a side street in Paris

Coach drivers are a funny lot, technically they travel far and wide, negotiating towns and cities all over Europe. By rights they should be brimming with local knowledge and travellers tales but coach drivers are cut from a different cloth. At least the average British coach driver is.

With this in mind I bring you the tale of Bob who parked up his coach on a side street in Paris. Having dropped his passengers he drove out of central Paris and found a nice empty road to park in. After tidying the inside he locked up the coach and started walking back into Paris itself. Some hours passed, perhaps he had a coffee in a café, more likely he asked for tea and was disappointed by its quality and lack of hobnob. Who can say, but after a time he decided to head back to his coach. Problem was he couldn’t remember where he parked it. He wondered around the vast metropolis of Paris for some time, presumably wishing he had brought the map with him until exasperated and running low on ideas he called his boss.

The conversation has been passed down to me but apparently it went thus.

“Um I can’t find my coach”

“Where did you park it?”

“Down a side street”

“What was the name of the street?”

“Well it was Rue d’ something”

Please add your own expletives. Since Bob still worked for the company when I arrived on the scene we can only imagine that he found it eventually.

Take me to a gay bar!

In 1994 I was an 18 years old. Standing on the platform of a station in rural Hampshire I awaited the commuter train to London. I was off to see my cousin. It was my first time into London on my own and the first time I had met up with him without the accompaniment of my grandparents. This was the start of the most memorable day of my life, it was the day I ceased to be green.

Two things, one, my cousin is gay, two, I didn’t really understand fully what this entailed and three (small gag to check you are still focused) up until then I’d only ever witnessed the sanitised version of his life but had little to no appreciation of this fact at all. Sliding into Waterloo James was waiting to meet me.

Casually he mentioned it was John’s 27^th birthday and they were going out to a club that night then having a party after in his flat. The anxiety started to build in my stomach. John? No one had mentioned boyfriends before. I tried to imagine what John might look like, would he be wearing a frock? Is that how these types of relationships worked? Frankly if one of them had to expose there knees it really aught not to be James. As the afternoon unfolded ahead of me I learned that cross-dressing wasn’t actually an integral part of gay relationships, that gay people frequented different clubs, clubs a little more aligned to their needs and that I was extremely scared.

I was terrified in fact, really terrified. It was the complete unknown and the only imagery at my disposal was the warped over the top imaginings in my head. I feared everything same sex kissing, cross-dressing, any signs of affection or flirtation and loads of other stuff I didn’t even know existed. Sure I was fine with the whole gay thing on paper but the prospect of meeting it all in its glorious, flamboyant and unabashed reality tore at my stomach like a possessed tiger.

So I did what any self-respecting 18 year old would do. I hit the bottle. Not just any bottle, I hit James’s bottle of vodka nestled amongst the other spirits on the sideboard. That night we would be going to one of the biggest gay bars in London and then to a party afterwards, at the same place I would be staying at. There was nowhere to hide, I was hitting this fear head on I needed to be as numb as possible.

The Vauxhall Tavern in South London had boarded up windows to prevent people throwing bricks through them. You might say that from the outside it lacked immediate appeal. I arrived with my cousin and as we stepped through the entrance, I was engulfed by the scene that lay before me. The door was slightly raised and from my vantage point I surveyed a huge crowd of men, men as far as the eye could see just loads and loads of men. Over to the right there was a bar and to the left at the back a stage showing a drag act. In this split second I lost James to the crowd. Franticly I scanned for him, my face must have been a picture of pure fear because the bouncer on the door pointed me towards a waving James standing at the bar. We got drinks and then he led me to a table full of his friends.

I don’t remember all that happened that night, just snippets that point towards a general relaxing and then pure delirious joy. I remember one of James friends holding my hand so that I didn’t feel left out. I remember dancing lots, I was chatted up by a bisexual guy who was Welsh. Who knew Welsh people could be gay too? I remember storming into the ladies toilet and finding it full of men. Infuriated by their audacity I shouted/slurred “this is the ladies toilet, get out!” and to my surprise they did just that and drained from the room like frightened snakes. I remember the drag show, and I most remember leaving long after my cousin and John had returned home accompanied by to of James’s friends apparently tasked with the job.

By the end of the day nothing mattered anymore. The fears that once seemed so scary seemed so incomprehensibly absurd as the night wore on. No doubt it was the alcohol but these fears never returned. When I hear people talking about their disgust or disapproval of gay people I feel sorry for them and their evident childlike naivety. I wish they too could have had a night like mine.