M: I'm recording this while it's fresh in my memory. The club owner of Fallout came in and said I was being transphobic tonight. To someone. I think an employee is what she said. She wanted an apology. She wanted me to say, and the paraphrase here is in the surrounding phrasing, not the actual words. She wanted me to apologize to say, I am sorry for being a transphobic fuck and also weird. The sentence structure was different, but that was literally what she was asking of me. For the record, I am not transphobic. Some of my friends have been trans. I've gone out in lingerie for Rocky Horror. Rocky Horror, I find the accusation offensive. I make sure that I know why I dislike someone before I let myself dislike them. And it's always a bespoke personal dislike, rather than because of what they do with their undercarriage. Shh. Shh. This is someone that I've had trouble with before. For more complex reasons where the best way I can summarize it is that I don't think I was wrong. I know where the other side was arguing from, but rather than actually acknowledge there was at least two different ideas, they all conflated them and then refused to listen to anything I said. Like I said, it's more complex. I'm not calling myself the hero of that situation, just not a villain. In this case, though, and part of the reason why I'm recording it is because I don't want to forget these details, is that I believe, not through any direct evidence, but as a scenario that seems more likely than, at the very least, my having an exact doppelganger that chose that moment to go around and insult trans people. My belief is that this person already believes me to be some sort of hateful person. They came in that night and heard that someone at the pool table had been giving grief to people, even though they'd been asked to stop. And the club owner assumed, because I was there, that it must have been me. Great tolerance there, right? Prejudging. For my part, and another thing that I want to have recorded so it's here while it's still fresh in my mind, is that what I did was, after two weeks of not going, I went in, ordered a drink, ordered a drink, played a game, mostly silently, with a group of people who, for lack of a better quick description, all looked like Super Trooper cosplayers, or maybe Tacoma FD, in that they all seemed to have that kind of not-quite-Freddie Mercury mustache. Well, three out of the four did. And I played a game of pool with them before they left. My belief is that if anyone had been harassing transvestites, or transsexuals, or whatever other trans was going on, that it was one of these guys, because I ended up playing a game with two of them while a third wandered off, and they left before nine o'clock. After that, I signed up for karaoke and played pool with a guy who was also named David, until Lamont showed up. I sang Whiskey in the Jar, came back, played some more pool, came back, played some more pool, and was coming back from the restroom when the club owner showed up and demanded that I admit that I was transphobic and weird. I'm focusing on that word weird because, everything else aside, the idea of demanding that I admit that I am somehow weird as a negative thing in a club like Fallout it's just notable at the very least. I mean, everyone there would likely not only admit to being weird, but would do it happily. But she was saying it as though it was something shameful. Sigh. I didn't know what to do with this. I got kind of limbic paralysis from recall. I didn't say I was transphobic, because I'm not, but, again, club owner, I couldn't simply argue from a position of knowing that logic would succeed and I can't describe her attitude except to say that this was not someone who was actually thinking that they had any weakness in their defense. They moved with zealous authority, convinced that they were right. So even if I hadn't been paralyzed, this was not someone who was capable of listening to anything that was not exactly what they wanted to hear and confirmed their belief that they were in the right. I don't know what to do with this, but I wanted it recorded while I still had it in my mind.

M: Also, I am acknowledging that while I was almost certain I hadn't done anything, almost isn't definite. So, even if it had been a good idea to face someone like that with the capacity to simply throw you out, with certainty, I could not be 100% certain that somehow something I had done hadn't been misconstrued. That's another thing. There was no admission of the idea that, you know, even if I had done something, that it could possibly be anything but intentional. But I asked her what it was that she thought I had done. She didn't know. She said she had to go talk to the employee and find out. When I looked for her before leaving, because I couldn't hang around, although I did stay for another 20 minutes or something waiting for a response, when I did go looking, or when I did go to cash out, she was nowhere to be found. Again, this is speculation, but the kind of speculation that I want on the record, in that if I'm wrong, it's going to have to fit the situation better than what I'm presenting here, because this at least fits solidly in terms of what happened. I think that one of the guys that was with the guys I was playing pool with was something of an asshole. I think that she came in, heard that someone at the pool table had been an asshole, and either assumed or perhaps even hoped it was me. And then when they saw me, they were suddenly certain that I had been expressly transphobic, and they were almost relishing the chance to try and shame me. When I wouldn't say that I was or apologize, but instead asked what I had done, she tried to make it seem like I had somehow lost the round and went to go find out. I think that given that it had been at the entrance, because the pool table is right by the entrance, so there was minimal potential for interaction between when she came in and was talking about this. It's even possible that she didn't actually hear this so much from an employee as she did from someone outside. I think that when she walked away, she either didn't try and find out because she was calling it a win to herself, or if she did find out, she found out that it wasn't me and felt like the case was solved as she hadn't just demanded that I call myself a transphobic fuck and weird. Again, that is all speculation, but it's informed by what I experienced and what was physically possible at that point. Because this is not a club where there are a bunch of different entrances or stairs or things like that. There was the front entrance, which leads to an antechamber with a pool table. And outside the door, a section where people can take their drinks. So the information can't have come from anywhere else, given what was available as an option. And she's distinctive enough that it wasn't a case of her slipping back out later, particularly since I was, at that point, fairly well attuned to her presence in terms of just anxiety and all that. So she just kind of left. I'm recording this because I'm concerned that somehow she will believe, well, I'm recording it for a lot of reasons, but I'm concerned that she'll believe that my leaving was not, in fact, because, you know, I wasn't capable of continuing a night of karaoke at that point, but because somehow I was ashamed and ran.

M: Two corrections. The flow is the outside drink area through the front entrance hallway to the antechamber with the pool table. And I'm saying that if anyone behaved badly, it likely was one of the guys playing pool before I was. I'm not guaranteeing that anything happened. I'm saying that if anything did happen, I'm certain it wasn't me. Like, allowing for the uncertainty that I said, especially at the moment, I can say that I'm as certain as I can be without some kind of physical record that it wasn't me because the implication, something I left out about what the club owner said, I can't produce it verbatim, but the implication was that whatever happened involved someone not stopping even though they were asked. Now, I told you what I did over the course of the night, and even if something I—at that point, I allowed for the idea that something had been misconstrued because I wasn't exactly in a position to analyze everything. But at no point had anyone asked me to cut anything out. I had talked to I mean, actually conversed with one person at that point. I had made a couple comments to the guys I played pool with, and as far as I knew, none of them were trans, and I didn't repeat myself, so it couldn't have been me. But the point is, if it is that—I'm not saying that it's likely they behaved badly. I'm saying that if anyone did behave badly, they are the most likely culprits. And I don't know whether or not she... I don't know whether she was directed to me or the pool table. I wasn't privy to that part. It's my suspicion, because... She came directly for me. I don't think I recognized anyone at the entrance when I came in. So they wouldn't have been able to identify me. And when I say recognize, I mean there are regulars and then there are people who show up occasionally. So to point me out... I don't think that as the culprit would have at least required that kind of knowledge. You know, being able to say, that guy who sometimes sings fast songs or something like that. But there was no one like that when I entered. And the... Even the people at the entrance, usually it's a female or could be trans or whatever. But this was someone who... If they were trans, they were really good at it. They were a large male. But the point is that I didn't interact with them. Which means, the only reason for her to have come inside... Having heard that something was amiss and then come directly to the pool table... Come directly to me, was because it was at the pool table. In entering, she wouldn't have interacted with anyone who could have identified me personally. So that is a supposition of mine, but an informed one given... That unless she like got a call from someone... With actual malice towards me, that I... I can't see any other reason why I would have been the target until she saw me.