"Cathedrals"
                            J.L. Jackson June 1993

    	There was an old dance tune, way back in the early days of disco
    by D.C. LaRue called "Cathedrals". The exact lyrics escape me but one
    line went something like, "Where have all the men gone who wandered
    through my head. The faces after faces, that walked across my bed. They
    could fill Cathedrals". The men that walked across my bed could never
    fill cathedrals, perhaps a small stone chapel in the woods. But this is
    not a letter about sex, more about a time and state of mind. There has
    been many a night as I lie awake, staring into the darkness of my room
    and wonder, "where did it all go?"

    	My very first bar was Duke's in Tyngsboro. During the period of
    1969 to the mid-late 70's most gay men I met leaned toward the campy
    effeminate side. I often wondered if I was in fact gay, since I didn't
    match any of the stereotypes. I had a deep baritone voice and muscles
    for days. Most of my cronies called me, "trade", in jest because I was
    so butch. This also scared off quite a few as I look back. From the
    beginning I was relationship oriented. Most of the men I met were only
    interested in taking a test drive or fulfilling some fantasy. One of 
    my first gay friends from Dukes was Brad, a hair stylist and part time
    model. He had appeared in a few swim wear catalogs and gay porno films 
    back then. Although Brad was only 21, he was already cynical and would
    take me aside warning me about queens who would steal my soul and toss
    me out like trash. One of my major faults from then to the diagnosis
    was my belief that gay men were, "a cut above", other people. I suff-
    ered from the delusion of believing that, since I am gay and they are
    gay, we are family. It would take 15-17 years for me to get over this
    myth. Brad and I slept together a few times as we cemented a friend-
    ship. In those days, as I'm sure is still true, sex was a rite of pass-
    age to friendship. Most of the time it never progressed to a dedicated
    lover relationship, but sex would be replaced with Platonic comrade-
    erie.

	Brad knew some interesting people. Dolly, a drag queen friend of
    his was a mechanic and kept a .357 magnum under his bed, along with a
    bowie knife. As Dolly would say, "nobody messes with this queen". Brad
    and Dolly lived in the same building. Brad was also going to college in 
    Lowell and worked in a deli near campus. One day a few of the gay stud-
    ents were sitting around in a booth when Brad comes in walking a real
    live tiger on a leash. He had many boyfriends and one was an older man
    from Florida who was up visiting. The big cat was his boyfriend's and
    just about everyone jumped up when he came in the door. Another guy
    in Brad's building was Phil, another model Brad knew who moved to Low-
    ell from New York. Everyone wanted to BE Brad or Phil. For men as good
    looking as they were, they had no attitude. During the Arab oil embargo
    Dolly would tell us to show up after 9pm at the gas station he worked
    at and he'd pump gas for the queen from the bar. It was something to
    see, this drag queen in a cocktail dress in heels, out there pumping
    gas on a Thursday night.

    	When Dolly, Brad and Phil were not at DiRocco's, they were at the
    Cosmo or Celebrity Lounge in Lowell. Boston's PLayland had nothing over
    these two dives. They were supposedly straight biker bars, but on most
    nights the gay boys outnumbered the straights. Lowell also had the Old
    Worthen, which was said to be one of the oldest bars in the country. 
    Supposedly Jack Kerouac, Edgar Allen Poe and Whistler {the painter} had
    drank there. Tuesday nights were predominantly gay then. Word spread
    that Tuesday nights were gay at the Burlington Mall, which after
    checking it out for myself, most certainly were. Everything was covert
    like some secret club, but I would hazard a guess that one had to be
    blind or dead to not know what was going on around them. Late nights,
    the Owl Diner in Lowell was a gay hangout, especially after DiRocco's
    closed.

