was fucking around on him, so the story goes.  His man had just yesterday, texted him to deal Atlanta the card that every gay men fears.  He tells Atlanta that he tested HIV positive and that he should know.  At this moment, it dawns on me how young this kid is. It’s like one minute I am walking around empty handed and now carrying a bag of bricks.  Atlanta is only 6 months older than myself.  This thought soon turns me into a 3-year old boy.  He out of nowhere begins to cry.  This time I can’t laugh my way out of this awkward conversation.  I can’t pretend to be naive or simply leave this guy at this moment.  I begin to hug him and cry myself.  Atlanta, then goes on to explain that he has moved to LA with the guy who was is old enough to be his father, yet has treated him better than any relative ever has.  Atlanta’s family back home of course disowned him for being a “nasty, fudge-packing, immoral” member of the gays who is on the way to hell.  He’s been on his own since 17.  He has so much to figure out.  He is alone.  Why would his parents think that anyone chooses this? Atlanta has a stuffy nose now and says that he fled to San Fran because he has always wanted to see the “gayborhood.” He needs to get out of LA to get over his only friend/lover/father figure, he has ever loved and now thrown him out like garbage for someone younger.  Atlanta’s southern drawl makes it hard to decode the entirety of the story, but that is the gist, or so he claims.  By now I have stopped crying, looking down at the little boy in my arms and channel my mother.  I tell him what my mother had told my aunt when she explained about divorcing my father.  I explain what women have known for centuries, men are men, no matter how much we wanted to love them, they still have the potential to be pigs and sleep with anything that has a pulse.

            Atlanta does end up staying over.  Nothing happens though.  Not even a peen tap.  I wake up in the morning with my mouth tasting the way Lysol smells.  The hangover is set to kick in soon.  He is in my arms.  Nothing else matters though.  Why me?  Why him?  What to make of our meeting?  These questions now seem irrelevant and unnecessary to answer.  Atlanta is asleep and soon would be gone.  He says that he will soon be on the next train back to Atlanta with just the cloths on his back.  I guess we could exchange email addresses, numbers or something, but for some reason it doesn’t cross either of our minds.  He kisses me passionately while holding me tight.  He then thanks me for listening and giving him a good time and not in the “hooker way.”  He is off to Atlanta to put his life together, never to be heard from again.

Dating SUCKS.

 Dating SUCKS...

             I’m entering year for of working at the Labyrinth.  I’m this weird mix of happy that I still am gainfully employed and jaded/depressed/surprised that I still work there.  Just yesterday I have this customer order a drink from me.  As I am mid shaking whatever vomit-inducing shots he had requested and he yells, “OH MY! YOU WERE MY BARTENDER LAST TIME I WAS HERE 2-YEARS AGO!”

            I don’t really know how to respond so I just give him my most polite smirk as I pour his fruity-shots.  He then says, “You look good… You been working out?  Your hair looks much better that short.  You look much better.  You must be getting it all the time.  Are you in school?  What are your plans?”

            The truth is that I don’t know how to take compliments, never have.  I grew up a fat kid and have a whole complex about it.  Compliments, mixed with questions I would expect from a guidance counselor, from the mouth of a stranger no less, it’s a no go.  Who is this guy my mother?  I of course just pretend to not hear him, like the music in the bar is too loud for me to focus on him.  I then wait a minute before I respond.

            I say, “I graduated 3 years ago, was laid off twice since and don’t need to defend myself to you.”

            He gives me the look one may give to a crack-head standing in the middle of the street for no reason wearing a helmet made of tin foil and walks away.  Something oddly commonplace in San Francisco.

            It’s happy hour on a regular Wednesday.  I just started my shift at 5 and am waiting the coffee from 20 minutes earlier to kick.  I also have a secret fear any time I drink coffee it will give me the runs.  That comment isn’t relevant, but just trying to paint a picture.  Like I said, I am 20-minutes in.  There is just a tiny bit of day-light peaking into the bar, another bartender working 10 feet away from me, 2 old men sitting at his station.  I am diarrhea free so far, so because I am in am in the phase where I believe what I read in the Secret, it’s a good day. 

