Randemption

Revisiting the gay bars of my youth, reclaiming one terrible memory, and discovering that time turns leather bars into luxury furniture stores.

The Randemption Tour Begins

On my drive to Tennessee for my 40th high school reunion, I stopped overnight in Atlanta and stayed at a hotel on Peachtree Street. This would not ordinarily qualify as a significant life event. Atlanta has approximately 47,000 streets named Peachtree, and presumably people sleep in hotels on all of them.

But 38 years earlier, young Randy had been on that same street with his boyfriend at the time when we ended up in a full-blown street brawl. It was violent, terrifying, and nearly ended with him losing an arm. He didn’t, because I managed to put a tourniquet on it until help arrived. The whole story is in my memoir, WHY, and it is one of those memories that never completely files itself away. It may grow quieter, but it still knows how to find you.

When I realized the gay bars were only a mile or so from my hotel, I started imagining a dramatic full-circle moment. I could go out, have a drink, look around, and reclaim the territory from the frightened, traumatized young man I had been. I would stand there as the older, wiser, openly gay version of myself and declare that Peachtree Street no longer had any power over me.

It would be a Randemption.

That was the plan, anyway. What actually happened was that I stayed in my hotel room because I was exhausted.

Apparently, healing sometimes looks less like striding triumphantly into a gay bar and more like taking off your pants, turning on the television, and deciding you are absolutely not leaving that bed again. Young Randy survived a street brawl. Older Randy had been driving all day and did not feel like searching for parking.

I suppose there is power in that too. I didn’t have to prove anything to Peachtree Street. I could simply order food, get under the covers, and let the past remain outside.

Randemption, Take Two

A couple of nights later, after the reunion, Dan and I went to Play in Nashville. The evening began with a young man throwing up all over the front door, which is one way to roll out the red carpet.

Ewww.

Once we made it past that little reminder that youth is wasted on people who haven’t learned their alcohol limits, we had a fantastic time. We saw two drag shows featuring queens who were genuinely top tier, honey. The performances were polished, funny, energetic, and worth every dollar waved in their direction.

Before the first show, the hostess asked who was celebrating a birthday. Hands went up all over the gigantic, jam-packed bar. One by one, the birthday people announced that they were turning 18, 19, 20, or 21.

They were babies. Gay babies, but babies nonetheless.

Looking around, it seemed as if nearly everyone in the bar was in their twenties. I was happy for them—genuinely. They were out together, celebrating loudly and publicly, surrounded by other queer people. There was no shame in the room, although there was apparently some questionable judgment near the front door.

I leaned over to Dan and said, “I’m happy for them, but I had to sneak into this shit when I was their age.”

And I did.

Where the Wild Things Were

Back in young Randy’s Nashville, the two big gay bars were Warehouse 28 and The Chute. Neither exists anymore, at least not in any recognizable form.

Warehouse 28 is now some kind of combined Bridgestone and Firestone automotive parts and service place. Where gay men once danced, flirted, drank too much, and made decisions they would later describe as “part of my journey,” people now buy tires and get their wheels aligned.

Honestly, there may be a metaphor in there, but I refuse to work that hard for it.

The Chute, which was a leather bar back then, has experienced an even more dramatic transformation. It is now a high-end luxury home furnishings store. The place where you once went to buy poppers is now a place where you can buy a luxury couch and a one-of-a-kind lamp for the end table.

Same clientele, perhaps. Different accessories.

There is something wonderfully absurd about imagining the ghosts of gay Nashville wandering through that showroom. Somewhere beneath an artisanal coffee table made from reclaimed European barn wood, a man in a leather harness is still dancing to a remix of “You Spin Me Round.”

Time does not merely pass. Sometimes it redecorates.

The Redemption I Didn’t Plan

I thought my full-circle moment would happen in Atlanta. I imagined deliberately walking back into a place connected to one of the worst nights of my young life and somehow taking possession of the memory. Instead, I stayed in my room.

The actual Randemption happened in Nashville without my realizing it.

I was sitting beside my husband in a crowded gay bar, watching young queer people celebrate birthdays they could announce openly. I was watching extraordinary drag queens command a stage while a room full of people cheered them on. I wasn’t sneaking inside. I wasn’t hiding who I was. I wasn’t fighting anyone on Peachtree Street. I wasn’t trying to survive a world for which I had no map.

I was simply there, with Dan, having a wonderful time.

Maybe reclaiming our power does not always require returning to the exact scene of the pain. Sometimes the greater victory is realizing that we built a life beyond it. The young man who once had to sneak into gay bars grew up to marry a man he loves, return to Nashville, and watch a new generation walk openly through doors he once entered in fear.

Well, most of them walked through the doors. One of them threw up on them.

It wasn’t the dignified, cinematic full-circle moment I had imagined. It was louder, younger, gayer, messier, and much funnier.

In other words, it was perfect.

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