The clown drifted off, and I turned to watch a man in a Batman cape and a sequinned jockstrap roller-skating by. I asked him about the rodeo, and he said matter-of-factly, “This is only our second year, so we don’t expect any bulldogging, but we’ve got a lot of calf ropers, some bronc riders, and some really wonderful Dale Evans imitations. A clown in whiteface with baggy overalls walked along beside our truck. In a few minutes, our part of the parade began to move forward a country-and-Western band struck up behind us, and a number of men dressed as cowboys or clowns took their places in and around the hay wagon. In the front seat were Ken Maley and a couple of other friends of Armistead’s.
#SLEAZY GAY BAR SAN ANTONIO PROFESSIONAL#
Our truck had no sign on it, but it carried, in addition to me and another journalist, two people well known to the gay community of the city: Maupin, San Francisco’s most prominent gay fiction writer, and Dave Kopay, the professional football player. Our truck nosed itself into the parade lineup behind a group of marchers with signs reading “L utherans C oncerned for G ay P eople” and a hay wagon advertising a gay rodeo in Reno. People in costumes milled about amid a crowd of young men and women in bluejeans.
Bouquets of lavender, pink, and silver balloons clouded the sky, and bands were warming up.
Rounding a corner, we came upon a line of stationary floats. The Gay Freedom Day Parade had not yet begun. “We’re on gay time, so the parade won’t have started yet.” He was right. At the bottom of the hill, skyscrapers wheeled across our horizon, and the truck careered through the deserted canyons of the financial district heading for the waterfront. On Russian Hill, Victorian houses with ice-cream-colored façades seemed to reflect this bewilderment of seasons. On Pacific Heights, the roses were blooming, the hollies were in berry, and enormous clumps of daisies billowed out from under palm trees. It was a Sunday morning, and the streets were almost empty, so our pickup truck sped uninterrupted up and down the hills, giving those of us in the back a Ferris- wheel view of the city. The sun shone out of a cerulean sky, lighting the streets to a shadowless intensity. It was one of those days in San Francisco when the weather is so close to perfect that there seems to be no weather.