Brad — Act Up Hero, Lover, Friend

Portrait of a man, the beginning

Thanks for coming to see me.

Nobody really does anymore. I get it, they’re busy. Plus I smell so bad, I make myself sick. Gross, right? And sometimes when I look in the mirror, I wanna heave.

They call me Brad. It’s really Broderick, but I always hated that name.

So keep it to yourself, huh?

Sometimes I do heave, but usually not, because I don’t eat anymore. Mostly. Sometimes I can if I smoke a doob first. But … the people here are really nice and all, but they won’t let you smoke.

I guess it don’t matter. I’m gonna die anyway. Soon. It’s OK, I want to.

You got that recorder going yet? OK, well, here goes.

I picked myself up off the ground in that stupid alley behind the 7 Eleven. Felt around my mouth and caught a finger on a broken tooth. Spit blood. Fuck!

Castleton, New York, man. Armpit of fucking Albany. No, Castleton-on-Hudson. Ha! Think it’s this charming village with a beautiful view like that bridge in all the paintings?

Try living there.

You can’t eat the view, and the river ain’t good for nuthin except maybe swimming in August when it’s too hot for anything else. And then people drown.

Damn hills are so steep a kid can’t even ride a bike. Not that mom had money for bikes. She dint have money for clothes neither, which made the big-ass rip in my jeans a way huger problem than my broken tooth.

I limped up that damn hill toward home and thought about climbing in my bedroom window, but she’d see the jeans anyway, so I figured I’d better let her get her screaming done.

“Broderick David Jones! You worthless skid stain! You know how many fuckin beers I gotta serve to buy you school clothes? Huh!? What the fuck the matter with you, boy? You best hurry up and graduate and get a damn job.”

Yeah, only that ain’t what she said.

She woulda, only she found out why I really got beat up, and that’s when the serious shit started. Maybe that’s why I’m laying here right now wishing I had a jay so maybe I could eat some graham crackers and have some hot chocolate.

I’d like to do that again just one time. You know?

I’d like to remember what it was like when I was little and dint have nuthin to worry about and people still loved me. I mean, when Mom still loved me.

I dint care much when she yelled at me about stupid shit. That was just her. But that day? When she started screaming for real? I could tell she meant it, and it hurt more than the fist that split my lip.

Me and Keith was lookin at each other in math class. Math for dummies. It used to embarrass me I was in all the classes for dumb kids, but I was used to it by then. I just wanted to finish out the last couple months, get my diploma and dis-a-fuckin-ppear.

Only when Keith looked at me like that? Damn, man! He was FINE. Football team fine. Shiny black hair. Muscles. And he smelled good! Shit, sometimes when he kissed me…

But I better back up. Keith ain’t gay.

I mean, not gay like me. I’m all skinny and blond and kinda talk with a … well, you know.

Oops, did I say skinny? I mean like … not skeleton skinny like now. Good skinny. Twink skinny. I dint know it then, but I was gonna find out real soon that I was the kinda skinny men couldn’t keep their hands off.

But Keith was buff. Hot. Smokin. Did I mention? Anyway, we’d been friends since before I can remember. Some kinda second cousins or sumthin, not like that was strange in Castleton. Everybody’s somebody’s cousin there.

The way he was lookin at me, I knew he wanted to fuck around after school. It dint mean nuthin. He had a girlfriend and all, but we used to do stuff back when we was like 13, just messin around. And lately, he’d been wantin to again.

Not that I was complainin!

Most kids were calling me a fag or whatever else by then anyway. Cuz of how I talk? Or whatever?

Brad kinda did too … sometimes, but he dint mean it. Not totally. Castleton’s like that. People can say mean shit to your face, but they’re still your cousin, and the place is so small it’s like, who else ya gonna hang with?

So, when the final bell rang, I hopped on the back of his bike and kinda stood up and held on tight as he let that fucker rip down the hill toward the Hudson. He had to throw his legs out to the side so the pedals dint knock the shit out of him.

I screamed and hugged around his solid body so I wouldn’t fall off. He was swervin around cars and laughin and being a fuckin jerk but we both loved it.

We got slurpees downtown at the 7 Eleven. Pretty sure mine was raspberry. Or maybe cherry? I remember it looked like blood later. On the concrete.

Like my blood.

Everybody was there. Sherry, Ben, that asshole David whose dad let him use his car. Beth. Alicia was eating Starbursts and rubbin her hands on Keith’s chest and all. But he was like, “Better not, Kathy’s at cheer practice, and she’ll scratch your eyes out if she hears.”

The gang all hooted and called Keith a pussy or whatever, but after a while Alicia stopped and rubbed all over David instead. Then they headed out to his dad’s car, her stickin a Starburst in his mouth.