    	From Brad I met Bob, who introduced me to Walter, who in turn
    brought me over to meet Al, and on and on like some Biblical quotation
    of a prophet's lineage. From them I was invited to after hours parties
    and discovered a large loosely structured gay network within the lop-
    sided Lowell, Lawrence, Nashua triangle. During the early 70's even 
    Lowell had an after hours gay bar, "The Blue Light". It got raided a
    number of times and closed. We would all pile into cars to head to the 
    next club or party. There was the Elbow Room in Manchester, which sat
    in disguise on a residential street and looked no different than any
    other house on the street. There was the Byfield Inn, a gay motel and
    bar; that burned down a few years later. Duke's burned down of quest-
    ionable causes and begat DiRocco's Cabaret. DiRocco's was safer and
    "totally" gay. In it's early years of operation, the town fathers tried
    getting it shut down, but it soon became an institution. It was open
    six nights a week and Tuesday through Thursday were the nights when all
    the regulars hold court. It didn't matter back then if one was fat or
    thin, muscular or not, young or old, femme or butch; everyone seemed
    to get along well and there was community there. 

	I had yet to discover the world beyond route 495. Bob and I became
    lovers in 1973. I had not yet become comfortable with the concept of
    gay lovers and it seemed once you found a mate, everyone did all they
    could to come between you. I had always felt intimidated by Bob because
    of his "drop dead" good looks. Bob had been a model in New York City
    and moved back to Lowell after breaking up with a lover. I slipped into
    the covert gay ghetto that existed in the Highlands and Centerville,
    both sections of Lowell. Bob lived in a large gay owned Victorian, with
    six other gay tenants. Four other houses on the street were totally
    gay occupied. Then there was the gay cloister up in Nashua; two entire
    buildings in Royal Ridge and a number of buildings up at Forest Ridge
    apartments. The parties were gay/straight mixtures that always seemed
    to work. 

    	There was a definite feeling back then that is difficult to put
    into words. It was exciting, everything seemed so new and everyone
    got along. I found more acceptance back then among all the non gay
    people I knew than now. Gays characters were filtering into television
    with characters on "Soap", "Phyllis" and the PBS series, "An American
    Family". All in the Family also dealt with the topic in a sensitive
    way. Around 1973 disco started and caught on first among gays and
    blacks. Esquire magazine ran an article on disco about the time The
    Bump became popular and claimed that only gays, blacks and Hispanics
    could dance or knew how to have fun at a club. Boston magazine ran 
    feature articles about Crane Beach and Provincetown, calling them 
    best kept secrets among gays. It seemed that we were repeatedly being
    called innovators in dance, fashion and leisure. 

    	The year 1973 was when I reached out beyond my little world. Bob
    introduced me to Boston. On a hot JUly night in 1973 I found the 1270
    and The Shed. From there moved in to Cabaret After Dark and The Other
    Side. Quickly stumbled upon Sporters West End Tennis Club and Twelve
    Carver/Herbie's Ramrod Room. I found a niche among the Fort Hill
    Faggots for Freedom and became a regular at the Charles Street Meeting
    House, billed as Boston's alternative to the bars. Gay Community News
    was a cheaply produced rag as was Fag Rag, my friends being connected
    with both. The major gay population areas were Beacon Hill, Back Bay
    and Fenway. The South End was still fairly uncharted territory to me.
    
      The Land of Oz opened near Boston University as did the Giraffe, a
    flashy New York style gay disco. Giraffe went straight a year later 
    and Oz closed. Straights started cashing in on the disco phenomenon
    and most of my straight friends often claimed gay clubs were the ab-
    solute best places to dance and party. At one time Chaps was a very
    chic gay restaurant that folded, later to become Chaps, the cruise
    bar. The early days of Chaps were the best, barrels full of peanuts,
    cheap draft beer, taped music and friendly company. Styx changed over
    from straight to gay and sat right next door to Chaps. It was another
    of the pretty fern bars and disco. one Saturday night a group of us
    were all dancing shirtless {de rigeur} banging tambourines and blow-
    ing police whistles, when a beautiful black woman joined us on the 
    floor and started singing along to Donna Summer's, "I Feel Love". It
    was Ms Summer herself, who danced and flirted with us all then left.

