People were sitting very still.
They weren't mesmerized, but they were certainly interested.
"When you are diagnosed with AIDS or ARC, or you find out that you are HIV-positive, the normal question is `How long will I live?"
Remember, no one on earth knows the answer to that question, whether they have AIDS or not.
The fact that you have AIDS, that my lover Scott has AIDS, cannot be changed."
Kate felt her eyes shifting toward Scott.
Then a watch alarm went off.
"Now," James continued.
"Let us look at our goals."
He wiped his forehead with a lace handkerchief.
"We want prevention, care and cure.
But America will never be healthy as long as it exists in a state of advanced hypocrisy.
And fate has chosen us to correct this wrong."
Kate looked over at Scott again.
"This week many of you received eviction notices from Ronald Horne's development company.
This is the man who has -warehoused thousands of empty apartments while ninety thou sand people live in the subways and stairwells and public bath rooms of this city.
Now we have learned that he has purposely bought buildings with more than fifty percent gay tenants in the hope that we will drop dead and leave him with empty apartments.
He files these eviction notices anticipating that some of us will be too ill to contest.
Now let me ask you, what are we going to do to get justice?"
There was a great steamy silence when he finished, almost like subito piano in music; the quiet after a crescendo, like falling off a cliff.
Men's voices filled the room.
Some had constructive ideas.
Some just wanted to talk.
Some had bad suggestions or feeble ones like "Let's call a lawyer."
But almost everyone wanted a chance to speak.
"I say an eye for an eye," called out Cardinal Spellman, a short, bald man with a tiny mustache.
"Let's take away his house."
"I have a better idea," called out Bob.
"Let's take away his Castle."
That was the spark that united the anger and brought a relatively quiet room to life.
No one can ever be as angry when it's hopeless as they can be when there's something to be done about it.
People work for change when they think there's a chance of getting it.
Otherwise they say, "Why bother?"
Ronald Horne's Castle was the biggest, lushest, most ostentatious and expensive hotel from the Eastern Seaboard to Rodeo Drive.
And it was located right in the middle of midtown redevelopment, so the guests could have a clear view of their power and riches at work.
It was renowned, not only for its lavishness, but also for the transplanted tropical rain forest that had been re-created inside the lobby to serve as a symbolic moat with actual crocodiles.
The guests could feel like authentic aristocracy instead of the robber barons that they really were.
From the moment they checked in they were treated like royalty from the middle ages.
The motif was Early Modern Colonialism and the staff was required to dress in loincloths with chains hanging from their wrists and ankles.
The men's room didn't say Men on the door.
It said Bwana.
The bathrooms were designed to look like diamond mines with black attendants wearing lanterns and pulling paper towels out with pickaxes.
Chicken salad on rye cost twelve dollars.
"We should go now," James said.
"We're angry now, so we should go now."
"But how are we going to get cabs for three hundred?"
asked a clean-shaven young man in a black leather jacket, who looked like he had a lot of discretionary income.
"I-R-T" began as a steady chant from the back of the room.
"I think I'm going with them," Kate said.
"I haven't done anything like this since the Vietnam War."
"I'm staying here," Molly said.
"Fabian and I are going to be on phone duty in case of emergency.
Good luck.
I hope the trains aren't too delayed."
Kate started to file out the door with this huge group of guys.
It took until they got to the Astor Place station before she realized she was the only one in a suit.
Peter couldn't sleep.
Not at all.
Where was Kate?
She was getting so flamboyant about this.
It was out of hand.
There was that one night when she hadn't come home at all.
Now she was doing that again.
How could he face her the next morning sauntering in with someone else's pubic hair between her teeth?
He decided to go out for a drink.
As he clambered down the stairs Peter hoped he might run into her sneaking up.
She'd see how much she had hurt him then.
He'd pretend he had some mysterious liaison and it would be her turn to worry.
The shoe would be on the other foot then.
He even lingered a bit on the ground floor landing, giving her one last chance to catch him leaving.
Peter walked down Second Avenue past endless rows of people selling their stuff on the street.
Over the years the quality of goods had diminished.
Kate mentioned seeing some good stuff late at night on the way back from the studio, but all he saw was junk.
There were so many sellers out even at this hour, mostly standing around trying to keep warm.
The lucky ones were drinking pints of wine.
Maybe he'd find a woman at a bar who was lonely too.
Maybe he'd stumble home with whiskey on his breath and tell Kate he had been working late.
The thought almost made him cry.
But by the time he sat down at the bar with a drink in his hand, both of these scenarios seemed equally unlikely.
Not knowing what else to do now that he had actually bought the drink, he slouched over the wooden bar and looked at the TV.
"You want to buy a gold chain?"
some guy breathed down his neck.
"Fourteen-karat."
"No thanks," Peter mumbled, slumping even further.
On TV there was a man talking.
