Pace Nightclub killings: An anthology for a good cause...

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The Crone’s Nest was one of two gay bars in town; it opened in 1963 without the support of anyone from the Town Council, the Mayor’s office, the police department, any parents or registered voters. By the turn of the century, the younger crowd hung out at Tallulah’s, but in 1967, young and old frequented The Crone’s Nest.

In 1976, a Country Western bar opened across the street. Though the owner was a middle-aged man, the bar was called “Dolly’s.” The patrons drove big pick-up trucks and as soon as they figured out the folks across the street were gay, trouble started. They let air out of tires, broke the front window, wrote ‘fag’ with spray paint on the front door and shouted insults after people as they came and went. Word got around that the owner of Dolly’s wanted The Crone’s Nest to move.

“We’ll out last them,” Tinkerbelle, a plump femme, said. “It’s what people like us do. We’ll deal with them for a while, then they’ll get tired and move. We know how to take cruelty and keep going.” Back then Tink worked in a coal mine, a job that the second wave of the women’s movement won for her. She’d done other things, but Freeman mine paid the best.

Everyone agreed to ignore the troublemakers except Molly, she said, “Some time or other we got to take a stand.”

Molly had come to town the August after Dolly’s moved in, and when they shouted at her, she shouted back. She was a small round woman with short graying hair and razory dark eyes. Without her leathers and helmet, she looked like a second grade school teacher. Every summer she came to the Crone’s Nest when the state fair was in town. She traveled in a 1964 Chevy pickup truck, and in the bed she carried two motorcycles, one for the show and the other much nicer one to haul around the pretty girls.

Dykes who took dates to the fair, bought them corn dogs, cotton candy, lemonade shake ups, and took them to see the Butter Cow. At seven and nine (two shows in one evening), they made their way to Happy Hollow where there were games, rides, colorful lights and the Motordrome. It was a large cylinder shaped like a barrel. Viewers climbed up a set of wobbly, metal stairs to the top, and looking down inside, they watched the motorcycles start at the bottom going in a circle and as the riders picked up speed, they left the ground and started climbing up the wall toward the viewers.

As the only woman, Molly always was first to ride. She knew that a mistake could be deadly, but mindless circling and the women’s faces up at the top of the dome sometimes distracted her. The summer that she broke her wrist on the first night was one of those times. Her distraction’s name was Beth, who wore her long blond hair in pig-tails tied with pink ribbons. When the ambulance pulled up, Molly could see her in the crowd that had gathered.

Back then the motorcycle races, on a one mile dirt track, at the opposite end of the fairgrounds, in the Grand Stand, were always the last weekend of the fair. The whole town was taken over by people with motorcycles. When hotels and motels filled up, the bikers would camp at parking meters downtown. The party went on the whole weekend. One year some drunken bikers rode their motorcycles into the lobby of the Leland Hotel. They were arrested but out the next afternoon for the races after which they headed home as agreed.

Tinkerbelle had spent one season with Molly when they were both younger. She’d been treated like a queen by Molly and by the other carnival workers. The motordrome riders were among the most revered in Happy Hollow—more than the double Ferris-wheel or the burlesque show. In the years that followed, Tink settled down with one butch after the next. If she was single in August, she and Molly would take up again. But the year of the broken wrist, Tink was living in a trailer with Jana and her dogs out in the country.

All week long Molly had spent time with Beth. They rode together, ate at the best restaurants, spent time at the lake and even more time in Molly’s motel room. Beth told her friends several times that she was going with Molly to the next fair and the next and eventually they would winter in Florida. Molly hadn’t said a thing about that. But if she had some hard truth to tell the girl, right after the races was the best time.

The motorcycle races finished at about seven-thirty. The gates that lead out of the grandstand and the infield were covered with people who like lines of ants were shuffling forward steadily and orderly toward the exits where men and women mounted their bikes and headed out for the long trips home. By then the carnival workers had the motordrome torn down.

The day of the races, Molly picked up Beth for what she thought was the last time. The wind was warm as it blew the blond pigtails back and forth. Beth held her arms around Molly’s waist and the vibrations of the Harley’s seat sent waves of pleasure up her thighs. Molly was used to it, but she liked it when a long ride would spark her passenger. After the races, she parked the black Harley next to the Crone’s Nest’s door. With her left wrist in a cast, she could break, but the clutch was iffy, and the wall would help her kick starting and get going without the girl behind her—she’d been thinking ahead.

Beth threw a leg over and skipped down off the bike. “You need me to help?”

Molly cleared her throat, and said, “I got it. You just stand clear.”

Beth, the taller and slimmer of the two, threw her arm loosely around Molly’s shoulders, as they walked into the Crone’s Nest.

Sunday was always drag show night, so the bar was crowded.

Across the street, the patrons of Dolly’s were quiet. With the motorcycles up and down the street, they’d been too busy to make trouble. But on Sunday night, the bikers were gone. After nine o’clock, two pickup trucks pulled to the curb across from Dolly’s and five straight men got out. The door to the Crone’s Nest had been propped open to clear out some of the cigarette smoke, and the men heard the music from Miss Pauline, who was on stage in a spotlight lip-syncing a rendition of Etta James’ “All the Way.”

They stepped inside and were immediately stopped by the dyke-at-the-door. They shouted insults and made obscene gestures toward Miss Pauline. Rachel, a thin guy, with a moustache was working behind the bar. That night she wore a pink tutu, matching tights and a rhinestone tiara. No one noticed until the straight men were gone that Rachel had put a baseball on the bar, within her reach.

Almost an hour later Tinkerbelle came in and said Molly’s bike was lying on its side. Several customers, including Molly, ran out to see what had happened. The Harley lay there with the windshield cracked, the gas tank dented and the back tire flat.

“Those sons-of-bitches,” Molly shouted. She started to cross the street and someone put a hand on her shoulder.

“Wait a minute.” It was Rachel.

Molly turned toward her. “I’m not going to take this. Those assholes—“

Rachel put her forefinger to her lips, and whispered, “Quiet.” She jerked her head to the right. “Those are their trucks.”

Molly said, “So?”

Rachel handed her the baseball bat, and said, “Wait a minute, I have a tire iron in my trunk. Car’s in back.” The skirt of her tutu bounced as she ran through the bar. As she returned with the crowbar in her hand, someone from a table near the stage called to her, “What’s going on?”

As loud as she could, Rachel shouted, “Bring your car keys out front. We have some dirt to do.”

Molly had started without her. She was working on the windows of the first truck; the crack of the bat spider-webbing the windshield reverberated. Rachel went to the second and started on its windows. Four people produced a nails on a blackboard sound of keys into metal and paint. And Tinkerbelle pulled a large pocket knife from her bra and hard as it was, she punctured tires and left them hissing. She was on the fifth one when the crowd parted and four of the five straight men came toward their trucks.

One of them shouted, “You stupid fucking queers.”

And then the battle started.

It didn’t stop until a fat guy landed a lucky blow and Miss Pauline, the six foot two inch drag queen, got knocked out. She fell like a cut tree. All was quiet.