Chapter 54 - Protesting the Protesters.

Friday was, to a large extent, a repeat of Thursday. Em came over again. This time he was armed with a more manly assortment of movies and a dirty jigsaw puzzle entitled 'People Are People' which was comprised of a black and white pencil sketch of thousands of naked people. Random figures were labeled with the character's profession, like 'Policeman', 'Lawyer' and 'Mechanic'. The only way to complete the puzzle was to scan the box top assiduously for whatever body part you had on the particular puzzle piece in your hand. There were some amazingly accurate drawings of hundreds of tiny little dicks on that puzzle. Justin was sure it was the perfect thing to keep Brian entertained all day.   

Justin had only two classes today - one in the morning and the other in the middle of the afternoon, with a big gap between the two. His plan had originally been to use the time between classes to do homework while he was out of the house. This was going to be his main study time once the baby was born. He figured he could always sketch or paint at home, but it would be far easier to complete all his reading in the quiet of the library without any distractions.

Unfortunately, he didn't even make it to the library today during the break in his classes. He couldn't actually make it more than ten paces across the campus before he was accosted by someone who HAD to voice his or her opinion on Justin's situation. The online video of him going up against the protesters had become wildly popular and it seemed everyone at PIFA now knew who he was. Most of the people he talked to were incredibly supportive. A few were absolutely vile to him. Justin felt bad that he wished they'd ALL go away.

Em texted him about ten to let Justin know the protesters were back. They didn't bring the children this time, though. He guessed they'd taken his threat to call social services to heart. But, apparently Joan Kinney WAS back. There was no comment from Brian, which was probably good. Justin hoped he was busy examining tiny dicks instead of worrying about his shit-for-brains mother.

The main phone for the loft was still being forwarded to Cynthia and Brian had refused to even turn his cell phone on. Justin had his phone on but the ringer was turned off. He only responded to text messages or calls from Em, Daphne or his mother. He let everything else go to voice mail and deleted it all without listening to it. The only way to contact Brian or Justin was to call Cynthia and leave a message.

Right before Justin went into his afternoon class he got a text from Cynthia: 'Debbie - 2x; Michael - 6x; Lindsey - 1x'. Justin decided all the phone calls could be ignored for the time being. He didn't want to deal with any family right now - Not Debbie's ragtag clan OR Brian's biological family. By the time he left class - a poetry class he was taking for English credits - he had one more text from Cynthia that said mysteriously: 'Debbie coming to loft today.' That didn't sound auspicious. Justin decided to call Daphne and get her to hurry. He suspected he wouldn't like what he found when he got home.

As Justin and Daphne neared the loft, they both groaned in sync. It was even more of a circus than it had been the day before. Daph had to park even farther away today because traffic everywhere within a mile of home was at a complete standstill. This afternoon there were three t-shirt sellers: The 'Pittsburgh Miracle' guy, a second guy with a rainbow assortment of 'Gay Rights ARE Civil Rights' shirts, and, unfortunately, a young woman who was displaying a pile of 'Save The Children - Say NO To Homosexual Parents' shirts. There were more food vendors than before including a whole big 'Roach Coach' trailer van serving falafels and other middle eastern dishes. Justin and Daph elbowed their way through the teeming masses on the sidewalks, shaking their heads in disgust at the spectacle, and slowly forced their way towards the loft.  

Two blocks away from the loft, there was a roadblock set up and police were directing traffic into a detour route around the area. Apparently the cops had given up fighting the inevitable and were now just trying to contain the mess. Beyond the police barricades, Justin could see all the now familiar local news vans plus a couple new ones from farther afield. There was a CNN van, a BBC van and even Telemundo had appeared. 'Great! Now we're going to be hounded internationally as well,' Justin thought.

The real fun didn't start until they got to the main block itself, though. Crowds of people were standing in every open space - on the sidewalks, in the streets, on top of parked cars, perched on benches and even on the roofs of nearby buildings. Directly in front of the entrance to the loft, Justin could see the homemade right wing protest signs circling overhead again like a school of sharks. However, today there was a second, wider ring of signs surrounding and partially blocking out the original signs.

This second batch of signs were more familiar looking. In fact, one of them looked suspiciously like a sign Justin himself had painted for Debbie not long ago when her PFLAG group had held a rally. Now Justin got the meaning behind the cryptic message about Debbie coming to the loft today. Only, it looked like Debbie had brought along several dozen friends.

