There was a gentleman on the other side of the bench who scooted around to sit next to me. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties and intoxicated, with yellowed eyes and breath that smelled sweet and sour. He wore drab clothes that hung limply off his gaunt, ashen frame. Leaning close to me, he asked, “Will you put batteries in my boom box?”
I wondered if that was some sort of unpleasant euphemism, but then he then held up an impossibly banged-up black boom box, its metal speaker cages dinged, scratched, and abused from years of torture.
Mariah still whistling in my ear, I stammered, “N-no, thank you.”
He then leaned closer and held up a handful of D batteries. His hands were cracked and calloused, and his finger pads strained white as he clutched the power cells as if they were a fistful of Hope diamonds.
“Just put the batteries in.”
“No-no, thank you.”
“Why won’t you do it?”
“Why can’t you put them in?”
“Just put the fucking batteries in.”
“I . . . I’m sorry. No, thank you.”
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘No, thank you’?”
I stood up slowly. The belligerent man also stood and began swaying in place. Mason and I tensed and cautiously backed away. He began to shout, “What the fuck?! Just put the MOTHERFUCKING BATTERIES IN!” Like a zombie, he shuffled toward me. I was frozen in place. Mason had abandoned me for the safety of the group of our friends.
“You’re not welcome here,” the man said to me. I wasn’t sure if he was referencing my homosexuality, my race, or both. “You’re gonna die tonight,” he added, hissing through crooked, graying teeth.
I turned around and power-walked up the stairs to the station’s entrance, where a booth housed the station clerk behind bulletproof glass. I said to her through the tiny metal intercom, “Pardon me, ma’am. There’s a nice gentleman on the platform saying he’s going to kill me. Would you kindly call the police?”
She told me she would and instructed me to wait at the edge of the platform until the train came, then to board, so I descended the stairs.
When I returned to the platform, the man had accosted my friends. I could hear his performative speech. “He thinks he’s a tough guy, huh? Well, he’s gonna die tonight. I’m gonna kill him. Would you like some candy?” He pulled out a fistful of plastic-wrapped candies from his cargo pant pocket. I wondered if it was really candy. My friends, shaking with fear, each took a small piece.
“YOU KNOW WHAT I DO FOR A LIVING?” he kept shouting. “I LAY CARPETS. I CUT THEM UP! LIKE I’M GONNA CUT UP YOUR FRIEND, THE TOUGH GUY!”
By then, I was absolutely peeing myself a bit, and I hustled back up the stairs to the negligent station clerk. I rasped, “Where are the police? Why aren’t they here yet?!”
“They’re on their way. It takes awhile.” I don’t believe she ever truly called them.
From upstairs, I heard the distant rumbling of the train careening through the tunnel and gathered my waning fortitude. I whisked myself down the long stairwell, planning to jump quickly onto the train, only to be greeted at the base of the stairs by the man, gray teeth flashing in a steely grimace, eyes rabid and crazed, holding the boom box in one hand and brandishing a monstrous, serrated utility knife in the other.
The knife itself became an entity all its own. It was fiendish and diabolical. The man vanished and all I could see was my fear reflected in the beveled edges of the device of my demise.
The double doors to the first train car sprang open and I took my chances, throwing my weight to the left and disappearing into the train. I ran through the cars with the fire of terror surging through my veins, my face a taut mask of effort. My breath was short and ragged as I shot beads of spittle into the stale public-transport air. I ran without looking back. I heard the cries and shrieks of surprise in my wake as I tore past strangers. I heard the shouts of my friends, their tormented sobs of terror. My lungs burned. I was a rabbit narrowly avoiding the snarling, snapping maw of a wolf, my fear surging through me in the assistive form of adrenaline. I thought about how much it felt like being onstage. I wondered if it would hurt, if he’d kill me quickly, or make me bleed out slowly. I registered the colors flashing past me, the cozy winter coats of strangers. I saw their eyes widen in alarm, showing the full circles of white surrounding their irises as they registered my situation. I saw the breath catch in their throats, mouths slowly falling agape, unable to say or do anything to help. It all happened so fast. I was the afterimage of a flash of lightning. I was eighteen years old and in no mood to be gutted by a madman.
