Left Bank On the Bayou - The Evening Arrives
A Queer Houston Story of the 1930s
(Note: This post continues the sequel to my novella The Song of the Amorous Frogs: A Story of Paris in the 1920s. Click the title to catch up on that earlier story. It is now 1936. Our Narrator has returned to Houston, after his youthful Paris years and loves, followed by 10 years, and undoubtedly more loves, in New York City. And so his story continues … You can catch up on Left Bank Parts already published by clicking the LEFT BANK tab on my cover page navigation bar.)
The actual evening, when it arrived, in February 1937, was a lovely one. The performance would be in the City Auditorium, where I had spent so many stirring evenings – including that one in 1916 when I’d first seen Nijinsky’s magic. This one, I knew, would be as magical, as moving.
I walked from my house to the Auditorium, through the still bustling business district, the mildness of the Gulf Coast winter making the evening a magical dream, certainly as against some of the hard winters I’d known in New York. It was the southern mildness that brought the Ballet Russe to Houston so often in the winter months, when snow and ice froze the vibrancy of cities more exciting other times of year.
The performance would not begin until 8:15, so I decided to stop by The Rathskeller for a bit of supper. It might even be busy this evening, since so many of “the boys” would likely also be needing something before the performance, to make sure their stomachs didn’t rumble at the dramatic moments of what all anticipated as a riveting (and arousing) exposition of maleness, such as they often dreamed of, but seldom had the chance to see so openly anywhere but the gym.
I walked up Main Street, past the mirrored kiosk in front of Levy Brothers, and admired – some might have said, assessed – the handsome youth looking in the mirror as he combed his already flawlessly combed blond hair, his eyes darting back and forth like dancers themselves as he assessed the other men who passed behind him on the sidewalk. I did not recognize him – though I did recognize his “swift flash of eyes” and suspected the “love” it might offer. Perhaps he’d come to town on business or for the performance. Though even in Houston, growing fast and large, I no longer recognized everyone – not even those like me in that unspoken essential way. I didn’t have the time to stop to comb my own hair, or to check it in the mirror in case it needed combing, but I’d remember him in case I saw him another time.
When I went through the door of the Rathskeller, I saw the young Billy Goyen, whom I’d met at Margo’s theatre, sitting at a corner table, writing, writing. Who knew if what he wrote was good – probably it wasn’t, he was still so young – but he wrote so doggedly that one day it might be good if he kept at it. Bill Hart sat at the table too, looking at Billy with love in his eyes, love which only its object seemed not to see. They both had part-time jobs at the public library, and so I saw them often, though Goyen seemed hardly to have time for an “old” man like me. But it could be he hardly had time for anyone, so absorbed did he seem to be in himself, his writing, or his shyness. Hart I’d come to know in many ways, meeting him first one evening shortly after my return from New York City, as we both stopped to check the status of our hair in Levy’s kiosk mirror.
I smiled at them and nodded, but I did not disturb them at their table, in their labors of writing (Goyen) and longing (Hart). Instead, I walked across to the bar, nodding and smiling also to the Frau proprietress, who welcomed through her door those of us who found some doors not so welcoming. I ordered my lager and sandwich, and sat alone at my table to enjoy them, as I savored the anticipation of the dance that lay ahead – and as I looked around at the other men who peopled the Rathskeller on that early February evening.
There were only men, and only men of our “peculiar” type. Like the Madame in Paris, who saw everything, but when it suited her, saw nothing, our Frau of the Rathskeller did not see – or at least pretended not to – when hands met beneath tables, or lips touched cheeks in the half-light of dimmer corners. Perhaps she really didn’t see, or wasn’t bothered, so long as the police weren’t bothered either; or perhaps she enjoyed her occasional dances with the “boys,” who could not dance with each other, not even when they’d passed through her welcoming door. That would have bothered the police indeed, at least when it suited them or their politician bosses to be bothered by it.
As in every city of any size, and likely in many towns large and small as well, places like the Rathskeller existed, places where men could meet each other, men of our “peculiar” type. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and a place, and our will to meet each other found its way everywhere. Even here in Houston, just blocks away, we’d found more places: The Old Vienna, the Capitol Bar, Rex’s. And the kiosk at Levy’s. And what some might consider more unsavory places: the facilities in the basement of the Milby Hotel, Sam Houston Park, across from the Central Library, the blocks of Main Street where one could go “window shopping,” the steam rooms of the Turkish baths around the city, at midnights and mid-afternoons, and the corners of the Rice and Texas Hotels – especially the latter, where many of the theatrical types stayed on their brief stops in town, for one night stands (in double senses) as their companies made their tours.
Even as I thought of myself as a sophisticate, one who had explored (or at least heard tales of) the nether worlds of Paris and New York, I found some of “our” places unsavory myself, and knew of them only because I’d heard tales. Still, I would not condemn those who frequented even such places, since the world allowed us such few. I might not choose them for myself, but how could I deny them to others, who might not have even the meager opportunities my affluence, education and experience afforded?
As I finished my early meal (I expected I’d be having a supper somewhere later, unless the dancers left me too thrilled to eat), I thanked silently the greater powers that had granted me those advantages, which now were taking me to an encounter with art and maleness such as I could not even have imagined in the days of longing I still so vividly remembered from my youth. My only regret this night was that I would be going to it alone. Though not absolutely alone, since I knew the seats would be filled by many others like me in our essential way. Strength in numbers when the number was hundreds, almost as empowering as when the number was two.