The Love Boat

It is in the space between men's legs and bottles of rum that I search for something I lost,

or perhaps never had, day in and day out. I do not quite know what I am searching for, but I

suspect that once I find it, I will know, and I will feel whole. Each night, I am plagued with a

tightness in my chest that has accompanied me for the past twenty years. My mother would call

it soledad1

, and she'd make me her classic sancocho2 stew with extra vegetables and a hearty

broth, and she’d give me two slaps on the cheek and tell me to find a wife. But she is not with me

now, and I am at the stage of my life in which I have become secure in the fact that I will never

want nor have a wife. At this moment, I try to sleep, but I am restless and my apartment is

humid, so I open the window and climb onto my rusty fire escape overlooking Jackson Heights.

My gaze is drawn to one building in particular, not because it visually stands out—it does not, it

blends in with the mass of concrete roofs—but because I have made many memories in that

building and it was a cornerstone of my early twenties. I do not know what is different about this

night, but something within me is open and raw, and I tenderly poke at the pain. I look at that

building—it used to be called the Love Boat—and I, for the first time in a while, allow myself to

remember.

I first discovered the Love Boat bar on a detour of my typical commute home. I had been

asked to take a late shift at the supermarket, and by the hour I finished, it was roughly 10:00

p.m., far too late for any buses to be reliable. I had begrudgingly set to walking the way home,

and about halfway between the supermarket and my apartment, I came across the bar.

It was situated on the corner of 77th street, Broadway— the outskirts of Jackson Heights.

It was an average-looking building with a trapezoidal shape, two stories of brick walls and

skinny windows, a black and white striped awning above the front door. In the daytime it would

have been unassuming, but in the late hour, it asserted its presence ostentatiously with warm

lights illuminating its windows and booming Latin music flowing from its slightly ajar door.

I was twenty years old, naturally curious, and desperately yearning for some excitement

in my life in that way that most young people yearn. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick

look. Maybe I’d have a drink, and if the booze was good I’d note to return some other day, then

I’d just continue home.

So I entered, and was immediately engulfed by the palpable scent of alcohol, sweat, and

euphoric adrenal joy. The building was small, but packed with men— drinking, dancing,

conversating, kissing— and I was overcome with a feeling I can only describe as a cocktail of

desire and fear, and it washed over my body like a waterfall and settled with an electric tingle in

my lower stomach. I held my breath so I wouldn't drown in those feelings, in the desire to join

the men, and in the fear of that desire, the fear of myself, of being associated with them, of what

the world would do to me. Of what my mother would do to me. I couldn’t bear it.

Wide-eyed, I turned, opened the door, and promised myself I would never step foot in the

Love Boat again.

I’ve always been good at lying to myself.

For weeks, I couldn’t stop thinking about that damn bar, about what I had seen, felt,

inside of it. A primal yearning within me had awakened, “what if’s” bloomed beneath my skin

like poppies. I dared not to pluck them, for I knew once I entertained their alluring scent, I would

be irreversibly corrupted. So I buried them— in the same fashion I did when I was twelve and on

the boy’s swim team, when I was fifteen and saw a homosexual get jumped, when I was

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seventeen and my friend, Pablo, looked at me with those eyes of his— I buried them with shame,

stubbornness, and a twisted sense of hope that I would finally be able to move on.

And I did move on.

Until I found myself standing at the door of the Love Boat once again, on a sweltering

night in June 1985. Until, hesitantly, bravely, I stepped inside.

On that first June night spent in the Love Boat, I did not know what to do with myself. I

sat at the bar and had a Mojito, then a bottle of rum, then several shots of something strong and

bitter. The drinks were cheap, but they added up, both in cost and fervor, and I quickly became

mind-numbingly drunk. It is because of this that I remember this night in bits and pieces,

fragmented moments, conversations dissolved into a bubbling blur of faces and feelings

seasoned with the tanginess of alcohol-soaked lime. I remember the pang of nervousness in my

chest. I remember it fading into anticipation, and later, arousal, and I remember the man who

made this change so.

He sat on the wooden bar stool to my left, sipping his drink and occasionally glancing at

me with a gaze so intense I could feel it burning into my skin. His eyes were dark, almost

primally so. They blinked in slow motion, black silken eyelashes casting a soft shadow over his

shining brown skin. They narrowed and a few crinkles kissed their corners. I felt my lips part. I

looked at his lips, a deep mauve color, moistened from his drink, and I tried not to wonder how

they would taste. They pulled into a sharp smile and his head fell as he chuckled. He said

something, his voice fuzzy and low, spotlighted against the background of hazy salsa music.

