Yup, that was pretty much me, on an early Autumn Friday night in Boston, all of 18, and away from home for my first semester of college - sitting on a barstool in the The Ramrod, wearing penny loafers, chinos, and a pale blue button-down Oxford. (I promised in my status last week that the story of how this came to be was a tale for another time. Today feels like another time. After all, it's Pride Month, not just a single weekend.)Frosh Week, there were lots of jokes in the dorms about what went on in The Science Center basement bathroom. As it turns out, I had a class in the Science Center - Evolutionary Biology with E.O. Wilson - and I really had to take a leak after class one day. I looked for a men's room on the ground floor. There was none. From the open atrium, however, the basement men's room door was clearly visible. With plenty of foot traffic and crowded computer labs on both sides of it, it seemed like maybe this whole basement bathroom business was just another myth Frosh were told by upperclassmen ... sorta like The Swim Test.
Still, I was nervous as I entered through the squeaky door, moving cautiously forward through the double switchback, heart pounding, bladder aching. I heard distinct sounds of hurried recombobulation. As I turned the final corner, a couple of guys bolted past me. I thought they looked guilty. One had exited a nearby stall. A few guys remained behind. They looked at me. Growing up in Southern West Virginia, I had learned in gym class and in practice to keep my eyes front and center. I bolted into the vacated stall and bolted the door, wondering if my screams for help would be heard by the people in those computer labs. Now, from inside the men's room, those computer labs seemed a world away.
I listened. The sounds of silence were deafening. There should definitely be more sound. Then, I realized I was just standing there, too, and I REALLY had to take a leak. So, I chanced it and whipped it out, trusting to the little metal latch to keep me safe for however long this was going to take. I regretted having so much coffee that morning. As things got started, I kept glancing back, a little worried and a little wondering about those too-quiet guys out there.
A shuffle of a foot to my right brought my glance wildly down to the floor, and there it was: a gay newspaper, as bold as bold can be, lying on the floor of my stall. The blue masthead and page one stories of Bay Windows seemed to confirm every rumor I'd heard about this bathroom during Frosh Week.
Suddenly, I had to sit, and now I was wondering whether the guys out there would be able to see if I picked up that newspaper. Were they waiting to see if I picked it up? Why was it there in the first place? Was this some sort of ongoing practical joke played on first-semester Frosh? I picked it up and started reading. There were no gay newspapers in West Virginia in 1990, and the temptation to learn something - anything! - about what other gay guys thought and wrote about was too much to resist. I knew that little metal latch would never hold them back if it was a practical joke, but I had to know.
Nobody banged on my door.
I couldn't begin to tell you what any of the articles were about. I don't remember. In the adrenaline-fueled fuzziness of this whole surreal experience, I memorized the name of the publication, thumbing through the pages, speed-skimming headlines and ads and ... and then I gasped. There, in the centerfold, was an ad for Glad Day Bookstore, and a map to all the gay bars in Boston and Cambridge. I felt like I had discovered The Rosetta Stone.
The ad for Glad Day Bookstore mentioned that they were located directly across from the main branch of the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, and carried all manner of books, newspapers, and magazines concerning gay issues. I remember thinking that this seemed like an odd place to put a gay bookstore. Copley Square is the heart of respectable Boston. I mean, the first public library in the nation is right there - the main branch! I had already visited that area a few times as a tourist and a Frosh. To think that I had passed by a gay bookstore seemed inconceivable. I was pretty sure that would have stood out.
I forgot everything else I had tried to remember so far. Carefully placing the newspaper back down, I sped out of that men's room as fast as seemed polite. I resolved that I would go seek out Glad Day Bookstore that very Friday evening. I resolved that I would go check out a gay club. I surmised that they probably carried this Bay Windows newspaper, and that I could probably find that map of the gay bars and clubs there again. I resolved to bring a pen and some paper to write down an address.
