I had never been in a hurricane before, and I am not ashamed to say I was sufficiently nervous. After all, hurricane Frances, the forecasters told us for up to a week before she hit, was to be the biggest hurricane to pummel Florida in more than a decade.
But I was trying not to get unduly worried. Don't worry, just prepare, I kept telling myself.
So there I was standing in the local Home Depot with a 'hurricane preparedness' list in my hands that I had gotten off of one of those Web sites aimed at people like me, who'd never been in a storm of this magnitude before, and had no idea what to do.
It was Thursday afternoon, and at the time, the weather forecasters were calling for Frances to touch down on land sometime Friday.
We didn't know at the time that Frances was going to stall out in the Atlantic, at times coming to an actual standstill before hitting our coast sometime that Sunday.
So there was a sense of urgency, bordering on panic, at the home improvement store, as everyone grabbed as many 10-packs of batteries and five-gallon water jugs and flashlights and candles as they could fit into their carts.
Like everyone else, I was running around trying to get all the items on my list checked off, although I suspect I looked a little more frazzled than most other shoppers, who, it appeared to me at least, had actually been through a hurricane and knew what they were doing.
_____
I had never had to board a place up with plywood before, and I wasn't quite sure just how to go about doing it. If I dress right and posture myself correctly and don't talk too much, I can pull off butch in the local gay bar. But when it comes right down to it, I am more Martha Stewart Living than This Old House.
I knew I needed a drill of some sort, and special nails that go into concrete walls. But I didn't know the nails were called tapcons, or that I had to have a special masonry bit to fit the drill for this purpose.
I learned this only after swallowing my pride, and throwing myself at the mercy of a store worker who, my gaydar told me, would 'understand' my ignorance on these issues.
He was a big, strong man, with a blonde beard and blue eyes that smiled patiently at my blundering questions in a way that somehow made me feel safer. It was as if he was telling me, in some secret gay language that we all share but never quite speak, that it was OK, he understood.
After scouring the shelves and coming up with the last package of tapcons, my Home Depot helper informed me that the store was all sold out of drills, except for heavy-duty macho ones that cost somewhere around $400.
As he was explaining this to me, he paused, and his eyes seemed to smile even wider at me. He was about to give me my first taste of gay hurricane humor. I should have known that even faced with the worst of natural disasters, we as gay and lesbian people could keep a collective sense of humor about our own survival.
Later, I would think about that more, and I have since come to believe it is a gift we have, maybe one we've developed over the years as we've invented ways to survive daily in hostile, man-made climates.
But at the moment, I wasn't thinking about anything more than surviving Frances. Maybe that's why I was taken a little off guard when he leaned toward me and almost whispered, 'Don't you have anyone you can borrow a drill from? You don't know any lesbians?'
This time, we both smiled.
He turned out to be right. I use my cell phone to call a few friends—half a dozen gay guys, and a lesbian. She was the only one with a drill.
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The day the hurricane hit and passed, I got another reminder that even in the worst of times, there is a gay sensibility that buoys us and sees us through even the most difficult times.
We were still getting bands from hurricane Frances with strong wind gusts and downpours when a friend called on Sunday afternoon and insisted we both get out of our respective homes.
We'd been cooped up for at least two days, and we had cabin fever.
But as we drove around the city, it was clear that the electricity was out just about everywhere. Almost nothing was open.
We knew if anything would be open on a day like this, just what it would be: the gay bars.
We swung by the Jackhammer, a gay bar that is normally packed for Sunday 'tea dance.' A note was taped to the door: 'We will open at 5:30 today!'
When I got to the bar at about 7 p.m. that night, there was still no power. But there was certainly electricity.
Candles glowed up and down the bar, and bartenders carried little flashlights so they could see money and make change in the open cash register.
Beers were stacked in coolers of ice, and doors were propped open to try to get air passing through the place. A battery-operated boom box provided the background beat as shirtless men happily pressed against one another.
It was hot, but it didn't matter.
The storm had passed and we were here, together, and celebrating.
It reminded me of the day after Christmas, when the bars are packed with gay men who have just spent all the time they can take with their families, and just need a healthy dose of being around other gay people.
The mood was festive, and certainly there was sexual energy in the air, too.
And another gay man was about to remind me once more that, even during a hurricane, we could maintain a sensibility—and sense of humor—of our own.
'Hi,' the handsome man said as he shook my hand in introduction. 'I have air conditioning at home. What's your name?'
