Page 15 of Dignity

Iknow.

Lou doesn’t play cards because he doesn’t have a poker face, and he freely admits this.

He slowly shakes his head.“I’ve already got Shelly prepping a graphic and a quote from the family’s minister, who’s their spokesman. She’ll insert the text at the beginning of B-block, where you were going to cover it anyway.”

I nod. Thank god I’m sitting behind my desk, because I’m not sure I could stand right now.

I prep my printed notes, which are both outlines as well as copy of the teleprompter text, and try toignore the dangerous buzz growing louder by the second in the back of my mind.

I never knew rage could feel so…cold.

Ice cold.

Cold like the grave.

Cold like my heart, my soul.

Cold like my dreams, like two wasted decades I spent lying to the world.

Cold like my bed most nights.

Cold like the tiramisu he playfully fed to me with his bare fingers.

As the cameraman begins my final countand ticks off the last three seconds, I look into the camera and remember to remove my IFB, tossing it behind me so it hangs down along my back, against my jacket.

“Good evening, and welcome toThe Daily Readout With Kevin Markos. If you’ve been following the Supreme Court today, you know they’re hearing yet another challenge to theObergefell v. Hodgesruling that eliminated gay marriage bansin the United States.”

But…therage. It’s coalescing in my gut like a thermonuclear blast.

Dayonte Ramone might wake up from his nightmare just to learn that yes, it can get worse.

I take off my glasses and set them aside on the desk.

I won’t need them. I’m totally off-script now.

I let the mushroom cloud of my rage sweep through me. Fuck the clock, fuck the advertisers—fuck this networkthat stirs up foul, rancid garbage like the two men that basically murdered that woman by attacking her son.

Fuck my father, and my fear of him and his reactions, which have kept me locked in a closet all these years.

Fuck the attitudes that scared me into abandoning what was probably the only perfect partner for me, the love of my life.

Fuck homophobic asswipes who see people as less-than.

Fuck the racists.

Fuck the evangelicals wasting my goddamned tax dollars in stupid court challenges because they want their eighty bazillion clown-car-vagina, full-quiver, religious robot pod children to attend government schools where the Bible is taught over science and law.

Fuck.

Them.

Fuckallllof them.

I can’t even tell you what I said, only that when I finally come back to myself, Louand Henry are both standing there in front of me in the studio, which has been cleared of crew.

And both of them look…grim.

But, hey, one good thing, at least.