2021 riverrun Final PDF

The lights were dim, and the bar was filled with a choking combination of
thick cigarette smoke and the acrid haze that periodically spouted from the dancefloor
smoke machine like a petulant geyser. The music that played through the enormous
speakers was soft and slow, the lyrics of the song barely audible. Neon beer
signs mounted behind the bar cast a rainbow hue over the rows of bottles that lined
the top shelf, and the patrons seated at the bar, men of all ages, shapes and sizes,
nursed their drinks over hushed conversations. Some simply stared straight ahead,
eyes glazed by deep thought and multiple rounds of 60-proof. The shirtless bartender
was generous with his attention and gifted me a wink and a smile as he handed
me a cold beer and told me that my first drink had been paid for by one of the anonymous
figures who occupied the battered leather barstools.
I was careful to keep my eyes down, to avoid meeting anybody’s gaze as I
made my way from the bar to an unoccupied table near the tiny bathroom. It was all
very new to me. I was only twenty in a state where the legal drinking age was twenty-one,
but I had managed to gain entry into the only gay bar within an hour’s drive.
I was a junior in college at the time, attending a small liberal arts school in Sioux
Falls, South Dakota. I had made the decision to attend a school outside of my home
state of Colorado simply because I thought I could escape a reputation that promised
to define me in a way that I wished to avoid. I had declined an appointment to the
United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs primarily because, deep down,
I knew the truth. And I dreaded it. Military blood runs deep in my family, but the
prospect of military service, at a time when homosexuals were regarded as deviants,
was a challenge I was unprepared to face.
The late 80s and early 90s were also the period during which the AIDS epidemic
leapt to the forefront of global health concerns, and the bulk of the blame for
the virus’ rampant dissemination was laid upon the backs of gay men. The genuine
health risk posed by HIV, and the uncertainty that surrounded it, weighed heavily
upon me as I struggled to accept the realization that I was, indeed, a gay man. While
science has since proven that the virus can be transmitted in a variety of ways regardless
of sex or sexuality, the stigma it assigned provided easy fodder for homophobic
sentiment in all aspects of society. Consequently, the treatment visited upon
gay men as a result of that misplaced culpability served as a powerful deterrent to
my coming out as homosexual. I have been fortunate enough to avoid infection, but
the desire, or more appropriately, the need, to explore and to express what I knew
to be true was what led me to the bar that night. And it was there that a seemingly
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