The Deaf Heart

The mind speaks quietly and logically, but too often the heart is deaf.

One of the writers I've gotten to know on the internet....and who is with the same publisher....came into town with his partner this past Saturday for a book signing, and suggested we meet for coffee before the event. Though I had to work and couldn't attend the signing, I mentioned it to a couple of friends and Gary agreed to join us for coffee, then go on to the reading/signing. Both the author and his partner proved to be really nice and interesting guys, and when they suggested that Gary and I join them for a drink later that night, we agreed.

I had not been to a gay bar on a Saturday night in far more years than I care to count. With each passing year, I find myself moved....pushed, if you will....further and further to the perimeter of a community with which I have always identified and of which I felt an integral part for so many years. And frankly, it hurts to know I no longer belong.

Now, the mind points out with irrefutable logic that this is simply the way the world works, that it is nothing personal. But the heart totally refuses to accept that reality, and to me it is very personal indeed.

Chicago's Boys Town on a Saturday night is a mass of people. All young, all beautiful. We met in front of one of Boys Town's largest and most popular bars. The writer's partner was parking the car, and so we stood on the sidewalk amidst a steady Mississippi of 20- and 30-somethings, each one more attractive, more vibrant, more joyous than the one before. And I stood there, excruciatingly aware that I was no longer one of them, my heart literally aching with longing to be one of them.

The partner showed up, and we moved to the door, where two very handsome young men in a tight tee-shirts were checking IDs of everyone who entered. No one could possibly doubt, at a distance of three blocks let alone three feet, that I had blown out the candles on my 21st Birthday cake long, long ago, but rather than have the checker ask (it's probably required by law), I showed him mine, feeling about three inches tall as I did so.

We made our way through three or four different bar areas, some with blaring music, some more quiet, to the stairway leading to a very pleasant roof garden, with two separate bars of its own. I ordered a Kaluha and Cream---light on the Kaluha, heavy on the cream, which all but shouted "Woos, here!" I didn't want to explain that I didn't order a manhattan, which I'd have loved, because alcohol burns my mouth, so I let the bartender think whatever he might; and that he would think anything at all is a form of reverse Narcissism...it was just another drink order. To him, perhaps, but not to me.

As we stood around talking I developed what I call "a case of the drools:" my mouth produces no saliva, but secondary glands do, under certain stimulus, produce large quantities of liquid over which I have no control and am seldom aware until I open my mouth to speak. So as a result, I say very little, undoubtedly adding to my image as a dull, uninteresting old man.

Once again, my mind tells me that I am being far, far to hard on myself. And once again, my heart refuses to listen.

My favorite epitaph, which I quote frequently, reads: "As you are now, so once were we. As we are now, so shall you be." And as I looked out over the sea of beautiful young people swirling and laughing and talking as they flow around a solitary, aging man they do not see, my mind logically repeated that phrase. My heart did not care.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back, and bring a friend. And I hope you might stop by my website (http://www.doriengrey.com) from time to time.