I’m sitting, alone, at a bar called le Boy, sipping a Perrier. On the wall, there’s an ACT UP Alsace flyer. I get a pen from the bartender and copy the address onto a napkin. Maybe I can hook up with a queer Alsatian AIDS activist and get some local dirt. Or at least we can discuss the effect of a battered cultural identity on homophobia and HIV transmission:
“Hi, I’m American. I worked with ACT UPs in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Paris, but my great, great grandfather was born right here in Alsace. Question: Would you say that the dissemination of HIV prevention material was made more difficult by the historic role of Alsace’s regional culture as scapegoat and political pawn? In other words, was your decision to fuck with a condom complicated by the fact that you’re a genuine Alsatian?”
As I was formulating such impossible questions, an entourage of queens piled into the bar. I’d seen two of them before—working the front desk of the sauna where I’d been jacked off by an Italian earlier that afternoon. Their slanting smiles told me they remembered. They came over and introduced themselves, proving we weren’t in Paris anymore. Two of them were downright fat, one was scrawny and drawn, and the other one, the one who’d slowly handed me my towel at the sauna and who I’d later discover was named François, was pretty hot. He was the shy one, drowned out in a circle of boisterous queens whose names I’ve forgotten.
They were all, to my delight, REAL Alsatians. They lost no time lighting up cigarettes and procuring drinks. Presumably, they all worked for the bar which was owned by the same proprietor as the sauna, for they took seemingly random turns going behind the counter to fix themselves drinks, ring up their own orders at special employee prices, and collect customers’ empty glasses from around the room.
Each cruised me in turn in his own roundabout way, making me feel like some sort of American Porn King. I was the only gay thing within miles that they hadn’t already seen, done and gotten bored with ages ago.
The heaviest guy was also the friendliest. He petted my legs and tried squeezing between them while talking to me of the restaurant near the Cathedral where he worked. His hands, though he couldn’t keep them off me, were warm and gentle. He wanted sex, but he didn’t seriously expect to get any, so he was happy with whatever contact I’d tolerate.
The scrawny guy was the bitchiest. He kept trying to speak in English even while violently berating the cultural stupidity of Americans and so on. He pretended to be way too over me for it to be true.
The lesser of the heavy boys had also been at the sauna earlier that afternoon, talking to François. I worked out the dynamics of their relationship right away. This guy’s whole identity in that tiny microcosm of a gay underworld depended upon his proximity to François and François’ love interests. If François stood a chance of getting someone, he’d be there, playing the jester or the confident or whatever role it took to get between the new specimen of man and François. “Vous êtes beau,” he told me in a whisper. His eyes weren’t filled with desire, but jealousy, maybe even rage.
It was for these three reasons (i.e., these three queens) that I couldn’t get anywhere near François, who was leaning timidly against one of the walls behind the others. He looked terribly sad downing his third cocktail, and I fantasized that it might just be because he thought I was cute but not interested.
They asked me why I was there, and that gave me the chance I needed to touch on the Alsace story. “I’m trying to trace the exact origins of my Alsatian ancestors so I can return to the village or town they came from. I haven’t had any luck finding anything specific, and it doesn’t look like I ever will, but at least I learned something about Alsace, and I find the history of your region really fascinating…”
“Americans always want to dig up their roots.” The scrawny one was either angry I was prying into Alsatian records or that I wasn’t prying open the flaps on his button-fly jeans.
“Maybe that’s true.”
“Why is it that you’re interested in where your great, great grandfather was born?” François posed the question gently, as if he wanted to actually know what I had to say in response.
“Actually, I don’t know why it’s important, but I feel determined to know more.”
In reality, our conversation was much less directed than written dialogue can imply. It was a multi-lingual swirl of language clouded by alcohol and frustrated desire. They bombarded me with overlapping questions I never had time to answer, switching from French to pigeon English as their moods directed them.
When they spoke French, it sounded to me like the French of a German who has lived in Paris for 14 years—something like my boyfriend Paul’s French, for example. They sounded, despite their French nationalities and educations, like étrangers. To express their opinions amongst themselves, they often resorted to what must have been Alsatian, the same language they used to make smirking little comments about my glances towards François.
After only a few minutes, the big guy was practically on top of me. What did one do in such a situation—tell him to fuck off or just pretend not to notice? The latter option was getting more difficult. He bought me a drink without telling me he was doing it. I decided to shift slightly in my chair and cross my legs. I looked right over the others and stared directly into François’ cowering but lovely (or lovely because they were cowering) eyes.
“Do you come from Alsace originally?”
“Yes, I was born in Strasbourg.”
“And your family?”
“Yes, they were born here, and so were their parents.”
“Do they speak Alsatian?”
