The Write Thing

Here we go, Saturday June 28, official Gay Day worldwide, except in Buenos Aires, where the Gay Pride takes place in November due to hemisphere-related weather displeasure. Whatever the case, I have noticed that every city has its preference. I’ve never been to the local Gay Pride event, only to the Paris parade and, yesterday, to the Houston parade. Well, I didn’t really make it to the actual parade given that it takes place at night — Houston weather is killing, running well above the high 30s (Celsius).
Here I am, walking down Westheimer, past the mythical Chances bar, and about to enter the Half-Price bookstore around the corner, when a woman whose origin was possibly Korean stops me with a smile on her face. Pointing at the crowd on our right and the barricades police forces were building around, she asks in basic English:

Woman: What is this?
Me: Gay parade…Gay Pride
Woman (flabbergasted): Oh…men?
Me (in let’s-teach-somebody-something mode): and women too!

I kept walking the length of the sidewalk, as I saw the crowds dancing to the tune of live singers, and a mix of butches, femmes and the rest of the in-the-middle jungle strolling down in the heat, hand in hand. Languages ranged from Chinese to Spanish, and beer flowed relentlessly from improvised street stalls zealously guarded by Houston police. The attendants carried their folding chairs on their backs, looking for a spot that would give them a perfect view of the cars filled with loud and proud boys and girls in costumes later that night. The sun fell on our faces and our backs, sticking our T-shirts to our bodies as we made our way through the crowd. It did not matter.
As I walked to my car, which I had parked quite a few blocks away at St. Thomas’ University, I saw two twenty-year-old boys kissing passionately in a corner. One of them was a resuscitated punk, and had meticulously dyed his hair in the rainbow flag colors. They parted ways, and a few seconds later, I saw his partner running past me with the lightness that only people in love have. It was then that I thought that, in fact, they were all there for that single reason…love.

Friday, 6.30 pm - He calls. Will we meet tonight? Yes, why not? This is neutral territory for her, an empty jungle of opportunity to seize. They only met once before, biblically, over a year ago. Now he’s moving to Madrid. She will remain in Buenos Aires, at least for now. He’s married. She’s not. She opens the door and peeks to check whether she’s not dreaming. He has made plans so many times before…but the family, the fear, the lack of habit for a plan, all made it difficult for him to find the way of going to her as he had wanted.
They talk, and have a shower together, before making love for the first time. Their bodies feel so natural against each other, so familiar and comfortable. The pizza arrives, four inches larger than his sex. They eat, they touch and she watches him, aroused once more.
He will wait for her in bed later, and will ask whether he can spend the night. She will say yes, she would have offered, but did not dare. They make love in that unusual and unique connection they generate out of an odd, unmeant encounter, populated by the ancestral layers of skin they have shared in their unrevealed, common past. He stays over, oddly enough, taking up so little space in the bed that he is almost unnoticeable. He may have snored, she may have heard him…
The next meeting may or may not ever happen. She will probably guess what makes him so strange and so necessary. She can have sex with men, but she cannot love them. They both know what a woman tastes and feels like, even while he is not aware that she does. He cannot fall in love with her, and be destroyed by the force of her untamed nature. She cannot be other than his peer, even when he ignores everything about her. He calls her his friend, but she is his lover. The way he wants it, the way he dreams it…no questions asked, no expectations…simply his girl Friday.

Back in Houston for the ride, again. It’s been a hard week, with lots of work and more things to do moving forward. It is going to be an interesting journey this time, especially if immigration authorities let me in once I get back from Colombia. It excites me to think that I’ll be adding another tick to the list of capitals I have visited so far. I still have several more to go…until I make it to a dreamed-of Stockholm one day.

Now I am in Houston. Despite the bashing this city has had from many of my American friends, there’s something to be said. They do have funny ads. The Houston Press (the city’s Thursday newspaper announcing events and shows for the whole week) runs this one in today’s edition:

If I don’t die of exhaustion tomorrow, I’ll be out in town to check on the Chances bar again. Typical Houston butches and dykes of all colors. Me, the Princess Leia in the middle of chaos, probably listening in attentively to the generously-shaped, short-haired bar girl spasmodically pouring Diet Coke into my ice-filled glass before I finish my second sip, as she explains to me why the Houston basketball team will win the play-offs. Meanwhile, I’ll be checking the screen and doubting her word, given that the score already shows a 40-point differential that, even if my knowledge of basketball amounts to nil, would lead me to think that a good outcome for the locals is far from happening.

Anyway, I may or may not be walking nude in my hotel room tonight. After all, I don’t have to share it…yet. Tomorrow, who knows?