IS ERIC GAY?

The following is an actual phone conversation that took place between me and my landlord in the early 1990s.

“Hello.”

It was Matt, the landlord, calling and he didn’t have time for such small talk.

“Keith, Matt. I gotta ask you something. Is your roommate gay?”

“Yeah, Matt. Eric is gay.”

Nobody who’d actually met Eric would have to ask this. Eric wasn’t gay in any subtle kind of way. He would eventually make his way to that gay mecca, San Francisco, where he’d find his place as a much-loved drag performer working under the name Porsche 666. For now, he lived with us in an old Victorian that my former employer, Matt, owned. Eric’s room was full of candles, silk scarves, and too much absinthe being consumed for me to be comfortable with these fire hazards.

Eric had once had his rent paid for him when a man he didn’t really know but who was a regular at the coffee shop where Eric worked dropped an envelope on the counter addressed to him. Inside were a few crisp hundred dollar bills and a note saying, “I know times are tough and I want to help any way that I can. Us Nelly Queens have to stick together.”

I was delighted at the idea of a Nelly Queen support network, and more so at Eric’s description of the man as his Fairy Godmother.

Matt was only a little surprised at my confirming that I had a gay roommate living in the five-bedroom house he rented to me and a group of my friends. This brusque New Yorker thought of me, his young friend and former employee, as a typical California liberal, who he hoped would someday grow up, make some money, and join the Republican Party. “Why do you wanna live with a gay guy?” he asked.

“I like the swishy way he always pays his rent on time.” I answered.

“Very funny. The guys next door said that he was on your back porch looking at their dicks.”

Next door to us was a frat house, also owned by Matt. It always amused me that he thought these wealthy young conservatives had their heads on better than I did, even as they completely trashed the beautiful house he rented them, driving staples and nails into the carefully restored wood ceiling beams and walls when they had a “cave party,” or managing to somehow lose the very expensive, and heavy, antique claw-foot bathtub from the upstairs bathroom, or making a habit of peeing together in a group off their back porch.

“He was looking at their dicks, eh? Well, we can’t have that. You don’t just go around looking at people’s dicks. I’ll definitely look into that for you, boss.”

“Please do. That’s not okay.”

“I agree, Matt, one hundred percent, not okay at all. One quick question, though; what were their dicks doing out, exposed, on the back porch?”

I enjoyed the silence.

“Matt, could you look into that for me?” I continued.

“Make sure the rent check is in on time.” And with a click, Matt ended this conversation definitively, never to revive it again.