Justin Torres is the author of the novel “We the Animals.”
Justin Torres is the author of the novel “We the Animals.”
If you’re lucky, they’ll play some Latin cheese, that Aventura song from 15 years ago. If you’re lucky, there will be drag
queens and, if so, almost certainly they will be quick, razor-sharp with their humor, giving you the kind of performances
that cut and heal all at once. If you’re lucky, there will be go-go boys, every shade of brown.
Maybe your Ma blessed you on the way out the door. Maybe she wrapped a plate for you in the fridge so you don’t come
home and mess up her kitchen with your hunger. Maybe your Tia dropped you off, gave you cab money home. Maybe you
had to get a sitter. Maybe you’ve yet to come out to your family at all, or maybe your family kicked you out years ago.
Forget it, you survived. Maybe your boo stayed home, wasn’t feeling it, but is blowing up your phone with sweet texts,
trying to make sure you don’t stray. Maybe you’re allowed to stray. Maybe you’re flush, maybe you’re broke as nothing,
and angling your pretty face barside, hoping someone might buy you a drink. Maybe your half-Latin-ass doesn’t even
speak Spanish; maybe you barely speak English. Maybe you’re undocumented.
Outside, there’s a world that politicizes every aspect of your identity. There are preachers, of multiple faiths, mostly self-
identified Christians, condemning you to hell. Outside, they call you an abomination. Outside, there is a news media that
acts as if there are two sides to a debate over trans people using public bathrooms. Outside, there is a presidential
candidate who has built a platform on erecting a wall between the United States and Mexico — and not only do people
believe that crap is possible, they believe it is necessary. Outside, Puerto Rico is still a colony, being allowed to drown in
debt, to suffer, without the right to file for bankruptcy, to protect itself. Outside, there are more than 100 bills targeting
you, your choices, your people, pending in various states.
You have known violence. You have known violence. You are queer and you are brown and you have known violence. You
have known a masculinity, a machismo, stupid with its own fragility. You learned basic queer safety, you have learned to
scan, casually, quickly, before any public display of affection. Outside, the world can be murderous to you and your kind.
Lord knows.
But inside, it is loud and sexy and on. If you’re lucky, it’s a mixed crowd, muscle Marys and bois and femme fags and butch
dykes and genderqueers. If you’re lucky, no one is wearing much clothing, and the dance floor is full. If you’re lucky,
they’re playing reggaeton, salsa, and you can move.
People talk about liberation as if it’s some kind of permanent state, as if you get liberated and that’s it, you get some rights
and that’s it, you get some acknowledgment and that’s it, happy now? But you’re going back down into the muck of it every
day; this world constricts. You know what the opposite of Latin Night at the Queer Club is? Another Day in Straight White
America. So when you walk into the club, if you’re lucky, it feels expansive. “Safe space” is a cliche, overused and
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exhausted in our discourse, but the fact remains that a sense of safety transforms the body, transforms the spirit. So many
of us walk through the world without it. So when you walk through the door and it’s a salsa beat, and brown bodies, queer
bodies, all writhing in some fake smoke and strobing lights, no matter how cool, how detached, how over-it you think you
are, Latin Night at the Queer Club breaks your cool. You can’t help but smile, this is for you, for us.
Outside, tomorrow, hangovers, regrets, the grind. Outside, tomorrow, the struggle to effect change. But inside, tonight,
none of that matters. Inside, tonight, the only imperative is to love. Lap the bar, out for a smoke, back inside, the ammonia
and sweat and the floor slightly tacky, another drink, the imperative is to get loose, get down, find religion, lose it, find
your hips locked into another’s, break, dance on your own for a while — but you didn’t come here to be a nun — find your
lips pressed against another’s, break, find your friends, dance. The only imperative is to be transformed, transfigured in
the disco light. To lighten, loosen, see yourself reflected in the beauty of others. You didn’t come here to be a martyr, you
came to live, papi. To live, mamacita. To live, hijos. To live, mariposas.
The media will spin the conversation away from homegrown homophobic terrorism to a general United States vs. Islamist
narrative. Mendacious, audacious politicians — Republicans who vote against queer rights, against gun control — will
seize on this massacre, twist it for support of their agendas.
But for a moment, I want to talk about the sacredness of Latin Night at the Queer Club. Amid all the noise, I want to close
my eyes and see you all there, dancing, inviolable, free.
Read more:
Charles Kaiser: Fellow gay people, don’t forget: We are a battle-hardened movement
Jonathan Capehart: A horrible day for Orlando, gay pride and U.S. history
E.J. Dionne Jr.: Will Orlando drive us from our corners?
The Post’s View: Orlando mass shooting an ‘act of terror, act of hate’
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