…Did I Just Get Hate-Crimed?

A story of shenanigans, slurs, and shaving cream.

The scene of the crime. The car itself is also a crime against the automobile industry, but that’s my business.

“Hey Dad, can I finish the calzone in the fridge?”

“That’s fine. Also, Mommy and I just cleaned up some toilet paper in your car, and it looks like someone wrote ‘FAQ’ on it in shaving cream. Is that from last night?”

“…No? What?”

This was Halloween morning. Well, it was 1 P.M., but I had just woken up. I’d been out late the night before (safely) photographing my local Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast’s (masked) performance at a drive-in theater (outdoors, of course.)

The show in Westfield was about a forty-minute drive both ways, so there’s no way the foam spelling out “FAG” on my trunk could’ve survived the Garden State Parkway ride back.

I don’t know why my first instinct was to laugh. Maybe it reminded me of when I had found a slice of American cheese inexplicably slapped onto my windshield this past June. I couldn’t get mad at such a rare instance of real-life slapstick whimsy — that shit was funny as hell.

yummy :)

I’m no stranger to getting attention for the absolute clown car I drive. She’s a 2004 Nissan Sentra with a missing hubcap, one perma-locked back door, a trunk tied shut from the inside by a bungee cord, and likely a host of other problems gone unaddressed because I simply know nothing about cars. I call her Linda.

Since coming under my sister’s ownership in our teens, Linda’s bumper sticker collection has exploded from the local standards — “JERSEY STRONG”, “Compassion” spelled out in religious symbols, the Grateful Dead bears my sister just thought were cute — to a “what’s one more sticker?” amalgamation of my likes and interests from my past seven years. I’ve earned props from teen passersby for the one declaring “I Only Listen To The Mountain Goats”. I’ve also seen an old man downtown spit on a Bernie 2016 one right in front of me.

All this to say: I don’t quite know what prompted someone to soap a slur onto my car, whether my sloppy jalopy has long been a moving target roving my Trump-signed streets, or if this was a classic case of boys not knowing any worse insult than a gay one. I don’t know how Jersey-specific Mischief Night is, but here and likely elsewhere, Halloween Eve is also the unofficial-official night of suburban teen pranks and shenanigans. This usually means TP’d trees and egged houses. As the officer I reluctantly reported to said, this was probably “just kids being kids”.

But why “fag”? And why me?

I posted the picture to my small town’s notoriously drama-drenched Facebook group. (I cropped out the Bernie sticker — maybe I’m a coward, but I didn’t need my socialism dampening my likely right-leaning neighbors’ sympathies when there was a bigger issue at hand, especially this close to the election.) The general response was heartening and comforting, so I wasn’t too alarmed when the one brave contrarian crawled out of the woodwork.

Hate speech? Oh, I thought you said “hates peach”.

Once again, maybe I’ve gotten too good at coping through humor to take these things seriously. I didn’t respond to the jabroni in question myself — my neighbors had already chosen my side and graciously dogpiled accordingly. And I doubt an LGBTQ-issues Medium post will ever reach his screen, so I’ll humor him by humoring myself and A his very important Q’s.

1. Are you gay?

Short answer: yup! Long answer: I don’t talk about it much and I’m not incredibly secure in my identity, but I’m somewhere under the umbrella. Not like it’s this guy’s business, unless he’s looking to hook me up with a hot local single in my area.

2. Does this affect you?

I mean… it already has, hasn’t it? It’s my own damn car parked in front of my own damn house. Even if they’d written “EGGHEAD” on the trunk I’d be affected, and maybe a little self-conscious of my massive noggin.

3. Or are you just offended by the speach (sp) and starting a thread?

See answer to question 2.

I also find it interesting how he doubled down by listing the heinous car crimes this perpetrator mercifully avoided. Considering Linda’s incredulous lifespan despite the lack of care under my ownership, I doubt a mere mortal tater skin could’ve taken down this clunker, one whose exhaust pipe was briefly tied together by an iPhone cord this year. Key my car? I’d slap another sticker over it, but I think the punk cred I’d get from the scrape would be too sick to squander.

I settled into a nice spooky paranoia once the bemusement subsided. It’s still a fact that someone wrote a homophobic slur with a painful history onto my gay socialist car, ephemeral as it was, and that this person still exists in my town somewhere. Maybe they saw my post on Facebook. How would they feel? Ashamed? Or incensed to the point of further action?

And how do I feel? Is it homophobia, or did they only have enough graffiti material for a three-letter word? Is it a hate crime, or a kid letting loose amidst months of quarantine? A why am I giving them the benefit of the doubt?

I’m still carrying this story with a sense of humor in my heart. It certainly speaks to my privilege how I took a selfie with the fag tag upon discovery — no immediate danger here! Just a funny little photo op before reality could catch up with the me who’s used to finding something silly outside.

Portrait of the author and her gay little car.

Regardless, there’s not much I can do at this point. It rained today, the letters washed off, and a new month began. But maybe I’ll keep one eye peeping out my window and trained onto my car this election night and the days after, no matter the outcome. My safe little community has surprised me before.