Sid
Alone at a bar yet again.
The second half of the movie of my life has frequently been filled with such memorable lines as “Table for one?”, “Will someone
be joining you?” (as the extra settings are swept from the table), “So, why are you still single?” and “Don’t you get lonely?”
I have never gotten used to going to a movie alone or having a drink by myself at a bar. I already feel so self-conscious
sitting alone, and it doesn’t help that everyone stares as if I have two heads and whispers behind their hands, trying to
figure out my story, before giving me that sad smile that reads, Widower, Loser, or Too uptight for a relationship.
Esther tells me that it is a sign of strength to navigate the world alone. I tell her she can barely navigate her SUV out
of a Ralphs parking lot without orange cones and a traffic cop.
Over the din in Streetbar, I hear the song “Alone Again (Naturally)” by Gilbert O’ Sullivan in my head.
Could I be sadder on a Saturday night?
I need a laugh. I turn to ask Teddy if Gilbert O’Sullivan is Irish, or perhaps is related to Patty O’Furniture, but he looks sad tonight, too. Is it his sister that’s on his mind? Ron had told me she had called during Church of Mary and that Teddy had ignored her.
I understand what it’s like to be ignored.
I feel a hand on my shoulder.
Don’t turn around, Sid.
No one ever talks to an old man in a gay bar unless they’ve mistaken him for Harrison Ford or are blind drunk and want an
easy target for a free drink.
I swivel on my barstool. A beautiful man is smiling at me.
I pivot my head around the bar, wondering who is lucky enough to be at the receiving end of this man’s radiance.
“Sid Silverstein?” he asks.
It finally hits me.
“Hot Jew?” I exclaim.
I slap a hand over my mouth.
“Oh, my God! I am so sorry,” I continue. “I am not a big drinker. My lips have little synchronicity with my brain but—after
half a martini—there is zero control.”
“I take that as a compliment.” He laughs. “Don’t worry. I heard you and your friend the other day. She’s quite the fireplug.”
“In stature and volume.”
He laughs again.
“Leo Levy,” he says, extending his hand.
“How could I forget?” I blurt. “I’m just flattered you remembered me.”
I stare at this man’s perfect face. I had a dream about him the other day that was not G-rated. I think we were making out
in the back of an Edsel, which pretty much sums up the time frame in which I was last intimate with a man.
“Better a slap from a sage than a kiss from a fool,” Esther said about the dream. “And I know you’ve kissed some fools. That
dream means something!”
I realize I am staring at Leo.
Speak, Sid, speak!
My mouth is wired shut. What do I say to him?
You . . . so . . . pretty. Me want.
Say something, stupid!
“What on earth are you doing here?” I finally ask.
“Well, I saw your show tonight,” Leo says.
“You saw our show?”
“I did.”
“You did?”
“Are you mirroring me?” Leo asks.
“What?”
“It’s an old journalist’s technique. You repeat what the person you’re interviewing just said to trick them into losing track
of what they’re saying and eventually give up some good information,” Leo says.
“I’m not doing that,” I say. “You’re just so good-looking I don’t know what to say. I’m all tongue-tied.”
Leo smiles. “That’s very sweet, Sid.”
Sweet. Ugh.
I hold up my cocktail.
“This martini sure has a big mouth,” I add.
He chuckles.
“So?” I continue. “What did you think of The Golden Gays?”
“I absolutely loved it,” Leo says. “Although The Golden Girls was never my thing, considering I was still in high school when it first aired.”
Kill me.
“But I recently started doing research on a subject I plan to interview, and I started watching the reruns. It’s still very
funny, timely and relevant. And each of you was a mirror image of the characters. I enjoyed it more than I can say.”
“Thank you,” I say. “So? Who are you interviewing?”
Mario brings Leo a gin and tonic.
“You.”
He lifts his cocktail in salute to me.
I again cannot form any words as he smiles at me. His dark eyes are locked on mine, and I finally notice he has the cutest little dimple in the chin of his strong jaw, as if a small sliver of granite was chiseled away to make him look a little bit more vulnerable.
I set down my martini glass and try to act casual. I place my chin in my hand and pull up the loose skin on my face with my
fingertips.
“Are you okay?” Leo asks. “I hope that didn’t come as too much of a shock.”
I release my head from my hand. I can feel my face fall.
“It is a little,” I say. “You’re a reporter? You kept that a secret.”
Leo laughs. “I’m superstitious like my Ima.”
And I have confirmation: Leo Levy, as his name implied, is Jewish.
Hot Jew in the house.
“I’m a TV reporter,” Leo explains. “Earlier this year I was let go from a station in the Bay Area after working there for
nearly thirty years, and I was planning on retiring until I came to Palm Springs to lick my wounds. I fell in love with the
desert, which I didn’t expect. I ended up having lunch with an old friend who is the GM at a local TV station. He told me
he was hiring for a morning anchor, and I told him I was too old to get up at four in the morning.” Leo pauses. “And goodness
knows I’ll be hitting the early bird specials and going to bed at seven p.m. before too long.”
I laugh and take a sip of my martini. Leo continues.
“But I started watching the local news in the desert, and I discovered there was a vital piece of reporting missing. Nearly
half of Palm Springs is gay, and a quarter of the Coachella Valley is over sixty. Very little news was being reported specifically
for those populations. On a lark, I created a segment called ‘Gray and Gay.’”
