CULTURE SWAB

So last night, in honor of completing my trailer park mix, I decided to stop in at this scrummy armpit of a bar on Main Street for a beer.

I don't know anyone in town, really, being fairly new. So I was just sitting at the bar, soaking in the atmosphere, listening to Staind playing obnoxiously loud on the jukebox and drinking my Heineken. There were about fifteen people in the place (it being a Thursday night in a small town), and they were all clustered at one end of the bar while I was at the other.

And then it happened.

One supremely brave, supremely overweight woman was voted spokesperson, apparently, and sent over to ask me the pressing question.

"Are you, like, gay?"

Now, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm an effete intellectual artistic sort. If you've met me, you know I don't exactly exude testosterone-fueled machismo. Still, I find it interesting that an entire bar crowd of scrubby trailer trash (no kidding... half the crowd lives in the trailer park a few blocks from my house) felt the need to ask my sexual orientation as a precursor to introducing themselves.

I said no, I wasn't gay.

I asked if they were fifteen.

Anyway, I had another beer and talked with the group for a half-hour or so. Not a bad bunch, of course. But not my crowd, either. For starters, I only have one tattoo. For seconds, every one of them was flat-out ugly, overweight, snaggle-toothed and grungy. Still, I can't help wondering what the reception would have been like if I'd said I was gay?

Curious.

Small towns with scrummy bars. Gotta love 'em.