Chapter 2

I generally buried my head in a book during lunch, eating a sandwich and crisps at the diner across from my building.  I liked to keep my head down.  Maybe it was wrong of me but I wasn’t like Jack.  If someone yelled at me, I was more likely to cry than to fight back.  If Jack saw someone make me cry, he’d probably knock their teeth out.  The thought made me smile into my book.

My sandwich was finished so I was slowly sipping my soda and eating my crisps as I started to noticed the whispers around me.  I hadn’t looked up so I hadn’t noticed the couple walking into the small diner, hand-in-hand.  But I noticed as the whispers became louder.

“Can you believe the audacity?” one person whispered.

“Why do they think they have the right to subject us to that?” another said with disgust.

“Do they think they’re going to get served like that?”

“Oh, Bob is so gonna kick them out of the diner.”

The comments continued on much the same.  Sometimes they were quiet so that I could only hear them because I was the next table over.  Sometimes, I could tell that the commenter was halfway across the restaurant and wanted everyone to hear.

I looked up at the couple and could see that the one was uncomfortable, pulling at her partner’s hand and whispering.  She clearly wanted to leave, wasn’t comfortable with all of the attention they were garnering.  I felt sorry for them.  But didn’t they know better than to hold hands in public?

Finally, a nasty looking young man in a t-shirt, jeans and a baseball cap promoting a local team walked up to the table and slammed his hands down, making the woman jump with the whump sound it made.  I winced too and tried to ignore their plight.  I wasn’t good with confrontations.  I avoided them if at all possible.  This wasn’t my fight.  “No one wants you here,” the youth said spitefully.  “Why don’t you take this,” he waved his hand between the two of them, “perversion and get out of our sights?”

The woman seemed to be cringing further and further into herself, her partner was trying admirably not to start a fight.  I could tell the effort was pointless.  The fight was inevitable.  I sighed, wishing people could just leave well enough alone.  I think I could deal with the unequal rights.  I could deal with a lot, but why couldn't people just let people live out their lives without persecution?  Just leave them alone?

The partner wasn’t making eye contact, which seemed to enrage the bully.  He slammed the palm of his hand against the table once more, again making the woman flinch and making her partner grind teeth.  I put down my book, my food.  I knew it was coming.  I knew the type.  He wouldn’t leave well enough alone.  The couple didn’t see it but I did.  The small cockeyed grin right before the hand stretched back.

Without thinking, I stood and grabbed his arm before he could make contact.  He was stronger than me and even with my whole body behind it, he still managed to follow through some before I stopped him.  “Stop,” I pleaded.  I knew it would do no good.

He turned and glared at me.  “Sympathizer b***h!” he yelled a moment before the blow landed.  I hit a table and some chairs just as the woman’s partner sailed out of the booth, tackling the bigot and sending him careening into a table and knocking it over.

“F**k,” I hissed under my breath as I sort of lay sprawled underneath a table, my body throbbing all over from being abused.  I was vaguely aware of the brawl continuing in the background.  It was what I got for interfering in other people’s business.

The racket ended and there was a collection of people hovering over me, asking if I was alright.  Bob, one of the owners of the establishment, was barking in his normal gravelly voice for people to get out of his way.  An older lady was cooing in a motherly way to my right.  Bob finally made it to the front and barked unhappily, “You alright, Ash?”  I could tell that visions of law suits and Jamie’s wrath swam in his head.

I sat up, careful not to smack my head on the underside of the table.  “I’m fine, Bob.”

“Yeah, well, you should know better than to try to break up a fight.  It’s like separating dogs in a dog fight.  It’ll only end in trouble.”  Jamie bred dogs so Bob knew plenty about dog fights.  Good way to lose a finger.  I could see the genuine concern in Bob’s eyes so I overlooked his gruffness.  He meant well.  He just wasn’t so hot at showing it.

I looked back to the woman in the booth.  She looked even smaller than she had before.  Although, she was making quick glances towards the chaos in the middle of the room.  Several of the male customers of the diner had taken over the job of restraining the bigot.  The man who had tackled him was standing over him, bleeding from a cut over his eye and breathing heavily.

Why was it that people felt that being alike was so all fired important?  What was wrong with being different?  Should it matter the color of your skin?  Your religion?  Your sex?  I mean, I got some of the reasoning.  It made sense.  People from similar backgrounds were just more likely to understand each other, get along better, being able to maintain a lasting relationship.  I could understand how it might be hard for a Christian and a Muslim to relate if they didn’t understand each other’s religious beliefs and customs.  I could understand how ethnic differences might come between people.  I could even see how men and women thought differently, valued things differently.

But what did all of that logic and common sense mean in the face of instinct?  In the face of love?  The heart didn’t care about any of that.  And it made me want to cry that people just couldn’t understand that I didn’t chose for my blood to only heat in the presence of a man.  That my soul chose a man and not a woman as its other half.  Shouldn’t those two be able to go out to lunch without being called out?  I tried to call back my mask of indifference but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to work today.