    	There was a man, a handsome Puerto Rican named Bob. Nobody knew
    his last name, he was always called, "Crazy Bob". Bob wore a long 
    black ponytail and zappata mustache and drove classic antique cars,
    of which he had a dozen. Every Sunday he could be counted on to pull
    up to Chaps or Styx in a Packard or other touring car, loaded with
    men all dressed in Zoot suits and carrying toy Tommy guns. There were
    nights we piled into one of Bob's cars to go club hopping. He also
    threw very lavish parties in his mansion down in Marshfield. Through
    Bob I met Jeremy, a dancer and part time model. Jeremy's claim to
    fame was that he passed for an identical twin of the then gay porn 
    star, Peter Berlin. Jeremy and I dated for a few months, along with
    him and half the city. Everybody wanted to settle down with Jeremy
    but he was nobody's child. 

    	Bob was filled with surprises and on random Sundays would circulate
    around Chaps handing out engraved invitations to parties. One Friday 
    night I was sitting talking with some cronies at DiRocco's and was
    asked what I was doing tomorrow night. I told them I was going to a
    party in Marshfield, reply being, "so am I, is it at Bob's?" The
    next night a group of us drove down in a caravan and one would never
    imagine such a huge gay party could take place. There must have been
    five hundred men and women and Bob promised a surprise. There were
    people from Boston, New York and the Cape, among other places and later
    that night while everyone was cavorting in the pool and on the grounds
    who should show up, but The Village People. This was before they were
    well known outside the gay community. In the morning every room of the
    house and pool side showed the after effects of the night before, where
    people crashed, some alone, others in unplanned couplings. During the
    seventies, many of the people I knew left Boston for New York, L.A.,
    San Francisco and Key West. Jeremy was off to L.A., Bob Headed to San
    Francisco, Bob {my first lover} to New York, but the Fort Hill Faggots 
    were always a constant. They may not have been glamorous, but were 
    earthy and real.

    	As the seventies wore on bars came and went. Darts became one of
    my favorite dance palaces, then Buddies showed up and Darts floundered
    and died. A notorious eatery among the gay boys throughout this time
    was Ken's at Copley. It was a large New York style deli, popular among
    the theater set and even more popular after the bars closed. Of course
    for the brief time they all co-existed; Chaps, Styx, Darts and Buddies
    were all within a 5 minute walk to Ken's. The Boston Eagle was located
    on Queensbury Street in the Fenway then, a leather bar and disco and
    very friendly. Lest I forget, around 1976 Cabaret After Dark re-opened
    as 15 Lansdowne Street, a very chic gay members club. After the owners
    had milked us of the fifty dollar membership fee, it shortly afterward
    became a straight bar. It didn't take them long to realize gay money
    was just as green as straight {greener on Sunday} so we were given our
    Sunday night out. Over the years Lansdowne has changed names more than
    I care to remember, but I will always remember version one of Lansdowne
    as the best. 
    
	After 1976 we noted subtle changes among gay men and Christopher
    Street ran a feature article, "Where Have all the Sissies Gone", be-
    moaning the growth of attitude and posturing among gay men. As we
    got more acceptance, gay men relied less on one another and broke up
    into splintered camps, or so we noticed. People were still friendly
    then but a change was taking place. At the 1978 gay pride march, it
    was like old home day as usual, but I was knowing fewer and fewer
    people. This was the pride that I learned Jeremy and Crazy Bob had
    died. Jeremy had flown home to live with his family. He had a strange
    form of skin cancer that had spread to his inside organs. Crazy Bob
    moved back to Puerto Rico with his family after multiple bouts of
    pneumonia. I would later learn they died from AIDS. It would not be
    until I met up with my current doctor in 1986 that a nurse would tell
    me she lost a half dozen gay friends during 1974 to 1978 in New York.
    As she said, "the cases were isolated and before AIDS hit the media
    there were no connections". My own doctor told me that he heard through
    a conference that they think hiv infection may have started among gay
    men as early as the late sixties to early seventies. Back at DiRocco's
    a group was talking about a regular, Tony who was very sick in the 
    hospital. Nobody in 1978 put together his three month stay in the Bay
    Area with the illness, a year after returning home. Tony died in 1979
    after wasting away over a year period.

