Car Land, Pt. 2
Theo suggested Rev, one of the few remaining gay bars in West Hollywood. Rev was just off the main drag of Santa Monica Boulevard. Most of the queer businesses had closed recently from flooding, and three years prior from a particularly lethal flu season. When the flu swept through the Southwest, we mostly pretended it wasn’t happening, occasionally skipping work or a party. The season came on fast and burned out just as quickly, not before breaking businesses forever and quietly killing over a million Americans—50, 000 in Los Angeles, alone.
Increased police budgets, including the introduction of robot dogs on every corner that were able to fire blanks—led to frequent protests and general unrest. Remaining queer-owned businesses succumbed to punishing rent hikes. Some relocated to Palm Springs. This renaissance saw WeHo’s slow but sure transformation into a second Brentwood; two of the largest gay clubs were combined into a giant Whole Foods. Rick Caruso opened a second Grove.
Rev sat on North Robertson, across from the site of the city's former gay mecca, The Abbey. The club was quietly sold to gay tech billionaire in San Francisco, who then helped fund renovation for Raylight’s flagship location. A Catholic/Evangelical hybrid, Raylight was made popular online by celebrities like Shawn Mendes, Kendall Jenner and now-Governor of California Mark Wahlberg. It was initially praised for its seemingly genuine embrace of the LGBTQ community, boasting queer and Trans pastors and outreach leaders.
But soon, stories of discrimination towards queer Raylight members became frequent, and a damning piece by an undercover reporter cemented the sect as full of shit. Rather than explain itself, Raylight leaned into the venom, with even some queer devotees standing by the hypocrisy. The outrage did little damage, as church membership skyrocketed, and Raylight’s influence stretched out across the country like a fist opening up.
Now, the church’s fortified headquarters stood confidently over the ghost of Boystown.
***
We stood in line for a good twenty minutes before we even reached the metal detector. Inside Rev, the stench of rot and shit bludgeoned us; I nearly doubled over. The bar’s cooling system had been shut off the night before during a scheduled blackout, and the septic tank exploded. Despite this, the bar was as crowded as you could imagine a bar to be at 4:30 PM on a weekday. Any available window and door were opened, with industrial fans blowing the outside air in. Three twinks clad in cloth face masks danced shuffled together on the small dance floor to a new Taylor Swift song I hadn’t heard yet. Near them, a bar back pushed sludge off the stone floor into the bar drain. Theo looked at me, grinning.
“This is sexy,” he said.
I nodded, flicking my eyebrows up, gesturing to two open sits at the end of the bar. We sat, and I reached over Theo to grab a pitcher of water with a post-it that said “ONE DRINK MAXIMUM! WE HAVE CAMERAS BITCH!” My forearm grazed his chest hair and I got hard again, and apologized. Theo said it was fine, and handed me a plastic cup. I poured us both water, and we made brief eye contact while we drank. A bartender with a crucifix tattoo on their neck approached us and we ordered beers. I glanced back around the room, and realized I didn’t recognize a single person.
I suddenly felt strange and hot. The septic smell was pulverizing.
“Do you really want to be here?” Theo asked me.
I looked up at him. He was facing me with one elbow on the bar, the palm of his hand on the side of his face. His legs were crossed and he looked bored and beautiful, cunty and lustful. The way he asked the question–skeptical, amused–made me want to burst into tears. I wanted to fall off the chair and kneel in the shit water at his legs and hold them to my face like a bouquet of flowers. I wanted to tell him that no, I don’t want to be there. I wanted to leave this bar, and leave this city. I would beg him to carry me away, drag me across the ground if he had to.
Instead, I blew out my breaths slowly through my nose so I wouldn’t smell anything.
“Yes,” I said.
And then I threw up, right there, on the bar, on Theo’s pants. Only a few people noticed. Theo sprang to his feet, and cradled me as the bartender from before had already placed several cocktail napkins to soak up the mound of puke.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to the bartender.
The bartender shrugged.
“We’re in a toilet anyway,” the bartender said.
Theo helped me through the crowd. It felt like I’d forgotten how to walk. One of the twinks on the dance floor took out his phone to film me, and Theo whipped his head around and glared.
“Look away, fuckface,” Theo said to him, and the twink widened his eyes in defeat, lowering his phone. The bar back had since dropped the squeegee and was helping us out of the door.
My eyes watered when we got outside. I bent over and puked again as Theo placed his hand under my shirt and rubbed my back flesh in a circle. His other hand pushed up my wet hair, slicking it back between his fingers.
“You’re good,” Theo said.
I retched one last time and stood up, jutting out my shoulder blades to free myself from Theo. I paced a little, like I’d just finished a race. I coughed, clearing my throat of spit, and my vision adjusted. Tan flakes were falling steadily around us. I could hear some sirens in the near distance; probably a fire at an encampment near a freeway exit. Or some brush in the hills.
“Hey,” Theo said.
I turned around and Theo was standing there, as patient as anyone had ever been. I walked over and embraced him, tucking my head between his neck and his shoulder. I closed my eyes. I could feel his confusion, and then his relief. His arms, rigidly at his side, soon felt alongside my sides and eventually wrapped around me. He cautiously pressed his face into my forehead, and he kissed my temple. I decided right then that I loved him and he loved me. We would love each other today, and tomorrow we wouldn’t.
***