The Worldwide Misadventures of Emma

“Fine! You wear them!” a shoe hurtled past my head. The adage “Never Travel with Couples” came to mind as the another flying shoe narrowly missed me. I surveyed the chaos surrounding me, the tiny East Village room we had been staying in for the last three weeks looked like a suitcase had exploded in it. “Is this too much blue?” said Dan, doing a twirl in the fabric debris “I don’t want to look like a sailor.” I wondered if we would ever make it out of the house.

Every morning we had risen, dutifully applied Band-Aids to our blistered feet and ventured out in search of more art, more theatre, more New York; but strangely this afternoon we had nothing planned. “Maybe we should just go for a walk and see where we end up?” ventured Jake as we stepped out into the warm June sun. The light was hazy and golden and every corner we turned offered a scene which could have been pulled straight from a film. People drank beers on their stoops, old men smoked on corners, a busker tap danced on a piece of wood. We walked through Washington Square Park where kids danced and squealed in a fountain.

About to turn back, we saw a group of people had formed. “It could be a TV show being filmed. Can we check it out? Please.” I begged. With a resigned sigh the boys let me drag them towards the crowd. Around a dingy bar was a cluster of news trucks, their antenna’s sticking high in the sky. A reporter was being filmed, his chiseled looks compromised by the fact he had to stand on a milk crate to look taller. Tourists took photos. “What’s going on?” we asked a man. “Don’t you know?” he said “Same sex marriage was passed in state of New York last night”. We looked at the bar. It was a small, unassuming brick building. In the bright sun we hadn’t been able to see the words “The Stonewall Inn” written in neon on the window. This was the site of the Stonewall riots, the event considered to be beginning of the gay liberation movement. We moved closer to the bar, nobody stood in our way. Emboldened we went in. It was dark inside with a low ceiling. It smelt of beer long since drunk. A few couples stood around. A television on the wall replayed the passing of the bill. We brought a beer. Jake and Dan sat down under a photo of men who had been persecuted for loving the wrong sex. We sipped our beer. No one was cheering or crying. There was no glitter or drag queens. Everything seemed normal, but nothing was normal. The world had just changed. Jake took Dan’s hand across the table.