    	I met my first live in lover in May of 1979 while roller skating 
    on gay night at the Bal-A-Rou in Medford. I had dated and had a few
    boyfriends. Before meeting Wild Bill {as his friends called him} I
    had spent most of my time hanging out with friends, dancing and going
    to dinner parties, but nothing truly serious. On the surface Bill was
    a marvelous creature, six foot two, short blond crew cut, ponytail in
    back and zappata mustache. He had a large "pegasus" tattoo on his left
    bicep and pierced nipples. Friends had taken me out skating for my
    birthday and as well skated en masse around the rink, I felt a shove
    from behind and fell sliding along the floor with Bill on top of me.
    He could not apologize enough {later found out this was staged. What a
    way to fall for someone, literally!} He was unlike any guy I had met,
    charming beyond belief, intelligent and also a veteran. Bill made no
    bones about having been tossed out of the Marines after coming out.
    He had settled in San Francisco, but moved back East after his mother
    died. He lived alone in the South End and invited me over for a
    nightcap. I asked for a rain check for dinner or a movie and he did not
    take offense. Taking for granted that he would not call, I was amazed
    when he called the following week, asking if I would like to take a
    ride up to Crane's Beach with him.	    	
     
    	I was living in Nashua, New Hampshire with a roommate and my
    oldest gay friend, Walt. He and I had originally met at a potluck 
    dinner in 1972, becoming roommates after I graduated from college in
    in 1973. After meeting Bill, Walt admitted that he felt threatened and
    did not want to lose a friend to a lover. Walt was like a mother and I
    called him "Mom". After leaving Crane Beach, Bill and I drove up to
    Nashua because I wanted him and Walt to meet. Right away Walt just
    "knew" this was going to be the "one". I told Walt that Bill and I had
    not even talked about sex {I was hoping} and we would probably just be-
    come friends. The three of us spent the early evening walking around
    town. Shortly before midnight Bill suggested he and I head back to
    town, since my car was there. Walt asked if I would be back and Bill
    injected, "why don't you pack some things and come spend the night
    with me". I got wobbly in the knees and told Walt it looked like I'd
    be back home on Sunday. Things moved quickly over the Summer and by
    Labor day I had left Nashua and was living in Boston. It's funny
    how you never know a person until you live with them. Bill had a dark
    and murky past; had been in a few gay porno films, had worked as a
    high priced male call boy in San Francisco and had a circle of friends
    I never felt comfortable around; bartenders, disk jockey's and hust-
    lers. I did get to meet the gay writers George Stambolian and Paul
    Monet, who were friends of Bill's. Also got to meet the real live
    Peter Berlin and a few other porno stars who were part of Bill's past.

    	I also felt uncomfortable over his gun collection. I had always
    hated guns, but one of his hobbies was gun collecting and going to the
    range to fire off a few hundred rounds. We fought a lot, mostly over
    my catching him many times in the act with other guys. When he got
    drunk or stoned he was volatile, which was most of the time. And here
    I stayed thinking things would get better, if only I stuck it out.
    Walt visited from time to time and I found myself missing living with
    a trustworthy friend. I was stressed out most of the time and Walt
    knew it. He liked Bill and felt I was just fabricating some of the
    problems, until Bill exploded one night while cooking dinner and went
    psycho, yelling at Walt to leave. We both looked at each other shocked
    and Walt told me he'd call later. Bill stormed out and returned three
    days later. These things happened more often as time went on and when-
    ever I asked where he'd been a fight broke out. The next day always
    brought a tearful apology from him, with a devotion of his love. I was
    getting crazier by the week. We went to a lot of parties, big lavish
    South End affairs. When I sensed they would become orgies, I left,
    leaving him behind. Just before Christmas of 1980, Bill wanted us to
    leave Boston and move to San Francisco. He was perturbed at my unwill-
    ingness to leave digital and just take off so he called my manager and
    told her everything about us. Thank goodness I was out to her and she 
    had a sense of humor {or the absurd}, suggesting I find a more suitable
    boyfriend. Just after New Years, he tossed a twenty dollar bill in my
    lap and told me, "fer chrissakes, go to the baths and get laid, will
    you". It was a hate f*** on my part and when Bill found out I actually
    did it with somebody, we had a fight to end all fights. He wanted the
    faithful, stay at home lover, but reserved the right to tomcat around
    for himself. The day after Valentine's day I called Walt, asking if he
    wanted an old roommate back. Walt was delighted and asked if I had 
    talked it over with Bill. I told him, "no, I'm leaving him a letter".
    Bill was in New York {supposedly on business}, a neighbor told me that
    Bill told him he had an offer to do a porn flick, but not to tell me.

