Going out tonight?

A wistfully gay tale of crappy stereos and Christmas lights

Imagine if you had some ongoing reason to meet up with other people, but those meetings had to be secret to keep you safe. Perhaps you have some business with like-minded folks that other people dislike for whatever reason. That others might even think should be illegal and have passed laws to make it so. If this business were very important to you — perhaps even the difference between living or miserably dying — what would you do? Would you go ahead with your secret meetings? Would you still try to fall in love?

The first time I ever danced with another man was in a hotel conference room at a Ramada Inn in Billings. Back in 1984 there were no gay bars in Montana, or Wyoming, or Idaho, or the Dakotas, though there were old and unverified rumors about the basement bar of the Crystal Lounge downtown along with an apocryphal place in Great Falls known as Toad Hall. So, in the early 1980s, some local gay and lesbian folks founded the Yellowstone Lambda Alliance (YLA). Among other social services, YLA ran monthly events where gay and lesbian people could meet, have a drink, dance, and otherwise do the exact same things straight people took for granted anytime they went out to any of several dozen bars and nightclubs across town. At these YLA dances, lesbian and gay people could do anything except make love. That was illegal, even if you got a hotel room. So-called “sodomy,” the ancient and biblically inaccurate religious term for sexual contact between two people of the same sex, was still a felony at the time in Montana and many other states. Not a misdemeanor, but a felony. Which is a fact many tend to forget: that making love meant jail time for many Americans, within our own lifetimes.

In May of 1984, I came out among a circle of friends I had known much longer than I had been willing to publicly admit the truth of myself. Throughout my life up to and including the 1980s, simply looking “gay,” much less acknowledging the fact, risked open violence in places like Montana, just as it still does in Africa, Russia, and similar zones. The following month, one of my oldest friends invited me to the dance, and to dance with him, in a drab beige hotel ballroom. The song “Jump” by the Pointer Sisters is now forever burned into my mind.

For the record, I preferred Boney M’s “Rasputin” that legendary night. Playing the following for a certain set of friends — the Group knows who they are — remains evocative. Thank you, Wolfgang.

By the following summer of 1985, for reasons lost to history, the YLA dance venue had changed from the Ramada Inn to the Billings Rod and Gun Club. A fact of history which would no doubt terrify some of that venerable shooting institution’s members to this very day. Yet the long log dance hall still featured on their newsletter logo would be hung once a month with Christmas lights. Disco and country tunes would be played in careful alternation on a crappy stereo brought in for the occasion. And, amply stiff drinks would be poured for handsome women and beautiful men who dared to dance among themselves as their hearts and loins might be drawn. Just like any other nightclub in town, for a night. That next August I went back to college again, a few stories the wiser.

By the next summer of 1986, the monthly dances had become a weekly event being run for some combination of love and profit by the scion of a local longtime family pizza joint. On Friday nights (only) at 9pm, long sheets of butcher paper would be taped over the big streetside windows of Casa de Pizza downtown on First Avenue. From that hour until 2am, in exchange for a stiff five dollar cover charge, you could flirt and chatter with a glass of a beer among folks who felt the same way you did about how bodies may bump in the night. The dance floor was off in a tiny back room. The stereo was crappy and yes, there were Christmas lights. I went back to college that fall with a few more stories and friends.

During the later 1980s, the Casa de Pizza events wound down, and local community nightlife migrated to a short-lived bar known as Calamity Jane’s. This one was way out west of town on the furthest reaches of Grand Avenue. I never made it to this place on a summer break but its after-hours parties were notorious in later years. I have no idea how it was decorated inside. Possibly Christmas lights, but this bar was tied in with the theater crowd in town, so they may well have had Klieg lights available. I am sure the stereo was crap.

