You know how you always think of something perfect to say back to an insulter only later, after you’ve left their presence? It’s a universal experience, I hear.

I don’t have that problem. I can always think of just the right comeback. The key is to keep it short and honest. In my case, short (5′ 5″) and honest (I weigh 204 lbs and am 56 years old!) are as short and honest do … and say.

Grandma Shrake showed me the way when I was young. We were walking through the neighborhood once together, and some bully yelled something at us from his porch across the street. Probably something about me being a fag, having to walk with my grandma, whatever. I was trying to think of something to say back on behalf of my grandma and me, but was freezing up.

Grandma did a dismissive wave with her left hand and cupped her right one, through which she yelled in her raspy voice over at the kid: “Drop dead!” It shut him up and we proceeded down the street smiling while he just stared silently at our backs. I was delighted with this little-used-anymore comeback. It gets right to the point, and because no one uses it anymore it stuns your opponent for a long moment.

Same way I stun panhandlers who ask me for money by shushing them, my forefinger placed vertically in front of my mouth: “Shhhhh!” They stay stunned long enough for me to get away down the street without enduring further harassment by them.

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It was one of those quiet streetcar cars. Sometimes they’re full of chatting adults and squealing children, but this sun-dappled mid-afternoon in Germany everybody in this very full Wagen of the Freiburger Strassenbahn was quiet, thinking his, her, or its own thoughts. Except one person who was standing across from me making lots of noise. I gradually noticed his grunts were about me.

I was a young lad of 20 with long, curly hair. A foreigner studying in Germany, yet (intentionally) not out of the norm looks-wise. I had on men’s pants and a men’s shirt and shoes. The only standout things were my beauty beyond compare and my flaming locks of auburn hair.

The man was huffing and muttering and shaking his head — looking at me, then looking away with disgust, looking back at me, again turning aside and cussing biliously.

He, naturally, as these things many times go, was a real prize himself: Powder-blue polyester flare-bottom pants and scuffed white leather cheap-looking shoes; a dirty white rayon button-down shirt harboring a sizable pot belly; greasy, mid-length dyed-brown hair. Authentic Amber Vision sunglasses. Salt-and-pepper stubble. The odor of 100-proof pain-go-bye-bye-juice on him (specifically smelling like one of the brown liquors — very popular among his ilk of public transportation–using degenerate bums the world over).

He had had enough of my appearance and the angry confusion it was causing him, the tortured feelings inside. His sudden accusatory outburst surprised everyone:

“Sind Sie Mann oder Frau?” (“Are you a man or a woman?”)

He asked it roughly, as though he really wanted to know the answer. It lacked that minor-key note of the “rhetorical question.” Though he was looking around for support now that the question was out there, no one else joined in. I don’t think the Germans found fault with the question itself. They often say things to each other such as “You look really ugly today. What’s the matter?” or “Have you had some plastic surgery done on your nose?” and it is fully socially acceptable. Rather, I think they minded the noisiness of his question more than anything. The streetcar began braking for the next stop.

There was no time to think. It was stun or be stunned.

In a matter-of-fact voice with a hint of hurt in it (for effect) I asked him a simple, honest, question of my own, to which I wanted an answer:

“Bist du blind, oder bloss wieder betrunken?” (“Are you blind, or just drunk again?”)

I consciously switched to the informal “you,” even though he was at least twice my age: Du is only used to address your close friends and family, God, animals, children, and criminals. Then just to disarm him, I implied that I knew he was a habitual drunk. Let him think about whether he may actually know this worthless little androgyne he’s trying to humiliate…

The crowd laughed.

“Neeeee!” he wailed, shaking his head violently. (“Uh-uh! No way!”)

Notice the symmetry of our two questions. “Are you A or B?” “Are you C or D?” But know that the short and honest comeback works well against any insult, no matter the length of the original insult.

The grubby old German drunk child-molester guy couldn’t compete. He lost never had the streetcar riders’ sympathy, which they probably would have extended to him if he would have just known his place and acted like the pitiful drunk scumbag he was without taking it out on an innocent. unsuspecting foreigner just minding his (or her?) own business.

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“Get out of the road, you fucking queer!”

I was riding my bike down Spruce Street in Philadelphia. Wearing: A standard bike helmet, t-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. All in muted neutral tones. I was not wearing a gold-lamé kaftan or cut-off shorts or an adult-sized tutu, or riding a tricycle or holding a sign that said “I am gay.”

That’s what really got to me: What exactly about me tipped off this driver that I was a fucking queer, causing him to yell that out his window at me? Maybe it was my glasses. We all know only queers wear glasses. Or the gay way I was riding my bike? (Is there is a gay way to ride a bike?)

He had to stop at the red light, but I didn’t, because I was on a bike, and though cyclists should de jure obey the rules of car traffic, we’re not really de facto expected to, and the punishment for me running a red light would likely be nothing if a cop saw me. Not so for this motorist who could not bear to share the road with fucking queers. He would get points on his license.

So there he sat in his station wagon, window still down, waiting for the red light to turn.

As I rode past his open car window, I slowed down, stuck my head down next to his face and said, “You’re fat.”

Then I turned left the wrong way down a one-way street that he couldn’t legally turn onto, and I could hear him screaming “NOOOOOOO!”

Yes. You are.

Tags: Amber Vision, Freiburg, Germany, Philadelphia, Spruce Street