Crazy night.

Holy crap, they're playing Judy Garland's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" here at Flying Star. This is too crazy.

I don't know whether it was the just-past-full moon just barely peeking out from behind the high, thin clouds above the bar or what, but last night was insane.

It wasn't busy. Just insane.

People were literally crawling all over me most of the night while I just tried to do my job. Starts out when one of the church people who's found himself at Foxes for whatever reason (wonder what *that* might be!) wants a hug. (There are respectful gay religious types who respect the fact that bars are safe spaces for most of us, however problematic, and judgmental church people who make no secret of their moral superiority and disgust to everyone else present despite their being at Foxes Booze 'n' Cruise in the first place, who likely tell themselves they're not there to get laid but spread salvation by descending into the firey pits and hooking up for sex with some lost soul; this fellow definitely fell more solidly into the latter category; I don't do hookups for salvation.) OK, sure. Why not. One freindly bear hug surely never killed anybody.

Big mistake. The poor guy must have been *dying* for human contact of some sort. Now every time I head back to the door and try to sit and read the Liquor Control Act, he's back on me telling me about my eyes and my aura and how I'm "real" and not "phony" like "all the rest". Good god. He *has* been out of the bars too long, if he thinks he's gettin' *anywhere* with me with that old song and dance routine. Yeah, my eyes *are* pretty intense, thanks; you know why? Because I see right through what you're trying to do, and you don't scare me or intimidate me or embarass me at all. I *try* to tell him gently, many different ways, "honey, youre's barkin' up the wrong tree" but with his abstentious lack of tolerance for alcohol and two or three beers in him, it doesn't register at all. "Spiritual" or not, it's the same old story: horny and drunk, hitting on tired and sober. Man, you're gettin' nowhere. Fast. Try someone else. Anyone else. Puhlease.

Then the native guy with the missing front teeth who does the spotlight for the shows (whenever he feels like doing that instead of chatting) starts coming over to chat.

Then the guy I bought the shirt from when I got the job comes in, despite the fact he stopped going out to the bars years back (and apparently just started up again when I let it slip where I worked).

Then a kinky older guy whose company I genuinely enjoy comes in with a drop-dead gorgeous younger freind that no one's ever seen in any bar before. Likely an out-of-towner. A real "all heads turn" moment. Good thing for me nobody seems to understand the colour and position of his handkerchief.

Then an old Nuevo Espana-surnamed acquaintance from way back walks in. (While tending to be pretty good in bed, in my experience, they're all at least a little drug-addicted, inbred, or insane -- or any combination of the three -- so I avoid 'em like the plague. Basically hillbillies of the "troubled genius" variety with pretentions to ancient nobility.)

Then the female impersonator I've taken something of a most unlikely liking to comes in.

Yeah, I'm actually good for business. They don't call us the door whores for nothin'.

Whoo boy. It was completely fuckin' NUTS. Yeah, I enjoyed it, great for self esteem and all, but yeesh! They were not just all over me but staring daggers at eachother like I belonged to each and every one of them in turn exclusively. The absolute last thing I needed was to break up a fight between two or more other guys over myself. It nearly came to that -- to my complete surprise, of course, as I have lived a life of nearly perfect continence. But then again, you know what they say about the dooormen at Foxes. It might be tough gettin' 'em home, but once you've got 'em home it's pretty much a surefire thing. Yeesh. Meanwhile I could barely follow who else was even in the bar who wasn't either there because of or all over me.

Talk about wearing nerves thin! I have to stick at the door to make sure no undercovers, underages, or drunks waltz in while my head's turned for one split second; but no, this guy just wants to hug me in the foyer, this other wants to dance, a third *must* have my phone number *right* now (what can't he tell me to my face, I wonder?), this other wants to talk to me, another wants to play a game of pool, while yet another wants to take me outside, and so on, and so forth, ad infinitum, yada yada yada.

I felt just like Madonna in the "Material Girl" video. Poor little thing. How I feel her pain. (I simply *love* Madonna, btw. Now if only the guys at Foxes would offer me pearls, diamonds, and wallets full of money, why sure, we might talk for a half a minute just outside.) I almost look forward to being a creepy old troll no one will look at, let alone touch. Though honestly, with my reputation being what it is at this point, that's not terribly likely -- more likely, at least I hope, I'll wind up more like one of the older bartenders, all of whom I respect and look up to, with a past a mile and a half long, knowing everyone in town, having few credible or well-supported enemies, and hard-earned, dead-on observations about *everything*.

