Alternatively subtitled "The Doorman's Damn Dirty Trick".
And no, that doesn't mean I did the nasty in the bushes. I'll get to why it's subtitled a little later. As a teaser, the alternate alternative subtitle might be "How and Why I Blew My Cover to a Customer on New Years".
Started out the day by driving East out past Zuzax and Sedillo on I-40, thirty miles out of town to Edgewood where my sponsor had agreed to speak at a speaker meeting telling his story. It's the farthest I've been since I got arrested. We met at Walgreens on pre-1937 US Highway 66 and drove to an Episcopalian church in a sheet metal shack down a dirt road in the pitch-dark middle of nowhere where the meeting was being held. Well worth the drive.
Then back to town. The Heights Club was right off the exit that I needed to take to get to Foxes so I popped in and bought the most adorable little $3 tiepin as the crowning detail for my tuxedo, red tie, and English bowler outfit I wear *maybe* once a year. It's tiny -- smaller than a dime, robin's egg blue, enamel, and says simply "keep coming back". For anyone who's ever done AA, that's how we end the meetings. For anyone who hasn't, it's just a perfect little customer-servicey touch for the best-dressed doorman ever to work any fag bar in this one-and-three-quarters horse town. It even matched the pattern in my tie, picking up ancillary colours.
As you might well imagine I spent most of the night being quietly subversive. I got two pictures of me standing behind the bar but both are fuzzy, damn it, besides which I look like a damn mannequin from the racetrack scene in "My Fair Lady", so I won't waste the bandwidth by posting it in here.
The suicidal out of towner from the night before Thanksgiving showed up early. He needed money, and I didn't have any to offer him. Offered to take him to a meeting after work and told him he was free to come in and help himself to all the bar food he could handle but he simply wasn't interested in either proposition. He was down in the dumps, man, but he was alive, had a job, even an apartment. If I were hungry enough to ask the doorman at a bar for money and offered food instead I'd gladly take all I could get, but once again, my values aren't this guy's, so it's his choice. Bizarre, perhaps, to my judgment, but he's not dead. I'm very glad to know that much.
I gave Chip the polaroid camera for the bar that I got in white elephant gift exchange at my home group's christmas party with the film in it that I'd bought at Walgreens earlier that night just in case we decided to need it for New Years' Eve. I didn't tell him where it came from; he was happy, I was happy -- that was that.
It's funny how many people I know. I get around. I come up with all sorts of fun and useful things when such are needed, and almost none of it has come from being in the bars. It's starting to elicit comments: a bit admiring, a bit curious, not even particularly judgmental which is a big surprise: just sort of look what he shows up with right when we need it and oh my god how does he know that certain person.
Door whores indeed: I do know half the people in this town, how is my business, thank you very much, and let people believe what they wish to believe about the hows and whys involved. A few jokes about having slept with the phone book works wonders, but doesn't really clear the air when it comes time to flirt with me only to find that much as I'd love to I'm always verging on exhaustion and always have a very busy day ahead. I am a mystery. I'm weird. A riddle. So be it.
One native queen and another gentleman showed up from one of the gay groups I attend. Chip wondered out loud about their not drinking but just eating the food and I told him they paid their five bucks to get in so he sort of shrugged and said oh then that's totally fine. I sort of wonder whether he wonders about my knowing so many nondrinking people in the bar but heck I'm doing my job and he doesn't have to worry about me stealing product so he doesn't say a thing.
Just in passing -- on the subject of "product". I honestly do not recall what alcohol tastes like. Not that I don't taste it vividly in dreams from time to time, which is bizarre, and I suppose harmless, if mostly enjoyable. But when awake, I cannot conjure up any particular flavour or smell. I know the smell of the trash barrels when they're full of broken glass. But in describing different liquors' tastes, the best that I could hope to do at this point is say something vaguely clever about botanicals and juniper berries, and the only tastes that come to actual memory is different real herbs and juniper berries -- not gin. To me, before it's in the trash cans, it's just abstract "product" -- just like lotion, or hairspray, or ice cream, or boxes of books, or cheese, each with its own specificways of being used, to be sure, but really just for customers, and not mixing gin and bourbon is as simple as not putting ice cream in your hair or spreading lotion on a cracker. My job's to count it, put it on the shelves, move it around, rotate, and avoid wasting, but who would want to drink it? I've had more than enough. I've literally lost my taste for liquor.
