You Can Get Anything You Want

I don’t like men.

I thought I’d actually begin and end there. Walk in, say, “I don’t like men” and walk out. Like Arlo Guthrie, in “Alice’s Restaurant.”¹ “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.” The “Alice’s Restaurant” anti-massacre movement where “all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar.” I mean, we could, like the song—walk into the shrink’s office. Fifty people a day walk into the shrink’s office singing a bar of “Alice’s Restaurant” and walk out. A movement. A movement that would end war. Confront the draft. Bring people together. With feeling.

The song “Alice’s Restaurant,” of the album Alice’s Restaurant, was released in 1967, six years before I was born. When I was little, I remember we would listen to that album over and over. On the eight track. On the turntable. We. When I think of the “we” listening to that song, friends, I am confused by that “we.” Now, you may be in a similar situation, be as confused as I am, or you may be able to offer some insight. I’ll feel better, you’ll feel better, or we might all be confused together, sing a bar of “Alice’s Restaurant” and walk out.

We would listen together. We—we were just your average group of Midwestern, mixed race, Mexican American and European American, working poor group of six. All different shades of white and brown walking around together. These people are my—for lack of a better word—family. This family is not led by the hippies of the time who I imagine sat around grooving to Alice’s Restaurant. These people do not tune in or drop out, they may not be especially liberal. Political. They work. Hard. He paints buildings, is a bit of a hustler, card player, avoids the cops that occasionally show up on our doorstep asking questions. She takes care of her three boys and girl, and any other neighborhood kids hanging around at the local pool. She cannot swim. These are the people who have dinner together every night in their assigned seats. Whether they like it or not. I have no idea why these people sit around together and listen to Alice’s Restaurant.

When we do, something happens for me. To me. I stare into the gold colored album cover at the man who stares back out. The man wears a crisp white unfolded napkin that lies against his bare chest and extending from his bare arms he holds a knife and fork in his hands, a black felt hat on top of his long thick hair. At a shiny wooden table, he sits in front of a perfectly set place setting with skinny lit candles with flickering flames. His plate is empty but for another folded napkin. I imagine myself on the other side of the table, sitting just as straight, staring back into his eyes, maybe singing along. I want to be a part of that movement.

Because somewhere in that movement. In this one moment. Something happens for me. Everything stops for me. He says, faggots. When he says faggots, like the two faggots that walk into the shrink’s office, the faggots who sing in harmony and are therefore rejected from the draft, something happens to me. Something stirs. Deep down. Inside. Faggots. These men that are not moral enough to join the Army. What’s wrong with them? Who are they? What do they do? Something is wrong by the way he says, faggots. Casually. But with feeling. I don’t know quite what is wrong, but something. It’s a similar feeling that I feel when we watch the movie version of the musical Hair.² We also watched Hair. Also about the draft. Also with faggots. Other words, these words: Sodomy. Fellatio. Cunnilingus. Masturbation. Woof, one of the main characters, the long-haired blond, sits stuck in prison in front of the warden, some time after and...