Remembering Brad: On the Loss of a Son to AIDS (5 page)

Repeatedly, he tries to persuade himself that he can fall in love with a woman. Marriage and children are so important to his programming for a happy life that anything else is virtually unthinkable. As he acknowledges his desire for gay relationships, he continues to try to work out scenarios in which such a lifestyle can be reconciled morally with fatherhood. He recognizes the virtual impossibility of this but clings to its remote possibility.

How sad it seems to see him struggling to accept his gay orientation but always stymied at a deeper level because of guilt and awareness of establishment disapproval. He wrestles the matter back and forth, belaboring the same points, believing his own arguments but then in moments of self-doubt denying them. Cursed—or blessed—with a powerful libido, he could not find a satisfactory and lasting outlet for it, and sex became indeed the unceasing thorn in his flesh.

Readers will doubtless interpret his dilemma and its causes in various ways, but two things are clear. For whatever reasons there is a pronounced and genuine homosexual element in his sexuality, and he suffers profoundly as a result of his inability to overcome conflicts occasioned by his church’s and society’s powerful disapproval.

The journal entries selected here constitute only a small part of the seven books. Regrettably, I have omitted much detail relating to friends, schooling, family relations, work, leisure activities, aesthetic interests, and the hedonistic life in Los Angeles. Even in representing the major themes of the journals, I have had to be selective. As a result, one loses part of the documentary power of these manuscripts. One loses also some of the pathos of frequent iteration. Nevertheless, readers should be aware that each entry is in some way broadly representative and can therefore be multiplied. Regrettably, the gaps in his account remain, those hiatuses when the writing stopped.

Traced in the pages of his journals, Brad’s life developed along a path that was, if not inevitable, then at least, given his temperament and cultural positioning, somewhat predictable. I have often asked myself what, if he had lived longer, the remainder of his life would have been. Perhaps it might have paralleled in some ways the development of his prose in the journals. It is pleasing to observe his growth as a writer over those years. The enthusiastic scribbler of the early notebooks was gradually replaced by both a more mature stylist and a shrewder, more insightful observer of himself and others. He did this substantially on his own, without the benefit of formal writing instruction and criticism beyond college composition. The development was a result of his reading, his life experience, and his passion for expression. I like to think that his life, like his writing, would have moved beyond its turbulent apprenticeship, that he would have gradually found self-assurance and a comfortable standing place. Perhaps his evolution can benefit others who travel somewhere along a similar path of development.

* * *

[Age 16—sophomore year, high school]

JUNE 21, 1975: Tom and I went over to Kimberly’s tonight. It was pretty fun. We sat around talking and laughing for quite a long time. I think that I could really like her. An awful lot. I don’t know. I am really relaxed around her, and I can be myself. Sometimes I think that maybe she might like me. I don’t know though. I probably just imagine it, but there are times I sure hope I don’t!! The thing about it is that I don’t really want to go with anyone. I just want to find that one special girl and just become terrific good friends—but still be more than that.

JULY 19, 1975: How empty my life seems at this time, for the spirit of the Lord has left me. It is gone for reasons that I know of but of which I shall not write. It makes me feel so awful. When I try to pray there is nothing but blank!! Nothing.

JULY 27, 1975 [Excerpt from letter to a friend]: I’m really getting excited about going on a [two-year full-time proselyting] mission [for the LDS church]. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to get my call. I don’t care where I go, but I wouldn’t mind leaving the country and going to Israel or Russia or China. Those would be my preferences, in that order.

I want to teach the gospel to people who don’t have it. I want to do that so much. It’s not so much that I want to convert them to Mormonism, but rather I would like to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that sounds strange, but it makes sense to me at least. I want to do that work for the Lord. I know he would help me. I also know that it would be very hard, but that it would help me grow.

AUGUST 3, 1975: Tom and I have decided to organize a street dance. We’ve been recording good songs on tapes with his new reel-to-reel, and we’ll have to see if everybody would like to help. It would be great. Tom is such a special person to me. We do everything together. But I’m so afraid that what happened to the friendship with George will happen again. And I don’t want this friendship ever to stop. I hate to start getting close to people because if you stop being friends, you can really get hurt. I really do love him an awful lot.

