The Safety of a Queer Space: On The Day In History, August 28th

The basement reeked of patchouli and vanilla tonight, thick candles casting dancing shadows across the exposed brick like memories refusing to stay still. Queen's "We Are The Champions" was bleeding through the speakers with Freddie's voice soaring like a battle cry, but nobody was really listening. We were all too busy drowning in something else entirely.

Miguel slid a rocks glass across the scarred mahogany, amber liquid catching the rainbow fractals from our string lights. "Twenty-one-year Blanton's," he said, that sultry-childlike voice carrying more tenderness than usual. "Single barrel, because tonight feels like it deserves something that stood the test of fucking time."

I wrapped my fingers around the glass, feeling the weight of liquid history. The first sip burned clean and complex, all caramel and smoke with a finish that lingered like a promise kept. "Jesus, Miguel. This is beautiful."

"Only the best for Mom," he grinned, but there was something deeper in his eyes tonight. "Especially when she's looking all nostalgic and shit."

Ezra shifted in their beanbag throne, blue hair electric under the string lights. "Forty-three fucking years," they said, voice thick with wonder. "Can you believe it's been that long since the first Gay Games?"

The kitchen was alive with the sizzle and pop of Della's latest culinary masterpiece – smelled like bacon and caramelized onions tonight, probably her famous loaded mac and cheese that could make grown queers weep with joy. But even her usual kitchen symphony felt reverent somehow, like she was cooking for ghosts as much as the living.

Keira settled onto the barstool beside me, her presence grounding me like an anchor in choppy seas. "August twenty-eighth, nineteen eighty-two," she said softly. "Same day as today, just four decades earlier."

Brandon looked up from where he'd been scribbling notes on a cocktail napkin, ink bleeding into the paper like tiny wounds. "Tom Waddell," he said suddenly. "Olympic decathlete who decided we deserved our own fucking Olympics. Man had balls the size of church bells."

Chris shifted uncomfortably in his chair, that familiar tension between his shoulders that spoke of Sunday school shame and bedroom prayers. "I was a teenager," he admitted quietly. "Didn't even know I was gay yet, but something about seeing queers on television, competing like... they were just a bunch of perverts..." His voice cracked like old leather.

"Back da fuck up, mon ami," Remy interrupted, his Cajun accent thick as bayou mud. "Those weren't perverts on that screen – those were warriors. Athletes who had to train twice as hard because the world kept telling them they didn't belong on any field that mattered." He leaned forward, eyes fierce. "My mama always said, 'You can't judge a gumbo by the pot it's cooked in.' Those people in San Francisco? They were cooking up revolution, one race at a time."

Bubba's deep voice rumbled from his corner table like distant thunder. "Nineteen eighty-two, I was working construction in Savannah. Twenty-two years old and scared shitless of my own shadow." His massive frame seemed to expand with the memory. "But my mama, she saw it on the news. Called me up and said, 'Baby, you see those people running? They running toward themselves instead of away.' Smartest thing that woman ever said."

The Blanton's hit different on the second sip – less burn, more memory. I could taste the revolution that must have been in the air back then, metallic and electric.

Remy's accent thickened with emotion. "Mon dieu, I was in New Orleans, barely eighteen and working the Quarter. But I had a little black and white TV in my shotgun house, and I watched every damn event I could. Seeing gay men doing shot put, lesbians running track – it was like watching unicorns, you know? Mythical creatures that weren't supposed to exist."

Erik's calloused hands gripped his beer bottle, knuckles white with intensity. "Wasn't born yet," he said quietly. "But my dad was twenty-five, working the assembly line in Detroit. Found out years later he'd taped some of the coverage, kept it in a shoebox under his bed." His jaw worked like he was chewing glass. "Never knew why until I came out. Turns out the bastard had been questioning his own sexuality for years."

"Holy shit," Brandon whispered, setting down his pen entirely. "Your dad was closeted too?"

Erik nodded slowly. "Took him until I transitioned to finally admit it. Said watching those games made him realize that maybe being different didn't mean being damned."

Miguel was polishing glasses with more reverence than usual, each swipe of the towel careful and deliberate. "Thirteen fifty athletes," he said. "From over one hundred seventy cities. Can you imagine? Gay people traveling from all over the world just to compete as themselves?"

