5 Hours at The Black Party
by Doug Repetti
1:30am: As seven friends and I stroll up to the line pouring out of Roseland Ballroom, it seems inevitable that this group will be forced to split up. Ideally, you show up to The Black Party with one other person, your anchor throughout the night. Three's company, four is cumbersome and anything over is just downright retarded. We've chosen to go full retard.
Immediately, we're divided by the have and have-nots: ticket holders to the left, everyone else to the right. I spy a beautiful boy in line who works out at my gym. We've been eyeing each other the way a fat man eyes a ham sandwich for the past two months. We exchange a look; enter prospect #1.
Half my friends have tickets. I managed to score a comp by once again whoring my naked body out to the Saint at Large for one of their flyers. No snakes involved this time—just a top hat and a sweet boy that I used as a human piano bench.
A man who sits behind glass and looks like Santa Claus searches for my name on a piece of paper. I see it says VIP next to it and I get excited. Free water and Red Bull for me and my buddies all night! He hands me my ticket and—temporarily inflated with the knowledge that I am VIP—I head for the final gate to Sodom.
I notice that the four or so people ahead of me have the same kind of ticket. I get suspicious.
"Is this a VIP ticket?" I ask the man at the door.
"No, this is a regular ticket."
"Excuse me, I'll be right back." I turn back around and Santa Claus has a small line gathered in front of his window. I wait. I politely explain myself.
"You have to go out and walk around the block to the 53rd Street entrance for VIP," he tells me. What? What kind of cockamamie bullshit is this? My friends are all inside already. I'm not walking around the fucking block! Defeated, I go in the regular entrance, instantly stripped of my VIP-ness.
1:50am: Three of my friends who had to buy tickets are waiting for me in the dimly lit entrance. The music rushes at me like a cacophonous banshee. I instantly adjust the volume of my voice +6 dB to be heard.
"You're not going to believe this. We just walked right in!" one friend exclaims. Nice.
A girl with her breasts exposed is writhing on a table.
"Hey look, she's this year's version of you!" my friend says.
I think back fondly on last year's party, standing in the entrance in a jock strap holding a seven-foot python like some demented version of Mickey Mouse at the entrance to The Magic Kingdom.
She's no me, I think.
2:00am: On the way downstairs, I pass a 90s porn star. In my late teens I worked at a junky video store in my hometown of Newark, Delaware. Our collection of gay porn was massive. The man I just passed was one of the first porn stars I'd ever spilled a load to. If it still exists, that VHS tape is probably sticky with my 18-year-old fingerprints.
The 90s porn star is wearing a thong and his body appears to be covered with glue-on rhinestones. He's mincing and caterwauling and tripping up the stairs as he calls out to people he knows. I look away.
We're standing downstairs between coat check and the bathroom, waiting for friends to check their things. The ropes set up to direct the coat check line seem superfluous; it's an unseasonably warm night and very few people have coats. People aren't wearing much of anything actually. A sea of mostly well-sculpted bodies streams past me. I keep my shirt on, thinking it might make me stand out.
I'm totally ready to flee to the dance floor, but a friend waiting to check his coat has something of mine stuffed in his underwear. I would have stuffed it in my own, if I was wearing any.
A quick pee is in order—it's far too early in the night to just let it rip on the nearest piss pig— before we venture back upstairs. A line leads up to the bathroom entrance where an African American woman in her mid-50s sits next to a tray of candy, the look on her face indicating that every second here is like an eternity in hell for her. A line 5-people deep extends behind each urinal; except for the first one, which is in such plain sight of everyone that apparently it is only for guys with big cocks who aren't pee shy.
I see someone I know peeing at the urinal in front of me. He doesn't see me. He's too focused on what he's doing.
"You ready to get fucked tonight, boy?" I whisper in his ear in my most gravelly baritone.
He turns around, a look of alarm melting into a smile.
2:10am: My posse regroups upstairs. We encounter the first “strange live act” of the evening: Between the dance floor and the first bar is a man—I should say boy; he doesn't look a day over 25—completely suspended by his own flesh on steel hooks, quite thicker but not much bigger than those one might use to catch a large fish. Blood trickles from his wounds. A woman stands next to him, her purpose in this scenario somewhat vague.
The dance floor is enticingly close. We all get our disposable foam earplugs out. When it comes to partying, we don't fuck around. This is serious business.
It's my friend Mike's first time at The Black Party. He came from Boston to stay with me just for the event. I want to make sure he has a good time.
So I become alarmed when he gives me a pained look and points to his ear, saying, "I think I pushed my earplug in too far."
He turns his head for me to see, only he's shoved it so far in I can't even see the fucking thing! It's a Ralph Wiggum moment.