Friday seemed never to arrive. When it did, I had a hard time deciding what to wear. I wanted to look nice. A gal pal back home once told me that I looked nice in those chinos and that pale blue button-down Oxford and those penny loafers without the socks. So, I went with that.
By the time I got to Copley Square in those sockless penny loafers, my feet were sore and a little scuffed. Boston is a walkable city, but I should have worn sneakers.
I walked back and forth past the address given for Glad Day Bookstore three times, more and more disappointed with each pass. Oh. The newspaper in the bathroom was a fake after all. I was just about to give up, jump on the T to cross back over the river to Harvard Square, and call it an evening, when a guy walked out of a walk-up set of stairs at the address in question, holding a suspiciously opaque black plastic bag. I looked up. In the second story window, there was a rainbow leading to a sign that read: "Glad Day Bookstore: Welcome!"
My heart went from zero to a hundred in a nanosecond. I don't remember climbing the first flight of stairs, but I do remember the bulletin boards on the first landing, crowded with ads for gay poetry readings, and nightclubs, and ... it was all too much. I walked in to the bookstore itself, and was gobsmacked. There were shelves and shelves of books about all sorts of things related to being gay. There were guys of all ages - from college kids to grey old men - perusing those books and those periodicals like they were in B. Dalton or Waldenbooks, the mall bookstores back home.
I was suddenly terrified that someone I went to school with might see me. It didn't dawn on me at the time that if they were there, it was probably because they were gay, too. Rushing up to the guy at the sales counter, I whispered, nervously: "Do you have Bay Windows?!?"
He smiled at me, leaned over the counter, and pointed near my foot. There, neatly stacked, stood a whole pile of Bay Windows.
I whipped out my pen and paper, and tore right to the centerfold map.
"You can have that. They're free," he said, at a conversational volume.
I shook my head vigorously, not appreciating the attention he was drawing, and worried anew (and irrationally) that one of the heads turning in our direction might be a classmate. My whole plan to carefully scope out the choices of clubs went to hell in a handbasket. Instead, I triaged my selection process, picking the nearest club I could find. I jotted down the address.
"No, thanks!" I sort of hissed at him, clumsily folding the paper back into a hopeless mess, flinging it back on top of the stack. I pretty much ran out the door, back down those stairs, and at least half a block before I slowed down.
It was about 7:30 by this time. It was dark. I felt more or less sure nobody I knew had seen me.
As I later found out, I had one hand covering up a number of nearer, more "mainstream" gay bars. The club whose address I wrote down? The Ramrod.
When I limped in the door of The Ramrod at 8 that Friday evening, I stood still in utter shock. The thought that passed through my mind? "Holy Shit! I've walked into The Blue Oyster from Police Academy!"
There was leather everywhere. There were posters of leather everywhere. Thankfully, there was only one other person actually there. Like the men on those posters, he was wearing leather, and he laughed at me from behind the bar, motioning with his finger for me to come over to him, pausing in his bar-back work before the place opened.
When I got to the corner of his bar, he was still chuckling: "So? What's your story?" He poured me a ginger ale, and smiled sincerely, still chuckling, though.
It was definitely the kind gesture of pouring me the ginger ale that caused me to sit. I sat down on a wooden barstool, and told him the whole damn story of how I'd ended up here, starting with the stories about The Science Center basement bathroom. Somewhere along the way, I mentioned I was from West Virginia. I remember he interrupted me, and said that was almost as bad as being from Kansas, and that I was a loooooong way from Kansas.
That was the first time I had ever heard anyone use Wizard of Oz as a gay metaphor. I thought it fit, and I laughed with him when he said it.
: )
When I'd spilled everything, he pulled out his worn copy of Bay Windows from behind the bar and placed it on the counter, opening it to the map. Grabbing a pen, he started circling other bars - it was at this point I realized I'd covered them up in my haste during my trip to Glad Day - and then told me: "These bars are probably more your speed."
