I eventually understood each bar name to be, at least possibly, that owner’s attempt at a clever disguise that had stood the test of time-or hoped to. Because maybe even a joke would have been too much, for someone who couldn’t take a joke about being queer. The Bar in New York City, Feathers in New Jersey, or ‘Bout Time 2 in Austin, well, they belong to Could Be Anything, which is just a plain disguise. Literary was its own category-how many lesbian bars are called Rubyfruit Jungle? Apocryphal stories link the name of the Stonewall Inn to the lesbian memoir, The Stone Wall, by Mary Casal. Double Entendre Real Specific would be The Stud, in San Francisco, or The End Up, also there, or My Sister’s Room. The second was Double Entendre But Vague, like The Underground, in Portland, Maine, where I grew up, or The Abbey, in Los Angeles. The first category was Address Only, like the 520 in Iowa City. In the 1990s, as I first started going to find community in what we called gay bars then, I developed a theory of their names. The Kevin Aviance story could be Season 3 of Pose. And how that is exactly what happened next.

“Hello, I’m Kevin Aviance, House of Aviance, and I’ve moved to New York to take over.” I nodded as if agreeing.

One of my favorite memories of working at Tunnel Bar in New York City in 1991 is when a striking Black queen walked in off the street and shook my hand as if I owned the place.