by Dorien Grey
We could discuss the furniture issue later—he had been offered a generous moving allowance, which he planned to put aside until he knew for sure what he might need.
Almost all of the furnishings in our apartment had either been bought jointly or was handmade. When we first got together, we’d spent lots of time in thrift shops and secondhand stores, picking up things in which we saw promise and refinishing them ourselves. The sofa we’d built from a slab of plywood we’d lacquered ebony and topped with an upholstered foam pad and bolsters. Sounds ugly as sin, but it really turned out kind of nice, and was actually quite comfortable.
Of course, we liked it mostly because it was ours, and we’d built it together.
Chris had some favorite pieces I knew he’d probably want, and there was a lot of little stuff, and all the birthday gifts, and anniversary gifts, and Christmas gifts…
He would leave the car—he wouldn’t need it in New York, whereas I had to have some way of getting around. I used it more than he did, anyway, since he preferred taking the bus to work. Although neither of us mentioned it, it was understood I’d offer to buy it at some point.
It’s amazing how much can be communicated without actually saying anything.
The day passed in five-year routine—grocery shopping, dry cleaners, emptying ashtrays, watering the plants, doing dishes, changing the bed, picking up the living room. Stuff you never, ever think about doing until you realize each action is now being performed within a box of limited time. And then you are aware, and there’s a sad little pang of loss and longing as you do each one.
We talked to several friends during the course of normal Saturday informal phone calls and mentioned casually to each one that Chris had been offered a fantastic job in New York and that I would be staying here, and inviting them to the party in two weeks. Most of them, although clearly concerned and curious to know more, simply followed our casual lead. A few asked discreet questions, which we discreetly deflected or answered as briefly and simply as possible, assuring them this wasn’t a breakup, merely a loving separation.
As evening approached, and we sat down with our usual cocktails, Chris said, “Should I ask if you want to go out tonight?”
“Haven’t we gone out almost every Saturday night for the past five years? Why shouldn’t we go tonight? If you want to, that is.”
“Yeah, I’d like to.”
“Then done and done.”
*
We decided to do something special for dinner and went clear across town to Villa Milano, a straight place but with the best pizza this side of…well, Milan. We loved the place but seldom went there simply because of the distance. This night, distance wasn’t a factor.
“So, where to now?” Chris asked as we signaled the waiter for the check and a box to carry home the few remaining slices of pizza.
“I know this might kind of surprise you,” I said, “but I feel like going back to see Judy at Bacchus’s Lair.”
He grinned. “Ah, another convert!”
“That okay with you?” I asked.
“Sure! And you can steal me one of those bunches of plastic grapes as a souvenir.”
“How about me just putting up a little memorial plaque saying ‘These are Chris’s?’”
“Chicken!” he said as the waiter returned with our doggie box.
*
We called ahead from the restaurant to reserve a table and were informed we would be first on the waiting list. We decided to risk it anyway and arrived at Bacchus’s Lair about twenty minutes before the second show.
I only then remembered hearing somewhere that the Dog Collar, located about a block down on Arnwood, was having a weekend-long anniversary party. As a result, parking was impossible; we had to drive around the block looking for an available space and finally found one about two doors down from the Salvation’s Door shelter.
I was a little hesitant about leaving the car there, but the street was lined with other vehicles, so I thought we’d be fairly safe. I pointed the shelter out to Chris as we walked past.
“Love what they’ve done with the place,” he commented, indicating the blocked-over windows.
When we’d climbed the stairs to Bacchus’s Lair, we were amazed to find the place only half-full. So much for being first on the waiting list. We were even able to specify a table near the exit. I’d checked as we walked up to the place and noticed there was a narrow passageway between the bar and the building next door, just wide enough for a fire escape.
Well, it was better than nothing.
We sat down and ordered drinks.
“How come so quiet tonight?” I asked the cute-and-knew-it waiter.
He shrugged.
“Last two nights,” he explained, “everybody’s been over at the Dog Collar—they’re having a male stripper marathon. Which would you rather see? Hot, sweaty naked guys or overweight drag queens?” Without waiting for an answer, he left.
“He has a point,” I said.
“Maybe we can drop by there after the show.”
“Sure.” I reached into my pocket. “Shit! I left my cigarettes at the restaurant! Where’s the machine?”
“Down the back hall near the john. Need some change?”
I checked my pockets.
“Yeah, you got two quarters?”
Chris dug into his pocket and came up with a fistful of coins.
“Here,” he said then hoisted up his hip to reach his wallet as he saw the waiter approaching with our drinks.
“Be right back.”
I went through the maze of mostly empty tables to the hallway leading to the john. As long as I was there, I decided I should stop in so I wouldn’t be tempted later.
The cigarette machine was in a small alcove next to the bathroom door, over which was a dim light. Under the dim light was a bunch of those godawful plastic grapes. They had apparently fallen off at one time and been reattached to the light with a piece of string.
