Me But Latin

The phrase most commonly uttered by gay men when asked what they are looking for in a potential mate

 

I graduated with my B.A. in Liberal Arts from what was touted in many magazines as the "Harvard of the Midwest," Illinois Wesleyan University, and within months I left the Midwest behind and moved to New York. In a city that roared with noises of taxis, ambulance sirens, and airplanes, the silence in response to my resume was deafening. (Unbeknownst to me, there were lots of young Midwesterners who had actually gone to the real Harvard looking for brighter days in the city as well.) I took my first job at a theater PR firm. I don't know if you could even call it a job, as I was somewhat of a paid intern. An intern for what? I often wondered. It wasn’t as if I needed college credit. I later realized that this “internship” was a way for my boss to justify paying me roughly two hundred dollars a week and soliciting my gratitude daily for the learning experience. I definitely learned a lot, but feeling thankful was a stretch. I would have been thankful if he had paid me enough to pay my rent or even groceries. As it was, I could afford less than half the rent each month.

The irony of me working at a theater PR firm was that I was part of a new generation of gay men who weren't enthralled with everything theater like the show tune–singing, Cabaret-quoting, piano bar–loving gay men before us. In fact—and please reserve your hate mail and death threats for someone more deserving—I found a lot of theater to be on the boring side. Therefore, finding a potential mate at any work-related function was impossible, because the minute the discussion turned to theater, I mentally checked out. Here I was, a closet writer, and I was dissing the theater. I felt like Judas.

I was fortunately blessed with parents who could pay for my college education. They unfortunately were blessed with a son who found a job that paid nil. Each month I’d have to make that embarrassing phone call home, begging for money. (“Change? Anyone got some change here?”) I finally convinced them to think of it as if I were in graduate school and they were just paying for a further extension of my educational experience. They didn’t necessarily buy my line of bullshit, but they did reward me for my creativity.

This arrangement worked out well, or so I thought. Things took a sharp turn when I put my weekly salary towards “entertainment expenses,” which included dinners, drinking, and occasional trips to Barney’s, leaving myself with me no money to pay my share of the bills. I was quickly urged to get a second job. So I did what any logical person would do: I enrolled in bartending school for two hundred and fifty dollars, courtesy of my parents.

I found an ad for the classes in the back of the Village Voice. “Bartending Academy,” it said. "Wow," I thought. "An academy!" I imagined an Ivy League–style place where men walked around with embroidered martini glass crests on their white dinner jackets and where the women were dressed in little black cocktail dresses nodding knowingly at one another.

I walked up the six flights of steps in the rundown office building near Madison Square Garden. It smelled like my old fraternity, a combo of pee-stained floors, sweat, and stale beer. I walked into the large classroom and saw a roomful of disgruntled men and women already standing behind their bars inspecting the equipment.

I debated throwing myself down the stairs, yet my strange fascination with bars and bar equipment as a kid drew me inside. I pulled some cologne out of my backpack and sprayed it on my arm to mask the building’s stench. I figured that if the smell got too bad, I could always smell my arm for a temporary reprieve.

Harry, our teacher, stood 5’ 4’’, weighed about 175 pounds, and was pretty much a professional drunk. His permed hair was so tight that it actually looked like he had pubic hair on his head, but it was overshadowed only by his thick mustache, discolored due to years of smoking. During his introductory speech, I realized that it wasn’t the building that smelled—it was him.

Most of the people in the class were about my age, and they all had that blank gaze, dreaming of better days. A week later, the blank gaze had turned to a bitter stare. I was devoid of all emotion. I looked at it as I had most of my prior encounters with men. Get in, do your business, and get out. Finally, during week two, like a heavenly ray of light, in walked Brett, a guy that went to my gym who I’d been secretly obsessing over for nearly a year.

Harry didn't share my enthusiasm and growled at him to take the station next to mine. Luckily, Brenda, my previous partner, had been arrested for buying a dime bag in Washington Square Park the weekend before. Harry told Brett that he needed to stay after class to catch up to everyone else. Seeing this as my golden moment, I offered my exceptional bartending services, (and any other services should he need them). However, as with most of my college books, I hadn’t read a page of the manual.

