“You are my hero,” CJ said. “You were fuckin’ badass.”

  I couldn’t believe the words CJ was saying to me. And in response, instead of just denying it or making a joke, I turned and kissed him on the mouth.

  It was a deep kiss. Our tongues united and my heart sped and my hair even stood on end. All my hair, from my legs to my arms to my head.

  Kissing my boyfriend, who had HIV. And not caring, because I knew better now. That wasn’t how it was passed. And I loved him more than I feared him finally, truly.

  “Fags,” a voice barked.

  CJ and my voices merged, barely backing away from our kiss.

  “Screw you” was my response. “Fuck off” was his.

  I no longer cared.

  April 1988

  The fifty-third (or so) time I saw CJ, he was wearing a clone outfit.

  Not like a gay clone with a mustache and a leather jacket. More like a clone of Micah Strauss. Ill-fitting jeans, a green Lacoste shirt, and the kicker: a brown Members Only jacket. The kind you find in a secondhand store, maybe?

  He was standing at the door to our apartment. I broke out laughing.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “What is—what is this?”

  He smiled his goofiest smile and shrugged. “I figured your parents like you, so maybe they’ll like me better this way?”

  CJ. Always in costume.

  My mother greeted him with a cross between a handshake and a hug. She’d been working on it, I knew. Getting past her feelings that he was a bad influence and focusing on accepting him as my first boyfriend.

  “I’ve heard so much about you,” she said.

  “I’m so deeply sorry,” he responded.

  That made her laugh.

  My dad gave him a curt handshake. “I love your jacket,” he said.

  “Yeah,” CJ replied. “This does not surprise me.”

  We’d decided that for a first visit, no mention of HIV was necessary. It was enough that my parents were willing to meet CJ, I felt, and CJ seemed fine with that.

  Rick joined us for dinner, as support. We five sat awkwardly while my mom served us chicken kreplach soup, making intermittent conversation.

  “This soup is perfect. Never had kreplach before, but it’s scrumpdillyicious,” CJ said, using the word from the Dairy Queen commercials.

  “I’m so glad,” my mom said, giving him a sweet smile.

  “Mom could be a chicken soup magnate,” I said, trying to fill the awkward space in the conversation. “Every kind is always really good.”

  Dad said, “She needs a good brand name. The Kreplach Lady. Chicken Soup Kitchen. Chicken Soup for the Hole.”

  CJ snorted involuntarily, and that made me laugh. Finally, so did Rick, and even my mother laughed, though she looked fairly horrified.

  “Oh, come on, grow up. I mean the hole in your face,” my dad said.

  CJ patted his mouth with his napkin. “No, I like it. It’s very biological, very descriptive. I think all restaurants should be that way. My mom took me to California when I was younger, and they have a burger place called In-N-Out Burger. Almost too descriptive, really.”

  “CJ!” I said, shocked, because I thought he was going to try to make a good impression.

  My mom, though, seemed willing to save the conversation. “Do they really? That’s very California, very zen, very … body accepting.”

  CJ cracked up. “I was joking. In-N-Out refers to the fact that it’s a drive-through place and they get you in and out quickly.”

  My mom turned white, then a little pink. “Oh,” she said, staring down at her plate.

  The silence was awful. Finally, Rick saved the day.

  “The pizza place near me should be called ‘Stopped-Up Pizza.’ ”

  This cracked up my dad. Everyone laughed, thankfully.

  My mother knew CJ was political because of his impact on me, so she found safe ground in her liberalism after she offered everyone lamb chops.

  “Reagan’s reign is nearly over, thank heavens,” she said.

  “Sing it, sister,” CJ said.

  “He’s done such a number on education. It’s going to be a huge problem for our public schools if the Democrat doesn’t win in November. Thankfully it’s looking good for them. No one likes Bush,” she said.

  “The way he’s ignored AIDS is nothing short of criminal,” CJ said.

