Femme (2 page)

Chapter Two

“So, Lynette, are you going to see him again?” Carlos asked, while we were waiting for our drink orders.

“I have absolutely no idea,” I said, though it was late Sunday afternoon the following week and I was pretty sure the softball team was due at The Bird any minute. I had not heard a word from Dog since the previous Sunday. No surprise. After a quick but memorable round two, he’d run out of my apartment so fast he’d forgotten to take my number. I would have friended him on Facebook, but the only name I knew him by was Dog. There was a picture of him on the Birdmen’s Facebook page, but it was captioned Dog. Just Dog. Not even tagged. No help whatsoever. But it was a cute photo of him in his baseball uniform—well, really it was more a baseball shirt and a pair of board shorts—but it was still cute. Of course, I also checked Grindr, Growlr, Scruff and several other apps I’d never even heard of before giving up.

“You’re cool as a coconut. You know perfectly well the team is coming in soon.”

“It’s cool as a cucumber, Carlotta. And, yes, Dog is going to be here this afternoon. Big deal.”

“Dog! I just love that name. Did you do it doggie style?”

“None of your business.” My drink orders were ready, so I wandered off to deliver them—trying not to think too much about what we’d done in bed the previous Sunday.

Located in Long Beach’s gay ghetto on what is called “the stroll,” a section of Broadway with five or six gay bars, The Bird was half restaurant, half bar. The brick was exposed, the bar mirrored, and the inner walls tastefully painted forest green. Every day there was a drink special made with top-shelf liquor, usually a concoction the bartender invented that was too sweet for anyone to have more than one. Those who tried often ended up in the restroom puking up everything they’d eaten for the last week. An attached restaurant served small, tasty bites of elegant food on tiny triangular plates.

It was called The Bird because somewhere along the way they’d gotten a ginormous gold eagle and mounted it on the wall above what was then the cigarette machine and was now the cash machine. The eagle glared down at the room, wings spread, caught in the moment of takeoff as a roomful of gay men sipped fruity vodka drinks, eyed each other—usually to no avail—while listening to an overly loud piano player.

It was a nice place. You stopped at The Bird to have just enough drinks that you didn’t care how trashy the rest of the bars on the stroll were. And they were pretty trashy. A block further down was a place called The Pub, which tried to present itself as somehow British, but just managed to be sad. Maybe it was the soggy indoor-outdoor carpet. Beyond that was a place called The Shaft that made you feel like you’d accidentally time traveled back to the nineties as soon as you walked through the door. Even further down were the places you went if you favored super cheap drinks and unintelligible conversations with tweakers.

Sunday afternoons were crazy busy at The Bird. There was brunch in the morning, which, after several pitchers of mimosas, could easily turn into an afternoon of drinking. Then, of course, the Birdmen came in around four. And finally, Larry Lamour started at five-ish.

Lamour was an old-school entertainer, who played the piano and told off-color jokes. He wore loud caftans and hats that often featured plastic fruit. His following was devoted, showed up for every minute of his sets, and shouted out his punch lines before he could get to them. He was good-natured enough not to get offended.

It was almost four when I managed to corner Carlos underneath the bird. The bar was only half full, so we were able to take a quick break.

“So, is your cold getting better?” he asked. “Your face is hardly blotchy at all.”

“My cold is gone and has been since Thursday.”

“If you say so, Lynette.”

“Do me a favor, okay, and use my boy name in front of Dog.”

He gasped. “Lynette, you’d deny who you are for a man?”

“Carlos, you’re the only one in the world who calls me Lynette and you’d gut me like a fish if you thought it would get you laid.”

“You have no social graces whatever. There is nothing ruder than the truth. Why do you think so many people avoid it?”

I glared at him.

“All right. Lionel,” he said, as though simply saying my name left a bad taste in his mouth. “You really like this guy, don’t you?”

“It was just a one-night stand. But it might be worth repeating.”

“That’s what a relationship is. A one-night stand that repeats and repeats and repeats.”

Just then, the softball team began to trickle in. They were still in their red-and-black baseball shirts, which had a giant-beaked bird sketched across the front. I recognized the first two who walked in; one was named Tim and the other, Fetch. I remembered hearing a story about Fetch being an outfielder who’s skills weren’t entirely up to par. They put him in right field or left field, whichever field got less action, and let him fetch the ball when it rolled his way.

