Remembering....

I'm sitting here tonight watching movies on Netflix. Streaming one about Quentin Crisp right now. Which takes place in the 80s which started my journey to the trim in my own life and that brought me to thinking about my friend Dave. It's not such a leap really. A lot of the movie about Quentin Crisp had to do with the beginning of social awareness of AIDS in the 80s and my friend Dave, rest his soul, died of AIDS in the early 90s.

I met Dave at UW-Parkside. We were theatre majors and met when we were cast in some shows there. We hit it off instantly. Dave could be so funny and we had many hysterical adventures, he and I. We also had some great heart to heart talks. We could talk about anything and everything but the one thing Dave never talked about to me was the fact that he was gay.

After we graduated, we both lived in Chicago for a time. I moved there first with my best friend Scott and later Dave moved there when he was transferred to a store there that he worked for. Our adventures started again. So did our talks. And again, Dave never mentioned that he was gay.

I'm not sure why he never told me. We certainly had other gay friends so it wasn't as if he thought I would be judgmental or anything. I think I always suspected it but I never assumed and never asked.

Dave eventually moved to L.A. We kept in touch by phone and had our talks that way. Then one day he asked me to come out and visit him. Never having been to L.A. before I jumped at the chance. Dave picked me up at the air port and our west coast adventures were on! He took me to Universal Studios and Disneyland. LAND...not world. It was amazing. The week went so fast and before I knew it I was flying home.

I had been home about a day and Dave called me. We talked about this and that and then he said, "I have to tell you something. I have AIDS." Just like that. I don't really remember what I said to him at that point but i know I didn't say much. When we hung up I fell apart. I cried. I sobbed. Then I called him back. He said, "I thought you took that rather well." I laughed and then yelled at him for ten minutes about how he should have told me when I was there! Then we both cried and he let me know that it was full blown AIDS and treatment wasn't going well. Even though my friend looked healthy when I was there, he was not. He hid it well.

A short while after, a couple of months really, Dave passed away. His mother brought his ashes back here to Kenosha so part of him could be scattered out at Pets Park where we used to go and have our talks. I miss him a lot.

Dave is one of four people I know that have died from AIDS. And even though the medications and treatments available now are so much better and people are living longer, this horrible disease raged on. So for the Dave's, the Pete's, the Mike's, and the Peter's of the world, I hope that one day we will finally know how to irradiate this killer once and for all.