Plans for a Project

Bo Huston

April 1988—San Francisco, California

What follows are transcripts of interviews made sometime in the summer and autumn of 1983. I was so much younger then. I was sad, lonely, optimistic, radical (but a little too cautious to be radical). I took all the drugs that came my way, fucked with all the men who came my way … laughed a lot, but that was becoming a struggle. I was full of love but so frightened of that, distant. And I wore all black, with dark glasses at night.

So, my friend Robbie was diagnosed with AIDS; he lasted about a year and died. I gave myself exactly one hour to recover from the shock, to grieve. I took a walk through SoHo on that sunny day, got an ice cream cone, phoned my dealer. By this time in my life, I had learned to operate on dope time and dope thoughts; I was a junkie and I continued to use heroin and other drugs for another year. I had perceived that there were certain things promised to me—that my incalculable and unique talent as a writer, that my genius would be discovered and given its due recognition; also, I’d have a really cool boyfriend. These and other expectations of youth, it seems, were impossible for me to let go of, and I had no resources to cope with the disappointments. I sunk deeper into addiction to drugs, into despair and resentment. During my brief time with Robbie, things were reaching the lowest point.

Robbie and I had been making tape recordings of our conversations, part of some elaborate plans for a project, which sickness and pain left incomplete. I eventually did write an article (too lengthy) which included the conversations and much eloquent editorializing—oh, death and life, bitter philosophy, the wisdom of twenty-four years. Any writer will know the pain of seeing his own immaturity and grandiosity in black and white, and I know it now; but I’m amused, too, filled with a sweet affection for myself and my friend.

What I have included here is our discourse, trying not to apologize or explain. Much of what I wrote afterwards, to give context and meaning, was uneven, lacked clarity, was not honest. People can only tell as much of the truth as they know, and are willing to tell. I stood far away from the reality of what Robbie and I had been through, together and separately, and of what I had yet to experience. Re-reading it all, I am able to forgive myself for my own need to deny and hide; however, in the spirit of keeping things simple, I’ve edited much of myself out.

Nothing that follows should be taken as any kind of prescription. The two people whose words of delusion, cynicism, quiet hope, and humor are presented here did not cope well with their respective situations. My priorities were profoundly unspiritual and generally self-serving: the drugs, the boyfriends, the lies. Robbie died sad, confused, stoned, and I continued on, sad, confused, stoned.

So, these pages I offer in that grand tradition of writer-egotism that moves someone to publish their own diaries: they are distinctly personal. I look them over and see how far I’ve come, what I have learned, how truly cheated some people are and that I don’t want that fate … and I see through these lines of fear, a curious energy; something of me, something of him, something of that time in my life and in America, which I know is gone forever now.

I had little to give this friend of mine (or myself); and I’ve so much more now. I see love in these pages, but frustrated, short, cold. I have come to know a brighter, richer life, a bit of clarity that comes with leaving behind drugs and old ideas and self-loathing. And another few years have passed … I care about different things now. These recordings are like yellowing, scratched old photos found in the attic: how dated, how naive, maybe even pointless. But, what a shame to leave them in the trunk, forgotten. They prove that we were there.

In all of our lives there are profound moments and people; for whatever it is worth, here are some of mine.

In July of 1983 they showed The Boys in the Band on television. The night was warm. I was sitting on the windowsill of the Mott Street apartment, Robbie was on the floor. We talked all through the movie, and kept the tape recorder on.

R: God, I don’t remember anything about this movie.

B: They show this every summer.

R: I don’t think I’ve seen it since it first came out.

B: See that guy? He’s married to Lucie Arnaz now.

R: The real queeny one?

B: No. Him. The jock one, with the pipe. And the guy who directed this movie also directed The Exorcist. And Cruising.

R: Cruising? I saw that. That was just a dumb movie.

B: Well, this one has some very funny lines, but it gets on your nerves, too. Have you ever seen a good image of someone gay in a movie?

R: Yes. Outrageous.

B: No. That wasn’t a good image. That was an image that managed to elicit sympathy from the audience, for the fag. That doesn’t make it good. I’ve never seen a good one, with the exception perhaps of that terrible thing Kate Jackson was in. I mean, that faggot was a doctor at Sloan-Ketting!

