Subtext E-Book

Frank Angeletti

• Herausgeber: Firebrand Publishing
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 383

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Rife with local color and laugh-out-loud dialogue, SUBTEXT, A Nervous Novel, is a love letter to New York City in the 1990s and the irrepressible gay community.

The storyline follows a family of friends as they navigate a series of significant events set in The Big Apple. A bartender with a predilection for panic and Twenty-Year Scotch, a consummately shirtless soap opera lothario with silver-blue eyes and a Basset Hound named Frank, a Broadway starlet whose vocal chops, theatrical flops, and Clairol Nice'n Easy No. 6R Light Copper curly mops harness the power to heal sorrow-filled souls, a "va fongooling" Staten Island meatball merchandiser with a mishigas for malapropisms, and a muscle-ripped, motorcycle booted, sager-than-he-should-be leather daddy are among the novel's colorful characters.

When a terrifying hate crime results in a perilously dire outcome, each of the family members is forced to take tight hold of their dreams. Together they stumble upon the universal, gemstone discoveries that exist between the lines-the subtext of life, both hidden and heart-touching. The story's ultimate message delivers a riveting, personal narrative of hopes and desires, and the disappointments that must be overcome if one is to perceive all the beauty that life has to offer.

Leseprobe

SUBTEXT

A Nervous Novel

Frank Angeletti

Copyright © 2022 by Frank Angeletti

All rights reserved.

Published by Firebrand Publishing Atlanta, GA USA

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions coordinator," at the email address: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-1-941907-51-1 Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-941907-52-8 eBook

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Hexadecimal #FFFFFF

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Acknowledgments

About the Author

For my father, who taught me I could be anything I wanted to be as long as I wanted it badly enough.

And for Craig, who never once stopped believing in me.

Only Heaven knows how glory goes,

what each of us was meant to be.

In the starlight, that is what we are.

I can see so far.

Adam Guettel, Floyd Collins

One

I can hear her voice still—piercing the milky sunlight with her nasal Chicago accent, perforating every amber-colored, late September daydream within miles that possesses the preposterous fortitude to stand up to her. And I feel the tiny hairs at the scruff of my neck stand tall with mock-petulance as I stall for time in my second-floor bedroom, all knotty pine and avocado shag rug. I can hear the urgency of her beckoning above the hum of my stoned, racing adolescent mind and the buzz of Billy Joel delivered from the aluminum speakers of a portable eight-track player. I stub out what's left of a joint between my fingers and tuck it away between the mattress and bed frame as Long Island's favorite son is having a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack. Even as I avoid the window and fresh air, I can see her standing there screaming at the world, exasperated because nobody is listening. With one hand on her hip and the other brandishing a rake at my retreat above the garage, and further onward toward the heavens, her gaze incinerates.

So, do you know what I do? I roll off of the bed tactical combat style, drop to my knees, and shimmy my plump, pubescent body across the floorboards to dodge the window and the sunlight altogether. I travel in a world beneath John Travolta posters hung with shiny brass tacks, beside Village People albums housed in an orange plastic milk crate, and on top of Torso Magazines strategically hidden in mine bomb fashion and concealed with masking tape to the underside of the shag carpeting. It's time for liberation alright. Oh, how I yearn. Yet all too soon I will stand beside her, my mother, stuffing a rusted-out iron drum with dead leaves, gathering damp twigs with twine, and at all costs avoiding the crack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack of the rake handle across my shoulders and back.

But, for just one moment, if I scrunch my eyes closed as tightly as I am able…

"Dominic! Dominic!"

And so the story goes. I pull on jeans around my fat fourteen-year-old body. I tie my sneakers in double-knots and purposefully avoid the windbreaker hanging in my closet. I refuse to wear it; it's ugly and it identifies me too directly with her, and them, and it's hideous and it stinks of charred, dead leaves. Maybe if I'm cold or appear cold she'll let me off easy this one time. Or maybe I'll grow cold and miserable just like her.

I shut the door on everything I care about and make my way down the back stairwell hurriedly, without time to trace the pattern of the sage green, velveteen chevron wallpaper with my fingertips. Not even time enough to count stair steps as I move to take my place. And I've found my pace by the time I pass my sister Anna in the kitchen, who flips me the bird and never once lifts her eyes from her Modern Bride Magazine or her astringent, spaghetti gravy bubbling on the stovetop.

"Dominic! Dominic!

DAAHHHHHMMIIIIINNAAAAAHHHHHCCKK!!"

My tummy is turning cartwheels by this point. I've twisted my fingers into treasonous weapons inside the pockets of my jeans. I deliberately gouge my fingernails into my own palms to punish myself because maybe I've stalled for too long this time and maybe I've mistakenly pissed her off forever. And I'm really moving as the screen door clack-ack-ack-ack-ack-acks closed and I feel my mother's hot breath on my face.

"You didn't hear me calling you, Dominic?" Instantly she is menacing.

"Yes, Mom—umm, I didn't. I didn't."

"Either you did. Or you didn't? Which one? Otherwise, you're a liar. I hate a gaddammed liar. Don't you lie to me! I'll never trust you if you lie to me, Dominic! I'll never trust you again. Now I don't trust you."

"I didn't—"

"Liar."

"I didn't hear you calling me—is what I'm saying. I didn't hear you call me."

"Nah. You're a liar. I'll never believe you again."

"But I didn't—"

"Help me burn these leaves. Do it!"

Inside her head she's been arguing with me since before I arrived, for fourteen years now.

