Going for a Drink

With a Shot of Insecurity

Trains in Tōkyō stop running shortly after midnight. During the years before I met Hiro, 1989 to 1993, I was a Ni-chōme barfly, hanging out at my favorite locales. Tico Tico was for chubby chasers and the bar’s master (men who run bars are called masters; women who run bars are mamas—gender-bending appellations were frequent, though) had many men to introduce me to. I’d arrive of a Friday or Saturday night and out came the books of photographs. The master knew I wasn’t particularly choosy, but he always managed to find guys who’d come running to meet me with a smile.

our hero in 1989

As much as I loved the attention, I started gravitating to another bar: M & M. Named for the couple who ran it—Michael was a bearded, burly Canadian and Masa his handsome lover of fifteen-odd years (both men were in their late forties)—M & M was a quiet place. Michael created a cocktail in my honor, and I’d slowly sip from a highball filled with orange juice, peach schnapps, and a splash of Amaretto. Masa had accumulated a vast collection of laser discs and the three of us would settle on the night’s entertainment. More often than not, we watched Shirley Valentine. He kissed me stretch marks!

Tasty

The energy in Ni-chōme, that very Japanese gayborhood, made its home within me and sometimes I’d dilly-dally. There were a few other bars where I might not have been a regular but was still welcome, there was the convenience store at the central intersection that not only sold every Japanese gay magazine under the sun (together with a few heavily-censored American ones) but also the only diet soda available then: Coca-Cola Light. The commercial jingle is still inscribed on my brain: 爽やか、テースティ！ (Sawayama tēsuti!) I feel Coke!

One of the alleys in Ni-chōme. There are a few restaurants there now but most buildings remain as they were, crammed with bars built into apartment-sized spaces. This is probably the easiest place to bar hop in the entire gay world, although speaking Japanese opened a lot more doors for me than most foreigners.

I smoked Dunhills back then, strategically. Cocktails ran around $7 each, and the Dunhills served two purposes: they kept my bar tab low AND they let me practice my Bette Davis impression.

At around 11:30, the decision loomed. Head for the station and then home? Or linger, in the hope of meeting someone new. 

That moment of wondering is where my ongoing adolescence lived. The insecurity I had imported to Japan had me convinced that my self-worth only existed in the arms of another man.

Dating While Insecure

On most nights, therefore, I waited. Ni-chōme after the last train was never a solitary place. I was far from alone in my insecurity, my adolescence. And even on the rare nights where someone gave me the warmth of a moment’s reprieve, the insecurity never let go. I never saw the one-night-stands for what they were. Each was a beginning, I believed. But for my partners, that once was enough.

My friends reminded me often: insanity is repeating the same action but awaiting a different outcome. But I could point to a few surprises. The dates that repeated (yet devolved into friendships, my friends countered).

And it got worse after the deceptions of my ex-lover/ex-roommate came to an end. Sex was easier and I could get it without sitting on a bar stool until dawn.

So an intervention was called for.

(to be continued)

Meanwhile

I’m doing more research on Kannon, the bodhisattva of mercy, and their genderqueer history. Please stay tuned because the history is fascinating.

I have also been busy with submissions, sending smaller pieces of my writing to literary reviews, residencies, and contests. The screenshot shows submissions since the beginning of 2023, and the rows of rejections are filled in with gray. I color code it keep track of the different pieces, and a spreadsheet is useful when (or if) an essay is picked up by one outlet and then I need to let any other outlets where I submitted the same essay know that my submitted work is now off the market.

Where’s the memoir in all this? I just got what might be my final late-stage beta reader critique back. Beta readers receive the manuscript and a set of questions I want them to answer about the work, and three people received copies. The feedback is very illuminating to me because it shares outside perspectives on where, for example, the memoir goes into excessive detail (particularly important because the word count is currently over 90,000 words and I worry about agents or publishers thinking that might be too high).

I’m also revising my proposal to account for recent publishing credits and the credited translation credits I forgot about from my previous life as a professional translator. I’m looking at starting another round of querying this summer and I will be ready!