[We both laugh, and pause to watch the obsolete rants and raves of tormented homos.]

R: Well, alright, the other movie I was going to say was The Consequence, which shows how society really fucks over gay people.

B: But that is not the essence of being gay …

R: Oh, Bo. It’s a fact. It’s the truth.

B: Okay.

R: Where are they supposed to be, anyway?

B: They’re in that one’s apartment, the one with the sweaters. A birthday party for Harold.

R: No, but where? The Village? The Upper East Side?

B: Well, it must be one of those, right?

R: Back in the sixties there was this doctor you could get shots from. Everyone went to him, like politicians, rich people. He was a real doctor, though. What he would give you was B-12, B-complex, and methedrine, like a vitamin shot with dope in it. And people would go, these people …this was before anyone really understood about drugs. Nobody knew what they did, really. And speed, like all those Warhol people. Did you see Ciao! Manhattan? Bridget Polk? There’s this scene where she fills up her syringe and says, “I love speed,” and she’s jamming the needle into her saying: “Polk, Polk, Polk, Polk”—it’s hysterical. And everybody went to this doctor, like I even think Jackie Onassis, but I don’t know the details. Everybody did this. They didn’t know that speed kills. [Laughs]

B: And you did it?

R: Not all the time, God. I was just this poor little hippie. And this was before I went to California and found out about Medi-Cal, where the government would pay for your drugs. They sent me a card every month with a sticker on it; the doctor gets a sticker, the pharmacy gets a sticker. But that wasn’t speed. That was for barbiturates. Now, Valium gets me so spaced I can’t believe it. But I found out Valium works on fat tissue. I didn’t know that. So, the more you weigh, the more it’s absorbed. That’s why my doctor gives me fives. Because, let’s see … I weigh one-twenty-five …

B: You only weigh one-twenty-five? How tall are you?

R: Six-three. My normal weight is only one-forty, fifty, one-fifty-five, tops. That’s why it was weird when I saw myself on television. God, that was at least a twenty-pound weight difference. It’s weird to me. Because even before I got sick I thought I was too skinny.

…

R: I was sixteen when I came up here from Alabama. And it was just, oh, love, and peace and flower power and I loved everybody. And I did not know anything about anything. And all these other kids had already been out on the streets, strung out. I hitchhiked up here with these two guys, who just kind of dumped me at this runaway house. And the place was going through this transition period where they were thinking, well, let’s just see what happens if we have this group of kids living here who can do whatever they want. Part of it was a temporary shelter, and part of it was going to be where the kids lived. I was one of the last kids to get in. These people just looked at me and knew I’d be slaughtered on the streets. I was totally naive. “I just love everybody …” I mean, really like that; it’s hard to imagine. So, I ended up getting to live in this house. It was protected by Judson Church, which kept the cops from busting it. But there were cops there all the time anyway.

B: And you actually had run away from home? Your parents had no idea where you were?

R: Oh, definitely. But part of the deal with the runaway house was you had to have your parents’ permission to stay there; you had to be semi-legal. So, they would say: what religion are your parents? And at that time my father was Baptist and my mother was Methodist, and I had gone to a Methodist church, so I said Methodist. And they called my parents and said: we’re this Methodist-Church-Home-Thing, and your kid’s here and he has a lot of problems. And you can have him back, but we think he’ll just run away again, so it’s really better if he stays here. And my parents didn’t know how to deal with me at this point, so … I was pretty much living up here as an emancipated minor.

B: What year was this?

R: Sixty-seven.

B: [Distracted momentarily by The Boys in the Band] Did you catch that? “Give me Librium or give me meth?”

R: Oh, you can’t miss that line. Anyway, the runaway house was the first time I’d ever tried to deal with my sexuality. I was desperately in love with this girl that was living there, but I was also in love with this Colombian guy.

B: Did you ever try hustling when you were that young?