"How do I—"

"You know how. You know how. You gather the leaves from the piles that I raked. No, not that one! Here! This one!" Either choice would have been the wrong choice.

"The fire is out—"

"The fire is out!" She mocks me. "You just gather the leaves. I'll worry about the gaddammed fire."

"I hate this."

"I hate this!" She's invented and finessed her own impersonation of me, replete with a sing-song Pollyanna tone and wet spaghetti limbs.

"It's gross."

"It's gross! It's so gross!" In her eyes, evidently I look like a floppy, balloon creature at a car lot, except my right shoulder is hunched. And my head is permanently cocked alongside it.

"Well, it is gross!"

"You think I like it? This? You think I like it out here in the cold? You think I like raking leaves in this gaddammed backyard in this lousy city with a little fairy that's all the company I can keep? You think your father likes it? Well, do you? And what good is he to me? All alone—that's who I am. Left out in the cold. Like garbage. Yeah, he threw me away just like garbage. Oh, one day we'll get our own place, Dominic. I'll take you with me. Just you and me. An apartment. With no leaves. Because that's who I am! And you wanna know what life is, Dominic? Ya wanna know? Life is you take whatever you can get. Life is you make the most of whatever you can take. Now, I said move your ass. Bend. At the waist. Bend, Dominic! Put some effort in. Maybe you'll lose some gaddammed weight."

"What about Anna?"

"What about Anna??" Again with the wildly deformed posture and the flailing balloon arms.

"Why can't she help is all I'm asking?"

"She's making gravy. That's what girls do. Hurry up! It's getting dark."

"Why can't we hire someone?"

"Because we have you. And you gotta do something. Move your ass."

"I'm trying as fast as I can." I am, too.

"Well, try faster!"

"What if we hire someone and I could—"

"You could do what? What could you do? You're not good for shit. Who are we gonna hire, Dominic? Who are we gonna hire?"

"I dunno."

"You dunno? You don't know!"

"I hate this. My hands are getting dirty."

"Boys don't care."

"I care."

"Just do it! Sissy! You sissy, you!"

I catch sideways glances of her as I gather the colorless, dead leaves. Her eyes are gray and tired, and her mouth is sealed in a permanent frown like some malevolent god dropped it right there crooked and broken. Just as carelessly as it dropped her right here in this gaddammed backyard in this lousy city. Her auburn hair is shocking against the soot gray horizon and its windblown locks dance in furious, frightening time with the squalls of an impending autumn storm. Her hands are bony and twisted with arthritis as she performs her role, proceeds as she threatened, and sets fire to nature.

"Come on, Dominic! Faster. This wind! There's a storm coming." Even the fire succumbs and leaps to attention, the product of her incantation.

She is equal parts Aunt Em and the Wicked Witch of the West, standing tall with the help of her rake, the temperamental midwestern horizon at once silhouetting her debilitating osteoporosis and framing the life she was handed, made the most of, and grew to loathe.

"STOP DAYDREAMING!"

Whack goes the rake! As I raise my arm to shield my face, its handle bears down furiously against my forearm.

"OUCH!!"

"Don't you hit me, Dominic! Don't you ever try to gaddammed hit me—"

"But I didn't—"

"—because I'll put you in a home. I'll put you in a gaddammed home you ever lay a hand on me."

"I won't ever, Mama! I won't ever hit you! I promise!"

"I'll put you in a home and nobody will ever see you again."

"Noooo! I'll be good!"

"Don't you ever try to gaddammed hit me. I'll make your head spin. I'll plant you in a home so fast I'll make your gaddammed head turn circles."

"I promise! I'll be good!" But it's too late.

Whack goes the rake!

My mother wages a battle against the Sun for setting before she's completed her yard work and swings her weapons of war with disregard, unaware how the blows land, so blinded by resentment and fury is her anger. The wind spirals around her and the rusted-out iron drum erupts with belches of orange cinder with every strike.

Whack goes the rake! Whack goes the rake! Whack goes the rake!

"You wanna stay in this house? You'll help with the gaddammed work."

"I'll help! I'll help you, Mama!"

"The fresh. Air. Is good. For you." Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!

With each lunge of her body, a primeval growl from inside her twists itself into the sorrowful moan of a wounded animal—snared in a trap that's not even merciful enough to kill, simply immobilize. And that enrages her, this cruel existence that was constructed to cause her a lifetime of suffering. She grew up poor. Whack! And without love. Whack! That's who she is! Whack!

As the flames howl ferociously and snap indiscriminately at the sky, her rake collides violently with her cauldron, and the back of a leg, and a wrist, and a temple. When she aims her rage to roar at the impending storm, she willfully breathes life into it, as all the while I'm squirming on hands and knees to find shelter from my mother.

"Oh no you don't!" Whack goes the rake across the small of my back.

When she retreats to find breath, she steadies herself on the rake and with a bony hand on her knee. I gather myself trembling in a pile of dead, brown leaves at her feet. She gasps to bring the air back inside her, exhales, in and then out, and with a tremendous clap of thunder the skies open wide, and sheets of rain pelt the battleground and its whimpering, beaten-down infantry.

Curled up protectively inside my pathetic teenage self I sob, even as I am millions of lifetimes away from a paneled bedroom with Tony Manero posters, dirty magazines, and my abusive mother. And as I gaze directly through all of the years into her outraged, resent-fueled eyes, I swear to myself that I will never be mean, or miserable, or cold.

"You shoulda wore your gaddammed jacket," she spits, and she casts the rake to the sorrowful, wet earth and makes her way inside.

