If You Can't Say Anything Nice Then....

“Works of art are of an intimate loneliness. Only love can grip and fairly judge them. Consider yourself and your feeling right every time.” — Rilke

“I liked it!” Remember when Jean Hagen spoke those words in Singin’ in the Rain as the ditzy blonde movie star who just attended a premiere everyone else hated? That’s what I usually do when I experience something, with everyone else wondering “Who’s the idiot?”

What is it with people who run to see something and then only comment on the negative? I knew so many people like that. They’d go to an opera and the first word out of their mouths was the conducting was bad. They’d see a painting, the reds were too strong. An afternoon movie matinee and the plot was weak in the middle.
We all have our opinions, but whatever happened to just enjoying the thing for what it was, not what it wasn’t? I never understood Salvador Dali half the time either, but I sure liked what I was seeing. I wasn’t in control of these pieces of art, so I may as well enjoy what was there.

In my thirties I started to really watch some of these people who’d jump on the negative, and it seemed to me they were taking such stands to show their superiority, hiding their own low self-esteem. Many times it’s the people with the strongest prejudices who have the deepest fears.

I’m not saying I haven’t acted that way too, but I’d better have a good reason to back up the negativity, or else I just look like an ass.

An afternoon matinee of the Broadway musical The Boy from Oz was exactly what I was expecting, cheesy and fun, with Hugh Jackman simply oozing charisma out of every sweaty pore as he undulated his hips across the Imperial Theater stage. My God, sounds like I’m writing porn.

At the beginning of the first act, the character of Peter Allen as a little boy approached his grandfather, an elderly man rocking away on the porch, not paying much attention to anything other than his newspaper. The kid started tapping away, throwing his hands out in that flamboyant style the real Peter Allen had been famous for.
“Grandpa! Who am I?” the excited child asked.
Without missing a beat Grandpa said, “Ann Miller.”

Sounds like my childhood.

By the end of the show, everyone but Liza was dead, I mean, you knew how it was going to end, right? Leaving the theater, I had thoroughly enjoyed myself despite the unhappy ending, which, by the way, they overcame in the finale, with Judy, Peter and the entire cast descending a staircase from heaven, all dressed in white, singing and dancing to “I Go to Rio”.
I didn’t expect it to be high art when I walked in, but I loved that it was high camp once I walked out.

A couple in the lobby said, “Other than Hugh Jackman, that was awful.”
Another man said to me, “This show isn’t going to last long. What did you think of it?”
Of course I perked up, “I liked it!”

That same night I caught Taboo, Boy George’s musical life story, right across the street from the stage door of the Imperial. I’d been spending so much time in dark theaters my contact prescription had changed.

Again, I really enjoyed the show and I don’t know why it wasn’t a hit, although by now I had enough of musicals where the characters die of AIDS. During intermission I stood outside and some guy walked up asking me how the show was. Of course I gave him my usual three word response, then he pointed across the street to the Imperial with it’s poster of Hugh Jackman.
“Well, it’s got to be better than that thing over there. It was so bad I walked out after the first act!”
Thinking I’d put this snob in his place I beefed up my enthusiasm and said, “Oh… I loved that!”
He eyed me up and down as if I told him I had leprosy and walked away.

Now that I’ve gotten the sermon about the power of positive thinking out of the way, I have to admit, The Sopranos final episode was stupid, reality shows are demeaning, fauxhawks should be outlawed and Lucy’s version of Mame was a pile of crap.

Product of a One-Night Stand

“Who am I? I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be different. I need people, but I keep pushing them away. I’ve got all this love to give.” — James Dean

One night, when my rural Iowa parents felt I was old enough to understand my adoption, my mom told me everything she knew.

I was the product of a one-night stand, nothing was known about my father, but my real mother was a red-haired Irish schoolteacher who already had a son and daughter. Being a single mother already, she placed me for adoption while still pregnant since she couldn’t afford another child. At the birth, my adopted parents were there in the Catholic hospital waiting for my delivery, and my real mother never even saw me.That’s all my adopted mom knew and though it doesn’t sound like much, just that snippet of information opened a world full of possibilities when I was told. From that day forward, the fantasy image of my real mother was Maureen O’Hara, the red haired Irish actress from The Quiet Man. That, along with the thought I had siblings somewhere in the city brought a great deal of comfort.

Someone asked me once if I thought it had been a good thing I was told about my adoption at the age of five. Would it have been easier on my psyche if I had been told as a teenager? Well, I think anytime a person is given that sort of news it’s got to be a shock and change them internally in some way, but I personally believe it was healthier to know it at the age I did. When things got rough within my adopted family, I had a second, imaginary world to dive into. I always knew I was different and somewhat of a black sheep within our Midwestern blue collar home. My parents weren’t poor, but we were close to the border of lower middle class, having come from farmers and truck drivers who seldom showed emotion, and when they did, it was either as a joke or in anger.Nobody else in the family seemed as sensitive as I, no one wanted to please the others as much, cried under their pillow as often, took as many chances in the hopes of adventure or seemed to crave love the way I did.

Spending much of my childhood being the quiet obedient one, I only got excited when sad or incredibly happy about something, be it a western, a comic book, a musical, whatever. I wanted to share these discoveries, but nobody seemed interested. When lonely, I couldn’t turn to my family because they wouldn’t respond in a consoling way, they simply weren’t capable and it always felt we were on different wavelengths, seldom connecting.Once I hit fourteen, I looked elsewhere for acceptance and felt any positive emotional experience I’d be given was just a fluke, pure chance. So, I grabbed as many rings off the merry go round as possible, not even caring about my parents disapproval, since I’d lost respect for their decisions long ago, watching them continually operate on impulse and negativity. Selfishly taking what I wanted that was positive about them internally, I searched elsewhere for the rest. If the good times weren’t going to last, I may as well experience as much life as possible, that’s the way I looked at things growing up and I suppose, even today.

There were plenty of wonderful moments with my adopted family I’m thankful for. But from a very early age I felt on my own emotionally, even though I craved some type of loving normalcy from them. When I didn’t receive it, I looked high and low for it elsewhere.

Hello, co-dependency.

The one constant was the knowledge there was still that other family which really existed, somewhere, despite the fact I never met them.

Even today, whenever Maureen O’Hara appears on the television screen, I can’t help but smile at all those wonderful possibilities.

Revenge of the Barfly

I’d had just about enough for one month. Socializing seven times at the bar within thirty days, I’d seen more drama than a TV prison show. Luckily none of it involved me directly, but even just being around it made me realize I needed to change my priorities and find another place where “everyone knows your name” on a regular basis. Preferably it would be home this time.

I loved the socializing, the hundreds of personalities, the excitement of the gay bar scene I’d been part of for twenty years.
However, after witnessing yet another junior-high school, alcohol-related fit from the Pissy Queen Traveling Circus, I’d reached a turning point.

One bar patron who had broken up with his boyfriend told me he was now barraged by a series of texts and messages stating, “I should come over to your house and kick the shit out of you!” “I have a new boyfriend now, you loser!” “I should plunge a knife into your heart!”
I told the patron to ignore the messages and not even look at them since it would only perpetuate the drama, but he kept sneaking peeks at his phone all through the evening.

Another patron named Morty got mad at his best friend Cliff because Cliff had gone next door to another bar with a third person he’d grown up with, someone he hadn’t seen in years. I saw Cliff ask Morty if he wanted to join them, but Morty answered no. The minute Cliff left Morty sniffed “Gee, thanks a lot for ditching me…” and wouldn’t talk to Cliff for months. Come on, girls…get over it! It’s not like it was the prom or something…

An overweight suburban housewife who came in every few weeks or so started bawling because her gay male friend didn’t like her new hair color and had to go to the bathroom to compose herself.

A friend named Vince told me his brother had just admitted to sleeping with Vince’s boyfriend. Apparently the guilt had gotten to be too much for the brother and he also fessed up that another of the regular bar patrons had joined them for three-ways on a few occasions.
Needless to say Vince was now single, but man, if that ever happened to me I’d be hearing “Five cents, please,” twice a day for years as I visited Dr. Lucy Van Pelt’s psychiatric booth.

Another heterosexual woman wouldn’t listen to her gay companion when he told her she shouldn’t drink since she had blood sugar issues. She replied, “Oh, beer doesn’t affect me!” then later that night, passed out, was literally carried home by two people. It looked like a scene from a Passion Play, her arms spread as if she was on a cross, eyes closed with her two friends on either side, arms interlocked under the woman’s back.

A blonde lesbian approached me, drunk out of her mind in a near panic. “I’ve got to get some Cocaine! Can you help me?!” After telling her a point blank no, she threw up in the bathroom and an ambulance was called.

One night a friend of mine began screaming at two bears about some imagined slight. Under the influence of alcohol, when that “zone” hit, he usually lit into someone. He was looking for attention, even negative attention. When I started talking to the guys he yelled out, “Why are you talking to those fat fucks!?”
I pointed to the door and said, “This register is CLOSED!”

While I sometimes viewed bar life as “Live and let live!” my current assessment was “There is a fine line between having a good time and dysfunction.”
Was I becoming like these people? Had I already become like them? What happened to all the fun?
When I was thirteen, my father told me, “If you hang around messed up people, it doesn’t matter how centered you are. Their personalities can easily rub off on you, and it ain’t always good.”
That was one of the wisest things he ever said.

Walking out into the warm summer evening, I realized I might be the barfly who needed to reassess his attitude. Perhaps it was time for a break. What was currently a regular occurrence needed to become what it used to be, a special occasion. I still felt there was nothing wrong with going out, but these continual re-runs of Cheers meets the Osbournes were a bit much.
All the way home I repeated to myself, “My God, it’s just a bar...”

Adam emailed me good advice the next day. I had sent him an email detailing my confusion at all the unnecessary drama and he responded that even I was at times caustic and judgmental, just like him.

He said, “Our wit isn’t harmless. That bar is a ‘tough room’, always has been. We use wit to assert position in the group, protect ourselves and our friends from very real emotional injury and diffuse sometimes volatile situations. That’s why we’re able to talk so freely about so many topics and reveal personal shit without fear. Our wit is our best social tool, both offensively and defensively. From my perspective behind the bar it’s easy to see the real person retreat and push the witty ‘barfly’ persona forward when things get too hot, difficult or personal. It happens a lot.

