One Half Day At A Time

The Quartermaster; a gay owned store.

So, it probably shouldn't have surprised me that the staff there would find some reason to bar me from the place, sooner or later, for one reason (I'm straight) or another (I'm not gay).


I was glad to see Robert, working in there, when I pulled up there early Wednesday morning, around sun-up.

I had been drinking all day Tuesday, consuming two whole bottles of wine, and I was going out to get a third one. Two bottles seem to have that effect on me.


But, when I saw the white haired Robert behind the counter, and emboldened by the alcohol and ready to fight the bike delivery guy who single-handed-ly got me barred from the place, should he be there, and be confrontational in any way.

Robert has always been very nice to me. Maybe he was attracted to me in some way, since I am probably 25 years younger than him, and thus probably appear youthful to him.


He has always had nice things to say to me, and has even given me an energy drink, free of charge, on a couple occasions, telling me that I was out there, working hard and playing music, and that I had sounded good to him the times he had gone by me in the back of a pedicab.


He greeted me warmly enough: "Oh, I don't usually see you at this hour!" but then went on to inform me that he had been told not to let me in the store, and that "you need to leave."

Then, the voice of Larry, another bike delivery guy, sounded, as he approached from the back of the store: "Yeah, he's not allowed here..."

This was probably meant to bolster him, as it is probably against Robert's nature to be "authoritarian."


But, the result was that I kind of had an "et tu Brute?" moment, learning that even dear old, kind and sweet, wouldn't hurt a fly, Robert was a party to me being barred.

He is the type of guy that, if Larry had been out on a delivery, would have probably told me to hurry up and get what I needed before Larry came back. He would probably be apologetic about my being barred, telling me the decision came from above him, or whatever.

It reminded me of how Leslie Thompson got barred from the same place (very inconveniently for him, since he lived about 200 paces away for the store) just for making "an anti-gay comment."


I made the comment: "I'm not gay," to Michelle after about the second time that Jacob and I went in there after busking.

Jacob dresses and acts in an ambiguous way, somewhere between masculine and feminine, but leaning enough towards the latter to be a magnet for gays. The fact that we play in between the gay section of the Quarter and the residential part, this causes a lot of them to stop to "listen" to us, or rather to focus all their attention on Jacob.


The Quartermaster people have the personality quirks that I have found to be prevalent in gays.

Larry is moody and sulky, and used to talk to me about football, but then just went totally silent one day, and began to do things like get up and disappear into the back of the store at the sight of me riding up on my bike.


At first I thought that this was because I was usually pretty manic, after having busked and then consumed an energy drink and smoked a little more weed, preparing to go back to the spot and play longer.

I would ramble a bit, but would at least catch myself doing so and stop, before I became annoying to a non stoned person who just isn't going to appreciate whatever caprice of the stoned imagination I was on.


But, one never knows what might be a peeve to a gay person. They are usually very opinionated on trivial things. I met a young brown skinned gay guy years ago, who informed me that he absolutely had to have "my Jeopardy" every morning, and that he became very upset for the rest of the day if he didn't see it, and that I wouldn't want to be around him if he didn't get his Jeopardy one morning, etc.

I remember thinking "Whatever..."

Then there was Scott, the manager of a Dominos Pizza place where I worked, who was gay, and who once hid tiny pieces of mushrooms under the cheese of a pizza sent to one particular lady, who had asked him if he would do her the favor of rinsing the pizza cutter off before cutting her pie, just in case the pizza cut with it before hers had mushrooms on it; so allergic was she to them.

Scott "I just want to see if she is full of shit" Robare, snickered snickered as he pulverized mushrooms and hid them under the cheese.


The lady called back to ask Scott if he was sure that he rinsed the blade of the cutter off, because she had gotten very ill after eating the pizza. 99% of the gays I know have some kind of similar spirit in them.

The ability to smile in a person's face and be "nicer" in response to conflict, while plotting against them was another of Scott's traits.

He would say things like, "The guy came in and was being a jerk, but I just apologized profusely, told him that we had made a mistake and were sorry, and then I gave him a coupon for a free pizza, and then asked him if there was anything else we could do for him, and I wound up giving him a second coupon. I know how to be 'nicer' in order to handle people like that; it throws them off because they are looking for a fight..."

Then Scott told me that he had planned to do something to the guy's free pizzas when he ordered them. Of course he was going to; don't let the smile fool you; maybe the guy is allergic to mushrooms, too...


I have blogged about the incident when I was accosted by the delivery guy other than Larry about taking a milk crate to sit on while I play.

He had rudely torn the crate from my grasp.

He said something that was basically bullshit, about the crates being worth something and me being a "thief" for taking (borrowing) them.

One random day, that one guy got an attitude over the thing.

I was almost ready to fight the guy, who looked surprised to see me taking my guitar and backpack off as if prepared to do so.

I guess he had me pegged as the sensitive artist type who wouldn't hurt a fly -like how many guy's has Art Garfunkel punched out in his life?.

I went and got my third bottle of wine at another store and then returned to the Quartermaster where I sat and drank it, and was seriously thinking about picking up one of the milk crates and coming down on Larry's head with it as hard as I could swing it, while he sat there staring at his phone (something that seems to occupy all of his free time). I would probably pick up the phone from where it came to rest after he dropped it, and before he ran away, if he was still conscious...

The next day I woke up very hung over and glad that I hadn't done that; and decided to quit drinking.

Today would be day one; except, as soon as I get to the end of this sentence and hit "publish," I am going to run for some brandy, I think.

"One half day at a time" is the AA saying, isn't it??