I Wanna Dance With Some Bros

It’s 2a.m. and I am almost-drunk on tequila shots and whatever kind of obscure craft beer the man standing in front of me in the aesthetically artful bar on the Lower Eastside has bought for me. We have been talking about art and he is asking me what I like about Jackson Pollock.  I don’t like anything about Pollock, except maybe his drinking problem -- but I don’t say that.  I transition the conversation to Marc Chagall, who I really do like, and I say, “I like Chagall because he says – and I first learned it when I was studying art history in France so I just have to say it in French now – ‘La seul couleur avec que je peins c’est la couleur de l’amour.’  It means, ‘The only color I paint with is the color of love.’”  I am probably misquoting slightly and my French is definitely rusty, but my drunkenness helps me get the accent right.  This quote is not why I like Chagall, but it is my version of a pick-up line.   The man smiles and starts talking about something artsy or intellectual but I am not listening.  It’s too easy.  I shouldn’t have used my Chagall line.  I am drunk and bored.  I look around the bar.  My grandmother would like it there.  She likes to wear flannel too.   I wonder if they use grass-fed cow cheese when they make a grilled cheese sandwich.  I get lucky; the friend I came with is bored too, so we ditch my Pollock and head to Midtown.

Now we are in Joshua Tree.  As Budweiser is king of beers, so Joshua Tree is king of bro bars. It is 3a.m. and the bar is a frothy sea of late 20-something men wearing button-down Ralph Lauren shirts, chinos, and boat shoes.  It is late enough into the night that they are all drunk on Bud Light Platinum and college memories.  In New York, these are the kind of men that pass for bros.  After a year in New York, I have come to learn that I like this kind of man best when I’m drunk and when he’s drunk and – most importantly – when we’re both single.  Under those circumstances we are lot of fun together.  These men – these bros – make wonderfully enthusiastic dancers.  They will spin me and dip me and twirl me and they will not feel the need to pursue a real conversation with me. They are not crippled by the obnoxious self-awareness that too often seems to plague artistic and intellectual men.  And they are not ashamed of the fact that they love Kanye as much as Kanye loves Kanye.  And they like Jay-Z because they too are all money, cash, hoes.  If I kiss a bro, I can be sure that he doesn’t care if it means anything.  Some nights, that’s all I want in a man. 

Maybe it’s like the old Groucho Marx saying, maybe I don’t want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.

The next night, my friend and I are out again.  This time we start the night in Williamsburg but soon seek refuge from the unpleasant fusion of flannel, PRB, and Bon Iver songs at a sports bar turned dance party on 82^nd Street and 3^rd Avenue back in Manhattan.  As we approach the bar to order two Jack and Cokes, there standing in front of me, holding a shiny blue bottle of Bud Light, wearing a gray J.Crew sweater that is just risqué enough to let a few of his chest hairs peak out above the collar, is my bro.  To put it mildly, we used to date.  Now we are both drunk and single.  I order my drink and stand beside him, watching him sip his beer.  The light from the TV screen overhead casts a New York Yankee colored glow on his cheekbones.  I remember how he used to sing Tupac songs to me in bed.  I remember the pictures of rappers like Biggie and Common and Nas that decorate his bedroom walls.  I hear him order another beer in his Irish Catholic loud Boston accent.  I think of how he can’t handle wine and how he gave me my first Corona and how we once danced together on tables in Murray Hill.  And then, instead of trying to start a conversation, I kiss him, right there, at the bar.  And in this case it means something.  He kisses me back, his fingers running through my long multi-color streaked hair.  And now there is a Jay-Z song on.  I’m asking him to dance.