The basement smells like Della's blackened catfish and decades of spilled bourbon when I push through the alley door, sciatic nerve screaming its usual electric fuck-you up my spine. Lauper’s “Time after Time" bleeds through crackling speakers, her voice asking questions about innocence that hit different when you've survived what we have.
Miguel's already pouring before I reach the bar—Woodford Reserve tonight, amber catching light like liquid autumn, ice sphere bobbing in the plastic cup like a planet drowning in sweet Kentucky sin. His wedding ring clicks against the bottle as he slides it across restored wood grain.
Mom, he says, voice carrying that sultry-childlike tone that always makes me feel simultaneously ancient and necessary, you look like you actually slept. Should I be concerned?
Doctor's appointment went well, I tell him, accepting the bourbon like communion. Blood work came back clean. Hormone levels are perfect. Even my fucked-up leg seems stable. Doctor says I'm disgustingly healthy for someone held together with titanium and spite.
The Woodford hits my tongue with caramel and oak, warmth spreading through my chest like absolution. I lean against the bar, letting the restored wood grain ground me. The refurbished lighting casts warm shadows instead of harsh ones, makes the brick walls look like they're holding us instead of trapping us.
Spite's a hell of a preservative, Della calls from the kitchen, spatula punctuating her words. Keeps you pickled better than any embalming fluid, bitch.
Keira appears beside me without sound—she does that, materializes exactly when needed like she's calibrated to my frequency. She doesn't touch me, never does in public, but her presence shifts the air pressure around my shoulders. Her face carries that particular exhaustion I've learned to read like weather patterns.
Your director got canned today? I ask, watching tension coil in her jaw.
This morning, she says, voice carrying razor-sharp precision that means she's holding fury with both hands. Three weeks before quarterly reviews. Called into HR at nine, walked out with a box by nine-thirty. Just barely months with the firm, and they gave him thirty fucking minutes.
What happened? I shift my weight, positioning myself so my shoulder almost—but not quite—brushes hers.
Incompetent bastard finally got caught, she says, something bitter and satisfied warring in her tone. Been coasting on other people's work for years. My work, specifically. Took credit for my strategy implementation, my client retention program, my entire restructuring proposal. When Top Dog actually looked at who was doing what, suddenly his skills didn't mean shit.
Good, I say, and mean it. Fuck him.
Yeah, fuck him, she agrees, but her shoulders don't relax. Except now I'm covering his workload until they hire someone new. Which means pulling sixty-hour weeks while they decide if I'm 'leadership material' or if they need to bring in some external candidate who'll take credit for the systems I've already built.
That's some cowardly horseshit, I murmur. You want me to burn their building down?
The corner of her mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but close enough that I count it as victory.
Save the arson for when they inevitably promote some mediocre white guy, she says. Then we'll talk about accelerants.
Ezra bounces over from their beanbag throne, blue hair catching light like electric silk, the permanent crook in their nose from John's backhand a year ago barely visible in the warm lighting. Piercings glint like armor pieces as they move.
Mom! Tell Keira that her ex-director getting shitcanned is the universe finally balancing its books. Karma's slow as fuck but she shows up eventually.
Ezra's not wrong, I say, taking a long pull of Woodford. It burns like good decisions feel—painful going down, warm in the aftermath. Incompetent men failing upward is standard corporate practice. One of them actually facing consequences is basically a miracle.
Miracle suggests divine intervention, Keira says dryly. This was more like someone in accounting finally reading the actual performance metrics instead of the ass-kissing reports he submitted.
Eileen's voice cuts through from the corner booth, pitched higher than usual which means she's about three seconds from full combustion. You know what the absolute shit-fuck of it is? We're watching it happen again. Right fucking now. In real time.
Here we go, Bubba rumbles from his sentinel position by the window, Georgia drawl thick as molasses, massive frame filling the chair like continental plate settling into position. What particular apocalypse we discussing tonight, Eileen?
Trump, she spits the name like it tastes of rot. Every goddamn day, another step closer to full fascist takeover, and half the country's cheering because they think authoritarianism will only hurt people they don't like.
Her flight attendant training shows in her posture—back straight, hands positioned for emergency procedures—but her eyes burn with fire particular to someone who watches the world from thirty thousand feet and sees the patterns others miss.
Della emerges from the kitchen carrying plates of catfish that smell like heaven fried in hellfire, blackened spices creating aroma that makes everyone's mouths water. She sets plates down with aggressive care.
Eileen, sugar, you're gonna stroke out before dessert if you don't breathe.