The doors to the train never closed, as the conductor had most likely been made aware that there was a scuffle onboard, and I burst back out of the train from the final car. I could still hear the guttural shouts from the man behind me, his belligerent battle cry. My only way out was back over the platform and up the stairs. There was also a long escalator that, in a split second, I decided to take, two steps at a time, until I arrived at the station clerk’s booth. I hid behind it, as far away from the man’s point of view as possible. From my hiding spot I heard a dull thud followed by a sharp clang and a succession of pachinko-like dings—his boom box, tumbling from his viselike grip, clattering down the escalator steps.
My demon pursuer crested the top of the escalator, shouting, “YOU’RE NOT WORTH IT. You’re not worth it.” After rescuing his beloved, nonworking boom box from the bottom of the escalator, he casually pushed through the turnstiles and sauntered through the station’s swinging doors. I could hear his devolving utterances as he made his way down the street. “Not . . . worth . . . . . . . . . it.”
The clerk banged on the bulletproof glass from within her impenetrable fortress and said to me through the box, “They held the train for you. Go get on it. The police will find him.”
I trepidatiously descended the staircase and boarded the train. My friends were all there on a row of seats, sobbing uncontrollably. I sat down mutely, clearly in shock. Still out of breath, I gazed into the faces of the other riders as they swayed with the train’s movements. I read horror on every stranger’s face. I knew I was alive by only a hairbreadth. Surviving an assault is one thing; surviving your survival is another matter entirely. The fear follows you wherever you go.
A train conductor instructed me to file a police report by phone when I returned home, as cell phones at that time were only for Agent Scully or the very rich. I remember sitting on the closed toilet seat in my apartment, holding the beige, curly corded phone receiver to my ear. I was still quietly shaking, not a violent convulsion, but an insidious tremor. I thought to myself how perfunctory the call was. How there wasn’t a hope in hell of discerning my attacker from anyone else with a boom box, which was not an uncommon accessory at the time. The futility fueled my self-pity, but also made the whole night seem morbidly funny.
* * *
—
The following year, I moved into an apartment in Boston’s Irish Catholic neighborhood, South Boston, also known as Southie. I couldn’t afford my South End apartment any longer on my $300-per-week salary. I roomed with a young dancer named Joel, who would later end up being my personal trainer in New York City. He always tells everyone that when we were roommates, he’d come out of his bedroom in the morning to find me in the kitchen wearing high heels and an apron, making eggs and screaming along to Cher on the CD player. A falsehood, but an undeniably chic one.
Southie wanted nothing to do with me. I was a scrawny nineteen-year-old homosexual ballet dancer thrust into the religious lion’s den. My traumatic experience with the man and the boom box had changed the way I existed in public. Every person I passed was someone who could possibly murder me. They’d morph into scary charcoal line drawings with gnashing, knifelike fangs. If anyone moved toward me, I’d startle. If I felt a presence behind me on the street, I’d cross it. I kept my eyes glued to my shoes
for fear that anyone should meet my gaze and discern my sexuality. Boston Ballet’s music director accosted me one day: “You’ve got to look where you’re going! Why are you always looking at your shoes!”
