“Come on! Let’s go!” I grabbed your arm and led us down an alleyway just as we saw a banner being set aflame. I could hear glass breaking from the store windows. We ran through a maze of cars in a parking lot, with the muted sound of chanting transforming into screams not far behind us. “Figures. All of these people protesting violence by using violence. It’s absurd,” you said.
When we arrived back at my apartment, we found Nolan positioning the rabbit ears on his television to get a clear picture of a press conference being held at the White House. We all sat down on Nolan’s bed to watch.
Pryce had been shot. An assassination. Most likely a Black extremist group based in Detroit, founded after the water crisis. Several threats from this group in the last six months. Details to follow. Riots in Washington, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal and other cities against the rise of a violent right wing.
Nolan changed the channel to Canadian news. Prime Minister Dunphy began his speech.
“We Canadians do not condone terrorist groups who believe that bullets will justify their cause . . .”
Fanny picked up Sedgewick and began pacing. “Do you think shit will go down here too?” She walked to my bedroom, opened the window and looked out at Church Street.
“Girl, things are already going down! Can’t you hear them on Yonge Street?” Nolan said while putting tin foil on the antennae. You and I hadn’t even removed our jackets or hats. We stood waiting for the best time to tell them what Nadine had told us. “That president represented all the hate white people have spent decades pretending isn’t there. Now that he’s dead, there’s no pretending anymore.”
I looked outside the window. “Compared to Yonge it’s quiet out there. Too quiet.” Fanny joined me at the sill to confirm my observation. Nothing but the buzz of the Pizza Pizza sign below. No one cruising. No blaring music from the clubs. No one lining up to wait for entrance to events. No one walking their dogs.
You and I didn’t have the heart to tell them what Nadine had told us. We didn’t believe it ourselves. Not yet. We still didn’t believe it even as the curfew was put into place.
“We are declaring a state of emergency,” said Premier Ogilvy at a press conference. “When day after day of demonstrations have left a scar on our beloved province, we must take action. When looting occurs under the guise of marches, we must intervene. When protests are no longer peaceful, we need to employ the help of peacekeepers.”
“Please let me pass,” you said to a Boot at the Wellesley and Yonge checkpoint early one morning. You held out your Verification Card, like an obedient child displaying last night’s homework. “I need to make my way to my mother’s house in Parkdale. I’ll be back before curfew.” I stood beside you, fearful and tongue-tied.
“No. Stand back.” The Boot did not make eye contact; rather, he scanned the barriers on all four sides of the intersection while blocking your way with his rifle.
“Evan, please. Let’s go.”
“I will. If you let me pass now, I’ll be back before eight. That’s the rule. I’m following the rules.”
“The rule is you do what I say. Now go.”
“Listen, sir. I’m not a protester. I’m just a normal man trying to make my way to Parkdale to see my elderly mother. I mean no harm. I just need to pass.”
“Evan,” I whispered.
“Where in Parkdale?” The Boot’s posture changed.
“Excuse me?”
“What is her address in Parkdale?”
“What? Why do you—”
“Why don’t we pay your elderly mother a visit?”
You opened your mouth, but you knew not what to say. I tugged on your jacket sleeve, pulling you away from the exchange.
“Both of you pansy n_ _ _ _rs get out of my face and off the street.”
You think I didn’t notice but I did. And I do not judge you for that, Evan. The Boot barely had to raise his voice. He stated each word nonchalantly as if he were teaching two dogs to sit. I watched you, unable to form the words in your mouth. You couldn’t even step forward in protest. You just rocked slightly on the soles of your winter boots unable to bridge the gap between your self-image as a respectable citizen and the image of a disobedient Black man, which you had avoided all your life. We made our way back to my apartment, and you spent the rest of the day staring blankly at the wall in my bedroom.
What went on in your mind that day, Evan? What helped you continue to pretend along with me? How did we continue our disbelief?
