Page 11 of A Straight Line

We all turned to find Simon standing in the doorway between the dining room and living room, hands on his hips, lips pursed, and Phil looking over his shoulder apologetically.

“I didn’t tell it wrong,” Harry grumbled from behind me.

“It was barely a rock.” Simon jabbed a finger at Harry. “I may not have been there when it happened, but Bang Bang showed me the evidence. A brick? You’re either forgetting details due to old age, or you’re making them up to sound like you’re actually interesting.”

For the briefest, but tensest of moments, the room grew quiet. We all stood there in awkward, bated silence as we waited for the two biggest queens in the room to bare their claws and have at each other. With what I knew about my uncle and Simon, it wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest if they actually struck each other before it was all said and done. Of course, I would have helped pull them apart—played my role in things—but I wouldn’t have been shocked at having to do it. Harry and Simon were cut from the same cloth, which was probably why the two of them were always at odds.

“Well, Simon,” Harry chirped from behind me, “it’s so brave of you to show up, what with that ghastly rumor going around about you!”

“What?” Simon’s eyes widened. “Which rumor?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Harry stated simply.

I had to bite my bottom lip to chase away the wicked grin my brain so desperately wanted to plaster all over my face. Phil was doing his best to choke back laughter behind his husband’s back. Simon shot an annoyed look over his shoulder at Phil, then turned back to glare at Harry.

“Clever little Mary, aren’t you?” Simon spat.

“Are you here for the free food or to bring down property values, Simon?” Harry groaned, signaling that he was rising from the couch. “Not that I haven’t seen you multitask before, of course.”

“That’s what you do?” Simon mumbled. “Insult the guests who come over early to help you finish setting up for your party?”

“Oh, calm down,” Harry said as he stepped past me, on his way to join his friends, “of course, we’re so happy to see the both of you. Maybe Phill more than you, Simon, but we’re happy nonetheless. It was very kind of the both of you to come early to help with the final preparations.”

“I should say so.” Simon snipped. “Wait. You’re being nice. Did you get the cancer or something? It’s too late to get into Heaven, you old bitch.”

Uncle Harry barked with laughter as he wrapped an arm around each of his friends’ shoulders, his head shaking slightly upon his neck as he turned them back towards the kitchen. In a murmur of questions and accusations, as well as answers and denials, the three of them made their way back into the kitchen, suddenly leaving me in silence once the door swung shut lazily behind them. It wasn’t until I heard Uncle Vic shift behind me that I remembered I wasn’t left entirely alone. I turned back to him to find him rising from the couch as well, managing with less of a grimace, and much less noise, than Harry.

“Vic,” I said, “I never heard that story about the brick—or rock—coming through the window at the bar.”

“You didn’t, did you?” He said, his hands sliding over his pants to smooth out the wrinkles they’d gathered while sitting for the interview.

“So?”

Vic looked up at me, consternation etched all over his face.

“It wasn’t a brick,” He said.

“So, Uncle Harry—”

“And it wasn’t a rock.” Vic waved me off. “It was a cinderblock. And it was on fire. I suspect they doused it in gasoline or kerosene before chucking it through the window. It’s possible that the perpetrators hung around long enough to spew a few choice words through the gaping hole it left. We may even know who did it. Got a good look at his face through the hole in the window, after all. Word got around, and rumors flew in the community—you know how us queers can conflate drama—so Bang Bang found a rock and started showing it to people. She played it down a bit so people wouldn’t worry about coming to the bar.”

“We’ve all had rocks thrown at us. Fists. Bottles. Whatever,” Vic said. “A cinderblock on fire, well that was new. Bang Bang didn’t want anyone to be afraid to come to the bar. She didn’t want A Straight Line to fail before it had a chance. So, she changed some details to make it a little less startling. That’s all.”

The two of us stared at each other for several moments, the weight of the true story hanging in the air between us. The gravity of what being a queer in small-town America was like.

“Why didn’t you tell the police who did it?” I finally asked.

Vic’s hand was waving through the air gently again.

“It would have been pointless, Russ,” He said. “Besides, if they knew we had a shattered window, that would have led to another inspection before we could open.”

Uncle Vic shrugged, then sidestepped to head towards the kitchen and join the rest of the guys.

“But,” I stopped him, “did you really all just go to the hardware store, buy supplies, and stay up into the wee hours fixing it?”

“Well,” Vic turned to look at me as though I were dense, “of course. The window had to be fixed before we opened.”

I frowned at him.

“But why?”

Vic knew what question I was really asking. I wanted to understand how something so startling, so demeaning, so threatening could happen, and their solution was to not tell the police and just fix it.

“Because that’s what we do, Russ,” He said.

“You and Harry and Bang Bang?”

“No.” He chuckled. “Us queers. We get called names. We have our rights threatened or taken away. We get beaten. Arrested. Murdered. We get rocks and bricks, and even cinderblocks on fire, hurled at us. Our businesses are attacked. We get ignored and ridiculed when we complain. We get knocked down. But we get back up, and we keep marching. We keep going. It’s our duty as queers. We hope that we make a difference for the next generation of queers that follows. For every one of us you manage to win against, ten more will take their place. We’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going anywhere.”

Then he winked at me and strode towards the kitchen.

The doorbell rang.