I’d like to think that he and I had a long and deep conversation then, about our grandest

dreams, or our deepest secrets, or our theories about money laundering and suspicious activity in

the city. And perhaps we did. Perhaps he told me about his broken relationship with his father,

and we bonded over the troublesome experience of becoming a man without a decent man in our

childhood to teach us. I’d like to believe we fell in love to even a small degree before we stood

up from those bar stools and took things further, because somehow, I think it would make our

following actions feel less dirty. Maybe some other night I would dwell on this thought, and I

would twist this memory around in my head until it was tangled and new and wrong, but now I

just shake my head. I close my eyes. I return to the memory, to the heat of it all, and his figure,

from shimmering golden wisps, forms in my mind.

He stood, and offered his hand out to me. I did not know why he offered it, but I took it

regardless, and it was rough, and so hot that its heat spread all the way up my arm and into my

chest, into my neck where it looped around my adams apple, settling in my face. He led me to

the dance floor and held my hip. He spoke again, and most of his words dissipated in the musky

bar air, except one, which left his lips like a tangible puff of cloud from a cigar. He exhaled:

Joaquín. His name.

The salsa song picked up pace. First came the congas, bongos, and timbales, then the

claves, guitar, trumpets, — the music rang with an exhilaration I could feel in my bones. Joaquín

led with Cuban style, a flourish on the basic step, he guided me through turns and

place-switches. The music flowed through his muscles and into mine as he moved me to step on

each beat, and I felt the notes vibrate in my bloodstream. I spun faster and faster, and the dim

lights had tails in my vision, and sweat droplets rolled down my sideburns.

He tugged me to his chest, and there was that heat again, burning me like a wildfire with

smoke that smelled of cologne and rum. I was intoxicated. The room was still spinning.

His face turned, his lips brushed against mine, and,“diablo3” I uttered.

3

And the trumpets blared.

The cage that held my heart within my ribs broke its lock. Freedom beat through my

veins and I was irrevocably addicted. No one in that room cared that I was kissing a man. And

for the first time in my life, neither did I.

Shame did not live on Joaquín’s tongue.

I do not know for how long we kissed, but it felt like both an eternity and a second—

simultaneously too much and not nearly enough. When our lips parted, alcoholic bubbles

floating up to the ceiling with each uneven exhale, I found that the scenery had changed. We

were no longer surrounded by other men on the dance floor. My back was pressed against cool

tile. A sink faucet behind Joaquín slowly, painstakingly, drip, drip, dripped, tiny clear droplets

into its ceramic bowl, and I could hear each one. I tried to breathe and inhaled rum. It burned as

it rushed down my windpipe and swirled around my lungs. Joaquín’s hand, made of hellfire,

reached into my jeans, a question posed on his fingertips. I felt myself nod, and I leaned into

him. He did things to me, there, in that shadowy, small, bathroom in the back of the Love Boat. I

let him. I wanted, and I let myself want. I thought, if this was what corruption felt like then I

would willingly burn in the next life. The ghost of the phrase “el diablo4” danced on my lips.

Later that year, when the summer heat subsided into a dreary chill that permeated the

walls of my apartment and cracked my skin, my nights spent at the Love Boat became less

frequent and less pleasurable. It felt the world was closing in on me, my apartment walls and the

supermarket I worked in being my sole companions. My mother called from time to time, mostly

asking if I had been eating well, if I had gone to church, if I would visit home soon. The answers

were always: yes, no, maybe next weekend. Then we would say, te amo5

, and the call would

click to an end, and I would once again be surrounded by a quiet static, a subtle sadness. One

December night, it snowed, and I sat alone in my apartment, the echoes of Christmas joy filtering

in through my windows, and I longed for company. I threw on my jacket and headed out to the

bar.

When I arrived at the Love Boat and its familiar brick walls came into view, I instantly

felt sick. The walls had been disgraced with ugly splotches of black and red spray-paint, filthy

words spelled out in the characteristic cursive of street graffiti. There were violent threats,

various phrases of hate speech, references to hell, and each one cut deeper and deeper. I was

enraged at whoever would dare do such a thing: intrude on a place that had become a sanctuary

to so many. I was enraged that they had come to the bar with weapons, but no face, with the

cowardly intention to hurt without consequence. I was enraged that I had let them hurt me.