Now, that pissed me off. First off, I thought he was making a comment about my being from West Virginia, and gay Mountaineer or not, ya just don't go putting down West Virginia to a West Virginian. Secondly, the way he said it sounded like he thought I couldn't hack this place. To paraphrase Daffy Duck: "I may be a coward, but I (was a) horny little coward!"
I asked him what he meant by that, sort of indignantly, adding that I could handle being here, now that I knew what the deal was with this place, and what kind of place was this anyway, with no customers? He started laughing again.
"Well, first off, most clubs don't really get going until around 11. Tell you what: if you want to come in tonight, I'll tell the bouncer to let you in. Why don't you write these addresses down, though, just in case. If you walk around and decide not to come back, fine. But you can get in here tonight just to see what's what."
I wrote down those other addresses. I walked around. I killed time. My feet were killing me in those penny loafers. But I walked back around 11. From the street, I could hear a lot of voices, and loud music. I walked up to the door, suddenly nervous that maybe my bartender buddy had forgotten to tell the bouncer, or that maybe there was more than one. The Harvard Square clubs always seemed to have more than one.
The bouncer took one look at me, laughed, and said, "Go on in."
The sight that awaited me was Blue Oyster from Police Academy on steroids.
Still. I had something to prove to that bartender. And myself.
Making a beeline for the corner of his bar, I got his attention. He laughed again, pouring me another ginger ale: "Wasn't sure you'd show."
Indignant again, I answered, "Of course I was gonna show."
I immediately wondered how long I had to stay to prove my bravery to him. One ginger ale? Two?
He whispered something to the other bartenders behind the counter, and then took up position right beside me. He kept me engaged in conversation, pointing out some of the anthropological features of the interactions. I felt like Jane Goodall - Gayrillas in the Mist. I started asking questions. He encouraged me to walk around a bit - daring me to do one complete circuit of the perimeter (which was how the crowd moved there). He promised he'd keep my seat open for me, and said he might introduce me to a couple of the regulars when I got back.
So my sockless penny loafers and I did one complete circuit (clockwise or counterclockwise around the perimeter mattered, I later found out). All those leather boots, and my penny loafers with the shiny pennies in them.
True to his word, he kept my seat open for me. He poured me another ginger ale. I smirked at him triumphantly. Well, I'm sure I actually had one of my goofy dimpled grins on my face, but it felt like a smirk. It felt like a smirk that said, "I may never come back here again in my life, but don't tell me this isn't my speed! See?!? I came back, and didn't turn tail and run!"
He definitely smirked. I read it as, "OK, OK, Dorothy. You proved your point. Now drink your ginger ale."
I drank my ginger ale, surrounded by men in leather, on a barstool. The first time I saw this picture on the cover of Rolling Stone, I howled with laughter. That was me, about 22 years ago.
That night, I met a very nice regular, while my bartender was otherwise occupied. This regular was dressed in a business suit, and was in his early 30s. Catching sight of me, he introduced himself. He was an office manager for a large Boston law firm. It turns out The Ramrod was his local gay watering hole, and he had stopped off for a nightcap after a very long Friday at work. He talked me into coming back to see his place. I waved to my bartender on the way out. He looked a little bit miffed that I was leaving with the hot office manager in the business suit.
I got back to my dorm room on Sunday. My roommates were about to call the campus police and my mom to report that I was missing. When they asked where the hell I had been since Friday, I reported: "Out and about."
It became my refrain whenever I would sneak across the Charles River, to gay clubs that really were more my speed, and not get home until the following day or later that weekend. In my most recent Class Report, I told my old college roommates that - among other things - I am still "Out And About."
Sadly, Glad Day closed its doors in 2000. The Internet and the real estate bubble killed it. The Ramrod is still open. It was an unlikely first for me, but a fond memory, and a fond first brick in my own personal Yellow Brick Road.
Happy Pride!
: )
- David