I reached up and yanked them off the fixture, stepping quickly back into the bathroom. They were made of several small “bunches” twisted together at the end. I untwisted them and separated them into two separate clumps, which I barely managed to fit into my pants pockets. One bunch wouldn’t have looked bad—sort of like the pair of socks a lot of guys are known to shove down their pants to make it look like they’re really, really hung. Two such bulges were a tad obvious.
Nonetheless, I didn’t have much choice, so acting as nonchalant as possible, I made my way back to our table. Chris had watched my approach with raised eyebrow.
“What the hell…?” he asked as I sat down at an angle on the chair.
I fished out one of the bunches of “grapes.”
“Here,” I said. “Put this in your pocket. I’ve got another one.”
When he saw what I was giving him, he pressed his lips together so tightly I thought he was going to cry again.
“What’s wrong now? I thought you wanted them.”
He made a quick swipe of his eyes with his free hand.
“I did, damn it! It’s just that it’s so fucking sweet! You aren’t making this any easier, you know.” And he stuffed them into his pocket.
He was right, and we exchanged weak little smiles.
Fortunately, at that moment, the canned music came on, and the show started. There were a couple of new performers—one did a rather nice lip-synch to Bea Lillie’s classic “There are Faeries at the Bottom of My Garden,” and a really cute redhead whose looks far outmatched his talent synched “Proud Mary.” T/T came on and did “The Butcher’s Son” as only he could.
Spotting us, he gave us a Pearl Bailey wave and, of course, then played the whole number right to us, drawing the stares of the other patrons. Too bad they couldn’t have seen our baskets just then, I thought. They’d really have been impressed.
And then it was time for Judy. The lights dimmed, a small spot focused on the purple curtains, and they opened to reveal a sad-looking Judy Garland. As usual, she pa
id absolutely no attention to the customers and was apparently oblivious to the fact there weren’t all that many people there anyway.
She stood a moment in silence; then, the music started and she went into “The Man that Got Away.”
Jesus Christ! I thought. What a fucking song to sing in front of two guys who are breaking up!
Chris and I studiously avoided looking at one another but joined in the enthusiastic applause when the song ended. Once again, I was sure I had seen the performer out of drag somewhere. Our mailman? The guy in the office down the hall from C.C.’s?
Next, she did “The Boy Next Door”—another unfortunate choice, under the circumstances. I was hoping she’d lighten up, but she ended her set with “You Made Me Love You.”
Three out of three!
As usual, a rousing ovation, and as usual, no curtain call.
We sat there for awhile, sort of hoping T/T might come out to brighten things up, but he didn’t. We took our time finishing our drinks, reluctant to have the evening end.
“Dog Collar?” Chris asked.
“Why not?”
*
It had turned rather cool by the time we reached the street. After circling around to the car to drop off the plastic grapes, we turned toward the Dog Collar.
I didn’t much care for the place. It was a big, cavernous dump that boasted four pool tables and a downstairs “dungeon” for those into group sex. Like a lot of older buildings, it had very high ceilings, which the management had recently tried to make appear lower by stretching some sort of black mesh fabric from wall to wall.
The clientele, as the bar’s name might indicate, was supposedly ultra-butch. I’ve got nothing at all against being butch, mind you—if it’s authentic. The Dog Collar crowd was plastic-grapes butch. Still, it always drew a good crowd, and was packed tonight.
We were about two doors down when we heard a muffled whoomp! that sounded like it came from the alley behind the bar. Moments later, the double front doors burst open, and a tidal wave of men washed out into the street, running. Shouts of “Fire!” could be heard from inside and from those in the flood of men gushing through the door.
Chris and I froze in mid-step; then, we moved away from the buildings with the crowd and into the street. A wide, flat ribbon of smoke unfurled slowly out the top of the door over the heads of those scrambling to get out.
No dictionary could ever have described the word chaos more vividly. Men were running, pushing, tripping over one another as they emerged, turning around to shout for friends still inside. Two or three guys fought against the tide, trying to go back in, but they couldn’t buck the crowd coming out, and the smoke was getting heavy now. The outward-opening double door was all that prevented a human logjam forming at the entrance, and blessedly, anyone who made it that far was able to escape.
Sirens could already be heard in the distance. The street was a milling mass of men: leathermen, pseudo leathermen, male strippers in g-strings and loincloths, college types, hunks, average Joes, older, younger—a cross-section of the male gay community. Ironically, music still blared inside the bar.
Small clusters of guys gathered, some holding each other, some holding others back. Some pushed through the crowd trying to locate friends. There were many people obviously hurt; most were coughing uncontrollably as they ran out. The ones who collapsed just outside the door were dragged away then carried across the street to be laid out on the sidewalk where others huddled over them, doing what they could to help. Some just stood staring wide-eyed as a few snake-tongues of orange fire began to lick out over the top of the doorway, as if tasting the air.
The cacophony outside couldn’t hide the screams coming from inside. The music had stopped.
Chris and I were walled in by people on one side of the semicircle of onlookers. We weren’t close enough to the front to be able to do anything, and we were sick with the feeling of helplessness. Still they kept coming out—guys at the front of the crowd, which was being driven back by the increasing heat and billowing smoke, would rush forward to grab anyone who made it through the doors and lead or drag them to safety, or run interference to prevent others from trying to reenter the building to save friends or lovers.
