Big Pink

Big Pink

Donnie Bridger was a big guy. He listened to rock and roll on his car radio and snapped his fingers to the beat. I thought he was really cool when I was thirteen years old. He really fooled me.  I know, I thought I was too smart to be fooled too. I had met Donnie a couple of times when my mom and her girlfriends were entertaining all these unobtainable gay men in her basement apartment she rented out to the gay guy.

I remember, I was home alone one Saturday afternoon, I think I was ironing my clothes in the kitchen, when I heard a loud knocking on the front door.  It was Donnie looking for either Jim, the gay guy, or my mom and seemed desperate to find one of them.  He came inside and told me he needed to find one of them right away.  I explained that I had no idea where to find them, but he kept hanging around waiting for one of them to return.  He finally told me that he really needed some money fast and wanted Jim or my mom to loan him twenty five dollars.  After watching me iron for about an hour he decided to ask me if I had twenty five dollars.  He said, “I only need it until tomorrow and I will bring it back to you then. I promise”.  I usually don’t lend money, mainly because I don’t want anyone to know I have any. I figured Donnie was a cool guy, so I let him have the twenty five dollars as a one day loan.  I didn’t see him again for many years.  I really felt like a fool and tried to think of it as a learning experience.  What kind of asshole borrows money from a hard working little kid and then rips him off like that? Oh well, I didn’t complain or tell anyone.  I just filed it away in the back of my mind for when I got a little older and smarter.

The police radio dispatcher gave me a disturbance call at the “General Greene Grill”, a famous gay bar in the downtown area.  The “General Greene Grill” was named after the famous Revolutionary War hero that won the battle with Cornwallis. Our city of Greensboro was named after this famous general as well. The bar was on my beat in the downtown area. It was a minor trouble spot, so I always patrolled it, especially on second shift and I would occasionally walk through the bar just to let them know I was thinking about them.  It was particularly interesting on Halloween night with all the queen and princess costumes.  Whenever I would walk into the bar, all the guys would start kissing and fondling each other to see if they could gross me out. Little did they know that I was raised in an extremely artistic environment...

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