I noticed him throughout the dance ground. The compact, makeshift dance ground behind Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, a divey San Francisco bar that was by no means meant to accommodate a dance ground. The form of his good head. His wavy, sandy hair. His lithe body. The piercing eyes.
In Roman mythology, the Fates have been three girls: the Parcae, working a loom. There was Nona, who spun life; Decima, who gauged the size of 1’s life; and Morta, who selected if you died and snipped your thread. Your destiny was predetermined.
As soon as every week, for 668 Thursdays (and counting) since early 2004, the Tubesteak Connection has taken over Aunt Charlie’s. I used to be there at the very least as soon as a month for six years. Little in my life was reliable in the course of the mid-to-late 2000s, besides that I favored to lose myself. I wasn’t the one one. Even in famously liberal San Francisco, the homosexual existence was a slog. Lots of my queer brothers and I placed on a present within the streets, making an attempt to carry out a type of straightness. A gay homogenizing. You have been tolerated within the broad world, possibly even accepted. That’s not the identical as being free.
At Aunt Charlie’s, I danced. All of us did, shaking off our mechanical days in rivulets of blissful sweat. We moved to bathhouse disco, underground tracks. Generally you’ll spin, see a person that made your breath catch in your throat. Generally you’ll marvel in regards to the wispy line between destiny and luck.
By the sixth century BC, the goddess Fortuna emerged. Some considered Fortuna because the goddess of fortune; others, the goddess of luck. She could have been a single being, however she had many guises. All of it depended in your interactions along with her.
That evening I first noticed Brandon, in spring 2007, we danced. We exchanged names and electrical pleasantries. He mocked my handlebar moustache. He was proper: It was contemporary, mangy and ill-fitting. I put his quantity in my telephone. 4 days later, I referred to as him. We chatted for a couple of minutes. He instructed me he would name me again when his visiting sister was now not on the town. He by no means did.
Fortuna, it appears, had introduced at the very least two sides of herself to me: Fortuna Dubia (uncertain fortune) and Fortuna Brevis ( fickle or wayward fortune). A 3rd, Fortuna Mala (dangerous fortune), appeared inevitable. I wished the spark with this man to matter. She appeared to have completely different plans.
Even now, in a metropolis the place the sanitized bulldozes the derelict, Aunt Charlie’s crisscrossed ceiling of intersecting Christmas lights continues to be lit. The bar’s identify in pink neon continues to be emblazoned in a half-moon over the bar. The show beers are nonetheless organized in pockets by value. On Thursday nights, the zealous DJ, Bus Station John, performs the identical type of disco deep cuts. There are nonetheless no cell telephones or images allowed.
Six or so months after my fortunes with Brandon tanked, a gaggle of buddies and I returned for the primary time to Aunt Charlie’s. On a Thursday. Brandon was there. My buddies and I drank. And danced. And drank extra. I performed coy. It labored.
Almost 10 years later, Brandon continues to be subsequent to me most nights. Perhaps our assembly was inevitable, destiny at work, or possibly it was luck, the kindest of Fortuna’s personalities. This a lot is evident: One bar’s dedication to at least one nightlife impresario’s mission birthed a singular house that drew me to the love of my life. Or one of many loves of my life. The permanence of our relationship is irrelevant. What issues, luck or destiny be damned, is that it occurred in any respect.
This text was initially printed within the Might/June 2017 problem of Imbibe.