R: No, because I didn’t understand what that was all about. I probably would have. I was always getting picked up by these older guys, but I always assumed it was real affection. Looking back on it, it’s really funny, because they all expected me to expect something back. But I didn’t know that. So I was always confused. But it turned out, after living with these people so long in this house, they were all gay. And this was before this movie, even. And I couldn’t figure out how I could be this hippie, taking acid, living the lifestyle I was living … not being a hairdresser, or liking French poodles, or being into pink, you know? Anyway, several years later, I stopped living there. I traveled around, went to California, and then I came back to New York. To officially come out. I’d been mostly in L.A., and hitchhiking, and I’d get picked up by guys who wanted to fool around. Older guys. When I came back here, I made this decision, to come out. That’s what we did back then. But I hadn’t known anything about that. I mean, as cool as everyone was with free love and blasé, blasé, bullshit, sex, liberation … still, nobody ever talked about anything. And I didn’t find out the story for years. I’d been staying Uptown with one of these guys who worked at the house. A lawyer, very handsome man. Incredibly brilliant. And I would talk to him [laughing] about how I had this problem, how I couldn’t figure out my sexuality. Oh, and he had a boyfriend living in the apartment, and I still didn’t understand what was going on.

B: God, I had a lawyer who had a boyfriend. Was his name Jim?

R: No, honey, and this was practically before you were born. I was just stupid. But we did end up sleeping together. And that was the beginning of my coming out. But it took me until I went through my drag queen days …

B: Oh, you didn’t tell me you were a drag queen.

R: Bo, I know I’ve told you a hundred times. I was one of the Cockettes. It was this theatre group. We were really, really famous for a while, all over the world. They were from San Francisco, but I met them when they were in New York. The New York Times called them: “Theatre in Drag,” and they got terrible reviews; but they just didn’t understand it was just … well, a bunch of people on acid, basically. Integrating their lives and the stage. So, I met them here and went back to San Francisco with them and was a drag queen, a Cockette.

B: Singing, or what?

R: Well, basically, chorus parts. Every once in a while, I’d get something good.

…

R: So, Bo, you think we’ve made a lot of progress?

B: Not really, no. I think that gay liberation is a false notion; because of our history; because we’re talking about a group of people who are at once unliberatable and … already free. I mean, you were talking about that film Pink Triangles. Okay. Oppression of homosexuals was no more or less of an outrage—actually, it was not an outrage at all—than oppression of any other group. Homosexuality was a moral issue. It still is.

R: It was all just fascism, then, is what you’re saying.

B: Yes. I’m only saying that nothing, including the rights and, let’s say, the humanity of gay people, will be accepted entirely until it can be, by a culture. Which is why the liberation of gays is a vulnerable concept. And, yes, faggots are expendable.

R: Right. And with the AIDS thing, it can go either way when the numbers start rolling in.

B: Why? You think there are many more cases than are being reported?

R: Yes, like the Center for Disease Control, in Atlanta; the numbers they’re releasing about AIDS include the people who’ve had the pneumonia or the cancer, or one other of the opportunistic diseases.

B: So, in other words, right now you’re not on their list.

R: No, and tens of thousands of people in the country are existing in this state, which they call pre-clinical, or pro-drome. All of their symptoms are part of the syndrome of AIDS, but they haven’t had the pneumonia or Kaposi sarcoma. Yet. But, then, basically, the point is it’s just a matter of time before that develops. And that means what? Six months? A year? There’s a guy in my therapy group who was diagnosed three years ago. And there’s one who’s already gone through the pneumonia and, at least temporarily, he’s recovered. But they say the pneumonia is the worst because once you have that then it’s likely you’ll get it again, which just leaves you open to infections. Henry had the pneumonia first, I think. Then he had a tumor. And you know they operated and removed it and said he was going to be fine, said he’d be out in a week, and just before he was supposed to get out, there’s this other tumor. It was in a place they couldn’t get to.

B: Well, are you having X-rays? Tests?

R: Yes, frequently. Basically, they’re keeping track of my blood.

B: Looking for what?

R: Oh, Bo, I’m not really sure. Blood counts, platelets, my white blood cells.

B: What’s platelets?

R: I don’t know … something in your blood. So much of this is so technical.

B: Let me ask you something. Did you have a million diseases—amoebas and everything?

