My Date or Trick with Mario in the White Room

In spite of my nostalgia-infused memories of West Hollywood as a paradise, it had some big problems.  For one thing, it was completely segregated.  Only 3% of its residents were black, 5% Asian, and 10% Hispanic (compared to Los Angeles in general, 10%, 11%, and 47%).

You rarely saw anyone black on the streets, and when you did, he was with a white guy, and being charged a hefty cover to get into the bar, or waiting extra-long for the server to notice him in the restaurant.

But this isn't a story about institutional racism and microaggressions.  It's about a guy named Mario.

Nearly every day, I stopped into the Different Light Bookstore on Larrabee.  I joked that I was moving the entire stock into my apartment.

And one day I saw Mario browsing in the theater section.

He was rather feminine, thin and willowy, wearing gold rings, bracelets, and necklaces -- an immediate turnoff.  But he was shorter than me, dark skinned, with glasses that gave him a studious look.  So when he approached me, started a conversation about gay literature, and invited me to dinner at the Greenery, I agreed.

The rest of the story is too risque for Boomer Beefcake and Bonding.  You can read it on Tales of West Hollywood.