Another one off the request lines. You want the Gay Dude, I give you the Gay Dude:

November 21, 1998

These last few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about something that happened this summer outside the tenement where I live. I realize that I don’t talk about my apartment or my neighbors very much. That isn’t because nothing happens between my neighbors and me, but because our interaction is typically kind of unpleasant and lingering, like some kind of reverse mouthwash that starts with a minty sting in the morning and leaves a bad taste in your mouth all day long.

I went through a late summer phase when I’d basically hibernate in my apartment for days at a time, returning home right after work and staying there until the next workday beckoned. It wasn’t the kind of life you write stories about (which is part of my excuse for that huge gap in these pages a few months ago) but it was what I needed. During the hibernation, I became acquainted with the Neighbor Children.

At the risk of sounding like the unpleasant old man down the street who takes the softballs hit into his yard, the Neighbor Children are miserable, wretched little trolls. I felt kinda bad for them at first; they were part of a family of four or five people, living in the same kind of one-bedroom refrigerator box I do. With that in mind, I always tried to be understanding when they would run around the parking lot right outside my window like loosed zoo animals, screaming at the tops of their lungs for hours at a time. Kids need to play. I remember being that age. If I’d lived in an apartment like this when I was five, I would have started huffing glue just to make my bedroom feel bigger. I don’t know how I feel about kids almost literally playing in traffic, but I always told myself that their folks were keeping track of them by listening for the sharp, unrelenting shrieks they produced until sunset every single day.

At any rate, it was understandable for a while. It was summer, there were no classes, and the kids needed to play somewhere. After a while, though, the yelling that initially made me think of my own games of cops-and-robbers eventually just made me think of the cops. And it wasn’t just the yelling; after a while, they started to play fun games like “who can bang on the railing the hardest?” and “who can pound on the most doors?” These games, like drums and Nintendo, are only fun to the people playing. They certainly don’t do your sleep cycle any favors.

Nevertheless, I stayed out of their way. I minded my own business. I never imagined that the children would come gunning for me.

One Saturday, after a morning of bad TV and chatter from outside, I went to see my then-girlfriend. As I went outside, the chattering from the stoop above got more agitated, as if someone had walked up to the cage and started mimicking the chimps, daring them to get off their tire swings and do something about it. “Bar bar bar!” they yapped, and as I often did from inside my apartment, I wondered, “Just what the hell are they so excited about? Are they even saying anything?”

I got into my car. I rolled down my window and started the engine. I started to recognize the faint traces of words. I fastened my seat belt. I released the emergency brake. The fog of sounds was starting to take shape. They were talking. They were talking to me.

It all came into focus as I drove off. They were shouting at me.

They were shouting, “Hey, Gay Dude! Why don’t you ever leave your house, Gay Dude? Don’t you have any friends? Hey, Gay Dude! Ha ha ha! Gay Dude!…”

I almost turned the car around right there in the alley. “‘Gay Dude’? What the hell is that?” I was being mocked by a group of people that couldn’t have had a combined age of 12. I felt like I was back on the playground, covered head to toe in snowballs.

I mean… six year olds didn’t even mock me when I was six. Had I actually become a bigger dork since then?

It upset me on levels that weren’t even under construction yet.

Was I just the victim of a hate crime?
Could they even know what a Gay Dude is at that age?
Did they hear that from their parents?
Are their parents going to come kick my ass?
Can’t their parents hear them taunting strangers out on the stoop?
Who the hell says “dude” in 1998? When did Keanu move in upstairs?
…Oh, hey, wait a minute: also, I’m not gay.
I mean, sure, I’m wearing a Hawaiian shirt and driving a car described in its brochure as “electric purple” and described by my friends as “Barney the Dinosaur,” but what does that prove, really?
Do kids still call people “gay” as an insult?
No gay person has ever said an unkind word to those kids.
I’ve never said a word to those kids. Never ratted on them, never bothered them, never gave in to the urge to run outside with a wiffle bat and concuss them one at a time…

People suck.

In the days since, I’ve been a little sensitive about the straightness of me. Those kids took a lead pipe to my whole self-image. The sensitivity is more pragmatic than anything else; women who think you are gay, as a rule, do not try to date you. And God knows I’m not making the first move again for about 30 years. The lesson I have learned from the whole incident: you can make the most profound, lasting impact on the lives of complete strangers without even meaning to. Those kids didn’t give a @%#$ about me, and they probably never gave any of it a second thought. They played Bang the Railing all day, taunted Gay Dude downstairs, then went in for some juice and never thought about it again. They moved away awhile later, I think, unless somebody finally shot them.