One moment I'm listening to my mother berate me and the next I'm the final ember born to escape her cauldron of burning leaves; a tiny, red-yellow spark that flies fearlessly and higher into the stormy Chicago skyline toward freedom. A leaf that evades the garbage pile and dances in the breeze—sometimes soaring, sometimes dipping, tripping over itself and landing as a bartender at a notorious leather bar in New York City's Meatpacking District.

I'm in the tiny stall next to the urinal in the john with the sick-green, fluorescent lighting at The Meat Market, rolling a twenty with one hand and balancing a quarter gram of blow cut into four fat lines on the palm of the other hand, when I hear Guasparre Gagliardi "va fongooling" in his Staten Island Italian accent.

"Maddon' mi! Meengya!"

That's when I drop the coke all down the front of my bare chest and watch with indifferent eyes as the twenty-dollar bill cascades in slow motion directly into the sick-green, toilet water. Deliberate and unhurried, it turns circles like a colorless autumn leaf failing and then falling from a tree.

"What'd you say?"

"I tink I might happen tuh be in a little bit of trouble ovuh here. Mi Meengya, Stonato! Ya dig?"

The blow, a tip from a new customer, arrived in familiar fashion—a shiny white seal wrapped in a Hamilton and delivered under the guise of a handshake. I wouldn't have dropped it if I wasn't so fucking nervous all the time. But there's always more where that came from, and it tasted mostly like baking soda anyway. I lick the back of my palm, wipe my nose with my index finger and thumb, then suck my fingertips and swallow hard as the bitter cocaine numbs my throat.

"What's wrong?" I ask nonchalantly as I think to myself, "Do I fish for the twenty dollar bill or leave it for the next guy?"

"I could really use some help ovuh here. I can't believe I fuckin' did dis same fuckin' ting all ovuh again. What a stronzo I am. Are yuh wit' me?"

I leave the twenty for the next guy and step out of the tiny stall to find Guasparre standing frozen, afraid to move for the pain, in the center of the tiny john with the sick-green, checkered floor tile.

"'Sparre, what in the world is the—"

"Aye! Aye! Aye! Vaffanculo! It hurts me so much tuh even tawhk about, but I really am not able tuh move at dis particular moment in time."

"Okay, what's the matter?"

"If yuh could just come a little closuh and take a look at dis wit' which I need some attenshun."

I look. "Oh, for fucks'sake. Again? 'Sparre, again?"

So now, I'm on my knees in front of Guasparre Gagliardi in the tiny john with the sick-green fluorescent lighting and the sick-green checkered floor tile at The Meat Market, the leather bar where I work. But it isn't what it seems. If there's one thing Aunty Em forgot to tell Dorothy Gale, it's that lessons are rarely learned when the situation is solely viewed in black-and-white and that an enlightened understanding of the technicolor broad view depends on travel to foreign countrysides and an innate ability to swallow other folk's peculiarities. Also, to always pack a second pair of sensible shoes—like combat boots. Because it's never what it seems.

"Is it my fault I was bawhn into dis wawhld wit' such an admirable cazzo. Un pene così bello! Do yuh know what I mean, Brudduh?"

For a brief moment, his pain disappears as he puffs out his enormous chest and exaggerated cleft chin and positively preens at the picture of his perfect, prevalent prick, all bravado and charisma like Marky Mark—the sexy rapper turned Calvin Klein underwear model, immortalized and groping himself on a billboard in Times Square.

"Uh-huh," I say as I'm understanding the technicolor broad view.

"Would yuh mind doin' a guy a good ovuh here, mio amico Nicolo?"

"Uh-huh," as I'm traveling foreign countrysides. "It's Dominic, okay?"

"Perchè no! You're a ginzbawl just like de rest of us and everybody stabs deir meatball de same way. Wit' a fawhk, yuh fuwhk. Okay? Are ya wit' me?"

"Yes, I'm Italian. But I don't have three yards of foreskin that gets tangled up in my zipper every other evening," as I'm swallowing other folk's peculiarities. "See, this is why you uncut guys should always wear button-fly jeans."

Again he puffs up. Even harder this time. Then he shuffles with his jeans around his ankles, poses on the sick-green, checkered floor tile, and turns to take a self-adoring inventory of his uncircumcised member in the sick-green, graffitied mirror beneath the sick-green, fluorescent lighting.

"Yuh look very nice down dere right here in front of me, Googootz!"

"Now, this may hurt a little bit."

"Go ahead. Just give me a little smoocharoo first. Okay? I ain't gonna tell nobody nuttin' I swear it tuh yuh. Not even your boyfriend de doawhman of dis fine establishment. On my mudder—may she rest in peace, of cawhse. Yuh wit' me?"

I yank the zipper hard on Guasparre Gagliardi and his chest deflates as he thrusts involuntarily. He spews a hot stream of Italian curses guaranteed to rouse his dead mother: "Va fongool!Vai a fare in culo!Facia-brota skifosa. Mi Meengya, Stonato!"

"Everybody okay in here?" asks the doorman as he pokes his head through the toilet door.

"Wha? Huh?"

"You okay?" he mouths in an over-exaggerated manner.

"We're fine. I mean, I'm fine. I'm fine."

"You sure?" he mouths with just the lips this time, not a sound from his kisser.

"Huh?"

"Shit, baby, where are you tonight?"

"I'm right here." On my knees in front of 'Sparre Gagliardi with his pants around his ankles in the tiny john with the sick-green, fluorescent lighting and the sick-green, checkered floor tile.