We didn’t believe we were in danger when the so-called peacekeeping cops began their rounds along each street to ensure people were not gathering for another demonstration. In every house, shelves were being knocked over; televisions, computers and phone screens were being shattered. Cupboards were left empty. We didn’t believe we were in danger when the cops came into our apartment. Two cops were patting us down aggressively when another white man came in. His laced black boots were shiny enough that I could see the silhouette of my body, face flat against the kitchen wall, on its surface. Instead of riot gear, he wore a black bomber jacket with a heavy-duty zipper. Even as he barked orders to the cops, he was slick. Graceful.
“Where is their circuit breaker box?”
“In the stairwell, sir.”
“Good. Cut off their power.”
Sedgewick fell out of Fanny’s arms and began yapping to protect us.
“Sedgewick, come here!” Fanny cried.
The Boot kicked Sedgewick into a corner where he whimpered and shook.
The Boot slowly paced along the line of us, our hands on the wall, four queens fearing for our lives. You and I looked at each other, our cheeks flat against the wallpaper. What were you saying to me in your head that day, Evan? Our pressed palms were only an inch apart. If I could turn back time and touch your pinky with mine, I would.
“Where are your cellphones?” Before we could choke out our answer, another cop returned from the bedrooms with all four of our cellphones, placed them on the ground before him. He stomped them into LEGO pieces. With every stomp of his foot, I could feel this version of myself, this version of me, who once took selfies, who once posted statuses, who once promoted my drag shows online, who once had proof of my existence, shatter onto the floor under his boot. Photos. Stomp. Passwords. Stomp. Profiles. Stomp. Text messages. Stomp. Phone numbers. My phone. A phone to call someone. To call Nadine. To call someone. Anyone. I have no phone.
We didn’t believe we were in danger when the curfew then became a restriction on leaving the house at all.
“To buy food,” I said to a Boot when he asked me why Nolan and I were visiting No Frills on Parliament Street.
“You don’t have money,” he said confidently as he pointed to a long lineup near a bank ATM where none of the Others could access their funds. Nolan showed him the handful of loonies and toonies that you, Nolan, Fanny and I had scavenged for in every nook and cranny of the apartment. Enough to buy a loaf of bread, some peanut butter and a package of beef jerky was the plan. Anything that didn’t need refrigeration or heating. The Boot slapped Nolan’s palm with the tip of his gun and the change fell to the ground, rolling in perfect starburst lines from his feet.
“See? I told you, faggot. You don’t have money. Move along.”
Nolan moved to reach out for the change, but the gun blocked him. “I said move along.” Nolan’s jaw tightened in humiliation. We walked away from the cop, past two other cops tasing an Asian man off his bicycle, and I counted my blessings. My stomach grumbled on the walk home.
Nolan stopped at the sight of a large garbage bin and kicked a burned muffin tin still covered in overcooked crust. He picked up the tin, stared at it for a moment, then picked off some of the crust and ate it. He offered the tin to me and I joined in the feast. We paused. We both looked around in a brief moment of shame, then dug in deeper to a pile of plastic bags left beside the bin full of other people’s trash. We returned to you all with two unfinished water bottles, a half
-eaten hot dog and a bag full of cherry pits with meat still hanging on one side of each seed.
Yet again that night, in the freezing cold and deafening quiet, all four of us gathered under several blankets and coats and tried to sleep. We lay widthwise on Nolan’s bed so that all of us could fit. I tried to make rings with my breath in the air. Fanny shifted constantly. Nolan suggested we sing songs together. We felt too weak to join in. You snored softly. We fought over who got to hold Sedgewick, since his tiny body held so much heat and petting him made us all less anxious about the things to come.
“Do you remember that ice storm that happened back in 2013?” said Fanny. We groaned, we shivered. “I remember breaking up with some loser who refused to wear condoms. I sent him and his dirty dick out into the slippery glass of the night and I locked the door. Felt good to let him slide and fumble his way home.” We laughed quietly.
Sedgewick was in my lap. I placed my hands on his warm fur and could hear his tummy grumbling. That’s when I felt the words finally come to my mouth. In my hunger, in Sedgewick’s hunger, I finally believed what Nadine had said.
