BEDTIME STORY

I didn't sleep nearly as well as I had hoped, realizing I had forgotten to use my WNET membership discount at Alamo and worrying about my unemployed future. The Blue Light Special took a brief run before we made our morning appearance on the patio just steps from our room. A very modest, entirely pre-packaged breakfast awaited us in the kitchen area. Some hot guy who kept checking out The Blue Light Special gave me a more powerful rush than my morning dose of caffeine but we never saw him again once we set off on a pair of bicycles that the manager produced for us. They were the second reason we had decided to stay at the Cabanas instead of another comparably priced guesthouse where the clientele might have been more to the Blue Light Special's liking but where I feared the intimidation factor would be much higher.



We pedaled to Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, an under-maintained picnic and hiking area with beach access that was worth the $2 admission fee if only to see what most of Ft. Lauderdale looked like just a little more than a century ago. Faded signs educated us about how the Seminole Indian tribe had used the lush, overgrown vegetation to survive. We both wondered how the basic staples of their diet, which seems to have vanished, must taste and if there were a place for it in a specialty food market.

Sebastian Beach, where gay men congregate on a narrow strip of sand that runs parallel to US A1A, was about a mile south. We locked the bikes with a combination that spelled MEAT, stripped down to our bathing suits and plunged into the 72 degree turquoise water with a strong northern current. We dried ourselves in the sun on the concrete embankment separating the beach from the sidewalk, much like the lizards we had seen the night before. The contrast between the incrediblue sky, the Blue Light Special's red bathing suit and matching sunglasses, and the white paint screamed photo op just as loudly as his look-at-me posing. Aside from the curious glances of a young woman nearby who appeared to be using her cleavage, (almost as impressive as the Blue Light Special's abdominals) as a hitch hiking aid, his exhibitionism did not, however, stimulate much interest.



After an hour or so we pulled our shorts back on and headed for the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Had it been a little earlier in the day, I might have forked over $4 to swim in Olympic size pool of champions but I wouldn't even consider paying the $8 admission fee to enter a sports museum, even if most of the record setters were only partially clothed. Nor did I offer to buy the Blue Light Special a t-shirt. It surprised me when he bought one with his own money, just as it had when he told me that he had paid $50 for the new camouflage shorts he had found at Lincoln Road Mall in South Beach. I made a couple of cracks about his spending priorities. He ignored them.



We toured the beachfront a little while longer before crossing the channel at Las Olas Boulevard, the main drag in Ft. Lauderdale where I had dined with a friend several years earlier when we went to the White Party in South Beach. The McMansions that lined the much smaller dead-end canals didn't appeal to me nearly as much as the palm tree motif that decorated the bridge railing supports and spoke of an earlier time when real estate development was more civic-minded. Nor did they contrast very favorably with the Stranahan House, the residence of the man responsible for settling Ft. Lauderdale, that was erected in 1891. It had some personality and history, two qualities that the multimillion-dolllar homes lacked despite the SUVs in the driveway and yachts docked in the rear.



A slice of pizza a the Riverfront Mall gave us the energy to take the back way home, which included a quick stop at the Museum of Discovery & Science where a colorful, ball-operated clock as big as the building itself qualified as one of the city's major tourist attractions. I never quite trust the Blue Light Special's navigational skills as his preference for meandering is decidedly greater than mine. For this particular journey, we ended up going through Ft. Lauderdale's black neighborhood where the houses and landscaping looked nothing like what we had seen in Wilton Manors.

Why don't they paint their houses and take care of their yards? the Blue Light Special asked.

Because they're primarily employed in the service sector of the economy where wages are so low that they can hardly afford to pay the rent, I answered.

A front-page article in USA Today later confirmed the high cost of living in Ft. Lauderdale, where rents are expected to rise more than 21% this year.

We got back to the Cabanas in time for a free beer but the cool weather dissuaded me though not the Blue Light Special from repeating our routine of the night before. I kept a close eye on him while he frolicked nude in the pool and the hot tub but only a much older couple en route to their parked car took any notice.

We dined at an overpriced, nearly empty Thai restaurant near Georgie's Alibi. We both devoured everything on our plate including the decorative flowers as if we hoped the cute busboy with a brilliant smile might offer us seconds. He didn't.

The Blue Light Special didn't show any enthusiasm for a movie, so I suggested that we try Dudes, a bar that advertised nude dancers in the Fun Map that he has collected for every gay destination in America. We spent nearly an hour looking for the place and when we found it, in a strip mall near the beach, I refused to pay the cover charge. We spent the rest of the evening checking out every other bar on the map in addition to searching for Leather Werks, the store that had sponsored the booth at the 2006 International Mr. Leather contest where I had bought him a studded codpiece.

The Blue Light Special doesn't get how little gay night life interests me and seemed disappointed when I didn't want to go inside Boardwalk, the only place that had drawn a crowd on a Monday night with the promise of a drag show. A healthy dose of porn, which he calls his "bedtime story," helped him get over it even more than the slideshow of our trip so far that I created on the computer before falling asleep.