The “F” Word(s)
For anybody who is easily offended, I’ll warn you up front. This post contains the “F” word several times.
I don’t go out very much. Even on Friday nights. (”Friday.” That’s not the “F” word I had in mind.) To be honest, most often of a Friday night I’m at home baking something. That’s the life of a thirty-one year old single gay man, right?
Lately on a semi-regular basis (not regular, otherwise we’d be dating) I have been going over to the attorney’s house on Friday nights. Not overnights. Just having dinner and watching TV, and a bit of a pash. (ask Brenton what that means.)
But a couple of recent Fridays showed me two different sides of what may not be as routine a life as I thought it was.
It was the classiest of times, it was the trashiest of times.
A few Fridays ago, instead of the usual staying in and cooking with the attorney (in the kitchen or otherwise), he took me out for a fancy dinner. Probably not fancy by the standards of some Golden gate bloggers, but fancy enough for me. (”Fancy.” Not that “F” word, either. ) He even strongly suggested that I wear a coat and tie.
You have to understand that I can’t stand wearing a suit jacket. Ties are bad enough, but suit coats make me feel like I’m all bound up. I like having my arms free. That’s why I wear wife-beaters all the time. It’s not just because I’m country. It’s just comfortable.
I saw on TV the other day that some fashion designer was having a show where guys were wearing suits that had shorts instead of pants. So, I’m putting the word out now to future Project Runway stars: invent a wife-beater suit. I’d wear it. I’d get one in black, one in blue, in charcoal, in brown, and a pinstripe, and double-breasted. I’d have so many suits, you’d think I was a NFL running back.
But the attorney wanted me to wear a coat and tie, so I wore a coat and tie. It’s what you do when you’re not quite dating a classy guy. Besides it was kind of worth it when I was leaning in his bathroom doorway watching him adjust his tie and cuffs and he looked back at me through the mirror and said with a little grin, “We look pretty good together.”
In a way, he was kind of right. We were kind of like a daisy and a mum. Two fairly unremarkable flowers that can be real nice together in an arrangement.
And he had arranged a nice evening: an expensive dinner (I had a salmon dish, he had a filet that was thicker than a hooker’s cork heels) followed by a chocolaty part cake-part souffle dessert (that I had with a cup of decaf, thank you very much, Tank) and all finished off with a walk along the dock where the restaurant sat on the lake.
All very nice and completely unlike two Fridays later when I went out drinking with my best friend, “J.”
“J” and I hardly spend much time together since he got married last summer. He called me up and said, “You want to go out tonight or do you have to go see your boyfriend?” I responded with, “You want to go out tonight or is she making you paint her toenails?” Touche. So we went to a little dive that is so red that it has a gravel parking lot instead of asphalt.
Before he was married, J used to like places like this because there was always “pussy on the prowl.” That Friday was no different. About an hour into the evening, he got a heavy duty prowl. But the pussy was so old it was prehistoric. Like the Saber-Tooth Tiger on The Flintstones prehistoric. And when she smiled, she kept the Hanna-Barbera theme running with her Snagglepuss.
She chatted us up while she stood at the bar waiting for drinks for herself and her girlfriend (who turned out to be her niece) and invited us to join them at their table. Naturally we declined (all I could think of was Whitney Houston and “Hell to the no!”). But the cat saw J as the nip and just wouldn’t let it go. No matter what we said it wasn’t getting rid of her, so without even thinking, I went for broke.
“He’s married and I’m gay.”
In the following fraction of a second that felt like an hour, I thought to myself, “Did I just say that?” J looked at me like, “Did you just say that?” Before I even had time to worry that I just outed myself in a redneck bar, Snagglepuss cocked her male pattern baldness head and said, “You are a fucking liar.”
The door was open, so I figured I may as well step out. “Seriously. He’s married and I’m gay.”
“He’s not wearing a wedding ring,” she spat at us.
True. J does not wear a wedding band.
