When We Started Charging for Sauerkraut

Thinking about all of my family (extended and real) who have been hurt through ignorance. Let's make it better for the new kids.

Oh, New York! What happens when you come here having already found yourself?
I'm not looking for answers, but I didn't sign up to answer those of others either.
Under a full moon coming full cycle having seen all the people I wanted to see on 8th Avenue and beyond.
Dancing two-step reveries with the sirens of my past in a neighborhood about as southern as Siberia.
Commenting on the years not with tears, but rather as though they were tree rings we wear like engagements to every boyfriend past.
Every year, another love.
Every love, another promise.
Every promise, another break.
Unbroken and wandering the streets of Brooklyn realizing I smell really good.
And my profound sense of smell reminds me that this community isn't about to raise its voice at me and call me a faggot.
They are going to look at me and say I'm artistic.
My parents' generation called gays "queer."
Oh, how I wish we could revert to that enlightenment!
People watched Uncle Albert on Bewitched and thought, "Warlock. Queer warlock. Funny, queer warlock."
I want to be a funny, queer warlock wandering the streets and spreading my magic amongst the fairies of my generation.
I want to go to a dive bar in a straight neighborhood wearing a dress and high heels sporting a goatee and declare myself the queen, only to have them crown me with laughter and Fernet for a scepter.
Maybe that's a lot to ask.
Kid can't even go to Gray's Papaya without having his face blown off for wearing shorts on a 90 degree day.
So I'm queer, but who isn't?
You collected baseball cards with stale bubblegum strips packaged questionably within cancerous sleeves.
I collected Agatha Christie novels and snow globes.
So maybe I was destined to be gay. But maybe you were destined for bad teeth, and a dream you'd never come close to touching.
I've visited all the worlds within my snow globes and realized which ones were drawn to scale.
You've scaled a wall attempting to escape the police who chased you for your arrogance, and thought they were chasing you for that time we touched each other after Little League.
I never told anyone until now.
You broke our promise.
You came out when you sprayed your bullets all over the face of my friend.
My brother.
Whom I'd never met.
But we were connected.
We loved you, even when you wouldn't be caught dead with us at your lunch table.
We tutored you in Spanish when it was supposed to be your mother tongue, but you couldn't conjugate a verb to save your life.
And who's life did you save?
Who's life did you help?
You've scared all my friends into dressing like you.
It's hot outside.
I will not wear pants because that's what "straight" means to you.
I will wear what makes me happy, even if the synonym may kill me.
This is New York after all.
Another snow globe I know very well.
For as much as I've shaken it, I've never broken the skyline.
For as much as I've spent a night in the spare bedroom, I can't break up with it.
For as much as I want to believe this is a one-off, I will love this place and know that crazy comes with an invitation.
I just want the crazy to realize our RSVP requires a stamp and a sense of humor.
Not a gun, or a word of hate, or a moment of insecurity realized.
Be crazy, but remember we were once crazy for Pogs, and video games, and Ronald Reagan.
Things change.
Hearts shouldn't.

Tears of Joy

I wish I had a better rationale for writing something like this other than the world of rap finally recognizing our struggle, too. But I don't need one. The fact that anyone at all from the other side of the tracks heard OUR soundtrack makes me happy. Very happy. Ignore my tears, and listen to my heart.

I'm crying in a taxi right now
Alone, and heading to more alone.
But I'm listening to the man I always had a crush on since I was 7 talk about his childhood confusion about his own situation.
I cry because I thought he would hit me.
I cry because I thought he would out me.
I cry because I thought he might like it.
We're getting closer.
We're one less tear from hate.
We're one more song closer to acceptance.
Love is patient and kind.
I'm just hoping to patiently wait for my love to be kind.
I'm not going to cry anymore.
The feeling of spit slipping down my cheek will never dissipate.
The resonance of faggot in my ears will make me think of change.
I will listen to the man I thought would hurt me sing for my freedom, and I won't cry anymore.
I will smile.
I will joke.
I will rest easy.
My boyfriend will annoy me as much as yours.
Maybe more.
I'll always love him, but we'll commiserate over the compromises we make.
Together.
In union.
In unison.
In it.
Together.