"Well, we need you behind the bar. It's getting kinda busy, baby."

"I know, Doorman. Be right there."

"They'll be plenty of time for extracurricular later, baby."

"Uh-huh."

It is never what it seems, Dorothy Gale, and things are seldom the way they appear. In truth, I'm somewhere beyond the hand-painted technicolor filmstrip of casual sex: miles away from growing up in Chicago and thousands of lightyears removed from eyes that connect with urgent reciprocation and bodies that instinctively crash and retreat, crash and retreat.

"Do your best to hurry huh, baby?" And the kindness of his smile lights up the entire john.

"I'll be right out, Doorman."

"And you, Gagliardi—pull your damn pants up or go someplace where that kinda shit is allowed! Capisce?"

He winks at me playfully, and with a silent, over-exaggerated "Who me?" the toilet door swings closed.

"Well, do yuh see dat? Now I getcha permission tuh kiss me. Yuh got me so fahr? Maybe yuh suck me and I feel all bettuh? And den yuh feel all bettuh, too."

"I gotta go!"

The doorman is waiting for me outside the john, stalling for time by pretending to check the batteries in his flashlight. "Go for a beer with me tonight after work, baby?" as he brushes cocaine residue from the hair on my chest and all down the trail to my navel.

"Sorry, Doorman. Not tonight, okay?"

"Wha? Okay then. You do have extracurricular on your mind," he says, teasing.

Why do I say no when I want to answer yes? No, I'm not thinking about strange dick. Yes, I'd love to have a beer with you, Doorman.

"Well...I, er, better get back behind the bar."

"Sure thing, baby." He pulls a pretend punch on me and kisses me sweetly on the cheek instead. I study his gray buzzcut glinting in the disco lights, his chiseled torso and tattoo sleeves, and his perfect, cantaloupe ass as he disappears into the crowd.

I take my place behind the bar. The first thing I do is reach for the pack of Reds that I keep to the right of the cash register. I light a smoke with a branded The Meat Market book of matches that reads A Butcher Bar, and I look into the enormous gilt mirror behind the shelves of booze, taking desperate care to not stare too deeply into the reflection of my own eyes—I can't afford to travel that path right now, right here—and size up the formidable line of leathermen gathering at my station.

I stack the cardboard Meat Market coasters, secure a flashlight for the cooler, and tuck a clean bar towel into the back of my jeans at the small of my back.

I inhale hard and take in cigarette smoke, the sexually charged arena, and the men in their leather gear who assemble here at one of the last remaining public spaces for cruising and exploration of backroom sex. History. Our history. It fascinates me. So many of our unexpected predilections reveal something deeper about us that we don't wish to catch in our own reflection and stare down.

I exhale a cloud of smoke into the night, the blue-black lights, the throbbing primal rites, and turn to face a collection of leathermen who all look the same—same haircut, same harness, same probing eyes, and off we go.

Wipe the bar, Meat Market coaster, smile handsome for tips to pay my electric bill.

"Hey! Hey, buddy. Over here!"

"Heya. What can I get ya?"

"Can I get a drink or are you gonna spend the night counting your tips and staring at your reflection in the mirror?"

"Believe me, I don't wanna look too closely at either one. What can I get ya?"

"Yeah-huh. I should have your problems. Lite beer in a bottle."

Unapologetic fetishist. Likes to just lie there during sex. Into feet. Digs getting trampled.

"I got Bud Lite, Coors Lite, Keystone Lite, Miller Lite, Michelob Ultra, Amstel Light, Corona Light Mexican Lager, and Wachusett Light IPA."

"Which one is the cheapest?"

"Bud Lite. Three fifty."

"For a fuckin' lite beer? How much for a Coors?"

"Regular Coors is on special tonight. Three bucks in a can. Coors Lite is three fifty. The can is extra."

"Har dee har. Now you're a comedian?"

"I was just making a little joke. Three fifty. The can is on me."

"Yeah, yeah, Paula Poundstone. Coors Lite. Three fifty."

Grab the flashlight, Bud Lite from the cooler on the left.

I make his change and he slides one quarter in my direction and stomps off, girth spilling from the exposed sections of his harness and bootstraps jangling, to make someone else's life miserable. It amazes me that these same men who can't afford a lite beer somehow show up at the most extravagant shares on Fire Island every summer.

Wipe the bar, Meat Market coaster, smile handsome for tips to pay my gas bill.

"Hola, Papi! Como tu ta? Ju got shotsss?"

"Hermosa! Hola! What can I get ya?"

"Leeesssin! I neet sometheeen to make me dance like Cheeeta RRRiberrra ant fuck like RRReeecky Marrrteeen."

"Hmmm. That's pretty ambitious. I think...maybe Tequila?"

"Jayyys! The cheeep sheeet, pleeessse. I won't be rrrich until I meeet my husbant, ju know."

Always goes home with the first man at the bar who hits on him. Pretty dick. Extra grande.

"I hear ya. Coming right up."

Rocks glass with my left hand, house Tequila from the speed rack, three-count pour—one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand.

"Juan dólares, two dólares, tRRRes dólares, quatro dólares."

"This should make you shake your bon-bon, mijo."

"Thank you, Neeecky!" He poses himself at the bar all Chita Rivera from Kiss of The Spider Woman—black sequins, Diamanté brooches, and a smokey blue spotlight—to offer up a dramatic reading in the form of a toast: "Dios te salve, Maria, full of Garcia. Blessed are thy wooomb y Jesus Christo with the fine-ass clone bearttt. Am I riiight? Bleeese forgibbb us our seeensss and slap a big juan eeen my face tonight. Haaaymen."