“My loves . . .” I felt the void of silence. I measured the silence’s width, length and depth. I measured the words I was going to place in that void, unsure if they would fit.
“What is it, Kay?” Nolan said impatiently while tucking the edges of a blanket under his feet. Your soft snoring stopped and you came to.
I told them about our encounter with Nadine. What Nadine’s father knew. 72 Homewood. This person named Liv. I told them that at some point you and I were going to run and hide. I told them they needed to come with us or they wouldn’t be safe. We were in real danger, and we could be in danger for a very long time.
“No.” Nolan suddenly left the bed, and the blankets became two degrees cooler.
“What do you mean?” I asked. The remaining three humans and dog all shuffled together again to conserve body heat. Nolan shivered towards his closet door.
“I mean ‘no.’ No I will not hide. I will not hide. I will not hide. I will not hide.” He said it so many times it almost became a song.
“Nolan, please—” Fanny cried.
“NO! I have been told to hide my entire life. I. Will. Not. Hide.” He opened his closet door and began rummaging through his things.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing, Kay? I’m going out.”
“Don’t be a fool, Nolan.” Fanny held the top edge of the blanket under her chin in two fists. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.” Sedgewick whimpered under the covers in protest of the conflict between us.
“You know who’s the fool, Fanny? You, for keeping a dog in here, when we don’t have the means to feed it and we can’t even walk the damn dog in the night! Who the hell lets a dog shit and piss in the corner of a house?”
“I don’t have a choice! We can’t leave the house past nine at night, and I clean up the mess when we have water.”
I added cautiously, “Yeah, Fanny. If we have to run, the reality is, we can’t bring Sedgewick.”
“And why not?!” Fanny scooped her dog and held him firmly.
“We’ll be in hiding, not at the Holiday Inn. We can’t risk the barking. We can’t risk having another being to take care of. We need to travel light.”
“He’s my baby, not a piece of luggage!” she screamed back at me.
“Fuck this conversation!” Nolan threw his hands up in exasperation. He slipped on two thigh-high boots and a short fur coat to finish his look.
You chimed in. “The streetlights aren’t even on, Nolan. Who knows who’s out there waiting for you?”
“Exactly. I guess I won’t know until I’m out there.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.” You rushed up and tried to block Nolan at the door frame. “I told you what happened when I tried to cross that checkpoint the other day. No one is getting through. There’s no escape.”
“You don’t even know what that means. You don’t know what it means to run. But you know who does? My parents. You think keeping silent, doing what they were told to do in the work camps kept them alive? It didn’t. I was raised by two Cambodian zombies, Evan. Two walking skeletons who lived in fear. Doing shit like that may keep you breathing, but you’re not alive. Hiding is like a death. This is me. I am proud to be me. I’m not hiding, Evan.” Nolan choked back a sob. He snapped his fingers, trying to place a memory. It was hard to remember things these days, when all around us things were changing. “What was her name? Our drag sister who died during the Pulse nightclub shooting?”
“Glorious.” I inhaled deeply at the thought of her. She was a big name in Oakland. She just happened to be in Orlando for a gig at the gay club’s Latino night. A shooter opened fire on the attendees, killing forty-nine of them.
“Yes. Glorious. Do you remember her dance number? The one with the bananas on her head and the bikini?” We all laughed wistfully. “Can you imagine the horror of that gunman entering the premises and just spraying bullets into people? The people rushing into the bathrooms trying to hide? The piles of dead bodies? Supposedly an inch of blood covered the floor. That’s how bad it was.” We listened with tight jaws. Nolan softly brushed the tears off his face and wiped the wet onto his pants. “Glorious was . . . she was glorious to the very end. She died in costume, with her stilettos still on. She died . . . being herself.”
“But what about those people who hid? They are alive today and able to be who they are because of it,” I added, hoping to change the tide.
“Kay. Those people, in this new world, are probably still hiding, or worse. I can’t chance that. I can’t hide. I will not hide.”