I'll breathe when we're not sliding into Nazi Germany 2.0, Eileen snaps, but accepts the plate. Book bans. Trans kids being used as political fucking footballs. Talking about mass deportations like it's pest control. And everyone's just... continuing with their lives like history isn't screaming warnings.
What you want us to do? Remy asks, cigarette dangling from lips, accent thick as his mama's gumbo. Smoke curls around his head like Louisiana fog. We been fighting since before you were born, cher. Some days, you fight by showing up. By existing loudly. By refusing to disappear when they want you gone.
Ford and Ozzy’s “Close My Eyes Forever" kicks in, and Ozzy’s voice filling the basement with promises of refuge in a world on fire. The bass line vibrates through concrete, through the refurbished walls, through our bones.
Miguel refills my bourbon without asking, the Woodford catching light like captured sunset.
Miranda sits near the stage, her presence radiating that particular kind of exhausted grace that comes from surviving trans womanhood while the world debates your existence. She's undeniably beautiful in that MILF way that has nothing to do with traditional anything, everything to do with earned confidence.
I had three different patients at the clinic today asking about hormone access if laws change, she says quietly, voice carrying weight of someone who holds other people's pain professionally. People preparing for the worst while hoping for something better. That's where we're at now—contingency plans for basic healthcare.
Fuck, Phoenix breathes from their corner booth, purple and gold hair catching light like lightning frozen in time. That's where we are? Planning for underground railroads for medication?
That's where we've always been, baby, Renee says, biceps flexing as she racks pool balls with mechanical precision. Tank top strains against muscle earned through decades of lifting weights instead of addressing feelings. Just some years we pretend otherwise.
Sarah leans back in her chair, flannel pressed to military precision, boots making quiet statements against concrete. Her stoic expression holds forty-two years of philosophical consideration.
The answer to life, the universe, and everything might be forty-two, she says, but the answer to 'what do we do now' is what it's always been—we keep showing up. We document. We resist. We survive out of spite if nothing else.
Spite and stubbornness, I add, raising my bourbon. The twin pillars of queer survival.
Marcus spins his wedding ring, nervous energy manifesting in circular motion. His face shows conflict—wanting to be here, guilty about wanting to be here, exhausted from the cognitive dissonance.
I told Sara about me coming here, he says suddenly. About needing community. She asked again for the 1000th time why our relationship wasn't enough.
The basement goes quiet for a moment. Not uncomfortable, just everyone processing the weight of that question—one most of us have faced in various forms.
Because identity isn't about relationships, Leila says, scrolling through her phone with intensity of someone tracking global political upheaval in real-time. It's about being seen completely, not just in the roles we play for others.
How'd she take it? I ask, watching Marcus's fingers still on the ring.
Same as usual, Marcus admits. Still processing. She’s been here few times now, and she still has to fucking ask me, but its growth I think.
That's good, Miguel says, pouring Marcus something amber and forgiving. Trying counts. Nobody gets it perfect all the time.
Took me three years to stop calling myself a lesbian, Lisa says, practical farm girl energy radiating from her fifty-seven-year-old body. Even after I figured out I liked women, the word felt foreign. Like I was claiming something I hadn't earned by suffering through the history.
You earned it by living it, Elaine says, sixty years of zero-fucks-given dripping from her voice. Doesn't matter when you figured it out. You're here now, aren't you?
Dani arranges crystals on the bar top, scarves flowing around her like water made fabric. Her movements carry intentional grace, spiritual practice made physical.
We hold space for each other's fear without letting it consume us, she says. That's the work. Not pretending everything's fine, but not drowning in despair either.
Brandon scribbles in his notebook, gin and tonic sweating in his grip. His animated hands usually gesture wildly, but tonight they're focused—pouring observations into pages that'll become published essays while mine collect rejections.
I'm writing about this, he says. About how we keep existing in the gaps between legislative attacks. About sanctuary as verb, not noun.
Make it good, I tell him, no jealousy in my voice tonight. Just tired solidarity. Make it matter.
Trying to, he says, meeting my eyes. Something passes between us—mutual recognition of using pain as raw material, of transmuting survival into art whether anyone reads it or not.
Gus sits between Bubba and Grubby, young face still carrying small-town innocence despite months in the city. His twenty-one years look younger somehow, like rural isolation preserved him in amber of not-knowing.
Back home, he says carefully, nobody talked about any of this. Politics was something that happened elsewhere, to other people. Being gay was just... not discussed. You either left or you pretended you weren't.
Politics is always personal when you're on the margins, Bubba says, voice carrying weight of surviving what should have destroyed him. Deep southern drawl wraps around words like Georgia clay. You just didn't know it yet because you hadn't found your people.