Of course it's all complicated by the fact that yeah, some of these guys actually interest me in a way that if I were a customer I'd roll over like a little puppy for 'em in about two seconds flat and beg 'em to take me home and feed me, while others utterly repulse me. Especially repulsive are the super-forward and insistent ones who won't take no for an answer, who are intent on having their way with me like I'm some sort of merchandise they can take for a test drive before the bar closes. Whatever the physical attraction may be, guys, first off, I *am* at work, and I am paid to check your IDs -- *not* to make physical contact, *not* to so much as shake your hand if I choose not to. Secondly, I do *not* get off on abuse and will take a fat, ugly, old, hung-like-a-fieldmouse considerate guy any day over my choice of all the built, gorgeous, young, hung-like-an-elephant jerks in the world.

And still I've gotta watch the door regardless. Basically turn *everybody* down, without pissing anyone off so much they won't come back.

And then they think I'm playing coy and those I'm least likely to ever meet outside of work invariably just keep trying harder.

Eventually the guy who's buggin' me the most gets wind of a rumour that I had spent a night with so-and-so and suddenly he turns on me, hissing "I thought you had more class than that".

Uhm, actually, no. If he had *listened* when he was drunk and horny back when I was *trying* to read the law that it's my *job* to both comply with and enforce, he would have known, from my own mouth, that no, in fact, I don't, and don't pretend to have any such kind of ranking over anyone. I'm not gonna argue it with him, though, because damn it, he's off my back for once, and I can sort of do my job, instead of babysitting him and mollycoddling his super-fragile expeditious chosen-people ego. He goes back up to the bar to sulk and drowns his short-lived fantasies of lifelong harmony with me in drink and finally I'm freed up enough to check the parking lot for any empty bottles, getting out of the stuffy and intense inside with its loud, pulsating nonstop dance music and flashing lights and pervasive smell of smoke and beer, beer, beer, beer, beer to decompress.

I feel sorry for him, wish him nothing but the best, but I am seriously just not interested in more than a casual freindship with him, which I'm bluntly only interested in because either one of us might prove useful to the other someday and if we can't stick together when we need to because one of us might have slept with someone the other doesn't like then we're all sunk, church queers and barfly queers alike. I hope he finds what he's looking for, but it's clearly not me, as I hope he'll see when he takes off his beer goggles.

I go back in, behind the bar to refill my wonderfully nonalcoholic drink, and talk under my breath with Alex, who trained me.

"Finally got one off my back", I say to Alex.

"Now you know what I go through", he replies.

No wonder he wears spikes and leather all over him. It makes him just a little bit more unapproachable. Too bad for me goth's really not my look. If anybody made electrically charged clothing that gives off a shock when touched by anyone besides the wearer, I might go for that.

About ten minutes later I figure enough time has passed that I can safely go over to this guy and basically ask what's up, is he OK, without having him explode. Not that I give a shit about him personally at this point (I'm honestly still rather angry, if you can't tell), much less do I want to "make up" with him, but damn it, he's in *my* bar, and I've gotta keep him safe and everyone else safe from him and he has clearly gone from irrepressible to depressed in about two minutes, so I want to clear things up before he goes from dejected to belligerent in two seconds. It's like walking in golf shoes through a minefield covered with the eggshells of hummingbirds, but I seem to have gotten pretty good at just such slightly delicate operations. Yeah, he is OK, he says, but then spits venom against the other person in the rumour involving me who isn't there to defend himself (thank god). So, only for my own good, of course, he just wants me to know that this person isn't what he seems and I don't know what I'm getting into and oh yeah he's got AIDS.

"You know you just committed a fourth degree felony", I interrupt.

"I what?"

"It's a crime in the state of New Mexico to reveal a third party's HIV status without their prior written consent."

Then I waltz away, keys jangling merrily from my left belt loop. Whether it's a felony or misdemeanour I neither really know nor care. I jolted him. Ten thousand volts. He's gone from sorry drunk to wide awake. A sort of little Zen moment.

Long story short, and believe me, these kinds of stories get extremely long, extremely complicated, and violate all kinds of confidentiality if I write details about 'em on the web, but rest assured the person in question is, in fact, HIV-negative, and I know this for a fact, about as well as anybody ever can -- besides which, I play *extremely* safe ever since I went through my own little scare with that insidious virus.

