Saturdays at Blueberry Hill always start with an Old Fashioned. Maker’s Mark is my preferred whiskey. A typical night there for me includes reading at the bar, talking with the bartenders, or occasionally chatting with other customers. A great thing about Blueberry Hill is that its history as a music venue attracts a lot of out of towners. Chuck Berry used to play in the Duck Room, named for his trademark walk across the stage. Numerous other famous bands have played there over the years. There is a hallway lined with framed photos of famous guests, from musicians to politicians.
There is always an easy way to tell when someone is new there. They all come in and have the same awestruck look as they gaze at the decor around them. It is impressive, I admit. Every inch of the wall is covered in shelves of vintage Knick knacks. Simpsons figurines, athlete bobble heads, Chuck Berry nostalgia, taxidermy animals. The place is a living, breathing collage of pop culture.
On this night, sitting a stool apart from me, was a young man. He’s very tall, lanky, and wore a tie dye shirt. His hair was thick, but cut short. He gave the impression he had walked in from the 1970s and would call you “bro”. I’ll refer to him as Free Love. He honestly isn’t out of place for a customer at Blueberry Hill. The bar is close to a university, so a lot of college age people hangout there. If not for the later events, he wouldn’t have been noteworthy.
Soon, a woman took the seat between Free Love and I. She was middle aged, had long blond hair, and wore a black dress. There was an air of Stevie Nicks in her style. That is where the comparison begins and ends. She will be referred to as The Cougar. With her entrance, the night shifted from typical to something else.
Conversation started normally enough, The Cougar introduced herself and asked about the town. She was on a short visit to Saint louis with the intent of moving here. Free Love was visiting town for a friend’s graduation. But it didn’t take long before he was flirting with her, calling her beautiful, buying her drinks. The Cougar gleefully bathed in the adoration. She said it was a great night with two cute guys and laughed. This is where the discomfort started for me, with the weird edge to her tone implying I was totally involved in this. To combat this I used my sarcasm in the form of jokes and pointed observations of the unfolding situation. Eventually, I just told them I was gay. I wanted it to be clear that I was an observer, not a participant.
Soon the flirtation became affectionate touching. Free Love put a hand on her thigh while talking to her or lean in to talk quietly into her ear. On their next round, he was buying her another drink and offered to get me another one as well. I politely refused. At this, they both tried to urge me to have a drink. With them both looking so intently at me, a sudden realization came over me. If I accepted the offer, it would likely be accepting a lot more than just a free drink. So, I took it further than the previous sarcasm could manage and bluntly told them, “this is not a menage-a-trois situation.” Free Love played dumb, acting like he didn’t know what I was talking about. The Cougar got it, and said to him, “he wants to be separate from us.” She seemed to understand and respect it.
The Cougar soon took a restroom break. Free Love used the opportunity to ask me how I thought it was going for him. I paused for a second, stunned. Was this guy a total idiot? I told him she was reciprocating his flirtation and accepting drinks. It was clearly going well. He asked what he should get to drink next. I told him water. Then he asked for advice, if I had any tips or tricks for him to use. I didn’t have any and reiterated to him that it was clearly working out for him.
The conversation then took a more serious turn. He asked what I thought of the situation, if I judged them for it. I told him it was none of my business. That got him fired up. “Not your business?! You are judging me!” I said, “I’m not judging, I find this all entertaining.” He was also offended by that remark. Free Love, being the master of rhetorical argument he is, tried to put it in gay terms for me. “What if an older, bear daddy came in and sat at the bar? You wouldn’t think he was hot and want to hook up with him?” I told him that is not my type. It’s insulting that he just assumes all gay guys must be attracted to older men by default.
Seeing as that approach failed, he then tried to act more sympathetic. He asked if I found him attractive. I responded, “I don’t see how that is relevant”. In all honesty, he was objectively good looking. But his personality was a complete deterrent for me. In some weak way to level with me he said I was good looking and “I bet you turn heads”. I failed to see the purpose of this conversation. I asked him, “why do you care if I find you attractive? You’re not trying to hook up with me, you’re trying to hook up with a woman.” Alas, despite my best efforts, intoxicated people remain impervious to logic. He took offense at that and his defense was to say that hook up culture is so common because it started with gay culture. He doubled down, saying, “hook up culture is gay culture.” My eyes could’ve ejected out of my skull from the grand eye roll I gave at that statement. He then says the sentence that he’ll repeat throughout the evening and still echoes in my mind: “It’s all one love, man!
So, following his warped logic, he believes I’m judging him for hooking up, but he is at no fault for his decisions because hooking up is the fault of gay culture. But he’s straight, even though he cares whether I find him attractive and suggests I “can turn heads”. And those facts can all stand together simply because it’s “all one love”. I was fed up with his condescending words and egotistical behavior. As soon as The Cougar returned I went to the restroom for a break from them.
When I returned, The Cougar was perched on Free Love’s lap, their arms around each other, intensely making out. Making out doesn’t do it justice. His tongue was excavating in her mouth. I glanced around to see if anyone noticed them. Blueberry Hill was not a bar I expected to see this in. No bartenders were on our side of the bar and the crowd was chattering, focused on their own groups. I then awkwardly returned to my stool near them and pretended to be focused on my writing.
Shortly before leaving, they insisted on being my wingman and talking to someone in the bar for me. Seeing they wouldn’t take no for an answer, I nervously scanned the room for a way out of this. Then an idea occurred to me. They don’t know that I’m friendly with the bartenders here. So I pointed out a bartender I knew well and pretended I was enamored with him. We’ll call him The Captain, as he was wearing a sailor hat and blue coat that night. The Captain was checking IDs at the door, so they would talk to him on their way out. This way, I could have a little fun of my own making them think they were setting me up with someone. And it wouldn’t be embarrassing if it was someone I already knew.
The parting words from them were Free Love reiterating, “remember, it’s all one love!” before they made their way to the door. I quickly texted The Captain: I’m sorry in advance. While they stopped to talk to him, I tried to look distracted in my book, while making covert glances to the door. They were only there briefly before walking out into the night. They most likely went to her hotel room to have hook up sex.
This encounter reminds me how quickly and unexpectedly a meeting can ignite passions in people. No matter how ignorant one is, or how much older the other. The way people connect can always be baffling. The more I observe, the more I realize: straight people can get away with anything.
A Poet's Perspective 