Winter, 1991. A Friday night in the East Village, NYC. The city was freezing cold, but people were out, anyway, hurrying in clumps from one watering hole to another.

Surveillance helicopters floated overhead and squad cars were out, too. En masse. Taxis vied for customers. Pedestrians vied for sidewalk space.

An anti-Saddam poster shone at a bus stop, courtesy of Gannett Press. Policemen roamed the city, trying to give New York a more controlled, more orderly veneer than it normally had. In one East Village bar, however, all hell was breaking loose.

Despite the mayhem, some of the straight customers were enjoying themselves, but others were crying out in grief. The place had been invaded by queer activists!

They were members of a new gay rights group, and they were staging a "kiss-in" (guys kissing guys, gals kissing gals) right there in the straight bar. It was a colorful statement, meant to protest the bar's reputation for homophobia.

The Friday night regulars were aghast. Nothing could be more incongruous than the sight of dykes and fags deep-kissing to the music of Johnny Cash.

And those queers who weren't making out were gossiping before the drawings on the walls of big-breasted women and of tough guys on bikes.

At a side table sat Nathan with his lover Reggie. Reggie's eyes were a-twinkle. He said, "Doesn't the woman tending bar remind you of the actress in Russ Meyer's 'Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!'?"

More gays entered the place, calling to their friends and laughing.

"Oh MAN!" roared one of the straight guys trying to play pool.

"Grow up," laughed his partner.

"These gay guys oughta grow up," moaned the first one. And another cluster of gays entered.

This organization was called Queer Nation. It had been a spin-off of the AIDS movement, and had quite a few of the same people in it. The agenda stressed gay issues more than HIV ones. Theoretically, the AIDS activists were supposed to be grateful that there was another group around to shoulder the burden of the gay stuff. Ironically, some AIDS activists were afraid that Queer Nation would drain the activist pool. They resented it.

Of course, many gays didn't like Queer Nation, simply because they felt it was too extreme.

Anti-gay violence still plagued America's cities. Conservative and reactionary values were on the rise, throughout the country. Some gays felt that Queer Nation was exactly what was needed.

Their chant started up, in the bar. "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!" The activists applauded themselves.

Meanwhile, the night manager made a desperate call to the owners of the place.

Then, he hung up the phone and talked to the cops, after which he spoke with the organizer of the demonstration.

To the woman tending bar, he said, "Are the gays at least tipping?"

"Oh yeah, they tip good," said the woman.

"They're paying for their orders?"

"Oh yeah, no problem."

"Don't give 'em any comp'd drinks."

"What am I? Stupid?"

Then, the manager asked the organizers, "You're not planning to chain yourselves to anything, are you?"

"Us?" said the organizer, who was a woman. "Not a chance."

Her lover said, "We're just plain folk, here for a drink and a few laughs."

Finally, the manager said to the cops he felt everything would be okay.

Reggie looked at Nathan for a moment, and said, "What's wrong?"

"I'm preoccupied," said Nathan. "How many of these visibility things have you guys done in Queer Nation?"

"A dozen or so," said Reggie. "I think they're great, don't you?"

Nathan shrugged. It wasn't really Queer Nation that was troubling him. It was infighting in the coalition. There were arguments, lately, over an upcoming demo, and Nathan brought it to Reggie's attention.

The upcoming coalition event was being promoted as "Operation D-Day", and was supposed to be a gigantic, citywide day of protest filled with guerrilla theatre and civil disobedience.

It was meant to protest inadequate AIDS funding and services. "I hate unfocused demos, and that's what D-Day is going to be," said Nathan. "There'll be big, noisy events throughout the day whose only purpose is to cry out for public sympathy."

"Well," said Reggie, "it's hard to narrow down our demands, when there are so many negative things going on. Look at the insurance stuff, and look at Bush's ideas for cutting the AIDS budget."

Nathan was still skeptical. He feared that the coalition was turning to this extreme course of action, because in these trying times, it didn't know what else to do.

On the jukebox a song began to play about the Devil and a banjo.

The straights and gays seemed to be getting used to each other.

Reggie lit up a cigarette.

"You smoke too many of those," said Nathan.

Reggie smiled, defiantly. Opera or no opera, he wanted to enjoy life, and he liked a good smoke, now and then.

Sean was there, too. His mind was drifting.

"Are you listening?" a friend asked him, just then. Sean really did seem troubled.

"I'm sorry," laughed Sean. "What were you saying?"

The friend was a guy named Gus, who was middle-aged. He was a hairstylist by day and a devoted AIDS advocate by night.

In the coalition, he had become an expert on Medicaid and Medicare issues. Although Gus was a committed activist, he could be socially shy. Sean knew that this thoughtful, hypersensitive man had lost numerous friends to AIDS including an ex-lover. Sean respected Gus.

The two of them had just been talking about how the coalition's main voting body didn't really grasp the complexities of Medicaid and Medicare issues.

Sean liked the depth of Gus' knowledge, but his own eyes kept drifting over to his lover, Gabe, who was standing at a far side, talking with some boys his own age (who were also HIV positive). Gus followed Sean's eyes over to Gabe, and paused.

"What's his doctor been saying, lately?" said Gus.

"That he's doing well."

"Good."

"But, he just got over a flu two weeks ago. He pushes himself too much."

"Well, don't smother him, Sean," Gus warned. "He's HIV positive, but he's still healthy."

Sean nodded, even as his eyes took in the drink in one of Gabe's hands and the cigarette in the other.

"Does he drink a lot?"

"No. He often doesn't even finish his drink."

"Sounds like he's doing okay, Sean."

Sean asked Gus to change the subject.

Gus started sounding depressed, the way people do when they're burned out with activist work.

"I've just heard the rumor that utilization thresholds might get redefined in ways that could disqualify a number of PWAs," Gus said. He gave Sean a few details, then changed the subject to a federally-approved fund for AIDS that posed problems of its own. "The fund will channel almost fifteen million dollars into New York State. Not spending the money would jeopardize future allotments, though. And the danger of the money not getting spent is very real." Gus added that some institutions were afraid to draw on those funds, anyway, because if they did, the government would garnish their monies in other areas.

As Gus talked, Sean kept glancing over to Gabe.

Meanwhile, Marissa was there, on the verge of an argument with one of her female friends.

"Janice," she said. "Is it true you told Al he ought to leave the women's subcommittee tracking the UCLA trial?"

"Of course not."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! Nobody has the right in the coalition to drive people off an open committee."

"Why these rumors, then?" said Marissa.

"I might have told Al that if he didn't like our priorities, maybe our committee wasn't for him."

"But that's just what I meant!" said Marissa. "It makes us look like we're against debate when our committee acts that way."

This committee was looking into a major HIV drug trial meant for women who were pregnant.

Janice said, "We're not against debate, but the gay males of the coalition can be just as obstructionist as they accuse us of being!"

Marissa sighed. She noticed some cops sauntering by the picture window. She also saw that poster at the bus stop depicting Saddam Hussein.