Pressed against those around us, we tried to see if there was anyone we knew; Chris stood on tiptoe to see over the heads of those directly around us. Fewer were coming out now. One, probably one of the strippers, stumbled through the doorway naked and badly burned, his hair smoldering. Backlit by an angry pulsating orange, he leaned against the door frame as though the pose were a part of his number. Then he pushed forward, made it just outside the door, and toppled like a fallen tree onto the sidewalk before those dashing in to help him could reach him.
They picked him up and carried him across the street, the crowd parting to allow them through.
An instant later, another guy appeared, crawling on all fours, his shirt on fire. He was grabbed by several guys, who slapped at his shirt with their hands to put out the flames. They got him to his feet, but he looked frantically around at the crowd then broke away and ran back toward the door, which was by this time totally engulfed. Two of those who’d helped him ran after and grabbed him just before he reached it.
They dragged him back as he fought to break free, straining forward and yelling something we couldn’t make out over the incredible din. There were no more screams coming from inside the bar, just crashing sounds and the triumphant roar of the flames.
The first squad car came racing down the street, siren wailing, lights flashing, horn blasting, followed by no fewer than three fire trucks; the lights of others closed in from both directions. The crowd scattered before them.
Then, over all the sirens, and the yells, and the dull thrum of the fire, which was now pouring out of the door and had broken through the roof, I heard someone calling me.
“Dick! Dick!”
I looked around, and Chris pointed to the guy whose shirt had been on fire, who was still being held by his rescuers.
It was Bob Allen.
Ambulances began to arrive as the firemen rolled out their hoses and the police—several squads of them by this time—started moving the crowd back. We shouldered our way through the mass of guys to Bob. He had blood running down his left temple from a gash somewhere just above the hairline.
But his face! I hope I never again see an expression on anyone’s face like the one I saw on Bob’s.
The two guys holding him, seeing that we knew him, reluctantly released him. He grabbed us both, one with each hand, and his knees started to buckle. We grabbed him and held him up between us.
He tightened his grip on our arms.
“You’ve got to help me go back in!” he pleaded, and my eyes jerked to meet Chris’s, which mirrored my own shock.
“Ramón!” Bob cried, pointing to the inferno. “Ramón’s still in there!”
Chapter 6
Ramón was one of twenty-three men who never made it out of the Dog Collar. Another six died later in the hospitals—one from burns and five from smoke inhalation. Apparently, whatever the ceiling mesh was made from had been fatally toxic when burned in the confines of a closed space.
Despite Bob’s dazed insistence that he had to stay at the fire scene until Ramón was found, his arms and back were badly burned; we all but dragged him to one of the many ambulances shuttling back and forth to hospitals. I recognized one of the paramedics who helped him into the ambulance and was told he’d be taken to St. Anthony’s.
We made our way back to the car through drifting smoke without looking back and rode in complete silence to the hospital to wait for word on Bob. The waiting room was already filled with friends and families of the burned and injured, and more were coming in. The number of injured taxed the hospital beyond its capacity, and those less badly injured were treated and released. Luckily, Bob was one of them.
His burns, apparently less severe than they’d appeared to us, were treated and bandaged, the cut on his head
stitched up, and he was released to us with instructions to return immediately if there were any complications or in two days if there were not.
It was close to four a.m. by the time we started for home, again in complete silence. Bob sat in the back seat with Chris, staring straight ahead. We did not even consider the possibility of his returning to his own apartment and took him directly to ours, leading him into the guest room. I’m not sure he even knew where he was, let alone cared. We carefully helped him out of what remained of his clothes and guided him into bed, on his stomach.
Neither Chris nor I slept much that night, thinking of Bob, of Ramón, and of all those others—and how, had we been a few minutes earlier getting to the bar, or had the fire started a few minutes later, we might well have been inside with Bob and Ramón, watching the strippers strut their stuff on the makeshift stage at the far back of the bar.
We got up at seven-thirty, unable to even pretend to sleep any longer. Chris went to the kitchen to make coffee, and I went to the guest room and quietly opened the door a crack to check on Bob. He was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the floor.
I knocked softly then entered.
“Chris has the coffee on,” I said, having no idea what else to say.
He looked up.
“Thanks.”
“We’ve got a couple extra robes, if you’d like one,” I volunteered. “And later, if you want to give me the keys to your place, I can go up and get you some clothes.”
“Ramón has them,” Bob said in a monotone. “He drove last night, and he kept the keys.”
Shit! What can anyone possibly do or say in a situation like this?
“Well, we’ll figure something out after awhile. There’s no rush.”
He only nodded, and I hurried to the bathroom to get Chris’s spare robe. Bob was coming out of the guest room when I returned.
“Can I use your phone?”
“Sure,” I said, wondering who he wanted to call. Ramón’s folks, maybe—if he knew their number.
“I’ve got to call…” He hesitated. “…somebody to find out if they’ve found Ramón.”