Home-free

I’m moving tomorrow, and nothing else has made me this happy in a very long time. Seriously, I’m levitating. Let me talk about it just a little more, okay?

The passive-aggressive roommate was showing my room last night to three different people, so I tried to make myself scarce doing laundry and chatting on the cell in the backyard. I figured it best not to meet any of the prospectives, should they ask me why I’m leaving. However, the couple cornered me as I folded whites. “He’s going to charge $50/month more than you paid. He has it posted on Craig’s List and we keep asking him for a copy but he won’t give us one.”

“Really?” I asked.

“And he told us that as long as he likes the applicant, it doesn’t matter if we do or not.”

Oh, I’m floating. Really, I am.

Home is so primal to me. Having a new place has opened a little door in my head, one that was locked and nailed shut over the past year and three months. Behind the door were all the various insults and degradations that I simply tucked away out of survival. With the door open again, they’re slipping out, running and screaming through my cerebral living room. They’re trashing the place. But then they pass a window and are stuck dumb at the vision, the simple idea of the new apartment. They’re speechless. In 24 hours the truck will be packed.

I fed two more garbage bags full of clothes to the streets of the Mission again last night. This morning a single pair of baggy Nike shorts lay on the sidewalk. What can I say, I never liked them, either.

San Francisco 94114

Why is it that all of my friends have prior commitments on my moving day? I think they missed that memo regarding my recent promotion to the center of the universe. I was told there’d be growing pains.

Filled out my change-of-address form today. Did I tell you my new address is going to be “something something Museum Way”? How hot is that? Nevermind that it’s a little natural science museum stuck in the 70′s at the end of my block. It does have a spectacular view of the city from its parking lot, where Bearbait and I did my fifth step on a drizzly morning over a year and a half ago, with the windows fogging up. No, not that kind of step, you perv.

///

One of the Mission’s enduring qualities is its seeming boundless capacity to absorb everyone’s hand-me-downs. I left two garbage bags full of clothes I never wear out on the sidewalk last night, even some good stuff, and within an hour they were both gone. Someone got lucky last night. I could have sold them to one of the dozens of thrift stores in town, but I have a rather stubborn belief in karma, and I secretly hope to see someone pushing a shopping cart wearing a Ralph Lauren flannel shirt in the next few days.

///

On Sunday, One Half of the Studly Couple (the Younger Half, how’s that?) and I ventured to the Lone Star to bond and check out guys. Though I often wear a baseball cap from the Lone Star, I hadn’t stepped foot into a bar since I got sober on October 3, 2000. Actually, long before then, too, because towards the end I almost always drank at home (cue violin). Slipping through the black leather curtains that blocked out the afternoon sun, we navigated past the card table where the beer bust tickets were being sold and bought some non-alcoholic drinks at the bar. It smelled of must and old beer inside, so we slid past the husky, hairy men sitting on the pool table eating peanuts out of a giant barrel, and went out onto the bright patio in back. I forgot how alcohol made going to bars easier, how it eased away the preoccupation I have with where to put my hands, how to stand, how to look friendly but not desperate. So we leaned against a wall in the sun, pressed up tight by the growing crowd, talking and laughing and looking for hotties (for me, not him). I only saw a couple here and there, one of them being a guy I’ve seen in and out of the rooms of AA, carrying a beer in his hand. Honestly, I’m not the sober police. I’m just sayin’. After an hour or so we left, heading back to his house where the Other Half was grilling chicken for us. “It wasn’t as much fun as I remembered,” the Younger Half said. I had to agree.

///

I came across this today. The intersection is a couple of blocks from my present apartment, a corner I pass every morning on my walk to work. In fact, she was in there when I walked by Monday morning. It made me think of this.

I’ll be your sidekick, your “youthful ward”.

Five days till the move, and I’m already packed. So I’ve settled in with some take-out pad thai from the little hole in the wall down the street, having just finished, regretfully, this book. Since his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, I’ve followed Chabon, rolling through the chaotic, heartbreaking journey of The Wonder Boys, and now his Pulitzer prize-winner. Throughout the past few weeks I’ve passed several people with this book in their hands, on the bus, on the street, in the backseat of a car. Each time it’s brought a little smile to my face, knowing there are others half-submerged in his world. I won’t describe it; I’m sure others have done that better than I could, but I’ll buy you a copy if you ask. Sorry, you can’t have mine.

