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Night Before the Gay Parade
I did not expect a call from Mario about the upcoming birthday of Manuel. Mario's calls to me nowadays come in spurts, very casual and quick. They sound obligatory and intended, perhaps, to make sure I don't disappear from everybody's radar. I am pretty much back to hibernation, no more blogging or sharing of photos and emails with the internet. It's quite liberating. I cancelled all my blog entries that, looking back now, did not harness my story telling and writing skills but only filled my attention-seeking ego. No amount of attention can make someone like me happy. I don't know what could make anybody happy. Everyday, every human is seeking happiness. I used to be a very private person. What triggered my life's open blog for everybody to read was perhaps that desire to show-off. See me, I run. See me, I am cool and hip. See me, I work-out. See me, I work like crazy. See me, I am defying getting old. That sort of show-off. One day I realized that being cool and hip and sporty and workaholic is not true life. Being true to myself is. I have been open about my gayness but I have suppressed it in my writing because I felt that to be accepted in the mainstream, one has to write stories about ordinary straight people. Yeah sure. That did not work for me. Once my name wrote gay stories, that name was automatically equated with gay experience. Of course many have ignored me, they would not have anything to do with what I write. Many have patronized me up to a certain point. Knowing how conservative and religious some Filipinos are, a writing like mine does not merit anything to them. Who want to hear love stories between two men except a few? Who want to study the gay life and struggle? Not many. I was eventually relegated to the sidelines but, really, that too is okay now. I'd rather write an unpopular, undigestible, detested gay story that is from my heart than something popular and cool and hip that I have no heart into. Terminating the blog and the show-off gives me more time to work on things I really like. Writing this gay experience is one of them. Finding more time to go out and explore my world is another. Reading a beautiful book is another. So last Saturday, Mario, Manuel and I met in Fort Lauderdale to eat dinner in a Thai restaurant followed by visits to bars. It's been a long long while since we've done this together. Saddening too because Manuel is diagnosed with HIV and Mario is suffering from back stenosis and shoulder rotator cuff problems now. It is funny that I, who in our past was the one who refused to drive at nights and was the most hypochondriac of us is now the designated driver and have the least medical issues (though I know it's only a matter of time before I start complaining of some ailment too). But to be able to sit with them was priceless: we talked about our current lives, both of them are now partnered, I remain single. Mario is co-managing a business with his partner. Manuel is highly involved with his debilitated partner. Both of them seem to have acquired this calm demeanor, we all finally turned older, and are more settled. We walked and sat inside different bars. They drank, I didn't ( I usually don't). There were many moments we sat without a single word being exchanged among us. I would not know what was going on in their minds, as for me, I found myself lost in my surroundings, especially in Wilton Manor, Fort Lauderdale, the night before the Gay Pride Parade. We were all caught by surprise, none of us knew it was the Pride night. I often joke that gay's pride night is our counterpart to straight's country fair. Wilton Manor was full of gays and lesbians. Cars were spilling out of parking lots it looked intimidating. Without my companions egging me on, I could have just made a U turn and went straight home. It was one thing to drive at night when you're not used to driving at nights and another if you have to circle an entire city just to find a parking space. In the dark. It was always tough for me to go through that. But you can't tell what gay friends can pull sometimes. Manuel's partner has a friend whose friend is out on vacation so we could borrow his parking spot for the night. So there, with one phone call we were able to park. I regretted having not brought with me my digital camera but then, I just could not randomly take photos of everybody out of their privacy. Privacy is a big thing in US and there are no more private persons in the world than gays. Especially the closeted ones. There were many Kodak moments here, quite a sharp departure from the views I see in my daily life. Men everywhere. Men in leather. Men shirtless. Men in thongs. Men in denims holed to show the butt cheeks. Men in love. Men kissing. Men just walking along. Men arguing like men. Men squealing like little girls. After we emerged out of my car, we sashayed quite freely in a crowd of sashaying men. I'm exaggerating of course but there is a welcoming liberty in gay pride nights. Not the kind of gay liberty you'll embrace in New Orleans or Las Vegas or New York or San Francisco but in this quaint sort of 'renovated' city of Wilton Manor, the atmosphere is subdued but it is alive. The gay crowd is alive. More than once I expressed a gleeful surprise over a city that used to be ramshackle, being swallowed by dust and oblivion. "This city corner