john was many things to me,
father, brother, mentor

i miss his face, his smile,
and his big furry mustache
whenever he had let it grow out

i miss his laugh, and his voice,
full of humor and indignation
and disgust and tenderness

i miss his hair, his red red hair,
especially when it was buzz cut
i loved the feel of his buzz cut hair
underneath my fingers
i miss that fuzzy skull of his

when i first knew john
he was living in sherman hill
in the apartment that would be mine
many years later

to me john was this sweet older guy with a big heart
he was the first gay man I could recall ever knowing
so everything about him seemed interesting and exotic
even though he was just a man like any other

i felt comfortable around him
and enjoyed his company
i grew to regard him as a friend
as i hoped i was to him

john was having problems
with a nagging cough he developed
over the winter of 87-88

and I soon had my coughs too
bronchitis and asthma said one doctor,
pneumonia said another,
either way I was laid out sick bad

but john was worse,
he ended up in the hospital with pneumonia,
and it was very bad
the doctors decided to test him
and he came out hiv positive

i got the word at home, living with my mother,
since i was too sick to take care of myself
i hung up the phone, and went to bed, no tears
ma was homophobic and i was a little scared
about my cough

six months passed by, i got better and so did john
he moved to cedar rapids, to work out there
i didn't see him for those six months
i was too scared

scared of what??? of aids?
fuck, what was wrong with me then

i lost it and the only thing i could do
was stay put in des moines,
and try to rebuild my own life
after my own illness

word got to me
that john thought i was afraid to go see him

hell yes i was, no doubt about that
but when it dawned on me
that john was feeling this way,
it hurt like hell
and there was only one way to resolve it

i packed up my bags and left for cedar rapids
the first weekend that came
i had something to prove to him and myself
that i still loved him

i don't quite remember if i apologized to him outright
or just covered the corners
it didn't matter, he understood

three years came and passed
i went and visited john in cedar rapids
and then john came back to des moines
and i just happened to live in the neighborhood
so we saw each other often

john worked with me, and having him around
made going to work that much more bearable

quality time with john was always good
he was either watching tv
or lifting weights,
or cooking down hash oil
slowly boiling the alcohol away
like a chemist in his lab

i didn't hang with john outside of the home
too much
he was fairly sedentary,
depending on how he felt

he had problems with his disease
and occasionally would be laid up
but was reasonably healthy
most of the time

one of the most vivid memories of that time
was when i dislocated a toe
and i called john to ask his advice
he came over and said he could fix it,
i backed off afraid of more pain

a few days later he helped cart me around
over most of the town
to get that damn toe fixed
and I as bounced down the aisle
on one good leg,
pissed and frustrated
john told me to slow down
or i was going to break the other foot

when john's time came it came slowly
he didn't come out of the apartment often
he had fevers and was asleep most of time
he was losing it

he spent his last three weeks in the hospital
i went to visit him three times

the first visit he still had a grasp on real time,
the second visit he was pretty much out of it
the third visit he was gone,
just a shell that hadn't quite died yet
i regret that last visit, wished i never went
i did him no good, and i was left
with this final image of john,
of john not being john, not being human,
already dead

i forget when the call came,
it was andy who called,
it was over, finally over
thank god for that

i didn't attend the funeral services,
it was mostly for his family
and i was not close to them
they didn't need me there
plenty of john's friends took
that terrible responsibility

the services and funeral were standard
religious fare,
john would have hated it, that wasn't his game
i was sick at the thought of what they were doing
in his name
but his family needed their outlet for grief
as i had mine
i drank

about a month later a tragedy struck
which shook many even harder than john's death
his youngest son michael, died in a car wreck,
out on a joy ride

three years had passed since john's death
the quilt took awhile to put together,
but bless andy and karen
they got it done

i went down to simpson college
where parts of the aids quilt
were on display
and john's quilt was there
and so was his daughter,
a simpson college student
both she and andy said a few words
about john
and the quilt was accepted

many long years since you passed on brother
and i think of you often

i think of going down to your grave often,
and making a toast to you
with your favorite bourbon,
beam's choice

i imagine getting drunk there, passed out drunk
slumped on your tombstone
i like to think you'd appreciate
such a vulgar act,
but would give me shit for abusing myself so