Watching Blondie Dance on Valentine's Day

On Valentine’s Day I finally went to the Clermont Lounge. A friend and I went early, just around 8pm, and so the basement bar only had two other patrons beside us as I ordered an Atlanta Hard Cider. Blondie, the woman I should have met a long time ago, started the night's dancing. I've lived within walking distance for over two decades, but this was my first time watching her work.

It’s not like I hate bars, though my father was an alcoholic. It’s not like I don’t know how to tip performers, because I’ve been a fan of live drag since I was a teen. It’s not like I’m averse to basement venues or that I haven’t been walking around city streets in less than reputable areas my whole life. I didn’t go because I think I was avoiding Blondie, who didn’t know I existed and wouldn’t care if she never met me.

After my friend and I had been at the bar a bit, Blondie came over to the digital music box that the dancers program, which was behind where my friend and I were sitting. I said hi, and then “You don’t know me, but one of your old room mates, Danny Mixon, was my mother’s first cousin.”

Blondie stopped, and we locked eyes for just a moment. In that moment things shifted inside my head. Neither the famous dancer or I said anything for a beat, a beat that was full of thoughts about mental illness, families biological and chosen, the history of housing on Ponce de Leon Avenue, and a lot of other things about Atlanta. It occurred to me then just how fucking mean my mother’s family could be, and that maybe if I had been raised right, I would have met this woman sooner.

Then Blondie said “Oh, that Danny. We used to fuck sometimes.”

“I’m sorry he’s gone.” I said, and asked to hug her, and she said Ok, so I did.

Then my friend and I left, with generous extra tips on the bar. It was barely after nine, and more people were coming into the bar, but I’ve never been a late-night person, and neither are most of my friends. You could say my early bedtime was another reason why I never made it to the Clermont, but that would just be another excuse. We took a picture by the sign on the outside back wall of the hotel, but I didn’t post it to social media, because that would somehow be telling on myself. I’m not ashamed that I went to the Clermont on Valentine’s Day, or ashamed that I went there without my husband. I’m ashamed that it took me so long to go at all, and that I was forty-seven before I was really able to understand Danny, who died years ago. I meant to go to his funeral, but smashed my elbow less than two days before, and missed even his cremation dealing with my own shit. The metal pins I carry in my left arm from that accident hurt less than the knowledge that I couldn’t be there for the end of a man I met in person maybe a dozen times, but who in the back of my mind lurked as the key to a lot of truths about myself.

As we climbed in the car, my friend and I were giggling about the couples now walking into the Claremont for Valentine’s dates. He turned to me as we buckled in and said “Wow, so your mom’s cousin used to really be roommates with Blondie, and they used to…?” and he waggled his eyebrows.

“The most surprising thing about that interaction was finding out that Danny Mixon ever fucked a woman.” I said, shaking my head. “I had no idea, but honestly, I never really knew him. He lived in that big building on the corner of North Highland and Ponce, which used to be just for those who were disabled, or who went in and out of the mental hospital, or those who had AIDs in the early 90’s, because no one in Atlanta would rent to someone who had AIDs.”

“Oh.” said my friend, because what else do you say when your fun night gets brought down suddenly.

I turned the conversation light again, discussing the performance of both Blondie and the other dancer on that night, who was amazing but whose name we missed. The two of us moved on with the evening, a little buzzed and a little proud of ourselves for Doing The Local Thing That Ususally Just Tourists Do, stupid boring middle-aged people finally supporting the art in our own backyard.

When I got home much later, the teens who don’t date because they’re Gen Z were asleep, but the husband was up. He’d have his own Valentine’s adventure with friends in a few days, driving all the way out to Gwinnett to see the belly dancers at Imperial Fez, because COVID kicked that restaurant out of the city somehow in a way I still don’t understand. The husband asked politely how my night was as I went about showering and thinking and trying to make all the newly clicked puzzle pieces of Atlanta and my family fit properly in my mind.

“It was a good night.” was all I could manage. “I don’t know why I never went to the Clermont before. It’s just a few blocks from here. You should take R-.”

I hugged the husband then, and meant it in a way I haven't in a long time. I've been angry with him for nearly two years because of so many things that happened during the quarantine. The next morning I realized I wasn’t really mad at the husband anymore. I’m not entirely sure why - maybe it was just time, maybe it was talking to Blondie finally, maybe it was knowing that all the things my family never talked about properly decades ago were able to be sorted for me at last as I prepare to close out the second quarter of my life. We all have to take accountability, finally, for how we behave during a plague. My mother's family handled the fallout of the plague of the late 80's and early 90's terribly. I need to handle my own reponses to the last plague with more care.