has changed", I said. I worked in a Wilton Manor SNF for two years in the early 90's. In those two years a gay co-worker offered me nearly abandoned homes for bargain prices. I did not even listen to him. Like a high class princess, I told him to just snap out of it and stop pestering me about these dilapidated homes.They appeared more like beehives abandoned to the tastes of termites. "Just look", I argued, "are you blind to broken fences and broken windows and boarded walls and dry brown lawns and trash scattered in front of every house in here? This is a white trash and gutter paradise. You'd a buy a hundred dollar worth of house today and tomorrow you'd be in a morgue being groomed for a funeral parlor. Honey, this place is for criminals, it stinks, and it's not for the likes of us." Guess who is laughing on his way to the bank nowadays. This gay co-worker bought four houses for virtually nothing and now, after careful renovation and beautification, are worth more than a million each. The gay invasion happened soon after my friend offered the bargain houses. With gay invasion, the neighborhood turned into an eden and gardens sprang up and lawns got manicured. Every house got renovated to a classy taste and suddenly people felt owning mansions. Prices of homes jumped up like crazy.I did not hear anything from him again. Talk about reversal of fortunes! We walked, Manuel, Mario and me and occasionally we uttered a joke here and there but mostly we were muted by the never ending surprises that greeted us on the road. Beautiful men, couples, sometimes crowds, walked like strolling cotton candies in a park. Everybody looked delicious. Some without shirts bared beautiful bodies that I couldn't possibly imagine. Young and old men, masculine and feminine, straight-looking and drag-acting, passed us with some salutations and some were just so absorbed with what they were watching or talking about. I savored the view. I was just too happy for this special moment. This moment would probably end as one of the rarest times we'd share together, the three of us, because at our age, and all of us are over forty now, it would be a miracle to get together as many times as we wish. I myself could no longer keep my body moving after an eight hour work day. I am just plain exhausted nowadays. Mario had to sit and lean every now and then because of his back. Manuel though fully on remission still sees his HIV as a Democles' sword hanging above his neck. But tonight, we were here, trying to move in the throng of our comrades in this lifestyle we can not consider mainstream, hoping it could last forever. We watched the party display beauty, talents in singing and dancing, weird outfits and hairstyles, parts of anatomy that should never be displayed and a lot of food and drinks for sale. We entered a bar - sat, stood and lingered inside - while watching men hop and dance to music that is fast fading away from my tastes and which I found assaulting my eardrums as of lately. One Latino good looking guy danced the Flamenco right in front of us and I wished he were a Matador. I used to spontaneously hop and shimmy on dance floors like this, but now, oh I don't know, I am embarrassed to do that. I am all so conscious of my age. I know that the ones who dance are no older than forty, the ones my age are on the sidelines watching. What do I think while watching dancing queens? What do I fantasize? I fantasize returning to my dancing disco days. I wish I could follow the current rhythm of music and join the heehaw and stumping of the feet by these animated gay youth but for the life of me, I felt paralyzed. I looked around hoping I'd find a familiar face, an old friend or dancing partner maybe, whom I hanged out with in my Fort Lauderdale gay scene days a decade ago but, there was no one there. I wished I'd find someone I'd greet with 'long time no see' but no chance. I guess the three of us all felt the same way so we left and walked to another bar - a leather bar where we felt very odd being inside, we found ourselves so touristy and sunshiny in shorts and hawaiian shirts surrounded by men of leather, we looked at each others and giggled non stop. We were still giggling on our way to another bar, crowded by young preppy youth. Here we sat and watched. That's what I particularly enjoyed the most - watching. I would not know the implicit impact of this night-out among us three but here is my guess : we're more mature now and self satisfied, no longer seeking because for me at least, I've already found what I sought. Manuel and Mario have been partnered and domesticated for a while now, they go home to a room where they can embrace someone and feel the warmth of him. I am contented as well, having fulfilled what I thought was my family duty and am just so excited at the prospect of being freed from that duty and do what I want to do without being tied up. I am no longer excited by the wildness of the gay life, or the beauty of it or the variety of it. It's been a while since I shouted I'm gay and it really didn't alter the life I would have lived regardless I'm gay or straight. There is comfort at the thought that I survived and here, in the end, the greatest happiness to me is the company of my old friends. We here, sitting in a loud bar, just chilling out, watching, just watching the gay participants of the gay pride parade tomorrow do their thing. Return to Home |