fiction

I’d rather be sailing…

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I missed yesterday, so there are two posts today.

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Most of my younger friends, would never believe that I have not always been an overweight middle aged man.

In fact, at one time you might call me attractive.

Might.

If your glasses were foggy and you hadn’t had cataract surgery.

However, I did okay for myself.

When I lived in Atlanta, I never really had a boyfriend.

Well, I had one for about 5 minutes. But that’s a story for another day.

I did date a bit. Although not much. I was too busy living my best life.

There are a few men who stand out in Atlanta. Matt, the boyfriend. Chris who tried to get me to like red wine. Dave, the artist. The guy whose name I’ll remember later, who went on to make a huge fortune in designing chandeliers. Tony, who I stayed in contact with and of course.

And Shel the furniture distributor.

This story is about Shel.

I have no idea, how we met.

I do remember our first date.

We had lunch, in the spring, at a café that over looked Piedmont Park.

He picked me up in his baby blue Mercedes convertible, and was the perfect gentleman.

He was easily 45, with a weathered appearance, that gave the impression he’d grown up on a sailboat. His face was tanned, and his hair was blondish grey. His eyes, were crystal blue and he spoke with a slight Norwegian accent.

The only thing I know about his wealth, was that he and his Norwegian family, owned a European furniture company and distribution center.

I never asked. He didn’t offer up much information.

We were never exclusive. We’d go out to mostly lunches, and early dinners. He’d drive me around town in the convertible and I felt like royalty. He was wicked funny, and very sweet.

His apartment, was in a high rise, and it had beautiful views of Atlanta.

One of the memories that I remember clearly was going to Neiman Marcuss with him where he was picking up and paying for pants that had been altered for him. When he paid, the register said $750. In 1988. What the fucking fuck.

He was in excellent shape and looked as good out of clothes as he did in his $750 pants. He really was beautiful.

We dated casually throughout the summer, and then our summer romance kind of fizzled. I don’t remember a conversation. I don’t remember a break up. I just remember one day I had a friend with a powder blue Mercedes convertible and the next day I didn’t.

Truth be told, I probably have his old phone number written in an address book in a box in my closet. And for the life of my I can’t remember his last name, which was Norwegian.

For a moment though, my star shone brightly.

So sue me, sue me…

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I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

I could NOT sleep the other night. At 3:00 a.m. I was wide awake, lost in memories from my far past.

At one point, I picked up my phone and was scrolling.

I saw a post, and it reminded me of a friend I had in Lexington back in the early 1990’s. I’ve thought about him often, but that night I went down a rabbit hole of Google trying to find him.

It took a bit, but about halfway down the second page, I found his obituary. He died in 2003 and from the sounds of tributes on the page, he had not been well mentally or physically.

I had the breath knocked out of me. We had been buddies.

Which reminded me of something that happened, when I stopped by his work one day.

He cut hair for a living. I knew he got off around 5:00 and I met him at his shop. We went down the street to get ice cream and then walked back and sat on a bench in front.

We were chatting minding our own business when a man in a jeep drove by and called us f*gs.

I didn’t know what to say, but my friend was having no part of it.

He watched the man park a couple of stores down and go inside.

I sat there, as he went down to the jeep, pulled out his keys and etched f*g on the side of the man’s jeep.

He was almost back to the bench when the man started yelling.

We both ran into the shop, out the back door and hid.

We thought we’d escaped.

Except the next day, the police show up and they ask if he was involved. He assured them it was not him. A few days later, he is served with papers. The man whose jeep he keyed has decided to sue him.

When you cut hair, you know a lot of people.

In fact. Some of the people whose hair you cut might just be attorneys. Some of them might be very good attorneys who, tell my friend that they’ll take care of it.

The attorney, does a little investigation and discovers that the jeep driver is about as pure as you’d expect him to be. He has an outstanding warrant for his arrest, AND he owes several years back child support.

When all was said and done, jeep driver ended up in jail, the lawsuit was dismissed and hopefully jeep driver learned not to be a bully when your friend has a good attorney.

And as because it never ceases to amaze me, I was called a f*g today while driving, because I tapped my horn behind someone who was sitting in an intersection they had the light in.

It certainly told me all I needed to know about him.

I am what I am.

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I’d like to speak to the manager!

The summer of 1984.

I worked at Wendy’s in North Park, in Lexington.

I had just finished my freshman year of college.

One hot, humid evening, a car pulls up to the drive thru. I’m on the register, and take the order. I ask the car to pull around.

When the car pulls up to the window, I lean out and give the guy driving the car the price. He’s super cute, and has a huge smile. He pays me, but keeps looking at me, and smiling. I hand him back his change (I’m not even sure we took credit cards back then), and he’s still smiling.

After a bit, I hand him his order and he asks me what I’m doing later.

I look around to see if any of my co-workers are watching. They are cleaning, cooking, not paying me any attention.

Since no one is watching, I ask why he wants to know. He says, he might want to come back later and see me. I tell him I’ll be off around midnight.

He replies, “Don’t be surprised if I come back.”

I didn’t think anything of it, and went back to work.

Sure, enough though, when I walked out to my car 90 minutes later, there he was sitting in the parking lot, waiting.

As I write this, all I can think of is Jeffrey Dahmer, but in 1994, all I could think was impure thoughts. He asked if I wanted to grab a drink with him, but I confessed I wasn’t 21. He said, how about a drink at my place.

