by Ben Peller
“Doesn’t it feel so great sometimes to take a good hot piss?” this man standing no more than two feet to my left asked. He’d stopped peeing by now, and was now zipping and unzipping his fly with methodical determination.
“Yeah, that’s one of the great things about Los Angeles,” I said, my voice guttural and rough. I may as well have been John Wayne letting an outlaw know just where they stood in my eyes. “Any time you need somewhere to piss, you can always find one.”
Startled by his silence, I carefully shifted my eyes in his direction while taking care not to turn my head. He was no longer staring at my penis, but was gazing at my face as though it were a Rorschach inkblot test.
“Are you actually straight, by any chance?” he questioned.
His suspicious tone thrilled me and suddenly I was able to pee freely. “Now why would you ask that?” I asked, strictly James Bond style. I felt as cool as a double agent.
He zipped his fly up with a definitive tug. “You just seem like a douche,” he sneered. “A straight douche.”
Back in the day when I’d been injecting massive amounts of steroids into my system I’d been known to throw a blow at someone in some Tijuana bar simply because they’d looked at me with what I deemed was the wrong expression. But now, here in a gay bar, having just been called “a straight douche” by a total stranger, all I could do was laugh. Being in a gay bar and not feeling homosexual granted me a certain immunity. Instead of being insulted, I was intrigued at how he knew I was here under circumstances that were at best ambiguous.
As I was about to ask him this very question, the guy still squatting on the toilet in the open stall proclaimed in a baritone husk, “He’s as straight as the day is long!”
I turned the sink on to wash my hands and my original tormentor lashed out, “Ha! I knew it! That’s right! Wash your hands, you hetero!”
On that note he marched righteously out of the bathroom.
I wiped my hands on my leather pants and followed, feeling as though I’d just taken a trip to a parallel universe, one in which homosexuals held sway over things and heterosexuals were considered “odd.”
As I walked into the bar area, I saw my antagonizer speaking feverishly to a massive man in a “RAMBO” t-shirt that had the sleeves cut off. This giant’s several day old stubble and pumped up body suggested that he’d recently been in a place where one could lift weights all the time while not give a damn about having to shave. The tattoo adorning his left arm which proclaimed “FUCK THE POLICE” only confirmed my assumption this dude had recently done some hard time. He seemed exactly the type of guy the novice gay bargoer would expect to never find in a gay bar. After all, how could a man look as though ripping another man’s lungs out and eating them might give them the same thrill they’d get from sucking another man’s cock?
I’d been tempted to recruit the one who’d taunted me as a “hetero” in the bathroom to try and convince Maryanne that through his straight-dar he’d pegged me as a stranger in this rainbow colored land. But now, seeing the artillery he was speaking to as they both cast looks in my direction, I resolved to just walk by them, head held high as a proud “hetero,” and then grab Maryanne and get the hell out of this place in one piece.
As I passed by, eyes very straight ahead, I heard a growl, “Yeah, that’s him.”
I knew from past experience that the first punch in a fight is usually worth fifty pounds on the other guy. When I turned, tensed to swing, I realized to my horror I was going to need a good deal more than fifty pounds if I wanted to beat this refrigerator standing before me, his hand on the shoulder of the man who’d just mocked me in the lavatory.
“My friend here has something to say to you,” the walking kitchen appliance rumbled. Given his size and apparent sexuality, his tone was a fittingly appropriate cross between Tony Soprano and Marcia Brady.
“Okay,” I nodded. Guardedly.
“I’m sorry,” my bathroom bully said quietly. “I shouldn’t have judged you. You want to come in here, for whatever reasons, you have a right to.”
“Yeah, well…” I nodded, my fist unclenching. “I kind of came here under unique circumstances.”
“I’m Larry,” he said, thrusting his open hand out to me.
I shook it. “Shawn.”
“Peter,” the giant named himself. We shook hands as well.
