On New Year’s Eve I got all dressed up and headed to my friend’s white trash palace in a subdivision 15 minutes away from my house. I arrived to three drunk girls ready to “party hard and do some E!” Although they weren’t my typical group of friends, I blended in well being the social butterfly that I am. We talked about rap music and movies for about an hour until I started to get bored — probably at the point when the conversation shifted to a serious discussion about getting friend tattoos based on the cinematic masterpiece, Twilight. It was around this time that my hometown GBFF (Gay Best Friend Forever) Johan arrived at the party with his college GBFF, a spicy latino emo boy named Tristan. Johan said that they were going to a gay party in downtown Modesto, and insisted that I join them. I had just started having fun and meeting new people, but I decided that I would have a better chance at a romantic New Year’s kiss if I were surrounded by less tweens and more twinks. I hopped in Johan’s jalopy with my bottle of Grey Goose and we left for the gay party.

As we drove into Modesto proper, I noticed that we were heading closer and closer to the “bad part of town.” Modesto is an interesting city for many reasons. Not only does it have the highest rate of car thefts per capita of any metropolitan area in the country, but it is also heavily sprinkled with dangerous Hispanic and white trash ghettos. As we got nearer to Paradise Ave. and Ninth St., I became increasingly nervous. I asked Johan multiple times if this place was in the ghetto, but he insisted it was not and told me to stop worrying. We found the street and slowed down to check the addresses. We saw some people outside of a small house with a chain link fence. The group of people looked more like a Norteño gang, which made me really tense when they shot us harsh stares as we approached their pit-bull-guarded shack. Tristan was on the phone to confirm that this was indeed the party, and right as we were about to walk in front of the house, his friend on the phone redirected us to a house down the block and across the street. Thankfully, we walked across the street and headed in the right direction. As we were walking, I could hear grumblings from the intimidating house of Nortes, and then they started yelling botched homophobic slurs at us like “Down with rainbows!” and “Get outta here you faggots!” I thought to myself: “Oh very nice … I haven’t been called a faggot in a threatening way for years, and now it’s coming from dangerous thugs in Modesto.”

The atmosphere in the house was pleasantly gay: the walls were painted beige, furniture from Ikea and Pottery Barn, gays decked out in three-piece suits for the “Red Carpet” theme. I grabbed a drink and took a look around the party to scope out my potential midnight prey. Feeling a bit of social anxiety, I thought it would be best if I sat down and focused on social lubrication à la Grey Goose. Johan sat next to me and asked if I was OK, and I told him that I just needed to sit down for a while. I told him about how creepy I thought the Cholo haters were, and joked that I hoped they wouldn’t come over and harass us. He told me I was being paranoid, and we continued to take shots.

About a half hour passed and I was feeling pretty good about my situation in life. I went out front to have some cigarettes and chat with the cute lesbians. Ten or so minutes after Johan came outside to join me, commotion began to stir inside. Suddenly, people started flooding out of the house in a panicked frenzy. I had no idea what was going on, but judging by the look on peoples’ faces something bad was happening, so I went around to the side of the house. Once I got to safety I found myself alone, in the dark lit side driveway, smoking and wondering what the heck was going on at this party. Seconds later, a tall, buff, Latino guy came busting out of the side door from the kitchen. At first I thought he was coming outside to make out with me, but I quickly realized that he was more panicked than anyone in the front had been. He was grabbing his arm in writhing pain, blood all over his upper body. (I blame me not noticing this right away on the fact that it was poorly lit where we were, and that I was drunkles the clown).

I asked him if he was OK and he said, “No! I got fucking stabbed! Those mother fuckers stabbed me!” I was in shock. I said, “Seriously? What? Oh my gosh …” I told him to come outside and sit down because he was losing a significant amount of blood. I was so overwhelmed that he had to instruct me to call 9-1-1. I did so, and explained to the operator that I didn’t know exactly what had happened, but that there was a stabbing. The Latino hunk told me that the perpetrator might come outside to get him, so I made him sit down behind the house while I helped him tourniquet his arm.

Apparently those haters from earlier had decided to come over to the house to crash our night of gaiety and start harassing the innocent queers. Since I was in the front during that time, I guess they must have entered from the kitchen. They were making threats and started shoving people. That is when this guy, who turns out to be the straight brother of the homo-homeowner, stepped in to protect his flock of fags. As a result, our valiant ally got shanked in the arm with what I saw later appeared to be a pointy shard of glass from a mirror.

The cops arrived and we all gave our reports. As this was going on, however, the drunk bromos inside decided that they would not let a little stabbing get in the way of their New Year’s fun, so they turned up the gay club music and partied on. When I went inside, I asked a kid in an Ed Hardy shirt if I could have some of his Grey Goose since mine was gone and I desperately needed a drink. He judgingly looked me up and down and curtly said, “Um, definitely not.” So not only did I witness a hate crime stabbing at my New Year’s party, but I also got rejected by a douchebag in an Ed Hardy shirt. FML.