LAST WEEK's EDITION
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| Event #138: Visual Triggers
LAST WEEK's EDITION |
COLUMBUS, OHIO - Last Saturday, while strolling through our local gay ghetto, I stopped in at the little gay-owned bakery to get a couple of cookies to nosh on while driving home. Working behind the counter was a friend that I had not seen in a few months. We chitchatted for a while about work, social lives, and relationships (or the lack thereof).
Suddenly my friend said, "Did you know I was bashed a couple of weeks ago?"
It turns out that after leaving one of the gay bars downtown (just after closing time) he and his boyfriend were attacked by a group of young men right in front of the bar. My friend escaped with eight stitches and a bruised face.
As he told his story, I wa struck by the similarity of occurrences. Ten years ago, barely a block from where he had been bashed, I too had been attacked.
It was a warm summer evening in 1987, and my good friend Myron and I (both at the time in our mid-twenties and single) had been out bar hopping downtown. We had started at one bar, progressed across the street to a second, and finally moved on to a third bar about a block away. Most of the night had been spent looking at and talking about people in the bars, as well as drinking beer. A lot of beer.
Just as the closing lights were coming on at the last bar, we decided to head back to our car located about two blocks away. I remember talking to some friends who were in the "sidewalk sale" outside of the bar. We crossed the street and headed for the parking lot.
Just as we rounded the corner, three younger men ran up behind us, shouted "Fags!" and started hitting us. It happened too quickly, and I had consumed too much alcohol to fully remember everything that happened in the next few seconds. I do remember, however, the first hitting me in the mouth, swinging back at the assailants, seeing Myron knocked against a parking meter, being confused about why we were being attacked, and running for the car.
The threesome did not follow. Instead they disappeared into the shadows of the surrounding buildings.
Over the next few days the bruises and the split lip healed. It took longer for the memories to fade. I felt both violated by the experience and ashamed for not having gone to the police to report the incident. I tried to rationalize my inaction: I was, after all, legally intoxicated. If I had gone to the police, would they have arrested me for drunk driving? I also spend hours playing the "If only I had..." game. If only I had seem them coming sooner. If only I hadn't had so much to drink. If only a security guard had been around.
Myron and I were lucky though. So was my friend who was attacked eleven years later in almost the same place. We're all alive.
The U.S. Justice Department says that people who are perceived as being gay or lesbian (some straight people are perceived to be fags and dykes ,too) are the number one group to to targeted for physical forms of hate crimes in the United States.
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C. estimates that one in every four gay men and one in every seven lesbians will be physically attacked...simply because they are gay.
A lot of them don't live through the experience.
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