Spat

As I stepped out of my Ranger, I noticed that blue and white Chevy truck still parked where the naked drunk guy who we'd taken to the hospital was still parked where he left it, and a Jag pulled up behind my truck and honked.  Since Cora was the only person in my life who I'd ever known to drive a Jag, I knew it was her. Although I hesitated for a second, I decided to be mature, so I gingerly walked to the driver's side window and painted a smile on my face.  She had her arm outstretched from her rolled-down driver's side window, and her hand was holding something out to me.

"Queen," she said very properly as if the suck-capade and escape on Central had never occurred. "Give this Meltz-Away to Mitzi.  I'll be late getting back, and I don't want her to have to wear her wig all night..."

"Sure thing," I agreed and snatched the small, brown bottle from her.  She quickly sped away as I stood inspecting the bottle.  It was just a plain brown bottle with a black plastic lid and no label.  I assumed Cora might have poured a little of her own Meltz-Away into a spare, empty bottle just so Mitzi would have enough to remove her wig tonight........but still the bottle looked odd to me.  It looked like something illegal, but  I placed it in the front pocket of my 501's anyway and walked to the bar that looked more like an abandoned building after a hurricane. 

I looked the edifice over -- up and down and side to side,  and I surmised that most people would never believe the gaity, revelry and some would say debauchery -- and sometimes, I'd have to agree with them -- that occurred within this nondescript building in the heart of Hot Springs.  I imagined that tourists with baby strollers and toddlers-in-tow walked past this concrete block building -- that appeared to have been spray painted black evidenced by the multiple runs that ran down its walls -- on a daily basis with no idea that men danced in rhinestones and wigs in the sunless hours.  Sometime later I was told that it was colored black  to cover the biggotted graffiti that regularly appeared on its walls.  The actual building had begun with a white-wash but after years of  painted salutations like "Faggot" and "Butt-fuckers" from the local redneck artists, Twyman had opted for solid black because it was easier to cover the naughty words.  Several cans of black spray paint were hidden on the bottom shelves of the bar so the bartender could do a quick spray should there be any evidence of bigotry scrawled during the closed hours when he or she arrived to open the establishment.........and many nights I noticed the tip of Cherry and Kat's index fingers were stained with paint.

During the day, Our House looked desserted and down-trodden.  At night, the only hint of its identity could be heard but not seen.  Muffled disco music vibrated through the concrete, but no one would ever be able to tell by its outward appearance that men in merriment danced and drank the night and loneliness away on the inside.  On the street on a tall silver pole -- out of any homogit's reach --  a small sign with a white background and black lettering that spelled OUR HOUSE -- and a stick figure rendering of a house -- along with a  phone number was the only clue that anything was even housed in this construction, but the words "bar" and "gay" didn't appear anywhere on it. An innocent onlooker might confuse it for a defunct realty or homeless shelter.  A gay person would have to somehow be in the know to know that this building was for him, and that fact certainly wasn't advertised in the local newspaper which was edited by a goodly Assembly of God woman, who, by the way, had a medical case of dandruff..................

For a long time, I didn't understand the glass door and the two-way mirror within the vestibule, and the buzzer totally blew my mind......................until someone explained it to me. 

In the past, the bar had been bombed.  ((Yeah, just like those KKK'ers used to bomb black churches))So in an effort to prevent blasts, Twyman had installed the two-way mirror -- which was also bullet proof --  that sat squarely in front of the glass front doors but was embedded in the back wall of the anteroom.  Someone perched in front of that mirror on busy nights and viewed every person who approached the door.  If someone looked suspicious ( or not gay ), the bartender was alerted, and the supposed biggot was not buzzed inside.  The buzzer was a means to protect the inhabitants of the bar from being harmed. Only recognizable gays were allowed inside.  If someone looked too hetero, he or she did not receive a buzz, and if that person loitered too long in the vestibule, he was chased away by a mob of bat slinging gay boys. The anteroom served as a protectant should a bomb be hurled through the doors.  Its walls were not only lined with lead, but they were also three feet thick.  Just before I opened the door, I glanced again at the old Chevy truck and wondered if it would remain there eternally..............We'd been good Samaritans and rescued someone that we didn't even know, and I wondered if we'd ever find out just what became of him....Of course, things like this never go unanswered, but I didn't know that at the time as I opened the door to another exciting evening at Our House Lounge and let the memory of the driver of that truck slip away for a few hours................

"Meow", I heard as soon as I was buzzed into the bar.  I didn't even have to look up to realize that Kat was bartending.  She'd greeted me with her characteristic feline felicity, and I'd quickly ordered a non-alcoholic cranberry spritzer with a lime twist (( even if it was non-alcoholic, I told myself, that it could still be pretty in its mason jar.  The small lime peel added just a touch of green to the red mocktail and made me feel just a little more gay and merry )).

I quickly scanned the room to see if I recognized anyone. The place was crowded and filled with cigarette smoke that hung in the air like a thick fog on an October morning.  I relaxed a bit because I didn't see or hear Mother, and I took a seat in the middle of the bar next to a thin, attractive boy in his early twenties.  He had a page-boy haircut, and appeared to be alone. By the way he drummed his gnawed fingernails on the polished walnut slab, he seemed to be a bit.............nervous.

"I heard you and Mother had a spat," he leaned near me and said quietly in a surprising deep and, masculine voice.  Hot Springs never ceased to amaze me.  I didn't even know this boy, and he seemed to not only know me, but he also knew the recent news of my life.  I wondered if they had a gay National Enquirer in this town that I had yet to be privy to, and it would take me a considerable amount of  time to grow accustomed to the fish bowl that my life would eventually become in this town.

"Spat?" I curdled my face and asked with disdain because I knew that word had certain connotations that dealt with romance. "I wouldn't call it a spat."