Class ended at around 8:30 and I was brave enough,(after sampling a few of the concoctions I was making) to muster up the courage to speak.

“Hi there,” I said nervously. He smiled and nodded while looking right through me. I knew this wasn’t a good sign, but I was there to help and couldn’t just slither away quietly.

“I think you work out at my gym,” I said.

“Yeah. Could be,” he said with disinterest.

“Yeah. In fact, you said what’s up to me about five weeks ago,” I confessed. Suddenly I had become a bad after-school special. He nodded again. Maybe he didn’t understand. Maybe he was foreign? It was New York, after all. I kept at it. “Are you having fun?” I asked, showing him the proper four count of pouring alcohol into the glass.

“Not really. Not a lot of cute guys in this class,” he said, pouring the faux vodka. (He was completely off with his count, but who was I to judge such a beauty?) I felt a burning in my throat. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. What kind of guys do you like?” I heard myself ask, yet at the same time I couldn’t believe I was actually pursuing it. Clearly, he couldn’t have cared less if I stood in front of him and lit myself on fire. I imagined me screaming at him while in the process of stop, drop, and roll, “Aren’t you going to help?”

“Yeah. Could be,” I imagined as he peered over my charred body.

He took a long pause, as if giving careful thought to my question, almost as if I’d asked what his views were on the U.S. welfare system.

“Well, I guess I like someone who’s exactly like me—but Latin.”

I cocked my head to the side like a confused dog and quickly scooted away without saying another word. I'd never heard someone be so brazen about what they were looking for in a person. It’s one thing to think it or reflect on it in a therapy session, but to actually be so direct dumbfounded me. I could barely finish my lesson on preparing a proper mint julep.

I walked home utterly depressed and slightly drunk, then I realized that this had to be the reason I wasn’t meeting anyone. I was too white for the gay community. I needed to invent a Latin heritage and fast if I ever wanted to have a boyfriend.

***

“Do we have any Latin blood in our family?” I asked anxiously.

“What?” Mom said, shocked. I sat at the computer trying to find any Latin ties to my last name.

"Do we have any Latino heritage?" I repeated.

"Robert, look in the mirror, for God’s sake! Do you think you look Latin?"

"Our last name sounds so generic. Something could've been dropped," I argued. Ever since I had left Illinois, everyone had commented on what a great name I had, although it was usually followed with the question I loathed: "Is that your real name?" People who aren't from the Midwest don't get that you don't just change your last name there. It's against their whole belief system. After I tell people this, they usually ask if I've shortened the name. No one will just accept that Rave is, in fact, my real last name. It sounds as generic as Smith or Jones, but for the good or the bad, it’s mine. Up until then, I was happy with it. However, at that moment I was considering adding a "z" or an "o" to the end to give it some flava!

"I got news for you: it's your name, and as far as I know there's no Latin lineage to it. Honestly, I don't have time for this. I'm trying to pick out clothes for your dad's trip to the Kentucky Derby, since he can't pick out his own clothes," she said, hanging up the phone. (When my dad married my mom, he lost any ability he had to function without her, which is endearing to us kids but which dances on my mother's last nerve.)

I ignored her disparaging comments about my potential Latin heritage. She obviously didn't realize that if I was to find a date in this town, I needed some Latin blood and fast! I continued my Internet search. The news was heartbreaking. The name had roots in Austria and…oh, God…Germany, the whitest place on earth. Shit.

I quickly phoned my mother back. "What about your maiden name?"

"Norwegian and English." She slammed down the phone again. I wasn’t sure if I totally believed her, as she was in the throes of matching pants and Polo shirts, so I looked it up on-line. Sure enough, it was a name of English descent with most of my ancestors settling in Norway. I wasn’t convinced. I had to have some type of Latin heritage in me somewhere. I was dedicated to finding it to make my move on Brett. He’d find out and then realize that I truly was him, only Latin. Well, almost.

