Miss Beaver introduces Mr. Greased Lightning,

Mr. Lightning is a terible dancer -- and for that matter, not much of a stripper. He's finally forced to sit on the floor to take off his motorcycle boots. But once he gets down to his green thong underwear, his body is all muscle. He spends the next 15 minutes going from table to table, humping up against patrons while they tuck dollar bills in his briefs. Once he's milked the room of its last dollar, he bestows a kiss on one of his benefactors, then grabs his clothes and leaves.

Miss Beaver retakes the stage, and as smoke from a smoke machine billows around him/her, lipsyncs to "Memories" from the score of Cats.

The scene at Fusion fits many straight people's image of the gay lifestyle: that it's sordid, silly, and ought to be confined to some back alley somewhere.

But bars like Fusion are no longer typical of the Island gay scene. Gay life in Honolulu is out of the back alleys and into the political and social mainstream.

"There have always been gays in the islands," says Jack Law, who, as president of the company that owns Hula's, Malia's Cantina and Wave Waikiki, has spent 25 years immersed in the Honolulu gay scene. In Law's view, gays have always been tolerated here -- as long as they were content to keep a low profile. "But that kind of tolerance made people apathetic," he contends. "Ten years ago, you couldn't get anybody to attend meetings, couldn't sustain a gay newspaper, couldn't do anything."

Partially because of AIDS and partially because large numbers of gays suddenly seemed to tire of the closet, that's all changed radically. Island gays now have their own political action committee, their own magazine and newspaper, their own yellow pages, even their own churches, softball league and country dance association.

"These days," says Law, the attitude is we're here and if you don't like it, the hell with you.