[Under the Rainbow cover]

An Excerpt From Chapter Six

Under the Rainbow

That afternoon I was distractedly crossing Christopher Street when a leaflet was handed to me. It told a story that made me want to cry. The night before, The Snakepit Bar had been raided. It was an after-hours gay bar right around the corner from my house, and I hadn't know it was there. I had seen people going in and out of it at odd hours, but I had no idea what was in that basement, and I didn't want to know. The cops had forced their way in, seized all of the money in the register, and arrested all 167 patrons. They had been taken to the Sixth Precinct house on Charles Street, and while they were being booked, one of them had tried to leap from a window ledge to the next rooftop to escape. He was a young Argentine, terrified of losing his visa and being deported from this country, which is the punishment for homosexuals who visit America. He didn't want his family to know he was gay. He had fallen onto a spiked fence, his body pierced so thoroughly that it took nearly an hour to cut through the metal and take it, with him, to St. Vincent's Hospital, where he lay near death.

The leaflet said that any way you looked at it that boy had been pushed. And he had been -- by fear and ignorance and hate. I knew that he could have been me. My last resort in my worst fantasies, was that if I were ever arrested, I would try to kill myself rather than face the shame of exposure. The homemade announcement on the leaflet was an invitation to a demonstration. Homosexuals would gather in Sheridan Square, march to the precinct house to protest the arrests, and then hold a deathwatch at the hospital. Why had it been handed to me? Did I look like a homosexual? I had been as careful as my desires would permit not to give myself away as I followed the progress of the new liberation movement with fascination, buying copies of Gay and hiding their headlines until I was home, under The New York Times, which never used to use nasty words like "homosexual." But it had nothing to do with me. I had too much to lose. There was no hope for my freedom. And now did some leafleter know me for what I was just by sight? Was there some crack in the mask, perhaps a wound that showed, unhealed from that morning's encounter with the blackmailer? It didn't matter. I had to see the demonstration. I had to know the difference between my terror and their courage.

A little afraid to go home because the blackmailer might be waiting in the hall, I went to see Teresa O'Connor, who teaches with me. She was at home with her husband, Aoki, a Japanese artist. I casually mentioned that a demonstration was going to pass their door. (They lived right on Christopher Street, which had always hampered my cruising because I had to scurry around that corner with my collar up even if Paul Newman's double was standing on the curb.) Showing them the leaflet, I asked if they wanted to watch with me.

We watched from across the street, following from Sheridan Square to the precinct house to the hospital. (The young Argentine lived. His body is scarred beyond hope; he wears a small bag under his shirt because his intestinal wounds made normal bowel movements impossible.) There, safely across the street, with a straight couple for camouflage, I heard the words that changed my life. Five hundred homosexuals, not timid faggots, but fierce, demanding, beautiful men and women, were disrupting the nighttime stillness with earthquake chants of "Say it loud: Gay is Proud!" Those words ate into my bones. Don't just say it apologetically, say loud: demand it. Gay doesn't just exist. It's glad to exist. It's proud. It's not only all right to be a homosexual, it's a good thing! I couldn't believe it. I had to believe it. It was true.

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