"Hey, hey! Ho, Ho! Homophobia's Got To Go!" The chant was easily drowning out the competing slogans from the twenty or so original conservative protesters.

"Oh my god!" Was Daphne's brainy comment. "This is, like, insane!"

By that point, the pair had breached the outer edges of the horde of onlookers and finally got a good view of the overwhelming chaos that the neighborhood had become. There at the center of the melee was the same old cowboy - today sporting a nice shiner from yesterday's confrontation - and his little band of scared middle-class white folk. It looked like their ranks had been augmented by a few additional protestors, but even so they were now woefully outnumbered by the Pro-Gay Rights protesters that swarmed the rest of the block.

Right across from the old cowboy, stood his nemesis, a redheaded, rainbow adorned Debbie Novotny, complete with her own sign and a bullhorn so she could lead her troops. With Deb was Kiki and what appeared to be the whole Tranie Support Group as well as pretty much the entire contingent of Liberty Avenue's resident Drag Queens. This colorful group was backed up by a really scary looking group of rabid lesbians, with Mel and Lindsey in their forefront. The ranks were rounded out by a few, less scary looking, PFLAG members and some of the general Liberty Avenue regulars.  

As soon as Justin was spotted by members of this new group, there was a thunderous acclamation raised. Deb's entire group began clapping and whistling and yelling even louder than they had been before. Justin was apparently their hero after his performance from the day before. He gamely waved at his fan club as he tried to skirt around the whole throng to get to the loft doors. Out of the corner of his eye, Justin saw Debbie trotting over towards him, and he immediately tried to pick up his own pace in a vain attempt to escape.

Justin might have even made it, if it hadn't been for Joan Kinney, who had positioned herself between the youth and the front door. Justin tried to ignore her and just push by without saying anything, but the old harridan wasn't letting this 'Corruptor of her Son' get away this time. She dropped her sign and used it to block Justin's way before she started yelling at him all the foul accusations she could muster. Which allowed Debbie the chance to catch up to her Sunshine and protectively put her arm around the teen's shoulder.

"Shut the fuck up, Joan," Debbie ordered when Mrs. Kinney dared to pause long enough to take a breath. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Sunshine here didn't DO anything to Brian. If anything, it was the other way around. Brian's been out and proud of being Gay since he was fifteen. Justin didn't corrupt your son."

"That's a lie!" Joan roared back adamantly. "Brian was always a good son. It wasn't until this little hussy came along that he announced to me that he . . . he . . . He had fallen from grace."

"Hah! If you believe that, I've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you, sweetheart!" Debbie guffawed while Joan looked at her in complete outrage. "You don't believe me?" Debbie asked and then, when Joan sternly shook her head no, Deb raised her bullhorn and turned towards the gathered crowds. "Attention, everybody. I need a show of hands. Who here has been fucked by Brian Kinney?"

This question, coming out of the blue as it was, didn't get any immediate response. Debbie glared around at the group, though, and slowly, hands started going up everywhere. About two-thirds of the men in Debbie's Anti-Protest group ended up raising their hands. Out in the crowd of onlookers there were even more hands raised. It was an entire sea of Brian's former tricks. Brian had obviously been a very busy boy.

"Okay," Debbie yelled into the bullhorn next. "Keep your hand raised if your 'Kinney Encounter' happened at least ten years ago or more!"

Most of the hands went down but there were still a substantial number of arms in the air. The crowd broke into a spontaneous cheer for these 'old-timers'. The lucky guys were clapped on the back by their neighbors and a few were hoisted onto shoulders and carried around through the crowd in a sort of victory tour.

"See! Sunshine here was eight at the time your sweet innocent little Brian was out fucking his way down the Avenue, Joan. Justin didn't corrupt your son. Brian is gay! It doesn't mean he's corrupt or a sinner or fucking 'fallen from grace'. He's just gay. Grow up and deal with it," Deb insisted as Joan turned purple from the embarrassment of the entire exchange. "Or, don't. I'm pretty sure Brian doesn't care if you're part of his life or not. I'm more of a mother to him than you ever were, so it probably wouldn't be much of a loss if you just got permanently lost. But, don't deceive yourself, Joan. Brian Kinney is as Gay as Blazes and always has been."

"It's NOT true. It's a lie. You just set this whole demonstration up. It's all staged. This whole pregnancy thing is all just part of the lie," Joan insisted, looking to the old cowboy dude who was standing to her right ready to support her fantasies. "It's all part of your evil Homosexual Agenda! I won't listen to such lies!"

