Riddle Me #2-How Much Can a Free Token Cost You?

Alone for two weeks, you’re wanting to find gay bars when the hands point to happy hour.  The hotel lounge has some lovers on a short couch tucked in the corner, and you think about how nice it would be if the guy would get a round of drinks or just get lost so that you could slip into his cozy position.  To your surprise, she gets up, walks toward the bar, staring at you while you’re staring at her.  You hold your firm position in anticipation.

“I can’t believe this is soooo going to happen.”

She stops in front of you and smiles. Then, she smirks. 

“It will never work,” your mind and hers seem to meld at this same breaking-off point.

To top off the insult, she gives you a once over, stopping at your shoes that scream and remind her shoes of comfort and make them jealous.  She cocks her head back and disappears around the corner.  You raise your glass to the chump who’s in your cozy position, saluting him with as much respect as you can muster before you slap a ten on the bar for the overpriced lounge liquor.  “I’ve got to find the lesbians and long necks.”

Following your GPS tool, you are downtown and the skyscrapers are blocking the afternoon sun.  It’s tough to see the signs so you decide to get out and walk.  Luckily, you’re wearing comfortable shoes.

“Good thing I didn’t bring her along,” you think of the sassy sexy in high heels.

You stop at the convenience store to get BBQ flavored Fritos and a Dr. Pepper because you want to mix it up with salty and sweet before you throw yourself into the mosh pit of women that are waiting for your loving.  Of course, you toss in five bucks for quick picks because you’re hoping to wake up with double-the-luck by morning, sweep new girl off her feet with a spontaneous flight to the south of France, and then make your way to Monte Carlo where you’ll quadruple your luck at the craps table.

You arrive at what looks like the bar, but it has changed names.  Charlie’s shows in some places but Charlene’s hangs on a crisp new banner above the door.  You look about and count the number of rainbow stickers, “1, 2, 3, 4, and ½.”  Somehow someone tore off more than a third of one of the mandatory 5 rainbows that must be posted on the window of every urban inner-city gay bar.  You step from the musty light that has escaped the looming towers and into the dark cave of a place that has five decades of cigarette resin on the walls.  The six foot five bar tender—Charlene—offers a friendly greeting and a light beer because she knows that will get you started while you look around and figure out what you really want.  Also, she slides a token across the bar and says, “Why don’t you pick a song.” She gestures toward the juke box. 

Your eyes are adjusting to the deeper part of the cave where five entities of unknown origin or gender are watching you approach.  You can feel their eyes—but you can’t use your own—and feel like an unrehearsed stripper on the other side of a one-way mirror.  You want to hide behind the juke box but these new ones are streamlined and mounted to the wall because they don’t need the space for real records like the cool ones your dad hid behind when he courted your mom with cheesy pick up lines.  To add to the juke box betrayal, it beams the only light in the room, and it’s blinding your eyes that have almost adjusted to the dark.

“Hey—play some Straight,” one of them hollers out.

“Oh, it’s lesbians,” you think and are grateful that they weren’t gargoyles, or bats, or aliens with wings that might swoop down and carry you away.  You turn toward the voice that bellows from the dark but can’t communicate in any way other than a “huh?” unless you choose to move toward the unknown chasm.

“I like ‘Ocean Front Property.’”

“Ok,” you mumble.

You push Charlene’s token in the slot and assume that you can or should join the veteran viewers.  Still, you can’t see them because your eyes have readjusted to the beam of the juke box.

“Wanna go to the beach?” a different voice offers from the middle of the booth. 

She has short blonde hair that looks like the boys who threw newspapers during the Depression.  Two of the women get up.  The first one is the thickest and seems to be the blonde’s bouncer who has been released of the duties of collecting cover charge for a non-existent band.  You assume they are standing to let you sit next to this woman who’s picked you out of the non-existent crowd.  But, they are getting up to leave and the blonde one is scooting across the knife-ripped plastic seat covering.

