NYC -- Lenny's Hideaway, W. 10th Street. Now Smalls, a jazz club. I was a college boy up in NYC with my college girlfriend. We were down in Greenwich Village and near Sheridan Square we ran into a girl we knew graduating a year before us, one of the "theater kids," supposedly "fast" and in New York to be an actress. She was glad to see us, had just received a check from home, wanted to buy us a drink. She looked around and said "oh let's go there, it's a sailor bar, but that's ok." We went down the stairs to Lenny's. It was empty, near 4pm. I saw nothing wrong with the room, just another basement bar. The following spring when in town for the basketball tournament and in the Village with my guys and way too curious but I don't think it showed I said "let's go look at the queers" and down the steps we went. It was packed, everyone looked blond in crew-necked Shetland sweaters, crew-cuts, were drinking beers. It was smokey, loud, looked like a college fraternity party. I said Marti must have been playing a joke on us, we left. It certainly didn't look like what I thought a gay bar would be like, and I was dying to find out. The following September, still a virgin, I crashed on a collage friend's sofa. He lived near Lenny's. He was gay, didn't have a phone, so of course we had to go to Lenny's to use the phone, it being a gay bar or not. Third or forth day in town, courage mustered, I went down those stairs. Maybe six pm. At the foot of the stairs a group of five or six guys were standing talking. All crew-cuts and crew-necked sweaters. One of them turned to me and to the amusement or put-up-with-ness of the others, said "Oh darling, no one wears madras north of Washington after Labor Day." I was in my favorite Brook Bros. madras blazer, I didn't know from Washington or Labor Day, but I knew then I was in a gay bar. The guy turned out to be, when he grew up, H.M. 'Harry' Koutoukas, the surrealist playwright. He was around the Village until his death. One of the guys in the group, a blond from Penn, later a lawyer, and a tall red-head said to be "the son of the fish-hook king of Maine" who lived out his life in Mexico writing porn, took pity and came to my rescue. That Saturday night I went to Lenny's again, now just another almost-blond guy there in a sweater. I was afraid to go home with anybody, noticed as it got later some of the what I thought better-looking guys ganged together near closing to go off to a party. The following Saturday night I noticed a sorta' short football-player cutie chunk in a group putting together a party. I was asked to go. The party was on 16th Street, off 6th. I happily went. Early there a guy went to change some records and was tall and nice looking and had been pointed out as the host. I had my innocent manners and thanked him for having the party. Then I blurted out to him "you're not really gay, are you?' Well. He always talked about that the many years on I knew him. He was a buyer for Chipp, his boyfriend a buyer for Lord & Taylor. As the evening went on, the sorta' short football-player cutie chunk caught me eyeing him and I took him home. No idea what we did but he spent the night. Ok, this is it for me, I'm gay, this is great! Saw him the following Saturday, it wasn't the same. The following Saturday out of Lenny's I took home a Broadway press-agent, he said, and several years later I did see his name in the papers, and knew a few agents myself, so I guess it was so. By then, there was a cadre around Lenny's, one English guy kept saying his buddy was coming up from Florida soon and was supposed to be one great guy. We met, he wasn't. But by then I thought I knew all about homosexuality so there was nothing left to do but to have a boyfriend, take the guy from Florida as a lover. It lasted four months until I was drafted into the Army. Two years later I had no idea of him.
What Was The First Gay Bar You Went To?
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