	I didn't hear anything for a month until I got a call from the 
    guard in the lobby, telling me I had a visitor. Bill stood there look-
    ing like a lost puppy, "why did you do this to us?" I grabbed him and 
    walked him out the door where we talked in the parking lot. He asked
    for one more chance, and I finally had the courage to say, "no, finis!"
    Two weeks later he called me at home to say he was leaving for the 
    coast in a few days and was having an apartment sale, could I come
    over. I felt this was harmless and we wound up making love for what
    seemed the entire evening; perhaps the first time we made love since
    first meeting. We agreed to try being friends and hugged one last time.

    	If only I knew then what I know now. The entire time Bill and I
    were together he was having one little medical problem after another;
    swollen glands, fatigue, night sweats. His doctor told us he had mono
    and he should take it easy. Bill was never one to take it "easy". We
    remained in touch via phone and letters for the next few years. He
    had settled in with a lover out there and one night while calling I
    got his lover, "Bill's not here right now". I asked when he would be 
    back and was told, "he's been very sick and is in the hospital". I
    asked what was wrong and was told, "they're not sure right now, but
    are running tests". Later I would find out he had arc.

	Moving back in with Walt was a good one. After Bill and I went
    separate ways, I slipped into a deep depression and it was Walt who
    helped keep my head above water. We flew to San Francisco that Spring,
    a first for both of us. Neither one of us wanted to come home and I
    came a hair's breath away from relocating to San Francisco with
    digital. At the last minute I decided, it was a wonderful place to
    visit, but I could never live there.

    	There were many gay alternatives all over; we got involved in
    Chiltern Mountain Club, Nashua Area Gays, The Central Middlesex Social
    Club {a large gay group in Maynard, Mass} and Frenz-N-Luvers. I spent
    every weekend during the Summers of 1981 and 1982 at Crane Beach, or
    the Cape. We explored in ones, twos and groups all the reputed gay
    spots and visited the quarry in Milford, where there was nude gay
    sunbathing. The only bar in the Worcester area we frequented was
    Isaiah's, but there were many large gay potlucks in the Worcester area
    we attended. It seemed no matter where we went gay men came from as far
    as fifty to seventy-five miles to attend. Everyone still flocked to
    Boston on weekends and for pride day.

    	Life after Bill was also a time to catch up on hobbies and pet
    projects; audio, video, cars, computing, working out. I was very much 
    into video, must have been since I had four VCR's a camera and video
    mixing console. We worked on silly projects like the porno nobody 
    would ever see, a spoof on gay porno movies that contained no sex.
    It was about me {a gay boy just moving to Nashau from San Francisco}
    and my new roommate {Walter} and his search for companionship. It had
    cable installers, plumbers, a Jehovah Witness and the supermarket
    checkout boy {we conned a real live gay cashier for some footage at
    the Nashua Purity} The boy from San Fran got so sexed out, the last
    scene was him calling the coast begging an old roommate to take him
    back, because Nashau was just too hot and he had to go back home for
    some rest from all the men. There were many late nights, when slipping
    down to Purity for a six pack or last minute groceries, that one would
    think they were in the Fenway Star Market. We often mused about Nashau
    being the "Sodom" of the Granite State. One guy we knew made tee shirts 
    of the Old Man of the Mountain with an ear ring.

