The club looked larger and even more filled
with people from the second floor. I had just being there for less than an hour
and I already felt a little claustrophobic, even though the place could fit a
large plane inside, without the party goers of course. Most of the people were
dancing, or their version of dancing, while some others tried to talk over the
music on the second floor. People went up there because it was the lounge
section and it was supposed to exist in order to mingle with others and just
have a great time only drinking but the sound was too loud, even though it
shouldn’t be. Anyway, people did their best to talk but I was too tired of
trying to understand anything so I decided to go to the bathroom.
I gave up to that fast as the line for the
bathroom was very long and some people ere saying guys were fucking or
something there so I just decided to exit, pee in the back alley and then come
back in. I had a seal on my hand to do so I crossed the sea of dancing people
on the ground floor and reached the door fast, as I felt more and more the need
to go and pee. I finally went through the door, after having to push some guy
flirting with this big hairy man, called bear in the gay slang.
The day had been a very hot one so the night
was very refreshing, not excessively hot nor cold. Just a nice weather to go to
where the dumpsters were and pee. I closed my eyes for a second; wanting to
concentrate on not drinking any more liquids but then I heard something. It
sounded like a moan or some kind of complaint. I finished peeing, put it all
away and then stopped and made no noise. There it was again, someone sobbing or
something. My first thought was thinking than some guys had decided to take a
trip to the back alley and have some fun but if that was the case, I would have
heard some other moaning or at least two people breathing and I could only hear
one. I walked away from the main entrance of the club, to where many bags
filled with people, others with other type of garbage, had been put into a large
pile. Then, I saw who had made the noises and felt really guilty about thinking
those were sex sounds.
As I had my cellphone with me, I called an
ambulance right there. As I waited, I got closer to the guy: he had been beaten
up pretty bad and was lying on the dirty floor, sobbing, incapable of saying a
single word. Apparently, he was in a state of shock and couldn’t do more than
just complain and sob. I tried to pull him out of the pile of garbage but he
complained louder so I decided not to do anything. Then, I saw the light of the
ambulance behind me and I stood up fast towards them, in order to tell them
where the victim was. In no time, they had him on a stretcher and in the
ambulance. I was about to turn around when of the paramedics told me they
needed someone to go with him to sign papers and son. It could be anyone. So I
went with them.
When
we got to the hospital, I had to call my friends to tell me where I was but no
one answered the phone. Of course, they were still inside the club and no
cellphone, unless in front of their faces, would be noticed. A doctor came out
to talk to me and told me they had to get the wounded guy to surgery.
Apparently, the beating had been worse than imaginable and one of his lungs had
been punctured. He had many broken ribs and was now hallucinating, babbling
something that no one could really understand. I had to sign some papers saying
it had been me who found him and that I had to be responsible for him for the
time being. It felt like the right thing to do and, to be honest, it had been
too shocking not to be both concerned and pissed about it.
I stayed in the hospital all night. A nurse
called Anita was kind enough to give me a quarter in order to get a coffee from
a machine. I talked to her while I drank it, telling her I had just found the
guy in an alley and had no idea of who he was. She told me that he wasn’t the
first gay guy to come in like that. At least five in the last few weeks and it
was rumored to be a very violent gang who also assaulted immigrants and
prostitutes. Every victim had survived except for the youngest one, who had
died only a week before. I thought to myself that, those guys in the club, most
would never live through that. Guess they were the lucky ones.
When the clock hit six in the morning, I was
about to fall asleep right in the waiting room. I had nothing on me except my
cellphone and wallet but nevertheless I had always been careful not to fall
asleep where someone could take my things away. And after I had seen that
night, I doubled my efforts not to fall asleep, even in a hospital. Thankfully,
the doctor came out again and told me the surgery had been a success. He had to
stay in the hospital to get better but he had been one of the lucky ones: other
had been more brutally attacked and had tougher recoveries. The doctor also
told me they had tried to locate his family and they had ben successful but
they lived far away and, apparently, wouldn’t travel for their son.
When
I heard that, my heart shrunk. I felt so bad for the poor guy, all alone in a
hospital with a family unwilling to move from home for their victimized son.
But, yet again, it wasn’t such an uncommon thing. I decided to go home and
rest. Then, in the afternoon, I would visit him again. When I got home, I realized
I had no keys so I had no other option than to wake up my flat mate. He was a
weird guy and didn’t even say a word when he opened. He just went straight back
to bed. I did the same, getting naked fast and into the covers, falling asleep
in a heartbeat. My last thought went with the guy in the hospital, broken body
but still alive. Was he awake? Was he wondering why that had happened to him?
When I visited later that afternoon, he
seemed to be much better than the night before. And I felt very guilty about
thinking this, but when I entered the room I almost choked, as I hadn’t
realized how beautiful he was. He had short blondish hair and green eyes. He
was tanned and very tall. Maybe that was why I couldn’t really move him from
the garbage. He was very nice and thanked me for what I had done. He recognized, very openly, that his family
was not coming and that he was going to try to get better fast in order to go
back to his own place soon. He worked in a hotel as a lifeguard, also teaching
tourists how to surf. His name was Michael but he told me to tell him Mike, so
I did.
I visited Mike every single day for the
following week, until he got better. We chatted for hours, even making nurses
come to shut us up. He didn’t share the room but apparently we were too loud
for a hospital. The saddest moment came when he confessed me that his main
attacker had been a guy he had liked in the club and that he had tried to flirt
with him. That’s why they went to the back alley and the other guy surprised
him with two more guys and beat him up. Kicks, punches, insults… It all flew
towards him and put him on the floor. The really sad part was that he told me
that after the beating, the guy that he had flirted with had tried to rape him
but that the other guys decided it was best to leave so they did.
It is very awkward to see a beautiful person
sad or crying. I know this sounds bad but that’s what I thought after he told
me his story. You just never think about someone that looks like a model in
such a situation. Yet there was Mike, a short way from male perfection, beaten
up by life. Anyway, we also chatted about nicer things, like our jobs and lives
in general. As it happens, we had some people in common and he even recalled
having seen me before but I had never seen him, I told him I would remember.
Mike went red with this statement and told me that if I continued that way he
would believe anything else I said. So we joked around with that and just
became friends.
When he was released from the hospital, I
drove him to his house and had him installed. One of his arms was in a sling
and he couldn’t walk a lot or very fast but he was alive. That day we ordered
chines food and I realized I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing. If it went
on like that, I would fall in love with him or become obsessed or something and
it would be uncomfortable for the both of us. So I decided to be a friend and
nothing more. Sure enough, we did exactly that and in a couple of weeks he was
dating some big muscular guy he had met at the beach. I was happy for him, mainly because he looked
really happy, and it was the first time I saw him like that.
Me, I went on with my life too. No, I didn’t
met anyone and no; I wasn’t in love with Mike. That would have been too easy. I
just wondered, every time I looked at him, about some many things in life. My
first thought was to ask myself why would anyone do that to another person? Is
someone’s existence so unbearable you have to kick them and almost kill them?
But then I also thought about me, about how alone I was and how easy it was for
mike to just get back on his feet. It seemed unfair somehow that life and
people favor some over others just because of their looks, for good and bad. My
conclusion: it was all a tragedy.
