One night at Mugi a very large Asian drag queen in a flowered chemise and blond hair approached me.
Before I had a chance to give Attitude, she grabbed my hand. "I am Auntie Bopha. From Kampuchea. You say Cambodia."
I had never met anyone from Cambodia before. They speak an Austroasiatic language, similar to Thai, with a distinctive writing system. It wouldn't hurt to have a conversation. "Hi, I'm Jeff."
"You got job?"
What kind of cruise line was that? "Um..yes, I work for
Muscle and Fitness, and I'm in grad school at USC, working toward my doctorate in..."
"Oh, muscle, good. And doctor, good, good! Cure AIDS, maybe?"
"No, I won't be that kind of..."
"Get AIDS test?"
"Yes, I'm HIV negative, but..."
"Like get drunk?"
"No, this is just soda, but...."
Her hand clamped onto my crotch. "Oh, big basket! Good, good, good!"
"What the heck are you doing?" I angrily pried her hand off and started to walk away.
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She grabbed my arm. "Wait -- Auntie Bopha has a boy for you!" She pointed to the other side of the bar, where a slim Asian twink in a flowered shirt was staring at the floor. Black hair, golden skin, a beautiful angelic face.
"New to America, two months only. Not much English yet. Name Chehay, means 'sexy,' yes? You like?"
"Well, he
is cute."
"Good, good, good! You talk to him, ask for date." She hustled me across the room, where I shook Chehay's slim, soft hand. We had a brief, stumbling conversation before Auntie Bopha interrupted. "Ok, ok, Chehay like, Mr. Muscle Doctor Big Basket like, now date! Good, good!"
We made a date for the next Friday night. Auntie Bopha wouldn't let us grope or kiss.
I slipped my phone number into Chehay's hand, but somehow Auntie Bopha got it and called with demands: "Ok, for date, you must wear nice shoes and tie -- look nice! Take Chehay someplace nice -- no McDonald's! And bring flowers. Otherwise insult. And two Dove Bars!"
Chehay lived in a small apartment in Little Pnomh Penh, on Anaheim Street on the east side of Long Beach, about an hour's drive from West Hollywood.
Bopha answered the door -- not in drag anymore, just in a flowered shirt and too-tight purple shorts. My heart sank -- was he coming along on our date? But no -- he just put the flowers in water and parked himself in front of the tv
to eat the Dove Bars!After an intolerably long wait, Chehay appeared, smiling shyly, in a tan shirt with a red tie. He smelled of a sweet, rather sickly cologne. We hugged -- I wanted to kiss, but Bopha cleared his throat ominously.
We had dinner at a Cambodian restaurant a few blocks from Chehay's house, followed by cruising at Ripples. I found that we could communicate in French better than English.
I made him blush by saying
mon saucisse veut vous connaître (my sausage wants to get to know you).
In Cambodia marriages were usually arranged, so Auntie Bopha was pushing him into getting a "husband," even though he was only 21 years old and wasn't very experienced with men. The pressure to "settle down" was intense.
I squeezed his hand under the table.
Most guys told their coming out story on the first date, but Chehay told me about how when he was ten years old, his entire family was killed by the Pol Pot; he escaped by climbing through an upstairs window onto the roof, and lived on the streets for awhile until a friend took him in. Then, in December 1978, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia, they walked 100 miles through the jungle into Thailand, ending up in a refugee camp in Mai Rut. He was 13!
I stared. When I was in my freshman year in college, complaining about the heterosexism in my English class, this small, soft, passive person, with soft hands and a shy smile, was walking through 100 miles of jungle!
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Chehay lived in the refugee camp for three years, then was sent to France as part of a refugee relocation program, where he completed secondary school. Then Auntie Bopha -- who really was a distant relative -- paid for his flight to America and got him a job.
What could I say after all that? I just held his hand under the table and drank my tea.
When we were cruising at Ripples, we finally had an opportunity to hug and grope, but he refused to kiss, with people watching. He was surprisingly soft and fragile. I thought he would break if I hugged him too hard.
And what could we talk about? "Um,
aimez-tu Corey Haim
? Pouvons-nous aller a The Lost Boys?" Everything seemed so trivial!
When we returned to the apartment, Bopha was still there. And he had company -- two elderly women -- real women, not drag queens -- who hugged Chehay, then me, and peppered us with questions in English, French, and Khmer. "Had nice time, yes?
Est-ce que tu baiser?
(Did you kiss?) Kroupeti mneak ku lok? (
Something about a husband)."
Finally they adjourned to the couch to drink tea.
"What was that all about?" I asked.
"No worries!" Bopha said. "I tell Chehay's other aunties you make good husband, Mr. Muscle Doctor Big Basket, but they want to see. They say good, good, good! Bedroom time!"
Embarrassed, Chehay looked down at his feet.
"Bedroom time?"
Bopha put our hands together. "Ok, you wait long enough. You ready, Chehay ready, Jeff Stryker Italian Stallion, yes?"
"Wait -- you're not going to stay here while we...""Oh, no, hour only -- enough to hear you take
prohmcheari. Then we go home. You stay all night. Good, good!"
Suddenly we were alone in the bedroom. Chehay smiled shyly.
"
Est d'habitude de attendre à l'extérieur?" I asked. Do elderly aunties usually wait outside?
"No," he answered in French. "But two guys is not usual either. They have changed the customs for gays."
I could hear them talking and giggling in the living room. No doubt they could hear us as well.
Twenty minutes later, I was saying "I swear, this has never happened to me before."It must be a combination of the horrors of Chehay's past, the ladies and drag queen waiting outside, the pressure of becoming an instant "husband," and the uncomfortably gender-polarized masculine-feminine thing. Nothing happened, no matter what I tried. Or Chehay tried.
Things went better in the morning, but still, Chehay told me he wasn't ready for a relationship, a polite way of saying "Don't call back." I hope he didn't tell Auntie Bopha that Mr. Muscle Doctor Big Basket was a big bust.
See also:
A Celebrity Steals My Date
