by Alejandro Aguirre

We are to meet her friends in a bar of sorts, and I am anxious to the point of nausea. Strangers frighten the shit out me, especially when I'm liquored up enough to frighten the shit out of them. As a means of relaxing my stress, I want some lovin' before having to face the horror of introductions, but she doesn't want to mess up her hair. With only an erection and a few cocktails in my system, I leave the hotel with her.

Perhaps they want to make me feel more comfortable by meeting in a Tex-Mex bar and grill. They might sense that I have more in common with the dishwasher than with those I'm to meet. Yet they don't realize that in a place like this, all of the truly Mexican employees are rarely allowed to have contact with the patrons.

With sweat-stained pits soaking through my shirt, I walk in the joint grumbling about my tendency to perspire profusely when intimidated; I suck at poker. In this fairly upscale cantina, I am awkwardly presented to all my woman's friends. "Hello," I think to myself, "I am the typical sweaty Mexican." My hair looks greasy as well; so much for dispelling stereotypes. All I need now is a bandoleer across my chest and a cheesy accent. Shortness of breath speeds my pulse; nervousness runs wild. God, I hate having to meet new people. "Hey bartender!"

After a short while, her friends are treating me as most people usually treat me. The novelty has worn off; they go back to talking amongst themselves. They sense that I am a misfit of sorts and prefer the comfort found in each other's words. I become the white noise found in crowded places: out of focus, difficult to understand and generally ignored after acclimation to the sounds of idle chatter and clinking forks on dishes. The drab whir of the environment camouflages my silence. Some might feel hurt or abandoned at the lack of attention. This suits me just fine: I don't have much to add to conversations anyway; I have no virtues, knowledge or accomplishments. No, rather than contributing, I prefer stepping aside and observing. This allows me to stop, look and listen. It also affords me the luxury of hiding my now slurred speech and cognac laced breath.

The static hum of random people's lives becomes a language that orates a tale to be read aloud in my mind. The spy in me is alive and well, as is the daydreamer. I can make up their lives in my eyes: voyeurism at play. In this place, at this moment, I possess the power of a god, creating mankind in my images, seeing their worlds destroyed only to be rebuilt to suit my pleasure. It is much easier to think up fantasies about people I meet and/or observe as opposed to actually learning their histories. I become the de-meaner, defining others based upon the pasts that I conjure up and not upon what is obviously presented. Their memories are devalued; I base their new memories and contexts in accordance to the parameters of my logic -- my mytho-logic, or logic of myth. Worth is limited to entertainment, humanity is reduced to gestures and meaning is the stuff of legends.

She walks by, looking for a friend that may have stood her up. Who does she think she's fooling? I know she's alone. A prostitute? No, she has that hopeful look of a woman looking to belong; she lacks the distressed look of a hooker that has seen it all and done it all. Her red blouse is loose fitting with just enough cleavage showing to draw the gaze downward. Her make-up and hair done just so, she is dressed for adventure. Wanting to score some blow or give a blow? Passing the same lively group of people (obviously a clique) time and again, she seems desperate to be noticed -- to be accepted -- by them. To laugh, gossip and swap-fuck them all, both the men and the women: whatever it takes to be part of the action. She sits at a distance, but not so far away as to appear alone. Her surrogate socialization begins with fixated eyes and alert eavesdropping. She laughs quietly at the jokes and anecdotes overheard. Growing bolder, she laughs a little louder but to no effect. They hardly acknowledge her, with the exception of one girl's growing annoyance at this intrusion. I am amused by her attempts; obviously her technique is wanting.

A panic fills her eyes as they stand up and begin donning their coats; they are going to leave without inviting her along. Her heart was set on the pretty boy with the crooked smile. Her imagination was filled with carefree moments in his arms, pictures of dinner parties and selecting swatches of cloth to decorate their new little love nest. It is not meant to be. Alas, he is going. She is about to lose her umbilical chord to possibly being cool, to having a group to call her own. Her visions of camaraderie with her new girl friends are slipping their arms into woolen sleeves, paying up the bar tab. There was safety in numbers. Now she appears to be vulnerable, the one ousted from the herd. Isolated, she talks to the bartender. Unbeknownst to her, he is only the bar-back. He's seen her type before and feels no pity. Like me, he believes it is so much easier to be a little cruel at times than to be sweet. After all, at the end of the evening, rose thorns are easier to preserve than rose petals.

She had expected a nice atmosphere, one where people were eager to openly talk to strangers or lone women. Watching Cheers reruns had spawned her concept of a friendly neighborhood pub. But "Women alone are often that way for a reason" seems to be the motto of the evening. Besides, "Coach" is dead and Sam Malone got AIDS. This social circle is closed; applicants better have references, an "in." She has no angle and the bar-back is getting sick of her.