——–

A few months later— yesterday, as a matter of fact— I went to see a concert with my friend Michelle. Michelle is the kind of person who actually has a hard life, rather than the matinee melodrama that passes as my stress. Michelle once left college and is now clawing her way back to graduation while working full-time as a wage slave at a nearby theatre. She has a “car” that is powered primarily by karma and kind thoughts that she could never even hope to replace if her luck ran out. Three weeks ago, her two roommates (engaged to one another) moved out of the apartment. They made no mention of their plans to do so; they left her a terse note and a $700-a-month rent bill. They took half the furniture, some of her stuff, and her cat. Yesterday, she had to pack up all her things and move them to her boyfriend’s parents’ garage. She is now literally homeless; she resides on the couch of her boyfriend’s pal. Just in time for finals. As a testament to what kind of person Michelle is, she chose this exact time in her life to do me a favor and get me a front row ticket to the Barenaked Ladies concert through her theatre clout. She escorted me to the show, despite the fact that she had moved all her worldly possessions hours earlier (without asking for my help!) and was probably about to go “home” to the most depressing night she’d ever had.

Of course, if that was my situation, I’d probably rather be at a concert too. It was still very nice of her.

So, we arrived at the show and I was treated to the nicest seats I’ve ever had to anything. We were in the front non-orchestra pit row, “a safe distance from performer sweat,” Michelle promised. Still, as I sat down, I remarked to her, “Wow! We’re so close that shouting, ‘You suck!’ would actually impact the performance!” It felt almost powerful. I would soon see that power used for evil.

The opening act was a guy named Rufus Wainwright. It did not take long to see that Rufus was not gonna light the crowd on fire with his antics. He was full of nervous laughter and uneasy twitches. He paused a lot, and in the pauses you could hear the sound of people checking their watches.

Then we heard something else.

About three songs from the end of Rufus’ set, the frat guy two seats down from me decided that he didn’t like Rufus very much at all. He thought to himself, “This flamboyant man has come to my town and tried to entertain me. How dare he! I came down here in my backwards white ball cap and my khakis to see a rock concert! He has a lot of nerve, coming here and trying to make people happy. He needs a lesson I am uniquely qualified to teach.”

(At least, that’s what I guess he must have thought. What do people think about as they initiate the heckling process? I wish to understand, people of Earth.)

The lesson Joe Frat decided to teach was a simple one: entertainers who aren’t famous need to be punished. So, during one of Rufus’ nervous pauses as he desperately tried to get us to clap or breathe or something, Joe Frat implied very loudly that Rufus enjoyed having sex with other men. In essence, he called Rufus a Gay Dude. If the Neighborhood Children had known the word Joe Frat used, they’d have used it on me. It’s all the same big swastika.

The thing is, as I prophesied to Michelle, we were close enough to be heard very clearly. The word hung there in the air, thick and hot, as if someone had suddenly unfurled a huge banner that just said “HATE.” The world froze like a haiku, this little ugly moment in time photographed and captured eternally.

“What?” said Rufus, scanning through the lights for a trace of Joe Frat. “What did you say?”

Oh God. Rufus is gonna come down and kick some ass. There’s a kickoff for your evening.

“Shut up!” shouted indignant people at Joe, now suddenly big Rufus fans for the first time all night. I felt so tense, you’d have thought I came with the guy. I was waiting for somebody to throw a chair. I was ashamed for humanity for the first time since that Star Trek convention, for many of the same reasons.

Rufus did one more song, thanked “some” of us, and beat it. At the time of the slur, his little sister had been onstage performing with him. Can you even imagine? I’d rather get pantsed on national television than witness something like that again.

Michelle returned from the restroom, having missed the whole thing. Soon after, Barenaked Ladies came out and performed several songs in a row. The crowd was pumped. People were on their feet. The ugliness was almost forgotten when the band decided to linger a bit.

“We have a very special guest with us tonight,” said the guitarist after the first few numbers. “We have with us a time traveler! From the fifties! Or from some other time when it was considered acceptable to ridicule people for their sexual orientation!”

An esctatic cheer went up from the crowd as the singer began to talk about tolerance and then, as they often do, Barenaked Ladies launched into a somewhat impromptu freestyle song/rap, which this time turned out to be about gay-bashing. For a brief moment, I was rather glad they were standing up for ol’ Rufus. But then an odd thing happened.

As they sang, the guitarist from a few yards away looked at me— looked right at me— and smiled and winked, sort of nodding his head. It was the sort of wink I have delivered myself a time or two. It was a wink that said, “I’m smiling to show you that I’m not bothered by how much you suck. Hi. How’s it goin’. You suck.”

Oh, good Christ. They heard the taunting coming from over here, and somebody pinpointed it, and they think it was me. Barenaked Ladies think I’m a Nazi!

I looked over at Joe Frat. He was clapping wildly and shouting, “Yeah! Tolerance! Woooooooooo!”

I felt so bad, and the whole time I just wanted to say to someone, “But… I’m Gay Dude!”