Page 15 of Romeo vs Romeo

Before knowing anything about him, including his name, I would have gladly let him have his way with me and leave without another word. I would have been happy to sprawl on my bed, gasping for air, with only a memory of what it had felt like to have him inside me. Now, things were different. Now, I knew too much to let myself be a hoe with Everett. But more than that was impossible.

So we danced until Mama Viv’s dramatic entrance. We danced until the roof came down with thunderous applause and deafening cheers. Mama Viv’s rendition of the iconic song brought tears to my eyes, not only because Freddy Mercury had sung it with the last of his strength but because Mama Viv could fill every syllable with all the emotion it required. Every verse brimmed with meaning. The dancing stopped on the floor because we all gazed at the stage in awe.

You were meant for the big stage, I thought for a millionth time. There was rarely a time I saw Mama Viv perform in her bar without thinking that same thing.

“But this is my life,” she would always say and gesture at Neon Nights.

Fifteen minutes later, when Everett and I finally got our Sunset Boulevards and carried them to the secluded terrace by the bar, Mama Viv came to greet us.

I was at the stage of drinking where my tongue worked just fine, but a wave of elation carried me around. I got up and hugged Mama Viv, introducing her to Everett, who was a frequent guest. Everett, I realized a moment too late, stiffened as they shook hands. His lips thinned as he pressed them, and his eyes were just slightly wider than they had been before. I wasn’t sure if it annoyed me or made me pity him, but either way, mild anger was uncoiled in the pit of my stomach.

“You were such a star tonight, Mama Viv,” I said as we sat around the round table under the canopy of colorful lights. “Broadway is worse without you.”

“Who needs Broadway when you have a crowd like this, darling?” Mama Viv said. She sipped her cocktail and set it on the table, noticed someone across the terrace, and waved like a cartoon diva, hand flapping up and down and a soundless “yoohoo” traveling through the space between them. Mama Viv chuckled and turned back to us. “When I was still young to dream of Broadway, they didn’t want queens.”

“It’s their loss,” I said in a heated voice.

“Perhaps,” Mama Viv said, but her tone carried a slight quality of regret. “I didn’t think much of it back in the day. The truth is, I hadn’t let myself hope for anything but rejection from every audition I attended. But this was in the ’80s, darling, and New York was a different place. The liberation movement was in full swing, but the established culture didn’t want to yield.”

It looked to me that even Everett’s lips were less tight and his neck less tense as Mama Viv spoke.

My eyes were wide. “So what was it like?”

“Darling, you sound like I’m recounting ancient history. It was only a few years ago,” Mama Viv said cheekily, maintaining silently that she was still twenty-seven. “What was it like? Frustration, Roman. You would have given them hell, I’m sure, but we tried our best with what little we had.” She wrapped her lips around the straw and sucked a sip of her cocktail. “You had to pick a side. So, a career on Broadway or fighting for basic civil rights. You can guess how that story went. But I had Thomas, and we had the bar.” I only knew bits and pieces about Thomas, who Mama Viv had mentioned in passing now and again and whose photo from the early ’80s was framed and hanging in Mama Viv’s apartment above the bar. “It was remarkably easy to gather like-minded people when you had a bar with a rainbowpainted above the door. We didn’t bend when bricks crashed through our windows. Thanks to Thomas, mind you. He was the calm, strong one. He kept me whole when I thought I would shatter.”

Everett startled me when his voice came in a deep and husky huff. “What happened to him?”

“What happened to all the gay men in the ’80s we never got over?” Mama Viv said.

Realization dawned on Everett’s face, and he said he was sorry.

“Don’t be, darling,” Mama Viv said. “He was a fiery soul. Full of passion and zeal. Sometimes I think he left a bigger mark on New York in those three years than I had in a lifetime.” Mama Viv pulled on a big smile that I didn’t doubt was completely genuine. What I knew of Thomas and Roger was that they’d loved each other madly but that they’d lived a tragic life together that ended far too prematurely. And I knew that Mama Viv continued to build on Thomas’ legacy until she had a haven for runaways, exiles, and outcasts. She had generations of queer punks rebelling against the suffocating norms and looking up to her for guidance. “I hear you were nearly arrested today,” Mama Viv said in a half-teasing and half-scolding tone.

I snorted. “As if they could ever catch up.” But Everett shifted uncomfortably. That was probably a bit too mischievous for a devout Catholic.

“Said Achilles of the tortoise,” Mama Viv exclaimed. “You have to be careful, Roman. Not every fight is yours.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mama Viv,” I said. “I choose my battles.” But when I glanced at Everett, I wondered if this was true at all.

Mama Viv told Everett she was glad to have him in the bar, thanked him for coming to the show, and walked away to greetother guests. That diva was the heart of this bar, and this bar was the heart of Hudson Burrow.

If Mama Viv questioned her worth even a little, then it was a sad day for all of us. We had failed to show her just how crucial she had been in all our lives. People like Everett came here constantly, seeking escape, comfort, and connections. And while the Stonewall Inn was the core of the liberation movement, Neon Nights had just as much significance in my own life.

Everett and I sat in silence as I pondered. He seemed perfectly happy to simply sit and look around. But when his straw made that tragic sound of an emptied cocktail glass, he looked at me. “Do you want to get out of here?” he asked.

My heart tripped, and the desire that had not been quenched all night leaped into existence again. But I bit my lip and reined myself in. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Everett’s facial muscles tensed for a moment. “I didn’t mean to…you know.”

“Oh,” I said, heat rising into my face. “Like, for a walk?”

He nodded in a noncommittal way, and I agreed. We might as well stretch our legs when no other action was meant to happen tonight.

Everett

However much I looked at him, he didn’t seem real to me. Not that he wasn’t there, but that something about Roman was simply different from what people were like. People, in my experience, worried a lot more about the things they said. They worried about how they came across.

Not Roman. He didn’t care if a stranger overheard he’d nearly gotten arrested this very day. He cared even less if my opinion of him was that he had no sense of shame. Nobody with a working compass for decency could hook his thumb so easily under his top and drag it up to reveal the lower part of his rib cage without knowing what he was doing. Roman touched himself with such an absence of thought that it infuriated me nearly as much as it turned me on.

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