Larry offered to buy me a drink, and naturally I was happy to accept. The three of us got to talking and it turned out they’d been partners for five years and lived part-time in Belize, a Central American country I’d always been curious about. They in turn were fascinated that I’d spent some time as a professional wrestler. As we spoke about our lives, any sense of discomfort melted away and all I was doing was having an intelligent conversation with two other guys in a gay bar. Just being here no longer implied any direct relation to my sexuality, hetero, homo, or otherwise. I simply was. Just because I handed out the occasional business card to a transvestite or two, and dug ABBA and leather pants… well, they were part of my overall unique character. And if Maryanne had trouble reconciling that, well…
Maryanne! I’d forgotten all about her. I looked down to the far end of the bar and saw that she certainly hadn’t forgotten about me. She was staring at me with a look that would slaughter a charging buffalo.
“Sorry, guys,” I said to my new friends. “But I’ve gotta go.”
I shared a hug with both of them. Larry patted ma on the ass and crooned, “Farewell for now, hetero.” Then he kissed me lightly on my right cheek. Oddly, the pat on the ass, the kiss, and the farewell didn’t make me feel “queer” at all. Actually, I felt fairly secure, which isn’t a necessarily normal state for me to find myself in.
I wasn’t in it for long, being that as I headed over to the woman who’d brought me here I couldn’t help but note she was glaring at me as though there was nothing more on her mind than how many ways she could kill me.
“Ha! What did I tell you!” Maryanne shouted.
I shrugged.
“Ha!” she shouted again. “I was right! You’re nothing but a fucking fag!”
The last time Maryanne had accused me of being a homosexual was when we were in bed together, just after having had sex. Now she was at it again, this time in a gay bar, when we were surrounded by homosexuals, and she’d gone from urging me to “go and get gay” to calling me a “fucking fag.”
I looked around nervously, worried that her altered opinion of my alleged sexuality wouldn’t go over very well with the clientele of this bar, particularly when shouted at the top of her lungs while using a slur along the lines of the n-word. Surprisingly, nobody seemed to have even taken notice. Maybe, I supposed, this scene wasn’t that uncommon in these bars. Could it be that girlfriends dragged their boyfriends to gay bars all the time to question their heterosexuality and then harangued them about it?
I caught Larry’s eye and saw him giving me a thumbs up. I was debating whether to return the gesture when Maryanne grabbed her purse and told me to “go to faggot hell,” then stormed out of the bar.
I was semi-tempted to stay and drift back to Larry and Peter. Maybe, I mused, a bit drunkenly, I could housesit for them in Belize and be rid of crazy American women.
Then I remembered Maryanne had my keys and my wallet in her purse. I downed my drink and charged out after her.
I found her in the parking lot, angrily tearing through her purse. She pulled out my keys and hurled them at me. They struck my face, inches away from the spot where Larry had kissed me.
“You’ve been stringing me along this whole time!” she yelled.
“I swear, I haven’t.” I said, wondering if I should make a grab for her purse and personally extract my wallet or if I should just wait for her to throw it at my other cheek.
“And I just remembered something!” she said. “Danny! This past month you told me two times you were going to see him, and just hang out! And then you told me you two dirty danced together all the time!”
This accusation was a little dodgy, if only because those two times I’d told her I was going out with Danny, I’d actually been entertaining two other women. Old friends from college. Platonic, mostly at least, and being that lovers sometimes have trouble understanding platonic relationships with people of the opposite sex, I figured the Danny fib would save all parties involved a lot of trouble.
True, I had known a Danny back in college, and we had once on one crazy drunken fraternity beer-fueled night ground our hips together while singing to Don McLean’s “Starry Starry Night.” We’d woken up, fully clothed, holding each other on the floor amidst a sea of empty cups and pizza boxes. Immediately we’d called a Tri-Delt who was always up for adventure, and hours later were double-teaming her, thus regaining our “masculinity.”
