WORLD AIDS DAY: BYGONE BUDDIES

Twenty years ago, Stephen dreamed of becoming a successful actor. Like so many such dreamers, he moved to Los Angeles to see if he could make a go of it. He befriended others who were interested in the arts, joined several choirs, tried out for musical productions and even appeared as cast member in a television pilot for NBC. Unfortunately, the network passed on developing the pilot into a series. To pay the bills, he took jobs in catering and eventually started his own catering company.

Stephen lit up every time we talked about television or movies. He was appalled over how few of the oldies I’d seen. When I confessed that black and white footage lulled me to sleep, he was aghast. Still, he felt it was his role to educate me. He made me watch Stephen Sondheim’s INTO THE WOODS and helped me realize that Bernadette Peters actually had talent beyond being a lackluster occasional guest on “The Carol Burnett Show”.

We had tea together and enjoyed kosher chocolate macaroons (after I mistakenly picked up a dozen that weren’t kosher). Stephen regularly prodded me for information about my first love. He let me know I deserved to be in love. He listened as I unloaded my insecurities.

Stephen would be 49 years old now.

Nineteen years ago, I met Don. Don lived in a tiny bungalow in Venice with his life partner who had gone blind. Don liked having me over as a distraction from all the needs of his partner. We’d go out to Santa Monica restaurants. Knowing I was a vegetarian, he introduced me to a wonderful Buddhist Chinese restaurant where I later took my parents—I confess to delighting in seeing how awkward my father was in pretending to like eating mock duck but that could be the start of a completely different blog post. Don raised orchids. He talked of them like they were his children. I decided it best not to share that I preferred tulips.

On one evening, I picked up Don to go to our favorite Italian restaurant. I took a shortcut through a neighborhood and we came upon a crowd marching in the street. “Good for them,” I thought. Everyone in the crowd was black and they voiced their anger over the not guilty verdicts announced that day in the Rodney King beating trial. As we idled at a stop sign, a bullet pierced and shattered the backseat window. Had Don not been with me, I might have frozen in panic. I had to protect him. By then, he walked with a cane. If I didn’t get us out of there, if we were swarmed, how would he cope? Only when we pulled up beside the restaurant did my hands begin to shake uncontrollably. Only after I dropped Don off after dinner did I burst into tears to let out the pressure that had built up from the danger I had put us in.

Don probed me to find out how my first love crashed and burned. He offered encouragement, chipping away at the walls I was putting up. Even though I didn’t believe him when he said I was a catch, his words provided a healthy counterbalance as I frequently replayed in my mind all the mistakes I’d made in love. If I wallowed too long, Don would refocus me. “So…it seems soup now gives me diarrhea, too.” He’d put things in perspective.

Don would be 71 today.

Stephen died in 1992, Don the following year. They were my Buddies, PWAs (persons with AIDS) who requested a little extra emotional support from AIDS Project Los Angeles. Stephen the dreamer and Don the pragmatist were both very different from me. Still, we bonded. They empowered me, they helped me feel like I was doing something besides living in fear at a time when AIDS remained a death sentence, when I could walk the streets of West Hollywood and see the gaunt faces of the ones who had only months, perhaps weeks left to live. Most of my friends got quiet as we passed them. Conversation abruptly paused. They looked away. By getting to know Stephen and Don, I learned not to look away. I offered a warm smile and mentally passed on encouraging, albeit naive thoughts. Hang on. Take care of yourself. You are loved.
Being with Stephen and Don, I saw how one family gathered around while another refused to have any connection with their son. I watched as Stephen’s roommate coped with one-liners, while a Don’s lover lost all ability to care for himself much less Don. Don’s partner moved into a hospice in the worst part of Los Angeles, a place that reeked of urine and appeared more depressing than any hospital. Stephen talked as though AIDS was a temporary setback, a nagging condition a little more persistent than the flu. Don recited the names of all his friends who’d already died. He talked about his funeral and relatives who were not welcome.

As both Stephen and Don’s bodies shut down, their inner strength remained strong. While it is true that I only met each of them months after the initial diagnosis, neither one asked “Why me?” They lived in the moment, dealing with the present physical challenges while yearning for an outsider like me to share bits of normalcy.

I learned that a quiet moment holding someone’s hand while hooked up to a morphine drip lingers longer and comforts more than the cheery story I thought of on the drive over. Because of them, I became more compassionate. When my grandmother was ill, I removed myself from the family dinner and sat at her bedside, allowing her to whisper a few thoughts, letting her see my familiar smile. My grandmother, a lifelong worrier, relaxed. Her breathing became easier, her mood brightened a tad. “Where did you learn that?” my bewildered mother asked.

I think of Stephen and Don often, particularly Stephen. I think about the contributions to the lives of others that they made and the greater contributions they could have made. I honor Stephen on every bike ride, letting the water from in the Strait of Georgia lap over my front tire at the far end of my journey, much like we dipped the wheels of his wheelchair in the Pacific during a trip to Santa Barbara during the final month of his life. That little ritual keeps me connected.

I remember Stephen and Don. I miss them. I think of all the others who died from AIDS, gone too soon, missed by too many.

HOW OUT IS OUT?

I thought I officially came out twenty-six years ago. In the living room of my unlit Dallas apartment, I told--er, "confessed" may be the better word since it felt like a crime in Texas--my best friend that I was, deep breath, a homosexual. (Homosexual was more dramatic than gay, less abrasive than the Larry Kramer-adopted faggot.) 

