LIFE & TIMES OF A FAGGOT: THE EAGLE
Bryce Ray
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A FAGGOT
THE EAGLE
By Bryce Ray
I was at a birthday party, but I was mad at my friend who’s birthday we were celebrating. A friend who I also sleep with on occasion. It was a joint birthday party for him and his partner. So I left after a few hours with Drake, another guy I sleep with on occasion, his friend Pierre, with whom I love, and another guy I didn’t know. We took some molly before getting in an Uber and heading downtown to a gay sex bar called The Eagle.
I’d heard of The Eagle before--that it was a leather bar, that people had sex there. I’d been curious before, but I’d never had the wherewithal to go. Besides, I’m a girl’s gay, and I wasn’t sure my girlfriends would want to go to a gay sex club. I’ve since learned that they would, in fact, love to go. How could I forget: straight girls love gay sex.
We got to the club as the drugs were beginning to catch up with me. The cover was $25 but Drake paid for me. Drake is the male equivalent of Toni Childs from Girlfriends--money, banter, and vanity being high on his list of priorities. He works in corporate (doing what, I still have no idea), has a gorgeous studio in Brooklyn, and a cat that wakes me up by rubbing his face on mine every time I sleep over.
The crowd was predominantly white, shirtless, and much older than my Gen-Z self being guided through the pulse of bodies by Pierre’s hand. I told Pierre that I’d never been to a place like this, and he merely shrugged and grabbed my hand, saying, “I got you baby.” That’s why I liked Pierre.
I was wearing a one shoulder brown ensemble with heeled boots and my Miu Miu bag. I looked good and felt good, but I definitely didn’t fit in amongst the circuit-looking gays that surrounded us. A common experience for me in certain masculine gay spaces. I mean, this place has chain link fencing, tires, and harnesses as its main form of decoration.
The Eagle opened back in 1970, but was still called The Eagle’s Nest then. The self-proclaimed leather/levi’s bar opened as the closet doors were beginning to swing open in the wake of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Gay men were embracing their sexuality in more public, voyeuristic, and kinky ways. The leather and levi’s look of brute masculinity presented in the art work of Tom of Finland was inspired by the biker subculture that emerged out of World War II and in turn inspired a generation of gay men learning to embrace their sexuality. The Eagle’s Nest was at the center of this movement, with the meatpacking district acting as the backdrop to the infamous gay nightlife scene. The scene went on to be documented in the trailblazing work of Robert Maplethrope and its later appropriation by Andy Warhol (who frequented The Eagle’s Nest for a time in the late 1970s).
After the AIDS crisis hit in the 80s and Guiliani (with the help of a certain group of Manolo Blahnik wearing white women) gentrified the meatpacking district in 90s, The Eagle’s Nest closed its doors in 2000 and reopened as The Eagle further uptown a year later where it’s lived ever since, opening its doors to lost gays everywhere, 7 days a week. Even on holidays. Christmas especially.
Made up of two floors with a rooftop deck, our group, led around by Drake, took stock of each floor, assessing the people and the music. The dance floor had surprisingly good music—heavy beat led mixes of Beyoncé and Rihanna that tickled my brain and eased a bit of my social anxiety.
We danced on this floor for a bit. Drake and Pierre took their shirts off while the rest of the group opted to keep theirs on. I didn’t want to ruin my outfit, of course. Besides, taking one's shirt off is a universal cruising sign of availability, and I was just along for the ride that night, trying to take it all in. I had no intention of participating in anything.
After about thirty minutes of dancing we got some air on the roof before we made our way to the next floor--the dark room.
The dark room was small and steamy with a table in the center that almost resembled an altar. Pairs, threesomes, and groups were crowded into the tight space, all engaged in some kind of sexual act. I had never seen anything like it. Obviously, I’d seen porn before, but I’d never seen someone else have sex so up-close and personal. It was fascinating. We sat lined up on a bench, watching the various sex acts happening around us. It looked like an orgiastic Last Supper with poppers replacing the meal.
Now--there were attractive men at The Eagle, but the men sucking and fucking around us were not them. The majority of the men in the dark room were average at best. I was living for it. Picture me: a little twink with legs crossed, Miu Miu bag clutched around my shoulder, just observing as the people around me got bent over and fucked from behind. I felt like Nora Ephron’s “Wallflower at the Orgy” as I watched, in awe at the sight around me. People really do this?
After a while Drake announced that no one was cute, and we all filed back on to the dance floor. At this point in the night, the activities typically relegated to the dark room had trickled on to the other floors. On my left, a guy in a harness was getting head from what looked like his twin. Two guys on my right were struggling to get it in sans lube. We just danced in the middle of it all, letting the drugs take over as sweaty bodies moved around us.
We left the dance floor to get a breather, all of us a little too faded to say much. We’d been sitting there in comfortable silence for a few minutes when I felt a presence come up to my right. In my periphery I was frightened by what looked like Andy Warhol if Andy Warhol had never died. I slowly turned my head towards the rest of the group, avoiding eye contact with Mr. Warhol. After what felt like an eternity the man continued walking, and we all relaxed back into comfortable silence, before--
There he was again, lurking in my periphery. I turned to the rest of the group again, screaming through my eye contact. Andy Warhol’s ghost was by my side again as Drake rolled his eyes, “He wants you.”
Well, I did not want him. I find Andy Warhol a fascinating cultural figure, but that doesn’t mean that I’d ever want to meet him--let alone fuck him. Not even when he was alive.
The guy finally got the hint and left again. After a brief consensus, we agreed that we were all ready to go. I wanted to leave before I was visited by a ghost for the third time. This was not A Christmas Carol.
In the cab ride back to Drake’s, the guy with whom I didn’t know asked if everyone had been hit on but him. I kept my mouth shut. The only guy who’d even come close to hitting on me was the ghost of Andy Warhol.
That night, after making it to my apartment with Drake, I dreamt that Andy Warhol was Jesus presiding over another orgiastic Last Supper. Only this time the guys were hot.