  My mother nodded her head. “Yes. I’ve been reading in the Times about that, about how he really didn’t say a word about it for so long, just like Reagan. The disease killed my hairdresser a few years ago.”

  CJ laughed. “The disease killed my hairdresser: a history of the eighties.”

  “CJ,” I admonished, but no one seemed particularly burdened by his joke.

  “I think it’s wonderful that the disease is getting more press. Although, I must say, I find some of the activism a touch distasteful.”

  CJ and I looked at each other and then I stared beams into my mom, hoping she’d stop.

  “I mean, why disrupt trading on the stock exchange? All that does is get the common man against your cause. I think most people would agree they’re for helping people with AIDS. Sometimes the radicals go a little too far.”

  I felt that sinking in my gut that told me we were probably in for a storm. I turned to CJ, who seemed to be asking for my permission, and in a flash he had it. I gave him a subtle nod.

  “Burroughs Wellcome, the drug company that makes AZT, the only proven drug to treat AIDS, has priced the medicine at eight thousand dollars a year, well beyond most people’s ability to pay for it. They do that strictly out of greed. They don’t need to. The ACT UP protest at the stock exchange got them to talk to us, and is going to result in a price decrease,” CJ said.

  My mother replied, “Oh, of course, I didn’t mean …”

  “Us?” my father said.

  Another look between CJ and me. “Yes, us,” CJ said. “I was there.”

  “And so was I,” I added, meeting my father’s eyes.

  “Oh!” my mother said. “Well. That’s—” She didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Sometimes you need to shout to be heard. And then you’re still not heard. Where did you read about the demonstration?” CJ asked.

  “The Times, I’m sure.”

  “Ah, but you didn’t read about it, actually, because there was no article. Just a photo with a four-line caption on page B-three the next day, a caption that didn’t even include why we were demonstrating, I might add.”

  The table was quiet for a bit. My head was dizzy from warring impulses: to say how I really felt, which CJ had just done. And to protect my mom from a truth that was getting very close to being said.

  “Please be careful. The men who go to those things aren’t like you boys, they aren’t like Rick. Many of them are promiscuous, and that community is just saturated with disease. It’s so sad, but that’s the reality.”

  This sickly feeling was weighing down my gut, and I realized we were at the precipice of another coming out.

  “I have it,” Rick said, diverting the attention away from me and CJ.

  “What?” my father said.

  “I have HIV. I found out last year. So it isn’t really a matter of those people. It’s these people. It’s me.”

  My father stood up from the table.

  “Me too,” CJ said.

  My father froze. Then he put his hand on his forehead and sat back down.

  CJ helped himself to more mashed potatoes, and I watched my mother as he did so. Her expression was inscrutable, and I wanted to scream to both my parents, Say something! But I also understood. Because I had been there just a few months ago with both Rick and CJ.

  Rick put down his silverware and looked at my father. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was afraid. Afraid you’d drop me as a friend. That’s why Gabriel really left—he couldn’t handle it when I tested positive.”

  “Oh, Rick,” my dad said, and he stood up again, knelt behind Rick’s chair, and hugged his best friend tight.

  Rick seemed to tense a little for a moment and then he let his body relax. He put his hands over where my dad’s were on Rick’s forearms.

  “I don’t have it,” I said. “But I know CJ does and we’re together.”

  My mother nodded a couple times, and then she swallowed, stood up, and walked into the kitchen.

  * * *

  Mom stayed in the kitchen for a while, my dad and Rick retired to the living room to talk, and, as it turned out, shed a few tears together. CJ and I sat alone at the abandoned dining room table, and I took his hand in mine and traced the back of his hand with my index finger.

  “Well, that went very well,” CJ said.

  “It’s gonna be okay. She’s just shocked.”

  He nodded. “I think I’m gonna go.”

  “Only if you promise that you know that we’re okay. Because we are. Totally okay.”

  He smiled a shy smile, a rarity for CJ, but something that was happening more and more since his positive diagnosis. “Somehow I do know that,” he said.