            After about an hour and a half of no customers, I like most bartenders in my situation start to get antsy.  I got rent to pay.  Then, this group comes in.  It’s a group of girls and their 2 gay friends who are run of the mill average guys.  Like most jaded bartenders in my place, I roll my eyes, slap on a smile and offer one of the girls a shot hoping the whole party will buy more drinks from me.  They proceed to purchase about 10 shots from me and out of nowhere their third gay friend shows up.  I guess he was at the ATM, cause he is waving two twenty-dollar bills at me as he runs up to joins the group.  Now this guy is so attractive he makes you want to slap your mother for not having as good of genes.  He is around my age, fit, light hair, surfer tan and looks someone who would be on an Abercrombie and Fitch bag.  I immediately create a story in my head for him.  His name is something like C.J., Brent, Dakota or something that would look good on a Porn-film cover.  He is from Santa Barbara and just moved to San Francisco after turning down many job offers all over the country.

            The group walks away and C.J. comes back.  He smiles and asks me what he has to do to get another shot from me.  I don’t get the game he is playing, so I wink and say, “money.”

            He orders another shot from me and asks for my number.  Which is odd cause in the whole time I have worked there, this hasn’t really happened to me.  Usually people ask me if I have the number of another bartender who is working.  If they do ask for my number they are usually so hammered I can’t take them seriously.  This guy is seemingly sober-ish.  I tell him that I don’t give out my number at work cause I’m not allowed to which is a plain lie.  He responds by winking, tossing a card onto my bartending station and walking away to his group of friends.

            I wait a day before I break down and text the number on the card.  I have to.  People that pretty, never talk to me, let alone have any interest in me.  They usually talk to me like I’m their therapist for no reason other than the fact that I am Jewish.  The card says nothing other than Mike Smith and a phone number.  I text, “it was nice meeting you yesterday at the bar.”

            He responds with, “:) “.

            5 Minutes later his next text, “Drinks tomorrow at 8? You’re very cute.” 

He makes the little fat kid inside so happy I then commence have diarrhea.  Nerves I guess.

I plan on meeting him at the bar.  I dress up.  I wear my favorite jeans, shirt, actually shave, spend 45 minutes trying to tame the curls on my head so that I don’t look like Mufasa from the Lion King.   Get close to the bar a little early and get nervous.  I decide I need to be 10 minutes late.  I don’t want to look desperate.  I scarf down a doughnut, a bag of M&Ms and 2 99cent cookies from the 711 a block earlier to kill time.  I get a text mid-bite, “I’m wearing blue.”

I finally get to the bar, excited to see this HOT man waiting for me.  I am a bowl of nerves, with a side of self-loathing.  As I look through the place I instantly see a man wearing blue in his mid 50s who looks like a mix of Bruce Velanch meets the guy from Inside the Actor’s Studio.  I look past him and quickly weave through the room for other people wearing blue.  I look for the hot boy from days earlier.  I walk through the entire bar, which isn’t that big to begin with at least 4 times.  I actually am the only person under the age of 40 in the place.  I don’t see him at all.  I also start to notice that I have pit-stains quickly forming, that make it look I am wearing an ill-fitting bra.  Oh, did I mention that I am wearing a white shirt?  Thinking I was stood up or somehow ended up at the wrong bar, I text him back.  2 Seconds later I hear “Ding-Ding-Ding with the TROLLEY!”

It was someone’s text alert ring.  I thought, “How fucking gay.”

I then looked over at the older man in the blue, noticing his hair is died an unnatural brown and he is wearing foundation to cover his age and see him opening up his phone.  He is pressing the buttons very slow, pulling the phone far away from himself so he could see.  This is the way my grandmother dials people cause she is far-sided.  As he shuts hit flip-phone I get a text alert.  I don’t want to acknowledge what is happening so I ignore the message.  I pretend I can’t hear the alert.  He starts to walk close to me.  I hope that I am really misunderstanding something or that I’ll wake up at this point.  Then someone walks past me and accidentally bumps me with their drink, spilling all over my jeans.  I now look like I peed myself.  Now of course I feel like I have to pee too and am getting anxious.

It all of a sudden clicks.  C.J., Dakota or whatever his name is gave me someone else’s card!  I must look like that much of a dope.  The thing I can’t understand is who the fuck this guy is at the bar and why he responded to my texts like he knew me?

Grandpa gets to me and says, “so are we having a drink or not?”  Not knowing what to do I go right past him, straight to the bar.  I put down a twenty and tell the bartender to get him whatever he wants as I bolt.  Instead of crying like a normal person I start to laugh uncontrollably as I make my exit.  I keep laughing until I get a block away to another bar where I proceed to drink enough to kill a horse.