“Without the wit, we are the wounded, vulnerable, road weary, real people with real, less than perfect lives, relationships and jobs we intend the bar to provide relief from. Your boyfriend, Chris, was right when he said, ‘remember, it isn’t life’. In a way, the bar is its inverse. It is what we wish life was, where we can feel safe exposing who we wish we were to a degree. It’s a reality refuge.

“The adventures we observe help us in looking at the blurred balance between ‘life’ and ‘bar life’, how the boundaries sometimes fall and how the often times funny, ironic, dangerous and tragic consequences that result are dealt with. These adventures are compelling on their own, but stand as allegories and thus gain a type of universality. They are essentially fairy tales, and Dwight is the ‘Big Bad Wolf’.

“The horror and gravity come as we realize that this wolf is real. He’s not only the sweet old lady in the gingerbread house inviting you in. People like Dwight are the conduit through which the fire we safely play with in ‘wonderland’ seeps into the real world and burns our houses to the foundation. Such individuals create real conflict and represent a very real threat.

“That said, don’t take these people’s reactions towards you too seriously, life is full of barflies, but you’ve only got one you.”

Adam was right. I had begun to take many of these people too seriously. About the only thing that really mattered to some of the regulars was when happy hour rolled around, they had to be there, in that bar window like a well timed cuckoo clock. Was I one of them too?

As I told my partner Chris what I was feeling and that I needed a break, he just said, “Are you surprised?” He was never one to say “I told you so,” thank God.

He always let me learn about life for myself rather than shoving it down my throat. I’m surprised he didn’t say, “You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas. You just had to find out for yourself…”

If I had been Dorothy Gale I’d have bitch slapped Glenda and yelled, “Then why the hell didn’t you frickin’ tell me before I went through all this damn trouble?!”

Hell, if I walked away from Crystal Meth I could walk away from this. I threw away my cigarettes and stopped smoking. Now, that was a tough one. I monitored my going out, added more water to the menu and tried to hold off on the judgment of others.

Going back to the gym I watched my diet (Somewhere underneath all this laundry there must be a washboard…) and I stopped being a barfly. Done!

However, I’m not averse to flittering around like a butterfly every once and awhile.

I was a Middle Age Barfly

As I was riding my bike on Tuesday, a huge rainstorm hit and I was soaked to the gills pedaling through the park. After standing for fifteen minutes under a tree, I pedaled through Boystown looking more and more like a contestant in a wet t-shirt contest. I’d have had better luck getting around with a paddleboat since the sewers were backing up left and right due to the unexpected deluge.

Well, what better place to escape the storm than the bar? It was about a block away at this point so I headed there, parked the bike and ran to the door. It was locked. Five-thirty in the afternoon and locked? Thinking someone must have overslept, I retreated back into the fray when a voice called out to me.

There was the owner, “Come on back, sweetie!” so I turned around and got out of the rain while he shut the door behind me and locked it.

“You’re closed?” I asked.

Adam popped up from behind the bar, “Yeah, the power has been out for a few hours. Can’t see in the basement to unload the liquor shipment, can’t turn on the lights, nothing.”

“Oh, well…you didn’t have to let me in. I don’t want to bother you guys if you’ve got other things to worry about,” I replied.

The owner peeked around the corner, “Sit down and be quiet, you’re family. Adam, get Terry a beer.”

So, I sat there in a dark locked bar while Adam and the owner tried to get things organized. To myself I thought, “This is a new low. What’s next, drinking alone at home, crying over a dusty old wedding cake?”

A half hour later, the phone rang. Adam picked it up then told the owner, “That was Kirby, the powers back in this part of the neighborhood. You can go up to the DJ booth and switch all the electric on.”

The owner just looked at him, “There is a puddle of water up there! Do you want me to stand in it too while I’m flipping the switch?! Get your ass up there with me and hold my hand to ground me!” He then looked my direction, “Terry, if you hear a loud buzz and two screams, you’re in charge.”

As they walked into the DJ booth I could hear the owner moving things underneath the counter to get to the fuse box. “What the fuck is this? Cock rings!? What the hell are cock rings doing in the DJ booth? And what the hell is that?!...oh Christ, I don’t even want to ask…”
My career as a bar manager lasted about twenty seconds because slowly the lights came on, area by area, and I never did hear a yelp or an “Oh, shit!”

The owner came over and unlocked the door. A city water truck was outside the window and two gardeners were working on the potted plants decorating the sidewalk. The owner leaned out and said, “Excuse me, but I just have to ask this…why are you watering plants in the rain?”
I couldn’t hear the response, but when the owner came back in, he commented, “They said those particular plants were dry…our Chicago tax dollars at work.”

After they got things settled, Adam sat down and chatted. He told me, “You want some more bar gossip? I don’t believe I’m talking out of school with this, in fact I’m sure I’m not, since Bob and Carl have told others.”

(Bob and Carl were two bar patrons we all knew. Add any more characters to this place and I’d have to bring in Tolstoy to help sort them out.)

Adam continued, “I drove both of them home last night after closing and we had a long, long talk. Apparently they aren’t too keen on CW these days either. I couldn’t believe that Bob actually questioned whether or not CW had intentions to get into Carl’s pants.

“Dwight sends Carl photos of his dick at least once a day, but none to Bob. Invitations to the bathhouse and three or four ways to Carl, but none to Bob. Dwight is completely aware Bob knows, but he doesn’t seem to care. How fucking blatantly insensitive is that?! Carl feels beholden to Dwight since they owe him money.

“I told Carl, ‘Aren’t you showing a lot of disrespect to Bob here, your partner, by just hanging out with that loser when he’s trying to undermine your physical relationship? Wake up, girls!’
“And guess what Bob said? ‘We don’t have many close friends here in Chicago so we just sort of ignore Dwight’s behavior.’ Sadness, sadness everywhere, zero responsibility and not one iota to excuse. Damn! We know a lot of fucked up people!”

Just then, the door opened and in came Dwight. I rolled my eyes and thought, “There went my afternoon, time to go” as the wall just went up all by itself. Adam smiled knowingly as I hugged him goodbye.

“I don’t know how you do it, smiling at everyone when inside you can’t stand some of them…” I commented.

“Honey, it’s my job. If Hitler walked in here I’d have to be nice to him. But behind these kind, concerned eyes, there’s a bitter old queen named Evilena just waitin’ to bitch slap some of these people!”

I headed back out into a storm that seriously made you wonder if two of every animal was going to be loaded onto some boat in Lake Michigan.

Welcome to My World.

Curse of the Barfly

A drunken call interrupted my otherwise peaceful afternoon. It was someone I knew named Dominic, a 4’ 11’ Phillipino loudmouth I’d been friends with for years.

“Come over to see us, you whore!! We’re up on the top deck of the bar, Bitch! Get your ass up here!!” and click, he was gone. What intelligent, tender people I’ve hung with throughout my life.

Well, I thought, may as well take another few days off my life, so I stopped at the bar and headed upstairs to the rooftop deck. Dominic was standing in the center with four other friends when I walked up. He was so drunk he could barely stand.

“Whore! Where’ve you been!” he screamed at me.
“It’s nice to see you too, sweetie…” I replied, giving the others a look of “How long’s he been like this?”
They read my mind and said, “He started drinking at noon. He’s called everybody in this place either a hot daddy, a whore or a bitch.”
I replied, “I take it from his announcement at my entrance I did not get placed in the hot daddy category.”
“You bitches!! Buy me a drink!” he yelled out to us.

The deck was crowded with people and little Dominic had everyone’s attention on him. Many were amused, Dominic was certainly a funny, colorful personality, but an equal number of people could only put up with him for so long before they’d shake their heads and move to another spot, as far away as possible.

A cute guy walked by and Dominic twirled around to get a look at him. He grabbed the guy’s behind then pointed at me, saying, “He thinks you’re hot! He wants to go home with you!”
The guy looked at me and smiled, knowing Dominic was just saying it. Everyone up there realized within one minute he was full of shit and just wasted.
Dominic stumbled into my arms, “Buy me a drink, Bitch!”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough? Everyone here is starting to wonder why the little doll from It’s a Small World was let out of the boat ride…”
“You bitch! I’ve gotta pee-pee!” was the reply.
“Pee-pee? How butch…” I dryly said, holding him up.
“Dammit whore! I am butch!” he yelled out, smiling and waving his hands all around.
“Butch? You? Maybe if butch was spelled with an i…” A chuckle rose from the crowd, for some reason whenever I was with Dominic the puns just came left and right. He always gave me so much material to work with.

This went on for a good half hour until we took him downstairs to use the restroom and hopefully get him out of there and into a cab home. It was getting embarrassing. While the crowds at first found Dominic an endearing little loudmouth, he was wearing thin.

Holding him up and leaving the restroom, I was on one side of him and another friend, Steve, on the other. Dominic kept loudly critiquing the butt of every guy who walked by, when he broke away from me and staggered to the edge of the bar.