It wasn’t just in my head, though. The violence continued. On my daily walk from the bus to my apartment in Southie, various strangers would hurl slurs and insults at me ad nauseum. “FAGGOT! HOMO! DIE, FAG!” they’d scream, accompanied by shouts of glee and laughter. They’d comment on my clothing, too, shouting things like, “GOD HATES YOUR SHOES!” I recall one incident in which a group of gentlemen gathered stones from a sidewalk garden and threw them at me from behind during my entire walk home from the bus. I silently endured it as rocks relentlessly dinged off my skull, my headphones still on, though I’d paused the music so as to hear any sudden advances without telegraphing my terror. Another scene comes to mind in which a large pickup truck slowed down to pull up beside me, the flatbed full of beer-chugging numbskulls who took turns hucking empty beer bottles at me. They goaded me with tropey lines like “DO FAGGOTS DRINK BEER IN HELL?!” as they sprayed me with shaken beer, performing an abusive homoerotic malt bukkake on the Catholic streets of South Boston.
As a result of all of this I decided to move back into the gay-friendly South End, regardless of how expensive it was. I’d join my friends at restaurants and subsist on bread or tortilla chips. I recall an instance at California Pizza Kitchen in which I growled in my best Batman voice, “GIMME SOME MORE BREAD!” without realizing that our waitress was right behind me. She, completely terrorized, whispered hurriedly, “I’ll get it right away, sir!” My friends laughed so hard they cried, and I was absolutely mortified.
One of my Boston apartments was located in the adorable and cozy Bay Village. My best friend Lia lived a few houses down the street. She had a boyfriend named Sam whom we all took turns being mean to for no reason. We had formed the kind of Mean Girls clique that everyone hated. Being kind is a choice—a choice it’s taken time for me to make. I recommend making the choice sooner than later.
One evening, after a night out at a very douchey nightclub/restaurant called Mantra, Sam, Lia, our other friends, and I all walked back to Bay Village. I was powering up my computer and making a cup of Sleepytime tea when I heard strange, successive popping sounds outside. I didn’t think much of it, but a few moments later I received a harried call from Lia. She sounded manic. “Sam’s been shot. He’s bleeding out on the stoop. I called 9-1-1. They’re coming.”
I ran out of my apartment barefoot, tearing down the street as sirens blared and red and blue lights flashed in a frenzied way. The ambulance had arrived, and they were moving Sam onto a gurney. Lia was hysterical, sobbing and clutching her mother, who was visiting at the time. I was speechless. I had never seen so much blood. I silently stood there in my flannel pajama bottoms as my best friend’s boyfriend, whom we all treated horribly, bled out from a gunshot wound. My face was slackened and gormless, but my heart was dashing against my ribs violently.
I spent the next twenty-four hours in the emergency room with Lia and her mother. Sam was in surgery to close up the gaping wound in his abdomen. It was as though we were in a horrifying Boston spinoff of The O.C., a teen drama we watched and loved in which insane things happened to rich white people in Southern California.
The violence in our lives not only affected the way I interacted with the outside world, it also affected the friendships I had built. Sam’s inexplicable drive-by shooting coincided with a time during which my other best friend, Prince, wouldn’t speak to me as a result of years dealing with unrequited feelings. Prince was in the hospital with us, too, and I recall sitting across from him as the machines hooked up to Sam’s convalescing body beeped and ticked away between us. It was the first time we had spoken for quite some time. Shortly after this, Prince and I mended our friendship. It turns out that petty youthful dramas are often resolved by someone getting shot.
These experiences have inspired me to be inclusive and kind, traits I was not born with. Inspecting the way these incidents linger in the recesses of my mind motivates me to cultivate my sense of empathy, and also my sense of resilience. Things may happen to you, but you have to try like hell to happen the fuck back to them. Think of it as vengeance for good—using your heart, soul, and latent righteousness to win the war against life’s infallible cruelty. Winning is the wrong word. Learning to persevere is the true triumph.
DICK COLLEGE
I was eighteen years old when I moved to Boston to join Boston Ballet’s apprentice company, Boston Ballet II. Dating in Boston was like going to Dick College. I arrived not knowing what I would major in; I just knew it was my dream school. Over the years, I whittled down my interests until I knew a bit more about what I wanted. I failed so many tests and made myriad enemies until I met a gentleman named Dan, later known to most as Milk the drag queen. Sadly, after twelve years together, we parted ways. And though I’m still wandering the musty halls of Dick College, searching, each passing course helps to give me the knowledge I need to find my major.
