2:11 p.m. - 2007-03-05
A Night in Old San Antonio
At 18, I knew my life in San Antonio, Texas was over. I had just spent three or so of the happiest months of my life in Philadelphia, having the time of my life as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. I'd met these amazing people that I knew would be my friends for the rest of my life, and I'd discovered the magic of experimental theatre, even though I didn't quite know what it was at the time. I'd even gotten laid--with a hot guy who'd never been with another dude, no less, so I was well on my way to a toaster!--which was more than I could say for most of the other boys on my freshman hall. It was Thanksgiving break, and I was back home, ready to regale my friends with tales of my fabulous new life at our favorite hangout, The Candlelight Coffeehouse. My fag hag Erin and I pulled up, parked, and went to the door, only to find a sign there: Over 21 Only.
The hell? This, what? What was going on? This was a coffeehouse. Hell, it wasn't just any coffeehouse, it was THE coffeehouse. I got my first real crush on a boy--and I mean like I want our souls to join in divine union crush, not just I want to get all make-y out-y crush--in that coffeeshop. Erin and I had MET there. And we sure as hell weren't 21. Erin had just turned 18! She had just started buying her own smokes a couple of months ago! What was going on?!
Turns out the ownership had changed hands. Tim, the guy who we acknowledged as the true owner of Candlelight, had been bought out, and the new owners were tired of having teenagers around. So it became a wine bar, and we were locked out of what had been our home, the home of our chosen family, for the only year of high school worth remembering.
If it is true that all the cells in your body regenerate after seven years, then there is not a cell in my body that knew Candlelight Coffeehouse until last night, when I went there for the first time in eight years, three months, and change. And change there was.
I should backtrack a minute. As I discussed on my last diary, I made an effort last semester to track down Laura, who is now officially the oldest friend that I remain in contact with thanks to a phone call I got from her back in August. She is one of those friends that you can lose touch with for years and pick right back up with when you get back in touch; such people are rare and wonderful finds. She was also the most popular girl in high school, one of those who ruled b kindness rather than cruelty, the kind of person even the most hardcore rebels--and this was private school, so the most hardcore rebels would have been eaten alive anywhere else--liked and trusted. She is now an immigrant rights attorney in Minneapolis, but like most attorneys I know these days she is looking for a different gig.
She was in town for mixed reasons. On the one hand she was attending a big Cuban fiesta in San Antonio with her family; on the other, the fiesta was, this year, dedicated to the memory of Laura's father, who died shortly after Christmas this year. Not only did this mean that it would be the first year her dad wouldn't be there, but that it would mean a lot of people coming up to give condolences, as well as having to deliver a eulogy. It's what you gotta do, but it sucks to have to be solemn and sad when you want to be dancing, not to mention vice versa. Nevertheless, I knew Laura would carry it off with class and aplomb, but it didn't mean we didn't need to get some drinks Sunday afternoon.
I headed into San Antonio and first had lunch with Kim, who is, shockingly enough, dealing with romantic drama. We had a load of Chinese and some coffee as she dished the details. Then I called Laura. She suggested we go to Candlelight.
Actually, she was passing on the suggestion made by another high school acquaintance of mine, a girl named Lauren. Laura is, for some reason, convinced that I hated this girl. Not really. She didn't strike me as a bad person, just rather sheltered. There were a couple of moments when I was all, "God, shut UP!" but show me one teenager who isn't all "God, shut UP!" with EVERYONE they know AT LEAST once in high school. If not once a month. It did, however, amuse me greatly as I heard tell of Lauren going from sheltered to quasi-normal (and I say that realizing I am FAR from quasi-normal; I can't see quasi-normal on a good day, much less normal). Especially when I heard that Laura and Lauren reconnected in Amsterdam, of all places. I think if I could time travel, their time there would be one of the first places I'd stop.
I was reluctant, but seeing as neither she nor I were particularly hungry, it made sense to go somewhere where the was the choice of coffee or wine, and where we might get a dessert or an appetizer. I have never forgotten the Candlelight desserts. One of them has entered my literary lexicon. There was this cake called a carnation cake, which was thin layers of chocolate cake alternating with thin layers of solid chocolate. It was so rich that I never remembered seeing anyone finish a slice on their own. Not even me, and that's saying something. I thought of that cake the first time I tried to read The God of Small Things. The language was so dense and rich that I could only read a few pages at a time. It took me a while to explain to the professor about why this was a carnation cake novel, but I've since used that same term with my students. That's a dessert to remember.
My iPod died recently, so I've been back to my CDs. I grabbed a case for the trip to S.A., and in that case was an old Happy Mix, full of songs that never failed to perk me up. This was decidedly the old school mix, and when I picked Laura up I told her I had some songs that would get her nice and nostalgic. First off was "Hey Jude," because Laura was the biggest Beatles fan I knew until I met my sister, Dolores. Then came "These Are Days" by 10,000 Maniacs, which Laura had quoted in a yearbook signature to me one of the many years we wrote page-long notes to each other. We nearly decided to just keep driving and listening to music, singing very badly to one another. But we pulled in, and got out of the car.
