“All Gays should be shot.” Silence fell around us. Did they hear me, hear what I just said? I didn’t think so, so I said it again. This time, they heard me.
It was 1996. We were hanging out at Carl’s Diner in New Jersey. It was late, and I don’t know how this conversation steered in that direction. I was lost in thought, and then someone said something that dragged me back to reality. My mind could not comprehend what was being said, so I said the first thing that came to mind. And I said it again.
“How could you say such a thing?” one girl hissed, and then I realized that the man sitting beside her was gay.
How could I say such a thing? I don’t know. I didn’t even know that I had suffered a nervous breakdown until later. I was still reeling from that toxic relationship I had been in a year ago, and now I was here with the man beside me, a white knight with stripes. I say that because he was a good man, but one that got entangled in situations like hanging out at a drug house one night or watching his friends get drunk and stoned in the woods by Greenwood Lake; how could I say the other thing? It was because I didn’t understand. My mind was not working, and that reality, that conversation, was my first encounter. So, needless to say, I reacted like most ignorant people and said what I did.
I hate remembering the past. I hate looking back on my past self. I was so broken. The food shoveling should have been a clue that I was hurting bad, but my parents and I could not hold one decent conversation. I should have left the moment that I graduated high school, and then maybe, this conversation would never have happened. I’m sure it would’ve later, but my mind would be working again. And I would be reasonable and say something smart, maybe, but I never left home. And I know that today, I should have.
Dane Cook said something interesting on the show Chelsea Lately. He said something like, “Maybe, because we’re fucked up, we became comedians.” Well, maybe in my case, I became a writer. Since I was a child, I had these horrible experiences that I will never forget. They are my nightmares, my demons, and I live with them every single day. But I no longer run from them. I no longer run from my past. I find that writing about these experiences like that night at the diner puts these memories almost to rest, so hate me, if you might. Or maybe, you understand. In 1996, I was broken, destroyed, and it took a very long time to become the woman that I am today. And if such a conversation occurred today, I would have said, “So, what if you’re Gay? The world has bigger issues to deal with.”
Melissa R. Mendelson is a published short story author and self-published poet, who has been featured in The Outreach for Breast Health Foundation’s Anthology: Beyond Memories; Names in a Jar: A Collection of Poetry by 100 Contemporary American Poets; Espresso Fiction: A Collection of Flash Fiction for the Average Joe; Bartleby Snopes Literary Magazine. She also has written several fan fiction stories, which can be found at fanfiction.net.
