Fighting Mad

Nima Daivari looked very gay on the night of March 17.

"I had cornrows in my hair -- and I'm white," says the 24-year-old. "I was wearing a necklace that had a fairy on it with green wings, a tight-fitting V-neck sweater, white pants with chains hanging off it, and pointed-toe snakeskin shoes. I looked very gay."

He knew it, everyone celebrating St. Patrick's Day on the 16th Street Mall knew it, and the guy who called him a "faggot" before punching Daivari in the face definitely knew it. What that guy didn't know was that Daivari is an amateur boxer.

"Five nights a week," Daivari says. "Instead of working out, I box."

He also works as a "go-go boy" at gay nightclubs around New York City, where he lives and attends law school. Earlier this month, Daivari was in Denver visiting his cousin and her boyfriend, and they decided to grab a late dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. A little after midnight, the trio was headed home when they passed a male in his late twenties who, Daivari says, turned to his girlfriend and said, "Keep that faggot away from me!"

"Excuse me?" Daivari replied.

The intoxicated man turned and said, "Fuck you, faggot. I'll fuck you up." And then he punched Daivari on the left side of his face.

"He clocked me before I even got a chance to use my gay wittiness," Daivari recalls. "So I hit back."

Daivari quickly had his assailant in a headlock, but then the guy's companion started hitting him in the face. Daivari's cousin and her boyfriend tried to pull the female off while dozens of witnesses on the mall and at the nearby Chili's watched. Two officers arrived at the scene and detained Daivari and the other man. Daivari wanted to press charges, but he says that Officer Richard Boehnlein told him, "No, go home."

Daivari says he repeated his request to press charges several times but was denied; the assailant and his companion were released without providing any information to officers. So Daivari, his cousin and her boyfriend headed over to the District 6 police station to fill out statements. And the next evening, Daivari and his cousin met with two police sergeants who apologized for Boehnlein's failure to obtain information on the attacker. They also said they were opening an investigation, looking for witnesses and attempting to locate surveillance footage of the fight. "The incident has been forwarded to Internal Affairs, and it is currently being reviewed at this time," says DPD spokeswoman Virginia Quiñones.

"While all this made me feel a little better, the bottom line is that I was randomly attacked solely because I am gay," says Daivari. "The asshole was in physical police custody and the officers chose to release him, and we all know he will never be found or punished."

Three days after the skirmish, Daivari still sports a black eye and bruises on his face and chest. But he takes some pleasure in the fact that he hit back -- and landed some good ones, too.

"For the rest of his life, that homophobe is going to know that some cocksucking fudgepacker fucked up his face," Daivari concludes.