Fucking Faggot

  
The three of us packed ourselves into the white Chevy and drove to Las Vegas for New Year's Eve. We were excited to spend the night among the throngs of  revelers in the City of Sin for we carrier ours like badges upon a Girl Scout sash. We met our other friends at the time share we shared on the strip. It was somewhere among Caesars and MGM and New York, New York. We were in the heart of it all and ready to ride the veins and arteries out into the meat and muscle.

I threw a little eye liner and shadow celebrating the freedom promised in billboards and commercials: "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". My friends put on their New Year's best, and we departed. 

We ended up at Barbary Coast hoping for a piece of San Francisco. The light spun and the clank of the slot machines echoed. My friends grabbed a table and I rushed to the bar wanting something to dull the excessiveness. 

"We don't serve your kind here," the bartender barked. 

"What" was all I could muster.

"You're kind. We don't serve it," he replied without even looking at me. 

An argument or a fight wasn't in me. I turned around and returned to my friends asking them to please leave. They pressed me for what happened. 

"Not right now," I said. "Once we're outside."

They kept pressing so I finally told them what happened. They were ready for a fight. I begged them just to leave. Finally, we were out in the snow among the other revelers.

As we walked through the streets "Fucking faggot" kept anonymously reaching my ears whispered by people we passed.

"I'm going back to the room. Can I grab someone's key?" I asked after some back and fort with my friends, all straight, about how I should have stood up for myself.

"We can all go back," one of them replied.

"No. I'm fine. I just want to be away from everyone." My depression settling in.

"No. We'll come with you," another said.

We pressed our way through the crowd and midnight struck.

A few years later one of my friends on the trip asked me why I didn't do anything.

"Honey," I retorted. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

Early Morning Faggot

 
He knocked on my door at 3am. I was sound asleep, dreaming of possibilities of freedom and openness. I awoke to "Faggot! Open up!" And possibilities faded to the four confining walls of my dorm room.

I opened the door knowing the seminarian with the confederate flag and constant hate speech was on the other side waiting impatiently for his early morning blow job. I complied.

Just Weird

 
I was called "faggot", "fag", and "fucking queer" from the sixth grade on. Before that, I was just "weird".

Faggot on the Bus

 

My parents were going out of town or something, and we were all shipped off to different friends of the family for the night. I got to go to his house. He was a huge geek, and I was excited to spend the night. He had a Commodore 64. He and I had gone to school together and were friends since Kindergarten. We were now in the sixth grade.

My mini vacation started agter school. I had to take the bus home with him. It was a different bus than the one I normally took home. I knew how to handle that bus. This one I did not.  

I jumped on the bus and energetically took a seat next to him. "I can't wait til we get to your house. This is going to be fun!"

He looked at me and said, "Find another seat. I don't want you sitting next to me. And I don't want you spending the night."

I moved to an empty seat ready to cry but holding it in fearing I would be teased if a tear dripped down my cheek. The other kids overheard our exchange, and that tear wasn't needed for the teasing to commence.

Suddenly, the bus broke out into "Jason and xxx sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First come love. Then, comes marriage. Then comes..."

"There is no way I'd kiss Jason," he erupted. "He's a faggot!"

Everyone started yelling "Jason is a faggot. Jason is a faggot," in that sing songy tone of childish taunting.

I moved to the front of the bus trying to escape their jeers. They just got louder. The bus driver drove.

"Jason is a faggot," continued until I got off the bus with him some 30 minutes later. We walked silently up the driveway.

"Look. I don't mind you staying over. I just didn't want you sitting next to me on the bus. I don't need any more teasing than you do," he said as we entered the house.

I was on the verge of tears. Anger bottled up. All I wanted was the night to be over and to be home in the chaos I knew. I wanted to scream and punch and fight.

Instead, I said, 'It's okay. We can still have fun. You wanna play a game?" I followed him inside.

In moments of anger or teasing or harassment, I am sometimes still that little boy that ignores his feelings and justifies, "It's okay." Especially with friends, colleagues, and peers.