If he didn't pay close attention to the precise words Peter would have no idea of what he was trying to communicate because the man had no facial expressions and modulated all phrases with an absolutely identical -cadence.
"Who's that?"
he asked the bartender, a short Polish guy smoking Barclay's.
"Is that the president?"
"Nah," the guy said, sucking as hard as he could on the cig, trying to get more flavor than it had to give.
"That's the anchor man."
Mr. Anchor had a maudlin yellow glow over his skin, which was made of wax.
"Since when is there TV news on at one thirty in the morning?"
Peter asked, trying to establish some kind of camaraderie - I with the bartender, who kept resisting.
"It's cable, buddy.
Where have you been?
They got news twenty4our hours a day now.
They got a whole station that plays nothing but sports and one only for stocks and one only for music - I - videos.
You don't have to switch channels anymore, looking for -what you want.
Now you know what is where all night long."
"TV is so shocking," said Peter, "when you don't watch it --for a while.
Why would anyone want to believe a guy who looks like that?
He's in terrible shape and he's got on too much pancake.
Look at him.
His skin is the texture of stale dough."
The commercials were more impressive, however.
They were actually well done.
"Not bad," Peter had to admit.
"Not bad at all."
"In tonight's news," said the anchorman, "AIDS."
"Oooh, I'm so sick of AIDS," Peter groaned.
He couldn't help himself.
"Fuck you," said the gay man sitting next to him with a bottle of beer.
"Sorry to spoil your party but people are suffering, you know."
"I know.
You're right.
I'm sorry.
It's just that my wife is going gay, you see.
And all I hear about nowadays is gay this and gay that.
But you're absolutely right.
I apologize."
He ordered another drink.
Only when it came did he realize how nauseated he felt.
"Hundreds of AIDS victims have occupied the restaurant and lobby of Ronald Horne's Castle in midtown Manhattan.
They are demanding that the superstar developer rescind eviction notices sent to homosexual men in Home-owned buildings.
Many of the hotel guests have fled in terror, especially those from the Sunbelt region.
Some are angrily demanding refunds and immediate AIDS tests.
Mr. Home remains unavailable for comment from his retreat in Hawaii, where he and his lovely wife Lucretia are vacationing with Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos.
But Castle spokesman Bill Smith did speak earlier with Channel Z."
The camera zoomed in on a blustering red-faced gentleman wearing a grass skirt and a fuchsia lei, carrying a six-foot bullwhip.
"Tell us, Mr.
Smith, is this your usual attire?"
"Why yes.
Mr. Home prefers that all management dress like tropical overseers so the guests can feel more comfortable and secure.
"Mr. Smith, as a representative of the Home dynasty, can you tell our television audience how you think this demonstration will affect future business transactions at the Castle?"
"I want to assure all future guests," he said, waving the whip for emphasis, "that all glassware and eating utensils will be replaced as soon as we clear the lobby.
We expect the New York Police Department imminently."
The camera panned the crowd a bit, stopping in front of the black man that Peter had seen calling out at the cathedral.
"Tell us, sir," said the persistently plastic reporter, "who is going to pay for all this damage?"
"The hotel was built on tax rebates," James said through a huge grin.
In the background Peter could see crowds of gay men laughing, dancing and popping champagne corks.
"We've already paid."
The camera went back to the crowd.
It looked like the Mets' locker room after they won the World Series.
Men were in varying states of revelry, sharing drinks at the bar, singing show tunes in the piano lounge, watching old movies on the huge video screen, conversing intensely in the smoking room.
And they were all snacking on caviar and smoked oysters.
"Oh, no," said Peter out loud, unable to control himself.
"What's the matter now, asshole?"
yelled the gay man at the bar.
"I've had it with you heteros.
You don't care about anyone but yourselves."
"No, it's not you," Peter said, barely able to get out the words.
"It's my wife."
"What do you mean?"
asked the bartender, whose interest had been piqued.
"There's all guys there."
"No, that's her.
The redhead with the crew cut in a suit and tie.
That's my wife."
"This is some world," said the bartender.
"But you gotta live and let live.
Fucking faggots."
There she was.
You couldn't miss her.
That orange hair looked more mandarin on the eerie color TV.
She was in earnest -,conversation with a tall man brushing out a silver mane of hair and braiding it into pigtails.
`Nother round?"
the bartender asked and poured it without waiting for confirmation.
"You may ask," resumed the reporter in the classic frontal -electronic journalism pose, staring sincerely at his public, -I"where are the police?
Well, according to Chief of Command Ed Ramsey of Manhattan South, his officers are not properly equipped to come into contact with large numbers of AIDS victims."
"Not victim, you breeder," screamed the gay man at the bar, who clearly couldn't take it anymore.
"People with AIDS is the appropriate term."
He dropped his head down on the bar and closed his eyes.
The reporter, however, continued as though at any moment he would say, "But first, the sports."