The bartender’s lips pursed with suspicion as he peered at me. “Got an ID, sweetie?”
My hand flew theatrically to the pocket of my jacket. “Oh, uh, I think I forgot it at home.” The bartender rolled his eyes and turned to help someone else. Humiliated, I fled.
With nothing else to do I walked up the street to Bob’s Diner and ordered a soda. As I sat at the counter, I couldn’t help but stare at a booth by the front door where five handsome teens sat sharing a single order of fries. The acoustics weren’t great, but I was able to eavesdrop just enough to discover they were hustlers! What I knew of gay street life came mostly from John Rechy’s lurid 1963 novel, City of Night, and “All The Young Dudes,” a hyperemotional rock ballad penned by David Bowie for the glam rock band Mott The Hoople. The boys in the booth clearly belonged to the world described in those works: a swirling vortex of petty crime, sexual perversion, illicit drugs, sex-for-sale, and against-all-odds romance.
Despite its glaringly obvious downsides—police harassment, cruel johns, dead-end poverty, and such—I’d have traded that world for my own comfy suburban existence in a heartbeat. Why? The boys! It wasn’t just their sizzling sexiness I coveted (though there was that), but their camaraderie. Boys such as these surely had nicknames, shared secrets, and slept nude next to other boys. Such boys knew what it was to be wanted. As I left the diner I passed right by the hustlers’ table. I would’ve loved to say hello, but years of mockery and bullying at school had left me tongue-tied around strangers. Instead I just flashed a smile that went unnoticed.
Back on the street I resumed my aimless rambles feeling extra-alone and invisible. Night had fallen completely and the street was even more crowded and boisterous than before. Cheerful chatter and flirtatious laughter mingled with traffic noises and the music booming from bars and discos to produce a carnival din. This was no longer just a street, but a raunchy, erotic netherworld, a lusty, boy-packed fever dream lit by the golden glow of street lamps and fueled by yearnings deep and powerful as any holy passion.
* * *
I’D BEEN SPENDING AT LEAST ONE night a week on Polk Street for months and except for the old guy in the car, nobody had so much as glanced my way. I began loitering dolorously outside a place called the The Q.T., not expecting anything but not quite ready for the two long boring bus rides required to get back to my parents’ house in Berkeley. After hearing how predatory gays were toward young boys I hadn’t expected meeting someone to be so difficult! I was just about ready to give up and catch a bus home when a bartender came out for a smoke break and glanced my way.
“Hey, kid. What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I said with a full dose of self-pitying teenage petulance. “Absolutely nothing.”
“No ID?”
I shook my head. He leaned through the open door to the bar and called out. “Can we do something for this little number here?” Another bartender inside cocked his head indicating for me to go in.
Now, the bar was taking a risk by letting me enter, but not a big one. San Francisco was a party town. Discos stayed open all night, people shared joints on the street, Quaaludes were as common as aspirin, everyone smoked, no one wore sunscreen, and teenagers snuck in everywhere all the time. And while it’s true that allowing under-aged boys in a bar was good business if one wanted to attract—ahem—a certain clientele, I believe the bartender let me in out of gay solidarity. I was clearly not having fun on the sidewalk and being gay was all about fun. Fun, fun, fun! Having been cast out of respectable society and subjected to all manner of cruel persecution, gays felt entitled to compensation in the form of wild parties, cocktail guzzling, dry wit, kinky sex, illegal drugs, high fashion, disco dancing, and the erudite appreciation of old movies and art deco. A fair trade? You tell me.
Inside, the Q.T. was relatively quiet, dark, and furnished with tall stools at tiny tables adorned with those glass-encased candles you see in Italian restaurants. Not wanting to push my luck by ordering a drink, I slunk into a corner and surveyed the clientele: a couple dozen men so generically drab they didn’t even look gay. Eventually, a portly fellow in his late twenties wearing business casual clothes and a too-ready smile sidled up to me.
“And what might a little slip of a thing like you be doing in a place like this?”
“Just out for a drink,” I said casually, not mentioning my lips had never before touched alcohol. The man held up his index finger indicating for me to wait, went to the bar, and returned with something dark in a glass. I took a sip of what tasted like Coca-Cola and paint thinner. “Thanks.”
“My name’s Joe. What’s yours?” I told him and without waiting a beat he asked, “Like to go somewhere?”
I found Joe unattractive but was determined to lose my virginity before turning seventeen. At that advanced age, I suspected I would no longer qualify as “chicken” and hence be even less desirable than I already was, presuming such a thing were even possible.
“OK.”
Before I could take a second sip of the horrible drink, Joe took my hand and pulled me out of the bar. He led me to a cheap hotel a couple blocks down the street and checked us into a room furnished with naught but a saggy bed, ugly brown wallpaper, and a miasma of congealed despair. Joe stripped off his clothes to reveal a blubbery physique. I found my own chubby body repulsive, but next to him I was lithe as Adonis. As I shimmied out of my own clothes, Joe’s eyes glittered lustfully. I’d expected lustful glitter to be warm, but Joe’s glitter was cold.
I dove under the covers and, unsure what was supposed to happen next, lay flat on my back and waited. Joe proceeded to ravish me with hand and mouth, pawing and slurping in a manner that suggested he was trying to absorb my youth through osmosis. My body eventually rose to the occasion (if you catch my drift), but my heart and mind were elsewhere. Sex was turning out to be a total yawn. This? I thought. Really? This is what people are so excited about?
Then—ouch!—Joe quickly satisfied his lust at the expense of my virginity. Afterward, I hopped out of bed and quickly pulled my clothes on without any thought of my own gratification. I just wanted to escape the tawdry scene.
“Need bus fare?” asked Joe, his face plastered with a pleased grin.
I didn’t, but figured money was money. “Sure.” He handed me a couple of bucks. “Thanks.”
“See you ’round, Sweet Thing.”
“Yeah, bye.”
On the interminable bus ride back to my parents’ suburban manse, I pondered what had just transpired. In my rush to join the fun, I’d settled for Mr. Wrong. It didn’t bother me, really, but I was in no rush to do anything like that again.
Chapter 2: Go-Go 1979
A DENSE AND CLAMMY MORNING FOG was burning off to reveal a sky of purest azure. This Gay Freedom Day, like all those before it and all those ever after, would be one of sundrenched gorgeousness. Bleary-eyed but brimming with enthusiasm, I glanced up and down Spear Street. The cavernous block of the financial district was filled with contingents and party revelers waiting for the parade to begin, with its gaudily dressed marching bands, floats covered with crepe paper or tinsel, drag queens on roller-skates, leather dykes, photographers, and nearly nude men. The year before, at my first parade, I’d been a mere spectator. This time I’d arrived with my own contingent: Go-Gos for Gays.
It wasn’t a large contingent—just me and my pals Jennifer Blowdryer, Gwyn, Blackie O., Alexis à Go-Go, and a half-dozen more. We were all outfitted in flashy mid-60s drag: narrow lapelled sports coats and skinny ties for the boys, girls in miniskirts and pointy pumps. For a banner I’d written Go-Gos for Gays in magic marker on a white bed sheet next to which someone had drawn Archie’s pals Betty and Veronica dancing in Mod outfits. When our turn to march down Market Street came, I held aloft my tiny portable cassette deck and played a mix-tape of my favorite Go-Go hits: the Zombies, the Troggs, Petula