Free Remembering Brad: On the Loss of a Son to AIDS by Wayne Schow; Brad Schow

there are understanding relatives on the dead one’s side, kiss it all goodbye or be prepared to drag your lifestyle into the courts.
    Most straights will find it hard to accept you if you come out. You will not be able to be affectionate in public as straights are. Your relationship will always have to be hidden from most of the world. It will not enjoy the reinforcement that society offers a heterosexual relationship. To come out will change your dealings with even understanding colleagues, family members, and friends. It can’t help but do so.
    You must always hide and live a lie. This can cause anxiety, severe depression, neurosis, etc. No wonder gay couples have a hard time staying together for any length of time. So to live, love, and be happy being gay is a long, difficult haul. It’s after realizing all of that that I think, I plead: “Why should it matter? Why are people so blindly afraid?” It is in that blindness that I see the greater sin.
    NOVEMBER 30, 1978: Kurt, Michelle, and I went out to dinner tonight at the Spaghetti Mill, the first time we’ve done anything together since Barbara left. An interesting thing happened while we were there. We were sitting eating, and I was telling them about “Swept Away,” which I had seen at the SUB [Student Union Building] last night. As we were talking, I noticed a guy who looked near our age, blonde, a little heavier than me, being seated by the waitress at a table near us. He was alone. We went on with our conversation. After a few minutes we heard a voice asking what movie we were speaking of. It startled us, and on looking around I saw that it was this guy seated at his table. I laughed and told him the title. He said he hadn’t seen it. I told him it was foreign and had played at the university last night. Then I turned around and resumed talking with Michelle and Kurt.
    Five minutes later we were talking about a Steve Martin comedy special we’d seen on TV. Once again from the other table comes a voice saying, “I saw that show.” Looking around, almost embarrassed for him, we all stared at the guy. After all, one doesn’t usually interrupt another party’s conversation in a restaurant. He seemed to recognize this and said something about our conversation being all he could listen to. I felt a little sorry for him, he seemed like a nice guy. I didn’t know what the others would think but on an impulse I invited him to come and eat with us. Everyone seemed to relax more. Suddenly it was like we were old friends, well not quite, but it was comfortable. His name was Alan. I was impressed by his firm handshake. He was well mannered.
    He told us that he was from San Francisco and that he worked for an electronics company that makes detection systems for libraries. He was up here installing one in the public library. We talked about school, about big cities, about his work, his traveling all over, about backwoods Pocatello (ha), about entertainers. It was all very pleasant.
    A funny and embarrassing thing happened. The last time we ate at the Spaghetti Mill I was chewing gum, and when the meal came I didn’t know what to do with it. Didn’t want to put it in the ash tray where everyone would have to look at it, nor in my cloth napkin, nor on the bottom of my chair. I made a joke about putting it in the water pitcher and we all laughed. But I put it in my own water glass where it was less conspicuous and didn’t bother me or anyone. Tonight the same thing happened and we laughed and again I put it in my water glass. But this was before Alan came. During the meal I was taking a drink, and he got a funny look on his face and said, “Hey, there’s a dark thing floating in your glass.” Oh, brother! How embarrassing. It was so funny trying to explain what it was and how it got there. We were laughing so hard, he must have thought us very strange and terribly unsophisticated. But he laughed too.
    There were several things that led me to believe that he might