2009: Gay Panic in the San Juan Streets

            “She—or he, or whatever—just shouldn’t have taunted him.”
            That’s Victor. He’s been our official driver since high school. He had a Cadillac. We had feet. He's got issues with self-esteem and women and such. He's a midget.
            “What?” Collectively said by me, Carlos, Norbert, and René. Or to be less confusing, I’ll just say “we,” “us,” a big majority.
            We’re in Lola’s room, in my house. Lola is our seventeen-inch Apple computer, and the room is spacious and has a plasma TV, a set of game consoles, and an exercise machine. It’s on the second floor of my house, and large windows look out to the neighborhood and the mountains beyond. Here my brothers and I play Rock Band; we in the family watch The Sopranos, Law and Order, and Steven Spielberg movies; my friends and I watch YouTube videos from our megatronic Apple computer; and we have debates about everything in the comfort of the air-conditioner breeze. Today is one such occasion. 
            “I’m not saying what he did was right,” Victor continues, “but what I’m saying, just hear me out guys, is that if he or she would have told him that, you know, he was a man dressed as a woman—he, the guy who did it, wouldn’t have gotten angry.”
            We replied: “It was la avenida 15 on a weekday night, Victor. You don’t go there looking for women.”
           He countered: “Maybe he didn’t know that, man!”
            Who “he/she” was: a man dressed in drag, hair stylist by day and prostitute by night.
            What the other guy “did” that was not right but understandable: soliciting sex from said prostituto, taking her to his apartment, fucking her on his couch, proceeding then to dismember her and decapitate her. 
            To clean up his tracks, he burned the couch.
            “But you are justifying the act, though,” we say to Victor. “You’re defending his decision, you’re—”
            “Hey, man, like, I’m not saying it was right,” Victor stumbles, “All I’m saying is, if she wouldn’t have provoked him, he wouldn’t have killed her.”
            Gay Panic--the Laramie Defense. And then there's the Twinkie defense. What was that about, hamburgers? All kinds of shit makes you kill gay people, apparently. But never with such purpose, with such verve, as this man who kindled a fire. There's something maniacal about that, something that doesn't bespeak a "panic." It goes much deeper.
            “We’re not saying that you’re saying it’s right, we’re saying you’re defending him.”
            “All I’m sayin is it’s her fault! She provoked him! She should know--”
            “What the fuck? What do you mean ‘provoked’ him? It wasn’t like this guy was surgically operated or anything. He was a thin man wearing a wig, speaking in falsetto. You can tell, you know.”
            “Well, it was dark, the queen should’ve been clear about it.”
            “Dude, you can see the Adam’s apple.”
            “He could’ve been good at pretending to have a woman’s voice.”
            “You know, you’re defending machismo. You’re defending a culture that simply accepts as fact that some people should be more afraid of getting hurt than others: that if you’re gay, that means it’s okay for people to get angry at you for being gay. Would you like it--”
            I stop. I finish the sentence in my head: Would you like it if people killed you for being a midget?
            But since I don't finish the comment, Victor rolls his eyes.
            We debate for an hour and, the effort proving futile on both sides, we go out for drinks.
            As it turns out, the lead investigator of the case is on Victor’s side. Quoted in the newspaper and all: “People who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen.”
            Can't be any clearer than that.