OAKLAND, Calif. _ They were drinking at Aunt Charlie's Lounge, an old gay bar in the Tenderloin known for its drag shows and cheap steaks.
It was Friday evening in San Francisco, and Jay Marsh, 31, and his friends planned to hit a few parties across the bay, in the Fruitvale district of Oakland.
"Nackt is playing in that warehouse on 31st by the Wendy's," a friend said.
A little tide of nerves washed through Marsh. He knew he had to go back to the warehouse he once lived in. He couldn't be scared anymore.
Two years ago in August, Marsh had finally found his own pad in the Bay Area for $300 a month.
At the back of a warehouse in Oakland, above an old RV, Marsh hoisted his bed up a 12-foot ladder to a piece of plywood atop four wooden stilts.
It was more fort than loft _ for walls, he hung Moroccan fabric from the building's ceiling joists.
The manager and his longtime partner stopped by. Two days before, he had met them and their three children, and came away liking their sense of artistic whimsy and charm.
But on move-in day they were agitated and rambling half-coherently, barking at their kids, losing their trains of thought. Marsh said the husband, Derick Ion Almena, then 45, was obsessed with showing him a piece of metal he had found on the roof.
Marsh was a bit unnerved, but shrugged it off. Only later would he question why he didn't walk away that day.
He climbed up to his perch and took in the surrounding of trailers and stilt houses, a burgeoning art colony.
Two trailers flanked him, with their own lofted platforms above. Pallets connected some of the elevated spaces, creating a floating floor that snaked throughout the building.
On the ground directly below him, Almena had piled scrap lumber for people to build with. In front of him, a barricade of wood _ old pianos, organs, cabinets, a 1950s box television, salvaged shutters, Balinese chests _ divided the space. A communal "living room" sat behind it, where the manager held acoustic concerts. Ganglia of extension cords splayed out, powering microwaves, refrigerators, space heaters, laptops and old lamps.
There was something Old World and fantastical about the setup, a child's dream, like a village of treehouses with no adults to say no: Hang mannequins from the ceiling if you like. Hammer antlers to a post. Play music until dawn. Run barefoot among the splintery boards and rusty nails.
And Marsh, who is transgender, said he felt comforted that it was a "safe space for queers."
