Our affair was bound to attract notice, of course. The first to
comment was the gay community- and there were people who disap-
proved, even though Kontar and I were not hurting anyone, and
those others took it upon themselves to express their disapprov-
al. These were the same people who always dump on the sexual
minorities within our community-people into S&M, drag queens,
handballers, transsexuals, anyone who isn’t as “respectable” in
the eyes of straights as possible-and the only reason they don’t
make themselves really respectable to the straights and denounce
just being gay is that they can’t stop being gay themselves. The
first phone call came one night during the second week of our
relationship.
“Is this Brad Carson?” The voice asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“I’ve been watching how you’re into alien bestiality with that
cat and YOU’RE SICK!” he said, hanging up.
I blew up. What the snippy little queen didn’t realize was that
I made enough money to afford one of those phone attachments that
display the number of whomever is calling you. I dialed him
right back.
“Listen you gutless faggot,” I said when he answered, “why don’t
you take your anger out on whoever made you so hostile instead of
dumping on other gay people? Go home and beat up the bullies in
your school yard or your parents if they abused you. Take up
martial arts training if you aren’t able to do it now.”
“Fuck you,” a snippy-sounding voice replied.
“You can say ‘fuck you’ for the rest of the evening,” I snapped
back, “and it won’t change the fact that you’re no better than a
straight bigot who makes obscene phone calls to gays. If you
ever wonder what motivates them to go out of their way to hurt
someone who hasn’t done anything to them, you only have to look
at yourself. Well, if it takes fear of the straights to keep
some of you faggot snips civil, I’m letting you know that I’m
just as capable as a straight guy of giving you a busted lip if
you mouth off to me.” I hung up with a bang.