[essay]

Names have been changed. | 1 2 3 4

Summer in Boys Town and everything's hot, from the humid gasp of evening that hovers above Halsted Street to the bronzed Adonises dancing in the clubs. Heat binds with sweat the hands of pudgy businessmen who stroll together up the sidewalk, smolders between the lips of lovers pressed against a storefront, spills from the cigarettes of young men huddled on the corner, punctuating their banter with bright puffs of smoke.

I've been here a dozen times now, but never when it was so warm out. Chicago sprawls under a lazy sun that rarely shows up for work; as a result, the city heralds its arrival the way others do the Pope. Flocks of the faithful gather outside to bask in its radiating glory, teary-eyed and desperate to be delivered. It happens every year here, but somehow summer always seems new, a perennial miracle that thaws the city's spirits along with the snow. And yet Chicagoans enjoy these months bitterly, if such a thing is possible — even at the scorched apex of August, they always have one eye on the autumn, and the suffocating layer of wool it will bring to all that they do.

And the men here would just as soon not shroud themselves in wool, having spent the past nine months in gyms preparing for this, their moment in the sun. Why else work out in the dead of winter if not for a night like this, for a street like this, where physique is the currency with which affection is is purchased? Making my way through the clubs, brushing up against the Adonises, I'm reminded of a line I've heard men use on women: All these curves, and me with no brakes. I often feel that way when I'm in the bars — like I could ride the curves forever, if only with my eyes. Nights like these are the payoff for the months in the gym; nights like these are why autumn is regarded with such dread. The hardbodies here have long sowed the seeds of their physical beauty; tonight they reap a harvest of stares.

Our first stop is Sidetrack, where a diverse crowd spills out the door and into the street. My friends and I make our way through the club, pushing past well-heeled gentlemen who joke with their companions between cool gulps of cosmopolitan. The milieu is urban chic with a twist: Same-Sex in the City. It isn't all men, of course; ladies are present as well, and those among them used to being drunkenly groped in clubs like this are visibly relieved, having found one place on earth where gorgeous men congregate with no intention of taking them home. Women here are frankly paid little attention, the exception being the disembodied divas whose voices float over the speakers — these we revere. Like a prayer, indeed.

Like any bar, everyone here has a story, but many of the tales follow familiar paths. Early on the protagonist identifies himself as the Other, helped along by the taunts of a schoolyard bully and the weakness of his own denials. Later there are dry runs with the opposite sex, all of which fail to approach the satisfaction to be had from a single stolen glance in the men's locker room. And at some point it simply becomes too much to bear, the endless cycle of frustrated desire, and at last we tell our friends and family what we long have told ourselves. We come out, and life changes.

Look around now and see men fraternizing in the warm glow of a shared past, greeting nominal strangers with odd familiarity. Something in common, something at stake: twin engines driving all that happens in places like this, framing casual conversations like the dust of granola rimming the key lime martini I ordered at my first gay bar. That was at Good Friends, in New Orleans, where we drank from long-stemmed glasses and eyed enviously the average-looking gentleman who somehow had managed to grab and hold the attention of an impossibly handsome hustler clad only in glowing white briefs.

But at Sidetrack everyone has his clothes on, and worse there is nowhere to dance, so we find our way to the exit and head down the street to Roscoe's. There the crowd is even larger, and the accompanying increase in body heat has persuaded a handful of patrons to strip to the waist and start grinding. We order drinks and head onto the dance floor, where a sea of men roils against a backdrop of photographs that document the male form in sweeping metonymies.

Dancing delirious now in the pack, the young and the shirtless buzzing and lost in the rhythm. Wet perfect faces lit up by strobes, hands over heads and their feet off the ground. Over the speakers a Dirty Vegas track wails, the vocal chilly and distorted: Days go by, and still I think of you. Days when I couldn't live my life without you, without you, without you. It isn't much of a song, really — more of a eulogy set to music. But we can dance to it, so we dance. My favorites here act as if auditioning, their movements crisp and practiced, doing the splits on the fine line between sexy and silly.

In no time it's last call, so I down a Long Island in record time and we set out for yet another club. I'm drunk now and loving life, my gait a triumphant stumble, halfway between a swagger and a stagger. Above me a billboard alleges that a wireless company will help me find "Mr. Right." The endpoint of every revolution: from persecuted minority to targeted demographic. Silently I prepare a speech for my oppressed brothers and sisters around the world. "Fear not," I shall tell them, "for some day, you all will be marketed to." A roar of applause. I laugh out loud.

And through the alcoholic haze and heat of evening comes a single lucid thought, introducing itself to me like a cool summer breeze. Twelve months already? Hard to believe but true. In a few days I'll have been out for one year.

Next.

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