Brad Bashes Back: Queer Devastation and a Cute Butt
Portrait of a man, into the streets
Two, Four, Six, Eight! How Do You Know Your Kids Are Straight?
We’re Here! We’re Queer! Get used to it!
Out of the Closets and Into the Streets!
Remember those chants? Can you imagine me marchin and sayin stuff like that? I can’t believe I did it. Me and Luke both.
At first.
In case you dint figure it out on your own, me bein gay is super obvious. I can’t talk normal anymore with thrush swellin my throat shut. But when I could? My normal was … girly. I hate sayin that cuz it sounds like I mean something’s wrong with girls which there ain’t.
I know what I sound like, all soft and high pitched. I know my butt’s big and round. Or it used to be …
Back in Castleton, I tried to walk butch. You know, spine straight? Ass not swayin? But after I met Luke … Honey, when me and him walked down the street, it was like, “We’re here, girlfriend! We’re super queer, and if you can’t get used to it, you better step aside!”
We snapped in unison. And laughed all the time.
But the Meatpacking District was dangerous then. So was the rest of the Village. Luke used to make me take a cab home from work, even though it was just a few blocks. Gay people was gettin beat up every weekend. Sometimes lots of them.
That bombing at Uncle Charlie’s, it really woke people up. Something inside all of us snapped.
The day after is the first day I ever used the word queer. The day after is when people stopped takin cabs and started takin back the streets. You probably know that other chant.
Dykes and Fags Bash Back.
A thousand of us chanted that the day after. I felt so proud! I had no idea that after Luke and I got home, my pride would be buried by something so much more …
Never mind.
Layin there in the ER cubical waitin to get patched up, I was so worried about Luke! That nurse gave me a funny look, but wouldn’t tell me nuthin. Finally, after I begged and begged, she kinda winked.
“OK, sweetie,” she went. “I’m not allowed to discuss his case, but I’ll tell ya this much. Since you live together, you better find somebody to bring you guys some clothes. Both of you. Real soon, unless you wanna flash your goodies in hospital gowns on the way home.”
So I knew Luke was OK. That kinda tamped down the sick feeling in stomach.
But … the nurse reminded me of Mom. Or maybe her look did? The one that says, “I know something you don’t, and you’re in big trouble.”
I fell asleep waitin for her to come back. Worried, but not too worried. I dint know phones was buzzing all over the City. Had no idea Michael-angelo was already on the move and I needed all the sleep I could get.
Turns out I got some, cuz the nurse dint come back til after five.
“Sorry, baby!” she said, all shruggin her shoulders, pushing this big medical cart. “Busy night. Now roll over and open that gown. I need to see that cute butt again.”
I clenched my teeth when she poured iodine all over my ass, but it dint hurt. Not even when she scrubbed.
“Brad, wake up. You OK?”
I guess I fell asleep again, and when I looked up, Luke was there. With a big-ass fur coat over his chest! Not closed all the way, so I could see he wasn’t wearin no shirt.
I blinked real hard in case I was having a weird dream. He grabbed my hand and said, “I was so worried about you!’ Then he went, “Roll over and let me see that cute butt.”
I laughed. “Why do people keep sayin that?” But I rolled onto my stomach and let him see. That’s when I saw Patrick standing in the door, which explained the fur.
I waved at him. “The nurse says it’s just scratches, guys. She put some shit on it and a big bandage. I’m fine.”
Then Patrick was like, “Dude, you got pipe bombed! Damn! My roomie’s a gay martyr. Can I call you Joan of Arc, please, Miss Thing? Oh, nice butt, by the way.”
Luke pulled Patrick’s fur coat closer around himself and sniffed. “Joan of Arc? Since when did you know who she was? Surely you mean Joan Crawford?”
Patrick put his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes. “Unlike you, sweetie darling, I never go outside unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star. And a good thing since Nurse Ratched threw that bloody shirt of yours away. So if you want to keep my fur, beeeeehave, girl.”
I had no idea why Luke started laughin. He had to explain to me later that our roommate Patrick was quoting some famous line. He always had to explain that stuff to me.
