#TBT

Originally published April 21, 2009

When I was a kid I was left to go out on my own with my teenaged cousin--to the movies, to the grocery store, sometimes to the mall if my cousin was ok with being seen with me. One day she took me and a friend out and left us by ourselves at a movie theatre so she could sneak off with a boy. While we waited outside to be picked up a man walked out of the store across the street. He had bleached hair, pastel plaid pants, and a Prince t-shirt on. I'm not sure what compelled me to do it, but I yelled the word faggot at him. I remember my friend laughing and asking me how I knew he was a faggot. I think my answer was something along the lines of a man wearing a Prince shirt. I liked Prince, I liked him because he was pretty and frilly and I knew I wasn't supposed to know what most of his songs were about.  I also knew (or mistakenly thought) that an adult man liking Prince the way I did was off somehow.  At that point in my life I don't think I really understood what gay was, but I would learn a little later that some of the people around me every day were.  I'm not even sure where I ever heard that f word. And even at that age I knew there was something inside me that knew how that man was different. Maybe I taunted him so no one would ever suspect it.

I think of him often. I remember the exact moment and what he looked like as if it happened this afternoon. I wonder what kind of life he's had, if he is/was an activist, if he is/was married, if he got struck down by AIDS which was such a headline grabber a few years later, if he ever did/does drag. I wonder if he remembers the shitty kid who yelled faggot at him, or if I was just one of many. I'd like to meet him today, and tell him that childhood friend I was with so many years ago stopped talking to me when it came out that I was a faggot. And in my head somehow that would vindicate him.  It's one of the few things I'm ashamed of.