I'm not sure that anyone has truly lived until they have experienced going to a gay night club on a Halloween-themed night… as a heterosexual male. I can now say for sure that I have truly lived if that is the case. On Saturday night, New Beginnings, or as everyone around here affectionately calls it “Newbies”, held their annual Halloween bash. Somehow, I wound up there and I am still amazed and a little confused.
My wife’s birthday is October 31st and she wanted to do something different this year. Normally we just take the kids trick or treating, go out to eat, and call it a night, but this year everything happened a little different. Our area of the country, the Tri-Cities, always screws up Halloween in my opinion. Not since I was a little kid have I remembered Halloween actually being celebrated by the masses on October 31st. Some secret society that holds their meetings in an underground bunker beneath State Street decides to rearrange holidays every year and everyone blindly follows their silent directions. They have messed up the 4th of July, Halloween, Christmas, and I’m waiting on them to somehow screw up New Year’s Eve, although I’m not sure how they can yet but I don’t doubt their power since they were able to move the 4th of July to June 30th. But either they forgot to have their secret meeting or they decided to allow us to celebrate Halloween on the actual date this year because we actually had the weekend free and had the option of taking the kids out on October 31st. Katie wanted to take advantage of this rare occasion and celebrate her birthday on Saturday by going to our local gay club. I’ve only been one other time in my life and that was on one of the cheap beer nights about 4 or 5 years ago with Mrs. Elliott. I had an alright time but never felt compelled to return. I love gay people, but I can’t dance and nothing feels more disheartening than seeing every dude in there being built like some Greek god with zero body fat and then looking at myself and my large grizzly belly. Mrs. Elliott, though, has many friends in the gay/lesbian community and she loves going out with them. I usually find something else to do when she goes like watch football, eat beef jerky, and drink hot sauce and beer…you know, super manly shit.
So she did the nice thing and invited me on Saturday night and told me she was going with 4 of her friends and they were all dressing up. I declined because I knew that I still haven’t learned to dance and I figured she would probably enjoy herself more if she didn’t have to worry about me being internally shamed by my un-God like body. The sight of me dancing is similar to seeing a polar bear having an epileptic seizure. I told her that I’d go hang with my buddy Murphy and play some Xbox and do manly things like burping and farting and then laughing heartily about our burping and farting.
We went our separate ways with the agreement that if she needed me that she could call me and I would come and get her. (She was celebrating…don’t judge!!! It’s not her fault that people insist on buying her jaeger bombs. It would be rude to not drink them…one after another.) I went to Murphy’s and we discussed manly topics like football and war while playing a manly Xbox game of football. (For the record, I can’t play video games worth a shit and he beat me with Akron while I was Alabama.) Surely enough, around 2am I got the call: “Come get me, my driving skills are broken.” As I drove out towards the Mecca of Big Gay Parties, she called me and asked if I wanted to come in when I got there. I could hear all of the happy times being had in the background and she seemed to be enjoying herself so I said “Sure. Why the hell not?”
In retrospect, I probably looked a lot like a walking hate crime going in there. I had a black toboggan pulled down to the top of my eyes and an oversized zipped up hoodie hanging close to my knees. I normally don’t dress like a thug, but dammit it was cold and thugs always seem to dress the warmest. You’ll never hear a true gangsta-ass thug complaining about being cold. I was alone going in and this seemed to make me all the more noticeable. I watched the older guy, who reminded me of Stanley Tucci if he had hair, check everyone’s ID and collect their cover charge and he was very happy and chatty with each couple ahead of me. Then it came to me, he was still smiling but looking to see if I was with anyone. “Just you tonight?” he asked. “Yep”, I said while watching a moment of confusion and perhaps hesitancy come over his face. “You know we close in 45 minutes, right? You still wanna come in?” he asked. “Yeah, I’m good” I said and handed him my $5.
