It was never my intention to offend anybody with my review of Hine’s Puerilities; but as I ventured into the minefield of erotic preference, I had a prescience I would be blown up, and so I have been.
The only comment I wish to reply to in the Lambda Caucus’s critique is their singling out of the phrase “—medical apart—”, and not to blame them but, I hope, to soften their hearts towards me. It is only after their harshness that I recognized the motive for this my qualification, which lay just a little down in my subconscious.
I had a friend—-with whom I went to high school, to college, studied Greek, hashed over literature, politics, life, the universe, and everything, got drunk with and high with. I esteemed him, looked up to him, and loved him. He was extraordinarily tolerant of my failings. When I visited him at his home, we slept most chastely in the same bed, after we talked about lovely Greeks. I am not lovely-looking.
Martin Gerard Koloski, Jr. 22.12.1956-16.9.1987. ἀνὴρ μουσικώτατος.
In early 1987 I received with alarm the news that Marty had AIDS. I went to see him in San Francisco, knowing that it would be the last time we would meet. Marty wanted to be left alone as he journeyed to death. I troubled him as little as possible with my anxiety. His death, and the death of his most humane and charming partner, John Kulkielka, soon after, devastated me. Death whisked them away in no time.
After this—-will I be taken for a hypocrite if I say “some of my best friends are gays”?—-I, as a boring old breeder, have been always anxious for the homosexual males whom I love. Maybe you’ll call me an old hen. I just don’t want to see more death.