A goodbye in the Castro

I go out to eat meze in the Castro with my single, British friend. Afterwards we hail a cab on the corner of Castro and Market to go to a bar in the Mission.

- I don't know the name of the place, my friend tells the driver. But it's a dive bar on Valencia. Or Mission. With a blinking cocktail glass outside.
- A lesbian bar?
- No, we both retort bemused. No, just an ordinary dive bar.
After trying every combination of flashing cocktail glass and pink flamingo there is on Valencia and Mission we finally find it, a flashing palm tree on Guerrero, and we pay our fair.

- Is this why I don't find a man? she asks me. Because I look lesbian?
- Honey, we were standing under the Rainbow flag, a day after Gay Pride. You could forgive him for the assumption.
- But really! Is this what it has come to?
- Maybe it didn't help that I straightened out your t-shirt neckline under your cardie as we left the restaurant, I say and we sip our Greyhounds in silence for a while before we start talking about the greatness of Twin Peaks instead. The TV drama, not the area beyond Castro.