It’d been twelve years since I’d seen Danny. It wasn’t like we were totally estranged; we were Facebook friends, and his profile listed him as married with three children. I had noted with a bit of murky pride that one of his “Favorite Music” selections was the song McLean had written in tribute to Van Gogh, that hopelessly romantic tune we’d danced to together so many years ago.
“Danny was years ago!” I shouted. “I barely remember him.” Again, this was not altogether true. He’d had a chiseled face, a swagger, and a pout that would’ve made John Travolta take lessons. However, pleading for my heterosexual life, this didn’t seem like the time to bring these comparisons up.
Maryanne looked confused. “Years?” she asked. “But you told me two weeks ago you were going to hang out with—“
“Maryanne!” a shrill voice shrieked.
My girlfriend and I turned as one. Here came a long legged woman in a frilly dress, sparkle on her cheeks. Her long black hair matched her dress and pants. She exhaled some kind of espresso mix as she sighed while looking from me to Maryanne.
“So this is the one,” she said. And then she gave me a big kiss on the cheek. The left one, thus avoiding Larry’s lip print and the mark that was already scabbing from the keys Maryanne had pelted me with.
“He is adorable,” the stranger gushed, then planted a similar kiss on Maryanne, but this time it was mouth to mouth.
“We’re um…” Maryanne mumbled, pulling away. “We’re kind of in the middle of something, Francesca.”
“Oh my!” Francesca purred. “Don’t let me interrupt. Just let me say, Shawn, it’s great to meet you.”
She strutted into the bar with a casual nod to the bouncer.
“Who was that?” I asked Maryanne.
“Just… a friend.”
“She seemed like a pretty good friend,” I said.
“Yes,” Maryanne nodded, her eyes darting everywhere but into my own. “She is. A very good friend.”
“Good Gods,” I spun around in a circle, then clutched Maryanne’s arms. “Are you gay?”
“I don’t know!” Maryanne cried out. “But I hadn’t seen Francesca since college. We ran into each other at Starbucks a month ago, and we just, you know, hit it off. I’ve seen her… a few times… while you were off with Danny.”
“I haven’t seen Danny in about a dozen years,” I mumbled.
“What?”
So I told her the whole story. The nights I’d told her I was spending with Danny I’d in fact spent with Christina and Wendy, respectively. As, pretty much, friends.
“Pretty much?”
“Pretty much,” I confirmed, braced for the blow. No more than I deserved.
Instead I heard laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“To think,” Maryanne chuckled. “I was feeling guilty about sleeping with Francesca!”
I began to skip in place, a peculiar habit I sometimes employ when in need of something for my body to do while my mind wrestles with a scenario even I, as a writer, can’t fathom making up. Examples: a human being who’s never told a lie in their life, a Hollywood agent that doesn’t look at a client and see only dollar signs, a Nigerian that needs you to “help them wire their money into your account by giving them your full account information and passwords” who actually do have money they need to get out of their country.
Or, in this case, a woman who’d accused me of being a latent homosexual while she herself had been actively engaged in a lesbian affair.
“Sleeping with Francesca?” I asked finally, exhausted from skipping myself back into verisimilitude.
“Yeah,” Maryanne said. “Like I said, we hit it off.”
“But I thought I was supposed to be the gay one!” I protested.
“Maybe… I don’t know, maybe I wanted it to turn out that you’re gay. You’ve got to admit, Shawn, you do carry yourself pretty effeminately at times.” Maryanne took a step back and looked me up and down. “And those leather pants…? Really, Shawn?”
“But I’ve never slept with another guy,” I insisted. “You’ve slept with Francesca.”
“I know,” Maryanne nodded. “And I don’t regret it. And I want to do it again. To be honest, part of the reason I wanted you to come here tonight was to meet her.”
“But why all the accusations about me being a fucking fag?” I shouted.
“Watch it, buddy,” a burly long-haired man commented icily. He was standing in the “smoking section” by the side door of the bar, stubbing out his cigarette and looking thoroughly intimidating.