Twenty minutes later this guy who'd been all over me at first, then practically attacked me, then didn't want to talk at all while crying in his beer, then finally tried to scare me into thinking I'd contracted HIV for not wanting to sleep with him comes crawling back to me red as a beet on all fours (not *literally*, ya thillies) to apologise profusely. He had no idea, didn't think what he was saying when he said it, meant no harm to anyone, and is so sorry, and won't ever do it again, and didn't realize how it could backfire on a person. We shake hands -- suddenly, we're on good terms. Mission accomplished.

That lasts about ten seconds, before the "of course you know I'd never gossip, but..." routine starts and he tells me how he "knows" this person has AIDS (regardless of the fact that he doesn't), during which he goes on to talk about the person being a shoplifter and crack whore and how he saw the police dossiers over somebody's shoulder and it kind of looked like him in the picture. It's a cockamamey story that wouldn't hold a thimbleful of water. Total bullshit. You hear a lot of that in bars. But at this point, I am fully in control again. So I basically go thank you, yes, I know you just want to protect me, I do take care of myself, you're so kind, think nothing of it, but please do be aware of the law, I don't want you getting in trouble either, yes, and thank you, but I really just don't need to hear it, you've got nothing to explain, I'm sure you meant the best and nothing but the best, oh, by the way, we're closing, so good night, do come again.

Ktchunk. Ktchunk. Doors locked against the madness of the world, not only has Foxes stayed open another night but I've survived the night. The bar is closed.

If he had done just half of all of the stuff he did to me to any paying customer I might well have had to throw him out.

Having survived, today I went to the United Court of the Sandias membership barbeque to become a member (seven bucks, my last -- but still dirt cheap) and eat my fill of good but cold hot dogs and hamburgers. They hate me 'cause I card 'em but who cares. They're warming up to me slowly, especially since -- but that's another story for another time, not really fit to print, and premature to publicly announce, at any rate.

The courts are the international drag charity organization dating back to the early '60s, founded in San Francisco by Mother Jose (whom I haven't met yet, but will soon), when practically the only "out" gay men in the US were the queens who dared to walk the streets as women at their very lives' peril. Court members were at Stonewall when it got raided on the night that Judy Garland died. It is, to all appearances, a tawdry little organization, characterised by glitter and perilously tall tiaras, with grandiose titles awarded annually to the various queens in any given city with a court.

In fact, it's a damn good organization -- all nonprofit, and they give a *lot* of ongoing support to the community of the sort that big foundations *never* do, and do it in a way that if you're not the kind of person who goes to drag shows on a regular basis and you happen into Foxes on a show night, you likely think it's all some sort of really bizarre joke. If you're a teacher in the ghetto getting crayons for your classroom, or a nurse who deals with alzheimers patients, or a childcare provider just glad to have the dance instructor volunteeering for you that all the kids adore, then you just kinda figure hey I guess those guys ain't so bad after all.

In that sense, in the specific way it does community outreach, it might well be considered the last remaining homophile organization.

It's not a joke. It's camp, yeah, but it's very serious. Predates MCC as far as I can tell. Certainly predates LGTF, HRCF, GMHC, LLDF and all of those alphabet soup types of organizations. As far as I can tell, there's no older still-extant gay organization of *any* stripe, since the Mattachines and Daughters very long ago disbanded. It's got direct connections with our history going three, four generations back in a community where there tends to be no sense of history passed down from one night to the next.

Having $2.75 to my name I head at last in to Foxes for chicken dinner. Wouldn't miss for the world. Get the one beer I can afford at happy hour price and tip a dollar. Eat a plate full of fried chicken. Sit off by myself where no one will approach me since the bar is full up and the last thing I want after last night is to get into idle chit chat or, worse yet, the sort of trouble that I get into on nights off when I have more than three dollars to my name and wind up in the bars. Nobody bugs me. The chicken, as always, is delicious.

Today I'm eating at the Flying Star on credit. Yuck. The food is great but haven't had to use a credit card to eat for a long time. Get paid two days from now so shouldn't rack up *too* much debt in the meantime. Not buying antiques or anything I don't need to survive these days. Driving as little as I can: once a day to Flying Star, then in to work, then home (usually). Have two job applications out for day jobs but not counting chickens there; I seem to be having lousy luck where getting money is concerned since I quit the Frontier. Now if only I could overnight make myself into a little Don Schraeder where spending money is concerned. But alas, people like him are not made overnight. Which reminds me, I've *still* got to return those books to him. Forgive me, Don, I am a mess. But thank you for your inspiration, always.

Enough for now. Good night. I'm off to Monday night at Foxes, which should prove gloriously uneventful. Would be nice if we got busy but can't hope for too much in that line, honestly.