16 ex popriis sensibus

Being in the Bronx was like being on pins and needles, most of the male officers here were extraordinarily handsome and yet, they were grade A heterosexual, it was somehow even worse than being trapped in a dark closet and I still had a crippling fear of the dark, it still haunted me, to see the dark in all its terrifying glory. In a sense I was still trapped in a sort of darkness, a darkness that encompassed my very mind and my heart, this darkness was threatening to destroy my sanity. Going undercover helped only to serve to stoke the flames of darkness while in IAB, I went undercover to forget what happened to me and what I had endured and yet the further I tried to run away from my old identity, the more I was haunted by the very prospect of my cover being blown and the truth being discovered. I liked the excitement and the danger of being undercover, the thrill of being undercover, the thrill of having a different identity is something nobody will understand. Ever.

What I did not realize was that by running and hiding, the light would soon find me, expose me and shame me, it would force me to face the reality of what I was doing, by hiding the truth of who I was, but what happened also showed me the harsh reality of revealing who I was as well. I soon stumbled across the case of a gay football star killing his boyfriend, the case soon became rapidly complex and when Detective 2nd Grade Olivia Benson's DNA was found on the knife, I had no choice but to arrest her, the means and the motive were there and plus, there was evidence that she had leaked the story to her boyfriend by the name of Kurt Moss. Interrogating the boyfriend of the murdered man forced me to realize that even now, in the late 90s, we still were nowhere near the acceptance that we deserved, coming out was risky and dangerous, especially for minority communities with traditional beliefs and teachings. 

I will never forget the look on the face of the manager as he was arrested for leaking the story and murdering the boyfriend, it was a face that had no emotion, no love, no anger, nothing, all I saw in his face was pure death, it is a face that to this day haunts my dreams and stalks my subconscious, everyday, his words echo in my mind and his words show me, not just tell me what the rest of the world thinks of the LGBT community, I still am haunted by the fact that there are gay cops who have died in the line of duty because of backup not getting there on time on purpose, I know of LGBT people whose murders and disappearances are still unsolvable and the faces and the stories that are erased and silenced due to the indifference by the public, indifference by my fellow cops and indifference by those in the higher ups. All I know is that if I ever get forcibly outed against my own will, I will be murdered and that is a terrifying thought, knowing that Elliot knows my secret, that I like men and women. But no matter how many women I try to go out with, I feel empty and lonesome and useless, and I felt like I was missing a part of myself, I felt lonesome and it was a scary feeling, I was starting to realize that my drinking was a concerning issue so I went into Alcoholics Anonymous and I started getting help with my drinking and soon I was assigned to a counselor, but my kidney still hurt like fuck and throwing up my meals and having a decreasing appetite was an issue I couldn't afford to ignore for long. 

One morning when I woke up and went to the bathroom, I started peeing blood and I knew that was not good at all. I was not a medic or a doctor or a nurse and the pain in my abdomen was tremendous, on top of the fact that memories of my previous rape were still very much fresh and still seething in my brain, I tried to hide my bruises around my neck with concealer and the bruises around my wrists with the collared and starched white shirts and tie a red tie on top, the physical pain that was manifesting in my side was so intolerable that even Captain Logan Mayweather of the Bronx IAB, also known as my boss noticed how I kept my sleeves rolled down at all costs and the fact that transitioning from sitting in my chair to standing was becoming a monumental task of itself and he ordered me "Sargent Ed, go to the hospital, you look like shit to be quite frank with you." 

When I looked at my face in the mirror, looking like shit was a complete understatement, my hair was starting to grey at the top of my head and my eyes looked like the thousand yard stare pictures from WWII, on top of the fact that my cheeks looked hollow and my eyes had dark grey and pink rings around them from lack of sleep, I didn't have the strength or the energy to argue and I finally went to the E.R to sit down in the waiting room when I was handed a stack of forms the size of the stack of the paperwork I was handed at work to complete and finish. As soon as I handed the papers over, I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen, that felt like as if a knife was being pushed into me, I screamed as I fell onto my hands and knees and blacked out as the pain became too much for me. 

I opened my eyes, feeling exhaustion sweep all over me as a nurse asked me questions about my injuries and it was becoming harder to lie and lie to them, but if I slipped up and told them I was raped, there was no doubt an investigation would be opened into my transfer.