As soon as Art said that, something seemed to catch his attention, and his smiledissipated.
Wes didn’t have to turn to know where he was looking. “Some people spend their whole lives searching for things to be offended by. Isn’t it nice that we’re handing them an easyone?”
Art pulled closer to Wes. “I’d hate to disappoint them,then.”
Wes wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Art smile so big, so carefree. In that moment, their worries vanished. Wes didn’t hesitate to take advantage. He kissed his Art, enjoying that familiar touch and the deep, profound happiness it conjured withinhim.
When they pulled apart, Wes kept his eyes closed, relishing the moment for just a little longer before they continued sharing their dance. As the final note of the song faded away, Wes could feel that the dancing had taken it out of him. “Come on. Let’s go get something todrink.”
He clung to Art’s hand as he guided him through the other residents, toward the main bar. He would have preferred to take the long way around Joseph Duvall’s table, but he didn’t see a reason why they should be the ones to change their trajectory because of a self-hating bigot or his asshole friends, so he went rightalong.
As he passed them, he heard the distinct and unforgettable, cruel sting as that same word he’d seen on the log hit his ears. Unmistakably Joseph Duvall. Wes was certain it wasn’t meant for him or Art to hear, but intended for his peers’ ears. That didn’t change the blow to the gut or the fury emanating from Wes’s verycore.
Time slowed for him as he turned and caught Art’s expression—that same one that had been so alive on the dance floor, now shifting to something dark, something sad. Because like with so many things, what the word triggered wasn’t this one instance of hearing such insults. It evoked the memories of every time they had ever been spoken to with such disregard. It was the reminder of generations of disrespect and cruelty. Of progress and steps backward…so far backward. Pushes forward and struggles that felt like they were in vain for solong.
Art and Wes’s gazes met, and the horror…the terror of seeing how far Art had fallen from his joy filled Wes with an indescribable fury, one that seized control of him. He barely heard Art say, “Let itgo.”
“Not thistime.”
Because it wasn’t just Joseph Duvall he despised in that moment, but all the world. For the pain, so much unnecessary pain inflicted on him and Art and so manyothers.
Wes headed for the group, Art tailing rightbehind.
“Do you have a problem, Joseph?” Wes asked, stopping beside him. Joseph turned, and they looked into one another’s eyes. After all, he knew the secret Joseph would have been horrified to have revealed before the rest of the room…before his sadistic version of agod.
Who was Joseph to judge him when he held the same passions in hisheart?
Wes could have so easily exposed him and ceased all that hatred with the shame that would have followed such a reveal. However, he bit his tongue, giving his aggressor the opportunity torepent.
The other members of Joseph’s group glanced around like they didn’t want to be caught up in the middle of anything, but it was too late forthat.
“I think you know what my problem is,” Joseph said, and his words caught the attention of the parties aroundthem.
“If you’re gonna use a slur, say it to my face,” Wes demanded. “Look me in the eyes and say what I just heard you say. Surely you can speak what you’re willing to stain naturewith.”
Joseph turned away from him and muttered, “Deep down you both know what you’re doing iswrong.”
It was one thing for Joseph to feel that way. Hell, there were likely others surrounding them in that moment who felt just the same, but it was another thing for Joseph to ask that they take a step back in time. Wes had spent too much of his life hiding because of feelings like his, because of the feelings of his own parents and family, the expectations, the religion, the society that had led him to believe that who he was was so terrible. Now he knew it wasn’t something he needed to be ashamed of. Now more than ever, he knew who hewas.
“Joseph, I’m sorry you feel the way you feel, but unfortunately for you, these are different times, and many of the people in this country wouldn’t agree with you and your ignorant points of view. I guess you haven’t kept up with politics…or science, for that matter. Too busy stuck in the fifties, thinking we should be carted off to an asylum to be corrected, but that’s not how things work today. Maybe in that prison of a mind of yours, but in our world, in our country, we have rights. Art and I can even get married if we want to. In the eyes of the government, in God’seyes—”
“God has nothing to do with this,” Joseph spat through his teeth, apparently seething from all that Wes had brought up, despising him and everything he represented. Wes could feel not only Joseph’s hate, but the hate he had encountered through so much of hislife.
“I know you, Joseph.” He could see the fear all over his face, as though Wes were about to reveal those moments they had shared in the woods in a time so distant it might as well have been another life. Despite how tempting it may have been, Wes wasn’t planning on crawling in the pit of lowliness with his slimynemesis.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Joseph saiddefensively.
“But we do,” Art spoke up. “I’ve seen you in the eyes of my mother. I’ve seen you in every curt word or insult I’ve heard throughout my life. You’re the voice of everyone who called me a queer or a fairy. You were the whispers that told the world to blame us for communism and AIDS. You were everything awful and dark and sinful that you used to justify that you were in the clear while we went to a fiery abyss. You’re a bigot, Joseph. That’s all you are. That’s all you have ever been, and as you stand there with your heels dug into the ground, clinging to these archaic ideals, all you will do is keep them alive in your own mind, because the rest of the world is changing, and once you die, and you will…just like the rest of us, you will take these atrocious beliefs with you, and you won’t be remembered as a keeper of truth or goodness. You’ll be remembered as the equivalent of a racist or a Nazi because you’re no better than anyone who holds any sort of belief likethat.”
Frances, Gabe, and Tony appeared on either side of them, applauding. As other partygoing residents began to follow their lead, Wes glanced around the room in genuine surprise at the number of allies. A few people sitting at tables stood for an ovation. Art took Wes’s hand as they looked to one another, Art surely as shocked as he was by the amount of hands coming to theirdefense.
Joseph appeared stunned by the clear opposition to hisperspective.
“We have every right to be here as much as anyone else,” Art added. “And maybe anyone who thinks otherwise shouldleave.”
With that, Wes, Art, and their friends walked away from the situation, though Wes couldn’t stifle the rage that amplified withinhim.
Joe approached them, a broad smirk across his face, almost like the night before when he’d caught Art and Wes in the act. “I was heading over to see if you guys needed backup, but I see you got it taken careof.”
