Steve Perrine - June 13, 1996

Steve may be one of the reasons I moved to New York. He was a big ol' Texas boy with thick black Gaulic hair and shiny blue eyes - just a stunningly handsome man, even without the cowboy boots & jeans.
I can't even recall if I slept with Steve, or if I was just awestruck with beauty. I'm pretty sure we did sleep together some time when I was a visitor to the city and moving to the city was a step towards meeting and courting Steve or a man like Steve.
We hung out at Julius's. It was the first bar to have huge open windows onto the street. Inside was a long Victorian oak bar with a foot-rail of brass dachshunds protecting feet and briefcases. Opposite the bar was a grill which served one of the best hamburgers in the city. In the back were a few tables. It was a friendly neighborhood gay-bar: a good happy hour crowd that would meet and catch up on the news of the day; on a warm summer afternoon, there might be a couple of NYU undergrads flipping Frisbees across 10th Street; in the winter there would be coats hung three or four deep on the hooks along the wall.
On a weekend it would be busy all night as people came and went - the after work crowd, before dinner crowd, after theatre crowd, the late crowd, the night cappers … Sundays would bring the before- and after-brunch crowd.
Happy was my favorite bar-tender …
There was laughter and fun and even a some kissing. The old-timers were quick to remind the 'kids' that back in their day undercover cops used to come in and arrest people for soliciting if you so much as smiled at them.
The last time I was there was in the 90's and had become an old-timer myself. It was sad, pretty empty, only a couple of red-eyed old men, a couple of hustlers, a bouncer that looked at me like I was pervert.