That was the days when Boneshakers was around. At that point gay was nothing more than a name that I had no identity for yet. Being gay was a target on my back that only led to promises of violence. Every day was a battle just to be able to go to class and exist in my skin and figure it out like everyone else. The life of a gay man for me was not something to be admired.
And, at Babylon everyone was dancing and shirtless and covered in glitter and not reflecting anything that was going on in my small-town life. They all had to deal with being gay in a world that might not always get it,but the one thing that was certain is that at the end of the day, they would all end up at Babylon. Every Thursday, I would sit in the living room watching all these gay men trying to learn from them what it meant to be gay. The show Queer As Folk was on television. I had no space to be myself outside of my bedroom, where I would put on my Dad’s old sweatshirts and dance to the radio, waiting and wanting to be anywhere else. When I was growing up, being queer was not easy.
