It worked just fine for a while—until he ditched Mamie for a white girl. Well, you can bet that she went straight to the police, ratted him out, and that was all the press needed. Newspapermen at the doors of his jail cell hounded him. There was a court case, tears and brash defenses, a recalcitrant repentance. When he got out he toured the freakshows for a while. Man-woman they called him.
It’s hard to say what happened after that. A few years later they found him again in Menasha undressed in bed with a pretty girl, men’s trousers rumpled on the floor. They charged him with vagrancy, too. What I want to know is this: how can you be a vagrant in your own homeland?
A Harvest
Pinckneyville, IL
EVAN WILLIAMS
I eat beef—only
if it’s bourguignon—no
less than the best to snap me out of my neanderthal
veganism I’d settle for
some seitan screwball squirrel
atop chickpea children maybe
kidney shaped candies composed of ground up peach
fuzz or some tempeh
tiny Tim trophy sweetened with ten buck coconut-fur-
sugar I am a neon-bikini hunter up in the tree stand
admiring an ivory-hued tower through a scope
on a rifle made by Hasbro firing bullets made of balloons
current corpse count: zero and standing
still if I am merely to holler bang
might as well look to
kill a freaky-freekeh-fanatic-flamingo oh flesh farmer
brother where art thou skinny
jeans and sensible shoes
oh brother haven’t you heard
camo is not yet back in vogue: here
is man as man was designed to be
the one who fears meat-eaters and meteor dust in his scars is
me the real backwoods biddy
singing some showtune ditty oh please
ain’t I pretty like Snow White like Alice or her kitty or Gretel
who left home and grew past sibling sinew stew size
I sleep in sheets of leaves and live on
the nutrients of the soil’s pity take root a petunia begonia
forget me not I have a rifle
made by Hasbro and bullets
made of balloons I am
bound to your cadaver city.
What Happens at the Woodward
Detroit, MI
AARON K. FOLEY
A former coworker of mine posted a photo of herself on Facebook with a bruised, swollen eye, and cuts on her face still fresh. Shortly after came another status saying she had been hit in the face with a bottle during a fight. And then after that, another status saying that it had happened at The Woodward and, according to her, the staff had not been helpful when she lodged a complaint.
How a cisgender, heterosexual woman got caught in a bar fight at a gay bar should be a mystery, but not in Detroit. She had posted that others had told her about The Woodward, and “that’s what happens there.” Those folks, unfortunately, are right. That is how it is at The Woodward Cocktail Bar, located at the intersection of Grand Boulevard—we call it “the boulevard”—and Woodward Avenue just a few miles north of now-bustling downtown Detroit.
As a black gay man, The Woodward, which largely caters to men (and once a week, women) like me, is supposed to be my scene. I’ve been gay-clubbing and bar-hopping in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, even as far away as Milan and Melbourne, and there’s no place quite like home. (Well, except maybe Atlanta.) I resist the word “urban” at all costs when it comes to describing anything black. It’s what the bar is described as when compared to other gay bars in Metro Detroit that play top 40 music. The Woodward plays hip-hop and R&B, and not just the generics. It plays eastside Detroit hood shit, hustle—a very specific Detroit-style brand of line dancing, trap, jit, baby-making jams from ten years ago that still sizzle, and, on specific days, old school from way back in the day. There are no dance remixes of Adele. There are house remixes of Kelly Price.
It is the hub for Detroit’s black gays, and perhaps the last time a white gay was there—except for the charming Russian behind the bar—was when, on a whim, I brought along the one I was dating at the time. (People stared at us crazy, by the way—My bad.) The drinks, despite being made with liquors found anywhere, are unusually strong, and have reached mythical status in their city—never more than two if you want to make it out alive. And speaking of the bar, it famously only takes cash, even in the age of Square and other such money-exchange methods. The younger gays are on the dance floor in one room, while the older gays are in the front room at the bar. All ages can be found smoking weed on the patio.
I’ve flirted here, and hooked up later, as a single man. One of my exes flirted here, and likely hooked up later now that I think about it, while we were together. I once ran into his cousin here coked out of his mind. I’ve ran into guys who, like me, were closeted in high school. I would see regulars here for years who’d turn up dead later, announced via Facebook. While working in the mayor’s office of Detroit, I brought our very-recognizable-in-the-public-eye chief of staff here for the first time. Another co-worker I took for the first time learned the hard way about what happens after two drinks. Everyone’s got a Woodward story about the good times. Everyone’s also got a story about the time they had to evacuate the club because of a fight, got caught in the middle of a melee in progress or the stampede out, or, once in my case and more than once in many others’, dodged bullets from gunfire outside.
We’ve got a culture of violence at The Woodward that everyone’s quietly accepted since, well, as long as I can remember. It’s not like it happens every single night. It doesn’t. But there’s always the risk of a fight breaking out on the dance floor—or in one of the parking lots—over some dumb shit. “He was looking at my man.” “He stepped on my shoe.” “He think he cute.” “He owes me money.” There’s never a good reason. It’s just how it is. It may be the strong-as-hell drinks. It may be because we’re from Detroit, a city that for all its greatness, has been mired in violence for as long as anybody, young or old, at the club has been alive. It may be petty gay drama. But whether we accept it or not, our relationship with The Woodward is complicated.
I think about where The Woodward fits into Detroit’s larger story a lot. As a majority black city where, for decades, a significant part of that population has lived in poverty, it can sometimes be survival of the fittest. You have no choice but to be forgiving of people who have always been disenfranchised and put into circumstances out of their control. If black Americans have always had the short end of the stick during our time in this country, many Detroiters have had nothing at all to grasp onto. So we fight, physically. We grow up knowing how to fight for our lives, and in the case of many gay men, perhaps knowing how to fight for that before having to defend yourself against someone calling you a fag. It’s just the way it’s been in Detroit, and