In the aftermath of the demo, a couple hundred people were dragged away to various jails

Nathan had to get to Brooklyn as quickly as possible. His ailing friend had paid what was probably his last visit to the hospital, and was now discharged, to his lover's home.

The discharge had been several weeks ago. Nathan had been visiting him fairly often.

Only a carefully chosen group of intimates were being allowed to help the friend and the friend's lover (who was also HIV positive) in this crucial time.

Nathan came to the building, which was a modest brownstone near Flatbush Avenue. The place was a one-bedroom that was almost like a railroad flat, except for the kitchen nook off to the side.

"Hi, Mitch," Nathan said as a mutual buddy greeted him over the intercom. Nathan got buzzed in. Mitch was a young dancer and masseur. He had buckteeth, sensitive eyes and was tall and sinewy. Like most of the patient's buddies, he was a skinhead.

"How is he?" asked Nathan. Mitch paused.

"Come on in; see for yourself," he answered, sadly. He took Nathan's coat and put it in the closet.

The front room was filled with his dying friend's pals, from the music shop where he had worked for so many months and from the leather scene the patient used to hang out in.

The young skinheads were men Nathan could relate to, for they were angry, hypersensitive guys who knew life had dealt them a bad hand. It was killing one of their friends.

Nathan was concerned about the lover, too, for both the patient and the lover had done some heavy drugs in their teen years, and Nathan was worried the lover could relapse. (He remembered that awful drinking he did, after Emily's death, years ago.)

Nathan thought, "I'm so sick of street activism... To help these people who are dying, we need treatments, not slogans..."

Nathan entered the bedroom, and saw that his friend was paler than ever, his weight probably now shrunk down to about ninety pounds.

The patient's lover hugged Nathan, briefly, then told him that his lover, "refused food a couple days ago. He's refused treatment. Now he depends on those just to stave off the pain..."

The lover pointed to the pills and the IV.

Nathan went up to the poor patient and stroked his brow.

Then, he moved to the kitchen, to be alone. He was passionately angry. He saw before him what seemed like proof that not enough research was going on.

"What can I do with my life, these days, that's productive," he thought.

Nathan looked from the kitchen archway to the guys quietly waiting in the living room. He wanted to call Reggie, because of a sudden desire to, well, reach out to someone he knew and loved.

He picked up the kitchen phone.

"Is it pretty rough there?" Reggie asked, after hearing Nathan's voice.

"His liver's been shot for a while, apparently. And his weight is way down."

"How's his boyfriend?"

"Probably wants it to end, soon. I don't blame him. Tell me something to cheer me up."

"The demo you were in this morning is all over the media. I'm proud of you."

"I'm not proud of me. We need answers, not battle cries."

Reggie sniffled a little at the other end of the line. He named a mutual friend who had just returned to the hospital, recently.

Nathan and Reggie made plans for when Nathan might be coming home that afternoon.

Suddenly, Nathan heard a noise from the bedroom. "Honey, let me go. We'll talk later."

Nathan hung up the phone. He realized that the patient's friends were crying now, and standing near the bedroom. He entered and saw the corpse lying on the sheets.

The lover was crying, too.

Nathan went over to the lover and hugged him for a few seconds.

Some were relieved that their friend was out of his misery. The nurse would be on his way, soon, and a report would be filled out.

Nathan gave hugs to some of the dead man's friends, too, and said goodbye to the lover. He whispered a soft goodbye to the corpse.

Then he left, still angry, and very depressed.

***

That same afternoon, Sean was at one of the police precincts, winding up his support of the arrested activists.

He stood outside the jail in that chilly weather, drinking from a coffee cup and reviewing names on a clipboard. As arrested demonstrators were released, usually a couple at a time, applause from the support people met their grinning faces.

When the last of the guys on his list was released, Sean packed up and said goodbye his buddies.

Josh was there. He approached Sean.

Five years had gone by since their fling, but Sean still smarted over it.