“Let’s get outta here,” I said. Just to Keith. “Got anything to smoke?”

He did. We went out the back way, even though the manager lady yelled “Employees only!” as we ran through the storeroom. She was somebody’s mom, so we dint care.

It was pretty cold for April, so I turned the collar up on my jacket. We hid behind the dumpster and Keith let me roll. Canadian style. You know what that means?

I broke open a cigaret and sprinkled tobacco on the rollie paper. Then I crumbled Keith’s bud up into it and rolled a fat cone. They think that’s stupid here. In Manhattan. But up there? That’s just how we did it. Kids probably still do.

Did I say it was cold? Yeah, windy too. Fucker wouldn’t light cuz the match kept going out. All I could smell was like sulphur and garbage from that dumpster.

So Keith opened his coat and I put my head inside the tent he made with it and tried again. Then I smelled him too, and shit … I popped one right there. You know? Just smelling how good he smelled.

He knew it too and when I lit the jay, he kinda smiled at me the way he did and then we stayed real close as we passed it back and forth.

“Shotgun?” he said.

We got so close the breath from his nose tickled that little dip over my upper lip. I opened up and breathed in hot breath and hot smoke right from his lungs and we just passed that smoke back and forth and then his lips were on mine and he was suckin in and my tongue was fighting with his tongue and his arms went around me and then, oh shit, my fingers were on his zipper and grabbin inside and he was letting me, and then the world exploded.

“Fuckin faggots!!”

“Get your hand off his dick, perv!”

“Fuck, this some sick fuckin shit!”

I don’t know who broke my tooth. Mighta been Keith. A long time after, once I come home from the City, somebody told me David hit me first. I dunno. They dint like beat the shit of me or nuthin. Dint care enough. Just slapped me around. Hit me a couple times and took off.

Ripped the fuck outta my jeans, though, which I figured was gonna piss Mom off.

Wanna hear what she really said?

So I opened the kitchen door and just walked in like nuthin was wrong. She was on the phone, smokin a Newport in her robe, stirrin something on the stove that smelled like onions and gravy.

I walked right past and went down the hall to the bathroom to wash my face or whatever. Dint know who she was talkin to but I was glad, cuz it meant she was too busy to look at me.

Boy, was I wrong.

“Broderick David Jones! You worthless skid stain! Get that faggot ass in this kitchen. Now!”

I don’t wanna say the rest. Some things are private, even if this maybe is my last chance to tell my story.

She prolly dint mean most of it. Not all of it, anyway. She was just pissed cuz she had to hear about it from Angie, this woman she worked servin drinks with up to the Indian casino.

Only she made me so mad I said something I shouldn’t.

She was just screamin on me so much, and calling me a cock sucker and all, and even if she was drunk she was still my mom and she shouldn’t a said that.

Her makeup was runnin and she was maybe cryin but it was weird cuz it sounded like she hated me so what did she have to cry about?

So, OK. I said it. I said, “Maybe I like to suck dick, maybe I don’t. But at least if I do it, it ain’t cuz somebody’s payin me, unlike somebody else I could name in this family.”

I ran out the door before she could throw the stew at me.

I heard it hit the wall as I ran down the drive.

OK, you can turn the tape recorder off. That’s all I wanna tell you right this. That’s the hardest part maybe. That why I’m here instead of Castleton. That’s why I started workin at Uncle Charlie’s before I turned 18. That’s why I joined Act Up.

That’s why I’m in this fuckin hospice bed and the nuns won’t let me smoke a joint.

I got some pretty hard stuff comin’ up, but the part where your mom throws you out of the house? I dunno man.

I need a drink really bad. Did ya bring that vodka I asked for?

Author’s note:

Thanks to Fred Shirley for encouraging me to tell Brad’s story. I’ve written bits and pieces about his life before, but he deserves to be remembered more fully.

Brad was an Act Up hero. He was my best friend and occasional lover a very long time ago.

This story is true as best as I can remember him telling it, though I’m fictionalizing the dialogue and some minor details. There was no tape recorder, for which lack I could kick myself. Why did I never think of that?

I’ve spent many hours walking the faded streets of Castleton-on-Hudson, gazing up at that old bridge, buying slurpees at that rathole of a 7 Eleven, trying to remember Brad the way he used to be. Before he landed in that hospice.

The nuns were wonderful, by the way. And they sometimes looked the other way if Brad needed a drink or a toke really bad. After all, it’s not like he was going to recover.

Click the link below for Part Two. I expect a total of about 6 parts, but I’m writing them to be read independently. You can read them in order, mix them up, or just read a couple. Whatever works best for you.

James Finn is a long-time HIV/LGBTQ activist, an alumnus of Act Up NYC, an essayist occasionally published in queer news outlets, and an “agented” novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].