My hand hesitated at the doorknob. “Fag” was printed simply across the wooden door, in

dark permanent paint. If I chose to enter, I would absorb that word. It would forever be spray

painted across my chest, and no matter how hard I would scrub, I would never be able to remove

its cancerous ink from my skin. The silent chill of shame pierced my body. Goosebumps crept

onto my arms. I slowly gripped the knob, took a deep breath, and walked in.

The music of the bar played quietly, almost entirely overshadowed by the voice of a man

in a shabby black suit with a microphone in his hand. The men were not dancing as normal,

rather, they were sitting on the bar stools, leaning on each other and on the tall circular tables,

4

and listening. A hushed, solemn, energy extended across the room, and I almost jumped at the

loudness of the door closing behind me.

“The Reagan administration calls it a ‘gay plague— gay cancer.’ People are dying. At this

point, over twelve thousand of us have lost our lives.” The man paused, then repeated, “Twelve

thousand! And the administration doesn’t care because of who it is that is dying.” His shaking

voice reverberated off the cocktail glasses and brick walls. He ran a trembling hand through his

curly hair. He scanned the room, taking in all our faces, making sure that we had truly heard him.

His gaze caught mine, and there was an intensity to it, a gravity that grounded me to the

humbling and terrifying awareness of my mortality.

“We are in a plague, they are right about that, and if they don't care to do shit about it,

then we need to take care of ourselves. We need to learn how to protect ourselves.” He pulled a

small condom packet out of his pocket. “I’m sure you all have seen these before.” The crowd

hummed with soft chatter. Somewhere in the back, someone laughed, then coughed to cover it

up.

“Use them,” the man said.

He spoke for a few minutes longer, and when he finished, applause filled the room. He

placed the microphone down on a bar table, and went around answering questions. The men

started to talk again: about the speaker, about AIDS, about Reagan and his press releases. I heard

someone say that the speaker— whom I learned was the activist Guillermo Vasquez— was a

victim of AIDS. I heard another man whisper that Reagan had refused to speak the disease’s

name to the public for too long.

In the stool next to me, a man dropped his head into his hands as his shoulders shook. I

felt the natural pull to comfort him, but I did not know what was kinder: to let him cry, free from

the embarrassment of being acknowledged while in a vulnerable state, or to offer him the

comfort of a well-meaning stranger. I knew I would feel immense self-consciousness at being

seen in such a state, however, I also recognized the desire to be heard that would secretly throb

within me regardless. I hesitated, then reached out to touch him.

At the contact, he lifted his face and looked at me. The crinkles above his brow bone, the

lines under his eyes— his expression carried a grief unlike any I had seen before. My hand rested

on his arm, still, with a heavy reassurance. Cautiously, I said to him, “Talk to me.” So, with an

unsteady voice, he did.

Emilio— that was his name— told me about his two best friends, about how they had

built a life together in a small apartment on the sidelines of Elmhurst. He told me about their

days riding bikes through Elmhurst Park, about their nights singing and cooking Sudado de

Pollo6

together on their electric stove. He told me about the light they brought into his life, how

it was the three of them against the world. And, tears on his eyelashes, he told me how they died.

Both of them–AIDS. He held their hands when they left. He wished he could have gone with

them. “Eran mis ángeles7

,” he said.

I believe that there is a certain kind of grief that cannot be treated by saccharine words,

that can only be momentarily placated by being seen and shared. So I held him as he cried. In my

embrace, I tried to convey: I hear you, and I will carry your words with me, and I’m sorry.

He left me with salty stains on my collared shirt, the ghost of his forehead’s warmth on

my neck. He downed a shot and declared he would be leaving then, and I could not bear the

thought of him wandering home alone, drunk and sad at such a late hour. I hailed him a cab and

paid with the last two dollars in my pocket.

5

I took one final look at the Love Boat for the night, at all the men who had returned to

dancing and kissing after Guillermo’s speech, and a great sense of powerlessness fell upon me.

And so, although I had left Christianity years ago, I prayed to whoever was up there: for Emilio,

for myself, for Guillermo Vasquez, for all the men in that damn bar. We all yearn for love— the

love our parents wouldn’t give us after they saw what we were... the love we still won’t give

ourselves. We search for it in each other’s throats, between each other's legs, within each other's

souls. The world tries to take it from us. The world does not love us and our bruised skin and

bleeding hearts, it calls our love a plague. But our love is beautiful, and halfway out that bar

door, I prayed, I prayed, I prayed, that someday, the world would see that.