I haven’t spoken much of my other two roommates, the couple, mainly because the three of us have reached a fairly companionable co-existence in the house. Their puppy had months ago driven me nuts with its separation anxiety, but then one of them went on disability for Huntington’s Disease and so is always at home; not the best solution to the problem, but one that’s kept the peace.

Tonight I ran into one of them while sorting through some boxes in the garage, and he asked where I was moving to, and I told him. “We’re really sorry you’re leaving,” he said, “really sorry.”

“Really?” I asked. For some reason I found it hard to believe they’d miss me.

“Yeah, really,” he said. We kind of smiled at each other. “How much do you pay for rent, anyway?” he asked. I told him, and he shook his head, adding our combined rent and subtracting it from the total. I did the math too, twice, because the sum wasn’t what I had always believed it to be. “He’s a putz”, my roommate said, and we left it at that.

Getting out

A bus passed me as I walked home today carrying empty boxes for my upcoming move. An ad on its side declared; “One out of ten Asians has chronic hepatitus B”, and underneath someone had scrawled “And ten white guys are always bitching about nothing.”

///

Attended the Living Sober conference this weekend; a gay AA and Al-Anon convention of sorts, in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium downtown. My second time at the rodeo. On Friday night one of the main speakers, a funny Latino boy from L.A., was talking about his childhood, and the lack of real life skills his parents had given him. He recounted a conversation he had with someone when he first got sober. He was bitching and moaning about how his parents taught him nothing when his friend stopped him by saying, “Look, Carlos, they never taught you how to suck dick either, and you know how to do that pretty good, right?”

///

Yesterday evening Bearbait and I arrived early at the convention to save some good seats for the final meeting in the main auditorium. We slipped through the doors into the vast dark space and out of the shadows ahead I saw a figure approaching, a familiar swagger of sorts that sent a jolt through me, a warmth that spread outward from my belly as Ski emerged from the darkness, smiling, saying, “Heeeyyy” in his deep Jersey voice. When we embraced I could once again feel the entire length of his body against mine, holding him to me for as long he’d allow.

I bought him a Coke from the convention vendor and watched as men walked by and stared at him, feeling that uneasy envy and possessiveness kick within me. We went outside and leaned against the stone building and tried to catch up as people began arriving for the final send-off. Constant minor interruptions, boys to greet, each of us pulled in other directions. It wasn’t the time, one half of the Studly Couple reminded me gently, to resolve the situation; a resolution I both crave and dread. I need to get over it.

///

After the big final meeting a young woman lugs crates of vinyl records into the auditorium and they clear a large space in the center, near the stage. A sober dance; something that I’ve always found…lacking. I’ve stayed out of the clubs for nearly two years, kept still my feet that love nothing more than to get lost in the beats from towering speakers. But I stay for a bit, drag the Studly Couple out on the floor and, as the familiar grooves shake me about, I kick it out and relax and smile at the people around me, dancing for nothing but the sheer love of good music. Around me in the dark figures jump and spin and sway from one foot to another. My friends drift away but it’s been too long for me, I stay put, my feet finding their way again, my bright new Adidas gliding in the intricate patterns I’ve settled into over the years. I sweat, my jeans stretch out and fall lower on my waist. A boy passes me on his way off the floor, shakes his head at me and smiles ,” You’re a great dancer”, he says, almost incredulously. I’m a white boy from the Midwest, a child of two uncoordinated farm kids, and I don’t know why, but I can dance.

///

I ask Bearbait for a ride home, dumbly missing the fact that he was in the process of leaving with someone he had just met. “All right,” he says, “but I’m dropping you off first.” The three of us step out into the cool night, my wet, warm clothes hanging limply from my body. I happen to look back and see this very adorable dark-skinned boy with a shaved head watching us walk off. I know his name but little else, and in a moment of tired contentment and courage, I smile at him and he smiles back. It lasts a couple of seconds, long enough to count for something.