"It's not a lie, Sugar," Kiki, adorned in her favorite vintage 1950's Waitress costume, cut into the conversation with a snide little laugh. "Brian Kinney's had me twice. Once back when I was still 'Kenny'."

Everyone within hearing laughed at this little admission, including Justin. Joan just sputtered and turned an even darker shade of purple trying to come up with some retort. When she couldn't come up with any words, the uptight matron made a BIG mistake. She pursed up her prim Catholic Girl lips and spit at Kiki.

"Oh no! You did NOT just do that, girlfriend!" Kiki roared in a less than feminine baritone. "You god damned bitch! I'm going to teach you how a lady should act!" And, without any other warning, Kiki launched herself at Joan, tackling the older woman to the ground in one lunge.

Which is when everything around Justin erupted into pandemonium. The old cowboy dude went after Kiki in order to save Joan. Several of Kiki's sisters then attacked the cowboy. The rest of the conservative protesters started to rally towards their fallen leader and that was the signal for everyone in the crowd to go after everyone else. Daphne once again took this opportune moment to shove Justin out of the way, pushing him towards the doors to keep her friend out of the burgeoning street fight. The two teens just barely managed to squeeze through and lock the front doors before the cops, this time in full riot gear, started shoving through the crowd.

"Way to rile up an angry mob, Jus!" Daphne kidded her friend as they scampered up the stairs.

Justin had again made it onto the news. Brian and Emmett were glued to the set when he and Daphne finally made it into the loft. Brian shook his head disdainfully at his blond, who shrugged and waved from the kitchen, not sure if he wanted to see the news coverage.

"I swear, Brian," Justin tried to explain. "I didn't say a fucking word. Really. I . . . I don't know how THIS all happened. One minute I was standing there getting yelled at by your mother and then the next . . . I didn't . . ."

"I know, Sunshine," Brian said with resignation as the TV announcer broke in to comment that they had temporarily lost the feed from their camera crew on the scene.

"We saw it all on television again, Baby!" Emmett enthused. "You're getting to be quite the star! You're the first person I've ever known who started a bona fide riot! You're going to be famous."

"Not exactly what I wanted to be famous for, Em," Justin sighed as Brian switched to a different television channel - one who's on-site reporter and camera crew had managed to stay clear of the fighting.

It took the police about twenty minutes to break up all the fights, cart away the worst offenders and start clearing the street. Both sets of protesters were told to either knock it off for the day or be arrested for causing a public disturbance. And, since the cowboy guy had been one of the first to be dragged away, his hands secured behind his back with a plastic zip tie, the rest of his band wasn't eager to stay. Once the conservatives were gone, the liberals melted away too. Then there was nobody left except the news crews who were broadcasting their final reports before they were shooed away by the police as well. By six pm the area was again quiet.

That night they made the national news headlines, right after discussion of the Federal Government shutdown and before reports from the latest overseas unrest. The pictures of Brian from the Armani ads and GQ were shown again, giving the AdMan a little thrill knowing how wildly effective all this free advertising was going to be for his client. There were clips of Justin's speech from the day before, clips of the protest and the ensuing riots and even a brief interview with the cowboy dude. There was commentary provided by important government officials about the topic. There were national think tanks involved. There were prayer rally's and sympathy protests being staged all over. It was quite the news event.

Only The Daily News with Jon Stewart managed to pick up on the really important parts of the story, though. After showing a clip of a brief interview given by Joan Kinney to the local Fox News affiliate, where the outraged mother blamed Justin Taylor and the 'Homosexual Liberal Agenda' for corrupting her good little Catholic son, Stewart cut to a clip of Debbie and her bullhorn in front of the crowd. Somehow they'd got really good footage of half the street acknowledging they'd had sex with the poor little maligned Catholic Boy. This was followed up by numerous photos of Brian at local gay clubs, bars and a couple of charity events, quotes and pictures from the GQ article and even somebody's home video showing Brian waving from in front of Babylon before frenching a tall dark-haired guy for the benefit of the camera man.

Brian laughed more heartily than anyone else when the newscaster again showed a freeze frame of Joan Kinney's interview, her eyes squinted almost closed and a sour look on her puckered up dry lips, and announced with biblical overtones, "Ye were blind, but now ye shall SEE!"

This was followed by another clip of Brian kissing Justin outside the hospital. Then, a different freeze frame of Joan's interview showing her with eyes and mouth wide open. "Good little Catholic Boy my *bleep*," Stewart quipped.