At the gay bar

gay bar

Late nights I spend at the gay bar, with Jules and her posse.

I’m the only American and the only one who claims to be straight. Sterling gave me shit about it, because I’m dating a drag queen, but I’m like, what the fuck she still has a dick and she likes to use it.

Americans always get suspicious when a person doesn’t exactly fit their expectations. Europeans are much more likely to go with the flow. Jules’ posse sees me dressed like a boy and they don’t bat an eye. They ask me where I got my black on black Yankees cap, or my vintage Levis. They call me TRUEBOY and don’t dare disrespect me with the hated question.

“So, what’s your real name?”

“C’mon, you can tell me…your name can’t really be…”

Listen up, party people…I am who I am. I’m who I’ve decided to be.

(I’m the boy, who’s learned to enjoy, invisibility…)

I like the gay bar. I like walking in with Jules’ fabulous posse and I like all the stiff drinks I get for free. I like the commotion and cacophony of Dutch and German being spoken around me. I sit hunched over with my notebook, puffing on a spliff and trying to remember not to take my pulse every five minutes. Meanwhile Jules makes her rounds.

Recently, I’d been catching looks from a delicate looking baby dyke with a crew cut and brand new black and white Converse All-Stars. She was American, it was written all over her blank, well-meaning face, just as I’m sure it’s written all over mine. She had that art school vibe--straight out of RISD or Coopers Union or some shit like that. She’d come to Europe to be an artist, like thousands before her. I hated her for that--the sickeningly sweet brand of optimism that brought her here. I hated her gadgety brightly colored American jacket and her chirpy, “Yeahs?” and “Oh, reallys?”, as she sat at a table with students from the University.

I hated her so much I couldn’t help myself from constantly shooting looks back at her, just to see how reprehensible she really was with her American Camels and her Asian style tattoos.

Last night, she finally came over. Jules’ crowd could barely suppress their mocking, throaty laughs as they sat up tall in their stools and squinted through the smoke to watch. Jules herself was on the other side of the bar, keeping track of every movement I made.

“Hey,” the girl said. “I’m blah blah.”

Her voice was bright and clear like a bell.

When I didn’t respond, she gamely continued, “Watcha writing?” an inevitable question given the presence of the notebook. I shifted in my stool and bit down on my bottom lip.

“Don’t bother, I’ve already sized you up,” I muttered, without raising my head.

“Excuse me?” the girl said.

I was silent for an uncomfortable minute, before responding, “How do you want this to go—what’s your plan--your weapon of choice? I can already tell you that if it’s anything other than alcohol you’re barking up the wrong goddamn tree, chillymost.”

The girl was taken aback. “You want a drink?” she asked. “I was just about to offer…”

“Yeah-yeah, that’s the ticket. We’ll sit right here, have a few drinks and you can oohh and ahhh over me being an MC. If they’re the right drinks I might even drop a rhyme or two for you. They can be some of mine, from this here notebook,” I flipped rapidly through the pages, “Or they can be someone else’s—a verse from a hit fucking song, I doubt you’ll know the difference. Even if you do actually own a few hip-hop albums you’re probably a total lightweight who will be so drunk that you won’t even try to understand what I’m saying. Not that it really matters--the cadence of the waterfalling words will seal the deal nonetheless, and you’ll hurry me back to your place to fuck.”

The girl stood there, too astonished to move. I heard someone rapidly translating my words into Dutch behind me.

“We’ll go to your student digs to be among the ironical hanging hippy tapestries, the retro shag throw rugs and the second hand coffee table coated with layers of candle wax. We’ll get high on your cheap ass grass with Ani Difranco playing on the 3 Cd Aiwa, staring at each other and trying hard not to think and to just let go and give in—two things we should have done a long time ago. Inevitably you will have a lot of books, incense, artsy black and white photographs in metal frames, and the requisite black t-shirt or shirts strewn over a chair. Maybe there will be posters of Rosie the Riveter and Gay Activism slogans from the eighties on the wall. The three Queer M’s: Mapplethorpe, Madonna, Morrissey. Or torn argyle socks and baby blue boxer shorts rolled in a ball in the corner, from your last fuck. Stale donuts on the counter, high-end shopping bags in the corner…whatever…there might be a crack pipe still smoking on the yellow linoleum. Anything, there can be anything up in your apartment but I’ll tell you already that I’ve seen it all before and you’ll have to do better than that.”

The girl didn’t know what to say. Her eyes were wide and her forehead lined. She took a step back, frowned, and looked around her. The giggling, chattering cliental immediately turned inward, like a row of shutter panels pulled closed.

“So,” she said, her voice trembling with a mixture of fear and anger. “This is how you get your kicks—putting down a nice girl like me for the amusement of all your friends, here.”

I leaned forward and grabbed her wrist.

“Oh, no,” I hissed, just loud enough for her to hear. “These aren’t my friends, love. I care two shits about any one of these losers. I was merely fast-forwarding through the painfully predictable future hours you were proposing we spend together.”

“I didn’t propose shit to you, you fucking asshole,” she spat, wrenching her hand free.

“Really, my favorites are the ones who want to take a picture of me,” I went on, my heart pounding. “The stiff and the bored—they need evidence. They need something to put in a scrapbook for when they’re married and their twats are dried up and big as Hefty bags from all the puppies they squeezed out.”

“Fuck off,” the girl said and walked away.

“I love it when they say, ‘I think it’s so great that you’re breaking down these boundaries, that you’ve chosen this as the way to express yourself.’ Well let me tell you something about rapping, I didn’t chose it, baby—it chose me,” I called out. By now the girl was already on her way out the door. The bar buzzed and clucked in her wake. I caught Jules’ gaze from across the room: steady, unimpressed as always.

For a few seconds the girl was framed in the doorway, cast in half-silhouette by the streetlights outside. I watched as she ran her hand over her nearly bald head— for just a second, I found myself imagining how that soft baby hair would feel against my inner thighs. She had an ass on her too. A glare shot off a passing truck and reflected directly into my eyes, forcing me to turn away. When I looked back the doorway was empty.