Page 37 of A Straight Line

Chapter 9

The Wheels on the Bus

Denny and I tapped our cups together and slammed back the tequila, and the dozens of other partygoers surrounding us followed suit. Raise Your Glass by Pink had been set to play by Bird so that he could join us in our circle of hard liquor and Red Solo cups. Harry and Vic had actual shot glasses in the house, but they certainly didn’t have enough to go around for everyone at the party. Instead, Michael—the shirtless police officer with a night off—had drunkenly poured tequila into the plastic cups for everyone. One look into my cup let me know that I was going to be slamming what was considerably more than a standard shot of tequila. However, it was getting late in the evening, peak party time, and I knew that I was way behind in the Buzzed Department compared to everyone else. Even the elders looked lit, so I knew that Denny and I had to do something to fit in with the rest of the revelers. If slamming more tequila than advisable was the way, so be it.

Then, as if one of the massive shots of tequila wasn’t enough to take down a small horse, Michael, and other party attendees in possession of liquor bottles, began filling cups again. My brain was telling me that another shot was possibly a bad idea, but my heart told me to have a little fun. Besides, I hadn’t had hardly anything to drink all night, and my belly was full of carbs. A little liquor wasn’t going to be the end of me. I hoped. I looked around, already with my gut warm and my head tingly from the first shot, and smiled at the people gathered around us as Pink’s party anthem played.

At first glance, I noticed that drag queens had shown up—which made my eyes dart around, looking for Bang Bang amongst the throngs of feather boas and sky-high hair. It wasn’t too hard to find each of the drag queens in the crowd. With the high heels and flashy, big hair, they were all easy to find and identify as someone other than Bang Bang. My heart sunk a little when I realized that Bang Bang was not amongst the partygoers so late in the evening. Obviously, she had decided that showing up for the final hurrah just wasn’t for her. I tried to remind myself that Denny had been so positive that Bang Bang would show up, but I wasn’t so sure he wasn’t just being overly optimistic. If she was going to come to the party and perform as promised, the window of time was closing.

“Hey!” Denny caught my attention.

I looked back at him to see a bottle of some liquid moving towards my cup. Forcing a smile onto my face, I held my cup next to Denny’s so that the shirtless guy with the bottle could pour us another round. Everyone around us was rowdy, dancing in place to the song, but they waited patiently for everyone to have their cups ready for the next shot before taking their own. This was a group activity, obviously, and decorum had to not just be respected but observed. Once seemingly everyone had a second round of shots poured, the music suddenly stopped.

Over a hundred confused faces turned towards the DJ booth, wondering why the drinking music had been turned off. A glimmer of hope shot through me, thinking that maybe Bang Bang had finally arrived. Instead, I saw Vic and Harry standing up by the DJ booth with Bird, who had obviously been the one to shut off the music. I hated to admit that I was a little disappointed to see it was my uncles who had caused a stop to the activity instead of the arrival of everyone’s favorite regional celebrity, but I forced myself to smile.

As the crowd grew quiet—which is an arduous task for a bunch of liquored-up queers—Harry and Vic smiled out at all of us. They both had Red Solo cups in hand, so obviously they were also doing shots with all of us. Standing in the center of the group of people with Denny, I hadn’t seen them when we took our first shots. I had assumed they had chosen to sit out the silly activity. Of course, the elder gays knew all about taking shots. It’s not like us younger gays had invented the activity, after all.

Is that weed I smell?

What will Officer Michael Hadsford think?

Or is this really a night off for him?

Once the crowd was silent, save for a few chuckles and drunken giggles, Vic spoke up:

“Harry and I don’t want to stop the festivities for long,” Vic announced loudly, “but we wanted to take this opportunity to thank our community for coming out tonight. We can’t tell all of you how much it means to us to have all of our gay, lesbian, bi, pan, allies, questioning, intersex, trans, drag, ace—”

Harry whispered something quickly to Vic.

“—and our nonbinary and non-gender-conforming brothers, sisters, and they and thems with us tonight. And if I said any of that wrong or offended anyone, I’m sorry, but you can all fuck off.”

Everyone in the crowd laughed uproariously.

“But regardless of whether or not you’re LGBTQ-plus, or an ally—or, I guess, other—this has been a night we will never forget. Forty years ago, Harry and I opened A Straight Line—”

The crowd cheered so loudly it was deafening.

“—and forty years ago, we never imagined this day. To see all of the faces here—so many familiar ones, so many new ones, and even more beautiful in the diversity—it’s a testament to how wonderful this community is. Our lives, the bar—all of it has been made possible by all of you. You’ve all made two tired old queers realize that their lives and their business meant something. We will always, always, be eternally grateful for that.”

More cheers sounded, as well as claps, and “awwww’s.”

“So,” Vic said, “thank you all. From the bottom of our hearts. We couldn’t have asked for a better community or better lives. And it’s thanks to all of you.”

More claps and cheers.

Some people in the crowd snapped and shouted back: “No! You!”

Vic stepped back, offering Harry a chance to speak to the gathered masses. Harry, with Red Solo cup in hand, stepped forward, opened his mouth…and a short sob erupted. He slapped a hand over his mouth as tears appeared in his eyes. Everyone in the crowd made “aw” sounds as Harry collected himself. Then the claps began, urging him to speak. However, when Harry finally composed himself, he simply said:

“Oh, just thank you. Take your shots, you silly queers!”

Everyone laughed, smiles of gratitude on their faces, then held their cups out in salute to the founders of A Straight Line. Then we were all tossing our cups back, massive amounts of liquor finding their way down our gullets. Everyone cheered around me as I grimaced at realizing I had just downed half a cup’s worth of whiskey.

That oughta do it. I thought to myself as I pulled the cup away from my mouth.

Let’s Have a Kiki by Scissor Sisters was queued up by Bird, and the crowd around us went wild. I started to find my way through the crowd and off the dance floor area as everyone around me began dancing along to the song. As I expected, Denny caught up to me, his own empty cup in hand. I had nearly made it to the edge of the crowd before he reached out and hooked a hand through the crook of my elbow. I didn’t turn to see what he wanted because I already knew what he was going to ask of me. And a dance was out of the question.

We had almost made our way to the edge of the crowd, getting slapped in the face accidentally by every color of feather boa imaginable and getting elbowed accidentally by sparkly queers covered in body glitter. I would never say anything to Harry, so he didn’t freak out, but I was certain that at least one pair of Doc Martens had stomped on my toes accidentally. The last thing I needed, besides Denny pulling at my elbow, was to have Harry freak out that lesbians from upstate New York had come to exact their revenge on him.