  * * *

  After CJ left, I went into the kitchen. My mom was sitting on the stool at the kitchen nook, crying.

  “Hey,” I said softly.

  She shook her head. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

  “I’m in love, Ma.”

  “But you don’t have to be. Sometimes we have to let our head win over our heart, just for self-preservation. He’s nice and he’s very handsome, but honey, he has AIDS.”

  “HIV,” I corrected her.

  “I really don’t know the difference.”

  “HIV causes AIDS.”

  “So no real difference. Why would you hook your wagon to a train that’s terminal?”

  “Should I do what Gabriel did? Leave him because he has a disease? Is that the person you want me to be? If Dad had cancer, would you pack your bags? Believe me, at first I thought about it. Nobody wants this. But I love him, and I’m not going anywhere, okay? That’s not the person you raised.”

  She shook her head back and forth repeatedly. “Oh, bubby,” she said, her voice filled with regret. “I just don’t know. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It most certainly is not fine. You’re too young to be dealing with this.”

  “I can’t choose who I love. I love CJ.”

  “I’m not saying that you don’t. I’m saying that you’re young, and this is hard, and don’t give up on your friend. This will leave scars, Micah. The rest of your life, your story will be that you fell in love with a terminally ill—”

  “Stop saying that! We don’t know—”

  “We do know. This disease has no cure. And no, I’m not that afraid you’ll get it from him, because I have faith you know how to protect yourself. I’m worried about your heart.”

  She began to cry again, and I felt like I was six inches tall for putting her through this. But there was also something else brewing in my gut. This fury, this hot ball of fire that wanted to erupt and tell her to stop, stop, stop putting this pressure on me and stop telling me to do something I couldn’t do.

  I simply wasn’t going to stop being in love because it made logical sense.

  That wasn’t an option.

  So instead I went to the refrigerator and I got myself a Dr Pepper, and I poured her a seltzer water with ice. When I brought her the drink, she said, “You’re a special person, Micah.”

  “You gonna be okay with this?” I asked.

  “I’ll try my best,” she said.

  My dad came into my room that night. I was on my computer, playing Transylvania for the fifty millionth time. I was stuck on how to open the sarcophagus and had been for the past month.

  I looked up and saw that his eyes were red, and I almost told him no, that I couldn’t take one more conversation where I disappointed someone for how I felt.

  He flopped down on my bed and rubbed his eyes.

  “Quite the night,” he said.

  “You okay?”

  “What? Yeah, I’m fine. I’m stressed about it. Too much disease, happening to people I care about. Please let CJ know I’m here for him, okay? It was just very hard, hearing about Rick.”

  I nodded.

  “He wasn’t like that. He wasn’t promiscuous, not at all. Or not that I knew of? No. Not at all. We even talked about it. One time after racquetball a couple years back, he told me about friends of his who were dying, and I didn’t really know what to say. And maybe he saw that, maybe he saw how afraid I was, because he immediately put me at ease. ‘They went to the baths,’ he said. ‘I don’t do that. I never did. I’m more of a serial monogamist.’ I guess I let it go then. I figured that, yes, gay men were dying of an incurable disease, but it was men of a certain ilk.”

  I tensed my jaw.

  “I’m sorry, Micah, by the way. I’m sorry for what you’re going through, and if I ever said the wrong thing, I’m sorry for that, too.”

  The tears were now falling.

  “All these years, playing racquetball and shooting the shit. He’s my best friend. My only friend, really. And there’s a virus in his body that will probably kill him, and I don’t have a clue, actually, of how to react. I want to fix it. I want to eradicate this disease, and I want to make you know how much I love you, and how I get that you must feel … I don’t even know how you must feel.”

  So I showed him by going in for a hug. And he opened his arms and let me in and we sobbed together over this disease that was likely to kill my boyfriend and his best friend.

