Even the water is clean now - well, clean-ish. The gay boys still come to sunbathe or cruise, but they are surrounded by tourists and dog walkers. The ragged Wild West piers off Christopher Street are now pretty, green parklands filled with baby strollers and bike lanes. "I lost a hundred."Ī few years later, Steven made three, or four, depending on whatever happened to Robbie. "You lost two people," my friend Steven reminded me one day.
He nodded and smiled, then wrote, "Strawberry yogurt, please," on his sketchpad.Īffected as I was, I was comparatively just a tourist in the worst plague of my lifetime. Alex maxed out all his credit cards went to a hospital in Virginia to be near his mom. He quietly passed away after making himself a dish of ice cream and morphine. Adam, my beloved friend who we all thought looked like Adam Ant, dwindled from body-builder size to 90 pounds. Robbie, the adorable red-headed boy I hung out with, just disappeared. The sex clubs got shuttered for "health violations."Įven Mickey stopped going to West Street, as though he might catch it from the air. Soon after that night, I started hearing about "the gay cancer" and "gay pneumonia." Businesses began to close on Christopher Street. I had no idea that it was all about to end. They were letting it all hang out, quite literally. And they weren't cowering in fear from bashers. None of those men were interested in me or the details of my sex life. I didn't want to think about what they might throw if they knew the woman visiting me was my lover.ĭangerous? That night was the first time that being who I was had felt safe. I'd had Chasids throw rocks though my window in Crown Heights just for wearing Levi's. In Jersey, being out and gay could mean a beer bottle thrown at your head. I wanted to explore the rotting old piers and dock houses that Mickey said were home to a crazy scene of cruising, trans* hookers and drug dealing, but Mickey shook his head. We crossed the West Side Highway to sit on a concrete slab and watch a group of a about 20 gay men, some in drag, some homeless, dancing to a boom box blaring Donna Summer. "Are they trying to convert him?" I asked Mickey, sending him into fits of giggles.
They don't," Mickey explained.Ī station wagon full of Chasidic men pulled up to Blondie, and the long-bearded Chasid in the passenger seat called him to the window. "Go get me some cigarettes!" he asked the eldest, who couldn't have been more then 16. He had a half-dozen Hispanic boys running errands for him. I'm sooo busy tonight, honey!" the adorable little boy with the blond hair said. So Mickey took me to Badlands to shoot pool, but the men at that bar started banging their beer glasses on the bar chanting, "Fish, fish, fish" until we left.īack on West Street, Mickey introduced me to "Blondie," a 13-year-old he had taken in for awhile. Mickey laughed his ass off.Īs we pushed our way through the bar, a huge, muscular man with a bushy handlebar mustache yelled, "Get out!" No girls allowed.
When he said there was a glory hole in the back of the bar, I asked if he meant a urinal. Underneath it all, I was just a runaway kid from Jersey. I had just turned 17 and was trying really hard to be 35. It was so dark, no one noticed I was a girl. He smuggled me into a joint that was so dark all you could see were the floating orange tips of cigarettes. "Come on!" Mickey said, pulling me up West Street. The Ramrod had a double R on its awning that looked like a cattle brand. Even the names made me feel as though I was in the Wild West. Some seriously macho-looking guys in leather congregated around two bars, Badlands and The Ramrod. It felt like the after party for gay pride, but it was just a Wednesday night in spring.Īt the end of Christopher, we walked to West Street. I'd never seen anything like it: Gay bars with blaring disco music, the street so full of gay men that cars couldn't get through. He parked the car near Sheridan Square, and we walked down Christopher Street. He borrowed his sister's Oldsmobile and drove me into Manhattan. My buddy Mickey, a nerdy, goofy Jewish guy who lived near me in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, decided to give me a tour of where he hung out when his family thought he was working late.