In telling me the story, adult-to-adult, he appeared to go on his own backward emotional journey, reliving the anger he felt back in 1980. He started jabbing his finger in the air as his eyes became slits and his jaw tightened: “I said…
Even with hundreds of millions (billions?) of blogs and websites in existence, you can still pick out who has true talent. You can fool Mother Internet, but you can’t fool Mother Nature.
“What’s wrong with looking like a baby?” you may ask. True enough: Babies are cool and chill, but I’m almost 40.
It’s okay, children. You don’t have to be afraid of the middle-aged man dressed in a witch costume. It’s only for Halloween! Doesn’t that make it better? What are you going to be for Halloween this year?
Officer Tilthead drove me to the scene of the arrest. Made me ID the perps (or not) right in the paddy wagon. No lineup at the station. Just opened the back door and pointed in there, where three faces were glowering at me out of the dark, their eyes intent and glowing like opossums’ when your headlights light them up aside a night road, but with more shame and anger at being caught. “Is that them?” asked the Fuzz…
The final hand gesticulation I made was to pull my wallet out with a flourish to pay for my pie. That’s when she leaned toward me, winked and said with a side-to-side sweep of her hand: “All these crusts are kosher, by the way.” For once I didn’t know what to say. I just nodded. Now I knew what being profiled feels like.
Kitten and I rescheduled our interview phone date. What a pair we made, I in my mincey, milquetoasted Dick Cavett-like voice and Kitten in her full-bodied 900-sexline voice…
One August day her 8-year-old son Alexandre pointed at me and said, “Pédé.” I asked his older female cousin Anne what that meant and she acted out a limp-wristed sissy walk. Oh, that again.
At any time I can count my gay friends on one hand. Attrition stays high — disappearance, permanent fallings-out, deaths. Don’t be deceived by television’s sunny portrayals. The waters of gay life are cold, choppy, and polluted.
In Metro Detroit, the night before Halloween is called Devil’s Night. Bad kids go around throwing toilet paper in the trees, egging people’s houses, or, in the neighborhoods of downtown Detroit City, burning houses down. On Halloween morning you always ventured outside nervously to investigate the aftermath. If your house was vandalized, you felt the [...]