I'm glad I found y'all, Gus says simply.
Grubby nods silently beside him, their quiet presence holding weight of someone who learned early that existing visibly meant danger. They rarely speak about being intersex, but their solidarity with Gus says everything about recognizing shared experience of erasure.
Sage draws intricate patterns on napkins—tonight's design incorporates symbols from different decades of queer resistance, each marker stroke deliberate and meaningful. They don't speak, but their art says everything about documentation, about remembering, about making beauty from scraps while chaos erupts.
Julie nurses her Jameson and Diet Coke, seventy-one years of hard-won wisdom etched in her face like topographic map of survival. Her hands shake slightly—age, or fury, or both.
I survived disco, AIDS crisis, religious right's first rise, don't ask don't tell, marriage equality fights, and Trump's first term, she says. I'll survive whatever fresh hell's coming. We all will. Because that's what we do—we survive the motherfuckers who want us gone.
Amen, several voices chorus.
Chris shifts uncomfortably, polo shirt pressed to military precision. His soft body carries tension like suit tailored wrong, restricting movement. My pastor says—
Your pastor, Elaine interrupts, gray-sexual energy radiating through comment that makes younger queers blush, can say whatever sanctimonious horseshit he wants from his pulpit. Doesn't make it true. Doesn't make it relevant. And sure as shit doesn't make it loving.
Chris's face flushes but he doesn't argue. Progress, maybe. Or exhaustion. Hard to tell which with him.
God's love doesn't require you to hate yourself, Miranda adds gently, her poetic nature finding truth Chris's pastor can't. If your faith demands you deny who you are, maybe examine if that's actually faith or just fear wearing religious drag.
Lisa, practical as morning coffee, leans forward. I spent sixty years living wrong because I thought I had to, she says. Married a man. Raised kids. Did everything I was supposed to. Now I'm living right, and the world's going to shit around me. Kind of ironic.
World's always going to shit, Remy says, exhaling philosophy with smoke. Mon Dieu, cher, you think this is new? My mama survived things would break you. We still here because they were here, refusing to disappear when disappearing would've been easier.
Erik, still in factory work clothes carrying smell of metal shavings and industrial lubricant, sets down his beer. Exhaustion radiates from his twenty-nine-year-old frame.
Guys at work, he says, they talk about minorities like we're the problem. Like if everyone just stayed in their lane, everything would be fine. They have no fucking clue I'm trans. That I'm part of the 'problem' they're bitching about.
That's the insidiousness of it, Leila says, voice strong and clear, carrying authority of someone who's been organizing resistance since childhood. They dehumanize people in abstract while being perfectly friendly to individuals. Makes them feel like they're not bigots because they're nice to you, specifically, while supporting policies that would erase you.
Cognitive dissonance is humanity's favorite drug, Sarah observes. Easier than confronting how their comfort requires other people's suffering.
The Girls “Kid Fears" pours through speakers and Amy Ray's voice carrying promises of refuge in a damaged world becomes unbearable. The acoustics wash over us like eighties nostalgia given form, like remembering when we thought the future would be better.
Keira shifts beside me, and this time our shoulders do touch—brief, deliberate, her way of saying I'm here without words. The contact sends warmth through me that has nothing to do with bourbon.
I'm exhausted, Phoenix admits, ruby ring from River catching light. Just tired of fighting for basic dignity. Of having my existence treated as political statement instead of just... existence.
River, still in forest green scrubs from hospital shift, squeezes Phoenix's hand with practiced gentleness of someone who understands exactly how much pressure heals versus hurts.
I know, love. But we're not fighting alone. That's the difference.
Doesn't make it less exhausting, Phoenix says, but leans into River's touch.
No, River agrees. But it makes it survivable.
Mary sits quietly beside me and Keira, wine glass catching light, barely mentioned but present. Thirty years of shared history between us compressed into comfortable silence. She doesn't need to speak to be part of this—her presence says enough. Her face shows fifty-three years including everything between us was just there.
You know I saw a copy of A Gallery of Children in the book shop the other day, and thought of you, I told her. I know how you are about Pooh and Piglet. You know, Oh bother and all.
Mary chuckled. You never forget do you, like a damn elephant.
Nah, how could I? Like when I frowned all the time, and you used to laugh about Tigger holding his smile wide. I chuckled. Tossing back my drink and then shaking it at Miguel to beg for more.
The music shifts to Rush’s “Red Barchetta," and my chest tightens thinking about Gizmo, about singing this in the car when she was small, her voice hitting notes that made angels weep. We'd belt it at stoplights, her tiny lungs producing sound that shouldn't be possible from someone so small.
