The truth is we live in the heart of what's locally known as The Gay Ghetto.

It's interesting with the Long Beach area: rich neighborhoods are wedged in beside poor neighborhoods beside touristy neighborhoods beside industry beside beach beside city beside awful beside beautiful. It's all a stone's throw away in Long Beach. Safe as houses one minute... walk fifty feet and you're suddenly somewhere you really wouldn't want to be. Carey and I live on what I guess is sort of a "transition" block. Our neighborhood and the people in it are fairly nice, but certainly not care-free or wealthy. Safety is so-so. We're very close to places that are quite all right to be in at night and places that one should really avoid.

We're a block north of Broadway, though, where the roudiest in gay Long Beach come to roost. The Gay Ghetto. Now, make no mistake: The Gay Ghetto is by no means the Will and Grace / fab hair-dresser / Give-My-Regards-To-Broadway / coffee-house poet / California Wine Country / multi-colored-pigtail-lesbian crowd. No no no no no. This is the hard stuff, baby, no cream no sugar. This is the haven of the pushers and punks. The Queens and Trannies. The S&M dykes and gender pretenders. The leather doms. The strung-out bum-boys with habits to feed.

It's the true grit and, honestly, it's a slight culture shock.

We're a few houses up from The Falcon: a gay bar in which we've seen some of the most... well, what's the word? I don't know. "Desperate" maybe. Some of the most desperate individuals I've ever witnessed stream in and out of there at night. When Care and I first arrived, we were a bit frightened. If you'd have asked us what, precisely, we were frightened of... I doubt we'd have been able to tell you. People are still people, no matter which culture.

But, these days I get a little sad. It's not a fear really at all anymore. I'm not really even talking about moral decline or Sodom & Gomorrah or anything like that. Mostly, I've just looked a bit closer at the patrons of the Falcon and... well... they look burdened. Have you ever lost your car keys right before work and, after all the frantic running about and cursing and rummaging... that rueful despair and resignation just sort of overtakes you and you find yourself saying aloud, "well, I'm screwed. I just don't know where they are and I've looked everywhere I can look. I'm completely and in every way Out Of Luck." Well, THAT'S the look I see on the faces of the Falcon patrons. It's a profound heaviness that seems to be more than just alcohol.

And, when I see many of them... my heart is heavy for them. I really don't know their situations and I'm certain they don't want my pity. But I see what I see.

And it looks like it's been a long, hard way down.

posted by Jeremy Bear 5:10 PM

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