It was my seventeenth birthday when four of my friends and I were brutally murdered in an act of a homophobic hate crime. The only news coverage on it was my local news channel, but even then, no one tuned in to watch. Our murderers were both charged with 8 years in federal prison guilty of hate crime–not murder. They’d lied, said that all they were trying to do was antagonize us while we were celebrating at the overpass. Only we know the truth as to what happened to us, yet our stories will never be told.
It was February 17th, 1997–only a few days after Valentine’s Day–when it had happened…
“Samantha!” My mother yelled from her spot in the kitchen. I hated when she called me Samantha. She knew I wanted to be called Sam–I’d told her I wanted to go by Sam. I’d also told her that I was a guy, but she didn’t listen to that either. She used to call me Sam as a nickname, but ever since I’ve told her it’s want I want to be called, she’s avoided it like the plague. I probably should’ve expected it, but I thought that since she was my mother, she’d accept me no matter what. But I was wrong…again. No need to fret, it was my birthday! I should be happy. So that’s how I’ll be.
I rolled out of bed–literally–and put on a pair of pants that had been laying on my floor. I was gonna change later, who cared if I smelled at the moment. Trudging down the hallway, I could hear that grating radio station that my mother always listened to. The hosts were always spouting on and on about Jesus bullshit, and played what felt like the same fifteen songs from John Denver, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings–Maybe The Highwaymen–that were being blasted during the seventies. I immensely regretted giving her that stupid radio for her birthday, but she used it, and I might as well be happy about that. Standing in front of the entrance to the kitchen, my mom turns around to address me. “Samantha, please tell me you’re gonna change before you leave for school.” She spoke, her voice dramatically high-pitched yet soft at the same time. That was the voice she used with my dad. I think it’s supposed to make him feel superior to her…I dunno. It was seven in the morning, I didn’t have the mental capacity to think about that at the moment.
“Changin’ ‘fore school, promise.” I managed to grumble, taking a seat at the dining table in the corner of the room. It was one of those cheap kitchen and dining room setups to save space…made the mortgage a lot cheaper since they hadn’t built a separate dining room from the kitchen. “Thank the lord.” My mother muttered, turning back to her pan on the stove. Something was sizzling on it. “Well, I made you your special birthday breakfast! Pancakes with sprinkles and bacon on the side. I used the low-fat butter and pancake mix, so you have more calories you can spend on birthday treats.” She said excitedly, as if the stupid calorie counting would matter thirty years from now, when I should’ve given up on weight loss after giving birth to my third useless child. Should’ve.
I hummed in acknowledgment, rubbing a hand down my face as if that would get rid of the exhaustion that still irked my body. Once she was done cooking the bacon, I was quick to eat what she saw as an acceptable amount and returned back to my mess of a room. I had to actually get ready this time, not just throw on a pair of floor pants and call it a day. I’d chosen to wear my favorite flannel and boots that day. My grandpa had gifted me the flannel before he passed, and my old friend Holly had gifted me the boots after I told her how much I’d liked the ones she’d been wearing. We no longer talked, but the sentiment was there. A few friendship bracelets dazzled my wrists, and I was done.
I was quick to run out to my car with hopes to avoid my mothers criticism of my outfit. I know she just wants to be helpful, but all she’s doing is destroying my personal confidence for the day.
The weather was muggy and gross as it always was–I couldn’t tell you why. I’ve barely passed my Science class each year since the Seventh grade. The truck my Dad gifted me to drive to school is there, waiting for me patiently…or maybe just in park. It’s cooler inside the truck than it is outside for some reason, and even if it feels nice, it still sends a shudder down my spine. Maybe it was a warning. “Don’t go to school today, I’m warning you” she was probably telling me. But I don’t listen, and go to school anyway.
School is loud and overwhelming, just as I’d expected. What results do you expect when you round up a bunch of “blossoming” teenagers and keep them in a small building for six hours at a time with one thirty-minute lunch break? Chaos, anarchy, that’s what you get. And lots of bullying.
I scanned the crowd for my friends and managed to spot them immediately. They always gathered by the water fountains. No one used them so we weren’t really blocking anyone’s way–an issue we’ve experienced in the past that did not have the best consequences. We made a note to definitely make sure we aren’t blocking any of the popular people’s lockers–enforcing it everyday after Trent Rivera stole my friend Mateo’s clothes and shoved them in a urinal after Gym class–all because he was a gay guy who happened to stand in front of his locker with the rest of his “disgustingly queer” friends. We weren’t too popular ourselves, if you couldn’t tell.
I sorry and excuse me my way towards them, adjusting my expression to seem excited that today was my birthday and my name finally gets to be said over the announcement without any negative connotation to it this time. Instead of “Ms. Samantha Winnigan please come down to the principle’s office,” it’ll be “Happy Birthday to Sam Winnigan, who is turning seventeen today! He’s the best person in the school and everyone should be like him!” Or maybe something along the lines of that. I greet my small crowd of friends, who are all telling me “Happy Birthday” or something like that. I’m too focused on the fact that the most beautiful girl in the world–Vanessa “Van” Jameson–is pulling me into her arms for a hug. I’m so unbearably lucky to have her as my girlfriend, not so lucky to have the whole school know about it and target us for being lesbians. Jokes on them, we’re technically a straight couple to the people that know I’m trans and acknowledge it. Which is just my small group of friends. Wow. Sad.
The school day goes by in a blur of half-awake note-taking and doodling vulgar images and words on the black surface of my science lab table without even a mention of a birthday from the announcements. I didn’t think I was that much of a loser that even the school staff wouldn’t acknowledge my presence, but here we are. At least I managed to make it to the overpass in one piece with three of the people closest to me hanging out of the bed of my truck. Thank god for the lack of police cars on the backroads.
When I put the truck in park, the first person to get out was Mateo–followed by Pearl, Reagan, Van from the passenger’s seat, and then me from the driver’s seat. Reagan had stolen beer from his Dad’s garage fridge, Pearl brought a cake from her mother’s bakery, Mateo brought his eccentric personality, Van brought her beautiful self, and I brought the celebration. So we were all set.
We’d been messing around for about two hours before we heard a loud pop, then everyone had to watch as my tires began to deflate rapidly. Even better, after I’d ran over in a poor attempt to stop it, there was a sound of crackling, then the sound of Van yelling at me to step away from the car. It was a blur of flames after that. Someone had strapped a firework to the bottom of my truck, which when it went off, it basically blew up the truck in an explosion of flames that I’d been caught in the crossfire of. I was the first to go, then Van when she tried to pull me from the wreckage, followed by Pearl–psychogenic death got her, and Mateo succumbed to injuries after some of my truck shrapnel launched towards him. Reagan was the last alive, but he was a witness to the chaos. So the ones that had set up everything–two jocks who I never even talked to during the school year–had chased him down, threw him in the river below the overpass knowing he couldn’t swim for the life of him, and fled. That was how it ended. No suspenseful fight for my life, no cool last words, just…gone. All because two people were offended by the fact that we chose to love out-of-the-ordinary. None of us got to say goodbye to our family, our partners, our friends, because of two boys high on the thrill of hate.
Author’s Note:
Research has proven that Transgender people alone experience violence at 2.5 times the rate of cisgender people, women of all sexual orientations experience higher rates of victimization, and with the percentage of LGBTQ+ individuals in the general U.S population increasing, so does the amount of reported violence-related crimes directed towards those apart of the LGBTQ+ community. The violence has to stop, and it starts with the community first.
Kerrigan Pruitt | 13 | Stillwater, OK | @3kool_aid3 on TikTok
