When Love is Wrong

45. Stonewall

The Annual. I dressed professionally but stylishly. I looked well-heeled as they used to say. Candace helped me out. There were a ton of pictures of me everywhere with girls and guys in magazines and social media these days. Scott and I had compiled little picture books of them.

I had also practiced lying on a lie detector with Thomas, Scott and others. I had my idea of what was right and no matter the question, I was able to translate it to what the real question was and made my answer the truth.

"Do you know any gay people?"

"No." In my head, I translated it to mean I have a lot of gay friends but they are not particularly flamboyant, not that type of "gay" and those that are, I know have their own problems like all people. They are not happy, gay, 24/7. I mean who is?

"Do you know any lesbians?"

"No." I mean I never actually watched them have sex or anything.

"Have you had gay sex?"

"No." It was beyond gay. It was hot, sexy, deep, earth-shaking-below-my-feet sex.

"Is Scott Hoying your lover?"

"No." On that one I laughed and the interviewer laughed with me. I'm sure he thought, "As if. Scott Hoying has a harem of women all over the world." I was thinking, Scott Hoying isn't just my lover. He is my soul mate.

It was the shortest Annual in my life. I gave out 4 tickets to our next show and I was thanked profusely. Being a celebrity shouldn't but absolutely does make life a lot easier.

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New York! I love New York! We had just had one of our best shows. The venue, the crowd, our voices, were all perfect! We had celebrities come watch the show and stopped in for the after party. And the best part was that we were off for a month after this show!

It was 1 am and a bunch of us were still buzzing with excitement.

"Hey, we're going to a place in The Village, Stonewall. It is supposed to be really great. They have all kinds of people and music!" Scott said excitedly.

And boy was it ever. There were gay, lesbian, transgender, just oddly dressed, everything. Sure it was illegal, but apparently a lot of big cities had these one bars where it was overlooked somehow. But it was basically just a place to drink and dance to some thumping music. We were in it! I had reached that nirvana where my head was spinning, my energy was good, the beat was going through me, my eyes were closed and my body was moving. Scott was right there with me on a crowded dance floor.

One minute everything was right with the world and the next was chaos. I was dancing and then I was being pushed. My eyes flew open and I scrambled to keep my feet under me and more people were sweeping toward one end of the room while the same thing was happening to Scott but being swept in the opposite direction. I was trying to fight against the crowd, looking for Scott. I almost never have trouble finding him because of his height, but things were so chaotic and I was being pushed so fast, I couldn't see him. I could just make out Scott screaming my name over the thunder of yelling but it was getting harder and harder to hear. It seemed like he was being pushed away quickly.

I was pushed out with the wave of people, right out the back door and into the alley. Then things got so much worse. There were a bunch of police and other people with batons beating on people as they tried to get away. I saw someone's head being bashed and blood was gushing out of a cut on his forehead. Another was yanked down by his arms to the ground. The police officer pulled his arm behind him and was cuffing him. A transvestite took a punch to the gut. I was terrified. I didn't know what to do. I knew Scott had to be way too far to hear me or help me. I saw a bit of alley just beyond a group and tried to run toward it.

A police officer grabbed me by my waist and spun me around but then he was yanked backward my some bear I had seen dancing just about 5 minutes ago. He yelled at me, "RUN!" while he in turn was surrounded by police. I did as he said and ran as fast as I could down the alley, turned down a street, and into another alley. I thought I was in the clear, but then I saw four guys. It was hard to see their faces because the street light had them in shadow.

I was winded and bent to rest my hands on my knees while I pulled in as much breath as I could. One guy had a tire iron, another a bat. They weren't police. They must have been just guys taking advantage of the situation. Whatever the reason, they were going to hurt me.

A/N: I am writing this story chapter by chapter. I don't know what's going to happen next. But I when the opportunity arises, I try to rope in actual, real history that I feel a lot of people don't know. It certainly is not taught at school. I think a lot of people don't spend a lot of time thinking about how things were in our recent past and still are for LGBT in large parts of the US.