Miles from Fenway: Yes, That Was Me You Saw Exiting The Gay Brothel

My coworker and good friend had just gotten thrown under the bus. And then run over by it. Repeatedly. As she sat in my office with tears sparkling in her eyes I did what any good friend does in a situation like this:

I suggested we go for drinks.

So to Stillwater we traipsed. Located in the East Village, with a good happy hour and outdoor seating it was the perfect location for a nice summer night. Plus you get to play the "who's going to go in there" game.

The "Who's going to go in there" game was born when a waitress at the bar informed my girlfriends and I that the parade of men we had seen going in and out of the unmarked door to the bar's left were customers of a not-so-discreet male brothel. I think you can now guess the rules of the game. Pick a guy out as he walks down the street, make guesses on whether he's a customer or not.

Flash forward to a few hours after arriving at the bar. My coworker and I have more than a few beers in us, and since those beers were accompanied only by a hummus plate shared between three people, their effects are quite clearly being felt. The decision is made ... we were going in.

With my coworker leading the way we confidently opened the door not knowing what to expect. Part of me figured there'd be a bouncer right in side ready to throw out anything with a vagina. Instead we found a well lit stairway painted a bright, if a bit dingy, red and plastered with various movie posters.

At the bottom of the stairs we emerged into ... a movie theater lobby? Directly ahead of us was a ticket window and to it's right a black door. The man behind the window rose from his chair and as my coworker asked for directions to a place that didn't exist, I started observing certain things. Like the lack of movie times. Or the fact that the theater listings had things like "Theater 1:Comedy" "Theater 2:Film Noir".

And then I tune into the conversation happening directly in front of me:

Coworker: So what is this place, a movie theater?
Man: Um, ah, no. Eets for zee gays.

So yes, that was me you saw exiting the gay brothel on east 4th street last night. But at least now you know why I was laughing so hard.

Labels: drinking

posted by FINY @ Wednesday, July 25, 2007

5 Comments:

At 7/25/2007, Ari said…

Only in NYC, glad to see you back to blogging.
At 7/25/2007, Unknown said…

Heh---in a hurry, I initially read the title of this post as "That was me you saw exciting the gay brothel." Which would have made a slightly more interesting story, but this was pretty good.
At 7/25/2007, Anonymous said…

Having heard the set up story oh so many months back, glad to hear you finally headed in for a peek...also good to have you back, even if it partially b/c of me
At 7/26/2007, Ballerina said…

For the record... it wasn't the waitress that told us about it, it was the gigantic bouncer. Who was extremely embarrassed to be sharing that information with us.

Sometimes I miss New York.
At 7/27/2007, TomO said…

We played this game at Emerson. For a while, the Art Cinema was across the street, and we used to sit in the windows by the dining hall that overlooked Tremont, and play the same game...which dudes were going into the gay porn theater.

For the record, guys in sweatpants ALWAYS go in.