floating in a tin can

January 6th, 1969

Lee is not having a good week. He's been cagey all week and everybody knows why, and the fact that they find it funny only makes him more irritable. He sulked about it for a few days, but he is so tired of worrying and fretting and going in circles of indecisiveness that, after yelling and throwing something at Rich, nearly missing his head (he seemed more entertained than angered by it), Lee has got it in his head to do something about this.

So.

Near as he can tell, they have two major obstacles keeping them from being together: first, location. It's the trickier of the two to solve. They can't go to Michael's place, mostly time reasons, Lee vaguely thinks. Michael's father lives there, neither of them wants to be walked in on like that. And Rich's suite at the Chelsea is always teeming with people, whenever they get a moment really alone without people in the other room talking, something's always come up. Lee isn't able to fully relax, expecting at any moment for someone to barge in through the closed door. If they'd explained the situation to Stanley, he probably would have just given them a key and told them to go to town, but when they tried in another, random hotel room over New Year's, Lee had hated it. So, location. He's still working on that one.

Second obstacle: logistics.

Frankly, Lee just does not know what to do. He understands in the broadest terms how sex works between men and women, and what its purpose is for, and generally what happens. But two men? Homosexuals? What do they even do? Lee's not a man, not any more than he's a woman, which means neither of them are really homosexuals, but those are the bits God gave them and he doesn't think there's a word for what they are. His first idea is the library, where he goes one morning and looks at every single book they have - health, anatomy, human biology, even psychology. They are all either frustratingly unilluminating or infuriating or both. If they even mention homosexuality at all, it's only in vague terms and they never mention what actually happens. He shuts the last one with a decisive, angry thud and gives up.

Okay, so books don't have every answer. He sulks about this, too.

His next option is the Stonewall Inn. A squat little building in Greenwich Village, it's the place in New York where Lee feels most comfortable with himself: there are people like him there. Drag queens, transsexuals, young hustlers, the homeless. It's also the only bar in New York for people like them where dancing is permitted, which makes Lee considerably less comfortable. But nothing's perfect and it's not like he has to.

One gets into the Stonewall through presenting themselves through a peephole in the door. You either look gay, or they have to know you, or you have to be with someone they know. They know Lee, he never has any trouble getting in, and the bouncer claps him on the back as he shuffles in quicker than strictly necessary. Lee is shivering and accuses the bouncer (his name is Roger) of leaving him out in the cold longer than necessary, which he doesn't deny. (Why is everyone always teasing him?) There's a book you are supposed to sign your name into for some reason Lee is uncertain of, and like everyone else, he uses a name that is faker than his current one.

Lee looks like a handsome young man today, his hair twisted up and pomaded to keep it in place, making it look much shorter. He's wearing a sport jacket and trousers that would be scandalously tight anywhere else. He still smells like L'Air du Temps, though, and there's still something feminine about his face he can never hide well enough. The Village and Chelsea are the only places he can do this really - play with gender like this - and it's still in a limited area. He can't afford to be outed anywhere else.

He makes a beeline for the bar, downs three shots of vodka in a row, then takes a glass of terrible red wine with him and sits alone at a table. He raises the glass to his lips as he scans the bar, unusually dark due to the dim lighting and the black walls, looking for a familiar face. Any familiar face.