Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, fall 1988. A small town of tree-lined streets. Small shops, restaurants, and bars where gay men and lesbians gathered in search of freedom.
The Sunset Strip, only five blocks north, still technically West Hollywood, but big, blaring, glaring, crowded with cars and the clubs where hetero glitterati snorted cocaine.
Five blocks, actually only two blocks up the hill from the house that I shared with Derek, but we never went there. It was as if there was an invisible force field keeping gay people away.
The Strip was relatively uncrowded during the daytime, the easiest way to get to Hollywood, Silverlake, and sometimes Downtown. But I didn't even like to drive through: I always felt like an interloper, passing through a wild, alien territory.
Eight years ago, on a visit to Los Angeles long before I moved here, my friend Tom and I drove down Sunset, and stopped at Book Soup, where I bought my first gay-themed book. Now I passed it with a little frisson of dread.
But one Friday afternoon I thought, "What's the big deal? It's just a street. I'm going to Book Soup."
So I walked over to Cynthia, up Hammond, past the West Hollywood School and some apartments, until I came to the Coldwell Bank Building, and Sunset Boulevard.
It was even more disquieting as a pedestrian, walking through an alien world of skyscrapers and gigantic billboards, past the Whiskey A Go-Go, the Viper Room, the Mystery Pier, places that were not famous but infamous, dens of sleaze, vice, and hetero excesses. Then Book Soup.
It was, to my surprise, small, sedate, with black bookshelves stocked with indie fiction and literary criticism, out of place across the street from the Viper Room. The used books and gay sections were gone. There was a lot of hetero indie fiction and hip hetero essays.
I started feeling out of place again, but I bought
No One Here Gets Out Alive, a biography of Jim Morrison of the Doors, mainly because he was shirtless on the cover.
There was a cowboy by the front door, drinking the free coffee. Mid-20s, my height, muscular, maybe a little chunky. He had a bright, open, very handsome face. He was wearing a cowboy hat and a lumberjack shirt unbuttoned to reveal a smooth chest, and very tight jeans with a silver belt buckle.
"Jim Morrison! Excellent!" he exclaimed.
"Are you a fan?"
"My band covers the Doors sometimes. We do mostly country, as you can see, but we do some rock, too." He paused, an unmistakable gleam in his eye. "So, you live around here?"
Wait...was I being cruised? Mario cruised me at the Different Light last year. But this was a straight bookstore on Sunset Boulevard!
"A few blocks away," I said suspiciously. "Well, nice talking to you. Bye."
I walked out the door and headed west on Sunset. The Cowboy followed. "Hey, what are you doing now?"
Down on Santa Monica Boulevard, this type of approach would mean "trick" -- a sexual encounter before you got to know the guy. Very risky, frowned upon. But did he mean a trick? This was a whole different world, with its own rules and protocols. "I'm...I guess I'm going to get some coffee."
"Great! I know just the spot! Too early for music, of course, but they have great burgers and fries." He pointed to the Whiskey A-Go-Go. A dark, seedy, intensely heterosexual nightlclub -- a semi-naked lady on the marquee! Besides, my Nazarene instincts recoiled at the word "whiskey."
"Let's...let's head down to Santa Monica," I said. "I know a good place."
"Down the hill?" He stared down Larrabee. "I don't like it down there. Too...too...um, crowded."
He meant
too gay. This guy was a closet case, gay but afraid to be seen among gay people!
"Don't worry," I said. "If anybody tries anything, I'll be here to protect you."
"It's not that. They'll think I'm...you know, gay, too."
The Cowboy was going to get the full West Hollywood treatment! I just hoped that his anticipation of getting into my bedroom was enough to keep him from running away.
5:00 pm: Coffee at the Abbey, where the waiters were all cute and flirtatious. The Cowboy's eyes bulged. When I tried to put my arm around his shoulders, he jumped a mile.
"Relax, that's ok here," I said, trying again. He flinched me off.
His real name was Calvin. He wasn't actually a cowboy -- he grew up in Van Nuys, and he was studying music at Cal State L.A. He lived in a house with three roommates, all straight. In fact, everybody he knew was straight.
"You can't be a gay musician. So I don't tell anybody, and I don't go to gay places. I never went down the hill before, cause guys always tell me that's where the gays hang out." He looked around. "But, you know, you could never tell. It looks like any straight place, except it's all guys. Ok, go ahead and hug me." He grabbed my knee under the table.
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6:00 pm: Different Light Bookstore, where I browsed while the Cowboy stood outside. He looked skittish, like he was going to make an excuse and bolt, so I called my housemate Derek, who had just gotten home from work, for reinforcements.
Derek picked us up and drove us to:
7:00 pm: The French Quarter, where the waiters were equally cute and flirtatious. A former fitness model with a spectacular physique even by West Hollywood standards, Derek could turn every head in the house. The Cowboy was obviously impressed as a vision of "sharing" danced in his head.
8:30 pm: Gold Coast, a faux cowboy bar where they played country-western music. The Cowboy had assumed that all gay bars were overwhelmed by disco music, so he was impressed again, in spite of the rather small crowd.
When I leaned in for a kiss, the Cowboy pushed me away. "Not in front of your roommate!" he whispered savagely.
"Oh, go ahead," Derek said. "I've seen Jeff kiss guys before. I've seen him do more than that! Here, try it with me."
He drew the Cowboy into a kiss, which became so passionate that I tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, roommie, I haven't had the honor yet."
Embarrassed, Derek broke away. "Sorry...forgot who was on a date with who."
I shrugged and drew the Cowboy into a kiss.
10:00 pm: Home. Derek kept his distance for the rest of the evening, and when we got home, he said goodnight and vanished into his bedroom. The Cowboy and I sat talking and making out for awhile, and then went to bed.
7:00 am: Breakfast. Just bagels and fruit. Then the Cowboy got our phone number (there was just one phone per house in the 1980s), and I walked him back to his car, parked in a lot just off Sunset.
Climbing up the hill to Sunset still felt like entering a hostile alien world.
The next weekend Derek talked the Cowboy into coming down the hill again. They ended up dating for about three months.
Sorry, ran out of room before I got to the sharing. That will have to wait until next time.
Next: Derek, the Cowboy, and Me.
See also:
My Date or Trick in the White Room;
My Date with Richard Dreyfuss
