Roach and Molly attend the last night of an iconic watering hole as they reflect on their culture, their city, their hometown’s rapid changes, and on their friendship as gentrification strips away yet another unique place in the ever-changing San Francisco ay Area.

This story is featured in my collection of short stories entitled Short Songs, featuring characters from The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright series.

     “What are you doing?”
     “Looking at girl butts.”
     Molly rolled her eyes. “Don’t you ever think about anything besides sex?”
     “Sure. I think about violence too!”
     Molly leaned on the bar and glared at Roach. “You’re not violent. You’re sure as shit not a hothead like Skye.”
     “Skye’s not so bad,” said Roach as she picked up her drink. “I know plenty a’ people who are way easier to set off than her.”
     “Sure. I guess so. But I seen Skye break peoples’ noses.”
     Roach looked around, acting as if she wanted to change the subject as she observed the bustling crowd.
     Molly took the chance to scan the crowd. They had managed to grab a couple of stools at the bar, which was quite a feat since the entire place was packed with wall-to-wall patrons. There were so many people crowding the bar that it was difficult to move around.
     Molly sat up straight in her seat, looking at the neon signs above the back row of liquor bottles. “I can’t believe this place is shuttin’ down.”
     “How the fuck is San Francisco supposed to be San Francisco without at least one dyke bar?”
     They were in Jemily’s, a long standing and iconic lesbian bar which had recently announced that they were closing down. Molly and Roach were there for the last night of its existence, an event that was causing seismic shockwaves across the Bay Area.
     “I’ve never seen this place so packed,” said Molly as she scrunched herself into her seat in an attempt to avoid the press of the crowd. “Every dyke in a twenty mile radius must be here.”
     “The boozhie ones anyways,” snarked Roach.
     “We ain’t boozhie.”
     “The exception that proves the rule,” said Roach as she sat up straight and looked around the crowd again. “That one,” said Roach with a subtle head toss.
     “Which one?”
     “The one in the salmon top.”
     Molly squinted through her glasses while trying not to be too obvious.
     “Damn girl, just give her a good stare!” said Roach.
     “I can’t do that.”
     “Too much of a shy nerdy girl?”
     “Duh!”
     Roach leaned on the bar and brought herself right up to Molly. “You were the singer for Bus Stop Hookers, the raunchiest band in the Bay Area. You’ve screamed incredibly pornographic lyrics to giant crowds. And you’re telling me you’re shy?”
     “It’s different on stage. There it’s just… I dunno. When I’m face-to-face with someone I get a little…”
     Molly scrunched her shoulders and bit her lip.
     “Okay, yeah sure,” said Roach. “I guess I kinda get it.”
     “I’m not a player like you. But then, I’m not available.”
     Roach bumped Molly with her elbow. “Salmon top, salmon top! Take a look.”
     Molly shifted around in her seat, trying to take quick and discreet glances at the woman with long, wavy brown hair and a salmon top that looked as if it had been bought at an expensive boutique.
     “She’s cute,” said Molly.
     “Cute?” replied Roach with a wince. “She’s a killer babe. How can you say she’s just cute?”
     “Mmm… If she had dyed black hair and a few fucked up tattoos on her forearms she’d be a lot more appealing.”
     “Damn girl, they all gotta be sketchy punks for you to be attracted to ‘em?”
     “Pretty much, yeah!” said Molly as she straightened her back. “You’ve met me, right?”
     Roach could not help a grin as she rolled her eyes.
     Roach elbowed Molly. “Some girls are lookin’ at you.”
     “Where?”
     “Over by the door. They’re totally checking you out!”
     Molly picked up her drink. “They probably just recognize me.”
     Roach sat back and eyed Molly. “I know you singers don’t gotta work for it like the rest of us.”
     “Hey, who wouldn’t want to give a drummer some love?”
     “A lotta people don’t like women with guns like mine,” said Roach as she flexed her sinewy arm.
     “What the fuck are you talkin’ about? Who wouldn’t want a woman in good shape?”
     “You’d be surprised.”
     “Fuckin’ a’, Preston’s goin’ out with Miranda, and she looks like she could beat up the Terminator!”
     “Preston’s just the exception that proves the rule. He’s one a’ those rare guys that likes dangerous women.”
     “I like dangerous women.”
     “You ain’t a guy.”
     “Well, I kinda think like a guy.”
     “True enough.”
     A couple of leather and denim women with buzz-cut hair came up and talked to Molly about The Dynamite Chicks. Roach looked around as they talked, trying to decide if she wanted to find someone to flirt with, and possibly take home. She was undecided. She didn’t feel it would be totally kosher since she had come there with Molly, but she also thought it would only be proper to honor Jemily’s demise by getting some action on their last night.
