From a large barn, you could hear the cows mooing and the dogs barking constantly.
I would meet more people like him when, a few weeks later, opened the best gay disco on the East Coast: Pier Nine. Located in the black ghettos, near the pier, this luxurious club represented, in the capital city, the change from hiding to openness. The place had two floors and a large dance floor with the best music in the country. Each table had a telephone to receive calls. For me, this bar became my second home. The most attractive and powerful men in the city of Washington would come and people would line up to get in, and soon, it became an addiction for me: if I didn’t get a ride, I suffered like any alcoholic without his drink.
The first thing Pier Nine sabotaged was my activism. Unlike the other members of our Association, I was immediately accepted by the elite of Washington, and I received invitations left and right.
The group from the University didn’t accept my fame. “You’ve changed for the worse,” Larry told me,
“And you’ve become superficial, only interested in attention. The worst part is that I don’t trust you anymore.” How is it that you were released from jail in half an hour? No one gets out that quickly. Don’t tell me you’re a Hoover spy. Tell me, who got you out?”
I couldn’t refute it and I never went back. I was never going to tell him who helped me. Besides, after years of being the center of ridicule, who could blame me for enjoying my fifteen minutes of fame?