The first week of March 2020 was the last “normal” week here in San Francisco and much of the world. It will go down in history as one of those “remember where you were?” moments, like 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination. The Saturday night before the region-wide shelter-in-place orders, my boyfriend Reagan and I stayed up later than usual. My best friend Todd invited us out to dance at The Stud, San Francisco’s oldest and arguably most iconic queer bar.
I’d never been to the bar before. We arrived around 10 p.m., excited for the experience. The sidewalk outside the brightly painted brick building was bustling with smokers and people queuing to join the party we could hear happening inside, the music only slightly muffled by walls, traffic, and chatter.
What we didn’t know is that this would be our only visit to The Stud and the San Francisco queer community’s last Saturday night in this sacred space. What we didn’t know was that this was our last time going dancing for a long, long time.
The smells of The Stud hit me as I walked in the door. Vodka. Sweat. Cologne. Smoke. Sex.
“Jack and Coke,” I yelled to the bartender, unsure of whether he actually heard me. It would take some liquid courage to get me out there, but I didn’t go to not dance. After a few minutes, I learned that the bartender had in fact heard me, and based on the pour, that he figured he’d like me more if I was good and drunk.
DJ Jason Godfrey started his set—house music, of course, which you can relive on SoundCloud thanks to the magic of the internet—and I felt the music calling me to the dance floor. I followed my best friend and his husband through the gaggle of gays, and we ended up directly in front of the speakers between the DJ and the revelers. The music was more like a feeling than a sound. The subwoofer waves made love to every cell in my body, giving me life.
After a bathroom break—ever peed in front of a mirror?—it was back to the dance floor. Midnight rolled around and the place was packed. I let the music take me away, and my eyes slowly scanned the crowd. A shirtless couple was making out, erections visible through skintight jeans, which appeared to be the only thing either of them was wearing. Nearby, another partier greeted someone—“Good to see you again!”—and then, when offered, snorted a bump of what I assume was cocaine off his friend’s fingernail. This party was starting to get wild.
It’s at this point in the night when you can choose to either let go or go home.
I let go.
The music seemed to get louder, faster, as we moved in sync with the beat, which became a metronome linking all of our bodies as one. DJ Godfrey brought the frantic crowd closer and closer to climax. We swayed together and jumped, laughed, screamed, and released an abundance of joy into the air.
If there is a God, she knew this night of dancing was important for our souls long before we did.
As my ever-wandering eye found the mirror ball rotating in the center of the room, beams of red and pink reflected across the scene. I took a moment to thank the universe, God, whomever for this connection with people dear to me, known and unknown. I know that if there is a God, she knew this night of dancing was important for our souls long before we did.
In the days and weeks that followed, Covid-19 sent us all into our homes to protect the communities we live in, but those communities will look immeasurably different when we all finally step back out into the sun.
That was The Stud’s final Saturday night in operation. It closed its iconic Soma location in mid-2020 (though it has plans to reopen elsewhere, thankfully). The building at Ninth and Harrison in San Francisco now sits empty. Its bright colors were painted over by the building’s new owners within weeks of that final dance.
That night serves as both a vivid memory of a bygone, pre-pandemic time and a last moment in one of San Francisco’s iconic queer nightspots. But I like to think it anointed me and my fellow partiers with strength, giving us the energy we needed for one of the most challenging years in the history of our species and for many of us personally.
The reality is hard to face. Since the pandemic began over a year ago, more than 54,000 people have died from Covid-19 here in California. More than 1 million people in the state have tested positive for the disease, and vaccines are rolling out slowly.
My friends and I still talk about that night at The Stud. I often wonder if everyone who was there made it this far and if any of them think on this night with the same reverence we do. For many of my fellow worshippers on the dance floor that March night in 2020, this may have been just another Saturday night in the city, but that experience has sustained me through a year of grief, self-reflection, and change.
As I reflect on one year of Covid-19 and the world it has given birth to, I am simply grateful to be alive and healthy. My boyfriend and I live in San Francisco now. My Bay Area family has all moved to Austin. I don’t have a full-time job, but I am finding my way as a freelance journalist and have a great deal of confidence and hope in the future.
When all of this is over, I’ll be back to the dance floor, yearning to move with strangers and friends alike. To feel. To move. To sing.
To dance.
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