"Amen!"

"Dunt yoke. Leeesssin, Heee is alwaysss watcheeen." And after a beat: "No hay noche como esta noche. Weeeeeeeeepaaaaaaaaa!"

And he dances off. Smokey blue spotlight fade black.

I gave up on Puerto Ricans years ago. So handsome with their latte-colored skin and those sensuous lips you just wanna chew on for days. Always hung, every single time. But, man, can they bring the drama! Always looking to marry their mother. Every single time. And always still single.

Wipe the bar, Meat Market coaster, smile handsome for tips to pay my rent which is due in a week.

"Heya. What can I get ya?"

"Hey, I'm Garrett. Nice to meet you."

"Hi Garrett. I've met you like eleven times."

Works at Macy’s, positions himself as a fashionista. Everyone knows he's only in it for the Calvin Klein underwear employee discount. Boxer briefs. The expensive kind.

"Sorry. I have to pee. Can you point me to the bathroom?"

"Wha? Huh? You're at this bar more than I am. You've been to the john like a million times—and that's just tonight. Okaaayyy. It's just beyond...wait a minute. You stood in a line of men for twenty minutes to ask me where the john is, Garrett?"

"It's like I said...I have to pee."

"You didn't think to ask someone around you for directions to the bathroom?"

"How are they supposed to know directions to the bathroom?"

"Wha? Huh? It's past the pool table and just beyond the cigarette machine. Two doors. Right is for tops. Bottoms is left. There's probably a line. After that the dark room with the red light is...well, don't pee in there. Unless you're into that."

"Okay. Well thanks, Tommy."

Tommy? Tommy who? Hilfiger? Christ, is it too soon for another smoke?

Wipe the bar, Meat Market coaster, smile handsome for tips toward a decent share on Fire Island this year.

"Heya. What can I get ya?"

"Hi. Can I get a Lite Beer?"

"I got Bud Lite, Coors Lite, Keystone Lite, Miller Lite, Michelob Ultra, Amstel Light, and Corona Light Mexican Lager, and Wachusett Light IPA."

"No Heineken Lite?"

"They don't make Heineken in a lite beer, pal."

"They make Beck's Lite. I had it at Splooge just last week!"

Particularly receptive to discourse. Likes to give directions during sex. Bossy bottom.

"I got Bud Lite, Coors Lite, Keystone Lite, Miller Lite, Michelob Ultra, Amstel Light, and Corona Light Mexican Lager, and Wachusett Light IPA."

"I'll take Grand Marnier in a rocks glass instead. Neat."

Rocks glass with my left hand, Grand Marnier from the shelf behind me, third up from the counter, without even turning my torso, three-count pour—one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand.

"Here ya go."

And he lays out a sick-green, sopping-wet twenty dollar bill, which immediately flattens itself and adheres to the bar. I don't wanna touch it. But, for just one moment, if I scrunch my eyes closed as tightly as I am able…

"Thank you very much. Keep the change."

No, thank you. For the Hepatitis B. Yuccckk! Ick! Ewww! as I peel Mr. Jackson from the countertop.

For ten years I've tended bar at The Meat Market. When I was twenty-two, I dropped out of Loyola University of Chicago and left behind a pointless career as an accountant. I ran fast and furiously away from rusted-out iron drums filled with dead leaves belching orange cinder into the soot gray skyline and damp twigs ensnared with twine.

I kissed my childhood goodbye, got on a Greyhound, and didn't know where I'd stop until I landed in New York City. Eighteen hours on a bus that sliced a path from boy to man, and I was relieved to never travel the back roads of adolescence again. I walked from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to a stale, semen-stained room at the 14th Street Y and almost thought I found God there surrounded by all the men performing unchristian-like sex acts on each other. Unfortunately, my tenure with divinity only lasted three days until I was no longer the new guy anymore and, therefore, instantly less hallowed. And I used the biggest portion of a paltry wad of cash that I shrouded in my front pocket to secure an illegal basement sublet in the West Village.

I paced Christopher Street from the West Street Pier to Sixth Avenue, connecting the dots between slice joints until I was bored with bumming cigarettes, chafed raw from sex with strangers, and nearly strapped broke. There was a short stint as a hustler, and three shifts as a tuxedoed busboy at a French bistro in Times Square, but The Meat Market intoxicated me with its easy money making opportunities, salacious neon surroundings, and blatant sexuality.

I joined the bar staff in the mid-eighties when the nightclub was enjoying its initial success. I filled out an application, citing limited service industry experience, and was behind the bar shirtless and serving up cocktails to mustached men in leather thirty minutes later. In between, there was an interview cum physical examination that I barely remember—administered by a sweaty, business owner that took place in a sick-green, windowless basement office.

"Ya on the horse?"

"Wha? Huh?"

"The horse. Are ya on the horse? The heroin."

"Wha? No!"

"Here. Lemme see your hands. In between the fingers. Ya on the take?"

"I don't unders—"

"The take. The take! Are ya gonna steal from me?"

"Wha? No."

"Of course you're gonna steal from me. You're a bartender, right? They all steal from me. They think I don't know it, but I know it. The question is how much are you gonna steal from me?"

"Look, I could really use the job."

"Any physical abnormalities?"

"Huh?"

"Here. Take your t-shirt off. Do ya got any physical deformities?" He takes uninterested, obligatory inventory of shirtless me from brow to balls.

"No."

"Scabies?"

"No."

"AIDS?"

