Sparkle: The Queerest Book You'll Ever Love

Chapter 5

The rest of the day went by in a coffee-egg-ketchup-splattered blur. Thank goodness I was swamped, and didn’t have much time to think about what had just happened. But when I did, man, did it ever terrify the hell out of me. I mean, I was just invited to my first gay party by the most amazing looking man I’d ever seen, plus I was way more scared than happy at the prospect of mingling with this particular group of demigods. To be honest, I had absolutely nothing in common with them and couldn’t even begin to imagine what I could add to the conversations once I got there.

Well, live and learn my mom used to say. (No, not really, but she deserves credit for something. Raising me was no picnic, after all.) So I decided to make the best of it and I turned my frown upside down. Glass half-full. Hopefully with something strong and gin-and-tonicy.

When I finally made it home, I had a chance to look at what was written on the check. Lo and behold, my man had a name: William Astan. It was several months later, while I was doing the Jumble puzzle in The Examiner, that I realized what you get when you jumbled his last name... figure it out yet?... it’s Satan. Of course, by then it was way too late. Water under the Golden Gate Bridge. If I’d noticed this at the time I first read his name, would I have done anything differently? Nope. I must say, I have no regrets. It’s been quite a memorable and educational experience, really, and too much has happened to ever turn back. So onward and upward, or some such thing. Full steam ahead! (And batten down the f*****g hatches, for goodness sake.)

First thing was first, though: shopping for the big event. William had, after all, given me fifty bucks. That and the other hundred I made in tips that day made for a reasonably nice wad to spend on an outfit and a new haircut. I mean, how much could a tight tee and jeans cost, right? f**k my rent, I figured. (Hey, I was only twenty-one. Naiveté came easily.) But then, who knew that designer tops went for a minimum of forty bucks and jeans double that? Of course, if I had nothing to say come Saturday night, at least I would look nice standing there. The haircut, however, was trickier business.

Since officially coming out, I really didn’t have any gay friends. In college, as far as I knew, I didn’t know any gay people. And do you think moving to San Francisco made it any easier? It was like being in France and not being able to speak French. I could admire the beautiful surroundings, but I couldn’t communicate with the natives. Heck, I didn’t even know where to begin.

Well, thank goodness, that’s when Kiki swished into my life. Oh, and you must pronounce Kiki like you’re a twelve-year-old girl on lots of caffeine. I don’t know why, it just sounds better that way. Like screaming yippy with your hands flung in the air.

Kiki, you see, gave me my first haircut. I’d been in the city all of two months and was very nearly broke from having spent all my money on moving to San Francisco and paying first month’s rent, last month’s rent, and a down-payment on a studio apartment that just barely held me and my ratty, old futon. Still, I figured that a new coif would brighten my spirits, if not severely deplete my funds. Cut It Out, the salon, just happened to be down the street from where I lived, so I walked in, and, as luck would have it, Kiki had just had a last minute cancellation. And you know what it says in the Gay Bible, don’t you? And a dresser of hair shall lead them out of the darkness and onto the path of enlightenment. So it is written, so it shall come to pass.

“Darlin’, you must be new to this city, ‘cause I haven’t seen a do like that since about seventy-six or so. Don’t you know, disco is dead, Sugar, and that hair of yours should’ve been buried right along with it.” Those were Kiki’s first words to me, I swear it. And, yes, I was terrified of him. No gay man had so much as touched me, and here was this little wisp of a queen suddenly running his hands all through my hair. I was mortified. Honestly, I wish I’d died right along with disco. (God rest its soul. Amen.) But I was there, so I made the best of it.

“Just do whatever you think looks best then,” I said, giving him carte blanche.

“Hon, you just leave it all up to Kiki, and you’ll be looking fine in no time.” And he went on to trim off almost all of my fine, long, wavy, brown hair until I fairly looked like a newly radiated cancer patient. What was left was just a bit all around and a spiky clump on top. This was not what I would call looking my best. “Welcome to 1996, Honey,” he said, when he was done.

Welcome to Army boot camp, I thought, but it came out as, “Looks great, thanks.” He smiled and gladly took my twenty. Maybe no one would notice, I prayed. And I could cover up all my mirrors. And avoid looking at the back of spoons.

“Sweetie, since you’re apparently new to Never, Never Land, what say you let this little Tinkerbelle take you out for a drink tonight? My treat. And I won’t take no for an answer, so you may as well just nod and say okay.” My brain was saying NO!, but my head was nodding yes. “And don’t you worry your pretty, little head, Sugar, ‘cause Kiki is very much the married housefrau.” Well, thank goodness for small miracles, because if he had made a pass at me… well, I don’t know what I would’ve done since no one had actually ever made a pass at me, but I’m sure I would’ve reacted badly. “Then it’s settled; meet me at my place at nine,” he commanded, while writing down his address.

