Bertrude two hours ago, before I went off to bed: “By the end of the weekend, you’re, like, so cleaned out, and all the tops are so tired of pushy bottoms, not giving them what they want, and they’re so grateful.” Bertrude holds forth on the alleged complexities of topic number one, yet again. I think his mind is slowly turning into a mishmash of simplistic generalities: There are only two categories of gay men, tops and bottoms. Tops can’t get what they want. All bottoms are pushy. (That one’s a direct quote.)

Reductionist Bertrude, trapped in a binary world where gay men’s only value is their sex. Tops and bottoms. The beautiful and the ugly. The deserving and the undeserving. The hunter and the game. You get the idea? With a meat-market mindset like that, he’s well on his way to turning into just another lonely gay bigot.

And that’ll be the real end of his weekend. Because no one likes to talk to a tired old crank except other commiserating old cranks. And by then, they’re all too tired, old, and cranky to sniff each other’s butts. (If they “had” each other back in the day, there’ll be nothing left to excite them about each other now. And if they didn’t … well, girls don’t f*** their girlfriends. That’s a rule, too. And Bertrude’s world is filled with nothing if not rules.)

So, at the end of their long, lost weekend, they find themselves with nothing left to do but flap their gums, drink their poison, and wonder what brought the world to its present sorry state. They’ll disparage the young (meanwhile coveting their energy and beauty), but then they’ll turn that jaded jawboning into a lip-lock around the local gloryhole because that’s the only place they can get laid anymore. Kind of a weary and selfish interpretation of “service to Mankind,” but so it goes.

And thus the old queen is reduced to nothing but a mouth, yet no one wants to hear her pontificate anymore. So, Bertrude, it’s the same lesson at the end of your long, lost weekend that you learned at twelve: suck, don’t blow. But don’t despair, dear, someone might yet throw you a bone, especially if you take out those dentures … just keep your lips sealed. Your withered stock will rally for fifteen minutes of funhouse fame before the seller shoots down your throat and cashes out. You’ll yet get a glimmer of the attention you crave, but no one will want to hear you whining about your lonely, horny ass then, trust me. They won’t even nod to you later when they pass you on the street.

The market has closed. You’re so cleaned out.

A car pulls up at 3:27, stereo bass booming. Must be one of those tops in heat sniffing out Bertrude’s pushy, busy bottom. Carpe poonem. Make hay where the sun don’t shine.

And so it goes.

--Bill