Audio By Carbonatix
Have you heard the one about the straight guy and the gay bar? Here’s how it goes:
Guy walks into a bar alone. He pulls up a stool and is greeted by the bartender, who introduces himself as Dan. Dan asks for an ID, holds out his hand for a courtesy shake and says, “Nice to meet you. Is Andrew your preferred name?” Guy says, “No, Drew.” Dan says, “Haven’t seen you before, Drew. First time?” Yes. Dan introduces Guy to the three men in their late thirties/early forties chatting at the end of the bar. “Hey, everyone,” Dan says. “This is Drew.” Two come over for courtesy shakes, then return to their spots. Guy thinks, “Everyone here is so friendly.”
Guy peels the label back on his cold beer and wipes the sweat from his brow with his wrist. He notices a plethora of touch-screen game consoles, a dartboard in the back, a slew of unoccupied tall tables. He and Dan make small talk. “You live in the neighborhood?” Dan asks. “No, Five Points,” Guy responds, “but I like the area. Been across the street at the Elm before, but this is more my kind of place — cool, quiet, dark.” Dan smiles. “This your bar?” Guy asks Dan. No, but he’s been around forever, Dan explains, sipping from a bottle of Tecate Light. “Used to work here back in ’86, when it switched over from a straight biker bar to the R&R.” Somewhere inside Guy’s head, a flashbulb explodes; a kitchen timer set to ten minutes goes ping! Guy thinks, “Ohhhhhh…,” pulls the last sip of beer from his bottle and excuses himself for a cigarette.
Outside, Guy calls his closest gay friend. “You’ll never guess what I just did,” he says. “I’ve been inside the R&R for a solid ten minutes and had no idea it was a gay bar.” Friend is confused: “Wait, where are you?” R&R Denver (4958 East Colfax Avenue). “Here’s the best part,” Guy continues. “At one point, I told the bartender that I’d been to a bar across the street, but that this was more my kind of place — cool, quiet, dark.” Friend laughs through the phone and onto the sidewalk. “Good luck with that,” he closes.
On his way back inside, Guy notices everything he failed to before — the rainbow-colored squares painted on the wooden door; the issues of gayzette and PINK just inside the entrance; the tiny, multi-colored mirror ball positioned at beer-bottle-option level behind the bar. Oh, and all the men. “What a fuckin’ idiot I am,” Guy thinks. Then he orders another beer — a Landshark island-style lager, from the man behind Margaritaville — and asks Dan about the Buck a Chance jar above the beer tubs. Dan tells him that a dollar purchases a paper token with a unique number on it. The purchaser’s name and token number are recorded in a small three-ring notebook, and every time the purchaser comes in, he or she can pay another dollar to “activate” the number. Then, at the end of every night, the on-duty tender pulls a token, and if the number has been activated the same day, that person wins the pot. The odds seem low — Guy’s number is well over 550 — but he purchases and activates anyway.
Just after 6 p.m., the night’s only female arrives. She sits to Guy’s left and is eventually joined by two men whom Dan addresses as “honey” and who order wine spritzers. Halfway through Guy’s beer, the woman asks to see his tattoos, which are just visible below his sleeves. This elicits hoots and cackles from two men seated to Guy’s right, who demand that he take off his shirt (he doesn’t) and lean over to inspect whether he’s wearing boxers or briefs. These two show off their recent pedicures and complain about their eyebrows being a mess. They scoot right up next to Guy and show him pictures on their cell phones of naked men wearing red bandannas, a close-up of a stink eye accompanied by farting noises, and a short video of a man having anal sex with a well-hung woman. They buy Guy a second Landshark and, while he’s outside for another smoke, position a scrap of paper under his beer that reads “My Phone Number: _________.”
Guy imagines this is what women must feel like when they’re being hit on by aggressive (and oblivious) suitors.
“Well?” the one in the green shirt asks. “Are you going to put your number on it, or what?”
Sorry, ladies, but Guy’s engaged.
