Page 33 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 3

Italian merchants in the Castro sold out to Tommy’s Plants and the Castro
Cafe; in the days when gays bought dumps and everybody on Castro was
a carpenter; in the days when gays were more hippies than clones, long
before New York faggots arrived to Manhattanize the Castro; long before
fisting and coprophagy, when crystal was still something collectible on the
sideboard; long before murders, assassinations, disease, and Death, when
sex three times a day was still the great adventure. It dissolved. It changed.
What first seemed like Mecca shifted on the fault line to someplace east of
Eden. They were innocents. For all they did right, for all they did wrong,
for all their pursuit of sexual adventure, what they searched for in the bars
and baths and cruised on the streets was, heart and soul, for them all, no
more and no less than human love.

3

There may be only one sin in life: the ultimate violation of human
rights is not the taking of a human life; it is the breaking of a human heart.

4

Music up. Vamp. Step. Step. Step. “Castro! That’s where I’m goin’.”
Bump. Bump. “Castro! That’s where I’ll play.” Slow grind. “Castro.” Hula
Hands. “Where hot lips’re blowin’.” Bump. Grind. “Castro! Where nights
are...” Left bump. Right bump. Heavy grind. “...gay!” Shake Midler tits.
Bump. Grind. Bump. “Castro!” Go down on mike. Play Carmen. Flutter.
Whisper. “Where all those handsome gay boys...” Stop. Breathy Mae West
double-entendre intonation. “...wind their playboys’ windup toys!” Belt.
“Castro!” Dirty bump. Dirty grind. Then NYNY-Liza strut, strut, strut.
Shout. “Divine decadence, darlings!” Big Minnelli finish. “I’ll see youuuu..
in C-A-S-T-R-O!”
Ryan’s baby sister was appearing at the Castro Palms. Margaret Mary
O’Hara was the Queen of the Castro. She billed herself as Kweenasheba
and lived with a bevy of six gay boys above the Bakery Cafe three doors
from where 18th Street collides with Castro Street. The intersection was
the heart of Gay Mecca. It was the place where, when Gray Line tours
took them there, Midwestern tourists felt they needed a passport. It was
there Ryan kicked up his motorcycle one afternoon when he called unan-
nounced on his little sister. He rang the bell. No one answered. The music
was loud Tina Turner and the door was open. Halfway up the stairs he
met a young gay boy. “You live here?” Ryan asked.

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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