“No offense meant,” I said, somewhat offended at an apparent double standard. After all, Maryanne had yelled at me for being a “fucking fag” inside the bar and no one had voiced an objection. Was there a code that women were allowed to use such a description while men weren’t?
Maryanne reached and pulled me close to her. “It’s just that I really thought you might be gay,” she said softly. “I still do. But I know this. I really am having a great time with Francesca. And I think I should go back into this bar and be with her.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “Do what you feel you have to do to be happy. But can I ask you this… when did you… know you were gay?”
“I still don’t know if I am,” she said. “But I did always like to go to gym class because I got to shower with other girls. And I guess you could say the beauty tips in Cosmopolitan weren’t the only things that made me buy that magazine.”
I smiled. “Way to dodge discomfort about yourself with humor.”
“Just following your lead, Mister Michals.”
This made us both laugh. She kissed me on the lips, and strangely, being that she’d revealed her intimate feelings for another woman while at the same time questioning my sexuality, this seemed to be the most unimpeachable kiss we’d ever shared.
“Call me if you ever want to talk,” I told her. With feeling.
“I will,” she said. “I’m glad we can still be friends, Shawn.”
“Maybe,” I drew the word out. “Friends with benefits?”
At this she quickly shook her head. “Just Friends.” she said, and though I’ve never known a ton about women I knew enough to know she wasn’t kidding.
I held up my hands as if in surrender, and had the feeling that I was never going to see her again. It hurt; it hurt like when I’d lost Georgette. Though thankfully Maryanne was alive and well and seemed to be moving on to new stages of her life, sensing that I wouldn’t be a part of these days and nights still stung. Damnit. It was times like these I wanted to buy a cat and keep it in my studio apartment under lock and key. To see Maryanne as “just a friend” would be like drinking a Cape Cod made up of a full glass of cranberry juice with only three or four drops of vodka added. In other words, it would only drive me mad (or madder). She was the only woman I’d ever been with who had engaged in a farting contest with me while in bed. I couldn’t recall which of us was laughing harder at the battle’s conclusion, but I remember both of us claiming victory before we’d fallen into a rabid bout of sex.
Looking back, that was probably the day I’d fallen in love with her.
As Maryanne walked back into Tutu’s
Alibi I felt in desperate need of a cigarette, a potential hazard of mushy moments. So I headed over to the bearded guy who’d warned me to watch it and asked if I could bum a smoke.
He regarded me, head cocked as though scanning me for any sudden movement. Then his hand flashed out and a cigarette landed on my forehead. I went to catch it, fumbled, and it fell to the ground.
I picked the butt up immediately. “Got a light?”
This made him laugh, and he lit my cigarette. We sat there smoking in silence.
“That your girlfriend you were just shouting with?” he asked.
“Somebody’s girlfriend,” I replied, eyeing the plume of smoke drifting into the night.
“Yeah,” he inhaled. “Been there, done that.”
We shook hands and I mooched two more cigarettes off him as we stood there talking. His name was David and he was a filmmaker who’d made several independent films that had played the festival circuit. When he asked me what I did I told him I was a dishwasher, which at the time I was, part-time at a bowling alley near where I lived. We kept talking. When he mentioned his major influence was Eric Rohmer and I was able to quote from his films (not just the well known ones such as My Night at Maud’s and Pauline At the Beach, but also the lesser known La Collectionneuse) he showed considerable surprise.
“You don’t seem like a dishwasher,” he said.
I decided to take a chance, results be damned. “You don’t seem like a homo,” I said, adding what I hoped was a self-mocking emphasis on the last word.
He started chuckling like hell. I was surprised to find myself slightly disappointed. What had I been expecting? Indignation? An attack of some sort?
“I’m not a homo,” he droned, matching my emphasis on the word homo. “I’m here with my brother. He’s the biggest queen you’ll ever meet.”