One of the bar’s employees walked up and said, “You’d better get your friend some water, he is really close to being asked to leave…”
I grabbed Steve and told him what the man said, but Dominic heard me, whirling around yelling, “Who the fuck said that! Don’t they know who the hell I am!! Where is that asshole?!” and I was surprised the employee walked right by him, heard it, shook his head, yet didn’t do anything. Personally, I would have put a little “Skinny & Sweet” in his cocktail.
“Dominic, we need to get you some water. Sit on this barstool and be quiet,” I said.
“No!” he yelled out, “Let’s have fun!” and he put his arms around Steve and I, “I love you bitches…”
Having had enough of this shit, I literally picked Dominic up completely, carried him five feet to the barstool and sat him down. Being so small, it was about the same as picking up a large husky.
He gave me a dumbfounded expression, and was quiet for about fifteen seconds, not quite certain what had just happened. His brain was still swimming from the multiple vodkas he’d downed in the previous six hours. Then, once he got his bearings, he yelled at the bartender, “Hey sweetieeee!”
The bartender turned around, and there was this little Phillipino giving him an adorable puppy dog expression, his tone soft and pleading, “Can I pleaaasseee have a vodka and diet coke?”
“He’ll have a water…” I told the bartender.
“You whore! I want a vodka!” he yelled back at me, dropping the puppy dog eyes.
“You’ve had enough,” Steve interrupted.
Dominic appeared to be calming down on the barstool, so Steve and I talked to a couple of friends who approached us. When we turned back around, there was another vodka in front of Dominic. How he’d gotten the bartender to give it to him while we weren’t looking, I don’t know.
He lifted up his glass. “Cheers, bitches!!” swung his arm out, the glass dropped straight from his hand, right on the floor, shattering. He immediately went wide eyed, putting his index finger to his pursed mouth, like he was some four year old who had just broken a lamp.
In reality, he was actually a four year old who had just broken a vodka glass. He jumped down from the stool and started sweeping his foot to the left and the right as if nobody was going to notice it.
“Stop that!” I yelled at him, “You’re getting glass all over!” and again, picked him straight up off the ground and put him on the stool. “Sit there and shut up, you little pin-headed monster!”
He smiled at me, “I love you whores…”

The same bar employee who had threatened to kick him out came over and swept up the mess. He didn’t say anything this time either, but within a minute every trace of glass was gone. As he walked away, he shot Dominic a look similar to what Sweeney Todd must have given his prospective clients.
“Now, be quiet and sober up, we’re taking you home soon.”
“No, you’re not! I’m having fun with my friends. I love you guys…let’s go dancing!” and once more swung his arms out. This time he fell backward off the stool onto his back, legs flailing in the air like a beached octopus.
The entire bar went silent. One group of guys behind us said, “That poor little thing’s a mess.”
I was getting quite a workout picking the little rat up, but once again I lifted him bodily off the floor, all the way in the air and sat his ass down on the barstool. “You’re going home!”
“No, I’m not! I want to talk to the big hairy bears…” and looked behind him. There were four guys behind us, all stocky and bearded. They had been observing this comedy floor show the entire time.
“Hello bears!! How are you?...I just love bears…”
At first they thought he was cute and charming, probably because they didn’t have to deal with him and they played along with his flirtatious comments.
“Would anybody like a little Boo Boo bear to take home?” he smiled, batting his eyes.
“You would fit in a picnic basket, that’s for sure,” I cracked behind him, “Hopefully one with a lock on it.”
“Oh, shut up whore! I want to talk to the big fat bears!”
The word “fat” obviously did not sit well with this group, because at that point they just gave him this, “Lord child, you need to sober up,” look and turned away from him.
“What’s wrong!?” he asked, perplexed they were now ignoring him.

In five seconds he suddenly changed his tune and yelled out, “Fine! I didn’t want to be a little Boo Boo for you fat old bears anyway!” and he started pouting. I was certain he was going to get the shit kicked out of him, but the four guys patiently just looked at Steve and I, obviously sympathizing with our situation.
One of them shook his head at me and smiled, while another said to Dominic, “Drink your gin, Shelby, drink your gin….”
I’d had enough, told the guys sorry this mistake of a science experiment had bothered them and picked Dominic off the stool. I marched him through the bar with my hand over his mouth, got outside and put him in a cab with Steve. Three times Dominic called that night, over the next two hours.
Each time, all I heard was “You whore!” or “You bitch!”, then he’d hang up.
Such were my colorful little comrades. Funny, endearing and over the top in some ways, incredibly tragic and dysfunctional in others. Sort of like watching Fozzie, Gonzo and the Swedish Chef all walking around in rehab.

The next morning, Chris and I took a walk, and like always, I’d share all the fun experiences from the bar. The number of interesting characters I’d met was almost Dickensian.

He told me, “I could never be one of those people sitting in a bar all the time. I had enough of all that just observing people while I was bartending. I love going out as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t even be at a bar on a regular basis once a week, let alone every other day. Too easy to get wrapped up in everyone’s drama which in the end, isn’t really my drama at all…”
Of course I had to say, “Are you making a comment about me?” not really believing he was, knowing how Chris tried not to judge. Even when I’d ask his advice about something, point blank, he’d usually not want to answer it too judgmentally.
He’d always just say “This is what I would do. I’m not you.” One of the best parts of having him as a boyfriend is he let me make my own mistakes, knowing I’d eventually learn from them. None of this telling others what to do, it’s what made this particular relationship work for me.
“Nope, I am not talking about you, I’m talking about me. I just know how people can get when alcohol is involved. They forget what’s really important.”
“Smartass, you are talking about me,” I said, smiling. “For what it’s worth, I haven’t forgotten that you’re important…to me.”
He smiled back, “I realize that.”

Happy he didn’t get too mushy back at me, I contentedly held his hand as we strolled down Halsted past a dozen bars.

The Barfly Strikes Again

After seeing a movie one Saturday afternoon I asked myself “What should I do now?” On my left shoulder a little devil image of me in red tights fought with another tiny me on my right shoulder dressed in white with wings and a halo. After a pitchfork in the butt made the white one jump off, I suddenly heard, “Let’s go out.”

On this particular day, I walked in to find my friend Richard yakking it up with Adam. He turned to me and screamed, “Hey, Boobieeeee!!” giving me a great big kiss on the lips, a smack on the ass and a huge laugh while he did it.

I had just met Richard a year before. In his forties and quite a character, he was also one of the loudest, most obnoxious drunken pussycats I’ve ever wanted to knock off a fence in the middle of the night with an old boot.

The night we met I endeared myself to him when he told me his name, which was Richard Banger. I’m sure he got this reaction all the time, but I said, “No, come on, seriously, what’s your real name?”
“That is my real name. Richard Banger.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Your real name is Dick Banger?”
“My real name is Richard Banger…”
I dryly replied, “You brought her, you bang ‘er.”
He let go with a laugh that made my chest hairs part as he pulled out his license to prove that his parents were not high on crack when they named him.

A couple weeks after meeting Banger that first time, I went to the International Mister Leather Mart downtown around Memorial Day. I hadn’t been to it in several years, thinking it may be for me, what is called in the recovery community, a “trigger”. A trigger is generally something that makes you think about drugs or perhaps brings back memories you’d be better off avoiding.
At that last IML, I had what was probably my perfect weekend of drug use. Unbridled sex, lots of laughs, if I ever felt put on a pedestal, that weekend years ago had been it.
IML this year turned out to not be a trigger. I had no problems with it at all, since across the crowded convention area I heard someone scream, “Hey Boobieeee!!” and there was Banger, wearing a harness, waving his arms in the air running over to give me a hug. For all intensive purposes he looked like a leather version of JoAnne Worley.
Excitedly, he said, “I found my movie in a video booth over at the other end of the hall!” (Banger had apparently done a gay porn film back in his younger days. With a name like that who wouldn’t?)
“Really?” I replied. “I didn’t know they put kinescopes on DVD these days.”
“Hahahahahahahahaha (silence)…Bitch. To tell the truth, it was on a shelf of used vintage 80s VHS porn. Christ, I am now recycled porn!! I was in the used section!!”
“Aren’t we all honey…aren’t we all,” I answered.

Sitting down next to Banger I suddenly felt something hairy on my leg. A collie named “Buckaroo” was humping it. Not just humping, he was bonding with my leg, almost a blur while going to town. “Well, Bucky, I can always count on you for a good time, can’t I?” I asked the canine.
Bucky gave a slight bark in reply when his owner came over to give me a hug. Her name was Kitty, and she commented, “Would you like me to leave you two alone?”
“No, he’s fine. Makes me feel young and attractive again, I’d hate to think what he was like before you got him fixed!”
“Back then the cat and rabbit were always cross-eyed.” Kitty had a whole menagerie in her house. Two ferrets, a cat, a rabbit, two shrimp, Bucky and an odd roommate named Fred. The one time I met Fred, he had sort of blank look to him as I shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you.”
He replied, “It’s nice to have been met.”

The conversation with this group was usually irreverent, all of us talking about past escapades and as wild as I felt my life had been, Banger actually made me blush.
Adam mentioned something about poppers, and with a perplexed expression, Kitty asked, “What is this fascination gay men have with poppers?”
Banger yelled out, “Oh, honey, back in the day, there wasn’t one weekend I didn’t have that shit stuck right up my nose all night!”
“I still don’t get it, I keep hearing all my gay friends go on and on about poppers. Why the hell would you put a jalapeno popper up your nose?”
The entire room went silent, just a long pause while everyone stared at her. Then it was as if Vesuvius had erupted. It took a good minute for everyone to catch their breath while Banger explained to Kitty they weren’t talking about the eating kind.
After getting a short poppers101 course, she finally said, “I feel like such an ass. Every time a gay friend of mine would talk about poppers giving them a headache, I’d answer, ‘I know just how you feel…’”

“What the hell is that smell?” Banger asked, looking behind me.
Adam said, “Al ‘CW’ Capone just walked in,” pointing to one side of the bar where Dwight had just planted himself. Holding a huge, lit stogie, the cigar smoke was filling the immediate area.
Now, I enjoy a good cigar as much as the next person, but not in a crowded gay bar, and Dwight stood there for the next hour, puffing, oblivious to the dirty looks everyone was shooting his direction.
Banger said in his ever so subtle way, “I outta take that turd out of George Burns’ mouth and throw it in the street.”
Adam whispered to us, “Which turd, the cigar or Dwight?”

Dwight had brought along some drunken lady I had seen around the neighborhood before, and at each viewing she was drunker than the last time I’d seen her.
I had no idea if she was straight or gay, since one time she had walked up to a straight girl I knew, lips a-pucker, making smooching sounds and asking for a kiss. Okay, she must be a lesbian.
Then, a few months later, I turned around in a bar one night after the buddy I was with got wide eyed at something behind me. Staring me right in the face were these weird puckered lips making a play for me. I actually yelled out, “Oh Shit!” and almost fell into my friends lap trying to back up from them.

