The Extra
06.05.06 23:58:14

We're standing around at Mary's, a bar in East Atlanta Village, chatting with Ryan, who's just moved to Atlanta from Columbus, Ohio, in the last month.

"So where'd you end up living?" He asks in making idle conversation. "I'm renting up in South Buckhead, trying to figure out where to buy."

"I'm on Cheshire," I reply. It's not just a street here in Atlanta, but a neighborhood.

"Oh, which complex?" Here a month, and he already knows we're talking complexes. He's quick, this one.

"The Heights."

"Ohhhh...the gay Melrose Place."

I give him a quizzical look. I know exactly what he's talking about, but still, how does he already know the nickname that I didn't hear until three months after I moved in?

He can tell that I want more of an explanation. "I was at the Heretic last week, and I met some guys who were talking about the place. They were telling me stories about what goes on over there."

Clearly, Ryan is more in the know about what happens at my apartment complex after less than four weeks of living in Atlanta than I am from more than half a year of actually living here.

I'm not a part of the "scene" here at the Heights, that's for sure. You won't see me a part of the comings and goings of friends and lovers, a player in the romantic trysts and secretive sexcapades of my neighbors. I see myself, right or wrong, as too sophisticated for the folk who live here, people who I consider to be a fairly representative sampling of all that is Gay White Trash in the south. Chances are, I'm in turn seen as, at best, stand-offish, and at worst, a snob.

It's all fine by me, even if it keeps me in the background shots of the soap opera swirling around me, and occassionally, wondering on just what exactly it is that I'm missing.

Music: Death Cab for Cutie, Plans