it sneaks up. But would we ever meet it otherwise? Would we ever walk into that moment unguarded yet aware of its full meaning and still let it knock us flat on our ass—or even into another existence?
Boston, you're my town. I don't live there, but it always seems to be the place I happen to be when I catch myself living. I haven't written in five days, and I spent four of them in that city on the banks of the river Charles, with friends who would expect you to consider them kind, for indeed they are, but never would they claim to be such themselves; they are New Englanders.
Friday night I met my friend John at Chaps. We drank and danced, and danced. Chaps is a gay bar attempting to remake itself in the image of youth. Its former location marked the end of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston, but that building was torn down, and Chaps moved to its present site. It has always been a place to dance, but now it has chosen cold steel, stabbing lights and an obnoxious level of bass-throb to dominate all, even the small space of its piano-bar where gin-blossomed old queens once held small sway. The queens and the piano are gone, now in their place are pseudo-confident young men with pseudo-cool attitudes; the naked desperation of the elder alcoholics has been replaced by a brazenly conceited class of superficial adolescent isolationists. The business sense escapes me. If the state church of the gay nation is youth worship, then I guess the business doesn't need to make sense. When John and I left at midnight the place had still not found its stride. It looked like the A-house in March.
But, enough of that. We eventually went to the 119, a much less polished place with a very worn and comfortable feel, and a loyal core of regular patrons, not to mention its reputation as an easy pick-up joint. My Dulcinea frequents the 119. His name is Brian, he wears shredded jeans which are tight on him despite the many strain-relief openings in the fabric, and though John said, "Oooh, he's cute," when I pointed Brian out to him, I don't believe Brian would win any beauty contests. However, he does have an irresistible charm and a boyish hyperactive energy that is very interesting to me. He is in his thirties and though I did not know him before last year, he cannot be flying nearly as high as he was, say, in his twenties. He's in that transition time which many of us do not make it through successfully, when we must drop our misleading persuit of love and look inward. Then, if we are lucky we might see, somewhere on the other side—through the unfamiliar lens of our rediscovered heart—the love we need and want.
My Brian/Dulcinea does not have me—or anyone—in those sights, nor do I have the faith of Don Quixote. And though I considered it Friday night, I know I will never sing a pleading ballad for Brian's heart. It's a sad loss of a thing that, in my imagination at least, could have been so sweet, made now sweetly bitter by my choice to simply let it go. He and I had our chance once before and my choice now is for the best; I'll take bittersweet over bile any day.
john had told me earlier this week that, unbelievably, Glad Day Bookstore was closing. For me it has always been one of the most significant badges marking Boston as a cosmopolis, and it is gone. The proprietor is going to Saskatchewan, which he pronounced (correctly, I'm sure) Sas-ka-CHOON, and which he described as very diverse and culturally welcoming. I did perhaps detect an edge of resentment towards, I imagine, the circumstances of Glad Day's demise. This is the crotch of Puritanism, and he did not have an easy row to hoe here, which is why I loved Boston all the more for hosting a gay and lesbian bookstore of the calibre of Glad Day. But the New City is now old, and under the tutelage of Mayor Thomas Menino a new philosophy of gay political correctness has emerged: Close the baths, brutally discourage cruising, and do nothing to promote any version of queerness outside of the white bread (or poppyseed muffin, perhaps), cappucino-swilling, dream-demographic, hyper-respectable gay conformist. With all the bank mergers, utility mergers, and merger mergers, I wouldn't be surprised if Tommy was already far along in merger discussions with Guliani. But Rudy probably wants us to turn the Boston Public Library over to Kinko's, along with the Museum of Fine Art.
I'm sorry, but there's been just too many losses in my city of light, the gold-domed capitol of the Commonwealth, the seat of the (once) Great and General Court. And I am at a point along the projected timeline of my abbreviated life when the echo of each and every loss is intimate and ominous.
the loss of a fire fighter brings up all other losses." I was innocent. On my way back to Worcester, I walked with John to his 11:00 AM job interview appointment. I was just heading back to the subway station at Boylston Street—it was swelteringly hot and humid—and I saw a little park. I paused there, not so much for the heat as for my reluctance to leave. There was a plaque mounted on the gate, meant to be read, so innocently, I read it. I was stunned by the moment, one of those when I catch myself alive. Despite the importance of that place in my life, and how the event which happened 28 years and ten days ago on that spot had impacted me, I had never been there.
In 1972, on Saturday June 17, at about 5:30 PM, while mopping-up from a four alarm fire at the Hotel Vendome, nine fire fighters were killed when the southwest wall of the building collapsed on them. That event, and its timing when I was at the age for making such decisions, was more than anything else the reason I became a fire fighter. Two days ago I had no idea what I was about to walk into when I walked up to the gate to the Vendome Fire Fighters Memorial. It closed a very big circle in my life, and I stood there, grateful for my sunglasses, for a very, very long time at noon on Monday, June 26, 2000. The quote is engraved on the memorial, along with the names of nine fire fighters.
For all its sham and drudgery, the world [including Boston], is still a beautiful place. Do good. Strive to be happy.
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