(for Lawrence “Larry” King, 1993-2008)

3-inch stilettos bring back the day of when I read his story that was a roller coaster of pride and anguish, and made my vision blur with a sting of sadness that welled in my eyes.

I read his story and wanted to scream with the tones of an off-key synthesizer to the heavens and plead to God that this news article wasn’t truth in my hands… I didn’t want to believe it.

February 12, 2008 in Oxnard, California, E.O. Green Junior High School was disturbed by what many called ‘a door slammed very had’. 15-year-old Lawrence King, an openly gay teenager, had his brain hijacked by two bullets ejected from a handgun by a classmate who despised him. Two days later, Valentine’s Day, Larry’s body, that was multicolored with life, gave up. The doctors gathered up his pancreas, lungs, and liver to donate while there was still worth contained… His heart now plays acoustic music inside of a 10-year-old girl.

That gunman with 14 years of living weighted on his back is awaiting trial, charged with 1st degree murder and a hate crime as the district attorney plans to try him as an adult… And Larry is not here… Larry is dead… Larry has departed hell, the place where he always lived. Lived there on the 15th floor with adopted parents that tried to understand him and would be transported by the yellow bus to be greeted by the laughter and teasing of schoolchildren that was not only just cruelty polluting the learning environment, but put into derogatory writing in ‘burn’ books. Declared himself gay when he was 10... His best friend asked him if he was and he said yes… She didn’t care one way or the other. Recess probably wasn’t fun because other’s avoided him like kindergarten cooties.

It was one special Christmas when Larry received a $75 Target gift card. That $75 dollars quickly became a pair of 3-inch brown stilettos. Slid his small feet in them and reworked the tiles of school hallways. Kids laughed and teased and pointed, distracted the eyesight of teachers, but Larry was being himself and used his fierceness as a counterattack… Larry didn’t give a fuck because he would say they would regret it one day because he was gonna be famous. Larry got his wish… Likely not in the way he expected.

When the news reel rolled into the spotlight and electrified static across national airwaves, a misconception was released. The images slapped on high definition television screens and enlarged on digital plasmas of a life taken prematurely brought people to believe this was the first time since Matthew Shepard’s murder in ‘98 that a gay person’s blood was spilled on America’s precious yellow brick road that attempts to pull curtains over lively prejudice. Between Matthew and Larry, it’s been about 50, give or take, and even compared to the killings of other minorities, that’s too much death… Makes me question if our country is about to go mass execution on rainbow pride.

It’s a tangled mystery to me and you of what Larry was thinking before two bullets caused him to suffer a stroke on his deathbed and convert to being brain-dead by no choice. The morning that his life was wretched, he came to school not himself… Dressed in a old sweater… baggy jeans… tennis shoes… left what made him unique in the closet, including those stilettos. Maybe he knew that it was gonna end. Hell was his home and he was trying to reach heaven, and when Larry perished Mother Earth, those stilettos went with him as soon as he entered heaven.

Chile, strobe lights are gleaming down from the sky, runways are erupting from the bottom with angels demolishing their harps and arranging techno music. God can see Larry from the upper V.I.P. room decorated in cyan white as he puts on a show in his 3-inch brown Target stilettos. The platform becomes ice cold as he catwalks for God, who has smiled and declared him fabulous with three snaps and a circle, and the rainbow church says Amen. Larry doesn’t have to worry about hell no more because he finally made heaven his home… Larry King may have given his heart to a 10-year-old girl on Valentine’s Day, but he gave it to the world as well because heaven is singing now… Yes, heaven is singing in harmony, and because of this flamboyant soul, the time to pump fine-tuned songs into Earth is now.