“What the hell is that CW just drug in?” Banger commented. “She put the ‘uggh’ in ugly…”
Just then, Carlo, an older gentleman, walked up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. “How you doing, Baby?” he asked, massaging my back. He really knew how to give a great massage, as long as you could get past all the sexual innuendo he’d throw while he was doing it.
“Love your back baby, I’d take you home and molest you only I have too much respect for your boyfriend…”
With Carlo the flirting was harmless but it was always constant, he never let up for a moment, which could get really old. A kind, sweet soul, he was in his late fifties, with a sad quality about him, as if he thought such out and out flirting would actually get him somewhere.
He had just returned from a trip to the Grand Canyon and I was looking forward to talking about it with him. That was a place every human being should see before they die.
When I excitedly mentioned it he just kept on with the massage, commenting, “The Grand Canyon was neat, but you know how I like those big holes…”
“Come on,” I said, “cut it with the sex stuff and get serious, did you hike the Bright Angel Trail? Did you ride the mules? Did you go all the way to the bottom?”
“I love to go all the way with those bottoms, and I wasn’t riding mules while I was there, if you know what I mean…” he replied, trying to act sly with a wink.
I gave up trying to pull anything meaningful out him after I made the mistake of asking him about the south rim (and you know where he headed on that one.)

As the afternoon wore on, poor Bucky had to go through what most gay dogs have to endure, I imagine. Banger lifted him up on the small ledge next to the window so everyone walking by could see him. Bucky quietly just sat there, being used as bait.
Every time an attractive man would walk by he was trained to follow them with his head, the rest of the bar hoping the little dog would lure in the next catch, like a spider into the web.
How Bucky learned what was attractive in the human world I have no idea, but every once and awhile some gorgeous stud would stop and smile at the little canine, then come inside to give him a pet.
I’d look at the guy and ask “One hump or two?” getting a perplexed reaction, but then he would understand once Bucky started romancing his jeans, and then it was all he could do but run out of that bar screaming.
“He’s a frickin’ dog!” Kitty would yell after him. “He’s not doing anything you won’t be doing in a bathhouse later tonight!!” Kitty was not a fag hag, but she loved the openness of gay bars and the shock value of some of the people in them.

She marched over to us, looked Banger in the eye and asked, “What’s a butt plug?”
“Where the hell did that come from?” he replied.
“I’ve always wanted to know what it is, some guy over at the other end mentioned having a butt plug.”
“Can the conversation get any closer to the gutter around here?” I commented.
Adam yelled, “Honey, with this crowd?! You were expecting a state of the union address?!”
Banger in his oh-so-delicate way, (which means he point blank gave her a graphic description) explained to Kitty what a butt plug was.
“Would the guy be using it now?” she naively asked.
After snorting out a laugh Banger said, “No, but some of these uptight young bitches could use a little loosening up!”

By this point, Kitty was exhibiting a character trait very much like Bangers, get either one of them drunk, dare them to do something and they’d do it. With Banger he’d run into a bathroom, snap a photo of someone peeing, walk up to Dwight and yell, “Sweetie, get your chin done!” or French-kiss a drag queen then rip her hair off.
Adam called over, “Kitty! Run out on the street and see if anyone has one.”
The Bud light clicked on, her eyebrows raised and the next thing we knew she was out the door standing in the vestibule while the entire street of North Halsted turned around after hearing a drunken straight woman yell out, “Butt Plug!”
Several of us were mortified as Kitty marched back into the bar, incredibly proud of her sass while Bucky just crawled under the barstool and did everything but put his paws over his head in embarrassment.

Suddenly, Dwight yelled out from the other end of the room, “I’m outta here!” and marched right out the door, abandoning the drunken woman he’d drug in.
The four of us, sitting towards the front, without any prompting, collectively said in unison, “Done!”

Swaying at the bar, the woman was wasted. Noticing Bucky sitting on the floor by us, she got off her stool and stumbled over to him. All the while wagging her finger, shouting “Nicesh doggy, izza cute little doggy, ishn’t you…”
Bucky’s ears flattened back as he ran over to Banger and I, looking for protection. She kept coming, holding out her hand, almost throwing it in his face like she was going to rip his muzzle off.
“Come here, pooch. Gimme a great big shloppy kish…”
She made a lunge for Bucky, “Get over here, you adorable little shitzu!” Looking up at Kitty, she asked, “Itsh a shitzu ishn’t it?”
“No, it’s a collie,” Kitty replied, trying to stay in between Bucky and the walking still.
“Shit, I thought ish wash a Shitzu. Commere, you little thing!” and made another grab as Bucky ran in between Banger’s feet. Banger grabbed the dog’s head and held it, looking down at the terrified thing. He put on a baby voice, like he was talking to a child.
“Yes, widdle Bucky, you stay away from the cwazy old dwunk wadey... Yes…you stay as far away fwom Baby Jane as you can…yes…”
The women raised her head, leveled her eyes right at Banger and screamed, “FuckOFFFF!!” spit landing everywhere.
Remember that hen in the Disney cartoons who sang opera and clucked? She went, “Buck, buck, buCAWWWK!!” Well, this woman’s “FuckOFFFF!!” sounded exactly like “BuCAWWWK!”
Banger looked right back at her. “Lady, did you just lay an egg?”
She whirled around, or at least tried to. While intending to turn halfway and march back to her seat, she drunkenly ended up doing a whole 360 degree turn and ended facing back at us.
Stumbling and realizing her mistake, she again clucked out, “FuckOFFF!” before trying it again. This time she made it about 280 degrees and ran right into the bar.
“That chicken couldn’t cross the road if she had too…” Banger dryly said. Looking her direction, he repeated, in the same voice as she, “FuckOFFF!”
The poor drunk woman was so pissed off she marched over to her seat, looked all over the floor for something, who knew what, then swayed towards the door as fast as she could. Halfway to the door she turned around, swayed back to her seat, swigged down the last half of her cocktail and stumbled to the door again, all the while shooting daggers at Banger.
Once at the door, she turned around, opened her mouth and you could tell her lips were starting to form an f sound, but Banger finished the insult right along with her, “FuckOFFFF!”
So startled she ran right into the closed glass door, konk, momentarily sending her a good step backwards. Losing her balance, she finally caught herself.
She swung that door open, stumbled into the street and almost ran into another little dog being taken for a walk. Looking down at it, she yelled, “Get that damn rat off the shtreetshhh!!” and staggered away.
I suppose it was a bit cruel to make fun of this woman, but I say, when someone gets that drunk and forceful, they’re opening themselves up to it.

As Banger got progressively drunker, he felt the need to annoy every new patron for the rest of the night with his “chicken lady” impression. Poor Bucky probably needed therapy after all this.
Trying to ignore Banger, Kitty and I struck up a conversation with an older man sitting near us who was reading a book on penguins. Obviously a talker, once he found out the two of us had gone to the zoo a week before, he went on and on about penguins, telling us he had adopted one down at the aquarium.
“I named her Snow White. I give them $100 a year and she gets special sardines for it.”
“Have you ever seen her?” I asked.
“No, it’s a bunch of penguins. I don’t think even the keepers know which one is which. Face it, they’re all wearing tuxedos,” he replied.
“Then how do you know Snow White gets the special sardines?”
“I don’t. But at least I feel good about doing it,” he answered.

By now, Banger was getting in that loud mode and we all started taking off our shoes to see which one would make the best dent.
He leaned into Kitty and said, “You know how I like my penguins?!”
“No, how?” she asked, perplexed and crossing her eyes from the alcohol blast emanating from his breath.
Very simply he told her…

“Done.”

Son of the Barfly

Around June, 2007 I opened the bar door and here we were again, same bat time, same bat channel with much the same cast of characters.
“Hi, Sweetie,”…Hug from Matt.
“Hello, Momma’s a little tipsy,”…Hug from Don.

Matthew was spinning another yarn that made you wonder why he didn’t have a two a.m. comedy show at the Starlite room in Vegas. He was, without a doubt, one of the funniest story-tellers I have ever listened to. His version of the periodic table would come off like Laugh-In.
“Oh, Girrrl…” Matt once said, “Some guy approached me today asking ‘Aren’t you Matt Finley?’ I replied yeah. ‘Don’t you remember me? You were in a movie I directed back in the 80s!’
“Oh, shit, I’d forgotten all about that thing, it was some student film. This guy was so excited, ‘I just got it released! Here’s a copy of the DVD!’ He reached into his bag and pulled out the movie.
“Girllllll…. I kept thinking, ‘It took you seventeen years to get the movie released?’ Here take it. I can’t bear to watch it. Let me know how bad it is…”
Matt handed me the DVD of a movie called Zit. “Please, just be gentle when you give me your review…”

So, I took it home and watched a film that yes, was pretty awful, but therein laid its appeal, sort of like those early John Waters or Ed Wood movies. I actually enjoyed the campy trashiness of it, especially when a much younger Matt appeared onscreen, with almost no lines, as a zombie with a giant exploding zit on his head, stabbing his mother with a knife.
Hey, every actor has to start somewhere. You can’t tell me George Clooney is all that proud of those early years on The Facts of Life?

When Matt moved to California years ago he said his mom had been worried about the L.A. lifestyle. She meekly mentioned over the phone, “Dear…just promise me one thing…please don’t do porn…”
Now, Matt was a fun loving, slightly stocky guy. Porn stars don’t begin their dialogue with “Oh, Girllllll….”
He had the bar in stitches as he said, “Drugs, alcohol, the casting couch….what’s my mom worried about? Me doing Gay Porn. For what studio? Animal Planet?!”

I ordered a beer and chatted with Adam for a bit when in came a real barfly named Dwight. Now, I can be friendly with just about everybody, but sometimes, with certain personalities, an invisible emotional wall goes up.
Dwight was one who pushed that button. As Irish looking as he could possibly be, I think he secretly wanted to be Sicilian. He had this Sopranos complex, trying to act like some tough mafia guy with lots of “connections”.
Constantly trying to impress others with how much money he made, he literally bulldozed people into a corner. I don’t know what his background was or if he had a rough childhood, but he almost screamed out, “Like me! Like me!” all the while handling it in a way that made most others feel the exact opposite.