I truly and deeply saw that when I fell in love.

The moment I touched him— we were dancing merengue8

together when we met— I felt

like wax slowly being heated, and I melted into him, and we danced, and our bodies became one.

I was shocked by the sound of my voice when I asked for his name.

“Cristobal,” he said. I felt the immediate urge to repeat it, to turn it over on my tongue, to

taste its syllables until they tasted familiar.

“Cristobal,” I echoed. “I am Armando.”

The merengue8 song ended and we stilled.

“You dance well, Armando,” he said politely.

“Gracias9

, Cristobal.” I paused, then inquired, “you from Santo Domingo?”

“Sí10

, what gave it away?”

“I knew I recognized the accent, I am as well. Beautiful city.”

“Sí10

,” he said. “I miss it deeply. This area, it’s nice, but...” He smiled, perhaps a bit

mournful.

“Recently moved here?”

“Just a few months ago. My family is still back home. I'm staying with my uncle,

working in his colmado11

, but I've been trying to get out more. I feel cooped up like un gallo12

,”

he laughed. “Even the windows have caged rods, I gotta get out to breathe.” He was so close. I

was breathless.

“Do you,” I swallowed, “do you want to get outside for a bit? To breathe.”

He smiled again, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

We turned the corner, walked a couple blocks down to this small park with a few benches

and short trees. We sat, and Cristobal exhaled and looked to the sky. I closed my eyes, listened to

the music of the neighborhood: the mechanical hum of air conditioners and cars, the lilting music

notes from people’s open windows, the broken segments of conversation from passers by. Above

us, an airplane rumbled.

“Always wanted to be a pilot,” Cristobal’s voice, low and reflective, pierced through it

all. He spoke only in Spanish. “Was a childhood dream of mine. Once, when I was around seven,

my father took me to this grassy area close to the airport, and all day we sat and watched the

planes rise and land, like giant mechanical birds.” He seemed lost in the memory. His eyes were

glassy. He opened his mouth, a tentative thought hanging in the air between his lips. “I came here

on an airplane,” he said. “My hope for what America would be was riding on the back of its

tin-feathered wings. However, this country is not all I expected. Winters are cold, as are most

6

Americans— so obsessed with destinations. The fruits are not fresh. I am alone.” He shifted. “I

liked the plane ride better than the arrival, I think,” he said, simply.

It took everything within me to find the courage to speak. “I suppose,” I began,

“sometimes the space in between is more meaningful than the destination. Because when the

future is ahead but has not arrived yet, all you can feel is hope. There is no room for

disappointment. For reality.”

“Yes,” he breathed. “Yes.” Then, he turned to me, and he said, “What about you,

Armando?”

It was a very open-ended question. But I knew what he was asking— for a piece of my

soul, as he had just given me a piece of his. I figured I could avoid the question, say something

shallow, sputter my way through a half-truth and move on to a different topic. I was usually very

reserved, I prided myself on that. Yet, there was something about the way he was looking at me

that made me feel naked, and very afraid, and inexplicably eager to trust him.

I remember, then, I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. I sat there, and I

struggled to choke out words. Cristobal watched me carefully. He leaned in and softly nodded. I

nodded with him, closed my eyes, and found my voice.

“There was this one day when I tripped outside my school and scraped my knees and

cried. I was eleven, and eleven year olds cry, right? That should have been normal. But the other

boys in my class...they thought it wasn't. They said they were too macho to cry. They attacked

anyone who was not macho too.” I winced at the memory, at the many scars those boys had left

throughout my childhood and adolescence.

“I came home with scabs on my knees and bruises on my arms and chest. When my

mother saw me walk in, dios mío13

, I felt so ashamed. She was not the type to hug, but she

questioned me, and she patched me up, and she sat me down at the dinner table with a huge bowl

of sancocho2 and said ‘eat.’ She watched until my bowl was empty and my stomach full.” I

lingered on the thought of her.

“My mother wanted me to get out of there. ‘Follow the American dream,’ she'd say to

me. You gotta make yourself a good life: get a decent job, find a nice woman to settle down with,

go to church more.’ And I tried, believe me, I did. I moved out when I turned eighteen, worked at

a restaurant, went on some dates with the church girls she set me up with. Hurt myself trying to

live for her, trying to be who she needed me to be.” I paused, and I was burning under his gaze

so I looked to the stars.