“And you don’t look like no faggot.” (That “F” word.) “I know a faggot when I see one. And you ain’t no goddamn faggot, motherucker!”
I didn’t know whether to be more offended by the “F” word, “GD,” or the really bad grammar.
And then, as if things hadn’t already jumped over the wall into the surreal, J looked at me with dead seriousness and offered, “I’ll kiss you, man, if you want. Really, I will.”
Now it was my turn to look at him like, “Did you just say that?”
But before J had time to worry that I might take him up on it, Snagglepuss started in again.
“See. You’re supposed to be the faggot,” she said to me. “But it’s him pretending he wants to kiss you. You both are fucking liars.”
What ever she was thinking at this point, we had achieved our goal. She finally walked away. Well….a few steps, anyway. Because then she turned back to us and pointed her nail-chipped index finger at us and let us know that “if you see me or my niece come by here, either one, you ain’t getting a second chance.”
I forgot about the other “F” word…”FREAK.”
But the freak was right. There wouldn’t be a second chance. Chances like that don’t come around everyday. Or even every Friday. But that’s what’s makes those certain Fridays (the classy ones and the trashy ones) the special ones.
Fuck yeah!
May 7th, 2007 at 4:02 am
That classy date was utterly romantic. I can already imagine the violins playing. Sigh.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:38 am
That sounds like a normal redneck kinda bar to me. I thought nights out like that happened all the time. I’m kinda use to those…lol
May 7th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Your evening with the attorney sounded nice… I don’t like coat & tie either for the same reason, too confined (wonder if it’s a southern thing)… Now, your night with J… awesome, you are a great story teller, I felt like I was there in that smokey lil bar , Lynyrd Skynryd playing in the background , low lights hanging over the pool tables. Lots of short denim skirts, and tight fitting tanktops showin’ off the girls, and of course really bad hair… ( what I’m a hairdresser ) Ahhh… makes me home sick… But I have to ask LT,
What made you decide to come out in that bar?
May 7th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Insightful and cleverly written. It’s like I keep telling you, you are a writer. When you get around to compiling these into a book. I promise to buy several copies.
May 7th, 2007 at 8:42 am
This post is seriously well written! I love the paragraph that includes, “And when she smiled, she kept the Hanna-Barbera theme running with her Snagglepuss”. Brilliant! There are also intense emotions expressed here… I just love the whole thing; dang it all! Tony, you’ve done it again!
May 7th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Nice story about your different Fridays. I hope you have more of them.
May 7th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Awwww, I was so waiting to read that he totally made out with you! Might have starting a commotion in the bar though, I bet.
I think what would have pissed me off is not so much the “faggot” word itself but the “I know a faggot when I see one” line. I mean, obviously we all look like a cross between Liberace and Richard Simmons, right? Big prancing queens, everyone knows that! Blech. Thing is she doesn’t sound like she’d be worth getting into a fight with so…
May 7th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Tony, I swear if I still lived in Knoxville that attorney would be getting a run for his money. That was just the kind of humor I needed today. Now people around the world are really starting to get what it is to live in East Tennessee!
May 7th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Masterfully written. You took us to the classy restaurant and then to the cheesy dive.
What you can do with words begs for a book. I’ll reserve copies now.
Thanks for wearing the suit and tie. Maybe uncomfortable, but I bet you enjoyed this Friday night.
May 7th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Too damned funny! It reminded me of a business trip to Covington, KY, and down the street from our hotel was one of the few remaining bars. Our host took us there for drinks after the freebies ended at the Embassy Suites. Whenever I run into the other manager on that trip, we always end up howling about that bar… our director, he of the knuckle-dragging neanderthal variety, was the target of a similar being of the female persuasion. The other manager and I figured we were fairly safe, as the crowd looked to be partnered up, and as he says, he has the look of a man married too long, and I was the resident “dandy” so I was guaranteed solitary time to observe. Well, one of the ladies from across the room spots the director, and starts dancing this come hither routine across the dance floor heading straight for him. We thought he was going to swallow his cigar. But the part that had us on the floor howling was when she finally convinced him to have a dance, she TOOK OUT HER TEETH AND PUT THEM ON THE TABLE, before they headed off to the dance floor. Last I heard the place closed down, it being in the midst of the bible belt, but if the walls could talk…
That dinner sounded like a fabulous evening out… when’s the next one coming?