Friends and friendships are deluxe things when it comes down to it. Especially when you are real close. You learn to love your closest friends just like family. And that’s how I want it to stay. I don’t think I could give up my friendships with Tom and Wendy and Kimberly for all the world. They mean too much to me.

AUGUST 12, 1975: There are so many times lately that I become confused and disoriented. Times that I suddenly can’t think straight, as though someone has taken me and shaken me upside down for an hour and all my thoughts have slipped into a jumbled mess. It isn’t a sickness or anything of that sort, but there are times when it seems as if everything rushes to my head all at once and demands to be thought about right then. But that doesn’t exactly present the clearest picture possible … .

I want to take some art classes next year at school, and I would really like to be able to draw better. I wish I could find a teacher who would get in and work with me and help me develop at it. I think I have the potential to be a fairly good artist. This is also the way I feel about the piano. I would like to start taking lessons again, from someone who could really work with me. Also, I wish I could take some writing classes at school. I wish I could do that a little better too.

* * *

[Junior year, high school]

SEPTEMBER 10, 1975: Tonight Bishop Staheli called me and said he would like to talk to me for a while. So I went to see him and he asked me to be president of the mutual program in our ward [Mutual Improvement Association for youth]. I couldn’t believe it. I haven’t been to mutual for about six months. But he said that the choice hadn’t been made quickly, that much thought had gone into it. I accepted.

I’m so excited. I can’t wait. I’m going to give it everything I’m worth. I will be in charge of everything. It is really going to be a challenge. I’m so thankful for this calling. Now I have a reason to go to mutual. Before it was so boring to me that I just quit going. I surely hope and pray the Lord will bless me and help me do this job well.

OCTOBER 13, 1975: I have just finished the
Book of Mormon
. It was wonderful…. I put the promise to the test, and it worked (you know, Moroni 10:4). I prayed twice, and I still wanted to pray more. I was so happy…. I prayed for forgiveness also of the many terrible sins that I’ve committed. And this time I
know
he forgave me. I asked that his spirit would come to me and that from this time on it would never leave me, ever! It’s left before and there would only be a great empty gap inside of me. I asked that I would be able to resist the temptations put before me by Satan and that I would never do anything again that would give the spirit cause to leave.

OCTOBER 22, 1975: Today I am filled with a joy for life. A real, true, overflowing love of life. I don’t know when I’ve felt more contented. I’ll try to explain why. Today was Dad’s birthday. Well, it started to snow just slightly early this morning. Then later on in the afternoon it began to come hurrying down as if those snowflakes were late for an appointment. Really snowing hard in other words! The radio said that it was going to freeze, so Mom decided we’d better dig up all the carrots and beets out of the garden. So when Dad got home, guess what we did? We all went out in the mud and the cold and the blizzard, and the whole family dug up carrots and beets for quite a while. It was so cold. But we were doing it as a family. (Now here is a place I can’t describe.) It struck me as being neat.

Then because Mom didn’t have time to cook a big dinner, we just had some frozen pies. I remember when we came in from the garden all cold and wet how warm the house was and how good those pies smelled baking. It was great. So we didn’t have a fancy dinner to celebrate Dad’s birthday like we usually do. And then me and Roger and Mike had to hurry and go to road show [drama] practice and mutual, so we gave Dad his two small presents which weren’t very much and sang happy birthday to him and hurried on our way. I know that this birthday was special to Dad. It wasn’t big, but it was special.

At mutual Roger and Suzanne Staheli (the bishop’s daughter and Roger’s girlfriend) and I just ran around in the snow outside the church and rolled and laughed and played. We ate the snow and threw it at each other and all of us got wet. It was dark but light the way it always is when it snows. We knocked all the snow off the trees so they wouldn’t break and made tracks and ran around. It was so much fun and we were so happy. (Here is another place that I can’t describe!) It was just the time and the place and the snow and the cold and the dark night but light sky.

