shaved head, he easily stood six foot two, with biceps larger than my thighs. He was on the HIV prevention team, coordinating the bar outreach program. “I vote for a softball game,” he announced in his deep baritone voice.
“Wait a minute,” said Chad, also on the prevention team. “Before the meeting, you agreed to vote for Earth Games.”
“Yeah, but Annie said she’d buy me a beer if I voted for softball.”
There was laughter. Annie sat next to him, petite, maybe one hundred pounds at most, very cute with elfin features as she blushed and whispered, “You weren’t supposed to tell them that.”
Chad was clearly exasperated. “Where are your principles?”
“Hey, I’ve got principles,” said Lionel. “But I also have priorities.”
The exchanges became more and more raucous, the lesbians gleefully casting aspersions on the gay men’s masculinity, and the gay men likewise casting aspersions on the lesbians’ masculinity. Above it all, sitting there with his gray, ravaged eminence, Cal Stern watched the proceedings with a gentle smile not unlike, I thought, the detached, compassionate smile one sees on statues of the Buddha, as if he had already taken leave of this world. There is a lame-duck quality to the dying. You could almost see the thoughts on his face: I won’t be here for the AIDS Walk this year. I’ll never see that. I wonder if I’ll make it to June. He looked at peace. One more thing he wouldn’t have to worry about, thank God. Or maybe he was just relieved he wouldn’t have to participate in the softball game. He knew lesbians played for blood.
The room hooted and howled, everyone laughing except Franklin who looked upon the proceedings with a kind of disdain, like an older child watching the antics of his rowdy younger siblings wrestling in the dirt. He caught my eye, shaking his head in a kind of assumed camaraderie of the superior. I smiled back and shrugged. Cal, too, was laughing, his frail body rocking with laughter, his eyes alight, and I thought, This is why he comes to work. Here there is life and energy. Here there is connection. No, he needs this. To be part of the still living.
• • •
“He really should resign,” said Sandy. She, Steve and I were leaving to get lunch. “For the sake of the agency as much as for himself. It’s a burden on us managers, trying to do his job as well as our own.”
“Yes, but he’s kind of an icon here in Portland,” Steve explained to me as we went down the back stairwell.
“That may be,” said Sandy, “but we need an executive director more than we need an icon right now.”
“I know. Many things get dropped,” Steve admitted, “but I can’t think of anyone better to head this organization. He still goes out and talks to groups when he can, raising money for our programs. And he’s a living lesson in how to die with grace and dignity. It amazes me how he still does it. The pain, the continual nausea, the lack of energy, yet he plugs along. I just hope I can muster half the dignity and courage when my time comes.”
There was an abrupt shift in our mood, and Sandy said, “You’ve got nothing to worry about. They’ll find a cure long before you get to that point. So, face it: You’re going to grow old, fat, and ugly with the rest of us.”
Neither Steve nor I said anything as we descended the steps and went out onto the street. There used to be a lot of that kind of talk, in the early years, when we thought we could stop this epidemic. The rallying cry was “Be here for the cure.” For those uninfected, stay that way. Use condoms. Play safe. Remain healthy. For those infected, hang in there, take care of yourself, eat right, exercise, remain positive (a bit of gallows humor), it’s only a matter of time before they find a cure or an antidote. Many of our friends had lived with that hope. Many had died, abandoned by hope. And too many simply ran out of time. Over the years, it became more and more difficult to sustain that optimism, until now one rarely hears people say it anymore. I think we no longer believe.
• • •
It was later that day Cal invited me to his office. He was standing behind his desk as I came to the door. He must have once been six feet. Now he looked shrunken, bent, and fragile, his body appearing two sizes too small for his clothes; they hung on him as he moved slowly, like an old man. Yet he welcomed me with a surprisingly firm handshake.
“I know of the Victorian AIDS Council,” he said. “The Australians have done some very innovative prevention work down there. I want us to do some here as well.”
“I hope my experience can be useful.”
He motioned me to a chair and sat down at his desk. “My staff is excited to have you here. They speak highly of you.”
“They speak highly of you, too. This organization is a testament to your work.”
He shrugged. “It’s always been a cooperative effort.”
I noticed his uncapped fountain pen, lying atop several blank sheets of paper. “Is this a convenient time? I could come back later.”
“No, no, this is fine. I was having a mental block anyway.” He looked down at the pen and paper. “Another eulogy. I’m to deliver it on Saturday.” He turned back to me. “After so many, you’d think it would get easier.”
“I can’t imagine it getting easier.”
His eyes fell away. “No, it doesn’t.” He capped the pen, laying it aside. “After I attended my one-hundredth funeral, I vowed I’d never attend another. Except my own, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be present for that one. No one should have to go to that many funerals, except maybe ministers and undertakers. Each one seemed to siphon off a part of my soul. So I promised myself: no more funerals, no more memorial services, no more wakes. I’d had enough for one lifetime.”
“I understand. On the flight back from Australia, I made the same vow. After a while, they all blur together. It’s not the way I’d like to honor a friend’s passing.”
He seemed interested. “Oh? And how would you like to honor a friend’s passing?”
I thought for a moment. “I think I’d rather go off by myself and climb some mountain. I’d sit up there alone, remembering this friend and recalling the times we shared together. I’d eat an orange in his honor, whisper his name to the wind, and say good-bye.”
He nodded. “That would be a fitting tribute to any friend.” Then he turned back to the task before him. “Of course, given my position, my resolution wasn’t realistic. There were board members, founders of this organization, wealthy donors— as well as good and dear friends— whose funerals required I be present.” He looked down again at the paper on his desk. “This will be number one hundred and forty-two.”
“I probably won’t be able to keep my vow either.”
“No.” He gave a great sigh. “At times, life calls us beyond our vows.”
Remembering Sandy’s comment, I said, “It must be hard carrying the weight of this agency, all that needs to be done.”
“No, that’s not so hard. I’ve got good managers. They bear the greatest share of the responsibility now, they and the board. Oh, they whine and moan about having to do my work for me, but it’s good for them.” He smiled. “It’s character-building.” Then he looked out the window at the Portland skyline. “And someday, someday soon, they’ll need to know how to run this agency. They’ll need to teach the new executive director what to do.” He turned back to me. “You see, there’s method to my madness.”
He reached for the glass of water on his desk and drank. I noticed his hand shaking.
“No, what’s hard now is trying to find the time for my own dying. The daily dying.” He looked at me with those sunken eyes. “You know how we workaholics get so caught up in our work we lose track of living?”
I nodded. I knew. Gray was forever reminding me.
“The