I have now officially become the Ellis Island to Bisexuals. I tried to avoid it, but I now attract them somehow. The other night I went to The Laugh Factory comedy club on the Sunset Strip. I went to hang out with some of the comics and watch the show. This is a real straight club.
There is nothing alternative about it, well, until I walk in.
So I sit down beside my straight comic friend and then there's this guy on my left. Mysterious guy to my left is young, a looker and straight. This looker looks like he could be on TV on NCIS or JAG. I think he is a friend of my comic friend. So as the looker and comic friend began to do shots and clink their beer bottles to toast, I introduce myself.
Looker's name is Evan. He smiles at me and seems pleased. Evan immediately adopts me as his new best friend. As the night wears on, Evan tells me that when I walked in and sat down all the energy changed for him in the room. That makes two of us.
He tells me I remind him of a friend he has lost touch with. At this point, I do not mind being a surrogate friend that night. I am now with Evan, the young looker. He treats me like his frat brother and his posse. He slaps me repeatedly on my back at jokes that he likes. He grabs the back of my neck with his hand. As the night continues, Evan sits closer. So close we are touching.
At this point, I look over to my straight comic friend who squints his eyes and says to me: "Are you going to turn him?" Straight male comics love to say this to me. As if I am the representative from gay town stopping by to recruit. The night gets more confusing as Evan is even chummier. And I am thinking how I just came to watch comics tonight and get inspired.
But it's been a while since a young cadet looker is interested in me. Okay, it's been years. Okay, it's never happened. So just for tonight, twenty-something thinks I am cool and fun. So I am cool and fun tonight.
So it gets even better. Evan the looker wants all of us—straight comic friend, him and me—to have a drink at the bar down the street after the show. My comic friend goes on stage and he has been drinking all night to finally perform last and close the show. Now he is tipsy. During his routine he drinks two more large shots and a beer that a comic brings to him. Comic friend is even funnier than he was two weeks ago when I first saw him not as tipsy.
Evan says suddenly in my ear: "Do you know where I can get some coke?" This is so '80s. Now Evan has his arm sort of around me or on me. Okay, it's almost around me. We are sitting in the balcony and I look down to the main floor of the packed audience filled club and I see a guy in the audience suddenly look up to watch us. Evan removes his arm from me. And I'm thinking: "Hey, guy down there in the audience: Haven't you ever seen a young cadet-looker-straight-twenty-something guy put his arm around an older gay guy before?"
At this point as a joke, my straight comic friend performing looks up at us and points at us up in the balcony and says as his next joke: "See those two, they are faggots and he just grabbed the other guy's balls." Audience roars with laughter and we both smile and both sort of wave to the audience.
The show ends and Evan and I go down the street to an even straighter bar. My drunken straight comic friend never shows. I get beers for Evan and me. This is my second one, which I only drink half. I think this is Evan's fifth or sixth drink.
Probably to sober him up, I say to him: "Evan, you know I am gay." He says: "I figured it out." He tells me I have really great energy and that as soon as I sat down next to him, his whole night changed for the better. I say: "Evan, are you straight?" He pauses and scrunches up his face in an Einstein mathematician way. As he pauses, he seems to be calculating and says: "I'm 95 percent straight." I want to laugh or run, but there was something adorable about his final answer when he said it.
So now the evening gets less adorable. I find out he has a felony for stealing a car and that he is living with his 35-year-old, 8 1/2-month pregnant girlfriend. He tells me he does not like her. Nothing like condom-less sex says forever. He tells me he is 28. He looks 20. Last call comes at the bar and we get out on to the sidewalk. Evan kisses me on the lips. That must be the 5 percent. And he now wants me to drive him home to Burbank. Which is long drive from the Sunset Strip, especially when you are transporting a felon.
I've seen too many bad TV episodes of Cops where someone is driving home their "new friend" and they get pulled over. Suddenly the cop finds out that the new friend has drugs on him and is a felon and he has violated his parole. Then the new friend and me are suddenly now in jail.
So instead, I give Evan $20 to take a cab, and it's the best money I've ever spent. The next day Evan calls me and wants to get together again. I say: "Why? You're 95 percent straight."
He says he wants to be friends. All I wanted to see was comics.
