I entered the gravitational life force of Frank Perez (historian, author, tour guide and barfly) in 2014 shortly after his stairwell dive, a three-story drunken plummet that was supposed to kill him, then was supposed to slow him down, and then became just another story in his arsenal…
He’d already co-published In Exile, the first major work of queer NOLA history, and was recovering at a hospital on the West Bank. He’d helped me in the early writing of my first history book, and I wanted to pay respects. I didn’t know what I was walking into, but he was alert and glad to see me, unpretentious, re-learning to swallow by practicing with Jello on a tray. He was on so many painkillers, he later shared, that he was hallucinating jellyfish floating around my head. Telling stories from his hospital bed, he invisibly pulled me into his world. And once he brought you into his orbit, if you were lucky, you could stay there awhile.
In the room, I met his wonderful mother Louise, a career educator, who I learned raised him in Baton Rouge… where Frank had gotten kicked out of the Cub Scouts, he regaled, for being a “general negative influence.” Frank discovered a childhood hero, Huey Long, and served as a page for the Louisiana Legislature. He loved Huey because the guy told stories, helped the needy, and didn’t expect perfection, and Frank built his identity on that model. As a child, Frank travelled into New Orleans with his grandfather and marveled at the multi-course brunches at Tujague’s. And he profoundly admired his dad, Mr. Frank, an attorney who taught him how to win an argument.
Frank briefly attended LSU before “flunking out,” he said, after watching the Hitchcock movie Rope and discovering an appreciation for a certain male body type: Twinks, ok? Twinks. He transferred to the University of Louisiana, Lafayette,
where he’d graduate, in 1991, with a bachelor’s in criminal justice and, in 1997, with a master’s in English. While active in campus ministry, Frank was publicly outed and forced to attend a conversion therapy camp in Kansas. He befriended a young man dying of AIDS there named Eddie. Eddie, Frank told me, saved his life and sanity by introducing him to the movies of Hollywood starlet Bette Davis. When Eddie died, Frank called the family, and they told him, “We don’t have a son.”
This was the moment that defined Frank’s life.
“Why live for the approval of others,” he told me, “if they’ll do that to you?”
Frank left the camp to embrace his sexuality, and he enrolled at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth for PhD studies. While in Texas, he became a tenure-track professor at a community college; he educated thousands while perfecting the fine art of doing a hard day’s work from a barstool. Just like Huey, Frank told stories, helped the disadvantaged, and didn’t expect perfection, and he made friends everywhere. Frank held the record at a local Irish pub for consuming 34 pints of Guinness in a single sitting. Frank then intentionally and gloriously blew up his academic career. He entered a freewheeling phase of card-counting, liquor bootlegging, and vague but friendly relations with members of a well-known international gang, who enjoyed his company – let’s just say. These were some of Frank’s best stories, and he told them with a glee that made you feel deflowered.
Frank moved to New Orleans shortly after Katrina to rebalance and start anew. The city called to him. He rapidly established himself as a community leader and voice.
In 2012, he co-authored In Exile with his friend Jeff Palmquist. At the invitation of local gay entrepreneur and editor Rip Naquin, he began to write a weekly history column for the gay French Quarter newspaper Ambush. And in 2014, he co-founded the nonprofit LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana to help “get our queer history out of the closet,” Frank told me.
I could tell this guy in the hospital bed still had a mission.
“What do you want to do now?” I asked him.
He told me his plans by reciting a romantic poem by W.B. Yeats.
“I want to be an idler,” Frank said. And then he waxed poetic from memory:
“And be thought an idler by the noisy set of bankers,
schoolmasters, and clergymen the martyrs call the world.”
What Frank meant by “idler” was a humanitarian, a man about town, a non-materialist who prioritized relationships and friendships over power-grabs and ideologies and fairytale lies that hurt others. Frank intended to devote his life full-time, much like Huey Long, to the community and its people. This whole time, you gotta imagine, he was still hallucinating and reciting me that poem, which ends sweetly like this:
“I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high manner of love.”
Taking a beat, I asked him, “Brother, are you in love?”
And he told me, “Yes. He’s a force of nature, and you’ll meet him.”
I did. And he was. And I would always nurture a crush for their electricity, [direct address to Chris Trentacoste] that “strange magic” you two possessed, Chris. Who among us didn’t?
When I left Frank’s hospital room that day, I posted on Facebook, “I’ve met the Dirty Uncle of the French Quarter,” Frank immediately called to thank me.
“That, Bobby,” he pronounced, “That is what I’ve always wanted to be.”
Frank would publish five more books of queer history. His last, though he flunked out of LSU, was published to acclaim by LSU Press. A round of applause for Frank on that achievement, please. By 2018, he was selected Grand Marshal of Southern Decadence. He ran for the New Orleans City Council in 2021 as a grassroots candidate, placing third and instantly befriending the winner. Frank always loved collaborating more than competing.
When he was named to the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival “Hall of Fame,” he declared his proudest achievements were:
1. His love for his partner Chris
2. His little 800-word column for Ambush, a gay bar-rag, his paper of record.
Now back to that Yeats poem imprinted in my mind: “I had a thought for no one’s but your ears,” Dirty Uncle, in that special way that you could make anyone feel heard. I’m going to end this for you as gayly as I can – try to express what your magic meant – by channeling what Cher did for Sonny Bono in her eulogy to him. How gay is that?
When I was little, my family didn’t have a lot because my baby sister was very sick, but my Midwest suburban mother subscribed to Reader’s Digest, and there was a section called, “The most unforgettable character I’ve ever met.” My mom used to read me these technicolor stories of BIG personalities having laughs and adventures in not-boring places.
And I wondered, “Will I ever get to meet one?”
“Please god, if I meet one, will he let me in?”
“Let me in! I don’t want to be boring. Tell me the secret!”
I met you, Frank, and you let me into your world, and you taught me your filthy secrets, and you were and are and always will be the most unforgettable character I’ll ever meet… I was so, so lucky. We all were.
Frank made himself the central person, in this way, for so many. I can almost picture him now, mid-sentence with a new audience in front of the Friendly Bar…
My challenge to this room that loved him is this: Please, like Frank please, tell more stories, help the disadvantaged, and don’t expect perfection from human beings. Spend your time in a way that you become the most unforgettable character – for someone else, from somewhere else, who needs it desperately.
Rest in Peace. And Rest in Twinks, Frank Perez. I hope they’re surrounding you like the Corner Pocket. You did well, our gay brother in the struggle, and your dirty work continues. Thank you.
