For all its faults, The Woodward is very much Old Detroit. People have never fought at the new gay bar downtown by the RenCen, the first new gay bar to open in the city—and actually last for more than a year—in more than a decade. But that bar is also very downtown, and often very white. There’s something nostalgic about a bar that only takes cash when everywhere else is striving toward Apple Pay, but in a city where many people may not even have the means to open a bank account, it somehow feels accessible. Another gay male coworker of mine notes the history of the pre-fighting Woodward, about how back in the ‘80s and well into the ‘90s, it was a space where the kinds of house music that Madonna and other musicians would take mainstream first flourished, and how that history should be preserved in the face of gentrification, which may or may not be, depending on who you talk to, rapidly moving in The Woodward’s direction.
The Woodward sits at the end of the QLine, a much-derided light rail that runs 3.3 miles in each direction from the center of downtown to the edge of New Center where the bar is. Despite many criticisms of the train itself—it’s slow, it malfunctions, it’s generally faster to take a bus, ride a scooter or even walk—the property values along the route have risen. More new housing and retail are being built along Woodward. The old coney island across the street, from where those bullets I once dodged flew out when a guy fired his gun at another guy and broke the plate glass window, has closed. There are more white people in New Center than I’ve ever seen in People still pack The Woodward night after night. But a common horror story in Detroit is longtime businesses shuttering or changing identity when a landlord buys out, or prices out, a tenant. I tried to contact the owner or a manager of The Woodward to find out where they stand, but getting a hold of that information is a challenge. Half the time someone might pick up the phone, half the time they’d say call back another time. But then, I think about the fights.
Sometimes people say to keep Detroit as Old Detroit is to keep as many elements of Old Detroit there as possible—including our violence.
I’ve joked on Twitter, the same way people told my old co-worker who got her eye busted open, that there’s always a fight at The Woodward. Part of that is self-deprecation as a member of Detroit’s turbulent black LGBTQ community. But another part of that is defense, in a weird way. What would Detroit be without The Woodward? Would this place become another stale top-40 gay bar that, like that infamous one in Chicago and probably everywhere else, explicitly bans hip-hop as a subtle way to keep the black people out? Would it even be a gay bar at all and just become another overpriced cocktail bar with drinks made with fresh herbs, Japanese whiskeys and revived spirits du jour? Do we, or I, worry too much about the fights because of what the white people might think? Like, “oh look at those thugs fighting again, that’s so Detroit.” Or should we keep The Woodward as is, fists and all, as defiance against the white gaze?
It’s complicated, just like Detroit is complicated. So I guess this is what we’ll have to do in the meantime, which is what I’ve always done. When you go, don’t leave your mind vulnerable to bad decisions by drinking too much. Keep an eye for the exits, and know when to make an exit. Stay behind the brick wall that backs the old hardware store next door if you hear gunshots. But, I guess, always have fun. I never mean to put The Woodward down. I’ve had way more good times there than bad, and I’d wager we can all say the same. That’s just what happens there.
To Love the Horseman of War
Cleveland, OH
DOMINICK DUDA
I was forged in the likeness of steel & violence,
a bona fide swordsman impaling the soft pink
of any man I could wrap my hands around.
No origin is bloodless, the body unfurling
from the epicenter of its own roar & want
in a stampede of wounds. I’ve swallowed whole cities,
pressed lip to skin & made scab, thrift store
thaumaturgy. Does that arouse you? I’m their babe,
their bitch, glitterbird uncaged. The sun sets
when I tell it to set. Sure, they always want romance,
eventually, but I can’t tarry. The gunpowder’s
all rubbed off & I’m too wet to spark. Where’s the towel?
I’ve got to go. There’s a thousand faces in this city,
there’s two thousand eyes waiting to eat me alive.
crusty midwest demi femme, mapped
Mequon, WI and Chicago, IL
KEMI ALABI
my father’s open palm, drum taut, all war song.
crown of lye, barrette & braid.
two chords plucked out my mother’s throat,
wrapped in foil, hurled off a lake bluff.
sink full of the boys’ dishes
& my wet, shriveled hands.
all this, sea:
bruise blue, ghost thick.
& there:
somewhere between chicago & home,
my third skin scorched onto a highway,
pipe tucked in my boot,
gina’s breath singed to my neck.
the sin of her,
my first good meal.
the entire tongue.
every finger & lash, sweet lightning.
whole body, gospel.
whole mouth, cauldron.
whole heart, witch witch witch.
& there,
land:
a bed I built myself,
fresh country.
& there,
sky:
endless choir
of cocoa &
rose &
my name.
Lancaster is Burning
Lancaster, OH
STACY JANE GROVER
I see a city marked by flame. On East Main Street, General Sherman’s childhood home stands as a museum. Every day pick up trucks with confederate flags in the back windows blast by in mushroom clouds of diesel smoke. The city takes pride in being the birthplace of the man who cut across the South leaving only ashes in his wake. The story of the great field burner and the many legacies fire left on this city have been seared into us since childhood. Ebenezer Zane blazed a trail from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, founding the city. The first Anchor Hocking glass factory burned to the ground and resumed production only six months later, naming their most famous product line Fire King. The Fairfield County Fair—the longest continually running fair in Ohio—was famous for such events as “Racing by Gas Light” and the “Lake of Fire.” I carry these