I blink back tears before they can form completely, take another pull of bourbon to drown the grief.
You good? Keira murmurs, voice so quiet only I hear it.
Yeah, I lie, because sometimes lying is kinder than dumping grief into moments meant for collective survival. Just... grateful for this. For all of you.
We're grateful for you too, Mom, Ezra calls, because apparently my quiet conversation wasn't as quiet as I thought.
The basement fills with general agreement—voices overlapping, affection flowing through profanity and poetry and pragmatic survival wisdom.
Della's catfish gets devoured, crispy blackened coating giving way to tender flesh underneath. Miguel's bourbon keeps flowing, amber liquid sacrament in plastic cups. The refurbished space breathes around us—warm lighting, clean lines, living plants softening brick walls that used to feel like bunker becomes sanctuary.
You know what pisses me off most? Eileen says, returning to her earlier rage with renewed energy. It's not even the overt fascism. It's the people who enable it while pretending they're moderates. The ones who say 'I don't agree with everything he does, but...' Like that 'but' erases complicity.
'But' is where morality goes to die, Sarah says.
Exactly, Eileen continues. 'I don't hate gay people, but they shouldn't adopt.' 'I support trans people, but not in sports.' Every fucking 'but' is permission to erase someone's humanity while feeling virtuous about it.
Language of polite oppression, Miranda says softly. Make it sound reasonable so people don't examine what they're actually saying.
Dani stands, scarves flowing like water responding to invisible current. Nobody asked her to, but sometimes someone needs to name the thing happening.
To surviving, she says, lifting her glass. To showing up when it's hard. To finding each other in basements and alleyways and forgotten spaces. To making sanctuary wherever we gather.
To surviving the motherfuckers, Eileen adds, voice still pitched high but steadier now.
To incompetent directors finally getting fired, Keira adds with grim satisfaction.
To spite and stubbornness, I say.
To chosen family, Phoenix says.
To mama's gumbo and the love that taught us how to be ourselves, Remy adds.
We lift our glasses—bourbon, beer, wine, gin, whiskey, Diet Coke, water for Sage—plastic cups holding more sacred meaning than crystal goblets ever could. The gesture feels ancient, ritualistic, necessary.
Miguel catches my eye from behind the bar, and in that look passes everything we don't need to say: We're still here. Still breathing. Still refusing to disappear. Still making family from strangers who see us completely.
The bourbon burns going down, warm in my chest where terror and hope wage their eternal war. Keira's shoulder presses against mine—subtle, powerful, her way of anchoring me when the world spins too fast.
Doctor really said you're healthy? she asks quietly.
Surprisingly so, I confirm. All things considered.
Good, she says, and the weight in that single word carries everything: relief, love, fear of losing me, gratitude for titanium plates and spite keeping me functional. We need you around.
I need you all too, I admit, vulnerability slipping through bourbon-loosened defenses.
The music continues its journey through decades—Genesis, Yes, The Clash—each song marking time we've survived, decades we've endured, years we've refused to disappear. The basement holds us like womb, like tomb we've decorated with defiance, like home built from understanding instead of biology.
Tomorrow we'll wake up and fight again. Tomorrow Keira will pull sixty-hour weeks covering her incompetent ex-director's workload. Tomorrow Eileen will board flights and watch authoritarianism normalize from thirty thousand feet. Tomorrow Phoenix will navigate being young and queer and visible. Tomorrow Erik will hear his coworkers dehumanize people like him while thinking he's one of them.
But tonight, in this moment, we're here. We're breathing. We're refusing to disappear.
That's enough. It has to be enough.
The catfish is gone, the bourbon flows, and we exist loudly in our underground sanctuary while the world above us slides toward whatever fresh hell awaits.
Tonight, we survive each other into tomorrow.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
This Algerian-French philosopher understood that survival isn't about avoiding darkness—it's about discovering the light you carry inside yourself that no external force can extinguish. In the basement sanctuary, surrounded by chosen family, we each carry our invincible summer: the stubborn refusal to let the world's cruelty freeze the warmth we've cultivated between us. Camus knew that meaning isn't found in the absence of struggle, but in the defiant act of choosing to live fully, to love deeply, to exist loudly even when—especially when—the winter of political cruelty tries to bury us. Our gathering isn't about pretending the cold doesn't exist; it's about huddling together and remembering that we carry fire inside ourselves, that we are each other's summer, that survival sometimes looks like showing up and breathing in the same space and refusing to let despair have the final word.