The Cabin at the End of the World

by Paul Tremblay

In unguarded moments, he’ll still pick and worry at why he was attacked. Well, he knows why, the hate-filled why was made painfully clear, but why did O’Bannon choose Andrew? How did O’Bannon know Andrew was gay and by proxy that Ritchie was not? If Ritchie had been standing with his back to the bar, would he have been the one who was attacked? Had O’Bannon simply made a terrible, lucky guess? (O’Bannon maintained in court his faggot wasn’t why he attacked Andrew and it didn’t mean he thought Andrew was gay; it was a word he and his buddies used all the time and it didn’t mean anything to them and the slur didn’t and wasn’t supposed to mean what it actually meant.) Had O’Bannon seen Andrew outside or even inside the Boston Garden and then followed him to the bar, his dumb, ravenous hate fueled by Andrew’s visage, the way he talked, the way he walked or smiled or laughed or shook his head or blinked his eyes? Did O’Bannon first see Andrew when he walked to the bar and ordered the beers? Did he look at Andrew and instantly see whatever it was he saw? Was Andrew like a bright orange flame to O’Bannon, burning only to invite his violence? Did O’Bannon patiently observe and deliberate and plan and have doubts that he overcame with a grunt and a swing of a glass bottle? As galling as Andrew’s being somehow read and then classified by that fucking loser as an other, a thing, was that Andrew, at least for one night, was then marked as a victim.