R: No. When I was a kid I’d get clap a lot, like, I don’t know, maybe I had it eight or ten times. But this was in the sixties and I was living in this commune and everyone slept with everyone, and if one person got the clap, we all did. Right? That’s just how it was. I’ve had several syphilis scares, but I only remember one time that was positive. I went to the Gay Men’s Health Center once, and the guy looked at it … I mean, obviously something weird was going on with my cock. So it took a month, and then they said: Herpes. In the meantime, I was sure my fucking dick was going to fall off. It was horrible. I got really, really sick. So then it took me another month to get rid of it. That was two and a half years ago, and I’ve never had it again. I know a lot of people have to deal with herpes every month. And, I’ve had hepatitis three times.

B: I thought you said no, you didn’t get a lot of diseases. That sounds like a lot to me. What did they do for the hepatitis, by the way?

R: Nothing.

…

R: One problem is that gay men have never had a very good relationship with the medical community—well, gay women either, probably, but I’m not sure. So a lot of gay men are just not used to going to a doctor. They won’t go until they’re actually dying. But I think now it’s changing and … not everybody, but lots of people are more conscious of their health, what they’re doing to their bodies.

B: Yes and no. I don’t feel more conscious of my health because of AIDS. But I’ve always had this dramatic dialogue with myself about the way I abuse myself versus the way I’m really happiest. I know I’m really happiest when I’m facing things straight on, running around town, energy, you know, eating well, able to deal with people, drug-free. The only drug that doesn’t interfere with that is pot. Unless it’s destroying brain cells or something. [Robbie laughs.] Pot just makes me happy. Coke makes me want to jump out a window. Or do more coke, of course. Coke is no longer chic. Alcohol, well, you know I can’t drink. Unless you’re having fun, you’re just passing out.

R: Well, you have no tolerance whatsoever. How do you feel about dope?

B: Dope I’m scared to death of. [Robbie laughs.] You can’t beat the feeling, that’s for sure. But I don’t want to be just another junkie. It’s the worst.

R: No, alcohol is the worst.

B: Look, Robbie, I have enough problems. Last night I had to call a friend to help me finish this gram of coke so it wouldn’t be around today.

R: Oh? Where was I?

[We both laugh.]

R: But I’m starting to realize—not having a lover makes this very, very lonely. I mean, even though my friends, people that I feel so close to, people that I do love … it’s just not the same thing.

B: Yes. I think about that. But maybe you’d be lonely even if you did have a lover. Dealing with your own body, your life; it’s a private thing. You are alone.

R: Well, that’s right. That’s the other side of things. And maybe it’s good, so another person won’t go through and have to watch these things. Like, I watched what Todd had to go through with Henry. And believe me, I know it’s just as hard for the people around you as for the person that has AIDS, or any other disease. [Pause.] I want to be in love.

B: But I want to be in love, too, and, presumably, I’m healthy.

R: I have got to get hold of this book, How to Have Sex in an Epidemic. It’s supposed to be great. This guy, Michael Callen, and What’s-His-Name Berkowitz, and they’re from People with AIDS. Basically, it covers the whole gamut: fucking, sucking, rimming, everything.

B: Hey, let’s have tea. Do you have a stove here?

R: I have a hot plate. And I have a toaster oven. Jeff gave me that toaster oven. I have a blender. This space is really alright when it’s cleaned up. It’s cute, actually. I keep forgetting to buy lightbulbs, though.

…

R: Back to our conversation about pharmaceutical controls, and people having a right to choose what they want to do with their bodies … like people who want to be junkies. Well, that’s maybe not the best thing, most of the time, but you have a right to choose that. Of course, how many people do we know, if that’s what they decide to do, can get together forty or fifty dollars a day to cop?

[We are back at my place on Mott Street, Robbie cross-legged on the floor, and I am perched once again on the windowsill.]

B: That’s a pretty naive view of it. People don’t decide they want to get involved with dope until they do. It isn’t a choice. And then, yes, the whole thing becomes an economic issue.

R: Well, exactly, because it’s the government controlling the traffic. After Vietnam, there is no doubt about that at all. Public information: the CIA was behind all the drugs. I mean, forget the Mafia. The government did a lot of drug experimenting, in the fifties, giving acid to people and everything. It just went haywire. That’s why, with the AIDS thing, I’m certainly not dismissing that as a possibility.

B: [skeptical] That the government created AIDS?