“Yes,” he answered with a little reluctant smirk as if handing over the secret plans of a nuclear missile to the enemy. “Yes, they speak it. They also speak French.”
“Do you speak it too?” Now, I was pumping out the questions, I realized. I’d have to drop back a couple of gears. He was going to think that I was interested in him only as an example of local folkloric charm. True, I wanted to establish communication with a “local” to have an insider’s perspective, and knowing how much time it takes to open up a European, I figured I didn’t have much time to lose. My train was leaving for Paris the following afternoon, after all. Still, I’d drop the culture class in a second if I could get him in bed with me.
“Yes, I speak it with my parents a little bit.”
I tried switching to some observations about how sad it was that the dialect was being phased out. I wanted to show my genuine interest on the subject. They all looked at me rather puzzled.
“I studied English at school while we were being encouraged to study German,” confessed François. “I was never interested in German with ‘die, das, der’ and all that. I’ve always liked the sound of English though.”
Someone said something in Alsatian and he responded in Alsatian. I supposed it was some expression that wasn’t translatable into another language and had to do with the isolation of their culture. Or maybe it was something totally different—who could say but them?
Laurel and Hardy were about to leave for some disco and they invited me to come along. For what purpose if not to keep me away from François, I can’t imagine. I refused, and my biggest admirer persisted—”Oui ! Viens !”—as he pawed me continuously. Finally I told him he was getting to be a pain in the ass. I immediately regretted my harshness as he slunk out with his scrawny pal, his downcast eyes resigned to a profound, eternal despair. It was, however, a despair that had been present long before I’d showed up in Strasbourg and which would remain long after I was gone again. It was the same look I’d seen on the faces of more than a few Alsatians since my arrival less than twenty-four hours earlier: On the face of the woman who served me a quiche with meat in it after I’d asked her for one without any. On the face of the man who tore the tickets at the door of the squeaky-clean and under-attended Alsace Museum. On the face of the woman at the counter of the Archives Départementales when she learned that I wasn’t yet listed in her system and that she’d have to break out the initiation forms.
I was left with the only slightly less corpulent friend and François, who told me the thing he liked least about Alsace was the Alsatians. They were “difficult.” He didn’t go into any more details. He was Alsatian himself, after all, and the same despair was stamped across his face as he downed another gin and tonic. Yet he looked, talked, and held himself more like a Frenchman than any of the others. He could go to Paris and dance at le Queen on a Saturday night and actually stand a chance at meeting someone in that milieu branché. For the moment, however, he was here with the remaining bar buddy watching over his every move. He went to the toilet as if to escape.
“You’re really cute,” said the last of my flattering new acquaintances. He didn’t waste one second to try and rip me away from François.
“Oh, yeah?” I offered with as much indifference as possible, then, just to put to rest, once and for all, any doubts he may have had about where my interests lay, I added, “You know, François seems sad.”
“François thinks you’re very, very cute, and he knows that I think so too, so of course he’s sad.” He sort of winked at me as if trying to illicit a complicity that I would chose him over François, though he knew I couldn’t possibly be interested. His eyes were pinched with anger, even under the fluttering lashes.
When François came back, I announced my departure. He’d be leaving soon as well, he said. “Well, good night then,” said the smirking friend with a gloating finality.
“Yes, good night.”
Instead of taking advantage of my departure, François lingered in the bar to be sure I’d left, as if sensing an obligation to remain with his clinging “friend.” I went back to my hotel and slept, disappointed, but too tired of the whole dance to let it keep me from sleeping.
I passed by the sauna the next day to get François alone. To try one more time to open a dialogue without the others around. Again, the same stamp of resignation swelling his eyes with despair as he handed me a towel and locker key. He didn’t blink an eye: “Quatre-vingt francs, s’il te plait.”
“No, I just stopped by to see you and say goodbye on the way to the train.”
“Oh, well that’s so nice of you!”
We chatted for 30 minutes or so about his job at the sauna, his studies in English, my work in Paris… I couldn’t tell if he was actually interested or if I was merely occupying his time. Truly, if he were searching for a lover as a refuge from his solitude, that lover wasn’t me. I was already in a relationship with someone, and I’d be off again to the States before the next summer rolled around. I was determined, nevertheless, to keep my Alsace contact, hastily made or not. Who knew what could develop? I gave him my address. He told me I could write to him at the sauna. I wrote but never got a response.
I also try sending a check to ACT UP Alsace for a t-shirt. They never cash it in, and I end up having to stop payment on the check. Turns out they never printed up t-shirts.
My sole proof that I haven’t dreamed up the whole Alsatian adventure? A couple of nice postcards from the Italian who’d jacked me off on my first visit to the sauna.