"No!"

"I got three nights a week behind the bar. You can have 'em if you start today. If you're fast enough, and if these dumbfuck drunks like the looks of you, I'll throw you on Saturday nights, too. Don't steal from me! And keep your shirt off. Always keep your shirt off. Keeps 'em coming back for more. Dumbfuck drunks! And no horse, ya hear?"

In an effort to establish The Meat Market as the preeminent leather bar to integrate New York City's Meatpacking District, and to discourage late-night denizen dockworkers as well as unsuspecting straight people, a strict dress code was established that prohibited patrons from wearing polo shirts, cologne, and designer jeans and encouraged them to don muscle shirts, leather vests, chaps, and engineer boots. A doorman was put in place to enforce uniform standards and also intimidate local neighborhood dwellers, prostitutes, and misplaced tourists from stumbling into an ill-famed backroom sex club.

To me, the experience of landing a job at a gay bar was watershed. Working in an environment entirely staffed by homosexuals for the sole enjoyment of other homosexuals and taking part as a community unfurled, blossomed even, offered up the sensation of belonging someplace. At twenty-two, for the first time in my life, I discovered an identity, comrades, and social circumstances of which I could be proud.

Identifying yourself is a situation that presents itself seemingly by accident—a transition that occurs gradually, and a state of being that happens gracefully and with unseen eyes. If you spend a moment listening to sniggering drag queens, lusting after good-looking leathermen, and creating surroundings with your flannel-shirted brothers, the change has happened. Growth sneaks up on people right before their eyes. They deny it, try to prevent it, even swear it isn't so until it becomes them. One day you look around and think, "Okay, this is who I am now."

"I interrupted three different, almost-consummated sex acts in the john tonight. You'd think we didn't have a backroom just one door over, eh?"

I'm distracted by the doorman's hands as he speaks to me, the massive veins, the muscles that dance on his forearms when he gestures.

"You'd think we didn't have a backroom just one door over, huh, Doorman?"

"Wha? Oh, yeah. Or something like that, baby." He playfully cuffs my ear.

The doorman's hands are enormous. Lumbering lion's paws he uses to communicate with, to pull people into him and speak intimately with his thick mustache bristling against their eardrums, and to signal drunks with a gentle touch to the shoulder that, perhaps, they've consumed their share of drink.

"Caught some weirdo fishing a twenty-dollar bill outta the toilet in the stall of the john!"

"Ewww. That's so gross."

My eyes travel his tattooed sleeves to his expansive shoulders, and I can picture the two of us spiraling through the years, safeguarded in one another's embrace. I look too long. He smiles too big, fully aware. And instantly I am revealed.

"Did you notice the way that kid's eyes were eating you up over the bar earlier?"

"Wha? Huh?"

"Jeez, baby, you are out of it lately. The dark-eyed boy wearing the leather harness? He was cruising you!"

I noticed no boy. "See him? Fuhgeddaboudit. If looks were blowjobs I'd have spilled my seed all over the bar."

He turns to leave, satisfied and guffawing, but not before pretending to land a fake punch on my chin as gentle as a breeze off the Hudson and slipping in to playfully tug on my nipple ring. His smile and all over-exaggerated "Who me?" could light up fucking Times Square. I've known him for years, but it’s the last three months that have fostered a desire in me to find rest and seek shelter in his benevolent arms. More and more, there are nights when I lose myself inside our silly banter, envisioning this man pulling me close with the mass of his arms and lifting me up inside his muscle-ripped embrace to a safer place.

"So, I should probably—"

"Wha? Oh, yeah, yeah, I know, baby. Get back to work. I know, I know." He smiles his mischievous, 42nd Street marquee grin at me and winks—and I swear it's as if he's alternating between fragments of raunchy sentences in my ear and tiny kisses on my neck.

Wipe the bar, Meat Market coaster, smile handsome for tips to pay my electric bill.

"So, spill it! Spill the beans, Sis!"

"Bruiser!"

"I'll take a Screwdriver, dear. Heavy on the screw. I don't particularly care who's driving."

Highball glass with my left hand, house Vodka from the speed rack, five-count pour—one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand—I'm always counting—four one-thousand, five one-thousand, splash of stale OJ diluted with water.

"Are you gonna tell me or do I have to fuck it outta you?"

"What?"

"What she says! How much do I owe ya?"

"This one is on me, Bruiser."

"Oh, you're not getting off that easy. Spill it! What's going on with you and the doorman, Little Sister?"

"Nothing is going on. We're friends."

"Riiight." They could hear him slurp his cocktail in Yonkers.

"No, really. I've known the man for ten years. Maybe more."

"Then it's about time you saw his schmekel."

"His schmekel?"

"His peter. His putz. His pecker. His impressively large, veined phallus." Shhhlurrrppp.

"Bruiser, when you've known somebody that long—"

"Are you gonna try to tell me it would be easier to suck a perfect stranger's schlong through a glory hole than to make love with somebody you know?"

"That's not what I—"

"She prefers a plywood husband. Would you believe it? Not in it for the love. She's in it for the loads."

"That isn't what I—"

"I'm just saying." Shhhhhhlurrrrrrpppppp.

"Now I need a drink."

"You better make it a stiff one, Dominic. You look a little wobbly."

"Very funny."

"Ya get it?"

"I got it."

"Not yet ya ain't."