As midnight rolls closer Chip calls me over to the bar and shows me the bottle of sparkling cider he'd gotten and tells me to read it very carefully to make sure it was totally nonalcoholic. (I won't even touch O'Doul's 'cause with the exception of a few brewpub microbrews and Belgian Trappist ales I do not like the taste of beer and never have.) One glance was all I needed; perfect, I say, he pours two glasses, one for him and one for me. I took mine to the doorman's table and a minute later went back and asked him if it was OK to offer it to customers I knew weren't drinking (without telling him just how I knew). With a flourish worthy of a french chef, he says "of course!", and so I did, and so we *all* share in the New Years' toast, drinking and nondrinking queers all alike.
The year most fittingly goes out to the strains of "I Will Survive", though maybe the lyrics should have been "I have survived". Mark plays Guy Lombardo's Auld Lang Zyne at Midnight and we all drink the toast. I head out to the parking lot to hear not just fireworks but gunfire all around. Yes, what a charming part of town.
A little after one, Albert points Alex towards the dressing room because a customer who I'll call person X is headed back there. I stand where I can see Alex and watch the door at the same time. The customer goes back and talks to Chip for a long time, Alex watches him, and I watch Alex. Eventually person X comes out and goes back to the bar. He sits at the far end of it clutching his beer holding his head in his hands, falling apart visibly in front of everyone, which is a very bad-for-business thing to do inside a bar on New Years' Eve. A few minutes later, Alex escorts him as far as the front door and hands him off to me, making it clear he needs to leave.
He wants to talk. He is in tears. He has lost everything, he says. What did you lose? Everything. Oh. I see. He wants to talk about it, wants to know where he can go after the bar closes. Hm. He tells me that I need to know he's straight, then kisses me right on the lips and says he isn't *that* straight. OK. Sure. Whatever.
I tell him there's a private club that's open after hours where we can go and you can tell me all about it. He's brightens up on hearing this. I give him my phone number, he doesn't have one but gives me his address, nearby. I say give me an hour after close to sweep the floor and count the beer and I'll be right over.
Martinique hangs around the bar a few minutes after everyone else leaves a few minutes early. She is amazing. She is such an evil bitch in her persona, but such an amazing human being in her soul it frightens me because a lot of people hate her never seeing what she's really doing being an evil bitch. She loves being hated, and raises lots and lots of money for charity precisely because people show up to her shows to see what more outrageous thing she'll do, find out what sacred line she'll cross, and see how she will get away with it. She takes tremendous risks in doing things this way and is remarkably effective. She drives me crazy yes but has my total admiration.
She leaves. We close the bar. All's well.
I go right over to person X's apartment after we close up. Actually I get slightly turned around since all the streets in the "war zone" have had weird barriers erected which makes getting around hard. I pull over, call the club to find out when their next meeting is, download a map to the address person X gave me on the cellphone, and head on over just a minute later. (I love my cellphone.)
I knock. Person X opens the door. He puts himself together hurriedly, running back to take one final swig from the nearly empty bottle of champagne he's been enjoying in the privacy of his disheveled living room and manages to pour about half of it down his sleeve in the process. He's clearly panicked and depressed but otherwise quite well behaved. A perfect gentleman, despite not having either shirt nor socks, and lacerations on his chest he never did explain to me. Meanwhile he's walking in the streets accompanied by what appears to be a stray extra from "Her Majesty Mrs. Brown". He's got a jacket on and so it hardly matters just as long as we are on our way -- wherever. I secretly imagine him imagining we're going to a wild party or crackhouse or something else along those lines.
We get into my car and without warning I blow into it to start it. "Oh", he says. Yes, one of those. Fun little gadget, that. Give him the brief form of the Recitation of the Glorious Events of the Night of the Thirteen Martinis to explain the interlock, but mostly I just banter with him lightly as I drive him towards the Heights Club, knowing damn well he's gonna be "pixed" (as Charles would fashionably say) when he finds out where I am taking him. He's very freindly, very glad I came for him just like I said I would.