    	Manchester, our neighbor to the North also had a large gay culture
    but I never felt inclined to spend time in "The Queen City" {yes it was
    known as The Queen City for non gay reasons}. We also drove over to 
    Portsmouth, since men from that town often came to Nashua Area Gay
    Meetings or showed up at DiRocco's. The mileage on the car grew expon-
    entially in these years.

    	Our complex seemed to have more than it's share of gay tenants, as
    life by the pool or club house parties attested. And it never seemed to
    bother the straight neighbors that all these boys in their thongs, ear-
    rings and pierced nipples were surrounding them. There were many times
    by the pool a neighbor would ask, "You guys gay?" and we'd say, "Yes
    we are". They'd just nod, "huh, thought so. I have a gay kid brother
    you know". Or a woman would ask, "Are all gay guys built like you? What
    is it with you gay men, geeeze, you all look like Greek gods or some-
    thing". This was good for our egos, too bad we didn't hear it nearly
    as often from our peers. At least in our circle there was almost no
    homophobia to speak of.

    	Chaps was a disco now, Darts and Styx were gone. The eagle also
    closed and the Ramrod moved to the Fenway area. Where Fritz is now was
    Rustlers, the Chandler Inn was the Hotel Diplomat, a flop house for
    hookers. The House of Quagmire was where the Eagle is now and was owned
    by The Quagmires, a leather club, which got raided a few times, then
    closed. There was also one of the tiniest gay bars in the City, The
    Elbow Room, now Chez Joi. Chaps always remained the premier "Cha Cha
    Palace" in those days. My friends and I noticed a definite further
    polarization of gay men in Boston into feudal camps. 

    	Most people I knew in the early 80's had found lovers and dropped
    from view; only to re-emerge a year or two later after breaking up. At
    the 1982 Pride March I learned that Brad had kaposi's sarcoma, and Phil
    had died of pneumonia. Nobody ever brought up the topic of AIDS, people
    always changed the subject. But we remained a large group of men, who
    traveled "en masse" and life was still very good. Walt and I talked
    about buying a house together since friends as well as lovers were
    buying property back then. I had mixed feelings about staying in New
    Hampshire, and as bad a love/hate relationship I had with Boston, want-
    ed to return.  
       	      
    	On July 4th, 1982 Walter and I were invited to a roof deck party
    at one of my gay coworkers. He lived in the South End and I just rem-
    ember it being blistering hot. The party ended like the movie "Boys in
    the Band" with everyone mad at one another. The host had a penchant
    for terminal stage head games. Actually it was like a three ring cir-
    cus as I look back. There was another gay coworker present, a friend
    I have not yet mentioned but one who as always a mentor to my career as
    well as mental hygiene. Patrick and I met in 1978, both being part of
    a project. One day in his office he commented on how a strong friend-
    ship had grown and asked why I thought we were friends. I told him
    that I guess we just got along and he looked at me grinning and blew
    me a kiss, "sistahs!" Pat also lived in the South End and his place
    was always a jumping off place whenever we journeyed to Boston. Pat
    could never understand how one could live Nashua and referred to us
    as the queens who carried their "porta-closets" wherever they went. I
    never thought of us as closeted, but Pat always felt, "if you couldn't
    handle the South End, you couldn't handle being gay". Patrick was a man
    of few words, but each was weighed carefully for maximum impact. During
    the party he would occasionally mumble, "Turning", and when the melee
    broke out on the roof muttered, "revolution complete". He had taken on
    the persona of Harrold, the birthday boy in Boys in the Band.