Della emerged from the kitchen carrying a steaming casserole dish, cheese bubbling like tiny volcanoes across the surface. "Tom Waddell died of AIDS five years later," she said, the words falling like stones into still water. "Motherfucker created something beautiful and then got taken by the plague before he could see it really grow."

"But it did grow," Ezra said, sitting up straighter in their beanbag kingdom. "Every four years, bigger and bigger. Proving that we're not just survivors – we're fucking champions."

I took another sip of the Blanton's, letting it coat my throat like liquid courage. "Phoenix wasn't even a concept when the first games happened," I said, thinking of our youngest chosen family member probably at home with Charlie, both of them growing up in a world where queer athletes weren't revolutionary – just athletes.

"That's the beautiful fucking irony," Keira said, her voice carrying that steel-wrapped-in-velvet tone that made my chest tight in all the right ways. "We fought so hard for visibility that now kids like Phoenix and Charlie get to be bored by our victories."

Chris was staring into his drink like it held absolution. "I keep thinking about Kezar Stadium," he said. "All those people in the stands, cheering for gay swimmers and lesbian volleyball players. Like for one week, the world made sense."

"What do you mean?" Bubba asked, not unkindly.

"I mean for once, we weren't the entertainment," Chris said, voice thick with emotion. "We weren't the tragic queers in movies or the comic relief on TV. We were just... athletes. People good at things, competing because we loved it."

The ceiling fan churned the thick air, mixing cologne and cannabis smoke with something lighter – the weight of shared pride instead of shared trauma.

Brandon reached across the space between his chair and Chris's table, fingers brushing the other man's wrist. "That's what competition does," he said gently. "Strips away all the bullshit and leaves just the raw human trying to be better than they were yesterday."

Remy nodded sagely. "Mama used to say, 'Le sport, it don't care who you love, just how hard you train.'" He raised his drink in a toast. "Those thirteen fifty, they trained their asses off just for the right to compete as themselves."

"To the thirteen fifty," I said, lifting my glass. The Blanton's caught the light like liquid gold, holding rainbow fragments in its depths.

"To Tom Waddell," they chorused, voices creating a harmony that filled every crack in the basement walls.

We drank to history, to courage, to the simple revolutionary act of showing up authentically in spaces that had never made room for us before.

Miguel poured himself a shot of tequila – Herradura, because he had taste – and knocked it back like medicine. "You know what gets me?" he said, setting the glass down with controlled precision. "The fucking Olympic Committee sued them. Sued them for using the word 'Olympics' like they owned athletic competition itself."

"But they kept going anyway," Della called from behind the grill, spatula wielding wisdom like a weapon. "Changed the name to Gay Games and kept running, kept swimming, kept proving that we belonged in every space we'd been excluded from."

Erik's voice was rough when he spoke. "My transition timeline coincided with the 2018 games in Paris. Watching trans athletes compete openly..." He gestured around the basement. "That's when I knew I could do this. Could be myself without apology."

"The straight world thinks our strength is theoretical," Ezra said, picking at the frayed edge of their beanbag. "Like being queer automatically makes us weak or fragile. They don't understand that every day we exist authentically is athletic as fuck."

The mac and cheese was disappearing despite the heavy conversation, comfort food working its usual magic. Della's cooking had a way of grounding us in the present, reminding our bodies that we were alive, that taste and texture still mattered even when discussing the weight of history.

"I tried out for my high school track team," Brandon said suddenly, voice barely above a whisper. "Coach took one look at me – too thin, too obviously gay – and suggested I try drama club instead." He laughed, but it sounded like breaking glass. "Spent years thinking sports weren't for people like me."

Bubba's massive hand found Brandon's shoulder. "High school coaches don't know shit about heart," he said with the authority of someone who'd carried his own share of impossible weight. "Heart's what made those first games possible."

The music shifted – David Bowie's "Heroes" filling the space with its soaring defiance. Perfect fucking soundtrack for a night spent celebrating people who refused to accept the limitations the world tried to impose on them.

"Gizmo ran track in high school," I said, feeling the familiar sting behind my eyes when I mentioned my daughter. "State championships in the four hundred meter. Used to joke that she got her speed from running away from my parenting."

Keira's fingers found mine across the bar top. "She got her speed from you, babe. From watching her trans mom refuse to slow down for anyone."

