It was a day like any other, really. Well, it is not normal that December is so warm, over 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Tension-filled day at work, no holiday cards or gifts dealt with yet, poor lunch choice--all of that stuff is normal, I suppose.
Then night comes. As the Fat Boys said, "The freaks come out at night." I went to visit the beloved Tony for dinner. A perfectly delightful time. Then I went home. The whole Christopher Street/Sheridan Square area is different than it once was. There seem to be a lot more menacing teenagers down there these days. Thank you Mayor Giuliani for "cleaning up" Times Square and helping downgrade a residential neighborhood, and one of the few gay ones.
In general, groups of teenagers are to be avoided. I am reminded of a time I had to meet Cathy outside Love Saves the Day at Second Avenue and Seventh. There were young guys from Jersey congregating for an obvious evening of drinking at McSorleys. That usually ends in someone peeing in flowerboxes and knocking on windows of neighboring apartments. Or, there's the potential for violence. That day, as the crowd grew to about 10 or more people, they started. First there were the anti-semitic remarks among themselves. Then, they taunted everyone who walked by. Nigger, gook, faggot, etc. You name it, they said it. One guy was more than willing to stand up to them, and they made it very clear that there were more of them than him.
Being a self-respecting New Yorker, I went into the store and passed the old lunch boxes, Barbies and Star Wars merchandise and told the man behind the counter and told him what was happening, thinking he could call the nearby police precince and get someone to drive by.
Well, imagine my surprise when the man at the counter stood up, and turned out to be six-and-a-half feet tall, and simply walked outside and picked the ringleader. He had a quiet word directly into his ear, and they dispersed.
So, Love does save the day
But tonight, getting on the subway, I was careful to get on a car a few subway cars away from the teens. Well, the IRT still features doors that open between cars, so it was not long before they came barreling through the car, one of them going on and on about "we're in faggot land. This is where the queers all live." And there I am reading The Pleasure Principle, the very good book with the very naked man on the cover (artfully covering his plumbing). So I have to worry. I am on a well-populated subway car and I cannot really think anyone is going to come to my defense if something suddenly happened. It never fails, hearing the word "faggot" being bellowed by someone hostile and my hairs standing on end, and waiting for Part Two. Luckily, Part Two for me is their exit. I wonder if there's a Part Three.
I also know from experience that even when sympathetic people are around, they are less than helpful when there's a potential problem, so what would the good folks on my uptown local going to do? What would those two guys across the aisle from have done if something started. Those two guys who were discussing a third who was out "bagging babes"? What about the other gay men on the train, or the straight couples? I feel ill-equipped and ill-prepared.
I also remember that it was on this same train line, years ago, that a friend of a friend made the mistake of falling asleep going home up to the Bronx and woke up to being beaten up, his wallet taken at the end almost as an afterthought. Faggot + Beating = Homophobia, not Robbery. How many times do you have to hear faggot before you get used to it, and think of it as "just a word"?
I don't have an answer for that question yet.
Next entry... A Gay-Straight Alliance
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