Fences

Published in the Idaho State Journal in November 2013.

October is gone. I spend September dreading it and November missing it. My heart is never finished mountain biking for the season and Pocatello’s City Creek trails were particularly grand this year.

While zipping down the trails, I want to stop the leaves from dying. I want to catch them mid-air and scoop them off the ground and put them back on their branches one by one. I fail to relish the colors and beauty in life’s cycle of the season because the dying in October distracts and saddens me.

Matthew Shepard died in October.

Fifteen years ago, the 21 year old University of Wyoming college student was tied to a fence and beaten on a Wyoming prairie. He died six days later. His death was classified as a hate crime although a new book alleges it was about drugs and not his sexual orientation. If that were even slightly the case, I don’t feel suddenly safer.

The motive behind the ensuing protests was clear in the “God Hates Fags” signs and shouts.
As my bike winds down our City Creek trail and I’m funneled to the trailhead, a buck and rail fence greets and guides me back to my truck. The fence was built around 2005 by members of Pocatello’s Rotary Clubs. The project also included leveling the road and parking lot to make the trail system more accessible and inviting. And it is.

I was on the Board for the Portneuf Greenway Foundation at the time, and we talked about this effort a lot before I got to see the completed work. I was so excited but when I got my first glimpse, my breath caught. It’s the kind of fence Matthew Shepard died on.

That beautiful hand-made structure and symbol of community had come to symbolize something else to me that October of 1998. Footage of a Laramie fence peppered media outlets constantly. The serene snapshot of yellowing flora beneath it and the cold blue Wyoming sky behind it let gays and lesbians know we should never trust the stillness and calm.

A few weeks ago on October 11 petitions were turned into City Hall to put the non-discrimination ordinance on the May ballot. So much for stillness and calm. With the council’s vote last June, it felt like bits of the fences that separate us were coming down.

Shortly after the petitions were turned in, I went to the showing of “Matt Shepard was a Friend of Mine” at the ISU theater. There was video of Matthew’s fence. And, my breath caught again. After the movie, a friend and I walked around the quad and talked about life, love and Matthew’s murder. It’s so dark so soon in October. And cold. I put my shiny, feminine hoop earrings in my coat pocket as we walked arm in arm in the glow of the campus lights.

I dislike the cold and dark, but if it were colder, there’d be fewer people out. If it were darker, the few that were out might not notice we were two women walking with no boundary between us. That want for darkness was more pronounced having just watched the documentary.

I found myself wishing for a tall, protective fence surrounding the quad so we could walk in safety.I constantly scanned our surroundings with keen eyes while we walked and I told her what it was like for me in 1998 when news broke. It’s still so vivid. Matthew was tortured so ruthlessly that authorities originally thought he had been burned. A jogger discovered him the next morning.

The image of his arms spread, his body limp, and his head hanging is a permanent part of my psyche. I doubt I am alone in that. I rarely am. I don’t know if I read that Matthew was found that way or if this figure settled in my mind after years of hearing the gospel stories of another Shepherd who died so similarly. Extended. Vulnerable. Undeserving and misunderstood.

Matthew’s death was a turning point in my life. After my mom’s seven years of near silence about my sexual orientation, she cried openly. She admitted she secretly cried often out of disappointment but now there was fear and concern. The fanatical demonstrations in addition to Matthew’s murder demonstrated that I needed her love and protection because the world sure wasn’t going to give it to me anytime soon. The world was interested in fences of division rather than fences for protection.

From my perspective, it’s hard to tell the difference between fences that are intended to merely divide or mercilessly crucify. And when the intent is the former, it’s only a short walk along the prairie to get to the latter. From my perspective, there is little difference. The continuing efforts surrounding fences leave me feeling defenseless.