///

I turn the key in the door quietly at home; it’s one in the morning. The house is dark and silent. I slip into my room, thinking “this is the last Saturday night I’ll spend here”, but something is wrong. Before I switch on the light I know my roommate’s cat, the one who spends all of his time in my room, has pissed somewhere in my room. I turn on the lamp and the fucking cat has pissed all over my bed; the dark circle is a foot in diameter, and the urine has soaked all the way through to the surface of my mattress, through my sheets and the new $200 down comforter I just bought. I am so exhausted, and I cannot seem to escape fast enough.

///

This morning the roommate left his dogs in his tiny room for a few hours and I woke to the sound of one of them alternately barking and chewing her way through the wood door.

///

I take my last Sunday walk from the house to the gym, determined to get back into my routine. As I close my locker and head for the weight room, Mr. Adorable, he of the smile and the shaved head, is walking in. We both startle a bit and smile again. I introduce myself and we chat inanely about the conference, grinning in that goofy mutual you’re kinda cute way. I’m feeling rather conspicuous standing with him in the heavily heterosexual locker room, and I chicken out before getting his number. I tell myself I’ll see him again. It’s a small town.

Everyone loves a parade

The Tattooed Monk lives in a building in the heart of the Castro, where Market and Noe and 16th Sts all intersect, across from Gold’s Gym and the Metro bar, where at this moment drunken post-parade revelers have crowded out onto the balcony and are singling out cute boys walking below on the sidewalk, yelling in unison; “YELLOW SHIRT! YELLOW SHIRT! YELLOW SHIRT!”

///

I fell asleep pretty quick last night, especially considering that his bedroom looks out onto 16th St and the Pink Saturday block party was in full swing. At around 2 am I woke to a voice teetering on the verge of rage below the window saying, “I didn’t kiss him the way YOU did, Kevin! I didn’t kiss him the way YOU did! LOOK AT ME! I DIDN’T KISS HIM THE WAY YOU DID!” The voice passed by and I fell back asleep.

///

I woke late, rinsed off, threw on some clothes and drove quickly to work, where we loaded up a van with people and dogs and drove downtown where the parade contingents were gathering in the bright morning sun. Drag queens adjusting each other’s fake jewelry, boys in sequined thongs practicing synchronized dance moves, flatbed trucks draped with rainbow crepe and peacock feathers. Two men twirling batons in the shade under the overpass, throwing them high in the air, the MCC choir warming up nearby. Human Rights Campaign Fund guys pulling identical t-shirts over their conservatively gym-toned bodies, rival radio stations kicking out thumping beats from the back of monster pick-up trucks. A flock of dykes and pit-bulls gathering under a sign that reads “Bad Rap.” We are leashed to a variety of panting dogs; a deaf dalmation, a chow named Zeus, a lab named Thelma, an assortment of mutts and four six-week old Rottweiler pups that we divvy up and carry in our arms for an unprecedented people socialization opportunity. We feed them ice-cubes as the hours pass. We are contingent #55, and it seems forever before the floats ahead begin to move. As we round the first corner onto Market St in the heart of downtown the crowd is ten deep on the sidewalks and they’re cheering and waving and capturing a thousand moments on a thousand different cameras. I carry one of the pups in my arms and walk near the crowd, and for the entire length of the parade there is a wave of “AWWWWWWWW!!!”s as the people ahead catch sight of her. I wave one of her little paws at them and they wave back. I know exactly what I am doing.

///

Later I am exhausted. I drive alone back to the Castro and lie on the couch in the Tattooed Monk’s dark living room. For a weekend dedicated to pride, it certainly fucks with our heads. Another year has passed and I again resolve to do more next time; I will be happier and better-looking; I will have a beautiful body and a beautiful tan and beautiful new tattoos and I will dance to the music I love in the crowded sweaty streets. I will have more, more of everything that seems to matter the most on weekends such as this.

Instead I say a little prayer of gratitude for all the shame and disgust and secrets endured by those who came before me; the silence and the erasable lives, all the ones who died and are dying in all the beautiful cities, the girl trapped in the wrong body, the boy tied to a fence in the dark Wyoming night. I still love my parade, my people, my motley group of queens and dykes, my bears and bikers, my gliding dreams of rainbow crepe and peacock feathers.