It went well. She listened and we continued talking for at least another hour. 

Then I didn't hear from her for three weeks. And we never really talked about it again over the next seven years. The friendship suffered to the point where I even missed her wedding. 

Four years later, I felt compelled to come out to my sister when she asked me to be her daughter's godfather. Knowing there would be a ceremony in a Catholic church, I again confessed. She politely informed me a week later that she'd talked to a priest and made a decision to find a different person (rather than a "different" person) to fill the role. My parents, not knowing the reason for the switcheroo, assumed it was another case of me being difficult. 

It took four more years before I flew to my parents' beachside condo on the Gulf of Mexico for a coming out weekend. By then, I was in love and I was tired of spending Sunday dinners with his family in L.A. while keeping mum about his existence to my mom and dad. 

My mother's reaction? "Can't you just abstain?" My father, a doctor, went into a clinical spiel about condom usage. 

Coming out is awkward. It should be unnecessary. Friends and family should feel free to ask and the question shouldn't feel like a putdown. "Are you gay?" Just a point of clarification, not incrimination. 

Would have been so welcome two months before senior prom at my Texas high school. Back then, the cause wouldn't have been my right to go to the prom, but my right not to. Lori Baker would have had such a better time. (She wisely dumped me midway through prom night, sneaking off with uberbrain Jeff Hull. I'm guessing they snuggled while pondering the long-term impact of Reaganomics.) 

Leaving Dallas and heading to Los Angeles was the smartest move I ever made, Northridge earthquake and getting shot at during the Rodney King riots notwithstanding. Sure, I made the mistake of attending one of the most conservative law schools in the United States, but I found my way into West Hollywood and discovered another world. My day and my night were radically different. It was like my own "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" but without the drugs and violence. Or the Richard Gere. (Sigh.) 

When I worked as a research attorney for a couple of judges, my colleagues knew I was gay. The judges didn't officially know, but the earring gave it away. 

Both my partners in L.A. were openly gay. Their jobs made it easy: the first worked for AIDS Project Los Angeles, the second for a liberal Jewish charity. It was the latter guy who convinced me to pierce my ear; he also inspired me to slap a pink triangle on the bumper of my conservative Honda Accord. I was out. Maybe not so loud, but proud. I volunteered for APLA, attended AIDS Walks and marched for days in protest of California Governor Pete Wilson's veto of AB101, a bill to outlaw workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians. 

But things changed when I moved to British Columbia. I got a job working with kids and peeled off the bumper sticker. Insecurity? Sure. That gay=pedophile equation from my eleven years in Texas crept back in. Amongst colleagues, I remained openly gay. It was easy as all the other men were gay, too.

Then I took a job transfer. No more gay work buds. I worked most closely with a devout Mennonite woman. I never pretended to be straight, but I was the asexual single guy (despite the fact I had a partner). 

More transfers and promotions and my gayness washed away completely. I am now the asexual single guy with no parenthetical. Despite my exhilarating L.A. days, I am not a trailblazer. I am not in a profession where being an out gay man is common. There are some lesbians who are more open but, to my knowledge lesbian=pedophile never took, not even in the Bible Belt. 

So now I'm out in pockets. Most of my family knows, except for my evangelical Baptist brother and his family. Friends scattered about North America know. At work, well, there's that one co-worker who figured it out and tried to set me up with a straight single guy in her neighborhood. (She's better as a teacher than as a matchmaker.) That's it though. In my rural community, not a chance. There are well-settled lesbians, but the gays stick to the cities. The single ones, at least. 

Given my current situation, am I out at all? Do I need to be? I know the answers, but I don't know what to do anymore. More on that in my next blog posting.

THOUGHTS ON WORLD AIDS DAY

I’ve been thinking a lot about AIDS lately. I am writing a novel set in 1990-1991, a time when I was fully committed to the cause. AIDS Walk, A Loving Spoonful, AIDS Project Los Angeles, I helped wherever I could. Now it only seems like something I read about in the paper, the headlines appearing less often and buried on the back pages.

Maybe it’s because I’m so far removed from the gay community, but I think we’ve become complacent. Well, I have. It is true that I no longer see men with recognizable signs of AIDS when I walk through Vancouver’s West End, but I’m guessing that’s because drug treatments have become more effective in allowing people to live with AIDS. It’s still there,…just not in your face.

I don’t know current stats. Perhaps things are much rosier for gays now. If so, great, but today is a day to remind us that there is a generation of gay men greatly reduced in numbers due to what came before. I think of Stephen and Don, two men I supported as a buddy in L.A., both magnificent men in unique ways. Don would be 64 this year if he hadn’t died of AIDS-related complications at 47. Stephen would be 47 had he not died at 28.

No doubt, great progress has been made since AIDS was a curious affliction known as GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) in the early ’80s. I read in the Vancouver Sun today that there is a walk-in clinic where you can get an HIV test through a finger prick and know the results in a minute. A far cry from when I went with my lover to have a test and I ended up lying on the floor, the poor nurses watching to see if I would pass out after the dreaded needle. The information and much better medical resources are out there. Still, there is much work to be done to ensure that the best education and treatment are offered throughout the world.

Today is a day to reflect on the past, hope for the future and give myself a kick in the ass to do something.