We're only 30 miles from Hell.I'm spending fall break in Charlottesville with Jonathan Peng Lee, my hustler/engineer/paranormal enthusiast/gym rat friend who I met at Alan's funeral. It's two days before Halloween, and he has promised to bring me to the scariest place on Earth.
I expected a haunted house, but no: we're spending two nights in Lynchburg, Virginia!
How did I let Jon talk me into this foolhardy trip? Over an hour driving through the Shenandoah Valley that General Sherman burned, through towns named Arkham...I mean Amherst...Stonewall -- no connection to the birthplace of the modern Gay Rights Movement -- Greif (grief misspelled by rednecks).
Now it's only 20 miles to Lynchburg.
The site of Thomas Road Baptist Church, where Jerry Falwell, the biggest homophobe in the world, spewed his venom. The site of Homophobia University, where the top homophobes in the country send 15,000 of their kids to learn how to hate us more.
We're going undercover as fundamentalists, but still, I doubt we'll make it out alive.
""Why would anyone name a city after the mob murders of thousands of African-Americans in the years after the Civil War?" I wonder.
"It was named before that, after its founder, who ran a ferry in the 1780s," Jon reads off wikipedia. "Hey, guess what? He was an abolitionist. Progressive, huh?"
"Oh, very. I'll bet he was pro-gay, too."
My first view: Eerie yellow lights, a dark stormy sky, the dark tower like something out of Mordor.
We have a reservation at Craddock Terry Hotel on Commerce Street, "steeped in history." There's a giant woman's shoe over the lobby.
"Fabulous, isn't it?" Jon says sarcastically.
"Don't use that word. Remember, undercover -- one room, two beds, and call me 'Brother.'"
"Whatever you say, darling."
We have dinner at a place called Bootleggers, a couple of blocks away. You enter from the basement: "like you're entering a speakeasy." There's a gigantic mural of old-time rednecks. I order a turkey burger and truffle-laced french fries.
Rather elegant for Homophobia Central, I have to admit.
Afterwards we return to our hotel room and go on Grindr to look for a hookup. I expect a lot of married closet-case-angst types, but we end up inviting over a student from one of the local colleges -- not Homophobia University. Tall, slim, thick black hair, into oral. He's a Humanities major, and on the swim team.
"You must be closeted among your teammates," I say.
"Oh, no, not at all. The team camptain is queer. I think he's majoring in Human Services with a concentration in LGBTQ Advocacy."
LGBTQ Advocacy? WTF?
"Not everybody in town is as backwards as that other university," he says. "Too bad you won't be here next spring. They're doing The Laramie Project at the Renaissance Theater."
He spends the night, but doesn't go out for breakfast with us. On our own, we opt for waffles at the White Hart Cafe, which is also a used bookstore. No gay books per se, but I do find a biography of Truman Capote.
"What do you want to do today?" Jon asks. He reads the possibilities from Trip Advisor: "A children's museum, the city museum, a historic mansion, the old cemetery with a Confederate Monument, the Pest House Medical Museum..."
"Have a lot of pestilence in Lynchburg, do they?"
More after the break
