Pride

Meet us on the northwest corner of 11th Street and 7th Avenue, SC says.

Boarding the 1 train at Times Square, there are a flurry of Pridegoers along with me. A beautiful boy whose face is beat for the gods with pink and green eyeshadow, a small star on his cheek, Pucci-esque print on his torso. His girlfriends wear glitter and unicorn headbands, and some other beautiful boys further down the train show off their muscles under barely-there neon tank tops. A person wears a transgender pride flag like a cape, pink button-down shirt tied just above their navel. For the most part, we are all getting off at similar stops: 18th Street, 14th Street, and, if you’re crazy enough to attempt to make it through the crowds, Christopher Street.

I exit at 14th, taking the 13th Street exit, and am greeted not by Miss Rose at the door, but our friend Johnny Five-O. That didn’t actually happen, but I can’t resist a good Scissor Sisters reference. What did happen was that I exited into a throng of people and police barricades, everyone kitted out in neon, mesh, glitter, rainbow regalia as they always are on this particular Sunday in June, which is always New York’s biggest Pride event. I am modestly dressed in a bright red tank top--today is not my day, of course, but I am still so proud of and full of love for my queer friends and colleagues and family that to dress without color would be, I think, to do them a disservice. I am forever glad and grateful to be able to show up and support them.

It seems there are more and more young people at the parade every year in their fishnets and leather collars, rainbow tank tops and suspenders and pasties. Though there is still so much that needs to be done in terms of acceptance and equality in this country, it gives me hope that young people who want to can make their way to an event like this and feel free to be themselves. Love is love, their shirts say. Kindness is magic. Queer and proud. A smile crosses my lips and stays there.

Making my way to the corner of 11th and 7th is a task, not just for the twisty-turny nature of the streets in the West Village, but for the cascading array of rainbowed humans I will soon be joining to watch the parade. They lean against barricades in front of restaurants while brunchgoers call over particular costumed individuals and sing the praises of their outfits. They stand on benches in front of coffee shops, obscuring the windows like a human curtain. And in this maze of people I eventually find SC, in the hot pink “Fierce” tank top from our Spring 2010 dance show in college. Cardi B blasts from a float passing by and he breaks out into song and dance, the streetlamp’s electrical box acting as his partner: “Said little bitch, you can’t fuck with me if you wanted to,” each word another bump or grind. Floats throw rainbow beads and K offers us beer cloaked in a brown paper wrapper. It’s hot and I have a sip of the stuff for the first time in what must be years, my mouth thirsty for anything, even a 24oz can of Corona. It’s cold and bubbly and I remember why people drink beer again.

A few more floats pass, a few more beads are thrown. Sweat dripping from foreheads, we head to the icy cool of The Hangar, a gay bar on the west side of 7th Avenue festooned with Pride flags and televisions playing the parade. We sip tequila and soda and dance, alcohol slowly beginning to pulse through our veins along with blood. I leave to shove a Philly Cheesesteak down my gullet while sitting outside of a bodega, because I’ve only eaten half a grapefruit thus far that day. A group of teens sit next to me shouting “Happy Pride” at anyone they find attractive which, given the West Village during Pride, is a lot of people. “Y’all look fierce!” I say to the boy on my left, mid-sandwich. His hair is platinum blonde and he has the words ‘Die Alone’ tattooed on his right leg. “Thank you!” he says, as his girlfriends in rainbow stripes and short shorts dance to Cardi B’s “Bickenhead” pumping out of the speaker someone is rolling past in a red laundry cart. Soon other strangers join in on the sidewalk and there’s an impromptu dance party, with everyone shouting the lyrics in front of the bodega. “Don't matter if you fuck with me, I get money regardless.”

I go back to The Hangar, past people with a cooler selling “Diet Water,” and J buys us a shot of Fireball. I wince, because the last time I was supposed to have that was 8 years ago in college when I didn’t know better and just wanted to be drunk. But five of us shoot it just the same.

From there, we totter our way up to Chelsea gay bar Barracuda, a tiny space in what looks like it may have once been a brownstone or a clandestine front of some kind or parking garage or all of the above. Aaron Jackson from The Opposition dances next to us and I don’t say hi even though I’ve photographed him several times (he was in Broadgay, the live retelling of Sex and the City I love featuring all gay men, before he was on television/all of them got famous). We sit on a covered pool table and shimmy while we rest our feet as Prince and RuPaul and Lady Gaga play over the speakers, light so sparse it could be nighttime inside save for flashing beams of color overhead. The bar is packed to the gills with men of all stripes, some with long beards, some with the smoothest faces you’ll ever see on a living human, some wearing wigs so brightly colored you can see them even in the dark.

“Today is like Christmas and New Year’s and Halloween all rolled into one,” M says, his shirt swinging from his pants pocket. “But gay!”