Bruiser has been a community personality dating back to the days just after Stonewall. In the seventies, he all but led the stampede of mustached men in plaid lumberjack shirts and tight-fitting jeans, some of them shirtless in the cool Northeastern evenings, who stood on line for an hour or more to gobble Black Beauties and boogie to live performances by The Ritchie Family and Vickie Sue Robinson. Today, he's practically an institution at any of the gay bars that dot the landscape on either side of the Village, East or West.

"You thought the Wicked Witch of the East was evil? Well, you haven't met her sister from the Westside!"

He's an attractive man with a close-cropped blond buzzcut, a thick red-blond mustache, and tiny round glasses that exploit his intellect.

Shhhhhhlurrrrrrpppppp. "I'll have another, dearie."

Highball glass with my left hand, house Vodka from the speed rack, five-count pour, splash of stale OJ diluted with water.

"Coming right up, Bruce."

"Bruiser! Now, what did I tell you? It's Bruiser. Bruiser. Never Bruce. Bruce might be somebody's husband."

Bruiser has three dime-sized Kaposi sarcoma lesions that trail his jawline, all in a perfect row, that he's named Un, Deux, and Trois, and another beside his ear that he calls Lola.

"I'd name the new girl in accordance with the others, Dominic, but you know what happened to the four cats in the boat, dontcha?"

"What's that?"

"Un Deux Trois Cat Sank!"

Oh, how he makes me laugh. Really laugh. There are nights when I'm so happy to see him. He'll sit down at my bar with his stories of New York City in the seventies and his elaborate escapades as a hair-burner or a flight attendant or a florist. I know him well enough to understand the stories are fiction, but one day somebody has gotta write it down...record all the intimate observations before they're gone and nobody remembers it right. Add to that, in my life I've never met such a raconteur. Judy Garland had Noël Coward. I've got Bruce.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was a Maître D at this really fancy-schmancy Italian joint on the Upper East Side?"

"Uh-huh, go on."

"A real majordomo I was. Well, majorette domo—if there is such a thing. Now, where was I?"

"On the Upper East Side."

"Right. So, I'm this high-powered Domo Majorette at this ultra-pretentious, ostentatious, over-priced eatery on the Upper East Side. And it's filled to the brim with overdressed Park Avenue matriarchs and their just-a-little-bit too too escorts wearing their just-a-little-bit too too expensive suits and flamboyant ties with matching pocket squares. You get the picture. All of the old ladies are pretending they can read the menu without their reading glasses, and all of the fine gentlemen are craning their necks to flirt with the just-a-little-bit too too tooty fruity fine gentleman at the table next door."

"Keep going."

Shhhhhhlurrrrrrpppppp. "I'll have another, dear."

"I'm on it."

Highball glass with my left hand, house Vodka from the speed rack, five-count pour, splash of stale OJ diluted with water.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice zipper-adjusting leathermen amassing—slapping one another on the ass, mopping their brows, and heading toward the bar as if a perfunctory scrimmage played out successfully and a field goal was landed in the backroom, and now the players need sustenance. Go team!

"Now, where was I again? Sometimes I get so confused."

"Still on the Upper East Side."

"Exactly. You are paying attention. Well now, I'm manning the podium and doing all I can to make the plebes without rezzos feel insignificant because management encourages that sort of behavior. I mean, it is New York City, after all. The customers deserve punishment. When in walks none other than Miss Meryl Streep. True story. It's Meryl alright. All dressed up in some chichi gold lamé number. She looks like a...like a...great, big, drapery. She's very tall, you know? Giant-like, ya know? And she's wearing someone's curtains!"

"I guess I never thought of her as tall."

"Oh, it's for real. She's practically a behemoth. I heard Dusty Hoffman had to stand on a box in their scenes together. Oh, but that's another story, Mrs. Kramer. And I don't want to lose my place in this story. Sooo. There's Miss Meryl taking her entrance and she's appointed exactly like Karl Lagerfeld's Gramercy Park penthouse, and I tell you, all of the old broads are primping and preening and digging through their Gucci Marmont Matelassé bags to locate their opera glasses for a little looksee. And all of the old broads' too too queer escorts are craning their necks to garner a glimpse of this great, big, drapery." Shhhhhhlurrrrrrpppppp. "Now, Dominic, be a sweetheart and make your big sister another cocktail, wontcha? Maybe a teensy-weensy triple this time? That way you won't have to keep interrupting my stories, Dreamboat."

"I gotcha covered, Bruiser."

Highball glass with my left hand, house Vodka from the speed rack, five-count pour, splash of stale OJ diluted with water.

By this time, the thirsty leathermen have completely filed out of the backroom and formed a line for drinks. And it's aimed directly at me. But what kind of a friend would I be if I didn't at least let Bruiser have his punch line?

"Thank you, Little Sister. Ummm…preening matriarchs, craning queers—oh, that's right! Now Miss Meryl turns to me, stares at my forehead, and she announces she'll be needing a table for five. And didn't her assistant call earlier to request something quiet and out of the way? And could I please be an angel and make it someplace inconspicuous where she's not going to cause any commotion? Huh? As if the entirety of the Upper East Side didn't notice the seven-foot-tall Goliath lady departing her oversized limousine and schlepping down Park Avenue dressed in Karl Lagerfeld's Gramercy Park penthouse! Well, I'll tell you what. I informed Miss Meryl that at the moment we haven't any tables available even if she did star in She-Devil with Roseanne Barr—"

Leathermen are anxious for their refreshments before the next darkroom scrimmage kicks off and I'm ignoring them. I mean, it is New York City, after all. The customers deserve punishment. Even so, I can feel their impatient eyes.

