Rock Creek Parkway
I walked to a bookstore with tall windows looking out on the street. A few guys wandered through the stacks, occasionally rifling through the pages of some book. I looked through a book on Watergate and stood next to a guy who was pretending to study a book about Vietnam.
“Hey,” he said, looking over at me. “Can I ask you something? Are you Canadian?”
I looked up from the book and laughed. His face relaxed.
It was a silly game. When you weren’t sure if a guy was gay, you asked if he was Canadian. If he said yes, then you knew. The straight ones always looked puzzled, told you they were American, and gave you their whole life history.
Read the story on the Boston Review website: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/rock-creek-parkway