I. Years ago, I was in a new city and got introduced to a couple of colleagues-to-be during a “get to know everyone” tour of my pending new job. We talked for a bit about work matters, and then the discussion turned more personal. I was planning to move to this new city for the job and they were extending some hospitality to me while subtly feeling me out at the same time.
“So ...” said one of them. “Do you like ... line dancing? There's this place we go that has it on Friday nights, maybe you'd like to come sometime?”
Well, here's the thing. I most certainly do not like line dancing. I generally find it creepy. It looks to me like a bunch of humans simultaneously being remote-controlled by the same mildly evil puppet master.
But. Despite my ridiculously non-existent gaydar, I somehow immediately picked up that their question wasn't about line dancing at all, not really - but instead about them trying to figure out if I'm of the, um, Sapphic persuasion.
“Well, sure. I'm kind of uncoordinated, and I don't know that I would actually be able to line dance, but I would for sure be into going along anyway. What's the place like?”
And so they told me about The Lark. The local LGBT dive. Bar. Hangout. Whatever.
My fellow "line dancers" and others, please follow me below the fold
II. I never got into the Friday night line dancing, but I did love The Lark. It was on a desolate road in the midst of industrial bleakness, and if you didn't know what it was you'd mistake it for something else. Or at least I would.
Located in a city that was not particularly welcoming to gay people, it was filled with all manner of our kind and all sorts of happenings.
There was the really old blind man who would bop around the dance floor with the same steps over and over no matter what the music. There was the drunk, impassioned woman who brought her grown children to play pool with her the first time I met her, and told me, in all seriousness, the funniest story I have probably ever heard. I saw her months later, sober, dressed up, escorting a date around the place.
There were the two bears, one big and blond, one tiny and dark, wearing identical leather lace-up vests with no shirts underneath, waltzing together and exchanging the googly-eyed glances of a couple madly in love. There was the older woman who tried to pick me up on my way to the bathroom by telling me about the great tracts of land she owned in the mountains (it didn't work).
There was the painful karaoke, presided over by an always-irritated master of ceremonies with a scathing edge of scorn in every word. The was the best Cher impersonator I have ever heard (well, to be fair, he was the only Cher impersonator I've ever heard, but he was GOOD!)
There was the night that someone - perhaps one of the owners perhaps not, I don't know - begged and begged me and my friends to sing karaoke "to save the bar." Apparently it was a dire situation that only us singing karaoke could remedy. I really didn't get the logic (and to this day I don't get it), but my friends dutifully got up and gave it a go. I shirked my civic duty because I have princess ears and couldn't be that close to so many different strands of off-key. But they succeeded - since The Lark remained in business after that night, I guess they were its saviors that night. Somehow. I guess.
And so much more.
III. But most of all, I loved the three pool tables. I generally don't drink, so the bar area wasn't my thing. But not far from there was - free pool! A table was usually either available or just about available, we were surrounded by family – what could be better?
Now for the sake of journalistic integrity (or something like that), I need to mention that I suck at pool. I mean I really suck, like watch-out-the-ball-might-bounce-off-the-table-and-hit-you-in-painful-places bad.
The Lark was the birthplace of Anarchy Pool. Me and my friends are its parents.
Anarchy Pool: Hit any ball no matter what its markings, try to get anything into any pocket (yes the cue ball counts) and why even try to call it?
It's an awesome game. You can tell a lot about someone by how they respond to Anarchy Pool. One of my friends just flowed with it. Another would start to twitch and give advice about the right way to play because being without rules stressed her out.
Many years later, in another city, I met a woman who took to Anarchy Pool immediately, got the spirit, played like a perfectly unschooled anarchist – and I only found out later that she was actually a pool shark who had won money defeating grown men at pool when she was a child. (I would like to say her graceful understanding of the spirit of Anarchy Pool had nothing to do with why I later slept with her, but I have to be honest, you know?)
IV. The Lark was an unpretentious, diverse place – a place that is, years later, my own personal gold standard for what a LGBT dive should be. I played bad pool there, danced there, ogled a colleague who I could have sworn was straight until she came to The Lark with us one night, took my first girlfriend there, and always felt at home in that space.
I haven't found anything like it since I left the area in 2003.
This past summer, my wife and I traveled hundreds of miles moving from one state to another. We made the trip three times and The Lark's city was on our route. I wanted to take her to the place, but it never quite worked out with the travel logistics.
We've recently been talking about a future that might include this route again sometime. And one of the things I said is, “Great! I can finally take you to The Lark!”
V. The other day, I got back in touch with a friend from that area. She told me that The Lark is not only closed now, but that the building is actually being torn down.
I know I shouldn't be so sad about this. It's only a place. And apparently it has not been so great of a hangout in more recent years, according to my friend. And as for me, I haven't been there for years, and I couldn't even get it together to visit when I was nearby recently.
But I am sad that it's gone.
I could probably say something here about the importance of certain kinds of gay spaces. And I do feel pretty strongly about that. But all I can really think to say right now is -
Rest in Peace, Lark. You have been and will be missed.