"—and she looks down that nose of hers, all the while staring directly at my forehead. You do know she's had her nose done at least a half a dozen times. True story. And that was just during Silkwood. Every new character, she gets a new nose."

Parched leathermen are shifting their weight, bootstraps jangling, hands on their hips, drumming their fingers on the bar and preparing to eat me alive. But, for just one moment, if I scrunch my eyes closed as tightly as I am able…

Shhhhhhlurrrrrrpppppp. "Now, Miss Meryl Streep looks down that disjointed nose of hers that Doctor Josef Mengele mangled himself especially for her star turn in Sophie’s Choice—because somebody in that flick had to look handsomer than Kevin Kline. She looks directly at my forehead and asks me if I know who she might be? And I stand on my tiptoes, and I say to her—I say to her...if you don't know who you are, Madam, how do you expect me to know who you are? But, in the spirit of good hospitality, I'll have a go at your little game. I'm happy to give it a guess. Now, let me see...hmmm? How about Goldie Hawn? No, that's not right—too tall. Kate Hepburn. No, that can't be right—too dead. Aha! I've got it. Susan Lucci! That's the ticket. You're Susan Lucci!"

"Very clever, Bruiser."

"But I haven't finished my story yet!"

"I'll be right back."

Wipe the bar, Meat Market coaster, smile handsome for tips to pay my gas bill.

"Heya. What can I get ya?"

"Brandy and Coke."

"So, that's gonna be four bucks even-steven, please."

Clean-cut. Dapper even. Crazy as fuck kinky in the sack. I'd bet tonight's tips he was at the bottom of the backroom scrimmage pile.

Highball glass with my left hand, house brandy from the speed rack, cola from the soda gun, three-count pour—one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand.

"Can you break a fifty?"

"This ain't Côte Basque, pal, but I'll see what we can do."

Change delivered from a crisp, fifty-dollar bill. Even his money is clean-cut. He's the first wrinkle-free, wide-receiver I've ever met.

"Thank you, Mister."

"You are quite welcome. Enjoy the night."

Wipe the bar, Meat Market coaster, smile handsome for tips to pay my rent which is due in a week.

"Heya. What can I get ya?"

"That backroom smells like some old queen exploded her fuckin' Depends in there."

"I'll mention it to someone."

"S'nasty. Stale chocolate mousse and lilac water everywhere. Stinks like the inside of my grandmother's pocketbook."

"Sorry. What'll it be?"

"Dewar's. Neat."

Masculine for masculine. Only dates men who are a carbon copy—same haircut, same harness, same probing eyes.

Rocks glass with my left hand, Dewar's from the shelf behind me, second up from the counter, without even turning my torso, three-count pour—one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand.

"Five, please."

"Shit, man. All I have is a five-dollar bill in my wallet. Can I hit you up with a gratuity next time?"

"Sure thing."

"There's also three Ken Dolls butt-fucking in the toilet. Just so ya know."

"Yup. Thanks for the tip, pal."

I watch as the doorman escorts three glassy-eyed, button-fly securing muscle clones from the bathroom. If I were to guess, somebody's ecstasy kicked in and opportunity knocked on the tiny, sick-green stall door. The doorman sets the muscle boys free with a gentle, chiding finger to find their place in the crowd. He turns toward me with a confident, toothy grin that lights up the room as he curls a bicep and mouths the words, "Hi Baby." Then he pretends to be overtaken by a whiff of his own armpit and pantomimes faltering on his feet and fainting and laughs and laughs and laughs and never once loses hold of my eyes. Whew! When did it get so warm in here anyway?

Wipe the bar, Meat Market coaster, smile handsome for tips toward a decent share on Fire Island this year.

"Heya. What can I get ya?"

"Lite beer. Cans only."

"I got Bud Lite, Coors Lite, Miller Lite and Wachusett Light IPA."

"Whattchasaid? I pee ale?"

"Wha? Huh?"

"Never mind. Dumb joke. I'll have a Wachusett, please."

Has gym memberships at Chelsea Gym, Nautilus, East Bank Club, West Side Club, and Gold's. You'd never guess it to look at him.

"Three fifty, Robin Williams."

"Ha! The Mork from Ork. Here's a ten. Keep the change, Handsome."

"Thank you. Thank you very much."

"Nanoo Nanoo."

I break for a smoke and this time I catch myself in the enormous gilt mirror behind the shelves of booze. Despite the circles of sleeplessness beneath my eyes, I am a handsome man. Masculine facial features with a smile that forms gratuitously. Even underneath the sick-green, bar lighting I am easy to look at with a close-cropped, blue-black buzzcut and a space between my two front teeth big enough to pass a dime. My arms and chest are well-developed. That's ten years' worth of lugging cases of liquor to stock the bar upstairs from the sick-green, windowless basement office. My pecs and tummy are covered by clipped black hair accented with one shiny, steel horseshoe-shaped piercing in my nipple.

For a long moment, I search my hesitant, brown eyes and follow the lines of my thick mustache that extends well beyond the corners of my mouth and trails past smile lines to touch my chin, until I'm looking directly into my tangible future. This is the path my thoughts follow lately. Ideas clumsily progress, stumbling forward, falling back upon themselves, and here and there the ability to consider in a calm, well-grounded manner is precluded by the overwhelming perception that some disastrous nightmare is about to consume my life.

All alone—that's who I am. Left out in the cold. Everything is shrouded in an enveloping darkness, and if I stand as tall as I'm able on tiptoes, light slashes like a razor blade across my outstretched fingertips.One day you look around and think, "Okay, this is who I am now."