Nothing Good Happens After Midnight: Being Noah Diaz

By Noah Diaz

I turn off the rumbling window air conditioning unit at my apartment. It hasn’t worked in weeks, and I’m finally ready to come to terms with it. I open up the windows to my apartment, a building I tell people is 100 years old, but if I’m being honest, I don’t know if that’s true or not. I feel a breeze—warm, of course. It sweeps through the middle of my studio apartment, making my unopened mail join my dirty laundry scattered on the floor. I really need to clean up, I think to myself. I live alone, so no one is there to keep me accountable for my cleanliness. I’m never home though—my apartment serves as a place to sleep for a few hours in between my three jobs, and as a place to stop by and change my outfit before going to my next destination. Essentially, it’s a glorified closet. It makes sense that I don’t get around to cleaning it very much. I’ve recently been contemplating hiring a cleaning service, but I’m convinced that’s a thing rich people have, which I definitely am not.

It’s Friday night, and I’m already late. Friday nights are special to me. I work at a bar, sort of, so my evenings are usually spent on the clock. Except for Fridays, that is. Fridays, I am free. Saturdays I don’t have to work until 6 p.m., so I can do whatever I want, for as long as I want, on Friday nights. On this particular Friday evening, my plans are starting across town in 10 minutes and I’m still not ready. I quickly undress and go to my closet to pick out a pair of underwear. If all goes well tonight, someone will be seeing them—and taking them off of me. Choose wisely, Noah, I think to myself. I yank a torn-up T-shirt and skinny jeans from the floor and perform the sniff test—they still smell okay. Perfect, I can wear them tonight! It may be hot, but I will not be seen in shorts. I add leather combat boots and a cropped leather jacket to the outfit. I walk to my mirror and see if my hair needs any taming. It does, but I don’t have time. I run my fingers through it a few times and I look at the outfit I’ve put together. I’m wearing black from head to toe, everything is skintight, leather, and unbreathable. The air coming in from outside is warm. It’s been dark for a few hours, but the Houston summer air is always heavy and never cool. “You look fine,” I say to myself shaking my hair. “Let’s go!” I grab my things and leave the apartment. After locking the door, I reach to put my keys in my front pocket, along with my phone. The pocket is tight and small; my keys don’t fit. That’s right—I remind myself that I got these pants from the “girls” section of the thrift store and—for some reason—females don’t need more than a half inch of pocket space. I roll my eyes as I reach the parking garage and speed off into the night.

Sitting in a dark corner of a club, I lean in to try and hear my friend, who I can tell has been waiting a while to tell me this story. This isn’t a gay club, but it’s the sort of club where the patrons are so avant-garde and bizarre that a queer oddball like me can sit, be in peace, and not attract any attention unless I want to. I lean in a little further to hear my friend’s story, but the closeness doesn’t help—the music is blasting and the walls are throbbing, so I smile and nod my head. Behind my friend, leaned up against a brick wall, stands a man. The lights in the club illuminate him every few moments. He seems tall, has a cap on, is shirtless, and is wearing leather suspenders connected to the loops of his black jeans. Although he appears to be very masculine, he is alluding a feminine energy. His body is moving with the music like a snake, first to the side, then forward. My friend laughs at the story I haven’t been paying attention to. I instinctively laugh with them, but continue to look at the man until he notices me staring. I look away swiftly but muster the courage to look back. We lock glances and his dancing slows down. My friend’s story ends. “Excuse me,” I say, as I get up and walk over to the man who hasn’t broken his stare. “Hello…”

We tumble into my dark and warm apartment, lips locked and hands roaming. As we travel across my room, I reach up to turn on my overhanging fan light, but accidentally turn the fan itself off. Fuck, it’s about to get really hot in here, I think to myself as I hear cars passing by outside my open windows. I push him onto my bed, take off my leather jacket, and throw it across the room, adding to the mess. He starts unbuttoning his shirt and gets on his knees, scooting to the edge of the bed where I meet him. Our foreheads touch. I look down and see his body, which only a few hours before was slivering across the room from me. He was now panting and very still. I take my shirt off over my head, and my wild hair falls back to my shoulders to meet his hands, which are now sliding down my torso. He begins to unbutton my skinny jeans and I grab his jaw, point it forward, and begin to make out with him as he blindly struggles with my pants. I feel him succeed and he begins to peel the jeans from my skin. When they’re halfway down my thighs, our lips separate and he looks down. “I like your underwear,” he says with a smile on his face. “Thank you,” I say. Good choice, Noah.