Stephen's Bar: In Three Shots

I can taste the mistakes of my predecessors on the rim of this shot glass.
This Jameson smacks of Jody, Dylan, and Mario.
Jody was a sweet girl.
She wore grapefruit lip balm and leggings with a skirt on top.
Her only problem came when she confused the pool cue for a stripper's pole.
That's when she met Dylan.
He played pool from happy hour until someone like Jody walked in.
Four hours.
Three beers.
Two dollar tip.
One chance to convince Jody he wasn't a creep.
From the taste of this shot, citrus and salty sweat on the same side, Dylan was convincing.
He convinced Jody he rarely played.
Accomplice bartender plying both of their egos into sharing the same oversized pour.
But, just before their ambitions dropped to the floor, Mario licked his lips and conjured a better threshold to carry them over.
Mario washed dishes at Jody's bar.
He made the mistake of taking Dylan on in pool twice.
He came to this bar not because he liked it, but because they didn't ask for ID.
You could ask.
But he'd never have anything to show.
Other than scarred hands and a flush face, Mario's passport was riddled with heat blisters and minor cuts.
Jody never led him on.
She was nice to everyone.
And she was good with names.
She had no idea what her hospitality hosted or harbored in Mario's lonely heart.
Dylan was a scumbag.
Mario was desperate.
Jody was just looking for a good time.
One of them had to get hurt.
If only so two of them could feel pleasure.
Mario should have gone home.
Home never carded.
Home never had a posse.
Home never tolerated the empty promises of a tart.
Jody was anything but home.
She was a hole.
But not Mario's.
Tonight, she was Dylan's.
Or at least Dylan's charm.
He wanted to wear her confusion like a necklace.
She wanted to know what little spoon felt like.
Mario wanted to know the curves and caress of a woman secure and procuring his manhood.
All three would be let down.
All three should have gone home.
All three thought the dive was easy enough.
None were prepared for the reparations paid for not acknowledging the brilliance of a juke box rife with Sam Cooke and Prince.
Dylan waited in the restroom.
Mario perched around the pool table.
Jody talked to anyone who would listen.
No one left happy.
Everyone left.
Dylan went to Brooklyn and got up to teach 9-year olds algebra.
Jody went to Queens to meet her roommates and laugh with the immigrant bartender.
Mario didn't go anywhere but down.
He lost the opportunity to prove to Jody he could wash more than her glasses but rather polish her reputation.
Jody probably went home with a Greek guy questioning his sexuality.
Dylan felt his hand draw near, screamed in private ecstasy, and pretended that one worth marrying was on his right.
Jody just hummed a Portishead song knowing she was hummus and light years away from anyone's truth.
So no one went home happy, but few went home.
Those who did saw how destiny is created not earned.
Jody, Dylan, and Mario were destined to find one another.
At least two were destined to know pain.
All three did.
And then the pillow of a bar that barely wipes down itself seemed as good a place as any to take a nap.
We are awake.
We are not taking a cue from anyone.
We are a remix that everyone would pay juke box money for.
We are not lying to ourselves, or the ones who pay.
Give me Dinah.
Give me Etta.
Give me better than this pretend.
Hope Mario makes it home alright, if he ever wakes up.

Stephen's Bar: In 3 Shots

Next Stop

If they let you smoke on the train, I'd ride it all day long.
Life happens in the moments between stops.
People getting on and off and getting off to get it on.
I always wonder why people pay for television when the best shows are unveiled under the hospital lighting of the A train.
Relationships beginning and ending in the space between Columbus Circle and Penn Station.
I have fallen in love sometimes three times over in the span of one ride.
That boy that just came from the gym with a childlike nerve, knowing how good he looks with the sheen of sweat glistening on his brow, making eyes at you while he pretends to be disinterested.
Or the couple whose conversation had become tiresome somewhere between Jackson Heights and Hell's Kitchen, yet your presence now has them talking about the possibility of spicing things up a bit.
Then, there's the man so striking that you forget which was your stop.
You start to question how long you could follow him to see where he exits, and consequently how long it would take you to get back to where you were going in the first place.
It never happens on your day off.
He never gets off at your stop.
You never end up in the same coffeeshop moments later, attempting to work up the nerve to ask if this seat is taken.
And if it did happen, then taking the train wouldn't be as much fun anymore.
You'd have reached your final destination, and the fantasy is over.
You could ride freely without headphones or distractions because now you get on and off by memory.
Its obvious when you've been riding too long.
Close your eyes, and you're there.
Eventually, you open your eyes.
The coffeeshop is full of angst and 30 variations of the next great American novel in different states of development.
There's an OKCupid date heading to disaster.
And he's not there.
He transferred.
I guess that's why we have Missed Connections.
Maybe he's at another coffeeshop writing the same thing about you.
Maybe he's at a bar telling his friends how stupid he was for not saying something to you when he had the chance.
Maybe he's at Kinko's having business cards made for the next time he sees you.
Maybe he's sitting on his fire escape writing tragic poetry about how yet again he let one get away.
Next time, I'll make the connection.
What's the worst that could happen?
You compliment someone by telling him he's handsome?
He could be straight.
At least you're on the train and he probably won't hit you.
And if the embarrassment is too much to bear, all you have to do is wait for the next stop.

Back to the Scene

Remember what Ani said about the mistakes of our generation fading like the radio if we drove out of range?

Sitting here, having gone to both extremes of off the grid, I know now I want those mistakes.

My cranberries never tasted so sweet as when I picked them from the source.

It took a trip to California to realize it's not a red herring, but rather a mullet that's red.

And everything I've read, I've learned.

And everything I've learned has shown me that finding Orion's Belt in the night sky is truth.

I've tread each coast until my fingers, toes, and nostrils were raw.

Now, I'm in flight again.

My station and soundtrack are coming back into range.

Even through the static, I can still make out the encroaching beats of West African tribes, misplaced mariachi, 7th Avenue saxophones, and the angst of Alphabet City.

I'll make more mistakes before the song is over, but it's like Katie said:

"I needed to make enough mistakes to deserve something this good."