Equalizer

You had known you were different since you were a child, but your parents were strict and didn't talk about things like that. The other kids at school, however, had plenty of words: faggot, queer. The you went off to college and met Doug. Eloquent and outspoken, Doug was a member of ACT-UP and active in several on-campus gay-rights groups. With him, you felt comfor able about yourself for the first time. He brought you out of your shell and mad e you realize that the guilt you felt was the world's problem, not yours. Common cause blossomed into friendship and thereafter into romance.

Doug was, perhaps, too outspoken for his own good. It started when a truck tried to run the two of you down. As you hit the pavement, the truck screeched to a halt, and six guys - frat boys by the looks of them - jumped out. They carried lumber, chains, b aseball bats - a melange of weapons - though the looks on their faces were identical. They hissed the old epithets at you: faggot, queer.

For you, it was over pretty quickly. You felt a beer bottle shatter along your right temple, and you barely even registered the rain of blows that cracked your back and ribs. You heard, as if underwater, Doug's faint, gurgling cries, and the impact of woo d and metal and glass into flesh. You couldn't lift a finger to help him.

The pain engulfed you, subsided ... and then flared up again stronger than ever. You stared up through the mist into the face (?) of the most repulsive creature you had ever seen. Maybe the preacher was right after all; maybe you'd died and gone to hell.< BR>
If so, this was a particularly merciful devil. It held out a cracked claw and gently lifted you to its chest and placed its wrist next to your mouth. Then you looked down and saw Doug's broken corpse. Part of you died again, in that moment. Ever since the n, you have devoted your unlife to protecting the oppressed members of society - Kindred and kine alike.