He tells me basically his girlfreind left him and he doesn't know where she is and says he's gonna go to jail for unpaid tickets and he's got no way to contact her but loves her very much and doesn't want to call her parents 'cause he'd panic them and she was gonna die out on the streets without him but would never come back and on and on without ever really going into detail or telling me anything terribly useful along the lines of how I might manage to help him do something tangible that he might actually need to do. He says he's desperate, says he's tried everything, but nothing's worked, he's willing to try anything, and so on which does make me feel maybe, just maybe, I'm doing the right thing for him at this time which he says is the worst night of his life. We pull into the parking lot, where there are maybe ten cars -- a good sign.
Him: Where are we?
Myself: The Heights Club.
Oh! What is this?
A private club.
Oh really! I suppose should be on my best behaviour.
It doesn't really matter, but it couldn't hurt to be a little charming.
We barrel in just like we would into a bar and underneath the bright fluorescent lights it's as if someone had thrown a bucket of icewater on his head. I head over to the coffeepot (thanks to whoever saw that it was full and waiting for us on arrival) and ask him if he'd like some. He's stunned, but manages to stammer out a yes.
Him: Is this . . . an AA meeting?
Myself: There is one starting at 3:30. This is the Heights Club.
He's stunned. Speechless. And then he goes completely nuts. Says I deceived him.
Myself: how?
Him: You know how.
I really don't. This *is* a private club. It's open.
How could you bring me here? It's like a fucking hospital.
You said you needed to be around people; this is the only place I know is open.
Yes, but . . . .
He trails off and never really gets past that, where this "deception" is concerned. Finally comes to see I didn't lie to him. Asks me if "this is an intervention" and I tell him that I honestly don't know, I haven't been around for long enough to know that term. He focuses all his rage on me. Dead-on eye contact as I've betrayed him horribly. He's slopping his coffee out everywhere, and I'm quietly mopping up behind him with a bar towel. Eventually he shifts his focus onto other people. I am grateful that they're there, because he had that "gonna kill you motherfucker" look in his eye for a little while. Meets someone else who's a bit of a local celebrity (one of Albuquerque's famous Central Avenue "characters") and goes completely crazy not believing that it's him, but yes I am, well yes you are, but you can't be, and on and on.
He gradually calms down a little bit. He really likes the coffee. But he hates the place. I even apologise to him because yes it's a damn dirty trick for the doorman at Foxes to pull, and yes, I really do not drink. Tell him I'm not telling you to do or think anything and I'll gladly take you back home if you like. The coffee keeps him there -- he doesn't want to stay but doesn't want to go, either. Yes he will have another cup. He comes to recognize that he can't change the fact that his girlfreind is gone and I try to get him focused on what he can change and what he needs to do. He says if she dies I'm partly responsible. I smile and look him in the eye and tell him she's not dead yet, you're predicting the future and he says "they versed you in it, huh". Not really, just telling it like I see it. You're not responsible for her behaviour. He calms down another tiny notch. Just a tad. He can't do this, he can't do that. How did you get to where you are? He pauses. "By my own hand", he says, "I do know that". But -- then it comes to him -- he *can* go out to where she lives. He comes up with this one on his own, I just ask him some very simple questions. You know, the kinds of direct questions I've gotten good at asking drunks by working as the doorman. He asks me if he's gonna go to jail or the hospital and I say no, why, did you want to?
He apologises to me and says he meant no disrespect and knows I'm trying to help but he really needs to go to where she lives and where the hell is he? The Heights Club. Yes, I know. Oh, you mean location? Lomas and Wyoming. (Not twenty minutes walk from his apartment if he wants to go back there to finish his champagne.) He thanks me, I remind him he has my phone number, he says he probably won't call but might see me at Foxes, I tell him that's fine as he'll be more than welcome anytime. He leaves.
All this in under thirty minutes. I sit in on the 3h30 AM meeting and wander out a little later.
I would say it was a good night, overall.
Happy New Year.