R: Yeah, experimenting on people. I don’t think that’s paranoid or extremist. People that, obviously, who cares? Right? Junkies, faggots, and niggers …

B: Junkies, faggots, niggers. The expendables.

R: And, unfortunately, hemophiliacs got in the way.

B: Well, what about Long Island grandmothers?

R: Well, that was bullshit. It was just not true. She didn’t have AIDS. They jumped to the conclusion …The hospital said it was a possibility. And they say these medical workers hadn’t had any contact with AIDS patients, but nobody mentions they might have been gay or addicts to begin with.

[There is a long pause while Robbie lights a joint to calm down and I ponder these opinions and facts, which are, for me, new.]

R: See, I really feel most faggots’ complaint is that they don’t want to deal with tragedy.

[We both laugh.]

“Drugs, paranoia, tape recorders, gay bars, politics, sex, laughter, love, French toast, and a queer kind of wisdom, God … rising, rising, meeting, disappearing, and ending in death.”

March, 1984—Rhinecliff, New York

James Stewart’s Technicolor blue eyes and orange skin show terror, and quickly he brings the ominous black binoculars to his starry sockets, to survey the comings and goings of a murderous neighbor—Raymond Burr, who waddles suspiciously in the rainy Greenwich Village night, carrying a suitcaseful of wife for uncouth disposal—from his Rear Window view. Unraveling the mystery, and apart from it.

I am back now in Rhinecliff after three hectic city weeks. Having just driven back from the movie, I keep watch through my own window, contented with weathered rooftops, patches of snow, the settled river reflecting sunset.

I have moved out of the 49th Street apartment. Indeed, I am overwhelmed, and weak, too weak to watch Robbie as an infant: helpless, unaware, so vulnerable; but, more significant, I am not of much use there. I feel angry most of the time. I am angry at his doctor, his other friends, and of course I feel that more abstract, feckless frustration toward the disease itself. And I am angry at Robbie for the choices has had made … angry at the hole he’s in, because I feel I’m in it too. Spring is here, and I want this ordeal to end—I want, I want—back to The Bar, Robbie to be up and dressed and hailing a taxi …

Today my phone is being installed. (The phone man is not exactly what I had hoped for.) My first call will be to Robbie.

R: Well, when it first started happening, the seriousness of it, I just didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be. I just thought, oh, well …

B: Another thing to deal with …

R: Right.

B: Having AIDS has changed everything, hasn’t it?

R: Sure. And for a while I was looking at the changes as positive, you know, because they were changes I wanted to make anyhow. I was bored with nightclubbing—fucking around for the last couple of years—I wanted to be changing my lifestyle. I didn’t want to be drinking all the time, or strung out on coke. I wanted more from my relationships with people than these, you know, one-night stands. So, I kept feeling sick, and they didn’t know what I had. Finally, I saw this TV program where they said people with AIDS have thrush … uh, like a fungus, a white fungus, in your mouth, your throat. I went to my mirror. I had this shit in my mouth! I told the doctors.

B: And the media had told you.

R: Right.

It is a gloomy day, but we can hardly tell as Robbie’s apartment on 11th Street has no windows. Joints smoked, dark glasses on, we proceed across town to Boots & Saddle; once there, we are immediately bored; there is no sweet, nostalgia inspiration, just a bunch of sweating, mustachioed, bald men in a dark bar, mid-afternoon; if anything, a good friend, Kenny, comes to mind, noticeably absent, having fled for his guru on a farm near Philadelphia after his lover, Vincent, died. At these moments, the grandness of gay life in New York City—both as I’ve experienced it and in legend—struggle tearfully with what is actual for me now. In this or that bar, I wonder, is today so gay?

R: So when they definitely said: okay, you have AIDS, I thought, well, now I have no choice about making changes that I need to make. Because I’ve always had this self-destructive element in my personality, going through all the years of being completely strung out on alcohol or barbiturates. And I’ve had fantasies about getting cancer. But in my fantasies, it was always like Camille, right? A romantic aspect to it, a certain martyr aspect. But never thinking about just being sick all the time. That’s becoming real to me. You know, the question, what is gonna happen? Am I just going to be sick like this for years? That’s not exactly something to look forward to. I’m going to have to seriously start thinking about my other options.