The first time we met he said, “You know what I dthoo, right?” trying to make the d into some Italian tough guy dialect.
“Well, I thought I did…” I answered.
“Yeah, but you know what I dthoo, capishe?” (Now where the hell in County Cork do they use the word, “capishe”?)
He then proceeded to tell me how he recently had meetings with one of the most powerful individuals in the world. Dropping the name of this global leader, I knew then and there Dwight’s real occupation was “bullshit artist”.

Really into Sinatra, go figure, he once tried to impress some guy sitting at the bar with a live recording he had of a Rat Pack concert at the Villa Venice, a nightclub out in the suburbs of Chicago back in the early 60s.
“This thing is so fuckin’ rare, buddy, the general public can’t get it…I had to pull some strings to get hold of this fucker…”
I naively love to get into conversations of things I care about and I was always a Sinatra fan. I thought, well, here’s my chance to have an intelligent talk with somebody into Sinatra as well.
Not even realizing I was contradicting him, I said, “No, it’s been out on CD for awhile. I bought it a few years ago. It’s really a fun concert…” happily going off on how great the Rat Pack was.
You could have heard a pin drop. Dwight didn’t say a word, wouldn’t even look at me as the guy sitting nearby took this as an out to get the hell away from him.
Dwight looked towards the back of the bar and walked away. Not one word.

It took awhile for me to get the hint, but once again I tried to engage him in conversation when he started in on Sinatra while sitting at the bar a few weeks later. I told him the first movie star I’d met in college had been Nancy Sinatra. She had just published her coffee table book on her father and at ten p.m. on a weeknight, her and I sat next to each other in a basement storeroom of Doubleday books.
I’d hand her a book, she’d sign it, I’d put it on a pile and so on. It was just the two of us, and after awhile she called her husband at the Plaza since she was hungry and had him bring her a hamburger and me a coca-cola.
I thought it made a great story, but all Dwight said was “That’s nothin’. I had dinner with Barbara Sinatra a few years back.”
End of discussion, he walked away and that was that. He’d put me in my place.

I don’t usually take such people very seriously, but what really pissed me off was when he pulled the “Holier than thou” crap on my boyfriend Chris. Now, you can get away with treating me like a dog, but don’t you dare do that to Chris, who was worth ten of every single person in that bar, myself included.
One afternoon Chris came out with me and while we sat on corner stools, Dwight walked by on his way to the door.
“Hi, Dwight, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Chris…”
Dwight turned around, walked ten feet back to where we were and said in a dramatic tough guy way, “Listen, Piesan, I don’t have time to meet you. I got stuff I gotta do now. Gotta get back to my place and get some business taken care of. I don’t have time to meet anybody…” then he paused to see what effect this dramatic comment had, turned around and walked out the door.
My jaw was on the floor, it took as long for him to spew out all that crap as it would have if he’d just said ‘Hello, nice to meet you, I’m Dwight. Really sorry, but I’ve gotta go…”
“What an ass…” I said, a little embarrassed, but more than that, really pissed off he’d done it to Chris.
“Don’t worry about it,” Chris replied, “that type of stuff doesn’t bother me. Back when I was a bartender I had to be polite to people like him all the time.”

But from that moment on, Chris gave Dwight a nickname that stuck among the people who would be nice to his face then the minute he was gone start bitching about him. Chris called him “The Chinless Wonder”, and even Adam latched onto the name one day after he received an over the top text message from Dwight.
Showing me his phone, Adam said, “You are not going to believe what CW just sent me. It’s straight out of seventh grade.”
The text message went on and on about how Adam had done something to piss Dwight off and ended with, “I don’t need either this shit or you! I don’t want anything to do with you. Done!”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Adam replied, “but let’s hope whatever it is keeps him out of this bar for awhile…Done!”
For the next month our little group would yell out “Done!” every so often whenever we’d get into a mock argument.
“Can I have a beer?” “Done!”
“How are you doing today?” “Done!”
How’s that apple pie coming along?” “Done!”

On this particular night, the Wonder was gabbing with four people at once, probably giving them the inside scoop on some deal he’d made. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but I know a guy who knows a guy who can get you in on this scheme…”
After another ten minutes he left, pushing open the glass door without using the handle. Once he was gone, the doorman ran over with a towel and Windex to wipe the smudge off the glass, all the while griping about possibly “catching something”.

No sooner was he “done” when two guys walked in and sat down near Matt and I. One introduced himself as Monty, and I thought he was cute. Dark hair, brown eyes, tall, he seemed a little slow on the uptake but was friendly enough. He was also swaying like the St. Louis Arch in a windstorm.
The other guy was named Trent and I had met him twice before. Trent was the only person I have ever actually met who graduated from my college in New York. He was just as surprised about it as I when he found out and apparently he had graduated a few years after me.
Matt asked me, “Watch my seat, I need to use the restroom.”
As I glanced through a magazine, I noticed Monty and Trent talking and from the sound of it, Monty was already three sheets to the wind and Trent was obviously trying to pick him up.
Monty turned around, looked at me and immediately forgot to use his indoor voice when he said, “Oh, you did? Well, it’s clear you graduated after him…you look so much younger.”
My one eyebrow went up. I didn’t realize I was going to be part of this reality floor show. It was obvious Monty was talking about me since he was only four feet away. He continued with “And you are so much better looking also…”
Trent glanced over and saw I’d heard it. Monty noticed the direction of Trent’s gaze, turned around and saw me staring at him straight in the eye.
He immediately blushed, his eyes got wide and he blurted out, “Oh my God, you heard that?”
Not lowering that one eyebrow for an instant (I attended a master class with Bette Davis once) I said, colder than a witch’s tit, “Yes I did, and thank you for being so kind and compassionate.”
Back-pedal time as Monty got nervous. “Er…Er…I…I didn’t mean…I mean…er…I didn’t…I didn’t mean it like that…er…you are so good looking! You are hot!....er…er…I’d go home with you…”
“Home to where? The old folk’s home? Too late now, buddy. But I do suggest you keep your endearing comments to yourself. And by the way, straighten your toupee, it’s crooked.”
I didn’t once take my eyes off him. It was all I could do to not yell out, “Done!”
Trent must have been very uncomfortable being put in the middle of this, but Monty kept hem-hawing around until he finally just lowered his eyes to the ground and wouldn’t look at me for the rest of the evening.

Matthew returned from the restroom and noticed my one eyebrow, locked there like super glue, while I continued shooting daggers into the back of Monty’s head. “What’s wrong?” Matt asked.
“Nothing, I’m just amazed at the politeness of Foghorn Leghorn over there…” spitting out the words, knowing Monty wished he was anyplace else than where he was now. This perhaps sounds a little cruel, but I was enjoying acting a little wicked towards him. Much like a grave digger, I sometimes enjoy running things into the ground.
Matt was drunkenly perplexed. “What are you talking about? You on crack Girl?”
I decided to drop it, “Don’t worry about it. If I can shell it out I’ve got to be able to take it too….”
A week later, Monty was kicked out of the bar for getting belligerent with one of the bartenders and banned. I hope he found someplace else to go that wasn’t quite as old and wrinkly.
Matt told me, “You wear bitter well, don’t you?”

After Monty high-tailed it out of there, the tall handsome doorman named Kevin suddenly twirled around. Shaking his pelvis, he sashayed over to our area and emptied the ashtray, singing “I’m too sexy for this bar, too sexy for this bar…”
Kevin was usually quiet, mainly due to his youthful belief that acting sexy meant you acted with “attitude.” To me, that didn’t make you look sexy, it made you look full of yourself. I used to do the same thing when I was in my twenties, so I knew where it was coming from.
Tonight, however, he was so animated I knew something was racing through his bloodstream. Although I had only been introduced to him once, he had a quality I felt compassion for. Once you’ve been around the block, it’s easier to empathize with someone else’s facades. Hell, I’d had more facades over the years than the White House had paint jobs.
“He’s really swirling tonight, isn’t he?” Matt asked Adam, who was cleaning glasses behind the bar.
He looked over, “Yeah, he does enjoy his TINA and G. I hope he doesn’t get too deep into it.”
(TINA is the code for Crystal Meth. G stands for “Gamma-hydroxabutyrate”, another common party drug.)
“Well, he’s young,” I commented. “We all need to make our own mistakes in order to grow up.”
“I don’t know,” Adam dryly commented. “Some of these doormen around here are classic examples of kids going down with nobody to pick them up again. You and I have been around honey, we can laugh at the past. I just hope these young pups can get through it and one day sit here alongside us, talking about how ‘idiotic’ the next generation is.”
“Well, you’re a breath of stale, tepid air tonight, aren’t you?” I replied, smiling. “We didn’t come in here for a glass of prune juice and a ‘I just don’t know about these kids today…’”
“Listen, Sister! You don’t want me to jump over this bar and snatch you bald-headed!” he joked.
“I’d reciprocate but it looks like somebody already did it for me!” I served back, referring to his receding hairline.
“Man!” he continued, “That’s why I love it when you guys come in, this is a tough room! You gotta be on your toes around here. Ladies and Gentleman! I’ll take Paul Lynde in the center square!”

Who knows why I felt concern for Kevin, I didn’t even know him. Perhaps it was the way he smiled at me whenever I walked in, then quickly covered it up with a stoic face, averting his eyes somewhere else. That wasn’t attitude. That was disguising shyness and hoping people wouldn’t notice, which unfortunately, most people didn’t.
I looked over at him. Young, handsome, full of life, he probably had no clue how harsh and shallow much of the gay bar world could be. I was technically old enough to be his father, and many times when I’d see young men like this I’d shake my head. This time, I simply smiled at Kevin, knowing I had to go through the same thing a long time ago to get on with my life.
I felt both empathy and concern, hoping he had someone real to fall back on once the party started to spin out of control.

As Kevin continued down that catwalk in his mind, I turned back around just as Adam placed a shot class in front of me.
“This is for you, darlin’!” he said.
Thinking it was “Kool Aid” the generic low alcohol drink the bar served on the house, I took a swig and almost spit it out as I yelled, “Prune Juice!?”

