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.

A FLATTERING DEMOGRAPHIC

For the first time, I took the C train to 125th Street and transferred to the M60, the bus to LaGuardia. Even at 6 a.m. on a Sunday, the trip took less than an hour, saving me at least $25 and giving me plenty of time at the Spirit Airlines terminal to observe the crowds, most of whom appeared to be Hassidim or families with lots of children en route to Ft. Lauderdale. I felt like a foreigner.

The Blue Light Special, who had flown down from Chicago earlier in the week, and I had arranged to meet at the Alamo car rental agency.

Over here he shouted from the head of the line, slightly tanned and eager to begin his all-expenses-paid trip. He wore his trademark red sunglasses and a new pair of Quiksilver camouflage shorts, purchased on sale in South Beach. It cost me an extra $100 to add him as a driver, but my first case of sticker shock faded when the agent offered us a VW Beetle convertible.

Shall we take the yellow or the silver one? I asked before overruling him and choosing the silver one on the grounds that it would be easier to find in a parking lot.

But the silver one looks more sophisticated he said.

Paying the tab has its privileges, I thought, ignoring his plea.

That’s German engineering he said proudly after showing me how to move the seat forward and open the trunk.

The Blue Light Special’s luggage wouldn’t fit in the trunk through no fault of the engineers in his homeland. Once everything was loaded, we barely had enough room for a 12 pack of diet Dr. Pepper and a box of Snyders pretzels, let alone a smokin' white trash hitchhiker. After inserting Madonna's Immaculate Collection into the CD changer, I took the wheel with the Blue Light Special telling me how to operate the vehicle, directing me to Wilton Manors and searching for Spanish music on the radio.

We stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts on the Federal Highway for coffee and a muffin. The Blue Light Special excitedly told me about his Saturday night out at Twist. Apparently, the fleet was in. Gay cruise ships, that is. He exchanged e-mail addresses with somebody. Maybe the bison farmer, the only detail of his TBM (trip before me) that stuck.

With at least an hour to kill before check-in, he insisted on showing me the Pelican Grand Resort where, upon arrival Thursday in Florida, he had stayed in a $1200 suite with Thug Lover, his roommate, who was in Ft. Lauderdale on business. He took me to the roof where we could look down at the meandering waterway near the large swimming pool, where he had floated away a cloudy afternoon and chatted up the lifeguard about his own experience making Lake Michigan a safe place for swimmers last summer. Then we had to drive by the Blue Dolphin, a gay guesthouse near the beach where he and his roommate had stayed on an earlier trip. It looked like a dump.

Let's pop the top I suggested, beginning to sweat a little in my jeans and long-sleeved shirt.

German engineering proved to be a little less intuitive here; it took both of us to figure out how. Then we headed to a mini-mall in Wilton Manors where the density of rainbow flags reminded me of 8th Avenue in Chelsea. Except that men of a certain age and vintage automobiles filled the parking lot. We had stumbled upon a meeting of the local car club.



A lime green '57 Thunderbird convertible brought back memories of an aunt and uncle picking me and my mother up at Idlewild Airport when we were returning from Munich after my father's first peacetime tour of duty in Germany. Somehow, the four of us AND our luggage managed to fit in the two-seater for the ride back to White Plains. I guess Mom must have traveled a lot lighter than the Blue Light Special or the drag queen who proudly displayed a red stiletto heel in the rear window of a Caddy with fins the size of swordfish.



The Blue Light Special obligingly posed for a photo beneath the Humpy Pizza sign to document our arrival in a much warmer gay ghetto than we were accustomed to at this time of year. I think I read somewhere that the gay male population is denser in Wilton Manors than anywhere else in the country. Even more comforting, the retiree demographics in the parking lot almost made me feel like chicken.

Our guesthouse, the Cabanas was minutes away, separated from a heavily trafficked street by a wooden gate that made "clothing optional" everywhere except the area facing the canal. Two guys were sunning themselves nude outside the jaccuzi, just a few steps from our nicely appointed room. Had they been as young and semi-attractive as Barely Sober, the tipsy manager, we might have lingered after he gave us the tour. Instead, we wasted no time in requesting use of the amenity that had appealed to us a lot more than the thread count of the sheets: kayaks to tour the waterway that surrounds Wilton Manors.

The Blue Light Special delayed our actual departure by borrowing some DVDs that were separated into porn and general interest categories, with the latter having far fewer selections. Ever the porniseur, he carefully examined the packaging of each before selecting three, the maximum number allowed, while I whined that we didn't have much time before the sun set. After the amused Barely Sober made me sign for the DVDs, he helped us launch two kayaks chained to the dock and suggested that we go against the wind to make it easier on our way back.



Most of the houses had been lovingly restored and beautifully landscaped with bermuda grass, colorful flowers and palm trees. We didn't see many people but more than a few crested lizards the size of small dogs lazily sunned themselves on the concrete bulkheads and in the mangroves that lined the canals. Signs posted on the occasional highway overpasses warned motorboat operators to watch out for manatees, a species new to the Blue Light Special. Only the cries of a couple of black kids when we pulled up one of their crab pot lines to investigate and our occasional comments broke the late afternoon stillness.



With only the sun as our guide, we eventually made the mistake of asking a woman who obviously had consumed too many cocktails where, exactly, we were. She gave us directions that might have sent us to the Everglades if not for a family in a small outboard whose father gruffly informed us that we were only at the half point in our tour and steered us straight.

By this time, the sun had begun its rapid descent in the cloudless sky. We both were a little chilled and exhausted. Sightseeing gave way to finding our way back before dark which we did, barely, with some help from an attractive kayaker who smiled when he overheard our bickering about which fork in the canal to take. He seemed impressed by how far we had come already. Fortunately, our back pain disappeared as soon as we stood up straight for the first time in three hours.

I'll bet not many of the guests at the Cabanas do what we just did I observed, stretching gratefully.

The Blue Light Special decided to take advantage of the amenities offered by every guesthouse we had seen in listed in the Spartacus guide that we had consulted.

First the steam room to get nice and warm, then we'll jump in the heated pool and finish our wine in the hot tub he commanded.

I think both of us hoped the presence of a hot guy might add some excitement to our first night at the Cabanas but no other guests were present for the happy hour that had been extended slightly until our return by Barely Sober.

We dined outside at Rosie's where the Blue Light Special already had eaten and fallen in love with the quesadillas. We shared a plate of these along with a Cobb salad, gossiping about who might be HIV positive or using steroids among the other patrons, a frequent topic between us. When the wind shifted, the waiters lowered the plastic curtains that protect the patrons from the semi-tropical weather. It was time to move on to Georgie's Alibi, your standard gay video bar with a Sunday evening crowd that was drinking beer for a buck.

This crowd doesn't look anything like the one you see at tea I observed. The guys aren't as attractive and seem a lot friendlier.

The Blue Light Special agreed, possibly for the first and only time of the trip.

We stayed less than hour. After a stop for ice cream at Maggie Moo's that cost five times as much as the two beers we had drunk, we sank into bed at the Cabanas where I fell asleep even before the Blue Light Special loaded the porn.