The Words of a Hooker

I wrote this below in 2008 when Prop 8 passed in California. With the recent banning of gay marriage in North Carolina it reminded me of this piece. I still believe every word I wrote.

_______

This is a contract between Gay America and Christian America.

Since I am gay and thus a second-class American citizen, I have a proposal. After watching the “love of Christ” in California with the hateful, anti-family, anti-American, bigoted, fear-mongering, deceptive and downright evil Proposition 8, I’ll give in—fine. You win. I am just fine being a second-class citizen. I will never ask to be viewed as “equal” in the eyes of the states. I will never fight for my right to marry, or to adopt children, or to serve in the military. I will make my life completely separate from yours.

But I want you to stop living off of the fruits of my labor.

Since you value-voting Christians tell me that I am dirty heathen undeserving of the right to a happy marriage and children of my own, I’m going to stop paying for your schools. I’ll do the math and figure out how much Franklin County gives to our schools here, and I’ll be deducting that from my taxes. Since roughly 30 million Americans are gay, I doubt the schools will notice the few billion dollars they lose.

Now I work in a restaurant, so if you happen to be in my station, let’s work something out from here—don’t tip me, because you won’t be getting service from me. I will not answer questions about the menu. I will not greet your table. You can get your own drinks. The computer system is pretty easy to navigate, so once you’re ready to order just walk up and start punching the items in. (Don’t make a mistake, though! You’ll have to pay for that if you do.) And there are a few soda machines throughout the restaurant, so you should be fine topping off your own Diet Coke.

When your son knocks on my door and asks me to donate for new uniforms for the basketball team, I hope you’ll be prepared to watch the door slam in his face. And when your little Girl Scout tries to sell me cookies, imagine her running back to you crying saying, “He said he won’t buy cookies because you hate him!”

Oh, you best believe I won’t be buying from them.

Also, as part of this contract, you’ll never be able to see a Broadway Show again. Sorry. The symphony is out the window, too. You cannot go to The Ballet, you cannot see Cats for your anniversary again, and you will never be able to even play the Wicked CD in your car. Never. Because, I hope you know, these joys that you delight in are the fruit of gay Americans, and since you do not want to believe those kind of dirty people exist, we’ll work it out for you. I’ll round us all up and put us on an Island.

We’ll call it Manhattan.

You cannot read David Sedaris, Anne Rice, Gregory McGuire, Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Christopher Rice, Truman Capote, Oscar Wilde or Walt Whitman. You cannot listen to Tchaikovsky, N’Sync, Clay Aiken, The Village People, Luther Vandross, Melissa Etheridge, or Jean Baptiste Lully. And I’m sure Cher and Madonna will make it so you can’t listen to their music, either.

Also, do you remember the fundamental Keynes Economic Theory? A major foundation of the American economy? You’ll have to give that back, too, since he was a big old fag.

You cannot watch Will and Grace, The Simpsons, Ugly Betty, South Park, Sex and the City, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Sordid Lives, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Brothers & Sisters, Six Feet Under, Ellen, Dawson’s Creek or The View. In fact, you might as well turn off your television and never watch it again, since the gays pretty much run the media too.

And your children can never read Harry Potter, since Dumbledore is gay too.

When you buy your new big house in the suburbs and you’re looking for the best interior designers, your quest is going to be awfully long. When you’re sick and the Doctor tells you, “so sorry, not you,”, it’s going to be a painful extra few hours sitting in the waiting room. And if war ever comes to this country, I hope you know, and that your children know, that I will do nothing to help you. I won’t sign up to serve and protect you. I won’t even shed a tear.

You win. We will leave you alone. Gay America will disappear. This is what you wanted.

Or is it?

Gwen was one hell of a broad.

Picture it. Gaudy earrings the size of coke cans. Jewelery that would offend a Gypsy. Sequined blouses that would frighten clowns and shoes that would make children cry.

This was Gwen, and she was my very dear friend.

I met her on an afternoon at the iconic Coffee Table in The Short North. She was sitting among her gaggle of gay men, sipping on Tea (that most certainly was Chardonnay over ice) and shuffling her cards before starting a game of Uno.

