Swell Zine: Gay Alsace

I was sitting, alone, at a bar in Strasbourg called le Boy, sipping a Perrier. An entourage of queens piled in. They came over and introduced themselves. To my delight, all of them were REAL Alsatians. I'd been conducting genealogical research in the city, after all, and I was anxious to know more about these distant cousins of my ancient ancestors who'd remained in the motherland all these centuries...

Besides, though two of them were overweight and one was scrawny and drawn, the other guy, François, was hot. He was also the shy one, drowned out by this boisterous circle of guys whose names I've long since forgotten.

They lost no time lighting up cigarettes and procuring drinks. Presumably, they all worked for the bar, which was owned by the same proprietor as the city's only sauna, for they took seemingly random turns going behind the counter to fix themselves drinks, ringing up their own orders at special employee prices, and collecting customers' empty glasses from around the room.

Each cruised me in turn in his own roundabout way, making me feel like some sort of American Porn King. I was the only gay thing within miles that they hadn't already seen, done and gotten bored with ages ago in the modest city near on the Franco-German border.

The heaviest guy was also the friendliest. He petted my legs and tried squeezing between them while talking to me of the restaurant near the Cathedral where he worked. His hands, though he couldn't keep them off me, were warm and gentle. He wanted sex, but he didn't seriously expect to get any, so he was happy with whatever contact I'd tolerate.

The scrawny guy was the bitchiest. He kept trying to speak in English even while violently berating the cultural stupidity of Americans and so on. He pretended to be way too over me for it to be true.

In that tiny microcosm of a gay underworld, the whole identity of the last guy-the lesser of the two heavy boys-seemed to depend upon his proximity to François and François' love interests. If François stood a chance of getting someone, he'd be there, playing the jester or the confidant or whatever role it took to get between the new specimen of man and François. "Vous êtes beau," he told me in a whisper. His eyes weren't filled with desire, but jealousy, maybe even rage.

It was for these three reasons (i.e., these three queens) that I couldn't get anywhere near François, who was leaning timidly against one of the walls behind the others. He looked terribly sad downing his third cocktail, and I fantasized that it might just be because he thought I was cute but not interested.

They asked me why I was there, and that gave me the chance I needed to touch on the Alsace story. "I'm trying to trace the exact origins of my Alsatian ancestors so I can return to the village or town they came from. I haven't had any luck finding anything specific, and it doesn't look like I ever will, but at least I learned something about Alsace, and I find the history of your region really fascinating..."

"Americans always want to dig up their roots." The scrawny one was either angry I was prying into Alsatian records or that I wasn't prying open the flaps on his button-fly jeans.

"Why is it that you're interested in where your great, great grandfather was born?" François posed the question gently, as if he wanted to actually know what I had to say in response.

"Actually, I don't know why it's important, but I feel determined to know more."

In reality, our conversation was much less directed than written dialogue can imply. It was a multi-lingual swirl clouded by alcohol and frustrated desire. They bombarded me with overlapping questions I never had time to answer, switching from French to pidgin English as their moods directed them.

When they spoke French, it sounded to me like the French of a German who has lived in Paris for 14 years. They sounded, despite their French nationalities and educations, like étrangers. To express their opinions amongst themselves, they often resorted to what must have been Alsatian, the same dialect of German they used to make smirking little comments about my glances towards François.

After only a few minutes, the big guy was practically on top of me. I looked right over him and directly into François' cowering but lovely eyes.

"Yes," he answered with a little reluctant smirk as if handing over the secret plans of a nuclear missile to the enemy. "Yes, they speak it. They also speak French."

"Do you speak it too?" Now, I was pumping out the questions, I realized. I'd have to drop back a couple of gears. He was going to think that I was interested in him only as an example of local folkloric charm. True, I wanted to establish communication with a "local" to have an insider's perspective, and with my train leaving for Paris the following morning, I didn't have much time.

I tried switching to some observations about how sad it was that the dialect was being phased out. I wanted to show my genuine interest on the subject. They all looked at me rather puzzled.

"I studied English at school while we were being encouraged to study German," confessed François. "I was never interested, but I've always liked the sound of English."

Someone said something in Alsatian and he responded in Alsatian. I supposed it was some expression that wasn't translatable into another language and had to do with the isolation of their culture. Or maybe it was something totally different--who could say but them?

Laurel and Hardy were about to leave for some disco and they invited me to come along. For what purpose if not to keep me away from François, I can't imagine. I refused, and my biggest admirer persisted--"Oui! Viens!"--as he pawed me continuously. Finally I told him he was getting to be a pain in the ass. I immediately regretted my harshness as he slunk out with his skinny pal, his downcast eyes resigned to a profound, eternal despair.

It was the same look I'd seen on the faces of more than a few Alsatians since my arrival less than twenty-four hours earlier: On the face of the woman who served me a quiche with meat in it after I'd asked her for one without any. On the face of the man who tore the tickets at the door of the squeaky-clean and under-attended Alsace Museum. On the face of the woman at the counter of the Archives Départementales when she learned that I wasn't yet listed in her system and that she'd have to break out the initiation forms.

I was left with the only slightly less corpulent friend and François, who told me the thing he liked least about Alsace was the Alsatians. They were "difficult." He didn't go into any more details. He was Alsatian himself, after all, and the same despair was stamped across his face as he downed another gin and tonic. Yet he looked, talked, and held himself more like a Frenchman than any of the others. He could go to le Queen in Paris on a Saturday night and actually stand a chance at meeting someone. For the moment, however, he was here with the remaining bar buddy watching over his every move. He went to the toilet as if to escape.

"You're really cute," said the last of my flattering new acquaintances. He didn't waste one second to try and rip me away from François.

"Oh, yeah?" I offered with as much indifference as possible, then, just to put to rest, once and for all, any doubts he may have had about where my interests lay, I added, "You know, François seems sad."

"François thinks you're very, very cute, and he knows that I think so too, so of course he's sad." He sort of winked at me as if trying to elicit a complicity that I would chose him over François, though he knew I couldn't possibly be interested. His eyes were pinched with anger, even under the fluttering lashes.

When François came back, I announced my departure. He'd be leaving soon as well, he said. "Well, good night then," said the smirking friend with a gloating finality.

Instead of taking advantage of my leaving to follow me as I sensed he wanted to, François lingered in the bar as if out of obligation to his clinging "friend." The now familiar local stamp of resignation swelled his eyes with despair. I went back to my hotel and slept, disappointed, but too tired of the whole dance to let it keep me from sleeping, from catching my train back to Paris in the morning.

Don Bapst (www.donbapst.com) is the author of three novels and numerous dramatic works. A frequent contributor to blue magazines (www.studiomagazines.com), he served from 2005-2006 as the editor of SWELL.

Photo by Cody Snow