Like Pooh and Piglet, then, we wander away … off to another bar … considering Robbie’s options.

R: See, having AIDS has really made me feel like I’d like to get more politically active again. Because I think what’s happening is going to affect all gay people. There’s going to be a whole wave of prejudice like nothing we’ve ever seen. I get into these visions of concentration camps and stuff. Seriously. Maybe that’s being real paranoid. But I can’t help feeling that way. Straight people now have what they feel is a perfectly justifiable reason for hating gay people, and not feeling like they’re bigots because of it. It’s no longer a moral issue. These people are dangerous to your health now. It’s very scary to me. I think it’s real important people be aware of what’s going on. There’s this idea that if you have AIDS, you don’t have a right to a sexuality. I’m just starting to deal with this, like I say. I mean, maybe I jerk off once a month.

B: Once a month?

R: Yes. I’m detached from it. And I’m real self-conscious of my body. I’m so skinny. I mean, it’s embarrassing to me. I’m not exactly feeling at my most attractive. Even though … I am cutting back on drugs, taking vitamins, doing this protein drink every day, and stuff which is basically healthy on the one hand; if I could just gain back twenty pounds, I’d probably look the most fabulous I ever have in my whole life. Mostly, my diet is liquid. That’s why going over to Bobby and Bernie’s yesterday was really good. Brown rice and vegetables and tofu, and black beans, and a really healthy salad, you know, sprouts. If I could eat like that once every day … but I have no appetite at all. That’s why smoking pot is important, to get an appetite.

B: Thing is, Robbie, you don’t want to contribute to the disease. You don’t want to do anything that’s going to help AIDS along.

R: [laughing] Right.

B: Who eats? Nobody eats. People do drugs and stay up all weekend and never eat. Like the other night when I saw you at The Bar, I ran to the corner, wolfed down a roast beef sandwich, and came back. I hadn’t eaten or slept all weekend. People just live like that. But right now, you can’t abuse yourself. You should be, you know, having a good breakfast, eating fruits and vegetables …

R: See, you don’t understand, Bo. It’s not that simple. I have forced myself to eat, because I thought I should be eating, and it is really hard. And I’ve gone through these horrible dilemmas, realizing I had to eat something, but I wouldn’t know what I felt like, so I’d end up not eating. So, last night, it was great to go to someone else’s house, where there was a healthy meal already prepared. No decisions, it’s just there in front of you. And I ate it. But even that was an effort.

B: [after a lengthy pause] Are you at all hungry now?

R: No. Don’t worry about it.

…

R: So, when I would get fucked up, it would make it easier for me to talk to people, and easier to pick people up and have sex. Since this has all been happening, well, up until now, sex has been out of my life. So, I haven’t felt the thing about drinking. You understand? The need … I also realized I’m severely depressed about the sex thing, really. For the most part, I just don’t give it a thought, but I know I’m blocking it out. I’m just not dealing with it. I was thinking: well, it’s surprising, but I’m just not horny, I’m not into sex. Last week it came to me that that’s not true. It’s essential, you know, to be a healthy person, you have to have a sex life. I just don’t know how to go about it.

B: How you’ve always gone about it.

R: No, you can’t do that.

B: Why not?

R: Bo, I mean, for one thing, I feel obligated—whoever I’m going to sleep with—that they know I have AIDS. The minute you have to talk about it, the other person, even if they’re not too uptight … it does something weird. And also, if I am going to have sex with someone, it’s not going to include tricking. I want something more. I want … I want a relationship. One that includes sex. Like when I met Todd. For the first time in my life I said: alright, this is it. I was willing to be totally monogamous. I mean the last time I met someone I really fell in love with was 1977 or so. I mean, you know, really in love.

B: The last time I really fell in love was, oh, last night or so.

R: Well, I fell madly in love with this guy. John and I were still living together and stuff, too, but that wasn’t a monogamous relationship. We both had these side things. So, I met this guy Tony and just totally was in love with this guy. It was the first time I ever had my heart broken. We were having great sex, and he was so beautiful. Such a handsome guy. And, then, you know, he just kind of lost interest. So it had been quite a few years since I’d felt really strongly about anyone when I met Todd. Like I say, I never believed in monogamy as a healthy thing. And we saw each other a month and a half, two months, and that’s when everything started getting crazy. Henry died. I was getting sick. And then Charles came into the picture, which devastated me.