I went to the New York Public Library to use their resources. This was my first and only time in the New York Public Library, I’m embarrassed to admit. Everything that I’d learned in high school and even at college about the U.S. library system totally left my brain the minute I received my degree. I quickly enlisted the help of Penny, a cute part-time librarian, to find my Latin roots.

She took me through stacks of books, written by people like Vonnegut, Steinbeck, Hemmingway, and Shakespeare. None of it interested me. We finally reached a small section with books on genealogy. Penny thought her mission was complete. “Could you help me find my last name?” I begged. I turned on some straight-boy charm and inched closer to her, smiling. Instead, she read my charm as stupidity, as evidenced from the continuous eye rolling. Either that or she was in the midst of some kind of seizure.

“Rave. Here it is,” she said. I perused through it quickly as Penny took her leave.

“Damn it,” I yelled.

She turned back. “What’s the problem?”

“Not a Latin thing in there,” I huffed.

"What? You're joking, right?"

"No," I insisted. "I wish I were joking. Now I'm going to be single for life."

After several confused looks, I finally owned up to my real motive for being at the New York Public Library.

“That’s repulsive. People have tried for years to assimilate into a white culture and erase their heritage, all in order to fit in with the white man and play by his rules, and here you are, a white man, who has lived with the privilege of being a white man his entire life, but that’s not enough for you. Instead, you need to steal from the Latin people and ‘fake it’ as one of them.” She rolled her eyes one last time and left me in the dark corner of the library with a stack of old books.

I was about to leave when I took one final glance down at the book and saw that in the 1800s, some of the Raves broke off and moved to the Northern part of Spain. Viva la Espanola!

I showed up the following Tuesday for class with a certain swagger. It was obvious enough that even Harry stopped picking food out of his mustache long enough to notice. “Looks like somebody got lucky with the ladies,” he said, giggling.

I continued my swagger and went to set up my bar. Brett was already at his station practicing. “Hi,” I said confidently.

“’Sup?” he said, looking through me once again.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “I was home trying to plan a trip to visit my distant relatives in Spain,” I said, beaming.

“Spain? That’s cool, man,” he said, pouring his vermouth.

“Did I tell you I was Latin?” I pushed.

“No,” he said, uninterested. “You don’t look it. You’re blond.”

“Yeah, I am. Totally Latino,” I said matter-of-factly. “A lot of people from the north are blond,” I bluffed.

“Good for you, man,” he said, concentrating on his drink.

“Are you Latin?” I continued.

“No, I’m from Ohio,” he said. Of course, I thought, mocking his non-Latino heritage.

“Anyway, if you ever want to grab a bite, I know this great Spanish restaurant on Forty-ninth Street that I chill at all the time,” I said nervously.

I wasn't sure if it was a nod in acknowledgement or him shaking the mixer, but I took it as a "yes."

It worked. I had snared the man I’d obsessed about for the longest time with one simple phrase: “I’m Latin.” Who knew that was all it took? I spent the rest of class thinking about my future date with Brett. We’d sip on margaritas and nibble on tapas while planning our summer trip to Spain together, and later we’d go back to his place so I could show him a little Latin heat. I got so caught up in my fantasy date that I didn’t even notice the rest of the class leaving. Brett and I were the only two people left except for Harry, who was finishing his spareribs at his desk. It was my golden opportunity to make Brett commit.

“So listen, I wanted to ask you—”

Then, he walked in. He was six feet, 180 pounds of beautiful muscle, amazing skin, and a smile that would knock you out cold. The closer I looked at him, the more I realized that he was Brett, only Latin.

“What were you saying?” Brett asked.

“It’s not important. Just a silly bartending question. I’ll see you at class next week,” I said meekly.

Brett ignored me and hugged his authentic Latin lothario hello. "I won't be here next week. We have tickets to Rent,” he said as he walked out of the classroom.

I never returned to bartending class again, dashing a potentially illustrious career as one of New York’s top bartenders. I just couldn’t bring myself to face the embarrassment and shame I felt.

My mother called me back the next day. “Fifty-five years old and you’d think he could match a shirt with a pair of pants,” she lamented. “Did you know I have to color-code his clothes because he wouldn’t have a clue what to do? He doesn’t get that not everything is meant to go together.

