Gay Protagonist - Blog Posts

I don’t know how I got there.

Or, rather, I’m not sure.

Last I’d remembered, I was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by my family. My husband, my daughter, and a couple doctors were standing by. I held my husband’s hand tight as I had gone into a seizure, side effect of an inoperable brain tumor. I’m fairly certain I died.

Yet here I was. On a rain-soaked street in what appeared to be any town in the Midwest, a bar in front of me, with two neon signs – a pretty typical ‘open’ sign, and a glowing white, cursive word – Purgatorio.

Not knowing what else to do, I went up to the door, tried to push it open, and the door held fast. I looked down, saw the sign that said ‘pull’, and obeyed. The door opened with ease, and I found myself in an empty bar – well, mostly. A man stood behind the counter, wearing a white dress-shirt, black jeans, a tie, and a black apron. He was wiping down the bar with a grey rag, and music – some folk rock band – played quietly from the speakers. As I walked in, a bell rang, and the man looked up.

He was a young man on the cusp of middle age, with black hair, pale green eyes, and a pierced right ear. He seemed unsurprised, and he called me forward. “Well,” he said, “Come in, have a drink.”

He pulled a bottle of whiskey from beneath the counter, and a tumbler glass. Getting ice from an old-fashioned machine behind him and putting some into the glass, he gestured me towards him again. “Come on, boy. You haven’t got much time until someone comes to collect you. It’s good to have a guest.”

I moved forward, and sat down in a leather stool at the bar. He poured whiskey into the glass and handed it to me. I looked at it, and then at his expectant face. “I don’t have any money,” I said, patting my clothing to look for a wallet I was pretty sure I lacked. I was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt under a simple grey hoodie. And no, I did not have a wallet, much less my own.

“I don’t want money,” he laughed. “I’m not in this for cash.”

He leaned in, and said in a voice alight with childish glee, “I do this for the stories. I’d like to hear yours, or as much of it as you want to share.”

I looked at him, and saw his nametag. It read, “Hello, my name is: Dante A.”

“What is this place? Why am I here?”

He poured another couple fingers of whiskey into the tumbler and gestured for me to drink. I took a sip. It was a good whiskey.

“Well, kid, you’re dead. Sorry to have to break it to you like this.”

Caught in the middle of another sip of whiskey, I gagged a little. “I can’t be dead – I’m here.”

He nodded. “Logical. But answer me this – where is here?”

Looking me up and down, he continued. “Because last you remember, you were somewhere else. It may have been a hospital bed, or in a car, or at home going to bed – but you woke up here, right outside my bar.”

He stepped away a couple steps and wiped down another part of the table. “As to your family, who are they? Tell me about them.”

I looked at him as suspiciously as I could, but it made a weird kind of sense. I began to speak, and the words poured out. He listened intently, nodding along as he cleaned up the bar. I told him how I’d met my husband – at a pride rally, in 2003. We’d fought tooth and nail for what we had – all the way up until our marriage was legalized and we could get married in our home state of Virginia. We settled down, opened up a book shop, and adopted our daughter.

All the while, while I droned on and on about my family, Dante looked like he was having the time of his life. He didn’t speak, only prodding me for more details. My daughter’s school teachers, what were they like? My husband, what was he like? He seemed insatiable in his lust for more information.

I drank as I spoke, and Dante refilled my glass each time I emptied it, and I found myself laughing at my own retelling, as I finished story after story. It felt like hours had passed.

Finally, I stopped. “Is this it?” I asked him, not feeling particularly drunk at the moment.

He looked at me, a twinkle in his eyes, and said, “Not even close.”

He leaned against the bar which he had finished cleaning, and looked out the rain-beaten windows at the front of the establishment. He seemed to fade off a little bit. I got his attention again, “I mean, is this all there is for the rest of eternity? Just sitting here and talking to you?”

He laughed. “Is that such a bad thing?”

Shrugging, I began again. “I mean – what about heaven? What about hell?”

He poured himself a glass and refilled mine. “What about heaven? What about hell?”

“Do they exist?”

Taking a sip, he spoke. “Yes, they do. I’ve seen them both.”

“And what’s this place?”

“A halfway point, sort of. For souls to wait for their guides.”

“Guides?”

“Angels, for the good. Devils for the bad. I get what I can out of those who come through. I remember your mother, when she came through. She said a lot about you.”

My mother had died some fifteen years ago. She was probably the most supportive person I’d ever known, and the first person I came out to. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had sat here, talking for hours to the same person I was, sharing stories of her life.

“Who came for her? Angel or devil?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know who comes for who, only that they do.”

“And what about you? Did anyone come for you? Will anyone come for you?”

He shrugged again. “I’m happy here, I built this place. I listen to stories. I guess that’s always been my job and my dream.”

“Do you ever want to move on?”

He paused, shrugged a final time, and then he perked up. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you, your story, your life? We’re nearing the end of your time here.”

“Where do you think I’ll go?”

He grabbed my hands, and looked me in the eye. “Look at me. Listen. You are the only judge of your life. Where do you think you deserve to go?”

I was a little dumbstruck. “I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of people tell me I’m going to hell.”

Dante looked up at the ceiling, muttered something in what sounded Italian, and looked back at me. “Well, in the words of the great Lewis Black, fuck them.”

“I’ve seen good people, I’ve seen bad. I’m not a judge, but most I can tell plain as day. And you, my friend, are not a bad-“

I heard a rapping at the door. Outside was standing a plain-looking man, dressed in a suit and tie, with steel-grey hair and an unyielding disposition. I looked at Dante. “What do you think?”

“Go,” he said, waving me on. “Go to where you belong.”

I walked back out through the door, and the man looked at me.

“You the new arrival?”

Looking back, at Dante, now thoroughly wiping the table again. “I suppose,” I said.

“Good. Would you step into the vehicle, please?”

I looked at the car behind the man. Black and simply-built, it looked solid enough. He opened the door, and I sat inside. He went around to the other side, got into the driver’s seat, and began to drive.

“Where are we going?”

He looked at me in the mirror, a stern expression on his face. Cracking a smile, he began to speak.

“On,” he said.

After you die, you expected an afterlife or either Heaven, or Hell. Instead you find yourself standing in front of a pub named ‘Purgatorio.’