Well, folks, this is my second movie (at an actual theater) in Dayton and as it so happens both films were set primarily in SF and both were about gay men dying. Picking up a theme?
Anyway, I hadn’t thought much about it before hand. Got through the whole film, until the final scenes where Pedro is in his final hours of life, and then the blindside hit me.
All of a sudden, it was August 8, 1991. I was laying in my dear friend Wayne’s bed. He was in a hospital bed between his regular bed and his walk in closet in the apt we shared at 878 Dolores Street. My arm was stretched through the side railing, resting across his abdomen. I was exhausted after months of working full-time and being his primary care giver, along with the day nurse that was with him while I was at work. He suffered night sweats really bad. It was not uncommon for me to change his sheets anywhere from 1 to 3 times a night.
I feel asleep just before 1 am, with my arm across him, I just lightly dozed off. He was wearing his rose pink short sleeve t-shirt, it was one of those very heavy cotton types with the external stitching in a matching thread and a line of stitching across the chest. It was one of his favorite shirts. He was also wearing his grey sweat pants, and a pair of white sport socks.
I got a call at work earlier that day, my co-worker, Mari, suggested I take it in her office. His nurse was on the line.
He had turned, she said. You should come home right away.
I had already known the day was rapidly approaching. The nurse had alerted the receptionist when she called. All of my co-workers knew that Wayne’s life was coming to a close. I remember Mari or Bonnie offering to drive me home that day. I declined. I don’t remember anything about that evening.
I do remember waking up when his body shook slightly as he exhaled his last breath. I was a little annoyed with him, but it was just like him. He waited. Just like he waited for his birthday. Back in May of that year, Dr. Mass gave him a month to live and told him that it was the last time he would see him. Dr. Mass was going on vacation for a month, and expected Wayne to pass while he was gone. Well, Wayne’s 37th birthday was August 3. He apparently decided to wait for it. Just like he waited for me to doze off, I am certain he did not want me to watch him die.
All these 17 years later, sitting in that movie theater, I could feel his body tremble in his final moments. I could see him in that bed. I closed his eye lids over those magnificent blue eyes. I could still hear the wheels of the coroner’s gurney as they hit step after step while taking his body out of the building. I could still hear that silence that is larger than the universe as I sat in our apartment, alone. Just me and our two cats; Skippy and Jenny. I sat in that theater and sobbed. Images of dad’s last moments mingled in with those of Wayne’s. They were two of my 3 best guys. Dale, the third, died without me.
If Wayne had not had AIDS, we would have had one or two kids, the oldest would be about 18 or 19. But, he was sick and any thoughts of him transferring his little swimmers to me in a holiday baster were discarded. We’d joke about taking someone’s adorable child. We’d make plans. One of us would knock into the kid’s parent, the other would grab the kid and run like hell. We were joking, of course.
Life expectancy for people with AIDS was a few short years back then. He wanted kids as much as I did, and we were very close friends. Co-parenting was a distinct possibility for us, except for his disease.
I finally collected myself and we left the movie theater. I thought I was fine, but on the drive home, my mind was playing a reel from the late 80’s and early 90’s.
It was the Castro. The men in wheelchairs, the men with canes, the KS lesions, the sunken faces, the slow death, everywhere. Inescapable. I remembered my friend Becky. We had been co-workers and ended up living in the same building on 14th at Church and Market. One day, before I had moved in with Wayne, she relayed a conversation she had with her mother. Her mom had remarked that our generation was lucky. We hadn’t had a war.
Becky set her straight on that. AIDS was our war and it was playing out very much on the home front, not in some distant land. Becky was right, that is what it was like. A war. Soldiers falling by the scores daily.
I made it home from the theater, and went to the file cabinet searching for a yellow inter-office envelope. Below the 5 or 6 lines of people’s scratched out names, was my handwriting “Copies of Wayne’s Legal Documents.” That envelope was closed up with that little string closure for 17 years. It moved 10 times in 17 years.
Tonight I unwrapped that little string and cautiously removed the contents, unable to recall what all it held. The papers from the Neptune Society crematorium. Wayne was cremated, and his ashes scattered at Bonita Cove in the SF Bay. His closest friends were present, along with his brother Randy, his wife and their son. We were on the yacht, the Naiad. Everyone that wanted to took turns at scattering some of his ashes. As we slowly set sail back toward the city, we tossed flowers in the bay. It was the absolutely most beautiful and moving service I have ever experienced.
I want to be scattered in that bay and from the Naiad, if she is still sailing. I was down at Pier 39 just over a year ago and she was still occupying her berth there. May I be so lucky. Well, part of me wants to be scattered on a hike, maybe the Berry Falls trail down near Santa Cruz… yes, it is illegal… but ridiculous laws are ripe for breaking.
I also found many copies of his death certificate, his will naming me as executor and sole beneficiary of his meager possessions. The power of attorney, physicians directive, probate forms, the bill for the cremation and yacht funeral, grand total in 1991 of less than $1200. Letters from Dr. Mass stating he was terminally ill, his SS card still unsigned, his original birth certificate, a photo of him at the CopyMat store where we both worked, and where I first met him, the plastic insert from his wallet with his drivers license, a picture of us in Muir Woods and another one of us, at the um, the Folsom Street Fair, a picture of our two cats, his brother, Randy and Randy’s wife, his nephew, Ed from Phoenix, Wayne and Ed and a picture of a guy he had dated and whose name I cannot recall.
Also inside was A Hobbitt’s Journal. A journal he had from 1979 when he was in the military and trying very hard to become straight. The journal was mostly things written by other guys in the service, but a few were things he wrote about Barb, his girlfriend. He told me that he later found out she was gay too. Big shock there.
It occurred to me that his brother Randy might want a few of these things. His other brother, Wilbert Jr. could never wrap his head around his little brother being a fag, and so they were not in touch and he did not come to Wayne’s services.
Anyway, now I am looking for Randy. At least I have an address from 17 years ago and his parent’s names. Maybe I will find him, and maybe he will want his brother’s birth and death certificates and some other odd papers. I’ll keep his DL, and most of the photos, since I know the folks.
So, as with transitions, they never seem to end.
This morning my mom called to tell me her sister’s husband died this morning. For the family reading this, it was Lige’s (Liza’s) husband Elmer. I cannot recall if I actually know Elmer. I think I met him. He was husband 3, or maybe 4. I remember her first husband who was around when I was a kid, and I remember the second one, Andy Shelton.
Anyway, apparently the viewing is Sunday, and the funeral on Monday in La Follette or Jacksboro TN. Mom and I are headed down there on Saturday morning and will either return on Sunday night or Monday afternoon. We are not staying for the funeral. Mom’s isn’t up to that, and I can’t say I can blame her. The viewing will be hard enough on her.
So, the transitions just continue, as life marches on.
Here is that photo of me and Wayne Miller at the 1989 Folsom Street Fair:
In his death, he gave me the gift of life.
If you are not already living your life for no regrets, please start immediately.
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