Tim was short, red-haired and balding, while Fetch was tall, black and probably fielded a lot of questions about why he didn’t play basketball instead of softball. Of course, if he played basketball his nickname would be Dribble—so much worse than Fetch.

“Hello, boys,” I said when I went over to take their order. “What can I get you?”

“Hey, can we get a couple of Millers,” Tim said,

“And two shots of Fireball,” Fetch added.

“Sure thing. How was the game?”

“Five-four.”

“We lost it in the ninth.”

I was pretty sure that meant they lost the game at the end. Of course, I had no idea how you’d loose a game at the beginning or in the middle.

“How tragic,” I said, as though I understood what they’d said. “I’ll get your drinks.”

I went back to the bar and ordered their drinks. Sitting in a row next to the service bar were three of our Sunday regulars. Bill and Phil, two guys in their late seventies who’d been coming to The Bird since it opened and could tell you about the days when you could pick up the occasional sailor from the long-closed naval base, and Linda Sue, a nice, heterosexual, broad-shouldered, former professional football player who liked to spend Sundays in ensembles of brightly patterned wrap dresses, strappy sandals and a severe pageboy wig all picked out by his wife.

As I delivered drinks to Tim and Fetch, three more players came in. One of them I didn’t know. The others were a British guy named Simon and his friend Jack, who was sort of lumbersexual. Carlos swooped over to get their order.

Tim and Fetch were semi-arguing about the last election, agreeing stridently about who should and shouldn’t have been nominated in the first place. I found politics almost as boring as sports. Probably because people acted the same exact boorish way about both. Fetch gave me a ten and said to keep the change.

“Um, it’s twelve dollars,” I said. The Bird was not cheap. He probably came in on Fireball Fridays when you could get a Fireball shot for a buck, instead of it’s regular two-fifty.

Tim gave me another five and I made change from the bank I kept in my apron. He pushed a single back at me, and I smiled and said “Thanks,” even though it was kind of a crappy tip. The thing I’ve learned about tips is to just smile and move on. After four or five rounds, Tim wouldn’t be able to see the denominations on the bills and his tipping would markedly improve.

When I turned around to go back to the bar, I almost ran smack into Chuckie Cooper, real-estate agent extraordinaire and the captain of the Birdmen. Standing next to him was Dog. I looked at Dog but he quickly looked away.

I turned back to Chuckie, who was probably fifty but desperately wanted to be twenty-five. He was always over-groomed and I imagined him sleeping with two inches of moisturizer on his face, a chinstrap and pink tape around his eyes.

“Can you get us a couple drafts and two shots of Cuervo?” Chuckie ordered, raking his eyes up and down me as though I was something to be stepped on.

I turned to Dog, hoping to be funny and said, “And what about you, sir? What can I get you?”

“That’s for both of us,” Chuckie said, not finding me cute at all. He pulled Dog over to the table with Tim and Fetch. Dog still wouldn’t look at me. He was acting like I was a complete stranger. Worse than a stranger. A stranger would have gotten a smile, a please, a thank-you.

I got nothing.

###

The pockets of my grimy shorts were crammed full of tissues. Most of them used during the game. I’d taken the maximum recommended dose of cold meds and just wanted to go lie down somewhere. I was kinda miserable. And it didn’t help that Chuckie had pulled into the alley behind The Bird and asked for a blow job. There was no way I was doing that. I mean, I had. Once, at the start of last season. But only because he looked like an older Tom Brady. But there was no way I was doing it again. Ever.

Right after I’d joined the team we’d gone out, had a few, and he asked for a blow job. It wasn’t the first time in my life I’d been asked. It
was
the first time that was all that was meant. Usually, guys asked “How about a blow job?” as a way of starting sex. The blow job was part one of the whole package of sex. But when Chuckie asks for a blow job, that’s all he’s asking for. And all he’s offering. To be on the receiving end. No turnabout is fair play. Later on, the guys on the team warned me about Chuckie, and I acted like it was a big surprise. Like I’d dodged a bullet.

So when I walked into The Bird, I was kinda groggy, a little dizzy, needed to blow my nose, and felt sexually harassed. I didn’t expect to run into Lionel first thing, and really hadn’t wanted to run into him while I was standing next to Chuckie. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want Chuckie to know I’d slept with Lionel, so I pretended I didn’t know him.