B: Really? I didn’t know about all of this.

R: Well. Now you know. Like one night Edward came in The Bar saying: “Oh, have you seen Charles?” And I said I didn’t know who he was talking about. “Oh, you know … Todd’s new boyfriend?” So, later he apologized and everything, but he had known about me and Todd. And it just felt like, well, you know, stabbed in the back. Edward said he didn’t want me to think he was a vicious person. [We both laugh.] Anyway, I hadn’t seen Todd in a month or so, like he’d come into the Riviera once but, you know, and it was the Saturday before the Gay Day parade. So, I’m sitting on this stoop with Jeff and all of a sudden Todd and Charles come by. We ended up sitting on this stoop, talking. Like an hour. And we made plans to maybe get together during the week. At this point I liked Charles, though. I thought he was really cute. A painter and everything. I could understand why Todd was involved with him. [Laughs.] I mean, he had more talent, he was cuter, he was younger. So I got over it, right? I’m not completely heartbroken anymore, right?

June 24, 1984—Rhinecliff, New York

We did have these vague plans for a project, of which these tape recordings were a part. I am grateful Robbie will never read the finished project: there would be some bitching, of course: “I wouldn’t say that …” “I don’t sound like that …” Then, too, Robbie knew me well, but how often do we ever say to a friend exactly what they mean to us?

How tempting now to write some beautiful eulogy—to explain to unknown readers that my pal was truly brave, humorous, inquisitive, the most honest person I’ve ever known, very hip, unbelievably (at least, compared to myself) tolerant, a special man and friend.

When I leave my job each day now, I no longer am pressured by errands, running across town for a prescription, calling the doctor, rushing to 49th Street; nor pressured by the hopeless task of communicating with Robbie, breaking through his intoxication and pain. There were always people at the apartment, friends bringing food and drugs and instant cures. And there sat Robbie on his bed, nodding out from barbiturates, getting thinner and weaker. What was once a two-minute chat would now take thirty—long pauses, forgetfulness. It became almost a joke among his friends.

Our last conversation was one of the most lucid in a long while. I called from my friend Charlotte’s office. I said, “Robbie, I’d like it if we could be alone sometime soon, I mean to try and find a time when the apartment is not flowing over with people, and just sit and talk.”

“I really think we should do that, Bo. I mean, things are getting crazy again now—” and by that he always meant he was feeling so sick he was certain he’d soon die, a sensation he had at several peak crisis points, an intuition which of course would one day turn out to be right—“and we need to talk about those tapes and everything. Also, make some more tapes, you know. Because there’s lots we could add to it now.” “Do you want to hear the ones we did over the summer and fall?” He did not answer. “I am going to make an appointment,” he said, determined, but so slowly. “I’m going to write it down, and you’ll come up here and it’ll just be you and me.”

One winter night, I had made French toast, following Robbie’s most particular instructions regarding crispness and color and the quantity of syrup, etc. In such situations, one does the best one can and hopes all will be well.

We sat at the kitchen table, Robbie on a pillow, for his bony butt could not tolerate a hard chair, and began with plans for our project. And then the subject was changed (by me) to one thus far untouched: God. I mused, there must be some meaningful contact we make with some meaningful force when we are about to die; do we merely gaze about our room with troubled eyes, and then expire? Robbie told me that in the hospital when they had given him only a week to live (they were wrong that time), he had begun to sense a presence (his word) in the room with him. He said this all quite awkwardly, searching for a phrase that would not ally him with those who “come upon” religion, of which he was highly critical, and concerned, I think, that I would make light of him. I was quite serious, though; and I learned about this presence’s qualities: not actually warmth or gentility, but not the opposite, either … a presence who simply hovered, indicating death, yes, but promising something, perhaps that death would be alright.

Drugs, paranoia, tape recorders, gay bars, politics, sex, laughter, love, French toast, and a queer kind of wisdom, God … rising, rising, meeting, disappearing, and ending in death, which I hope for Robbie is a lovely thing; and life, which I hope for me will be lovely, too.