     “She’s my drummer!” said Molly suddenly as she jammed a thumb towards Roach.
     “Really?” said one of the denim and leather women as if she were surprised.
     “A lot of people don’t recognize me because I’m always in the back,” said Roach.
     “It might also be because of all this muppet hair!” smiled Molly as she flounced Roach’s light brown curls.
     Roach playfully swatted away Molly’s hands. Molly kept talking to the rock and roll pair. They eventually floated away and Roach and Molly resumed looking around the crowd, trying to take in the scene.
     “Oh crap. It’s Gilby,” said Molly.
     “Who?”
     Molly rolled her eyes towards the other end of the bar. Roach spotted a thin woman with a prominent nose and an explosion of chaotic and colorful braids
     “Hey, I think I know her,” said Roach. “Wasn’t she workin’ the door at the Stork Club the other night?”.
     “Yup. That’s her.”
     “She looks like your type.”
     Molly rolled her eyes.
     “What? You’re not into her?” asked Roach.
     “She’s got a big ass crush on me.”
     “I thought most punks have a crush on you.”
     “Yeah, but she’s like, totes stalker potential.”
     “Not interested?”
     “Fuck no. She put my friend Libby through hell and then some. I already gotta preview of what that psycho can do.”
     Roach whipped her head around.”Here she comes!”
     Gilby walked up to them with hands in her pockets. Roach could tell she was trying to act casual.
     “Hey Molly,” said Gilby in an overtly friendly voice, “Fancy meeting you here!”
     “Yeah, tryin’ to be fancy I am.”
     “Who’s your friend?” asked Gilby in a contrived voice that sounded suspicious.
     “This is Roach. She’s my drummer.”
     Roach nodded in Gilby’s direction, keeping in mind Molly’s stalker potential warning.
     Gilby put a hand on Molly’s arm. “Did you see that show at The Bottom of the Hill?”
     “Mmmm… you’re gonna have to be more specific.”
     “Shonnen Knife, just last week.” Gilby moved her hand up Molly’s arm, reaching the crook of her elbow. “Oh man, you shoulda been there!”
     “If you were there,” asked Roach, “how didja not know if Molly was there?”
     Gilby squinted at Roach as she took back her hand. She turned back to Molly. “Otoboke Beaver is playing next month. You maybe wanna check them out?”
     Roach leaned into Molly. “We already got tickets through our record label.” Roach looked right at Molly. “You an’ me are goin’, right? Along with Gail?”
     Molly gave Roach a pointed look. Roach sat back and sipped her colorful cocktail.
     Gilby squinted at Roach. “Yeah, I do know you. But you’re only half a dyke!”
     “Half a dyke? What?”
     “Actually she’s more like sixty three percent dyke,” said Molly.
     “What the fuck?” she looked right at Roach. “Is that true?”
     “It actually depends on the time of day, what the weather’s like, and what kind of mood I’m in.”
     “What?”
     “Like yesterday I think I was only twenty eight percent dyke, but right now I’m more like eighty eight percent.”
     Gilby shook her head around, giving a sneer as she took a step back. “You guys are fuckin’ crazy!”
     “That’s what my exes keep tellin’ me!” said Molly loudly as Gilby disappeared into the crowd.
     Molly leaned into Roach. “Thanks for scaring her off.”
     “Psh! She didn’t need much prompting.”
     Roach looked up over the bar, looking at all of the old bottles and decorations. She had been in Jemily’s now and then, but not often enough for it to have the same nostalgic hold as just about everyone else who was there. She cast her eyes around the crowd. Everyone was drinking, laughing, and talking, but even though most people in the crowd were acting like casual barflies, she could still see it in their eyes, their expressions, in the way they were standing… The feeling of the impending loss was hanging over everyone. The wake was casting a pall in the air.
     Looking around, she spotted a few obvious signs of the somber occasion. She saw a few people in the corner hugging, full-on bear hugs as if they were saying farewell, as if they would never see each other again. Some were talking with flush faces, and a few were wiping away tears.
     Roach looked over the old bottles and beer signs as she could easily imagine seeing them like old friends, like familiar faces, like a place that could have become as comfortable as her own living room.
     She thought about her own hangouts and how so many of them were gone. Memories of The Albatross and The Nightbreak came to mind. The I-Beam, the Casa Loma, The Berkeley Square, Ruthie’s Inn, The Vis Club, and a few more long gone clubs and hangouts crossed her mind as the upper middle class tech crowd kept pushing just about everything that made the Bay Area what it once was away.
