I forgot to mention, but the other evening a few days ago, I had gone over to the St. Francis to meet Jason and “walk home” with him, which involves walking to Powell Station and boarding MUNI bound for Castro Station.  This is much of what our time together looks like, and it gives him a chance to be heard, and me a chance to listen to him and we get to be together.  It’s very simple, but also very nice, with no pressure on us to do anything other than be together.

We boarded the train and had seats – if you are familiar with the layout of the Breda MUNI train cars, at the front and rear doors there are two three-seat benches that face each other, and immediately adjacent are two two-seat benches which are perpendicular to the bulkheads of the train car, facing the end of the train.  These four benches create a wider spot for ingress and egress, and are essentially shaped like two facing ells.

At Civic Center Station, an elderly woman boarded the train, so I stood up and yielded my seat to her, and came to stand next to Jason, who was on one of the two two-seat benches.  While the train was riding, I was gently stroking his capped head, and he took his cap off so I could stroke his hair while we talked.  It was very soothing to both of us for me to be stroking him this way, and our conversation was very pleasant and good.

When we got off at Castro Station, we exited from the outbound door, and as we made our way off, some morbidly obese middle aged man sitting a few seats away from us yelled “faggots!” at us.  This freaked Jason out a bit, and he wanted to yell something back, but as the man said it again, I turned around, gave him my biggest shit-eating grin, grabbed Jason’s ass cheek with my big hand, and replied, “why, yes, we are!”  That shut the man up but good!

As we walked away from the train and up the escalator, we were laughing about it, but I have to think about what sort of pain and anger must lie in that man’s heart that he has to try to hurt others with a word that no longer holds any power to hurt?  For me, even when I know someone is trying to hurt me with faggot, I only feel pity for them and their hurting themselves.  It doesn’t even get a rise out of me, which is surprising, because I have been pretty sensitive about it in the past.

The moral of the story is that the more we come out, come out every day, and live our lives with love and joy and honor and work, the less we can be hurt by others.

“A Cougar Stole My Man”

On the way back home