A man strolls into Meteor and takes a seat at the bar. It's Kumaus's attorney and friend, Phillip Slaughter. "Been meaning to talk to you," Kumaus says with a smile. "Not gonna work here anymore."
"Where you going?" Slaughter asks.
Mandy Oaklander
Every night after last call at JR's Bar & Grill, feral cats line up in the parking lot and wait to be fed by the staff.
Charles Armstrong has been the mogul of gay nightlife in Montrose for decades. He's also the area's largest distributor of cat food. Armstrong is loved by some people, reviled by others and — we can only assume — adored by feral cats everywhere.
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"Probably down the street," Kumaus says. Tonight's the night. "I'm going to walk over there and say, 'Let's fill out a new-hire packet.'"
"Nice, because I'll probably be over there," Slaughter says, laughing. "I just stopped in to say hey."
They both know that if Kumaus quits, it will be his last night inside an Armstrong establishment. At the moment, neither seems to care much. "You can only ban people for life for so long until no one is allowed to come to your damn bar," Slaughter says.
Not long ago, Kumaus was on the other side of the bar as a manager. His demotion, he was told, was due to lack of ability to follow instructions. Back in December, Kumaus told his bartenders not to hand in any more spill sheets. "I questioned the legality of that," he says. A few months later, around the time the spill sheets were tallied, Kumaus says he was demoted to bartender.
Kumaus says Armstrong is struggling to regain customers. Armstrong runs a shuttle from South Beach to Meteor on the weekends, carrying partygoers from one Armstrong club to another. It used to be free. But once F Bar opened, people began hopping the shuttle and walking to F Bar. Armstrong began charging $3 to ride the shuttle, in exchange for a coupon you could redeem for $3 off a drink at Meteor. Now, Kumaus says F Bar is honoring the coupons.
Kumaus pulls out his phone to log into his Meteor e-mail account. His eyebrows shoot up. "It failed," Kumaus says, surprised. News of defection spreads fast here.
Later that night after Kumaus closes the club, he appears at F Bar. Hands in pockets, his eyes glaze over. Kumaus knows he'll never set foot inside Meteor again. "I tried, I really did," he says. "I worked with the most integrity I could, and all it got me was here."
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Three limp, sagging palm trees herald the entrance of South Beach, the clubbiest of Armstrong's bars. The palms also mark the pickup spot for the Meteor shuttle. Close to midnight on a Saturday, a group of about ten men waits in line for the shuttle, which arrives about every 15 minutes. There's no line to get in the club.
Inside, South Beach is dressed to party. A mirror ball, so enormous that Armstrong had to carve out a double-door to get it into the building years ago, glitters over the club. Rows of neon laser lights flash across the faces of patrons. Ice jets suspended from the ceiling shoot a thick mist onto the dance floor, providing the perfect opportunity to get away from an unsavory dance partner. But tonight, there's hardly anybody to get away from.
On a platform, a go-go dancer in sunglasses, briefs and sneakers is staring off into the distance, absentmindedly scratching his six-pack. Nobody seems to be watching him. Throngs of the young, gay and glamorous seem to be elsewhere. "It's a different generation," says a 40-year-old clubgoer. "The kids want something new." But he knows they'll be back. "Gay people are fickle," he says.
A young man has just returned from the bathroom, excited by the announcement he found taped up by the stalls. South Beach is hiring barbacks and bartenders.
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Charles Armstrong likes to visit his empire long after the crowds have gone home. Early each morning, he can be found in latex gloves lugging a huge bag of cat food and a tarp that acts as a makeshift buffet table. A uniformed employee is always by his side.
Armstrong knows the life stories of some of the dozen cats playing nearby, cats he calls the "little angels." He points a gloved finger at a calico. "She's sick, I think, bless her heart," he says. "I've had some of her kids put down."
Sometimes people drive by and offer Armstrong money for his work feeding the cats. It always makes him laugh. "I say, 'No, trust me, I don't need money, that's very sweet.'" Later, he'll feed the birds, give peanuts to the squirrels and take a few injured cats to his private vet.
Not that he's bragging. "I'm not Mother Teresa. I've never pretended to be Mother Teresa," Armstrong says as he leans against his silver Mercedes-Benz. But Charles Armstrong knows Charles Armstrong is one of a kind. "How many wealthy people do you know going around feeding cats?"
Nearby, an employee blocks off one of Armstrong's driveways with orange cones. "Put those two on back further down," Armstrong shouts to him. Quietly and obediently, the employee moves the cones. It's 9 a.m. — his day with Armstrong has barely begun. And as long as he stays loyal, like the cats that return to Armstrong day after day, he'll be back tomorrow.
mandy.oaklander@houstonpress.com
