“How do you like it here?” Bruce Benderson asked in the courtyard of the Palm Beach house which a telecommunications millionaire has entrusted in my care. His East European friends were cooking lunch. Glenn his friend was perusing Anthony Haden-Guest’s book on New York nightlife. Our mutual friend Scottie Taylor featured in several chapter. We sat drinking white wine. Palm Beach was so gentile.
“The beach is across the street. I write a lot. It’s quiet. Same as in those war movies and the soldier says, “It’s too quiet.” and then he gets killed.”
“What about bars?” Bruce wrote several books about his years of depravity in Times Square bars. One won the Prix de Flore. He’s famous enough to be Wikipedia.
I’ve tried to find a bar worth drinking in, but there’s nothing in Palm Beach or West Palm.” The other day I had driven north to Jupiter without spotting a single bar. TGIFs don’t count. “Only anywhere. What about Miami Beach?”
“You remember how it used to be seedy?” Bruce was sweating. That’s normal for Florida.
“I remember the Ace of Spades. Losers at every bar stool. We found a oz. of blow on the beach and free-based with teenage girls. Meyer Lansky’s wife hung out at Wolfie’s Deli. The hotels were cheap and the cops seemed to be always MIA and there were naked gay bars that never shut down.”
“Night was eternal amongst the naked.” Bruce was very poetic. “Not anymore. There’s not a single naked gay bar in all of Dade County.”
“Anita Bryant won.” The deposed Orange Juice spokeswoman had crusaded against the legions of gays populating Fort Lauderdale and Miami. She lost her struggle and died before she could savor the victory of righteousness over perversity.
“I wouldn’t go that far. I can can get naked.” Bruce wobbled his body in the chair.
“So can I.” At 55 I don’t dance too much and certainly not naked.
“Maybe we should open a bar. Old Guys a Go Go.”
“Can’t be any worse than Kitten’s A Go Go.” That strip bar on Belvedere has the roughest go-go dancers this side of the Alaskan pipeline. “The girls were ugly enough to make a train take a dirt road.”
“Or turn you gay?”
“Almost.” We clinked glasses and toasted Miami Beach of the past. It had been glorious. Naked boy a go gos and all that wickedness.
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