Quiet XES

A tall girl was breaking up with her boyfriend on the phone. She wasn't quite crying. She hung up. "You look a little like Snow White. Except, you know. Shorter skirt." She lifted her phone a little. "He wanted it. Now he won't even see it." I said it can't rain all the time. She looked at me. "I heard it in a movie." She took off. My short, fat, gay, Indian companion came out of the bar. I was leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. He told me I looked like I was trolling for some butthole. We went inside XES.

It was Friday at eleven and the bar was crowded, but there were still two seats. XES is a stopping off point for the gays and their one girl friend. They meet at there before heading to the more popular bars. I watched it swell and empty. A bus stop.

My companion pushed his way through the dance floor to the bathroom. I ordered us beer. The bartender asked for identification. I showed him mine and he asked who was drinking the other. I told him it was okay, he wasn't Indian like that. XES is loud. He didn't hear, and set my companion's beer behind the bar. I yelled that it was okay, I wouldn't be drugging it. Young, spiked haired, humorless Asian bartender. He looked through me then started making some gay cocktails. My companion appeared in the seat beside me, ID out. The bartender squinted at it. "Is that Apache?" My companion made a feather with his hand at the back of his head. He drank most of the Budweiser in one pull. "If you have to piss, watch out for the fat one dancing. She's a mess." We were silent for a moment. He said you know you're a bitter old queen when you start referring to all men as she. "You're twenty six."

XES is typically loud. Bass and falsettoed women's vocals. Some new Britney Spears came on. Slow, filthy, saddening, herion-rape beats. Loud. You have to get right in their ear when you talk. This is the point. It's comfortable for friends to scream at each other and for strangers it's an immediate forced intimacy. You get over awkward hellos when your mouth is on an ear. "Are you German?" Someone screamed at me. I shook my head. He looked at me again. "No, you're all like, 'I'm from Brooklyn.'" He trailed his hand across my shoulders and left with his group.

My companion was having trouble with his husband. He was in New Mexico digging fossils of human feces. There is no signal in the desert. He said he's getting old. He was worried about becoming the man at the corner of the bar. Alone, drinking a pint of ice water and a Stolichnaya martini with olives. Pursed mouth, arched eyebrow, cradling the glass, pinky out. Looking like he's over everything and I remember when I was twenty one, too, honey. But secretly terrified to talk to anyone but the bartender, who was busy.

He disappeared. The bar emptied and never quite filled again. We drank Jameson. A block of songs from the nineties played. You are always on my mind. 100% pure love. Rhythm is a dancer. More and more and I found myself thinking about a few years spent in South Beach then. Before Mtv found it, before the condos. I thought about the AWOL Marine and his friend who only wore sarongs. Young wild-eyed tea dancers.

I blinked and found myself in a cab hurtling uptown with my companion and two of his new friends. We were at Columbus Circle.

I crossed fifty eighth street. A cab honked at me. He was yelling. "What?" I stopped in front of him and lit a cigarette. He was huge and African and angry. He wrenched the steering wheel, threw the cab into park, and opened his door. I strolled away. My companion came out of the bar. I saw in his face what was about to happen to me. I dragged on my cigarette and waited for the punch to come. Right on the back of my head. I wanted it. Why not? Let's go. "Donkey punch." I heard the cab door slam and the cab take away. My companion went back inside. I tossed my cigarette away and fell into the next taxi that would take me.