May 7th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
she kept the Hanna-Barbera theme running… BRILLIANT WRITING. Unfortunately only other gay guys would recognize it as such on the fly.
But what’s really up with J. Was he being the perfect wingman or is he trying to express something else? Not that it’s any of our business, but that part sorta sticks out pretty far.
My nosiness aside, this was a really good posting.
May 7th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
See Tony almost half the readers who commented agree you write from well to brilliant. Sure it’s a biased sample. However, I think it supports my belief that many of your essays are as good as anything Ira Glass or David Sedaris has written. Keep it up and we’re going to be buying you at our favorite booksellers.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
you still think you are “not quite dating”? how funny. you spend friday nights cooking together! very sweet! and with your vivid description, Snagglepuss is clearly painted in my mind!
May 7th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I got another F word for you: Fabulous. The story is. ….and not FABulous. You don’t have to say it in a Faggy way.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Fantastic and fun. Who needs to ‘date’ when life is so interesting.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
“…Snagglepuss cocked her male pattern baldness head and said, “You are a fucking liar.”
Sounds like many dives I’ve known. J. is a REAL friend. Lakeside or gravel side you can hang anywhere. Funny as all get out. There’s an F word that applies!
May 7th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
I think I’m homesick after that story. lol The self outing though, hmmmm. Me thinks the id is churning.
May 8th, 2007 at 10:16 am
you do have fun back there in the hills!
i bet you look great in a suit…almost as great as you do out of one.
May 8th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
You should’ve gotten her address and sent her a printout of this blog. and, of course. a complimentary “large Tony” t-shirt and fan club application.
May 8th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
whats a wife beater mate? it must be american fashion term?
May 9th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
a wifebeater is a sleeveless white t-shirt,like a tank top.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
In the previous post, you said you hadn’t been blogging much. Well, I hadn’t been reading you, and I have been posting several times a week ( to p.g. and a g rated blog, chamblee54blogspot.com).
Dude, it was worth the wait to read this piece. It reminded me of back to back Fridays I had a few years ago. The first was spent in a bar like the one you and your friend went to, only it did have an asphalt parking lot. I was the only person in the house not constantly smoking a cigarette. The sponsor of the outing ( it was with a club i am in) made tacky xerox copies of coupons for the seafood buffet.
The next Friday I was at a sweatlodge, at a school for Traditional Chinese Medicine run by an ancient radical faerie. As I mentioned during the sweat, I was grateful to live a life of variety.
May 10th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Outing yourself (because you actually have someone/something to declare beside yourself?), is every bit as romantic a gesture as the date.
My heart skipped a beat at J’s offer.
Nice. Slightly mad, but nice.
More!
May 10th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I love everything about this post!
May 10th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Did she still have all her teeth?
May 10th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
me too my man.. if i can’t wear flops and luckys.. with a little babydoll t shirt.. all tight across my d-cups.. i ain’t going… well, most of the time.. i’m proud of you for strapping on the goods and going out for a civilized dinner.. of course, had it been me.. i’d have ordered from the child’s menu, and had them cut my dinner up for me..
the decaf is a nice touch.. and you probably won’t shit the bed because of it..
xo
May 12th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
I am looking forward to the Large Tony Wife Beater Suit. That just sounds neat…
Great story.
May 14th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Leave it to say it all so eloquently and out yoursrlf at the same time. Gosh I wish I could have been the bartender listening in on that conversation. Could we have a repeat?!
June 7th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Tony, Everything about this post is pure Tony. The blithe way you wind up in the most remarkable situations and the sweet, witty way you relate it. Rock on, baby, rock on!