By the summer of 1990, however, lesbian women, gay men, and trans folk, if there were any among us so identified, finally had two nights a week open for going out, not just one. A crusty old gal who owned a big cinderblock country western and polka dancing bar out on the Huntley Road east of Billings, known as The Corral, had quietly begun welcoming people like us on Friday and Saturday nights. The dance floor was huge, the stereo was crappy, as were the Christmas lights, but that never slowed the roll. Everyone was welcome so long as you were cool with the homos and stayed on the right side of Robin, the big bear of a gal who ran the bar. She kept her softball bat handy. People would compete for whose mix tape played next and whether the country to disco balance was in proper alignment with the night’s stars.

One of these nights a fancily dressed couple, he in a black and silver snap-buttoned western shirt and matching boots, she in a black and silver lace-covered beehive hairdo and matching crinoline skirt, showed up expecting a very different crowd than they found. The Corral did not play polkas on these nights, and only every other tune at most was country western. These two gamely twirled a few two-steps to The Cure and Dead or Alive before finishing their bourbon and moving on. They had a county full of bars and nightclubs to choose from. We had The Corral two nights a week, and we were not inclined to give these up.

The Damron Guide, a longstanding annual pocketbook listing of gay and lesbian bars across the nation, rarely provided more than a name, address, phone number, and a couple of style and atmosphere codes for any bar, location, or organization. Yet, The Corral Bar warranted one of its publisher’s rare italicized editorial descriptions: “The Corral in Billings, Montana, is a cultural experience not to be missed” (Just a reference photo below, I do not own a copy.)

Word would go around late in the evenings as the 2am closing time approached about whether the Billings Police had set up one of their periodic road blocks to catch and harrass “drunk fags” on the way back into town. Come closing time, Corral Bar regulars knew to keep an eye out for whether the car leaving the parking lot in front of you turned left, the short way back into town, or right, the longer way via Huntley and over to the Interstate. People with secrets learn how to stay safe.

In the late 90s, the old gal who owned The Corral sold her liquor license to fund her retirement. A local gay couple, tired of enduring long drives and roadblocks just to have a drink and a twirl among friends, chose to open a bar of their own. For about a decade, downtown Billings had had an oddly small Wendy’s Hamburgers franchise in an old office building on Second Ave. One summer I came home for a visit and learned Wendy’s Downtown had morphed into a small and lively bar calling itself The Loft. Presumably for the upstairs balcony area where most everyone dancing on a given night had once munched a burger on some high school afternoon. The stereo was not crappy and the lighting system was good for the size and locale.

On the wall across from the bar hung a framed, sepia tone photo of two men in old fashioned hats gently holding hands. It was an old poster from The Raven, a longstanding gay bar in Anchorage, Alaska. One of the men had his leg swung over the leg of the other man, adding an intimate whimsy for a photo of its age. Underneath the photo was a caption, “We have always been, and we will always be.” I never missed catching a glimpse of this photo when grabbing a drink from the bar.

The Loft became the longest-lasting gay bar the Northern Rockies have ever known. After several years downtown in the former burger joint they moved to a far larger location way out on First Avenue near the Yellowstone County Fairgrounds. To the shock of any local homo over a certain age, The Loft took over the former 17 Bar. In the 1970s and earlier, the 17 was where bikers and cowboys went to drink and fight. You could reliably see a few Harleys lined up out front when driving into town that way. Knowing “The 17” turned into a gay bar, and stayed that way for over 20 years, has done more than a few old homo hearts some giggling good.

The Loft closed last year after twenty-six years in business. Over the past twenty years or so, American culture has changed dramatically, though slowly enough that most young LGBT folks have almost no sense for how very different the western world is than thirty years ago. LGBT people can now not only meet, hold hands, and even kiss in public, but have the same legal rights straight people take for granted. We cannot be fired for who we are. We could when I was practicing law. We can marry who we love. We could not until ten years ago. We can make love without going to jail. That only came true in Montana in 1997. Our dollars are now welcomed in nearly all bars and restaurants, even if some may be more welcoming than others. And, like straight people, we can now try to find love by sitting alone and swiping through apps that track and sell our most intimate secrets to their advertisers.

Is that better than Christmas lights and a crappy stereo?