Now, your eyes are adjusting and you can see that the blonde has small shoulders but wide hips.  The idea of a bowling pin comes to mind, but you like bowling because it reminds you of your uncle who wrote letters to you from prison and taught you how to hustle for money with a fast and hard hook shot.

“He was nice,” you say to yourself while you reach for the blonde lady’s hand who has offered to lead you out of the darkness.

There’s just the three of them and you.  The first two drove up in an 80s Bronco.  By default, they have commandeered the front seat.  You climb into the backseat behind the woman who has wavy brown hair like your aunt who always slept in big plastic curlers until your uncle went to prison.  (Now, she owns a curling iron but only does her hair on Saturday nights when she’s headed to the VFW.)  You’ve already noticed that she has tiny hips that support the forty pounds around her belly.  You wondered if all the lesbians in this town are unnaturally proportioned but your mind starts to make everything fit.  The blonde’s bowling pin build fits the brunette’s belly like complimentary pieces of a torn apart valentine heart.

The co-pilot pushes a cassette and Garth Brooks is in the middle of belting out if tomorrow never comes.

“No,” you hear the driver answer a question that you forgot you asked. “They were together before we were.” 

You put together the pieces and realize that everyone in this car has dated the other and this makes you think of cousins who shouldn’t procreate, but that can’t really matter, not really, with lesbians. The blonde throws her arm around your shoulder and pulls you in close.  She whispers something that you can’t understand in a language that sounds like French and Australian and you nod in a way that says, “No.”  She pulls four beers from the cooler in the back and the co-pilot reaches for two of them.

“It gets dark early,” you offer something to say because you want to contribute to the social dynamics.  And, you’re away from the city under the open sky.  The scenery has changed, and you’re far from anything that has ever looked familiar.   Everything suddenly looks flat and deserted.  You wonder if you should say something else, or stop talking, or if they like the ‘80s stereo to blast while they drive to somewhere you don’t know.  You think of that movie you watched with your cousins, Lost Boys, and decide that you’re never watching anymore vampire movies ever again. 

You sink back in your new surroundings and are grateful for new friends.   There’s a cooler in the back, so you help yourself to a second cold beer that will go down slower than the first.

“I wonder what else we’ll do while I’m in town.  Maybe they’ll take me to other gay bars?” 

You remember there was only the one in Google and hope you’ve met the girls who play poker during the week or have bonfires on the weekends.  You try to remember what they were wearing and wonder if you brought the right clothes. 

By the time you make it to the beach and the Bronco rolls up to the public bathrooms, you have a couple of ideas about how to move to this city, buy a house with a short commute, and make a life with the nice blonde who might be a good bowler with some lessons in fast hook shots.  When the brunette with tiny hips gets out to smoke, you smile and she nods.  The phone slid out of your pocket but that's ok because you don't want to drop it in the toilet like you did in St. Louis or the sink like you did in Dallas.

The three of you are like blind mice, falling into the stalls because everyone is toting at least two beers in the lower extremities.  You wash your hands and check your look, wishing you had a baseball cap like the driver—though yours would be pink or some pastel with a flower embroidery and not have diesel oil on the lip.  “I wonder if they have wood for a bonfire,” you wonder while you’re moving past the concrete walls that have four decades of paint peeling from under the current coat.  You take a breath of beach air, but it seems to suffocate you with sand remnants.

You hear a horn and walk toward it, but two teens are waving to a guy behind you.  You hear another horn to the right, but there’s a creepy man slouched in his seat.  It’s dark and you’ve lost your bearings.  You walk passed the first row of cars, tracing your steps. You walk passed the second row of cars and face the open landscape that buffers the public area from the beach.  You:

1. Think about how lucky you are to have found the beach on the first night
2. Roll the dice with the creepy guy and ask for a ride back to town
3. Look down at your comfortable shoes and calculate the miles back
4. Are grateful that Trick-or-Treat only comes once a year— Happy Halloween!