Somewhere Under the Rainbow
I still remember my first Pride Festival. I don't know that I will ever forget it. I was living in Atlanta, 26 years old. Barely out of the closet. So young and fresh. The world was my oyster. And I was gay. I was dating someone, a guy from Mississippi named Mike who was quite a bit older than me. He had been out for a while and was comfortable with himself in ways I couldn't yet grasp. He was 39 years old, and I was sure he had seen and done things I couldn't even imagine. We met the previous year in a bar along a somewhat seedy strip of establishments, a road called Cheshire Bridge that I had driven down so many times, each time wondering what it would be like to actually go into one of those forbidden places. The thought of doing that made me nervous as hell, made my hands sweat, but eventually I worked up the nerve to walk into one of them on my own. It was there that I met Mike one crowded Saturday night. We eyed each other across the dance floor for a bit b