"Tanqueray Daybreak" (Text & Image Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
Chapter One: Tanqueray, Twirls, and the Tumbling Cage
As I swerved, startled by Raoul's sudden warning, I hit Juan with my 1984 Ford Tempo. His body hurtled into the air like a rag doll and bounced off the hood with all the elegance of a disgraced Cirque du Soleil understudy. The rest, as they say in third-rate memoirs and rehab testimonials, is history.
But before we talk about Juan, let’s rewind to 1972, a time when polyester was a legitimate lifestyle and Minneapolis–St. Paul—collectively called the Twin Cities—was where my young, undecided self roamed with ambition, indecision, and a remarkably limited wardrobe.
I'd just graduated college with a degree in something so unmarketable that even I’ve blocked it out. The world lay before me like an all-you-can-eat buffet with no sneeze guards—and I had no idea where to start. My first real job? Exotic dancer at Charlie’s Turf Club on University Avenue in St. Paul. Yes, exotic dancer.
Yes, me.
Charlie’s wasn’t exactly Studio 54. It was more like if a bowling alley and a speakeasy had a child and left it to be raised by a biker gang. But it had lights, music, and a stage. And on Tuesday nights—dance night—I became a minor god.
My act was more than just bump and grind. I considered myself a performance artist. I wore fire-red leotards with a sequined cape the color of mood swings: black, gray, and green. My signature number was a Dervish-inspired spin-fest that left the audience breathless and me mildly concussed.
The backstage room was small and vaguely smelled of Aqua Net, desperation, and Tanqueray. Management, always thoughtful, left me a chilled bottle of my favorite gin, along with my crystal old-fashioned glass—a thrift store treasure I claimed after a particularly blurry Christmas Eve.
I remember that Tuesday vividly. The skies had turned greenish-black, and local meteorologists were in a state of apocalyptic ecstasy. The radio buzzed warnings about tornadoes, flooding, and angry Midwestern gods. But I had a show to do. I climbed the rope ladder into the suspended cage above the dance floor and prepared to dervish like it was my last spin.
And in a way—it was.
Somewhere between Thelma Houston’s first belt of "Don't Leave Me This Way" and my fourth turn, the cage gave a groan like an arthritic ghost and snapped free from the ceiling.
I remember screaming, but it might’ve been the audience. We crashed to the floor with the kind of dramatic flair that wins both applause and litigation. The cage burst open. I staggered out, knees wobbling, vision starry...and landed directly in Raoul’s arms.
Raoul. Let’s just say if James Bond and Ricardo Montalbán had a love child with a fondness for tropical shirts and criminally good taste in gin—it would be Raoul.
Chapter Two: Enter Raoul
It was a Tuesday. Life-altering Tuesdays should be outlawed, or at least made to carry warning labels.
The sun had gone full wrath-of-God by noon, and Charlie’s Turf Club—our beloved, battered little gay bar on University Avenue—was sweating through its foundation. The air conditioning had died again (I suspected sabotage), and the scent of the place had turned from musky flirtation to a downright hostile blend of spilled gin, sweat, Halston, and late-70s regret.
I was halfway through applying my glitter eyeliner—shade: Disco Absolution—when Lenny the bouncer knocked.
“You got a visitor,” he grunted, cracking the door with his meaty fist. “Guy says he’s your cousin. Name’s Raoul.”
Lenny smirked when he said it. He knew damn well I didn’t have a cousin named Raoul.
I stepped into the hazy corridor and froze. There he was.
Leaning against the wall like it had personally offended him, stood a man with sun-browned skin, shaggy dark hair, and a jawline sharp enough to slice citrus. He was wearing an unbuttoned linen shirt, weathered jeans, and scuffed boots that made no sense in July but looked criminally good on him.
His eyes met mine—steady, unreadable, amused. I felt...seen. In a way that was both thrilling and mildly alarming.
“You’re late,” I said, because panic made me bitchy.
“I’m early,” he replied, voice low and lightly accented. “You just didn’t know I was expecting you.”
Chapter Three: Juan and the Trouble with Tempos
Let’s be honest: Juan never liked me.
It wasn’t personal—not at first. Juan didn’t like anyone who dared to share a spotlight he believed had been reserved for him alone since birth. He was the bartender at Charlie’s Turf Club—but not just any bartender.
He was the bartender. The dealer of side-eyes. The diva of drink specials. His signature move was pouring cocktails with one hand while flipping his hair with the other, all to the beat of whatever disco track was owning the room.
And in his defense, he had a hell of a presence: silver-blond hair bleached nearly white, cheekbones like switchblades, and a body sculpted by what I assumed were equal parts good genes, vodka tonics, and passive-aggressive Pilates.
Before Raoul entered the picture, Juan and I had a kind of frosty detente. He’d call me “darling” with just enough venom to ruin the compliment, and I’d tip in loose change and glitter. We understood each other. Sort of.
But then... Raoul.
Raoul, with his brooding eyes and jungle cat charisma. Raoul, who suddenly started showing up at Charlie’s on the regular, sitting always at Juan’s end of the bar—until, one night, he wasn’t. He was at my table. At my side. In my bed.
Juan noticed.
The accident—the so-called “Tempo Tragedy”—happened months later. I was driving my silver-blue 1984 Ford Tempo through the West Side. Raoul was riding shotgun, windows down, gin fizz in a travel mug.
As we rounded a corner near Wabasha Street, Raoul shouted, “Look out!”
Too late.
Juan had stepped off the curb in platform boots and a sheer mesh tank top that read “BITTER, PARTY OF ONE.” His arms were waving—possibly to flag a cab, possibly to flip us off. The next moment he was airborne.
