CHRISTMAS MARKET SWEETS
Maybe it was how free the young waiter was with the boisterous crowd on Saturday afternoon in the Rothenburg, Germany, bierstübe —beerhall—with him touching the men and them touching him and patting his biceps, chest, and bottom as he passed, swinging up to six full beer steins in his hands without losing a drop of lager. The array of steins looked almost as big as he did in his short-legged leather lederhosen despite it being in the middle of December. He looked too young for me not to be interested in him, and I was—not least because he looked young. I guess his name was Kurt. That’s what the men he was serving beer to called him, and they seemed to be quite familiar with him. He smiled at me as he passed where I sat at a long table, everyone around me being with someone else—except for me. He turned and smiled at me again. I grinned back and raised my nearly empty stein. I wondered if Hans Weissman knew this was a predominantly gay men’s beerhall. I might have guessed that f...