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On our three-week anniversary as a married couple, it happened. We were ready to be seen and to see others. We were even ready to talk, but again, why rush the inevitable? On this particular day, it was around 10 p.m. We were lying in bed, listening to our neighbor’s television play an episode of Martin that we both remembered.
Then out of nowhere, Steven said, “I’m tired of being in the house! I miss television, and I don’t think I can handle anymore takeout or sexual intercourse.”
I joked, “Don’t tell me you ready to go back to your gay life already.”
Steven laughed and playfully hit me with a pillow. “You know I only want your dick, Mommy!”
I hit him with my pillow. “You better say that, my lil fuckboy! Where do you want to go anyway? I mean, it’s after 10 p.m.?”
Steven jumped to his feet right on the bed and started jumping up and down. “I got it. Let’s go down to the pier! It’s late, so there won’t be anyone down there except homeless people. We don’t even have to get dressed. All we need are sneakers, keys, and cash for a taxi, just in case. Come on, hurry, hurry, hurry! We gotta get there before midnight. I’ll order us an Uber!”
Within minutes, we were ready to walk out of the front door to meet our Uber. But as soon as we stepped into the 9th-floor lobby, there they were. Reporters, news cameras, police. Paparazzi!
Steven and I walked past them as they asked us like fifty questions in like fifteen seconds. They asked questions like “Josephine, do you have legal representation for your corporate espionage case?” and “Steven, have you always hated yourself for being gay, or only when you were seduced by Josephine?” and “Tell us, who’s really fucking who, here. I mean, really.”
Then this fat black bitch who worked for Fox News asked loud enough to cause an echo in an already crowded hallway, "Josephine, are you HIV Positive?"
I snapped back, "Yeah, bitch, but I got it from your fat-ass mother! I see the fat-ass apple don't fall far from the fat-ass tree, you fat-ass bitch!"
The paparazzi and Steven started laughing. But while Steven held me close to him and tried to fight everyone off, the other reporters started asking more questions, in quicker succession. The elevator wasn't working, so we had to run down all nine flights of stairs with a crowd of people yelling shit at us.
As we went down each flight, I felt cramps in my stomach. No, not now, not my motherfucking period! But as we passed our neighbors, I noticed that they were helping us by serving as shields so we could get a nice distance between the reporters who were on our ass and getting more disrespectful with each new question they shouted at us.
I was scared that Steven was going to lose his mind, but when I looked at him, he was as calm as a feather on that humid summer night. That was my husband; intelligent, successful, and only assured of his love for me, nothing else mattered. As I watched them watch us, and Steven watching me, I felt like I was safe, and happy, and nothing could destroy our mood.
When we walked out the front door of the building, through the sea of reporters who were outside, I saw Tyler running toward me with a long metal blade in his hand, which he held tightly, like he holds gay dicks, I’m sure.
In that moment, I looked at my husband, who was looking at Tyler as well, then I looked around and watched as the media, so obsessed with the story, didn’t even see Tyler running up on me. There were even police officers in my face but not Tyler’s.
In a sea of chaos, and questions, and with a flaming queen coming for my neck, I was ready to die. I would have died happily, because I knew the love of the only man who loved me enough to be my second set of eyes in a situation where he had no eyes on himself.
In the next moment, Steven was in front of me, and Tyler’s blade cut him in the abdomen. The blood that poured from Steven’s stomach, down his leg, and onto the pavement ran as red as my fury! My rage!
Tyler was shocked as well; he came for me, not Steven! As he stood in shock watching the ‘love of his life’ bleed out, I reached in my pocket, grabbed my keys in the palm of my fist so tight that I still have the marks to this day, and I punched that faggot right in his temple!
I swung for all of the hate I felt toward him, and the lack of compassion that everyone had for my husband, who laid on the ground, as the media snapped pictures instead of applying pressure to his wound, or whatever they supposed to do to help a stab victim.
It was a hot summer night, but what was hotter was the blood that I felt on my fist from Tyler’s finely groomed face. As gratifying and as vindicating as that blood felt on my fist, when Tyler fell to the ground convulsing, all I could see next to him was Steven gasping in pain. No one would help Steven because of Tyler's HIV rumor. I screamed so loud that after a few seconds, I didn’t hear sound anymore. Everyone moved in slow motion, and their faces looked on in horror, finally realizing what I saw as soon as I stepped outside of our building.
I fell to the ground and held Steven’s head in my lap, the way they had me plastered on every newspaper and website the next morning; that is the only picture I see in my nightmares. Me looking at myself as I watched the love of my life bleeding, and dying, after having decided to love me, despite the risks and the public shame I caused him.
I couldn’t even touch his wound out of fear that Tyler’s ass was the one who was really HIV Positive. The thing I waited for all of my life, someone to be there for me, was about to die because of me. I couldn’t touch what pained him, but I couldn’t run away from him either, and no matter how much I screamed, I couldn't get anyone else to help him. I was still screaming, but anchored to Steven’s fading stare, trying to be a form of strength, even though I had never felt so weak before in my life. By the time Steven closed his eyes, I was in handcuffs.
The ambulance came and rushed Tyler and Steven off, while I sat in the back of a police car wanting nothing but to be in the ambulance with Steven. There was all of this commotion going on outside the car, people arguing and the static of police radios both inside and outside the patrol car.
I didn’t even realize what was happening around me, but I heard it all the same, you know? It was like me looking at the picture of me in the paper after the fact. In that cop car, just like when Tyler stabbed Steven, it reminded me of hopelessness. Not regular hopelessness, like how I felt most of my life, but hopelessness after having all of the hope in the world and losing it in the blink of an eye and not being able to do a thing to stop it from happening.
What did I have to ride in the ambulance for if Steven was already dead? I had no one I wanted to call, no one I wanted to plead with and explain why I hit Tyler in the temple with the intent to kill him.
I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to live. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want anything. I just laid down in the back of that cop car and cried silently, but with every ounce of emotion that Steven had given me over the past eighteen months. I guess sometime after that I fell asleep.