“Very clever.”
“Thank you,” Leo says. “I thought about ‘You Bet Your Sweet Bippy,’ but that seemed too much.”
“True.”
“I ended up recording a few segments about issues that directly impact those communities,” he continues, “from affordable housing and health care to elder abuse and elder care. And the GM offered me a job. I’m moving to Palm Springs full-time.
I didn’t want to jinx it when I was talking to you at the track. I’m a little superstitious.”
His announcement makes me feel as giddy as a schoolgirl. I choose my words carefully, so I don’t blurt I love you, Leo! or Suspicious mole!
“That’s so fascinating and so needed,” I say instead. “But why do you want to interview me?” I smile at him. “I’m not that
interesting. You really should talk to Barry or Teddy about the show. They’re the masterminds behind it. They have all the
talent.”
Leo surveys my face.
“A source at the library told me what happened to you in the parking lot after your Reading Hour.”
My heart stops. I glance around to see if Ron or Barry heard what Leo just uttered. I motion him to come closer.
“I haven’t said a word about this to anyone. How did you find out?”
“A good reporter has his sources,” he says.
“Tell me. Please.”
“The incident was recorded on the security cameras at the library,” Leo says. “It was reported to the police by the administration.
No one could identify the woman—her face was blurry, she parked out of sight so they couldn’t ID her license plate, but they
suspect it was likely her first time coming to the library, obviously with the intent to harass you. But someone from the
Palm Springs Police Department is planning to take a report from you. They will probably be monitoring your next reading at
the library.”
I shake my head. “If I ever go back.”
Leo puts his hand on my arm. It is strong and warm.
“You have to go back,” he says.
“No, I don’t,” I say firmly. “That woman’s attack brought up so much forgotten deep-seated self-hatred.
It revived so many memories I thought I had buried but are still living underneath the surface.
I’m eighty-one years old, and she made me feel as weak and vulnerable and disgusting as I did growing up in the closet. ”
Leo tightens his grip on my arm.
“Do you know how many hate crimes go unreported even in a community like Palm Springs?” he asks. “It doesn’t just happen to
those on the margins. It happens to people like you, every single day, and it has to stop. That woman’s hatred flamed because
it has been given oxygen in our country, and her sole goal is to silence your voice. It’s the same thing happening around
the country with book banning, and the only way to extinguish that hate is by speaking out.” Leo gives me a pleading look.
“Speak out, Sid. And don’t just do it for yourself but for every person this is happening to right now that you can’t see
and will never know. Do it for all those who fought for you to be right here, right now. Believe me, if it’s happening to
you, it’s happening to a little boy or girl this moment—a kid feeling as much shame and self-hatred as you once did and still
do, a kid who is out there somewhere fighting to survive. When we’re silent . . .”
“I know,” I interrupt. “We give up.”
“No,” Leo says, shaking his head. “We’re complicit.”
He releases his hand, and my forearm pulsates, missing his touch.
“I told my GM about this, and he’d like you to be my first feature for ‘Gray and Gay,’” Leo continues.
“Me?”
“I actually think it could make for an amazing launch. We could cover so many issues all via a lifestyle segment on you,”
he says. “Your friends here filled me in a bit on your communal living and health care situation, your show that mirrors your
life, and—despite all of this—how none of us are immune to hate. Say yes.”
I look at Leo.
Yes, I think. I will marry you.
“Did you come here to ask me all this?”
“I did. I’m a tireless reporter.”
Mario leans across the bar and whispers to me, “Say yes. You’ll get to see more of him.”
I look down the bar at Teddy. I think of what happened to John.
What happened to him and what happened to me will happen again and again and again if I—we—don’t take a stand.
I turn back to Leo to say yes, but Barry now has him cornered. He is handing him yet another drink and has him pinned against
the bar. In the blink of an eye, Barry removes his shirt and tucks it into the back of his jeans.
“Well, aren’t you a tall drink of iced tea,” Barry says. “And I am parched.”
Barry’s six-pack hardens with every word out of his mouth.
I can’t watch. I turn away and see Teddy leaving. And then I see my reflection in the windows of Streetbar.
I’m wearing a sport coat.
At a gay bar.
I look like I should be leading a tour of bird watchers. I’m about as sexy as Bernie Sanders.
God, I’m delusional.
And what the hell is a sport coat anyway? It’s neither sporty nor a coat, and yet I’m wearing one, just like I was wearing
an eggplant blouse when I met Leo.
Barry laughs at something Leo has said.
“Well, I do declare, you make me happy as a clam at high tide,” he says, running a finger down Leo’s chest.
“God, you’re a bad actor,” I say to Barry as I stand. “And I’m getting diabetes from your terrible accent.”
“Sid?” Leo calls after me as I part the crowd with my elbows to leave.
I rush onto the street to catch my breath. I see Teddy through the window of the show tunes bar across the street, talking to Larry and Phil.
God, what an awful night for both of us.
I linger at the entrance and then follow him into the other room when karaoke is announced.
I stand in the back, hidden behind a pole, and listen to Teddy sing.
My heart cracks.
The hardest thing about growing old isn’t the aches and pains, or the short amount of time you have left.
No, it’s the fucking loneliness.
And that will be the thing that kills you before anything else even has a chance.