Nolan’s voice quavered. He wiped his nose, then composed his proud face. I watched you step aside. It must have been so hard, my love. But you did. You stepped aside and let him go. We all listened to the front door of our suite slam closed. Nolan stormed out into the blackness of the night. We listened to his heels clicking across the pavement until we heard nothing but silence.
We waited for him all night. The next day we watched the windows like they were televisions. He did not come back. The days passed. I’m unsure how many days it was. It was long enough that white folks began frequenting Church Street again. All the white homos were much less extravagant, much less frilly. All of them walking like straight folks, pretending things were right as rain.
“I guess the curfew isn’t for them,” Fanny said, while Sedgewick pooped in the living room corner. “It was meant for us.” It was a sobering reminder: we aren’t white boys who can take off the gay like a coat, hang it up in a closet, then lock ourselves in that closet. People like us didn’t have a choice. You can’t take off the skin. You can’t take off the femme.
On New Year’s Eve, Church Street was full of revellers, wearing party hats and blowing on party favours. In the early evening, you, Fanny and I wrapped ourselves in blankets and sat on chairs right next to the window in my bedroom to watch a straight white couple eat pasta in the restaurant across the street. Fanny lit a candle. I handed us all a set of cutlery, and we pretended to twirl our fettuccine before putting our empty forks into our mouths and savouring nothing. I wiped the corners of my mouth and poured all of us a glass of air. We toasted.
“To a new year.” Your eyes watered. I swallowed back a sob.
“To a new year.” A silent clink between each of us.
I waved my hands through the space between us to obliterate our imagined table setting and held your hands in mine.
“We can’t leave each other.”
“What are you talking about, Kay? Who says I would ever leave you? I love you.”
“No one says you’ll leave. But history is happening. And sometimes history means people get separated. People get lost. People make difficult decisions. People die.” I wept into my blanket. You opened the wingspan of your comforter and enveloped me in your warmth. I shivered nonetheless.
“I wish we could w
ash this off! Our skin, our gay. I wish we could just pretend!” I snivelled into the hollow of your neck.
Sedgewick whimpered and Fanny held him tighter. Partly to stave off the cold, partly to stave off the truth I was speaking.
“And lose one minute of loving you?” You forced me to look at you. It was so dark without the lights on I felt like I was looking into the night sky. “Do you know the joy of risking our lives to be us? So many people in this world will never know what it means to truly love someone. To truly be themselves. I am proud to say I have been me. I would never wash this off. I will never stop loving you. I will never stop.” We held each other and cried. When I caught my breath I looked at you again, into the dark night sky of your face.
“What do we do? What happens tomorrow? And the day after that? What if you try and find your mom and we get separated forever?” I asked you.
“Pray. If the universe loved us enough to make us, then the universe will love us enough to keep us together. And if either one of us dies . . .” You choked on your words. “If either one of us dies, that doesn’t mean anything. The universe still loves us. It just means we will be together in another way.” You opened the width of your comforter again so that Fanny and Sedgewick could join in and add to the warmth. We all embraced. On the last night of that year, the four of us slept side by side, Sedgewick being the smallest spoon.
In the morning, I woke to the sound of something outside. You were asleep beside me despite a fitful night. I heard the sound again. Someone shouting.
“Babes. You okay?” you said, wiping your eyes. “What is it?” Fanny stirred when I got up from the bed.
I opened the window. Church Street. The buzz of the Pizza Pizza sign below us. Softly falling snow. Nothing. I watched for a bit. Waited for the sound. Again. Someone shouting. From the horizon south on Church Street, I could see someone walking north along the yellow line in the middle of the street. Clumsy. Wavering.
“What do you see?” Fanny said, groggily.
I squinted my eyes. When I confirmed what I was seeing, I held my mouth and screamed silently. It was Nolan. Nolan was naked, save for his high-heeled boots. His head was shaved. His face was bloody. Teeter-tottering on his heels, he hobbled north on an empty Church Street screaming something I could barely understand. Fluid gurgling in his throat, blood down his neck.
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