Page 130 - Some Dance to Remember

100 Jack Fritscher

to see and be seen. They congregated around the Harleys, Kawasakis, and
Mopeds parked side by side in front of the All American Boy clothiers and
the Nothing Special bar.
“Vehicles are an extension of gay sexlife,” Maneuvers said. “You are
what you drive.”
Burnt out on Castro? Cruise over to Polk. Bored by Polk? Head down
to Folsom. Tired of Folsom? Try Land’s End. There’s always a blow job
waiting out on the wooded trails winding down to the ocean rocks. The
best gay sex is always public sex. With the sex, especially on the rocky
outcroppings of Land’s End, there’s always danger, the kind delivered by
the fag-bashing hoods up from Daly City driving the parking lot at Land’s
End and cruising the dark back streets of the Castro. The gay community
united against violence. Referee whistles became de rigueur first for safety
then for dancing.
Castro characters emerged. On Sundays, when the Star Pharmacy
was closed and aspirin was most needed, where was the lacquered Jackie,
the bouffanted white-wigged cashier and sweetheart of the Castro?
Every morning, at the kiosk in front of the Star, an ancient peg-legged
newsboy cackled out the single, grating, raw word, “Chronicle,” until one
morning, he didn’t, and no one asked his whereabouts.
On Castro, most people existed only when you saw them; not seeing
them, you did not even think of them. On Castro, most people existed
only when you cruised them; once you had them they were rarely thought
of again. So many men. So little time.
Kweenie was quick to study the eccentricities around her. San Fran-
cisco had a tradition for tolerating the odd. Castro was pushing the City’s
limits. Gay women became feminists parsing themselves as radical lesbi-
ans, growing hair in their armpits and letting their bodies bloat and sag in
parodies of male truck drivers gone to pot and seed. Leather jackets and
feathered boas came out of men’s closets. Both sexes took advantage of
San Francisco’s tolerance and Castro’s encouragement to find new ways to
express themselves so long repressed by the folks back home.
“This planet in its variety,” Maneuvers said, “suggests so many others.”
The street became a district. Castro Street became “The Castro.”
Things divided, mixed, changed, grew, and blossomed with the new gay
pride grown heady with its strength in numbers. Evidence was every-
where. Canny straights went along for the ride.
Mena’s Norse Cove Deli was the town pump.
The only thing Swedish about the Norse Cove was the name on the
blue awning. The inimitable Mena was, so legend had it, an Egyptian

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