And then when we came home, I was struck again by the moment. The house was so warm and inviting. Mom and Dad sat in the living room watching the news, and outside the floodlights were on and I could see all the trees just loaded down with snow and so white and pretty. You’ve probably heard about winter fairylands, well this was one. I could see the snow coming down so heavy.

Everything was so wonderful and good. My parents, the lights on in the living room, the soft murmur of the TV, the snow outside, the heavy laden trees and the inviting warmth of the house. This all took place in just a second, but to me it was wonderful. We were all so content and happy. And then when everybody was going to bed, I turned off all the lights in the house and sat in the living room on the couch with the radio playing soft music and watched the snow fall. It was falling more gently now; it was so beautiful. And again I felt the security and peace.

And now I sit here alone in my room writing this messy scribble. I can feel God’s spirit with me and about this house and know that he is watching over us. I hope that my children will some day be able to experience this happiness in much the same way. And I hope that their home and family will be as special to them as mine are to me.

APRIL 14, 1976: At times I feel so unhappy and dissatisfied with what I am, what I stand for and believe in, the things that I do, etc. I feel that my character is lacking, but when I try to pinpoint the places where this is so I find that I don’t know how to change it. It seems to get up and run away from me. Sometimes I would like so very much to be able to lie down and go to sleep, and then wake up later and be able to start again…. There are things that I have done and things that I do now that seem to hang around my neck like a heavy stone, determined to pull me down till I drown.

I think a lot about forgiveness and about repentance. I wonder if there isn’t something different to it than what the church says. It doesn’t seem to agree with me the way they put it. I think that perhaps one has to forgive oneself instead of God doing the forgiving, for I think that we can be greater critics of ourselves than he will ever be. Heavenly Father loves us, but I think that many times we don’t. Isn’t that true? Sometimes I can’t seem to forgive myself for things done a long time ago. It’s not an easy thing, I guess it wasn’t meant to be. But it can be so hard on one … . I remember the great struggles that I would have with [Satan], how it always brought me down very low to the point where I could not withstand his temptations and I gave in to him. I then classified myself as far lower than a Hindu “untouchable.” I think that this has not been exactly healthy for my state of mind. But about Satan, I don’t think he is always there prompting me. I wonder if he doesn’t let us fight our own natural desires. I think that we attribute more to him than he deserves, make him a whipping boy. Perhaps he uses depression and fear as tools to accomplish what he wants. I do think that we can be “masters of our own fate.” I believe that Heavenly Father has gotten to a point where he has mastered the most difficult problem he ever faced–himself. He, like us, chose to come to earth and had the same kinds of problems to overcome. He had sexual desires that he had to learn to control, he had a temper that had to be mastered, and so forth.

AUGUST 27, 1976: I find there is growing tension in myself about the church. I almost hate it. It’s too confining, yet I am of it. It’s too deeply set in me to be able to chuck it, though sometimes that’s what I’d like to do. But the funny thing is, sometimes I almost work to make myself not find any of it agreeable. I find myself trying to be negative about it. Silly! I suppose that would be Satan’s work. That’s another thing I’m tired of. Him! He’s always around. Why can’t I be a gentle, believing, conforming church-lover like so many of the others. Sometimes it sounds so inviting. But it goes against my whole grain. It turns my guts over.

I am disgusted with myself too, over my inability to cope with temptation, my weak will power, my selfishness, my obstinacy, etc. That’s not a very bright personal picture. I have so much self-confidence, ha ha! I wonder why I’ve turned out as I have. A mix-up.

* * *

[Senior year, high school]

AUGUST 30, 1976: Why am I so irritable? I can hardly stand to be around my family, they just get on my nerves something terrible. I want to get away from here, away from them. I know I’m acting immature. But I’m also getting tired of always worrying about that. I need to just straighten up! I need someone to shake me
good and hard
! I need to act my age. Snap to, Brad!