Slash Back

A story from last night:

I leave the office, hop on my bike, and head to the QFC on Broadway to buy a six-pack to drink with my sis before the Gong Show. I coast up to the rack out front. The only other bike on the rack is green, mountain, and nondescript. As I dig for my lock, another cyclist pedals past and hawks a huge loogie directly onto the saddle of the other bike. I look up, confused (and impressed at his aim), and think how shitty it’s gonna be for the bike’s owner to find it all slimy. The people in line at the ATM seem equally perplexed. Then someone approaches the bike rack from behind me, and judging from his subsequent reaction, he is the unlucky owner of the beloogied bike. Enraged, he begins hurling invectives in the direction of the hawker. “This is the problem with homosexuals on Broadway!! Fucking faggot!” I must note that he was not your run-of-the-mill epithet spouter—as someone who spends a fair amount of their waking hours on Capitol Hill, I know the usual blathering fools when I see them. He just looks like a generic older dude, seemingly not drunk, high, or mentally unstable. The empathy switch in my head quickly recalibrates, and I turn to the hater and say, with righteous anger, “Oh, you deserved that!” He doesn’t seem to hear me and removes the saddle from his bike, oblivious to my seething presence, and enters the QFC.

Shaking, I finish locking up my bike. Like most queers, I’m no stranger to direct or indirect verbal assault. But it doesn’t really get easier. A hot and fearful fury courses through your veins. Sometimes you ride the wave of adrenaline and fight; sometimes you repress and let the tsunami wreak havoc within. I enter the grocery in a daze. The man is 20 feet in front of me, kindly asking the Starbucks barista for a tissue to clean his seat. I walk past him and say, “Fuck you.” It sounds so loud in my head, but I don’t think it registers.

I wander the aisles for a bit, breath stuck in my lungs, escaping in small spurts, hands shaking. I can’t focus on my task—I swear the beer aisle is here somewhere. It’s hard to find the words to capture this feeling, but it’s basic hate-speech theory. See, I’m a big homo. I use words like fag and dyke and queer, regularly, often as a compliment. But in a particular context, in a particular tone and pitch, they mutate. Suddenly, these words become portkeys, transporting the object of their hate into a world of fear and shame, haunted by the ghosts of Matthew Shepard and Gwen Araujo and Brandon Teena. Or something. (See, it’s hard.)

As I stare at the glowing racks of beer, regaining my physical composure, the couldawouldashouldas engulf me and I imagine countless scenarios in which I could have told him off. The most powerful fantasy dominating my consciousness is slashing his tires… But I must move along, I’m late for my dinner date, so I select the most familiar brand and float toward the checkout. I pay, swoop up the six-pack, and head for the door.

Outside, I see that his bike is still next to mine on the rack—he is still inside. I fumble with my bike lock, perfectly nestled next to the vulnerable rubber of his tire. Moments later, as I’m stuffing the beer into my bag, he approaches. Yet again oblivious to me, he proceeds to reattach his saddle. I swing my bag over my head, clip my helmet, and straddle my bike, knowing I may need to flee quickly after I say the words that have been looping through my brain since seeing him last:

“If you have a problem with this neighborhood, you need to leave.”

“What?” he responds, obviously puzzled that I am even speaking to him. It feels like I’m screaming but I think my voice is choked with anger.

“If you have a problem with fags and dykes and queers, you should not be in this neighborhood.”

“You must have an inferiority complex,” he retorts. “Did you even see what he did to me?” He repeats this multiple times, volume escalating, as I try to respond.

“Yeah,” I shout over him, “I saw him spit on your bike and was confused and thought he was an asshole. Then I saw how you responded and realized who the asshole was.”

I then slip my foot into my toe clip, cross the street, and crank it up the hill.

There may or may not have been a gash in his tire as he rode away.

Photos of QFC and screaming face from machu picchu and ellenprather95, respectively.