Innocent Jeff, followed him to his apartment. And may or may not have spent the night.

The next morning, we got up and had coffee. He introduced me to his roommate, and we sat and chatted.

I said that I needed to get home, but he asked if he could see me again.

I said, of course. I’d love that.

What followed next was a stupid, infatuation on my part, that had no chance of going anywhere.

I was too young. He was too old at 26.

For a few weeks, though, I’d meet him at the Video Library on New Circle Road, help him close up, then we’d go back to his place.

What I didn’t know, when I met his roommate over coffee the first morning, was that his roommate was a drag queen by night. Confession, she was the first drag queen I’d ever met. I’m not even sure I had a word for it at the time.

The affair lasted about 30 seconds, and one day he told me it wasn’t going to work out.

I was devastated. I spent the next week mourning, while I was spending time at my aunt’s house, watching Grease 2 every day on HBO. She’d ask what was up and I’d just say I don’t feel well.

I of course got over it.

School started a month or so later.

Fall of my sophomore year.

The year when students were allowed to pledge fraternities and sororities.

I went through pledge week. And at the end of the week, I accepted the bid from the Phi Kappa Taus.

My friend Kara’s father is a Phi Tau, which is kind of fun.

That fall I did all the fraternity stuff. Parties, events, etc.

Then came hell week.

During hell week, the first chore was to put newspaper over the windows to the lobbies. Then lots of top secret stuff that I’d be killed if I shared with you.

Part of hell week was a scavenger hunt.

It was silly things really.

But one item stood out.

Get a signature from the bartender at Johnny Angels. The gay bar. Still in business today.

I volunteered to go in. It’s funny, it never occurred to me till right this minute that we didn’t get carded, which means I could have gone back at anytime. Alas.

Myself and a pledge brother walk up to the bar and ask for the autograph.

While I’m standing there, I look to my right, and there is the drag queen friend of my summer fling. She winked at me. Watched the proceedings. And then turned back to her friend.

We ran out, and got on with our evening, but at the time I so grateful she didn’t say hello.

I spent the next three years terrified of being found out.

Now, all of the people from that time know me as Jeff. Who lives in Maine with his boyfriend. His five cats. And his slew of lesbian friends.

Seems silly to have worried about it all that time ago.

Look over there. Look over there. Somebody cares that much.

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i’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Picture this!

Perhaps it’s time to rename my blog since I very rarely talk to the manager anymore.

Anyway!

Picture this!

Lexington, Kentucky. 1994.

I’m working at an Italian restaurant called The Italian Oven.

It’s a fun concept, in a strip mall off Richmond Road.

It features a wood fired oven, used to make pizzas, calzones and pastas.

I would often get the pasta carbonara until I discovered it was the dish with the most calories on the menu.

The owner’s name was Wayne. He was a bit crazy as all restaurant owners are.

He had an assistant, who’s named Nina, who was a host, then became assistant manager. She scared everyone but me.

For some reason she liked me, which I appreciated.

Turns out the concept, a franchise operation has gone kind of bust except for one location in Georgia.

Home

Same idea, except we only served beer and wine.

My ex-boyfriend Jim got me the job there, after I walked out of O’Charley’s when my manager was on maternity leave, and the replacement manager was a dick.

The concept included, black and white checked table cloths, with white craft paper on top. When you approached the table, you introduced yourself and wrote you name upside down in crayon. There was a small glass with crayons on the table for people to draw while they waited.

Fun fact, when someone who was artistically inclined we kept the drawings in the back on the walk-in.

We also were way ahead of our time, as we used pasta as straws, long before cities were banning plastic.

I worked there for two years, until I moved to Cincinnati to teach at the School for Creative and Performing Arts.

That was a long introduction to the meat of the story.

On a summer day, in 1994, I was at the restaurant for lunch.

Lunches were busy. Business was starting to wind down, when a table of four was seated in the back of the restaurant.

The server approached the table, we’ll call him Scott.

It’s funny. I can see his face, but for the life of me I can’t remember his name. He was an older gay man who didn’t even try to hide his gayness.

He walked up to the table, wrote his name upside down on the table, and before he could say more, a man at the table stopped him and asked for another server.

He responded, “Did I do something wrong?”

The man responded, “You are gay. We don’t want no gay server waiting on us.”

Scott said, “Of course, I’ll be right back.”

We were all hanging around in the front when Scott approached us, and told the three or four servers as well as Jay the manager what was said.

Jay said, “I’ve got this.”

He walked through the dining room and approached the table and said, “I’m sorry, is there a problem?”

The man at the table spoke up and said, “We don’t want no gay waiter. Give us somebody who ain’t gay.”

“Well sir, that’s going to be a problem. See that woman over there. She’s gay. See that man standing beside her, pointing at me, he’s gay too. See the guy with the beard making pizzas in the kitchen, he’s gay. In fact, I’m the manager, and I’d offer to wait on you, but I’m gay too. So if you don’t want no gay person waiting on you, then I guess you’ll have to just eat some place else.”

With that he walked away.

To be honest, I think they stayed, but I don’t remember.

The thing about Jay was, that if you’d asked me when I started, fuck if you’d asked me 24 hours earlier, I’d have sworn he was a little homophobic. But that day, he did the right thing. I’d never loved a manager more.

This was 1994, conservative, Lexington, KY.

The times they were a changin’.