Chris was crying openly now, tears cutting clean tracks through his stubble. "I keep thinking about what it must have felt like. Standing on those podiums, medals around their necks, knowing they'd earned it as themselves."

"They didn't just compete," Remy said firmly. "They rewrote the whole damn script. Proved that excellence doesn't require heterosexuality."

"The whole fucking thing was family," Miguel added, voice thick with pride. "Thirteen fifty athletes who went to San Francisco to be themselves without apology. That's not just competition – that's revolution disguised as sport."

Erik stood suddenly, pacing to the old jukebox that hadn't worked in years but nobody had the heart to remove. "The best part is how normal it feels now," he said, pressing his palm against the cracked glass. "Gay athletes competing openly, trans people in the Olympics. The revolution worked."

"Not completely," Della said, emerging from the kitchen with fire in her eyes. "But every time a queer kid picks up a basketball or laces up running shoes, they're continuing what Tom Waddell started. Making space where there wasn't space before."

Dani had been quietly sketching on napkins near the back corner, her flowing scarves catching the candlelight like prayer flags. When Keira excused herself to use the bathroom, I watched her make a deliberate detour past Dani's table.

"Here's the rest of the funding," Keira whispered, slipping something into Dani's crystal-adorned hands. "800 for the book, and 300 for the other thing, right? That should cover everything right?"

"Yep," Dani murmured back, her gentle-fierce voice barely audible over Queen's triumphant vocals. "The ex is meeting me tonight so I can grab the book. I get to meet the ex’s knew partner too, so oh the joys. The other thing, you’ll have to wait till Sunday for , I’ll backhand it when I get to the party."

Keira nods happily.

I was too busy savoring the Blanton's and watching Erik pace near the jukebox to catch their hushed exchange, though something tugged at my peripheral awareness – the kind of sixth sense that comes from years of reading a room full of queers planning surprises.

The conversation flowed like relay races, each story passed like a baton to the next runner. We talked about the athletes who came after, the battles still being fought, the way visibility in sports translated to visibility everywhere else.

"The 2022 games in Hong Kong," Bubba said with devastating quiet. "Eleven thousand athletes. From Tom Waddell's thirteen fifty to eleven fucking thousand in forty years."

"Exponential queerness," Brandon said immediately. "Every generation bigger and braver and more visible than the last."

The silence that followed felt electric instead of heavy. We all knew the numbers, the timeline, the slow grinding progress that turned revolution into institution. But hearing it spoken aloud made the victories real again, made the pride fresh instead of taken for granted.

"That's why this place matters," I said, gesturing around our beautiful, broken sanctuary. "Not just because we need somewhere to drink and bitch and fall in love. Because we need somewhere to remember that our excellence has always existed, even when the world acted like it didn't."

Miguel was already pouring another round, reading the room like a favorite book. "On the house," he said. "Tonight, we're all fucking champions."

As the evening wore on, the conversation drifted from history to dreams, from competition to collaboration. We talked about the kids in our lives, about the athletes still fighting for recognition, about the slow, grinding work of changing the world one race at a time.

But mostly, we talked about courage. About the thirteen fifty who competed for it, about Tom Waddell who died for it, about the millions of us who carry their legacy forward every time we choose visibility over safety, authenticity over acceptance.

As we raised our glasses one final time, Heart's "Barracuda" kicked in through the speakers, Ann Wilson's voice fierce and unapologetic. The perfect ending to a night spent honoring those who swam upstream against every current designed to drown them. Like champions of our own fate.

Because that's what champions do – we show up, we compete, we refuse to let excellence be defined by anyone else's limitations.

"The goal is not to be perfect, but to be better than you were yesterday." - Tom Waddell

This wisdom from the founder of the Gay Games echoes through our basement sanctuary like a starting pistol that never stops firing. Waddell understood that competition isn't about defeating others – it's about refusing to be defeated by the limitations others impose on us. Each patron in our chosen family embodies this truth, not because they're perfect, but because they show up authentically in a world that still sometimes demands we compete with one hand tied behind our backs. In celebrating the first Gay Games, we honor not just athletic achievement, but the revolutionary act of being better today than we were yesterday, of running toward ourselves instead of away, of proving that excellence has always existed in our community – we just needed the courage to claim our space on the field.