I wrote this diary in April of 2006. Almost ten years ago.
I’m posting it again because of the recent news of what Hillary Clinton said about Nancy Reagan.
Many of Hillary’s supporters are satisfied that she apologized. I’m not interested in an apology so much as whether or not she really understands why so many people are angry over what she said. Would she publicly state that the Reagans were wrong in how they dealt with AIDs? That would mean something to me.
But I won’t hold my breath.
My diary back then referred to the previous Pope, Benedict XVI. Today it refers to anyone who believes the Reagan Administration gave a good god damn about gay people other than to cheer their deaths.
This is what I wrote back in 2006, dedicated to my best friend, Jeffrey, who died on May 7, 1985.
HOWL FOR THE FAGGOTS
by Nightprowlkitty
I saw my friends die, I saw them waste away and die as the leader of the free world refused to mention the name of the disease that killed them; thrown out by family, shunned by lovers, they died and were unmourned, that was the beginning and I saw this with my own eyes.
I remember before the beginning, it was back in the 70s, the first boys I saw who could really dance, they drew me from my misfit booklined room, dressed me up and took me out, took me to waterfront downtown Milwaukee dive where all the backward children played, cheap Christmas tree lights and bad booze, hunted by fag haters, I remember Waldo walking up to them on black night street as they followed us, with cheerful smile saying "oh, you want to kill some fags? Do come with me, I know a place where there's TONS of fags for you to kill!" and they backed away, ran away and we laughed, we didn't care if we got killed young, we had nothing to lose.
Oh the characters we played, we young men and women, gay and straight, in Midwest downtown burger joints and rundown hippie streets, we all were stars of glamour and mystery; performing impromptu street theater on Milwaukee streets, we rented a limousine to go to first showing of John Waters' Pink Flamingoes, Waldo got dressed up as Divine, Jeffrey made the rest of us up as Baltimore decadents, film showed at the University of Wisconsin and everyone was fooled, oh the laughs, our kinship with crazed Baltimore misfits, la la.
I remember we scattered to either coast, L.A. or New York, I came East following the lead of Jeffrey, my soulmate, my best friend in the whole world, we were happy in our little enchanted realm, Jeffrey and his lover took me in when I first moved to the City, with whole hearted generosity, swooping me into their world of style and art and dancing and music.
Jeffrey got sick and he died. Blazing courage and an infinity of grace my anguish mixed with awe, rage, the rage as America turned a blind eye to its suffering faggots, I saw the leader of my own country turn a blind eye, set the fashion, yeah, so we helped each other and we didn't ask nothing from nobody and he died, we spread his ashes in San Francisco on a mountain, I almost fell down climbing up to the place and somehow I heard him laughing his signature belly laugh as the ashes blew right into my face, the bastard.
Now the hatred still roars, on television and in the newspapers, on dead of night radio shows where anonymous homophobes spew vile fears and dreads and in shopping malls where matrons gasp at lifestyles and recruiting sex stories, girlfriends looking at discovered faggots and sighing "what a waste!" as though it were a compliment, where teenaged girls and boys slit their wrists in suburban bedrooms, the gentle ones die first, always.
And in the pulpits of Rome the beat goes on, don't it, Benedict, Benedict, you know not what you do.