MASON
Being thrust into ballet company life as an eighteen-year-old is like wearing a sign that says, “Wanna bang?!” I was struck by the confident way in which people were homosexual in the company. There were so many handsome male dancers, all the way up to around forty years old, as well as a “totally would” ballet coach.
BBII was home to three homosexuals: myself, Logan, and Mason. The company arranged for me to live with Logan in a modest two-bedroom in Boston’s South End, which was considered a gayborhood. What a boon! I was excited to move away from home, but nervous about living with someone I hadn’t met.
My fears were put to rest as soon as I met Logan. He was a tall, lanky late teenager with Grecian curls and cheekbones that would make Cher jealous. His lips were full and pursed, with eyebrows that seemed meticulously plucked while remaining expansive. I marveled at those brows. It was as if every hair had been brushed and gelled into place, fanning up, up, and away from his large eyes. Logan wasn’t particularly effeminate, but his tastes in popular culture betrayed his homosexuality. We became fast friends—fast best friends. I owe much of my gay history knowledge to him.
Mason—or as I like to call him, Mason—was a ballet prodigy trained at New York City Ballet’s School of American Ballet. He was short and muscular, and quite burly and hairy for a teenager. His hair was worn straight and long, in a pre-Bieber mop. His eyebrows were plucked into Pamela Anderson arches, and he had long, exposed teeth. He had a rear end like you wouldn’t believe. Like if Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, and Cardi B Frankensteined a butt. Isn’t that what rich people are now? Just Frankenstein’s monsters?
Mason had an incredible “facility.” That’s what dancers call a body conducive to ballet, though it sounds more like a bathroom or a building. His torso was short, his knees were hyperextended, and his feet were beautifully arched.
As our friendships blossomed, so did amorous feelings. I recall lying on the sofa one night while Mason massaged my feet and Logan massaged my shoulders. It was the first time in my life I’d been caught between two suitors. I had always been the one begging boys to love me. But there came a point at which I was forced to choose. Logan or Mason?
You know what never occurred to me? That I could choose neither. That I could continue to enjoy being single. This sums up youth; the avoidance of conflict only brings more conflict. I assumed turning down one suitor would be easier than turning down both. Talent attracts me and great dancing is a huge turn-on, so I chose Mason. Logan bore the news silently and stoically, with no efforts to change my mind. He casually slipped back into the friend zone as one slips into cozy pj’s.
Mason and I moved into a one-bedroom in Boston’s South End together after a year of dating. We were often competing for the same roles. I don’t believe I was seen as much of a threat at first, but in time, my director and choreographers began to give me big chances
, while Mason was overlooked.
I don’t think I was ever attracted to Mason outside of his dancing. That’s not to say he’s not a good-looking guy; I just didn’t know what I liked yet. But that’s what dating is for, isn’t it? To figure out who you don’t want to fuck? We had many awkward conversations about our sex life, sitting on the mattress on the floor of our bedroom. He would say things like, “You think I’m ugly,” which reflected more on what he thought of himself than what I thought of him. He was absolutely adorable, but I just didn’t feel that undefinable spark. He also accused me of being selfish and too aggressive in my pursuit of a successful career in dance. He was right. I was too afraid to say anything that might hurt his feelings, and as a result, I was so elusive that I tortured him. I was a complete horror and feel remorseful about the way I handled things.
I eventually found the courage to break up with Mason. We slept in the same room, in beds on opposing walls, for half a year. Man, what an awkward time. I knew he hated me (still hates me), but neither of us was in a financial position to move out. I’d lie down on my twin bed in the dark Boston night feeling his electric revulsion aimed at me until I drifted off to dolorous slumber. I’m sorry, Mason. I was horrible.
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