Adam walked away and smiled over his shoulder, “Center square baby, center square…”

The Barfly

I've never claimed to have been a saint... throughout my adult "gay" years I've hung with some fairly over the top groups.

Much like the forties radio show "Duffy's Tavern" or the popular tv series, "Cheers", one can meet a variety of colorful characters while hanging out in a bar. The following series of short stories recall a period when I found myself meeting more cartoon characters come to life than you could shake a stick at. All these people really do exist, I just modified their names slightly (I'm not stupid.) But....be it Chicago, New York, London, Denver, Chattanooga...WHEREVER, such stories are commonplace.

________________________________

On a Thursday evening I walked into one of my favorite Chicago bars on Halsted Street. I had been going there off and on since it opened, around the time I first moved to the city.
After moving in with Chris I had been going out a little bit more than usual. While living on my own I went out perhaps once every couple weeks but since “co-habitation” came back in my life, I felt a sudden urge to reassert my independence.
“Pee in all the corners…” is how Chris so eloquently put it.
After all those moments of feeling co-dependent, I had now done a 180 due to four years of living on my own. I didn’t need anyone in my life, but it was okay to choose to have someone there whom I cared about.
In short, since Chris was home nearly all the time, I needed some space.

By now, I was a fairly safe boyfriend to have in the bars. Chris was patient, never told me what or what not to do and that was the best thing for me. Tell me I can’t do something and I’ll do it just to prove you wrong. Perhaps it was just some phase, but I was enjoying getting out of the house and being social, usually around happy hour, where the conversation didn’t include wall to wall crowds of 23 year old millionaires who made $30,000 a year and an overpowering amplifier blasting Britney Spears.

I like to think I had two “childhoods”. The usual one involving family and puberty, then the one that began the day I came out, suddenly finding a new life, with a new “family” (i.e. my gay Des Moines friends).
The second childhood, as for many gay men, heavily involved the bar scene. In Iowa, there weren’t many social places for gay men to go other than bars and the woods, so alcohol always seemed to be a part of “playtime” and I admit I was lucky. The friends I met at twenty-one are still my friends today. David and Dan, and we still go out painting the town whenever they come to visit.
I once asked Dan about all the drinking we’d done throughout the years. “Do you think it’s dysfunctional? Some people would if you actually sat down and calculated all the bar tabs.”
He replied, “I don’t know, it’s probably just how you look at it and why you’re doing it. I took one of those questionnaires that asked, ‘Have you ever had more than three beers in an hour?’ When haven’t we had more than three beers in an hour? We don’t drink to forget, at least I don’t. I drink because we have so much fun together and every time, it’s a new funny adventure with another story to run into the ground…”
“Could that possibly be ‘Denial’ or ‘Justification’?” I asked.
“Maybe, but since we all look out for each other in between the giggles and we don’t drink at home alone, I’m not opposed to a little justification.”

As I walked into my neighborhood bar, a group of four people were sitting there. Burl, an overweight guy with as much personality as a gnat, Matt, a really flamboyant man who was a joy to be around, his boyfriend Don and someone I had met a couple times before named Leo.
“Hey Sweetie” Matt greeted while giving me a hug. “How was your week?”
I told him it had been well and that I had just stopped in for a beer.
Don, with that slightly dazed look he sometimes had when drinking, said, “Hello,” giving me a kiss and a hug also.
I nodded at Leo, who put down his martini glass to nod back. There was always something a little different about Leo. He usually looked at you like you were some distasteful American Idol contestant he was going to critique. Perhaps it was the slight upward tip of his head when he’d casually glance over or the way his mouth pursed like he had a lemon in it. In short, I got the impression he was a snob, but I didn’t really know him, so who was I to judge?
Most of these people were just “bar friends”, a category I would never place David and Dan in. Usually any conversation with Leo began with him informing us Project Runway was a television classic and that Madonna was the greatest actress to have ever walked the earth. He also usually looked down his nose at your clothes as if you were wearing a potato sack.

“Hi Burl” I said, looking over at the 5’ 10”, 250 lb man on the corner stool. “How was your day?”
“Sucked. Couldn’t find parking close to here and my car needs new brake pads, then my boss at work was such a bitch today after we had a meeting and my sister is having problems with her girlfriend because the girlfriend woke her up in the middle of the night screaming about the laundry not being done and then my dad called really upset about…..”
Interrupting him I asked, “Okay, okay…how about the weather? It’s a nice day out, the weather is nice...”
Burl commented the clouds were looking gray and if the sun did come out it would probably give him a burn.
“Can’t you ever just say ‘Fine’, when somebody asks ‘How are you’?”
I was egging him on, which I suppose was a little mean, but he always came off like Eeyore half the time.
“I’m fat” he’d say in a boring monotone.
“Then lose some weight” I’d silently think.
“I hate my job” he’d blurt out.
“Then look for a new one.”
This would go on for as long as you’d let it, until finally after 5 beers he’d quietly go home, hardly having even managed a smile. Half the time when someone in a bar asks “How are you?” they don’t really care anyway. Just say fine and be done with it.
Matt leaned over to me and quietly sang under his breath, “I’m just a little black rain cloud…hovering over the honey tree…”
Burl would try so hard to be part of the conversation, sometimes interrupting others because he wanted to be included. Usually, his contribution would be of minimal value, he was just so socially inept.

One time I was telling a bartender about my adoption and Burl, who only heard the one word, turned around and piped up, “I hate adopted people, they always have such issues. There should be a ban on adopting.”
Doing my best pause, eyebrow lift and head-turn I dryly commented, “I…am…adopted.”
The bartender also looked at Burl, saying, “I…am…also…adopted.”
The two of us were telling the truth, we were adopted, but by now the four others in our group at the time picked up on the comedy of the situation.
“Hey! I’m adopted!” said one.
“Me too!” blurted another.
“I was left on a doorstep as an infant!”
“I was adopted and raised by a female wolf in the backroom of the Eagle!”
Burl suddenly had to go to the bathroom.

Matt and Don were interesting people. I had met them the previous November when some friends said, “You have got to meet these guys, they are so much fun,” and they were. Matt and I hit it off immediately when he brought up his passion for “I Love Lucy”.
I replied, “I love it too…but, to be honest, I really love Ethel.”
He blurted out “Ethel Mae Potter!” and I joined him with the second half of the saying, “We never forgot ‘er!” This pop culture name-dropping would usually take up much of our time over the coming months (all in a bar, I might add). We’d jump from old movies to classic TV with Matt going off the deep end with Bea Arthur quotes.
Don was much more low-key and for whatever reason, usually concentrated on his health problems, how much money they spent on alcohol (while constantly ordering shots) and how many dick pictures he had stored on his phone. A tall, stocky, muscular man, once he got a little cocktailed his shirt would come off and he’d quietly thrive on the attention, even though he’d look at Matt every minute or so and ask like some big teddy bear, “Is this okay, honey?”
“Go for it sweetie, flaunt it! Flaunt it!” Matt would reply.
They had moved back to Chicago from Los Angeles, and we got together at least once a week. I was really enjoying all this Cheers type escapism where everybody knew my name.

About a month after we met, we were, for some reason, talking about drug abuse in the gay community. Matt said, “It’s sad, but you know, I lost my best friend of fifteen years to Crystal Meth, or at least, I think it was Crystal Meth, so does his family, but nobody’s quite certain. He’s definitely on something though. He changed into someone I barely knew. We ran into him on the bus months ago and he was so weird…”
Don jumped in with, “His eyes were darting back and forth, he kept jumping around in his conversation…he was on something…”
Matt continued, “We only talked for a few minutes when he suddenly stood up, said, ‘Well, this is my stop. See you around.’ And we had been best friends for fifteen years! All those memories and just an ‘I’ll see you around’!? I don’t know what to think about Kurt anymore…”
“Kurt?” I asked.
“Yeah, Kurt Black, you know him?”
I just looked at the ceiling and shook my head. Would this shit ever stop following me around? Deep inside I also had a slight giggle since I assumed this part of my life was history, yet somebody upstairs obviously needed one more laugh. Kurt had been the man I had dated just before my drug abuse period. Much of the reason I now believe I ran to drugs was because of the depression I suffered after Kurt broke up with me. It was one of the first times somebody else left me and it took quite a bit of inner therapy to get through the breakup. When I later found out he had a Meth problem, I hypocritically did it myself to make up for my own lack of self-esteem.
I looked at Matt and pointed to my chest, “Do you know…who I am?”
After a pause, it hit, “You were the Terry he dated! Do you remember me?”
By this point, my memory brought back some guy named Matt I had talked to on the phone once when I was dating Kurt four years previously. Matt was also the person Kurt had gone to visit for his fortieth birthday in L.A. after our breakup.
“You were supposed to fly to Paris together but he came to see me instead?” Matt said.
“Let’s not even go there…” I replied.
For the next half hour we talked and formed a small bond over the memory of Kurt. It was obvious Matt needed more closure than I. My baggage had been unloaded off the train long ago, but this was the first time Matt had actually heard the truth, or at least, what I believed was the truth. Matt gave me a lot of answers also.

It felt good to talk to someone whose memory of Kurt was a positive one, at least the memory of the years before the meth abuse stuff. When Kurt and I dated I was very naïve, so I never really noticed how sketched out he had been, all I saw was what I wanted to see and I’m still thankful I never got that PnP visual of him in person. (Party and Play. Party means you do drugs, play means you have sex why you’re doing them.)
Matt got more excited as he let go, “He was the golden boy, the one everyone wanted to be around. Charming, handsome, he was the first man I ever fell in love with. You couldn’t help but admire him. He started out as the band geek, but once he came out, reinvented himself into this fantastic person. He was simply everything to me as a friend, but then, as time went by, he just slipped away. That day on the bus he told me, ‘I am not the same Kurt you knew. We’ll see if you like the new Kurt’. Putting himself in the third person was incredibly creepy. Right now I’m in the same boat you are. He blew up a year ago over some minor thing and disappeared from my life. I miss him.”
Just then, my friend Eric walked into the bar, we were going to go for coffee later. I could not believe the irony of introducing Kurt’s former PnP buddy to Kurt’s former best friend. Although Eric had now been clean and in Crystal Meth Anonymous for quite awhile by this point, he had been a huge help to me in getting over Kurt. The night we first met neither of us had any idea who the other was, but we quickly discovered the connection. Eventually Eric dropped Kurt as a friend due to Kurt’s over the top behavior and I sort of “replaced” Kurt in Eric’s life. Very odd coincidence, but I wouldn’t have put it past God to have been sitting in a director’s chair with a well planned script in his hand during that enlightening moment.
Four years ago if you had told me this would happen I would have said you were nuts. Back then, I suspected I would never have any answers regarding that man, now I had “bookends” on either side giving me the lowdown.

