Smear the Queer

 True story, though some names have been changed to protect the guilty. Photo is from a Vice Tricks show in Indianapolis, somewhere around 2012. I don’t have a lot of pics from the 90’s because we weren’t carrying around cameras all the time.

We knew the night was destined for something to happen, we just didn't know what. It was pissing down rain on a Saturday night in the fall of 1997, and I had just picked up Ron at his house on Pennsylvania Street. We were headed to see The Groovie Ghoulies and The Queers at Rhino's in Bloomington and my car kept dying at every stop light.

 My first car was a blue 1966 Ford Mustang Coupe. It had been plagued with electrical problems from the day my grandparents got it from my step-dad for my 16th birthday. He had two of them: a parts car that had a 289 Windsor with automatic transmission and the blue coupe that had the 200 cubic-inch straight six with three on the floor, manual transmission. We junked the parts car and my dad and I ended up replacing the entire fuel system in the coupe, tank forward, as well as most of the electrical components. However, there was a short in the wiring somewhere that we never did find. This resulted in many a day after school waiting for the parking lot to clear out so that my friends could push me and I could pop the clutch to get us all home. 

For some reason Ron didn't have a car, or it was broken down, because in retrospect, there's no logical explanation for me driving the Mustang to Bloomington from Columbus given the circumstances. I suppose we figured that our only issue would be Bloomington itself since there was one stop light between Columbus and the outer parts of Bloomington. I managed to put the car in neutral and rev the engine every time we came to a red light. But, since most of Highway 46 is a two lane, rural highway twisting through hilly and wooded Bartholomew, Brown and Monroe counties, we figured we'd get there. 

And we did - barely.

Once Highway 46 turned into 3rd Street in Bloomington, it seemed like we had to stop at every light. I pushed the gear shift into neutral and revved the engine. When the light turned green, I kept my right foot down as pushed in the clutch. Then, I put it into gear and released the clutch again. We got there, eventually.

Upon parking and paying our $5 to get in and get our hand stamped, we hung around awhile. We'd finished a cigarette as we pulled into the parking lot so there was no need to go back out into the wet air just yet. It had quit raining but everything was still soaked. We noticed a few people we knew, but we simply camped out towards the back of the club and continued our conversation. 

We watched The Groovie Ghoulies without incident. We liked them, but we were waiting for The Queers. After their set, we walked outside for a smoke. It was then that Aaron, a kid from my high school, began running his mouth to me. This was a favorite hobby of his, but he wouldn't fight me. Every time I got close to him he ran or found some other pussy way to escape having his ass cash the checks his mouth wrote. I mostly ignored him as usual – I still to this day don't know what his issue was with me.

The first few songs by The Queers really had the room going. I had loved their record Beat Off! as well as their latest, Don't Back Down, and I was enjoying myself. Then, it hit me, literally. Someone had come from inside the pit and hit me. I was stunned because Ron and I were standing about 10 feet from the pit minding our own business. 

I turned to him and said, “That was Aaron wasn't it?”

“It was. I saw him clearly. What are you going to do?”

I thought about it for a minute trying to decide if it could have been an accident. I was being too kind.

“Dude, go get that fucker.”

I looked at Ron and knew he was right. I charged into the pit, grabbed that piece of shit by his scrawny neck, dragged him out and threw him to the ground. I immediately was on top of him landing lefts and rights to his face with as much speed and power as my coffee and cigarette diet, 17-year-old self could muster.

Before I knew it, someone grabbed me by the collar and dragged me outside. I noticed it was Dallas, a fat piece of shit wannabe gutter punk from Bloomington that was Aaron's friend. Just as soon as he got me outside, Ron came running up and landed a right hook to his face and dropped the fat fuck. In the melee Brad, the manager, came running out with Aaron. 

“I was in the fucking pit you asshole, I was DANCING!!!!” Aaron was screaming.

“I was 10 feet from the fucking pit you pussy! You don't have the balls to fight me so you thought you'd take a cheap shot and hide behind the mosh pit you cocksucker!” I yelled back.

Then Brad calmed everyone down. We all had to agree to leave each other alone and be cool or we couldn't stay for the rest of the set. They stuck to their side and we stuck to ours. We enjoyed the rest of The Queers, but both sat there and steamed.

Ironically, my Mustang had no issues all the way home. We stopped for a Mountain Dew, smoked a couple extra cigarettes and talked out our frustration in the car. I dropped him off at home and didn't even think of the event until second period Monday morning. 

It was then that someone approached me and said, “Aaron is going around telling everyone he beat your ass at Rhino's Saturday night.”

“Oh really?” I asked.

“Yeah, but now that I see you, it's kind of stupid.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because he's got two black eyes and you don't have a scratch on you,” they replied.

I just chuckled. That conversation happened several more times that morning. Eventually, at lunch I ran into him and he tried to make the same argument in front of a bunch of kids. I asked him why he looked like a fucking raccoon and I looked fine if he beat my ass? He talked some more shit and I offered him a repeat of Saturday night if he wanted it – right then, right there and in front of everyone. He pussied out like normal, but he never talked shit to me again.