     	All during the party there was a guy who sat by himself, once in a
    while talking briefly, but mostly nursing a drink. He had the face of
    Sting, the body of an Olympic swimmer, and a mystique. I pointed him
    out to Walt and Pat, who both said, "forget him honey, dream on". Af-
    ter snooping around I found he came with a roommate and was named Nick.
    His roommate and I enjoyed a long discussion about audio and computers
    and he suggested he and I get together over drinks to talk shop, ex-
    changing business cards. Nick's roommate, Bob excused himself, saying
    the party was getting a bit out of hand, but invited Walt and I to go
    over to Chaps with him and Nick. Walt opted out, as did I, since I rode
    in with Walt. What made the party so dicey was that it was filled with
    Ex's and ex's of ex's and ex's of ex's of ex's, some freshly separated. 
    Bruce, the host and I rarely spoke to one another after the party and
    by Summer's end he left the company for greener pastures.

    	Walt and I went to the Cape for two weeks after the fourth. It was
    fun, but I was starting to get tired of Provincetown and so was Walt.
    When we got home I received a call from, of all people, Nick. He got
    my number from his roommate and asked if I'de like to come into town
    for dinner. I was flattered and accepted. After telling Walt who called
    he gave me this look like, here we go again. Walt always had a feeling
    for when something was going to happen and urged me to take it slow and
    easy. Of course I did not and found myself moving back into the city 
    within four months. Nick made Wild Bill look like Mother Theresa in
    comparison; compulsive liar, severe drug and alcohol abuse as well as
    emotional and physical abuse. I was never aware of it from 1982 to 1984
    but Nick also was having continual problems, shingles, swollen glands
    and other minor medical issues. His doctor also told us he had mono.
    I should have felt bad about the way it ended between us but on Christ-
    mas Eve, I had finally had it and told him, either he moved out or I
    would. I was sick of being his receptionist, taking messages from his
    covert tricks, listening to his stories of how his car broke down at
    2am and he stayed at a friends, all that sort of stuff. Was also sick
    of supporting him financially, he get fired from one job after another
    and tried making me feel guilty about having stable employment. When
    he refused to leave, I started packing, then he said he would leave.
    He remained a minor nuisance until he moved to L.A. in the Spring
    of 1985.

    	I quit drinking after breaking up and by June was experiencing some
    minor {I thought} medical problems and found myself in the hospital for
    a week. The doctors strongly recommended I take the test, which wound
    up positive. I took it two more times and one was negative, the other
    positive. I told my roommate, who did not take the news well at all. He
    notified me a couple of weeks later that he would be moving out. I
    found another roommate and similar things happened. 

    	I thought the guys from Nashua, as well as other friends would be
    supportive, but after the revelation they always seemed to be busy or
    just heading out the door and would call back later. Those calls never
    did come. From 1986 to 1988 I knew of a dozen men who committed suic-
    ide after getting an hiv positive test result. I grew angrier and an-
    grier after hearing about each one. I wanted to scream! And one by one
    many of the people I knew started dieing. None were close friends, but
    all were men I liked as people. One guy I visited in the hospital grab-
    bed my arm and pleaded with me to accept Jesus as Lord and savior, as
    God had spoken to him telling him aids was punishment and God was on 
    the warpath with sinners. Gee and my own earthly Dad spanked me and got
    it out of his system, with me left living, but with reddened tushy. But
    this God! He gives people miserable diseases, well I got even angrier 
    and most of it aimed at the highest of highs, the biggest of celestial
    cheeses. The new fundamentalist friends I was making cried out, "Thou 
    art a BLASPHEMER!!!" to which I replied, "OH eat me!"  So now my fundie
    friends were also getting aggravated. Since I was not hopping and
    skipping around yelling, "thank you Lord, OH thank you Jesus for my
    disease. Ahhh repents, Ahhh grievously repents!", the walked away. I
    was not sure what I was supposed to repent of.