Adam was the regular bartender I hung with. A tall African-American, I had known him for years and he was always a truly fascinating person to talk to. With Adam you could talk politics, philosophy, music, food, whatever. He had a slightly dark sense of humor and our conversations were always interesting, since sometimes in stressing his point he’d back track and stress the other side, arguing both angles at once. Adam was one of the people that made the bar a hell of a lot fun. He also gave me good advice if I ever took the people involved too seriously.

He was a bartender for now, but that probably wouldn’t last much longer since his real estate business was picking up speed. His genuine concern for people who made an effort to better their lives had been paying off in referrals. I had no doubt one day he’d be one of the best realtors in Boystown.
“Yeah,” he told me, putting on a Humphrey Bogart voice, “Real Estate agent by day, Bartender by night. It was a dark and cloudy afternoon for Adam the agent. The kind you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. My door opened and a new client walked in. He had more curves than a scenic railway. I wouldn’t trust him any further than I could throw him. Everything about him spelled trouble. I knew he’d be a tough nut to crack…but I’ve known my share of nuts…”
I looked at him and said, “Sorry Sam Spade, I think you’re the one who’s nuts.”

I sat with him for awhile after Don and Matt left and we talked about adoption among gay couples. Adam and his partner Stan, who was Caucasian, hoped to one day adopt.
He said, “Last night I woke up in a complete sweat. Stan and I had been talking about the adoption thing the previous day and I suddenly had one of those weird moments where my bizarre little mind went off on me.
‘What’s wrong?’ Stan asked. I blurted out, ‘My God, once we actually get children do you think we should tell them they’re adopted?! Will it cause issues if we do!? Should we tell them!?’
Stan chucked and said, ‘Homosexual, bi-racial couple. Don’t you think they would eventually figure it out?’ I ended up laughing at my own neuroses. Here I had just had a vision of two teenagers, sobbing at the dinner table one day, ‘You mean you’re not our real Dads!?’”

Just then an acquaintance named Kirby rushed through the bar door, waved to everyone without looking at any of us, said hello to some guy in the back, gave him a kiss, along with a few words, then back out the door he went with a “See you later, Bitches!” hardly cracking a smile during the two minutes it took all this to transpire.
An interesting little guy around thirty, Kirby was cute, brunette, muscularly compact and usually had a perpetual scowl on his face. He was also very short. I didn’t know him really at all, but suspected he must lead a fairly wild life.
One night while I was sitting at this same spot, he came in, drunk as a skunk, leaned over the bar stool with his behind up in the air, yelling at me, “I need to get take it right up the ass! Are you a big hairy leather Daddy top?!” all the while swaying his hips back and forth, eyes crossed.
Several years ago, I probably would have taken him up on the offer, even though I do not really fit the hairy Daddy mold. Now I was simply amused he was so cocktailed he couldn’t actually make out who he was saying this to.
He had a boyfriend but Kirby could not be faithful for much more than an hour, having numerous trysts with men in a single day, in an alley, somebody’s basement, in the bathroom of a restaurant, wherever. He’d be more than willing to tell everyone about each encounter, usually seeming very proud of the conquests. (Although to me, “conquest” meant you did the invading, I doubt if Kirby played anything but Poland to some anonymous Germany’s invasion.)
One evening, he was hitting on some guy at the bar, going on and on about how hot and skilled a top he was. Turning away, the guy looked at Adam and said, “A top…really…of what, a wedding cake?”

A week later a friend of mine took me aside and said, “Did you hear the news?”
“What news?” I asked.
“About Kirby...I probably shouldn’t be saying this…and…hee hee hee…it isn’t anything to laugh about (snicker), but…but…” and he had a hard time keeping in the chuckles, “but... Kirby’s boyfriend… left him today…(snicker)…for a…for a…
“For a what?” I asked, hoping he’d finally spill it.
“…for a dwarf.”
Go ahead, call me a callous jerk, but I had to stifle a smile myself. Two days later, Kirby again approached me in the bar, slightly drunk once more, but sober enough to realize I was not a hairy leather Daddy top this time. He appeared honestly sad about his lover leaving him, plus a little embittered. I was surprised by the irony of him screwing around, yet he was mad at his lover for running to another man.
“Adam! Gimme another drink!” he said, and after he downed a shot of Jack Daniels, “You think you got problems, my lover left me for a fuckin’ dwarf! I mean, look at me! I’m 4’ 11”! Guess I wasn’t short enough for him! Ain’t I got enough self-esteem issues already!? A dwarf! And I introduced them in a three-way! I fucking suggested it! Now, he fucking left me for a dwarf.”
Taking a swig on his next drink he wryly commented. “I’m gonna be in fucking therapy for years with this one…”

I sincerely apologize for sacrificing political correctness for the sake of a laugh, but this is how the story was related to me and those were the words used. Adam told me one day, “And guess what, the little person involved is actually hot!”
Another week went by. Adam and I were walking down the street when he pointed to a couple together on the street. “I don’t even need to tell you who those two are, do I?”
I yelled out, “My God! He is hot!”

My hand to God a week or so later someone sent me this joke.
“I rear ended a car a few days ago.......The driver got out of the other vehicle and he was a dwarf!! He was pissed! He looked up at me and said, ‘I am not happy!’

I asked, ‘Which one are you?’”

Ridin' Rhett Butler!

What is it about Gone With the Wind I find so appealing? Is it the homosexual in me that brought out the ability to spew quotes from the film as easily as my social security number?

As a child I watched the first part on our color TV on a Saturday, then viewed the second half on a tiny black and white set on my grandparent’s porch, alone, since nobody else was interested. Once Scarlett closed the door deciding tomorrow is another day, my grandfather walked in the room and said, “What the hell are you bawlin’ for?”
Up until I moved to Chicago I thought I might actually be a bit on the freaky side with an unsung talent that had absolutely no worthwhile use in life, but once I arrived I was lucky to run into another freak who shared it also. Scottie was as verse with the lines as I.

We decided literally every situation in gay life could be countered with a GWTW quote:
See someone you can’t stand? – “Out of my way, trash!”
Hungry? – “Ain’t nothin’ but radishes in the garden…”
Being hit on by someone who looks like death warmed over? – “She will not consider it, Sir!”
Or if you’re not too choosy – “Oh, yes I will! Tonight I’d dance with Abe Lincoln himself!”
Somebody owe you money? – “The war’s over, no credit”
The doorbell just ring? – “There’s somebody comin’ up the walk, and it ain’t Mister Ashley…”
Worried about catching crabs? – “You’d be a sight more humiliated if Mister Kennedy’s lice gets on you!”
A friend trying to break up a relationship? – “He’s her husband, ain’t he?”
Can’t fit into that tight new club shirt? – “Now, just hold on…and suck in!”
Size Queen? – “Ain’t fittin, it just ain’t fittin…”
And my personal favorite – “Get off my land you trashy wench! That’s all of Terry you’ll ever get!”

Scottie was pea-green with envy when I called him from New York once, standing outside a window display at the Institute of Fashion. He was also a little pissed off because it was one a.m. and I happened to be walking back to the hotel from Times Square.
Something green caught my eye in the distance along with a flash of gold brass under a pin spot light. As I got closer to the window the realization came I was looking at the dress Carol Burnett wore in Went with the Wind, curtain rod and all.
“Yeah?” he groggily muttered as he picked up the phone.
“Guess what I’m standing in front of!” I excitedly said.
“At one in the morning? (Yawn) I’d say someone in a towel with very bad taste if they’re looking at you.”
“Some Bob Mackie display in a window. I’ll give you a hint, ‘I just saw it in the window and couldn’t resist…’”
He was still sleepy, “I thought you were in New York, not Amsterdam looking at the hookers in the window. Pick out a Thai boy for me, I’m going back to bed…”
It took awhile but he finally woke up enough to understand what I was talking about, eventually hanging up the phone with “you lucky bastard.”

Three years later I got the chance to call him again, this time from an old mansion in Galena, Illinois Chris and I were touring. This time it was two in the afternoon so he was a little more accommodating.
While looking over the house the tour guide told us several of the antiques were purchased by the owners at the 1970 MGM movie auction. They had a couple of chairs from Aunt Norma’s Marie Antoinette, two oval anti-bellum portraits from GWTW, among others.
Once she saw me perk up over these items and excitedly start asking questions, she said, “Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” and led us to a downstairs sitting room. Dramatically opening the two panel doors she sweeped her hand toward the windows, somehow knowing that this gay man would realize what she was showcasing.
I did and said out loud, “My God, you’ve got to be kidding?” as I walked over to a window covered in green velvet drapes with gold fringe. “Are these really them?” and the woman assured me yes, they were the originals used in the movie.
Chris looked at me and tried to take credit for the discovery. “See, I know how to take you on vacation…”
I just looked at him. “Please, your passions are Renaissance England and global warming, like you knew Scarlett O’Hara even had green drapes…” before dialing up Scottie once more to brag “guess what I just saw and you haven’t?”

A couple of times we’d discover these little treasures together, therefore, the only person left to call would be a fifty-six year old bundle of energy named Claude, one of the few who’d actually give a crap about our freaky little treasure hunt. Standing in front of the former Selznick Studios in Culver City, Scottie hummed the opening theme while a rather rotund little guy back in Illinois asked, “Who the hell is this?”