That wasn’t very nice.

Chuckie pulled me over to hang out with Tim and Fetch, who’d grabbed a small, table and four stools. Even though we’d lost to the Mermen who played for Waves, the dance bar on Ocean, Tim had pitched a few good innings as relief and Fetch had caught two of the three flies that had come his way. That didn’t keep everyone from being depressed by our loss.

“We’ve got to do something to shake things up,” Tim said.

“Yeah, we can’t keep loosing like this,” Fetch agreed. “It sucks.”

Lionel brought our drafts and shots. What I really wanted was tea and honey, and a nice soft pillow, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. By that point, I was already up shit creek and I wasn’t going to ask Lionel for a paddle. Or a hot toddy. He took Chuck’s credit card and went back to the bar. I kept an eye on him while trying not to let him know I had an eye on him. There would probably be a point when I could go over and apologize. Maybe when the awful singer started his act. Or when Chuckie decided to go and harass someone else.

“How about the ass on nelly girl?” Chuckie asked the table. I glanced around the room, but the only woman there was in her sixties and the decade she’d spent on a bar stool had not done her ass much good.

“Who are you talking about?” I asked.

“Nelly girl. The cocktail waitress.”

“Lionel does have a great ass,” Tim said.

Fetch nodded enthusiastically.

They were nicer about it than Chuckie, but it still bothered me. I mean, they talked that way about guys all the time. Heck, I talked that way about guys. But for some reason I didn’t want them talking that way about Lionel. Which was stupid because, well, because it was stupid.

“It’s a shame an ass like that is attached to such a flamer. When I’m fucking a man I like to know it’s a man,” Chuckie said, then glanced over at me. “Why is your face so red, Dog?”

“I, uh, I have a cold.”

“Did you just get it? Because your face wasn’t this red in the car. You know, that is the same color red my father’s face gets when he forgets to take his blood pressure medication. Dude, are you going to stroke out?”

“I’m fine.”

“Really? Because I can have nelly girl call you an ambulance.”

I turned and saw Lionel standing next to our table with Chuckie’s charge receipt in one hand. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been there. He’d obviously heard at least some of what Chuckie said. Setting the receipt onto the tiny table, Lionel kept his face very still. In fact, the whole table was still. Everyone seemed hyper-aware of how rude Chuckie was being, except Chuckie.

Lionel took a deep breath, got a little bit taller, and said, “Honey, you can call me anything you want if you’d only learn to tip.”

“What did you say?” Now it was Chuckie getting red in the face.

“I said, ‘You need to learn to tip.’”

“You know I’m good friends with Bob.”

“Bob the owner or Bob the guy who cleans the urinal?” To the rest of us he added, “Bob the urinal guy, he does that for free. Gets off on it.” He shrugged his shoulders up high. “To each his own.”

“Bob Grottoli. The owner.”

“Oh
that
Bob? You think you’re friends with
that
Bob? Well...you may think you’re friends with a lot of people but…” A dramatic frown. “Not so much.”

“Oh snap,” Fetch said. “He’s got your number, Chuckie.”

Anger dripping off him, Chuckie filled out the credit card slip. He handed it to Lionel. “You’re the sort of faggy queen who gives the rest of us a bad name.”

Calmly, Lionel took the slip and looked at it. “Zero tip. Why am I not surprised?” Then he flounced off. I mean, he made a point of flouncing. In fact, I’m not sure I’d ever seen anyone flounce until that moment.

Chuckie was talking about how well he knew Bob Grottoli and how he was going to have Lionel’s job. I should have said something. I felt like an ass for just sitting there while Chuckie acted like an ass. I shouldn’t have let him. I should have stopped him. I’d wanted to, but I’d choked. Actually, I almost did choke. There was a lot of phlegm in my throat.

On the other side of the bar sat a black baby grand piano. Larry Lamour, wearing a brightly patterned housedress and a hat depicting the universe: the crown painted yellow, six hat-pin planets in different sizes and a spray of stars shooting out of the middle of it all, sat down and started to play a song that was probably a hundred years old, something about a carriage and a bicycle built for two. I think Lamour had messed up the words, though, “Andy, Andy, give me your answer true. I’m half randy over the thought of you...” I don’t think the song was originally about a dude named Andy.