It’d be hard not to notice her. She had a cigarette in one hand and an attitude in the other. She had a soft and genteel voice yet was clearly the picture of what hard living can lead to. In her mind she was a glorious 36-year-old fag-hag; in everyone else’s mind she was a 56 year-old hag who had taken too many pills and fallen asleep in too many tanning beds.

Without question, I had to be her friend.

It turned out that ten years prior Gwen survived a surgery—something to do with her liver, maybe it was the binge-drinking—but somehow during the ordeal the surgeon left a car key inside of her. She lived for years with this car key relaxing comfortably between her colon and her spleen, and once learning of the egregious misfortune, it wasn’t long until she received an exorbitant settlement for the havoc it wrecked on her body (and her mind too, though that had been shot for years). However, part of the settlement was that she could never work again, since the state of her body was questionable and the surgeons did not want to be liable for any further damage. 24-hours of free time, every day, for the rest of her life.

This is not a good mix for a recovering alcoholic.

As one with an innate propensity for insanity, I spent many afternoons at The Coffee Table with Gwen. Rarely would a conversation be forgetful or insular: we’d talk about life in the city, current events, politics, philosophy and many other broad and grandiose topics. It was like our friendship was a surreal tale that would only work in a French film or short story. She spent every day reading the paper, smoking cigarettes, sipping on Chardonnay and hanging out with the gay men of Columbus, and I made it a point to be a part of this woman’s life. But Gwen had a temper, and it loved to rear its ugly, plastered face usually at the ninth Cosmo.

Sometime after the second bottle of Chardonnay, she’d begin to believe she was in a relationship with a man named Raymond. This was usually around 3 in the afternoon, so from then on the stories she spewed about her “lover” were utter mendacity. Mind you, Raymond was 44, gay, in a relationship with the same man for 6 years and had never even spoken to Gwen. Yet after the vino, Gwen would begin to convince her young gay neophytes to actively work on destroying him. Strangely enough, due to her enormous influence, it actually worked—he now lives in Cincinnati.

It seems the most peculiar things happen once the sun sets, and my last night with Gwen was no different. We had dinner on the patio at the former Zola (now Union), and while walking her back to her home she struck up a conversation with a black girl 30 years her junior and about 30 times her size. The conversation began with something like, “Bitch, whatchu looking at?”. Generally this would be a shocking introduction, but this was a line that I had heard many times from an inebriated Gwen.

After a contentious exchange, Gwen had said something along the lines of, “The only reason yo’ momma is pro-choice is ‘cause once you popped out she wanted the right to change her choice!”

And then it went down. Girls screaming. Hair pulling. Bitch slapping. Nail scratching. And gays taking photos with their iPhones, naturally.

I could have jumped in. I should have jumped in. But it was only mere seconds until the cops broke them up, and truthfully I was more in a daze: it was at this moment that I realized that perhaps striking up a friendship with a pill-poppin’, aging alcoholic was not a good idea.

But, I won’t lie. I do miss those days.

dariennelake:

This contest has been long and hard. Normally, I like things long and hard, but I have lost sleep, and a few friends along the way.
The battles have been tough, but I am a fighter. It ain’t over until the fat lady lip-syncs for her life. With an army of friends like you, we can move mountains (my boobs) 
So, let’s rock this vote, again and again until they wave the checkered flag on Monday April 30th at noon. HO-RAH!

http://bit.ly/J4mO6n

Darienne Lake was one of the first people I followed on Twitter. She kept it fun and was one of the reasons I enjoyed Twitter so much. She gave me lots of laughter—and one time she even gave me a case of champagne—so now it’s my then turn to give back.

Please go to Facebook and cast your vote for her! As long as she’s in the Top 5 she makes it to the next round. How awesome would it be for one of our own to make it onto this tv show? You can be part of that, you just have to go vote—and vote NOW! There’s only 3 hours left, so do it now before it’s late. Do it for Darienne! Do it for me! Do it because friendships over the internet are pretty fucking cool.