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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1990)
Bright lavender n eon BETTER HEALTH CHIROPRACTIC CLINIC The great butch loner hits the Vegas strip "A Total Personal Health Concept" change girl uniform, and for laughing, bold Silver. There were rows and rows of slot machines, barely clothed waitresses serving trays of free lthough I wanted to be at the Lambda drinks, people who’d staked out machines, Literary Awards in Las Veg* and had business at the American Bookseller. Associa playing three at a time. The fever of gambling was in the air. Somber women and men dealt tion Convention afterwards, I might not have cards, spun roulette wheels, pulled in chips. But been able to face the 18 hour drive each way to attend if I hadn’t longed to see all that neon. how would I ever find the LAMMYS? I spotted a tall, good-looking young man in a tuxedo. His posture was excellent. He moved with grace and assurance. “Are you here for the LAMMYS?” I dared. He smiled down at me and said he was. “But first. I ’m showing my friends— ” there were two casually dressed men behind us “— the statue of David. I can point you in the right direction, though.” Off I went, only to doubt my success when I still wandered a labyrinth of gaming tables several minutes later. Solution: two men in tuxedos this time. At the door where all the lost One o f my most pleasant childhood gays converged, I met the owner of Bright Pink nostalgias is of New York City nights. I can Literature, the local gay bookstore. Great name, remember being just tall enough to look out a I thought, picturing a huge bright pink neon window. Was it a red neon sign that I saw sign. Despite my social ineptitude (a truly great across the street? Yellow? Did it depict a butch loner couldn’t possibly mingle comforta blinking cocktail glass or a watchmaker’s bly), I felt at home. symbol? Whatever, to this day neon means I also felt like a lovingly wrapped pancake. glamour, excitement, romantic lonesomeness. My call for help in a recent column— I couldn’t Neon beckons me out and on into the world, to figure out appropriate attire for this event— pursue my destiny, to find my particular glory. elicited wonderful response. Lover sewed I had to see Las Vegas. sparkling metallic thread along the royal blue, My style of travel, when Lover can’t be with black, turquoise and dark rose stripes of the me, is to assume the identity o f the Great Butch Guatemalan vest I ’d purchased for the Loner. You know the image: stalking cities in occasion. Georgia, my lesbian octogenarian search o f idiosyncratic crones, exploring odd firiend, advised me to wear black corduroy picturesque comers— always observing life jeans. (Her first pair of slacks, daring garb fifty from the sidelines. If I wore a cape. I ’d years ago, were boys’ cords purchased by her probably do melodramatic furling movements lover for a fictitious male relative.) A physi with it, hiding half my face as I push through cian-poet passed on the tux shirt, lavender mysterious doors into exotic buildings. If I had cummerbund and bow tie she’d worn to her super powers I ’d be taken for Bat butch. residency graduation. I turned down a friend Alas, I ’m only Little Lee all grown up, a who offered me the lavender-tipped button-on woman alone on city streets. My first night in ruffles she’s worn to her bonding ceremony. And of course, I wore my patent leather Vegas, not knowing the temper of the town, I dancing shoes. didn’t even dare to walk the famous strip to get to the LAMMYS. The next night, inebriated To tell the truth, just about the time I men accosted, commanded, insulted me as I chickened out of walking two miles along The walked near my hotel. Strip in these gladrags, I also decided to ditch Yet the city has its power. It haunts me. One the cummerbund and the patent leathers. Great thing I can’t forget is The Mirage Hotel and its Butch Loners don’t make spectacles of them block-long artificial volcano. Every half hour at selves. dark, fire roars 54 feet high, cascades down At the very last minute, as I was about to waterfalls and crosses toward the throngs that walk out the door. Lover called unexpectedly. wait for it. Las Vegas’ more garish displays, “I’ve decided,” I announced and told her though obscene money wasters, toy like movie about my terminal gaudincss phobia. epics with our lust for grandeur. 'T m sure you’ll look great whatever you The LAMMYS were held at Caesar’s wear,” she said supportively, but I heard the sigh in her tone. Palace. I had spent the night before in Tonopah, Nevada, a small, old fashioned western Well, Great Butch Loner couldn’t bear to mountain town. It would have fit inside disappoint the Femme Who Loves Her. I Caesar’s Palace. It must have taken me 15 dressed in full colors. And went out into the minutes to travel from the parking lot to the hall romance of the sparkling desert night, through through the casinos. Though Jane Rule’s Desert the rowdy crowds and the jingling coins at o f the Heart was set in Reno, a smaller and Caesar’s Palace, glowing like a piece of gay more benign gambling town, I felt as if I’d neon. entered the novel as I searched for Ann in her ▼ B Y L E E L Y N C H • Deep Muscle Work • Exercise/Prevention • Sportsmedidne A T H 222-2888 Rena Sandler, D C. E A M A Z O N T R A I L 812 SW Washington, Suite 800 Workers’ Comp & Auto Insurance Cover Chiropractic Care Insurance Accepted IS YOUR PET PART OF THE FAMILY? Tender, loving care for the fiirry and feathered members o f your family! Complete Diagnosis and Treatment • Medical/Surgical Facilities Compassionate, Trusting Care BIRDS, CATS I)()(*S and oilier small pels Dr. P a tric ia E. Huff, D.V.M. Dr. D e b o ra h S h e a ffe r, D.V.M. 2 5 1 9 E. 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