I quickly found my wife with two of her friends lounging about in what I would later learn was the calmer area of the club. They all looked exhausted but I noticed everyone else around me were still pretty amped up. As they talked, I just observed. I saw a guy dressed in what I could only guess was an Elizabethan aristocrat complete with a powdered wig, white make-up, and a candycane swirled cane. I saw a slightly pudgy dude wearing merely a black Man-kini with an oversized afro and sunglasses. He made me feel a little better since he was the only other guy in the place without six pack abs and I figured if he had enough balls to be running around with zero shirt and a black thong then I was okay. I saw an oversized female in an undersized latex cop outfit making out with her larger lady friend who maybe should have reconsidered her outfit, I’m not sure what she was dressed as but I think she might have simply been “a fishing net”. I am not judging, I myself am a large mammal and apparently I do not possess the cojones to let it all hang, but I say more power to you if you can. In this small “quiet” section of the club, I was witnessing all sorts of fascinating spectacles and Katie took notice at my wonderment. “Come on, let me show you around” she said and started to lead me away from the calm quiet into a booming techno, strobe-light, packed room. (Which on the way we actually ran into the guy who was probably there to commit some hate- crimes. He ran straight into to Katie, gave her the “mean mug” face, threw his arms in the air, and looked ready to fight her. I didn’t say anything, I cocked my head sideways, locked eyes with him, and he decided to keep walking. It was strange because he looked like a drunken frat guy who had lost his shirt and perhaps his woman. I figured that he had come with his girlfriend earlier; she figured out that he was a douchy asshole, and she found a hot chick to go home with. I don’t know, that’s what his angry face was saying to me.)
I have never personally done Ecstasy nor LSD, but I’m pretty sure that the room that I walked into was exactly what it’s like. One giant, moving, interconnected, Ecstasy/acid organism. I didn’t have much time to take it all in before Katie directed my eyes towards the stage set up in the middle of the club. Everyone was gathered around and already cheering, I asked her what was happening and she told me to just wait. A Marilyn Manson tune, “Sweat Dreams” I think, started playing and what seemed to be a 6’4 lady in a black latex body suit with a thong appeared on the stage. “Ahh, the drag show, I presume?” I asked. Yep, that’s exactly what it was. I’d never actually seen a show before but I have seen and met many transgendered people and drag performers. “Holy shit” I were the first two words to pop out of my mouth as I watched this person who was basically my size, probably a little taller and a little thinner, dance around wildly and give it hell. Remember how I said that my dancing skills are akin to a polar bear having a seizure, well this person’s was considerably better. I have never been able to do anything closely resembling a split in my entire human existence. I have tried in the past for stretching purposes and anytime that I’ve attempted it I’ve felt like my entire groin was going to rip apart like the Grand Canyon. But this drag queen jumped in the air like David Lee Roth, landed in a split, and then started to hump the floor while still in the split position. Do you know what would happen to me? I would never walk again. I would be rolled around in a wheelchair for the rest of my days and when people asked me what happened I would say, “I tried to do a split.” After the humping of the ground she continued to dance around and the music switched to “The Beautiful People” also by Manson and I noticed that people were starting to shove money into her bra. No he wasn’t stripping but I guess if you work that hard you might as well get a little bit of cash.
She danced down our way and was collecting money on the way. I got a dollar out and she galloped and pranced her way in front of us, I held it up thinking she would just take it but that was not part of the plan. He leaned down toward me, thrust his chest to my face, and said “Shove it in there!!” As I put my dollar in to his bra, my initial thought wasn’t so much “this is weird” but “Wow, he’s sweaty.” I can honestly say that is the first time I’ve ever shoved money into a guy’s cleavage for dancing.
After the drag show was over Katie wanted to show me around some more and after what had just transpired I figured that I was okay with everything else. Now here was the confusing part of it all for me. I know that this is a gay club that does welcome in straight people, I get that, but I don’t understand how it would work if you were single and looking to hook up there. I noticed guys kissing guys, girls kissing girls, guys and girls kissing, a drag queen kissing another drag queen, two completely androgynous people making out, and I wondered, “How does you know who is okay to touch or stick your tongue in their mouth?” If I was single and there I would have no clue, I would probably see a hot girl, try to talk to her, and then be told to go away when her girlfriend showed up. Or another possibility, I would see a hot girl, try to talk, maybe get to dancing, maybe get to some kissing, and then find that something was poking my leg that was not her hand. I would be lost. So thankfully, I’m married and knew I had my lovely wife there because otherwise I could’ve wound up with a hot girl named Frank.
It was a good time, I didn’t dance any, but I did get to do plenty of people watching. I surfed the crowd and watched all the different combinations of people dance and have a good time. I left secure in my manliness but with a little bit of sadness, I don’t think one single person checked me out the whole time.
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