Only once did all three of us get the chance to freak out in unison at the same time in the same place. At a movie memorabilia auction we stood in front of a green couch with the sign “used in the Twelve Oaks scene featuring Vivien Leigh and Hattie MacDaniel”.
Claude’s partner Herman, who hated GWTW, was more interested in the Marilyn Monroe dress eight feet away, but we stared at the couch like it was made of gold.
Some lady, thinking it was just a piece of furniture placed there for the public, put her purse down on it, and Claude gave her a good tongue lashing about not respecting the past. The purse was picked up sheepishly, and a “Sorry” verbalized, but a look was also given that said to the three of us, “Get a life.”
Little 5’1”, 220 lb. Claude marched over to 6’3” 180 lb. Herman and demanded, “If you really loved me, you’d buy me that couch!”
This time Claude got a good tongue lashing with “We’ve already got a damn couch, you can sit your butt on that and I’ll fan you while you watch the movie…three thousand bucks! You’re out of your gourd!” as Herman walked away mumbling, “Christ, why won’t I buy him a Gone With the Wind couch…”

So, one year, I found myself sitting in a car with Claude, on my way to Barnesville, Georgia, where a GWTW bed and breakfast was operated by a man who appeared in the movie.
Claude was just dying to go and Herman would rather poke his eyeballs out with a fork than endure this, so I was commandeered to accompany the only man in Chicago who not only looked like Aunty Pittypat, but acted like her too.
Driving out of Atlanta, the rolling hills of Georgia whizzed by for thirty-five miles until we exited onto a country highway. Claude was getting excited since we only had another ten minutes or so to go.
Thirty minutes later, he piped up with, “We’re lost, aren’t we?”
How dare he question my keen sense of direction! “What the ... no, we’re not lost! It’s just a few more miles to Barnesville. Geez, you could be a little more trusting, you know ...”
“Okay, I just thought we were lost. We’ve been driving awhile,” he said, glancing down at a map and not paying any attention to a sign we then passed which said, “Atlanta-ten miles”
I nonchalantly said, “This is a nice view isn’t it. Let’s pull over a minute and take a look.”
“Good,” he replied, “I need to stretch my legs.”
I pulled the car into a little turn around and parked while Claude got out, admired the scenery and commented, “My God, the dirt really is red down here. I thought they were just making it up.”
After making an excitedly quick cell phone call to Herman and getting the response, “Why the hell would I care what color the dirt is?” Claude plopped back into the car and I pulled out, this time going back in the other direction.
Without blinking an eye he commented, “Did you think I wouldn’t notice that?”
“Well, if you hadn’t been gabbing the whole time I wouldn’t have missed the turn.”
“What turn?! We’ve been on a straight highway for a half hour!”
“It’s the only straight thing you’ve been on in half a century…”
“If you were a man, I’d wring your neck…” Claude replied with a slight smile and a wink, knowing I’d get the GWTW quote he just used. The best part about being gay was that “inside” repartee with other gay men.
“Hey! Have I ever gotten you lost before?!” I shouted back.
“Well, last year ...”
“Shut up.”

Claude turned on the radio, Tammy Wynette was singing some song about marriage and lost love. Having just been through one of my “Oh, what great choices I’ve made in men” breakups I told him to switch to something else.
Claude asked, “How about some cowboy music? The only heartbreak there is over your horse.”
I looked at him and said, “What if the man is like a horse?”
Throwing his arm up in the air as if he was lassoing something, he yodeled, “Well then, Yippie-ki-yo-ki-yay!!!!”

As we arrived at the small little town, signs pointed us toward the bed and breakfast. Pulling down a small lane, we caught a glimpse of a beautiful anti-bellum plantation mansion that looked like it had popped right out of the movie. I half expected Mammy to start yelling at us from the top window to get in there before we caught our death of dampness.
The door opened and an attractive woman in her forties waved, inviting us in.
“Welcome!” she said, ushering us to the hallway where an elderly man in his eighties was sitting in a chair directly in the center, as if he was a confederate general waiting to receive visitors. It was all so hilariously formal, yet quaint at the same time.
This was the gentleman who had been in the movie and for the rest of our stay, all we heard from his young wife was “GWTW, GWTW!” which was fine, except it became fairly obvious she didn’t know the movie or book as well as we did. It seemed to be more a memorized “theme” for a tourist b&b than an actual love for the story.
They were both very gracious, it was the off season and we were the only guests there. They gave Claude the “Rhett Butler Room” and it was decorated with cheesy posters of Clark Gable and figurines. The décor was nice, but the little Confederate soldier’s cap on the bedpost made me wonder about its authenticity.
Guess what room I got? Yeah, you’re right. The “Prissy Room”.
Claude, of course, had to run over to the curtains, drape them around his head like some Southern babushka and ask, “How do I look?”
“Like my grandfather in a dress….”

Coming downstairs after freshening up, Claude asked the owner for his autograph. When he found out he was expected to pay for it, Claude demurely said something to the effect of thanks but no thanks. Whispering under his breath he told me, “He was only in the thing for a few minutes, why would I pay for his autograph?”
Whenever Claude would ask about the other stars from the film, people our host had maintained contact with, the comment was made “She (or he) won’t give autographs.” Well, frankly my dear, we didn’t give a damn if they didn’t give autographs, we were just interested in what they were doing.
They never did quite figure out what Claude and I’s relationship was. Father and Son, Uncle and Nephew, Lovers? Personally, if they had asked I would have told them Blanche and Jane Hudson, but our hosts kept their thoughts to themselves. You could tell they were just itching to know what our story was. My ears were burning every time we walked by them.
“Keep ‘em guessing…” was Claude’s response, “…the old pea hens.”

The one time our elderly host really lit up was when he found out I liked opera. Then, he started to go to town verbally, having spent the majority of his life as a DJ in California for a classical radio station. Once he got going on Puccini and Verdi with me, the GWTW stuff went right out the window, to his young wife’s dismay.
“Back when my first wife was alive I never even owned any of this Scarlett and Rhett bric-a-brac. I’m proud of having been in the movie, but I was just a young pup and only on the set for a short time, to me it was a job. Turned out to be a wonderful job in the long run, but it’s the DJ years I really enjoyed. Now, where did I put that book of librettos I was looking at the other day…” and he walked over to the bookshelf to find something he really wanted to share.
Within a few minutes of sitting back down and gabbing about “Tosca”, his wife brought the conversation back to the old south and Vivien Leigh. Claude and I silently looked at each other, we both needed a break.

The town’s main restaurant was a combination Mexican/Italian place, so we headed out to dinner and figured “Let’s have a bottle of wine.” Apparently in Barnesville, a bottle really meant “a jug”, since that is what they planted down on our table, and it was the worse tasting crap this side of Mad Dog 20/20.
Although we bitched about it, we made it halfway through the jug when Claude started feeling a little boozy. I looked over at a table eight feet away and saw the county sheriff having dinner with his family. Full uniform, he was exactly the image you’d conjure up of a southern sheriff.
I told Claude, “I’d better not get too liquored up, the sheriff’s right behind you.”
“Really?!” he drunkenly blurted out in his best outdoor voice. “Is he here to collect the taxes on Tara!?” as the family turned around and I kicked Mr. Delicate Wallflower under the table.
Bumble, Georgia and I’ve got a happy little gay man in a bright pink Hawaiian shirt spouting out old movie quotes. Somewhere in the background I could hear banjos playing from Deliverance with visions of Claude squealing like a pig.
“You think that’s a bad thing?” he good naturedly replied.

An hour later, our hostess opened up the plantation house door and there I was, holding up Claude.
She appeared a little surprised at Claude’s condition, “Good evening, er ... do you need some help?” she asked.
Claude giggled, “I ain’t so very drunk, Mammy!! Er ... I mean, Melly!! Oh, shit, I screwed it all up ...”
“Is he okay?” our hostess asked as I hauled him towards the stairs.
I looked back and said, “He’ll be fine, him not knowing his spirits and all ... “
Claude yelled back down, “I wanna get drunk, I hope I do get drunk!!” Perplexed, our hostess didn’t seem to recognize that these were GWTW quotes, and apparently Claude needed a refresher course, too.
That evening when I called Herman to let him know everything was fine, his no-nonsense reply was, “Thank God, you’re dealing with all that. Try living with him!”

The next morning, at breakfast, our hostess once again started in on whatever spiel it was that turned on most tourists, but didn’t work on us. A hangover affecting much of his attitude, Claude was just about over all this, as was I.
We took a walk outside with our coffee, a pretty black horse was grazing in a fenced pasture.
“His name is Rhett Butler,” our hostess proudly announced.
Claude and I rolled our eyes, how far was this tourist stuff going to go?
She continued, “I just love coming out here every once and awhile so I can ride Rhett Butler! I just love riding Rhett Butler! He gets to gallopin’ and I just can’t contain myself!”
Claude shot coffee out his nose. As we walked back to the house, he whispered again, “Well, yippee-ki-yo-ki-yay…”

Halfway up the back porch stairs our hostess started yammering on about a private GWTW collection somewhere that had many of the movie’s artifacts. She put her hand to her mouth, moved her eyes back and forth as if the neighbors might be listening, and in a very low theatrical voice said, “The owner is one of those ... homosexuals, you know.”
“Oh ... really …” I said. “And just what the hell is wrong with that?!”
Taken back by the confrontation, she beat a retreat from this Yankee as Claude smacked my leg and said “You go, Girl!”

No, we both agreed the b&b was a bit of a disappointment, but still, it was entertaining. Heading back up to Atlanta the following day, we stopped at the Margaret Mitchell house and I’m not kidding there was a poultry convention in town at the same time. The woman at the visitors center assumed we were a couple of guys visiting from the event when we purchased tickets.
“How’s the convention?” she asked Claude.
“What convention?” he said, thinking there was a gay porn convention in town or something.
“You mean you ain’t a chicken-man?!” she replied in a rough, nasally southern voice.
“Well ...” he said, pulling up his trousers and smacking his lips, “...no, but I have been known in my time...” as I muffled a chuckle while the woman gave Claude a look that simply reeked of “…Carpetbagger”.

Scottie was all ears during our travel review once we returned to Chicago. He said, “I would have asked her if Rhett Butler was a bottom or a top…”