“Most of the time,” I swallowed the knot in my throat, “I haven’t got a clue who I even

am.”

I felt the weight of that admission as soon as it left my lips, and it terrified me that it had

been spoken. I wanted to reach out and grab it, force it back down my throat and into my chest,

back where I had hidden and kept it for years. I hated that it hung there to be seen: by him, by the

trees, by the stars and the cityscape.

“I don’t know who you are either, Armando,” he said, a thoughtful pause after the phrase.

He placed his hand on top of mine. “But I would like to.”

He left me his telephone number scribbled on a handmade paper airplane.

To this day, twenty four years later, I still keep that paper airplane on my bedside table,

next to a photograph of the two of us from the year ‘91 and a short lamp. In the photograph, we

are curled up together on a worn-in couch in his apartment. We never officially moved in

together, but I spent enough time there that his bathroom had an extra toothbrush and his

7

wardrobe had a few pairs of my clothes. He and I spent a good few years together, sharing the

same space, before he decided he missed his family in the Dominican Republic, and went back to

visit them, and never returned.

He ended our relationship with a rose bouquet and a home-cooked meal right before he

left. He told me New York felt too concrete for him. Said the buildings were too close together,

the city was too filled with metal and billboards, and not filled enough with family and warmth.

What he didn't say was “come here, with me.” I would have, had he asked. I think, to some

degree, he knew that. I sit in those words unspoken right now. I feel around their empty space,

reaching for some sort of clarity.

I think Cristobal knew the Dominican Republic would never be a home to me, but that I

would have pushed that aside to be with him. I would have lost a piece of myself in the process.

It is almost counterintuitive, because he and I both lost something in our separation.

With a heavy heart, I cherish the time we had. I loved him more than I’ve loved anyone

or anything else, ever before— more than I’ve loved myself. Our relationship was short-lived,

but I’ve come to realize most beautiful things in life are.

In my fifty years of age, I have seen the world take shape, and break, and shift. I have

seen buildings go up and come down, street signs be renamed and renumbered; New York is a

living breathing creature that I've watched evolve.

Around ‘95, the Love Boat closed. It was replaced by United Travel World Agency: some

small business that sold plane tickets and Lord knows what else. I remember walking past it one

night, seeing the “closing” sign, white and jarring, pasted across its wooden door. A group of

men who had originally come to drink and dance were huddled around the doorway, chatting,

laughing, and mourning all at once. I tried to socialize with them, but my mind was clouded by

static and an overwhelming sense of loss. I walked back to my apartment in a daze. I didn’t cry.

Along with the bar, many of its regulars left. I attended a handful of funerals,

Joaquín’s—may he rest in peace— being one of them. I watched people walk down Broadway

with protest signs of cardboard and paint, rioting for potentially life-saving AIDS drugs, for

visibility, for tolerance. On the television, I watched doctors speak out about AIDS as public

opinion slowly transformed. On the corner of 77th street, Broadway, where the Love Boat had

been, I watched a street sign go up commemorating Guillermo Vasquez. I stood there, staring up

at it, until the sky started to rain and my body got soaked. Baptized. Reborn. The next year, gay

love was legalized. The nation roared. My soul ached.

I am one of the lucky ones who has been allowed to wrinkle and gray. When you’ve had

a life such as mine, each fine line is a gift, a declaration, that I am still here.

I am still here.

I am sitting on my fire escape as I turn this thought over in my head. I’m not sure how

much time has passed, but the night has chilled and there are less cars rolling down the streets.

The lights of Jackson Heights below me blur. Visceral tension erupts from my chest and I curl

into myself. Years of grief wash over me; I am ripped open, my soul laid bare for the stars above

and the streetlights below to see. And I cry. I cry until I am worn smooth. Until the grime has

washed away. Until I, in my entirety, am all that is left.

8

Translations:

1 soledad is ‘loneliness’

2 sancocho is a traditional latin stew with vegetables

3 diablo is, in this context, used as a exclamation rather than a noun; a cuss phrase

4 el diablo is ‘the devil’

5

te amo is ‘I love you’

6 sudado de pollo is a Colombian chicken stew

7Eran mis ángeles is ‘They were my angels’

8 merengue is a dance originating from the Dominican republic

9 gracias is ‘thank you’

10 sí is ‘yes’

11 colmado is a Dominican local store

12 un gallo is ‘a rooster’

13 dios mío is ‘my God’