Gabe woke up one morning after Sean left for work, and he took his medicine. He felt a little wobbly on his legs, but the day's beautiful, fitful weather refreshed him, for the hour was hot and there were cool eddies blowing into the windows.

Gabe had a lot planned that day. The biggest of the tasks was something for the coalition.

Although most of his loyalty was with the elite corps, now, he still liked the insurance committee in the coalition. A big crisis was underway in New York State with Blue Cross/Blue Shield. It involved threatened rate increases.

Gabe had participated already in a phone campaign against the threats. He received as a bonus from one of the groups he called, a mailing list of more possible sympathizers. He needed to get that list to the woman running the campaign. (She had a part time job in Wall Street as an office assistant.)

But Gabe knew he had to eat some breakfast, first. Otherwise, he wouldn't have enough energy to face the day.

As he ate, he glanced through the newspaper and snorted because he saw that Mayor Dinkins was visiting Puerto Rico.

"Probably to grab the Puerto Rican votes right here in the city," Gabe thought, sardonically. Most of the coalition people were disenchanted with Mayor Dinkins. And Woody Myers, the health commissioner, had departed his appointed position the year before, under so much criticism that activists felt rather vindicated. (His specific reason for leaving, however, was because of illness in the family.)

Gabe sympathized with the Puerto Ricans affected by AIDS. AIDS had struck their island badly, and the needs of Puerto Ricans there and in the States often went unmet by the various levels of the American government.

There were other things in the news that preoccupied Gabe. Tuberculosis was still on the rise. Even HIV negative people could die from these new strains, and HIV positive people who had TB were even more vulnerable.

Gabe tossed the paper aside and read some activist clippings he kept in a folder. He found a tragic piece about prostitutes in a small far-eastern country who were HIV-positive. They had taken refuge abroad, but when extradited back to their own country, they were summarily judged and executed. (Or so the clipping said.)

Gabe finished breakfast and finished taking his meds. (He was doing well on his third nucleoside analog). He dressed, grabbed the folder with the mailing list in it, and left for the subway that would take him downtown.

As his train approached Wall Street, he remembered that the Haitian community was demonstrating that day. He hoped he'd be able to catch some of the protest.

He got off the subway, and while walking to his contact's address, he argued with himself about his relationship to Sean.

"Sean's got to take more responsibility for getting a better job," Gabe thought. "And he's got to face his family about his own gayness. Why does he resist, so much?"

Gabe was in the middle of these thoughts when he suddenly felt winded. He paused on the street. The shadows cast by the tall buildings made him shiver, even though he was sweating.

"I think I'm trying to do too much today," he thought, with a trace of alarm. He negotiated with his own body: catch your breath, step away from the traffic, sit down if you have to; go home, if you have to.

If he completed his trip to the building, he might feel too sick to return home. Was he already overextending himself?

He decided he should at least try to get to the woman's office, to drop off the mailing list.

Down a cross street he caught sight of the Haitian demo. He paused.

Blacks from Haiti were carrying placards, silently, that denounced unfair immigration policies and also denounced AIDS.

"I want to see them," Gabe thought, but he felt feverish, again.

He could call the woman at her office, tell her he was in trouble. Needed help.

Another wave of dizziness swept over him.

"What am I going to do?" he panted.

At the next intersection, while resting, he looked down another side street, and saw more of the Haitian demonstrators. He was yearning to be closer, because he wanted to show them solidarity. They were only a block off his path, but even a block was beginning to seem like a challenge.

Spectators were gathering and chanting, on both sides of the Haitians' path.

"I wonder how many are marching," Gabe thought, regretting that he couldn't go any closer.

He walked on toward his destination, controlling his breathing as best he could.

He got to a third intersection and looked down the side street. He could see even more of the march this time. He was stunned. The demonstration was huge. The Haitians must have had twenty or thirty thousand protesters. He looked far up a bend in the street and saw them streaming from some distant point; then he looked behind him, and made out the demonstrators there, too, nearly a mile away, finally crossing the main street he was on, and moving to the other side of Manhattan.

The Haitians were protesting America for turning away Haitian refugees and for treating the ones they kept so badly. They were also protesting the fact that America kept HIV-positive Haitian refugees in substandard camps that were dangerous and inhumane.

And they were protesting the tyranny they had suffered in Haiti.

"Aristide!" thousands shouted while carrying their anti-AIDS and anti-Baby Doc posters. "Aristide! Aristide!"

Gabe watched a little longer, then went about his business, feeling a little better.

By mid-afternoon, he was home, again, his mission accomplished. He couldn't get that image of the demonstrators out of his mind. The turnout was spectacular. The coalition had never commanded numbers like that, no matter how pressing their cause, and no matter how large the gay community was in this city.

He was inspired by the Haitian turnout, but he was a little humbled by it, too. He sometimes wondered if the gay branch of the AIDS movement was, indeed, diminishing in importance.