Brad Acts Up — Queer Hero Worship
Portrait of a man, cheating
Luke wasn’t like me, he wanted to live.
Can we not talk about Luke right now? I’d a gave anything to take his place, but the world don’t work like that. He didn’t wanna have AIDS, obviously. I know why you’re here, ya know. I ain’t as dumb as I look.
You wanna know why I did what I did.
But I ain’t ready to talk about that.
You know what they say about guys who stick with their boyfriends who got AIDS. That they’re heroes? That if you really love him, you stick with him straight to the end?
Yeah, well… what happens when they don’t want you to stick with them? Ever think about that?
Know what Luke told me once? “Having AIDS is a full time job.” Then he said …
He said a lotta things, but what matters is we were never close again. We stopped doin everything together. He stopped sleepin in the same bed as me. “To keep you safe.” We never became boyfriends officially, so we never had to break up. We just fell apart. Then he …
Never mind.
All I know is, he told David he had AIDS before he told me! I dint even know David was positive. Luke knew! But I dint know a lotta things back then.
No more talkin about Luke.
It’s too fuckin hard. I still cry about him. I still cry about him bein 42 when I’m 40, and how that ain’t never gonna happen.
How bout before I tell ya about Luke, I talk about the next happy part of my life? About the first guy I told about my big HIV plan? The big plan I can tell you’re dyin to ask me, only you’re too polite.
I was standin at the back of Cooper Union, sorta waitin to see if Mike was gonna talk. I don’t wanna say he was kinda hot, but fuck it, he was hot and he always hugged me when he saw me.
Sometimes I only went to Act Up so Mike could hug me.
Michael-angelo, I mean. But he dint talk that night. His friend Ann did, you know that TV person? I looked around while she gave this really long speech I couldn’t hear. Act Up’s like a big family, so I wanted to see who was there, even if I dint talk to nobody.
People smiled at me, but …
I was too shy to just walk up and say hi. Not even to the guys who came into Uncle Charlie’s sometimes.
Then!
I saw this smokin cute boy leanin against the brick wall just behind me. I could tell he wasn’t with nobody cuz even though he was listenin hard to Ann, he looked lost.
I’m terrible at cruisin, but I tried.
I felt guilty, but I was lonely, and I ain’t apologizin for not wantin to be alone.
The guy dropped his eyes when I looked. He was as shy as me! I dint walk up, I just kinda took a few steps back and leaned up against the wall like him.
I kept lookin, he kept droppin his eyes, and we both kinda scootched closer to each other.
Then he took a breath so deep I could see his chest move. He stood up real straight and stuck out his hand. To shake! He was like, “Hi, I’m Jim. It’s so nice to meet you.”
So lame I had to bite my lip not to laugh!
But … he was my age, or at least I thought he was. He had this funny posture, back way too straight. Hair blond and buzzed like he was in the Army. And short? The top of his head only came up to my mouth.
But when he took my hand and pumped it, squeezin so hard I winced, he looked me right in my eyes and relaxed like he was all comfortable. I smiled right back and somethin snapped. Like we both knew we were friends, just like that.
We dint talk about going to the Waverly for burgers.
We left just as the meeting broke up and headed west, me all anxious to get outta the East Village because it was like foreign territory. I couldn’t get used to walkin in strange neighborhoods without Luke.
Jim dint talk, just grabbed my arm and walked with me, which made me smile. I buttoned up the top button of my jacket, cuz it was gettin pretty cold. I dint relax until we hit Washington Square Park, all decorated up for Halloween.
Home turf again! We walked into the diner and sat down together like we did it every day.
Ten minutes later, Jim went all spastic.
“You KNOW Michelangelo Signorile!? Oh, my FUCKING god! What’s he like? Tell me EVERYTHING!”
I swear to God he dropped his burger and splattered ketchup everywhere.
He dint calm down neither, not once I told him me and Mike sat in this exact same booth once when Mike invited me to that zap.
“No way! I read Outweek EVERY week as soon as it comes out. I flip straight to his column! Signorile is like … Oh, my GOD, I can’t believe you KNOW him. He goes to regular diners and eats food just like everybody else?”
I snorted. Seriously I snorted. Then I went, “Calm down. It’s the Waverly. Everybody eats here, including Mike. What’s Outweek?”
His eyes got so big I thought they was gonna pop out of his head.
So we HAD to walk to the Center on 13th Street, which was still open cuz it was Girth and Mirth night … you know, the club for fat gay guys? To find a copy of Outweek for me.
Anyway, on the way there, Jim’s hand kinda brushed up against mine a buncha times. His shoulder kept bumpin mine. So I grabbed his hand and held it.
The first time I’d held anybody’s hand since April. Six whole months. It felt so good I can’t even explain. But I felt so bad. I knew Luke was …
Forget it. We’re not gonna talk about him right now.
So we went in, found the damn magazine and sat in the garden to read, which wasn’t so easy cuz all the light came from candles and oil lamps. Jim kept sayin hi to all the Girth and Mirth guys, which it turned out he knew a bunch of em.
Dominic, this guy I knew from Charlie’s, he walked up to our bench. Squeezed my shoulder. Kissed Jim on the cheek. “Where’s Lenny?” he asked, soundin a little … funny.
Jim dint care, I could tell. He was all like, “He stayed home tonight. Too much work to get done. Plus, he’s not sure about Act Up, which is where I was. You know Brad? I met him there.”
Jim walked me halfway home, to them same monkey bars where them same girls was hustlin them same cars. I dint wave, and we dint try talkin to em.
I backed Jim into a corner, brick walls on both sides of us, moonlight shining off his hair, his green eyes black in the night, my hands roamin all up and down his back which was all sheets of hard muscle which I dint expect.
I put my lips on on his, and he pushed me away. “I have a boyfriend.”
“Lenny?” I asked.
He nodded.
“All I wanna do is kiss you. Can we?”
I tried not to think about Luke sittin at home, coughin, shakin with fever.
I closed my eyes and said, “I ain’t horny. I’m just … Can’t you just kiss me?”
So we kissed. For almost an hour.
I held his face in my hands, ran my lips over his cheeks, ran my hands over his body, sucked his tongue into my mouth and let my tears soak into his shoulder. He pulled me in close and squeezed and rocked and even though I could feel his hardness pressing into me, he dint touch me.
I mean he dint touch my dick or get on his knees or unbuckle his belt or push down on my head or anything. He let me kiss him and he let me cry on him and he just stood there and let me be me.
A long time later, he was like, “I need to go home. Lenny’s gonna be worried. You gonna be OK?”
I nodded, feeling weird but happy. Turned and headed up the street without answering. Pretty soon, I heard footsteps behind me, runnin. “Hey,” Jim went. “I don’t have anything to write with, but … look, can you come to the Center tomorrow. Please?
“I gotta shift at the bar where I work.”
“Lunchtime? Can you meet Lenny and me for lunch?”
“You want me to meet your boyfriend? What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
“Just do it, OK? Please?”
This story you just read is true. I feel moved to tell it because I am probably the only person left in the universe who knows it. So many stories of people who didn’t survive AIDS are gone forever. I don’t want Brad’s to disappear.
I am the “Jim” in this chapter, though this story is about Brad, not me.
Starting with this chapter, though, dialogue is less fictionalized because I can directly remember much of it.
