Tarzan

The Height of Luxury - Part I

Every now and then, I’ll look over at John and he’ll be looking down at his phone, scrolling through the pictures of the stripper from last night.

“Can’t stop, huh?” I ask.

“Every time I see him,” he says. “I stop breathing.”

“He was a goddamn superhero,” I say. “Like when he turned on the shower and started whipping his hair around and flinging water all over the crowd.”

“Oh God,” says John. “It’s like my dick can hear you. I bet if I covered my ears, my dick would still be like, Are you guys talking about Tarzan?! Is Tarzan here?!’’

I laugh and then I roll down all the windows when I see John reach for the pack of cigarettes in the cupholder. The Texas summer wind zigzags in and out of the car — roaring over the song we’re listening to: She’s A Lady by Tom Jones. When we took this exact same road trip last year, our anthem was Rock The Boat by Hues Corporation. This time, for no particular reason, we’ve adopted She’s A Lady as the Independence Gay Weekend 2014 theme song. “This song sounds like something from the Miss Congeniality soundtrack,” John says. “Yeah,” I add. “It sounds like the perfect song to introduce a drag queen. She would never perform it, but she would definitely walk out to it.” He side-eyes me and nods as if to say, exactly.

Two nights ago, on a Thursday, we left Lafayette around six and arrived at Nick’s house in Houston in the shallow end of the night. We went to a strip mall gay bar called Guava Lamp where we stumbled upon a drunk mob of singers and dancers with the touring company of The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, who for four solid hours continued to drink like monsters and perform choreographed dance routines to songs unrelated to the choreography. Needless to say, it was fucking spectacular.

The next day was July 4th, which we spent beside a pool at Joey’s apartment, surrounded on all sides by Mexican teenagers who grilled hot dogs and played screechy, incoherent mariachi music from a boom box that looked like the same one that’s covered in dust and rat shit in the shed behind my parents’ house. When it started raining, I took cover but John and Joey stayed in the pool, insisting the rain was only passing.

Joey invited us to a party in Rice Military, so we got ready and ordered a ride. We don’t have Uber in Lafayette, so we thought it might be fun to try in Houston. A peppy black lady with hair bundled like a sheaf of wheat picked us up at twilight. She said it was her second day as an Uber driver, which was obvious by her scattered, overenthusiastic attempt to talk to the strangers in her car. She didn’t seem nervous, just jumpy and obnoxious. She asked us questions, and nodded, and smiled, and then asked more questions until we arrived at our destination. Her sugary disposition and apparent need to make others comfortable and engaged forced me to take a good, hard look at my own cynicism. And before exiting the car and mounting the stairs to the party, I decided that the friendly, conversational characteristics of a Southerner were not within me — and never were. I felt like a contradiction; a New Orleans native who finds friendly small talk between people who don’t need anything from one another painful and embarrassing. Like I was raised by animals in the jungle — seeing agendaless human social interaction as mystifying. And that’s when I thought, out loud, “I need a drink.”

The party was hosted by a pair of gay real estate agents at a home that could have been featured in Shit You’ll Never Own Magazine. Joey introduced us around and we tried not to gawk at the furniture and artwork. “We need to make a good impression,” whispered John. “I want to stay here next time.” I poured myself a glass of Grey Goose over ice from a crystal decanter with a sterling silver charm around its neck that read, Vodka. I repeated this exercise for the duration. The house was five stories with a rooftop patio that overlooked the Houston skyline. We climbed to the top, surveyed the panoramic view, and headed back down the stairs for another drink. A man with wild eyes and a voice like Harvey Fierstein stood on the landing, gesturing for us to follow him towards a door. “Why don’t you kids just take the elevator with me?” he said. John and I looked at one another. “Of course there’s a fucking elevator,” I said rolling my eyes. And then John screamed, “This is the height of luxury!”

I was introduced to a CPA who had the power to make me bored and also sexually indifferent. When he walked away, John said, “Geez, he’s had some work done.” I said I hadn’t noticed. John looked at me like I was screwing with him, which I wasn’t. “You didn’t see how his left eyebrow was pulled all the way back to his hairline?” “No,” I said. “I just assumed he was intrigued by everything.” I arched my eyebrow and pursed my lips, causing John to snort-laugh into his drink.

After the fireworks, we decided to head to the bars. I was considerably drunk and John was not far behind me, as evident by the volumes of our voices inside the second Uber car. That ride did not inspire a bleak, depressing self-realization the way the first one had because I was much too busy asking the driver if she could play “a black girl song” because I was “feeling like a black girl.” Also, the driver was a black girl and she stopped acknowledging me after three minutes.

Like many gay bars, Meteor has a stage on which drag queens and dancers can perform. Unlike many gay bars, Meteor has a multi-head shower in the middle of the stage, backed by a stone-tiled wall. We’d been drinking and socializing for hours when we finally sat down on a couch in front of the stage. John sat in the middle, flanked be me one side and a giant Mexican on the other side, who used his thumb and index finger to steady the straw in his drink every time he took a sip. John turned to him without provocation and asked his name. He said Ricky. John asked who he was with. He said no one. Then John said, “Good. You’re with us now.” Ricky looked ecstatic. And that’s when Turn Down For What came on and the lights changed. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen..."

I didn’t see him walk onto the stage. I only saw him everyone started screaming and whistling. He was the type of man you would see at the beach and drop your sunglasses to get a better look when he passed by. And he shook his ass impossibly. At the age of 25, I’ve seen more strippers in my lifetime than the average rap artist. But this guy — this Tarzan-looking guy — he was an unbelievable showman. To be honest, I wouldn’t have looked away if the place was on fire. And when it was all over, John and I sat next to each other dumbfounded and oddly horny for being in public. Then John turned to Ricky and said, “Get up Ricky, you’re coming with us to the next place.”

John’s awake now and Marc Maron is interviewing Jared Harris on the podcast I’m listening to. I accidentally forgot to set a route for Austin, and I’ve only just realized it upon entering San Antonio. I thought I could just travel west from Houston and end up in Austin, which was apparently fucked. So now we’re headed north up through Lockhart with another hour of driving ahead of us.

But I don’t mind.

It’s been exactly a year since John and I visited Houston and Austin together.

Last year, he was moving to New York at the end of summer, so we took one last road trip before he left for good. That whole weekend was bittersweet and I’d often find myself trying not to cry when I looked at him. But then, his plans changed and he moved from Lafayette back to New Orleans, which is only a two-hour drive instead of a plane ride.

We certainly didn’t think we would have this opportunity again last year, but look where we are! I'm not taking it for granted, though. This is special. But right now, I’m driving to one of my most favorite cities in the world with my best friend sitting next to me.

This is the height of luxury.