     Molly looked around the crowd as Roach spaced out on the bar’s decorations. It was true enough that most of the people there were not from their circles: the crazy punks, the moody goths and the temperamental tortured artists that made up most of their friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Molly kept an eye out for the members of her and Roach’s tribe, looking for unnaturally colored hair, facial piercings, and excessive tattoos. There were only a few such women were floating plankton like among the packed crowd.
     Molly wondered about Roach’s wandering eye for just about anyone in the place. Roach had no qualms about pursuing even women in pantsuits, the kind of woman Molly could never imagine dating. She could only imagine having careless flings with such women, and even then that idea was not appealing.
     Her eye fell on an older couple, a short woman with bobbed light brown hair with her very tall girlfriend with long silver curls. They were clutching their hands together and looking each other in the eye. They looked as if they were having a serious conversation.
     She wondered what they had gone through, being the elders in the crowd, how they were there years ago when being out was a lot riskier, when gay people were far less likely to engage in even light-hearted public displays of affection, when even just holding hands or quick kisses could get them harassed or even attacked.
     Not that she was a stranger to such harassment. Her and her partners had gotten more than a few heckles and insults hurled at them, but she knew it had to pale in comparison to what the older generation had to endure.
     She took a long look at the older couple, trying to read their expressions.
     Molly’s train of thought was interrupted When a circle of people at the other end of the bar shouted out a group cheer as they held up their shot glasses.
     “There she is,” said Roach as she leaned into Molly and narrowed her eyes.
     “Where?”
     “Long red hair.”
     Molly squinted until she saw a tall and slim woman with straight red hair going all the way down to her waist. She had pale skin and a sallow face with bright, gray eyes. She was leaning on the bar and talking to a bartender.
     “They don’t get any whiter!” said Molly.
     “That ones a monster in bed.”
     “What? You already hit that?”
     “Nu uh. Never seen her before.”
     “Then how can you tell?”
     Roach turned to Molly and raised an eyebrow. “It’s written all over her face.”
     Molly raised an eyebrow back. “Yeah, I’m not buyin’ it.”
     “Suit yourself. I’m not taken. I can still dream!”
     Molly leaned on the bar. “Doesn’t it get to be a drag though? Havin’ more than one partner? Goin’ from person to person?”
     “How y’mean?”
     Molly scrunched her shoulders. “I done a lot a’ runnin’ around, back in my Bus Stop Hooker days. Y’know, nailin’ local scrungies an’ groupies. And I got into all kinds of weird trouble. I’m just… done with it. It sounds weird, especially comin’ from me, but I just wanna have some stability, some reliability, something… Just not pinballing around all the time. That’s the reason I wanted to settle down. That’s why I just invested everything in Gail.” Molly shook her head. “I just can’t imagine being with anyone else, ever again. I just want that.”
     “Didn’t you guys have some sorta groupie orgy not too long ago, before you got married?”
     Molly looked down at the bar, looking as if she were about to blush. “We did. And it was fuckin’ weird. But we talked about it and decided it was our last hurrah for crazy rock and roll sex.”
     “Damn. The singer for Bus Stop Hookers goin’ all picket fence.”
     Molly sat back and looked around the bar with a raised eyebrow. “Doesn’t mean I can’t look.”
     “Don’t look too hard. You’ll end up in an orgy again.”
     “You get in an orgy. I’ll just watch.”
     “Like you could just watch.”
     Molly tried to suppress a grin as she looked down into her drink. Molly brought her head back up and looked around. “This is fucking bullshit. Another place going down the tubes.”
     “It’s happening at a disturbing rate.” Roach leaned into Molly. “You’ll miss this place more than me though, right?”
     “Well, I actually hung out in punk dives most of the time. But I did come around to this place often enough to miss it.” Molly took a quick glance at the older couple, who were now entangled in an emotional embrace. “Fuck this shit. If I make enough money I’m opening my own dyke bar.”
     Roach sunk onto the bar top. “Someone probably will open another lezzy waterin’ hole, eventually.”
     “Hopefully. San Francisco needs at least one dyke bar.” Molly looked around the bar once more and then leaned into Roach. “Don’t let me stop you if you wanna take someone home. I can always catch an uber.”
     “Fuck that. I ain’t gonna leave you in the lurch with alla these woman eaters. Besides, you’re my date for tonight.”
     “Yeah, don’t tell that to Gail! She’ll get all weird.”
     “Psh! Gail’s already weird. She don’t need my help.”
     Molly put her arm around Roach. “Thanks for coming along.”
     “Of course. Us weirdos have to stick together.”
     “Seriously,” said Molly as she cast a quick glance around the crowd. “We make most of these tofu eaters look like Mormon missionaries!”