Washington City Paper: Contents for Mar. 29

The Queen of Ward 8
What’s a gay man doing at the center of Ward 8 politics? Just about everything.

Cover Story

Phil Pannell tumbled out of Player’s Lounge one summer night in 1987. He’d gone to the Southeast Washington bar after a party and ended up being shooed out at closing. It was 3:30 a.m., and he had 10 muggy blocks to walk home.

As he walked, a man called to him from a stoop. The guy, who seemed to know him, asked Pannell for a voter registration form. Most people who’ve lived in Anacostia a while have seen Pannell passing out voter registration forms from the sidebag he always carries. Pannell obliged and prepared to make his way home.

But the man also wanted help filling out the form, and umpteen beers and screwdrivers got the better of Pannell’s judgment. He agreed to go into the laundry room of a nearby apartment building. There was light there, the man said.

Once inside, the man locked the door. “I want some head,” he announced.

“Well, don’t we all,” Pannell said.

A knife flashed, and Pannell dropped to his knees as ordered. “He came in my mouth,” Pannell recalls matter-of-factly. Then the man told Pannell to pull his pants down and lie face-down on the floor. As he lay there, half naked, the man left.

Reporting the rape to the cops was nearly as degrading as the rape itself. A woman officer was kind, but the man who took his statement at Anacostia’s 7th District was icy. Pannell remembers the officer’s sneering tone— he remembers feeling embarrassed and doubly victimized.... Continued

Issue of Mar. 29 - Apr. 4, 1996

News and Features

The Queen of Ward 8
What’s a gay man doing at the center of Ward 8 politics? Just about everything.
Cover Story By John Cloud
For Those About to Rock
Feature By Louis Jacobson
The Needle
City Paper’s Monthly Gauge of the District’s Quality of Life
The City By Erik Wemple
It Was Fun to Swim at the YWCA But It’s Not Anymore
The City By Alexis B. Rohde
Hillary, Jerry, and Mike ARE YOU GUYS FREAKIN nuts?
The Mail By John Trupp
Malestrom
The Mail By Burling Lowrey
Cage Heat
The Mail By Name withheld by request
Lean and Mean
The Mail By J. Nell Barger
Crowd-Squeezers
RE: OVERCROWDING AT the 9:30 Club
The Mail By Dave Kowtko
Trey Cool
The Mail By Paul S. MacWhorter Jr.
Payblack Time
The Mail By James Baucom
Quoth the Maven
The Mail By Michael Jeck