"I feel 80 pounds lighter or something," she said, and I knew EXACTLY what she meant. I had just been feeling the same thing, a strange sensation of weightlessness or something. It was strange to put my feet on that ground again, after I had sworn off it for so long. The door was open. We went in.
It was different. There were . . . tables. I mean, there had always been tables, this was a coffeeshop, but these were neat, unifrom tables with tableclothes and all the same chairs. The piano was gone. The aquarium was gone. The vintage furniture that always had for sale tags on it had been replaced with furniture that was, while no doubt still old, without the same rough and readiness. You knew you'd be comfortable if you sat on the sofas and chairs, and where was the fun in that.
I looked over at the space where I had first looked into the eyes of another man and gave my heart away. There were chairs instead of couches. People were sitting in them that I didn't know.
You have to understand, there were weeks in my senior year of high school that I was at Candlelight every day. I was there when I found out Princess Diana died. I never went in there without knowing at least one person. And there were all these HETERO people there!
Because that was the thing about Candlelight: it was a place that, if you were gay and under 21, even under 18 in a very conservative city, you could go to and be among your own kind. You could get to know queer men in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Yeah, sometimes they would hit on you and it would be gross, or they'd ask you about your friend which would be insulting AND gross. But you got to know a whole lot of out gay men, so when you went to a club you'd see people you knew, and they'd know the dish on the guy you were checking out. You got a sense of what it was like to be gay at various ages, so there was something like mentoring going on. It was comfortable, low key, and fun, and you could bring your straight friend there.
Of course, you could also scare your straight enemies there. There was this one dude from my high school class who was going to stop by on his way to a punk show up the street. This dude was something of a douche. At first I was pissed that he would be invading my space, but then my gay friends decided we'd scare him and the other jackasses he'd be bringing. It turned out most of them were afraid to even go inside, so we had to go out to meet them. While one friend hit on them shamelessly, another pretended to be my boyfriend, which was great because he had on a silver shirt and had hair that would put Heather Locklear to shame. They knew who was boss in that neck of the woods.
Without Candlelight, I lost touch with almost everyone from that community. I have never, to this day, known that many queer men. I really, really regret that, even if a lot of the guys I knew back then weren't alwways good for me. I wonder what turns life would have taken if I'd had a place where I could go talk about love and sex with other men without feeling like a moron. I think there are fewer and fewer places like that, and if I had the money I'd buy the place and turn it back over to the kids, and throw out all that matching furniture.
But I don't have the money. All I could buy was the coffee and desserts while Laura bought the wine and cheese. She caught me up on a lot of people, who was still dating their high school sweethearts and even who had switched teams in the years since (my gaydar has proven better than I once thought). We were almost joined, in fact, by a boy who came out a couple of years after graduating that I had a crush on exclusively because I knew he was gay, even if he didn't. Well, that and he was hot. REALLY hot. Pity he didn't join us. But from the sound of things, a lot of people had become a lot more interesting. My favorite story by far was of a girl whom I had LOATHED in elementary school but whom I was okay with in high school. She was always something of an odd duck, someone who had never quite grown out of her "cute" phase. Well, she married and found out her husband was cheating, so she got the phone bill, highlighted all calls to his mistress, went to the bar he was at, slammed the bill on the table, and yelled, "YOU! CANNOT! COME HOME!" Forget Amsterdam; THAT I would time travel to see. I applauded her moxie in retrospect.
When you talk to the old friends, you inevitably start looking at the grand narrative of your life. I was lucky to be doing this right after my show was a success. Laura actually said that I looked fantastic, not just in terms of my appearance but that I looked happy, comfortable and confident in myself. It was true. God forbid she had seen me a few months ago. I spent much of my time convincing her that if she wanted to quit the law, she could go on to whatever she wanted: she's got brains, connections, start-up capital, and people skills that I would kill for, and I have people skills. She said she wanted to come back to Texas, and for the first time in my life, and I told her that, for all I had once sworn never to come back, it is the fact that Austin IS part of Texas that holds a lot of its magic for me. There's a lot to hate about the place you grow up, but there's a lot to love, too.
Between the stories of old acquaintances and the contentment that I felt there with her, the contentment with my own life and with our renewed friendship, I had one of the most terrifying thoughts of my life: I realized that I actually wouldn't mind going to my ten year high school reunion. I wouldn't mind seeing the people I once hoped to never see again. I guess, though, that this means I'm finally over all the bullshit, over the not-so-bad stuff that seemed so horrifying at the time. I mean, it would still be kinda fun to get wasted and confront some of the bitches who outed me, but mostly I'm curious, and hope that a lot of people are having happy lives.
Candlelight, apparently, is not the only thing that grew up over the past nine years. Not that I didn't spend a good twenty minutes gloating over the accuracy of my gaydar. Can't be mature all the time.
Laura and I listened to "No Rain" on the way back to her hotel. We hugged each other a lot as she got out of the car. I miss her already, and I want to visit her in Minneapolis before she moves anywhere else, because I hear there is a kick-ass gay bar there. In the meantime, the next time I go to San Antonio to see Kim, I might take her over to Candlelight. I might even see someone I know.
I might even see someone I dated. Maybe we'll go to Chili's instead.