I can tell he's panicking.
"Don't worry we'll get you some help," I tell him.
2:25am: We find the Med Event "Tent"—basically a brightly lit storage room off the opposite side of the dance floor. The EMTs have already strapped someone into a chair. He looks catatonic.
I explain to one of the paramedics what happened.
"Oh, we got a tool for that!" he says. Mike sits in a chair while the paramedic uses a ridiculously long pair of tweezers to fish out the earplug. We all clap. It's surreal and wonderful.
One of my friends whispers in my ear, "She just got here and she's already in the fallout tent. Mess!"
2:30am: Thrust back into the pulsing darkness, two members of the group split off. It's an organic process. I'm barely aware they're gone when another friend mentions they went off to explore a bit and will catch up with us later. There's a twink on an elevated platform on the corner of the dance floor. Within a 5'x10' wooden frame he's building what appears to be a giant spider web made from leather strings. At the moment though he's standing in front of it, not doing much of anything. I need a drink.
2:45am: We've managed to muscle our way to the back of the bar in a room off to the side. It's packed to the gills with all different types of gays—young, old, cute, not-so-cute, juiceheads, twinks, masters, slaves—most of them shirtless with some sort of leather strapped accoutrements.
Shamelessly, I pull the magic elixir my friend had previously stashed in his underwear from the pocket of my white cargo shorts (I chose them for comfort as well as irony) and begin dispensing it into cups we've snatched from a stack off the bar. We add a bit of Gatorade, have a toast and head for the dance floor.
3:00am: The music is dark. Barely any vocals, just black women whispering about God knows what. The beat is maddeningly repetitive, layers and layers of the same loops for 30 minutes straight, some of the loops disappearing to reveal sounds deep within the track, low ambient tones at the bottom and sweet high-pitched noises filling out the top.
A man with a really nice ass and a huge dick stands high above the dance floor at the edge of the mezzanine. His face is painted and bright lights illuminate his performance. He strokes his semi-hard cock and does a little turn to show us his ass again. He seems to be trying not to look at the audience—total detachment. He looks bored and, in turn, so am I. I guess there's a reason people make a pumping, jerk-off motion with their fist as a crass way to indicate disinterest.
When I refocus my attention on the dance floor, Mike is gone.
"He went to get some water," one friend tells me.
"He went to hunt for cock," another interjects.
I feel relieved knowing that he's doing anything but standing around looking miserable, which is mostly what he's done since having the earplug removed.
Suddenly, I feel a warm hand on my butt. It's the boy from the gym! He's quite short but also quite strong as he pulls me into him with aggressive precision.
We exchange names and various pleasantries. As I suspected, he's from Israel. The energy between us is raw and unpredictable and if I decided to ram my tongue down his throat at that moment, I don't think he would object. I think I just might when someone taps him on the shoulder from several feet away.
I scowl. Cockblocked in the first degree! I know the boy who has so rudely interrupted us. I unintentionally blew him off about a year ago. But perhaps this is no act of malice. Perhaps he just wants to talk to his friend. All I know is that the hot Israeli boy from the gym has now turned away, his attention is now on our mutual friend, the cockblocker.
3:30am: My attention is refocused on my friends. We dance in a circle. I feel a bit a like Charlie Brown in a Peanuts cartoon, but less joyful. My pill hasn't kicked in and I conclude that it must be fake. I reach for the backup in my back pocket, a little red star-shaped Flintstones vitamin-lookin’ thing I picked up at last year's Black Party and have had stashed in a shoebox under my bed ever since. My friend helps me remove the saran wrap and I kneel in front of him while he places it on my outstretched tongue like Holy Communion.
Within five minutes I feel a lot happier, indicating not that the new pill is working but that the first pill was indeed real and just took forever to kick in.
My friend has decided it's time to smoke a cigarette. I quit smoking years ago but decide now is as good a time as any to relapse.
3:45am: We've made our way past the public sex area behind the dance floor— slings and things all set up and completely vacant. The air is crackling with tension, but for the most part it's just people standing around waiting for something to happen. My experience with this kind of scene is that the people who do it came with the intention of doing it, so when the timing's right… Usually it's a bunch of un-douched bottoms getting fucked so you know it's happening by the rank smell wafting up from the darkened corners.
We've had to cross over the stage, which has piles of flattened cardboard boxes on it. Several have been assembled and lined up towards the front. A line of five or so twinkish go-go boys are assembled in front of the boxes. No one really seems to be sure what their intentions are, including them, but damn if they don't put the ass in assembled!
