Too Dark to Be Seen. At a gay club in the ’90s, I compete…
By: Brian Broome
Tags: Addiction, Relationships, Nonfiction, LGBTQ, Race

It isn’t Michael I’m standing here for, though. I am standing in the rain, breathing heavily and staring into a station wagon where my friend and his boyfriend are doing it, because I want my friend’s boyfriend. Michael is attractive, but I’ve been friends with him for a long time. He’s like a brother to me, and standing here staring at him would be creepy.

My eyes are trained solely on Phil. Phil is everything someone like me dreams about. He just grabbed the back of Michael’s head to pull his kiss in tighter, and I want to step closer. I want to pretend he’s holding me. Phil’s last name is Italian, which means he isn’t white, exactly. But his skin is pale as the purest alabaster. He is sloe-eyed, with heavy lids like a young Robert Mitchum, the corneas surrounded by thick, black lashes. He keeps his jet-black hair short and his lips are always flushed pink. I covet him. He is, in a word, handsome. Sought after. Men like Phil grace the pages of Blueboy, Drum, Honcho. All my magazines. He is the standard — and Michael couldn’t care less.

Michael and Phil aren’t really “boyfriends” in the strict sense of the word. Phil just follows Michael around like a starving animal to whom Michael throws a bone every once in a while. Like tonight, for instance, when Michael doesn’t have any money and Phil does. He paid Michael’s cover and has been buying him drinks even though Michael doesn’t turn 21 until ’95, and I know that for a fact. (Phil has never bought me a single drink, even though I’m 25 and so is he. I am far more age appropriate.)

After Michael’s fake ID didn’t pass muster with the doorman, Phil had to pay the doorman extra to get Michael in — and from the moment they passed the threshold, they were arguing. It escalated until their shouts could be heard over the thump-thump of the bass and the sirens. The fight spun further out of control under the flashing, spinning lights.

“Why don’t you….”

“….just trying to have a good time!”

“…just go home!”

“…buying you drinks all night!”

That’s all I could make out from the safe distance I’d carved for myself at the end of the bar. The lights flashed around them as Phil’s expression grew desperate. He was pleading with Michael to calm down, trying to get Michael to look at him, but Michael couldn’t be bothered. He is petulant and childlike. Not like me. I would take every gift Phil had to offer with gratitude. If you ask me, Michael doesn’t treat Phil right. He ignores him. Avoids him. Speaks ill of him when he isn’t around. Michael once told me he didn’t really like Phil. Said Phil was “desperate,” “possessive,” and “clingy.” Said he doesn’t trust him. I don’t see any of that when I look at Phil. It’s true, I’ve caught him glaring at Michael malevolently from time to time. But I think that must only be because he loves him so much.

The bouncer was making his way over to break them up or throw them out when Michael threw up his hands and stormed out into the rain, leaving Phil standing there, dejected. I wandered over to him and pretended to be a friend. I looked into his pretty white face and feigned sincerity and concern. I was delighted to be alone with him because he usually ignores me, views me as baggage he has to put up with in order to be around Michael.

I bought us both drinks, though I’d already had several. I tried my best to make him forget about Michael. My friend. I sat on a barstool next to his, facing him. I studied the lines of distress on his face and tried to think of ways to smooth them out. I leaned in, closer and closer, and then I put my hand on his thigh.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing… just…”

Phil grabbed my hand by the wrist and flung it from his thigh. He fixed me with a disgusted look, eyebrows knitted in angry disbelief and upper lip curled. After giving me an appalled once-over, he stood up and stormed off, leaving me alone to wish I looked different. To wish I looked like Michael. To wish I weren’t so black. If I weren’t so black, he would like me.

I did all this to Phil because I am a bad person. But, in my defense, I know firsthand how hard it is for black, gay boys to find love. If you’re not white, you’re reduced to a fetish item. It didn’t take me long to figure out that everything in gay life is reduced to a type. But at least the twinks are worthy of love. Dark boys get typecast into porn fantasies or, worse, completely ignored.