"You're looking good," Josh said in his usually sexy growl.

"I'm sort of in a hurry," said Sean. "I have to get home to see my lover. He's just gotten over the flu."

Tall, handsome, rugged Josh always looked good, thought Sean, even in a business suit or just in jeans and a T-shirt. (He was dressed in business attire, that afternoon.) Josh could be very charismatic. (He was an image-maker, after all. An ad agency executive.)

"How's your boyfriend, doing, Josh?" Sean asked, as he slipped the clipboard into his backpack.

"Not doing too well, Sean," Josh said. "He just went into the hospital for some tests, and he and I are scared because of the tuberculosis that's spreading through the city."

"Gabe's scared, too. They say hospitals and prisons are typical places for it. Do you think that'll effect people's willingness to do civil disobedience? I mean, being cramped up for hours at a time in holding cells, and that sort of thing..."

"It might be in the back of their minds."

Sean paused. The tuberculosis news really did seem bleak. New resistant strains were giving the disease the terrifying reputation it had had literally decades ago.

"That's why HIV negative people, like you or me, have to keep doing these coalition demos," said Sean.

"Either that, or join the elite corps," answered Josh, in a way Sean thought was smug.

"Arrogant to the last," thought Sean.

They chatted a little longer, then Sean left.

He stared moodily at the walls of the subway tunnel as his train raced along. He reflected on how little had been accomplished on the AIDS front. Sometimes, his own ineffectuality seemed to him like a betrayal of his two dead friends, Mark and his redheaded buddy.

Back at the street level, Sean was almost home. The sky outside was dusky blue, and the air, cold. He was restless. He didn't want to go home, yet, and since he spent the whole day with gay activists, he desired a change of scenery. Inside a bar where straight writers and jazz musicians often hung out, he dropped in for a drink.

There, the coalition demo was being shown on the T.V. news. A dashing older man with two buxom young women to each side of him said, "Well, I bet you guys are proud of yourselves, now." His eyes were on Sean's coalition button.

"You mean, Time Square?" Sean said, surprised. "We're only exercising our first amendment rights." Sean ordered a drink and started sipping it.

The swaggering old guy laughed.

He introduced himself, and asked Sean what he did for a living. (Sean answered.) The stranger then confessed his own line of work. Sean nearly fell off his stool. The man admitted he was a professional spy, sort of a freelance one who had been on the government payroll, lately.

The spy's two sultry girlfriends kept shooting glances toward Sean.

The older man was a braggart, Sean thought, who spouted off about the Mafia and Central and South America.

Then his eyes went back to Sean's button.

"Sometimes, I think our coalition has been infiltrated by FBI-types. Does that sound unlikely?" Sean asked, timidly.

A Frank Sinatra song was playing on the jukebox. A sports event was being covered on TV.

The man screwed up his face, in thought, then said, "Without having any special knowledge, I'd say they might be there. But not for the reasons you think." He gave Sean a quick look.

"Why then?"

"Investigating for illicit drugs."

"Therapies?"

"No. Recreational drugs ... That's not the motive you were thinking, though, was it?"

"No, I guess not."

The guy grinned a wily grin.

Sean wanted to coax an alternative answer from the secret agent, but gave up before trying.

"I'll never get to the bottom of this infiltration issue," he figured. Even more demoralized than before, he finished his drink and left.

The sky was an entrancing sapphire blue and the city lights glittered, like broken glass in a street. The evening was cool but the air was delicious and fresh. The alcoholic buzz Sean had was making him skittish, however. The traffic seemed a little dangerous.

When Sean greeted his lover, at home, Gabe said, "You keep fidgeting with your keys."

"I'm kinda nervous... I have to go to work tomorrow, catch up on what I missed today. I keep wondering what my professional life is leading to...."

"Ask personnel for a new position there."

"Yeah," said Sean dully. "Or I could leave them altogether... But trying to find new beginnings in life is like... well..." His voice trailed off. He was still thinking about that spy's words.