CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR
The Club
(reprinted, with permission, from Everybody's News, Issue 548, March 19,
1999)
by Michael Blankenship
There's a social club in town that I was unaware of a couple years ago but whose presence in the gay community is felt to an increasing extent. This club welcomes nearly everybody and there are no dues paid to the group itself, but membership and activities can be rather costly. Probably the most unusual aspect of this club is that none of its members want to be initiated. It's the DUI Club.
I found myself a member just over two years ago, recruited by an efficient and thorough deputy sheriff. I was blasted on my way home from a cast party in early March of 1997, and, though the flashing lights behind me did a remarkable job of jolting me to alertness, they didn't do much to flush the alcohol from my system. Thinking I had no choice but to submit to the breathalyzer test, I did. Had I refused the test (a clear example of self-incrimination), I would have automatically had my license suspended for six months. But because I got a high score, when I showed up in court on St. Patrick's Day my leprechaun charms did nothing to mitigate the wrath of then newly appointed Judge Guy Guckenberger. Everyone else got one year's probation and suspension for their first offense, but I got two. Luck-o'-the-Irish!
Then I started becoming aware of my new brethren. We can kind of spot each other. There's no secret handshake-more like a queer self-consciousness of being the only one left out of the party, an alien without full citizenship in the Altered States of America. The girl who sucks down her drink so fast does so because there's no alcohol in it. The guy who is zipping about all over the place is wound up 'cause he's drinking Coke instead of Maker's. And each of us is a bit detached from the scene we thought we knew so well.
Barfly Bon-Vivants cease to be amusing when you're not as inebriated as they. Boisterous drinking buddies can transform before your eyes into babbling drunken buffoons. And that friendly drunk who hits on you every weekend... Now, instead of greeting his familiar staggering advance with a broad smile and a quick-witted brush-off kiss, you feel a strong urge to crush his lingering fingers and kick his ass halfway across the bar. Yes, in some cases, it is sobriety which impairs the social skills. Like Dorothy in the Emerald City (the book, not the film), the color's not so dazzling without the tinted glasses.
Sometimes we, the initiated, feel like the turd in the punchbowl, like we're ruining everyone else's party. "Oh, you are so damn cute, you should try smiling!" an extremely tipsy drag queen shrieks in your ear over the disco throb. Do you thank her for piercing your eardrum? Or tell her to fuck off and mind her own business? Of course, you fish out the best stock character mask from your theatrical repertoire, plaster it on, tighten the cheeks, clink your Sprite with her gin and say, "Why thank you, darling, I needed that!" She slugs it down, and then orders shots. Tonight may be her turn to ride home in a cruiser.
And, of course, those who don't get caught can be pretty judgmental about those who do, blaming "those drunks" for ruining the fun for everyone else. But I bet 90 percent of those who would characterize themselves as "social drinkers" are legally drunk when they get behind the wheel. The standards for initiation into the club are not that difficult to meet. Sure, maybe you had one beer and did a round of shots with your friends, then headed out to your next stop for the night. Maybe you failed to signal properly, or didn't come to a complete stop at a flashing red light. "Johnny Law" doesn't care about how much you had to drink, just whether there's enough on your breath at that time to bust you. Drunk driving is a cottage industry, a law enforcement racket, a governmental gold mine.
Everybody profits, as the system exists right now, while the offender is systematically plundered, socially stigmatized, and legally red-flagged. Lawyers make entire careers with the practice: the options and surprises are few, the tactics familiar, and the caseload constant. State and local governments team up with social service organizations, forcing offenders into programs designed to propel them into legal pigeonholes, personal humiliation and repeat offenses.
Disingenuous surveys are manipulated by staffers to ensure more time in the programs, more costs billed to the state, more profits for the agency. Those who lie through their teeth are set free immediately, while those who may give damaging but truthful responses are wrung out. Private companies are contracted to install breathalyzer-equipped ignition interlock devices to monitor those on probation, who then must pay the monthly rental for that device, in addition to higher insurance, and every incidental accessory charge, little and large, that Big Brother can come up with. If a credible solution could possibly be created, it is doubtful it could ever be implemented. There's too much money to be made as it is.
And every week it seems we are treated to a new drunk-driver horror story. Four DUIs, eight DUIs, 17 DUIs! How does that happen, if not with state and county complicity? Now there's a push to make those breathalyzer interlocks standard equipment on new vehicles. I guess the old club won't seem nearly as exclusive. My membership just ran out, and I don't think I'll renew.