  “You cannot get this, Micah. Do you understand me? You have my blessing and my support in this relationship. But you cannot get AIDS. I forbid you from doing that.”

  Maybe it wasn’t the most rational thing for him to say, but I have to admit: I liked it anyway.

  “Okay,” I said.

  May 1988

  The second time my parents met CJ, he was decked out in jean shorts and a pink tank top, or what he called “full twink mode.”

  It was the fourth annual AIDS Walk, and a couple hundred people, some being pushed in wheelchairs, had gathered at Amsterdam and Sixty-Eighth in front of a makeshift stage. As much as I was glad my parents had come, and Deena had come, and Rick, it was a weird merging, and I couldn’t help but see it from their eyes. My mom was craning her neck, checking out the crowd. A couple in leather holding hands. An emaciated skeleton of a man who may have been twenty-five or eighty, sitting in a wheelchair, being pushed by another skinny man. Two lesbians in SILENCE = DEATH T-shirts with the pink triangle, their arms around each other.

  “Good to see you, CJ,” my father said, sticking out a hand for CJ to shake. “How’ve you been?”

  “I just won third place in a beauty contest. I collected ten dollars,” CJ replied.

  “Oh good,” my father said, smirking.

  By his side was Rick, who still looked like a straight guy with his chinos and button-down shirt.

  Of course, I looked like one, too.

  I got hugged from behind. It was Felicia, beaming at me, her eyes jetting back and forth between me and CJ. Raina was with her, and there was a joyful reunion as we got caught up.

  She handed me a box of Dots and a package of Twizzlers.

  “I raided the concessions stand. Today we’re handing out Dots and Twizzlers as a way to honor Walter. You in?”

  I smiled. I was definitely in.

  A man got up on the stage and introduced the first speaker, the actor Tony Randall. I sneaked a look at my mom. Her eyes were wide. He was famous, from The Odd Couple on TV. I hadn’t known he was gay, and maybe he wasn’t? From the looks of it, she had the same thoughts going through her brain.

  “Hello, great people of the AIDS Walk,” he said. “You might wonder what I’m doing here. You see, I was told it was Goy Men’s Health Crisis.”

  Cackles and shrieks of laughter rang through the crowd. His speech was warmhearted and full of empathy, and as I listened, I realized it didn’t really matter if he was gay or straight. What mattered was his heart, and his heart was open and kind.

  Then the emcee asked everyone in the audience to bow their heads and observe a moment of silence to think positive thoughts for someone named Nathan Fain, who apparently wasn’t doing well. There were murmurs of recognition throughout the crowd, and again I was amazed at how at once small and large New York City could be.

  Then Michael Callen was introduced, and an emaciated guy climbed up onto the makeshift stage, sat behind a piano, and began to play and sing.

  If your heart always did

  What a normal heart should do

  If you always play a part

  Instead of being who you really are

  Then you might just miss

  The one who’s standing there

  So instead of passing by

  Show him that you care

  Instead of asking why

  Why me, and why you?

  Why not we two?

  I grabbed hold of CJ’s hand. It was like this guy was singing my life, and I could tell CJ understood, and I didn’t care that this was the first time my mom and dad saw me holding hands with a guy, and for a brief moment, seeing the world through my mom’s eyes ceased, and I saw it through my own tired but hopeful eyes.

  ’Cause love don’t need a reason

  Love don’t always rhyme

  And love is all we have, for now

  What we don’t have is time

  All around us, grown men and women wept openly. The words were so earnest, so honest, so true, for so many. For the piano-playing singer, possibly. For CJ and all the people with the disease in their bloodstreams, probably.

  I looked over at my boyfriend. My boyfriend. His face was wet with tears and he did nothing to hide it. I kissed his neck, not caring who saw.

  During the walk, Deena did her best to ingratiate herself to CJ and me. Things had been awkward since our fight, but the last couple of months had seen us achieve something of a detente. We weren’t back to calling each other every night, and now she was nicer, and in that way more polite, than before.