I just kept nodding, having no idea what to say to the man that just completely butchered my hair and very nearly took my last twenty. Besides, I’ve always been told that whatever doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. This little experience should’ve made me the next Sylvester Stallone, circa Rambo, I figured.

Still, I must tell you, in all honesty, I was just a little excited about my first outing with another gay man. Even if it wasn’t a date, and thank God this wasn’t my first date, at least it was a step in the right direction. I mean, I really needed some help, any help, by that point. And who better to help a novice gay man than a hairdresser? It’s like having the Pope teach you about being a good Catholic.

Okay, so let’s continue our trip down Memory Lane, shall we? Kiki’s place, as it turned out, was a lot lovelier and grander than what I was expecting from a mere hairdresser. (No offense to all the hairburners out there.) He lived in a charming Victorian just outside The Castro. It was blue and green with yellow shutters, with palm tress and magnolias out front, all surrounded by a white picket fence. And just within that fence was a perfectly tended garden that was fairly bursting with every color of the gay rainbow. The smell of jasmine wafted languidly up my nostrils as I approached the house. Honestly, it was enough to make a guy sick. If that guy was the jealous type. Which, of course, clearly I’m not.

Kiki answered the door with a grand flourish and promptly handed me a martini. “Darling, welcome, welcome to my humble abode,” he said, while bowing deeply and gesturing with his hands to the rest of his home. Of course, in doing so, he was also managing to point out the rather large gentleman planted in the living room.

Noticing my stare, he introduced me to Larry, his partner. Now, I know you’re not going to believe this, but I’d never met a gay couple before. I mean, yes, I had seen them, but I’d never actually met one. I was enthralled. Not to mention, I couldn’t believe Kiki had been able to snag a husband. Yes, I had a lot to learn, but all in good time, friend. All in good time.

Kiki went over and sat next to Larry, leaving me a comfortable looking easy chair to rest my butt upon. So I sat down across from the both of them and scanned the rest of the place. It was very nice, actually. Maybe I had the hairdresser thing all wrong. Okay, well, not really, because, as it turned out, it was all Larry’s. That is to say, Doctor Lawrence Goldstein. Kiki, by the way, wasn’t even Kiki, but Myron Schwartz, who sat beaming next to his partner of (you’re not going to believe this one) seven years. Myron’s mom, apparently, was the proudest Jewish mother of a gay son in all of Manhattan. (No small feat, mind you, when you think about it, because, hint, there are a lot of gay Jewish men in New York City.)

They’d met at their synagogue. Larry was fresh out of Medical School and fresh out. And Myron was fresh out of beauty school, but not the least bit fresh out. Not by a long shot. Some people, from birth to death, are just obviously gay. And others, like myself and Larry, well, we just sort of grow into it. In other words, some of us have closet doors and some of us don’t. Heck, Kiki didn’t even have the hinges.

Officially, my new friend had come out years earlier when he was, as he put it, “deflowered by a neighbor at the ripe, old age of fourteen.” Needless to say, I was envious of him. See, my neighbor growing up was, like, the hottest man on the block and he wasn’t married or seen in the company of women, ever! I fantasized about that man endlessly, but to no avail. I guess he thought that doing it with the innocent, young neighbor boy wasn’t worth a prison sentence. As if I’d ever tell anyone about it for him to get caught, right? In any case, at least someone made out okay, and it certainly didn’t look like Kiki was any worse the wear. Well, except maybe for the blush he was wearing or the hair extensions. Still, looking back on it, if someone had offered me a two-story Victorian just outside The Castro, knowing what I know now, I’d have worn a dog collar and barked at the mailman to land such a cushy life. But hindsight is twenty/twenty, friend. Sucks, don’t it?

Another quick martini later, Kiki was ushering me out the front door. He kissed Larry goodbye, while I politely shook his rather plump hand. And then we were off. And I was, believe it or not, really and truly happy. Here I was, twenty-one and ready to be gay. I was going to a gay bar, with my gay friend, who had a gay lover, and lived just outside the gayest place in the known universe. Honestly, I felt like Mary Tyler Moore getting ready to through her hat up in the air. And I could turn the world on with something more than just a smile… probably… I hoped.

Of course, it was just a Monday night, when gay bars in San Francisco, apparently, were and still are not known to be very full. Then again, that was really for the best, because my joy quickly gave way to an acute case of stage fright. A gay bar quickly gave way to A GAY BAR! Before, I was just gay in my own head, something I knew I was, but had never actually acted upon. And now I was about to step foot inside a true gay bar, that was full (well, not empty, anyway) of gay men.