    	It was August of 1988, my last trip to Provincetown where I ran
    into Brad, one of the first men and mentors I knew. I was on my way
    back from the beach and walking along Commercial Street when I saw
    this very slight man, walking with a cane. His face was covered with 
    KS lesions, and as I walked by he turned and said, "Hey! I know you,
    don't I?". I turned, "Brad? is that you?". "Who do you think it is
    sweetie?" I ran up and gave him a hug and we talked over coffee. He
    had moved to the Cape to spend his last months/years and despite all
    he'd been through was still Brad. I was mumbling something about all
    the straights taking up our space, they should go home and Brad re-
    torted, "No I wish all the fags would go home". He told me about all
    the pain and emotional grief he got from people he thought were his
    friends. Brad also said, "Accept Jesus as Lord and die with dignity".
    I wondered if there was some sort of opportunistic infection that was
    making PWA's act like this, but still gave him another big hug.

    	OH Brad you little tart you, you were always one for effect. In
    that week I saw you every day at Tea Dance, all gussied up in white
    tuxedo and tails, top hat and cane. Whatever were you up to? Circul-
    ating through the crowd, polite as could be, "Hey nice swimsuit", 
    "wow you must work out a lot", "nice tan" and each one nervously
    turned from your gaze with the vilest of disgust. Whatever were you
    doing my child? If only they could have seen you when we met years 
    ago, they would have been like baby ducks following their mother,
    but now they did not want to look at you. And I'de see you every night 
    on the porch at Back Street with your lesbian "buddy", the two of you
    laughing up a storm and carrying on. And the men would spot you and
    quickly turn away in shame. 

    	That Winter I heard Brad had died, along with a dozen others I
    knew. Another roommate and another disaster. I decided, to avoid any
    more rejection and pain, I would live alone and here I sit in the
    city of Cambridge. It was funny how I unloaded all the gay baggage I
    had accumulated over twenty plus years; the photo albums getting 
    burned, the mementos given away or thrown out, the loss of interest
    in old hobbies I had pursued with a passion. It had become much harder
    to merely make new friends today. Honesty is not always the best pol-
    icy, as soon as they learn of my status, they have become inaccessible.
    But I prefer to leave any further discussion of this topic for the
    letter, "From the Mouths of Babes". This was a letter that got circul-
    ated among some hiv groups and sent to publications. None of the pub-
    lishers wanted to touch it. All I have now is a rough draft, since the
    finished product was destroyed.

    	Last night I attended one of the last hiv rap group sessions I
    care to. Most men have gone, either died, or not wanting to be part 
    of this any more. There was no topic so the moderator suggested we
    talk about where we'd come from and discuss our gay social histories.
    There was a 21 year old guy with aids at the meeting who said he really
    wished he had been around in the early years of Stonewall and before
    there was any such thing as AIDS. The moderator told him that one had
    to be there to know, it had nothing to do with sex, just that being
    gay back then was relaxed and we were all together. It was a feeling
    that defied words.

    	The moderator then asked the group, "if you knew then what you know
    now, what would you have changed?" Some felt they would never have come
    out of the closet, I was not sure what I would have done and the moder-
    ator said he would not have changed anything and was sick or making ex-
    cuses for the period of time he was placed in. And today I just sat in
    a sidewalk cafe in Harvard Square, then walked the Esplanade, enjoy-
    ing the freak show of modern day humanity. While walking through the
    square a guy and girl walked past, him so bravely mumbling, "faggot" as
    they walked past. I could not help but grab him and yell in his face,
    "Who the hell are you calling a faggot, F-a-g-g-o-t. Twenty years ago
    they'd have burned you at the stake, just look at yourself!" She
    ordered him to beat me up, "Are you going to take that from a fag?"
    He just mumbled, "c'mon, let's get outta here". Well guy in point was
    wearing the tightest, most ripped and faded 501's, with his tushy and
    personal belongings hanging out. And the ripped tee shirt with his
    exposed pierced nipple and ear with about 27 ear rings, and both with
    eyebrows pierced. And if I were Brad and had his brass ones I would
    have yelled something like, "yeah, well that's not what you were saying
    last night, c'mon fly me, you know you want to". Or there were those
    few times with Brad back in days of old when someone kid mumbled
    "faggot" as we walked by and Brad would reply, "that's Mister Faggot to 
    you sonny". But the world has become such an angry, freaky place and
    I moved on.

    JLJ


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