2/22/98 - Kyle

[As the last few flashback entries would suggest, time was beginning to run out on John and me as it stood. Those of you who have made a close study of human behavior can probably guess the next step. Yep, I met someone else. Hoooo, boy.]

[I decided to write about it as a story. The irony of us hanging out with Paul, with whom we were later to try an abotive threeway, before meeting Kyle, strikes me as rich in hindsight. Pardon the strained alliteration and abundance of adjectives: not sure how many I'd had when I wrote this.]

2/22/98 - 1478 Jax

HOW I MET KYLE

Unaccustomed to sunshine this El Nino winter, John and Bill squinted down Hayes Street to Paul's apartment. Bill had been Seasonally Affected since New Year's, but the real, interminable rains had only begun this month. This record-breaking, miserable February, with its 28 waterlogged days. [Turns out there was only one rainless day the entire MONTH.]

But today, the sun. So Paul suggested ANYPLACE with a patio, and though it was Sunday, and though I get in trouble at these things, it was to be the End-Up, followed by the Eagle, just to be perverse. [The End-Up being where one is supposed to end up, see?]

The Boyfriends. John. Tall, dark, slightly exotic in his half-Iroquois, half white trash way. Trendy in his nylon jacket with the word PERVERT in silver across the back and upscaled Adidas track pants and pomaded hair. And Bill, as WASP as it gets without the blond hair. Pasty skin, nondescript Gap wardrobe, and the short brown haircut and goatee that marked his age, sexual orientation and city.

Holding hands along Hayes, because with whatever tensions existed between them, they liked to hold hands, even in the non-gay neighborhoods. Hayes Valley isn't-straight-isn't-gay, and the sun was shining.

Up to Paul's surprisingly cruddy flat. Jesus, Bill thought, this could be any dump in Oxnard. Living in Hayes Valley was supposed to be bohemian glamorous.

A couple of beers before heading out? Why not? Pop the (oh, yuck, is that all there is?) Coors Light and settle in. Paul stood in the kitchen, dispensing new cans to whomever was empty. John sat at the counter, which was decorated somehow to look like a beach bar in Cabo.

Paul. 30, dirty blond, went to the gym, but drank a lot and smoked a lot of pot. Still, a surprisingly good body beneath those blue eyes and braying Boston accent. Paul liked to talk and drink, and give other people drinks. Paul and John worked together and were strictly drinking buddies.

So John sat at the bar, Paul stood in the kitchenette, and Bill sat on the living room couch nearby, half in the conversation and half watching "Fools Rush In," an inane romantic comedy with What's-His-Name who plays Chandler on "Friends." This idiotic movie was playing on Paul and Pedro's big screen TV with the sound off, yet it managed to divide Bill's attention from the scintillating conversation.

2:00 became 3:00 became 4:00. Pedro, Paul's on-the-way-out boyfriend [I was wrong about that; I saw them the other day, walking down Market together], was also on the way out to work, with one terse kiss good-bye for his live-in love. A couple of beers became a couple of six-packs (with three airline bottles of Smirnoff thrown in for that extra little kick), and it became clear the End-Up (an early afternoon option) was no longer going to be happening. The cab to the Eagle finally showed up around 5, and they poured into the back, several more than three sheets to the wind.

I once read the Eagle described as a "venerable leather bar South of Market." This is like calling "David" a notable Florentine statue. The Eagle IS the gay leather daddy aesthetic (at least in San Francisco). And every Sunday, they have a beer bust.

Just what the three needed, more beer! So Paul and Bill and John zipped in and ordered. And lo! Who was there but Bram, who in some ways was to Bill what Paul was to John: a friend kept on mostly to demostrate one's independence from one's boyfriend. And big, bearish Bram had decided to grace the group with his new leather harness, crossed demurely across his hairy, naked, untoned torso.

Bill, of course, thought this was a riot. Bram (a commercial properties manager who made in excess of $100K) fit right in with his surroundings, if you didn't know him. John and Paul, on the other hand, were aghast, and held back when Bill went up to tweak Bram's nipples and congratulate him on his ensemble.

Bram had come to the Eagle with his current thing, Jerry's friend Keith, who knew Robert, who knew Kyle. So there in a circle stood a group of guys separated by one degree: Bill knew Bram, who knew Keith, who knew...etc. And the two furthest apart in the chain were Kyle and Bill. So, of course, the rest of the group fell away, and Bill and Kyle...connected. Sure, Bill looked over his shoulder ONCE, and saw John and Paul kissing in the corner (oh, they're ALWAYS doing that, thought beer-soaked Bill, at least they're not bored.) But for the next hour or two, Bill and Kyle just looked into each other's smiling eyes, and talked about everything and nothing.

[This was where my narrative ends. I'm not sure how that day ended. I know I got Kyle's number, and made it home. But John knew I'd met this someone, and everything changed...]

Previously Next