Finally, we're outside; herded like cattle behind steel gates that form a makeshift smokers' area on the sidewalk, barely able to contain the 25 or so people out there. We're surrounded by famous Broadway theaters. The closest marquee is for Sondheim on Sondheim. We all agree that no on else can convey emotion in a five-note phrase like Sondheim. A conversation ensues about the ridiculous plot of Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. The consensus is that Webber is a hack. This is definitely the gayest conversation you could have at The Black Party, and it suddenly unites a group of five other shirtless guys next to us. Suddenly we're all united in this wonderful, fraternal way that you're supposed to feel united at The Black Party, only it's not through sex, just a simple faggy conversation about musical theater.
4:00am: After unsuccessfully trying to sneak up to the mezzanine which is completely reserved for VIP this year (later in the evening one of the security guards was purportedly receiving a blowjob, allowing anyone who wished to sneak into VIP to do so), we return to the hub of activity: the dance floor.
I lead us through the thick of it, gently groping and patting as I go. The energy in front of the stage is different than on the edges. The men dancing here are aggressively bumping into each other. It's like a mosh pit. I feel like I'm at a punk rock show, full of adolescent homoerotic angst. Truthfully, I'd rather be around men who know how to convey sexual interest a little more subtly, men who are acutely aware of their bodies and the space they occupy, men who know how to dance. So I lead us through the seething mass to the periphery once more.
My posse begins to further disintegrate. My roommate bids us goodnight and two other friends split off to, well, hunt for cock.
It's just me and my buddy Mike. Mike is hot. He's total three-way bait and I don't think either of us would mind getting into a little trouble. The intricacies of finding suitable partners for group sex seem simplified at The Black Party. Everyone is essentially on the make, couples are ready to experiment, there's a sea of hot men to choose from and, for the most part, they're all high.
4:20am: I spy a boy who broke my heart a couple years ago. He didn't mean to. We dated a bit, had a good time, he just wasn't that into it. He's the life of the party and knows it. Mike and I go over and say hi. He's eyeing Mike up and down. I would be willing to just stand in the corner and watch, I swear.
I decide to let them get to know each other better and make an excuse about wanting one of the free towels they're giving out at the entrance.
But after a thorough investigation, I find there are no more free towels! I run into this guy who dated my ex right before I did. He asks what happened. I tell him. It's totally weird and awkward. Nobody wants to be having this kind of conversation at The Black Party and somehow I'm smack dab in the middle of it.
5:15am: I'm hovering around a corner of the dance floor where all the muscle boys seem to have converged. If the matching theory is true, and I suspect it is, then these guys are the proof. It's a little of oasis of beauty. A friend from the bar scene is dancing next to me, playing with a laser pointer. It's not one of those dinky little red ones though; it's a high-powered green one with multiple settings. He demonstrates by shining a single beam of light across the room. It hits the ceiling and bounces off. If you didn't know any better, you'd think it was coming from one the $2,000 machines set up around the dance floor.
He lets me try. I use a setting that creates a hundred pinpoints of light, swirling it over the nearby crowd. They glance at me with saucer-eyed curiosity, momentarily startled out of their trance and then quickly slip back into it when they see it's just a guy with a laser pointer.
5:40am: Mike finds me. I guess the sparks weren't flying between him and my former fling. Oh well, there goes that potential three-way. A friend and his boyfriend—both of them adorably hot—finally show up and much hugging and conversation ensues. I ask them to make out so I can watch. It's beautiful to watch them kiss. It's passionate. It's the hottest, realest kissing I've ever seen. They're so in love it would make me sick with envy if I wasn't so high.
We look toward the stage and see that the cardboard boxes have been stacked into a massive wall, climbing impossibly toward the ceiling.
In his most sibilant, faggiest voice, my friend says, "Oh my God! Maybe they're going to break it down like they're breaking through the barriers of social hatred and prejudice!"
Of course they are. Of course they are.
6:15am: The music has become almost unbearable, despite of the drugs. Lady Gaga is telling us to show her our teeth. That's about it though. There's no melody, no emotion, just that one random phrase, uttered over and over. "Show me your teeth."
I understand that this is what The Black Party is supposed to be though. It's not about emotion. It's about masculinity. We live in a society that has decided that to show or feel emotion is inherently effeminate. Inherently queer. We're at a party that's supposed to celebrate being queer, but does it by celebrating the rawest component: the sex, the mere act itself.
The contradictions seem obvious to me. Why isn't anybody else here seeing them?
"You had enough?" I ask Mike. He nods. I take his hand and we venture out into the cool, orange-blue hue of a Manhattan sunrise.
I'm just glad we got out of there before the tranny
on stage shit on that poor go-go boy.