“Uh-huh."

“So, why all the questions about our roots?” she asked.

“It’s not important. Let's just say that Dad isn’t the only one who didn’t know that not everything is meant to go together.”

“But I thought the stereotype was that you guys know fashion,” she said, not realizing what I truly meant. I never told her any different.

“Not all of us,” I joked.

Here I was living in New York City, supposedly “out” and declaring my gay pride to my family and friends, but after this experience with Brett, I learned it was never a question of being proud to be gay; it was more a question of whether or not I was proud of being me..

 

Mama Says:

"In a small town, everyone knows everything about everyone. It wasn't a matter of being a busybody; it was just pretty much the norm for living in a town that had fewer people than half a New York City block. My parents owned the town feed store and a gas station, among other things, so one way or another most people knew who we were. I’m not being boastful or snooty; it’s just that everybody needed gas, and almost everyone needed feed in a town primarily of farmers. It didn't bother me, because I didn't know any different.

The summer I turned fourteen, I met my husband. I realize by today's standards that sentence makes it sound like I grew up in some backwoods. Let me clarify: I met him at fourteen, although marriage would come a few years later. I knew who he was because he was interested in my friend Linda at the time, but that was about it. A lot of my friends had boyfriends, but not me. I was happy doing my own thing. I've always done my own thing. I was involved in everything at school, from school plays to cheerleading to the band. I couldn’t have cared less if I met a boy or not. I was only fourteen.

A few weeks later, my friend clued me in that Ron was interested in me and not my friend after all. (Years later, I found out from Ron himself that Linda was just a front to get to me, or so he says. I still think he's full of shit.) I was a lifeguard that summer and he came to the lake and strutted around thinking he was king. I wanted nothing to do with him. Midway through the day, he marched over to me and challenged me to a race. I've never been one to back down from any sort of a challenge, especially from some cocky guy.

The bet was simple—whoever made it to the raft in the middle of the lake first won. I'd swum in that lake probably a hundred times already that month. I wasn't the slightest bit worried. I stood on the edge of the water on one end and Ron stood directly across from me on the other. No sooner did my friend Linda yell "go" than I was diving into the water. I took one giant breath and swam for what seemed like days underwater before returning for a breath of air and then back down into the water. What I didn't know was that when I dove into the water, Ron had run around to the short end of the lake and swum to the raft. After giving all I had, I finally reached the raft to find Ron lying on top of it, asking what took me so long. I knew instantly that he'd cheated. He then had the nerve to expect me to sit on the raft with him. I glared at him, took a deep breath, and swam back to the shore. I wasn't interested in a guy who was arrogant and a cheat. It wasn't the reaction Ron was hoping for, but honestly I didn't care.

I'd pretty much forgotten about the whole thing, including his crush, until the day I went into his dad's grocery store. My mother sent me to pick up a few things for dinner, and I walked in without anyone noticing me. It wasn't until I was picking up some bread that I got a glimpse of Ron. I don't mean physically, I mean spiritually. He was bagging groceries, of all things. I watched the care he took and how kind he was to the older ladies he helped. A neighbor was in the store with her kids, and I watched him try to make her kids laugh by placing grocery bags on his head. As big of a goofball as he was, he was suddenly beautiful to me. I finally saw the real him. It was all over for me from there.

One thing I learned is that you can’t ever fix anyone else, whether that person is attracted to you or not. I paid no mind to the Latin heritage thing. Of course, secretly I hoped that at some point, Robert would decide to work on shifting his perceptions about who he was as a person, not merely who he was in relation to the gay community. Like everything else in life, when you're not being true to yourself, you generally set yourself up for a drama-filled and unhappy life.

In my own way, I tried to explain to him that he needed to look at who he was becoming as a man. It's nothing new—no one truly knows the shape of the person they'll become. From the little I know from Robert about being gay, it’s only one aspect of who a person is. Unfortunately, sometimes people make it the sole component of who they choose to be. It's nothing to be ashamed of; rather, it is something to be proud of. And above all else, it's part of completing the wonderful puzzle called “that you are.”