But since he never let go of my hand, I squeezed it and sighed. Bein with Luke made everything OK. “I was so worried about you,” I whispered. “You passed out and hit your head!”
“Baby,” went Patrick. “Your boyfriend is the world’s biggest drama queen, but she’s so sweet. I wish somebody would faint over me some day.”
Just then, David ran into the room with a big grocery bag. “Clothes, girls!” he said, digging into the bag and throwing underwear and stuff on the bed.
“This one,” said Patrick, stepping over and giving his boyfriend a peck on the lips, “would NEVER in a million years faint over me. Life is so unfair sometimes. I do declare.”
David looked at each of us one after the other, wrinkling his forehead. I shrugged my shoulders as Luke and Patrick laughed.
“Can I see your butt?” asked David.
“No! We are done with butt showing, people,” is what I said, feelin pretty embarrassed. I mean, I was a go-go boy and a dancer, but I wasn’t a STRIPPER.
I might have sounded meaner than I meant, cuz David blushed and Patrick took him by the arm and pulled him to the door. “OK, we’ll let you girls get dressed in private. Then we’ll get you home so you can crash.”
But David was like, “No, wait! We can’t go home. You guys hurry up and get dressed. We’re late to meet a bunch of people for breakfast at the Waverly. Some Queer Nation guys are there, and they wanna talk to all of us from Uncle Charlie’s.”
I had to help Luke get dressed, cuz he had this bad cut on his shoulder that made it hard for him to lift his right arm. I kissed his shoulder, then his lips, and then just squeezed all of him, pullin him in as close as I could.
He melted into me for a second. I felt his whole body relax, like a bike tire when you let the air out. But then he shivered and pushed me away. “No! I gotta tell you something. Really important.”
Just then the door banged open and David rushed in again. “Hurry UP, lovebirds. They’re waiting for us!”
Mike shook our hands and hugged us when we walked into the Waverly. I used to eat french toast and eggs there all the time after a shift at Uncle Charlie’s.
So I felt at home.
All kinds of guys from Charlie’s was there, talkin to a buncha other guys. Well, women too. I saw lots of black leather jackets and those pink Silence=Death buttons. I kinda knew that meant Act Up, but I dint recognize but maybe like two of them from the bar.
“Call me Mike,” this one guy said. He sat down at our table as we picked up menus. “I’m a journalist, and I’d like to ask you some questions.” I know now he meant Michelangelo and he’s pretty famous, but I call him Michael-angelo, because Luke used to laugh when I did that. He thought I dint know any better. But I did.
Turns out we dint have anything important to tell him, but he was real nice even after he found out we hadn’t been hurt much, which seemed like it disappointed him some. Not in a bad way. He was just … super intense.
You know what he did once?
He jumped up on some high platform in a huge church where the Pope was talkin, and he called him the Devil. Shouted so everybody could hear! “This man is a devil!”
They handcuffed him and put in jail for that. Mike gots balls.
But that was before I met him. When my french toast came, he looked me and Luke right in the eyes and he talked so low only we could hear him.
He was like, “OK, guys. I’ll let you eat and relax. But will you come with us today? I want you to. What happened to you last night is terrible, whether you got hurt or not. We’re not gonna take it anymore. We’re taking back the streets. We’re bashing back. And I want you to be part of us. OK?”
I blinked and stared at him for a long time. I thought about Keith breakin my tooth. I thought about mom throwin a pot of stew at me. I thought about Luke passin out and crackin his head on the floor.
I nodded my head, real slow. “OK, Mike,” is all I said.
He squeezed my arm, real fast, but real intense. Then he got up and slid into a seat over at another table.
I had to grab a napkin because my eyelashes were all wet. Not as embarrassing as layin in the ER with my butt in the air, but still …
Luke reached over and pulled me into him. I ate my french toast with him huggin me the whole time. I forgot to worry about whatever he needed to tell me.
This is a true story.
Brad was my friend and occasional lover a long time ago. I was already living in New York during the events in this chapter, but I didn’t know Brad and Luke yet, and I didn’t know about the Queer Nation zap that Michelangelo Signorile invited them to. Not until I read about it in the papers and saw it on the news.
All dialogue in this chapter is fictionalized, reconstructed from stories Brad told me.