He somersaulted once, then crashed dramatically onto a patch of hostas in front of a Methodist church.
Raoul whispered, “Is it bad that I think he faked the landing?”
Juan survived, of course. He didn’t press charges. But he did show up to Charlie’s three nights later in a wheelchair he absolutely didn’t need, sipping a gimlet and milking the sympathy of the entire dance floor.I brought him a bouquet of silk carnations and a handwritten card that said, “Sorry I launched you. Sincerely, Your Favorite Dancer.”
He stared at it for a long time before saying, “I preferred you before you got soft.”
That was Juan. No sentiment without a slap. No moment without a monologue. The term I frequently applied to Juan rhymed with witch.
But here’s the truth: part of me missed him. Not romantically. Not even platonically. But as an adversary. As a mirror.
Raoul didn’t miss him. And the tension between them only got thicker from there. I never found out the whole story—whether they were once lovers, rivals, or something far more complicated. Raoul never said. Juan never shut up.
And me? I just kept dancing.
Chapter Four: Island Life and Other Bad Decisions
When we left Minneapolis, we didn’t so much relocate as flee.
The night after the Tempo incident, I stood in my kitchen staring at Juan’s silk carnations wilting in a glass.
Raoul stood behind me, shirtless, barefoot, holding two crystal old-fashioned glasses, each with a generous dollop of Tanqueray and a single, slow-melting cube.
“Let’s disappear,” he said.
I turned to face him. “Disappear where?”
He sipped. “Somewhere the humidity is a lifestyle. Somewhere your name doesn’t come with an asterisk.”
I paused. “Florida?”
He winced. “God, no. The Caribbean.”
We opened an atlas. Chose a name we liked. Pointe-à-Pierre, on the island of Guadeloupe. A crescent-shaped bay, an abandoned quay, and—if the real estate listing was to be believed—a “fixer-upper bar/restaurant with significant nautical charm.”
We wired our savings, packed two suitcases, and boarded a plane with nothing but hope, hangovers, and one poorly translated tourist guide.
We called it Hanna Mae’s, after a Midwestern friend who once told me: “You need three things in life, sugar: decent gin, someone who touches you like you’re music, and a porch with a view.” He died two years later, chain-smoking on his porch during a thunderstorm. A legend.
The place sat at the far edge of a forgotten quay, surrounded by coconut palms, bougainvillea, and hibiscus plants so aggressive they looked like they were auditioning for a musical. You could hear the sea before you saw it—crashing, sighing, whispering secrets you weren’t sure you wanted to know.
Inside, we found:
- Three broken ceiling fans
- A rusted jukebox loaded entirely with Grace Jones and Donna Summer
- One unopened case of Tanqueray gin (a sign)
- And a single note scrawled on the mirror behind the bar:
“She left at dawn. Don’t follow her. Also: rats.”
And somehow—despite ourselves—it worked.
We served rum punch to tourists and gin fizzes to expats. There was Lucille, the Canadian scuba instructor. Big Al, the drag queen turned beekeeper. And us—Raoul and me. Behind the bar. On the beach. In the hammock. In bed.Some days we barely spoke. Some days we laughed until the sun gave up and slid into the sea. We developed a rhythm, not unlike a slow cha-cha—equal parts anticipation and retreat.
It wasn’t paradise. But it was ours.
And Tanqueray?
We ordered so much, the distributor gave us the first volume discount in Lesser Antilles history. We got a plaque. It hangs in the bathroom, slightly tilted, next to a framed photo of Raoul dancing shirtless in the rain with a pelican.
But time is a slippery thing on an island. Days blur. Seasons change subtly. You forget to check the calendar until one day a stranger arrives with news, or a letter, or a storm.
In our case, it was September 1989.
Hurricane season.
And fate, like an old queen with nothing left to lose, was about to blow the roof right off our little slice of heaven.
Chapter Five: September 1989
The wind began with a whisper. It curled around the palm trees like a rumor.
By nightfall, Gabrielle had arrived. She wasn’t a storm. She was a reckoning.
The roof peeled back at 2 a.m. Rain came in sideways. The bar exploded. Gin mixed with seawater.
We huddled in the storeroom behind liquor crates. I pressed my face into Raoul’s chest and whispered, “Remember when Juan faked paralysis for two full weeks?”
Raoul laughed. “He got free drinks and a dance tribute.”
By morning, Hanna Mae’s was a ruin. But the mirror behind the bar still stood. Raoul reached for my hand. I didn’t let go.
Chapter Six: The Flashback and the Reinvention
On the third day after the storm, Raoul found the Polaroid album. One shot stopped me—me laughing, Raoul watching, unsmiling. A memory surfaced.
St. Paul, 1977.
We were outside Charlie’s after a quiet set. “Why do you watch me like that when I dance?” I asked.
Raoul replied, “Because you look like you’re trying to remember something you never got to do.”
He kissed me then. Certain. Like he always meant to.
Back in Pointe-à-Pierre.
“I want something new,” I said.
“Then let’s build it,” he said.
We painted the first wall of the new Hanna Mae’s a shade of green I’d once worn on stage. It shimmered in the light. Like memory. Like forgiveness. Like the start of something else.
Epilogue: Tanqueray Dreams
Suddenly, I woke with a start.
Raoul lay sleeping next to me, on his stomach, one arm draped over the pillow, a soft snore in his throat.
Did all of this happen? Was it real? Was it a Tanqueray-induced dream?
In the background, I heard the ocean. The call of night jungle birds. I curled up beside him, touched the warmth of his back.
Whatever it was—dream, memory, miracle—I was here.
And I went back to sleep.
~Wylddane
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