Adjusting his hair, he begins to speculate that his gay friends are both a blessing and an inconvenience. They make him seem cosmopolitan, hip to all the political correctness that is inherent in being a non-homophobic guy. Breast-fed on MTV lactations, he grew up with icons who were either coming out of the closet, gender-benders or abused as children. But he doesn't know that MTV's mammary glands were only reserved for the rich and famous. It is still more acceptable for any rock star to be a transvestite than for an everyday guy to dress provocatively. Plus, it is hard to be chic with a limited budget and no taste. Poverty forces him to find a more creative link between his life and those lives aired on TV. Gay men often have good-looking women hanging around them, and this is his only chance to appear glamorous. Now he has to convince the women that he is straight, a burden of proof that weighs a ton. He fails miserably at this endeavor. Appearing to be a closet fag, he doubts himself, beginning to wonder about his libido's orientation. But approaching it rationally, he concludes that a mouth, after all, is only a mouth, an ass is only an ass and a hole is a hole is a hole. Grooming himself again, he gulps down another Scotch and promptly orders a Martini.

"What am I doing here?" he keeps asking himself. After his failed marriage, he realizes that he needs to get back in the saddle. However, it's been a long time since he has had to even try to get a date, much less a piece of ass. How does one go about it? (At this point, I wish the lonely girl I saw earlier hadn't skulked away.) Buying a new shirt, although he didn't take the time to remove the lint, he took great pains to be as prepared to meet a new woman as a man can get. He flossed, used mouthwash, applied lotion to dry knuckles and even went so far as to cologne his balls. That stung. His discomfort is growing as he begins to notice that this is a relatively young crowd; there aren't too many middle-aged women here. His decaying body is drawing flies.

His attempt to woo women by buying drinks makes him feel and look like a lecher. It finally dawns on him that this is the kind of bar his daughter might frequent with her girl friends. That notion causes the whiskey to stick in his throat. Anger starts to swell up within him. What if some old fucker was hitting on his daughter? Worse yet, what if she accepted his advances? His neck is turning red. His anger soon turns to shame. He no longer sees them as pieces of ass; they are all somebody's little girls. He abandons his drink and hurries out, eyes fixated on the floor, avoiding any contact.

Pokey-bait (as I have now christened him) has been out of the closet for about two years. His sexuality often grinds on other people's nerves. We know you are gay. Yes, we know you are proud to be gay. Now, Pokey-bait, do you want a reward for your forthrightness? This mantra of his sounds more like an effort to convince himself rather than one to convince others. He sounds like a closet heterosexual. His behavior pattern is one directed towards self-destruction: a drug addict sucking cock in men's bathroom stalls (or letting others suck his cock), he hasn't really come to terms with his homosexuality. Feeling like a deviant, he tries to shock those around him by airing his sexual appetites, expecting gasps of disbelief from his audience. His Catholic upbringing is manifesting itself before our very eyes. He doesn't realize that his newfound lifestyle is normal; no shock value there, Pokey-bait. Feeling guilty, doomed towards condemnation, he figures that he is destined to be the biggest sinner of them all. He cries himself to sleep at night. Hidden inside his soul is the belief that God has lost all love for him; why else would He have made him un-normal?

He has lost all hope, living life with the stereotypical attitude that all gays are destined towards hellfire. He finds solace in irresponsibility, comfort in destroying his body. His alienation is manifested in acts of self-flogging and a raging libido that allows diseased strangers to copulate in him. He is the self-professed living damned. Little does Pokey-bait know, he is actually thinking like a straight man. His morality is founded on the beliefs of the heterosexual lifestyle. Latent straight tendencies? It appears so. In the recesses of his bedroom, he will unconsciously lube his fling's ass with the symbol of the cross in the same manner that holy water is sprinkled at an exorcism. How appropriate. Pokey-bait would have made an excellent priest.

Working in a bar had always held some mystique for her. Meeting all sorts of people, being the helpful quasi-therapist and getting paid to do both had sounded so adventurous at first. But she had not counted on cleaning the vomit out of the bathroom stalls, getting fingers snapped at her or having to tolerate a sadistic bar-back. All she had wanted was to make a few extra bucks to help pay for her daughter's expenses. It had gotten difficult for her parents to care for her child; her man had left her a few days after conception. Her tips are ok. And quite by chance, she has found a supplemental pay plan. "Too bad that older guy left," she thinks, "he looked like he needed some." Come closing time, there will certainly be one or two potentials she can woo with her sunken eyes.

Nightly, she feels the filth of drunks running down her inner thighs, scrubbing her crotch for hours afterwards. The semen will float down the drain with her guilt trailing afterwards. It is only a temporary job, until she has enough money saved. A clandestine way of turning some spare cash or some blow. Her only regrets are not being able to orgasm while turning a trick and now possessing a growing hatred of mirrors.

I can walk out now. Everyone I've met is unconcerned. The droning sound of idle conversations continues in my inebriated head. No good-byes are necessary; I am too shit-faced anyway. Besides, my girlfriend wants to check out another place. The night breeze tickles the nape of my neck, once outside. I think I'll take a stroll. There are plenty of stories the street has in store for me. This is my reality TV that enables me to have a panoramic shot of my actors' lives with self-assumed accuracy. Outside one of those trendier bars with a line running halfway around the block, I stop to observe my unsuspecting thespians as my girl waits to get inside. My eyes are the cameras, my mind is the script and I am on location. Lucky for me, I can fade into the buildings; I am gray like concrete and ash.

[A son of dentists, Alejandro Aguirre studied Philosophy at Texas A&M and now is generally unemployable. He is a zealous smoker and an emotionally impotent writer.]