Robert DuSold

Saturday night, my Tom of nearly 21 years and I went to a restaurant a little out of our usual radius here in New Jersey for dinner.

There, we both felt it.

It.

That feeling you get when you’re being looked at, looked over, summed up, judged … I have my new sexy shock of black hair conspicuously(artfully in my opinion) added by the magic of Aveda to my white hair, and I was wearing a nice shirt, so was Tom…and we are two guys together out for dinner at an Italian restaurant.

The only 2 guys out together for dinner. Together. At an Italian restaurant in northern New Jersey on a Saturday night.

We stood for about 5 minutes while the host sat a few walk-in patrons who had arrived after us. And we waited. We looked at each other. We’ve been here before.

When we did get a table, our waiter didn’t bother to lean on decorum, instead he just telegraphed his distinct disdain for us. He sneered. He looked like he smelled shit…his nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed as we got the stare.

He took our order and never came back. He tended to every other table. He gave us away, finally, to another waiter.

We get it. We got it. We know the look. We’ve both gotten it throughout our lives.

We talked at dinner about where we dream of buying a little plot of land some day pretty soon and building a house. Our house. But we agreed it has to be somewhere we’ll be safe. We have to check out the surroundings. The vibe, the humanity. The temperature. Because we can’t just move anywhere. We have to figure that out.

Where do we go?

We’ll be scrutinizing the cars that drive around the area, the bumper stickers, the yard signs, the T-shirts, the stares…. it’ll take time to find the right place.

So that was our Saturday night.

Meanwhile, while we were eating dinner, friends of friends of ours in Minneapolis … in the burbs, were enjoying their Saturday night. Joseph and Paul.

They’re in the right place … loved by many and living a happy married life. They sort of remind me of Tom and I. We’re pretty much the same age. Paul and I have the same smile I think.

Paul went to get their mail on Saturday eve… I know, not very exciting …. the box is at the end of their driveway.

That’s when he was murdered. By his neighbor. His neighbor got in his car and killed him with it. Ran him over. In his very own driveway.

Paul made it to the hospital alive after he was mowed down, but died shortly after.

Joseph is alone. Now.

Paul and Joseph’s neighbor had tried it before… hitting them with his car. This time he succeeded.

Paul’s murder wasn’t a crime of passion, or revenge, or retribution. It wasn’t a burglary gone wrong or something like that. In fact, it was an easy choice for his killer…. an evidently mentally disturbed man.

It’s easy to kill gay men.

I’m sure this started with the stare. That look. It. The familiar it. Paul had that familiar feeling that every gay person feels throughout their life.

“Ugh, the neighbor doesn’t like the gays”. In fact, I think he hates gay men for no other reason than they’re gay. That’s it.

And here’s why it was easy for a homophobe to get in his car, turn on the ignition and steer towards a beautiful human being, while pressing on the gas pedal to kill him in his home.

It’s easy because nearly every single religion in the world teaches the masses that gay men are sick, not human, evil, sinners, not worthy and less than.

It’s easy because no gay man wants to be a topic at your dinner table. You know, for you to decide what he deserves in life while you pass the potatoes.

It’s easy because when we watched the horror of Charlottesville, we fixated on white supremacy and ignored the redundant shouts of ‘faggot”.

It’s easy because when we watched the horror of an insurrection on January 6, we fixated on white supremacy and ignored the “faggot”.

It’s easy because we are full up on 🌈 and ☀️ and Pride and flags( I have no idea what the latest mean) that we just won’t stop the party.

It’s easy because nearly every gay rights organization has become so hopelessly corporate and woke that they are fundamentally ignoring the needs of gay men. That is fucking rich. But it’s true.

It’s easy because we are obsessed with race as a panacea for virtue signaling wokeness while gay men are vilified.

It was easy for Paul’s killer to press on the gas pedal because we are so hopelessly dug in to our particular grievances that we don’t even recognize this tragedy. We don’t feel it. We’re not the media hyped topic du jour.

It was easy for him to kill because we buy tropes that gay white men run the theater and film industries.

That is from a manifesto signed by Lin Manuel Miranda, among others, under the guise of equality in theater. I’ll be polite and say they missed the mark. For someone who has so much, it’s unfathomable to me why he would attach his name to this. But, he did. Everyone of privilege who signed this is in the passenger seat alongside Paul’s killer.

It’s easy to kill gay men because many of the killers use the “gay panic” defense and get away with it. We focus more on the killer, and much less on the victim.